Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (38 page)

After a
thorough examination of his supplies, he picked up a quill, ink, and paper. The
equipment was sufficient, but he would need different materials and reagents.
He smiled to himself as he wrote a list for Kale and Delilah, confident the
situation would improve now that he had the support of the princess.

* * *

Over the
next several days, the weather continued to remain pleasant, though cold. More
streets were sufficiently cleared of snow as to be passable, and Kale and
Delilah reveled in their newfound freedom to come and go from the palace as
they pleased.

They split
Pancras's list between them. Delilah and Edric searched the marketplace for the
esoteric reagents and materials, while Kale and Kali searched for the more
common items. Most of the humans and minotaurs they encountered stared at
Kale's wings. Their stares made his scales crawl. Despite the discomfort they
caused him while they grew and that they made it more difficult for him to find
comfortable sitting and sleeping positions, he liked his wings. In Drak-Anor,
he never felt he stood out enough. He was always "Delilah's brother."
He decided everyone else was jealous of his wings, and he was quite satisfied
he now featured a unique attribute.

They met for
lunch at one of the taverns near the marketplace, relishing the variety of
meat-filled pastries served there. After lunch, Delilah wanted to return to the
palace. "I'll take all this stuff back to Pancras. Keep out of trouble,
and come back at dusk. I don't want to have to come looking for you."

Kale
dismissed her concerns with a snort. He and Kali made no plans to do anything
dangerous, and they all agreed to keep Edric out of gambling dens. "Yeah,
yeah, we won't be much longer. I just have one more errand to run for Pancras,
and then we'll be back."

The minotaur
had given Kale the old tips he used to wear on his horns. He needed them melted
down and remade. The process of melting them would release the magical energy
that bound them to Pancras, and the gold would be safe to make into ornamental
tips. Kale wasn't sure he liked the idea of releasing magical energy, but both
Delilah and Pancras assured him it would be perfectly safe. Still, they
counseled him not to mention anything about wizardry to the jeweler and to
commission new ones if he had to, using the old ones as trade if they couldn’t
be reused.

"I need
the best jeweler in town, Kali." Kale patted his pouch to make sure the
gold horn tips were still within it.

"That
would be Icos the Elder in the Foundry District. They say he can see a fly's
footprint on a rock and has the steadiest hands in Etrunia. I know the
way."

"I'll
bet he can't hold a candle to a dwarven jeweler." Edric tossed a silver
talon to a vendor selling ale and grabbed two bottles out of the snowbank.

"Well,
I don't know any dwarves making jewelry in Almeria, so old Icos will have to
do." Kali led the way as they exited the marketplace and made their way
through the snow-covered streets toward the Foundry District.

His
wide-brimmed hat adequately shielded his eyes from the sunlight above, but he
squinted to minimize the light, reflected from the snow, from blinding his
eyes. The sun felt warm on Kale's wings, despite the cold winter air. He spread
them as they walked to increase the surface area upon which the sunlight fell.
Whatever changes the chaos rift caused in him seemed to be permanent, and he
found he enjoyed feeling warm all the time. He pitied all the people who
required heavy cloaks and coats in order to function at even a basic level in
the severe weather. By the way they all complained about it, even bundled up,
they never felt warm.

Kali took
them down a familiar road. He saw the signs for The Sleeping Viper and The
Assassin's Dagger ahead. She turned down an alley across the street from the
tavern. The snow stood as high as their hips, but the extra heat from Kale's
body melted it faster around him, leaving a path wherever he stepped. He pushed
ahead of Kali and Edric, melting a path for them to follow.

Icos the
Elder's shop protruded from the side of a dwelling seemingly as if the builders
changed their mind halfway through construction. The tower climbed to the
second floor of the structure and featured its own door separate from that of
the residence. The conical roof covered a row of tall windows that composed
most of the second floor wall.

