All Spell Breaks Loose (12 page)

Mychael and Tam exchanged a glance.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Thank you for volunteering, Piaras,” Mychael said. “We have to go out into the city and I need for you to stay here.”

“But, sir, you—”

“I’m not finished, Cadet.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“You are to guard Prince Chigaru.”

“Isn’t Director Kalis—”

“Going to find Kesyn,” Imala said.

“I’ve been away for almost two years,” Tam said. “The city has changed a lot since then. We’ll need Imala with us.” He paused. “Piaras, I would consider it the greatest of personal favors if you would also keep Talon out of trouble while we’re gone.”

“No favor needed, sir. I’ve kind of assigned myself that duty anyway.”

“And a fine job you’ve been doing.”

“If you say so.”

Tam wasn’t being sarcastic and Piaras knew it. The times that he’d tried to keep Talon from running headfirst into danger, Piaras had ended up neck deep in it himself. However, they were both still here, and a large part of the credit for that went to Piaras.

I snorted. “Guarding Talon is almost as dangerous as guarding me. You’ve gone from apothecary’s apprentice to bodyguard for the next goblin king in three short months. Impressive.”

Piaras swallowed. “No pressure.”

“Just do your best,” Tam said. “That’s all I or anyone else could ask.”

“That much I can do.”

“I’m going to give Talon the same duty of guarding the prince,” Mychael told Piaras. “One, it’ll keep him occupied. Two, perhaps the two of them will actually stay together and make it easier for you.”

“Hopefully.”

“Just try to keep both of them from doing anything stupid.”

“Put them to sleep if you have to,” Imala said. “You have my permission and blessing.”

“And if you’re found here and have to clear out,” Mychael
continued, “do what you can to keep them together… and well, as safe as you can.”

Piaras’s eyes had gotten progressively larger with each word. I couldn’t resist giving him a big slap on the back.

“No pressure on your first mission, huh? We get to find a mage who doesn’t want to be found while playing hide- and-seek with Khrynsani patrols. It sounds almost tame in comparison.”

Piaras looked at Mychael in mute appeal. Mychael was immune.

“I’m afraid that’s an order, Cadet Rivalin. There’s no way we’re taking those two with us, and for everyone’s safety and well-being, we can’t leave them here under their own supervision.”

Nath walked up and overheard. “You didn’t assign Mother to him? Damn, I was hoping for some backup.”

Tam smiled. “She too much for you?”

“And for you, too. Always has been. Speaking of too much to handle, you started the ball rolling that ruined Kesyn Badru’s career. If he spots you first, you might just find him quicker than you want to.”

Jash walked toward us carrying a stack of something dark. “Paladin, here are the clothes you requested.”

Mychael jerked his head at Piaras. “They’re for him.”

“Change out of my uniform, sir?”

“If you have to step foot outside of this house, what you’re wearing will get you killed. You’ll attract less danger to yourself and others if you get out of that uniform. A Guardian isn’t the uniform he wears, but the actions he takes.”

Piaras looked down at the pile of miscellaneous dark clothing topped by a quilted leather arming jacket with steel plates glinting dully on the underside. It wouldn’t keep out a bolt, but a crappy shot would probably be deflected. It would serve him well against most small-arms attacks. I’d prefer it if Piaras were encased in head-to-toe armor or, best of all, if he weren’t here at all, but this would have to do.

Talon appeared from around the corner. He’d changed out of his uniform, too. Talon wearing dark clothes in less- than-optimal condition made him look like a young highwayman who’d been too long between a good score—dashing, yet disreputable.

Talon picked distastefully at the frayed fabric. “I had to do the same thing.” He shrugged. “I’ve worn worse.” He brushed at mud that looked like it’d been on there a long time, and wasn’t coming off anytime soon. “Once.”

“It’s called blending in,” I told them both. “Sometimes being the center of attention only gets you killed first.”

“Then I’ll suffer the indignity,” Talon said.

“I thought you might.”

“One more thing, Cadets.” Mychael handed each of them a gorget. The steel collars were high enough to protect their throats with a bib of overlapping armored scales to keep a blade from going up underneath it.

