Trail of the Blood

  Mage

  by Carey Cauthen

  There were stains on the ceiling, the barest of flecks part of a greater whole. Greater is perhaps not the word to use, Aria thought, as she stood in the ramshackle doorway, letting the image before her imprint itself into her memory. No chance of forgetting this one.

  In the middle of a one room shack were the bound remains of a person.

  Brown-stained ropes tied tightly around ankles, wrists, suspending the body spread-eagled two feet above the floor. Aria could see that poor soul’s limbs were pulled out of joint … it had been a few days, at least, since this had been done.

  Behind her she heard sounds of retching. It was most likely the young guard who’d accompanied her. Although she had seen much, she had to admit that her own gorge threatened to rise in response to the slaughter before her and the rotting smell that permeated the room. She knew what this foulness meant, and it made her queasy.

  “Stay outside”, she said to her companion. “Make sure no one comes in.” A quick check to verify dark suspicious was in order, and then a trip to the castle to ask for aid.

  Her steps inside were careful, for she did not want to disturb any details that might help her catch who did this. Standing closer to the body, she decided that it had, at one point, been male, although those portions of the body had been removed and were presumably part of the five small piles of ash that were arranged at the head, hands, feet of the victim. The man’s bowels had been cut into and several organs seemed to be missing, though she did not want to look closely enough to identify which ones. The wrists had been slit, and two pools of coagulated blood reflected darkly in the sunlight. The face was horribly mutilated.

  “Blood magic,” she muttered, disgusted. Scanning the inside of the door she found hand prints in blood. Large and undoubtably human, it pointed to a killer. Strong enough to tie the body like that … he’d have to be at least in his mid-twenties.

  She retreated out of the shack and closed the door behind her.

  “Lieutenant?” asked the young guard in a shaky voice. He was noticeably paler than when they had walked into the slums.

  Aria ran a hand through her short black hair and leaned against the door. “It’s blood magic, all right. I’ve seen it once before and was hoping never to again.” She sighed, and looked around the streets. Foul, cramped, and deserted. The residents of the Outer City reacted to the presence of the two City Guards as if they were plague-carriers. “I want you to stay here and keep and eye on this house. Do not allow anyone entrance, and look for anyone who has unwarranted interest in it. I’m going to get a mage. We need to stop this before anyone else dies and we have an increasingly powerful madman on our hands.”

  “Yes sir,” he said, regaining some of the poise he had lost after seeing the body.

  She nodded to him once and walked off, treading carefully through the narrow, maze-like streets. If she had not been invited in by anonymous denizens, she doubted she’d be alive to walk these streets at all. Whoever had told the Guard of the murder had seemingly given them permission to enter on this occasion.

  It took her a little more than a quarter hour to reach the gates of Brionne, where the guards saluted her and allows her to pass. It wad interesting that the charnel house had been so close to the walls …

  whoever had done this was familiar enough with the tiny streets of the Outer City to chose a site that afforded privacy. Yet even those who lived in the slums would not tolerate the presence of a blood mage, which meant he could not be living in the crime-infested warren. The two thoughts contradicted each other

  She checked in at her sector guardhouse only to requisition a horse to quicken the trip to the castle, having no desire to leave that poor guard alone in the slums for too long. Walking to the castle would take at least an hour. The ride through Brionnen streets, normally fraught with every imaginable impediment, was for some reason easy today, as if the city realized the importance of her message and was allowing her through.

  Not likely, she thought with a self-mocking laugh. There’s some good explanation of why everyone is on their best behavior.

  Dismounting at the castle guardhouse twenty minutes later, and still wishing she could have made better time, she accepted the salute of the young sergeant who took her horse’s reins.

  “I need to see the Chamberlain. Is he available?”

  “He’s in his office all the time now, I hear, making’ sure all runs well.

  The negotiations are to start tomorrow.”

  “Good. Keep my horse saddled and ready to go.” She turned and walked into the castle. Negotiations?

  The Chamberlain’s receiving rooms were bustling. Scribes scratched their pens busily against vellum; messengers chatted quietly. Aria walked up to desk that sat near the office door. The man who sat there seemed to proclaim his membership in the bourgeoisie through well-made but conservative clothing and a body that, while not in the peak of fitness, betrayed none of the indulgences of food and wine that the nobility participated in.

  He looked up at her, his dark eyes examining her brown uniform and then meeting her cool green gaze. “Can I help you, Lieutenant?”

  “I need to report the presence of a blood mage in the Outer City.”

  The man’s eyebrows arched halfway up his forehead and he leaned forward. “A blood mage? Are you certain?” he asked in a hushed voice, as if he wanted no one to hear the ominous phrase.

  “Yes sir.”

  He nodded hurriedly. “You may enter as soon as he receives the security report.”

  Content to wait, but curious as to those before her, she stationed herself near the half-open door. She was pleased to discover she could hear just barley, over the noise of the antechamber, the words being delivered to the Chamberlain.

  “We have scanned the entire castle, lord Chamberlain,;; a curiously musical voice was saying. “We have found no dangers born of magic and can proclaim the peace negotiations have begun, our preliminary work is complete.”

