“You’ve barely said two words all day.”
“I’m fine.” Kiran’s head was bowed, his shoulders stiff. “It’s just so hot.”
True enough that the midday sun blazed fiercely enough to turn a man’s brains to sludge. But yesterday’s equally blistering heat hadn’t kept him from a steady stream of questions.
“Well, good news: we’ve reached Silverlode Canyon.” I pointed ahead, where the trail left the sagebrush to disappear into a narrow gash in the pale cliffs. “In Silverlode, the heat’ll ease some. And we’ll be done with this gods-damned sand.”
“Oh. Good.” Kiran’s gaze stayed locked on his saddle.
So long as he hadn’t thumped his head badly enough to get brain sickness, he could stay silent as a sand lump if he liked. Though after long hours spent wrestling with the problem of Pello and his charm, I could’ve used a nice distracting conversation.
Red Dal had taught me a whole host of dirty tricks for disabling charms, and the more inspired ones even worked without the Taint. Problem was, they all depended on direct access to the charm in question. A clever man like Pello was sure to use serious protective wards to hide his charm stash from prying eyes. I might search his wagon a thousand times and never find the message charm. And try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a way to arrange an unfortunate accident for Pello that wouldn’t risk killing other, innocent men. Maybe Jylla was right and Sethan had turned me soft, but I didn’t much like the thought of killing innocents for my own gain.
I sighed as my mare clopped up the final rock-strewn incline leading to the canyon’s mouth. No, there had to be a way to break Pello’s wards. I’d learned in my Tainted days that a little creativity can go a long way. I just had to figure how to apply it right.
Within the confines of the canyon, sand changed over to jumbled boulders. Great cliffs reared skyward on either side, hiding the high peaks from view. The sight of those familiar awe-inspiring cliffs improved my mood considerably. Even Kiran perked up a bit, staring at the heights rather than his saddle.
As we wound along the canyon’s north slope, the kreeling shriek of a banehawk echoed off the sheer wall above. I turned to Kiran, wanting to see if he’d flinch or grab for a charm. That faint accent of his...I’d once shadowed a group of Kaithan traders who’d come straight from the southern blight. The liquid slur of their speech was the closest match I’d come up with for Kiran’s oddly inflected vowels. And southerners were all superstitious as hell. Varkevians, Sulanians, Kaithans...even the ones who scoffed at the vast southern pantheon of demons still wore devil-ward charms and turned pale at the sight of a banehawk.
Curiosity brightened Kiran’s face as he watched the hulking black shape soar past. “What kind of bird is that? I’ve never seen one so large.”
Ah. Banehawks were rarely seen in the city. I’d spied them on occasion perched near butcher shops and slaughteryards in hopes of snatching up offal, but I’d forgotten a highsider wouldn’t have cause to visit such places, not with servants to buy meat for them.
“Banehawk,” I said. “They eat carrion. Some say they’ve the souls of devils banished from Shaikar’s hells, and their call’s a death omen. Half the men in this convoy are snatching at devil-ward charms right now.”
“Devil-ward charm?” Kiran peered at me like he wasn’t sure if I was joking. “But devils are only stories. What would such a charm even do?”
Well. His accent couldn’t be Kaithan, then. I snorted. “Nothing. They’re just a way for streetside charmsellers to make easy coin. Slap together some loops of copper, etch on some fancy-looking sigils, and sell it to superstitious marks who’ll never know it’s got no magic.”
Superstitious though they were, southerners did know how to tell a good story. Khalmet’s their god of luck, and they say he has one hand of human flesh and one of skeletal bone. If he taps you with the flesh hand, your luck is good, but if he taps you with the other, no charm will save you from disaster. Any man who spends time in the mountains sees enough people die through no fault of their own for that to make perfect sense. But I’d never seen reason to believe invisible devils lurked about waiting to poison men’s souls. In my experience, men were capable of evil enough on their own.
Kiran shook