Thief of Light (48 page)

She reached for the machine behind the chair. Something clicked, the hum increased in volume. The gray pads on Prue’s skin began to tingle, not unpleasantly.

“We’ll establish our benchmarks first,” said the Technomage Primus. “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Controlled respiration makes the sensations easier to bear.”

“
Quiet
!” roared Erik.

The agitated babble ceased. Around the big table in the cavernous kitchen of The Garden, six startled faces turned to face him. That had been perilously close to the Voice, but he didn’t give a fuck. Night had fallen and they hadn’t resolved anything. Prue could be . . . She could be . . .

He swallowed, then steadied. “We need to plan. Florien, run up to Prue’s study. There should be a map of the city on the desk. Bring it.”

“Yah.” The boy hopped off his chair and trotted away, still chewing.

After the first shock had worn off, Katrin had stalked over to the big ovens and retrieved one dish after another, moving with automatic efficiency, but blindly, as if in a dream. Now she sat next to a slender, serious young man wearing spectacles, her hand tucked into his. Arkady.

Across the table, Erik met Walker’s flat black gaze. “I’ll find the assassin tonight,” said the swordsmaster. “I guarantee.”

“Haven’t done too well so far.”

Walker’s jaw set like a granite cliff. “Three times now I’ve entered a building minutes after she’s left. As if she knows I’m coming.”

“The assassin’s the obvious lead.” Rosarina sat with an arm around Tansy, who still shook with the occasional sob. Rose’s eyes were dry, her lovely mouth thin with resolve. “But whoever’s paying is the one we really want.”

Erik’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Oh yes.” He took the map from Florien and swept aside the tisane cups to spread it on the table. He anchored one corner with the empty pot, another with his bowl of reheated stew. It had been hot and savory, and he knew he needed the fuel, but he hadn’t been able to choke down more than a few mouthfuls.

Hell, Prue,
Prue
! Even now, she might be lying at the bottom of a canal or abandoned on a midden. Or she might be at the mercy of cruel men with rough hands and hard bodies, men who’d violate and break her. Her flesh was so soft, her breasts so tender and sweet. Oh gods.

Thoughts rattled around in his skull, buffeting him as brutally as a gale. The very air he breathed seemed to set his chest on fire.

“Control it, Erik.” Strong brown fingers wrapped around his upper arm and squeezed hard. “Now think,” said Walker. “This started when you went public with the seelies, the death of the Leaf.” He leaned back, releasing his grip. “Didn’t it?”

“Yes.” Erik filled his lungs, reaching for his singer’s discipline. Breathe in the power, breathe it out again. For a moment, he thought he saw the air streaming before him, tinged an angry red. “You believe me?”

Walker blinked, an extraordinary show of emotion for a man with his degree of reserve. “I was a shaman among my people once,” he said, as though the words were yanked out of him on barbed hooks. “There is a . . . wrongness in Caracole. It made me ill.”

Katrin slapped her palm down on the table. A bread roll tumbled off the edge. “How does this help find Mam? Anyway”—she turned a tear-stained face to Walker—“you look fine to me.”

“I dealt with it,” said the swordsmaster curtly. “Once I understood what it was.”

“Katrin, you and Arkady go to the City Guard and report your mother missing,” said Erik, making a heroic effort not to shout. “Talk to Rhiomard if you can. But every minute counts, we can’t afford to wait for them to get organized.” He tapped a finger on the map. “Walker, you and your men cover the Melting Pot. The assassin’s probably gone to ground there anyway.”

“Maybe.” The swordsmaster set down his empty bowl with a decisive click and rose. “You’ll take the Leaf of Nobility?”

Their eyes met. “Yes.” Something powerful roiled in Erik’s chest, fighting to get free, to blow the world to bloody smithereens. Panting, he harnessed the gathering storm.
Later, later
, he promised it. In response, it roared so loud he was sure the others must be able to hear the eldritch howling of the winds.

Rose patted Tansy’s shoulder. “Go get the others,” she said. “All of them. Tell them to come armed and to wear something practical. Dark colors.”

