The Whitefire Crossing (33 page)

***

(Dev)

Early morning in Kost brought thick veils of river mist drifting through the narrow, cobbled streets. Soon as the sun rose over the rim of the gorge, the fog would burn off, but for now it turned Kost into a dreamscape of half-seen shapes and odd echoes. I hurried up the terraced lanes of the city’s southwest quarter, the silver band of my find-me charm pulsing warm on my bicep beneath the rough brown wool of an Alathian-style tradesman’s jacket. Alathians did business at disgustingly early hours, and enough tradesmen making deliveries traveled the fog-choked streets to make my presence unremarkable.

The find-me charm was a simple one, too minor in nature to offend the Council’s sensibilities. It operated on the same principle as the old kids’ game of fire-and-ice. The closer I moved to the charm’s target, the warmer the band grew. So far, my idea about targeting the dye on Kiran’s shirt appeared to be working. The charm had led me from my room at a nondescript riverside inn up to this far more genteel district perched high on the side of the Parsian Valley, full of Kost’s version of highsiders, exactly the kind of place I’d expect a mage to frequent.

Only problem was, the charm didn’t hold enough power to work longer than a half-day at most, and the gods-damned streets twisted back on themselves like a tangle of sand adders as they climbed the hillside. Moving in the right direction was slow, frustrating work, requiring an eye-crossing level of concentration on subtle changes in the charm’s warmth. My gut fizzed with a mixture of impatience and worry. If I didn’t track down Kiran before the charm gave out, I’d never find him in this terraced maze of highsiders.

Instead of the cultivated courtyards and graceful archways that separated highsider dwellings in Ninavel, Kost’s richer denizens stacked their houses in rows, side by side with no space in between. Looking down at lower terraces, I’d seen the houses had tiny courtyards in back, barely large enough for a few flowerpots. Down riverside, all the buildings were boxy, ugly things of plain wood, but up here, wood mixed with gray and brown stone, and some houses had slate roofs. Occasional steeply slanted parks lined with trees and lush flowerbeds crossed the gap between terraces.

The fog began to burn off, and wan sunlight seeped through the haze overhead. My head pounded with the effort of concentration. The charm’s power was fading. Gods all damn it, surely I was close, now. I’d nearly climbed to the valley rim.

I raised a silent, relieved cheer when at last I narrowed in on a row of houses just past a slender, near-vertical strip of a park. I dawdled along a stone stair winding up through the park, pretending to admire a rainbow cascade of larkflowers.

The ten houses in the row didn’t look much different from countless others I’d passed. Three stories tall and fronted with gray blocks of stone, they had narrow slots for windows, white lintels, and ornamental carving on the doors and eaves. Three of the ten had purely decorative woodwork with no sign of a family crest, meaning they likely weren’t owned by natives of Kost. One of those three, midway along the row, had silver plaques inscribed with ward lines not only bracketing doors and windows, but strategically scattered over roof and walls as well. The wards were standard Alathian make, meant to paralyze an intruder rather than kill, but the placement was expert. Not a chink existed in their protection.

That had to be a mage’s house. I weighed the risk of walking the row to confirm Kiran’s presence—or at least, that of his shirt—with the last glimmer of the charm’s power. The mage didn’t know me from any other Arkennlander, but if Pello was in there and caught sight of me, he’d mark me no matter what disguise I wore. Damn it, I couldn’t chance that.

Shaikar take Pello, anyway. Every time I turned around on this trip, there he was, making everything twice as fucking difficult. Why couldn’t he have slunk off back to Ninavel instead of throwing in with the mage?

I’d have to shadow the house careful as a handler scouting a job. With wards placed so well, I’d never manage to sneak inside. But whatever the mage had planned for Kiran, it surely involved magic, and he couldn’t do any serious magic in a house smack in the middle of Kost without running afoul of the Council. No, he’d have to take Kiran somewhere else first, and the first step in any rescue was to figure out when and where he intended to make his move.

The creviced gray limestone of the cliff that formed the foundation of the next higher terrace drew my eye. Plants grew out of the cracks, from ferns to scraggly, stubborn trees. And high up in the rock face, a round dark hole like an open mouth.

