Bookworm

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We should be able to get down into the tunnels from here,” Millicent muttered, as they kept walking down the stairs. The only light came from a globe Millicent summoned into existence and held in front of her. “I don’t know if Prince Hilarion knows about this or not – we tried to keep it a secret from just about everyone.”

  Elaine nodded, remembering some of the legends she’d heard. The Golden City was old, with more than two thousand years of history – and buildings piled upon buildings as building techniques improved over the years. It was supposed to be riddled with secret passages, some under the mountains and leading outside the city, others linking various mansions together and allowing for secret deals to be struck. Officially, they didn’t exist; people who ventured in without invitations tended to vanish in the darkened catacombs. No one had ever considered the possibility that one might lead to Randor Mansion. Or maybe Dread had felt unable to tell her that the tunnels existed.

  “There’s so much stray magic around here that it’s very hard to be sure that the tunnels remain the same,” Millicent said, more to herself than to Elaine. “But this should be the right way home. My Aunt will want to talk to you, again.”

  She hesitated. “I have also been ordered to apologise to you,” she added, bluntly. “My aunt feels that I acted badly in...teasing you over the years.”

  Elaine looked at her, sharply. All the old bitterness was still there, even if she had...matured.

  “You did,” she agreed, finally. “And I really think that you need to grow up.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “I must confess that I am surprised to see you,” Lady Light Spinner said. “I would not have expected you to raid Prince Hilarion’s mansion.”

  “And I didn’t expect to see Millicent there, either,” Elaine snapped. Lack of sleep and a growing awareness of her own abilities gave her confidence. “Do you have any idea how much you ruined?”

  “No,” Lady Light Spinner said. With her face hidden behind the veil, it was difficult to tell if she was telling the truth. “Millicent was acting on instructions from me.”

  “I’m sure that would have saved her if Prince Hilarion had caught her in the act,” Elaine pointed out. She was tired and weak and she didn’t have time for games. “Wasn’t there a case only a few months ago when a sorcerer turned a burglar into a chicken and had him for dinner?”

  She shrugged. “Enough games,” she continued, angrily. “What was Millicent doing in Prince Hilarion’s mansion?”

  Millicent snorted, even though her eyes looked fearful. “What were you doing in Prince Hilarion’s mansion?”

  “Presumably the same thing,” Lady Light Spinner said, coolly. “We were looking for evidence to prove that Prince Hilarion is unsuited to becoming Grand Sorcerer.”

  “Cheating has always being part of the contest,” Elaine commented. Lady Light Spinner seemed to nod behind her veil. “And did you find anything of interest?”

  “I was studying his books when you arrived,” Millicent said, after exchanging glances with her aunt. One way or another, a reputation for stealing into houses owned by sorcerers wouldn’t help her social standing. “If I’d touched one of them...”

  Elaine nodded, remembering the look on Cat’s dead body. He’d frozen in an expression of agony as every cell in his body died an awful death. The pain would have been so bad that death would have been a relief. Even Millicent didn’t deserve to go the same way.

  “It would have been the end of you,” Elaine said. She stood up, ignoring the glass of water offered to her by one of the maids. “I need to go back to...”

  “To the Inquisition,” Lady Light Spinner said. Elaine stared at her, wondering how she knew...before dismissing it as a silly question. The Inquisition had assumed that her powers had been boosted beyond their natural levels; why couldn’t Lady Light Spinner have assumed the same? And she’d already tried to convince Elaine to join her once. “They seem to have...quite an interest in you.”

  “They do,” Elaine agreed, tonelessly.

  “And they have a habit of...terminating people who push at the edges of what is permissible,” Lady Light Spinner said. Her eyes lifted and looked directly at Elaine. “I could protect you from them.”

  Elaine had to smile. “Protect me from the Inquisition?”

