All Spell Breaks Loose

Chapter 6

Talon knew defensive magic, but none of it was going to work.

Everything slowed down to the speed that meant it was all over except the cleanup. Talon’s lips formed the first word of a shielding spell. All it’d do for the Magh’Sceadu was coat Talon in a magical powdered sugar topping.

And I couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him from being dragged inside of a nightmare.

I’d seen it before on the streets of Mermeia. I’d been trying to locate a missing elderly street magician. I’d found him through a seeker link, but a Magh’Sceadu had found him first. The old man had tried to fight back, his fists sinking into the Magh’Sceadu’s towering mass like black quicksand. The rest of him followed. The thing hadn’t taken him quickly. No one had been on that dark street corner that night. As the Magh’Sceadu had wrapped itself around the old man’s head, I could hear his muffled screams coming from inside.

I wouldn’t let that happen to Talon.

Tam lunged forward and threw Talon behind him, thrusting his hands palms out toward the Magh’Sceadu.

The thing stopped.

Tam and his power didn’t.

Black magic was about as close to the Saghred as mortals could get. However, the power of the strongest black mage was a grain of sand on the beach compared to what the fully fed Saghred could do, though the penalty for using that magic was the same. You used it, and it used you. The payback wasn’t immediate, but the magic would get what it wanted. Like borrowing money from loan sharks—when it came time to pay, you could run, but you couldn’t hide. They’d get back what they loaned you, with interest, and they’d be perfectly happy taking it out of your hide.

Black magic would gleefully carve it out of your soul.

Tam got the power boost now. He knew he’d pay later.

A dark shimmer, like morning mist rising off a harbor, formed around Tam’s extended hands. The Magh’Sceadu shifted uneasily. At least that was the way it looked to me. The air in the tunnel grew heavy, pressing down on us. Tam wasn’t immune to his own spell; his shoulders bowed under the strain of increasing its power. The tunnel got darker, even darker than it already was. Shadows spread like oil outward from Tam’s hands to coat the floor, walls, and ceiling. I shook with sudden cold, as if the darkness suffocated not only the light, but what little warmth the air held. Normally when a mage of Tam’s strength gathered their power, the air around them was charged with it, crackling with the intensity of magic about to be unleashed.

This was different. This was wrong.

Anti-magic.

I couldn’t imagine anything else that would work on a Magh’Sceadu.

Emptiness spread from Tam’s fingers, radiated from his body. In the sphere of his spell, in the spreading shadows was a void, an emptiness where magic was not, where life did not exist. Death was an absence of life; this was an absence of everything.

The Magh’Sceadu recoiled.

I wanted to.

“Run!” Tam’s voice was tight with the strain of holding the spell.

An oily, glistening fog spread up the tunnel walls, flowing with increasing speed toward the Magh’Sceadu. It lapped hungrily at the edge of the creature’s feet, base, whatever, sending it skittering backward a good ten feet. It stopped there, hovering.

It was too late to run.

From the tunnel where the first Magh’Sceadu had gone, more shadows separated from the dark. More Magh’Sceadu. Coming for us.

They charged. A roar of wordless fury ripped itself from Tam’s throat, taking with it every last bit of endurance, strength, and power that he possessed, channeling it through his body and slamming it into the oncoming Magh’Sceadu. The darkness of Tam’s black magic swallowed them in a wave. Magh’Sceadu didn’t have voices, but that didn’t stop them from screaming from inside that darkness, screaming like their countless victims had screamed. I didn’t hear it; I felt it. Their screams climbed to a fevered, panicked pitch that vibrated in my bones.

Then silence. Nothing moved in the shifting darkness where the Magh’Sceadu and Tam had been.

Imala shoved Carnades aside. “Tam!”

Tam staggered out of the dark. He managed one step toward Imala before he collapsed.

The darkness of Tam’s spell dissipated enough to see where the Magh’Sceadu had been.

Gone.

It’d taken the Saghred for me to destroy six Magh’Sceadu in The Ruins. Tam had taken out four by himself.

I didn’t know how he’d done it, and right now it didn’t matter. Getting out of here did. Black magic made just as much noise as, if not more than, the regular variety. Sarad Nukpana and his Khrynsani minions would be listening for any and all of it. Worse, Nukpana knew that Tam was a dark mage.

