Dark apprentice, p.26
Dark Apprentice, page 26
Nikolai walked back to the stairs. On his way, he paused at the rectangular doors set into the stone, presumably to house bodies. He pulled one of them open.
On the cold metal tray was a young man about Nikolai’s age, so well-preserved that he could have been sleeping. The face below a thatch of sandy hair was purple with bruises. Something about him was familiar. Was he a fellow student at the Academy? Was this one of Medea’s former apprentices? Nikolai placed his hand on another drawer.
Before he could open it, the man sat up.
23
NECESSARY CONDITIONS
The man gasped, loud and deep, like someone who’d been holding their breath for a long time. He looked around, spotted the rack of knives, and promptly fell off the tray with a yelp.
Who was this guy? Nikolai couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew him. Better not use telepathy just yet. If the man were Magi, he would feel the intrusion and possibly conceal what he knew. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay. You’re safe now,” Nikolai said in his most reassuring voice.
The man spun, eyes widening at the sight of Nikolai. He dashed for the knives, grabbing the largest he could find, an unwieldy thing, and pointed it at Nikolai’s chest.
Nikolai put up his hands. “I’m only here to help, friend.” He nodded toward the drawer. “I just opened that and found you inside. What’s your name? How did you get in here?” He belatedly recalled how many languages Medea spoke. If this were a former apprentice, there was a good chance their languages wouldn’t overlap.
“Ed—Eddie. Don’t remember. Got ossified with the mates. Some fecker jumped us. Got home and . . .” He pressed his fist to his face, straining to remember.
Irish accent, bruises on the face—this was one of the drunks who’d accosted Kate back at the Spotted Sow. So that’s why Medea had ditched him that night. She was probably rounding the three of them up. No doubt the other two were also in drawers. Damnit, why couldn’t Medea have anyone Useful stashed down here!
Nikolai dipped into the man’s mind. It was a hazy mess, almost as if he were still drunk. He didn’t recognize Nikolai as the man who’d given him the bruises. Hopefully that would make it easier to get him back into the drawer, where the sleep spell or whatever had kept him unconscious would take effect again.
Nikolai switched to an Irish accent. “It’s okay, Eddie. I think someone’s codding ya. Your mates, were they a big fella and a bloke with red hair?”
“Yeah.”
“I heard them talking about giving someone a good fright.”
“Those wankers!”
“Look, why don’t you lie back down here.” He patted the metal tray. “I’ll go get them. When they open the drawer, you can holler and scare them.” If this didn’t work, he’d have to use force.
Thankfully, the guy seemed the suggestible sort of drunk and ambled over. “You sure about this?”
“They’re the ones that put you in a drawer. Feckers deserve to have the piss taken out of them. You want me to hold that?” Nikolai indicated the knife.
“Wouldn’t it be better if I held this up?” He brandished the knife and made a roaring noise.
“It’s a little big though. Might get caught on the inside there.”
“RUN! GET OUT NOW!” The call came from number four’s cell. Motherfucker. The other inmates picked up the cue and began chanting.
Eddie looked from the cells to Nikolai. His eyes hardened, and he raised the knife. Nikolai barely managed to get a shield up in time. Eddie hammered at the shield with savage ferocity. A telekinetic push sent him stumbling backward.
Nikolai summoned a fireball into his hand. “Get inside the drawer or get roasted.”
“Fuck you!” Eddie spat. He charged at Nikolai.
Nikolai blew him backward with the gust spell and grinned. “I can do this all night.”
“That fireball in his hand don’t mean SHIT. He can’t hurt you without gettin’ caught!” Prisoner four again.
None of the spells in his repertoire were designed to subdue, only harm. Bleed, Amputate, Fireball, Lightning, Pummel—all would leave evidence. All but Fear. Nikolai dispelled his fireball and sent Fear rippling through the air, striking Eddie in the temple.
“Head shot!” Nikolai called out in jubilation.