  “The Inquisitors are not all-powerful,” Lady Light Spinner said. Her head cocked to one side, but her eyes never left Elaine’s face. “And I may become the next Grand Sorceress. I will be able to order the Inquisitors to leave you alone.”

  “You might,” Elaine agreed.

  “I will,” Lady Light Spinner countered. “Prince Hilarion is likely to...face justice for his actions.” She’d already heard about the dark spellbook, rigged to kill anyone who touched it without permission. “Count Lucas may withdraw if there are suspicions around his role in the whole affair. Deferens has left the city after accidentally exposing himself to the watching crowds; he hasn’t bothered to announce his withdrawal, but leaving the city is practically an admission of defeat. That leaves me, Administrator Mentor and Wizard Kane. Kane is not a serious contender...”

  Elaine smiled. “Are you sure of that?”

  “And that leaves me and Mentor,” Lady Light Spinner said. “He has a great deal of support from magicians he has mentored over the years, but I have political support and deals with various magical families. And I have a great deal of magic at my command. It should be an even fight.”

  “Assuming you’re right,” Elaine agreed. “You seem to be counting Kane and Count Lucas out right from the start.”

  “Lucas will be tainted, like it or not,” Lady Light Spinner said. “And Kane is a nobody. He has very little support, even from the radicals who believe that changing the government is the best way to move forward – which means moving power into their hands. No one takes him seriously.”

  No one took me seriously before I became a bookworm, Elaine thought.

  “Consider it,” Lady Light Spinner said. “I would be happy to have you working for me – and I would keep the Inquisition from taking you away. Freaks like you are always dangerous to their beloved status quo.”

  Elaine nodded, remembering how the Star Council had reacted to her...and they’d known that her magical talents hadn’t been enhanced. They’d merely known that she possessed enough magical knowledge to make whoever gained possession of her the most powerful – and dangerous – wizard in the world. It was quite possible that the next Grand Sorcerer would order her killed – and the Inquisition would have no choice but to carry out the order. She might be better served finding a place to hide well away from the Golden City.

  “I will certainly consider it,” Elaine said. The clock on the wall said that it wouldn’t be long until dawn. “I have a question. How did you know a way out of Prince Hilarion’s mansion?”

  Lady Light Spinner laughed. “The Duke of Randor hired a sorcerer to design a series of pocket dimensions that would merge with the loose magic running through the catacombs and allow him access to the tunnels, without allowing anyone else to get into his house. But the sorcerer he hired to construct the network had a prior claim on his loyalty. He could tell me everything, even though he was oath-sworn to secrecy, and he did. I just kept it in reserve until I needed it.”

  Elaine nodded, thoughtfully. Millicent had sneaked in, rather than use the catacombs, because the secret entrance was a secret without price. If it got out that Lady Light Spinner had managed to gain access to a sealed mansion, there would be political upheaval throughout the Golden City. Sorcerers and aristocrats had several things in common, but the most important one was that they both enjoyed their privacy. Lady Light Spinner would instantly become the most hated person in the city as the families struggled to check all of their wards and links to the underground catacombs.

  “I trust I can rely on your discretion,” Lady Light Spinner said. “The Inquisition is not supposed to know about this little trick.”

  “Of course not,
” Elaine agreed. The Inquisition tried to enforce fair play, rather than try to keep the various aristocratic houses from fighting each other. Their fighting had to be conducted covertly, acknowledging the Grand Sorcerer’s dominance...and preventing it from spilling out into the rest of the city. That would draw the wrath of the Grand Sorcerer like nothing else. “Why do you wear a veil?”

  Lady Light Spinner looked at her for a long moment...and then drew the veil away from her face, exposing her to Elaine’s gaze. Elaine couldn’t help recoiling as she took in the scorched and damaged features, the scars running over the woman’s face. The only thing normal about her was her eyes, the only part of her body she showed off to the world. Her hair was gone, revealing a scalp that should have belonged to an elderly woman.

