The Hidden Illusionist Read online

  The cracks shot out further. The roof caved, and the solid roof disappeared from under his feet. His stomach lurched as he fell. He waved his arms like a mad duck desperate for flight, but he couldn’t stop his plummet.

  He opened his mouth, and a sound came out. “Arrrghhhhhhuueeeeee!”

  He could only shout as his plummet stretched out into what felt like hours. What the hell happened? Is this it? Am I going to die? Please don’t let it hurt.

  He closed his eyes and braced for the agony.

  Finally, he hit solid ground. Or, luckily for him, solid-but-cushioned ground.

  “My back,” he said. “Think I’ve broken it.”

  Ethan lay next to him, covered in dust and rubble and pieces of wood, in a similar state of agony. He brushed dust from his hair. “Where are we?”

  They were in a large hall. Dozens of townsfolk were sitting in rows of wooden seats behind them. Some peered at Dantis, while the finer-dressed ladies and gentlemen eyed him with an air of disgust.

  “Morning,” he groaned. “Don’t help or anything. I’m fine. I only fell through a roof.”

  “The Ashwood brothers,” said a voice behind him.

  A man towered over him from behind a large wooden pulpit. It dawned on him; they’d fallen through the roof and into the justice hall, the same place the guards had planned to take them.

  He’d never believed in destiny before now, but if something was going to force him to acknowledge a spectral finger in the sky prodding him along the route it chose for him, this was it. For all his scheming, he’d ended exactly where fate – the cruel bastard - had wanted him.

  “This isn’t how I expected you to join us,” said the man behind the pulpit, who must have been the judge, “but you’re here, so we’ll begin the auction.”

  The auction? This was the justice halls, right? Not an auction house.

  The truth dawned on him.

  Oh, hell.

  “Dan,” said Ethan, “We’re in more trouble than I thought.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the man behind the pulpit. “I hope you brought your purses. We have two young men for sale today.”

  Chapter Four

  Dantis

  “Which boy do we take?”

  “You know our requirements; do I need to spell everything out?”

  “People are starting to notice. Rumors are spreading. Too many…there are wanted posters plastered over the town.”

  “Rumors won’t mean much soon. Take the stronger one.”

  “Are you sure? They say the younger one is…”

  “The stronger one.”

  ~

  The pearls of society were sitting across from the lowest of the low. Rich men and women dressed in fineries occupied one side of the justice hall, while pimps, heavies, slavers, and rogues filled the other. None of them would have confessed to such labels, but everyone knew what they were.

  Blue mana barriers buzzed around all sides of them, probably to protect them from the kind of criminals who would usually get their punishment here. It was strange, really. Mana used to be such a valuable thing. It was the essence of magic, the fuel that powered mages’ spells, and they used to be so protective of it. After the emperor increased his tax on colleges and guilds to fund the Soul Wars, the mage colleges had been forced to sell mana. Now, you had mana-powered everything; mana carts, mana swords, mana toilets.

  He smelled something in the air, an aroma that cut through the pinch of dust around his nose. When he realized what it was, his chest tightened. Mayroot. Someone in the room had taken mayroot, either by eating it, smoking it, or rubbing it into their skin as a paste. It might have only been a little, but Dantis was so attuned to it that the smell was cloying.

  He started to sweat. His body yearned for the root, just as it had for years on the run, when he’d become addicted to it. He’d bought some from an herb dealer in Rotterwell, and the hallucinogenic herb had taken him away from the streets, away from the problems, away from anguish and fear about his parents.

  He’d become addicted from then on. At first, he’d tried to hide it from Ethan, but spending so much time so close to someone, it was impossible. Ethan hadn’t been angry, though. He understood why Dantis needed his escape. Instead, he locked Dantis in a cellar they’d broken into, and he trapped him there until he sweated every bit of mayroot out of his system.

  As he brushed dust from his face, he noticed a woman in the crowd looking at him. She was rich, judging by her clothes and where she was sitting, and pretty enough to make his heart ache. She smiled at him.

  Dantis wasn’t used to smiles. As a street thief, nobody smiled at him, and his first thought was that she was joking, or something. But the longer the stared, the more he realized the smile was genuine. He nodded at her, and she looked away.

  Ethan nudged him. “All in one piece?”

  “I think so. Does it strike you as odd nobody cares about the giant hole in the roof?” asked Dantis.

  “Wolfpine is a weird place. They throw stones at the moon, and they marry their sisters.”

  Ethan was trying to make light of it, and Dantis loved him for that, but he was rubbing his black scar. The more trouble they were in, the more confident Ethan acted. Dantis always tried to copy him, but he couldn’t master his emotions as well as his brother.