Eddie screamed. His hands clutched at his head, eyes rolling around in terror. Then he bolted for the stairs.
Shit! Nikolai tore after him, tackling him a hair’s breadth away from the damned black thread guarding the stairwell. Eddie thrashed against his grip, little more than a panicked animal. Nikolai punched his face. A few more bruises would go unnoticed there.
Still Eddie screamed. This close to the stairwell, the sound no doubt reached up to the lab. Nikolai made a grab at the man’s ankles, but he was flailing so much Nikolai almost lost him again.
Nikolai hooked one leg under his arm and hauled the man toward the drawer. If he could get to the weapon rack, he could knock the guy unconscious. As they passed one of the worktables, Eddie made a desperate grab.
“Let go, you stubborn piece of shit!” Nikolai made to kick Eddie’s hand, when suddenly the man whipped out of his grasp and stumbled to the stairs. His head passed below the first thread, but the second was at waist height, much harder to miss.
Nikolai ran after him, shooting Pummel as he went. Fuck evidence. At this point he just had to get the man subdued.
Despite his drunken state, Eddie flew ahead, turning out of sight with every curve of the stairs. The black thread loomed across the stairwell. Nikolai shot Pummel at Eddie’s legs.
The spell hit, but too late. As Eddie crumpled to the floor, his hand passed through the black line. An invisible force slammed Eddie flat against the wall. His body moved upward, until he hung suspended with his arms and legs splayed, skin weeping blood. A scream erupted, like nothing Nikolai had heard before. He approached, fascinated. Eddie’s skin peeled off in strips, flayed alive. He needed that spell!
“What are you doing down here?” Medea appeared on the stairs.
Medea didn’t know which was more disturbing, the idea that a subject had gotten out or the reality that Nikolai had broken into the dungeon and was now eyeing the results of her security spell with avid interest.
“I thought the wards were to notify you if anyone came down here,” he said, eyes never leaving the carnage beside him, “but I was wrong, wasn’t I? They were designed to prevent escapes.”
“What are you doing? You know you’re not permitted in the dungeon yet.” She tried to keep her voice level, but it wasn’t cooperating.
Nikolai finally turned his eyes toward her. There wasn’t the faintest trace of guilt in his expression. “You keep them for experimentation, correct? To test out spells?”
She didn’t answer. The sound shield around her head blocked the screams of the subject, but the thrashing was distracting. She canceled the ward with a wave of her hand, and his head slumped forward.
“Heal him,” she said to Nikolai, nodding to the subject.
“Why?”
“You break it, you mend it. First rule of the dungeon. Which you’d know if you’d bothered to wait.” She sent the broken subject levitating down the stairwell, forcing Nikolai to retreat or get bled on. He gave ground, and when she shifted the body onto one of the worktables, she saw a healing potion in his hand.
“Healing potions are inadequate for true healing. You want to cut something up, use livestock. That is not”—she gestured about the dungeon—“what we do here.”
“I had no intention of ‘cutting him up.’ And I did my best to keep him from tripping the wards.”
“Out of self-interest!”
“Yes, out of self-interest!” He returned her glare. “I didn’t want to get caught, but you left me little choice.”
“You could have waited—”
“I’ve been waiting! You said I could learn telepathy but refused to teach me. So I’ve done what I’ve always had to do—learn on my own. Except you blocked access to the books I need.”
Her stomach knotted. Heat rose in her cheeks at his accusations, all true. He had every right to be angry.
“I need Magi to practice on. Where do you expect me to do that? Haven? Unlike you, I’d rather not make enemies all over the Magi world. I knew there were bound to be Magi down here, so yes, I broke in.”
This wasn’t going at all how she’d planned. He was supposed to learn the basics, a variety of magical schools. She didn’t expect him to turn away from darker magics completely, if that’s what he really wanted, but he had to realize there was more out there, so much more. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say in her defense and stood mutely as he took a step closer.
