“Why?” I whispered to the dying man. I had to know what had prompted him to turn against us.
“I figured it out,” he croaked with a shattered smile. He gurgled as his broken neck lolled awkwardly in mid-air. “I was fighting for the wrong side.”
With a quick flick of the thread I ended his life. It was as much mercy as the deserter was going to get from me. I let the body fall to the ground. What the hell was he talking about? Joining Voll wasn’t the right side at all. Voll was responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the war. I wondered briefly what to do with the body. It wasn’t a particularly good idea to leave it for anyone else to find. It would raise questions. It would be prudent to just remove the body – dump it somewhere in the Pacific. Kristoff was reported dead in Los Angeles several weeks ago. It might be best if that remained the official record. Without remorse I disposed of the body.
CHAPTER SIX
What the hell were they defending down there? It looked like the place had been evacuated months, if not years ago. It was a strange building for mages to occupy. We didn’t need barriers and blockades to protect ourselves. In fact, those things would merely slow us down. No, there was definitely something else at play.
It didn’t take long to discover a civilian population hiding in the remains of a food court behind the main mall foyer. They were a wretched bunch, but I had seen people in far worse predicaments. They didn’t comment or even attempt to stop me as I entered their shanty town. I could see some weapons, which they were very careful to keep within reach, but not actively pointing at me. I could tell by their furtive expressions that they simply hoped I would go away.
If my curiosity hadn’t been stirred, I probably would have left them very quickly. There had to be a reason that two mages had chosen to protect this encampment, and I was going to find it. I also might find out why Kristoff had chosen to forsake his duty and turn coat. The survivors weren’t much to look at – I’d seen their type a hundred times before. They would have fled from battles and been herded together into large refugee camps. The camps would have then fallen and they would have been sent out into the wild in small packs. This lot looked luckier than most, having found somewhere relatively safe and clean to hide. If it hadn’t been for the Mana signature of the mages, we probably would never have found them. It was only Glave’s exceptional skills with scrying that had allowed him to find his quarry. I wondered how long the civilians’ luck would last.
The food court had been canvased into rows of tents and blankets as people had attempted to turn the space into places of privacy. Most of the refugees turned away or starkly ignored me as I passed them. It was only the loud explosion of a teleportation spell that caused them to take notice. Several weapons were hurriedly grasped and pointed in my direction before they realised I wasn’t the cause of the disruption.
I turned to face the newcomer but wasn’t surprised when it turned out to be Glave. He looked a little worse for wear. Obviously his fight with the other mage hadn’t gone well. He held his side tenderly and walked over to me with a slight limp.
“He got away,” he announced grimly.
“Was it Voll?
Glave shook his head. “Someone new. Someone not on the wanted lists.”
With Tibus dead, I didn’t think Voll had anyone left powerful enough to challenge Glave. That is, of course, assuming Tibus was indeed dead. This was a disturbing line of thought considering that the source of our intel on his death had been Kristoff. It was possible, given new information, that Kristoff may have been a less than reliable source. Then again, maybe not – Glave would have recognised Tibus. Who was this newcomer?
“Are you Army?” a tentative voice called out.
Glave and I immediately turned to see an old woman approach us. She was shaking and I could see that she had had to work her way past several other refugees, who didn’t look at all pleased that she had engaged us. It was difficult to place her age from her haggard appearance. She could have easily been as young as forty or as old as seventy. She was of Mexican descent, which made picking her age even harder.
“Are you Army?” she repeated in her broken English.
I nodded briefly as I turned to face her.
She shuddered as she noticed my eyes focusing on her. “You... have medicine?”
“Are you sick?” I asked curiously. She didn’t look sick.
“You come?” She gestured towards a secluded part of the camp. Several refugees scowled as she led us deeper into the makeshift camp. The woman wouldn’t answer any more of my questions and simply repeated the phrase “you come, you come,” over and over as she led us through to her temporary home.
Her home was an area no more than four metres of space crammed against a fast food counter and a stairwell. A cold breeze wafted down from the stairwell with regular frequency.
A younger woman was sitting beside a young boy wrapped up in blankets. The boy was convulsing, sweat poured from his body, and his breath came in shuddering gasps. He couldn’t have been more than ten. He looked woefully underfed and haggard. His blond hair was matted to his head from the sweat of his fever and the filth of his surroundings.
Glave and I glanced at each other nervously.
“Is this your son?” I asked the stupid question. The boy was Caucasian. The young woman by his side answered me with a negative. She looked similar enough to the old woman to be related, perhaps her daughter.
“Do you know his parents?”
Her grasp of the English language was much stronger. Again she shook her head. The boy reached up and grasped her by the arm as a particularly nasty convulsion took him. She firmly pushed him down into his bed and placed another cool rag over his forehead.
“How long has he been convulsing?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“About ten minutes,” came the reply. “But he was sick before. About three days.”