When the Alathians built Kost’s terraced streets into the steep side of the Parsian Valley, they’d bored narrow tunnels through the rock to channel the runoff from the heavy winter rains and keep it from causing mudslides or ground erosion. The lower end of this tunnel looked just wide enough for a person to squeeze inside. It’d be cramped and awkward, but I’d be hidden from view, and I’d have a good sightline down to the house I wanted to watch.

A perfect spot for a deathdealer’s ambush, if only I could shoot a crossbow bolt through Simon’s heart. I knew better than to try. Aside from my lack of experience with weaponry, I’d heard far too many stories in Ninavel about idiots who tried to ambush powerful mages. Throwing knives, crossbow bolts, even Sulanian hand cannons...none of it could penetrate the invisible armor of a mage’s defensive spells, no matter how sudden the surprise. Too bad. If anyone deserved a knife in the throat, it was a blood mage.

No, I’d need to find another way to deal with Kiran’s captor, and that meant keen observation. I sighed. When Red Dal scouted a job, he sent kids in shifts so someone watched the house every moment of the day and night. No possible way to duplicate that, working alone. My contacts in Kost were all part of Gerran’s operation, and gods knew I didn’t want a single whiff of my intentions getting back to Gerran. I knew a few others here by name, but none I could trust.

What I needed, damn it, was Jylla. Since I’d Changed, I’d never worked a city job without her. That wicked glint in her black eyes when she’d worked out a clever plan...the way she’d dissolve my nerves before a tricky job by muttering sarcastic observations about passers-by until I near burst with suppressed laughter...I kicked a loose cobblestone, viciously. Jylla would never have joined me in something crazy as this. She’d have laughed her perfect little ass off when I told her my reasons, mocked me for being soft in the head, and then talked me out of it with a host of coolly practical arguments.

To Shaikar’s hells with Jylla. I’d shadow the mage’s house best I could, seize on any weakness I found, and pray for Khalmet’s favor. I’d need the touch of his good hand to have a hope of foxing a blood mage.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

(Kiran)

T
he creak of the door startled Kiran awake. He’d settled on the bed intending only a brief rest, his thoughts still consumed with the question of Simon’s plans, but the muddy lethargy of his thoughts suggested he’d slept far longer than he’d meant. He shoved upright, hastily bracing for another confrontation with Simon.

Pello slid around the door with a plate of bread and cheese and a water jug balanced in his hands. Kiran’s jaw dropped. “You! What are you doing here?”

A smirk spread over Pello’s face. He set down the food. “Dev never realized I represented an employer within Alathia, then? How gratifying. Or...” The smirk turned sly. “Perhaps he knew, and didn’t tell you.”

Bad enough that Dev had handed him over to Gerran, but if he’d known about Simon, and what Kiran faced in Simon’s hands...the bitterness that pierced him edged toward hatred. With an effort, Kiran leashed his anger. Regardless of what Dev had or hadn’t known, he no longer mattered. Pello, however...“You traveled with the convoy at Simon’s bidding? Why?”

“Simon Levanian is a cautious man.” Pello ran a finger over the thickly clustered ward lines inscribed on the doorframe. They remained quiescent; Simon must have keyed the wards directly to Kiran. “An apprentice of his greatest enemy, obligingly running straight into his grasp...as the saying goes, beware your rival’s touch, disguised as Khalmet’s good hand.”

Simon had feared his escape was some trick of Ruslan’s? Kiran’s heart quickened. Perhaps he could use that fear against Simon.

Sardonic amusment gleamed in Pello’s dark eyes. “Yet anyone with eyes can see you have no guile. Such a disappointment for your former master, I am sure. Did you run to escape his heavy hand? Do you glory in the dreadful end Simon intends for him?”

Kiran’s breath caught. If Pello knew Simon’s plans, his quick tongue might be far looser than his master’s. Kiran assumed an expression of utter confidence. “Simon will fail. Ruslan’s magic far outstrips his.”

“Cautious men do not gamble without the certainty the odds are in their favor,” Pello said, with another twitch of a grin.

“What makes you so certain Simon has judged his chances correctly?”

Pello raised his brows. “What makes you believe he hasn’t?”

Sudden insight struck Kiran. Pello didn’t know Simon’s plans either, and underneath his mocking assurance, a splinter of doubt must linger. “Dev claimed you were clever, but that must have been another lie. Choosing to serve Simon...a clever man would have realized the chances of survival are nonexistent. The
akheli
are not kind to untalented servants. Even if Simon should somehow prevail over Ruslan, you’ll not last more than a year. You’ll anger him one day, or he’ll need a source of power and take what’s closest to hand. But when Simon fails, your death will come far sooner.”

