Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01] Read online

  Rack brightened. “Aye, m’lord. Perhaps you could patch him up.”

  Kelrob drew back his hand. “Perhaps.” Turning from the brute (the title seemed suddenly inappropriate) Kelrob descended the stairs towards the common room, moving slowly, terrified of what he’d find there.

  The chill gold of autumn sunlight glowed through the hide-covered windows. Kelrob saw with relief that the furniture had been properly rearranged, though dull patches of blood still marred the packed-earth floor. A girl he didn’t recognize was on her knees with bucket and spade, digging furiously at the patches. A few speechless figures sat at the long table, munching on groats and rubbing with grimaces at their joints. Kelrob blushed, identifying two of the men that had made up Salinas’s throne. He entered the room quietly, not wanting to draw attention but knowing that, due to his rank, he would be given it regardless. He saw that the foliate mask was reaffixed over the hearth, its features mangled in the revel. The cup of blood had spilled its contents in a long crusty stripe down the hearthstones.

  The breakfasters looked up at his approach, then immediately bowed their heads. One man accidentally stuck his face in his bowl of porridge, and started back, groats clinging to his nose. There was fear in their eyes, and Kelrob hurried past, hoping (and dreading) to find Kirleg at the aletap. He rushed to the bar, or rather the sagging plank of wood, jostling the arm of an unseen drinker in his haste. There was a wet clatter as a mostly-full cup of ale fell to the floor.

  “Damn you!” the drinker roared, rounding on Kelrob and drawing back his colossal fist for a blow. Kelrob gasped and staggered sideways, recognizing the besotted face of his assailant: Jacobson.

  The large man blinked at him. The fist hovered for a moment, then unclenched to hang limp at his side. “You,” he said.

  Kelrob drew himself up, ashamed at his cowering. “You would dare threaten an adept of the Order?” he squeaked. The ring pulsed on his finger, urging him to strike down such impudence; he quelled it with a deft touch of will. Swallowing the crack in his voice he stared up into Jacobson’s broad face, said more firmly, “I now have the right to your life.”

  Jacobson’s bright blue eyes narrowed. He was a ruddy-faced man, his cheeks faintly swollen and mottled, though he showed signs of leading a very vigorous life before surrendering to depredation.

  His nose was large, but not overly so, and stubble speckled his strong chin, framing a mouth whose full, expressive lips were discolored by indulgence in drink. He had dirty blond hair that hung almost to his shoulders in curling lengths, the sunlight catching on it despite its advanced state of uncleanliness; his brow was heavy, with thick curling eyebrows that narrowed with shrewdness as he spoke.

  “Very imperious. Well, go on, take it. I’ve little enough use for it anyways.” Turning his back on Kelrob, Jacobson thumped a meaty fist on the plank and cried out, “Ale, ale, give me ale! I need to drown out this headache!”

  Kirleg emerged from the cellar, plodding up from the cool dark with a keg clutched in his arms. He moved slowly, achingly, his aged face tight with pain as he settled his burden on a waiting stand. “Hold your tongue, Jacobson, or you’ll get no more ale from me, no matter how much of that platinum you spend. You’ve no right to bitch about anything, the state my daughters are in.”

  “Listen, old man, I’m sure as hell not the one who defiled your offspring. Get that keg tapped before I die of thirst, or decide to take my money elsewhere.”

  Kelrob flushed as he remembered the bodies of the girls spread out in a bruised fan at Salinas’s feet. Leaning around Jacobson’s obscuring bulk he cleared his throat and said softly, “Innkeep, I’ve come to settle the bill.”

  Kirleg jumped at the sight of him. “My lord,” he said with a bow, anger still burning in his eyes. “I hope that you slept well.” The words were strained.

  “Quite,” Kelrob replied uneasily. He glanced at the girl, her bucket quickly filling with red-stained dirt.

  Kirleg followed his eyes. “There was a brawl last night,” he said. “An ugly one, by the look of things. No idea how it didn’t rouse you.” His face wrinkled with suspicion, and for a moment Kelrob feared his haphazardly woven matrix of befuddlement would start to break down.

  Jacobson slammed his palms on the counter. “Another ale, Kirleg. Take the whelp’s money and get on with it.”

