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

I was mildly surprised, as night fell over the town, to discover there wasn’t a curfew.  They were rare in magical settlements - there were rites that could only be conducted at midnight - but quite common in mundane towns.  Anyone caught outside after nightfall was just asking for trouble, as far as the authorities were concerned.  I’d expected to have to sneak my way into the taverns.  Instead, the streets became more alive after dark.  And yet, the stench of fear hung in the air.  There were very few women on the streets and almost all were escorted by grim-faced men.

The tavern on the edge of the magical quarter had clearly seen better days.  It was a single-story stone building, crammed with people.  The stench of alcohol assaulted my nostrils.  I wrapped a simple glamour around myself as I entered, tuning the spell to make sure I fitted in without drawing too much attention.  The patrons were all men, drinking beer and talking in low voices.  They looked ... common, their hard-worn clothes and harder faces suggesting they were miners, rather than merchants or magicians or aristocrats.  Some of them were smoking, the smell wafting across the room and making my nostrils twitch; I tried not to cough as I breathed the foggy air.  It wasn’t regular tobacco.

I sidled up to the counter and ordered a pint, then allowed my eyes to wander across the room.  Alcohol had a tendency to loosen tongues.  It was normally easy to convince people to talk, when they’d had a few drinks before I started asking questions.  My eyes swept from face to face, wondering who would be the best person to ask.  The miners?  The loadsmen?  Or ... I smiled, inwardly, as I spotted a man in a cubicle drinking alone.  He looked downcast.  If I was any judge, he wanted - needed - to talk.

The crowd parted as I made my way around the room and stepped up to the cubicle.  The man looked up, eyes darkening.  His unshaven face and alcohol-sodden shirt made him look dangerous, his fists clenching as if he thought he could take a swing at me.  I tightened the glamour, pushing it towards him.  His mind would do the rest, convincing him that I was a relative or a friend who would provide a sympathetic ear.  The alcohol would help with that, too.  I swapped one of his empty glasses for mine, then cast an illusion to make it look as though I was drinking with him.  I doubted anyone would notice.  They had too many problems of their own.

“She’s gone,” he said.  He swallowed half the pint in one gulp, then belched.  “She’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?”  I leaned forward, casting a handful of charms to encourage him to talk.  She?  Mistress Layla?  I found it hard to believe she’d been associating with the man in front of me.  “Who’s missing?”

“My daughter,” the man said.  “She’s gone!”

“Tell me about her,” I said.  I waved to the bartender, quietly ordering more drinks for my new friend.  “What happened?”

The story bubbled out, accompanied by gulps and half-sobs and all the sounds of a man on the edge of snapping.  He’d had a daughter - Fran - who’d been the light of his life, the apple of his eye and various other things he listed in great detail, a daughter who’d gone out one day and never returned.  She’d been too young to run away, he insisted; she’d been too young to fall in love with a boy or set out to seek her fortune or do something - anything - on her own.  And no one gave much of a damn about her.  The guardsmen had beaten him up for daring to report her disappearance.

“She’s not the only one,” he said.  His voice was raw with pain, his eyes wet with unshed tears.  “Thousands of people have vanished, and the prince does nothing!”

I asked a handful of questions, trying to draw sense out of his increasingly-drunken ramblings.  I’d known a handful of magicians had gone missing, but commoners too?  It made no sense.  I was fairly sure it couldn’t be more than a hundred at most - I couldn’t believe thousands of people had vanished, not in a fairly small town - but ... what was going on?  Missing commoners as well as magicians?  Perhaps there was a necromancer after all.

If there was a necromancer in the area, we’d know about it, I told myself.  What else could it be?

My friend continued to ramble, while I thought hard.  There was nothing to be gained by kidnapping magicians ... nothing good, in any case.  They could be being held for ransom somewhere, but who would pay?  None of them had ties - overt ones, anyway - to wealthy and powerful families.  And commoners?  It was possible they were being sold into slavery - or worse - but I found it hard to believe a kidnapping ring could operate for so long in a small town without being uncovered.  There weren’t many cities so big that strangers could remain unnoticed.  After the first couple of people had vanished, the remainder of the population would’ve been on their guard.  The kidnappers would be sure of facing some rough justice if - when - they were caught in the act.

“You reported it to the guardsmen,” I said.  “What happened?”

“They said the prince didn’t give a shit about us,” the drunkard said.  He was swaying now, face blotchy with tears.  “He fills the city with statues of himself, but ... what about us?”

He seemed to stagger, as if someone had hit him, then fell forward and crashed onto the wooden table, out like a lightspell.  I moved him slightly to make sure he could breathe, then cleared away the empty glasses.  His memories would be scrambled when he woke up, leaving him uncertain of just what he’d said ...