I didn’t get any further than that thought before he slammed into me, knocking us both out into the corridor and up against the wall in a tangle of limbs and knocked heads. I landed on my bad hand, naturally, and bit back a scream. Bit back too the surge of juice that rattled my brain and made me want to flail around with my magic. I didn’t quite hold on to all of it and it went wild. Without direction it did what it wanted to. A pair of rags serving as curtains in the doorway morphed into two rippling puddles of brown gloop on the floor before they grew stubby, gooey wings and half flew, half flopped off down the corridor. Oops.
When my head cleared a little, I realised that it hadn’t been the guy attacking me as I’d thought. He’d been thrown against the wall, had hit me instead, and now lay dazed and confused on the floor.
In the room opposite us, clearly visible because some idiot had rearranged her curtains, a woman stood in utter outrage, fists clenched, eyes hot, a curving, satisfied smile on her lips. It might seem odd that the first thing I noticed about her wasn’t that she was flying, or rather hovering a foot above the floor. Given that it’s me we’re talking about here, the first thing I noticed was that the shapeless rag of a tunic she wore couldn’t hide the fact she had a stupendous figure, all round and curvy in the best places, and some of those places were heaving in a very distracting manner. Noticing the hovering only came quite far after that, and smacked me in the head with the thought. It wasn’t the guy with the thin face, crumpled at the bottom of the wall, that I was looking for.
He wasn’t the mage.
She glared at me, one side of her face red with a handprint, her head held high and her chin almost regal in the way it lifted, as though she was goading me. Try it, go on, I dare you, that look said. You try it and I’ll slam you too. Just you see if I don’t.
I lived for this kind of challenge – that is, ones involving women.
I got slowly to my feet, trying my best to look as non-threatening as possible. It was hard when, even with her hovering, I was still a touch taller. I was also substantially broader across the shoulders and dressed in a black allover that purposely mimicked the uniforms of the deadly Ministry Specials. It’s helpful in putting the fear of the Goddess into my more usual clients – runaways, men with a bounty on their heads, small-timers for the most part, nothing too dangerous because I liked my face where it was. Tracking down possible mages was a new sideline, and I wasn’t even getting paid for it.
It was pretty hard not to stare at all the heaving, but I made a valiant effort to roll my tongue back in.
She tensed, ready to let something else go I was sure, maybe slam me into the wall next to the other guy, so I turned on the old Rojan never-fails smile. I’d sworn off women and had been doing well for at least two, almost three days – a new personal record of which I was quite proud – but I was bound to fall off the wagon at some point. If that point made it easier to stay alive, well, that’s always a bonus.
The smile didn’t fail me now because the tension in her shoulders relaxed, just a touch.
“So, I’m a mage,” she said, defiance in every drip of a vowel. “What you going to do about it? Turn me in for the reward?”
I shoved the pulse pistol back in my pocket, though I kept my hand on it just in case, and racked up the smile another notch. Screw it, I was sworn off women, but never turn an opportunity down, right? Besides, the way she held herself, the waft of her as she hung in the air…
My other little failing is that I’m a sucker for women. All of them. Tall, short, big, small, pretty or plain, it’s not any of those things that are my undoing. But I can’t resist a show of grace in movement, the way they hold themselves. Gets me every time. It doesn’t usually last long, granted, because resisting temptation isn’t a strong point of mine. Also, once I have what I want, I have the attention span of a small beetle and I’m really world-class at screwing things up, but by the Goddess’s tits it still gets me.
Besides, if she was a mage, we needed her, especially as she seemed to have a handle on it, unlike most of our other recruits. So I wasn’t being entirely selfish when I said, “I was wondering if you were free for lunch?”
Chapter Two
Once the offer of food was on the table, she didn’t take much persuading – with a siege on, everyone was hungry, more than hungry, at least everyone Under Trade. A bit of a blow to the ego that it was the food and not me that held the appeal, but probably for the best. Even more trouble with women was the last thing I needed, and I had a fair bit already – my life was such that I’d have been worried if I didn’t.
She called herself Halina and she was suspicious and wary and so cynical she made me look like a beacon of hope. She battered me with questions and sneered at the answers as I led her through the ragged recesses of Boundary. Past dripping concrete houses all crammed together like mangy puppies huddling for warmth, all in a pile on top of each other, squeezing each other at the sides, squashing all the even worse places below. Damp and dingy houses that had seen better days – hell, better decades. Walkways launched themselves across yawning gaps between crumbling buildings or crept around them like naughty children. Near-constant rain pattered through their mesh, sliced into a million tiny misting droplets, every one of which seemed to delight in aiming itself down the neck of my jacket. Stairwells led off into twisting darkness up and down, most likely with a mugger on every turn that didn’t have a Rapture junkie. The walkways, stairwells and the streets that were bolted more firmly to buildings were all but empty, always seemed empty in those desperate days when people were more concentrated on food, on what was at our gates and trying to come in. A few of the more dissolute wandered the walkways in a haze, from starvation or desperation I could never be sure. A single dark figure drifted along a street on the other side of the chasm, a level down, his face pale as it turned up to look at us.
