“She didn’t make money, she took ours,” Jair said. “She didn’t...”
Emily glanced up, sharply, as she sensed a surge of power above her. Magic... too much magic for anything less than a fully-trained sorcerer. It was so bright it was hard for her senses to see through the haze. And yet... there was something odd about it, something that nagged at her mind. It was...
“Look out!” The crowd howled in shock as a fireball blasted towards the council. It was strong, dangerously strong... so badly overpowered it might as well have come from a necromancer. “Get down...”
Emily threw her magic out in front of her, trying to catch and snuff out the fireball before it reached its target. The spell was just too powerful for her to deflect or break up the underlying spellware. If it exploded ahead of time, it would probably kill the councilors and half the onlookers anyway. She cursed, savagely, as she realized someone had copied one of her ideas and put their own spin on it. The destabilizing ball of light was going to explode and there was nothing she could do about it but shove it away as hard as she could.
She sensed a second fireball, lancing down towards the queen. Emily mentally shouted at her to run, remembering - too late - that the queen was shackled to the dock. The council should have run, but... it couldn’t be seen to run. Emily saw Althorn and Aiden, people she’d grown to like and respect, staring at the fireball... she couldn’t save both the council and the queen. She shoved her magic forward, wincing in pain as the fireball detonated with an ear-splitting BANG. Flames burnt through the sky, sheets of liquid fire splashing in all directions. Emily felt drained, her head starting to ache, but there was no time. She hurled herself into the air, hoping and praying the mystery attacker had drained himself, too. If he saw her flying towards him and cast a cancellation spell, she was going to plummet to the ground and probably die.
The scent of burning flesh tormented her as she flew towards the rooftop. The magician had been there, hadn’t he? Emily raised her hands, ready to fight, but there was no one and nothing... save for a pile of equipment and two iron rings. They were scorched and pitted, the runes rendered unreadable, but she knew what they were. No, what they’d been. They’d been a battery.
Master Lucknow, Emily thought, as she reached out with her senses as carefully as she could. A skilled magician could have hidden himself in the haze of discharged magic, but... she sensed nothing. Who else knows how to make batteries?
Her own thoughts provided the answer. Any sorcerer who accompanied the army into the Blighted Lands.
And took the oaths, her mind countered. Whoever did this...
Her mind raced. Dater probably had a handful of first-class sorcerers under his banner. But... a sorcerer didn’t have to be of the first-rank to produce and charge a battery, if he knew how to do it. The secret had already leaked... it was quite possible a weaker magician could have planned everything, using the batteries to make up for his limited power. And yet, it was odd. Whoever had enchanted Fran had used a wand, yet they’d clearly been too powerful to need one. Why...?
She cursed under her breath as she squatted beside the expended batteries and examined the debris. Wood and carved iron... wands and valves. Someone had inserted a fireball spell into a pair of wands, then channeled a massive surge of magic through the valves and into the spellware. They’d been incredibly overpowered, to the point the magic was impossible to trace back to a single magician, but... she shook her head. They’d also made very effective weapons. The magician had come within bare seconds of killing the council. He had killed the queen. There would be no peace now.
Master Lucknow could easily have provided the batteries, she thought. But there’s no proof of anything, anything at all.
The stench grew worse. She turned and peered over the rooftop. The queen’s body was gone, leaving only a scorch mark on the cobblestones. The guards who’d been beside her were gone too. A number of citizens had been burnt by the fireball... Emily cursed as she gathered her magic, shaping a levitation spell. The mob had been broken, the unharmed stragglers scattering everywhere. She knew it wouldn’t be long before anger and shame overpowered fear and pain, demanding revenge. She’d have to track down the magician before it was too late.
Althorn met her as she landed beside the wounded. “Nineteen people dead, so far,” he said, coldly. His face was dark. “The queen is dead too, unless she somehow escaped...”
Emily shook her head. “Whoever killed her intended to kill everyone in the vicinity,” she said. She wanted to lash out at him - they hadn't had to put the queen on trial - but she knew it would be pointless. “And they used...”
She clenched her fists. She was being taunted. She knew it. And she didn’t have the slightest idea who was doing it. And... she wasn’t sure where to begin hunting the bastard down.
“We’ve already had messages from the rest of the revolutionary cells,” Althorn said. “The royalist army is focused on us. They’ve left the rest of their territory undefended. The remainder of the cells are going to move to take the entire kingdom, then trap the enemy army between two fires. And then we will move on.”
“I hope you’re right,” Emily said. She found it hard to pity Dater, after everything. He would be well-advised to take what little he had left, then go into exile. She knew he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. “Good luck.”
In the distance, she heard a handful of guns starting to boom.
Chapter Thirty-Two
EMILY COULDN’T HELP NOTICING, AS SHE stepped through the door, that Silent looked appalled at her appearance. Her dress was stained with blood and ash and other things she didn’t really want to think about, not when she wanted a bath and a rest. She knew she wasn’t going to get any of them, not now. She needed to think, not...
“Put some water in the tub,” she ordered. “I’ll wash myself after...”
