‘That’s the knife, then?’ said Rate brightly, indicating the broken blade in the statue’s hand. ‘Looks more like a sword, I’d have said.’
Two women were sitting beneath the statue, one old, one young. The young woman wore a veil of white silk through which her eyes showed large and dark. She was lighting a little candle, her hands shaking on the taper she held. The old woman sat weeping. A tiny child played at their feet. Marith looked at them a moment. Almost as though he remembered them. The child smiled back at him shyly, gestured something with its grimy fingers. He shuddered at the sight of it, as if the child’s gaze might hurt him. The child’s lips moved, as though about to speak.
There was a disturbance in the square, a shifting of people, a chattering of voices. The child pointed. A man. Tall, middle-aged, flabby in the body with a short greying beard and a balding head, dressed in the simple loose robes of the south. Entirely unprepossessing. But he carried in his right hand a tall staff of dark wood.
The mage positioned himself in the centre of the square near the statue. Gazed around at the crowd and gestured for them to be silent. Tobias grunted almost as though he was pleased.
‘He’s just going to … perform?’ asked Rate. Amazement in his voice. Awe. ‘Like a travelling musician?’
‘He’s probably a wanderer, seeking whatever it is people like him seek, and needing to raise a quick bit of cash,’ said Tobias. ‘Or he fell out of favour somewhere and is down on his luck. Just because he’s a wonder worker, doesn’t mean he’s wealthy. Never heard the term hedge wizard?’
Rate shook his head. ‘Magery’s punishable by death in Chathe. Don’t have many hedges round my way either.’
The mage gestured again for silence. The tip of his staff began to glow with a soft emerald light, delicate in the sunshine, growing brighter until his face and hands were tinted green. A ball of light rose up from the staff and floated across the square above the heads of the crowd. Another and then another, tracing out a complex pattern as they crossed and recrossed each other’s paths, their colours shifting, rising and falling, dancing, alive.
After a while, the spectators began to lose interest. The mage gestured with his other hand. The lights changed direction, moving together, spinning faster and faster, the colours flashing and pulsing until they seemed all colours at once like the wings of a dragonfly. They came together above the faceless statue, one great dance of light that hung in the air and then exploded in a shower of sparks. When the sparks landed they froze, so that the audience was dusted with tiny, glittering coloured stars.
Cheers. A smattering of applause. The mage twisted his staff and pointed towards the statue. Blue flames leapt up around it. They burned with a hissing noise, but gave off no heat. The radius of the flames expanded, covering the two women and the child. Fire licked their hair, blazed in their eyes and over their hands. The child shrieked in delight, waving his thin arms to see the flames dance. The young woman cried out in fear, then sat staring at the child, her veil a crown of fire. The old woman wept.
The fire retreated, licking the eaten stone of the statue’s misshapen head. The flames grew darker, no longer blue but black. Hungry. For a moment they were almost frightening. Then they too died away. More applause. The mage smiled. He made a gesture with his hand and a thousand silver lights bloomed in the air like blossom on a tree. These, too, fell into the crowd, disappearing as they hit the ground. More lights, green and blue and gold, began to dance and race in the air, chasing around the statue, swooping and diving. They rushed together and shot up into the air before bursting with a great golden flash. A clap of brilliant white light filled the square. When Marith could see again, the mage had disappeared.
There was a short pause, then laughter and cheers.
Tobias grunted in satisfaction.
‘Pretty good, that,’ said Alxine. ‘I assume he’ll be passing a hat round later.’
Rate seemed for once entirely lost for words. His mouth hung open, a dazed, shocked expression on his face. ‘That was … That was … I don’t know what that was.’
‘It was a conjuring trick,’ said Tobias. ‘An illusion. A con. You ever see a mage fight in battle, then you’ll see the real thing. It was quite good for what it was, though, I’ll grant you.’
Street sellers appeared in the square, capitalizing on the milling crowd to offer sweets, drinks and hot food. Alxine bought a bag of preserved lemons. They were tough and chewy, salt and sweet and sour all rolled into one. Marith found them rather enjoyable, though Tobias spat his out.
Tobias was looking around at the lengthening shadows. Already halfway through the afternoon. ‘I’m due to meet Skie,’ said Tobias. ‘So you lot need to go back to the house. I should be picking up some money, then we can get down to business.’
Marith walked back slowly, trailing behind Rate, Emit and Alxine. Felt more vulnerable, without Tobias to accompany him. Adrift. It had been nice, following Tobias. No choices. No possibilities. Quietened his mind and took some of the fear away. Didn’t have to be what he was. He thought of the statue burning, black flames licking its face. What must it have felt like, to have been bathed in the mage’s fire? Transcendent? A world of light and flame? Or perhaps it had felt like nothing at all. Perhaps those who had stood in the fire would not have known anything was happening, had they closed their eyes. An illusion, Tobias had called it. A trick. A con.
I used to dream of this city, he thought. I used to dream of beautiful things. And I’m here now and none of this is real. None of it has ever been real.
I killed a dragon, he thought. I’ve seen the rain fall and the desert bloom. I’m staying in a house full of sunlight and women’s smiles. But in the end it’s all just darkness. A trick. Not real. Black fire, burning. Coloured lights. A lie.
‘Fuck,’ Alxine said suddenly.
They were walking down a narrow street, and Rate had just pointed out that they were lost, and that Tobias had taken the map.
Marith had seen and studied maps of Sorlost, but they were old in fact and old in his memory. Rate had never been anywhere even half as big before and found the city’s sheer size baffling. Alxine had a poor sense of direction at the best of times. Emit looked almost satisfied that they’d got themselves into a mess. It was beginning to come on towards evening. There were four of them, but only lightly armed.