Dark Art by Steve Feasey

Author:Steve Feasey [Feasey, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408873427
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Hasz

11

Kelewulf’s concentration was so complete that he hardly noticed the sweat that ran down his face, forming into drips on his nose and chin before falling into his lap. The heat he was generating as he sat cross-legged on the floor inside the training chamber was made worse by the large fold-out screen he had been forced to sit behind, separating him from the rest of the space. His confines also concentrated the strange smell in the air – a harsh, coppery tinge that tickled the back of his nose and throat. Both the heat and the smell were by-products of the majik he was performing.

Beyond the screen, standing in the centre of the room were two figures: Master Shintal was one; the other was a tall woman wearing a long, beautiful gown, her hands and neck adorned with fine jewellery. Only one of these figures, however, was real.

Shintal was one of the younger scholars, a small, thin man who specialised in majik of deception. His lessons were always tough and his criticisms harsh. Of all the scholars Kelewulf had met in the citadel, he suspected that this man held him in particularly low regard.

Shintal leaned in towards the woman, his face close to hers as he studied her features. ‘Better,’ he said. When he reached out a hand, the woman stepped back, the smile never leaving her face, despite it being clear that she would not allow herself to be touched by him. Shintal’s lips twitched a fraction.

‘Where did you say you were from?’ he asked her.

‘Southern Bantusz,’ she answered, her accent confirming her response. She reached up to replace a lock that had fallen loose from her ornately styled hair.

‘Ah, the Ruby Lands. I am told that the Bantusz kingdom is very beautiful, as, it would seem, are its inhabitants.’

‘You’re too kind.’

‘I love the accent of your people. It makes our own tongue sound clumsy somehow.’

‘I’m not sure I agree with you. I think your way of speech is rather lovely.’

Shintal smiled briefly at the compliment, then his brow furrowed slightly, as if he were trying to recall something. ‘Didn’t a former queen of the Six Kingdoms come from the Ruby Lands? Married off to one of the Rivengelds, if I remember correctly.’

‘I think you are referring to Elenor of Lynt.’

‘Did you know her?’

A strange look crossed the woman’s face but she quickly replaced it with a smile. She shook her head.

‘Hmm. They say she went mad and threw herself out of a tower somewhere.’ The woman’s smile fell. ‘Some say she tried to kill her child at the same time.’

The woman’s face contorted into an ugly mask and she flickered once, briefly, then more dramatically as she winked out of existence altogether to reveal, standing in her place, a life-sized humanoid figure fashioned entirely from straw and fine wire. What couldn’t be seen – right at the mannequin’s centre, where a human’s heart would be – was the small, walnut-sized ball that Kelewulf had planted there, fashioned

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