Full Circle

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Mount up,” Dread ordered. Charity smiled as she recognised him. She’d thought he was dead, after he’d failed to return from his mission. “It’s time to go.”

  “Very well,” Charity said. She started to walk towards a dragon and was unsurprised when Daria followed her. “What did you say to your friend?”

  Daria smirked. “They’re going to run ahead of the Witch-King and try to find ways to slow him down,” she said. “It may not work, but we have to try.”

  Charity puzzled over it for a long moment and finally nodded. In wolf-form, a pack of werewolves could travel far quicker than any human. They could catch up with the Witch-King, she was sure, but what could they do then? If Johan was right, neither magic nor physical weapons could touch him.

  Maybe they can destroy bridges in his path, she thought, after a moment. The blue fire she’d seen was raw magic, not real fire, but maybe it could be quenched. Or they could slow him down just by attacking and forcing him to waste energy.

  She shook her head. “They’re going to die.”

  Daria lowered her eyes. “Too many of them are going to die,” she said. “But they do understand the dangers.”

  Charity nodded as they reached the dragon, which eyed them unpleasantly but didn’t try to stop them scrambling onto its back. Daria sat behind Charity as she picked up the reins, feeling magic crackling through them. If the control spells failed while they were midway to the Golden City … she pushed the thought aside, bitterly. There was no choice but to take the risk and hope for the best.

  “Let’s go,” Daria said.

  ***

  “Your mother was still stunned,” Dread said, quietly. “She’s deep in a healing trance. The druid thinks it will be days before she recovers enough to open her eyes and he had no idea what she will be like.”

  Elaine nodded, tiredly. Kane – her father – had drained her of magical knowledge, leaving Elaine exhausted and wrecked. As far as she knew, Kane himself hadn’t suffered any ill-effects, although he’d gone mad shortly afterwards. One of the spells he’d worked must have pushed him over the edge, if the Witch-King hadn’t given him a shove. Kane had been aimed right at the heart of the Golden City, after all. No doubt her mother – Moeder, according to Dolman – hadn’t taken the transfer of knowledge any better, even though she was clearly a stronger magician.

  “She can be taken up to Ida,” she said, finally. “If she recovers …”

  She looked down at the ground, unsure what to say. She’d spent eighteen years wondering just who her parents had been and why they’d abandoned her at the orphanage. And then she’d believed Kane when he’d told her that her mother had been a whore. There hadn’t been any reason to disbelieve him. Now …

  It would be nice to know a woman strong enough to escape her people, she thought, wistfully. She’d always envied the girls who had mothers, older women who could help steer them through adolescence. But if she’s still working for the Witch-King …

  “If she recovers, and we win, I can talk to her,” she said, finally. “Or would you advise against it?”

  “If we win, she should be harmless,” Dread said. He considered it for a long moment. “Or relatively harmless, at least. She’ll still be a powerful magician.”

  Elaine nodded. It was odd; normally, the children of powerful magicians were powerful themselves. She should have been a fair match for Millicent, at the very least. But if her parents had both used forbidden rites to enhance their powers – guided by the Witch-King – their natural talent could still be quite low. Or maybe the Witch-King had done something to them to ensure Elaine would be born with only a low level of magic. She’d be capable of absorbing the knowledge of the Great Library, but not powerful enough to actually use it.

  Shows how much he knew, she thought, darkly. He never realised I could start breaking spells down into their components and rebuilding them.

  “It can wait,” she said. She’d like to talk to her mother, just once, but unless they stopped the Witch-King the world was doomed anyway. “Let’s go.”

  She had no trouble sensing Johan’s excitement as he clambered onto the dragon and held out a hand to help her up. It wasn’t easy to follow him, Elaine discovered; Dread had to give her a boost before she swung her legs over the saddle and wrapped her arms around Johan. The dragon felt uncomfortably warm, its scaly body quivering with raw magic; she shuddered, despite herself, as she recalled the price for summoning dragons into the mortal world. How many children – and grown magicians – had died to power Deferens’ crude lust for dragons?

