“Speaking of Morden,” I said, taking care not to poke my head out, “didn’t he tell you to work with me?”
Onyx just laughed. He started to circle the pillar at a leisurely speed, not taking his eyes off my hiding place. I moved to match him, keeping the pillar between us. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting rid of Vitus?” I asked.
“Vitus isn’t going anywhere,” Onyx said. “I’ve been waiting for this.”
“Yeah, I bet you have,” I said. “Remember our chat in the basement? As soon I saw that look in your eyes I knew what you were planning. I’ve seen it before.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Onyx said. He was circling to a position where if I kept trying to keep the pillar between me and him I’d come up against a table. “Let’s see what you got.”
Just before Onyx could trap me I moved sideways and back. A second later Onyx came around the edge to see nothing but empty space. “What I figured,” Onyx said.
“You know,” I said from behind a second pillar, “Morden’s going to be quite upset if you miss Vitus because you were busy with me.”
“Morden’s not here,” Onyx said, and I could tell he was smiling. He started walking towards my new hiding place, following the sound of my voice. “You’re supposed to know everything, right? Know why I’m going to kill you?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.”
“Yeah?” Onyx said. I could feel him lining up another spell. “Why?”
“Because you’re a murderous, egocentric asshole,” I said. “Because nobody beats you and walks away, even if you were the one who started the fight. You’re too aggressive to quit and too stupid to call it even. You’re just going to keep coming back over and over again until you’re dead.”
Onyx stopped, and I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Enough talk.”
The plane of force was about the size and shape of an industrial saw blade, and it went through the base of the pillar in a spray of debris. I’d already gone flat and felt the breeze of the thing as it cleared my hair by six inches or so. The second force blade went through the top of the pillar. Cut at both ends, the pillar toppled and hit the floor with a shattering crash as I rolled out of the way and came to my feet. Onyx came into view a second later . . . and I hit him in the face with a staff.
This version of Fountain Reach didn’t have focus weapons, but I’d spotted the six-foot metal pole before Onyx had entered and I’d been letting him back me towards it. I didn’t know what it was made of but it was light and strong. Onyx was caught off balance—he’d obviously been expecting me to keep running, not close in—and I hit him with enough power to crack his skull.
Unfortunately it didn’t do the least bit of damage. The force shield around Onyx absorbed the blow effortlessly. It did make him flinch though, and the blast he’d been preparing went wide, tearing a chunk out of the wall. I pressed Onyx, striking again and again and pushing him out into the centre of the hall.
I felt the flicker of a spell and a swordlike plane of force appeared in Onyx’s right hand. To normal eyes it would have been invisible but to my mage’s sight it was a razor-thin line of smoky glass, and Onyx brought it around in a wide arc that would have ended somewhere in my rib cage. Letting that happen didn’t strike me as a good idea so I knocked the force blade up and over my head before landing the end of the staff in Onyx’s body, driving him back another step.
We fought in the shadows of the duelling hall, staff against sword. The inertial planes of the force magic made only a dull clack-clack against the metal pole and the loudest noise echoing around the dark room was our footsteps. The force weapon was sharp enough to cut the staff like paper but I kept parrying the flat of the blade, turning the edge away. As blow after blow got through Onyx’s guard it became clear that in terms of skill I had the edge on him. Onyx was fast—very fast—but speed alone isn’t a match for technique. The problem was that hitting him wasn’t actually doing anything. The invisible shield of force around Onyx had enough raw inertia to stop anything short of high-level battle-magic or a military heavy weapon, and my staff couldn’t even scratch it. It was Vitus Aubuchon all over again. I couldn’t kill Onyx but he could kill me.
I could feel the stirrings of magic in the room behind me, life and fire weaving together, and I knew Anne and Variam were trying to use my gate stone. They’d done the smart thing and stayed hidden, and from a glance through the futures it looked like they were starting to get it to work—
But I’d taken my focus off Onyx for an instant, and against someone as deadly as the Dark Chosen that was simply too long. My next attack was a fraction too slow and Onyx was able to get his blade in the way and this time the force blade met the staff edge-on. There was a faint shinnng! as one foot of staff went whirring off into the darkness, my next strike fell short, and Onyx’s blade flashed out at me.
I had my staff in place to parry, but it didn’t do much good. Onyx’s blade barely slowed down as it went through the metal and my backwards leap wasn’t quite fast enough. I felt a sharp horizontal sting across my chest and upper arm, then I was out of range and Onyx was bringing up his other hand, ready to throw another spell at me.
I dropped into a crouch, holding still. Onyx had been about to hurl a force lance, but as he saw that I was ready he stopped, standing side-on with his left arm up, palm flat. His eyes were fixed on me with flat concentration and I knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out how he could get me with that spell without me dodging out of the way. “Try it,” I said.
Onyx didn’t answer and I knew he was through with words. My chest and arm hurt and I could feel blood trickling down my skin, but I could still move and right now that was all that mattered. “You know,” I said, “before you go back to trying to hit me, there’s something I need to tell you. Actually, two things.”
