Charmcaster by Sebastien de Castell

Author:Sebastien de Castell [Sebastien de Castell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hot Key
Published: 2018-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

33

The Man in Red

It was the first time I’d seen the man in red up close. The experience didn’t agree with me.

He was only a little taller than me, but a lot broader in the shoulders. Leather straps wound around the red silk covering his upper arms to trace the lines of his muscles. Every inch of him was covered in crimson silk except his forearms. Six metallic tattooed bands glistened in the darkness.

‘Who are you?’ I asked. I kept my hands at my sides where they could quickly reach my powders if things went badly. Who are you kidding? I thought. When do these things not go badly?

He didn’t speak, but he did smile. That was even more troubling, because his face was covered with a red lacquer funeral mask like those the Mahdek placed on their dead to ward away demons. Somehow the rigid surface of the mask altered its shape in response to the wearer’s expression. Right now the lines of the mouth were twisting up into a hideous grin as the ridges of the eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t answered my question, though, which was unusual. Jan’Tep mages tend to favour elaborate, long-winded death threats. The red mage, however, kept silent. He walked a few yards away and knelt down to the cobblestones. With his index finger he traced a circle around himself. Wherever his finger went, a trail of red sparks followed, leaving a glimmering ring all around him.

Show-off.

‘You want to duel me, is that it?’

My opponent stood back up and folded his arms across his chest, evidently waiting for me to draw my own circle. Having only ever sparked my breath band, I couldn’t work any of the types of magic that would make a spell circle useful. But over the past year of being attacked by mages, thugs, hextrackers and bounty hunters, I’d come to learn that the most precious resource before a fight is time. Time to think. Time to plan.

I reached into the pouch on the left side of my belt and took out a handful of black powder. I slowly let it spill from my hand, turning so it formed a dusty ring around me. When I was done I looked at him with as much false bravado as I could muster. ‘It’s customary to set terms before a duel.’

The red mage offered no reply. That in itself set the terms: if he won, he could do whatever he wanted with me. If I won … Well, we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Think, damn it. Ferius says every trap has an escape. You just need to find it.

‘May I have a moment to meditate?’ I asked.

Again I received no reply, but since he didn’t immediately kill me, I took that as a yes.

Okay, I need a plan. A devilishly clever plan. No … wait … I’m looking at this backwards. I need to know his plan. Why would he go to the trouble of a duel when he’s obviously more powerful than I am?

He’d used a silk spell on Neph, Reichis and Ishak to put them to sleep.

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