When we crossed over up into No-Hope and she broached the mage subject, Halina stopped dead halfway across a walkway so that it jiggled and swayed and I almost had a heart attack.
“Is it true, then? About the mages? I thought it was just me,” she said while I hung on surreptitiously and tried not to look like I was about to cry. It was a long way down from there, even at the arse end of No-Hope. Long enough for some serious screaming before I hit the bottom. Maybe I’d rattle around a few of the safety nets first but I didn’t trust them to save me. They were old and frayed and had never been efficient to start with because people had a tendency to bounce. They’d just give me more time to scream.
“Which bit? Look, can we get across?” I inched my way forward, but she made a grab for me that had the walkway lurching under my feet. My initial reaction – a yelp of terror I kept clenched behind my teeth – wasn’t helped by another boom-shudder from the gates, or the fact that the walkway was black at one end from the fires that had raged here during the recent riots. For the second time that day I was glad I hadn’t managed breakfast. I stopped with the surreptitious and just hung on, acutely aware that hanging on would do me no good whatsoever if the walkway decided to become detached from the scabby buildings it linked.
Halina raised an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth into a sneer. With a quick twist of something I couldn’t see, she levitated off the walkway. That was rubbing it in. I ignored her, took the deepest breath I could manage and got across to a more solid-seeming stairwell, where I waited for the world to stop swimming in front of my eyes and be sensible.
She floated over to me with a grin that would have floored me if I’d been in any proper state to appreciate it. Made funny things happen to my stomach too, or maybe that was still the thought of the drop that had so very nearly been mine.
“What’s the matter with you? And you didn’t answer my question.” She landed lightly on the stair above me. What I wouldn’t have given for that ability – I’d never have had to fear a long drop ever again.
“Nothing. What was the question again?”
“I see the news-sheets, you kno
w. Even down in the Stench we see them, once everyone else is done with them. I can read too. Is it true, about the mages?”
She sounded unbearably proud of that reading, but hey, why not? Few enough Under could read anything other than their own name, if that – that’s how my colleague Dendal made his living: reading and writing for those who couldn’t. The news-sheets were sponsored mostly by the cardinals and therefore spouting their own rather individual versions of events. Facts weren’t important; simple words for the simple readers to recite to those who couldn’t manage were. Mages had, well, a pretty shit reputation in the sheets. We were legal, most of them said, because the Archdeacon was too pure and holy to understand how evil we were, and also he was cursed with a merciful nature and a mage for a brother. Actually, that was true enough, Perak was of a very merciful nature, and I probably did curse him by being both his brother and a mage. The sheets, though, often went on into glorious detail about just how evil we were. Are.
“Some of it’s true,” I started, wary of going too far because, well, because some mages had been very evil indeed. “The sheets don’t mention who’s supplying the Glow though, do they? Or much at all about the Storad, which seems both odd and stupid to me. Why’s that, do you think? I mean, Storad at the gate, trying to get in, everyone wants to know why, right?”
She laughed at that, and it made my stomach go flippy-flop all over again. “Because of the mages, that’s what everyone says. Mages and Downsiders. And you want me to go with you? Set myself up as a fall-girl perhaps? Well maybe I want to leave the Stench anyway – who wouldn’t? And maybe this is far enough before you tell me what I’m letting myself in for.”
My stomach went flippy-flop for an entirely different reason – she’d managed to manoeuvre herself so that one quick shove and I was over the edge. I tried my best smile and shuffled over a bit so my back was to a wall.
“Look, now…” Stammering is not a good way to flirt, so I tried not to look down and pulled myself together. “How about I show you? Then you can make up your mind. And even if you say no, you get one free meal.”
She regarded me appraisingly, looking me up and down real slow with a raised eyebrow that seemed to say, You have got to be kidding me. I straightened up, ran a hand through my hair and tried to look like I was good boyfriend material – not easy, all things considered, but heck, you have to try.
Finally she grinned again, though I didn’t like the way it seemed to hint at her knowing more than I thought. “All right. Hell, I wouldn’t have come with you at all if I believed half what the sheets say. Besides, be nice to go somewhere that isn’t the Stench. I’m not promising anything though.”
“Fair enough. After you. Maybe no levitating though – we might be legal, but that doesn’t mean anyone likes us.” I waved her in front of me on the stairs and followed her up.
“I don’t give a shit who knows what I am. Anyone doesn’t like it, they’ll feel the whack of my magic on their arse. And speaking of arses, if you don’t stop staring at mine,” she said over her shoulder, “I’m going to show you what happens when I get really pissed off.”
Do you know, the fretwork on the walkways round there was really quite something, all curly stuff and little icons of the Goddess’s face interspersed with stylised versions of the saints and martyrs. I concentrated on remembering what the hell their names were and barely even glanced at Halina or her arse the whole way there.
Chapter Three
We got up to the pain lab sitting at the edge of Trade. Halina curled her lip at the sight of it, its fire-blackened exterior, the mess of mechanicals and electricals that was Lise’s workbench, the straggle of teens and youths – my merry band of magelets – in one corner going through their paces. Then she saw the grey, watery mess that was all we had to call food and dived in like it was steak and eggs.
