Mage's Blood (87 page)

‘You’re insane – Cera will have you beheaded!’

Elena gestured, and one of the pokers flew to her hand.
Great Kore, let me be right
…

She showed the girl the glowing tip—

—in an instant the princessa’s face changed. She issued a throaty snarl as she lunged and snapped with pointed, glistening teeth suddenly inches long.
Breakthrough!
Elena had been half-expecting something of the sort and darted to one side even as a barbed tongue erupted from the girl’s mouth and shot at her. It hit her shields and retracted.

The snapping face hissed and snarled impotently, the tongue flailing, as arms and legs suddenly corded with muscle strained against the manacles. The manacles sparked as binding runes prevented the shapeshifter from getting free, although Elena saw her trying desperately, her limbs becoming fluid, though never quite enough for her to pull herself free. The shifter spat in frustrated fury.

Elena spun the poker in her hand. ‘Coin, I believe?’ She spoke a spell of Negation to disrupt the prisoner’s morphic-gnosis, and reinforced the magical bindings. The shapeshifter’s attempts to escape became weaker. Her shift was torn and bloodied by the gore discharged as she tried to alter herself – but she could not get free.

The prisoner subsided into sullen defeat and the muscles of a few seconds before wasted away, revealing a new body: thin, pinched and strangely genderless. Lank red hair was plastered to a bony skull and pallid eyes glittered under delicate brows. Elena swiftly cast a renewed Chain-rune, locking the new form in place: this was the prisoner’s real shape, and the last face Fernando Tolidi had seen.

‘You are in so much trouble, bitch,’ the prisoner whined.

‘Not as much as you are.’ She held the red-hot poker tip to her prisoner’s eyes, close enough for the heat to make her cringe. ‘What can I call you?’

‘I am Coin,’ the shapeshifter conceded, looking away.

Coin
,
the legendary shapeshifter
: male or female, ageless: a perfect affinity with one of the most demanding and exacting of all gnosis studies – the sort of perfect affinity you had to be slightly insane to even possess. Reputedly too expensive to hire, and connected all the way to the top. The
very
top.

‘What are you doing here, Coin? How could Gurvon afford you?’

The – girl? boy? woman? man? – scowled contemptuously. ‘My patron wished Gyle’s mission to succeed. I was a gift to Gyle for the duration of the mission.’

An imperial connection, then. Elena dampened the fear that thought brought and concentrated on her prisoner. Coin might be a master shapeshifter, but appeared emotionally brittle and completely terrified of physical harm, of pain. Elena sighed in relief; she’d been dreading having to torture the truth out of some close-mouthed fanatic. Coin looked willing to speak with little more coercion.

‘I need to know everything about you, Coin: who are you, your name, your gender. How old are you, who were your parents – what can you do and not do? And where is the real Solinde?’

‘You touch me with that and my patron will carve your soul for all eternity,’ Coin hissed, eyeing the glowing poker with terrified bravado.

‘That won’t help you much, though, will it?’ Elena raised the poker and pushed it to within an inch of Coin’s belly. ‘Knowing it’s just you and not Solinde has removed any remorse I might feel – so speak—’

Coin eyed the poker, sweating profusely, trembling in the manacles. Her voice shook. ‘My mother will kill you!’

Your mother?

Coin tried to clam up, facing Elena defiantly, but was unable to look away from the glowing metal.

Elena was still loathe to actually harm Coin, but she thought a little humiliation might be all it would take …

She reached out and wrenched at the torn shift, which ripped
away easily, revealing an emaciated body and unmistakable, if tiny, breasts. Elena blinked, her eyes drawn downwards to a shrunken penis with no scrotum, and the pubic mound beneath it instead strangely slitted.

Great Kore
…

The shifter was neither male nor female; Coin was both.

A hermaphrodite – no wonder he or she is capable of both genders
…
Sol et Lune!
And then, almost unbidden, she found herself feeling a great wash of sympathy:
What must it do to you, a deformed thing with pure-blooded gnosis
—

Elena turned away, shaken. There were freak-shows in Rondelmar where people with birth defects were paraded for entertainment, but this sort of defect on a mage – the implications were horrible.

‘Got an eyeful?’ Coin sneered defensively. ‘Excited, bitch?’

Elena turned back. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said honestly.