A bell
jingled as the group entered. A grey-furred minotaur sat in a chair near the
entrance, one leg crossed over the other, as he chewed on the end of a
long-stemmed pipe. His horns curved upward and out, reaching half-again his
head's total height. His ears flicked toward the newcomers, and he raised one
eyebrow as he regarded them.

"Are
you Icos?" Kale pulled the horn tips out of his pouch.

"The
Elder." The minotaur's smooth baritone voice sounded like it belonged to a
much younger minotaur.

"I have
some jewelry that needs to be remade."

The minotaur
removed his pipe from his mouth and stood. He held out his hand, casting an eye
toward Edric. "Mind you don't touch anything, Dwarf. Most of these
creations are works-in-progress for paying customers."

Kali pulled
Edric away from the jeweler's workbench. Kale dropped the horn tips into Icos's
open palm. The minotaur weighed them in his hand and grunted. He stepped to the
workbench, his hooves clopping on the wooden floor. He tossed the pipe onto the
bench and held one of the horn tips up and peered into it.

"Where'd
you get these, huh? I can feel the magic in them."

Kale wasn't
sure how to respond. Pancras didn't say anything about the possibility someone
might realize they were of arcane origin. "My friend's a minotaur wizard.
He doesn't need those anymore but wants another pair that's similar and just
ornamental. You know, to put over the tips of his horns."

"Hm.
Vain fellow." He blew into the horn tip and then tapped it against his own
horn. "What does he want, exactly?"

"Something
fancier, I think. But no dangly bits." Kale really wasn't sure. Pancras
only told him to get them melted down and recreated. Kale assumed Pancras still
wanted to appear well-dressed, even if he no longer used them as his arcane
focus.

"I can
do some embellishments. Maybe some rose gold in a knot pattern or a rope
pattern. Give me a week. Pay half now."

Kale nodded
and reached into his pouch. Pancras had given him some gemstones to use and
hoped that a jeweler would accept them as payment. He felt around and pulled
out a rough, translucent forest-green gem. "Will you take this in
trade?"

"Hm?
Give me that." He took the rough gem from Kale. "Do you know what
this is?" He hefted the fist-sized rock in his hand and then measured it
in with equipment on his workbench.

"Not
really. Emerald, maybe?"

"No.
Looks like a kind of garnet. This is worth far more than the work I'm going to
do."

"Oh,
well," Kale dug in his pouch. He found a handful of crowns and twice as
many talons, but nothing in between. "I don't have enough crowns,
probably. I can bring something else later. I have more, just not with
me."

Icos put the
stone on his workbench. "I'll hang onto this as deposit. Bring me three
hundred crowns, or the equivalent, when you pick this up and I'll give you the
new tips and this one back."

Kale noticed
Kali gesturing to him, but he ignored her. "Fine. I'll be back in a
week."

Holding up
his hand, Icos spread his fingers. "Five days is fine."

Later, after
they left the shop, Kali grabbed Kale's arm. "Are you insane? That rock
was probably thousands of crowns! You'll never see it again!"

"That's
what Pancras gave me to pay with." Kale shrugged. “Icos will give it back
when I come back with real money.” His expertise was in locksmithing and
trap-building, not the value of gemstones and jewelry. "Let's get back.
I'm getting hungry."

* * *

Delilah,
pleased they were able to acquire everything Pancras needed in one trip, hummed
to herself as she returned to the palace. Kale, Kali, and Edric could spend
their remaining time in town throwing dice or visiting all the taverns in
Almeria for all she cared as long as she could resume her study of the
grimoire. The business with the salt mine and Pancras's plotting with the
prince or the princess were all distractions.

She felt
that she was on the verge of discovering the trick behind silent casting, if
only she could study the grimoire uninterrupted. The book revealed its images
to her swiftly now, and she was able to lose herself in it after concentrating
on a page for only a minute or two.

