Page 27 of Fate of the Argosi

I felt terrible about that.

I mean, nottooterrible. Like Enna always says, if you’re gonna walk the Way of Thunder, you gotta expect you’re gonna make an impression on people.

17

Parole

The first lesson Durral ever taught me about breaking out of mind cages was, like most of his teachings, a paradox.

‘Problem with trapping another person’s mind inside your own, kid, is that you’re also locking yourself in with all their thoughts.’

My pappy had gotten us out of that particular mind cage by having us share the stories of our lives. Stories full of love and pain, laughter and sorrow. The mage in question, being a stuck-up little Jan’Tep princess who’d never faced an honest emotion in her entire privileged life, broke under the weight of our experiences. I swear, when Durral throws a punch, he finds a way to do even that with dignity and compassion. Me? I didn’t have that kind of time. What I did have were allies . . . of a sort.

‘You boys having fun yet?’ I asked the Scarlet Verses.

‘Yes! Yes, yes!’they cooed in rapturous delight. If mystical language viruses had legs, these would’ve been dancing up a storm.‘Freedom, Argosi! That’s a word you love, isn’t it? Free yourself now by unleashing our sublime eloquence on those wh—’

‘Okay, okay, don’t get all pompous on me.’

Despite how hard they tried to push me, I still didn’t speak the verses aloud. All it took was to permit those sick, twisted syllables to take shape in my mind, unleashing words I’d bound into notions of beauty and mischief back into disfigured meanings full of horror and despair. That alone was enough to drag a coven of silk mages kicking and screaming to the brink of madness.

‘No!’the first one screamed so loud it was like her fists were pounding the inside of my skull, trying to get out. Confusion and terror had weakened the mind cage enough that I could make out the feminine tones of her voice – along with a defiant nature I would’ve found admirable under different circumstances.‘You will not break me, monster. Though my mind be torn apart by your foul disease, still you will not—’

‘Don’t be an idiot!’a somewhat less hardy soul cried out.‘We must abandon the spell before it’s too late!’

‘Jir’dan is right!’said another mage, this gal sounding even younger. Where was the lord magus in all of this?‘Sever the bond and I will rupture the Mahdek’s—’

A fourth voice chimed in.‘Something’s wrong. She can’t release the spell. Look, her lips are quivering. I think she’s trying to tell us . . . Ancestors! What are those sounds coming from Ala’tris? They’re like snakes slithering inside us!’

Wait . . . Ala’tris? Why did that name sound familiar? Damned mind cages – mess with your memories so bad you can hardly recall any but those the mage chooses to draw out of you. Ala’tris . . . Ala’tris . . . Repeating that name made my palm itch, like I was remembering the touch of a young woman’s hand, squeezing mine tight, almost like we were sis—

Oh, crap.

‘Stop!’ I commanded the verses, but they weren’t listening to me.

I’d been so proud of myself for keeping them from escaping through my lips that it hadn’t occurred to me the bond between the silk mage casting the spell and me might allow the verses to pass through her!

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ I told them, clawing back the Scarlet Verses before they could burrow all the way into her brain. Those nasty syllables tried to squirm from my grip, determined to unleash their foul meanings on the world. I bound them with contronyms, nullifying each word with its counter-meaning.Sanguinewent from bloodthirsty to cheerful. Theslitherof a snake about to strike softened to the sensuous, deliciously sinful feeling of silk sliding down a naked thigh. One by one, I beckoned those verses back inside me, dancing, always dancing, until their curse was mine alone.

I might’ve cried out from despair, but truth be told, I lacked the words.

‘If you’re still of a mind to kill me, now’s as good a time as any,’ I informed our captors, plunged into a desolation so deep I wasn’t sure I would ever drag myself back out. ‘You won’t get a fuss from me.’

It’s a strange thing to hear panting in your mind. I mean, a person who’s out of breath doesn’t actuallythinktheir huffing and puffing, do they? Slow rasping breaths filled the tower, causing the walls to expand and contract with each one. After a time, they slowed and finally settled.

‘You had me,’the young woman holding the cage together admitted.‘You could have destroyed us with those . . . what do you call this horror that hides you from my mind? It’s as if you’re a figure dancing inside a crimson mist, the tendrils of that insidious fog grasping for you from all sides.’

Well, that was just about as depressing an analogy for what I carried around inside me as I could imagine. Too bad she was spot on.

It took me a moment to respond. I was panting too, as it turned out, even though my body probably wasn’t even inside this tower. A chill was coming over me, which suggested I was actually somewhere outside in the cold. ‘You showed me your hand and I’ve shown you mine,’ I said. ‘How about we set our cards down and call this one a draw?’

‘Show yourself to me first. My comrades have left the tower. They’re heading for where your bodies lie on the ground. They will kill you rather than risk a second attack.’

I tried to tell her my name. It is, after all, the one possession I prize above all others. Maybe it’s vanity, but I love that name. Took me a long time to find it, and it means everything to me – which was precisely the problem.

The trick I used to prevent the Scarlet Verses from taking me over was to shift the meanings of their words, preventing those noxious ideas from solidifying inside my mind. It was a neat trick. Unfortunately, they’d started learning it for themselves. When I felt low, if I let sorrow or loneliness get the best of me, the verses would start . . . playing with my name. They’d strangle every joyful word until I was too scared to say my own name out loud for fear it would no longer mean anything at all.

‘A bargain,’they whispered, convinced, as always, that this time they had me.‘Speak us aloud. Let your lips take on the beautiful forms of our syllables but once, and you will forever be free of—’

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