“Shit,” I cursed as Glave and I exchanged glances. Ten minutes would place the convulsions at the same time as my fight with Kristoff.
“Will he die?” the old woman asked, mistaking my cursing for a prognosis.
“No,” I answered. “His fever will break.”
“How do you know?” the young woman asked quickly.
“I’ve seen it before,” I replied as I attempted to converse with Glave via covert glances. The big man wouldn’t hold my gaze.
“You know what we need to do,” Glave whispered darkly, still refusing to look directly at me.
“I know what I’m supposed to do,” I hissed back, “but he’s only a kid.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Glave replied. I could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. “We could just... leave him. Maybe he’ll burn up?”
“And if he doesn’t?” I demanded, “and someone like Voll finds him?”
“Then you need to do it,” Glave murmured. “It’d be a kindness.”
“No,” I whispered softly as I reached forward and pulled back the kid’s blankets. I needn’t have bothered - I already knew what I was going to find. Several small particles of Mana bubbling across the kid’s chest. My fight with Kristoff had sparked the Mana within him. This was what the mages were protecting. He’d probably come down with Mana fever several days ago. Kristoff would have recognised it and decided to simply wait it out.
The Mana on the kid’s flesh was a death sentence. Glave expected me to simply end the kid’s life, but I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair. The kid hadn’t done anything wrong. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we definitely couldn’t leave him. If he was recruited by Voll or some other petty warlord, he could continue this damned war into the next generation. So, if I couldn’t kill him and I couldn’t leave him, there was only one left.
“I’m going to take him with us,” I announced softly. Glave politely chose not to comment.
In his current condition I couldn’t simply teleport him - the additional influx of Mana would probably induce a burnout and kill him. I sent soldiers
to recover him early the next morning and left him in the temporary infirmary with Emily. My presence would do him little good right now either – the presence of someone who was literally glowing with Mana would only incite the process, and his body needed time to come to terms with the changes that Mana brought to his system.
I had learned this lesson from my sister. When she had come down with Mana fever, I had hovered over her bed and attempted to help. But my mothering had almost brought her to the brink of death. It wasn’t until she had been hospitalised and I was unable to attend her that she recovered. In time, the fever would break as the boy’s body learned to control the Mana. If it did not, then he would die.
I wasn’t sure what outcome I was hoping for. If he died, I could simply say that it was fate and wash my hands of the matter. If he lived, I would have to train him. Without training his powers could still overcome him and kill him. I had never taken an apprentice before and I was loath to do so now. I had begun my sister’s training for much the same reason that I would teach this boy, but I hadn’t finished and probably done more harm than good. But I had been young then – I knew a lot more now. I wondered if that would make any difference.
The hypocrisy of my actions haunted me. I had sworn that I was going to end our kind and sweep them from the world, and yet here I was about to train up a new one. By all rights I should have simply torched the kid and been done with it, but I couldn’t do that. There was a big difference between killing one of our kind in a fight and executing a kid, and it seemed that there were still some lines I wasn’t prepared to cross. I was as surprised as anyone. The whole situation was damned inconvenient.
“Who’s the kid?” a soft voice whispered. Emily Perry had recovered from her injuries well enough to be mobile, but it was obvious that she was still in some pain.
“A refugee,” I replied. I gazed at the kid from across the ward. I dared go no nearer. I had instructed the medic on how to deal with the kid and all I could do now was to wait for the fever to break.
“And you brought him back here?” Emily asked quizzically.
“He would have died where he was,” I replied firmly. That at least was mostly true.
Emily nodded and took me for my word. I could see, though, that she knew that I wasn’t telling the entire truth.
“Strange for you to take such an interest,” Emily murmured.
I didn’t answer.
“He’s a mage, isn’t he?” Emily accused.
Again I didn’t answer her, but I didn’t need to. My silence was answer enough.
“There’s going to be trouble over this, isn’t there?”
“I hope not,” I sighed, “but probably.”
* * * * * *
It took three days for the boy’s fever to break and for it to be safe enough for me to come near him again. Fortunately Emily had kept an eye on him during his sickness and ensured that nothing untoward happened to him. I had heard rumours that Colonel Brandon was curious about the boy, but he hadn’t directly approached me yet. His encounter with Glave was causing him to keep his distance. This was fine by me.
We hadn’t seen or heard from the other mage that Glave had engaged, but it was obvious from Glave’s description of the encounter that he was the more powerful of the two. I hadn’t revealed the truth of Kristoff’s involvement in the encounter and had no intention of doing so. I had no idea how such information would be construed by command.
My initial assessment of the boy looked accurate – he appeared to be no more than ten years old, incredibly undernourished and frail. His life until now hadn’t exactly been cheery. He would have been born no more than four years before the war, early enough not to have any memories of what life was like before all this had happened. Now that his body had adapted to the Mana, I could see a faint but regular Mana signature appearing. It was weak, but it would get stronger with time. He was the first of a new generation of mages born into this conflict – if he survived he would be powerful.