All the new recruits were being housed at the lab or in the building directly below. Easier to keep an eye on them, especially as most were still learning about their magic, and that usually came with a few surprises. We’d even moved our office there, and that suited me a damn sight better than the old one. I left Halina eating like the world was about to end, and headed for my desk.
I didn’t get far. For one thing, Lise wasn’t at her workbench, which was odd. Not just because we were relying on her expertise at inventing things that might help us fend off the Storad, but because she was only ever really happy when she was tinkering. It had to be something pretty important to drag her away. The raised voices through the door were a clue – I could hear her and Perak and a whole jumble of other voices all talking over each other. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to get involved, but figured it was too late for that.
The pain room was full. Lise stood protectively in front of the rig we used to suck out magic, a screwdriver in her hand like she thought someone was about to sabotage it again. Pasha was there, looking rumpled and angry, but then again he often did. Archdeacon Perak, my and Lise’s brother, not looking his calm and serene self but more frazzled and pissed off than I thought I’d ever seen him. When I saw who else was in the room, I wasn’t surprised.
A whole Ministry delegation: fat, smug cardinals resplendent in their robes, bishops only slightly less chubby or gaudy, advisers lurking at the back, whispering in ears. Even without the robes, you could tell they were Ministry. In a city where food was at a premium, where finding breakfast could be a day-long and expensive job and everyone Under had got to know the sight of their rib bones, these guys all looked sleek and well-rounded.
“And I told you, that’s non-negotiable,” Perak was saying. “I’m not handing over one of my best mages to the Storad, especially when Glow is at a premium. No mages, no Glow, no nothing. I wouldn’t negotiate with them before, and I’m not going to start now.”
A disgruntled murmur from the assembled clergy. Perak was… well, he wasn’t what anyone was used to in a Ministry man. The bishops and cardinals were used to what they called discretion and Perak called weaselling about with the truth. Tact and diplomacy Ministry-style do not run in our family, and Perak’s straight way of talking was a breath of fresh air that had most of them reaching for the smelling salts. Entertained me enormously, though.
One of the bolder cardinals glared at Lise. “What about electricity? You said that you could use it, make it. So make it! Then we won’t have to rely on these damned mages. We could destroy all these infernal mage-powered machines. Maybe we should anyway.”
Lise glared at him and brandished her screwdriver. It might not have seemed much of a weapon but it wasn’t all she had, and I had no doubt these cardinals knew what she was like with booby traps. That is, excellent. Then again, it wasn’t going to be cardinals trying anything with her machines, they liked their hands and other bits and pieces attached.
Across the room, I could see Pasha struggling not to say anything. It was a struggle for me too, but Perak got in before I could unleash anything.
“I told you, it’ll take months to build a non-magic-powered electricity generator a tenth as powerful as what Rojan and Pasha can produce in half an hour on this rig. For the future, yes. But we won’t have a future if the Storad get in.”
“What about the Mishans then? We’re running out of things to trade and they’re getting ready for the day the Storad take over – maybe he’d do to trade with.” A second cardinal, not as bold as the first, with a smooth, bland sort of face, the sort used to saying what he thought people wanted to hear. A face used to weaselling around with the truth and calling it diplomacy. “Any of them, perhaps. A mage or two would be no great loss, surely?”
“The mages are the best defence we’ve got. I’m not trading them with anyone!”
Only one or two cardinals looked anywhere near agreeing with Perak. The rest, no matter how they tried to hide it, had varying degrees of mutiny in their glance.
“Perak, you don’t seem to realise that the only person who thinks we can win this is you.” The bold cardinal again. “W
e’re not going to stop working in the best interests of the city just because he’s your brother and you can’t – won’t – see that he’s the best bargaining chip we have if we want to survive.”
Perak drew himself up to his best, admittedly not very imposing, height. “Best interests of the city? For your own hides, that’s what you’re working for, I’m not blind to that. I’m working in the best interests of the Goddess, as the mages are, as you should be. Pray on it, why don’t you? Now, if you don’t mind…?”
They left in dribs and drabs, a good half of them giving me a wish-you-were-dead glare on the way. The bolder cardinal stopped next to me and whispered, “If you weren’t his brother, would he still defend you, do you think? Or would he throw you to the Storad? If he doesn’t tread carefully, he may not have a choice. And if you don’t, neither will you.”
He left before I had a chance to answer, or think much more than That didn’t sound good. Perak’s face when they’d gone looked like bad news too. As if to underline the trouble we were all in and bring my mind back to why Perak was here, another boom-shudder shook the room. Those boom-shudders seemed to punctuate everything, every moment, to the point where if they stopped for long my shoulder blades started to itch, wondering when the next would come.
Half a step behind Perak, a position she seemed welded to since she’d become the new captain of his personal guard, stood Jake. I tried not to stare. The uniform really suited her too – a moulded breastplate that showed off every curve, a pair of trousers that fitted her very snugly indeed, the swords that were never far from her reach and that she knew how to use with devastating and clinical effect. On the outside she was cool and collected, her glance like calculated ice. Underneath she was a volcano waiting to happen, all bubbling fervour. I lived in hope of seeing it again.
Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise Page 2