The Tainted City (43 page)

He found a memory of himself, looking strained but imperious, standing in a dingy room with crudely warded walls.
I wish to leave Ninavel and cross the Alathian border in secret. No one must know my identity as a mage.
The
nathahlen
—Bren, his name was—had nodded, readily agreeing…because earlier, Ruslan had stood in that same office.
My apprentice will come to you seeking passage to Alathia. You will arrange it—but beforehand, you will see that news of his intended crossing reaches an exiled Arkennlander mage living hidden in the Alathian city of Kost. Whatever bargain the exile wishes to make with you, you will take, and you will ensure my apprentice does not learn of it.
And then, a later memory: himself in the office again, silently watching as Bren hired a reluctant, sharp-eyed Dev to guide him across the border.

Shock threatened to shatter his concentration. Kiran clung to his focus. He searched further, found memories of Bren reading messages from his business partner Gerran in Alathia, messages that had been couriered across the border and then charm-sent. First a message saying Kiran was to be handed unwitting to the exiled mage in Kost; later, another claiming the handover had gone successfully, all payments made. Then, silence. Bren’s increasingly worried messages gone unanswered, the news eventually coming by courier: Gerran executed, all his holdings gone. Later yet, a letter sealed with an Alathian sigil, telling of the courier Dev’s testimony against Gerran at the blood mage Kiran ai Ruslanov’s trial—

His focus broke, the weight of surprise too great. He dropped Bren’s wrist, leaving the man twitching, only semi-conscious. “I was
captured and tried by the Alathian Council?
”

Dev’s body was as taut as a bowstring. “How much did Bren know? Do you remember why you went to Alathia?” The question held a strange mix of dread and hope.

Kiran clawed for Bren’s wrist again, dug through memories with wild abandon. Nothing, the man knew nothing, curse him! Bren had been too afraid of Ruslan to risk digging into his affairs in Ninavel, and the news he’d had of events in Alathia was maddeningly sparse. The letter he’d received said Dev had exposed Gerran and agreed to work for the Council to avoid execution, but said nothing of Kiran beyond the mere fact of his trial.

“I don’t.” Kiran cast Bren’s wrist aside and stood. “But you know, don’t you? You guided me there, were captured with me…” He advanced on Dev, power rising to strain against the inhibition of Ruslan’s will-binding. But he didn’t need power. All he needed was to touch Dev. He had to know the truth. Nothing else mattered, not with answers so tantalizingly close.

Dev hastily backed, his eyes flicking from Kiran to the doorway beyond. “Kiran, don’t. If you learn all that I know—trust me, you won’t be able to hide it from Ruslan! I’ve nothing that can block your mark-bond, not yet—”

Kiran reached. Dev ducked aside, leaped over Bren and darted for the door. Kiran snapped out a tendril of power to seal it shut. Dev yanked at the door, muscles straining. When Kiran approached, he turned, his eyes wild.

“No! He’ll find out, and it’s not just Melly that’ll suffer—he’ll mindburn you, Kiran! You’re at risk enough already! One hint to Ruslan of what you got from Bren, and you and Melly are both fucked…” He threw himself sideways, as Kiran reached again. “Mother of maidens, Kiran,
please!”

The naked anguish in the word hit Kiran like a lash of spellcast ice. He halted, abruptly uncertain, reminded of his fear the Alathians would complain to Ruslan if he searched Dev’s mind. He didn’t believe Dev’s claim of mindburning, but any realization by Ruslan of his disobedience would mean agony for Mikail. And if Dev wasn’t lying about the child—Kiran winced, struck by a sudden image of Ruslan raising his knife over a small, screaming figure.

“The blood-mark,” Dev said. “Get me the blood-mark, let me get Melly safe, and I swear to you, I
swear
it in Suliyya’s name, I’ll tell you everything, let you turn my mind inside out if you like!”

A new sensation snapped Kiran’s head up. Power brushed at the edge of his senses, the taste of it both foreign and familiar…the Alathians were coming. Now he truly dared not touch Dev. The realization brought both disappointment and a strange, shaky relief.

“Your masters are coming for you,” he said to Dev. “I must go.”

Dev let out a ragged breath. He didn’t shift from his tense half-crouch. “Will you help Melly?”

“I…” Kiran pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I cannot promise anything. I need to think.”

“Don’t take too long,” Dev said, strained and urgent. “If you find the blood-mark—how can we arrange another meeting?”

