The Hidden Illusionist Read online

  Better get moving.

  Ducking low, he ran across the courtyard. This was ridiculously easy. For such a palatial place, the guild house was falling apart. Didn’t they know about the holes? Didn’t they know how easy it was to escape through them? He laughed to himself at how simple it had been.

  When he reached the pathway, his stomach gurgled. When did I last eat? Back in the justice halls. I’m gonna have to find some berries or mushrooms. Luckily, he’d built a healthy knowledge of natural edibles in the time he and Dantis had spent travelling. If anything was going to kill him, it wouldn’t be starvation.

  He took another step. His stomach convulsed. Pain shot through him, cramping him up. It grew until he was in agony.

  “What the hell?”

  He tried to fight through it, but tremors of pain forced him to the ground. He kneeled. He took deep breaths. Another shock rippled through him, and he lost control of his arms. He hit the ground face-first, feeling blood spurt from his nose.

  “You owe me five gold pieces,” said a voice.

  Two figures emerged from the shadows. In the throes of agony, Ethan forced himself to look. Bander and Lillian loomed over him.

  “You’ve disappointed me,” said Bander. “Hoped you’d have more sense than this.”

  “What…have you…done to me,” said Ethan, biting back the agony.

  “It wasn’t me, cretin,” said Lillian.

  Bander crouched by Ethan. He lifted his arm and tapped the bracelet on his wrist. “Did you think this was for show?”

  “Rehabilitation?” said Lillian and spat. “I told you, Bander, it doesn’t work. Once a rat, always a rat.”

  Bander patted Ethan’s shoulder. “I hope this is a lesson that you only have to learn once. While you wear the bracelet, you can’t step foot out of the guild.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dantis

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Renton. It was a waste of a life, potential snuffed out for no reason. The woman had waited in ambush for Dantis, it seemed. No matter who he’d been travelling with, she would have tried to capture him, so why did it have to be Renton? Why couldn’t someone else have bought him? He didn’t wish death on anyone, but if he had to choose, then make it a faceless stranger.

  He had to focus. No matter how much it hurt to think about Renton, he had to be alert for escape. The problem was the woman, and what he could do. Arcane blasts, balls of ice, a horseless carriage fueled by mana? Was there any spell she didn’t know?

  Fury filled him when he looked at her, but it wouldn’t help him. There was no way he could overpower her.

  After seeing the woman use two mage disciplines, it was no surprise she knew a third, and this one propelled the carriage over the Road of Repent. Yellow sparks of mana exploded at the carriage doorway, and a burning smell drifted in.

  The pain returned in his leg, walloping him full force. The fire was long gone, but he felt as if it still smoldered on his skin. I’m gonna lose my leg. It got me too deep. He touched the bolt wedged in his thigh, and a shudder ran through him.

  Ethan has it easy. Bet he’s in a comfy bed with a flagon of wine next to him, laughing and joking with the other heroes. They’ll think he’s a cool thief.

  The woman pressed her hand over the snapped bolt sticking from her chest. White mist gathered over her hands, curling between her fingers and seeping into the wound, as if drawn inside her body. The bolt end popped out and fell on the carriage floor. The wound knitted itself together until her skin was unblemished.

  And there’s another one. Is there any magic she can’t use?

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Zaemira.”

  “I’m-”

  “Dantis,” she said.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her hair. It was dark and curly, and even though there as no wind, it wriggled as though it was alive. Mist seeped from her shoulders, glowing blue, then red, then purple. Every so often one of her hair worms would wriggle over her forehead, and she took a piece of biscuit from her pocket and handed it to her hair, which wrapped around it.

  Her open robed revealed a shape printed on the inner lining. A giant, red eye with a blood tear in the corner. It’s the same as Lillian’s necklace. What does it mean?

  “Your leg, boy,” she said.

  Grunting, he raised his leg on the seat. “Give me some of that sweet white healing stuff.”

  She put her finger to her lips. She touched his leg, and a shock of ice radiated through his trousers and onto his skin. White mist gathered around her fingers.

  Something thudded into the carriage. It lurched, and another thud hit. Zaemira leaned out the carriage door.

  “Acolytes,” she said. “Do those bastards ever give up?”

  “What are they doing here?”

  “They’re here for you, Dantis.”

  “Why?”

  “The Brotherhood seek out auctions like yours, hoping to snare easy meat for a cheap price. Few survive their fire trials, but the ones who do, can serve them. You, my boy, would be a precious prize to them.”

  “I doubt I’d survive a fire trial.”

  “It’s your magic they want. Not your flesh.”

  “But what’s it all for? Criminals, fire trials…what the hell do they do down there?”

  “They serve a god, Dantis. Not one that you need concern yourself with.”

