Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01] Read online

  “Get up the stairs,” he repeated hollowly. “Get dressed. If you don’t I’ll stun you and drag you on a sled.”

  Salinas hunkered on the steps, cowed but trembling, foam speckling the corner of his mouth. “My ring,” he said. “Give it back to me. It is my right.”

  “When we get to Tannigal you can have it back. Then we will part, gods’ speed the moment.”

  “Gods!” Salinas laughed, his lips curving into a sickle. “There are no gods, Kelrob. Only true men and their will.”

  Kelrob jerked his chin upwards. “Very well. I am a true man and this is my will. Move.”

  He oversaw Salinas as he dressed, the ring constantly bared and gleaming. Maintaining the active energy-flow was tiring to Kelrob, but he kept firm control, unwilling to give thought to his mounting weariness. Outside the sky was clouding, rainclouds gathering above the vivid canopy, a late-autumn rain with all the unpleasantness that entailed. Salinas complained about the conditions, and Kelrob shot a chastising bolt of energy inches from his toes. That stilled the argument, though the neutered Taskmaster eyed his captor with infinite wrath as he slid into his heavy blue robes.

  “We’re taking the path back to the main road,” Kelrob said as Salinas cautiously shouldered his pack. “It will cost us time, but the path from here to Tannigal isn’t safe.”

  Salinas stared at him in disgusted fury. “You are a coward, Kelrob. These filthy lands hold no threat to us.”

  “Even so, we’re backtracking.” Kelrob unconsciously dipped his finger into the hidden breast-pocket as he spoke, brushing it against Salinas’s ring. The chromox bit at him, demanding a return to its master; Kelrob jerked his hand free, hoping the Taskmaster hadn’t noticed.

  Salinas bowed his head and stared at the floor. “Kelrob,” he said, plainly, “this is insane. We’re of the same caste, the same Order. What I did I did for sport, as many magisters do; my ways are even considered gentle by some. I know that you’re fresh from the ivory tower, but you can’t be truly shocked at my conduct.” He glanced up as he spoke, the sunlight catching in his contracted pupils. “And anyways, you’re meddling with the nithings as surely as I! I see your spell burning in all their little minds. I could do nothing more than thrust my will into them, but you!” Salinas’s lips twisted, and he winked, one foot half-thrust into his riding boots. “Clearly you remember some of the teaching Master Huerton wasted on you. Oh, what fun we could have.”

  “It’s completely different,” Kelrob insisted, though he backed up a step, unnerved by that feral grin. “I only took what you gave to them. And now I see what you did. I feel it.” He shivered, though he kept the ring held at a steady, unwavering angle. “Stop stalling and put that boot on.”

  Salinas complied, though his smile only expanded. “I should say goodbye to the ladies at least,” he said as he ambled towards the exit.

  “You’ll walk straight out the front door without so much as a glance to the right or left.”

  Salinas held up his hands, fingers wiggling. “Just wait until my father hears of this,” he said. “He’ll bury your da and his tiny estate. You won’t have two sticks to rub together.”

  Something in Kelrob cracked. He thrust his ring into Salinas’s face, the band burning with azure fire. “Our Masters taught us wisdom in conjunction with power,” he said in a shaking voice. “They taught us about the cost and responsibilities of wielding the sacred words.”

  Salinas shrugged, his grin flattening into a cunning line. “Our sacred Masters, of course. Did you know that your dear mentor Kenlath keeps a small harum of children for his pleasure? Yes, even that endless font of self-righteousness has a crack in his heart. I’ve seen you sit at his knees often enough; I assumed that you knew.”

  Kelrob’s arm began to tremble. His ring hissed like cooling steel as the cycle of energies was disrupted. “I don’t believe you,” he said weakly.

  “I understand that the children’s families are well-compensated rather than coerced, if that soothes your wounded morals.” Salinas sighed and stretched his back, then jerked his head towards the door. “Well? Shall we go?”

  Kelrob nodded sharply, his mind boiling with unneeded tumult. He made a move towards the door and Salinas lunged at him, hurling himself across the room with a gleeful snarl.

  The erecting of forcefields had been amongst the first magic to intrigue Kelrob. He loved the delicate ordering of energy that resulted in a solid obstructing sphere, powerful enough to deflect horrendous blows but gentle enough to brush against a flower without causing it to wilt. The spell raced easily to Kelrob’s mind; with a faint hum of static the field erected itself, the words barely a whisper on his lips. Salinas collided with it and slid down the hissing surface, the shield so elegant in construction that his eyes were able to press against it and stare in impotent rage without bubbling away.

