Blood of Innocents (Book Two of the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence) (18 page)

Rebecci smiled. “Of course.”

“What can simple traders do?”

“You already know that’s not true,” countered Rebecci with a smirk. “Anyway, here is my proposal. Listen and decide.”

She stood, revealing two weighty-looking leather sacks on her chair, which had been hidden under her skirt. She lifted one, depositing it on the table with a thump, and a distinctly coin-like clink.

“Gold,” she said.

The second sack joined the first, with a similar sound.

“Silver.”

Rebecci placed her glass gently beside them. “The Indryallan God-Emperor will be here in three days’ time. I enjoin you to gather as many loyal men and women as you can and leave the city. I know there are ways, and that is what the ducats are for. Travel down the coast for seven days then wait. We will find you, and explain more then.”

She looked at Avigdor then turned to regard Felice, eyes flinty. “If you do not, you will most likely die.”

Felice slid the knife out of her boot and stood. She looked at the heavy sacks filled with ducats then back at Rebecci.

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

“No? It’s what will come before that should worry you.”

Felice knew she couldn’t face a sorcerer with just her knife. She didn’t have much choice but to let her leave. “I need to know what’s going on. You owe us an explanation.”

Rebecci shook her head, looking unconcerned at Felice’s defiance. “In good time.”

“Please… I need to know what’s going on.”

“All you need to know is that they will find you. Make a move against them, and it’s all over for you. But I see you remain sceptical, an excellent trait, in moderation. Perhaps a demonstration is in order. Remember, gather your people and get out. You have three days.”

Felice thought Rebecci’s eyes flashed. Pain as sharp as a needle split her skull, and she cried out. Her glass fell from nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor.

She slumped, as if poleaxed, hearing Avigdor utter a wordless howl.

Pressure in her head threatened to explode. Darkness overwhelmed her.

•

Felice woke on the wooden floor, her skull throbbing with remembered pain. She sat up. Rebecci was nowhere to be seen. The door gaped open.

A trickle of blood dripped from her left nostril into her open mouth. With the back of a hand, she wiped at her top lip, then at the drool on her chin.

“Avigdor,” she croaked weakly.

She struggled to her feet and lurched over to where he drooped in his chair. He was alive, pulse still strong, but he remained unconscious.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she lurched to the table and gulped from Rebecci’s discarded wine glass. In a few moments, she felt better; the pain in her head receded to a manageable level.

Stumbling, she collapsed into her chair and placed her aching head in her hands.

By the ancestors, what in the world is going on?

Chapter Ten

They buried the soldiers in shallow graves a fair distance from the west road, not wanting to be seen digging by passersby, whose questions would be difficult to answer.

Afterwards, they got the wagon rolling, joining the road and heading west. No one spoke for the rest of the morning.

That night Caldan approached Bells again after he’d spent some time trying to get Miranda to eat. Miranda only managed a few spoonfuls before keeping her lips closed and refusing to eat any more. Caldan felt he could already see she’d lost weight. Her skin had lost its vitality and looked dull, and her face lifeless.

“What should I be looking at?” asked Caldan, moving one of Bells’ crafted bells out of his shadow and into the sunlight. Its surface was covered with hair-fine runes, as was the inside. A faint tinkle filled the wagon.

Bells had been surprisingly cooperative since their fight with the sorcerer, oddly so. It was almost as if she were glad the man had been killed.

She rolled her eyes and growled in frustration. “Can’t you see it? It’s a wonder of modern
crafting
theory, that’s what. And I did it. Me.”

Caldan peered inside the bell. “I still don’t see it. But then I don’t know what half the runes are for.”

“Of course you don’t. I’m not surprised, with these sorcerers of yours teaching you. I thought the Protectors might have more knowledge, but it looks like they’ve turned stagnant as well.”

“I was only an apprentice, remember.”

Bells huffed her displeasure. “I’m teaching you as fast as I can, but I’ve no knack for it. It would be better if you went to Indryalla to study.” She smiled at him.

“That’s not going to happen. All I need to know is how to heal Miranda. Anything else can wait.”

“Fine. But like I told you, there are people far better at this than me. I know the basics, but intricate coercive sorcery is beyond me.”

