The Tainted City (12 page)

Deep in his mind, a shock of connection. An echo of surprise shifted into fierce triumph, and Ruslan’s voice whispered with dark, delighted promise:

Welcome home, Kiran.

Chapter Six

(Dev)

G
laring afterimages blocked my vision, my ears ringing as if they’d been boxed. Retching, I doubled over, lost my balance and fell to my knees. I planted my hands on cold stone and cursed Marten. A
little
disorienting? Khalmet’s bloodsoaked hand! My stomach was trying to crawl out my throat.

Dimly, I registered shouting, tinny through the whine in my ears.

“Hurry, get it on him!”

“Stevan,
now—”

Oh gods, Kiran and the amulet! I dragged an arm across my eyes and squinted through fading swathes of green.

Kiran was hunched on his knees with his fists pressed to his temples. Marten knelt before him, one palm braced against the amulet glinting on Kiran’s chest, his other hand gripping Kiran’s shoulder so tightly his fingers showed white. Stevan, Talm and Lena stood rigid behind Marten. Concentration hazed their eyes, Stevan’s teeth bared in a grimace of effort. Beyond was a wall of white stone streaked with silver ward lines, the room far smaller than the high-ceilinged expanse of the Council chamber. Sigils glowed on the floor, their light slowly fading. On the far side of the sigil pattern, a pair of uniformed mages watched us with wary intensity.

I staggered to my feet, careful to avoid the sigils. Mother of maidens, if the amulet didn’t work, and Ruslan got hold of Kiran…my legs twitched with the urge to run.

Kiran shuddered. His hands fell from his temples to clutch at Marten’s arms. “He knows. Marten, he knows I’m here…”

“The link,” Marten said, voice urgent. “Can you feel him, Kiran?”

Kiran let out a long, wavering breath. “No. Not now.”

Oh, thank Khalmet. Though if Ruslan knew Kiran had come, he’d already be scheming another way to get at him. I eyed the ward patterns on the wall. Ninavel-made, not Alathian, and deadly as any I’d ever seen. Somebody in the embassy wasn’t so dumb as to hold to the Alathian legal standard. I took another look at the silent mages watching us. Both had the olive skin and straight dark hair so common to Alathians, but that was where their similarities ended. One was a muscled plug of a man who looked more suited to ore hauling than spellcasting. The other was a rail-thin, hawk-nosed woman in her forties.

“Have a care, Marten.” The slow, cold precision of Stevan’s speech signaled the effort he continued to make with Kiran’s amulet. “I don’t know how deeply Ruslan might have read the boy before I blocked the link. He may know far more than the mere fact of our arrival.”

“Kiran?” Marten helped Kiran to his feet. “What did you sense?”

Kiran’s face was as white as the stone surrounding us, his blue eyes distant and dark.

Haltingly, he said, “I felt Ruslan’s thoughts. He was surprised. Then…pleased.” The last word snagged in his throat like it’d been caught on a thorn. “He would have felt mine. But I’d woven defenses—they still stand, I don’t think he penetrated deeper than the surface.” His fingers clawed into Marten’s shirt. “Marten, the binding—please, you must release it, if he’s coming for me I have to
fight—”

My fists clenched in sympathy. Nothing worse than facing a threat helpless.

“Soon as we can prepare the ritual, I promise you.” Gently, Marten disengaged Kiran’s grip. “Stevan is leading this first shift. Remember to stay close to him.” He looked past me and bent in a deep, formal bow. “Ambassador Halassian. Forgive my delay in greeting you, but this matter was too important to wait.”

I turned. Standing in an archway was a short, plump woman whose granite-gray hair was bound up in a knotwork of braids even more complex than Councilor Varellian’s. She wore a long, billowing Sulanian-style dress, but the fabric was in subtle shades of blue and gray, the Council seal plain on her left shoulder.

“Yes, yes.” She flapped a hand at Marten. “Welcome to Ninavel, Captain. Good to see the translocation spell didn’t turn you to jelly. Better yet to see that trinket of yours actually managed to keep a snake like Ruslan Khaveirin at bay.” She glanced at the mismatched pair of uniformed mages. “Jenoviann, Kessaravil, go recheck the main wards. Tell me if you feel the slightest hint of that sly bastard testing them.”

They bowed and hurried out. Marten said to her, “You’ll remember Talmaddis from his time stationed here, but let me introduce the rest of my team…” He pointed out Lena and Stevan, and introduced me as “Devan
na soliin
, of Ninavel,” using the old Arkennlander form that politely indicated I lacked a family name. Halassian studied me with keen interest; an interest that sharpened further when Marten got to Kiran.