Small, hard fingers tugged his sleeve. “Fook, what ’bout me? I kin help.”

Before Erik could answer, someone shrieked outside in the garden, a cry full of shock and fear. With a crash, the shutters splintered and a heavy bird blundered into the room, wings laboring as it circled above their heads. Even in the spacious kitchen, it was huge, with a wingspan greater than a man’s outstretched arms. It squawked continuously, a low, harsh bray.

Heads ducked as the bird floundered, its flailing wings knocking crockery from shelves. Cauldrons and pans clanged together in the wind of its passage.

With a final strangled honk, the bird folded its wings and fell out of the air like a stone, landing on the map with a meaty thud. Delicate cups jumped and shattered. A shudder and the creature lay still, its body and scaly legs covering most of the table.

In the echoing silence, Arkady covered his nose. “Faugh! What a stink!” He slipped an arm around Katrin’s waist. Her face had gone gray with horror. Tansy wavered on her feet, clutching at Rose.

“Siblings save us, it’s a corpsebird!” Rose stretched out a hand and snatched it back. “What’s it doing here?”

Erik stared at the vicious, curved beak, the hooked talons. A carrion eater. The internal tempest surged, roaring like the hungry breath of a forest fire. His head spun and wind swirled around the chamber. All along one wing, the tips of the dusty black feathers ruffled.

“The bastard . . .” He dragged in a breath. “It’s a messenger.”

Forcing himself, he reached for the pouch hanging round the naked, scrawny neck. A stream of bitemes and other parasites crept from under the feathers, but he ignored them, ripping open the ties and pulling out a slip of paper.

The script was a clerk’s. Innocuous, anonymous.

Katrin snatched it from his fingers, and as she scanned the lines, her features took on an expression he hoped he’d never see again. What was she? Nineteen? But this was how she would look as an old, old woman, lying on her deathbed. She lifted those almond eyes, so like Prue’s and yet so unlike, to his face. “This is all your fault, Erik. We were fine before—” She choked. “Gods, what have you got her into?”

Frozen, Erik shook his head. Inga’s slack features, her bright hair wreathed in weeds. Was this how the man who’d loved her had suffered? The way he felt now, swallowing the prettydeath would have been preferable.

A vicious gust rattled every pot and pan. Dishcloths flew around the room, a curtain ripped from bottom to top. Dimly, Erik heard Walker mutter, “Careful.” And then, “Rose, is Purist Bartelm here, by any chance?”

“I’ll find her,” Erik croaked. “I swear.”
I’ll take him apart, piece by bloody screaming piece. Horned Lord, I swear it.

When he used his fists to brace himself on the table, a biteme skittered onto his knuckle and nipped him. Cursing, Erik crushed it, leaving a small bloody smear on his skin. He lifted his head in time to see Tansy slip out the door, to hear her light steps recede down the passage, breaking from a trot into a run.

Calmly, Walker plucked the paper from Katrin’s hand. “This is excellent,” he said. “It indicates she’s alive and it narrows the search area.”

Erik upended the pouch. With a quiet tinkle, two silver cuffs bounced across the table and came to rest against the corpsebird’s bare, leathery neck. Aquamarines winked at him, a sly blue green.

He threw his head back and roared his rage and pain from the depths of his soul. It hurt the whole way out, a burn he relished, dark pleasure and relief and bloody murder in an unholy mixture. It was the Voice he used, but it emerged without words, a full-throated, formless bellow that rattled the walls. Something shattered with a sharp crack and a tinkle. A woman shrieked, a man swore.

Erik opened his eyes.

Every loose item in the kitchen was whirling in the air above his head, including the corpsebird. Bowls, kettles, dishcloths, trays, shards of glass from a broken window. The massive table floated two feet off the floor, revolving majestically. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rose shove Florien into the pantry.

That was strange enough, but what was even stranger was that he was standing with his legs spread, his arms raised, and he could
see
the glinting streams of air supporting all the various objects. Every cell in his body fizzed with power, he shuddered with it, vibrating right down to his bones. Gods, he couldn’t contain it. He was going to disintegrate, explode like a star going nova!

