D. Jackson - Thieftaker

Darrow held himself still, his eyes fixed on the cordwainer. Ethan could see his thoughts churning, and after tracking the man these past few days, he had finally started to understand the workings of his mind. He didn’t like what he saw on the conjurer’s face. In the next moment, Darrow shifted his gaze to Ethan and actually smiled.

“New plans,” he said, just loud enough for Ethan to hear.

Of course. He couldn’t have Mackintosh kill Ethan now, not with Adams and Otis here, knowing what they did. But he could kill all three men, and use power drawn from their murders to compel Ethan to accept the blame. With that much power, he might even convince Ethan of his own guilt.

Darrow glanced off into the night again before facing Adams and Otis. “I don’t think you need those anymore,” he said.

The ground hummed and a second later, both men dropped their pistols as if they had suddenly grown too hot to hold. Adams rubbed the palm of his hand. Otis stared down at his weapon, his mouth hanging open. Then he looked at Darrow, and there could be no mistaking the terror in his eyes.

“How did you do that?” Otis whispered.

“How do you think?” Darrow answered, a mocking grin on his lips.

Ethan drew on the flame for another illusion spell. Anna appeared before him.

Darrow regarded her sourly. “What now?”

“Mackintosh is right,” Ethan made the girl say. “Darrow is a conjurer. He intends to kill you all, and he’ll see to it that Kaille takes the blame.”

“I’m afraid he’s right about that,” the conjurer said, looking faintly amused.

Ethan didn’t hear what was said next. Once more he used one spell to mask another. Maintaining the image of Anna that stood in the firelight, he sent another image of the girl down the road and peered into the night through her eyes. Doing so, he beheld what Darrow had seen only moments before. Pell was coming; the real sheriff and a few men of the night watch walked with him.

“… Kaille?”

Ethan forced himself to concentrate once more on what was happening in the firelight. Darrow had said something and now glared at him. The others watched him, too, Otis looking frightened and uncertain, Adams grim but alert. Mackintosh, the street fighter, merely waited.

“I asked you what you’re doing,” Darrow said.

“I’m keeping this illusion going,” Ethan said through Anna. “I’m telling these others that you intend to kill them, and that they should flee while they can.”

Darrow shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “No. You’re up to something else.”

They were out of time. Ethan knew what was coming and knew as well that he needed to be precise in what he did next. The timing of the spells was crucial. He was exhausted; never had he cast so many spells in so little time. Never had he been tortured like this. But he could give in to his weariness, or he could survive the night. He couldn’t do both.

He closed his eyes again, drew on the fire, but also on the air, and on the fine mist forming over the nearby fields. And he succeeded in creating an illusion that was more real than any he had conjured before. His image of the sheriff and men of the watch rushed into the firelight, their footsteps scraping on the road, their pistols glinting in the glow of the blaze as they leveled them at Darrow. But he felt his own spell, and so did Darrow. Otis and Adams jumped out of the way of the illusions. Darrow laughed at them.

“They’re not real,” he said, contempt in his voice. Glancing at Ethan he added, “Really, Kaille, is that the best you can do?”

Ethan’s conjurings waved their weapons at the lawyer, making the same motions over and over. They looked pathetic really, as Ethan had known they would.

But he needed them to mask yet another spell.

Discuti ex foliis evocatum! Shatter, conjured from leaves!

Power coursed through the ground. Darrow’s eyes snapped to Ethan’s. A second conjuring made the earth hum, so that the two spells skirled discordantly, like strings on a poorly tuned violin.

Except that Darrow’s spell was a warding against Ethan’s assault. And Ethan hadn’t aimed his spell at the conjurer. He aimed it at the shackles that bound his arms.

The chain snapped at the last link before the cuff on his left hand, and immediately Ethan grabbed hold of the chain with this right, and swung it hard so that the links whipped toward Darrow. No doubt the conjurer’s warding would have worked perfectly against a spell, but it wasn’t intended to guard against a physical assault, and he didn’t have time to cast again.

The end of the chain lashed Darrow across the side of his face, knocking him to the ground.

Mackintosh dove forward and grabbed the knife that had fallen near the fire. At the same time, Ethan cast a second spell to free his legs, and ripped the gag from his mouth.

Adams and Otis started toward their guns, but they couldn’t reach them in time.

Still lying on his back, Darrow roared something in Latin that Ethan didn’t understand. There could be no mistaking the effect, though. It seemed that a keg of gunpowder exploded in their midst. The spell threw Adams, Otis, and Mackintosh to the ground, leaving all three men addled. It also hammered Ethan back against the tree. The breath was knocked from his body, and he collapsed, landing hard on his wounded shoulder and knee.

Darrow stood slowly. Blood flowed from his nose and the corner of his mouth, and his cheek had already started to darken. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. Ethan knew what was coming. He saw the blood vanish from his face, felt the ground tingle. Still, how did one prepare for such agony?

He felt as though his skin was being flayed. Molten steel coursed through his veins again. The spike had impaled his head once more. This was torment beyond anything the man had done to him before. He couldn’t escape it, and it went on and on. He thought Darrow would kill him with the pain. Ethan didn’t even know if that was possible. He could hear himself howling like a wounded animal, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

“Beg me to kill you.” Darrow’s voice, even and calm, so close that the man could have been whispering in his ear. “Ask me for death, and I can end this. The others are lost anyway. You can’t save them. Beg me.”

Through a haze of agony, Ethan drew upon the leaves overhead to cast a warding spell. He might as well have tried to block a cannonball with a sheet of parchment. Still, Ethan refused to surrender. He tried to attack Darrow with fire, with scalding, with another shatter spell, and with the blindness casting he had used two nights before. He felt the conjurings tremble in the ground beneath him, and he knew that the spells had worked. But he could do nothing to breach the man’s wardings. Darrow was too strong. Even Pell and the sheriff and the men they had brought wouldn’t be able to help. All of them would die. Already Ethan felt his life ebbing away. His heart was being seared; he could barely draw breath. He couldn’t fight it. He wasn’t even sure anymore that he wanted to.

And yet, in the next instant, the pain ceased. Ethan took a deep breath-he could breathe without feeling that his lungs were on fire. A warm breeze touched his face. He wanted to savor the sensation. He wanted to rest.

He forced his eyes open. Darrow loomed over him, but he was staring over his shoulder at Mackintosh. The cordwainer backed away from the man, terror in his eyes, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Darrow turned slowly, and Ethan saw that the knife Mackintosh had retrieved jutted from the conjurer’s back, just below his shoulder blade. Blood darkened the man’s coat, but only for a few seconds.

Ethan had time to shout a warning to Mackintosh, but it did little good. The blood disappeared, and Mackintosh’s coat burst into flames. The cordwainer dropped to the ground and began to roll from side to side. Adams and Otis leaped to his aid, batting at the flames with their hands.