Dead Letter (23 page)

“
I’ll stand whereever the hells I like.”

“
Easy, Hess,” said the Reik, eying the twins and their magical
fire. “We don’t need any trouble. Let the ladies come back
tomorrow.”

The
angry warrior was about to sheath her sword when an explosion
ricocheted down the avenue from the workshops behind the gate. A
heavy door burst open and two masked men tumbled into the
courtyard, white smoke billowing around them. One dragged his
screaming friend whose hands were a bloody mess of ragged pulp.
Another masked thief emerged, charging through the white cloud that
belched from the building. Tendrils of smoke whirled as he ran to
the gate with a full sack clutched in his black tattooed hand.
“I’ve got em! Everyone get out of here!”

The Reik
had his sword drawn faster than the warrior woman could take
measure of the situation. He swept his blade toward the twins in a
feint to drive them back, but the twins didn’t budge, searing forth
double jets of flame. Kettna shielded her face from the heat. While
she knew it was an illusion, her impulse was undeniable. The Reik
got caught in the joint attack and dropped his sword, his clothes
aflame. He scrabbled about screaming and dropped to the cobbles,
smouldering and unconscious. Kettna had to turn away from the awful
sight and gagged from the smell of charred flesh. Her senses were
convinced that the twins were casting pure magic and the flames
were very real indeed.

The
attack on the Reik sent the warrior woman into a rage. She belted
out a battle cry and charged, her great blade raised and ready to
cleave Kettna in half. The Inspector dipped into the weave with
finesse and delivered the cantrip with a precise burst of blinding
light that exploded in the warrior’s face. Kettna scuttled to the
side, dodging the warrior’s blind charge. A few steps later the
hulking woman tripped and hit the cobbles, allowing the novice mage
to kick away the monstrous blade and straddle the warrior’s back.
The fighter wouldn’t give up and thrashed about. Kettna grabbed a
fist full of greasy hair, knocking her meaty head into the cobbles
and into unconsciousness.

Lanuille
summoned a bolt of lightning and shot it at the robbers. The bolt
of energy arced into the iron gates, harmlessly blowing sparks in
all directions and creating a spectacular show of power. From the
avenue’s entrance to the high street, citizens gathered to witness
the commotion, drawn by the noise of the explosion and the
lightning show.

“
Guards!” screamed a woman, spotting the fracas. “Send for the
Guards!”

The
thief with the sack saw his comrades brought down by the mages in
the avenue and turned on his heels, sprinting past the man with his
hands blown off and the friend who was trying to drag his comrade
to safety.

“
You handle those two and I’ll get the runner!” called
Lanuille as she sprinted after the black-handed thief.

Kettna
raced to the man nursing his injured friend. “Give me your shirt!
We have to stem the bleeding.”

“
Can you heal him?” asked the masked man, stripping his shirt
and passing it to Kettna with his blacked out hands.

She tore
it in half, from hem to collar, then bound each hand trying to stop
the bleeding. “I’m no healer. But I’ll do what I can.”

The
man’s skin was without guild symbols; the only marks of his labours
were a scar here and there and dark olive skin reserved for men
accustomed to working bare-chested in the sun. He kissed his fallen
friend on the head and gave Kettna a desperate look before
sprinting out the gate and through the throng of onlookers, none of
whom tried to stop him. The wealthy Calimskans parted to let him
through for fear he would mar their expensive garments.

Seeing
his friend leave, the injured man screamed in desperation. “Haggan!
Don’t you leave me here! My hands … not my hands.”

Kettna couldn’t take chase and leave this man on his own to
die of shock. She removed a vial
Beggars
Respite
and put it to his quivering lips.
The minor healing potion would take the edge of his pain and calm
his heart from shock, but wouldn’t do much for his extensive
wounds. While she could not heal the man whole again, the Inspector
knew a spell that would help. She was no druid and certainly no
priestess; spiritual connections and communion with the gods was
for devout empty-headed conduits. Kettna was a sorcerer, a magical
source of power governed by intellect and training. She cradled the
man while he bled from his ragged red stumps and knew that while
her knowledge could save him, her innate power was not enough. The
simple
Light
cantrip she cast on the fighter had run her shallow well of
mana dry. She would have to break the law to save the life of a
lawbreaker. Kettna had to poach to save his life.