  A clamor of voices rose in the room. The judge banged his gavel so hard it was like he was trying to smash his pulpit into pieces. He was dressed in full battle armor, with a six-foot sword next to him. Dantis had seen enough justice halls to know what it was. Judges in places like Wolfpine didn’t just pass sentences - they executed them too, and the Sword of Justice was their implement of law. It seemed barbaric, but there was good reason for it. Good for criminals, anyway; it was said that a judge shouldn’t pass a sentence he wasn’t willing to carry out himself. That meant that fewer death penalties were given.

  “Cuff their wrists and put them the dock,” he said.

  Put them in the dock. Dantis clung to the word. As long as it was him and Ethan, they would always come good.

  “Come on, you two,” said a guard. “Move your arses.”

  He nudged them over to the dock. The floor crunched under Dantis’s boots. An inch-thick layer of hay covered it, with most concentrated around the dock. He hadn’t expected luxury, but being treated like a donkey was a social step down. What was with the hay, anyway?

  Ethan whispered to him. “This is bad, Dan. I’ve heard about auctions like this. They only sell off the worst criminals. Murderers, rapists, traitors like us.”

  “Traitors. What a load of shit. It was theft, not treason.”

  “They can spin it how they want, you know that. I’m worried about who’s gonna try and buy us. It could be anyone. Slavers, miners, gladiator camps, people with fetishes. If someone wants to buy a criminal, they don’t have a nice reason for it. I’m not becoming an over-sexed troll’s play toy.”

  Dantis had been trying to prepare himself for life imprisonment. He’d tried to accept it, and he was maybe a tenth of the way there.

  This was something else. No imprisonment, no normal punishment – he was being sold? Ethan was right. Anyone who wanted to buy a criminal didn’t have rehabilitation in mind. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

  “It’d be a nice time for one of your schemes right now,” he said.

  Ethan shrugged. “I’m all schemed out.”

  They didn’t have any weapons, and they were surrounded by an army of guards. Most of the guards looked too unfit for the real Domina Empire army, and the grudge they harbored because of it was etched in their bitter faces. Brutality wasn’t a response to violence for apes like these, it was a hobby. Forget carrot and stick; these guys couldn’t spell carrot.

  Ethan nudged Dantis. “Who’s the woman? And why is she staring at you?”

  The air froze in his lungs. In the middle of spectators’ rows, sandwiched between a pimp and a gladiator master, was a woman. She had wild
black hair that curled in different directions, like a nest of serpents. She took a brown lump from her pocket and fed it to her hair, which wrapped around it.

  Her face was paler than marble, and mist drifted above her shoulders, red one minute and purple the next. A man behind moved his head, as if the mist offended him.

  She was the one who’d been in his dreams, who watched him outside his cell. Only, it couldn’t have been a dream, could it? If she was here, it must have been real.

  “No idea,” he said.

  “I think she likes you.”

  “She gives me the creeps.”

  “Shut yer mouths, you two,” said a guard at the side of the holding pen.

  That sealed it. If the mysterious lady outside his cell was real, then he wanted to get out of there. She made him shiver.

  What could he do? Ethan couldn’t fight their way out without a sword, so it was down to Dantis. He had one trick up his sleeve; illusionism. Now, what illusion would be grand enough to create a distraction?

  A man entered the justice halls. When he appeared, the spectators stopped talking for a few seconds. He was so strange Dantis had to look once, twice, and again, and he still didn’t believe what he saw. This man didn’t have a face. Or, instead of a face, he wore a metal mask. Red gems were sitting in his sockets where his eyes would be.

  “What’s with him?” whispered Ethan.

  “Maybe he’s disfigured.”

  “Does he even have eyes?”

  “That’s what the gems are for. They must be enchanted.”

  Enchanted gem-eyes were rare. He had never seen any before, but he’d heard of them. He didn’t expect the strange feeling they gave him; when the man faced him, it wasn’t like his gem-eyes looked at him, but more like they seeped into him, somehow. He wore a golden robe that flowed like water, and it looked expensive enough that selling it would have kept Dantis’s belly full for a decade.

  An aura hung around him, a presence that made you pay attention. A necklace dangled from his neck. It was a gold octagon with a red eye in the center, and a blood-tear welled on the corner, so life-like he expected it to drip to the floor.

  He’d seen the red eye before, but where? In a book? He strained to remember, but a mental vice tightened around his brain.

  The man carried a scepter in his right hand. He’s a mage. I should have known. Most towns employed a mage to combat magic threats. He guessed this man was Wolfpine’s resident mage, but why was he here? It wasn’t usual to have a sorcerer in a justice hall.

  The guard pointed at Dantis and Ethan. “Keep an eye on these two, Lillian,” he said. “They already tried to escape once.”

  The mage, Lillian, nodded. He took a vial of viscous liquid from a pocket of his robe, tipped some into his hand, and applied it on the skin around the edges of his metal mask.

  “Your name is Lillian? Really?” said Ethan. “Did your parents think you were a girl?”

  Lillian faced Dantis, red eye gems sending out waves of dripping hate. “I know about your tricks. Don’t try them while I’m around. I’ll burn the magic out of your arse before you can raise your hand.”