He unstoppered his healing potion and dumped it over the flayed subject. “There! If that doesn’t fix him, I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do. But I’m not sorry I came down here. I won’t be held back—not by Petrov, not by you, not by anyone!” He slammed the empty vial on the table and turned to leave.
She wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Why did she always freeze when it came to human interactions? She never froze during duels.
He was almost to the stairwell. She could block his exit, but that would only enrage him further. Better to let him go, give herself time to get her thoughts in order.
She set to fixing the battered test subject. This, at least, she could do. Reading the physical components of a person was easier than reading their behaviors. The human body was incredible—so many microscopic parts working in concert to make a whole. A whole that was, for the most part, completely unaware of its smaller units, unless something broke.
She willed the skin to fold back and knit together, sealed up severed capillaries, and moved cells around as needed to get the job done. Healing like this she could do in her sleep. Hard to say if it came to her naturally or not, having grown up under a healer, but in all her years, she’d never met another with the same gift for manipulating the human form. Fleshweaving, as she called it, was her biggest strength.
And Nikolai’s was telepathy.
Every apprentice she’d ever trained, she’d encouraged to tap into their natural strengths. Yet here she was, blocking access to books and refusing to train Nikolai properly, just because telepathy made her uncomfortable. He’d broken into the dungeon, not to torture the test subjects or try out new curses, but to practice. Had she been any different, sneaking into her master’s study and reading scrolls without permission? What Nikolai had done was not only excusable, it was commendable.
Maybe she could start his telepathy training now . . .
But he had so much catching up to do! And the curse wasn’t all to blame. Nikolai neglected anything he didn’t see a use for. His mana pool remained abysmally small. Whatever he might claim, it was clear he wasn’t doing the boiling exercise. He continued to treat all his wounds with potions rather than learn healing. Somehow, she’d have to break through his ingrained biases there.
At least his work in the forest had gotten better, but then it was combat, something Nikolai seemed to enjoy. He could now sense most of her roots and dodge them before they struck. Conjuring blight was still beyond his capabilities, though not for lack of trying.
Maybe there was a way to satisfy his curiosity about telepathy. One lesson a week couldn’t hurt. When he had a firm grasp of the basics, then and only then would she allow him to learn whatever he wanted.
She finished with the test subject and placed him back in the drawer, refreshing the stasis spell, then went to her room. There she spent hours painstakingly crafting a letter. Over and over again, she laid out the reasoning behind her decision, each revision more verbose than the last. Her desk became littered with false starts, until at last she scrapped it all and settled for something containing none of the emotional baggage she’d worked through so meticulously on paper. I will teach you telepathy—simple and to the point.
She tiptoed downstairs with the letter, but hesitated at Nikolai’s door. Was it right to give in? She’d wanted to try something different with him, to see if postponing access to information reduced the odds of students trying to kill her. Flexibility was all well and good in personal matters, but this was science, where variables had to be minimized. If she gave in on this small thing, it could alter the results of her experiment. A dull ache permeated her stomach. Maybe she should go back upstairs . . .
The bathroom door opened and Nikolai exited, wearing only a towel about his waist. He rubbed a second towel over his dark hair. Water droplets flecked his bare chest. Had he lost muscle mass? Irrelevant. The towel at his waist was concerning. A precarious barrier between her and his weapon. She took an involuntary step back.
Nikolai noticed, and there was some subtle shift in his demeanor. He smiled and began to dry his chest with slow pats, then casually draped the towel over his shoulders and moved to open his door. She clenched her jaw and crossed her arms. His arm brushed against her. She stood her ground and tried not to flinch. Close. He was far too close. Knowing he couldn’t hurt her didn’t stop the reflexive dump of adrenaline into her system.
“So,” he said, casually leaning against the doorframe, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I . . .” Damnit. This was why she’d written the letter. Conversations, like experiments, were only good when one could control the variables. Her eyes slid past him, searching for something else to latch on to.
“You’ve redecorated.” What the hell was she saying? This wasn’t why she was here. She could just hand him the letter and leave, but he might open it in front of her, and then she’d have to deal with the gloating.
