by Paige Orwin
“You’re right,” the Hour Thief said, “I should have. I forgot about it. I’m sorry.”
She swore again, dropping her head on a fist. “I should have known,” she muttered. “I should have.... God, I was so stupid.”
Lord Kasimir drummed his fingers on the table. “A dire predicament!” boomed his spokesman. “But my most intrigued and uncanny lord finds himself wondering, Resistor Alpha: could you not simply make use of your ultimate weapon? Surely ending the beast in flames would bring an end to these fears of sorcery?”
She looked up, eyes hard behind her goggles. “Most of us have problems with the idea of murdering several hundred thousand innocent people.”
“Is not more at stake?”
“There’s this thing called ‘principle.’ Ultimate weapon isn’t on the table.”
“Barrio Libertad mounts impressive weaponry, and our forces are highly skilled. Given knowledge of the sorcery’s location, perhaps a conventional bombardment would suffice?”
“Given the nature of the Susurration,” Mercedes said, “I doubt there will be only one ritual attempt. How many goats, Mr Templeton?”
He shook his head. Janet hadn’t said. “Enough to notice.”
Lord Kasimir tapped a finger on his helmet chin-plate.
“Couldn’t you counter it?” Istvan asked. “The magic. Barrio Libertad has Providence under interdiction, doesn’t it? If it can counter teleporting, couldn’t it–”
“That would be fine if Eddie hadn’t teleported out of the fortress yesterday,” Grace said.
Istvan opened his mouth again. Closed it. He leaned on the box.
Edmund reminded himself to breathe. The elevator. The panic. He hadn’t even thought about it. The spell was practically second nature now and he’d had other things on his mind afterward, like cleaning up the bathroom and confronting Mercedes and seeing to Istvan and dealing with the kind of deadly geopolitics he’d hoped he would never have to juggle again.
At least Grace hadn’t mentioned the circumstances.
“Mine is different from Shokat Anoushak’s,” he said. Then, because she didn’t look convinced, “She left a significant body of work and spawned a host of imitators, but the majority of the known canon was developed piecemeal by single individuals desperate enough to have a go at breaking reality. They’re all different.”
“Who developed yours, then? You?”
“Of course not.”
“And I guess the time-stealing thing isn’t Anoushak’s, either.”
“No. And it’s Sh–”
“Which brings us to the matter at hand,” said Mercedes. She tapped a pen on the table. “Ms Wu, in return for seeing this ritual stopped, I’m prepared to loan you the use of my two best operatives, the Bernault devices we confiscated, and any other assistance you would care to accept.”
Grace set an elbow on the table. “I need an evacuation.”
“Excuse me?”
“Magister, while I’m glad we finally caught your attention, stopping this ritual thing isn’t enough. Even a new set of Bernault devices doesn’t solve things. It just puts us back to square one: us, the Susurration, and a lot of people caught in the middle.”
Mercedes’ lips thinned. “I’m sorry, Ms Wu, but I can’t pull a mass exodus out of my hat.”
“Yeah? I bet he can.”
Edmund realized Grace was pointing at him, took a moment to compose himself, and then kicked himself for proving her point. He wasn’t even wearing his hat. He wasn’t that kind of wizard. “No.”
Grace leaned forward. “You’ve got time to spare, Eddie. Think about it.”
“I am. That’s too many people. I’d burn through everything I have before I got them all out.” He shook his head, hating himself for it. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
She sighed.
Edmund tried to look at the banks of old machinery behind her rather than at her. Coward. Thief. Even she had given up on him – and she didn’t give up on anyone, not the Grace he remembered. Anything could be solved. Anyone could be saved. Seven years gone by or no, he should have known she’d seize on any opportunity to try.
He wished he still had her optimism.
He wished he wasn’t so quick to take the coward’s way out.
Mercedes turned a pen between her fingers. If she thought anything of the exchange, she wasn’t showing it. “Returning to what is feasible, Ms Wu, I can offer you twenty Bernault devices. Given that, would you be able to weaken the Susurration’s grip on the area long enough for the ritual sites to be properly dealt with?” She nodded to Edmund. “You have time for that much, I would think.”
Grace frowned. “Twenty?”
Lord Kasimir looked to the armored figure on his right.
“The four devices required for Site Two evaded detection,” came the reply, sounding subdued and tired even through the electronic filter. “My lord’s subtlety remains unmatched.”
“They burst,” Istvan muttered.
“Sorry,” added Edmund. When the visored helmet turned to him, he shrugged. “Maybe you should invest in better crates.”
Grace tilted her head, as though she were listening to someone beside her. “I don’t know how weak we can manage,” she said. “It would burn the Bernault devices out pretty quick and anyone going would have to wear a circlet, at the very least, which rules out the spook. Though... he might not need it.” She considered. “Hey, Eddie, if we sent–”
“No,” Edmund and Istvan both said at once.
“No,” Istvan repeated. He looked as though he’d just seen another ghost.
Grace looked between them oddly, but Edmund didn’t care to explain. If Istvan wanted to talk about it, that was his prerogative; if he didn’t, no one else should.
“You know,” she said, “if we got everyone out, we wouldn’t be discussing this.”
Edmund closed his eyes. “I know.”
“The Susurration is using those people as a shield, don’t you realize that? That’s the only reason it’s lasted this long. Get the people out of the way, and bam!” She slapped the table. “No Susurration, no ritual, no problem. Everybody wins.”