The residue from the spell clung to Tam, spreading up his arms and over his chest. Tam was finished with the spell, but the spell wasn’t finished with Tam. It had consumed four Magh’Sceadu, and it wanted more.

Talon darted around Piaras to get to his father. Piaras made a grab and missed. Nath didn’t.

“It’s not safe,” Nath said through clenched teeth. He was finding out the hard way that Talon was stronger than he looked. It took both arms and all of his weight to hold Talon back.

“Safe?” Talon snarled. “He wouldn’t hurt—”

“He wouldn’t hurt you; his magic would,” Nath said.

Jash and Mychael had sprinted down the tunnel toward Tam, stopping just out of arm’s reach.

I saw why.

Tam was smeared with the gelatinous residue of his own black magic. He’d put everything he had into destroying those Magh’Sceadu. The monsters were gone, but the spell was still here. Tam collapsed before he could contain it, and the spell turned on him. If Mychael couldn’t stop it from spreading, the spell would consume Tam as it had the Magh’Sceadu.

With a word and gesture, Mychael’s hands glowed blindingly white, like twin suns. The spell covering Tam recoiled. Mychael quickly knelt and laid his hands on Tam’s shoulders. With a sizzling hiss, the gel scuttled away from his glowing hands. Mychael’s incantation came quickly, the words sharp, the tone commanding. He wasn’t asking that black magic goop to leave; he was ordering it. The spell wasn’t going without a fight, but it was going.

Everyone’s attention was on Mychael and Tam.

Except one.

The only warning I got was the scuff of boots.

Carnades’s shoulder rammed into my ribs, expelling what air I had, and we both went down. He landed on top of me, clawing at my neck with his fingers, desperate to get his hands around my throat.

“Filthy, lying bitch!” he spat.

This wasn’t a straight-up fight. Neither one of us could use magic. Yeah, he was bigger than me, but those chains were just going to keep him from frying me and my throat like he had that Khrynsani in the mirror room. He could choke me the old-fashioned way just fine.

Carnades Silvanus had been directly or indirectly responsible for every attack and near fatality that either myself or the people I loved had endured since this whole crapfest started. Now Tam had almost died and worse to protect all of us—including Carnades.

I’d kept my temper and fists to myself.

No more.

I wanted to scream every murderous thought I’d ever had about Carnades Silvanus. But I didn’t need words; my knees and fists and feet did it all for me. My torso was pinned under him, but my legs weren’t. I couldn’t ram my knee into his nuts, but all other options were wide open. I twisted hard toward Carnades, and pounded my right knee up into the base of his ribs. Once. Twice. Hard and harder. It felt good.

Carnades grunted with each blow, and his weight shifted off me for a fraction of a second. It was an opening, and I took it. I snarled and twisted again, landing a left hook to the side of Carnades’s head. I was aiming for his temple, but hit closer to his eye. I wasn’t picky. Any punch that landed on Carnades felt good.

A leather-armored forearm wrapped around Carnades’s throat in a choke hold, jerking the elf mage off of me in one smooth move.

Piaras.

Oddly, Carnades wasn’t trying to get his hands up high enough to dislodge Piaras’s arm, and I caught a quick glimpse as to why.

He had a knife.

One of mine that had been tucked into my belt.

Piaras saw and acted. He snapped Carnades’s wrist up and away from his body. The mage screamed. Piaras didn’t break Carnades’s wrist; that was up to Carnades. He could either drop the knife or kiss his wrist good-bye. I could have kicked that knife out of Carnades’s hand, but Piaras had the situation well in hand. He had nearly as much reason to hate Carnades as I did, and I wasn’t going to deny him some much-earned payback. The pressure of Piaras’s arm locked around Carnades’s throat was turning the elf mage’s face a lovely shade of blue.

Carnades cut his losses and dropped the knife. Piaras dropped Carnades—on his face. His boot lodged firmly in the elf mage’s back would keep him from getting any more bright ideas.

The entire fight happened too fast for anyone to jump in, though everyone knew I’d wanted that fight for a long time and that I didn’t want any help.

Nath started toward me. I held out a hand, stopping him. “I’m fine, take care of Tam.”

Nath glanced at Carnades’s face. The elf mage had the beginnings of a beauty of a black eye.

“Nice,” he said.

I panted and gave him a winded smile. “I take pride and joy in my work.”

