Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(18)
‘You want to eat in my room?’
‘Do you mind?’
I got up from the bed, my clothes from the day before feeling rough and stiff against my skin, and joined him at the desk. When I looked at the tray I noticed he’d put together a rather large portion for one man. I noticed something else as well. ‘You seem to have two sets of cutlery on your tray.’
‘Hmm?’ He looked down at the extra pair of utensils in mock surprise. ‘Why, I do indeed. How odd.’ Then he looked at the plate of lamb. ‘I also seem to have taken more food than I can eat. I don’t suppose you might …?’
I picked up a knife and fork and grinned, more for Abydos than out of any real sense of pleasure I felt, but even fake happiness was better than sitting alone in my room staring at a blackened glow-glass ball.
At first we ate in silence. I’d never spent much time with Abydos. He’d always struck me as a rather simple person – utterly unlike my father. But now, as I watched him eat with a kind of methodical patience, I could see similarities emerge. They were close in age, Abydos being a year or so younger, and shared the same colouring and powerful build. But my uncle didn’t exude that sense of power, of command, that my father did. He was, I suppose, what a Daroman farmer or a Berabesq soldier might seem like. Unimposing. Unremarkable. Ordinary. And yet, did I see him that way simply because he had no magic?
‘Did you always know you were Sha’Tep?’ I asked, dimly aware of how rude the question was but suddenly desperate to know the answer.
My uncle took it with remarkable grace. ‘I suppose I did,’ he said, his eyes gazing somewhere far away. ‘I could do a little magic, as a child. Most of us can, close to the oasis, but my ability faded as I approached my naming year.’
Which was exactly what was happening to me! A sudden panic began to rise up from somewhere deep inside me, as though my very soul were screaming for help. This isn’t right! I was born to be a mage like Mother and Father and Shalla, not some useless Sha’Tep like … Abydos was looking down at me. His eyes were gentle … patient. Shame drowned out my terror and rage, and my breathing slowed, but the underlying desperation remained. ‘When your magic began to fail … did you … did you ever try to fight it?’
Abydos held out his forearms, the coloured bands long faded but still visible. ‘I used to sit and stare at these things for hours, trying to will them away, praying for the spirits of our ancestors to ignite them for me.’ He ran a fingernail down the length of one forearm. ‘I even tried …’ Abydos shook his head. ‘I sometimes had foolish thoughts as a boy.’ He went back to eating his food.
‘Tell me,’ I said. A subtle change in my uncle’s expression made me realise I’d sounded as if I were giving him an order. ‘I mean, I’ve read … I’ve heard other initiates talk about ways of breaking the bands with copper sulphides and …’
Abydos smiled, swallowing a mouthful of lamb and then setting his knife and fork down on the tray. ‘Ah, yes, the tales of potions concocted from the banding metals we mine deep beneath the oasis. Do you envision formulating exotic potions fuelled by the spells of three young mages working in concert, nobly sacrificing a portion of their own magics … Kellen, can you imagine in your wildest dreams that your fellow initiates would ever do such a thing?’
‘Why wouldn’t …?’ The question died on my lips. I already knew the answer. Magic was the most prized possession of my people. Who would ever want to give up a piece of that power? And yet, that was precisely the strategy I’d been contemplating. Panahsi had so much potential that I hoped he might be willing to give up a little for me. My sister – if she felt guilty enough and if I stoked her ego sufficiently. But, Shalla, you’re so powerful … you’ve got more magic than our whole clan combined, don’t you? It was a far-fetched plan, but, as I’d learned from Ferius last night when she’d taught me an odd game called Poker, sometimes you have to play the cards you’re dealt.
‘Don’t,’ Abydos said, shaking me from my thoughts. ‘I’ve seen that look on the face of many a young initiate, but for every legend of a mage finding their power through dark magics, there are a hundred very real stories of those whose lives were shattered in the attempt. There is a cost to pay for seeking greater power than the spirits of our ancestors would willingly grant.’
Unbidden, something my father said the night before came back to me.
‘Is that what happened to my grandmother?’ I asked. ‘Did she really have the shadowblack?’
The question would have shocked anyone, and I think it did give Abydos a jolt, but he hesitated only for a second before answering. ‘She had an illness,’ he said, almost absently. He brought the index finger of his right hand up to his face and traced a pattern on his cheek. ‘Black, swirling markings that grew over time and, as they grew, so too did the darkness inside her.’
‘I don’t understand. What darkness? What do you mean?’
Abydos leaned back against his chair and I saw deepening lines on his forehead, his eyebrows rising at the centre. ‘It just seemed to take her over. An … ugliness inside her, changing her. She became someone utterly different from the woman I’d known as a child. In the end, it fell to your father to stop her.’
My father’s words rang out in my head. It is my right and my responsibility both to protect this family and to protect the clan from another rogue mage. But he’d said something else too – about Shalla. I will bind her forever if I must.