Fumes—sickly, pungent, corrosive. An itch in his nostrils that started to sting, then burned as if his nose were swarming with fire ants.
Shadrak came to with a sneeze. His eyes spilled acid tears. He went to wipe them, but his hands wouldn’t move. Panicked, he tried to sit up, but he was held flat against a hard surface, something cold and firm securing his wrists and ankles. He tried turning his head to see, but some kind of collar secured his neck to whatever he was lying on.
A dark smudge passed in front of his vision. He blinked furiously to clear his eyes. Not a smudge, a beard. A broad face, blurry and indistinct, gazing down at him. A few more blinks, and the face came into focus.
Arecagen.
In the background all Shadrak could see was the ceiling, rough and grey and glistening with moisture. Underground was his guess. Away from prying eyes.
“I once vivisected a husk child on this very slab,” the sorcerer said. “Not strictly true: it was several husk children over a long period of time. I have traffickers like you to thank for the opportunity. Good specimens are so hard to come by, what with the Maresmen being so diligent. I assume that one outside the theater was intending to punish you for past deeds. Well, don’t worry: all those years of experimentation have taught me a few tricks, as far as husks are concerned. He’ll not trouble you again.”
“You killed the Ghost?” Shadrak said. “How?” His throat was dry, and he coughed.
Arecagen ignored the question. “The effect of the tincture I daubed on your nostrils to rouse you.” He held up a vial containing a yellowish liquid. “Unpleasant in the extreme, but when time is of the essence… And it is of the essence. My ring, you understand.”
“Mine,” Shadrak said. “Till I deliver it to my client.”
Arecagen nodded, as if he understood. “You need the money. Of course you do. It’s a long way down from the lord of the guilds to the most wanted man in New Londdyr. Must be hard to make ends meet. What if I were to pay you more?”
“A deal’s a deal.” Shadrak pulled against his wrist bonds, but they were ungiving.
“Scarolite,” Arecagen said. “I’m sure you know, but it absorbs force, physical and magical. All you are doing is expending valuable energy. Energy you are going to need to find this Bekra Cy and retrieve my ring.”
“Like I said…”
“Yes, a deal’s a deal. You don’t strike me as a man of honor. Why the moral stance? You’ve worked for me before. You were my top supplier of husks back in the day. Are you afraid of something? Something that might happen if you renege on your agreement?”
He was clever. Only an idiot would double-cross a Stygian, particularly one as connected and as powerful as Xultak Setis, who was considered depraved even among his own kind.
“Not saying?” Arecagen said. He sighed and wandered away from Shadrak’s field of vision. There was a chink as he must have set the vial down on a table, then the rustle of papers. “You know, of course, what the ring is?”
“I know it’s not good, that it comes from Thogani.”
“The Desecrated City, yes. One of the Witch Queen’s rather dubious artifacts. You know much about the Witch Queen?”
“Don’t need to. Not part of the job.”
“Very focused of you. Commendable, even. Well, let me tell you a thing or two about her.”
Footsteps approached, and then Arecagen was staring down at Shadrak once more.
“Hekata N’gat, the Witch Queen, has been dead for a very long time. Centuries. Aeons. But dead for some people does not mean an end to existence. She is still active in her sphere of influence to the far north of Qlippoth. Knowledge of her artifacts is restricted to the elite among my kind: master sorcerers, and so I have to assume whoever employed you is such. To my mind, this is a good thing. In the past, when the knowledge was not so carefully restricted, lesser mages went after the artifacts and never returned. Anything made by the Witch Queen that is not currently in her possession is almost certainly a lure, a hook to snag sorcerers so that Hekata N’Gat can reel them in and drain them dry.”
“She’s a vampire?”
“Nothing so crude,” Arecagen said. “From what I have read, she imbibes essence by some kind of process like osmosis. It’s all speculation. No one really knows. No one has been to Thogani and come back to tell the tale.”
