Shadowblack Read online

  Something wasn’t right. Reichis could sense it, and, even though he pretended not to like her, he felt a compulsion to guard her.

  I guess I felt the same way.

  Seneira’s eyes remained closed, but her hand reached up and gently stroked his fur.

  ‘Just so we’re clear, Kellen,’ the squirrel cat said as he closed his eyes, ‘you ever try petting me and I’ll bite your hand off.’

  14

  Teleidos

  By the next morning Ferius and Rosie had apparently come to some kind of agreement about following winds or breezes or some such Argosi nonsense because they were considerably more cordial as we continued our journey towards the city of Teleidos. I was glad to have the tension between them lessened, but one thing was still bothering me.

  I let my horse fall behind the others and waited until Ferius joined me.

  ‘Something on your mind, kid?’ she asked.

  ‘If Rosie thinks Seneira might have some kind of plague,’ I began, keeping my voice low, ‘then why are we going back to her city? Shouldn’t we be keeping her away from populated areas?’

  ‘First of all, none of us knows what’s ailing the girl, so don’t let Rosie get you all riled up. Second, magical plagues don’t spread through the air or from bodily contact like normal diseases. And third, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not letting her near anyone who hasn’t already got a mite –’ she gave me a smirk – ‘too close.’

  I decided to pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Reichis did the squirrel-cat equivalent of chortling. ‘See? I’m not the only one who thinks—’

  ‘What about this “Red Scream”?’ I asked Ferius. ‘You and Rosie keep—’

  ‘The Red Scream is ancient history, kid,’ she replied, nudging her horse to ride on ahead of me. ‘Leave it buried where it belongs.’

  I couldn’t get anything more out of her about magical plagues or why the Argosi would be so concerned about them. One look from Rosie told me she wasn’t about to enlighten me either.

  Seneira seemed better than she had the night before, though she didn’t talk about what had happened. A kind of polite distance had settled itself between us, which felt odd after having spent hours together hand in hand while she fought through the attacks. I understood though: the shadowblack was something you lived with by pretending it didn’t exist except when you had no choice. The pain was bad, but like Seneira had said, it was the voices – or in my case the visions – that made you feel sick even after the pain had passed.

  But if Seneira didn’t want to talk about her condition, she was more than happy to lecture us about the Seven Sands.

  ‘The Daroman empire cut this road through the desert over two hundred years ago,’ she explained. ‘Not so they could take over the borderlands, you understand – just for convenience in case they had to go to war with one of the countries on the other side.’

  ‘Why not just annex the Seven Sands into their own empire?’ I asked.

  ‘Because they can’t be bothered,’ she replied, and spread her arms wide. ‘Why concern yourself with the responsibility of governing a country when you can so conveniently manipulate it to your own ends?’

  ‘I didn’t think the borderlands were a country,’ I said.

  That turned out to be a mistake. Even Reichis sniffed the air and said, ‘I think you just ticked her off, Kellen.’

  ‘The Seven Sands is a country,’ Seneira insisted. ‘Just because the great powers use it as a kind of no-man’s-land to keep from killing each other every day, doesn’t mean we aren’t a nation.’

  Rosie nudged her horse closer to mine. ‘The Daroman generals, the Berabesq viziers and the Jan’Tep clan princes rely on the Seven Sands staying ungovernable,’ she explained. ‘It helps keep the peace between their three nations to have it there right between them, and keeping it weak prevents it from becoming a threat to any of them.’

  ‘That’s not the only reason,’ Seneira said angrily. ‘The Berabesq use our citizens as go-betweens to trade goods with the Daroman and the Jan’Tep, so they never have to shake hands with the “infidels” they’ve sworn to destroy; for their part, the Daroman nobles hire mining guilds to extract gold, silver and iron for them from the mountain regions without ever having to take responsibility for the people who live there; the Jan’Tep …’ She looked at me. ‘Well, who knows what your people want, Kellen, but whatever it is, I promise you they’ll take it from us without providing anything in return.’