  “I was like her once,” Lady Light Spinner said. There was a catch in her voice, something that caught Elaine’s attention. She kept her voice normal through strict discipline. “But there is always a price for power.”

  Knowledge tumbled through Elaine’s mind. There were ways to enhance a person’s power, but they could go horrifically wrong. In Lady Light Spinner’s case, it was clear that she hadn’t managed to boost her own power; there was no sign that she was actually insane. She’d attempted a forbidden act and ended up badly scared and mutilated, with nothing to show for the pain she’d inflicted on herself.

  She caught herself looking at Lady Light Spinner’s body. It was hidden beneath the shapeless robe, but...what had happened to it? Might it be warped and misshapen, or twisted and blackened by the raw magic she’d unleashed...or perhaps it would be normal, a cruel joke from the magic she’d attempted to bend to her will. The spell hadn’t dredged out new channels for conducting magic in her mind. It had torn her body apart instead. Elaine wasn’t sure that she could have continued to live like that, not knowing that any hint of what had happened to her leaking out would mean her doom. Misshapen freaks were banished from the cities, if they were lucky. It would have been legal for anyone to kill Lady Light Spinner on sight.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. Too many students at the Peerless School were tempted to try to force open their magic channels too early. A brief meeting with someone like Lady Light Spinner might have convinced them that it was a bad idea. “I...”

  “I don’t need your pity,” Lady Light Spinner said, harshly. “Millicent, show her to the door. Now!”

  “Yes, Aunt,” Millicent said. She was terrifyingly pale. Could it be that she’d never seen her Aunt’s face in her entire life? And what would it mean when she realised that the auntie she’d practically worshipped was one of the freaks everyone hated? “Come on...Elaine.”

  Elaine would have smiled at Millicent’s brief inability to remember her name, but she was too tired. All she really wanted to do was go home and sleep.

  ***

  Cass and Karan met her at the door of her apartment as she stumbled inside, having clearly already met Daria when she came home. Daria was sleeping on the floor, still in werewolf form; burned marks covered part of her fur and there were bloodstains around her muzzle. But she’d made it home, presumably giving the book to Dread before going to sleep. Elaine exchanged brief greetings with the two Inquisitors, staggered into her bedroom and fell asleep without even bothering to get undressed. She was so tired that the nightmares that had tormented her since becoming a bookworm failed to make any headway into her mind.

  When she awoke, the entire experience seemed like a dream. Had she really burgled a house with Daria and a man called Cat? Had they really encountered Millicent and escaped by the skin of their teeth? And had she really seen a face that was carefully hidden from prying eyes?

  Remembering Cat made her shiver. She’d seen too many people die in the last few days, ever since she’d woken up to discover what she’d become, but Cat’s death had made a terrifying impression on her. It would have been easy for Elaine to die the same way, by picking up a book with a deadly curse and opening it before checking for unpleasant surprises. She’d known, intellectually, that many of the forbidden texts were guarded by spells that would keep their contents safe from prying eyes, but it was hard to believe it at an emotional level. Books had always been her friends, there for her when she’d had no real human friends of her own. How could they become dangerous?

  It was a silly question, she knew. A little knowledge could be a very dangerous thing; mundane books might not be directly harmful, but they contained knowledge that could become lethal very quickly in the wrong hands. Back when the printing press had been invented, there had been various factions insisting that it should be banned, pointing out that allowing people to read might give them unpleasant ideas. An educated lower class was one that knew enough to realise that it was being exploited by its elders and betters. And yet education could turn a person with talent and no training into someone who could change the world.

  She was still thinking about it as she washed and dried herself, before pulling on her work clothes. No more dresses for her, at least until she saw Bee again. The thought of him made her stop in her tracks, just for a moment. What would he have said if he’d seen her breaking into a house and stealing a book that killed people who touched it with their bare hands? Or...had he hidden links with Lady Light Spinner? The Lady was a close friend of the Empress of the South. Or...

