Page 31 of The Malevolent Seven

He did it well, I had to admit, if rather too often. I don’t know many wonderists who bother with swords, but the swept-hilt rapier with the silver rat’s head pommel scabbarded at his side did make for a splendid fashion accessory.

‘Hey, Merely Aradeus,’ Corrigan called out from the back of the sloop, looking no happier about our current situation than Mister Bones. ‘Seeing as how you’re hijacking our mission, how about you tell us where the fuck we’re going?’

The rat mage turned his gaze to the river ahead of us, right hand shading his eyes as if he were some legendary sea captain leading a dauntless crew to exotic faraway lands. ‘Hand steady on the rudder, good Corrigan. Hold fast to the noble heart beating in your breast. We sail now to grand adventure and exalted purpose!’

Okay, first of all, our sloop didn’t have a rudder. As I mentioned earlier, itdidhave a sail, but Aradeus, despite living near the world’s most famous canal, informed us indignantly, ‘Rats may climb masts with consummate skill and swing daringly from ropes, but we neversail.’

Second, anyone who uses the words ‘good’ and ‘Corrigan’ in the same sentence un-ironically, or who refers to the noble heart beating in his breast, is verifiably demented.

Third. . . well, third was a longer story, but the short version is that Aradeus, who had already demonstrated– repeatedly– his uncanny ability to compose an epic poem on the subject of honour at the drop of a hat,had backed out of the deal he’d made with Corrigan to be our war coven’s scout unless we agreed to first join him on a ‘brief but gallant errand’.

That our new recruit was blackmailing us into helping him with what would no doubt turn out to be some dangerous and ill-advised grudge against a local princeling didn’t bother me nearly so much as the fact that agreeing to do so apparently required listening to him endlessly wax poetic about the nature of rat magic.

‘As I was saying, my dear. . .’ He turned back to Galass, once again favouring her with a dashing smile that practically glinted off his front teeth, ‘ours is a mystical art named not for the physiognomic or any other bodily property of this sublime species, but instead from their superlative moral and cognitive capabilities.’

Yeah, you heard that right: he just claimed that rats are the ethical and intellectual apex species of the animal kingdom.

‘The rat,’ Aradeus went on, gesturing to the pair rolling around on Galass’ lap, ‘possesses an unparallelled tactical mind capable of assessing not only the precise nature and magnitude of any threat, but also the most ingenious means of both escape and counter-attack. Thus, a rat mage’s foretelling spells– paired with our instincts for daring and the defence of others– often make the difference between glorious victory and ignominious death.’

‘Foretelling spells?’ Galass asked. ‘So your magic is a kind of divination?’

‘Astutely intuited, my most sagacious lady, though such scouting spells are only one among our many’– here he felt it necessary to wink at her– ‘abilities.’

‘I hear the other is eating their own young,’ Corrigan shouted from the back.

I thought it was pretty funny, but Aradeus ignored him and Galass was far too caught up in the performance to have even noticed. She scratched behind the ears of one of the rats, prompting a fresh outburst of growling from Mister Bones, who now set to pacing angrily around the boat.

‘It’s so fascinating,’ she said. ‘Something people see as dirty and evil can actually be. . . virtuous.’

Aradeus knelt down and flashed that charming smile of his again. The long fingers gloved in butter-soft grey leather lifted one of her scarlet tresses. ‘My dear, there is not one of us whose nature refutes the potential for goodness. None whom the world can deny the chance for redemption, and not a single one of us unworthy of love.’

Well, fuck me. That, right there– did you see it? The moment when he looked at Galass without a trace of lust or insidious desire? There wasn’t an ounce of mockery or self-serving flattery in his tone. Aradeus just saw a heartsick girl. Her fear that she’d become something vile– a creature no better than a rodent herself– was evident in her every word and glance, in the way her shoulders hunched and the trembling of her fingers as she stroked the rats. And it was Aradeus, sincerity cutting through all the nonsense of his foppish clothes and pompous mannerisms, who had given Galass something I wouldn’t have thought possible: hope. Hope that becoming a blood mage might be something more than a steady slide into misery and madness. Hope that even if she couldn’t yet find it herself, inside, her essential dignity and humanity remained. Hope that her future might be better than her past– and all that with a few words and a kindness born not of self-interest but of something I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

‘Ask him how “virtuous” his plague spells are!’ Corrigan bellowed from the back. Having none of his own, he was never particularly fond of charm in others.

Me? I just stared at Aradeus Mozen in awe and prayed to whatever deities might take pity on a wretched wonderist like me that he was for real. If that idiot baron up north truly possessed the Apparatus and I could free Galass from her attunement to blood magic and give her something less dire, maybe Aradeus could take her on as an apprentice afterwards, help her see the world in ways I couldn’t. Assuming any of us survived that long, of course.

I stepped to the front of the sloop and asked, ‘If rats are all so righteous and noble, Aradeus, then surely you won’t withhold the nature of our mission from your comrades?’

He smiled at me as if we were old friends, brothers-in-arms, veterans of countless bard-worthy campaigns together. He put a gloved hand on my shoulder and pointed into the distance where I could just make out the masts of a barge almost as big as a war galleon. ‘See you those lascivious red and gold sails, brother Cade? Upon that Infernal vessel, a damsel suffers indignities that would shrivel the souls of demons. She is a princess, or as good a one as can be, if that word holds any meaning beyond petty privilege. The one who holds her captive is a dragon, though without wings or scales or fangs.’ He chuckled. ‘Though you’d swear the vile beast’s breath could wither fortress walls.’

I peered ahead. Our little sloop was travelling far faster under Corrigan’s spells than the barge, and now I could make out the gold-trimmed hull and the unusual design of a crown above a bed decorating its sails.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ I asked Corrigan.

He nodded, his scowl making it clear he’d had no more idea of what Aradeus was intending than I’d had, and that he was even less happy about what was about to happen.

Red sails are the mark of what are politely referred to as ‘respite vessels’, but which are more commonly known as whoreships. The gold trim and crown above the insignia indicated royalty, which meant this particular pleasure vessel belonged to a prince, and that his clientele would be some of the most powerful nobles in the region– the kind of people you really don’t want for enemies.

Corrigan had started swearing to himself. Galass had risen and was staring at the ostentatious ship coming ever closer into view.

Aradeus shook his fist in the air, almost as if doing so would propel our sloop even faster. ‘To battle, comrades– in victory or in death do we inscribe our names upon the pages of history!’

Did I mention it’s common wisdom among wonderists that one should never get embroiled in the schemes of rat mages?

Chapter 16

Beneath Red Sails

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