“So,” Shadrak said, “let me get this straight: you want this ‘lure’, even though it’s likely to be a trap? You believe you’re one step ahead of the game, or too powerful to succumb? Am I right?”
“Surprisingly, yes. To those of us who have swum for a lifetime in the currents of the Cynocephalus’s dreams, magic is more of a science than an art. The harnessing and manipulation of the god of Aethir’s nightmares seems at first full of mystery, happenstance, and chaos, but once a certain level of proficiency is achieved—”
“Yeah, you think you’re in control. Believe me, it was the same with the guilds, but shit still happens. And anyhow, what makes you think you’re more advanced than the Witch Queen? She’s been around a whole lot longer than you, or am I missing something?”
“You are not. Age is no indicator of skill. Practice something badly for a thousand years, and you will still be bad at it.”
“Why do you assume she’s bad at sorcery?”
“Because she’s constrained. All the books agree, the Witch Queen cannot leave the Desecrated City. That has to be due to certain limitations of her undead condition, otherwise it is a magical restriction imposed upon her. Either way, a sorcerer worth their salt would have overcome it after so much time.”
“Maybe she just likes to stay at home.”
“Pah! There’s really no point discussing this with the ignorant. Do you know how many tomes I’ve read on the subject? Before we can have a meaningful conversation, might I suggest you start by reading—”
“So, this Bekra Cy who’s run off with the ring,” Shadrak said. “You think it will reel her in, lead her to Thogani to be drained?”
“If she’s a half-decent sorcerer, for nothing less would interest the Witch Queen. But that must not happen. Who knows when the ring might be released back into the world again? It could be centuries. It could be never. We must act, and act now.”
“Answer me this,” Shadrak said. “You consider your magic superior to the Witch Queen’s?”
“I do,” Arecagen said.
“Then why do you need her ring? Why not make one yourself? What does it even do, besides lead sorcerers to their doom?”
“That remains to be seen,” Arecagen said, somewhat testily. “But skill with sorcery does not necessarily grant the ability to craft artifacts of power. A certain kind of recklessness is needed for that. Sacrifices I am unwilling to make. Pacts with dark forces. You, as a homunculus, should know all about that sort of thing.”
“The Demiurgos?”
Arecagen shrugged, but his cage was definitely rattled. “Or one of the other Supernal beings. But back to the point in question: will you help me get the ring?”
“No.”
Arecagen sucked in a sharp breath. If Shadrak could have lifted his head to see, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the sorcerer’s hands clenched into fists.
“Whatever your employer is paying you, I’ll double.”
“No you won’t, unless the Academy’s had a change of fortune that would be nothing short of miraculous. Last I heard, it had gone to the dogs, which is no doubt why you employed Fargin as a tutor. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. How much did he cost you? A crust of bread and a glass of stagnant rain water from the overgrown gutters?”
Rather than the eruption Shadrak had expected, Arecagen merely smiled. That was troubling.
“Let me put it another way,” the sorcerer said.
Deeply troubling.
Again, Arecagen moved out of Shadrak’s field of vision. Again, the rustle of papers.
“You are familiar with Dr. Otto Blightey, the Lich Lord of Verusia?”
Shadrak stiffened. All too familiar. He’d once been to Verusia, once trod the dank and crumbling hallways of Wolfmalen Castle. Once been forced to watch the Lich Lord at work with a victim on the rack, bound hand and foot, just as he was now.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Arecagen said, coming back into sight, holding up a page of vellum webbed with what looked like veins. There were sigils drawn upon it in a flaking, brownish ink, handwritten notes in the margins, and arrangements of letters and numbers in tidy squares. Shadrak had stolen from enough sorcerers in his time to recognize them as magical permutations, though he had no idea what these ones were for.