Onyx’s eyes tracked me, ready to release the spell. I knew he’d fire the instant I moved. “First thing is we’ve been fighting for a few minutes now,” I said. “The second is that force magic of yours is really easy to detect from a distance.”
Onyx frowned slightly.
Behind Onyx, Vitus Aubuchon teleported into the duelling hall.
Onyx spun snake-quick and the force lance flashed out, but it curved away from Vitus, its path distorting. From behind I felt the flare of a gate spell and I heard Luna’s shout. “Alex!”
I turned and ran. I covered the distance in seconds and I had one last fleeting glimpse of Vitus, re-formed and whole again, those ghastly empty eye sockets locked on Onyx and one hand grasping towards him. The space around Onyx was warping, trying to compress inwards, and Onyx was crouched in a snarl, the force shield flickering and trying to maintain its shape as the two magics clashed. Then I was through the door. Where I’d left Anne and Luna and Variam an oval gateway was hanging in the air, its edges flickering green to match the light around Anne’s hands. Variam was already through and within that oval I could see the natural darkness of our own world.
Luna and Anne had only been waiting for me and as they saw me they darted through the gate one after the other. I knew the gate was about to close and I put my head down and sprinted.
It was very, very close. Anne’s grip on the spell faltered when I had ten feet to go and I turned the last three steps into a running jump. I went sailing through the gate, hit Anne along the way, and felt the spell snap behind me. We both went into the table and chairs in the middle of the room and hit the floor in a crash of furniture.
The light of the gate stone had extinguished with Anne’s spell and we were left in pitch-darkness, the only sound the noises of everyone checking to make sure they were in one piece. But it was natural darkness, not the strange half-light of that other place, and while it was cold it was the fresh cold of winter. I could smell dust and spiderwebs but the air was clean.
Orange light flared, illuminating Variam’s face as he held an orb of magelight above his head. He looked battered and weary but he was still in one piece and his eyes were alert as he looked around. In the glow we could see the tiles and table and chairs of the kitchen of my farmhouse in Wales. Outside was the darkness of a winter evening, and looking around I could see Luna and Anne. We were safe.
“Okay,” Luna said, breaking the silence with a sigh. “I do not want to do that again.”
“You and me both.” I pulled myself to my feet, wincing, and gave Anne a hand up. “You okay?”
Anne looked at my hand in surprise for a second, then smiled and took it. “I’m okay.” She brushed herself off, looking around. “I guess we’re back again?”
“Is it over?” Luna asked.
“No one’s going to follow us,” I said. I’d been looking into the futures of our staying in the house and they were all blessedly quiet. “It’s over.”
“What about Vitus?” Variam asked. He’d propped himself up against the wall, his shattered arm still hanging limp.
“You are not worrying about Vitus,” I said. “You’re going to bed to let Anne work on you. And you’re staying there until you’ve had a chance to rest.”
Variam tried to look indignant. “I’m—”
“You’re going to bed,” Anne said firmly. “Right now.”
Variam seemed about to argue, then looked at Anne and changed his mind. He allowed himself to be led off grumbling. Luna watched Anne and Variam go, then shook her head. “What’s the order, oh master?”
“You can get a fire started,” I said. “This place is bloody freezing. And while you do that I’m going to try and figure out who I should tell this whole crazy story to first.”
Luna opened up the stove and sniffed at it, sneezed, then looked dubiously at the basket of firewood. I’d just taken out my phone and was deciding which number to dial when I paused. “Ah, damn.”
“What’s wrong?” Luna asked.
I looked towards where Anne and Variam had vanished. “I just remembered I never restocked the kitchen.”
chapter 14
Explaining the whole thing to the Council kept me busy for the next few days.
I was interviewed by the Keepers, then by Council reps, then by the masters in charge of the apprentice program, then by the Keepers again, then by some other guys whose names I can’t remember, then by the Keepers one more time. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, except slower and in more detail. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, by which point I was about ready to chew my own arm off, or possibly someone else’s. Luna got lucky and was let out sometime around the second day.
Anne and Variam got interviewed too, and their interviews were a lot less friendly than mine. Anne had it especially bad—it took a long time to convince the Keepers that she hadn’t fled from custody and even then they didn’t stop treating her as a suspect. I later found out that the only way Anne finally got them to accept her story was by submitting to a memory probe.
The rest of the tournament—unsurprisingly—was cancelled. A Council task force evacuated everyone from Fountain Reach and established a cordon around the mansion. Fortunately all the remaining apprentices got away safe. Unfortunately Crystal did too. She’d seen which way the wind was blowing and had given Lyle the slip within minutes of getting back to Fountain Reach, and by the time the order went out to bring her in for questioning she was long gone. Talisid had been giving me regular updates and on the third day he sent me a message with an invitation.
* * *
The train that took Luna and me into the Cotswolds was the same one I’d taken for my first trip there, and as we alighted I looked around to see that the country station was deserted. The train pulled away from the platform, and as the rumble and clatter of the carriages faded into the distance everything became quiet. The town the station was built in was a small one and there wasn’t much traffic.