He should refuse to even consider this. Yet Kiran knelt by the barely conscious Bren and pulled free the thin silver band of a warding charm from the man’s wrist. The spell bound within was crude, the metal impure, but the charm held enough power to work with. He reached for the spell pattern, twisted and reshaped it to match the one in his mind’s eye.

He tossed the charm to Dev. “Take this. If it grows warm, spark it with your blood and the word
ashantya
, and then concentrate. You’ll hear me speak in your mind and can reply likewise.”

Dev’s eyes narrowed. “This would let you into my mind?”

“It doesn’t create a true link,” Kiran said. “The charm allows for a brief communication of surface thoughts, one time only. The metal is too impure for anything more.”

“So you say,” Dev muttered, turning the charm over in his hands. When Kiran moved for the door, he backed along the wall to keep distance between them, watching Kiran with the wary intensity of a man guarding against a predator.

Guilt itched at Kiran. An apology rose to his tongue; he swallowed it down. He shouldn’t show weakness. But his inner discomfort halted him in the doorway. He said in a low rush, “The charm diagram you asked about, before…a charm made with such a pattern would severely alter the body’s functioning. It would compress and simplify the wearer’s life energies, to the point they resemble a child’s rather than an adult’s…though why anyone would—”

“Khalmet’s bloodsoaked bony hand,” Dev said, in a tone that made Kiran turn, startled. “It’s for a Taint charm.” Dev slid down the wall as if his legs had given way. His upturned face had a strangely defenseless look.

“A Taint charm?” Kiran knew next to nothing about the Taint. New frustration burned in him. Why and how would he have designed such a pattern?

Dev sounded dazed. “It lets an adult use the Taint again. If you used to be Tainted.” He stared at Kiran, his eyes wide. “That’s what you—oh, mother of maidens.” He covered his face.

A host of new questions boiled up in Kiran. But the Alathians were mere moments away. If he wished to leave without confronting them, it must be now. With a last, frustrated glance at Dev’s bowed head, he hurried off. Alathia, the Taint, the exiled mage, Kiran’s trial, Ruslan’s supposed threat to the
nathahlen
child…how would he ever unsnarl the tangle? Perhaps…perhaps he should at least try to discover where Ruslan might keep the child’s contract.

* * *

(Dev)

I leaned my head onto my knees. I should get up, but now Kiran had gone, I couldn’t bring myself to move. My body felt as heavy as stone, my eyes hot and swollen. A Taint charm. Gods. Thinking of Kiran tracing that spell out from memory for my sake made my chest hurt. Especially after seeing him act so dismayingly like Ruslan. The cold, predatory look in his eyes as he’d stalked me had chilled my soul.

What if he could complete that diagram and make another charm for me? Maybe even fix it so the spell didn’t hurt me… Craving as strong as any addict’s set my hands trembling. Next time I saw him, I could ask him, find a reason to demand it…

The charm was blood magic. It’d take murder to fuel the casting. Part of me recoiled at the thought. Another part of me—a deeper, savagely selfish part—didn’t care.

“Dev?”

I looked up to see Marten hurry into the room, his round face full of concern. Stevan, Lena, and Talm piled through right behind him and fanned out with all the precision of a ganglord’s crew. Talm knelt beside Bren’s limp form, Stevan angled over to pick up the painbender charm gleaming in the corner, and Lena came to crouch at my side.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you leave alone. You look terrible.” She put a cool hand on my brow, ignoring my reflexive flinch. A swift tingle swept over my skin. Her jaw tightened. She said to Marten, “Someone’s used a pain inducer on him.”

I leaned away from her hand. “Is Cara safe?” Suliyya grant she’d made it to the embassy.

“Yes,” Marten said. “Though when she realized no signal from your charm had reached us, we nearly had to cast a binding on her to ensure she stayed at the embassy. We cast to seek you, at first without success. I feared you dead—or that if some mage had veiled you, that our spellwork wasn’t strong enough to tear through…but then, all at once, the spell took.”

“Here’s the source.” Stevan approached, painbender charm in hand. “This charm has a shrouding spell within it. Not blood magic, though the room reeks of it.”

“Kiran was here,” I said. “He took that painbender charm off me. He—”

“Did he kill this man?” Talm took his hands from Bren, looking more upset than I’d ever seen him.

“Kill? No! Bren’s not dead—or at least, he wasn’t when Kiran left…” I scrambled forward to stare at Bren’s slack body. His skin was gray, his eyes open and staring.

