‘Arlen!’ Leesha cried, rushing to her feet to inspect the cut. It was down to the bone – she caught a flash of white before blood welled, gushing to the floor. Even with stitching, it might never heal the same. She glanced at Renna, but the girl seemed unconcerned.
‘… I can heal it in an instant,’ Arlen finished. His hand collapsed into smoke, falling through Leesha’s fingers, and then re-formed, perfectly whole and unblemished save for the intricate pattern of tattoos that danced along its surface. Even the blood on the floor was gone.
Leesha put her warded spectacles on to examine more closely. In wardsight, Arlen glowed brighter than she had ever seen, and – she noted with little surprise – Renna, too, shone with power.
‘I can heal others as well,’ Arlen said, ‘and kill demons without touching them. Every day I discover new powers. The potential is limitless.’
‘Darsy told me about you emptying the hospit,’ Leesha said, ‘but bright as you are, you’re still not carrying enough for that kind of magic. Where did you get the power? Hora? Ichor?’
Arlen shook his head. ‘Crutches. You were right about why the greatwards make me weak, Leesha. They pull at my magic, sucking it out to strengthen their field.’ He smiled. ‘But now I can reverse the pull.’
He took a deep breath, and Leesha gasped as the ambient magic drifting along the floor rushed to him. The wards painted and carved all around the cottage, previously glowing with power, dimmed as Arlen grew so bright it became difficult to look at him.
‘You learned all this from the mind demon?’ Leesha asked.
Arlen nodded. ‘But don’t underestimate them just because I got lucky and killed one. I’m just scratching the surface of powers that are as natural to them as breathing. There’ll be more of them, and they won’t underestimate me again.’
‘It was manlike, but shorter?’ Leesha asked. ‘With a bulbous head and vestigial horns?’
Arlen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Never told anyone that.’ He glanced to Renna.
‘Don’t you look at me like that, Arlen Bales,’ she said. ‘Ent breathed a word ’bout what happened.’
‘One of them attacked us in Everam’s Bounty,’ Leesha said.
Arlen glanced at Rojer. ‘Not that us,’ the Jongleur said. ‘I was in the bath. Missed the whole thing.’
Arlen seemed taken aback. ‘What happened?’
Leesha bit back a wave of revulsion at the memory. ‘It came at Waning, same as yours. It … took control of me.’
Renna looked at her, empathy in her eyes for the first time. ‘Forced you to do things?’
Leesha nodded. ‘It was there to kill Ahmann or, better, to discredit him. Used me and his wife Inevera against him like puppets.’
‘How’d you break the spell?’ Arlen asked.
‘Ahmann touched us, and the wards on his crown flared,’ Leesha said. ‘The demon’s control was broken instantly. Ahmann killed it, though it might have had him if we hadn’t distracted it first.’
Arlen nodded, glancing to Renna. ‘Man ent nothin’ without a good woman beside him.’ Renna smiled at him, and Leesha had to swallow the bile that threatened to rise in her throat.
‘Was it alone?’ Renna asked.
Leesha shook her head, and saw in the woman’s eyes that she already knew what was coming next. ‘It had a … bodyguard. A shape changer.’
‘Mimic demon,’ Arlen said. ‘They can turn into anything they can see or imagine. Under normal circumstances, they can’t imagine much, but with a mind demon controlling them …’
‘Ahmann said it was one of Alagai Ka’s princelings,’ Leesha said. ‘And that there would be more come the next Waning.’
Arlen nodded. ‘That bastard might be a coreson in need of putting down, but he ent wrong. New moon’s a week and a half away. Done my best to ready the Hollow, but things are going to get ugly enough to make the Battle of Cutter’s Hollow look like a game of Tackleball.’
Leesha nodded. ‘Here and in the Bounty as well. The mind demons are afraid of Ahmann, just like they are of you. You’d be giving them a real gift by killing him.’ The words were meant to sting, to remind him of his oath to oppose the corelings in all things, as they once had in a cave they had taken shelter in on the road from Angiers.
She expected him to be shocked, or angry or sad, but Arlen only looked at her patiently. ‘Can’t manipulate me just because I told you a promise I made as a boy, Leesha. Made a lot of promises in my life, and I’ll be my own judge of when and how they’re kept.’
‘What promise?’ Renna asked.
‘Talk about it later,’ Arlen said, and there was a hint of tightness in his voice. Renna didn’t look pleased, but neither did she press the issue.
‘Abban and Ahmann both spoke of the Par’chin as a friend,’ Leesha said.
Arlen laughed, and if he was surprised she had heard his Krasian name before, he did not show it. ‘Abban has no friends, Leesha! Only profitable acquaintances, of which I most certainly was one. And Ahmann Jardir has two faces, one kind and just, and another – the real one – he shows more seldom. The one that will do anything for power.’
‘What happened in the Maze?’ Leesha asked bluntly. ‘What did he do to you? Enough riddles! If you want us to mistrust this man, then tell us why!’
For the first time, the calm left Arlen’s eyes. Rojer held out his flask, and Arlen traced a casual ward in the air, sending it flying into his hand like iron filings to a lodestone. He unscrewed the top and took a long pull, sitting hunched with his arms on his thighs, eyes down.
‘Ahmann Jardir was my ajin’pal,’ he began. ‘No doubt you’ve heard the word, but I don’t think anyone can understand what it means. He took me into my first true battle with the demons, stood at my side, shed blood with me …’
‘Like you did for the Hollowers,’ Rojer said.
‘And for me,’ Renna said.
Arlen nodded. ‘Ay, but it was different. The Krasians didn’t want me fighting. Didn’t think me worthy. Jardir stood for me when they would have strung me up. Welcomed me into his palace, learned my language. He was a brother to me, taught me things about the world and myself it would’ve taken a lifetime to learn on my own.’
‘So you were truly friends,’ Leesha said, though the words did not dispel the mounting dread she felt at Arlen’s tone.
‘For my part,’ Arlen agreed. ‘But looking back I think maybe he was always ready to plant a spear in my back when I ceased to be of use to him, always planning to come north, and pulling his plans from my head.’
He blew out a breath. ‘But maybe not. Maybe it was what came next.’
The room was silent, everyone leaning in to hear Arlen’s words, even Renna.
Guess he doesn’t tell her everything, after all, Leesha thought.
‘Wasn’t just fighting alongside the Krasians in those days,’ Arlen said. ‘Kept regular work as a Messenger, and spent years ruin hunting. Blew through more gold than most folk ever see buying up old maps that usually led nowhere, and almost got myself killed more times’n I can count. But then, a few years ago, Abban promised me a map to Anoch Sun.’