Mychael was on his feet, supporting a mostly conscious and all intact Tam. Mychael gave Piaras a quick nod of approval. Piaras tried not to smile. That wouldn’t have been Guardianly.

Carnades spit out a mouthful of dirt, and if looks could have killed, we all would’ve dropped dead.

“Nath, where we’re going, is there a place secure enough for our prisoner?” Mychael asked.

I didn’t miss Carnades’s change in status, and neither did anyone else.

Nath smiled wide enough to show his fangs. “Oh, yeah.”

Raine doesn’t have any magic. Oh hell.

It had to be what everyone was thinking, but no one was saying. We didn’t have time to dawdle for questions.

Tam’s anti-magic not only destroyed the Magh’Sceadu; according to Jash, it also wiped our trail clean. Unfortunately, the sudden absence of four Magh’Sceadu wouldn’t go unnoticed.

That would tell whoever was monitoring that particular Magh’Sceadu pack that the hunters had become the prey. That would most definitely get the Khrynsani’s attention. Not to mention the flare of magic that had gone up courtesy of Mychael. None of it could have been avoided. Though at least for the moment, there was no sign of pursuit.

Nath set a fast pace and we more than kept up. With Tam still trying to literally get his legs back underneath him, and Mychael and Jash all but carrying him, Imala took it on herself to keep Carnades motivated to keep moving. By the time we took our second and all-too-brief break, Tam was walking on his own and hadn’t wanted to stop, but Mychael insisted. If he hadn’t, I would have. Tam was leaning against the tunnel wall, the stone at his back barely keeping him upright. His head was back and he was panting.

Imala started toward him, but Tam waved her away.

“I’m fine,” he managed.

“Bullshit.”

“Don’t… touch.”

His skin would still be crawling from the spell’s contact; the last thing he wanted was anyone touching him, especially anyone he cared about.

“If you fall flat on your face, may I touch you then?” Imala’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Tam gave her a weary smile. “Please do.”

Regor’s sewers were like the sewers in every other city I’d ever been in. I’d ended up in pretty much all of them, and they all looked the same: brick or rough-hewn stone usually covering dirt. Sometimes you got lucky and a ledge had been built on one side for maintenance workers to keep them from having to go wading. The maintenance workers in this section of Regor weren’t lucky. No ledges. On the upside, there also wasn’t anything to wade through. The stone pavers beneath our feet were stone dry.

“At least it’s not wet,” I noted. “And relatively rat free.”

“This section isn’t used much anymore,” Nath replied. “The walls aren’t in the best shape.”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to ignore that.”

“A new system has been built either parallel or above these. The rats don’t have much to eat down here, so they stick to the new system.”

“So do the Khrynsani,” Jash added.

“Vermin with vermin,” Prince Chigaru muttered. “How appropriate.”

The tunnel sloped gradually upward. I saw light up ahead, streaming down through a barred grate on the street above. Nath held up his hand. We stopped.

Tam’s brother crept forward in complete silence. There was street debris hanging down from the opening. We must have been just beneath street level.

Nath turned and gestured to Tam, who moved soundlessly to stand beside his brother. He stood there looking out; Nath was watching him. A slow smile creased Tam’s lips, though it was sad and bitter. Never taking his eyes from his brother’s face, Nath gestured the rest of us forward. I had to stand on tiptoe, but I saw what Tam was seeing.

It was a street, residential, from the look of it, palatial from the grandeur of the houses along it. But it was one house in particular that had Tam’s attention. Talon came quietly to stand beside me. He didn’t need to stand on tiptoe.

In Mermeia, the only things comparable were palazzos along the Grand Duke’s Canal. I knew that being the goblin queen’s chief mage would have its perks, but dang.

Tam’s house was four stories, constructed of pale stone and marble that still gleamed even after who knew how much neglect. An ornate black wrought-iron fence surrounded the property, with a gate opening onto a circular gravel carriage drive and front garden. Overgrown now, it still showed signs of having been elegant once.

“It’s beautiful, Tam,” I said quietly.

A ghost of a smile played across Tam’s lips. “Yes, it is.”

What wasn’t so beautiful was the boarded-up windows, broken shutters, and a sign nailed to the front doors that I couldn’t quite make out.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Tamnais Nathrach, traitor to his king and his people,” Nath said.

“What’s the small print?”

