I’d never seen any hint the gods paid a blind bit of notice unless they wanted something in exchange, and I doubted they would even bother to piss on their worshippers if they were on fire. Charra and I were agreed that it was folly to worship the Setharii gods, but Lynas had felt very differently. It was not a thing we discussed often, mostly because I tended to end up ranting like a drunken oaf. In this very square Lynas had once slugged me in the stomach and hadn’t talked to me for a week. I’d probably deserved it.
The street split and I went left down Coppergate Road. A grinning copper lion reared over the entrance to an inn that beckoned me with buttery light, scent of roasting meat, merry music and laughter.
My stomach growled, tightening as I stomped past. I began noticing signs of the same rot that riddled the lower city: refuse piled up in side alleys, broken shutters, buildings with cracked and peeling facades. If the blight had penetrated the Crescent then trade was much worse than I had realized.
Lynas’ warehouse was locked up tighter than a gnat’s arsehole: every door and window had been chained or boarded over and inscribed with magical ward-glyphs, glowing balefully. A pair of wardens patrolled the exterior, hooded lanterns raised to peer into every shadow where Elunnai’s silver light didn’t reach. This one was going to be tricky.
I mulled over my options. I could fog the wardens’ minds while I broke into the building, but any loud noise would shatter their obliviousness, and more importantly I didn’t fancy using so much magic in a place the Arcanum had their eyes on as part of an ongoing investigation unless I had to. So I decided to try the straightforward and honest approach first, an unusual choice for me it has to be said.
I walked towards the wardens, fully visible in the moonlight, giving them the time to see that my hands were empty.
They drew swords. “This area is off limits,” the older man with a drooping ginger moustache said. The other warden was younger, with a short dark beard that hadn’t yet crept up his cheeks, but his eyes were wary. I was reasonably certain I could take both with ease if necessary.
“The owner was a friend,” I replied. "I’ve been away and just found out about his murder. Would you be willing to discuss it?”
I felt a tremor of movement on the wind brush the back of my hair. It took a moment for my enhanced senses to locate a third warden at a second-floor window in the building behind me. I turned my head slightly, glimpsing a bowman with an arrow nocked drawing a bead between my shoulder blades. Unfortunate.
Ginger moustache was about to tell me to piss off, then checked himself as his eyes grazed my fine greatcoat. You didn’t have to be a magus to see the wheels turning in his head: I could be somebody important. “Sorry. I can’t tell you anything,” he said. “And no, you cannot bribe us to let you snoop about. If you want to know anything, take it up with our captain.”
That was my second line of attack wiped out then. I had just been slapped with the gauntlet of bureaucracy and I didn’t have nearly enough time or patience to work around it. Their disciplined minds would have proved too difficult for small-time magical dabblers in deception, but I was something else entirely. If there had been only one warden then I could have smashed straight through into his mind, two I could manage with some difficulty, but three at the same time, and with one out of physical reach… well, I supposed life would be dreary without taking risks.
This was blatant tyranny, but they left me no other option. After ten years of hiding what I was and scraping by on meagre trickery I opened my Gift wide, letting the magic surge into me. All tiredness washed away. The street flared brighter as my eyesight sharpened until I could see every pore in their skins. My heart thundered, straining at the cage of my ribs. I took a deep breath, the air filling my body with energy. Sweet Lady Night, I had not felt what it was to be a real magus for so long – it was glorious! I wanted to let it all in, to bathe in the bottomless sea of magic.
I had almost forgotten how sweet the temptation could be. I bit my lip and drew back from the edge. I had a murderer to burn. If I was careful I’d be able to keep the magic within our bodies and minimize any detectable leakage or risk of detection.
I strengthened my muscles with a touch of body magic then shot forward, hands clamping around their throats before they could blink. My magic slammed into their minds with all my might. Their wills shattered like eggshells and they slumped to the ground glassy-eyed.
The swiftness of breaking two such strong-willed men stunned me. I was off balance and reeling. How had it been so easy?
In my shock I hesitated too long. An arrow loosed at my back. I spun, grunting with the sudden effort of using my paltry skill in aeromancy to throw up a meagre wall of wind between us. The arrow veered right, missed me by a few fingerspans and skittered down the road. The bowman nocked another and drew the string back.
I panicked, and instinctively struck out mentally. A surge of power stabbed into the bowman. He collapsed backwards, his mind shredded and his heart stopped. With the might and right of magic surging through me this unknown man’s death was insignificant.
Heart pounding, I stood listening and waiting, feeling the vibrations on the air. The street remained empty save for the seductive whispers of magic stroking my mind. No shadow cats and no Arcanum sniffers with guards. I’d gotten away with it.
Chapter 9
With reluctance I reduced the torrent of magic running through my muscles to a trickle. A crushing and cramping weariness descended, and an almost overpowering urge to puke. Magi without any talent in body magics had killed themselves trying to learn to manipulate their flesh: bodies giving out, muscles tearing, organs rupturing, heart bursting. I knew a few tricks but couldn’t even think of approaching the sort of physical juggernauts that those knights with the true Gift for body-magic could become.
I stared up at the now-vacant window. Where had all that newfound strength come from? I looked at my hands like they belonged to somebody else. I should have needed to touch him to do something that quick and brutal; certainly I had not possessed such power ten years ago. I felt sick. Accident or no, I had killed a man just doing his job. I felt the ghost of Lynas’ disapproval. Damn it, I needed to be more careful. Whatever Lynas had uncovered was bigger than any single life, bigger than Lynas’, bigger than mine, and certainly this poor fool’s. I didn’t have time for guilt.
I didn’t let my guard down, still scouring the darkest shadows for shadow cats. I only had a short space of time to ransack the wardens’ minds, break through the wards and search the warehouse for clues. The Arcanum would have set wards that alerted them if broken.
I focused my Gift on the dazed wardens, fighting back a thrill of power, of mastery. “What do you know about the murder of Lynas Granton?” I asked, sifting through the sluggish tides of their thoughts. Their answer was bugger-all, just that all his papers had been taken from the warehouse to the Courts of Justice up in the Old Town. I would have to go up there myself if I wanted to learn more. “Sit down and go to sleep.” The two wardens did as they were ordered.