“Are you saying you don’t think you know how to heal her mind?”

“No, I didn’t say that. Just that it might take longer than I thought.”

“Are you stalling for time?”

“No, you fool-born minnow! You promised to release me when she’s healed, so why would I stall for time? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Not much you have done so far has made sense.”

“To me it has. Your empire is a foul beast, out of control, sucking the life from its citizens.”

“It’s not mine. I didn’t grow up there. But enough of that.” Caldan’s head was starting to ache, as it always did after working so hard with complicated sorcery. He breathed deeply. “Go over her illness again; maybe there’s something you missed.”

Bells shook her head. “Again?”

“Just do it, no complaints.”

Bells rolled her eyes at him. “As you wish. Then tonight, maybe you could untie me. It gets cold at night.”

“No,” said Caldan firmly.

With a shrug of her shoulders, Bells gave up. “Coercive sorcery isn’t about bludgeoning your way into someone’s mind. Despite what it feels like,” she added after a look from Caldan. “It takes a lot of finesse. Juggling multiple threads from your well is hard. Most sorcerers can’t manage more than five. A very few can handle seven, even less eight or more. And the more strings you control, the less power they have, depending on your well, of course. Coercive sorcery requires at least seven threads split from a well, and a deft handling of each.”

She stopped. “Could I have some water, please.”

Caldan retrieved a waterskin from their provisions and squirted a stream into Bells’ open mouth.

“You’re a good little Protector.”

“Go on.”

“Two threads for yourself: one to hold onto your well, with another to hold onto your consciousness.”

Caldan nodded to himself. She had told him this before. “I called them strings. We were only progressing to them in my training, with generating a shield.”

Bells shrugged. “As good a word as any, I suppose. Another thread has to carry the others, for insertion. And as I’ve said, this one is hard to describe; you need a lot of practice on willing subjects before you can master that technique.”

Her use of the term ‘willing subjects’ disturbed him, as it had when she’d mentioned it before, but he let her continue.

“It carries the other threads, like a rope of many strands, covering them and allowing them to enter the person’s mind undamaged. Then the other threads can do their work, suppressing a person’s actions, memories, implanting suggestions, even taking control.”

“Go over what you think has happened to Miranda again.”

“I don’t think; I know what’s happened. Backlash. Keys…” Her voice caught in her throat. She stopped and looked at her lap.

Caldan knew he wouldn’t get much from her for a while; a number of times she had mentioned Keys and gone quiet. He thought of what she had said, probing it from different angles, examining the information to see if he could make sense of it.

Last time he had questioned her, she had spoken of the backlash, when a coercive sorcery link to someone was severed prematurely. With one swift rush, the threads, or strings, as he knew them, cut at one end, would whip back into the person’s mind. Each thread might either thrash around before fading or remain joined with a person’s consciousness in some sort of symbiotic relationship. Damage could be either permanent or temporary, fading with time that could drag out to years. She said Miranda’s damage was temporary, but then she would; it gave him a compelling reason to keep Bells around and not just deliver her to the next Protectors he met.

As far as Bells could describe, Miranda’s mind wasn’t so much damaged as confused. Her thoughts were scrambled, both conscious and subconscious.

He didn’t have much choice but to go along with her assessment, no matter how slight a chance he had to try and heal Miranda. He couldn’t bear the thought of her remaining in this state for the rest of her life.

A lump formed in his throat. He realized she had become important to him, more than he had let on to her.

Caldan attempted to change their conversation to a different topic, to distract Bells from her sorrowful thoughts about Keys. “You said the man that attacked us wouldn’t be the only one to come. Why would he have tracked us on his own?”

Lifting her head, Bells wiped her eyes with her bound hands, which shook slightly. Constant chafing from the rope left her wrists red and sore, and Caldan could see dried blood in a few places. He didn’t like what they were doing to her, but it was necessary, he told himself.

“They shouldn’t have sent Mahsonn after me,” Bells mused softly. “They should have known, if I’d been captured, he wouldn’t be enough to…” Her words trailed off.

Wouldn’t be enough to rescue you, Caldan finished for her. Which means they made a token effort and didn’t care if she returned. Is this part of a power struggle, or something else?

