The Return of Nightfall (5 page)

“Nothing weird and magical-looking? No burns or oddly shaped bruises?”

Brandon shook his head. “They look like stab wounds to me, too. But we can’t be sure.”

“No,” Nightfall admitted. “You’re never sure with magic.” He had once faced a sorcerer who could freeze a man’s head, then shatter it like the ice it had become. With a distant motion, Gilleran had opened an agonizing gash from Nightfall’s hipbone to his buttocks. At a man’s throat, that same spell might prove immediately fatal. The natal talents spanned beyond his imagination. The so-called “gifted,” like Brandon and himself, each had only one special ability; but the sorcerers could juggle an assortment, limited only by the number and type of talent-cursed souls they could steal from their victims’ writhing bodies. They especially enjoyed hunting down one another, as the ritual slaughter of another sorcerer meant gaining all the harnessed souls of the loser. That was the Magebane’s salvation. It meant the sorcerers dared not reveal themselves or band together, even to destroy such an obvious and self-proclaimed threat.

Nightfall continued, “Besides, it doesn’t matter how a sorcerer creates panic and suffering in his victim. Any type of severe emotional distress or excruciating pain brings the soul and its talent to the surface.”

Brandon and Gatiwan stared at Nightfall, who suddenly wished he had not said anything. “What?” he demanded.

“You speak,” Brandon said, barely above a whisper, “like a man with firsthand experience.”

Nightfall did not like the Magebane’s implications. He had spent all of his life hiding his talent. Even Alyndar’s king knew only that Nightfall had some sort of birth gift that sorcerers wanted. Nightfall would not reveal himself to two men he hardly knew. “Are you accusing me of having a natal gift? Or of being a sorcerer?”

Brandon’s homely features opened questioningly. “You tell us which.”

“Neither,” Nightfall lied, then added, “but if either were the case, you know I’d have to give you the same answer.”

“So just tell the truth,” Gatiwan suggested.

Nightfall noted the serious expressions on the men’s faces and mentally tracked the locations of the throwing knives he always carried. “How do you know I’m not?”

Brandon kept his voice steady and intense, though low. “Because when you first came to me, you needed something to help you fight a sorcerer who had attacked you and your master.”

Gatiwan took over, the somberness of his expression highlighting the scar across his face. “If King Edward the Enthusiastic had a natal talent, he’d have displayed it for the world in the excitement of righting some injustice.”

Nightfall tried to divert the conversation. “He prefers King Edward the
Just
.”

Brandon managed a smile. “When he’s old enough to temper some of that zeal with wisdom, he’ll probably earn the nickname he wants. Until then—” Apparently recognizing Nightfall’s successful tactic, Brandon returned to the matter at hand. “Are you a sorcerer or gifted?”

Gatiwan did not wait for an answer before adding in a voice like the crackle of old parchment. “Because it wouldn’t be the first time Alyndar chose a sorcerer for a chancellor.”

Nightfall knew the truth of that statement only too well. Though accustomed to being considered a murderous demon, comparisons to that heartless, conniving monster called Gilleran made even Nightfall ill. “I’m not a sorcerer.”

“If you were a sorcerer, you’d say the same.” Gatiwan reminded Nightfall in his own words.

“If I were a sorcerer,” Nightfall corrected, “I’d kill my hell-damned, disgusting, slimy, hideous self.”

Brandon laughed. “Believe it or not, I actually met a sorcerer with the self-control to never act on his birthright. And I didn’t kill him.” As if to catch Nightfall unaware, he asked quickly, “So what’s your talent?”

“Even if I had one, I . . .” Nightfall started.

They finished in unison, “. . . would have to deny it.”

With clear reluctance, Gatiwan returned to the case. “Byroth’s the fourth child in a month.”

That caught Nightfall’s attention. As rare as the natal gifts were, it seemed highly unlikely a small city like Schiz could harbor four children with them. Of course, since those with the talents hid them for their own safety, no one really knew exactly how frequently they occurred. The best and most often quoted estimate was one in a thousand people bore natal gifts and, perhaps, one in five thousand had a bent for sorcery. “Tell me about the others.”

