A boy's voice rings out. The sound echoes against the walls, echoes through the room. It is dark, so dark that I cannot see my hand in front of my face. The smell in the room is musty, rotten and damp. I wouldn't be surprised if a corpse was rotting there and being slowly eaten by rats. Death has a hand in this.
'Is this . idea?'
'... your orders on ... ask ... questions.' The voices are far away, barely audible. I hear gusts, an occasional word or sound. Sentences cannot be made. The situation is strange and unfathomable. The smell, the voices, the darkness. I don't understand it. I don't understand what I'm looking at, what I'm hearing. It is dead quiet.
'No!'
I bolt upright in the bed. My heartbeat in my throat, sweat on my back. In total confusion, I look around me. I don't know what I just dreamt, but I could have sworn I was really in that room. Shivers run down my spine as soon as the images replay in my eyes. The smell, it was that smell that totally confused me. The smell of rotting dead flesh hung in my nose as if I were standing next to a rotting corpse. I remember that smell so well that it seems like it never left my nose.
Slowly I run my hands through my hair. I look next to me and see Novak still deeply asleep. My eye glides to the clock on the wall. Half past five. I could try to go back to sleep but after that dream I know it won't work. I can lie here now annoying myself, brooding, or I can go outside and get some fresh air. I don't have to think about that choice for long.
I take the covers off the bed, get up and start to dress myself. My head keeps going back to that dream as I pull my dress over my shoulders. If only I could place it. I've had crazy dreams before but not such realistic ones. Sighing, I slip the dagger into its sheath around my leg. I straighten my skirt and walk slowly to the door. As soon as the door opens I walk into an empty corridor.
The stairs are empty too and as soon as I enter the tavern I see no one except a sleeping man on one of the tables. He has had a wild night judging by the amount of empty glasses next to his head. His comrades apparently had no need of their drunken friend and I don't blame them. I ignore the snoring man as I walk towards the exit.
I take the black box from the pocket in my skirt, take out a cigarette and put one in my mouth. With the packet of matches I light it and take a big puff. I have taken over a number of things from Novak over time, smoking being one of them. It clears my head, lets me relax. With the cigarette in my mouth, I look at the landscape in front of me. The sun, like most people, is still in bed. It is dark outside. The almost full moon gives the only light over the green plains. I let myself fall on my back in the clammy grass and take another puff from my cigarette.
I know that the magic I have practised over the past few months comes at a price. So far, I have not received a bill or experienced any disadvantages. It's going pretty smoothly and it scares me sometimes. We are almost at 40 and I have not felt any consequences yet. It was Yin and Yang's downfall, they turned into ghosts. I won't come out of this unscathed, I can't. I don't know what the gods are thinking for me. I can only hope that I don't end up like Yin and Yang.
When I first started the list, I was weak, sick and had lost almost all my magic. I could barely stand on my legs. Stealing other people's magic may not be the most moral or ethical solution, but it worked. With every name I could cross off, I got my magic back, became stronger and less tired. Now I can say that I am at the old level of my magic, at the point before my father started poisoning the water.
I cannot be proud of the way I got my magic back. I remember all 39 names, faces, lives and situations piece by piece. I wish it were a piece of paper with names but that is not the reality.
The reality is that I killed 39 people with a dagger. The dagger that is connected to the onyx around my neck. The dagger that sucks up all magic, passes it on to the black stone and then disappears into my life lines. It is a reality that I must not dwell on for too long.
I don't know exactly how many cigarettes I smoke before the sun appears in the sky, but there are more than three, maybe more than five. My back is clammy from the thaw and the cool morning air. In the time I have been lying here, several people have passed by to whom I have not paid attention. I stopped caring about people's opinions months ago. Some will find my actions cowardly, terrible and unjust.
Others will praise me. Neither opinion brings me any further, does not bring me closer to the death of my father.
'Here you are'. I look up from the pink sky and look at Novak. He is standing a few feet away, dressed entirely in black and red. Neither of us has much clothing to carry around with us. My wardrobe is filled with black dresses. Novak's is filled with black trousers, jackets and red blouses. Again, it's not much but enough.
'Good morning,' I reply as I push myself out of the grass. Novak walks in my direction, bends towards me, presses a kiss on my lips and comes to sit next to me. He takes his own collection of cigarettes out of his pocket and lights up. In silence we look at the green plains in front of us.
'May I see the list?' Novak asks after blowing out the smoke. My hand slips to the bottom of my skirt. I pull up the black fabric and look for the specially made pocket. I have taken the three dresses I am carrying to a tailor to have an inner pocket placed in each skirt. To some it may seem like a piece of folded-up paper, to others it is a path to power. In the wrong hands, it will cause unprecedented damage.
I open the black button and take out the paper. I unfold it while running my eyes over the names. The further down the list we go, the harder it gets. At a certain point you get through the sick, the weak and the elderly.
There is one name we keep pushing forward. Number 86, Frederick Melias. One of the highest nobility and a good friend of my father. The man is hard to reach, hard to get and altogether hard to kill. For any other name we have an idea how to get to it but with him it is a black hole, a puzzle of which we are missing pieces.
'When we have had Dumburt in Runcast, we must go on to Livas. There are seven of them living there. On the way we pass several villages where other numbers live. We can take seventeen this way,' Novak remarks as soon as I have handed him the list and he has looked at it attentively.
Livas, better known as the capital of the mages. The place where the dawn is located and the place where my father still holds the most power. Runcast is the complete opposite. It is a human city where my father has almost no say.
'Will do,' I agree as I push myself out of the grass.