Her heart clenched as she stepped into the kitchen. Prince Hedrick sat there, his face an expressionless mask. He’d heard something... of course he’d heard something. The shouting had probably been heard in the enemy camp, on the far side of the walls. Emily found herself grasping for words, utterly unsure what to say. Lady Barb would have been blunt, without any attempt to soften the blow. Emily winced, inwardly. She didn’t like the prince - and she was tempted to order him out, again - but he didn’t deserve to have the news rubbed in his face. He’d liked his stepmother.
Hedrick looked up at her. “What happened?”
Emily gritted her teeth and took the plunge. “Your stepmother is dead.”
The prince showed no reaction for a long, cold moment, then one hand dropped to his sword as if he intended to draw it. Emily watched, readying a spell in case Hedrick decided to do something stupid. He’d get himself killed if he charged the palace gates, waving his sword like a hero from the old tales. The guards would shoot him before he got within ten meters of the walls, after they finished laughing. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe... she shook her head sourly. It would make matters worse, as if they weren’t bad enough already.
Hedrick slowly let go of the hilt. “How did she die?”
Emily outlined everything that had happened, from the trial to the battery-powered assault and her search for the enemy magician. He’d come very close to assassinating the council as well as the queen, ensuring the rebels were leaderless when the royalists attacked the city. The thought nagged at Emily’s mind, mocking her. How had the assassin known when to strike? If she hadn’t been there...
Perhaps the goal was to force me to take sides, she thought. And then... and then what?
“They’ll pay for this,” Hedrick said. “They’ll pay in blood and suffering.”
Emily met his eyes. “Do you want to leave the city?”
“No.” Hedrick let go of his sword and rested his hands on the table. “I need to stay here.”
“They’ll come for you,” Emily warned. The rebels had said as much. “They might not even bother to revoke your safe conduct first.”
Emily felt her blood boil. She’d met far too many people who were far too impressed with themselves, but... most of them had some reason to be impressed. Cat had been given to boastfulness - it had been his least attractive attribute - yet he was a trained sorcerer, a brave warrior and generally a decent person. Prince Hedrick... seemed to think he was entitled to her protection. She bit down hard on her temper. She didn’t have time to worry about it.
“Your brother might start bombarding the city at any moment,” she said. She didn’t know how many siege weapons the royalists had, from catapults to heavy guns, but she was fairly sure they’d have some. Dater would have stripped every arsenal within reach to build up his forces. “And a single lucky shot could blow this building into a pile of rubble.”
She turned and strode out of the room before the prince could muster a reply, striding up the stairs and into her bedroom. Silent was filling the tub with water. Emily was too tired to feel guilty, or anything - really - beyond a desperate need to cleanse herself. She dismissed the maid, heated the water with a spell and undressed rapidly. She wanted to lower herself into the tub and close her eyes, but she didn’t have time. Instead, she washed herself as rapidly as possible, dried herself with a spell and changed into fresh clothes. Silent was going to have problems cleaning the old dress. It was covered in blood and ash.
Perhaps we can just throw it out, Emily thought, although she knew the maid wouldn’t do anything of the sort. It would be a long time before anyone started producing cheap and disposable clothes. Or send it back home for a more thorough cleaning.
She cleared her mind as she walked back into the bedroom and opened her bag. The chat parchments were where she’d left them, buried under a pile of tools and supplies. She searched through them for the one linked to Lady Barb, placed it on the table and started to sketch out a brief outline of everything that had happened. If Master Lucknow had supplied the batteries... her thoughts churned as she considered the possibilities. His oaths should have prevented him from doing any such thing, but it was quite easy to rationalize one’s way around an oath. Master Lucknow believed she was a menace to the Allied Lands. He could easily justify supplying the batteries as a way of disposing of the menace. Emily wouldn’t have cared to try it, but Master Lucknow might have different ideas.
The outline glowed, then vanished. Emily waited, hoping for a reply. Lady Barb would be very busy, perhaps too busy to pay attention to the parchments. She picked up a second parchment and wrote a note for Void, silently grateful he hadn’t ordered her out. He was at Whitehall too, she recalled. She was surprised he hadn’t told her to go back to the tower and wait. Perhaps he’d expected her to turn up something...
She felt her heart twist as it struck her. The queen was dead, murdered. There was no way to avoid war now, no matter what she did. She’d failed. She could find the murderer and present him to the White Council and... it wouldn’t matter. She heard guns booming in the distance and shuddered. King Dater was probably trying to soften up the defenses, readying his troops to rush the walls. Whoever won, it would be a bloodbath. And there was nothing she could do.
Nothing that wouldn’t make things worse, she thought, as she felt someone pressing against the wards. A second later, she heard someone knock on the door. Even if I find the magician...
She walked down the stairs, just in time to see Silent showing Aiden into the house. The councilor looked grim, clothes stained with blood and sweat. Emily gritted her teeth as she walked into the living room, beckoning Aiden to follow. She’d done what she could for the wounded, but it hadn’t been enough. How could it? They’d be scarred for the rest of their lives.
