INTERLUDE 5D: REDGATE’S DOOM
“Some children delight in pulling the legs off craneflies. Let us not forget that some of these children will inherit the power of the archmage. Following the recent tragedies it could not be clearer that we must scrutinise the candidates more thoroughly. If they have failed to evolve in attitude, prospective recipients of Magisterium funds may end up pulling the legs off citizens and we cannot stand to have ourselves associated with such affronts to the public will any longer. Our good name is tarnished enough, and we cannot risk an uprising at this time. Until further notice the policy of potential darkmage integration is to be discontinued. Only the office of Special Operations will henceforth possess the power to suspend this ruling, on a case-by-case basis. It must be repeated that all contact with archmages of the diviner, enchanter and sorcerer varieties is to be classified as a Special Operation, owing to the balance of probabilities in examining such creatures.”
– from the memoranda of the Kailost 998 NE Briefing
28th Orovost, 998 NE
The ring was far heavier than it looked. There were three golden bands – no, it was a single band formed into a spiral – and sitting astride them in a silvery setting was a lone ruby. Not large to the eye; denser than she expected. The ring’s natural balance-point was stone-down, of course, and even she found it difficult to balance on her palm stone-up. It was tricky, but she was blessed by Enye, they’d always told her since her youth in Miserdell – favoured by the goddess who presided over athleticism and all the various physical sports. To balance a thing that did not wish to be balanced, you had to fight its will with your own. You had to be as still as you wanted the object to be. It wasn’t just a matter of finding the right point at which to balance it – of course that was important, but that was a task for precision, a task for the god Chraunator. Anyone could find the balance-point, with trial and error. No, it was Enye’s business to supply the knowledge, make it part of instinct, habit. To have the courage to act when you knew the time was right, instead of hesitate, miss the moment. It was not Chraunator’s cold assessments that Anathta heard in her ear when she balanced a ring, threw a dagger, slit a throat – it was Enye’s unspoken surge of energy, her rapturous certainty, blissful bravery. It was a thing she felt, in her soul.
‘Slash now!’ ‘Throw now!’ ‘Let go of the ring…’
She let go of the ring and it stood erect upon her palm, even though there should only be a one-in-a-million chance of it resting like that with such an overpowering weight at its peak.
Ring of Unerring Accuracy… Like I need it…
She knew the bravado for what it was, though. She wouldn’t have lived as long as she had if she didn’t have the measure of herself. She had missed, she admitted to herself – once or twice…
If I put one of the moonfrost bolts in each of his eyes… save the third charge for when he opens his mouth – try to put one in his brain? Would the nostril be better?
She could remember what the dragon looked like only as well as she remembered the shapes in her nightmares – she’d probably seen him there so many times now that her memories had been entirely replaced by figments of her imagination.
Most of the nightmares ended with her, not running, not burning away in acid – but riding the dragon’s back, using her arrows and blades like a climber’s claws, making her way to the beast’s face.
Look him right in the eyes, before I take the light out of them forever, and tell him: “Now you pay for what you did to me.”
She’d had a long time to think it over – why she signed up for this stupid quest the moment it presented itself to her. She’d always spoken of it in terms of responsibility, duty, whatever – enough to keep Phanar off her back. But, ultimately, it came down to vengeance. She suspected her brother knew that much.
Everything she’d known had been taken away in the course of a single evening. It was different for Phanar. He was seven, almost eight years old when he’d led them out of the wastelands of Nebril to the gates of Miserdell; she’d been barely one year old, in the back of the cart, the pair of them starving along with the pony that accompanied them. He, at least, had something else to cling to. A past he could remember, a life before this world – a life in N’Lem, in the shadows.
She had none of the heritage, none of the coolness and implacableness that Phanar seemed to possess as a birthright. All she had was Miserdell, a place where she always felt like a stranger without knowing why; the rudiments of a Mundic Realm upbringing, on the far edge of an ancient, long-dead empire.
All she had was gone, melted into sizzling puddles the smoke of which she could still taste in her throat whenever she thought about it.
Wind snared the ring on her palm, toppled it –
She felt the lurch and looked up, seeing the sails billow outwards as they caught the breeze – then they were underway.
