Jamal started, but said nothing.
“I covered for you,” Duncan added. “I paid off the maids, or told everyone that they were lies. I ignored what you did to Johan and Charity and your other siblings. I told myself that they needed such treatment to help boost their powers ... well, the cost of my carelessness has been staggering. I will not be careless again.
“I have already altered the house wards,” he snapped. “You will not leave without my permission. You will not use magic without my permission. You will not have your fun with the maids or anyone else. You will be kind and polite to your family, particularly Johan when he returns to us. And if you break any of those rules, the menservants I hired have my full permission to thrash you. If that proves too little to force you to change your ways, I will take other steps. Your status as Prime Heir hangs by a thread.”
That produced a reaction. Jamal jerked upwards, staring at him.
“If Charity was a year or two older, or a boy, I would have made her Prime Heir,” Duncan informed him, icily. “As it is, I cannot afford to remove you from the line of succession. Not yet. But if you are still unworthy of the position by the time Charity reaches the Age of Maturity, you will be removed and Charity will be Prime Heir. And I will disinherit you completely.”
“You can’t,” Jamal protested. “I ...”
“The powers of a Patriarch are vast,” Duncan snapped. “I cannot disinherit you if you are suitable for the position you would inherit, but it is my considered judgement that you are not suitable. If you do not shape up in two years, you will be removed from the family. Do you understand me?”
Jamal nodded, wordlessly.
Duncan scowled. He hated to berate his eldest son ... which, he knew now, had helped make Jamal the man he was today. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d punished the younger children, but Jamal had always been spared the worst of his fury. In hindsight, it had been a mistake. But it was one he was going to correct.
“You have done no end of damage to the family name,” Duncan hissed. “I will see that corrected or you out. Go.”
He pointed at the door. Jamal stared at him for a long moment, then stood up and slunk towards the door. Duncan knew better than to assume that the lesson had already sunk in, but it was a start. A few weeks of being treated like a child would hopefully make a man out of his eldest son. And if it didn’t ...
Duncan sighed, reached into one of his locked drawers and pulled out the marriage contract. Once signed, Johan would be legally betrothed to Jayne. Even if the marriage was never consummated, it would make it harder for Jayne to spy on him ...if, of course, that was what she was doing.
And if they liked each other, he told himself, so much the better.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Johan was cursing his decision to walk within a mile, but somehow he forced himself to keep going, pushing through trees and climbing hills as he walked onwards. It had never really dawned on him, even after a week in the mountain cabin, just how far one might have to walk to catch up with someone else outside the city. The Golden City could be walked from one side to the other in less than an hour; outside the Four Peaks, the land sprawled on for hundreds of miles. Only stubborn pride kept him going – pride and a determination to show everyone what he could do. The pencil he’d charmed kept wavering slightly, but the direction never changed. It was nearly two hours before he saw the building.
It was hidden in the forest; he wouldn’t have seen it at all, he realised, if he hadn’t been following the pencil. It was a long low building, just like the warehouses on the edge of the Golden City; like them, it was probably larger on the inside than on the outside. He circled the structure, only to feel the pencil twisting in his hand. His target, he realised mutely, was inside the building. Johan hesitated, unsure of how best to proceed, then found the door. It was hanging off its hinges, as if someone had broken them to break into the building itself. Carefully, he stepped into the giant warehouse.
The interior was crammed with strange machinery, he saw, as he crept inside. None of it made any sense to him, even though he had always taken an interest in non-magical technology. One piece of machinery looked big enough to be part of an Iron Dragon, another seemed designed to be small enough to hold in one hand. A faint scent caught his nostrils and he looked around, seeing a body lying on the ground. Johan crouched down beside the body, but it was clearly far too late to save his life. The expression on his face suggested that he had died in screaming agony.
“That’s the trouble with mundanes,” a high-pitched voice said. “They die so easily.”
Johan started, then looked around. The speaker was hidden behind the machinery, but his voice carried easily to where Johan was standing. There was something about the voice that chilled him to the bone, something that suggested that the speaker was more than a little insane. The pencil jerked in his hand as the Dark Wizard moved, then came into view. A chill ran down Johan’s spine as he saw him for the first time.
“I am Hawthorne,” the Dark Wizard said. The sneer on his face rivalled Jamal’s at his worst. “Are you unhappy that your little friends are dead?”
Johan stared at him, then scowled inwardly. Hawthorne had clearly taken him for a mundane, something that was insulting .... but useful. Let him think that, his thoughts whispered, as he stared at Hawthorne. It might be useful to have him underestimate you.
Hawthorne was tall, almost painfully thin, with a long angular nose and unkempt dark hair that fell down over his shoulders. His eyes were black as night, with neither pupils nor irises; his hands showed the telltale signs of too many dark spells. They were long, thin and twisted, as if he had aged prematurely. Johan had no idea how old the wizard was, but he would have been surprised if he was any older than his father. But dark wizardry took its toll on a person’s body and soul.
“I can see that you are,” Hawthorne said, when Johan said nothing. “But I’m afraid they had to die.”
