Sienna gave her eldest daughter a sharp look. “Start filling bottles and buckets with water before it occurs to them to turn off the pipes,” she ordered. “Take Marian with you – she can do something useful.”
Emily glanced at her in surprise. She hadn’t seen Marian all day. But then, Sienna had probably told her to stay in her room until she felt like apologizing. Emily felt a moment’s pity for the younger girl, mixed with annoyance. Marian had every right to mourn her brother, but…
She’s grieving, Emily told herself, firmly. And I won’t let it get to me.
“She’s still sulking,” Karan said. “But I’ll try to get her to work.”
“See that you do,” Sienna said.
Emily looked at the table, thinking hard. If no food was coming into the city – if even the fishing boats were forbidden to leave – the entire population would starve. Sienna and her family could hold out for a week, if Karan was right, but what about the poorer families, the ones without magic? It wouldn’t be long before the poorer parts of the city began to starve, forcing them to beg for food. And the Fists of Justice would be right there, ready to offer food with one hand and religious instruction with the other. Starving people would be in no condition to resist.
Caleb caught her eye. “Do you have any other thoughts?”
“They’ll come after us, sooner rather than later,” Emily said. The coup plotters had tried to hunt Alassa down, after all. They’d succeeded too. If General Pollack truly was the last living – or at least free – member of the former government, he’d be hunted too. The Fists of Justice would want to convert or eliminate him before he could cause trouble. “I don’t know how long Sorcerers Row can hold out.”
“It’s safe,” Karan protested.
“It might not be for long,” Caleb warned. “You didn’t see that…that thing.”
“We have to assume the worst,” Sienna said. “And plan for a hasty departure.”
Karan didn’t look as though she believed her mother. Emily didn’t blame her for having doubts. Sorcerers Row was the safest place in the city…if one happened to be a sorcerer or had magical relatives. No one would have dared lay a finger on Karan – or any of her siblings – for fear of Sienna’s revenge. And few people would linger in Sorcerers Row. Outsiders came in, did their business, and then hurried out before a sorcerer decided to use them for target practice.
But the wards won’t stand indefinitely, she thought, numbly. Not now.
“We can fight,” Croce said. “We have weapons.”
“Only a fool fights in a burning house, son.” General Pollack said, warningly. He waved a hand at the wall. “We’d be surrounded, trapped in our own house. Even if they couldn’t break in, they could keep us from breaking out.”
Emily caught the expression on Caleb’s face and winced in sympathy. General Pollack had pushed Casper hard, but he’d also made no secret of the fact he favored his eldest son. Caleb had never quite clicked with his father. He was brave, and a skillful magician, but he was no fighter. Croce, on the other hand, was doing well at Stronghold. She wondered, grimly, if General Pollack saw his youngest son as a replacement for his eldest.
I’m sorry, she thought.
“Perhaps we should move now,” Sienna said. “There are places in Fishing Plaice we could stay.”
Karan smirked. “I thought Fishing Plaice was not safe.”
“Nowhere is safe now,” Sienna said.
“Better to wait for darkness before we move.” General Pollack reached for his cloak. “Caleb, you’re with me.”
Caleb’s face was unreadable as he followed his father to the door, but Emily knew he was dismayed. She didn’t blame him. Caleb wanted his father’s approval, but he couldn’t do what he needed to do to get it. Casper had suffered the same problem, yet…she shook her head, wishing she could give Caleb some reassurance. She didn’t want him to die too.
“I need to contact Alassa,” she said, once Caleb was gone. “She has to know what’s happening here.”
“Tell her that we will try to deal with the problem ourselves,” Sienna said. “The last thing we want is an invasion force crossing the bridges.”
“And getting slaughtered by Justice,” Frieda put in.
Emily nodded. “I’ll tell her,” she said, although she didn’t know what King Randor could or would do. He had sorcerers under his command, including Jade. Maybe he’d order them to do something stupid. “And I’ll warn Lady Barb too.”
“Make sure she knows not to teleport into the city,” Sienna warned. “The presence makes teleporting dangerous.”
“Just like the haze in Farrakhan,” Emily said, as she headed for the door. The technique was different, she was sure, but the results were similar. “Do you know if Janus or any of his fellows came from Heart’s Eye?”
Sienna’s eyes narrowed. “To the best of my knowledge, Janus does not have any actual magic. But the Fists of Justice probably have a few sorcerers working for them.”
Emily nodded and hurried up the stairs. Frieda followed her into the bedroom, then sat and watched as Emily wrote a message to Alassa on the chat parchment. She’d hoped her friend – or her husband – were close enough to the parchment to see it glow and write a reply, but there was no response. Scowling, she put the parchment on the dressing table and wrote a long letter, explaining what was going on. Her wrist hurt after she’d finished, but she forced herself to write a second note to Lady Barb. She should be able to see the note and respond quickly.