The images
of the battle returned. Gil-Li's eyes glowed red. She drew a dagger over her
palm and made a fist, squeezing blood through her fingers. Her enemies exploded
in clouds of blood and gore. She raised her arms in triumph as fire and
lighting raged around her. The image shifted.

A crowd of
humans and draks cheered as Gil-Li rode a horse down the street. A rock flew
from the crowd and struck the drak in the head. She reached up to touch the
wound, and when she looked at her fingers, they glistened with blood. She
pointed at the crowd, in the direction from which the rock came and a ray of
fire burned through the crowd, seeking her tormentor. The man who threw the
rock tried to flee, but Gil-Li burned his legs with fire. When he fell to the
ground, screaming in agony, she struck him again and again and again with
lighting, electrocuting him until nothing but a charred corpse remained. The
cheers of the crowd changed to screams of outrage and fear. Gil-Li destroyed
them all, calling down fire and lightning from the sky until nothing remained
alive.

The image
shifted again. Endless graves surrounded Gil-Li. The drak fell to her knees as
rain poured down around her. The image of Gil-Li in the graveyard grew distant,
revealing the area around it to be a scorched plain.

The message
the grimoire conveyed was clear.

Delilah
turned the page. The letters and marking on the page swirled together, forming
a new set of images. Gil-Li faced yet another shadowy assailant. Her tattoos
glowed, and tendrils of swirling of blue, red, gold, and green aether
surrounded her like a rainbow whirlwind. She spoke while weaving her arms in an
intricate pattern, wispy aetheric tendrils trailing her movements, until spikes
of earth erupted from the ground, impaling her attackers. The image shifted,
focusing on Gil-Li's lips as she chanted. Delilah tried to mimic the patterns
Gil-Li's mouth made as she studied the image.

"A…
koda… geo… sea…" She knew those weren't quite the words Gil-Li recited.
The language of magic was exact. The wrong intonation could yield no result or
a catastrophic failure. "That's not right, Deli-girl." This wasn't
the first time Delilah mastered new words to learn new arcane effects. Most of
what she knew she taught herself from scrolls and books liberated from invaders
of their home before the foundation of Drak-Anor.

"A…
kida… geo… sis." She felt the words were closer but still not right. She
nodded, glad she had not channeled arcane energy while she tried to decipher
Gil-Li's words. Mispronunciation in the heat of the moment killed many hedge
wizards and other self-taught practitioners of the arcane arts.

"Akeeda!
That's it! Akeeda… something. Gee… oh—Geiosis!" Every fiber of her being
told Delilah that was correct. She
knew
it. She was excited, but
disappointed at the same time. The snow covering the ground would make any
demonstration she might offer less than impressive, and she doubted either the
prince or the princess would appreciate her tearing up the palace grounds just
to show off.

After a
month of diligent study, her dedication to the grimoire paid off. It was
different magic than that to which she was accustomed. She snapped the book
shut and hopped off the chair, running off to tell Pancras or Kale about her
accomplishment.
Some things are just too good to keep to yourself!

* * *

The needle
darted in and out, trailing shimmery, silken thread as Pancras put the final
stiches in the fetish. It was oblong, phallic, almost obscene, and looked the
part it was to play. He hoped the abjurations with which he planned to infuse
it would hold. The construction of arcane fetishes was an exact art. One
suitable for necromantic curses was more often than not completely unsuitable
for protective abjurations such as one might use to protect a child. The
minotaur hoped the construction he incorporated into the interior of the fetish
would prove more than its outward cosmetic appearance.

He heard a
thud and cursing from outside. The noise broke his concentration and caused him
to jab the needle into his finger. He put the fetish down and sucked on the
injured digit as he entered the parlor to see what the commotion was about.

Delilah was
sprawled out on the floor, her legs tangled in Edric's and Kale's. Her grimoire
lay open, face down, and Kali regarded the writhing pile of limbs as she held
her snout shut with her hands, her quivering sides betraying her laughter.