Colin Tabor - The Fall of Ossard

They bowed their heads in prayer, the whispered chant the only sound to disturb the quiet.

For the first time since leaving Newbank, I began to feel uneasy. We were so close, but it could all still go so wrong. A panicked guard might use them as hostages, or shields, or even kill them. Maybe even now the cultists rushed through their ritual.

The anxiety building within me nearly won out, almost making me cry for Sef and his fellows to stop. Before I could say a thing, though, Sef nodded, and Cherub rammed his shoulder into the door.

It didn’t stand a chance.

The door exploded in a shower of snapping planks and splinters, its ruins following him as he charged down the stairs and into the dark. He carried his sword in one hand while the other flung my charmed coins about.

If the big Kavist’s arrival hadn’t brought enough chaos to the cellar, the others who followed him certainly did. They all cried out, and showered wooden coins about, while carrying their swords ready.

I slumped against the wall unable to watch.

Sef gave me a sympathetic look, but it faded along with his cool confidence.

Something was wrong…

He turned to the doorway as his brow furrowed and nostrils flared.

I could smell it too.

Death…

The yelling died down beneath us as disappointment soured its tones.

Sef called out, “Well?”

Cherub answered, “They’ve gone!”

Sef led me down. “Watch the door.” Its ruin lay strewn the length of the stairs.

I descended fearing what I’d find at the bottom. Before I reached it I was trembling and covered in a cold sweat.

The kidnap victims had been there and two of them still were – dead.

It wasn’t Pedro and Maria or Lord and Lady Liberigo, so I let out a selfish sigh of relief. The unfortunates were Heletian; an old woman and a young man. I didn’t recognise them. They’d been left hung from chains and their throats slit.

Piles of flattened hay lined one of the damp cellar walls. It had been used as bedding. I walked its length until I reached a corner. Somehow I could sense who’d lain there; my husband and daughter. Dropping to my knees I put a hand to it.

It was still warm!

Tears flooded my eyes.

So close!

Amidst my disappointment came something cold and bitter, it whispering to me with a celestial voice, “They were still there when you were showing off in the alley.” It was Lady Death.

My heart sank.

While I’d been using my meagre skills against her hunting pack, my daughter and husband had been spirited away.

In a hoarse voice, I said, “Let’s get out of here. They may have planned a trap.”

Sef nodded, but got some of his fellows to search the room for anything of import while he led me back up the stairs.

We withdrew and fell back through Ossard’s alleyways. Sef and four others took me back to the river, and then saw me safely across to home.

Before they left me to rejoin their brothers, Sef said, “Juvela, the search hasn’t ended. I’ll watch for them tonight. We’ll begin afresh if we have to tomorrow. Have faith.”

I stepped forward and embraced him. “Thank you Sef, be careful.” The move embarrassed him, but he didn’t fight it. After a moment he even returned it with feeling.

“Take care, Juvela, and eat before you retire. Your castings will have drained you.”

I nodded and watched them leave before turning to go inside.

My home was cold and quiet. The maid wasn’t about or her belongings. Like so many others, it seemed she was frightened of me and had fled. After walking the abandoned halls with only the rhythm of my footsteps for company, I retreated upstairs.

My bedroom only seemed emptier.

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to kick off my boots, only to end up wrestling with them. The effort made me angry – and then came the tears.

Eventually I found myself barefoot on the balcony in the cold night air. I needed no goading to join the chorus that rang out across Newbank; Schoperde’s song of sorrow.

It felt good singing its long and mournful notes. Through it I burned away some of my grief and disappointment, and rediscovered my resolve. I would find my family, I had to, and I’d discover how they’d been moved moments before our arrival.

How did they know we were coming?

Eventually, I left the balcony and sat on my bed where I cradled my grandmother’s tome. I was exhausted, but still fell into a restless urge to search for my family, to at least do something. From there I dipped my perception into the next world and began to search through a city-state of a million souls. I started the hunt at the celestial equivalent of the opera house, and then spread towards the port and the south.

It was tedious work involving far too many souls – still, I persisted. I also supposed whoever held them would be using some kind of shielding magic to keep them hidden, as they had before. Nevertheless, I continued.

Sef roused me from my hopeless search midmorning, to drag me from its misery. Of them, I’d not found a hint.

“Juvela, don’t fret, we’ll find them,” he said grave-faced.

My eyes burned from my tears. I’d also become cramped and lost to shivers, something that saw my voice shake, and my breath wheeze. All of it only made Sef fuss over me like my mother.

With a hoarse voice, I said, “Sef, I’m alright!”

“You look terrible…”

“Really Sef, I’m just a little tired.”

“You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“No.”

“Or slept?”

“No.” So lost in my misery, it hadn’t occurred to me. My stomach growled. I tried to laugh at its timing, but the sound came from me as a weak rattle that sent aches shooting through my chest.

“Juvela, you have to understand that magic is a taxing thing. I know what you did last night might seem simple, but I could feel the power you gathered, and the way it surged and boiled.” He knelt down in front of me with concern in his eyes. “You keep a great well of power in there,” he pointed to my belly, “but crafted only the smallest portion of it. To do so, to gather such energy and not spend it, or recover by properly resting and eating, will only see you waste away.”

I didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t casting magic all about other people suffering the consequences?

He saw my confusion. “Juvela, the power’s corrosive, so much so that only a healthy body can withstand it. If you’re half-starved and tired, it’ll work away at your muscles and bones, it’ll even boil your blood away given the chance. It becomes a cycle, one that’s harder to recover from. If you’re not careful, it’ll kill you by burning you out.“

I nodded; what he said made sense, even if I didn’t appreciate the gravity of his words.

He saw that, and shook his head in anger. “Please, Juvela, you must be careful! You’re no ordinary magician…”

And that comment got my attention.

He went on, “I don’t know what you are, but I can feel such strong currents of power around you when you reach into your font. If you’re not careful, it’ll kill you; just look at your hands!”

What about my hands?

I looked down at them.

My long fingers normally lay thin and fair, and well covered with skin stretched not too tight. They weren’t now. I spread them before me as they trembled, my body lost to some kind of shock. Wrinkles ran their length, and the skin hung loose with folds and creases deep in the thin flesh, yet that wasn’t the end of it. I could see liver spots and other shadows, and a mix of sickening colours finished with yellowed nails.

I gasped.

Sef looked me in the eye. “Have I got your attention now?”