by K. E. Mills
The warding hexes Rottlezinder had put on the boot factory struck him while he was still some fifty feet from its partially boarded-up entrance. The criminal wizard’s thaumic signature stank of power, and malice. Dropping back to a stealthy walk he slunk from shadow to shadow, inching his way closer… and closer…
Yes, there was Errol, still standing on the footpath, impatiently waiting. A single working lamppost a little further down the street washed him with a faint light. He looked ill. Angry. Uncertain.
Then Gerald felt the ether shiver. Saw a ripple in the air, gentle at first and then more forceful. Errol’s hair ruffled, as though blown by a breeze, and detritus in the shallow gutter—some old leaves, a few sheets of torn, tattered newspaper—picked itself up and danced, coquettish. Hazing smoke from the looming factories eddied, sharpening the ambient stink.
Rottlezinder was opening the front door.
Gerald bit his lip. He needed access to his full range of potentia now. Trying to spy on Errol and Rottlezinder muffled by his shield would be a waste of time… and dangerous. So he held his breath, and at the height of the warding hexes’ deactivation switched his shield off. Trusting, hoping, that any disturbance it caused would be lost in the already agitated ether, he stood still and mute in the deepest shadow he could find, and waited.
It worked.
With the oddest sensation—like the soundless snapping of a taut elastic—the warding hexes around Rottlezinder’s hideout collapsed. Gasping, Errol rocked a little on his heels. A moment later the partially-boarded factory entrance shifted sideways, and an indistinct figure stepped onto the broken-bricked path to the door.
“Haythwaite,” it said, the accent heavily West Uphantican, guttural and grating.
“Haf,” said Errol curtly. “It’s safe to approach?”
“The hexes, they are down,” said Rottlezinder. He sounded bleakly amused. “If it is safe, that is up to you. You’re alone?”
Errol nodded. “Of course. I don’t want trouble.”
“Mmm-hmm,” said Rottlezinder. “Such a funny fellow. You think I have not heard that before?”
Mist clouded as Errol breathed out, hard. “Not from me, you haven’t. Can we go inside? I don’t care to discuss this in the street, like some beggar.”
“But you are a beggar, Errol,” said Rottlezinder, amused. “You asked to see me, remember?”
Gerald saw Errol’s lips pinch bloodless. Saw his hands clench into fists. No, no, no, Errol, don’t you bloody dare! How am I supposed to get to the bottom of this if you kill each other before I’ve got you dead to rights!
“Yes, I asked to see you,” said Errol, mastering himself. “But you approached me first. You got me involved. Please, Haf. We need to talk.”
Frowning, Rottlezinder looked past Errol to the street beyond. “No, you want to talk. There is a difference.”
“What are you looking for?” said Errol, turning. “I told you, Haf, I came alone.”
“You saw no-one else in the street?”
“Not a soul,” said Errol. “Why? Are you expecting more visitors?”
Rottlezinder’s face stilled, then he shook his head. “No. I’m not one for company, Errol. You know that.”
Gerald, watching, thought that was a lie. I’ll bet he’s waiting for Eudora Telford. But why? This is getting more complicated by the minute. Lord, how much do I hate complications?
“Yes,” said Errol. “And this won’t take long. Please, can we go inside?”
The suggestion of a careless shrug. “Sure,” said Rottlezinder. “In you come.”
Errol walked up the uneven brick path, treading carefully, his head tipped back a little as though braced for a blow. Rottlezinder didn’t shift aside when Errol reached him. Instead he made Errol squeeze past him. Errol stepped off the broken brick path and into a slimy puddle of something. The gluggy splash, and his exclamation of disgust, made Rottlezinder laugh again.
“Haf,” said Errol, his voice low. “There’s no need for this to be unpleasant.”
“No?” said Rottlezinder, then pulled aside the entrance’s boarding. “You first, old friend.”