The Voice strangled in his throat and the objects slowed. A heartbeat later and everything fell to the floor with an earsplitting clatter, the table thudding down an inch from his foot, the corpsebird sprawling across Katrin’s spotless workbench.

Erik staggered where he stood, his jaw sagging.

“For an adult, your lack of discipline is appalling,” said an acid voice from the doorway. “And you’re noisy.”

The old man wore one of The Garden’s familiar robes, belted tightly around his spare waist. He was dark-skinned, with a high-nosed, imperious face and a gray beard, neatly groomed.

“Who the hell are you?” Erik tried to say it, but no sound came out. Instead, he stared, feeling oddly empty, scoured out.

“Purist! Thank the Sister Tansy found you.” Rose reappeared from behind a cupboard, shook her skirts into place and took the old man’s hand in both of hers. “I’m sorry to interrupt your massage, but we need you.”

His dignity unimpaired by his state of undress, the wizard patted her arm. “Happens all the time, my dear. My poor old bones can wait.” He exchanged a cool nod with Walker. Katrin, Arkady and Florien, he simply ignored.

“I am Purist Bartelm,” he said to Erik. “And you’re a disgrace to your Enclave. Which is it?”

Erik wet his lips. “Enclave?” He dropped into a chair. “I don’t—I’m not—” He pulled himself together. “I don’t have time for this.” Pushing to his feet, he said, “I have to go. Prue—”

“Young Tansy told me.” The wizard’s dark eyes narrowed, bright with interest. “Is it possible?” He stroked his beard. “You don’t know, do you?” he said at last. “Unbelievable.”

“Know what?”

“Have you done that before? Moved objects in the air?”

“No!” Erik took a step toward the old man, subduing the urge to pick him up and break him over his knee. “What is it that I don’t know?”

“I have been a Purist for more than sixty years. I thought I’d seen every form of Magick the gods permit.” Bartelm’s lips quirked. Erik stopped dead, his spine prickling with apprehension. “But I’ve not seen anything like yours.”

Erik gave a harsh bark of laughter. “That’s ridiculous. For the last time, get out of my way. Rose, we’ll start at the Processional Bridge. I’ll meet you there.”

But Rose shook her head. “This could help. Erik, you have to listen.”

The power surged again, a clear, clean blast of it, blowing through his body, feeding his impatience. Erik growled, heading for the door, and the old Purist stepped aside. “A gift from the gods,” he murmured.

The huge voice of the Horned Lord.
We will give you your life, together with a gift—a weapon, a tool, a pleasure, a curse
.

Erik turned.
A weapon?
Everything within him leaped.

He searched the wizard’s face in silence.

“How long do we have?” said Bartelm softly.

Erik pulled the note from his pocket and handed it over without a word. The old man scanned it, frowning. Then he closed his eyes and passed his fingertips over the characters. His wince was barely perceptible, but it was there nonetheless. “It stinks of the Dark Arts,” he said. His gaze lingered on the corpsebird and his lips grew tight. “Necromancy.”

Sighing, he pulled out a chair and lowered himself gingerly into it. “Rose, my dear,” he said, “send someone to the Enclave for Purist Nori. I’ll give you a note for her. She won’t want to come.”

Could it get any worse? A brisk wind plastered Erik’s shirt to his chest, lifted the hair on his forehead. “Lord’s balls, how bloody long is it going to take? Whatever this thing is I’m supposed to have, godsdammit, I don’t care. Just show me how to make it do what I want.”

Bartelm chuckled with genuine amusement, his eyelids crinkling like plum-colored parchment. “Magick’s not a blunt instrument, though I can see why a man like you might think so.”

Erik ground his teeth. “Necromancy’s death Magick, isn’t it?” At Bartelm’s nod, he thumped a fist on the table, making shards jump like bitemes on a hot griddle. “I don’t have time for finesse. A blunt instrument will do.” He skewered the old man with his glare. “
Teach me!
”