“Do you know where your parents are?” I asked firmly, causing the boy to flinch and Emily to give me a stern glance.
The boy shook his head sadly without answering, but I got the message. They were dead.
“Do you have a name?”
“Justin,” the boy whispered, seeking confirmation from Emily. He didn’t seem too comfortable around me. This was a good thing. He should learn quickly that our kind would bring him only danger.
“Do you know why you are here?”
“The lights?” the boy murmured, which caused Emily to look at me in confusion.
“That’s right.” I glanced around the room to ensure privacy. “You’re a mage.”
The boy flinched again. Perhaps a mage had been responsible for the death of his parents.
“I’m going to teach you,” I continued, “but you must do everything I ask.”
I had no idea what I was going to do with this kid. He couldn’t very well follow me where I was going, but I couldn’t leave him behind either. As I pondered the reality of the situation, I realised that the conflict within had now reached new heights of stupidity.
“What do I have to do?” Justin whispered. “Where do I go?”
“For the moment, we’re not going to do anything,” I replied curtly, “but when it’s time I will begin your training.”
I could begin instructing the kid on the basics easily enough, but I would need certain documents from my lair in Poland. It could be easier to just transfer the kid there to begin his training. He would be out of the war there, although I doubted he would cope with the nightmares that were Randall and Karl. He would be safe there, unless someone was actively looking for him. Which brought me to my final concern – the other mage, the one who had gotten away from Glave. Would he come looking for Justin? It was possible. The boy would make perfect bait to seal a trap. Was I enough of a bastard to use a ten-year-old boy as bait in a trap that could very well kill him when it was sprung? Yep, it turns out I was exactly that much of a bastard. I would keep the boy with me and see what happened.
I could see Emily studying me as I spoke to the boy. She looked like she didn’t trust me - and nor should she. I was doing something very dangerous and very stupid. I was endangering the boy’s life and could very well bring an angry mage down upon this camp.
“You didn’t even ask him if he wanted to be trained,” Emily accused as we left the boy to rest.
“That doesn’t figure into it,” I replied darkly, remembering my own training. “If he doesn’t learn how to control his power, it will kill him.”
“Still, you could have been kinder. The boy is obviously in shock.”
“That doesn’t matter either,” I hissed angrily at her. “Should he survive the training, worse fates will await him. You want kindness? Shoot him in the head now and end it. He might even come to regret that you didn’t in time.”
“You’re an asshole!” she snarled. “He’s not a soldier! He’s not even a mage yet – he’s a fucking ten-year-old boy.”
I didn’t bother to correct her. He wasn’t just a ten-year-old boy. He was a ten-year-old mage who wasn’t in control of his powers, and that was a far more dangerous thing. No, he needed someone to control him during this time – to provide an example. I could only hope my example would be enough. I had no illusions about my qualifications to raise him on ethical or moral matters. If it were possible, I would have turned him over to another mage more suited for training, but there was no one. It was something I had to do myself. I didn’t bother to argue this fact with Emily. There was no point. She would never understand.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Emily snapped as she struggled to match my pace.
“I am not going to discuss this with you, Miss Perry.”
“Then I’ll go to Colonel Brandon!” she called. “I’m sure he’ll see reason.”
It was an empty threat and we both knew it, but it was threat enough that it needed to be addressed. I stopped and turned to face her. It
happened so suddenly that she almost collided into me.
“There is a protocol,” I whispered, “as to what we should do when we find mages like this.”
My tone suggested that the protocol wasn’t to simply give them a cup of tea and wish them well in their endeavours. I hoped she could tell how much I hated the protocol even while I understood its purpose. Fortunately this was the first time I had had to ponder it. The only other mages I had encountered had been trying to kill me. We had a protocol for that too.
“Kill him?” Emily guessed.
I nodded. “He’s a threat, or he will become one.”
Emily chose not to follow me as I walked away this time. I had obviously made my point. How many people had died because of a single one of my kind? I myself was responsible for hundreds of fatalities in the war. I consoled myself with the fact that they were collateral damage, but it didn’t change the fact that without my intervention they would probably still be alive. Even as I fought to save them, I knew that not all could be saved. Those I saved with my right hand were counterbalanced by those I sentenced with my left. Yes, my hands were not clean and my conscience was definitely not clear. Should Justin grow into his power, no doubt he would also bear a similar tally of deaths. Should he seek to end the fighting, he would still be forced to make pragmatic decisions that would affect others’ lives. Should he turn bad, the deaths would be countless. Was it best to play the safe bet? There was a grim practicality to the maths - one must die so that many others may live. It’s an easy philosophy to agree to on paper, but far more difficult when presented with a living breathing human being – and a young boy at that.
Emily avoided me for the remainder of that day, which was a relief. I had no interest in further explaining my actions to her. Glave had gone out hunting our elusive second mage, but I was pretty confident that he wouldn’t find anything. Our patrols had returned with minimal losses.
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