Bookworm III

by Christopher Nuttall

  It’s worse than that, she reminded herself. The oaths become part of them to the point they can no longer comprehend why they want to disobey. Or why they should disobey.

  She gritted her teeth as she felt the spell surging against her protections. There were horror stories – and true stories that were worse – about what happened when someone was careless in swearing oaths. It was easy, chillingly so, to swear to do something lethal ... or to obey without question, no matter what one was told to do. Or to allow an oath to warp one’s mind beyond repair. One of the stories that had never made it out of the Black Vault had talked about a man who had sworn to marry a particular woman – and when he’d found her again, he’d practically kidnapped and raped her. It hadn’t had a happy ending.

  Snow started to drift down from the heavens as they turned the corner and started to walk towards the Imperial Palace. Elaine sucked in her breath, despite the chill, as she felt the magic radiating around the building, even at this distance. The wards had once been solid but largely impersonal, even when the Grand Sorceress had been in residence. Now, they were bound to a single will. Elaine had known there was an Emperor from the moment the Inquisitors had mentioned it, but she hadn’t really believed them. But now there was no escaping the truth.

  The line of petitioners desperate to see the Grand Sorceress was gone, she noted, and there was blood on the ground. It didn’t take a deductive genius to realise that they’d been chased away, probably by the Inquisitors. She wanted to believe that no one had been really hurt, but the blood suggested otherwise. If Light Spinner had been growing more and more impatient with the petitioners, what would her successor make of them?

  It was hard to speak. Her mouth didn’t seem to want to work properly. But she needed to know.

  “The people who were here,” she said. “What happened to them?”

  “You will be silent,” the first Inquisitor ordered. “Shut your mouth.”

  Elaine’s mouth shut with a snap as the spell did its work. She wanted to glare at the Inquisitor, but it wouldn’t allow her even that piece of freedom. Instead, all she could do was follow them through the gates – the wards washing over them as they entered – and walk up to the doors. Inside, the walls were lined with soldiers, wearing dark-grey tunics she didn’t recognise. They looked tough, incredibly disciplined. And they were clearly prepared for trouble, as they were carrying swords, clubs and shields. Not enough to stand against magic, she knew, but enough to keep the mundane population in check.

  But who were they? And where had they come from?

  The thought nagged at her mind as she was escorted down a long flight of stairs. The Grand Sorcerers had never built up large armies, nor had they permitted any of their subject rulers to muster more troops than was strictly necessary. They’d never needed armies, after all, not since the Necromantic Wars. And military power in the hands of subject rulers could cause trouble, even lead some of them to consider revolt. But whoever had become Emperor had clearly prepared for trouble. He’d brought a small army with him when he’d conquered the city.

  She tried to recall what little she’d been taught about the Imperial Family, before it had been declared extinct, but there was nothing useful, apart from a list of names. So far back, it was hard to separate truth from legends – or disinformation, spread by later enemies. The Emperor was supposed to have thousands of bastard children, but none of them had come forward to claim the Throne. Now, it was quite possible that none of his descendants – assuming they knew what they were – could claim the Throne. How close did someone have to be to the Imperial Bloodline for the Throne to accept them? The spells on the Throne might not accept someone who was a tenth-generation descendant of one of the Emperors.

  That would be a recipe for Civil War, she thought, recalling one of the disputes between kingdoms that the Privy Council had had to settle. There had been two heirs, each from cadet branches of the royal family, each with a decent claim to power. In the end, they’d effectively picked one at random. If just anyone could claim the Throne, provided they had a trace of the bloodline, there would be no way to separate out who had the best claim.

  A door opened, drawing her thoughts back to reality.

  “You will wait in this room,” the first Inquisitor ordered. “You will not attempt to leave until we come back for you.”

  He pushed Elaine inside, gently. It was a luxurious chamber, but she wasn’t fooled; it was, to all intents and purposes, a holding cell. The Grand Sorcerers – and Emperors, she assumed – had used them to house prisoners with enough status to merit careful treatment, even if they were guilty as sin. She stepped inside, her body obedient to their commands, and looked around, admiring just how carefully the room had been crafted for its purpose. There were comfortable seats, a drinks cabinet, a small set of books and two additional doors, which she assumed led to the bathroom and the bedroom. But there was nothing she could use to break out of the chamber, even if she had had full control of her body. The door was firmly closed and guarded by a powerful set of wards.

  She managed to walk over to the sofa and sit down, her entire body trembling as though it were drunk – or drugged. The spell seemed to have receded into the back of her mind, but it was still there, still trying to infest her thoughts. Cursing it under her breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated on her defences. She had expected the spell to have made some headway, but she was shocked when she realised just how many of her defences it had broken down. Hastily, she started to repair the wards as best she could, while solidifying the protections around her mind.

  Good thing I don’t have a proper link to Johan, she thought, bitterly. The spell would probably have infested him too ...

