Blood and Magick
Karen L. Abrahamson
Includes a sneak preview of the Warden of Power coming soon in December 2011
Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Twisted Root Publishing August 2011 Blood and Magick Copyright © 2011 by Karen L. Abrahamson.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For more information about Twisted Root Publishing, please visit our website at http://www.twistedrootpublishing.com
For an excerpt of “The Warden of Power” click Here.
Books in the Cartographer Universe
The Pangea Chronicles:
Book 1: The Warden of Power
The Academy of Cartos Series:
The Cartographer’s Daughter
The American Geological Survey Series:
Afterburn
The Terra Trilogy:
Terra Incognita
Terra Infirma (Coming March 2012)
Terra Nuevo (Coming January 2013)
Also by Karen L. Abrahamson
Mutable Things
Through Dark Woods (Anthology)
Blood and Magick
By
Karen L. Abrahamson
In the moonlight, the victim was youngish, olive skinned, and by the style of his dress – a russet kilt that fell to mid-calf and an intricately-wound, purple-black turban that had spilled off into the sand – most likely from the golden city of Kardit-most-south. The fallen turban exposed shorter hair than most City-dwellers wore and long, slender, ring-laden hands were covered in blood and still strained to grasp the iron and leather knife-hilt in his back.
“Stop,” commanded Marcellus deim Lazar, Marshal of the City of Dreams, catching the arm of the wide-hipped, red-headed tavern keeper, Aldith, to stop her from leading him directly to the body. She was big, fleshy, and smiled broadly at his touch. Marcellus looked away.
“This way. We don’t want to ruin the evidence, now do we?” He followed a careful path through the shadows along the wall of the courtyard, using a route around the kitchen garden. He then angled in from the corner where the guest quarters met the stable to the body. It was less likely the murderer would have entered or exited that way.
Candles glowed behind three guest windows. Anyone looking out the tavern’s guest or family wing would have had a good view of what occasioned here.
“Who is he? Do you know?” he asked Aldith.
She shook her head, her ample bosom shimmying in the process. “Never seen him afore today. You know this is an honest establishment. I don’t hold with no fights and no rough stuff with my girls. Never saw him come in and never saw him with anyone.”
“I see.” So enough time had elapsed she’d had a chance to figure out her story. It didn’t matter. Usually it was the scene itself that gave the necessary clues. He knelt beside the body and checked for a pulse. Nothing. He let the wrist fall. Dead, then, as he’d thought. He straightened and considered the scene.
In the moist evening air the blood-rose, lime blossom, and kitchen herbs couldn’t hide the stench of latrine and barn manure from the rear of the courtyard, nor the copper-bright stink of fresh blood on damp earth.
The courtyard door of the Hops and Mead stood open, but the many scuffed footprints across the bare ground were proof positive of the rushed exodus the murder had caused. There were only three sots still nursing their cups in the corner of the tavern and they were too drunk to move.
By the marks, buxom Aldith had had a full house before it happened. He sighed. That would make his task more difficult.
Moonlight filled the broad courtyard at the rear of the tavern. The meager candelight from the lit rooms filled in the corners. Not that the other rooms weren’t occupied. More people to be interviewed.
Marcellus groaned inwardly. He and Cratus, his old friend and lieutenant, would be here a good portion of the night. He’d have to send a message to Katrice and pray she didn’t have another of the attacks this night.
In the centre of the courtyard lay a rectangular patch of sand a full eight feet wide and twenty feet long – a practice pit – or dueling pit. Until Lazar, First Cartos, had ordered that dueling cease, Cartos had used the pits for fierce battles that changed the pit’s contours rather than changing the real world landscape where too many lesser beings would perish. But Lazar had decreed that the Cartos of Maur were civilized and they no longer needed to condone ill-tempered shows of power. Most of the pits in the country had been destroyed, but a few had hung on for use by young Cartos who wished to practice their magick in the only way that Lazar allowed.
The fact that Marcellus hadn’t known a pit still existed in the City, and that one existed in an establishment primarily frequented by deim, sent a shiver of disquiet down his back. He had even raised a tankard here himself, and as Marshal he should know everything about his city. Anything to do with Cartos power warranted special attention.The fact that a practice pit sat in the midst of his crime scene – well that was a major concern.
Most of the pit’s sand was raked smooth, but in the centre stood a small hill, topped with what looked like an intricately formed cluster of buildings, complete with wooden siding. The body slumped at one end of the pit half into the sand, a spreading pool of darkness around it. That much blood and it was no wonder the man died.
Blood also covered the practice-pit podium, a pot of magicked ink and a fallen quill as well. Marcellus retrieved the quill out of the sand. Unusual. Finely wrought – tight feathered and certainly more finely sharpened than any quill in the Marshal of the City Guard’s office.