  There was no way to know, she thought firmly as she glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked strictly functional, thankfully. Outside, she could hear voices; Daria, Dread and a couple of others she didn’t recognise. Bracing herself, she opened the door and stepped into the living room. The book they’d stolen lay on the table, polluting the air with its mere presence, and Dread was flicking his way through it page by page.

  “I am...pleased to see that you survived,” Dread said, without looking up. Elaine wondered just how truthful that actually was, even though Inquisitors weren’t supposed to be able to lie. Her death would have solved a great many problems for the Inquisition. “You recovered a very rare book. In fact, I was led to believe that this book was destroyed centuries ago.”

  Elaine shrugged as she sat down facing him, gratefully accepting a cup of hot chocolate from Daria. “I didn’t recognise it,” she said. It hadn’t occurred to her during their meeting with Millicent and then their run to safety that that was unusual. The Great Library was supposed to stock a copy of every forbidden tome in the world, every book that even glancing at the cover could earn a reader the death sentence. “What is it?”

  There was a long pause. “I may have contaminated myself,” Dread admitted. “The Star Council will not be happy.”

  Of course not, Elaine thought, sourly. Dread would have absorbed knowledge that had been buried for a very good reason. And, unlike her, he might have been tainted by the residues of power and intent burned into the volume, his very soul threatened with the ultimate corruption. Madness might already be tugging away at his mind.

  “Never mind that,” Daria said, impatiently. In human form, she seemed to have a scar on her arm and the visible part of her chest, a reminder of how badly she’d been hurt during the frantic escape from the building. “What exactly is it?”

  Dread hesitated. “This is not a standard grimoire,” he said, finally. “Most forbidden volumes were copied by dark sorcerers and their slaves, the knowledge being passed down from masters to apprentices...often subject to being lost when the apprentice finally killed the master before he’d learned everything he could. Some of the dark sorcerers wrote down their own spells and charmed the books to remain hidden until they died, whereupon other sorcerers would be able to make use of the knowledge. Dark sorcerers simply don’t work together very well.”

  “Which didn’t stop the Witch-King and the necromancers from nearly destroying us,” Daria pointed out, crossing her arms under her chest. “Don’t we have an evil prince to stop?”

  “It is in the nature of dark sorcerers always to struggle for supremacy,” Dread said. “The necromancers might have w
on if they’d managed to stay united until we were defeated. Instead, they constantly bickered with each other and sometimes turned their legions of undead on their fellow necromancers. It gave us time to regroup and prepare a counter-offensive that eventually destroyed the necromancers.

  “The Witch-King knew that the necromancers couldn’t win unless they were united,” he continued. “We never fully understood how he managed to keep them all in line – until now. This book details the precise procedure for seeding a section of a person’s mind inside an unsuspecting victim. The seed eventually takes over completely, creating a whole new person who is almost an exact copy of the magician who created the seed. I believe that the Witch-King, during the years before he declared himself, was finding necromancers and seeding them with his own personality. There was never a second Necromancer’s Council; instead, there was just one mind in many bodies.”

  He grimaced. “The spells here are much more powerful than any we’ve seen elsewhere,” he added. “Powerful enough to overwhelm almost anyone, even a powerful magician. We should be grateful that they were lost for so long.”

  “I’ve heard of something like that,” Elaine said, slowly. The knowledge from the Great Library hinted at it, although the writers had clearly not known the specifics – or had been too frightened to put pen to paper. “But surely the necromancers would have refused...”

  Daria had a more practical objection. “I thought that a person who’d been enslaved would be unable to practice magic,” she said. “Wouldn’t the new...well, the new Witch-Kings have no power to draw upon?”

  “The Witch-King didn’t collar them,” Dread said, patiently. “His seeds infiltrated their minds and they eventually became him, with access to all of his powers and whatever was natural to the bodies they possessed. He may have eventually become one mind with many bodies. And he almost won the war.”