  Kirleg blinked, the grainy blur of false memory remaining lodged in his eye. Ignoring Jacobson, he said, “Will you be needing anything else, m’lord? Food, drink? A map for the road?”

  “There’s only one road between here and Tannigal,” Jacobson muttered, “and no map can help you walk it.”

  Kirleg grit his teeth. “One more word and I’ll throw you back out in the garbage heap, platinum or no.”

  “Fear not! I speak no more, my lips are sealed, my discourse wanes.” Jacobson slumped against the ale-spattered plank, adding in a grumble, “Too thirsty to talk anyway.”

  Kelrob’s foot started tapping out an uneasy, nervous rhythm. “We need nothing, though I thank you for the offer.” Reaching into his purse he grabbed a fistful of polgari and scattered them on the bar, the thick platinum coins wobbling about for a moment before clattering in a heap. “This should cover our expenses. I hope.”

  Kirleg’s faded eyes grew keen and sharp. Brushing aside the thick silver braids obscuring his vision, he bent and examined the coins before quickly and silently sweeping them into his hand and out of sight. “My lord magister,” he said, with a genuine bow.

  Guilt will loosen a man’s purse-strings more readily than compassion. Kelrob remembered his father’s words as he returned the bow. “I am sorry to see your fine house so ravaged,” he said. He wanted desperately to inquire after Kirleg’s daughters, but knew that to do so would draw attention to the implanted memories, which already showed signs of waning. Instead he said, “Rack told me of a minstrel that was injured, perhaps at the cost of his craft. I command that these be given to him.” Reaching back in his purse, he grabbed one more polgari and a handful of gold sovereigns minted in the great furnaces of Ixthis, and pushed them across the table towards Kirleg, all the while imagining his father’s furious glower at discovering his son had shuttled off a small fortune in acts of conscientiousness.

  Jacobson reached into his pocket and pulled out a platinum disk, the first guilty cut in Kelrob’s finances. “This morning I thought myself blessed. Now I feel cheated.”

  A moan of tormented pain sounded from the back of the inn, towards the living quarters. Kelrob stiffened. “Have our mounts ready,” he told Kirleg. “We’ll ride within the hour.”

  Kirleg nodded, moved to obey; Jacobson summoned him back with a fist-thump. “My drink,” he said sternly.

  Kirleg snarled. Grabbing a mug, he held it under the spent ale keg, draining out a stream of gold-colored mush. “The dregs,” he said, slamming it down in front of Jacobson. With a sharp bow to Kelrob the old man turned and vanished towards the stables.

  Kelrob exhaled heavily. Rotating on one heel, he headed back towards the stairs, located across the imposing expanse of the common room. The men still sat at the table, their food untouched since his entrance. Kelrob saw one make a surreptitious sign against evil as he approached.

  “A fine bit of sorcery you’ve cast here. But I can see the cracks.”

  Kelrob froze mid-step. He pivoted again and returned to Jacobson, who was staring moodily into his blobbish drink.

  “What did you say?”

  Jacobson eyed him wearily. “I don’t like repeating myself.”

  Kelrob glanced nervously towards the table, then back to the drunk. “I haven’t cast any magic here,” he said.

  Jacobson blew a spittle-laced breath from between his lips. “Come now. All these fine folk thinking they were in a brawl — I’ve rarely seen such a powerful charm of befuddlement. You should take some pride in your work.”

  T
he ring seared to life on Kelrob’s finger, making him wince. He shoved his hand in his pocket. “It was necessary,” he said in a whisper.

  “I should say so. Your friend is a real libertine. He rode those girls around like ponies, around and around -” Jacobson whirled his finger in the air illustratively, “- before he raped them. A few of the men resisted the spell, one even managed to draw his sword. Needless to say he was later to serve as cushion for the good magister’s backside.”

  Kelrob thought his heart might burst in his chest. Leaning forward, he said in as low a voice as was discernible, “You remember everything?”

  “Not likely to forget it. I watched from that window. At first it was good to see Kirleg get some comeuppance, damn the bastard for throwing me out. But as the evening progressed your companion’s antics became ever more sinister. I thought about charging in, cleaving him down and saving the day and all that, but my sword-arm’s not good for much these days.”

