Cameron Johnston - The Traitor God

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A city threatened by unimaginable horrors must trust their most hated outcast, or lose everything, in this crushing epic fantasy debut. After ten years on the run, dodging daemons and debt, reviled magician Edrin Walker returns home to avenge the brutal murder of his friend. Lynas had uncovered a terrible secret, something that threatened to devour the entire city. He tried to warn the Arcanum, the sorcerers who rule the city. He failed. Lynas was skinned alive and Walker felt every cut. Now nothing will stop him from finding the murderer. Magi, mortals, daemons, and even the gods - Walker will burn them all if he has to. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s killed a god…

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When we first met Charra she had been a skinny little wretch sprinting down an alley, bare feet ankle-deep in slush and snow and wearing not much of anything, her lips an unhealthy shade of blue. She had seen us running towards her and slid to a precarious stop. With her escape route blocked she’d started to panic, a rusty knife brandished in shivering hands. Lynas and I had not fared quite so well: startled, we slipped on the ice, ending up in a crumpled heap atop a pile of yellow snow, but miracle of miracles, we managed to keep the jar of rum and the hot joint of roast pork safely cradled in our arms. We’d much preferred scrapes and bruises to fouling our food. As usual I’d cajoled Lynas into being the lookout, but it hadn’t been one of my better planned heists.

Angry shouts of “thieves” and “get the bitch” came from opposite directions of the alley. We all looked at each other incredulously.

“Well, shite,” I said.

“Of all the poor luck,” Lynas added. “I told you I had a bad feeling about this one.”

Charra’s eyes flicked to the steaming joint of meat and then back again. An unspoken agreement flowed between the three of us. “Through here,” the girl said, darting through the open door to the child’s house. Right from the start Charra had proven herself to be the most quick-witted of our trio.

We darted through a mouldering room choked with children and swept through the curtain into the next home, ran past a yelling old man and dodged an angry woman with a bloodied butcher’s knife in hand, and then we were out into the adjoining alley. Our feet pounded the icy cobbles as we sped away, laughing as our pursuers got snarled up in the angry mess we left in our wake.

The girl took a sharp left and drew up to a ruined area of tumbled stone and charred wood that had been claimed by a blaze the year before. It stank of rotten eggs. A drove of swine snuffled across the area, grunting and munching on scraps of waste food people had dumped. Nothing went to waste in Docklands and it made for fat, juicy pigs. The drunken swineherder was taking a piss and paying us no notice.

She squeezed into a hollow between stone foundation blocks and disappeared down into a dark cellar space. Lynas and I exchanged glances and I dived into the hole after her, back scraping across stone. Lynas, running to fat even then, got himself wedged and it took both the girl and me to dislodge him, mere moments before the angry voices caught up with us.

They harassed the oblivious swineherder then searched the whole area while we hid in that dark hollow, hardly daring to breathe until a blizzard forced them to give up the hunt.

We waited there for a good few hours until the blizzard blew itself out, crude but strong dockhouse rum warming our bellies, scoffing down chunks of juicy roast pork. For us it was a fine meal, but for that starving waif, on the run for who knows how long, it was a feast. To pass the time Lynas and I ended up exchanging stories with that half-frozen little street rat who said her name was Charra. At first she hadn’t believed two such raggedy urchins were Collegiate initiates, and then she had been scared of our magic, but we were far from typical Old Town slicks. She quickly warmed to us, especially Lynas for some reason. Which had irked me at the time. Oh, sure, he had thought to give her his warm cloak, but I’m positive I would have thought of that too.

One thing we had quickly learned about Charra was that while she was a thieving little scoundrel, to friends her word was as iron. It was as if friendship was a novel concept to her, and a thing to be cherished.

Charra’s hacking cough shook me from my reverie. It was worryingly reminiscent of her lingering illness all those years ago when I’d made my deal, but the cellar was dusty and stale and irritated my own nose and throat.

She pulled back an oil-cloth from a pile of junk and I began removing old chairs, sacks of skimpy costumes and an assortment of mops, buckets and brooms. I tried not to think about Charra in costume as I delved deeper in the pile.

There it was: the accumulated detritus of thirty years of my life fitted into a single small heartwood chest hidden away in a forgotten corner of a dusty cellar. I was glad she had kept it safe, even after the fire that had gutted her old property.

I ran my hands over the smooth, dark wood. It bore a few blackened scars but was otherwise intact. I sighed in relief, hadn’t realized how much it actually meant to me until right then. It was the only thing I had left from my father, a gift given to me on the first day of my entrance to the Arcanum. That dour man hadn’t really been able to afford such finery on a dockhand’s pay, but hadn’t let that stop him. Never one to talk about his emotions, this had been his way of showing how proud he was of his son the magus. He was the sort of man that wouldn’t let sleep or food get in the way of something he deemed important. He had worked his fingers to the bone to buy it for me. I hadn’t appreciated it back then, brat that I was. My heart was heavy; I missed my old man.

The fuzzy warmth gave way to bitterness. Life as an Arcanum initiate had been harsh for a Docklands boy. I was not one of the old guard of High Houses, old money and political “scratch my back” and the others had made sure to remind me of my place at every opportunity. As a magus I hadn’t been better than them, but I proved much, much, nastier.

My wards were still in place, still potent and lethal. In the Collegiate you bloody well learned to protect your belongings early on.

I felt Charra behind me, peering over my shoulder. “So what do you have in there?” she said. “All these years I’ve been wondering…”

“Thanks for keeping it safe,” I said. “But be very glad you didn’t try to open it.”

Charra shrugged. “I’m no fool. When a magus tells me never to open something, not ever, I listen.”

That raised a ghost of a smile. My hand hesitated over the lid, reluctant to open it. It would bring back bad memories and pain, so much pain. When I finally pressed my palm to the lid there was a series of clicks and then a soft hissing. It creaked open without assistance.

On top I had carelessly piled scraps of paper and scrolls covered in my shaky scrawl, artefacts of my Collegiate years. I scooped them out and dumped them onto the floor.

Charra picked up some furled parchment and studied it. Her eyebrows climbed. “Really, Walker, poetry? You?” She chuckled. “Eyes blue as deepest sea, hair curled like the waves, wanton lips ripe for–”

I flushed and snatched it from her hands. “It was a horrible mistake I didn’t repeat.”

Under the papers lay my old greatcoat. I lifted it out and shook decade-old creases loose from the grey cloth, studying it with a critical eye. With great effort, master artificers of the Arcanum could make ensorcelled armour proof against arrows, or courtly attire designed to enhance allure – unusual items of all kinds. Normally you had to do some great service for the Arcanum to acquire such rarities, unless, say, a master artificer had certain nasty and illegal habits, unless one were to, say, make a huge mistake and require certain witnesses to forget his face. The item I’d requested as a payoff was something far more practical than armour and allure: the greatcoat was waterproof and self-cleaning, and since those awful ragged tears were all gone it was now apparently self-repairing. That was odd, but I wasn’t one to check a gift horse’s teeth.

I slipped on the soft wool, fastening black leather and brass buckles across my chest. It felt like donning a second skin, and a little like coming home. I spun to face Charra. “Well, how do I–”

Wait. Ragged tears in my coat? Yes! I used the old memory to ram a lever into the locked doors in my mind. The taste of blood flooded my mouth. I doubled over, clutching my head as the dire secret held inside slammed into its gaol doors.

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