  And the Grand Sorcerers were right to bury the knowledge of how to create the spells, she thought, as Johan gripped the reins. No matter how she looked at the spell, she couldn’t see a way to break it down and rewrite it to take less power. There might be ways to ensure that only a handful of children had to die, but it was hardly any more moral. Once the war is over, the knowledge will die with me.

  “Let’s go,” Johan said.

  The dragon flapped its wings and rose into the air, leaving the campsite behind at terrifying speed. Elaine held Johan tightly as she looked down, seeing a handful of tiny lights below where Ida and World’s Gate lay; she looked to the south, towards the Golden City, and saw nothing but darkness. The armies had devastated the surrounding countryside, she’d been told, yet she hadn’t really understood what that meant. Now, as darkness hung over the land, she knew what it cloaked. Farms destroyed, towns burnt, men conscripted, women raped, children butchered … in a mere handful of weeks, Deferens had utterly destroyed the Empire’s reputation. No matter what happened, Elaine couldn’t imagine being able to pull it back together.

  She closed her eyes as the dragon flew onwards, leaving Ida behind. Johan was enjoying himself, his childlike delight shining through his mind; Elaine was happy for him, really she was, but she would be happier still when they were back on the ground. She could hear the dragon’s wings thrusting against the air, a dull heartbeat that tried to lure her to sleep. But it was impossible to forget that she was perched on the back of a dragon, a dragon that could turn on them at any moment.

  Deferens might have rigged the spells to fail after his death, she thought, morbidly. There had been no time to test them, not when they’d been in a hurry. It would be just the sort of thing he’d do.

  Or would he? He’d believed that the strongest deserved to rule – and anyone who killed him was stronger by definition. Elaine smiled at the thought; clearly, he hadn’t seen either Charity or Johan coming. Why would he want to sabotage his successor? Kill a challenger, yes, but actively ruin the Empire the challenger should inherit? Elaine hoped – prayed – that she was right, that the spells weren’t rigged. If they were, they’d probably fail when they were a thousand feet or more above the land …

  “That’s Falcone’s Nest,” Johan said, quietly. “Look.”

  Elaine opened her eyes, then peered past him. The city was wreathed in flames, burning steadily; it looked as though the entire city was slowly burning to the ground. She stared, unable to tell if the Witch-King was fighting his way through the city or if one of the nearby kingdoms had attacked the city, just to avenge the treatment of foreigners within Falcone’s Nest. Her shoulders ached, remembering the pillory and just how badly the foreigners had been mistreated. She wouldn’t offer decent odds on Falcone’s Nest surviving the next couple of years without losing its independence, now Deferens was dead. The Empire had effectively died with him.

  “I can’t see who’s doing the fighting,” Johan said. “The Witch-King?”

  “There’s no way to know,” Elaine said. She had a feeling the Witch-King would have preferred to avoid a battle that would have drained his magic, but there was no way to be sure. “Someone might have waited until Deferens was dead and then attacked the city.”

  Johan turned his head to look at her. “They’ll be in for a surprise when you become Empress …”

  “If I do,” Elaine reminded him. “And if we survive the
next few days.”

  She shook her head. She’d be Empress with nothing more than nine Inquisitors at her command, if the Golden Throne didn’t kill her. The Watchtower was gone, the Great Houses were broken … the gods alone knew what had happened to the Peerless School. Her reign might come to a sudden end as every kingdom on the continent sent troops and sorcerers to burn the Golden City to the ground, putting aside their differences to make sure that no one would hold supreme power ever again. No, whatever happened, the Empire was doomed. All she could really hope to do was set something else up in its place.

  If they let me, she thought. They’d be more likely to insist on destroying the last remains of the royal bloodline.

  The thought sent chills down her spine as the dragons banked to avoid Falcone’s Nest. The fighters, whoever they were, might know the spells that could bring dragons down. Elaine wouldn’t have cared to bet against it, particularly since Ida had started to share them as widely as possible. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. But she’d had no way to know that they would need to use dragons, let alone obtain them for themselves. They could have sacrificed every last man, woman and child in Ida and they wouldn’t have garnered the power to summon one dragon.

