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.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘Mother is a healer! Why didn’t she—’
‘There is no cure. If it’s true, what the masters say, that the shadowblack is a curse cast upon us by the Mahdek in the final days before they fell to our spells, then I doubt any magic of ours can remove the disease. We can only cut out the infection before it spreads.’ He placed a hand on my shoulder – an unusual gesture for him. ‘Do not dwell on the past; the present has more than enough perils of its own.’
I thought about last night and Ra’meth with his sons. Could they have killed Father if Ferius hadn’t interfered? I looked up at Abydos. ‘Is our family in danger from Ra’meth?’
He turned back to the food. ‘Not if your father becomes clan prince.’
‘But will he? The House of Ra has a lot of supporters. What if …?’
Abydos had been in the process of raising a forkful of lamb to his mouth. He stopped and gave me a raised eyebrow. ‘Have you ever known your father to fail at anything?’
He had a point. On the other hand, I doubted Abydos knew anything about Jan’Tep politics. Before I could think of a polite way to make that point, the door to the room opened again. It was Shalla.
I should have known she would come. Almost a whole day had passed, and no doubt she expected me to be over any misguided anger I might feel towards her. ‘Look, Kellen, I know you’re cross with me, but I …’ It was only then that she seemed to take any notice of our uncle sitting at my desk. ‘What are you doing here, Abydos?’
‘Get out, Shalla,’ I said.
Abydos gave me a stern look. Normally I would have found the idea of being reprimanded by a Sha’Tep preposterous, but in a few weeks’ time chances were very good that I’d be reporting to him every morning to receive my duties for the day. He squeezed my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile. There was real warmth there, maybe more than I was used to seeing from my parents.
‘I was just leaving, Mistress Shalla,’ Abydos said. He rose and was about to reach for the tray still half full of food when he turned to me. ‘Forgive me, Master Kellen, but I have some pressing duties. Would you mind terribly if I left my supper tray here for a little while longer?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but simply stood and walked to the door.
‘Thank you, Ab … Thank you, Uncle,’ I said.
He turned back and gave me a smile underneath sad eyes.
‘“Uncle”?’ Shalla asked dubiously, depositing herself on the chair Abydos had just vacated.
‘What do you want?’
‘I …’ She hesitated for a good long while. ‘I just wanted to see if you were all right.’
Why do people ask questions like that? I see your arm has fallen off, are you all right? Oh, hello there. I understand your entire family burned in a fire. Are you all right? My magic was fading and in a matter of weeks I would find myself consigned to the Sha’Tep. From that moment forward Shalla would view me with no more respect than she did our uncle. So the correct answer was, No, I’m not all right. I’ll never be all right, and it’s your fault, Shalla.
Had it been five years ago, when we were little children, I would have picked up the tray and dumped its contents on my sister’s head. Had it been yesterday, I would have yelled at her, shouting until the roof came off for the way she’d helped to destroy my life. But it was today, and I could no longer afford to be that person. I needed to be someone who thought about the future.