by Tuson, Mark
Still laughing, that sound in the silence reverberating surreally in the large building, he approached to punch Will in the face.
Will caught Peter’s fist in his open hand, gripping it hard, and pulled Peter close, twisting. Twisting, and twisting, until Peter felt his wrist snap. With his left hand, he dug in his pocket, wherein he had kept a knife ever since being sent on his exile trial. He howled in agony and terror and fury, and plunged the blade into Will’s throat, guessing where the carotid artery should be and struggling to draw it across.
Blood gushed everywhere, and Will fell. Peter felt all the blood fall from his own face at the thought of what he had just done.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he shivered and shook, struck by the guilt of it, staggering backward and falling onto his backside. ‘I’m a murderer.’
There was silence as they watched Will twitch and eventually exsanguinate. There was definitely no escaping it: Peter had killed a fellow human being. Everything was dim and distant, and he wanted to fall into a black hole where he could either pay for the crime he had just committed or else escape from the terrible burden of guilt he had just created.
He suddenly felt himself being hoisted into his feet by his lapels and slapped hard across the face. Eric’s face swam into focus.
‘Snap out of it!’ Tim yelled, with the bearing of a doorman at a nightclub, rather than a physicist. The grip relaxed when Peter breathed shakily and let his weight rest on his own feet.
He stood a moment, trying to breathe calmly and not pass out or lapse into hysterics again.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Eric was saying. ‘We should get back to the Guild. Without her, and without him –’ he indicated Will’s defunct body without looking ‘– they’ll be without a leader and unable to do anything more, the place will collapse.’ He paused, thoughtfully scratching his chin. ‘We’ll come back some time to make sure they’re out of business. And we’ll take her back to the Guild to see if she needs healing.’
Everyone seemed to agree, and as Peter stood, still collecting himself, Tim scooped up the woman and hoisted her into a fireman’s lift. Eric was at work, opening a portal back to the Guild: there wasn’t any point in hiding any more.
They all stood, waiting the few seconds it took for a portal to be created, rather than merely opened, as Peter had usually seen done before. The space a couple of feet in front of Eric wavered slightly, and they stepped through, Tim first. Peter lagged behind, nervously wondering if he was going to be tried for murder; imagining himself being expelled from the Guild, or even being put to death. Did they do that? He gulped, and stepped forward.
But something yanked him back at the last moment: one of the five men he had glued to the spot. He jerked back and landed on his backside again, banging his head roughly on the floor as he did, just as the portal vanished. The man who had seized Peter was gripping the shoulders of his jacket.
Of fucking course. Peter spun round, freeing himself from his jacket. Okay. He wasn’t going back to the Guild. That was probably as well, seeing as he was probably going to be in big trouble with them. Did that mean he was now a fugitive?
His right wrist was broken, which meant he wouldn’t have stood even the vaguest chance in an actual physical fight. His wand was a few feet away, on the floor; he must have dropped it without realizing when he went to punch Will. His chest and head both hurt from the anguish and exertion of the last two minutes.
He breathed, allowing himself half a second to gather himself into something resembling wits, and launched himself at the floor where his wand was. Seizing it in his left hand, he carried on the fall into something that could possibly have passed for a roll and attempted to stand up. He pointed roughly with the wand in his left hand and made an attempt to cast a lightning spell on the closest man, who was striding up to him. It didn’t work the first time.
The second time, however, it did: even though the shock that issued from the wand wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as what Peter could have made with his right hand, it was enough to make the man gasp and fall over, tripping up the two who were running up close behind him. He cast a fireball at the pile of people, which took three attempts, and then they were smouldering gently and trying to put themselves out by rolling on the floor.
The other two men were standing there, derisively raising their eyebrows.
Well, fuck it. They were probably all going to die anyway. He pointed his wand at the brick pillars holding the ceiling up and brought the ceiling down, effectively demolishing the inside of the building.
There was just enough time for him to run outside through the mirage-door through which he had entered. He had his satchel on his shoulder and his wand in his hand. All he had, now. He ran, ignoring the throbbing in his whole right forearm, just ran. His wallet was in his trouser pocket, and luckily enough there was still a small amount of money – maybe twenty pounds – in there, but there wasn’t anything else. He didn’t know how to make a portal, so there was nothing for it: he needed to get away, so he ran after a bus that was stopping nearby, bound back for Blackpool.
But, just as he was about to board the bus, he realized that there wasn’t anything he could do, even if he did get back to Blackpool. His flat wasn’t his any more, and he had no money and no job. He was homeless and jobless and injured and (probably) a fugitive among his own people.
He was fucked.
He strode away, looking idly about himself up and down the streets. There was a paper-shop not far away. With resigned purpose, he made a snap decision: he was going to buy some tobacco. If he was fucked, he didn’t need to worry about having quit, and there had never been a moment in his life when he had needed a cigarette more.
Five minutes later, he was stood outside the shop, clutching a small plastic pouch of moist, aromatic tobacco and a book of rolling papers. He held them up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Didn’t think that one through.’