  So that was why Lilian was here. He knew about Dantis’s magic, and it was his job to make sure nothing happened. Their last, slim hope of escape was gone.

  The judge banged his gavel. “Ladies and…gentlemen,” we said, eyeing the pimps with disgust, “we have before you today two specimens of the lowest order; the Ashwood brothers, Dantis and Ethan.”

  Dantis cleared his throat. “Your honor, may I say something?”

  “You are speaking out of turn, boy.”

  “With respect, since our arrest we haven’t had much chance to talk at all, and there’s one point I have to make clear. My brother Ethan had nothing to do with this. It was all my idea, my plan. I masterminded everything, and Ethan was only there because he’s scared of me.”

  “Scared of you?” said Ethan. “At least make it believable.”

  “He’s also a little simple minded, your honor. You can’t believe what he says.”

  The judge shook his head. “I don’t believe a word of what either of you say. Denied.”

  Murmurs spread across the rich crowd, while one pimp nudged another and then winked at Dantis.

  “You have all seen them in some guise or other. Perhaps they posed as apprentices seeking work, then stole from you when you turned your back. Or maybe they shoved you to the ground as you walked through town and stole your purse. That is the kind of people we are faced with, my good sirs and madams.”

  “Hey!” said Ethan. “I would never shove someone to the ground to steal a purse. And we’re not on charge for taking purses, are we? Let’s stick to the facts.”

  The judged nodded. “He is correct; the charge today is treason, not assault and theft.”

  “Besides,” said Ethan. “You know how easy it is to unclasp a purse? Depending on the way it’s fastened, you wouldn’t feel me take it. Unless it’s doubled looped, of course, but I’d just cut through it. I’d never need to knock you down. I’m not a street thug. I have more class than that.”

  Dantis jabbed Ethan in the ribs. “You never know when to shut up,” he said.

  The judge addressed the audience. “We have the Ashwood brothers for auction today, ladies and gentlemen. First, a few facts about them. The ones we know of, anyway, since disguise and deceit come natural to these urchins. They have no family, no job, and no home. In short, there is nothing decent about them. They have bounties in many of the towns and cities in our fine isle. They are nothing but scam artists, thieves…and traitors.”

  Hmm. Part of that was true. It was fair to call them thieves, no doubt about that. But common? That was a travesty. They targeted wealthy families and merchants with sour reputations; rich people who gained their fortunes by stepping on the heads of the less fortunate. Nothing common about that.

  In short, they targeted people who were the opposite of their parents. Their mother and father were wealthy traders who sold original recipe elixirs that their father concocted using alchemy. Their mother, an ex-tourney fighter, had a flair for marketing. They made a great team.

  Alchemists could be found in any town or city, but their parents stood out; their potions worked. Not only that, but their father made a point of selling his potions at a loss if a poor family needed them. They had morals and a code of decency, but that hadn’t stopped them being murdered.

  With Mum and Dad gone, he and Ethan only had each other. The survival skills they’d developed complemented each other; Ethan could use a blade, and he could pick a lock easier than picking his nose. Dantis was the more studious one. When they planned a theft, he gathered all the information they needed. He tried to think about everything that could go wrong.

  This time, to his shame, he’d missed something, and they’d been caught. Worse, he’d underestimated the political importance of their target, and they wound up getting charged not as thieves, but as traitors to the empire.

  “Now,” said the judge. “You are all no doubt wondering, ‘why would I want to purchase two thieving traitors?’ The boys have certain talents that make them not completely worthless.

  “The older boy, Ethan, is fit. He could be used to wheel dung carts around, shift stone, you name it. I chance to say he could last a year or two in a mine. The younger boy does not possess such attributes. He isn’t unhealthy, but If I were to say he had muscles, it would be false advertising. He could probably sweep a floor, though I wouldn’t bank on it. He is weak, insolent, and stupid.”

  Weak? Stupid? Did they know he could conjure illusions out of the ether? No…they didn’t. And thinking about it, it was better it stayed that way. If you had an advantage, you didn’t give your enemy advance warning of it.

  “I feel so loved,” said Dantis.

  The crowd muttered to each other. Dantis needed a friendly face, so he looked for the pretty woman who’d smiled at him. When he saw her, noticed something else. The man next to her
was starting straight ahead at the judge, but he was slowly reaching to the woman’s handbag.

  “Your bag,” said Dantis, pointing.

  The man jerked back liked he’d been zapped by a mana stick. The woman gasped. Across the justice hall, the judge glared.

  “Guards,” he said. “Ready a cell for the thief, here.” Then, he looked at Dantis. “It seems not every honest bone in your body has been corrupted, after all. But still, onto the charges. Ladies and gentlemen, If you’re buying a criminal, you have every right to know what he did. Although the boys look like deviants, their crimes are not violent or sexual in nature. Rest easy on that account. Their crimes, while not aggressive, are heinous.