Coin’s face twisted with scorn. ‘Oh, really – how
rukking
humane of you.’

Elena wiped her brow, wondering,
What must it be like, to be such a one? But there is too much at stake to feel pity, damn it
. ‘Where is Gurvon Gyle?’ she asked calmly.

Coin spat at her and Elena hefted the poker, readying herself to use it, when she heard a voice call from outside the door, ‘Ella?’

‘Wait!’ she called, but Cera appeared at the door, holding her key. She froze when she saw the skinny naked body chained to the wall and realised that it wasn’t Solinde. Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘
Sol et Lune!
’

‘This is the shapeshifter we hypothesised,’ Elena said quietly. ‘This is Coin.’

‘Then where is Solinde?’ Cera asked, as her eyes took in the strange being in the manacles. She shook her head disbelievingly.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Elena said, then added firmly, ‘Cera, I really don’t think you should watch this.’

Cera looked at her and then at the poker in her hand and backed away. Then she swallowed and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I should.’

Elena shook her head. ‘No – wait downstairs, please. If we can parade a shifter in front of the Dome-al’Ahm tomorrow, the whole of Javon will rise to shihad and Gurvon’s mission to keep Javon out of the war will fail irrevocably – not to mention the secrets this creature must know. It is too late tonight, but tomorrow you can show Coin to the people and they will be yours to command.’

Cera stared at her, clenching and unclenching her fists, her face white. ‘Will Gyle try to stop us?’

‘If he knows she’s here, almost certainly. If he doesn’t, all the better!’ She felt a bubble of triumph, but suppressed it. There was still the night to survive. ‘Are the men-at-arms in position?’

Cera nodded. ‘The courtyard is full of Nesti fighting men; all the entrances are sealed.’ She dangled the key. ‘Only I can admit anyone now.’

Elena nodded. ‘And Lorenzo?’

‘He’s downstairs.’ Cera’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Elena, are you and he more than friends?’

Elena glanced at her, unsure why this question had come up. It had the feeling of a test … ‘This isn’t the time or the place, Cera. We are colleagues, working to protect you and Timi.’

‘Really?’ Cera asked, her voice hinting at doubt.

Elena closed her eyes.
I have no time for this
. She opened them again and looked at Cera.
I’ll tell her the full truth later
. ‘Please Cera, I must question this creature now.’

Cera looked at Coin. ‘It would have been better had Corineus never lived,’ she said bleakly.

Elena bowed her head. ‘Sometimes I agree,’ she admitted.

Cera backed away with a distraught look and was gone.

Elena watched her leave, troubled by the exchange.
I’ve put so much on her – too much. She is only eighteen, for Kore’s sake. But this will be over tomorrow. Once Javon is irrevocably tied to the shihad, the game is over, and nothing Gurvon can do will make any difference. He will be forced to concede and leave – and then I will leave too, so that any revenge is directed solely at me
.

She turned back to the hermaphrodite, fighting her sympathy for
this strange creature. ‘All right, Coin, it’s time to talk.’

The shifter eyed the poker fearfully, tears in its eyes, and whispered, ‘If you don’t hurt me, I will secure your safety. My patron can protect you.’

‘Really?’ Elena replaced the poker in the brazier and put her hands on hips. ‘All right then, I will allow you the chance to be honest with me. Tell me: who is this patron?’

‘Mater-Imperia Lucia,’ Coin said. ‘She’s my mother.’

Elena sat on the floor, her back against the wall, staring at the dying brazier. Coin, chained to the wall opposite, slumbered uncomfortably. She had draped blankets over the hermaphrodite against the cold, and to give her back a shred of dignity.

Great Kore, this is Mater-Imperia’s child
, she thought again, still struggling to take everything in. Coin – initially named Yvette, despite the non-gender – was a secret child, known to only a discreet few. Most likely she was a deformed freak because she’d been conceived of incest: her father was Lucia’s now-dead brother Henri Fasterius; this family shame had been hidden deep. But Coin was a mage of huge but very specialised power, too valuable to simply dispose of.

Elena had been right: Coin had supplanted Solinde, but lost control during sex with Fernando Tolidi, and killed him to preserve her secret. Coin claimed to have no idea whether the real Solinde was alive or dead, nor what Gurvon’s plans were. No wonder, having been effectively removed from the game.
But now
…
what a bargaining chip! In the right hands in Pallas, this piece of information could bring down the Fasterius-Sacrecour dynasty
.

