Taken

by Benedict Jacka

  “Confusion is Jagadev’s way,” Arachne said. “Shadows and misdirection. Always he keeps his true aims concealed.”

  “Do you know why he’d gather so many adepts?” I asked. “Or what he’d be doing with two apprentices like Anne and Variam?”

  “No,” Arachne said.

  I thought for a second. “Jagadev’s powerful,” I said. “And he’s a magical creature who lives in London.”

  “Yes.”

  “He must have dealt with the same problems you’ve had.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked at Arachne. “But you’ve never allied with him.”

  Arachne didn’t answer. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t push. The only sound was the click and rustle of Arachne’s tools.

  “He offered exactly that,” Arachne said at last. “A long time ago in your years, a short time in mine. He came here to propose an alliance, of information and assistance.” She paused. “I refused.”

  I looked at her curiously. “Why?”

  “Jagadev is a destroyer,” Arachne said simply. “He holds a grudge against humans. What he seeks is not creation but revenge.”

  Arachne fell silent and I sat on the sofa frowning. If that was true, then what was going on between him and Anne and Variam?

  “There,” Arachne said, her voice becoming cheerful. “All done!”

  I looked over in interest. Arachne had set her tools down and was holding something out to me. I honestly couldn’t tell you how the tools work or what she’d been doing. By mage standards I’m an expert on magic items, but Arachne’s on a completely different level and I don’t understand even the most basic principles of how she can do what she does.

  The item looked like a wand, fifteen inches long and slightly tapered so that one end was narrower than the other. A handle was built into the wider end and a small sphere was set at the base of the handle. It had the colour of alabaster or ivory but as I took it from Arachne its texture felt more like silk. “Huh,” I said, turning it over curiously.

  “Now be careful when you test it,” Arachne said. “In fact, if I were you I’d make sure to be all the way out of line of sight.”

  “I will.” I looked up. “Thanks, Arachne.”

  Arachne waved a leg. “Don’t mention it. Just come back safely.”

  * * *

  Fountain Reach looked very different in the daylight. It was still cold but the sun had come out, taking off the worst of the chill. Puffy clouds floated in a blue sky, with the green hills as a backdrop.

  The driveway was crowded with expensive-looking cars and two more pulled past us as we walked in, tyres crunching on the gravel. In the centre of the front courtyard was an elaborate fountain. Statues of young women poured a steady stream of water from a stone urn, while two phoenixes looked on. “What’s that?” Luna asked curiously.

  “Fountain of Youth,” I said. “Old mage legend.”

  We followed other people into the entry hall, handed Luna’s papers to one of the administrators, and set off into the mansion, up a flight of stairs and then down again. I checked my watch; the opening ceremony was supposed to be starting now. As we reached an intersection I could hear the buzz of activity from ahead of us but couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. “Which way?” Luna asked.

  “Good question.” Fountain Reach’s wards were doing their work and I couldn’t effectively map out a route. I looked around for someone to ask directions from, but all of a sudden the corridors were empty. There was something weirdly deserted about the mansion. The ambient noise made it feel as though there were people all around you, but when you stopped to look you always seemed to be alone.

  I picked a direction that I hoped was right and Luna followed. “What’s up with this place?” Luna asked, echoing my own thoughts.

  “Not a clue,” I said. “It must have been built for something but I have no idea what.”

  We turned a corner and the distant murmurs grew louder. To the right I could see a set of double doors and make out a voice speaking from behind it. More by luck than judgement I’d led Luna back to the same duelling hall in which I’d run into Onyx.

  The hall was packed. Close to two hundred men, women, and teenagers were scattered around and I recognised dozens of mages in the crowd. Most were Light, some were unaligned, and a handful were Dark, but for every mage I knew there were two more I didn’t. Some wore ceremonial robes but most of the Light mages, especially those connected with the Council, wore formal business suits. The ones in robes and the ones in suits mixed freely, forming comfortable groups. Other mages . . . didn’t. The ones wearing smart-casual streetwear or anything else unusual were scattered more to the edges of the crowd, away from the “power” groups, as did the ones who by their dress or manner obviously weren’t mages.

  The apprentices looked much like their masters. There was a little more variety in how they dressed but not much, and it was surprisingly easy to match the apprentice to the mage. I picked out Charles, the apprentice Variam had been matched against two days ago, as well as Luna’s opponent, Natasha. Charles was wearing a blazer and standing next to a white-haired mage who looked exactly like an older copy of him, while Natasha was with another Asian girl. They looked as if they’d been talking but now were turned towards the stage at the end of the room. Following their gaze I saw Crystal on the stage, wearing an elegant-looking two-piece suit. She seemed to have just finished a speech, and now she was reading from a clipboard. “The first elimination round will begin at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” she said, her voice raised to carry over the sounds of the hall. “The draw is as follows. Michael Aran and Charles de Beaumont; Vaya Merrin and Traysia Lacann; Dominica Soria and Fay Wilder; Stephen Jasper and Victor Kraft . . .”

  Luna was craning her neck looking around at everyone. “Do you think Anne and Variam are here?”