“Lady Emily,” Aiden said. Silent bought them both mugs of bark tea, then withdrew as silently as she’d come. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
Emily almost laughed. “I think I’ve had enough bad news for the last month or so,” she said, ruefully. She understood, now, why so many monarchs were so ready to kill their messengers. King Randor’s loathing of his messenger boys had been legendary. “What’s your bad news?”
Aiden frowned. “The council has formally voted to remove your safe conduct, yours and Prince Hedrick’s. You have until midnight to leave the city, with or without the prince, or face revolutionary justice.”
“I see.” Emily rubbed her forehead. It was hard not to take it personally. Someone in the council had put a knife in her back. Someone... she frowned. It was odd they’d chosen to order her out. Perhaps they’d decided she was too much of a liability to keep around. A thought struck her and she smiled. “They didn’t bother to withdraw Silent’s safe conduct?”
“Your maid is free to join us,” Aiden said. “Or so they said.”
Emily nodded, her thoughts spinning in circles. Someone on the council had to be working for the enemy. She knew it wasn’t Jair or Aiden, and she found it hard to believe it was Althorn, but... there were others. And if she could find that person before the deadline...
She met Aiden’s eyes. “I... who proposed it? Jair?”
“You’d think,” Aiden said. “But it was Bajingan.”
Emily blinked. The scribe? She supposed a scribe would have good reason to dislike her, but... Bajingan had built a whole career out of embracing the New Learning. And yet... her eyes narrowed. Bajingan was the secretary. He was in charge of the paperwork, of keeping the agenda and making sure things were kept in order. It might not be a position of apparent power - she’d heard of secretaries on Earth who’d demanded to be called administrative assistants instead - but a secretary had real power. Stalin had been a secretary. A traitor in the crown bureaucracy could be far more dangerous than any over-titled aristocrat, if only because he was beneath suspicion. Bajingan...
Her mind raced. The enemy magician had known the entire council would be gathered in one spot. Someone had to have told him. Bajingan? Jair had been the prime mover behind the queen’s trial, but... someone who knew him well could probably guess what he’d intended to do. And... it would only take a word or two in his ear, without even a drop of magic, to push him in the right direction. She felt her blood run cold at the thought. The terrorist attacks within the city had managed to slip through layers of defenses. If they’d been an inside job, right from the start... she gritted her teeth. Was it possible that the hardliners and the moderates had been fighting for power, while Bajingan had been quietly undermining both of them? She wouldn’t be too surprised to discover Bajingan had been the one who’d betrayed the moderates, when they’d met with her.
Careful, she caught herself. You don’t know he’s the traitor.
She hesitated, unsure how to proceed. Aiden was a good person - she thought - but could she be trusted? If she thought Emily was wrong...what would she do? Warn Bajingan? Or the rest of the council? Or... or what? Bajingan wouldn’t stay still, if he thought he was under suspicion. He’d slip into the poorer parts of the city and hide until the royalists arrived. She had to check him out, just to be sure.
Aiden frowned. “Lady Emily?”
Emily looked at her. “When you took me to the marketplace,” she said, “did you tell Bajingan where we’d be going?”
“The council wanted me to show you our brave new world,” Aiden said. “Bajingan would have known, yes.”
Emily’s imagination filled in the blanks. A cart full of gunpowder, with all the right permits to move through the city without being stopped and searched. A driver who didn’t know what would happen, when he lit the match, or... she grimaced. Whoever had charmed Fran could easily have rigged a detonator, something to produce a spark at the right time... it would be simple enough to link it to a chat parchment spell or a pair of conjoined gems. They would have watched from a safe distance or... hell, they could have tuned the wards to trigger the blast when Aiden and Emily crossed the line. She hadn’t sensed anything, but that was meaningless. Such a ward wouldn’t have to be
that powerful. It might have gone unnoticed amidst the rest of the magic...
“Bajingan might be a traitor,” Emily said, quietly.
“Impossible,” Aiden said. “He’s a loyal rebel.”
Emily snorted, inwardly. A rebel wasn’t loyal... she pushed the thought out of her head and leaned forward. “He might not be in his right mind,” she said, instead. “There are spells to turn the most loyal of men into traitors.”
“I can’t believe it,” Aiden said. “He’s been a mainstay of the revolutionary movement for the last five years. He... he knows too much. If he was a traitor, he could have sent us all to the gallows. He could have...”
“He might have been loyal then,” Emily said. “I could cast a spell on you that would make you my willing slave, ready to do anything because I commanded it. Someone else... someone could have cast a similar spell on Bajingan, making him their puppet. It might not even be very noticeable, as long as the caster was careful.”
Aiden stared at her for a long moment. “Have you ever done it?”
“Once,” Emily said, curtly. She’d had no choice, but... she still felt guilty. “It can be done.”
“I see.” Aiden let out a breath. “And if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “Someone has to be the traitor.”
Aiden clenched her fists. “If you’re wrong about this, Lady Emily, I swear I’ll...”
“I understand,” Emily said. She felt an odd sense of kinship with the other girl. It wasn’t easy to point to one’s former ally and accuse him of treason, particularly unwilling treason. It would be seen as a betrayal, even if she was in the right. “I won’t blame you.”
The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) Page 31