Forged

by Benedict Jacka

  Morden shook his head. “If you’d followed my advice without understanding why, you’d have learned nothing.”

  I nodded. “What do you want?”

  Morden smiled slightly but didn’t answer.

  “You asked me that question quite a few times, back then,” I said.

  “As I recall, you spent most of the conversation evading giving me an answer.”

  “Yes, and so did you,” I said. “Because I threw that question right back at you, and you told me you wanted the fateweaver.” I stopped and held up my right hand, letting my sleeve fall back to reveal smooth white not-quite-flesh. “Well, here it is. Are you going to take it?”

  Morden turned to face me, his hands still clasped behind his back. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think you care about it at all,” I said. “It was just a playing piece to you. Which means you weren’t telling the truth any more than I was.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, then Morden nodded to himself, turned, and carried on walking. I fell into step beside him. “I find the question a useful one when discussing the Path,” Morden said. “The less sophisticated assume the purpose of such discussions is to probe an enemy’s weaknesses. The real value of the question is that it forces one to examine oneself.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been learning that.”

  “I told you back then that a true Dark mage has purpose,” Morden said. “You had will, but you lacked a clear perception of yourself and your goals. That is no longer the case. You have an objective which you are determined to accomplish. You are also significantly more powerful. This is not a coincidence.”

  “None of which answers my original question.”

  “No.”

  “The Council never really understood you, you know,” I said. “I sat in on God only knows how many strategy meetings where they were trying to predict what Richard’s cabal would do. They had Richard pegged as the would-be Dark Lord type. The Council have dealt with enough of them over the years that they’re pretty used to them by now. Dark mages who think the logical conclusion of their philosophy is for them to rule as many people as they can. Vihaela was even easier. She’s what you might call the smaller-scale version. Power over one person at a time.” I looked at Morden. “You, though? They could never find an explanation for your behaviour they were happy with. The best one they could come up with was the public face. Richard as the mastermind, you as his political representative. Their idea was that Richard had some kind of leverage over you that made it impossible for you to betray him.”

  “They certainly spent more than enough time trying to discover what that leverage might be.”

  “And got absolutely nowhere,” I said. I’d had to sit through innumerable frustrating interviews with Keepers convinced that I had the key to prying out Morden’s secrets. “Personally? I think they never found anything because there wasn’t anything to find. You were helping Richard voluntarily. But that didn’t answer the question as to why. All the time you were under Council arrest, you were taking an enormous risk. You could have been disappeared or ‘killed trying to escape’ at any time.”

  “The risk was a little smaller than you think,” Morden said. “The Council can be ruthless when threatened, but so long as they feel that they are in control, their inclination is towards caution. Live prisoners can be made dead if need be; the reverse is not the case.”

  “But in politics, there are always unpredictable elements.”

  Morden smiled slightly. “What would be your explanation?”

  “I think you were never driven by self-interest at all,” I said. “That was why the Council could never figure you out, and it was why you were able to work with Richard so easily. Richard wants to be in charge, and everything he’s done has been with a view to increasing his power. But you’ve been quite willing to give your own power up.”

  “Have I?”

  “Several times,” I said. “Take that raid you organised on the Vault. The other mages who went on the raid benefited from the items they took. Richard benefited because of his plans for Anne. But you lost your position on the Junior Council, and instead of fleeing afterwards, you let them take you into custody. And you didn’t take any steps to make sure Anne would be under your personal control. You let Richard and Vihaela handle all of it.”

  “So what do you believe my motivations to be?”

  “If you and Richard had both wanted to be the one in charge, one of you would have betrayed the other by now,” I said. “So as much as you like to talk about the Dark way, I don’t think accumulating personal power is your priority at all. Strange as it sounds, I think you’re actually an idealist. You want the Dark philosophy and mind-set to be spread and understood. What I don’t understand is why you launched that raid. You had what you wanted, you were on the Junior Council. Why sabotage it?”

  “From the moment I joined the Council, efforts were made to remove me,” Morden said. “You were caught up in several of those plots yourself, and once you took over my seat you became the target of them in turn. What I suspect you may not have recognised is that removing me—or you—was never the primary objective. In the long term, the Council was not concerned with who sat in that seat; they were concerned with controlling its resident. If they had succeeded, the mages occupying it would have followed Light norms and constrained themselves according to Council beliefs. Within a generation they would have been Dark in name only, and treated with contempt by their former allies. That was the real danger.”

  “And so you blew everything up?”

  “The Council’s support of that goal was too strong to overcome by purely political means. It still is, to a lesser degree. That may change.”

  I thought about that for a minute. Morden’s explanation wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve it. I’d had the feeling for a while that Morden had been playing a completely different game to everyone else.

  “But these are long-term concerns,” Morden said. “Yours are more immediate, I suspect. Why are you here, Verus?”