  “Dread wanted us to land to the north of the Golden City,” Johan said, as the Seven Peaks slowly came into view. They looked odd against the brightening sky; it took Elaine a moment to remember that the Watchtower was missing. “The soldiers will have guards on all the tunnels.”

  Elaine looked up into the sky. It looked to be early morning, by her count; they’d flown over three hundred miles overnight. The soldiers might not have guards on the mountains themselves – unless they were mad enough to attempt to climb – but they’d definitely have people at the tunnels, watching for the Emperor’s return. Getting over the mountains would be easy, on the dragons, but getting over them without being seen would be rather harder. She knew hundreds of invisibility, concealment and misdirection spells, yet none of them would be effective on a dragon. Their magic field would overwhelm any such spells she tried to cast herself.

  “Take us down,” she said, quietly.

  The dragons landed neatly in a muddy field, one that looked to have been used as a campsite during the army’s emergence from the Golden City. Elaine felt a stab of pity as she dismounted from the dragon. The people who lived outside the Seven Peaks were rarely important; hell, one could buy a large house outside the city for less than half of what it cost to rent a small apartment in the city itself. Light Spinner had talked about trying to end the stigma of living outside the city, pointing out that the Golden City was bursting at the seams, but …

  She shook her head, wearily. Deferens had probably reduced the city’s population quite sharply, either by driving them out or conscripting them into his army. She wondered, briefly, what had happened to the remaining Levellers – and some of her staff – as the dragons clumped together. Dread and Dolman had intended to spend the trip planning the next step of the journey.

  “They’ll probably have seen us landing,” Dread said. “It won’t take them long to realise we’re not the Emperor.”

  “We could pose as his people,” Daria suggested.

  “They wouldn’t be fooled,” Dread said. “If most of the dragons swoop over the city and start hunting for targets, the remainder can drop Elaine, Johan and Dolman off near the Great Library, where they can break into the secret passageways. I can tell you where to find them.”

  “There are other passageways,” Charity said.

  “But not ones we know to be intact,” Dolman said. He looked at Charity. “Can you fight?”

  “I can hurl spells,” Charity said. “But if I’m on a dragon …”

  “Just keep them away from the dragon’s scales and you should be fine,” Elaine said. “Stick to short bursts of magic, like curses and hexes; the dragon should be able to adapt to random flickers of magic.”

  “The defenders used a spell that killed the dragons,” Charity objected.

  “It isn’t the same,” Sarah said, briskly. “Is it?”

  “No,” Elaine said. “Simple spells should be fine.”

  She took a breath, feeling cold. If they failed to reach the Golden Throne, they were dead …

  … And if they succeeded, she would be trapped.

  “Let’s go,” she said, quietly.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “I’ll take the dragon’s reins,” Brian said, firmly. “You’ll need to jump off when the time comes.”

  “Understood,” Johan said. He’d enjoyed flying with Elaine, but they didn’t have time to argue. Besides, Brian was right. “He’s a responsive beast.”

  Brian gave him a sharp look. “How do you know he’s a he?”

  Johan was stuck. “I don’t know,” he said, as he shifted backwards. “Elaine?”

  “I think the only way to tell would be during mating season,” Elaine said. She hadn’t enjoyed the flight very much, unlike him. “Dragons have sexual organs, but they’re retracted most of the time.”

  “Poor bastards,” Brian commented. He pulled on the reins and the dragon leapt into the air, followed by the rest of the flight. “Do you think there’s any danger in flying over the mountains?”

  “Fine time to mention that,” Johan sneered.

  “Probably not,” Elaine said, as the dragon rose higher. “Charity and Deferens flew from the Golden City without any problems.”

  Johan hoped she was right. The air was growing colder and colder, despite the steady warmth from the dragon. Lightning was flickering around the Seven Peaks; it looked, very much, as though clouds were forming around the mountains, but somehow refraining from actually covering the city itself. The air went very cold and wet for a long moment as the dragon flew through the cloud and burst into bright sunlight. Below them, the Golden City was spread out in all its glory.