Brandon ran a hand through his dark curls. “First one happened a year or so ago. Playmate of Byroth’s, seven years old, drowned in the creek.”

Though tragic, it seemed fairly commonplace. “What makes you think a sorcerer was involved?”

“I didn’t at the time.” The Magebane continued to finger-comb his hair, dislodging bits of bark and sand. “In hindsight, I noted a couple of suspicious things. The boy had a nasty head wound. The healer thought it might have happened afterward, when the current drove the body into a rock, but they found an awful lot of blood on the bank for it to have come from a corpse already dead. He had many bruises, but the ones around his neck seemed impossible for jutting rocks to have caused.”

Nightfall was impressed. “You really delve into the details, don’t you?”

Brandon’s fingers stilled. “I do this for a living, remember? And these killings happened on my home territory.”

“And the second one?” Nightfall tossed his own hair, cut short and plastered in Alyndar’s style. He no longer missed the wild, filthy tangles he had worn in Nightfall guise and as Marak, nor Frihiat’s bleached curtain, nor even the merchant Balshaz’ neat locks. He had learned to appreciate the accuracy not having to peer around a chaotic frenzy of snarls added to his already deadly aim.

“An infant.” Gatiwan cringed, and his face screwed up as if he might cry. “Stolen from its crib in the night and found mangled nearby the next day.”

Brandon lowered his head.

Nightfall examined the facts critically. He had suffered and inflicted too much evil to feel anything for a baby he knew only in the abstract. “Did it have a talent?”

Brandon raised his shoulders. “We don’t know for sure. Proud parents. First baby after years of marriage. They took him to a lot of gatherings. They think he must have done something in front of someone—could have been anyone. An uncle believes the baby might have given him a wicked pinch, and an aunt says he could have caused a flash of light.” Brandon let his shoulders drop. “All after the fact, of course, so it’s hard to know if they really remember these things or are just searching for some logic to a hateful act.”

“Or telling us what they think we want to hear,” Gatiwan added. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Brandon nodded. “They just want to help.”

“Some help.” Nightfall wondered how many ignorant people would prefer to believe a loved one died for the wicked desires of a sorcerer rather than without any cause at all. They had no way of knowing how the sorcerers bound the souls to their bidding, how the natally gifted suffered even after death until the sorcerer either died or the soul “burned out” and the sorcerer lost that particular talent. “And the third one?”

“Eleven-year-old.” Gatiwan fully regained his composure. “Had a knack for getting her little brothers and sisters to sleep.” He added suggestively, “An inhuman knack.”

“A clear talent,” Nightfall guessed.

“It’s a wonder she made it to eleven.” Brandon removed his hand from his hair, the curls popping back into disarray. “Though sorcerers tend to avoid coming this close to where I live.”

“Except the really stupid ones.” Gatiwan gave Nightfall another searching look, as if to remind him they had not yet ascertained whether or not he might be one.

Nightfall ignored the insinuation “Was she stabbed, too?”

“Stoned, apparently.” Brandon shifted from foot to foot. “Found her wedged in a ravine covered with bruises and surrounded by rocks.”

“Brutal,” Nightfall said. In all his days as the demon, he had never murdered a child and no one in such a cruel fashion. “But there’s only one way to know whether these killings might be related.”

When the other two men just stared, Nightfall finished.

“Find out if Byroth has a talent. If at least two of the children did, that’s a pretty clear sign.”

“He won’t tell us,” Gatiwan reminded.

“Then,” Nightfall said, “we might want to start with his parents.”

 

Though tidy and sparsely furnished, the main room of Byroth’s family cottage felt dangerously closed in to Nightfall. He had let Brandon take the most secure position, a stool pressed against one wall that granted him a full view of the fireplace, both windows, and the door. Nightfall understood the Magebane’s need to see any danger before it struck and did not want to seem similarly hunted. Consequently, he found himself peering out the window at his back at intervals, unable to grant the parents his full attention. Gatiwan had chosen to sit on a storage chest between one of the windows and the door, while the mother hunkered on a rickety stepladder leading to an overhead loft. In two places, the main room opened onto children’s bedrooms. Byroth’s five sisters slept in one. The other still held the bloody straw pallet that had served as his bed.