This man was a link to Rix. Kettna couldn’t let him die. She
made sure no one witnessed what she was doing and took out her last
mana frog, frozen in a
Hibernation
Bind
. As soon as the magical silk wrap was
untied, the frog wriggled in her grip. She wondered if the poor
thing knew its fate, because it was so desperate to escape. Kettna
held it tight physically and latched onto its plump pool of mana
within the weave. Her finger traced the pattern of forbidden sigils
on the creature’s fat belly and brought it to her lips, enacting
the outlawed
Canibal
Kiss
. Mana swelled through her like bliss
riding on a thunder cloud. Pleasure and power tickled every tendon
and her mind ballooned with the magical possibilities her expansive
knowledge of the arcane allowed. The mana frog crumbled to dust in
her hand, the particles falling upon the dying man in her care. The
Inspector had to focus through the sudden torrent of potential.
With regulated breath and steady hands she cast
Galvan’s Gelatinous Soother,
moulding her mind around the wound and mentally pinching off
the torn capillaries and nervous tissue. She mixed powder of werdel
nut root and camphor oil on her palms and placed them over the
man’s painful stumps, enacting the gooey spell that occluded the
bleeding and set with an opaque elastic second skin over the
wound.

The
masked thief was amazed. “You did it!” he gasped, staring wide eyed
at his goo-covered stumps. “The pain’s gone, totally gone. When do
they grow back?”

“
That is for you and your favoured gods to discuss. Right now
you need to tell me where all the guilders are.”

“
Haggan locked ‘em in the storeroom.”

“
Bastards! Leaving all the witnesses for dead.”

Kettna
removed the man’s belt and tied it around his ankles, wondering if
he had been worth saving. “Pray for forgiveness while you wait for
the guards. I have to save them before the fire
spreads.”

Poaching
mana from a living source had certain drawbacks. Firstly, there was
the risk of termination or debilitation of the originating source.
Kettna had never been able to poach a mana frog without ending its
life. They were a remarkable mana sponge, but not very robust.
Secondly, the pool of mana poached from the origin decayed with
time. If Kettna was going to help the locked up guilders she would
have to work her spells fast.

Inside the building, fire was feasting on the walls down a
short hallway, spreading from a room half way down. On the other
side of the growing fire, people were screaming and thumping on a
closed door. The Inspector gulped a vial of
Hydra’s Tincture
and brought to
mind
Ulm’s Ice Sheet.
A sphere of water condensed around each fingertip and she
directed multiple jets of water at the base of the flames. After a
momentary elemental struggle of steam and melt, an ice sheet froze
over the floor and walls, suffocating the blaze with a chill
snap.

Hurrying
down the hall, through vapours and smoke, Kettna was seized by a
fit of coughing and slipped on the ice. The locked up guilders beat
on the door with greater insistence, screaming with panic and
choking their last breaths. Smoke fingers drifted from the top of
the door and Kettna realised that the fire must have jumped through
the ceiling into the storeroom. A heavy lock was bolted through the
latch, locking the guilders in death’s furnace.

The
Inspector scrambled to her feet and called through the door. “Calm
down in there! Listen. You have to stand back from the door.” She
had failed to pick the lock on the green door in the slumper alley.
She could not fail here; there were so many lives at stake. The
smoke would kill them before the fire did, and she couldn’t impede
the flames hidden in the roof. She had to break through the door,
but didn’t have enough mana remaining to blast it down with pure
force. She had to think around it.