“So this is Khaveirin’s wayward apprentice,” she said. “Well, he’s pretty enough, but aside from that I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

She said it in just the right tone of dry irony. Kiran blinked, a hint of color staining his cheeks, and lost some of his snared-roundtail look. Nice to know the Council had better sense than to send a typical Alathian prig as their ambassador to Ninavel. Halassian was the first Alathian I’d met who spoke direct as any streetsider, and thank Khalmet for that. I’d take bluntness any day over evasions and polite lies.

Marten’s grin held only a shadow of his usual cheer. “You wouldn’t dismiss Kiran so readily if you’d helped bind his power. Speaking of which, I need supplies and assistance in incising the sigils for the release of that binding…but first, I must know: how soon may I speak with Sechaveh?”

Good question. I didn’t hold much confidence even the strongest of wards would stop Ruslan for long. As for the amulet, it might be working, but from the strain on Stevan, Talm, and Lena’s faces, keeping Kiran safe was no easy task.

“Sechaveh’s granted you audience in Kelante Tower at dawn,” Halassian said. “It’s not just you he wants to see, Captain. He insists on meeting everyone for whom you want sanction and protection. No exceptions.” She glanced at me and Kiran.

Dawn was a mere two hours away. That part sounded good, but the rest…“We have to leave the wards to see him? That’s an ambush waiting to happen.”

Halassian chuckled, a surprisingly hearty sound for such a short woman. “Direct as a magefire strike, aren’t you? And from Acaltar district, unless I miss my guess.” She turned to Marten. “Good thinking bringing him. Ninavel’s not like Tamanath. Important business here is all backroom deals and viper’s games, and if you want to track down the source of these deaths and disturbances to Alathia’s wards, you’ll need eyes and ears streetside.”

She sobered and met my gaze. “It’s a risk to leave the wards, young Devan, but not so high as you fear. Even a mage as powerful as Ruslan will be hard-pressed to cast against you with so short a time to prepare.”

“It’s Dev, not Devan.” Only the Alathian Council used my full name, and hearing it made me think of trials and sentencings. “Don’t be so sure Ruslan hasn’t time to cast. Kiran thought that in the Whitefires, right before Ruslan hammered us with a spell-made snowstorm that almost did us in.”

Kiran nodded. “It’s a terrible mistake to underestimate him,” he said softly.

“We all know it,” Marten said. “Yet we need the protection against Ruslan’s casting that Sechaveh can provide. The embassy’s wards won’t hold forever against him if he chooses to launch a sustained assault. Ambassador, how far to Kelante Tower?”

“A half hour’s brisk walk to Kelante’s warded gate if you use the Tourmaline Bridge and climb the Blackstar Stair,” Halassian said. “I can send Kessaravil with you if you’d like an extra mage on hand who’s not tied up pouring power into that amulet. I’d send Jenoviann too, but I want her here on the wards.”

“The help would be appreciated,” Marten agreed.

From Halassian’s description of the route, the embassy must be high in the spires of Seltonis District. I grimaced, thinking of half an hour spent walking the steep, airy causeways that spiraled around highside towers and spanned the gaps between them. Maybe the mages could survive the fall if Ruslan shattered a bridge from under us, but I wouldn’t.

Kiran lifted his chin, his jaw set. “When will you unbind my magic?”

“I’ll start the sigils as soon as I may,” Marten said. “If Halassian can spare someone to help me complete them after our audience with Sechaveh, we should be ready to perform the ritual by evening.”

“You can’t work faster and do it before dawn?” I asked. If I were Kiran, hell if I’d want to waltz over to Kelante Tower without the means to defend myself.

Behind Kiran, Stevan said, “Magic isn’t as simple as scratching a few sigils on the floor.” Despite the labored pace of his words, the contempt came through plain as day.

Halassian said sternly to me, “One mistake in lifting this binding and your friend could be mentally crippled or even killed. Any casting that happens in this embassy is my responsibility, and I say it’s done right, with full precautions, or not at all.”

Hard to argue with that. I glanced at Kiran. He nodded, though I could tell he thought tonight distant as the eastern sea.

A sharp voice called from outside the room, “Ambassador! We’ve sighted wardfire.”

We all stampeded after Halassian through the archway. Kiran shadowed Stevan close enough to trip on his heels, Talm and Lena right behind him. My heart hung in my throat. I’d told them Ruslan wouldn’t dally. How long could the Alathians hold him off?