It took him nearly another five minutes to figure out how to roll a cigarette with his right hand in such agonizing dysfunction. When he had done it, it was merely passable. But, of course, there was something else he had forgotten: a lighter. He huffed, and used his wand.
Suddenly, his lungs were full of hot smoke, making him suppress a choking reflex. It was awful, but to his mind at that moment it was what he needed. And if it wasn’t what he needed, who cared – he was probably moments from being caught by either the enemy or his own people and killed. Fuck it, he was having a cigarette.
He sat down on a bench, with his back to the road. He needed to think about what to do next. No thoughts occurred to him, however, until after he had finished his cigarette. He threw the last of it into the gutter and started walking vaguely southward, in the direction of Blackpool.
Slowly, he was starting to come back to his senses, logical thoughts returning to the right side of the dividing line between what he was capable of, and what he wasn’t. He walked slowly, and among the logical thoughts that eventually returned to his mind was the notion that he had killed Will in self-defence, and that he needed attention for his hand and forearm. If he was to be punished for what had just happened, then that would at least constitute an escape from the possibility of relapsing into a self-destructive mood.
What he needed, in that case, was a way to get back to the Guild. That was going to be difficult, as he didn’t know, geographically, where the hell the place was. Neither did he know how he could contact them: he wouldn’t be able to call any of them on their mobile phones, because there wasn’t a cellular tower within a good few miles of the place, from what he knew.
But there was a place he knew about. It was just a matter of getting there: not only to Scotland but to... no, that wasn’t going to work. Now he thought of it, he didn’t actually know which island the outpost was at. Crap.
So, he was back to square one. In that case he needed to protect him himself, so he immediately started moving faster, walking back toward a club that was near the derelict building where all this had
happened. The place was open but empty, and after buying half a pint of bitter he made straight for the toilets.
Once in there, he locked himself in a cubicle and started trying to cast protective enchantments on himself: kinetic shields, electrical grounding, reinforcements on his broken wrist, pain resistance, heightened reflexes; everything he knew, and a few things he invented on the fly, just in case. After just a few moments, the air around him hummed slightly with the magic with which he was now imbued.
Of course, the spells he had placed upon himself would only last a few hours, but if he needed to, he would be able to cast them again. He just hoped against hope that he didn’t need to. The need for him to get his forearm looked at and healed was going to be very desperate if it wasn’t attended to very soon.
Gingerly, he left the toilets and retrieved his glass, which was slowly starting to warm up. Oh well, it still tasted alright. He was nervous in case they found him and attached him; the spells he had cast on himself, he couldn’t really guarantee were going to work.
He sat in silence, sipping his beer and even starting to enjoy it. There was easy-listening pop music playing in the background, which gave an atmosphere of a place where, when it wasn’t off season, there would be a lot of people around playing bingo and getting drunk. It sounded nice in its way, when he compared it to the life he was used to living.
The door opened on the other side of the club, and someone walked in. Peter couldn’t see them, however, because they were thrown into silhouette by the sunlight flowing in from behind them. The door closed again a few seconds later, and after the moment it took for his eyes to adjust, Peter saw that it was one of the people from the building Peter had just half-demolished.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he whispered. He clicked his fingers and urgently ordered a glass of neat Scotch, ‘to chase the beer.’ The transaction was performed in silence and a minimum of movements that could be detected from the other side of the club were made.
The approaching footsteps were getting louder. There was a slight limp in one leg, which presented Peter with a potential advantage. Then again, his own right wrist was broken, so maybe they were closer to even. He drained the last of his beer and waited, listening for the closing footfalls and the rustling of cloth, and picked up the glass of Scotch that had been set on the bar before him.
When the person came close enough, Peter turned round, holding the glass fast, and threw the contents into his eyes. Immediately he doubled over, gasping in agony and clutching his face, and Peter took this opportunity to kick the limping leg from under him, sending him toppling forwards, face-first, into the bar. The barman shouted at Peter, but he wasn’t paying any attention: he ran, straight for the door and out of it, still holding the glass.
‘Shitshitshit,’ he spat, throwing the glass at the wall and taking off westward, drawing his wand from his satchel again and openly casting more speed and physical stamina spells on himself. Usually, it was considered a severe transgression to cast magic in front of pathetes, but for one thing there weren’t all that many people around here, and the few that were around were all wrapped up in what they were doing themselves; for another thing, he was running and casting at the same time, in a way that would have looked to anyone else (or so Peter imagined) like he just had rubbish technique.
The spells worked immediately this time; he was running faster and smoother than he could normally have done, and he wasn’t panting or sweating or getting tired. Houses scrolled past him at a speed that he would normally have associated with cycling, and he realized with a moment’s giggle that he must have looked very funny indeed to anyone else, jogging at what must have been twenty-five miles per hour in black trousers and a shirt, with a homemade leather satchel bouncing on his hip.
He vaguely heard people shouting behind him, but he wasn’t sure if that was what was left of the Werosaians trying to get people to stop him or something else – maybe a football game, prompting people to yell as often they did. Either way, before long, he was approaching the sea, and turned right, so that he was running south toward Blackpool. He still wasn’t sure where he was going to go, ultimately, other than he needed to Get Away – capital G, capital A – and for that he needed to keep moving. He hadn’t ever learned how to perform a cloaking spell, and while he could probably work out how it worked in broad principle, he couldn’t invent it on the fly, especially if he was running and distracted by pain.
