Void's Tale by Christopher Nuttall (ebook reader wifi txt) 📕

watched the convoy father - the elected leader of the convoy - talking to the guards, wondering if I’d have to abandon the caravan and sneak into the city.  It wouldn’t be hard.  I could levitate over the walls if necessary.

The guards checked papers, then eyed the caravans as if they were considering searching them before allowing us into the city.  It was surprising.  Most guards knew better than to risk poking through magical convoys.  The risk of being hexed - or worse - was just too high.  And yet ... the gates opened, allowing us to make our way into the city.  I frowned as we passed through the gatehouse.  They’d readied boiling oil to greet unwelcome guests.  It really did look as though they were preparing for war.

Gabby had been chattering happily, but she fell silent as soon as we passed through the gate.  Fear hung in the air.  The streets were largely deserted.  I saw a handful of men - no women - hurrying along the pavement, eyes lowered to the cobblestones.  My eyes flickered from side to side, taking in the scene.  The homes were built of gray stone, their doors firmly closed.  Statues were everywhere, all showing the same aristocrat in a number of different poses, from brave warrior and leader of men to stern father and master of his country.  It was hard to hide my contempt.  Anyone who felt the need to promote himself so blatantly clearly suffered from more than a few insecurities.  Perhaps that explained the soldiers on the gatehouse, too.

They could be invaded at any moment, I thought.  The town wouldn’t be easy to take, without magic, but an invading army wouldn’t need to storm the walls to bring the kingdom to heel.  I doubted they’d stored enough food to feed the entire population long enough for help to arrive.  They might be making a show of strength to disguise their weaknesses.

I snorted, inwardly.  That wasn’t going to work.  Anyone conversant with power would pick out the insecurities and take advantage of them.  There were hard limits on how many men the country could prepare for war, let alone put in the field.  Yolanda’s real defence lay in its location, and its magic.  And yet ... I didn't like the fear hanging in the air.  It felt as if the entire town was holding its breath, waiting for something awful to happen.

The silence seemed to grow worse as we made our way to the magical quarter.  There were guards and soldiers on every corner, stamping up and down as though they owned the place.  They looked depressingly alert, sharp eyes flickering over us ... they didn’t even linger on Juliana and the other women, even though traveller women had a reputation for being loose.  That was odd, worrying even.  What were they so afraid of?  They wouldn’t have let us through the gatehouse if there’d been an invading army outside the walls, even if the army had been on the other side of the town.

“It should be busier,” Juliana said, quietly.

I nodded in agreement as we drove into the marketplace and found a spot.  The magical quarter was livelier than the rest of the town - there were more cityfolk and less guardsmen on the streets - but it should have been busier.  It should have been a lot more lively.  I spotted a handful of shops, boarded up and heavily warded.  Abandoned?  It took a lot to convince magical shopkeepers to cut and run.  The mobs knew better than to risk challenging the wards.  Even invading armies would hesitate.

I didn’t like the look of it at all.

Lord Ashworth should have sent more spies, I thought.  I jumped to the ground, then helped Gabby to scramble down.  He clearly didn’t realise how bad things have become.

Juliana opened the rear of the caravan, then started to pass down boxes of trade goods.  I helped her with a will, payment for my passage.  The travellers might feel obligations towards their relatives, but those relatives had obligations to them. too.  If they wanted to travel with their fellows, they had to help out.  I didn’t mind.  Magical society operated on similar rules.  And besides, it would help keep the charm in place.

“Gabby will show you where to put everything,” Juliana said, as she cast a pair of spells to shelter the makeshift stall from the weather.  “I have to talk to Toby.”

I watched her go, then quietly tested her spells and reinforced them.  Juliana wasn’t inept, not by any reasonable definition of the word, but she lacked raw power.  She’d certainly never had the chance to go to Whitehall.  Her charms wouldn’t hold up forever.  Gabby darted around, dragging some boxes into the light while pushing others under the caravan.  I gave her a hand, listening with some amusement as she ordered me around like a servant.  She was a good kid, I decided.  I hoped she’d have the chance to go to school.

“That’s it, Uncle,” Gabby said.  “Well done.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I straightened, making a show of rubbing my back as I looked around.  Juliana was talking to the convoy father and a handful of others, their voices too low for me to hear without using magic.  I kept looking around, my eyes lingering on the statues.  They looked brave and noble and true, and yet there was something about them that made me uneasy.  Golems?  Homunculi?  It was possible.  A small army of stone warriors would be enough to stop invaders in their tracks.

But there are spells they could use to shatter the statues, I thought.  No one would risk relying on stone warriors to defend the kingdom indefinitely.

Gabby caught my hand.  “Can you teach me some magic?  Mummy says I’m too young, but I can do it and ...”

“You are too young,” I said.  My father had pushed the limits of experimentation