Talon took the gorget, but held it with as few fingers as necessary. “And I would want to wear this because… ?”

“Because the preferred way to kill a spellsinger is with a bolt through the throat,” Tam told him.

Talon’s eyes got a little wide. “Got anything bigger? Even tackier, perhaps?”

“Where was the last place your teacher lived?” I asked Tam.

“The oldest section of the city, near the south wall.”

“One of my people told me that the Khrynsani have searched it before,” Imala said, “and still have it under surveillance.”

“We’ve also eliminated the next two most likely places Kesyn would be,” Tam said. “Jash says one burnt to the ground six months ago, the other is being used by the Khrynsani as a base of operations in the outer city.”

“Which leaves us with… ?” I prompted.

“One of the last places any of us want to go.”

Sneaking was best done at night.

But when the people you needed to avoid were goblins, broad daylight was the way to go.

It wasn’t like we were strolling down the middle of the street, but I still felt as naked as the day I was born. Though I had to admit there was something strangely liberating about doing my sneaking and death dodging on a sunny afternoon. It almost made me forget there was a humongous price on my head.

Almost.

Sarad Nukpana and his allies were in control of the city. Goblins weren’t fond of direct sunlight, so they stayed inside if at all possible. That simply meant we weren’t likely to see as many goblins on the streets, and any goblin out and about would be cloaked and hooded. Worked for us. Mychael and I could hide pale skin, ears, and eyes that were a color other than black. We were cowled, cloaked, and cautious.

Where Imala was leading us, we saw more rats than
goblins. In fact, we didn’t see anyone—but that didn’t mean no one was seeing us. Since it was the middle of the day, empty streets and shuttered shops shouldn’t be all that unusual. But too many of the shops I’d caught glimpses of through the alleys we’d passed weren’t just shuttered; they were closed, and looked like they had been that way for a while.

Imala noticed me noticing.

“The people are afraid,” she said. “My agents have told me that Sathrik no longer limits his arrests to magic users.”

I frowned. “I imagine the Saghred will take plain old souls when it can’t get the magic-flavored kind.”

Imala nodded. “Sathrik knows that the people of this city are more than capable of rising up against him. Those who are able and willing are helping us.”

“With the rest hiding behind locked doors until this is all over with.”

“The majority of goblins are peace loving. All we want is to live our lives and raise our families.”

“So where does the goblin national pastime of spying and intrigue fit into that?”

Imala smiled. “Between the living and raising parts.”

It didn’t look like this had always been the bad part of town. Though with Sarad Nukpana in charge, the entire city now shared that distinction. The town houses along the length of street we were on now looked for the most part as if they’d been abandoned, discarded for something new and trendy.

Kind of like what Tam had done to Kesyn Badru all those years ago.

And Tam felt responsible, at least to a point. Like many mage-wannabe teenagers, Tam had thought he wasn’t being taught fast enough. Pretty much without fail, teenagers were confident that they knew everything; they underestimated their limitations and overestimated their abilities.
Magic wasn’t only about casting spells and building wards; it was knowing when to do it—or, most important, when not to do it and why. That meant acknowledging your shortcomings, your weaknesses, and taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions—things a lot of egocentric, magically talented teenagers weren’t keen on doing.

Sarad Nukpana and Tam had both been Kesyn Badru’s students. Nukpana had chosen the dark path; Tam had rejected it—eventually. Now we were going to find Kesyn Badru and ask the guy to save civilization as we knew it by helping us.

By helping Tam.

Tam had reasoned that his former teacher would be hiding where no one would come looking for him—and he meant no one, not even Sarad Nukpana.

There was a house that was considered cursed, possessed, haunted, you name it; this place had it. And since the people doing the considering were goblins; that said a lot in my opinion. Before we’d left his house, Tam had given us the quick and dirty details on this place. People either went in and were never seen again, or they felt the sudden need to kill the friend who’d gone in with them. Down through the years, a few families had been stupid or suicidal enough to actually buy the place and move in. They ultimately came out in either coffins or straitjackets—and others had never come out at all. But the icing on the cake was when Tam told us that as a boy even Sarad Nukpana had been scared of the place. What scared you as a kid tended to stick. So if Kesyn Badru wanted to be left alone—and he did—there was no place he’d rather be.