  “Probably. Try and find them.”

  “Gunther Elkins and Henry Smith; Desmond Yates and Variam Singh . . .”

  “There’s his matchup,” I said.

  “There!” Luna said.

  I looked where Luna was pointing and saw Anne and Variam behind the rows of chairs. Anne was talking to a younger girl and smiling, while Variam watched them both with a surly look and his arms folded. “Variam doesn’t look happy,” I said.

  “Variam’s never happy.”

  “Mikhail Baich and Zander Rhys; Natasha Babel and Samantha Vash . . .”

  I hadn’t stopped searching, and as I recognised one of the figures my heart sank. “Ah, crap.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got trouble. Wait two seconds, then look over your left shoulder. Under those paintings.”

  Luna obeyed and saw what I’d saw: a thin figure dressed in black leaning alone against the wall. She sighed. “So we get to deal with him too.”

  “. . . and that concludes the pairings,” Crystal finished. “All apprentices not named in those pairings will go through to the second round.” She looked around. “Thank you all and good luck.”

  “Wait, did she say my name?” Luna said.

  “No,” I said. “Let’s see if we can get out of here before Onyx starts something.”

  We started towards one of the exits, moving through the crowd. I recognised the odd mage, but not many; I don’t go to these kind of events often. “Aren’t I on the list?” Luna asked.

  “It’s single elimination. There are more than thirty-two entries but fewer than sixty-four, so not everyone is fighting in the first round. The others get—” I stopped with a sigh.

  “Going somewhere?” Onyx asked, stepping out in front of us.

  I watched Onyx carefully, keeping a close eye on the futures ahead. We were surrounded by the buzz and chatter of conversation and at least twenty people had a clear line of sight to us. I didn’t
seriously think Onyx would start something with this many witnesses but got myself ready anyway. “Onyx,” I said. I glanced over at the wall he’d shredded yesterday, then back again. “Seems they’ve made repairs from your last visit.”

  “Going to tell them why you were here?” Onyx said. He was wearing a black coat and trousers, not modern but not in line with traditional mage gear either. He was smiling and might even have looked friendly if you weren’t paying attention.

  “Not just yet,” I said. “Well, it’s great Morden’s sent you here to help but we’re kind of busy. See you around and—”

  “Not so fast,” Onyx said, stepping closer. His eyes glittered as he watched me. “You haven’t entered.”

  “The tournament? Not my thing.”

  “Scared?” Onyx asked softly.

  “Are you going somewhere with this?”

  Onyx stared at me for a second, then raised his voice. “Bear witness!” he shouted. “The mage Alex Verus has caused me loss and harm, and under the ancient code”—he locked eyes with me—“I demand satisfaction.”

  Conversation around us fell silent as everyone turned to watch. Looking into Onyx’s eyes, I felt a nasty sinking feeling. “You’re challenging me to an azimuth duel?”

  Onyx gave a cold smile. “No. Old style. Three days from now, Verus. I’ll be waiting.” He turned and walked out.

  Slowly the buzz of conversation started up again. Everyone on this side of the room was watching us and I could see people whispering. “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Luna.

  I ran the gauntlet of stares out of the hall and into one of the corridors. Luna hurried after me. “What just happened?”

  “Pretty much what it sounded like,” I said, thinking hard. How the hell was I supposed to win a duel against someone like Onyx?

  “What’s an ‘old style’ duel?”

  “Like an azimuth duel, but no shields.”

  “Wait, no shields? So if you get hit—?”

  “They’re done to first blood or to submission.”

  “He’s not going to be doing it to first blood, is he?”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” I said. We came to a four-way junction and I shook my head, putting Onyx out of my mind. The duel wasn’t for three days and I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. “We need to find Anne and Variam.”

  “He didn’t even accuse you of anything,” Luna said. “He just said ‘loss and harm.’”

  “Probably he’ll send that part in a formal letter.” Anne and Variam had left the hall while we’d been dealing with Onyx, but I hadn’t seen where they’d gone. I took a guess and headed down a corridor that I hoped would lead us into the bedroom wing, Luna following.

  “And he can just do that?” Luna said. “Fight you in a duel and try to kill you without anyone stopping him?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “This is such bullshit!” Luna said. “How can he just walk in here? What about what he did in the spring at the British Museum? He should be the one getting accused of stuff and having to defend himself!”

  “There were never any formal charges made about that, remember?”

  “He tried to kill us! Everyone knows he did it. We saw him!”

  “And it’s covered by Council secrecy.”

  “He tried to kill you yesterday!”

  “Which I can’t accuse him of without admitting that I was here when I wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “And all those men he killed at the British Museum?”

  “None of them were mages.” I led Luna down a flight of stairs and through a sitting room. A pair of mages were standing talking; they glanced at us, and both Luna and I fell silent as we walked by. “Onyx is Morden’s Chosen,” I said quietly once we were out of earshot again. “Accusing Onyx would be the same as picking a fight with Morden. No one on the Council wants to do that.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Luna said. “How can the mage world be so screwed up? I go to classes and everything seems fine, but—Mages like Levistus and Griff and Belthas and Morden and Onyx, they do all this and everyone just pretends like nothing’s happening!”