As Errol shoved his way into the abandoned factory, Rottlezinder wandered a little way down the path and frowned out into the night. With the very edge of the street lamp’s murky light touching him, Gerald saw that he was of middling height, very broad and blocky. Built more like a brawler than a wizard, one might think. His face was bony, his pale hair clipped very close to his skull, and he was dressed in black from head to toe. Around his right wrist a gold bracelet set with rubies winked and leered.
Gerald felt a tremble on the edges of the ether. Felt Rottlezinder’s potentia gather itself, like a fist. The criminal wizard was going to reactivate his warding hexes, and once they were brought back to life there’d be no hope of getting into that factory, no hope of learning the truth about him and Errol, no chance of thwarting whatever wickedness they had planned next.
No, no, no… I can’t be locked out, I can’t. Come on, Dunnywood, you tosser. Think…
Time spiralled around him. Years ago… he was a small boy playing in the kitchen while his mother baked fresh scones. A knock on the door. Someone unexpected. Mother went to answer it—some kind of travelling salesman. He remembered standing behind her, his four-year-old head not quite level with her hips, clutching her green skirt, listening to her tell him, “No thank you, not today.” Remembered her closing the door, and the toe of the salesman’s shoe jamming it open. Remembered his voice, persistent and argumentative. She’d threatened him with her rolling pin and he’d run away, the nasty man.
Jamming his toe in the closing door…
Was it even possible? Was there an equivalent incant? If there was he’d never come across it. He’d have to improvise one, and quick.
Oh lord. Where’s Monk when I need him?
As Haf Rottlezinder rewove the strands of his guarding hexes, Gerald took a deep, desperate breath and insinuated the barest sliver of his potentia into the turbulence of the thaumic mix. Not even so much as a toe in the door… more like a toenail… or a tiny toenail clipping… If Rottlezinder felt it, if he noticed any shift in the etheretic balance, this would get very ugly, very fast. And his best weapon, his First Grade staff, was yards and yards behind him in a patch of weeds.
“Hey!” said Errol from the abandoned factory’s entrance. “What the hell are you playing at, Haf? Do you think I came all this way to stand around watching you show off?”
Distracted, displeased, Rottlezinder swung round. And as he swung round he snapped the fingers of his right hand. Dull ruby fire flashed, the bracelet round his wrist shivering, and the warding hexes slammed back into place.
“You should watch your mouth, Errol,” said Rottlezinder, not amused now but threatening. “A fight with me is not something you should be looking for.”
“All right,” said Errol. He sounded… cautious. And beneath the caution was something else. Fear. “I don’t want to fight, Haf. I came to talk. So let’s talk.”
The factory’s partially boarded-up door clattered shut behind them. Gerald let out his held breath, light-headed, and bent over, gasping, hands braced on his knees. Too close. That was too close. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his spine and face.
I read all those case files. I studied the last ten years of the Department’s doings. Even with the censored bits blacked out, and nobody wanting Sir Alec to think they thought they were writing adventure fiction, I could see what this life is. So why am I surprised I’m so scared I could vomit?
Looked like Reg was right after all. Living is believing, sunshine, she was fond of saying. Until you’ve lived it you don’t know what’s possible.
Carefully he straightened, willing the dry-mouthed heaves to subside. Then he reached out and tugged, so very gently, on the thin thread of his potentia that was caught up in Haf Rottlezinder’s warding hexes. Had he been right? Had his desperate gamble paid off? Or was he about to trigger the hexes a
nd bring this entire investigation crashing down around his inexperienced ears?
He nearly fell over.
Oh, lord. Oh, Reg. It worked. How could it work? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making this up as I go along.
Incredibly, what he’d managed to achieve, it seemed, was the insertion of his potentia into the actual matrix of Rottlezinder’s warding hexes. It was still his, but somehow it was mimicking Rottlezinder’s thaumic signature. The most fortuitous fluke, surely: this could only have worked because he stuck his toe in the door at a precisely perfect split-second of the hexing process.
If I’d tried to do it on purpose I’d never have managed it. Gosh. When Monk hears about this he’s going to go spare.
