“The future,” Johan agreed.
“But there will still be a place for magic,” Daria said quietly, as they walked down to the rails. “The world will not change.”
Johan looked doubtful. “Elaine,” he said, “is the magic going away?”
Elaine blinked in surprise. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why?”
“Hawke said that the magic seemed to be fading,” he said. “That magicians of our time can’t do the impressive feats of magicians from a thousand years ago. That magic itself might be going away, leaving the world dependent on raw muscle and non-magical ingenuity. Is this true?”
“I don’t think so,” Elaine said, slowly. “But ...”
She considered it for a long moment. It was true that magicians had performed great feats during the Necromantic Wars, but many of those feats had been powered by human sacrifice or other, darker, rituals. No single magician could channel enough power to lay waste to a country, not if he wanted to survive the attempt. And such rites and rituals had been banned, then forgotten. The magic taught at the Peerless School drew on a magician’s natural resources, not on outside sources of magic. And she knew, better than anyone, that even it was inefficient. There was no shortage of magicians who might be able to make something of themselves, if they were taught spells that didn’t rely so much on raw inherent power.
“I don’t think the magicians of a thousand years ago hesitated before throwing people under the blade to be sacrificed,” she said, finally. “These days, human sacrifice is taboo – and with very good reason.”
“The Emperor killed children,” Johan reminded her.
Elaine nodded. Feeling the rite, even at long distance, had been horrific. She didn’t know what the Emperor had had in mind, but she knew she wouldn’t like it when she found out. It was why, she admitted to herself, she hadn’t tried harder to talk Cass out of her suicide mission. The former Inquisitor was the only one of them who might have a chance at killing the Emperor ... and, if he was prepared to dig up rites from a thousand years ago, the Emperor had to be stopped. No one knew better than Elaine just how close the human race had come to destroying itself.
“Yes,” she said. “He did.”
She wondered, suddenly, what a world without magic would be like. No Witch-King, true; magic, powerful magic, was all that kept him alive. But there would be no werewolves, no vampires, no dragons ... even though no one had seen a dragon in centuries, there were still legends of good and evil dragons that echoed down the ages. And for the wizards who considered their destruction a good thing, there would be no spells, no wands, no Peerless School. Everyone would be equal ...
But we wouldn’t be equal, she thought, sourly. We’d just move to different ways of measuring strength.
It was a bitter thought. She knew she wasn’t strong or pretty ... all she really had on her side was intelligence and magic. It had been enough to pluck her out of the orphanage and give her a job, but without it ... she knew she would have been lucky to find work in the Golden City. Johan would be able to beat up his brother, without worrying about being turned into a toad, yet what would that do to him? How long would it be, she asked herself, before the aristocracy of magic was replaced by the aristocracy of violence?
She jumped as she felt someone prod her arm. “Elaine?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she looked up at Johan. “I was just drifting away.”
“We should be waiting here,” Daria said, as she nodded towards the rails on the ground. “I think the barricade is just up ahead.”
“Over there,” Johan said, pointing to a small workshop. “We can wait there.”
Elaine nodded, then looked towards the Watchtower, looming over the city. It was an ancient building, old enough to predate the Inquisition itself, and heavily protected. No one had managed to slip in or out of the Watchtower without permission; no prisoner, no matter how skilled, had managed to escape the cells below the brooding fortress. Cass had been right, Elaine knew; a thousand years of magicians testing and retesting the defences had sealed all the cracks. The Watchtower was as close to invulnerable as any non-personalised fortress could become.
And Hawke had come up with a daringly simple scheme that would bring it crashing down in flames.
She honestly wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or horrified. On the one hand, she knew it had to be done; on the other, the Watchtower was the symbol of magical supremacy. If the Levellers managed to destroy it ... what would it mean for the future?
And what, she asked herself, if it kills Dread?
But there was nothing she could do, but wait.
“Don’t worry,” Daria said, as they settled down. “Either it works or it doesn’t.”
“How very precise,” Johan muttered, with heavy irony.
***
Cass had known there was no point in trying to use any form of magical glamour as she approached the Arena. Elsewhere, it might be considered bad form to try to peer through a person’s glamour – particularly a girl’s – but the Inquisitors wouldn’t let anything like that stop them. And they would definitely recognise her if they saw her without any disguise at all. She’d solved the problem by nipping into a hairdresser’s and having her hair cut short and dyed black, then walking into a clothes store and picking something more suited for a sixteen-year-old girl trying to impress her first crush than an Inquisitor. It was unlikely anyone would bother to look for anything below the surface when she was showing off so much skin.
The Arena itself was surrounded by people waiting to pass through the protective wards and find their seats. Cass smiled to herself as she found a magical family, then smiled at the oldest son, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. He promptly forgot his little sisters in favour of chatting to a desirable girl, telling her about all the advanced and complicated magic he’d learnt at the Peerless School. Cass kept her face under strict control as his bragging grew more and more elaborate, even though it was unintentionally hilarious. In her desperate quest to make something of herself, she’d mastered such spells a year or two ahead of him.