  “I need to win a war with the Council,” I said. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help.”

  “Do you have something in mind?”

  I gained a certain amount of respect for Morden in that instant that I was never to lose. It was the sheer lack of worry in his voice. I explained what I had in mind in two sentences.

  Morden didn’t seem surprised. “And how do you plan to accomplish that?”

  “Well, that’s the problem. I don’t think a frontal attack is a good idea.”

  “Given the Council’s current state of readiness, I would agree.”

  “Which is why I’m here,” I said. “I was hoping in your dealings with the Council you might have come across something I could use as a stepping-stone.”

  “It should be possible,” Morden said. “I’ll need a day or two to look into things, but I have a target in mind that should suit your needs.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Will there be any issues of allegiance?”

  “You mean as regards Drakh?”

  “I’m fairly sure that I’m not Richard’s favourite person at the moment.”

  “Drakh and I may be allies, but I am not accountable to him for my every action,” Morden said. “If he confronts me on the issue, I will tell him that I believe that your success would be in my, and his, best interests, which is entirely true. Should he choose to press the matter, however, I will not stand in his way. I suspect it will not be long before you have to resolve your issues with Drakh directly.”

  “Oh, I’ve been expecting that for a while,” I said. We’d come most of the way around in a circle and were approaching the house once again. “Your new apprentices didn’t back off all that far, by the way.”

  “They can be somewhat reckless,” Morden said w
ith a glance back at where the four of them were hidden. “Still, an excess of spirit is better than an excess of caution.”

  “I didn’t know that adepts were your type.”

  “Perhaps I’ve learned from you,” Morden said with a slight smile. “In any case, if there’s nothing else, I have other business. I’ll be in touch.”

  * * *

  —

  The image of those four adepts nagged at me on my way home, and midway through the journey I realised why. Two girls, two boys, living in the mansion of a Dark mage. They’d been a couple of years older than I was when I’d joined Richard, but the parallels were uncomfortably close. I wondered if they’d end up on the same path as Morden’s last Chosen.

  There was another realisation too, something that was harder to explain. I had the feeling that Morden was going to survive all this. He wasn’t aiming to settle grudges and wasn’t seeking the crown, and because of that everyone else would always have someone they wanted dead more badly than him. When this was over he was going to be walking away, back to the forests and streams of his shadow realm and to his new group of disciples. The same wasn’t likely to be true for me.

  chapter 4

  I warned you this could happen,” Klara said.

  “I know.”

  It was the next day and I was sitting in my cottage in the Hollow. I’d taken off my shirt, and Klara was bent over my right arm, her eyes studying it intently. Klara is a German life mage, thin and unsmiling. I didn’t really know her well enough to trust her, but with Anne gone, Klara was the best I was going to get.

  “If we had amputated immediately, you would have only lost a hand,” Klara said. Her fingers pressed lightly on the not-quite-flesh where the fateweaver had replaced my skin, a faint green light spreading from the fingertips. “Now, you will lose the forearm as well. Continue to wait, and it will be the shoulder.”

  “Is that still what you’re recommending?”

  Klara sighed and sat back, the light at her hand fading. “No. The item has tied into your pattern and nervous system. I do not know if it could be safely removed, not without a better understanding of its workings.”

  “What about the stiffness?”

  “Your elbow cartilage is being converted.” Klara nodded down at my right elbow. “The item has finished transmuting your radius and ulna and is spreading to the humerus. I expect within another day or so the process will be completed and your elbow will return to full functionality.”

  “So it’s fine?”

  “Apart from the fact that it’s replacing your arm one part at a time, yes. I would not consider that ‘fine.’”

  “Fair point,” I said, getting to my feet. “How fast is it spreading?”

  “At exactly the same rate as before.”

  “So that spell you tried didn’t help.”

  Klara shook her head. “No effect whatsoever. At this point, the only treatments I can think of carry the risk of so much potential damage that I am hesitant even to try.”

  I pulled my shirt over my head and tucked it in. “Well, I appreciate the help.”

  “I don’t know why you’re thanking me. I have done nothing.” Klara looked at me. “Once again, I recommend that you seek treatment at a dedicated facility. I believe it would still be possible to remove this item with further study.”

  “I understand, but that’s not an option.”

  “Is being dead an option?”

  I paused. “How long?”

  “Half a year at the maximum. Probably no more than three months.” Klara nodded at my arm. “The item is overwriting your pattern incrementally, replacing your skin, flesh, bones, and nerves with synthetic material. You are extremely lucky that these materials have so far proven compatible with your physiology. For now at least, your body and your new arm are functioning in symbiosis. The problems will come once it finishes with your arm and starts on your torso.”

  “So you think it’ll keep going.”