She might not be able to come, Emily mused. She ran her fingers over the chat parchment, thoughtfully. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, but what? She might be deep in the Blighted Lands…
Her mouth dropped open as the pieces fell into place. The speaker had used an odd spell to petrify the banker, but it was similar – very similar – to the spell Aloha had used to make the first set of chat parchments. Emily was sure of it. The chat parchments did carry magic from one piece of parchment to the others…indeed, in some ways, they were all the same piece of parchment. It was a simple spell, on the surface, but it became far more complicated when someone tried to write it down. And someone had warped it into a nightmare…
She looked down at the parchment, not seeing anything. The secret behind Aloha’s spell had leaked quickly, unsurprisingly. Magicians could be relied upon to try to duplicate spells, once they knew something was possible. It was no surprise that someone had managed to improve on the original piece of work. Using it to transfer magic was really nothing more than scaling up the chat spellwork.
And then they channel it into a spell concealed in the staff, she thought. She couldn’t help feeling a flicker of admiration. Whoever had modified the spell was brilliant. They must have been using the staff to boost the presence too.
She sobered. And they’re using their talents to support a theocratic state.
“Shit,” she muttered.
Frieda looked up. “Emily?”
“There are spells to shatter wands,” Emily mused. “Aren’t there?”
“Yeah.” Frieda’s right arm twitched. She’d been forced to use a wand at Mountaintop. It would have stunted her magic if Emily hadn’t taught her how to use her powers without it. “I’ve had them used on me.”
“We can use them against the speakers,” Emily said. She felt better than she had for a long time, just putting the pieces together. “I wonder if they have amplifiers scattered through the city.”
Frieda frowned. “Amplifiers of what?”
“Magic.” Emily scowled. The last time she’d seen anything like it had been at Whitehall. “But we still have the problem of just how to deal with Justice.”
She rose. “We need to talk to an expert. And Markus is the only expert we have.”
“And so you’re sneaking out to see him,” Frieda said. “You are going to tell Sienna, aren’t you?”
“I’ll have to,” Emily had no idea if Markus was still alive, but she needed to find out. Aloha h
ad taken up an apprenticeship somewhere and wouldn’t thank anyone who disturbed her. “And you’d better come with me.”
“With pleasure,” Frieda said. Her smile widened. “It isn’t safe out there.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“YOU LOOK FUNNY,” FRIEDA SAID.
“So do you,” Emily countered. The glamour was definitely in place – Frieda looked like a normal young man – but there was something odd about the way she moved. “Try to walk more like a man.”
“So I should swing my shoulders and thrust out my chest?” Frieda stuck out her tongue, mischievously. “And stick my head so high in the air that I bang my chin into the nearest wall, which I didn’t see because my eyes were looking up…”
“Just walk normally,” Emily said. “And try not to make eye contact.”
She sighed as she tested her own spell. It was easy enough to use a glamour to look like a different woman – she’d done it often enough – but passing for a grown man was a great deal harder. Anyone who didn’t know the glamour was there might not notice it, yet they might realize – at some point – that there was something odd about the two young men. And once they got suspicious, they might look closer and eventually peer through the glamour.
“Ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The glamour flickered the moment they stepped out of the house and brushed against the network of wards and sensing spells. Emily had to smile, even though it wasn’t really funny. Trying to break through a glamour was considered bad manners, particularly if the glamour covered up some minor blemish rather than anything more serious. But once they walked out of Sorcerers Row, the glamour settled back into place. She allowed herself a moment of relief as they headed down the streets, making sure to steer well away from Temple Row. The Fists of Justice would take an interest in anyone who went there.
Beneficence wasn’t her city, but she still felt a pang at seeing just how much the city had changed in less than a week. The shops were closed, homes barricaded and the streets almost deserted, save for a handful of men scurrying to and fro. There were no women at all, not even prostitutes. But then, the Fists of Justice had made it clear that whores were sinners too.
And it doesn’t matter to them if the women had a real choice or not, she thought, darkly. All that matters is that they sold their bodies for money.
She gritted her teeth as they walked past a row of closed shops. She didn’t understand how a woman could willingly sell her body, giving herself to a dozen different men in a day, but she understood that choices were sometimes limited. If someone had to choose between prostitution or starvation and death, which choice should they make? Which choice would she make? She liked to think she would sooner die than sell herself, but she knew it wasn’t that easy. And if she’d had children, the choice would be even harder. Could she leave them to starve too?
But the Fists of Justice don’t care about circumstances, she thought. That had shone through their words. They didn’t care why someone had made a bad choice, they didn’t care that all the other alternatives were worse…only punishment mattered. All they want is power.
She shook her head. She could see their point – once someone started accepting excuses, where did they stop? But she could also see they were taking it too far. She’d heard similar arguments back on Earth, with religious leaders convinced they were in the right and that the other side was pure evil. There was a difference between murder and killing someone in self-defense, but the Fists of Justice had long since lost perspective. All they wanted to do now was impose their will on the entire city.
A loud noise up ahead brought her out of her thoughts. She looked down the street and swore, inwardly, as she saw the crowd gathered outside Bankers Row. They hurled abuse at the bankers, promising to tear them limb from limb as soon as they stepped outside the wards. A couple of banks on the edge of the street had been burned to the ground, while others were so heavily protected that the rioters didn’t have a hope of setting them on fire. But it hadn’t helped some of their staff. A dozen men and five women hung from makeshift gallows, their bodies swinging in the breeze. It looked as though they’d been beaten to death first, then hung. She knew it wouldn’t have been quick.
