He looked back up at me, a terrible love in his eyes that held me more than any binding spell, more than the men who gripped my arms. ‘You …’ My voice was barely a whisper. I was so desperate not to say the words but somehow unable to stop myself. ‘You’re counter-banding Shalla for me.’
How many times had I resented Shalla for the luck she’d never earned, for the way magic came to her so easily. How many times had I secretly wished she would fail, that her bands wouldn’t spark. How many times, lying there strapped to that table over the past days, had I wished my parents would burn the counter-sigils into her skin instead of mine, and take the magic away from her forever.
‘Shalla had nothing to do with any of this,’ I said, to myself as much as to Abydos. ‘She tried to help me find my magic.’
‘Shalla is the worst of all of them.’ Abydos’s voice was soft, almost regretful. ‘I tried … in my own small way I’ve tried to get her to change, but she is a perfect replica of Ke’heops in female form, only she will be stronger than he ever was, when she comes into her power. She’ll be the worst tyrant our people have ever seen.’ He shook his head and looked back up at me. ‘She will treat you as a pet at best and a slave at worst, Kellen.’
‘You don’t know the future,’ Ferius Parfax said. ‘Even the wisest of us doesn’t know that.’
‘Perhaps not, Argosi.’ To me he said, ‘Look in your heart and tell me I’m wrong, Kellen. Tell me that Shalla will still call you brother the day after you’re made Sha’Tep.’
I wanted to. I wanted to call him a liar and say he didn’t understand Shalla, that underneath the arrogance she was different. I wanted to tell him that she’d always love me as her brother, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be sure it was true.
Abydos picked up one of the needles and dipped it into one of the heated ceramic jars. ‘Did you know that it’s easier for a Sha’Tep to inscribe the counter-sigils than for one of the Jan’Tep? The very magic that courses through their veins rebels against the act, as though it were a kind of desecration.’
‘How did you learn the counter-sigils? Only the lords magi know their forms.’
‘Your father of course. I don’t think he meant to leave them unlocked in his study, but he was distracted while stealing your future from you.’ He held up the needle. A single drop of liquid copper dangled from its end. ‘I will show you how. We can do this together.’
‘You’ll show me how …’ The Jan’Tep were monsters, as cruel to their own Sha’Tep brothers and sisters today as they had been to the Mahdek they’d massacred three hundred years ago. My father spoke of honour and doing what was best for our house, but that had only meant doing what was best for him. My uncle … My uncle had suffered in silence my entire life until I’d set off this chain of events, from cheating at my duel with Tennat, to Shalla nearly killing me, to my father unwittingly revealing how he’d suppressed my magic my whole life. Now my uncle had finally found a way to help me get back at the world.
‘We can do this together.’
‘Uncle Abydos?’ I said.
He put down the needle. ‘Yes, Kellen?’
‘I’m ready now. Tell your men to let me go.’
He nodded and the men on either side of me released my arms.
‘I’m going to come down there and take my sister,’ I said. ‘Then Ferius and Reichis and I are going to carry her out of here, back up to the surface, where I’m going to put her on the horse in the barn and take her home.’
‘I can’t let you do that,’ he said, the expression on his face so sad and lonely that I genuinely felt as if I were disappointing him.
‘If you try to stop me, Uncle, I’ll kill you.’
38
The Bluff
Abydos set the needle down on the tray and began walking up the stairs towards me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his men readying their weapons. Ferius shifted her weight, no doubt preparing some manoeuvre to give her an edge when the fight began.
Reichis clambered up my leg and back onto my shoulder. ‘Finally. Which one do I get to kill first?’
‘I think the animal’s going to attack,’ the young sandy-haired man warned, his knife at the ready. He moved into position next to Abydos.
The deep rage that had led me to threaten my uncle dissipated far faster than I would have thought possible, replaced by the cold, hard reality of our situation. There were just too many of them. Ferius, for all her taunts, was still groggy from the drugs they’d given her to fight them off. I’d used up what little strength the mine hadn’t already sapped by carrying Shalla further than my arms could handle. Even Reichis, for all his posturing, seemed to know that we couldn’t win this fight.
‘This would be a good time for a really powerful spell,’ he chittered in my ear.
‘I’ve got one that channels a light breeze,’ I said, ignoring the confused looks of my uncle and his followers. ‘Think that’ll work?’
Reichis gave a sigh. ‘Why did I ever agree to partner up with a magic-less skinbag?’
‘I think because your mother ordered you to.’
‘That’s dirty fighting.’
Okay, so we can’t win this with magic, and we can’t win it with weapons. What I really needed was some kind of ingenious ruse. Didn’t I used to be good at that? I’d tricked Tennat into beating himself in our initiates’ duel. Problem is, one gullible bully is easier to bluff than six deadly serious men and women. What I needed was a way to reduce their numbers so that Ferius, Reichis and I could make a move. Okay, so what weakness does a conspiracy have? The answer hit me like a blast of ember magic. Trust. ‘There’s something you failed to consider about this great rebellion of yours, Uncle.’
He gave a low chuckle, and smiled to the other Sha’Tep. ‘You see what I told you? Always some trick or scheme rolling around in his head. Never lets anyone see when he’s scared. Never backs down.’
‘This whole plan of yours is vulnerable – it relies on the Sha’Tep who live and work in the great houses poisoning the initiates from those families.’
‘It’s not poison,’ one of the women said defensively. ‘It just lessens their connection to the power of the oasis.’
‘Which will make the lords magi believe the bloodlines are weakening,’ I said, following the train of logic.
The young man with the sandy hair nodded, apparently excited that I’d worked it out. ‘With the clan prince dead, the council are terrified that the Berabesq will try to take advantage of our weakness to once again try to destroy us, or that the Daroman military will come to conquer us.’
The big man who’d worn the tusked mask spoke up. ‘When they see barely a handful of initiates becoming mages, they’ll realise how much they need the Sha’Tep. The mages don’t have the strength to pick up weapons. They don’t know how to fight or what it feels like to ache from hard labour.’
‘Exactly,’ Abydos said. ‘The Jan’Tep will finally understand that they need us, not as servants, but as equals.’