With a pinch of fire salts in her palm, Kettna cast a
modified version of
Hot Hand,
a favourite cantrip of young novices who enjoyed
practical jokes. The effect of Hydra’s tincture worked better with
spells of air and water, but would still multiply the effect of the
cantrip. In addition Kettna concentrated through the weave on the
elemental power of the fire hidden in the ceiling, summoning a
vortex that drew down the hot essence into her hand.

She
grasped the lock on the door with her super heated hand and
focussed all her remaining mana into the spell. The lock went
red-hot, then yellow, and the timber around it smoked and cindered.
Kettna’s legs gave way, her body weak from the intense magical
strain, but she would not let go of the lock. In a desperate mental
push she increased her focus on the fire above and willed it to do
the work for her. The vortex grew so intense that it tore through
the ceiling and sucked in the entire fire, compressing its hot fury
through her hand and melting the lock from the latch. Steel and
brass mingled in a molten puddle that looked the way her mind felt.
With her last measure of strength, Kettna shoved open the door.
Inside, an Akiri had gathered his fellow guilders under his
aquamarine wings, shielding them from the fire. The scent of
burning hair gripped her nostrils and she waved them out, unable to
speak.

“
You saved us!” thanked the Akiri, guiding everyone into the
courtyard. “My eternal debt is yours.”

Kettna
gulped in fresh air and tried to control the tremors that wracked
her body. Spots appeared and her world went black for a moment.
Strong arms and soft feathers caught her and lay her down on the
cobbles. “Rest, Mistress. The guards have arrived. All will be
well.”

Lanuille
rushed to Kettna’s side. “Drink this, it will drive off those
jitters.” The potion was awful and bitter, but it tingled through
her body and revived her strength to at least smile in thanks. “You
must have bottomed out in there.”

“
Is the fire …?” rasped Kettna. “Did I stop it?”

“
Just so,” replied Lanuille. “That’s a handy trick for you,
Lame Owl.”

“
I’d scribe the method for you, if you’d bother to read it,
Blind Falcon,” Kettna coughed a laugh. “Did you catch the
thief?”

“
He was a fast eel in dark water. Slithered straight into the
alleys of the Cauldron.”

“
Did the twins kill that Reik?”

“
Horribly effective for an illusion, wasn’t it? Let’s get you
up on your feet and have a look. You’re the Inspector, so you had
better direct all these guards showing up, too.”

The Reik
no longer appeared as a charred corpse. He lay unconscious on the
cobbles, as did his burly female companion, and the twins
diligently stood over them, flaming hands at the ready. Kettna
ordered the guards to arrest the thieves and checked on the young
man with the mutilated hands. He remained immobilised by the belt
strapped around his legs and Lapidary Schon was scolding him. “Look
what you’ve done to yourself, fool child! You think yourself a
robber, but you have only stolen from yourself. You’ll never work
again, you’ll never feed yourself again, you’ll never touch again.”
The Akiri’s blue-green wings were folded behind him, concealing
much of the damage they had taken in the fire. Many feathers on his
thin neck had melted together, showing how lucky he was to have
escaped alive.

Two
guards watched on, having a laugh at the unfortunate thief who was
barely conscious.

“
Lose the smiles. One of you get him to a single cell and the
other send for a healer,” ordered Kettna.

“
A healer?” Lapidary Schon twisted his starling like head
around to stare at Kettna. “He deserves the gallows! Twice these
black hand bastards have robbed us.”

“
He is the only tattooed gang member we have to question,”
explained Kettna. “He won’t tell us much swinging from a rope, and
if he doesn’t get seen by a healer to manage those wounds, he’ll be
dead by morning.”

The
guards grudgingly did as was requested and left them alone to speak
with Lapidary Schon.

“
You don’t look so good either. Take this for your burns.”
Kettna handed the birdman a vial of
Beggars Respite
. “It will help speed
your healing.”

The
Akiri took the potion and emptied it down his ebony beak. “Thank
you again. The pain was clouding my judgement and stoking my
temper. What is it you came for? Did you know this was taking
place?”