  She rode on ahead, leaving me with the peculiar feeling that I was somehow accountable for my country’s misdeeds, despite the fact that, with one or two exceptions, my people wanted me dead.

  After she was out of earshot, Rosie said quietly, ‘Having spent much time with this one, let me say that there are a great many subject that can make for diverting conversation. I suggest leaving the topics of the Seven Sands to one side.’

  No kidding.

  When Seneira had said she was a student, I’d assumed she meant at some backwater school of the variety one expects to see in a region like the Seven Sands: small, poor and with a barely literate teacher. What I hadn’t expected was the Academy.

  As a young Jan’Tep initiate, I’d heard passing references to a university that had risen up in the middle of the borderlands. Every couple of years a representative would come through our lands looking to recruit students, but they had scarce luck among the families of my clan: why would anyone want to go to a school that didn’t teach magic? So, to me, Teleidos had been nothing more than a dot on a map until that afternoon as we entered a valley made fertile by a wide river, and saw for the first time the small but beautiful city that glistened like a jewel against the desert sand.

  Most borderland towns consist of a bunch of shabby single-storey buildings cramped together along dusty dirt streets full of potholes. The shops and villas of Teleidos, by contrast, were built from smooth white sandstone that gleamed with blue and bronze accents, rising thirty feet high, adorning curved avenues that ran in concentric circles around the city. I counted eight boulevards radiating from the outskirts of the city to its centre, where a dozen large edifices that could have been palaces or courthouses stood sentry around a tower that stood taller than any building I’d ever seen.

  ‘The Academy,’ Seneira said with the reverence of a religious convert.

  Even I wasn’t immune to the sight. ‘It must be a hundred feet tall.’

  Ferius snorted. ‘Kid, that tower is nearly four hundred feet tall. It’s almost a hundred and fifty feet wide at the base.’

  Four hundred feet. ‘How do you even build something that high?’ I asked.

  ‘Same way you make any kind of monument: spend a lot of money. But the real question you ought to be askin’ is why anyone builds something so fancy.’

  ‘Okay, why?’

  ‘Because you’re a fool determined to make a statement to the world.’ Ferius nudged her horse back into a slow walk, and so didn’t see Seneira’s outraged glare.

  ‘The Academy is one of those big ideas folks sometimes get into their heads,’ Ferius explained as we rode. ‘The crazy fella that started it used his fortune to bribe the most famous teachers on the continent to come here. That’s how they get all these rich foreign kids here. In Darome, in Gitabria, even across the water in the Tsehadi countries, everyone knows if you want to train a future bigwig, send them to the Academy.’

  ‘You make it sound petty,’ Seneira said, ‘but you’re wrong. The Academy isn’t just a school, it’s an idea – that people from all over can learn together and find common ground, that knowledge and art are more important than geography. And Beren Thrane isn’t some “crazy fella”; he’s a bold visionary who risked every coin he had to make something important, something that could make the world a better place.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Ferius said, raising her hands in surrender. Then she raised one eyebrow and added, ‘I don’t suppose this “bold visionary” would
happen to be a relative, would he?’

  Seneira did not look pleased by that question, but conceded, ‘He’s my father.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Your father owns this town and you ran off? Why?’

  ‘He doesn’t own anything. He built the Academy and over the years the town grew and thrived around it. And why I ran off is my business and no one else’s.’

  ‘When she contracted the shadowblack, she feared it would trigger a panic, resulting in an exodus of students from the Academy,’ Rosie explained. ‘Thus her father’s life’s work would come to an abrupt end.’

  Seneira scowled at her.

  ‘Glower all you want, child, but I am Argosi; if your intent is to discomfit me, you would have better luck giving dirty looks to a pool of water.’

  Seneira seemed willing to test that hypothesis, but I was more curious than ever. ‘But where were you running off to?’

  ‘Away.’

  Rosie translated the terse reply. ‘She thought she could travel to the Jan’Tep territories and find a cure.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Seneira muttered. ‘So glad to know you keep secrets.’

  ‘Secrets are not the Argosi way.’