  Kelrob took no more chances. He cast shackles on Salinas’s ankles and wrists, heavy weights of energy that forced the Taskmaster’s movements to a crawl. The spell burned through Kelrob like a fever, and he realized dully that he was growing ill. It would be a long, exhausting ride back the way they had come and up the highway, in the rain as it seemed; would it be better to stun Salinas anew, put him under for a few days and recover his strength? Of course, that would involve staying another moment in the House of the Setting Sun, a proposition Kelrob found to be untenable. He forced Salinas down the stairs, marching him like a child’s automaton, his heart hammering as he juggled from spell to spell in his mind.

  They met with no impediment on the way out. Salinas blinked as they emerged into the overcast light of day, and Kelrob spoke a fresh word of command, forcing him onward towards the stables. The grinning pumpkin still sat his patient watch by the horses, face dark and candle extinguished; somehow Salinas found a way to trample it in his progress.

  Their horses were waiting. Glev was there, and the brute Rack, their wound-covered bodies hunched with pain. Salinas smiled at the sight of them, but Kelrob bound down his tongue, knowing that any reference to the preceding evening’s events could undo his wobbling magic and force them into a very perilous position indeed. He doubted that even reverence for a magister’s station would prevent Kirleg from gutting the men who had brought such ruin on his house.

  Salinas stumbled over a rock. It happened suddenly, and Kelrob was distracted with his own thoughts. The spell weakened around the unanticipated lurch, and Salinas darted free, his hand plunging into Kelrob’s breast-pocket and seizing his ring with such force that it tore the lining of Kelrob’s tunic. There was a bright flare of blue light, and the Taskmaster tottered back with a grin, the ring slipped over his thumb to the joint. “Mine!” he cried, and leveling the ring at Kelrob invoked a savage blast of energy.

  Kelrob threw out his hands and poured the uttermost of his will into a single deflective nudge. It was all he could muster, the only option; there was no time to erect a shield. If he failed he would be obliterated, and the raw energy would plow onwards, destroying the inn and all inside. The blast struck, the moment came: Kelrob cried a single word, thrusting his hands upwards. The flesh on his palms blistered and cracked as the withering energy realigned itself and blasted upwards, cutting a furrow through the overhanging trees. A deluge of brightly-colored leaves filled the air, and Salinas took full advantage of the cover, racing to his horse and tearing the reins from Glev’s clutches. He swung up into the saddle with a winded laugh, strange blue fires burning in his eyes.

  “You’re not worthy of that ring,” he spat at Kelrob, who was slowly lowering and uncurling his ravaged hands. “That said, I’ve a little treat for you. Chromox is, of course, the sum of all magic; but even it can be unmade.” With a snarled word Salinas pointed to Kelrob’s ring. There was a bright flaring of azure light, and Kelrob screamed as the band turned to liquid against his flesh. He tore it off and threw it to the ground, its light sputtering out amidst the leaves. />
  Salinas laughed wildly. “I’ll leave...you here,” he panted, veering his mount towards the northward path, deeper into the woods. “With all your...new friends.” He was about to say more, but a cluster of leaves swept into his open mouth. Coughing and choking, Salinas spat them back to the wind, then whipped his horse into a frenzy. The stallion reared, then bolted, riding into the looming cavern of trees. Kelrob watched as the light of Salinas’s ring burned into the distance, shafts of cold clear illumination sliding between the twisted trunks.

  The world burst. Kelrob staggered, then fell to his knees, the threads of his myriad spells unraveling around him. He heard Glev’s frightened yell, and felt Rack’s hands on him, surprisingly gentle, cradling him down onto a bed of leaves. The memories surged up, hideous alien memories, but he refused to let them go, branding them into his own consciousness rather than releasing them back into the collective. It was the final mercy he could offer; as blackness claimed him, Kelrob stared up into the face of an ostler and a brute, and prayed to some ridiculous god that he wasn’t meeting his death.

  4: Jacobson

  Kelrob woke in the same room as before, lying on the bed whose benefits he’d barely had a chance to savor, staring up at a charm of woven reeds that spun lazily over his head. He rubbed away the muzziness of sleep and stretched his neck, looking, he was blearily certain, like a tortoise poking out of its shell.