  The thought was horrific. Johan had almost no mental defences, compared to her. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if someone cast the same spell on him, unless his odd magic somehow repelled it. But where was he? Daria had taken him to the camp and then ... she cursed under her breath. What would happen when Elaine failed to show up as planned? Would they take Johan and leave, or abandon him in the Golden City? And what would Daria do? She could ask at the Great Library ... and then ... what would she be told? It wasn’t as if anyone knew Elaine was under arrest.

  They saw me leave with two Inquisitors, she reminded herself. And I must have looked awful.

  She pushed the thought away. It would be better, much better, if Johan and Daria stayed well away from the Imperial Palace. Everyone thought Johan was dead, after all; the Emperor would be less than pleased to discover that he was still alive. Or did he already know? He had command of the Palace’s wards, after all, and they would have recorded everything that took place within the building. Had he thought to review everything Light Spinner had done during her time in office? Could he review everything or ... or would the wards force him to scan everything in real time? If the latter, reviewing everything would be an impossible task ...

  And who in the name of all the gods was he?

  The Witch-King had to be involved, Elaine was sure. No one else could hide a branch of the Imperial Bloodline from view for generations, perhaps supervising their breeding without letting them know just who and what they were. She tried to calculate the odds in favour of it being a coincidence, and gave up after ten minutes of pointless contemplation. No, the Witch-King had to be involved, which meant that the entire Golden City – and the Inquisitors – were effectively in the hands of the enemy. And they’d never seen it coming.

  We knew the bastard could make plans over generations, Elaine told herself. He was alive, a living breathing human, when the last Emperor sat on the Throne. Why didn’t we consider the possibility of him preserving and protecting a surviving member of the Imperial Bloodline?

  Because it was unthinkable, her own thoughts answered her. We were all taught that the Imperial Bloodline was dead and gone. It never occurred to us to think otherwise.

  Bitterly, she sat back and concentrated on erecting more defences.
Despair would simply help the spell force its way into her mind, she knew, and when her defences fell she would be lost forever. She had to hold on and pray, somehow, that she could find a way to escape before it was too late. But with her magic tied up in fending off the spell, she knew it would be difficult ...

  And if she fell asleep, it would be the end.

  Chapter Six

  “This is really something,” Johan said.

  Daria turned to look at him. “It is?”

  “Yes,” Johan said, as he looked at the carriages. “It is.”

  Johan had grown up in a family where duty was everything, where his older brother was expected to carry on the family name and his younger siblings were expected to marry people who could bring new assets to the family. Their father had trained them to do their part for the family – apart from Johan, who had been considered the family embarrassment at best and a potential disaster at worst. There had been little true love in the family, he knew; truly loving parents would not have allowed them to grow into warped little humans. They had cared more for the family name than for the children who would bear it.

  But the Travellers were a loving family. The kids ran around happily, while the older children and adults actually worked together. It was almost as if there were dozens of parents for each child, as if whoever had actually birthed the child didn’t matter. He saw a child fall and scrape his knee, then get comforted by the nearest pair of adults ... and then go right back to having fun. It was something he had never known in his former home.

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” Daria said, after a moment. “You and Elaine will be sharing a carriage, I’m afraid, so please check it out” – she jabbed a finger at one of the carriages – “and let me know if it’s suitable.”

  Johan nodded, then walked over to the carriage. A handful of boys and girls, all roughly his age, were sitting in front of it, chatting as they read sheets of paper. He couldn’t help thinking that the girls were prettier than his sisters, even though they weren’t using glamours to hide any tiny imperfections on their faces. But they were also definitely werewolves ... indeed, almost all of the Travellers were werewolves. He wasn’t just looking at a family, he told himself; he was looking at a pack. There was no such thing as a lone wolf.

  He forced himself to look away from the girls as they started to giggle – like Daria, they could smell the change in his scent – and climbed up into the carriage. On the outside, it was surprisingly small; inside, it was remarkably roomy. Someone had clearly been using magic to enhance the space inside, he realised; it wasn’t as impressive as parts of the Great Library, but it was easily large enough for two people. The small collection of pots and pans hanging from the ceiling caught his eye and he looked up at them, then smiled. Hopefully, neither Elaine nor himself would be expected to cook. Their adventures in the mountains had convinced him that he would never make a good chef.

  We’re going to be undressing together, he thought, and flushed. Maybe Daria had a point, putting them together, but it was going to be embarrassing as hell. I’ll leave her alone to change, then change myself, if we do.

  He sat down on the bed, then closed his eyes and tried to feel for Elaine’s presence. It was the furthest they’d been apart since forming the apprenticeship bond, but he could still feel her in the back of his mind. He smiled to himself, feeling an odd sense of reassurance just from knowing the bond was there. Elaine could no more abandon him than she could cut off one of her own hands. The bond, for all that it was weighted in favour of the master – or mistress, in this case – carried obligations of its own.

  “Assuming they apply to us too,” he muttered to himself. “The rules seem to be different for me.”