He wants to gloat, Johan thought. He recognised the symptoms from Jamal, although Jamal had never killed ... at least before the riot in front of the palace. Let him. See what he tells you.
“It’s really quite simple,” Hawthorne continued, in a light and airy voice. “They thought they could challenge the gods. For this, they had to be punished.”
He nodded towards one of the pieces of machinery. “They thought that this would make them the equals of the god-touched,” he said, darkly. “I proved them wrong.”
Johan shivered. The god-touched was a very old name for magicians, one that suggested that they were the only true humans living in the mortal world. Jamal had brought it up more than once to use as a weapon against Johan, calling him a soulless monster fit only to hew wood and draw water. The religion that sprouted such nonsense was very popular among magicians outside the Golden City, but utterly hated by non-magicians. It was easy to see why.
“When the gods made men, they made some of them out of clay,” Hawthorne observed, darkly. “And they made others out of their own godly essence.” He waved his hand in the air, causing a blaze of light to appear in the room. “How could the clay-men presume to match those who were made from the essence of the gods?”
He was insane, Johan realised. The cold chill running down his back grew worse. But there was also method in his madness. The attack on the city had been concentrated on where the Iron Dragons were produced, the people he’d killed specifically had worked on the Iron Dragons ... and this complex, whatever it was, was connected to them too. Hawthorne had targeted his attacks on places that most magicians doubted had the right to exist. If he hadn’t killed so many people, there might have been little enthusiasm for giving chase.
“The god came to me at night and whispered that it was my duty to destroy the dreams of the soulless,” Hawthorne informed him. His voice shone with conviction. “He told me that there would come a time when I could leave my imprisonment and escape – and he was right. I fled and came here, obeying the orders he sen
t me in dreams. I shall be rewarded beyond the dreams of even sorcerers!”
Definitely insane, Johan thought. There were people who claimed to have had visions from the gods, but their stories rarely stood up when they were tested under truth spells. Their believers claimed that the truth of their particular god was not for unbelievers; Johan suspected that most of them were just frauds, claiming to talk with the gods to collect worshippers. It was one of the very few points on which he ever agreed with Jamal.
“They were defenceless, of course,” Hawthorne proclaimed, turning away to walk down the stacks of machinery. “What could they do against me?”
Johan followed him ... and almost threw up again as the horrific sight came into view. Hawthorne had frozen his prey, then killed them one by one; one young man had been crucified, another seemed to have been flogged to death ... he couldn’t even look at a young woman whose body had been ritualistically cut open. His gorge rose and he retched helplessly. If there had been something left in his stomach, he knew, it would have joined the blood in pooling on the floor.
“You people have no nerve,” Hawthorne said. “They talked of beating magicians, of creating a kind of magic of their own, yet when I arrived they fell over themselves to beg for mercy from me. One of them even offered to be my servant, my slave, if only I would spare his life. How brave are those who never have to face those they scorn. All those papers suggesting that mundanes should consider themselves the equal of magicians ...”
He laughed, a low rumbling sound that rapidly became an insane cackle. Johan stared at his back as he turned away to look at one of the pieces of machinery, a long metal tube with a pair of metal balls sitting next to it. The purpose of the device, if device it was, baffled him; the balls might fit inside the tube, but then what?
“This,” Hawthorne said, “is a weapon. Or so they say. But what good would it do them against me?”
“I do not know,” Johan said, speaking for the first time. “But you didn’t have to kill them all.”
“He speaks!” Hawthorne proclaimed. “And there I was thinking that someone had accidentally torn out your tongue.”
He turned back to face Johan, one hand twisting into a claw. “I could do that,” he added, darkly. “Or I could ... oh, I could turn you into a mouse and set my cats on you. I did that to some of the people here.”
Johan looked at one of the bodies, lying on the ground, and believed him. Someone who was killed while transfigured would return to normal upon the moment of their death, along with their wounds. A tiny cut for a mouse might leave a human ripped open from end to end. He couldn’t even begin to imagine just how horrific their final moments must have been. For all of his faults, for all of his cruelty and the pranks he had played on Johan, Jamal was no dark wizard.
But he might be getting there, Johan thought. Or was he? Jamal could have wiped out the entire group of Levellers with his magic, if he’d thought of it. Instead, he’d tormented them ...
He looked up at Hawthorne and knew that, whatever else happened, he would never be scared of his brother again.
Hawthorne rubbed his clawed hands together, then smiled. “The god commands your death,” he informed Johan. A wave of his hand had Johan’s feet fixed firmly to the floor. “But how best to do it? There are so many ways you could die.”
“Tell me something,” Johan said, trying to buy time. Sheer terror was making it hard to think clearly. “If the clay-men are so worthless, why can we use their blood for magical rites?”
“We can use the blood of dumber animals in magical rites,” Hawthorne pointed out, snidely. “The mere fact that their blood has ... uses does not mean that they are our equals, does it?”
Johan winced. He’d hoped that trying to undermine Hawthorne’s faith in his crazy religion would work, but it hadn’t. Hawthorne believed every word he said.
“And they can give birth to magical children,” he said, desperately. “Why would that make them useless?”