Nath waved a dismissing hand. “Property of the king, trespass under pain of torture, death, dismemberment, etcetera, etcetera.”

“And that’s where the Resistance is holed up?” I asked. “Uh, isn’t that a little obvious?”

“The Khrynsani have searched it more than once,” Jash said. “And they continue to keep it under occasional surveillance, which is why we’re never seen on the surface. Sometimes the best place to hide is the most obvious.”

Nath flashed a huge grin. “We could hardly call ourselves the Resistance if we didn’t spit in the king’s eye every chance we get.”

Words had been painted on the boards covering the windows. I could see those just fine. “Murderer” and “traitor” were some of the nicer things written about Tam on his own home. The others made my blood boil.

Tam was completely unruffled—at least on the outside.

“Khrynsani penmanship?” Mychael asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Imala said. “The king has organized our youth into a feeder organization for the Khrynsani. You join or your loyalty and that of your entire family is suspect. Sathrik sees it as a way to get new blood from the old families. Young minds, easily influenced. Young men and women who are held up by Sathrik as the models of our next generation. The king honors them, promises them power, and fans the flames of hate and bigotry—then handsomely rewards those who act on his poisonous ideology.”

All signs of playful humor were gone from Nath’s eyes. “More than a few of them have turned in their own parents as traitors to the crown.”

“And people think I’m trouble,” Talon muttered.

The tunnel to Tam’s house was guaranteed not to attract attention. Why disguise a doorway with magic when muck worked even better? The door looked like the rock around it; no seams indicated that anyone had ever thought of cutting a door through there. Then there was the icing on the disguise cake. Slimy and smelly icing. Icing no one would want to get near, never mind touch, at least not with bare hands. And to ensure that the slime and fungus growth didn’t stand out, an entire section of the tunnel, both walls and ceiling, had been seeded with the furry fungus, gradually fading as it got closer to where the sun shone faintly from a grate in the street overhead.

The door opened into a wine cellar. Though there wasn’t any wine here anymore; I guess that just made it a cellar.

Tam looked around, bemused. “Been drinking much, Nath?”

“On the king’s orders, Sarad Nukpana confiscated all of it when you left,” Nath said. “As well as anything else he liked. The house has been pretty much stripped.”

Tam didn’t say anything, but I could see the additional items added to the tally of what Tam planned to take out of Sarad Nukpana’s hide.

Racks lined the stone walls and ran in rows everywhere else. They were all empty. One rack had been made to hold casks. Likewise empty, except for a few smashed ones on the floor. The cellar was lit by small torches. Looked like we were expected. There were fine crystal lightglobes suspended from the ceiling, but they were dark. I guess even small light magic could attract Khrynsani patrols.

The torchlight was barely bright enough to reach the floor, but it was enough to see that the floor was covered with broken dark glass. Wine bottles. Someone had tried to clear a path to the stairs on the far side of the cellar, plies of glass shards mounded on either side of a path of exposed flagstones.

An elderly goblin stood motionless at the end of one of the racks. His clothes were dark and formal, and looked like a uniform of sorts. They had been carefully mended, and were as neat and proper as they could be, but they had clearly seen better days.

The old goblin stood straight and dignified.

Tears stood in Tam’s eyes. “Barrett.”

The butler indicated the wooden tray he held holding a single bottle. “The king appropriated the silver and the crystal, and either took or destroyed all of the wine. However, I managed to hide a case of your favorite port. I didn’t think you would be inconvenienced by partaking from the bottle.” He bowed slightly from the waist. “Welcome home, Your Grace.”

Tam crossed the floor to Barrett in three strides, taking the port in one hand, and wrapping his other arm around the old butler’s thin shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

Barrett’s voice was muffled against Tam’s chest. “Sir, this is unseemly.”

“Yes, it is,” Tam agreed, his voice thick with emotion, hugging him harder.

A voice came from the shadowed stairs.

“Will I get such a warm greeting?” said a low, feminine voice from the shadows. She stepped forward, the torchlight illuminating a silken sheet of hair so black that it had blue highlights. Her dark eyes shone with a sharp wit and keen intelligence. The goblin woman held herself with exaggerated dignity, as if she was uncertain of the reception she was going to receive—or undecided on what reception she was going to give.

Tam released Barrett, but other than that, he didn’t move.

“Mother,” he said quietly.