I walked out of the station and onto the main road. “Aren’t we taking a car?” Luna asked. She’d been quiet on the trip and was looking around at the green hills. It was less than an hour to sunset and the light was fading quickly.
“We’re early,” I said. “Might as well walk.”
Luna looked resigned but didn’t complain, and we turned towards Fountain Reach and settled into a steady pace. It had been a clear winter’s day and the temperature dropped like a rock as the sun disappeared behind the western hills. The stars came out, bright and twinkling in the clear air, the Square of Pegasus hanging almost directly overhead while the stars of the Summer Triangle sank into the west.
We came up around Fountain Reach from over the back hillside. We bypassed the campsite where we’d gathered around a fire with Anne and Variam and Sonder a few nights ago, and descended towards the clearing where I’d seen Onyx and Lisa before that. The woods were going from shadowy to pitch-black, but neither Luna nor I slipped or fell.
As we approached the clearing I began to make out lights between the trees, and we emerged onto the grass to see that shielded lamps had been stuck into the grass around the clearing’s edge. Two men were talking at the centre of the clearing: one I didn’t know and one I did. As I watched they finished their conversation and one turned and walked away down the hill, disappearing into the darkness. The other turned to us with a nod. “Verus. Luna.”
“Hey, Talisid,” I said. In the dim light I could see he was still wearing his maths-teacher suit, looking faintly ridiculous in the winter forest. There was the crackle of static and Talisid raised a hand apologetically. “Just a moment.” He took out a radio and spoke into it. “Receiving.”
“Charges are set,” a voice said from the radio speaker. “Everyone’s accounted for.”
“Did anyone enter the building?”
“No.”
“Good,” Talisid said. “You have full tactical command from this point. Proceed at your discretion.”
“Roger that,” the voice said. “Moving into final positions now.”
Talisid clicked the radio off and returned it to his pocket. “So you decided not to go in,” I said.
“The Council decided that the chances of a successful recovery from Vitus’s shadow realm were too low to justify the risks of mounting an expedition.” Talisid gave me a glance. “Based on your report it didn’t sound as though there was any realistic likelihood of finding survivors.”
I thought of the slaughterhouse in Vitus’s sanctum, piles of bones stacked neatly in their alcoves. “No,” I said.
We stood in the darkness on the hillside, looking down upon Fountain Reach. The mansion was dark, no lights showing from the windows. I couldn’t see any activity but I knew people were moving in the grounds. “Any news on Crystal?” I said.
“Of a sort,” Talisid said. “We haven’t been able to pick up her trail, but we managed to find one of her hideouts and it turned out to be quite a source of information.”
“About her and Vitus?”
“It seems Vitus had been practising his particular brand of life extension for some time,” Talisid said with an expression of distaste. “Apparently his ritual absorbed his victims’ life force through the medium of their blood—I’ll spare you the details. Unfortunately for him, the ritual was providing diminishing returns. Each killing was extending his own life by a shorter time. So he recruited Crystal to ensure a steady supply.”
“What did she get out of it?”
“Knowledge,” Talisid said. “Vitus shared his research with her. It seems Crystal came to believe that the flaw in the ritual had been Vitus’s choice of subjects. Crystal started preying on adepts, and when that didn’t work she began kidnapping apprentice mages. According to Crystal’s notes, she believed that if they found the right mage the ritual would grant perfect immortalit
y, without the . . . flaws Vitus had developed.”
“And when they saw Anne use her magic, they decided she was the right mage.”
Talisid nodded. “Hopefully we’ll never find out if they were correct.”
“As long as Crystal’s still out there we might,” I said sharply. “Do you have any leads?”
“Unfortunately since she disappeared in Fountain Reach there’s very little to go on. We’ve tried tracer spells but so far nothing.”
“So she gets away clean.”
“I think the masters and relatives of the apprentices she helped murder might have something to say about that,” Talisid said dryly. “I know at least five mages who are currently bending their full resources towards tracking Crystal down and killing her.”
I made a neutral sound.
“Not everything is your responsibility, Verus,” Talisid said, and his voice was firm. “You found her. Others will take it from here.”
I turned away, looking into the darkness. Again I remembered that great bare room with its scent of death, rows and rows of alcoves filled with the remains of human bodies. I wondered how many Crystal had led there to their deaths, how many Vitus had butchered on that blood-soaked table. And I wondered what would have happened if Vitus and Crystal hadn’t decided that their ritual needed an apprentice. If they’d kept on killing normals and sensitives and adepts, as they’d done for so long before, would any of the Light mages have noticed? And if they had, how many would have cared?
“Um,” Luna said hesitantly. She’d been silent until now, watching our conversation from a safe distance. “Is Anne going to be okay? With the Council, I mean.”
“She’s still under arrest,” Talisid said, “but as far as I know there are no plans to press for a trial. The last I heard from Avenor he was coming around to the view that she hadn’t knowingly cooperated with any of the kidnappings.”
“Knowingly?” I said.
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