  Outside the carriage, horse hooves pounded on the road, punctuated by cracks of whips. He strained to lean over to the doorway. Sure enough, the surviving two acolytes chased them across the Road of Repent. To the right of the road, water surged down a river, tearing over rocks and threatening to overflow the banks.

  A flame arrow whizzed toward him. He ducked back into the carriage in time to see it flash by, fire blazing a trail behind it.

  The carriage lurched again. It slowed, and Dantis almost fell off the seat. Zaemira held him steady. Pain exploded in his leg.

  “Finish healing me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “My carriage runs on mana, boy. You can feel it draining, can’t you? I overspent myself.”

  She was right. Battling the acolytes, she’d used more mana than Dantis could have summoned in a year. Mana fueled the carriage, and it seemed she was getting low.

  “So, you can either heal me, or keep the carriage running?”

  “I’m afraid I can do neither. I’m drained, boy.”

  “Then we’re in the shit.”

  The carriage lurched again. This time, it slowed dramatically. The horse hooves behind them grew louder.

  Something shattered against the carriage, tearing a hole in it. Wind swirled in through a hole in the roof, and a giant lance wedged inside the carriage. Flames crackled around it.

  “Fire lances,” said Zaemira.

  Another lance crashed into the side of the carriage, tearing timber from the sides. Zaemira sank against the seat. She closed her eyes and strained in concentration. Yellow mana sparked around them. Even with her renewed effort, the carriage slowed further, and the acolytes got closer.

  She can’t keep this up. They’ll catch us and take us to the lava fields, and Zaemira will be too weak to stop them.

  He grabbed his crossbow. In his hurry to escape the acolyte, he hadn’t taken any more bolts, which left him with the one loaded on the bow. He leaned out of the carriage, holding the crossbow with one hand, and the carriage door with the other.

  Wind rushed at him. The acolytes rode ten feet from the carriage now. Their faces twisted in anger, and spit frothed from their horses’ mouths.

  One bolt, one shot. But maybe that’s all it’ll take. If I can hit one of the horses, it’ll crash into the others.

  He squinted, took a deep breath, and fired.

  The arrow zipped through the air and toward the acolytes, before sailing beyond them. In answer, one acolyte fired a flame bolt. Dantis lost his grip on the door toppled forward.

  A hand dragged him back into the carriage. “Are yo
u trying to get killed?” said Zaemira.

  “I was trying to save us.”

  “Let me work in peace. It takes everything I have to keep the carriage running, and I can’t hold out forever.”

  “Can you give me some mana?”

  “I don’t have it to spare, child.”

  “I don’t need as much as you. My spells aren’t as…extravagant. Just a little, Zaemira. Send it into me.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “No. You need to trust me.”

  She stared at him. Her eyes were a chestnut brown, and they seemed deep and endless. Without a word, she put her hand on his head. A force flew into him, and a warmth spread in his stomach.

  His illusions would work now. He knew it, he could feel the glow of mana inside him. He leaned out of the carriage again.

  The acolytes closed the gap until they were two feet away. One leaned forward on his cart. He held a wooden stick with a hook on the end, and he grasped to attach it to the carriage.

  No time to think. I need to do something. What can I cast?

  There was a tree to their right. Concentrating with every ounce of his being, he cast the dregs of his new mana into the illusion. He imagined the tree trunk splitting apart, the wood groaning, and tipping over.

  The illusion formed in front of him. The tree no longer stood; instead, it crashed toward the carts.

  The horse nearest to it whinnied and reared back. Shocked with fear of the falling tree, it dashed to its right, dragging the cart with it. The acolyte whipped it, but the horse was beyond control.

  The horses in the other cart followed it. Neighing and wheezing, they galloped off the Road of Repent while the furious acolytes fought to control them. Soon, both carts careened toward the river. An acolyte tried to dive away, but he was too late. Horses, carts, and acolytes all crashed into the raging waters.

  Zaemira’s carriage carried on a few meters and stopped dead. To his right, the horses whinnied as they fought to stay afloat in the river, while the tongue-less acolytes could do nothing but swim against the current.

  Dantis leaned back into the carriage and collapsed against the seat. Sweat drenched his forehead. Pain wracked his wounded leg, and each throb made him want to vomit.

  Even in his condition, he felt bad when he looked at Zaemira. She stared back at him vacantly, taking shallow breaths.

  “Are you okay?”

  “How did you…cast…such an…illusion…with so little mana?”

  He wiped the sweat from his face. “I, uh, closed my eyes and imagined it. What’s wrong? I thought you healed yourself?”

  “My wound is…worse than I imagined. They didn’t just use…fire arrows. They had…something else. I need to drain from you.”

  “Drain? Drain what?”

  “Trust me…boy.”

  Draining didn’t sound good. If he’d made a list of ten things he didn’t want to happen, being drained would have hit top spot. Or maybe number two; getting his tongue cut out by a rusty blade was worse.

