Page 19 of Fate of the Argosi

Nobody missed the sound of a second blade being drawn. ‘One hair,’ Arissa said from close behind Chedran. I didn’t need to look back to know the tip of her knife was at his throat; she’d always been sneaky. ‘Touch so much as one hair on that boy’s head, and these dull grey walls get a cheerful coat of red paint.’

‘Ferius, please,’ Kievan cried, clutching at my arm. ‘Make them stop before they turn misfortune into tragedy!’

Little late for that, I thought, but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the spell warrant gleaming across Remeny’s forehead.‘A magnificent labyrinth that can only be walked in a dream,’Kievan had called those markings. But it was the weeping, terrified boy, already resigned to the fate Chedran intended for him, who’d had the right of it. A story was being composed on his flesh that would surely end badly unless a way out of this could be found for all of us.

‘Don’t be afraid,’I wanted to tell him.‘There’s a way to wipe those markings off, I’m sure of it.’Lies wouldn’t do either of us any good though. I’d told this boy he was going to have to be a man now, and that much was true. I knelt down in front of him again and brushed aside his brown hair, which was now slick with sweat. I closed my eyes, and with the tip of my little finger began tracing the lines of the spell warrant, guided only by the cold metallic sensation of the silver ink.

‘What are you doing?’ Kievan asked.

I kept my eyes shut. ‘Trying to get a feel for whoever’s on the other end of this thing.’

‘I told you, woman, the silk mage is dead.’ Chedran’s voice was tight, like he couldn’t take a deep breath for fear Arissa would get too enthusiastic about redecorating the barracks with his blood. ‘I killed them all.’

Arrogance. That’s what had blinded me this long. Not my own – which can be bad enough – but Chedran’s pompous boasting. I’d let him get under my skin, which had prevented my arta precis from asking the obvious question.

‘No doubt you did kill that silk mage, brother,’ I said, moving my fingertip almost imperceptibly, searching out the sensation of another’s touch. ‘So how come the spell warrant kept growing instead of fading?’

‘Forgive me, Ferius,’ Kievan intervened, no doubt hoping to restore calm to the proceedings before things got further out of hand. ‘What good does tracing the lines with your finger do?’

Patterns, I thought, but didn’t say aloud.An Argosi seeks understanding in the patterns people leave behind. Follow the pattern, and you come to know its maker.

Patterns are everywhere if you know how to look: rituals, paintings, games of chance, the seemingly random order in which a culture strings its words together, the way they arrange the houses in their towns and villages. Sometimes, though, it’s the absences that hold the clues to a civilisation. Take the Jan’Tep for example. On the surface, just about the least romantic folks you’ll ever meet. No love songs, no flowery vows tearfully spoken at their weddings, and you’ll never, ever catch them dancing.

Watch the way they cast their spells, though, and you’ll be struck by something . . . carnal. A mage can’t work magic unless their mind is perfectly calm, and yet, beneath that unyielding sense of control, all kinds of emotions ripple across their face. The way they perform their somatic gestures and utter their incantations – even the hatred with which they look upon their foes while casting a spell – betrays a troubled intimacy.

Enna, an inveterate hugger, always did claim that those who avoided intimacy weakened their mind and body both. Bet she never predicted her foster daughter would one day use that altogether sappy piece of motherly wisdom to whoop a Jan’Tep mage’s arse. Then again, knowing Enna, maybe she did.

‘Can you feel this?’I asked silently, my fingertip tracing the silver lines of the warrant – an act of profoundly intimate desecration to a Jan’Tep mage.‘The metals of this ink are tied to the silk spell you took control of, which means it’s now tethered to the sigils of your own silk band. Bet this feels real uncomfortable.’

As I followed the flowing silver contours, an ache began to travel up the tiny bones in my finger to my hand, along my arm and through my shoulder all the way to my neck until the pain settled behind my eyes.

‘Rat Girl?’ Arissa asked quietly. She was right next me, so I guess she’d decided not to kill Chedran yet. ‘I’m thinking you’d better stop what you’re doing. You’ve got streaks down your face.’

‘No big deal,’ I said – grunted, more like. My hand was trembling. ‘My new friend’s just a tad ornery, is all. Besides, didn’t I ever tell you that tears are just sorrow leaving the body?’

‘Those aren’t tears, Rat Girl. You’re bleeding from the eyes.’

‘Is that how it’s going to be?’I asked whoever was tethered to the other end of the spell warrant.‘You think I don’t know that whatever agony you put me through, you’re feeling it too? Let’s dance then, stranger. Let’s you and me see who stumbles first.’

‘Ferius, I don’t feel right,’ Remeny complained. ‘I don’t . . .’

He went quiet, then I heard the shuffling of feet as someone – probably Kievan – rushed to hold him up. ‘Ferius, he’s fainted. Please, you must stop what you’re doing!’

My whole body was shaking from the effort of trying to trace the last line. I could feel wetness dripping down from my nostrils to my upper lip. ‘I’m almost there. I can feel them givin—’

My body shot backwards like I was a rag doll tossed by a child in the midst of a temper tantrum. My eyes opened, but all I saw was the rotted rafters going by, the grey tinted pink by the blood of my tears. That all came to a stop when my head and back slammed onto the floor, knocking the wind out of me.

‘Rat Girl!’ Arissa called out.

I could tell she was running towards me, yet her footsteps were virtually silent. That’s how stealthy she moves: a natural-born thief, through and through. Then again, my ears were ringing pretty badly, so maybe Arissa was thumping up a storm and I was too deaf to hear it.

‘I’m okay,’ I said, rolling onto my stomach before pushing myself up to my hands and knees. I wiped the blood from my eyes before accepting Arissa’s arm. ‘So, who won?’ I asked after she’d gotten me to my feet.

My vision was still blurry, but Arissa’s arched eyebrow was hard to miss. ‘Well, you bled out your own eyeballs, made the kid faint, got hurled about fifteen feet, probably gave yourself a concussion and almost certainly alerted whoever’s in control of that spell warrant that we’re on to them. Was that the glorious victory you’d envisioned?’

‘Damn it,’ I swore. ‘I’d hoped if I could reach through the spell somehow, I could force the mage to parlay or at least send us a—’

‘Look, look!’ shouted the little golden-haired girl who’d sat on Chedran’s lap earlier. ‘The lines are talking!’

---