“Back to Chakobar – hurray!” she muttered under her breath, trying to rebalance the ring again – the thing was such a stubborn little object –
“My, what do you have there?” the weird-looking Mundian asked softly, stopping beside her as he walked past. “A little treasure, I deem?”
“My, I do deem it to be so,” she mocked, uncertain (and uncaring) as to whether or not she was putting the words together in the right order.
He seemed to miss her sarcasm and seated himself on the crate next to her, placing his arms against the wooden panel that stretched behind them so that she was now sitting, effectively, inside his embrace.
The crate was certainly large-enough to accommodate two, but it still put their bodies in close proximity. She’d been on numerous boats filled with filthy sailors, and she’d even tangled with one random, attractive-in-an-unattractive-way helmsman back at the start of their adventures. But other than Ibbalat, about whom her feelings were still decidedly undecided – Enye was no help with those kinds of feelings, evidently – no man had ever sat beside her with such easy familiarity.
“Runes of seeking – runes of thought-attunement… interesting.”
She looked away from the magic ring, staring instead at the eight glossy black eyes across the front of his mask. “You can read what it does, just like that?”
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He laughed, a little tinkling sound. “Not ‘just like that’, my love. Such takes training, a keen eye… and a little deviousness.”
She cocked her head. “Oh? How so?”
“I am a sorcerer,” he said plainly. “Please do not tarnish my reputation by implying I did something unmischievous.”
She snorted, a snippet of involuntary laughter breaking through.
Against her previous judgement, she relaxed, uncoiled her taut pose somewhat. She went to toss him the ring and his hand snapped out from his sleeve – the arm that wasn’t around her back – catching it easily.
She found herself admiring his reflexes. For a magic-user, he seemed to be in fine shape, and she had to admit to herself that his mask, his hidden identity, intrigued her.
He has to be handsome, behind something so disgusting, doesn’t he?
The Mundian studied the trinket for only a few moments before spinning it in his hand and, to her amazement, it stood up on its end on the surface of his palm – ruby pointing up – there was no way…
“It is designed to aid an attack, no more than thrice. Standard password. Do I guess right?”
“How are you doing that?” she asked in reply, staring at the ring – he hadn’t even used his other hand to steady it!
He inclined his head, then tossed it into the air – without taking her eyes off him she shot her hand up, caught it while it was still ascending.
“Just a little luck manipulation,” he said, shrugging, then pressed: “Well – do I guess right?”
She smiled, returning the ring to a pocket. “You do. Redgate, isn’t it?”
He gestured at the little fences and portcullises sewn into the material of his robe.
“Do I not look the part, Lady of N’Lem?”
She took the opportunity to look him up and down. She couldn’t get a read on him; he was like a slippery eel.
“Shall I remove my mask?” he asked suddenly.
She guessed he couldn’t read her responses very well through the black glass. While she was certain she’d leaned forwards impulsively at his suggestion, he continued oblivious as though she required persuading it was a good idea: “We are out of port, now, and I don’t suppose that there’s any harm in it… I’d need you to swear your silence to me, though.”
She smiled. “I won’t tell anyone – who’s there to tell?”
“I shall have to have everyone swear,” he said in a musing tone, looking across her companions, the Dremmedine’s crewmen. “You would swear, to reveal none of my secrets save those I permit you?”
How can it hurt me to swear not to reveal his secrets? They’re his secrets…
“Well, of course,” she muttered. Was his identity really so important? Was he one of those Lords of the Real Bored or whatever Phanar had called it? Her excitement was building.
“Very well.” He reached up, removed the mask and hood.
While she sat, quite enraptured by his classically-handsome features and recently-trimmed brown hair, his aura of power and mystique, it took her a few moments to realise what he was talking about.
“I am so glad to find you so agreeable, Anathta of N’Lem. In truth I had feared this voyage would be the most interminable period of my life since I became an archmage, and I endeavoured to find something to help pass the time in a… less humdrum fashion.”
“Oh?” she murmured, feeling her breath catch in her throat. His eyes were warm, brown, and his teeth were white, perfect. She didn’t know which to look at.
“Why, you, of course! The enchantment requires two different infernal essences to put into effect. Two agreements.” His voice took on the character of a conspiratorial whisper, and she leaned in closer to feel his minty breath on her ear: “Why, now I can tell you! Do you see her? The virtuous daughter of Wythyldwyn?”