  Sure they aren’t, I thought, wondering once again why Rosie had been so determined to travel to Seneira’s city. But I’m pretty sure secrets are a big part of the path of thorns and roses.

  15

  Homecoming

  Dusk was descending over the valley as we rode along the riverbank towards the city. Reichis kept crawling across my upper back, crouching on one shoulder then the other as he snarled at the black water and dark foliage that rippled as we passed by. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Swamps,’ he replied, growling at the shadows.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So they’re disgusting. Full of bugs, and I’ll bet there’re gods-damned crocodiles just waiting for us in the water.’

  There aren’t many animals Reichis is afraid of, but crocodiles are definitely the exception. ‘Nothing but teeth and evil,’ he added with a mutter.

  When we finally reached the city gates, Ferius signalled for the rest of us to wait as she dismounted from her horse and went to the guardhouse to negotiate our entrance inside the walls. Argosi are surprisingly good at getting people to let them into places. Seneira put her blindfold back in place and pulled a hood over her head to reduce the chances of someone recognising her.

  ‘Do a lot of people here know you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve lived here my whole life and my father’s the headmaster of the Academy. What do you think?’

  Before I could even think of a suitably caustic reply, she reached out a hand and touched my arm. ‘I’m sorry, Kellen. I don’t mean to be …’

  ‘Grouchy? Bitchy? Annoying and stinky?’ Reichis suggested.

  I decided to forego his recommendations and instead asked, ‘What’s the matter?’ It was only then that it occurred to me that maybe the shadowblack hadn’t been the only reason Seneira had run away from Teleidos.

  She hesitated, busying herself with adjusting the hood that was already hiding as much of her face as it possibly could. ‘It feels like home,’ she said finally, ‘but I don’t feel like the girl who used to live here.’

  Before I could prompt her to say more, Ferius came out of the guardhouse and motioned for us to lead the horses through the city gates.

  From a distance, Teleidos had looked like some kind of pristine palace, the smooth, almost polished look of its architecture and the serene geometry of its curved avenues lending it an almost spiritual tranquility. Inside, though, the city was a cacophony of lantern light and joyful laughter, of crowded avenues and buzzing businesses.

  Everywhere I looked were signs of wealth and prosperity I’d not seen since coming to the borderlands. There were saloons and taverns, but also restaurants – places where people ate food that wasn’t just there to get you to drink more liquor. Clothing stores exhibited their finest wares outside for passers-by, modelled by attractive young men and women. Artisans and craftspersons demonstrated their art, their skilled hands working tools upon wood and stone and canvas to the admiration of small crowds of people who’d stand around bidding on the pieces even before they were finished. Teleidos seemed to have everything, even bookstores. Bookstores. Plural.

  Strangest of all, though, were the city’s inhabitants. Most places I’d been in the borderlands, the only people walking around outside at night were either blind drunk or planning to rob you. But on the elegant sidewalks of Teleidos I saw men and women out walking, talking, eating and acting vaguely civilised. Odder still, a lot of them were around my age.

  ‘Students of the Academy,’ Seneira explained as we walked the horses past the crowds. The thin fabric of her blindfold allowed her to see reasonably well even as it hid her eyes from view. Still, anytime someone turned to take notice of the four of us, Seneira would duck her head and walk on the other side of her horse.

  Reichis was barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Look at them, Kellen! Have you ever seen so many targets all in one place?’ He started to bunch his hind legs in preparation for jumping off the horse.

  I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck – never a smart thing to do, but we couldn’t afford an incident right now and my jaw still hurt from the last time he got me into trouble. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  He gave me a sad, whimpering expression, as if he were a poor, unloved puppy left out in the rain. ‘Not even one pocket? I wouldn’t have to take an entire wallet. Just a souvenir?’

  In the four months since Reichis and I had formed our ‘partnership’, I’d learned that telling him he couldn’t steal things just made him more determined, so instead I said, ‘Just wait until we’re on the way out of town this time before you incite a mob to chase us.’