Pello flipped a hand in dismissal. “I hardly think a mage so exalted as Ruslan Khaveirin would concern himself with the death of one so lowly as I.”

Excitement sparked within. Pello didn’t know...oh, careful, he must be careful. “You don’t understand,” Kiran said. “Simon bound you. Only a lock-binding rather than a full drone-binding, I’d imagine, but for an untalented man, completely vulnerable to magic...should Simon fall to Ruslan, the force of his death will blast through the link and snuff out your life as rapidly as a candle in a sandstorm.”

No trace of mockery showed in Pello’s eyes now. “I exchanged no blood with Simon.”

“The
akheli
need no blood rituals to bind the untalented. Has he never touched you?” Kiran read the answer in the sudden rigidity of Pello’s stance. “He can kill you now with a thought, and the Alathian wards won’t sense a thing.” Though only if the two men were in close proximity; a fact Kiran hoped Pello didn’t know.

“All the more reason to devote myself to ensuring his success,” Pello said flatly.

Kiran leaned forward. “A lock-binding can be broken or thwarted, with the right knowledge. Knowledge I have, and would share, if you help me cross Simon’s wards.”

Pello laughed. “Ah! A commendable effort, but a doomed one. To throw away all I might gain at Simon’s side, when I have only your word such a binding even exists? I am not so gullible as you, to be led trusting as a calf to slaughter.”

Kiran gritted his teeth. “You’ll gain only death.”

“So you say.” Pello moved for the door.

“Simon will prove me right,” Kiran said urgently. “He’ll use the binding against you, the moment you disobey or even irritate him. When he does, think on what I’ve said.”

Pello shot him one last narrow-eyed glance and slipped out. Kiran thumped a fist into the bedquilt. Curse it, if only he’d found more convincing words! Certain as the sunrise, Simon would use that binding one day—but perhaps not soon enough to help Kiran.

***

Time dragged on in endless, silent hours, and Kiran’s frustration climbed ever higher. He paced the room, tracing ward lines over and over, seeking even the tiniest of flaws in the invisible bars of his cage. He found none. Simon’s wards were seamless, and his charms proved impervious to all Kiran’s attempts to damage or remove them. Kiran braved the shattering pain countless times, trying to read their pattern. The charms’ protective wardings knocked him unconscious before he could get so much as a glimpse.

He could only guess at how long he’d been Simon’s captive. His only means of measuring time was to count meals and the number of times he’d slept. That was no good guide, since he suspected Simon of sending meals at irregular intervals, and his body’s natural rhythms had been disrupted by the drugs. He thought it had only been a few days, though it felt like more. Simon hadn’t returned, and neither had Pello. His meals were brought by a dour-faced old woman who refused to even raise her eyes from the floor, let alone speak, no matter what Kiran said to her.

Despite all the time he’d had to think, he’d come no closer to understanding how Simon planned to strike at Ruslan. Physical harm would not suffice to kill an
akheli
, and if Simon truly lacked the ability to cast channeled magic, he’d never breach Ruslan’s defenses.

Ruslan had once told Kiran the only danger a master
akheli
need fear was his own capacity for error when working with forces as immensely powerful as those of Ninavel’s confluence. A mistake in channel design might easily send energies too great for any mage to contain surging through both channeler and focus, overwhelming all protections and burning both to ash in an instant. Perhaps Simon intended to trick Ruslan into an error of that nature—but Kiran couldn’t imagine how.

The door opened. The ward lines glowed livid green, extinguishing Kiran’s hope his visitor might be Pello.

Simon stepped over the threshold with the delicacy of a cat. He was dressed much as before, in somber but well tailored Alathian clothing, without any sigils or markings. Slender and of medium height, he had none of Ruslan’s commanding physical presence. Only his eyes gave the lie to his mundane appearance. They swept over Kiran, coolly appraising.

“It appears you have made a full physical recovery. Good.”

Kiran watched him warily. Plentiful sleep and food had erased the last traces of his exhaustion from the trip across the mountains, as well as the lingering weakness from the drugs. He felt healthy and strong, but it would do him little good against Simon’s magic.