He pointed across the deck, to where Kani stood at the rail, and she wondered where this was going.
“I don’t like her. I’m going to kill her.” He moved his finger. “And him. And him. No – don’t –“
Kidneysticker was the closest dagger to her hand – she moved insanely quickly but he almost blurred – he used that uncanny speed, the startling strength hiding inside him, and his fingers darted out to take hers before she could draw one of her many, many knives –
“– you couldn’t stop me anyway, my love – come, think it through – I am here to slay your dragon for you… But please, allow me to finish: I’m going to kill them, right now, if you don’t do precisely as I say. You can watch your brother go last, eaten alive by maggots. He’ll be birthing flies, new life from inside his chest cavity before he even takes his final breath, a sing-song through insectile wombs repurposed from his lungs. And yet, if you sit still, I’ll let you go. I’ll let them all live. Will you sit still? Good. Good girl.”
He released her. He watched her. He smiled at her nausea.
Those teeth should’ve been fangs. Those eyes should’ve been red. But reality lied. He wore the face of a delightful young man, yet behind the surface there was only a charnel house.
The spider-face, that was the real one.
“And will you not smile? I fear things shall look amiss if you don’t smile. You are falling for me, after all.”
She fixed the smile to her face.
“Excellent, excellent, my love. You shall share my hammock – nothing improper, you understand, but I would have you close – and I very much doubt they would take to me bringing a member of my harem into the hold… You should be aware, however, that I am shielded when I sleep, and any ill-will shall awaken me, in addition to the more explosive effects… Please do not make an attempt on my life when I appear defenceless. I am never defenceless.”
“But –“
He met her eyes.
“But – why?” she burst out. “I was – I might’ve…”
For just a moment, the smile on his face broke, and there it was – the smirk. The evil glint in his eyes she’d waited to see.
“You might’ve fallen for me, in truth?” His laugh was exquisite, a raucous, high-pitched noise that everyone around them would take for innocent mirth – but she could hear the coldness, the sheer malice in every cadence. “But where would be the fun in that? That is easy. No, no. You are to be my slave, and upon your performance will rest the lives of your friends and family. That will be something fun to watch for a few weeks. Once Ord Ylon is gone I shall wipe your memories and let you alone, I promise. All of you.”
“You’ll – you’ll take the memory of his death away?”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, my love. You hate it, do you not, this dragon of yours? Such hate, that can overcome all your other concerns in this moment. Ah, I can leave you something – something to remember it by.” He reached out and patted her hand; she almost flinched then, catching herself, froze the hand, allowed him to stroke her crawling skin. “Perhaps you and I could’ve had something special. We are not so unalike as you might fancy.”
Yes – we – are, she growled internally.
“Do not look at me that way,” he said in a tone of warning. “If you think I will not end your friend’s life so casually, would you have me prove it upon one of these sailor scum?” He cast about at the crewmen surrounding them. “Which would you have me slay? I can easily achieve it in such a way as to cast no suspicion on myself.”
“No,” she breathed. “No, don’t. I – I’ll do as you say. I’ll – be your slave. Until he is dead.”
Until you are dead, she swore.
Kani walked past them, heading for her hammock. She’d been at her post all night, staring out at the accursed city. Ana followed her with her eyes, longing to follow, to speak, to divulge what Redgate had told her – to formulate some plan, some way to end his life –
It wasn’t until Kani caught her on her own and asked her opinion of the ‘champion’, the next afternoon, that Ana realised the extent of the vow she’d sworn. The enchantment that’d taken hold of her tongue, forced her to lie or forced her to silence, whichever seemed less-unusual.
It wasn’t until then that Ana realised how big the problem was. How coming to Mund might’ve unleashed a threat upon them that was even greater than the one posed by the dragon.
At least she didn’t have to sleep next to Ord Ylon, feel his too-fresh breath on her face – or at least try to sleep, languishing for hours in the constant, aborted desire to reach for a blade, plunge it into the soft place beneath his breastbone –
But he’d even done something at one point to show her the shield which surrounded him. Any action taken against him would reveal that there was something amiss; his cover would be broken, and he would start killing people.
No. Her bed was made, and she would have to lie in it. Until the time came, as she knew it would.
Three charges – unerring accuracy – right into Redgate’s heart.
* * *