  He sniffed at my ear for a second and I flinched, expecting a sudden nasty bite, but then he said, ‘Okay, but I can still steal from the Argosi, right?’

  I turned to look at him. ‘Rosie? Sure, knock yourself out.’

  The muscles in a squirrel cat’s face aren’t really designed for smiling, but Reichis had taught himself to put on a sort of grin for occasions like these. It creeped me out.

  ‘This way,’ Seneira said, gesturing for us to head east along one of the circular avenues. Once we were away from the shops and crowds, she led us up a radiating street, turning again onto another curved avenue closer to the Academy. This area was made up of palatial villas which Seneira explained were given to the masters brought from other parts of the world to teach at the school.

  ‘Where’s your house?’ I asked.

  She didn’t reply at first, but kept walking along the circular avenue until we reached a sparser area and a cul-de-sac with what looked like a pleasant but unusually modest two-storey house.

  ‘That’s where the headmaster of the Academy lives?’ I asked.

  Seneira nodded. ‘It’s the house my father grew up in, back when Teleidos was just a ramshackle little town. He says it was all he needed then, so why should he want more now?’

  Reichis hopped down from my shoulder and stared up at the plain white building. ‘Okay, so he’s a moron. All that money and this is what he keeps for himself? I bet we won’t find a single piece of silver or platinum in the entire house. What a dump.’

  ‘Well,’ Ferius said, tying her horse to a thin tree on the side of the alley and removing her pack from the saddlebag. ‘Let’s not delay the joyous family reunion any more than we have to.’

  She and Rosie started up the narrow path towards the house, but Seneira hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  She kept staring up at the house, but her gaze seemed even further away. I was surprised when I felt her hand slip into mine. ‘I never told them I was going away. I just left a note on the table. What if my father—’

  ‘He’s family,’ I said. ‘Of course he’ll be be happy to see you.’ Well, I supposed that would be the case. My family wor
ks a bit differently. I thought about Shalla though, and added, ‘Just think of your little brother. What’s his name?’

  ‘Tyne,’ she said, and even the word seemed to coax a smile from her.

  I took that as permission to pull her along with me up to the house. ‘Think how thrilled Tyne will be to have his big sister back. I promise you, five minutes after you walk through that door it’ll be like you never left.’

  Turned out I should never have made that promise.

  16

  The Empty House

  ‘Where are they?’ Seneira asked for the third time as she went from one darkened room to another, her pace and her voice becoming increasingly frantic.

  When we’d first found the place empty, I’d thought nothing of it, but then I noticed the way Ferius and Rosie moved slowly, methodically, through each part of the old house, their eyes catching on every sign that something here wasn’t quite right. The first, and most obvious, was that there was food on the dining-room table. Reichis leaped up and sniffed at a plate of what looked to be some kind of poultry with vegetables. The squirrel cat turned back to me, his mouth open the way it gets when he’s smelled something rotten. ‘Must be at least three days old,’ he said, hopping back down. ‘What a waste.’

  On the floor where he landed I noticed a fork lying there, as if it had fallen and no one had bothered to pick it up. Somebody had left in a hurry.

  Hearing Seneira’s frenzied footsteps on the top floor, Reichis and I climbed the stairs and looked around. In addition to three bedrooms, a study and a small library, we found a large and well-appointed bathroom. I normally wouldn’t have paid it much mind – other than to wonder when the last time was that I’d actually been properly clean – but then I saw the faint reflection of moonlight coming in through the window on the surface of the water that filled the ornate copper bathtub. It was room-temperature, of course, having been abandoned at the same time as the food downstairs. As I was walking away from the tub, my foot struck a wooden bucket. When I knocked it over, water spilled out. That was odd for two reasons: first, because the bathtub had a tap for running water that came through a kind of wood-stove furnace that would heat the water as it passed through. But the stove had no wood inside, nor any ashes, which meant the water in the tub had never been hot. The second strange thing was that when I reached down and felt the water that had poured from the bucket onto the floor, I noticed how cold it was.