  “Thank you,” the chamberlain replied. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that is all,” the voice continued. “Unless you have any further need for me?”

  “No, nothing further. Good day.”

  The heavy door swung open and an elf walked out. Aria blinked in surprise. An elf? Though she was considered tall for a female, he towered over her by a foot, at least, and was gracefully long-limbed. He looked down at her momentarily, and for just a second she was lost in large eyes the color of liquid silver set in a face belonging in the stained glass of a chapel window. Simply slightly, he held the door open for her to enter.

  Tearing her eyes away from his she nodded a formal thanks and entered the room, almost fearing to touch him as she walked past. The clothes he wore seemed so delicate, so fragile, that she feared one touch of her roughened leather armor would destroy them. Silks of teal and aqua, flowing like the water they seemed to symbolize … utterly foreign to her.

  The chamberlain did not look up when she entered, his brown-haired head bowed over the copious mounds of paper in front of him. “Yes?” he asked tersely.

  She saluted and cleared her throat. “First Lieutenant Aria Janin of the City Guard reporting, sir,” she said, her eyes staring at point just above his head. “I am here to report the presence of a blood mage in the Outer City, sir.”

  Now the head raised, and she saw his thin pale eyes stare at her in surprise. “What?”

  “A blood mage,” he repeated. seemingly to herself, “in the Outer City.”

  Something in his stone bothered her, but she could not pinpoint the reason. He sat in silence for a moment, then looked back up at her. “I cannot spare the services of any of our magi at the moment, Lieutenant.

  We are beginning serious negotiations and cannot afford to be sabotaged by magical interference from the Peilorian delegation. You shall have to wait until negotiations conclude.”

  “But sir …” she started, surprised. “A blood mage is a serious threat. If he obtains more power- -“

  “It will have to wait. Besides, he is preying in the slums, is he not? One or two beggars cannot give him much power now, can they?” Callousness in his voice, pure and simple. Callousness and disdain. “Unless he moves into the city proper, Lieutenant, the matter can wait. Dismissed.”

  She had to struggle to keep from protesting the decision. “Yes sir.”

  Anger mountain, she spun and walked swiftly out of the room, blindly though the antechamber, and out into the hall. She wouldn’t even allow herself to think about it, not yet. Otherwise she would want to turn around and do something that would make her lose her commission. One step in front of the other. Get to fresh air.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Heat rose in her cheeks. She spun again, her anger apparent, to see the tall elf standing just in front of the closed door of the Chamberlain’s antechamber. Taken aback, she forgot what she was going to say.

  “Lieutenant, forgive me for interrupting. I unintentionally overheard a part of your conservation, and listen quite purposefully to the rest. And I did not like what I heard.” The silver eyes drew her inn again and did not let her go for a moment.

  “Sir, it is a private matter,” she forced herself to say. “A matter effecting Brionne only, with no threat to Peilor or Couerlendon.”

  He arched a delicate eyebrow. “No threat? Lieutenant, blood magic threatens us all. It is an inherent wrong that must be stopped. Surely you are agreeing with me in this?”

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  Gritting her teeth was the only way she could force out her next words.

  “It is an internal affair.” Spinning on her heel, she barely saw the expression of surprise on his face before he walked way, through the crowds, and back into the relatively empty courtyard. The Guard was not allowed to bring in outside help without approval, Aria knew Chamberlain would refuse to allow an elf entrance to the most shameful quarter of Brionne. She paused just outside the door and breathed deeply.

  “Lieutenant, please let me finish.”

  She filched. Silent as a mouse, that one. Glancing sideways she confirmed that he stood beside her. “Well?”

  “I am offering my services to you,” he said simply. “I wish to aid you in capturing him”.

  She turned to face him. “You’re a mage, fight?” He nodded and she frowned, her knowledge of her responsibilities warring with her compulsion to find the killer. After a few moments of internal struggle the need won out. “Very well. We’ve just found the body. It’s a little old, but everything’s been left as is. If you think you can help, come with me.”

  She walked across the courtyard toward the gate. He kept pace with her easily, falling into step beside her. While they waited for the sergeant to obtain a horse for him the elf turned his silver gaze to her.

  “You are reluctant, Lieutenant. But you seem to strongly desire a resolution to this case. Why do you hesitate?”

  The way he phrased sentences, the cadences in his voice, all served to emphasize his foreignness. “To put it bluntly, you are an outsider, and we don¹t normally involve outsiders.”

  His slight smile grew. “Understandable. Yet you have no cause for alarm. I can assure you that my interests do not extend to the inner workings of the Guards of Brionne. What does concern me is blood magic.”

  Pausing for a moment she tilted her face up and looked at him, truly studying him for the first time. She found in his face a level of sincerity and honesty that she had rarely seen. “I… I think we can trust you.” She bowed, the short half-bow, “Mage of the court of Aelissta, Queen of Couerlendon.”

  The sergeant led out a well-bred mare, who seemed anxious to be out of her stable. “Here you go, Lieutenant. She’ll be returned later?”

  “Of course, sergeant. Thank you.”