  He sighed. There were times when he wished his magic was normal, just like the magic of his brothers and sisters. The bond not forming properly didn’t strike him as a good sign. He’d spoken to a couple of apprentices who had visited the library and both of them had shared a much more intimate link with their masters than he enjoyed with Elaine. But it was better – by far – than being Powerless. His family would have kept him prisoner indefinitely, he suspected, or they would have killed him eventually. There had been quite a few children listed in the books who had vanished from the records, somewhere around the time they would have attended the Peerless School. Had they been sent for private tutoring ... or had they been killed for being Powerless? There was no way to know.

  And then he felt a sudden shockwave of alarm from Elaine.

  He jumped to his feet ... and banged his skull against the low ceiling. Cursing, he rubbed his head with one hand as he tried to reach out to Elaine. But there was nothing, beyond a sense that something was very, very wrong. Elaine’s presence was always light and ghostly in his mind, as if she was nothing more than a dream or a figment of his imagination, but now it had faded almost to nothingness. He was aware of her when she slept, he knew; he’d never sensed any change in the bond. But now ... was she dead?

  There was a tap on the door. “Are you alright?”

  Johan gritted his teeth against the pain, then opened the door. A young girl, barely older than himself, was standing outside, her white hair spilling down over her chest. She’d been one of the children outside, he recalled, probably one of the ones who had giggled at him. But right now it hardly mattered.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Can you fetch Daria? Now.”

  He jumped out of the carriage as the girl sped away, feeling his head spinning in pain. It was difficult to separate his own thoughts and feelings from Elaine’s, despite the simple fact that they were two different people. Some of the weirder cautionary tales about apprenticeship bonds had warned that two people could blur together, if they didn’t keep a barrier between themselves at all times. It hadn’t seemed possible, to Johan, because Elaine was very definitely a woman, but now he had his doubts. He sat down on the ground and forced himself to focus his mind. The pain didn’t make it easy.

  “Johan,” Daria said. He looked up to see her standing, looming over him. “What happened?”

  “Something’s wrong with Elaine,” Johan said. The pain was fading now, but the sense of her presence was also faint. He had no idea what could produce such an effect. According to the books, apprenticeship bonds could not be accidentally broken, short of one partner dying while the other survived. And it was next to impossible to sever a bond before time even if both parties consented. “She’s in trouble.”

  Daria’s eyes narrowed. “And you know that how?”

  “We have a bond,” Johan reminded her. “And now she’s very faint in my mind.”

  “The Mothers and Fathers want to leave,” Daria muttered. She held out a hand to Johan. “I think we may have to go with them or let them go without us.”

  Johan took her hand and allowed her to help him to his feet. She was strong, stronger than he’d realised. He’d known that werewolves had enhanced senses of smell, even in human form, but he hadn’t known they were physically strong too. Up close, her scent was almost overpowering, a wild scent that played hell with his mind. Part of him wanted to stay close to her; the remainder wanted to run, to leave her far behind. It was easy to remember, now, that werewolves were predators. And to understand why they were feared.

  “We can’t leave Elaine here,” he said, trying to sound firm. A lifetime in his family’s house had taught him never to try to assert himself. Even the spellbound maids had enjoyed more magic than himself. “I won’t leave her here.”

  “Nor will I,” Daria assured him. She let go of his hand, then turned and started to stride towards the largest carriage. “Come with me.”

  Johan followed her as she walked up to the carriage and then around it, to where a group of men and women were chatting. It was an odd sight; there were times when the group seemed to defer to one or two members and times when they just argued and argued, as if there was no one really in charge. Johan recalled, from what little he’d read, that werewolf packs tended t
o have an alpha male and an alpha female, but – being partly human – there was a great deal of competition for the posts. He couldn’t help wondering how they settled arguments amongst themselves without one of the combatants dying. Maybe they fought to first blood instead.

  He hung back as Daria spoke to the group, her face somehow seeming more canine than ever. It was spooky, almost; werewolves were bound by their curse, if he recalled correctly. They had free will and human-level intelligence, yet they also had wolfish patterns in their behaviour that were very hard to break. Judging from the way the pack elders shifted in their circle, it was quite likely that some of them thought – or felt – that Daria shouldn’t have interrupted.

  Daria looked back at him. “They want to go now.”

  “Then they can go,” Johan said. Elaine was more important than leaving the city with the Travellers. They could make their way to another city and then make contact with the Travellers there, or even hire horses from the closest Iron Dragon station to the badlands. “I need to go after Elaine ...”

  A loud trumpet blew, silencing debate. Some of the wolves covered their ears – to them, the trumpet had been intolerably loud – while others howled in shock. The children, running between carriages in a wild game of catch, snapped into wolf forms and howled too, sending up a terrifying racket. Johan almost panicked – he’d read too many stories of howling wolves – as the werewolves huddled together, then relaxed as the parents urged them back into human forms. Daria caught his arm and tugged him away from them, towards a tall man carrying a trumpet in one hand and a scroll in the other.

  “A herald?” Johan asked. He hadn’t seen one since the day they’d arrived in the city, when one of them had announced the arrival of the Conidian Family to anyone who cared to listen. “What’s he doing here?”