  Kelrob moistened his lips, which had gone hot and dry. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

  “Telling you what? I was merely commenting on your very fine spell. Which is fraying a bit, by the way.” Jacobson reached up his plump fingers and snatched at an imaginary thread. “I’d see to mending it before you gallop off down a road I’d not take with less than ten men at my back.”

  The drunkard’s accent was surprisingly cultured; Kelrob eyed him with fresh shrewdness. “Who are you?” he demanded, the ring pulsing on his finger in time with his madly hammering heart. “And what do you mean about ten men? Is the road unsafe?”

  A smile twisted Jacobson’s lips; his bright blue eyes glittered. “You want to know?”

  “Very much.”

  “Then get me a fresh glass of ale. I’m assuming you know how to tap a keg.”

  Kelrob glanced at the fresh barrel squatting behind the wooden plank. “That...would be most unseemly,” he said.

  Jacobson grinned wolfishly. “I know.”

  Kelrob began gnawing at the wall of his mouth, drawing blood. Pulling his hand from his pocket, he held up the ring of chromox and sent a faint shiver of energy dancing along the circlet. “I could rip what I want from your mind,” he said in his best impersonation of menace.

  “First my life, then my mind. I suppose you’ll be after my soul next, though the Gyre Itself says we’ve got none.” Jacobson reached up and patted his scalp, threads of coarse blond hair sticking to his palm. “Well, go on ahead, but be warned: I’m not the simplest egg to crack.”

  Kelrob hesitated; then, with a backwards glance at the wary eaters, he ducked beneath the bar-plank. The mage had learned to tap a keg almost before he could walk, one of the many privileges of growing up in wine-country; his father, Amon Kael-Pellin, was the laird of a small but bountiful region in the Rolling Lands to the north. With ease Kelrob twisted off the tap and punctured the new draught. Quickly, with nervous glances in all directions, he filled a mug with pure foaming ale and set it down before Jacobson, who was smiling and drumming expectant fingers on his stomach.

  “There, then,” Jacobson said, taking a long drink as Kelrob slipped back beneath the plank. “You surprise me, lad. Again and again.”

  “Now tell me who you are and what to expect on the road,” Kelrob said, cheeks flushing over the ridiculous caper. “Immediately.”

  Jacobson drained the mug before responding. “Me? I’m nothing. No-one. A poor drunken fool at the end of his line. Jacobson’s the name. And you?”

  Kelrob raised his chin. “My name is magister Kelrob Kael-Pellin, adept of the 16th Circle.”

  “Fresh from the Rookery, aye? The way you dealt with that Taskmaster I figured you were some kind of Mentatii savant.”

  “My training has been very...variegated. Now tell me about the road ahead.”

  Jacobson blew out a long, beery breath. “All I can say is this: don’t trust it. Kirleg may seem like an honest sort, honorable even, but he’s got deep connections in the Tangle. Soon after your companion’s first little prank he sent word to a local group of bandits that are just daring and stupid enough to risk mugging a pair of magisters. I know, I know, you have your hocus-pocus, but all the magic in the world won’t save you from a surprise rock to the head. Not that I would mind it in your companion’s case, but you seem like an oddly decent sort. Take my advice and head back to the main road, follow it up to Tannigal. You two don’t belong out here anyways.”

  Kelrob’s eyes narrowed warily. “But...Glev said the road north was safe.”

  “Of course he did. Our good ostler is in on the cut.”

  “I refuse to believe any of this!”

  Jacobson fixed the mage with a frank, moderately steady glare. “Use your head, lad. You wander down an impoverished back-road, show up at a ramshackle inn located on the edge of a forest noted for its bandit infestation, and start hurling around platinum like they were coppers. Shouldn’t take a genius magister to do the math.”

  Kelrob bit into his lip; he had been foolish, achingly foolish with money since his arrival. “But circling back to the main road would lengthen our journey by two whole days,” he said half-petulantly. “Surely there must be a safe path through, or at least around?”

  Jacobson shrugged. “Seems to me like risking robbery and death would be a bigger inconvenience than delay. But ride whatever way you will. My debt,” he said, drawing out the platinum coin and tossing it in his palm, “is repaid.”