  “There are some indications of negative feedback,” Klara said. “I think it may not spread to replace your entire body. But it will almost certainly spread through your shoulder to your head and chest.”

  “What happens if it starts replacing my brain?”

  “That is an excellent question. It is also irrelevant.”

  “Why?”

  “The item has successfully transmuted your arm,” Klara said. “Somehow, your body has managed to integrate these changes into your physiology. However, the more of your body that is replaced, the greater the strain. Your transmuted arm is fully functional, and will remain so. For various reasons, I can predict almost certainly that the same will not be true for your internal organs.”

  “So you’re saying . . .”

  “Your right lung will be transmuted, followed by your heart,” Klara said. “This will cause them both to shut down. The process is permanent, and once started, irreversible. Your only chance of survival is to have the growth halted before that happens.”

  “Which would mean losing access to the fateweaver.”

  “Yes. In fact, you should be doing that anyway. I strongly suspect that use of that item’s powers is accelerating the material’s spread.”

  “Those powers are the only reason I’m still alive,” I said. “I understand what you’re saying, but right now, I need them.”

  “Yes, well, the thing that’s keeping you alive is also killing you,” Klara said. “You will have to choose.”

  Once Klara was gone, I sat at my desk for some time, staring down at my new arm. Klara hadn’t told me anything that I hadn’t already suspected. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I needed the fateweaver, and that was that.

  I hoped I’d be able to finish things before the clock ran out. At the fateweaver’s current rate of spread, I should have at least a month. One way or another, that ought to be enough.

  * * *

  —

  And have you seen Verus since then?” the Keeper asked.

  “I already told you I haven’t,” Luna said.

  “Has he contacted you in any way? Items, letters, e-mail?”

  “No.”

  “Have you contacted him?”

  “No.”

  “Did he leave you any instructions to contact you?”

  “No.”

  It was late afternoon on the same day. Morden hadn’t contacted me—I wasn’t expecting to hear from him until the following morning—so I’d been free to spend the day focusing on the Council. It was just as well I had.

  The Council were hunting me in several ways. The first and the most basic was by using divination and tracking spells to pinpoint my location directly, at which point they’d send a team to capture or kill me. I’d used a combination of anti-surveillance measures and the fateweaver’s magic to screw up their tracking spells, but with each failure, they were improving. I’d had to spend a good couple of hours today just on blocking their attempts, and it was rapidly approaching the point where avoiding them was going to prevent me from doing anything else. I’d have to do something about it soon.

  But while the Council was doing that, they were also hunting me the old-fashioned way. Ever since I’d gone on the run, Keepers had been staking out my old haunts and questioning my known associates. One name was at the top of their list.

  “Seems a bit strange,” one of the Keepers said. “You were his apprentice for what, five years?”

  “Three,” Luna said.

  “And he hasn’t got in touch?”

  “No.”

  “What, you don’t get on?”

  Luna shrugged.

  “Answer the question,” the other Keeper said.

  “Like I said, I haven’t seen him.”

  I was crouched in the window of a first-floor flat across the street from the Arcana Emporium. From my
position, I could look down across the street through the shop windows to see the backs of the two Keepers questioning Luna. Luna was behind the counter, my view of her head blocked by the ceiling, but I could see enough to read her body language. No one else was in the shop: the Keepers had flashed badges and shooed all the customers out. A couple were lingering outside, shooting curious looks through the glass.

  I was listening in on the conversation through a small speaker unit resting on the floor. The speaker was connected wirelessly to a pair of microphones hidden in the shop. I’d installed them after the Keepers had made their first visit. This was their fourth.

  “Where do you think Verus might be right now?” the first Keeper said. Her name was Saffron and she was a mind mage.

  “I don’t know,” Luna said.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I’ve already told you,” Luna said. “It was before he was outlawed, here at this shop.”

  “You haven’t seen him since then?”

  “No.”

  Mind magic isn’t a lie detector. A mind mage can read surface thoughts without being obvious about it, but to search memories they have to break through their target’s mental defences first. Officially, Saffron wasn’t allowed to do either of those things to Luna without formally charging her with a crime. Unofficially, I was quite sure she’d been reading Luna’s thoughts since the first visit. I’m quite familiar with mind magic, and I’d made sure to teach Luna as much as I could, which meant that, right now, Luna was carefully schooling her thoughts to make sure Saffron could learn nothing useful whatsoever.

  Of course, at any point Saffron and her partner Avenor could just decide screw it and drag Luna off to a cell to rip out the contents of her head by brute force. So far, they hadn’t, mainly because they had no evidence linking her to me, but it wouldn’t take much to change their minds.

  “Verus is facing the death penalty,” Avenor said. “Once we catch him, he’ll be interrogated. Fully interrogated. Anyone who helped him, they’re getting the same sentence. You understand?”