The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (different e readers txt) 📕

since before Vargo’s Spiders ensnared their knot. He wanted to know what killed his friend.

::See if he can feel other sensations. The descriptions of the violent ones make it sound like all their senses are dulled.::

Vargo nodded. “Sedge. Do something that will hurt, but don’t injure him.”

A quick shift of Sedge’s grip bent Yurdan’s arm up behind him in a way that made even Vargo wince. Yurdan didn’t seem to notice, all his attention still fixed on the darkness beyond their circle of lights. Sedge grunted. “I don’t think he—”

“Kinless bastards,” Yurdan snarled, twisting. “You’re the ones who got Hraček, en’t you? Well, I see you now—you en’t getting away this time!”

Sedge was one of Vargo’s better fists. Nobody got away from him that he didn’t let go. His whole body tensed to hold Yurdan in place… and Yurdan threw him off like dandelion fluff. Only the wet, tearing sound of something giving way in Yurdan’s shoulder hinted at the effort involved.

Vargo spun off his stool and out of Yurdan’s path, but the drugged man wasn’t going for him. Yurdan lurched to the edge of the lights, hands arching into rigid claws. “That’s right, you fuckers. I’m gonna tear you apart!”

But as he swiped at the air, Yurdan was the one who got torn.

They all saw it happen. A bloody streak opened up across the back of his bare shoulders, like an invisible blade had cut him—or a claw. Yurdan paid that no more heed than his injured shoulder, howling incoherent threats at the empty darkness.

A darkness that answered with silent fury. Cut after cut shredded his skin, blood streaming from the wounds like rain; Sedge leapt to Yurdan’s aid, but there was nothing for him to fight. Even when Yurdan seemed to seize hold of something, wrestling like a street performer with an imaginary foe, Sedge’s hands passed through the space between his arms without pause.

Alsius, what’s there?

::Nothing, my boy. I’m not seeing anything you aren’t.::

Vargo had no fucking clue what was happening. But he couldn’t stand by while one of his people got shredded.

“Drag him this way.” Kicking his stool aside, Vargo drew his sword from his cane, muttering, “I have my compass, my edge, my chalk, myself. I need nothing more to know the cosmos.”

::What in nine sigils are you doing?:: Alsius screeched in his head.

“What does it look like?” He set his sword tip to the wooden boards and walked a circle, carving a ragged, uneven arc that would make the most amateur inscriptor wince. Behind him, Yurdan’s shouts had broken into wet, animal growls as he fought Varuni, Sedge, and whatever Primordial demons the ash was showing him.

::You can’t just— You don’t even have a focus!::

“I’ll freehand one.”

::No, you bloody well won’t!:: Alsius said, even as Vargo tossed aside his sword and pulled out a knife. He knelt on the boards where he judged the spiral’s center should be—more or less.

What would be best? Protection. Sessat. He ran through a mental list of the gods associated with Sessat. Avca? Teis? Which one had the easiest sigil to draw? Which one could he manage without fucking it up? “The alternative is to make myself the focus.”

::Over my dead body.::

There was nothing funny in this moment, but Alsius’s protest still spurred a grim chuckle from Vargo. “Yes, that’s usually the result when an inscriptor becomes his own focus. Which is why I’m improvising.” He dug the knife tip into the soft wood.

::Stop, Vargo. Stop!::

“Master Vargo,” Varuni said softly. “You can stop. It’s… too late.”

The room fell silent, except for the unbroken stream of low curses from Sedge. Vargo made himself turn and look.

Yurdan was a bloody heap on the boards, his limp body lying just short of the ragged line Vargo had carved. Hraček had survived long enough for Vargo’s people to find him, but Yurdan was gone in a mere instant—torn apart by absolutely nothing.

Vargo’s knife clattered to the floor. It had all happened so fast, and he’d been too slow to react. No—he shouldn’t have had to react. He should have planned for this. A simple protective circle; it seemed so fucking obvious now that Yurdan lay unmoving in a spreading pool of blood.

He’d seen dead bodies—he’d been responsible for more than a few—but he’d thought the days were gone when he’d be helpless to stop someone from dying. The lack of control burned in him like acid.

What. The fuck. Was that.

::I’ve not seen anything like it in all my years.::

Considerably more years than Vargo could lay claim to. He stood, dusting off his knees. Varuni hovered nearby. Sedge was still tense, his anger burning blue like flame, looking for something to kill. Both of them were waiting on Vargo’s lead.

And Vargo needed to think.

“Take care of this,” he told Varuni, and waved Sedge off when the fist would have followed him.

The streets of Froghole weren’t pleasant, but after the stink of blood, sweat, and bowels, the air was positively fresh. The last quarter of silver-blue Corillis was hidden behind the rooftops, but copper-green Paumillis rode high and full, and the cold made everything so clear that the stars seemed cut into the blackness of the sky.

“What do we know, what do we suspect, and what do we need to know?” he asked, striking out at a pace brisk enough to battle the cold and outrun his impotent anger. He could keep this conversation to thoughts alone, but speaking aloud helped move things into place. And if people thought he was mad, walking around the islet and talking to himself… they quickly took their opinions elsewhere when they realized who he was.

Alsius answered him with sober precision. ::We know this so-called ash has hallucinatory effects like aža, but nightmarish. It allows the user to disregard cold and pain, and gives them tremendous strength. And it seems they can be hurt by their hallucinations.::

“That was no hallucination.” Nothing imaginary could cause damage that real. Just thinking of those long, clawlike tears made Vargo’s skin twitch. “Spirits