Elena’s mind reeled as she explored the possibilities. The night crawled past. She had bricked up the windows of the tower to prevent any Air-magi entering, and had warded the entire stonework, to prevent someone simply bombarding it. The doorways were protected with wards and bindings and gnostic traps, so right now, Jade Tower was the most impregnable place in Brochena. But who knew what resources Gurvon had?

Hours passed. She sensed the descent of the moon and the distant
throb of power that was the approaching sunrise; dawn was coming, and still the enemy had made no move.
Perhaps Gurvon doesn’t know Coin is here after all? Perhaps I really am a step ahead this time
…

Footsteps climbed the stairs outside and turned the door handle and Elena stood and strode to the door. ‘Cera?’

The door opened. It wasn’t Cera. A robed figure faced her, bearing the iron cross-staff of an Inquisition Grandmaster. The bland-faced man was expressionless as he took stock of the room, not moving his head or his eyes, which he kept focused on her.

A Grandmaster, and therefore an Ascendant – but I’d have felt it if he broke my wards
…
so someone let him in
…

Always have a plan – but how could I plan for this?

The Grandmaster gestured with a finger and a wave of force threw her against the walls of the cell. She twisted in midair and struck feet-first. Beside her, Coin too was slammed against the brickwork, screaming soundlessly, helpless within the Chain-rune.

Elena kicked off the walls and somersaulted to the centre of the room, then, leaving an image of herself there, she blurred left and fired off an energy-bolt whilst triggering the six crossbows she had hung from wires attached to the ceiling. Each crossbow turned and tracked the Inquisitor as he lifted his staff, ignoring her illusion and shielding her gnostic-bolt effortlessly.

He slammed another pulse of force at her, hammering her against the wall again and she hit hard, her lungs emptying in a bellow of pain. Something cracked in her ribcage. Then a wave of fire washed towards her as she struggled back to her feet and she flew sideways. The blast of heat ripped past her shoulder and charred bricks in one of the blocked windows.

The six crossbows discharged at once, hammering impotently into his shields, but before she could trigger them to reload he blasted them with flames, snapping bowstrings and setting fire to the wooden stocks. Elena flowed on, circling faster, her blade in hand. More fire washed through another illusion she spun, roasting empty air. She cloaked her form in darkness and went at him.

Let’s see if you know how to fight
—

But she never got close; he turned straight towards her, piercing her cloaking spell so effortlessly she realised that he’d been tracking her all along. He raised an open-palmed hand and clenched it shut and the air about her congealed, gripping her as if in a giant fist, then it snatched her up and hammered her head-first into the ceiling.

Plaster and wood splintered about her shields, and she flailed about desperately, but she couldn’t gain purchase – then she was mashed feet-first into the stone floor before she could realign her shields. Her right ankle shattered in a burst of white-hot agony that jolted through her. The sword flew from her hand as she splattered against the floor like a squashed bug.

She fought for air through a mist of pain as the Ascendant, his face now showing utter contempt, moved his right hand again, this time picking her up and flinging her at the far wall. Her left shoulder-blade cracked as she battered into the stone. Her head struck hard and the room dissolved in stars for a few seconds as she flopped helplessly, still trying to breathe. Above her, Coin watched with a gloating smile as the Inquisitor walked towards her leisurely, as if she were no more threat than a dormouse, and never had been.

One last try
…

She triggered the release of the Chain-rune on Coin—

—and
leapt
—

—not with her body, so badly broken, but with her soul—

Abruptly her perspective changed: she was hanging from the wall on gnosis-bound manacles, naked, in a strange body, and staring down at the blanket on the floor, which had been blasted away by the Inquisitor’s Air-gnosis. The blanket was lying beside a motionless body: Elena’s own. She felt Coin’s panic at her intrusion, trying to resist, but she was overmatched by Elena’s desperation and experience.

The Inquisitor – Coin knew him as Fraxis Targon – turned towards Coin as he saw Elena Anborn’s body go limp. He lifted his hand and the bindings on her wrists fell away. His eyes finally showed an emotion: concern, for the child of Mater-Imperia Lucia. ‘Yvette,’ he said, bending to pick up the fallen blanket to cover the prisoner.