  “Well, good morning. Or evening, rather. Would you like some dinner?”

  Kelrob started at the familiar voice and sat up with a gasp. Jacobson was there, sitting in a rough-hewn wooden chair, his feet propped on the foot of the bed. A book, one of Kelrob’s own, was open in his hands. He smiled at the mage, his icy blue eyes sparkling with partial sobriety. “Quite a good read, this. An Account of the 2,007th Isdori Agricultural Seminar, with Historical Sources Appropriately Cited, as composed by Master Kenlath, Biomancer of the 3rd Circle and Magister of the Changes. A bit dense for a simple man like me, I admit, but I do find bureaucratic nonsense fascinating. Would you like a drink? Bit hasty on the dinner offer, I suppose, but you’ve been abed for three days and not had a speck of food in you.”

  Three days? Kelrob blanched and let his head flop back on the pillow. How embarrassing. “Why am I in your room?”

  “I think you mean your room,” Jacobson said, marking his page and setting the book on his lap. “You kicked me out, remember?”

  Memories came flooding back in a rush, many of them not his own. Kelrob groaned and clutched at his head, his body stiffening under the heavy blankets. He quelled the urge to sink back into oblivion and peered at Jacobson from beneath the plane of his hands, suddenly aware of his throat’s excessive dryness. “I would like that drink,” he croaked.

  Jacobson produced a mug of water and held it out to him. “Can you sit up and drink yourself? Or do I have to suckle you like a nursemaid?”

  Kelrob ignored the jibe and strained himself into a sitting position, spine braced against the oak headboard, with all its lumps and knots. He took the water and drank it down, every drop, only realizing the fullness of his thirst when it was half-way quenched. “Thanks,” he said faintly, handing the mug back. “I needed that.”

  “I suspect you need more than that,” Jacobson said. He held up the book and waggled it. “You don’t mind me reading this?”

  “Why should I? It’s a history book.”

  “But it’s all about secretive Isdori doings. Meetings and decisions and arcane oaths.”

  “All on the public record, free to any eye that can read.” Kelrob raised one skeptical eyebrow. “You can read it? And understand it?”

  “To a point. Important archmagisters making speeches about crop rotation and soil enhancement, heated debate over the next year’s weather patterns, a long long long discussion about breeding a more efficient honeybee...seems a little indulgent to me, but then I’m no magister.” Jacobson flipped a few pages in the book, set it aside, and leaned forward with a smile of ale-yellowed teeth. “How are you feeling, lad? You’re color’s good, and your mind seems whole.”

  Kelrob sensed out his extremities, wriggling his toes and bending his knees, stretching his arms high over his head. He was sore, to be certain, but his three-day rest had allowing his diminished energies to gather and wax. His hands had miraculously healed over most of the damage caused by Salinas’s attack, a final gift imparted by his dying ring. The absence of the chromox on his finger distressed Kelrob; it was deadening, like losing speech or hearing or sight, but he said nothing of it to Jacobson.

  “I feel fine,” Kelrob said, “except for this pounding in my head. What happened? Why am I in this room? Has it really been three days? Did I -”

  Jacobson held up a hand to stem the brimming tide of questions. “Easy, lad. After you saved the inn — we were all watching, mind you — Salinas galloped off to meet his fate, and you fainted dead away. Too much spellwork, I reckoned, and told Kirleg so. He was in a state, all ready to send a messenger off to Tannigal, but I convinced him to put you under my care instead. Partly it was a ploy to get my old room back, but mostly I did it to save the poor fool’s last nerve. So, for the last three days I’ve been nursing you, maintaining a ceaseless vigil only interrupted by reading and drinking. Some very dry books you brought with you, by the way.”

  Kelrob sighed, fluttered his eyes closed and open. “Three days. And what happened to Salinas? Did he return?”

  Jacobson’s eyes grew shadowed. “He fought through Kirleg’s ambush, killing three men, then rode on into the deeper forest, towards the Tangle. There’s been no word of him since. Of course you’re not supposed to know about the ambush bit, so keep it to yourself, aye?”

  Kelrob nodded, wincing as a fresh throb beat behind his eyes. “Bring me my robes,” he said, nodding towards the wardrobe. “I need something from them.”

  Jacobson cocked his head. “You could say ‘please,’ m’lord.”

  “Jacobson, I am very grateful for your help, but it would be improper for me to beg.”