But it did help her walk through security. The guards checked wands – Cass had replaced hers with a simpler wand after leaving the Inquisitors – and then waved them through the barriers, clearly assuming that Cass was just one of the family. She didn’t bother to correct them, nor did the parents, who were watching their eldest son with an indulgent eye. Her parents would have been less amused, she was sure, as they found seats and settled down, but then her parents had always been more controlling. They would never have allowed their children to speak to a member of the opposite sex without carefully briefing them on precisely what they should and should not say.
She sat down next to the young man and looked down at the Arena ... and froze. A large stone statue stood in the centre, next to a wooden podium. Vlad Deferens hadn’t just defeated the Grand Sorceress, she realised; he’d turned her to stone, then placed her in the perfect place to bear witness to his triumph. Cold hatred spread through her body as she promised herself bloody revenge, then she looked at Light Spinner again. The practice of surrounding one’s house with the petrified bodies of one’s former enemies had gone out of fashion centuries ago, because the spells sometimes wore off or were removed. And if Light Spinner was still awake and aware in her stony prison ...
“It’s going to be a great moment,” the boy said. Somehow, Cass had managed to miss his name in all the bragging. Or maybe he hadn’t mentioned it. If his family had been one of the Great Houses, she would have known him by sight. “We have an Emperor again!”
“I suppose we do,” Cass said. She sighed, then settled back into her seat and pasted an interested expression on her face. “But what do you think that means?”
***
Charity had only been to the Arena once, apart from the time she’d taken Light Spinner’s statue to Lady Aisling. It wasn’t something that had impressed her; indeed, she knew she’d only gone because her fathe
r had been unable or unwilling to take Jamal. Watching men kill each other on the sands hadn’t excited her; it had disgusted her. Magic could turn people into toads or stop them dead in their tracks, but it didn’t leave people bleeding to death on the sands while people cheered or booed. Well, it could, yet what self-respecting wizard would bleed his opponent to death?
The Emperor, on the other hand, seemed equally bored with the Arena, but for a different reason. His chatter, which she had been trying to ignore, was all about the need for real challenges, about the need for real tests. What was the point, he asked, of a place where healing spells could cure anything that wasn’t immediately fatal? Charity had asked if the druids actually allowed people to gain more experience, if only by learning from their mistakes, but the Emperor had sneered. People were meant to live with their mistakes, he’d snapped, if they weren’t fatal. It was how they served as an example to everyone else. By the time they reached the Arena, she was feeling thoroughly depressed.
She sighed in relief as the carriage finally came to a halt – it would be too much for the Emperor to walk, even though it was only a short distance from the Imperial Palace to the Arena – and the Emperor climbed out. Instantly, the guards on the outside of the Arena prostrated themselves in front of their master, banging their heads on the stone pavement so hard she wondered if they would do themselves a mischief. Or, for that matter, if a time when the guards were looking at the ground would be perfect for assassins. But the red-robed sorcerers – and a handful of watchful Inquisitors – never took their eyes off their surroundings.
“Come,” the Emperor said.
Charity sighed inwardly, then followed him through a long corridor and out onto the sands. It smelled faintly of blood and piss and worse, she realised, as the Emperor motioned for her to stand by the walls, then strode onwards, into view. The crowd starting cheering, but they seemed confused. Some of the older families had looked up the proper acclamations for an Emperor, but others were cheering as they would for a Grand Sorcerer. The Emperor didn’t seem to care. He mounted the podium, then smiled winningly at the crowd. They cheered so loudly that Charity couldn’t help wondering if the wards were going to hold.
“There are hustlers in that crowd, of course,” a dry voice said.
Charity jumped, then turned to see Dread standing beside her, leaning on his staff. He wasn’t the youngest of men, yet he’d managed to sneak up on her with ease. She scowled at him, feeling her heartbeat pounding in her chest. The Inquisitor could have stuck a knife between her ribs and she wouldn’t have noticed until it had been too late.
“Oh,” she said, finally. “Hustlers?”
“Men and women primed to cheer for the Emperor,” Dread explained. “They know precisely what to say ... and how to carry the crowd with them.”
Charity shook her head in disbelief. On the podium, the Emperor was just standing there, drinking in the cheers. The magic surrounding the wooden frame ensured that everyone saw the Emperor as looking in their direction, no matter which way he was actually facing. In fact, according to the safety briefings, the magic also placed the Emperor two metres from where he was actually standing. An assassination attempt would be difficult, to say the least.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, the Emperor raised a hand. The cheers instantly abated.
“My people,” he said. His voice was quiet, but the spells surrounding the Arena made sure that everyone could hear. “It has been so long since one of my family sat in the Golden Throne, acknowledged by all as the true representative of a bloodline that derives from the blood of the very gods themselves. In that time, there have been Grand Sorcerers who have ruled, but have not built. The Empire has remained unchanged since the Necromantic Wars.”
That wasn’t quite true, Charity knew. It was true enough that the system hadn’t changed, even if the names and faces of the people on top had changed several times. But there had been changes, she was sure, even if they were small ones. The Iron Dragons had been introduced only thirty years ago. Someone from the early years of Grand Sorcerer rule honestly wouldn’t have known what to make of them.