So whoever had done the deed had caught the Cartos while he stood focusing on what he drew. Was he practicing against an opponent? Or had it been an illicit duel?
A little shiver ran through him. If it had been a duel Lazar would look into the matter himself – or would be watching everything Marcellus did with the utmost interest. If it was a duel, there would be very irritable Cartos to deal with –something that demanded the utmost care. He checked around the body. If the suspect had left footprints around the scene he doubted they still existed. The rush of tavern patrons through the courtyard hadn’t stopped the curious from checking out the dead. He gently lifted one side of the body, checking for anything underneath. Nothing. His purse was gone, too.
And whatever the dead man had drawn to shape the landscape was missing as well. Which meant either the culprit or one of the curiosity-seekers had pilfered the map drawing
In a score of years in the Marshal’s post, this death had the highest stakes he’d seen. The presence of a full-blood Cartos in what was mostly a half-breed deim establishment was unusual in and of itself.
There was only one reason the victim would be here.
To confirm, he opened himself – and inhaled the not-unexpected, heady mélange of licorice and spiced cedar and ozone. Cartos Magick. Every hair on his deim body strained towards the pit.
He shivered. No question, then.
Given this was a practice pit and most commonly two Cartos to practiced together, someone – quite possibly the murderer – had been practicing Cartos magick with the victim. Marcellus withdrew the knife and let the victim’s body fall face-up. The question was, who? The fallen man’s gaze peered past Marcellus to the shimmering moon.
He needed more information, and quickly if this case was to be solved. The death would not ease the tensions in the City created by Lazar’s clear edicts that demarked deim and Cartos: Cartos, as full blood children of the Creator, had and used magick – the deim, though part-bloods, were denied the talents that lay in their blood.
But solving a case quickly sometimes demanded he stretch Lazar’s edicts.
He hesitated, then lay his right palm on the fallen man’s wrist. Sometimes he could sense the man who had been. It had helped him identify a victim before.
The courtyard disappeared into mist as he opened himself to senses that he shared with his Cartos betters. Who are you?
The courtyard became a glistening place of candles. Each bush and tree and bit of grass, and each human became a glowing column of light. He reached into the body with his Cartos senses and – almost tumbled onto his backside. The crime scene rearranged itself in his mind.
He stumbled up and looked for Aldith.
The tavern keeper till stood by the tavern door, anxiously wringing her hands. Why hadn’t the woman covered up the death as most commoners would have? What tavern owner needed the trouble of the City Guard’s investigation, least of all in this type of case?
For the dead man was deim and, by edict, could not be the magick-maker.
But given the pit reeked of magick, a Cartos was involved somehow.
***
The moon had long set by the time Marcellus was satisfied with his and Cratus’s questioning of Aldith, her family and the fifteen guests rooming at the Hops and Mead.
No one had known the victim. Aldith and her girls and stable boy had been busy serving a full house of deim – a caravan from Kardit-most-south and another from distant Kush, had both arrived in the City today leaving all the taverns and caravanserai pressed to satisfy the demand for food and lodging.
As Marcellus and Cratus strode towards Onyx House, the streets of the City still glowed with moonlight stored within the City’s alabaster walls. Starlight was enough to set rainbow shivers in the pale stone of the most beautiful City in the world.
But at this time of night, after the markets had closed and before the street-wives had set out with their brooms and carts, the glowing streets showed the other side of the City. In dark corners slept the drunks and urchins. Rotten produce, bits of offal, and horse and donkey manure edged the streets. The stink assaulted the City’s perfumes and incense, but seemed fitting after such a night.
Cratus trudged beside him. The barrel-chested old deim had salt and pepper black hair and a set of piercing blue eyes that could impale the truth right out of a suspect, or tear up from laughter, but right now even in his black harness and crested helm, his drooping shoulders showed the same exhaustion Marcellus felt. Behind them two other City guardsmen labored under the weight of the stretcher bearing the dead man.
Marcellus was taking the victim back to the guard house until either his identity could be determined or the stink was too bad. Then someone would arrange cremation.
“Not particularly helpful, that lot,” Marcellus said.
Cratus nodded, his beard-shadowed face thoughtful. “Like not a whit of them knew what went on outside.” He shook his head. “And Aldith – seems odd t’ me, not knowing someone used the pit in your own courtyard.”
“And to me as well, but there were others in the tavern. We’ll start rousting them tomorrow.”
“You mean today, don’t ya?” Cratus lifted his chin at the sky. The blue-black over the eastern city wall now carried streamers of gold. “The Creator’s eye opens, Ser.”
“And so it does, and we go with little rest. I’ll have the gates watched closely so the culprit cannot leave.”
“If he hasn’t left already.”