“The gods sometimes choose to give us new blood,” Hawthorne said. “They cause the child to appear in a clay-woman’s womb, formed from their essence. Or are you not aware that there are spells that allow a human child to be brought to term inside a cow?”
His face twisted into a sneer. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” he announced. “All rationalisation by a clay-man unwilling to accept his place in the world. And you bore me.”
He lifted his hand, holding it up in front of Johan’s face. “Goodbye,” he said. “Your death will be ...”
A streak of brilliant blue light stuck him, sending him flying backwards.
***
Elaine searched through her bag as soon as she left the office, hunting for the vial of Johan’s blood. She’d never had the time to run any tests on it, but it would suffice for one thing; Johan couldn’t hope to cut the link between it and himself. Blood called to blood, no matter the distance between them. Only the most powerful magicians could alter their blood to break the connection; she’d been careful not to even mention the possibility to Johan.
“All right,” she muttered, as she felt the magic take hold. “Where are you?”
The vial seemed to be pulling her back towards the Golden City; the sense of distance suggested that Johan was still walking. Muttering curses under her breath, unsure of what was going through his mind, Elaine walked quickly to the nearest stable and passed the stable boy several gold coins. In return, she got a domesticated horse that had been enhanced by magic and trained by the best. She couldn’t help eying the beast nervously as the boy brought him out onto the street – she’d never ridden a horse in her life, let alone a big black stallion that was taller than herself – but the beast gave her an oddly reassuring look.
“Arcane is trained and experienced,” the stable boy assured her. “And your magic can help you to guide him.”
He was right, Elaine discovered, when she finally managed to mount him. Once she was on the horse’s back, it was surprisingly easy to guide him in the right direction, even if the horse seemed inclined to move faster than she would have preferred. She dug a ration bar out of her bag as they cantered out of the town, heading southwards. If Johan was on foot, she told herself, they would overtake him very quickly. Instead, the land grew rougher, harder for the horse to traverse. It didn’t take too long for Elaine to realise that Johan was following a straight line rather than the roads.
“Now,” she asked the horse, “why would he do that?”
There was no reply, of course. The stories of talking animals she’d read as a child had no basis in reality. Even a transfigured human couldn’t talk in animal form, although with the right sort of mental link they could still communicate. The best she could do with the horse was read its emotions and they were very basic, barely more than enough to tell her that he thought they could move faster.
Johan should have known better than to go off the roads, Elaine thought. They’d spent enough time exploring the hills and mountains to know that pathways and roads made it much easier to move faster. But Johan was definitely moving in a straight line ... why would he do that, even if he were trying to hide? It made no sense unless he was aiming directly for somewhere ... or someone. Her blood ran cold as she realised that Johan was actually following the Dark Wizard. Somehow – the gods alone knew how – he’d discovered a way to track him. And, instead of waiting for the Inquisitors, he’d gone off on his own.
Idiot, Elaine thought. Her thoughts communicated themselves to the horse, who whinnied uncomfortably. Elaine looked down at the vial of blood and concentrated, trying to get a fix on Johan’s exact position. He didn’t seem to be moving any longer. In fact ... the horse twisted, unwilling to go among the trees, then led her to a tiny road, half-hidden by a handful of aversion spells. She wouldn’t have sensed it at all if the horse hadn’t taken her right through the concealment spells.
But the spells didn’t look powerful enough to be the work of a Dark Wizard ...
She slipped of
f the horse, wand in hand, as the building came into view. It didn’t look special enough to be the lair of a Dark Wizard either, not when they normally took over castles or even built themselves homes amongst the clouds. Maybe Hawthorne was smarter than the average Dark Wizard ... but if he were smart, he wouldn’t have attacked the city. Light Spinner couldn’t let something like that go by; she’d have Hawthorne’s head, even if she had to send a small army after him to get it. And Hawthorne had definitely been captured before and sentenced to death.
Elaine hesitated. The blood said that Johan was inside, but the gods alone knew what else was inside. Part of her wanted to summon the Inquisitors, part of her knew that she didn’t dare wait for help. She cast a quick summoning charm in the air, calling the nearest Inquisitor, then headed towards the door. One look at the battered piece of wood told her that Hawthorne had broken his way into the building. Whatever this was, it wasn’t his hideout. It was his next target. She cast a concealment charm over herself, then stepped inside.
She heard a high-pitched voice as she crept inside, speaking of a religion that many lower-level magicians embraced fervently. It made them feel superior to the mundanes, Elaine knew; somehow, she had never been tempted by such talk, even though she was a low-power magician. But then, she’d known mundanes in the orphanage. They had never been strange creatures to her, even if they had never fully been her friends either.
Careful, she warned herself, as she tiptoed around the pieces of machinery. Your spells aren’t perfect ...
The sight of Hawthorne chilled her, even though she’d seen worse – much worse – in the books that had been crammed into her head. He actually looked surprisingly human, apart from the pale skin and very black eyes. At least they weren’t red, she realised; red eyes were the mark of wild magic, suggesting that the person with them had been up to something very dangerous. Hawthorne had probably been experimenting on himself and wound up with ... what? She tensed as he seemed to look right at her, then past her. The spells were holding.
Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling Page 30