  If he didn’t let her do what she needed to, they were stuck on the Road of Repent until her mana replenished. In the meantime, the acolytes could swim out of the river and find them again. Or maybe they’d go to their lava fields and return with reinforcements. Zaemira was powerful, but not invincible. They couldn’t wait here.

  “Go ahead. Do what you’ve gotta do.”

  Zaemira stared at him. Her eyes turned blood red. She raised her hands, and a force shot through Dantis, jerking him upright like a puppet. A shock convulsed inside him, spreading through his veins. He wanted to be sick. His vision swam.

  Something seeped out of him, but he didn’t know what. It wasn’t painful, but the sensation made his insides lurch.

  Zaemira’s face contorted. Wrinkles cut into her once-smooth skin. Her eyes thinned into slits, and when she opened her mouth to breath in whatever she had drained from him, her teeth grew pointed enough to tear through flesh.

  She’s a monster. I need to leave, but I can’t move. I need to…

  The feeling stopped. He collapsed against the seat. His head lurched to the side, but he couldn’t help it. Something was missing inside him, but what?

  Zaemira’s wrinkles smoothed out, and the red drained from her eyes. Once again, she was the beautiful, perfect-skinned mage.

  “What the hell did you just do?”

  She stood up. Renewed with energy, she clapped her hands, and yellow light spread out and coated the carriage. It tottered into life, and the Road of Repent once again sped passed them.

  Dantis eyed the carriage doorway. Should he try and jump out? Whatever he had seen, whatever Zaemira was, it stirred fear in his stomach, and made him feel weak.

  He couldn’t run. What hope did he have of escaping from her? And if he did, wouldn’t the acolytes hunt him?

  Besides, part of him wanted to stay. All the time on the run, he’d told himself that all he wanted was to find a place to live where he didn’t have to worry. But he really desired something else. He wanted to grow stronger. He had this power inside him, and he’d wished for someone who could help him unlock it.

  Maybe Zaemira was that person. If she became his mentor, who knew what he could do?

  What about Ethan?

  Pah. Ethan was safe. The heroes’ guild was much nicer than the Road of god damned Repent. He’d be having the time of his life, practicing with his blade, joking with his new friends.

  That sold it. He’d learn what he could from Zaemira. After that, he’d find Ethan, but he’d be stronger. He’d show him his new powers and make his brother proud.

  With that decided, a new feeling stirred in him. It had been in him all along the Road of Repent, held back by fear and adrenaline. He was tired. Mind-shatteringly tired. He closed his eyes.

  He’d barely closed them, when the cart lurched, and he flew out of his seat. Zaemira exited the carriage. Dantis followed her, to find a sorry sight on the road.

  A man lay on the ground, his face bloodied and battered, his chest caved in from the impact of the carriage. There was no way he’d survived it.

  Laying next to him was a young boy with thick, brown hair. His checkered tunic was covered in blood, and his right arm was bent out of shape. Unlike the man, his chest rose and fell as he took labored breaths.

  Zaemira sighed and shook her head. She approached the child, looming over him.

  “Life and death are absolutes, Dantis,” she said. “But this boy is in between, hovering between the two final forces.”

  Panic hit him. “You can’t kill him.”

  Zaemira tenderly brushed the boy’s hair out of his face. Dantis was about to rush to her, when she carefully picked the boy up and carried him to the carriage.

  “Can you do something for him?” asked Dantis.

  “Perhaps. But not here.”

  Dantis looked at the man, his chest crushed by the carriage. Another death. All he could think about was Renton, and the ice crusted around his face.

  “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

  “The acolyte you killed. He…”

  “He was of the brotherhood. Don’t spare him a thought.”

  “That’s just it – he wasn’t. I knew him. He was helping me.”

  “Every man makes his choice, Dantis. Heroes, slavers, acolytes. Yes- the acolytes have their choice when they get to the lava fields. They either undertake the fire trials or die on the spot. Every man makes his own choice, and the one you grieve for made his. I am sorry if he was a friend.”

  ~

  He woke when the carriage stumbled to a stop. Zaemira exited, beckoning Dantis to follow her.

  “This way,” she said, curling her finger.

  “What about the boy?”

  “He isn’t in mortal danger. I will deal with him, but first there is something we must do.”

  He lifted his leg slowly, then stopped. It wasn’t hurting anymore. The bolt end was gone, and his wound had closed.

  “You healed me?�
�

  “One good turn deserves another. We’re even now.”

  When he stepped off the carriage, the Road of Repent was gone. Thank God for that. Instead, he looked onto a landscape of dry, cracked earth. All around him were the ruins of stone buildings, abandoned and bleached by the elements. He’d seen dozens of cities in the Fire Isles, but he’d never seen architecture like this. The buildings gave off an ancient aura, as if they’d been built in ages long-passed.