Byroth’s father had chosen a seat on the floor where he rocked himself like a fearful toddler. A large man with work-callused hands and strong arms, he now looked more like a lost child. His wiry hair lay wildly snarled, and he had not shaved in several days.

The mother had clearly made more of an effort to appear presentable in front of important company. Her black hair was neatly pressed, braided, and twisted on top of her head; and she wore a clean, if simple, shift. Her hands twisted in her lap, never still. “What can I tell you?” she asked expectantly. Though she had relived the terror more than once, she obviously hoped these professionals might find answers where others had failed.

Gatiwan’s usually gruff manner softened. “We know this is hard for you, madam. We’re just wondering if you could tell us what happened three nights ago.”

The woman looked at her husband, who continued to weave back and forth, eyes unfocused. “Jawar’s not handling this well,” she explained. “Five daughters and only one stillborn son till Byroth came.”

Nightfall nodded encouragingly. To a manual laborer, having strong assistants was important, and none came cheaper than one’s own male offspring.

“He doted on the boy. Best friends, they did almost everything but sleep together.”

Jawar murmured to no one in particular. “Nothing, nothing on this fair earth is precisely as it seems . . .”

All eyes jerked to the father.

Byroth’s mother apologized. “He’s been babbling since the attack.”

“. . . the placid plow horse, the deadly mosquito growing on a crystal pond . . .”

Politely, the visitors ignored the father’s ramblings while the mother returned to the unanswered question. “We had gone out that night, as we often do, to the docks. That’s where would-be storytellers, poets, and philosophers try out their ideas.”

It was a long-standing tradition, Nightfall knew. As Frihiat, he had come there often, and the bartenders frequently attended, hoping to discover new talent. Occasionally, they did find someone worth paying, in coin or board, to entertain their customers. Frihiat had never made the cut, though Nightfall had used the persona to tell good enough stories to earn drinks from fellow patrons.

“The children were all fine on our return. All peacefully asleep.” The mother gestured at the two rooms leading off from the one they now occupied. We went up to bed.” She made a sweeping upward motion to indicate climbing the ladder on which she now perched. “Later that night, Jawar said he heard something outside and went to investigate. I had fallen back to sleep when I heard Byroth scream. I was scared, so I waited for Jawar to handle it. But when the screaming continued, I sneaked down to see. She swallowed hard, and tears obscured her eyes. “I saw . . . I saw . . . oh, Byroth—” She folded her face into her hands, the rest of her description muffled. “I heard a scuffle, a shout. By the time I dared to tear aside the doorway covering, Jawar had chased the assassin out the window and was cradling our little boy. Both covered in blood. On the walls, the straw, the floor. More on the window ledge, and I thought I saw a man’s shadow disappearing into the night.”

“You’re sure it was a man?” Brandon interjected, their only clue thus far to the identity of the sorcerer.

“It could have been a large boy or woman. A trick of shadow.” The mother heaved a heavy sigh. “I was too focused on my loved ones to pay much attention.” Finally, she looked up. Moisture still blurred her eyes, but they held a deep hardness, a glint of hatred. “Whoever did this must be caught and punished.” She turned her attention to her husband, and her look softened. “I believe Jawar saw the man who tried to kill our son, maybe even wrestled with him. But he’s too distressed to talk.”

Apparently believing himself addressed, Jawar muttered, “The bond between man and daughter is sacred; but the son, the son, is his true reflection.”

“To talk
coherently,
“ she corrected.

Gatiwan directed his gaze fully upon Byroth’s mother. “So he’s not making sense to you either?”

She sucked in another lungful of air.“Not since the . . . incident. He just sits there, quoting the poets and philosophers from the docks.” She added, clearly to provoke her husband to anger if not reason, “I had always believed him a strong man who could handle terrible things better than me.”

Brandon Magebane swooped to the father’s defense. “It may not be his fault. The sorcerer might have inflicted some sort of spell on him.”

The mother stiffened. “Sorcerer,” she said weakly. “You think it might have been—?”

“We don’t know.” Gatiwan stretched his legs out in front of him. “We’re here to try to figure that out.” He did not mention that, if not, their interest in the case would evaporate. At the least, it would free Nightfall from his obligation.