He hooked his thumbs in the towel. “I did. Does that bother you?” For some inexplicable reason, he made it sound like a challenge.
“Why would that bother me?”
“You look . . . uncomfortable.” He smiled as he said it.
Uncomfortable was an understatement. His thumbs. His thumbs! The added pressure they exerted on the towel would surely cause it to fall. Run. NO. Fight. Always fight. Nothing could touch her. She was invincible.
“. . . silk sheets and everything.” Apparently he’d been talking.
“I should be going,” she muttered.
“Nonsense! Come in, have a look around.” He backed away from the door and smiled at her invitingly.
She squelched the age-old fear and entered, prepared to battle.
Had he known Medea would react so well to his body, he would have taken his shirt off ages ago. It seemed as though Petrov’s warning not to flirt with her was bullshit. The old girl was hungry. Her eyes drank in his well-muscled chest and scanned downward, lingering a little too long on his crotch. She was so into him she didn’t know what to do with herself. The woman stood awkwardly and tried to look away, but every few seconds, her eyes betrayed her interest.
If she was willing, fucking her might solve a lot of his problems. He was skilled enough to make her beg for more. Withholding would be a nice way to exert control. He could get her to lift the curse, teach whatever he wanted, share immortality . . .
He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk, hoping his biceps bulged nicely. Medea examined the room with a certain trepidation.
“Nice, uh, color,” she said in reference to the bed. “I suppose after a few hundred years it was time for a new one.”
He’d stashed the old mattress in the back of the room. He suddenly wanted to burn it, thinking of hundreds of years of other men’s sweat and secretions.
“I, uh, best be going. Are the accommodations alright? Do you, uh, need anything?”
She’d never been so nervous. He had to get her to relax. What better way than to give her an opportunity to show off?
“What about a window? Can you do that?”
Instantly her face changed. There was the confident woman he knew. “Not a true window, no, but I can make an illusion of one.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s a bit like the gateway, but not exactly. I draw out an area on a surface where light hits, and sort of transfer the image here.”
“Can the image come from anywhere?”
“Anywhere with a wall or solid surface.”
“Can you get me the view inside Shailyn’s bedroom?” he joked, hoping to make her jealous.
He slammed into the cold stone floor. Every inch of him felt like it was on fire.
Medea loomed, eyes blazing.
“Didn’t . . . mean it.” He gritted his teeth against the pain.
“What did you mean?” She’d never looked so cold, and yet the temperature in the room seemed to be rising.
“It was . . . joke.”
“You think it’s funny to spy on women without their permission?”
“No—Medea, please.”
The pain abruptly ceased, and she made to storm out.
“Wait!” He reached out to her as she stepped around him, hand grasping at the hem of her dress.
“Don’t touch me!” She wrenched her dress away and kicked at his face. Her bare foot didn’t connect, but it was as though metal collided with his temple. Pins of light dotted his vision.
“I’m sorry.” His brain worked furiously. There was more here than pure anger. There was contempt. He’d only seen her show it once before, back at the Spotted Sow. Somehow he’d slipped dangerously close to a category of humans she despised, humans now residing in drawers in the dungeon. Lies wouldn’t save him.
“I fucked up,” he blurted out.
She paused.
“You know how sometimes your brain goes to a place . . . you don’t mean it, and you’d never do it, but the instinct is still there, and you keep it hidden from everyone because if they knew they’d hate you, but then sometimes it slips out . . .” God, truth was hard. How did people do this?
“My brain would never go to a place like that.”
“Mine does. All the time. It’s my . . . default.” He sat up but dared not stand. “Actions are what make us. We can have all the horrible thoughts in the world, but it’s what we do about them, or don’t do, that matters. I’ll admit I miss seeing Shailyn naked, and so I made a joke—a bad joke—but I’d never actually do that to her. It’s not a line I’m willing to cross. I may be immoral, but I do have morals.”