Arecagen seemed to read his mind. “Like I said, magic is a science, not an art. It’s quite logical when you have the know how. These marks here describe what is to be summoned—or rather, what is to be made manifest from the atmospheric dream stuff that permeates Aethir from where the Cynocephalus sleeps in Gehenna. Some wizards use the word ‘apport’, but I find it so pretentious.”
Shadrak found himself staring at the sigils in question, desperately trying to work out what they resembled.
“Bore-grubs,” Arecagen said. “You know, the kind that can eat their way through bone just as easily as flesh. The numbers in the squares stipulate the energy expenditure—mine, that is. The letters define the locus of manifestation—in this case, your intestines. Now, where did I put my staff?”
As the sorcerer turned away to look, Shadrak blurted out, “Two hundred denarii. That’s how much he’s paying me.”
“Your employer? Well, it seems you were right: I can’t stretch to four hundred. I wouldn’t go above twenty, and even then I’d take them back once the job was done.”
At least he was honest.
“In any case, didn’t you say a deal’s a deal? You are a man of iron-clad principles, Shadrak. It’s a disappointment, but I shall have to console myself with using you as a test case for a trial of the Lich Lord’s magic. Just think: you’ll be aiding the advance of magical science.”
“No,” Shadrak cried, hoping he sounded convincing. He’d never been much of an actor. “I’ll do anything. Just don’t put bugs in my guts.”
“I’m sorry,” Arecagen said, “but I’m rather set on the idea now.”
“Please!” Shadrak squealed—he sounded a lot like Fargin, and though he was putting it on, he was starting to feel desperate. More than that, he had to admit he was scared.
“Please what?” Arecagen said.
“I’ll get the ring. I promise! I’ll bring it straight to you.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s true!” Shadrak sniveled. He even managed to force tears to spill down his cheeks. Dame Consilia would have been proud of him. “You said it yourself: I’m a man of iron-clad principles. I won’t betray you.”
“Spoken like a true homunculus. Ah, there it is.” Arecagen moved out of sight again, this time returning with his staff in one hand and the vellum page in the other.
Now Shadrak was sobbing like a jilted damsel in an Aeternam tragedy. “What can I do to convince you?”
“Oh, you’ve already convinced me… that you can’t be trusted. There’s no need to use a truth detection spell; for a homunculus you really are a terrible liar. Aren’t you supposed to be so convincing that you end up believing your own lies? At least that’s what I was told about your kind. I had hoped you might see the sense of a partnership in this matter, but you know what they say: hope for the best, plan for the worst. Let me tell you what I’m prepared to do. I’ll go ahead with the spell as planned—”
Shadrak started to protest, and this time he wasn’t acting.
“But,” Arecagen said, cutting across him, “I will render the bore-grubs dormant for one week. Return with the ring during that time and I will dispel the magic. Fail to do so and you’ll experience cramps initially, then excruciating pain, and then…” He squinted at the handwritten notes. “It’s the original,” Arecagen enthused. “Blightey’s own handwriting. Ah, here it is: cramps, pain, internal bleeding, chills, spasms, and then the skin of your abdomen will begin to pucker. At that point paralysis usually sets in, and you’ll watch passively as the bore-grubs eat their way out of your stomach and start to consume you from the outside. It’s funny, but Blightey is so enthusiastic in his descriptions that I get quite caught up in them. What I would ordinarily find horrific, I now positively salivate over.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Shadrak said. “You can trust me.” And this time he meant it, although that made no sense, as all he really wanted to do was slice the shogger’s fruits off and feed them to him. Was that what Arecagen meant: that a homunculus intending to betray someone could believe in their own innocence, until the precise moment of the betrayal? Shadrak had never heard such a thing before, but then he’d spent most of his life not even knowing he was the spawn of the Demiurgos.
“Perhaps,” Arecagen said, “but I don’t need to.”
Powerless to move, Shadrak clamped his jaw shut and refused to cry out as the sorcerer rapped his staff three times on the floor and the air thrummed with unnatural energy.