Please! Take care! Are you sure you should drink that? Is it safe?’ They all spoke at once, their voices a jumble.
Vous’s hand clenched tight around the finely wrought crystal glass. His arm shook and he gazed around the room in defiance, lip curled, teeth bared. ‘
Ghost’s faces were in shock to see their Friend and Lord break so drastically with habit. The familiar display of rage hardly registered.
Vous stepped towards the mirror. He paused only to grab a handful of green vegetables from the plate before his throne and stuff it into his mouth, pleased at having shocked Ghost and wishing for more. Ghost obliged him with more fearful gasps and whispers, until he came near and stood, hands tensed halfway to making fists.
‘Grim news,’ said the face in the middle, recovering from its shock first. It was the sad-looking round face with big eye sockets, otherwise nearly featureless. Vous had forgotten what its name had been in life. He’d forgotten the rest of their names, too.
Vous listened with fists tightening. He could not be told
‘The Arch Mage claimed … he claimed …’ Ghost had become nervous; the round middle-face lost the ability to speak, so the female face took over, ‘claimed it was better for your health, not to trouble you so. And he further said it was best not to show you what he called “the letter”. One Strategist believed otherwise. They argued fiercely. Then the Arch Mage struck his face and banished him. And bade him never again mention “the letter”.’
Vous paced before the mirror for a full hour. Ghost watched every step, waiting. At last: ‘Did he know you were present in the window glass?’ referring to the Arch Mage.
‘Nothing indicated yes or no, Friend and Lord. The curtain was halfway drawn, and we hid behind it.’
Another hour’s pacing, his body regular as a pendulum back and forth.
Ghost said hesitantly, ‘Aziel, she wailed beautifully this morn-’
‘Shhh.’ Vous strode from the chamber without a further word. He went down to the Arch Mage’s room, a place of white bricks and many special iron grids in the walls to facilitate the magic air. It had been too long since he’d visited. A vast library stretched along shelves on the side walls: books on lore of all kinds, magic of all known schools detailed here and only here with such comprehensiveness. Jars were filled with black twisting smoke or fluttering light. Cages held living things that scuttled about or crawled, attacking the glass walls when they felt Vous pass by. A small red drake, perhaps the last of its kind, was imprisoned in an iron cage in the corner. It made a mixed whine and growl, pleading sadly for freedom. Old scorch marks spread out from the floor near its cage, but its fire was used up long ago, and it surely knew by now that it waited here to die. When Vous sat and ignored it, it lay down to sleep, with a long sad sigh.
The Arch Mage wasn’t home, yet again. Vous picked at the chair’s arms in irritation, then pissed out the wine right there where he sat. He thought of tearing through the room, ruining everything, all the fragile instruments, the glass orbs filled with their mysterious smoky liquid, the charts and diagrams and sculptures, setting loose the creatures. He recalled having done such a thing before, and that the Arch Mage had not reacted other than with a displeasingly mild sadness, hardly even speaking about it afterwards.
Hours passed, then a full day. At last, the sound of familiar limping footsteps. Around the door came the half-melted face, the forked tip of a silver staff, the three horns on his head emitting a light curl of smoke each — he had flown in, then, most likely assuming the shape of a bird or bat. Behind his head was a long trail of black feathers. The one good eye took in Vous in his chair and scanned briefly around to make sure all was in order, before the Arch Mage cringed back from the hostile effects of Vous’s charms and wards like someone who’d been shoved hard.
Vous’s lip curled; he always enjoyed the sight. ‘I left the bad ones in my chamber,’ he said, which was untrue — they were in his pocket, where they would be harmless enough unless he put them on.
‘What you wear still serves you well, Vous. It is good to see you. How your eyes glow — it shan’t be long, I sense. Is something the matter?’
‘The letter,’ said Vous.
The Arch Mage began to speak, then didn’t.
‘Where have you
Sparks of fire erupted around the Arch Mage and sent little tendrils of flame up his gown. He winced and frantically patted them out. Hurriedly he said, ‘There are things I feared to tell you … things which I felt you would take badly, which could jeopardise-’
The rage was gone as swiftly as it had come. Vous’s eyes shut, his face curdled in pain and infinite weariness. ‘The letter. Where is the letter?’
The Arch Mage pointed at his far shelf. Vous ran there, snatched off a sheaf of folded paper, snarled deep in his throat, and sprinted from the room. The Arch Mage gently shut the door behind him.
In his chamber, it was a long week before Vous read what was written therein. He left the letter sitting at times on the floor, as though it were an unimportant piece of litter. His hands moved to rip it to pieces, but always stopped. Most of all, he marvelled that this thing could command his attention solely above all else, that it could have such power over him, though he didn’t even know what message it held. That such an object of power over him had come from the Arch Mage’s chambers was not lost on him … not lost on him at all.
Finally he picked it up, startled at the lack of ceremony, the plainness of the act: it was just paper, light and dry in his hand. And the writing was of an ordinary, jagged script, though what it said burned through his mind like fire.
29
The light of afternoon was beginning to dim, but they were able, still, to keep an eye on the forest floor for more of the distinctive marks they’d seen by the hall. They had not yet found any. Loup led them, sometimes changing directions for no apparent reason, once even leading the group in a wide circle, and it seemed he’d done so on purpose. The others traded exasperated looks but didn’t question the magician.
The cult girl — Lalie, as they began to call her, despite her ignoring this at first — kept a sullen silence, but briefly inclined her head in thanks when Anfen passed her a strip of dried meat. She ate it ravenously. She warmed to no one, but Sharfy was the one to whom her looks were the most venomous. No one questioned her yet. Nor did Anfen decide — after some murmured debate with Loup — to keep her hands tied, not yet.
When we get near a town, perhaps, he thought. Inferno cultists were not permitted in most cities, Free or Aligned, which meant they were usually killed on sight. Lalie did not bear many of the tribal scars or tattoos of long-standing cultists, but nor did she yet seem willing to lie about her beliefs, or forsake them. The Mayors would hear her story, and they
