Cascet of souls

“How old are you?”

Almost nine.

“Where do you live, Mika?”

There was a long pause. Yew Lane. The house with the green-and-yellow door. I want my mother!

“I’ll try to help you.” But he had no idea how-except one. “My name is Thero, and I live at the Oreska House. I want

you to come and see me as soon as you can. Will you do that?”

You’re a wizard? The cloud-image of the face was still there, but some of the fear was gone. The unseeing white eyes were wide.

“I am, Mika. Please come and see me. Do you promise? You may bring your mother, too, if you like.” How best to coax a frightened child? “I have good things to eat.”

I promise! Can I go home now?

“Where are you?”

I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. Who are those people watching us?

“You can see this room, and my friends and me?”

Yes.

“Amazing,” Thero murmured. “Where were you before you were here?”

In my street, with my friends.

“Did someone trade with you? A beggar, perhaps?”

An old woman. She gave me a dragon tooth for one of the marbles my gran gave me.

Thero’s lips pressed in a tight humorless smile. It couldn’t be much clearer than that.

“I’m going to send you home now, Mika. Do you think you can find your way home?”

Where am I now?

“You’re in Blue Fish Street.”

By the Harvest Market?

“Near there, yes. At an inn called the Stag and Otter. Do you know it?”

I think so.

“Good. Remember what we’ve said here, and come and see me.”

I will. I want to go now!

The voice was much fainter and the features were beginning to blur. Thero quickly cut the circle with his knife and the mist disappeared, leaving nothing in its wake, not even a mental sensation.

“What was that all about?” asked Alec.

Thero found the others regarding him as if he’d just done something rather surprising.

“You couldn’t hear the-” Spirit? Ghost? Soul? “There was a child in the mist. He spoke to me.”

“All we heard was you talking to someone named Mika,” Seregil replied. “We couldn’t see you at all. As soon as you opened that bottle you were surrounded by a cloud of thick mist.”

“Mika was the spirit of the child who owned the marble, wasn’t he?” said Alec.

Thero nodded, feeling unaccountably sad.

But Elsbet looked hopeful. “You told him his way home. Do you think he went back to his body?”

“I hope so. But he could just as easily be dead now. Or perhaps he was dead already and that’s why he was in the bottle. I’m sorry, but it could be any of those.”

“But he could be alive,” Kari insisted. “This may be our only chance for Illia, if she’s been put into one of those bottles.”

Thero looked to Seregil. “He said he lives in Yew Lane. Do you know where that is?”

“Not far from here. It’s a short street, near the Ring wall. And a decent area, too. He’s less likely to have been left to die in some alleyway. Let’s hope his mother heard about the sick ones being moved to the Ring and kept him secret at home.”

“Good. He said he lives in a house with a green-and-yellow door. Do you think you could find it? I’d like to see what happened to him, if possible.”

Seregil looked out the window. “It will be dawn soon. You should wait until then, so you don’t scare them to death knocking them up out of bed. In the meantime, I think we should have a look around the Crane. It’s our best chance to find the place empty; no actor will be up this early.”

“What about the contents of the bottles?” asked Micum.

Thero cast another spell on the bottle he still held. “The magic is gone from this one, I think.”

He emptied the contents into the other silver cup. The marble fell to the bottom with a small plink. He sniffed the

liquid, but there was nothing of note about it. He dipped the tip of his little finger in it and licked it. Nothing, just plain, stale water. He picked up the marble and got a fleeting impression of a small boy with sandy hair falling across his forehead into his eyes. And there was a hint of something else, something surprising that he thought he recognized.

“Anything?” asked Alec.

“A glimpse of what he looks like. I’ll know him if I see him. Now for our friends the rats.”

He carefully opened the grate in the top of the trap and set the first cup inside. The rats sniffed it curiously for a moment, then one of them put its paws up on the rim and lapped at the liquid. After the first few drops it fell on its side, shuddering violently.

“It is poison,” murmured Micum.

But as they watched the rat calmed and scampered around the confines of the trap, apparently no worse for wear. The other two drank from the cup, but the liquid seemed to have no effect at all on them.

Thero reached in and picked the first rat up by the tail, then grasped it by the scruff so it couldn’t bite. The same strange magic he’d felt on Atre and Brader emanated from the rat in powerful waves. It was unmistakable.

“I believe this elixir is meant to be ingested.”

“But why?” asked Elsbet.

Thero put the rat back into the trap with the others and looked at the little lock of hair floating in the bowl, then at the marble from the other bottle. “If both bottles held souls of the children who gave him these items, then the one holding Mika, which was without the central symbol, must be made differently, allowing the soul to escape. The symbol on the other may trap the soul in the water.”

“You mean you just fed the soul of some poor child to a rat?” Elsbet exclaimed in horror.

“Perhaps,” Thero replied, none too happy at the thought.

“So Atre and Brader must get some benefit from eating souls,” Seregil said with disgust.

“The question is, what benefit?” wondered Alec.

“At this point I don’t give a damn about that, only how to

stop him doing the same to Illia!” Micum gritted out. “We have to find the bottle containing Illia’s soul before he-” He broke off and put an arm around Kari as she began to cry.

Leaving Micum behind to rest-or more likely, fret-Seregil went to the Crane with Thero and Alec. As he’d expected, the theater was deserted. They found their way in through a poorly secured side door but even with the help of Thero’s spell, they found nothing magical inside.

The welcoming fragrances of bacon and tea greeted them at the inn. Ema was making breakfast, though the house was empty except for them.

“You should eat,” Thero told the others.

“I’m not hungry,” Seregil mumbled, continuing on ahead.

“Well, I am, and the others, too, most likely,” said Alec.

Ema loaded a tray with rashers of bacon, hot oat cakes, a jar of honey, and a large pot of tea. Thero carried it and followed Alec upstairs.

Seregil had collapsed into one of the armchairs with his face buried in his hands, heedless for once of how dirty they were. Micum stood gazing into the empty fireplace.

“Oh, no!” gasped Alec, starting for the bedroom door.