But while it was exciting, he wasn’t sure what it meant. Could he now break Rottlezinder’s wardings? Or could he—maybe—possibly—
He walked through them as though the hexes weren’t there. As though he were Haf Rottlezinder himself.
Dazed, he spun about to look behind him. To the ordinary eye the wizard’s hexes were invisible, but he could sense them in the ether, thaumic barbed wire, slashing claws and tearing teeth.
That shouldn’t be possible. I shouldn’t have done that. Could anybody do that… or is it just me?
In the pit of his belly, a faint, sickening tremble. If that wasn’t something any First Grader could do… if what he’d just done was a trick reserved for rogue wizards…
What else can I do that we don’t know about yet? And how long will it take for my own side to start thinking I’m more wizard than they can handle?
Horrible thoughts… but he’d have to think them through later. Right now he had to get inside the factory and find out what Errol and Haf Rottlezinder were planning next.
With enormous care he cloaked himself in another obfuscation hex; not Reg’s, this time, but one he’d learned from Sir Alec. The good news was that it muffled his thaumic signature until he was practically invisible. The bad news was that it interfered with his potentia, but he’d have to live with that. Secrecy was the most important thing right now.
He looked up. There, just as Reg had said, was the faint trace of light leaking between the top floor windows’ shutters. That was where he needed to be, and quickly. Before Errol and Haf concluded their treacherous business.
Scarcely daring to breathe, he eased himself into the abandoned boot factory. It was pitch dark inside, like being smothered with black velvet. His half-blindness wasn’t much help, either… but he didn’t dare try an illuminato incant.
The tracer crystal.
He dug it out of his pocket and held it in front of his good eye, squinting. The tracer glowed steadily, indicating Errol’s nearby presence, but it wasn’t bright enough to make a difference to the dark.
Damn.
Shoving the useless thing back in his pocket, he reached out with his muffled senses and began to pick his way across the floor to where he thought, he hoped, the stairs were located—heart-thuddingly aware that time was ticking past, that Errol and Haf could be planning another devastating portal attack and he wasn’t anywhere near enough to overhear and stop them.
Come on, come on, Dunnywood. Get a move on. Don’t let them win.
He found the stairs and, tread by uncertain, unseen tread, climbed them. Up one floor. Then another. Another. He was breathing in dust and who-knew-what kinds of filth; he wanted to sneeze and cough, but couldn’t. His sinuses were burning. His legs were burning too—climbing stairs was hard work and he’d never been an athlete. Maybe Reg should have nagged him a little harder about getting outdoors for some healthy fresh air and calisthenics.
As he reached the top floor at last, the blood thundering through his veins and arteries, he heard raised voices. Errol and Haf Rottlezinder were arguing. Under the cover of their anger he crept along a little faster, guided by the spill of light from a room at the end of the corridor that led off from the staircase.
“—always were one of the best, Haf,” Errol was saying. “But is this any way to prove it? I thought you’d learned your lesson five years ago.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” Rottlezinder sneered. “That was your game, as I recall. Appearances always mattered to you. They always will. Me? I don’t care how a thing looks. I never did. The world is a lie. Everyone is a liar. Even you, Errol. Especially you, I think.”
The ether shivered again, teeth and claws returning.
“I don’t know what you mean, Haf,” said Errol, sounding cautious again.
“Of course you do,” said Rottlezinder, softly dangerous. “Don’t treat me like one of your pathetic subordinates, Errol. We both know you didn’t ask to see me because you changed your mind.”
A gentle sigh. “You’re right,” said Errol. “I didn’t. I’ve no intention of joining you, Haf.”
Gerald froze, shocked to a standstill. What? Errol wasn’t involved? But—
“You’re a fool,” said Rottlezinder, contemptuous. “We are talking about a great deal of money.”
“I don’t care about the money!” Errol spat. “I’ve got plenty of money. I care that the wrong people are asking questions about me!”
“So let them ask. What is that to you? You don’t have anything to hide, do you, old friend?”
Rottlezinder’s voice was taunting now. What the hell was going on? Gerald stared at the open doorway. It was six feet away but he didn’t dare creep any closer. Obfuscated or not, the risk was too great.