  Kelrob watched the coin flicker, decided he believed Jacobson completely. “We will go back to the main road,” he said with a deep exhale. “Thank you for the information.” Hesitating, he reached down to cup his disturbingly limp purse. “I think can spare a few more gold for your help.”

  Jacobson laughed. “Quite the big spender, aren’t you? No, lad, keep the money. You’ve already given me enough to drink myself into ten graves.”

  “Then...is there anything you do want? A charm of some kind, or a spell to clean your sword?”

  Jacobson looked down at the rusting sword slung at his hip. “Nay. This blade has tasted its last kill. Honestly,” he said with a scratch at his chin, “the only thing I really want is another mug of ale.” His eyes sparkled mischievously; with a grimace Kelrob slid back beneath the bar-plank.

  He drew the second mug more hastily than the first, spilling a copious amount on the floor and drawing very queer stares from the assembled breakfasters. Kelrob set the draught before Jacobson, who accepted it with an infuriating smile. “Safe journey,” the big man said, hoisting the mug in salute and draining it dry.

  Kelrob slipped back beneath the plank, bumping his head in the process, and left his informant to another empty mug. The spell on Salinas was weakening, he could feel it; he made his way in haste towards the stairway, the ring glowing on his finger as he summoned to his mind the words of a restraining spell.

  “Oh. And lad?”

  Kelrob halted mid-step, ground his teeth together; the persistent diminutive was beginning to annoy him. “Yes?”

  “Be sure to keep a muzzle on that mongrel Taskmaster of yours. He’s just been on the Barrier, unless I miss my mark. Always makes the young ones a bit crazy, and the old ones crazier still. I’d hate for these poor folk to have to deal with another...outburst.”

  The breakfasters stirred at this, their eyes flickering with almost-memory. Kelrob winced as the matrix of mental effacement strained, warped, and held. After a moment they bent their faces back to their meals with no break in their wary silence.

  “See,” Jacobson said with a grin, “told you it was a good spell.” With a belch he turned away, raising the mug and noisily sucking down the final leavings of foam.

  Kelrob grit his teeth. Moving with a new twitch in his step he maneuvered past the table of mute breakfasters and turned left up the stairwell to find Salinas stumbling, half-clothed and mad-eyed, down the steps.

&nbs
p; The Taskmaster fixed Kelrob with a furious glare, his auburn beard stained with vomit. “You,” he snarled, his ringless hands clenching and unclenching. “Where is it, you little thief? How dare you treat me in this manner? I’ll have you up before the Isdori Council, stripped of your magic and everything you own!”

  Kelrob’s teeth ground together so harshly that his rear left molar suffered a chip. “Get back upstairs,” he said coldly, “and get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  Salinas’s lips trembled with rage, his sick-stained beard bristling. He had a fierce haunted look, dark circles hovering around his muddied eyes, body marked with the bruises of pleasure. The stolen memories of the Taskmaster’s deeds came flooding back to Kelrob; he struggled to keep them from breaking free and returning to their englamoured hosts. Stepping forward, he held out his ring, the circlet burning with energy.

  “You heard me. Get upstairs.”

  Salinas backed up a step, shielding his eyes from the ring’s ferocious glow. “You’re mad,” he muttered with a clack of his teeth. “I did nothing that was beyond my right.”

  “That’s because you have universal right, you idiot. Any other man would be strung from a gibbet.”

  “But we aren’t other men!” Salinas stared fierce daggers at a patron who nervously poked his head into the stairwell, drawn by the commotion; the forester bowed and retreated with a mumbled apology. “Kelrob, you don’t understand power. You don’t taste it. You have the world at your command but you hold it at arm’s length!”

  Just like I’m holding you, Kelrob thought bitterly. He advanced a step, his ring sparking and spitting. “This ring,” he said, “is all that makes you more than a man. Look at you. Disheveled, babbling, powerless. You don’t revere the sacred words, you spit them virulently.” Unintentionally Kelrob flashed into the mind of Kirleg’s youngest daughter; her name was Lania. She was barely fourteen cycles, had never known the touch of a man prior to Salinas planting his horrible seed within her. Tears gathered at the corners of Kelrob’s eyes; with a gasp he wrenched himself from the grip of the girl’s remembered fear and shame.