Yeah, I saw this ending well. Kind of like Carnades being responsible for getting us safely home. Look how that had turned out.

We approached the house from the back, using a narrow side street that was little more than an alley running between the dark granite wall surrounding the house and separating
it from the one next door. Roots had grown up underneath the walls and street cobbles, making walking a challenge; and the dead leaves crunching underfoot made doing it quietly impossible.

I’d noticed that more than a few of the more affluent goblin homes had sharpened iron spikes along the tops of their walls. They might have been meant as a deterrent to thieves; or, heck, considering that these were goblin homes, they may have been meant to be decorative for all I knew.

This house’s wall didn’t have spikes. It had vines. Vines whose sole purpose appeared to be growing thorns the length of my fingers with the sharpness of my favorite stiletto. They weren’t decorative, at least not to me, but they were most definitely a deterrent. It told me one thing loud and clear—this house and Kesyn Badru did not want visitors. I wondered if he’d take into consideration that we didn’t want to be visitors. If we’d had any choice at all, we wouldn’t be lurking outside of the gates of his newly adopted home.

Above the wall and the thorns loomed a hedge. Beyond that I could just make out the house’s roofline with the rain gutters ending at the eaves of the house in honest-to-God gargoyles that looked like some sort of goat demons. The place had “evil villain hideout” written all over it. It made me wonder what Sarad Nukpana’s house looked like.

Unlike some of the other formerly fine homes we’d passed, there were no broken windows. Though with the overgrown bushes, I couldn’t see the downstairs windows, so neither could any wandering pack of Sathrik’s Khrynsani youth looking for some twisted fun. There wasn’t any shattered glass on the second and third floors, either. One of the king’s punks could have easily chucked a rock or ten that high. Either no one had the guts to try, or the house tossed rocks back at their throwers. Judging by the creepy-crawlies presently working their way up to my neck, either one was possible.

“So, based on your hunch, we’re going into a house that makes people kill their friends.”

Tam gave me a smile that looked more than a tad nervous. “Told you Regor was exciting.” The smile vanished. “Kesyn doesn’t consider me his friend; and I don’t want to find out what this place would make him do to a brat who helped ruin his life. So be glad you’re not me.”

I glanced at one of the goat demons again. “I’ve been glad I’m not you for quite some time.”

A rusted iron fence surrounded the grounds. By “grounds” I meant property. The place was so overgrown that I had no clue what the actual grounds looked like. A broken stone pathway led to what I assumed was the front door. I assumed because I couldn’t see it for all the under- and overgrowth. Once we got close enough, I saw that one of the front doors sported the same sign as Tam’s house—no trespassing by order of the king, resulting in death, dismemberment, etcetera. I wondered if the house had eaten the poor sot who had to nail the sign to the door.

The other door was opening slowly, complete with creepy creaking.

Normally, an open door would be a welcoming thing, but the knot in my gut found it even less welcoming than Sathrik’s death and dismemberment sign.

Tam started forward. Imala got a hand on his arm, stopping him.

“We’re dealing with a pissed-off mage who has who knows what lurking in those bushes. Plus, he hates you. And you propose to walk right up to a conveniently open door—”

“Which I don’t think the wind opened,” Mychael added. “Mainly because there isn’t any wind.”

“Psycho houses don’t need wind,” I muttered.

Mychael held a loaded crossbow pistol by his side, the tip of the small but lethal bolt bright with magic. I hadn’t even seen him draw it.

“Think it’s an invitation from a Khrynsani patrol?” he asked.

Tam’s gaze grew distant. “I don’t sense any.”

“And I don’t smell any,” Imala added. “Would Kesyn Badru know if you were here?”

Tam tensed. “He always did.”

My body decided to have itself a good shiver. “Well, that leaves either psycho house and/or psycho goblin.”

Mychael’s sharp eyes were fixed somewhere beyond that open door. “Okay, Tam. He was your teacher. How do you want to play it?”

“I’m going in. Alone.”

“No one goes anywhere without backup.”