“He died just now.” Talm’s hands were shaking, his face nearly as gray as Bren’s. “I’m sorry, Marten. I haven’t Jenoviann’s skill with healing, and the man’s mind was ruined as badly as the servant Ruslan questioned.”

I sank back on my heels, cold once again, remembering the white intensity of Kiran’s face, the ferocity of his grip on Bren’s wrist. Easy to dismiss the price of blood magic when it wasn’t right in front of me. Lena looked like she’d been kicked in the gut, and dismay showed plain on Marten’s face.

Stevan said to them in bitter vindication, “You keep telling me Kiran is nothing like Reshannis. Yet he destroyed this man’s mind, with no more care than Reshannis showed Vinalyn—” His voice broke, and he stopped, gripping the painbender charm like he wanted to hurl it at Marten. “He is no innocent! You must see that now!”

I said sharply, “Kiran saved me. If Bren’s dead, he deserved it.” I ran through a quick account of the snatch and its aftermath. I didn’t mention the charm diagram, not wanting Marten and Lena to realize I’d been less than wholly honest on prior occasions. Or for them to realize just how tempted I was to ignore the cost and beg Kiran to make one. I also downplayed Kiran’s near-assault on me. Hell if I’d give the Alathians more reason to condemn him. Kiran had been desperate, that’s all. I’d done plenty of things in that state I’d regretted later.

“Twin gods above.” Marten began pacing, his black eyes sharp with calculation. “The spy, Pello…Lena, Talm, you two led the hunt for him before Kiran’s trial. I know we haven’t any more of his blood here to key a seeking spell, but do you remember the pattern well enough to cast again?”

“I believe so.” Lena glanced at Talm, who’d recovered his composure, though his hazel eyes remained bleak. He nodded in agreement. Lena said, “However, if Pello is veiled as thoroughly as Dev was, even a keyed spell may fail.”

“Kiran didn’t seem to have a problem finding me despite this veil you talk about,” I said.

Stevan’s mouth twisted. “He cast with blood magic. It’s not so difficult to fashion spells powerful enough to rip through any amount of veiling, when you steal the lives of others to fuel them.”

I stared, shocked. “You think he
killed
someone to find me?”

“Ruslan would have felt that, no matter the wards between them,” Marten said. “I suspect Kiran used one of the warded reservoirs Ruslan keeps to fuel practice spells.”

“The source of those energies is still murder,” Stevan said harshly. “Kiran may not have killed the victims himself, but he uses their lives without regard for the cost.”

I flinched, thinking of the Taint charm. Marten rubbed at his temples. “A discussion for another time. Stevan, I want you to study the shrouding spell in the painbender charm, in case we encounter its like again. Perhaps you can identify a weakness. Lena, Talm—go cast to seek Pello. You’ll have a better chance of success if you cast from a spot where confluence currents are at an ebb and won’t muddy your senses. Contact me if you feel the spell take. Lena, I’ll also task you to send to Halassian. Ask her to contact Sechaveh immediately and ask what he knows of Pello.”

Stevan bent over the painbender charm, not without a final dark glance at Marten. Talm and Lena bowed and hurried out. Marten started pacing again, with short, jerky strides. “I can hardly imagine a worse time for Kiran to learn of his past,” he said. “Without the amulet, I cannot protect him.”

“Don’t I know it,” I muttered. Shaikar take that mark-bond of Kiran’s! If not for that, I’d have let Kiran see everything. He’d have turned against Ruslan then, no question, and I could’ve risked making a grab for Melly with his help. But without a way to block the mark-bond, Kiran couldn’t hide, or run. If he returned to Ruslan’s house knowing of Alisa’s murder and tried to play the obedient apprentice, I gave him all of five words before Ruslan saw through the deception.

Marten said, “If he comes to you again, if he brings this blood-mark—you must stall him, until—” He stopped, his mouth compressing to a thin line.

“Until what?” I’d gambled everything that if Kiran found Melly’s blood-mark and came back demanding answers, by then I’d have a way to save him too.

“Until Stevan can devise another means of protection,” Marten said, so smoothly that I knew it wasn’t what he’d originally meant to say. For the first time, I wondered if he truly had some plan in mind to take down Ruslan. Not that I could afford to trust him if he did.

Marten asked, “As it is, do you think Kiran can keep what he knows from Ruslan?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted bleakly. “I warned him, best I could. I know he can hide things—he kept Ruslan ignorant of Alisa for three years!—but if he doesn’t heed my warning…gods, Marten, say you’ve a way to protect Melly.”