Cameron Johnston - The Traitor God

I had no intention of going to Carrbridge. Instead I searched for a suitable inn, some middling place with a bath where I could scrub off the ship-stink. I spotted one down a side street, the sun-bleached sign proclaimed it The Throne and Fire.

Heading down the street I passed a scrawny girl at that awkward age somewhere between child and adult, a purple wine-stain birthmark covering her bruised cheek. As I approached she looked up at me without any trace of fear, just a dull acceptance, and held up a bowl. Too many Docklands girls had that same look. But for the grace of Gift I might have shared a similarly unsavoury fate. I had escaped thanks to my mother’s foreign bloodline, with all my father’s kin being about as magical as bricks; all gone thanks to the Grey Pox. I sighed. It had been a very long time indeed since I last thought of my parents, and I found the pangs of loss little dulled.

I fished out a handful of coins; I was a sucker for underdogs and second chances, and had been given more than a few of the latter myself. After a moment’s reluctance I added two silvers. It was what Lynas would have done. Easy come, easy go. The girl’s eyes went wide as the coins clinked into her bowl. She stared up at me with fearful hope, probably thinking I wanted something especially foul from her.

“It’s not payment, girl,” I said. “Get some food in your belly and a new dress. Clean yourself up and go see if any of the inns are hiring. And don’t let anybody see you have silver if you want to keep it.”

She swallowed and opened her mouth to reply but I didn’t want thanks, just waved her off and entered the inn. I hoped she wouldn’t spend it on drink and alchemics but didn’t care enough to stick around. I’d been disappointed far too many times for that, but everybody deserved a chance. What they made of it was up to them.

The innkeep overcharged me but I didn’t argue and allowed a young boy to show me to my first floor room. He brought up stones heated on the downstairs hearth and dropped them into a huge old ale barrel that served as a bath. Once it was hot enough I dismissed him and made sure the door was locked and barred before slipping in.

It would be sheer bliss to soak and let the heat relax cramped muscles, but I wasn’t here to enjoy myself. I sank down, the hot water enveloping my head, scrubbing grease from my hair and washing myself thoroughly to get rid of the weeks of sweat caking my skin. Any daemons would have a harder time tracking me down now. I could have used a little trick of aeromancy to rid myself of the filth but with my horrid luck a sniffer or shadow cat would have been passing by at exactly the wrong moment. It wasn’t as risky as using my innate talent with mind magic but wasn’t worth the added danger.

I scrubbed myself raw, then rose from the bath and dripped my way over to the bed. As it dried, my hair gradually lifted and spiked back into its usual unruly mess. It felt good to be able to sense movement again, like a blindfold had been removed. Every magus that had survived as long as I had inevitably suffered changes to their body in one way or another, alterations induced by the torrent of magic flowing through them. In some manner I didn’t understand, the black spikes of hair helped me to sense movement and vibration in the air currents. No whoreson would be sneaking up behind me in the dark. Maybe that said a lot about me.

Examining myself in a copper mirror nailed to the wall, I checked to make sure all the ship-filth was gone. Grey flecked my stubble now; funny how that had crept up on me. Not that a single new hair had gone grey in years though – my aging had ceased. It happened to most magi sooner or later, and unlike some I hadn’t withered away to a wrinkled husk.

I looked every bit as tired as I felt, but then I never had turned heads on entering a room – not for good reasons anyway – though I did like to imagine my scars lent me a sort of roguish charm. I shed the rest of my disguise, all the submissive mannerisms of a meek merchant, the slouching stance, and let my usual sneer creep back onto my face. It felt much like trying on an old pair of trousers and finding the fit a little too tight.

I stuffed a roll-up into my mouth and lit it from a lantern, drawing the smoke deep into my lungs and blowing it out like dragon’s breath.

“Welcome home, Edrin Walker,” I said to my reflection. For the first time in years I wasn’t running from place to place, adrift with nothing to live for but the next cup of ale. Lynas was dead, and suddenly I felt alive again, a monster roused from deep slumber for a single deadly purpose.

“Now, my old pal,” I said to mirror-me. “Let’s go find out who we have to burn.”

It was a short drop from the window to the cobbles, and then I was off through the warren of alleys in the opposite direction to Fisherman’s Way. My eyes darted to everyone I encountered, taking their measure. Paranoia had served me well over the years.

I knew that I looked like an idiot in the oversized tunic and patched trousers I’d stolen from the inn, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The inn’s locks had been a joke for my picks and the clothes newly laundered and laid out in some poor sod’s room. They’d have to repay the man. Served them right for overcharging me.

My head snapped up as a shadow moved beneath a broken cart. I sighed in relief as the hairy black head of a hound peeked out to snuffle along the ground. Ha, I wished those shadow cats luck trying to find my scent – magical or otherwise – through the alleys of the Warrens. Any nose that sensitive would suffer in streets awash with raw sewage.

First stop was Charra. If anybody knew the details of what happened to Lynas it would be her. I also hoped to pick up all my old gear I’d hidden away before boarding the first ship leaving Setharis ten years ago. I would need every weapon I could get. They had hopefully sat undisturbed in a chest at Charra’s Place all this time. I really hoped that she hadn’t let curiosity get the better of her. I didn’t fancy mourning two friends today. The twists and turns of the streets were unfamiliar to me now, and it would take time to find my way there. It gave me the opportunity to think, and that was never good. Lynas died over and over again in my mind, driving me to the edge of impotent fury. My hands curled into fists, nails cutting into my palms. If only I’d been here.

The local thieves didn’t bother me this time. They could tell that I belonged here from my jaunty walk, the flash of a feral grin and the aura of imminent violence that said I’d as soon smash their head in as look at them. Of course, in these borrowed clothes I also didn’t look like I had two copper bits to my name either. Might have helped.

I was glad I didn’t have to risk using my magic on such lowlifes. I tried not to use magic to mess with people’s heads if I could avoid it – it was a sickening violation of privacy and it hadn’t been terribly difficult to swindle a living out in the hinterlands of the Free Towns, where people were more naive and trusted far more readily than properly civilized Setharii folk like myself. Unlike pyromancers, burning bright and burning out quickly, I was subtler and canny enough not to let the magic run riot through my body long enough to risk more changes, rationing it until needed instead of putting on flashy shows. A magus is too fragile a channel to let the sea of magic roar through unchecked for long, and the more you used it the more you wanted to; no, the more you needed to. Want was far too weak a word.

Affinity for one of the elements was by far the most common Gift, but I was different, classing myself as a right manipulative bastard, or a peoplemancer if I wanted to be polite about it. Most people had worse names for those with my rare sort of Gift: tyrant if they were being polite, mindfucker if not. The Arcanum kept an eye on all magi and made sure we didn’t abuse our powers too much, and they’d known I had the potential to enslave people to my will and become a true tyrant. They had always watched me with an extra level of vigilance, one hand on a knife ready to plunge into my back. Happy times.