“The gates are locked each night. He’s here.” Marcellus cast a glance at Cratus’s weariness. “Ne’er thought I’d see the day I outworked you, old friend.” Both had generations of service behind them, but Marcellus was the older, though the longevity of Cartos blood made that difficult to discern.
Cratus shook his head. “Damned strange is what it was. A half-breed deim left for dead at the edge of a Cartos practice pit. It’s like the children’s game – one o’ these things don’t fit – if you take my meaning.”
“I take it full on. I saw the strangeness myself and the place reeked of magick.”
Cratus’s black leather harness and breastplate creaked as he shook his head. “Perhaps he came upon the Cartos lord and affronted the great one. Then the great one did the deed.”
“Could be.” Marcellus nodded. “I thought perhaps the deim wagered against him or some such. Then things went wrong. Or he knew something of the Cartos involved that the Cartos took exception to.”
“Could be.” Cratus lowered his voice. “Our Masters are a touchy lot.”
Marcellus cast about him for listeners. “Have a care. Lazar has long ears.”
Cratus shook his head and his jaw clenched. “I wasn’t speaking of the son of the Creator. More of the petty-Cartos who believe the blood alone allows them rights beyond deim and human. I know of a case where a Cartos took a deim girl without consent, yet nothing came of it. The Cartos acts as if he did the girl a favor.”
“Such dangerous sentiments are best kept private – if spoken at all, friend.” Marcellus closed the conversation, though what Cratus said was more the truth of the situation than Marcellus allowed himself to consider. In this Cartos city, the Cartos were a law unto themselves. The hierarchy of human, diem and Cartos was strictly maintained. But not in a murder. Murder was different. He, a deim, was the law’s representative, then.
They trudged silently past the Grove of Heroes where tall great-heart trees spread yellow, perfumed flowers above paths lined with larger-than-life statues of those who had done great service to Maur, or the City. Marcellus himself looked down in effigy near the Grove entrance – not something he was particularly pleased with, given most heroes were long dead.
Ahead the cunningly-wrought windows and doors of the tall, onyx-walled Palace of Winds played fluting music on the night breeze as if yearning voices sang to Pangea’s huge, stepped temple at the other end of the City.
The song sang of love and longing and truly he would rather be home. Katrice needed him there, more so since the puzzling seizures started. The brain cooling tonics prescribed by the local healing women had done little more than ease the pain that came with Katrice’s wasting.
“Of course that’s only one theory,” Cratus’s quiet voice interrupted Marcellus’ contemplation and it took him a moment to recall that it was not Katrice’s illness of which Cratus spoke.
“And the other would be?”
“Nothing good. Something impossible.”
Marcellus looked at his Lieutenant and nodded his satisfaction. His old friend’s mind travelled similar paths to his.
***
Onyx House, the Guard headquarters, sat at the base of the winding road that led up the steep incline that grew up to become the dark crag of the Palace of Winds. The low, black-walled building was the same onyx as the palace. During the day it swallowed daylight. At night one could think the building was only a forbidding shadow hunkered at the side of the broad, processional avenue except for the comforting torchlight that spoke of the guardians of the law in the otherwise sleeping city.
The main open room with its scarred wooden trestle tables and soot covered walls and flickering torches hummed with industry as Marcellus and Cratus entered, followed by the body. As one, the men stood at Marcellus’ entrance, the busy sound of quills momentarily stilled. The reek of too many men and too much sweat competed with the torch oil and the musty scent of ale. The night shift had just been briefing their day shift replacements.
He motioned the body to a table and his men to their seats.
Good guardsmen all. Mostly deim, but a few humans in the mix. He had no biases that way. He’d chosen most of those who worked at Onyx House himself, drawing the best from the other guard houses through the City. As its creator, Lazar might consider the City of Dreams his, but Marcellus knew differently.
“We have a mystery,” he started. He recounted the facts of the case and pulled the sheet back from the body.
“We need to identify him.”
“By the look of ‘im he’s in from Kardit,” said a lanky, white-haired deim named Timote who worked the day shift.
“My thoughts exactly and a Kardit caravan came in yesterday.”
Timote nodded thoughtfully and craned for a closer look at the body. “I’m working that side o’ town. I’ll ask around at the caravanserai.”
“Good man.” Marcellus scanned the men assembled. “The rest of you are to canvass the taverns and hostels in the City. Good-woman Aldith says he did not have a room at the Hops and Mead. He had to have had rooms somewhere and he had to be known on the journey northward.”
“What’s the motive?” asked young Damon, the immaculately-uniformed watch commander Marcellus had great hopes for. He was tall and lean and with a tangle of black dreadlocks and forceful gaze that seemed to attract women like flies. His intelligence and ability to instill loyalty in men, however, were what had raised him to the rank of watch commander in a very short time
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? We know there was magick afoot for the practice pit had just been used. That puts a Cartos at the scene. Two, if you consider that there must have been an opponent for the practice to mean anything.”