  Both of them mounted, and she led the way back through the city. They did not speak while riding; the mage obviously recognized her uneasiness and was letting her get used to him, much as she would act toward an untrained horse who did not know her scent. She could have taken offense at the thought but it amused her instead.

  Her thoughts drifted back to memories almost ten years old, back to when she had just joined the Guard. One of the first duties she had performed was to clean up the aftermath of a blood-magic killing, a test from her superiors to see if a bright-eyed eighteen year-old farm girl had the stomach for such slaughter. She had passed the test, barely, and was rewarded by her commander who let her participate in the investigation.

  That had been a short one, ending in a display of magical pyrotechnics that leveled an entire block before the blood mage was defeated.

  The victim had been a boy, just apprenticed to one of the castle magi, who was to have moved to quarters in the castle the next day. Several magi had volunteered for the honor of tracking down the murderer that time. Of course, they didn’t have to rely on the Chamberlain telling them about it. The boy’s teacher took the initiative … . She had no such coincidence to help her this time.

  “We’ll leave the horses here,” she said as they reached the city gates. “It won’t take us long to reach the house where it happened.”

  He nodded and dismounted, and they walked into the slums together.

  She frowned suddenly at the realization of what a tempting target the elf would seem to the most desperate citizens of Brionne. Celestian, on the other hand, did not seem nervous at all; instead he seemed to by trying to hide his dismay at the poverty that suddenly surrounded him.

  Do they not have poor elves? she wondered. You never hear about them in stories, but that seemed like some idealistic fantasy to me. Then again, I doubt any of our court magi have ever seen a slum either.

  His gaze turned to her. “How did you find the body?”

  “Some nameless subject thought it in best interests to report it.” She shrugged. Œ”We don’t know who. The people who live here don’t like the City Guards knowing who they are.”

  “Ah.” The simple syllable seemed to contain a whole range of thoughts, from comprehension to aversion to pity.

  She led the rest of the way in silence, until they finally arrived at the ramshackle hut. The young Guard, standing outside of the closed door, saw her immediately.

  “Sir, I …” His voice died as he looked up at her companion.

  “You haven’t had any trouble, have you?” she asked, prodding him back to some standard of professional behavior.

  “Ah, no, sir, no trouble at all.” He didn’t take his eyes off the elf.

  Celestian nodded vaguely, but seemed to be concentrating on the shack.

  He walked up to the door and placed a long-fingered hand upon it, then shut his eyes.

  The young guard looked at her. “What- -“

  She hushed him with a gesture, turning her attention to the mage.

  Though he remained silent, Celestian was mouthing silent words as he ran his hand lightly down the roughhewn wooden door. He frowned slightly and put his other hand against it, repeating the gesture. Then his eyes snapped open. “Interesting.” Without explaining, he pushed the door open.

  He winced at the sight of the body and paused on the threshold, seemingly studying the sight as Aria had done hardly an hour before. Then he took careful steps inside.

  She watched him examine the body for longer than it took for them to walk from the gates, an examination seemingly magicless in nature. And then, suddenly, he sat cross-legged on the dirt floor next to the body, ignoring the blood that still pooled on the ground. He closed his eyes and stretched out his hands to touch the decaying body.

  Aria grimaced but watched attentively as he touched the chest of the figure, then the head, and then the rope that bound its right wrist. Each time he touched part of the body he murmured several words in a language she could not identify. Then he stood, and Aria experienced the disconcerting realization that she could not be certain how much time had just passed.

  His silver eyes lowered to meet hers, and it suddenly struck her that he was not as confident as when he first had stepped into the room. “This is .

  . . odd,” he said gesturing at the body. “How much do you know about blood magic?”

  “Just that the mage steals the power of his victim, and it involves torture.”

  The elf nodded. “Those are the basics, though in practice it is a little more complex.” He walked toward the door, and she stepped back so he could walk out into the sunlight.

  “You know the principles of magic use, yes? That each one of us has a certain amount of potential which follows us to channel and manipulate the natural energies of the earth?” At her nod he continued, “The blood mage has reached his natural limits, and, desiring more, preys on those unfortunates who do have talent but who cannot defend themselves against him. Knowing the proper rituals, he can temporarily transfer some, though not all, of their capacity to him.”

  He sighed and look back to the body. “This involves the ritual removal of certain organs and the casting of several spells which use pain as a way to transfer that power. Because the blood mage must use magic in the ceremony, it is possible for another mage to read the magical impression that he has left thus identify him.”

  Aria nodded. “So what did you find?’

  “That is the problem. Nothing.”

  She paused for a moment, staring at him. “Nothing?”

  “I do not understand it,” he said softly. “Though I know the power was drained, I cannot discover where it went. There is no trace of the mage¹s personality, something I thought was impossible. Even if he was incredibly powerful, he would not be able to wipe out all traces … and I do not think that powerful blood mage would bother with someone like that poor soul.

  Those with true power find ways to leave places like this.”

  Baffled, Aria looked at the body, her guaranteed solution to this murder suddenly gone. There were few leads to follow. “Cut him down,” she told the other guard, her voice toneless. “Well, then …”

 

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