  “Ah, the inevitable assertion of class. But m’lord, your ring is gone, your godhead robbed; what’ll you do if I refuse? Throw a pillow at me?”

  Kelrob’s eyebrows drew together severely. “I need my robes. Fetch them for me now, or I’ll get them myself.” Jacobson hesitated, and Kelrob started to struggle out of bed, wincing as pain lanced through his joints.

  A large hand pressed him back down against the ticking. Jacobson smiled before releasing the gentle pressure. “All right, my liege, you’ve made your point.” Going to the wardrobe he drew out the sage-green robes, heavy with the contents of their hidden pockets, and tossed them on the bed by Kelrob’s feet. The mage glowered at him, but drew the robes closer and hunted for the vial of pain-easing powder he’d offered to Kirleg, along with a satchel of ginger-cardamon tea. Finding both, he passed the medicine to Jacobson and waved a hand towards the low-burning hearth. “Mix me a draught,” he commanded, then added in a softer voice, “I would appreciate it.”

  Jacobson elevated an eyebrow, but moved to obey, rising and going to hearth where a squat iron kettle was waiting. He filled it and set it over the fire, then sniffed at the leather satchel of tea. “Potent stuff, this. Do I add the medicine right away, or wait for it to steep?”

  “Make the tea first. You have to crack the cardamon-seeds before throwing them in.”

  Jacobson grumbled but complied, the room quickly filling with the hazy odor of spice. Kelrob closed his eyes and slid back down into his pillow as Jacobson filled a small bronze sieve with the herbal mixture and set it to steeping in the water. A cloud of savory vapor filled the room, and the mage sighed, his mind carried back to the endless cups of stomach-soothing infusion he had brewed in the last year, seeking an answer to the fire in his belly. The ginger-cardamon combination had proven most efficacious in soothing the pain, and, though a costly import from the harsh desert
lands of the Jeneni, he always kept a ready supply on his person.

  “So,” Kelrob said, soothed by the familiar fragrance to the extent that he could ask the question, “how are the others?” He could have listed each of Salinas’s playthings by name, cataloged their individual degradations; he blushed. “I assume the mind-modification has held, otherwise Kirleg would have killed me in my sleep.”

  Jacobson grabbed an iron rod and poked at the flames before replying. “Some well, some not so well. Most of the menfolk just came off with bruises and cuts, though one fellow is missing a finger. Kirleg’s brood got off worse, of course, as did that poor rotten minstrel he insisted on hiring. Didn’t know a single northland ballad, played without a chanterelle, and kept me up all hours with his noodling, but he didn’t deserve to be flayed. Your gift did cheer him up a bit, between the moans; everyone’s still in great pain, joints and the like, which I’d guess is some internal damage done by the magic.”

  Kelrob winced. “Has anyone suggested burning me at the stake yet, or tossing me in a river to see if I sink or float?”

  Jacobson chuckled as he took the boiling kettle away from the flames. “They’re not so rustic in these parts. They know magisters are mere men, though they wield the power of gods. More likely they’d slit your throat, dump your body in the woods, and burn some sage to keep your vengeful spirit at bay as a token quaintness. But in truth, lad, I don’t think you need to worry yourself much. You saved the inn — Kirleg saw it, and more importantly the good lady Meela. As far as she’s concerned you’re a hero. Kirleg’s even been feeling guilty for setting up the ambush, a first in my experience.”

  Kelrob sighed and relaxed beneath the coverlets. He watched as Jacobson poured him a cup of tea mixed with a pinch of the pain-dulling powder, and accepted the tincture with mute thanks, struggling back into a sitting position. Three days. He sipped at his drink, reveling in the familiar taste, though it was underscored by the powder’s bitterness. Three days since I should have reached Tannigal. Father must be worried sick. Of course, Salinas had gone on ahead, but that was hardly an assurance of anything. If the Taskmaster had survived the forest and made his way to Tannigal, he’d no doubt marched straight to the local Isdori consulate and reported the infuriating conduct of his underling. Upon Kelrob’s return to civilization there would be papers to sign, inquiries to answer, and, seeing as he was already three days behind schedule, several air-missives to send to his worried kith and kin. The thought of so much amalgamated complication caused the mage to wriggle down into the bed; turning his head he peered out through the bull’s-eye speckled windows. He could tell from the cast of the light that it was late day, just beginning to slide down towards evening. Large garnet-leafed oaks loomed at the edge of the clearing, casting heavy shadows.