“But now we have returned,” the Emperor continued. “There will be many, many changes as the Empire seeks to grow once again. To expand and learn, to develop newer ways to work magic, to reshape the world into something remarkable. We will change!”
“Change isn’t always a good thing,” Dread muttered.
Charity nodded. Johan’s change had been bad for the family, even if it had been good for him personally. She wondered, suddenly, if Lady Lakeside had brought her younger siblings to the Arena to hear the Emperor speak. It had been agonising, but she hadn’t dared send another note to the older woman, let alone go in person to see her sisters. The former Privy Councillor would have taken one look at her and known what had happened.
“The signs of decay are all around us,” the Emperor pronounced. “But we will repair the damage and progress onwards.”
***
Patience was one thing Cass had learnt to master at a very early age. An impatient Inquisitor was one who would act too quickly and make it impossible for his or her fellows to close the case against the suspect. Even so, the urge to just start throwing curses at the Emperor as he babbled on was growing stronger and stronger with every passing second. He talked about change, but refused to go into specifics; he talked about honour and duty, yet failed to say what they might include. Or, for that matter, what he might want from his loyal subjects.
She glanced at the sun, mentally calculating the time. The Emperor had droned on for nearly twenty minutes and people, particularly the younger children, were getting restless. She couldn’t help wondering how many parents had slapped silencing spells on their children, or charmed them into obedience. Using such spells on children was risky – and would mean heavy fines if they were caught – but none of the parents would want to risk their children making a scene in front of the Emperor. Her own parents had been chillingly obsessive about presenting the proper face at all times. If she hadn’t had older brothers, Cass suspected she would have been beaten or charmed into being a good little girl in very short order.
“This is the task of my family,” the Emperor continued. “We are proud to serve as the rulers of the Empire as we lead the way into a brave new world ...”
Cass glanced at the family beside her. They were lapping it up. Their teenage son wasn’t even glancing at the exposed half of her breasts, because he was spellbound by the Emperor’s words. Was he using a charm, too subtle for her to detect, or was he just a better speaker than Cass realised. It wasn’t as if she’d been to many public meetings ...
And then a thunderous explosion echoed over the city.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Elaine had been looking at the Watchtower when it happened.
One moment, everything was normal; the next, tongues of flame were shooting out of every exposed window in the brooding fortress. She jumped to her feet, one hand grabbing at her wand, as the entire front side of the Watchtower seemed to explode outwards, throwing chunks of stone debris out over the city. The blast was so loud she found herself rubbing at her ears, trying to unblock them. Beside her, Daria shuddered in pain, covering her own ears with hands that had somehow started to become paws. If the blast was loud enough to leave Elaine’s ears ringing, it would be far worse for Daria.
She hastily cast a protective ward as pieces of debris fell down over the city, striking buildings and people in the streets. The Levellers hadn’t realised, she guessed, as the remainder of the Watchtower started to fall apart, that the blast would bombard the entire city with debris ... or maybe they just hadn’t cared. There was no way to know, she reminded herself, as flashes of magic glittered around the peaks. The Watchtower had been part of the city’s defences and now it was gone. It wouldn’t be long before the remains of the protective wards collapsed completely.
“By all the gods,” Johan breathed. “They did it!”
; “Yes,” Elaine said. She had just witnessed the birth of a whole new world. “They did.”
She said a silent prayer for the people in the city as the final chunks of debris came crashing down, then led the way out of their hiding place. There wouldn’t be much time before Deferens and his men managed to regain control of the city. All hell was about to break loose, she was sure, and she wanted to be gone before the riots started in earnest. Or the soldiers turned on the civilians and began killing them.
“Come on,” she said. In the distance, she could hear screams. “We need to move.”
***
Charity stared in disbelief as the Watchtower exploded, pieces of debris raining down on the city below. Beside her, Dread seemed stunned, the first time she’d seen the older man show any strong emotion. The Watchtower was impregnable. Everyone knew the Watchtower was impregnable. And yet it was now gone. A piece of debris struck the wards covering the Arena and bounced off, crashing to the pavement nearby with a terrifyingly loud crash. She heard panic rippling through the crowd as the Emperor fell silent, as if he too was stunned ...
... And then all nine hells broke loose.
***
Cass took a very quick moment to acknowledge the destruction of the Watchtower and the deaths of several of her former friends and comrades, then she rose to her feet, drew her wand and threw the strongest curse she could muster towards the Emperor. Red and green light blazed around the podium, but his protective wards repelled the curse. Cass had expected as much – there were very heavy protections in the Arena – and threw a second spell towards Light Spinner, then hopped down towards the sands. Behind her, a whole series of tiny explosions echoed through the giant building. The Levellers, she knew, had brought their own surprises to the Arena.
She landed on the sands, just in time to duck a stream of black light from one of the red-robed sorcerers. Cass smirked, then threw back another curse, paired up with a transfiguration prank spell. The combination caught the sorcerer by surprise; he started to block the curse, only to find himself becoming a snail before he could finish saving himself from certain death. Moments later, the remains of the curse killed him, scattering pieces of his body all over the Arena. Cass threw a second curse towards two more red-robed magicians, then looked around for the Emperor. He was nowhere to be seen.
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