Bells averted her gaze and continued. “When this is over, I’ll have their heads. He was only a Bleeder, but still…”

That was the second time she’d called the sorcerer by that name. “A Bleeder? What’s that?” Though Caldan could guess, judging from the state of the soldiers the sorcerer had killed.

“What and why… One question you want answered, and one I do.” She looked away, distressed.

“What’s a Bleeder?” he repeated.

“A sorcerer.” She sighed and shook her head. “One of a very few actually. Not a powerful talent, but rare. Only useful when killing is involved. A sorcerer who is born with a weak well, narrow and rough, is sometimes able to focus their power into tiny threads. This talent, combined with a talent to control many of these threads, makes a Bleeder. And I mean a lot of threads. More than most sorcerers can. I say ‘most’, but what I mean is almost all.” She let out a short, ironic laugh. “A talent any sorcerer would kill to have in someone of almost useless power. Fate can be unkind. They are usually bitter and twisted, and Mahsonn certainly was.”

“That’s what caused the buzzing? Many separate threads.”

“Good little Protector.”

Her insult no longer had venom in it. Caldan fancied she wasn’t as angry as when first captured. The sting of losing Keys, though still raw, could be fading. Or she might be acting. He closed his eyes, thoughts running in circles.

Abruptly, he stood, head brushing the canvas covering the wagon.

“What do you want?” he asked simply.

Bells smiled at him, a grin that seemed both feral and knowing.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

•

Elpidia had hoped to spend time conducting experiments after obtaining a sample of Caldan’s blood. She’d imagined long days of grinding herbs and distilling alchemical compounds; long nights of note-taking and careful investigation and examination; working on different formulas while keeping an eye on her little mice for any change to their condition. She fancied her fire crackling in the background, a hot kettle for whenever she needed a reviving drink. Then, one day soon, a breakthrough. A mouse whose sores receded, rash and scabs fading. A mouse that was cured, miraculously free of disease.

She opened her eyes and looked around. A campfire waning to coals. Caldan and Amerdan fast asleep. She didn’t trust the shopkeeper since he’d killed the sorcerer who’d come after Bells. What she’d seen was… unnatural, as if sorcery wasn’t bad enough. From speaking to Caldan, she knew Amerdan wasn’t a sorcerer, so he had to have a
trinket
that gave him certain powers; it was the obvious conclusion. She didn’t care, as long as he didn’t interfere with her experiments. She rubbed her hands and fingers nervously. Soon they would be in Riversedge and she could start, and the prospect both excited and filled her with dread. Either she’d succeed or she’d die.

Bells was tied to a tree close by, in case she had needs during the night. Beside Elpidia was a stout leather case containing her traveling kit. Inside were small portions of common herbs, along with alchemical compounds, and implements for basic medical procedures. In short, a far cry from her home, and nowhere near the equipment and materials she needed to conduct her trials.

Drawing her knees to her chest, she rocked back and forth. Tears trickled down her face, and sobs escaped her trembling lips, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them. If she couldn’t conduct any experiments, she had to at least try something.

She wiped her eyes with quick jerky movements. Opening her leather kit, she carefully drew out a vial, the liquid contents dark in the poor light. Gently, she unscrewed the stopper, muttering to herself.

She raised her hand, extended her little finger, and hesitated. With a low moan of distress, she dipped the finger into the vial. It came out covered in thick blood, and she gazed at it for a moment, before placing it in her mouth and sucking greedily.

Elpidia returned the vial to her kit and made herself comfortable. Sleep was a long time coming. The metallic, salty taste of Caldan’s blood remained with her until she nodded off.

•

The last two days, farms and homesteads, inns and small villages had become more numerous, until the whole countryside was covered with fields and paddocks, along with sheds and houses. Sure signs they were approaching a large city.

Traffic on the road increased as well, numerous smaller roads joining theirs until there was always someone in sight, either in front or behind them. Dust constantly swirled in the air around them, clogging their nostrils, and the reek of horse and cattle dung baking in the sun made their eyes water. After Elpidia covered her face with a kerchief, Bells requested the same, and both Caldan and Amerdan followed suit. Miranda became agitated when they tried to tie one around her face, constantly clawing it away until they gave up and let her be.