  “Remember how I kept telling you it was dangerous to get involved in my world?” I said. “And how you never listened?”

  Luna glowered down at the floor. We walked a little way in silence. “What are you going to do?” Luna asked.

  “Wait for his formal challenge,” I said. We’d come into a long corridor with no doors leading off it. It didn’t look anything like bedrooms. “By the way, I think we’re lost.”

  * * *

  Getting unlost and finding our way to the bedroom wing took us twenty minutes and by the time we got there Anne and Variam were somewhere else. It took us the best part of an hour to find them and when we finally did someone else had gotten there first.

  Variam and Anne were in the dining hall, along with the girl who’d been talking to Anne earlier. Standing opposite them were three apprentices. Two I recognised as the ones I’d seen back in the duelling class: the blond-haired boy with glasses, Charles, and the round-faced girl, Natasha. There was another girl with them too; like Natasha she looked Pakistani or Bangladeshi. To a casual glance they seemed to be just talking, but there was something about the way they were standing that didn’t look all that friendly. “. . . let you in here?” Natasha was saying.

  “They let you in, didn’t they?” Variam said.

  “We’re not Dark apprentices working for a monster,” Natasha’s friend said sweetly.

  The younger girl I’d seen talking to Anne made a slight movement, trying to get behind Anne, but it only drew attention. “Why are you with them?” Natasha’s friend said. “Do you want us to report you to the Keepers? Go on, get lost.”

  The girl gave a frightened glance back at Anne and scurried away. I watched her vanish down a corridor.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Anne said quietly. She was looking steadily at Natasha’s friend, and for the first time I got the impression she might be angry.

  “Oh, what are you going to do about it?” Natasha’s friend said. “It’s not like you even entered—”

  “Hi, kids,” I said, walking up to them.

  Charles, Natasha, and Natasha’s friend stopped abruptly and turned to me. “Hello, Mage Verus,” Natasha said.

  “Hi,” I said. “Anne, Variam, could you come with me please?”

  The other three looked satisfied. Variam’s face darkened, but Anne stepped forward with a nod.

  I led Anne and Variam back around the corner to where Luna was waiting. As soon as we were out of sight of Natasha and the others I shook my head. What was it about the apprentice program that made so many of the people in it act like they were still in high school?

  “We didn’t need your help,” Variam said.

  “I was under the impression,” I said, “that Jagadev asked you to help me.”

  Variam scowled and looked away. “Hey, Anne,” Luna said with a wave.

  “Hi. Thanks for coming in, Alex.”

  “I said we didn’t need it,” Variam said. “Why are—?”

  “Anne, did you enter?” Luna interrupted. “The tournament, I mean.”

  Anne shook her head. “No.”

  “You know, maybe if you’d actually fight once in a while I wouldn’t have to keep chasing those idiots off,” Variam said.

  Luna looked from Variam to Anne. “You know why I don’t fight duels,” Anne said patiently.

  “Maybe it’s about time you started.”

  Luna glared at Variam. “Maybe you—”

  “All right,” I said, cutting off the argument before it could start. “I assume you two know why Luna and I are really here?”

  “Yes,” Anne said, just as Variam said “No.”

&nbs
p; I looked between the two of them.

  “You’re trying to find out what’s happened to the apprentices who’ve been disappearing,” Anne said.

  “That’s what Jagadev thinks they’re doing,” Variam said sharply. Anne looked at him in surprise.

  “Well, Jagadev’s right,” I said.

  “What’s the plan?” Luna asked.

  We’d gotten away from the noise and the chatter into a quiet corridor. Luna and Anne were already waiting for my answer and even Variam turned to watch me suspiciously.

  “For now I want you to protect yourselves,” I said. “Keep your eyes open and follow up on anything you see, but your priority is to stay alive. Onyx is here, and he’s not the only one—something tried to attack me last time I was here and I don’t know what it was but I don’t want any of you running into it. And finally there’s whoever or whatever’s going after apprentices.” I looked from Luna to Anne to Variam. “And all three of you qualify. So while you’re here in this mansion, I don’t want any of you going anywhere alone.”

  All three of them looked back at me, puzzled. “All of the disappearances that have happened so far had something in common,” I said. “The apprentice was always on their own when they vanished. Anne, are you sharing a room with anyone?”

  “Ah . . .” Anne said. “I was supposed to be, but—”

  “You are now. Luna, you’re moving in with her.”

  “I think we were supposed to be assigned rooms,” Anne began.

  “Just find one that no one’s using and take it. If anyone gives you any trouble, tell them it’s on my orders and for them to come to me, but odds are they won’t.”

  “Wait a minute,” Variam said. “We don’t need—”

  “You aren’t going to be keeping an eye on her all the time, Variam,” I said. “Not unless you’re going to follow her into the bathroom.”

  Variam scowled. “What about you?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “Are you sharing a room?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “If you’re not,” I said mildly, “then I think you should start.”

  Variam looked me up and down. “Are you in charge of us?”