“We’ll have to use the tunnel,” she muttered. The Fists of Justice were patrolling the edge of the crowd, sometimes flicking their whips at protesters who weren’t enthusiastic enough to suit them. “Come on.”
She half-expected trouble outside the tunnel entrance, but the house looked completely untouched. The wards opened as soon as she touched the doorknob, allowing her to slip inside the house and down a short flight of stairs to the tunnel entrance. She braced herself as she opened the hatch, then cast a pair of light globes as they hurried down the tunnel. Nothing barred their way until they reached the far end, where an iron door was firmly shut. She pressed her fingers against it, reaching out with her magic. The unlocking spell was so carefully hidden that it took her nearly ten minutes to find.
“Neat,” Frieda said. She sounded impressed as more protective wards shimmered into existence. Emily felt her glamour flicker, then fail completely. “If you’d tried to blast the door open, Emily, the blowback would have killed us both.”
“Glad you like it.” Markus stood just inside the door, looking grim. “It took weeks to put it together.”
Emily eyed him, concerned. Markus looked as though he hadn’t slept for a week. His face was pale, there were dark rings around his eyes and his hands wouldn’t stop twitching. He could have left the bank at any moment, she knew, but he might not have been able to get back inside. And yet, who knew when the mob would discover the tunnel? Would Markus be able to escape if they blocked his way?
“You need to sleep,” she said, bluntly.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Markus turned, motioning them to follow him. “I took the precaution of laying in a stockpile of food and arranging for some of my staff to sleep here, but I didn’t expect…”
He waved a hand towards the doors as they entered the lobby. The air crawled with protective wards, but Emily could still hear the braying of the crowd. A couple dozen children, ranging from three to ten, kicked a ball around the room, watched by their parents and older siblings. The men were armed, she saw, and some of the women carried wands, but they couldn’t hope to defend themselves if the wards shattered. And, she saw in their hopeless eyes, everyone knew it was just a matter of time.
“They’re safer in here,” Frieda said.
“Until we run out of food,” Markus said. “I designed this place as a fortress, and the wards will keep out any conventional threat, but we’re short on food. We may have to evacuate in a couple of weeks or so.”
“And then get caught,” Emily said.
Markus led them up to his office and closed the door. “I assume you know what’s going on outside,” he said, as he waved them to seats. “What’s happening?”
“Trouble,” Emily said.
She ran through the whole story, starting with Justice’s appearance and ending with the charmed pamphlets. Markus listened carefully, not saying a word, as she outlined her belief that the ‘god’ was nothing more than a magic trick. But, trick or no trick, Justice was immensely powerful. The spells that had created the entity – and allowed it to channel power to its followers – had to be handled carefully.
Markus chuckled, humorlessly, when she’d finished. “I was still working my way through the papers.” His chuckle became a giggle. “I was wasting my time, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Frieda said. “It looks that way.”
Emily shot her a sharp look. “You have to be careful,” she said to Markus. “The wards are blocking out its influence, but they won’t last forever.”
“A god could snap my wards easily.” Markus jabbed a finger towards the window and the crowd below. “That they haven’t come to crush me suggests they can’t.”
“Unless they want a scapegoat,” Frieda said. Emily looked at her in surprise.
“There has to be someone to blame for their failures.”
“And then someone else will ask why they haven’t punished Markus already,” Emily countered, although she knew Frieda had a point. Tyrants found scapegoats useful when it came to avoiding blame for their own failures. And if the scapegoats were powerless, there was no danger of them turning on their enemies. “What answer will they give?”
“Not a good one.” Markus shook his head. “The real joke is that I think I figured out a solution to the mess Vesperian created.”
Emily snorted. “I wish you’d found it a week ago.”
“So do I.” Markus shrugged. “We can’t replace the money Vesperian lost, but we can buy back the notes. Not at face value, I admit…we don’t have that sort of money, even if we pool all of our remaining funds. But we can make sure that some of the investors get some of their cash back.”
Emily considered it. “And it will give you a claim on the railway,” she said. “And its stockpile of goods.”
“Assuming it survives,” Markus said. “There were people talking about burning the station to the ground, before…before Justice made his appearance. We could recover the iron, if someone melted the engines, but it wouldn’t be so useful. There would be a glut on the market.”
“The law of supply and demand strikes again,” Emily said, dryly.
Frieda cleared her throat. “The problem is rather more serious,” she pointed out. She turned and walked to the windows. “The Fists of Justice are in firm control.”
“And bent on making us pay for our sins,” Markus said. “Literally.”
Emily frowned. There was something in his voice…“Do you know them?”
“I had an uncle who was a devotee,” Markus said. “He would…he wasn’t a very important man, so no one really cared what he did. He was forty and he acted like he was twenty, holding wild parties and drinking from dusk till dawn. He never had any trouble getting friends to come, either. They knew he was good for wine, women and song.”
Fists of Justice (Schooled in Magic Book 12) Page 26