After some time, his hand and wrist started to hurt again as the pain resistance spell started to wear off. The beach was scrolling by slightly slower now as well, which meant that probably all of the spells were wearing off. Only a few more minutes and he would be relying on mere force of will, which was all very well in principle, but he more than appreciated that it didn’t matter how willing the spirit was, if the flesh wasn’t able, the flesh wasn’t able.
As the stamina spell slowly wore off, he found himself growing out of breath, and became aware of a vague taste of tobacco on his breath as he exhaled. He was dizzy and aching now, and wished that he could simply sit down somewhere with a big mug of fresh coffee, maybe even a bowl of that delicious pea and ham soup they made back at the Guild. Maybe he would taste it again, eventually.
He was jogging along the sea wall, which wasn’t actually so much a wall as a large path which had been built along the flood defences just inland of the beach. There was a large field with some buildings maybe a quarter of a mile further on. Those he recognized collectively as a private school, and they showed him how far he had run: it must have been three or four miles. He was suddenly far more tired, knowing that.
His approach on the school was closing, but the magic he had laid on himself had completely worn off now, and he didn’t have the willpower to keep running any longer. It was done, he had to give in.
He stopped running and collapsed to his knees on the worn concrete. There was nothing happening anywhere, other than the mundane things that pathetes usually did. He chanced a look behind him, looking to see if he had been followed – not that he could do anything now of he had; he just wanted to know how long he had to live.
But he didn’t care so much now as he had just a few minutes before. He just wanted to pass out for a while, and deal with the inevitable once he woke up. If he woke up. The “if” wasn’t a worry or an upset for him now. In fact, it was a relieving thought for him, that he might be able to escape the guilt of killing, the pain in his arm, the Guild, probably the Police now too.
He rested his forehead on the cool concrete, and felt his consciousness drifting away. He smiled.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ a voice was speaking. Peter initially opened one eye and raised his head slightly. It was Eric. So they had found him.
He didn’t get up though. He felt no fear now; he was too tired to feel anything other than apathy.
‘The fuck do you want?’ He didn’t really want to know.
Eric stooped down and put a hand under Peter’s left arm, and started to lift him up. ‘I want you back at the Guild,’ said Eric. His voice was firm but sympathetic.
Peter cooperated with Eric, getting up simply because getting up would take less energy than arguing. It felt it had when he was a teenager, when his parents used to persuade his unwilling self to get out of bed to go to school. Wow, that felt like a long time ago. As he got back onto his feet and stood up, with Eric’s help, his entire body ached its protest.
‘Right, I’m up,’ he said, irritably. ‘How did you find me?’
Eric snorted. ‘I’m a magician, remember? And a desperate man isn’t hard to follow.’
‘Right. So where’s the armed guard?’ He was still expecting to be arrested for having killed Will; he was, in fact, so concerned about it at that moment that, ironically, it drove all guilt and remorse from his mind.
‘C'mon, Pete, you’re no criminal. You acted in self-defence – and took down a Werosaian outpost to boot.’ He paused, sighing. He then spoke again, in a lighter tone. ‘I’m sorry it to
ok so long to get to you. Once we got back to the Guild we all had to work together to try and get that woman healed. Her mind was torn up pretty badly, and it took a lot of power to stitch it back together.’
Oh, joy: Peter didn’t really care.
‘I should take you back to be healed too, that arm’s got to be really quite painful.’
‘Oh, just smarts a bit.’
They both chuckled, and Peter put his hand in his pocket to get his newly-bought tobacco. Eric stopped him.
‘Let me save you the trouble.’ And then to Peter’s mild surprise, Eric took a tidy little silver case from his pocket, and opened it. Inside were a number of neat, expertly-rolled cigarettes. They each took and lit one.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Eric said, amusedly.
Peter took a long drag and coughed. ‘I don’t any more, I quit about six years ago. But... well, given the situation.’ He took another drag. ‘Besides, touché.’ He indicated Eric’s own cigarette.
‘Oh, yeah. Well, there’s a lot I guess we don’t know about each other.’ He suddenly looked a little more serious.
That was true. ‘That’s true.’ He wasn’t sure if that was a light jab at Peter having told nobody about his researches, or just a general comment. It could well have been either, by the tone of voice.
He felt grave. Obviously Eric hadn’t come to arrest Peter. If he had, he would have done so already, by force. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help being concerned about whether there would be any repercussions from him having killed Will.
‘Eric,’ he said carefully, after a while. ‘You haven’t really said anything about Will.’
Eric looked down, sticking his chin out a little, thoughtfully. ‘No, but you have. I’ve told you, you’re not a criminal. And you’re not the only member of the Guild to have killed someone. Regrettably, it’s something that, abhorrent as it is, a lot of us at the Guild have to get used to at some point.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I know it’s against the law. All the law; the law of the land, the Laws of Magic, and the laws of nature. But sadly, sometimes, it’s the only way to solve a problem.’