“Why should you worry?” Rottlezinder continued. “The records were sealed. What we did—what you did—was winked at. Youthful indiscretions, isn’t that what they call them?”
“It’s what they were, Haf!” Errol was close to shouting. “I was young and ignorant and I never would’ve dabbled in that—that business if it hadn’t been for you. Why do you think I turned you down this time? Do you think I’m stupid? You used me at university and you wanted to use me again.”
“Ah… you hurt my feelings,” said Rottlezinder, mocking.
“Believe me, Haf, I’ll hurt a lot more than that if you don’t stop this insanity,” said Errol. “I told you not to get involved with this mess. But you couldn’t resist, could you? Not the money, and not the chance to make the little people squirm. You always were greedy. Well, friend, now your greed is threatening me and I won’t put up with it. I have a reputation, Haf. I am one of Ottosland’s elite. And I’ll not stand idly by while your hatred and greed threaten what I’ve worked so hard to achieve!”
“Oh, such a typical Haythwaite response,” said Rottlezinder, contemptuous again. “Errol, you have not changed a bit. Always you are so—so predictable. All your outrage reserved for yourself. None left for the little people caught up in the madness.”
“I’m not interested in your personal opinion of me,” said Errol. “I’m interested in watching you leave the country.”
Rottlezinder laughed. “I’m not leaving. I still have work to do.”
“No, you haven’t. Get it through your thick skull, Haf. This ends here tonight. I’m ending it, is that clear?”
As Rottlezinder laughed again, Gerald felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck. Careful, Errol. Can’t you tell he’s dangerous? He’s not some Third Grade minion you can order around. But that was Errol’s problem, wasn’t it? His arrogance was blinding.
“Oh, Errol,” said Rottlezinder, spuriously sad. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else, don’t you? You think because you have old blood, because the roots of your family tree go down so deep in Ottosland’s rotten soil, you can snap your fingers and everyone will fall in line. You think I will fall in line. This is not true.”
“Yes, it is,” said Errol, his voice strained to breaking point. “Did you not hear today’s news? Your sabotage of the Post Office portal failed. Now the net’s closing around you, and if you don’t leave you’ll be caught. For old times’ sake I’m giving you this once chance to escape. But if you don’t take it—well…”
Oh, lord. That’s not good.
“Errol… Errol… what did you do?” Rottlezinder whispered. “Did you call the authorities? Did you tattle on me?”
“Of course I bloody called them, Haf! What choice did you leave me?” Errol demanded. “It was only a matter of time before somebody died!”
“How could you?” said Rottlezinder. He sounded… bemused. “After I turned to you for help. After everything I shared with you. Everything we did. This is how you thank me? With betrayal?”
“I haven’t betrayed you, Haf,” said Errol. “Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody will know. Not from me. Do you think I want anyone knowing I’m involved with this madness? Just… leave. I’m begging you. Let it all end tonight.”
“I am a fool,” said Rottlezinder, his voice thickened with rage. “I let sentiment defeat pragmatism. Get out, Haythwaite, and do not come back. Next time my wards will tear you apart.”
“I’ll go when you do,” said Errol, defiant. “Come on, Haf. It’s over.”
“No, it is not over!” shouted Rottlezinder. “Not until I say so!”
“Then you are a fool!” Errol retorted. “You’re forcing me to stop you. And you know I can, Haf. You know—”
And then Errol let out a shout of pain.
Flattened against the cracked corridor wall, Gerald felt Rottlezinder’s potentia flare, felt the saboteur lash out at Errol with an incant full of flame and fury. He heard Errol shout again, felt his instinctive defence. Felt the ether writhe and shudder as Errol fought back.
“Haf! Are you mad? Stand down, man, before you trigger that bloody hex!”
His head snapped up. What? What bloody hex? What did Rottlezinder have in that room? Surely not another incant destined to destroy a portal?
Oh, no. This madman could blow up the whole building. Lord, he could blow up half of South Ott.