“Pangea’s blood,” someone at the back of the room swore, taking the name of the earth goddess.
“Aye,” Cratus said. “A bunch of stiff-necked pricks to interview.”
“And so we must tread carefully.” Marcellus accepted the list Cratus had compiled. “Here is a list of every deim, human and Cartos that Aldith, her daughters and her guests could recall. Damon will divide the names amongst you lot. I need you to conduct interviews. Carefully. Night shift, sorry men, but this is the kind of murder we need to solve quickly. You’ll be staying on ‘til noon today.”
Groans filled the room, but eagerness, too. The hunt got their blood moving just as it did his.
He left Damon to organize the men and to join him and Cratus when he was done. Marcellus retreated to his office on the second floor.
A single window allowed in his favorite early morning light. At work it provided a chance to clear his head and begin anew whatever investigation he worked on. At home it was a chance to spend quiet time with Katrice and their daughter Monika, usually breaking their fast in the beautiful gardens Katrice tended so diligently. Except this year. With her illness, Katrice had planted no garden and she had refused to have gardeners hired to do it for her. Monika was too young and Marcellus had not the time. He regretted it now.
He sank wearily behind the wooden desk and rubbed his eyes. The breeze through the window couldn’t dislodge the gravel in his eyes, nor the ill-ease that had formed the moment he realized the dimensions of this case.
“Sir, perhaps ya should go home. Your wife….” Cratus stood in the shadows of the doorway between the old parchment map of the city and the shelves of scrolls that held Maur’s laws.
“She’s as well as she can be and my presence won’t help. No, I’m better here, solving this crime.” But it was a lie. He nodded to one of the leather-slung chairs across the table from him, regretting his responsibilities. “Once Damon is here we should discuss your other theory. He has a good head on his shoulders.”
Cratus’ brow rose, but he nodded as he sank into the chair. “Mostly. If some woman hasn’t got him sidetracked.”
“Let me guess. Enkea, again?”
Cratus nodded. “I hear last night he was called to help bring her back to the temple. Nightmares, they say, but there’s a wildness in that one.”
Enkea deim Zim, the damned daughter of the high temple priestess was going to be the undoing of a good man if she didn’t undo herself first. Damon deim Lazar had been cursed by honor – more so where Enkea was concerned.
“Matters of the heart are between the man and the Goddess. There is naught anyone can do about it.”
Damon appeared at the door.
“Aah, good man. Have a seat. We’ve a theory to discuss.” Marcellus nodded him to a chair. “Theories, actually. I’ve been thinking this could be something more than it appears.”
“A setup?” Cratus asked.
Damon nodded. “It crossed my mind as soon as I heard the story. A deim killed by a Cartos would do a lot to rouse the anger that’s been brewing in the City.”
Marcellus closed his eyes to consider.
“The deim are restless,” Damon continued, pushing back his hair. “Ye hear rumblings everywhere, to the point most Taverns have changed from being open establishments to serving deim and human, or serving Cartos, not all three. Not that it helps, tempers being what they are. Hops and Mead was one of the holdouts to invite all to drink, though mostly the deim drink there. Aldith always said it was the swivel of her and her daughters’ hips and as made all men forget their politics.”
“Well, Aldith’s hips might be gettin’ a little age on ‘em,” Cratus allowed with a smile. “Not that you’d know it from the way she throws ‘em around. Her daughters’ though….”
It made a certain kind of sense. “Aldith’s place would be a perfect place to make a statement then. Kill a deim there and kill the ease of them co-existing.” Marcellus turned to Damon. “You told the men to keep an ear out and to pass the word to the other Guardhouses?”
“Done and done. They’re a good lot downstairs. Most had already considered the possible fallout. They’re family men, most, and don’t fancy raising a family in the midst of a war.”
“A war we can’t win,” Marcellus murmured the truth.
Cratus turned to him. “And if we could?”
Damon shook his head – praise Pangea – for thoughts like those should not be aired anywhere so close to Lazar’s palace. “It’s impossible. Besides Lazar works for all his citizens and by his laws all are equal.”
“Do ya believe that, or are ya mouthing school-boy slogans?” Cratus asked in his gruff voice.
The air went cool for an instant and then Damon turned stiffly toward Cratus. “My father does his best for us. He sets laws for good reason – to save the weak from temptation.”
Marcellus shook his head slightly at his lieutenant. This was no kind of discussion for Cratus to get into with Damon, and no time to destroy the lad’s illusions. The youngster still held the First Cartos on a pedestal of glass. Creator help him when the pedestal smashed.
Marcellus chuckled. “You’re too serious, Damon. Can’t you tell a joke when you hear one?”