  He sensed a flicker of dismay from Elaine and winced in sympathy. There were no bells tolling to greet the dawn, no cries of praise from the hundreds of temples scattered over the city, not even crowds of people flocking to work or going to pray before returning home for breakfast. A hundred buildings looked to be in ruins, including several temples and guildhouses; the handful of people on the streets looked to be soldiers, while the population remained indoors. The Peerless School, at least, looked untouched, but it was surrounded by red-robed sorcerers and soldiers; the Imperial Palace, likewise, was heavily defended.

  It isn’t what it used to be, he thought, as the dragon roared a challenge. Several of the sorcerers were aiming wands at them, although they seemed reluctant to actually start casting spells. The city that never sleeps is now dead.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. Elaine had lived in the Golden City all her life. It had to hurt to see broken buildings and shattered lives. “We’ll rebuild, if we win.”

  “I hope so,” Elaine said.

  Dolman whistled. The other dragons lunged forward, breathing fire as they rocketed towards the Peerless School. Flame flared around the wards – for a moment, Johan wondered if they would actually burn through the school’s protections – billowing out over the guards, who scattered and fled ahead of the fire. The sorcerers started to throw curses back at the dragons, which were completely ineffective. Johan sneered to himself as the dragons swooped around for a second attack, Sarah and the other magicians hurling hexes towards the ground. The Emperor’s goons clearly didn’t know how to cast spells that actually worked on dragons.

  “They’re combining their magic,” Dolman observed. The Inquisitor sounded completely unemotional. “It’s not a bad move, if they can’t kill the dragons directly. They can try to force them away.”

  Johan sensed another pulse of tension from Elaine before she spoke. “Take us down,” she ordered. “But not too close to the Great Library.”

  “Of course,” Brian said. “Your wish is my command.”

  Johan smiled as Brian pulled on the reins, steering the dragon over the city and
hurtling towards a guardpost positioned at one end of a dark tunnel. Johan had a sudden flash of déjà vu before the dragon opened its mouth and blew fire over the guardpost, wiping out the guards before they could start to run. A red-robed sorcerer popped up from nowhere, waving his arms in the air as he began a chant; Dolman snapped off a spell and the sorcerer collapsed.

  Brian looked back at him. “What was that?”

  “Killing spell,” Dolman said. “It isn’t taught to anyone outside the Inquisition.”

  Elaine probably knows it, Johan thought. He kept that thought to himself. If Jamal had had such a spell, he would probably have used it early and often. How many other spells are known only to a handful of magicians?

  The dragon settled to the ground. Elaine stumbled off, her mind scintillating with relief at being down on solid ground once again; Johan patted the dragon as he jumped down beside her and looked around. They’d passed through once before, he was sure; they’d fled the Golden City through a darkened tunnel. But the Iron Dragons he remembered seeing near the tunnel had been destroyed, reduced to pieces of torn and scorched metal. Even the prototype that had been placed on display was gone. No doubt the Emperor – and his patron – hadn’t wanted to remind people that it was possible to do things without magic.

  “Let’s move,” Dolman said, once he’d cast a spell to make them look like mundane citizens, rather than magicians. “We don’t want to be caught on the streets.”

  Johan nodded in agreement. Overhead, the dragons were wheeling back into the sky, blowing gouts of fire into the air. The Golden City’s buildings were heavily warded against fire, Johan knew, but anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the open was dead. If they were lucky, most of the enemy sorcerers and soldiers would have hidden inside the buildings, cowering as the dragons searched for new prey. It should give them time to make their way to the Great Library.

  The air blew hot and cold as they hurried onwards, splashing through wet streets and piles of slush. It had been a hard winter, made worse by the breakdown in the weather control spells; Johan had a feeling it would be hard, if not impossible, to repair the damage and keep the Golden City warm all year round. Perhaps no one would try, if they had any sense at all. It had only made life harder for the civilians when the spells had been badly damaged by Kane.