In a wide room full of silk hangings and sleek, cushioned couches, Halassian’s two lieutenants stood beside a great arched window. Copper panels inscribed with wards bracketed the window on all sides, the shutters open to admit the night breeze. To my surprise, the ward panels were dark and silent, without even a warning glimmer.

“Wardfire, where?” Halassian demanded.

“The Aiyalen Spire.” Hawk-nosed Jenoviann pointed a skinny arm out into the night, where nearby towers glittered with colored magelights like a jeweler’s showcase. Aiyalen was the tallest of them, a soaring pinnacle capped by five stone crescents as sharp and thin as nightstar blades. Beyond, the jagged wall of the Whitefire Mountains blocked out half the night sky, the rest dusted by stars brilliant in the dry desert air.

The sight of that familiar skyline struck a pang into my heart. Gods, I’d missed the Whitefires—and Ninavel too, for all it was a nest of vipers. I squinted at the Aiyalen Spire. I didn’t see any wardfire. What did—

The entire top third of the tower flared a lurid violet. Silent lightning wreathed the stone and clawed at the air above, flickering through indigo and blue to a bruised, poisonous green.

I gasped right along with the mages. Mother of maidens, I’d never seen wards trigger on such a scale. But… “Why’s Ruslan attacking Aiyalen and not here?” It had to be Ruslan; nobody but a blood mage could cast a spell strong enough to spark such a display.

Marten stretched a splayed hand out the window into the night air. “I sense no blood magic—no hint of any spellwork cast against the tower, in fact. How can this be?”

Halassian said, “I have no answer for you. Yet I don’t believe this wardfire is Ruslan’s doing. In recent weeks, we’ve seen wards trigger on the Aiyalen Spire and other towers, though not to quite such a spectacular level. Each time, as now, we can’t sense even a single offensive spell. The caster is using a type of magic completely unknown to us—and believe me, we know the feel of blood magic.”

I looked to Kiran. His eyes were squeezed shut, his head tilted as if he strained to listen for some faint sound. “The confluence—the currents feel odd, unsettled…but between the amulet and my binding, I can’t sense anything more.”

The wardfire vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. I stared at the spire, not sure whether to feel relieved Ruslan wasn’t yet casting against us, or more worried. Ruslan might be scary as shit, but at least the Alathians knew how to counter him. If they couldn’t even sense the casting of whoever was striking at the towers, how could they stop it?

The first step in scouting a mark was to find out what they wanted. “What’s up there in Aiyalen, Sechaveh’s personal gem vaults? I didn’t even know wards came that strong.” Red Dal hadn’t let his Tainters dream of trying to sneak into Aiyalen. A policy I understood after seeing that little fireworks show.

Kiran said, “That section of the spire is where mages cast water spells for Lord Sechaveh.”

Oh, hell. Ninavel had storage cisterns, one in each district, but they’d be drained in days if Ninavel’s mages didn’t continuously refill them. The closest natural sources of water were the glacial lakes west of the Whitefires’ fanged crest. Reaching those lakes required several days’ climb up a trail that’d kill waterless travelers long before they reached the pass. Scarce water would mean riots, deaths…and I’d no doubt those in the poorer districts would suffer first and most. Streetsiders, like me and my city friends.

Marten and Halassian had both turned to stare at Kiran. “You’ve worked in the tower, then?” Halassian sounded eager. “We know that’s where the water magic is cast, but Sechaveh’s never allowed foreigners inside.”

“No.” Kiran’s shoulders hunched. “Ruslan wouldn’t let us work real magic until we came of age.” He looked like he was praying Marten would change the subject.

Stevan said, “You told the Council you went through the ritual two months before you left Ninavel. In all that time, you never helped your master with water duty?”

“I said no,” Kiran snapped. He wrapped his arms tight around himself like a man cold to the bone, though the day’s heat lingered in the air.

I’d never asked him what had gone on during the time between Alisa’s death and the day he showed up in Bren’s office seeking my help to cross the Whitefires. Now, I wondered. He couldn’t have fought Ruslan the whole time. He must have pretended compliance at some point to be allowed the freedom to go down streetside to meet Bren. How far had that compliance gone?

“Too bad.” Halassian pursed her lips. “It would certainly be helpful to know the exact nature of the wards within the tower.”

“When Sechaveh gives us sanction, perhaps we can find out.” Marten ran a finger along the wards on the windowsill. “Your dispatches spoke of mages dying. Did the deaths happen in the towers during wardfire events? The energies in the aether must be horrifically dangerous to any mage nearby.”