“Grace, believe me, I know!”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t risk it. None of that time was his and he hadn’t earned it and he had no right to it, but he had it now, and giving up so much, even for a good cause, wasn’t possible. He cared – boy, did he care, he had to care – but he couldn’t do it. Not even to stop another Hour Thief.
He turned polished brass over and over in his pocket. He’d had the watch since the start. The hourglass engraving on its front had worn off once already.
Every second over that seven-year buffer was a second he wouldn’t get back.
“You would simply kill it, then?” asked Istvan. There was a strange note in his voice Edmund couldn’t quite pin down. “No warning? No chance at all to surrender?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “That’s what an ultimate weapon is for, genius. I mean, I’m sorry there wouldn’t be more pain and suffering, but–”
Istvan marched to the table. “You can’t.”
Mercedes’ pen cracked in half. She glanced down at it, blue ink staining her remaining fingers, then folded her hands as though nothing had happened. “Doctor, this isn’t a traditional engagement.”
“Don’t you bloody lecture me on the Geneva Conventions,” he snapped. “The Susurration is terrible, yes, and I would see it stopped as much as anyone, but it didn’t choose what it is. It didn’t even choose to be here. It has as much right to a fair trial as anyone – you can’t sit about and plan to murder it like this.”
Everyone around the table stared at him.
Then Kasimir’s spokesman leapt to his feet, pointing with a roar. “Remove this shrinking daisy of a peacemaker!”
The specter bristled. “A flower, am I?”
“That was the wrong metaphor,” Edmund said. “Wrong flower, too.”
“I could fight you all! I could put you all under the flowers in a
n instant, if I wanted!”
“Doctor Czernin,” warned Mercedes.
Grace stood, electricity crackling. “What is this? You’re sympathizing with it now? You? Doctor Awful?” She looked to Edmund. “What happened? If he’s compromised–”
“If he has no doughty spleen for what must be done, he has no place at the table of the stern and terrible Lord Kasimir!”
Edmund dodged the sudden flare of wings. Well. This was going downhill faster than a sled. This was the worst. What did Istvan mean, it hadn’t chosen to be here? “If we could please–”
“Terrible?” Barbed wire snarled across the floor, rusted and stained. “Terrible?”
The observatory door crashed open.
One of Kasimir’s mercenaries strolled across the catwalk, carrying a flat white box. “Jailer, betrayer, and beloved, all together,” he called. “I never received an invitation, but I’m sure you meant to send one. I forgive you. I will always forgive you, if you allow it. I’ve even brought you a pie.”
He lifted the lid.
“It’s apple.”
* * *
“Hand the traitor!” Kasimir and his men leapt from their chairs, the latter drawing sabers and the former taking up the broadsword that lay against the railing, “The just and unwavering Lord Kasimir will not stand a forced turncoat in his ranks!”
Grace Wu was already charging.
Istvan threw himself before her – and ran into Edmund. Through Edmund. He hadn’t seen the wizard move. A rush of warm and wet, bone scraping through bone, a nauseating doubling of organs where they didn’t belong.... and shock. Utter shock. Istvan, what are you doing? Defending the Susurration? Seeking peaceful solutions? What’s happened to you?
Istvan, the cold...
Istvan scrambled away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Wait,” called Edmund, “I want to know why it’s–”
Grace bolted to the right. Edmund, indomitable, blurred to meet her, a mobile obstruction too quick to strike or bypass. The others stood, shouted, closed in – and the wizard stalled them all, shouting in return the need to listen. Oh, he was wonderful to watch. Wonderful.
Only Magister Hahn remained at the table, white-knuckled, a great wellspring of loathing and terror, remorse and regret. Perhaps the Susurration could be granted mercy after all. Perhaps reason, for once, would win out.
Magister Hahn.
Istvan bolted for the door.
“Doctor Czernin, silence the smiler. Now.”
His chains snapped taut. Wrists, ankles, neck. Shackles that burned. Hooks that dug into his stomach. He slewed sideways, choking, crashing into and partially through the catwalk’s rusting rail. Too slow. Too late.
He snarled to himself. Oh, this was Edmund’s fault.
Edmund whirled around. “Mercedes, what are you doing?”
“What I must.”
Istvan clung to the rail, thoughts spinning. The Susurration, gone, without even the chance to surrender; even the chance to explain what it was on about. It hadn’t had a choice in the matter. All it wanted was peace. A second chance. A measure of happiness, for everyone, however misguided.
War wasn’t the calculated extermination of the helpless and confined. That was something else.
He was awful. He wasn’t that awful. He couldn’t be that awful.
The chains winched tighter. He strained backwards, resolving to make every inch as hard-fought as those on the Western Front.
“Mercedes Hahn,” called the Susurration’s agent, “still you silence the truth? You lie to your own people, as you lied to me?”
She stood. “Doctor Czernin!”
Lightning. Fire. White phosphorous. Chains of parchment calligraphy blazing around his bones.
He let go of the rail, stifling a cry. Silence him. Silence the smiler. Now. He leapt for the mercenary’s spine, reaching –
– and struck steel. No further.
The man’s armor was solid. Just like last time, at Oxus Station. Just like Barrio Libertad.
“I came when you called,” the Susurration said, grief ringing in its host’s processed tones, “and now you force others to assault me when I arrive unasked? You conspire with those who seek to destroy me?”
Shouting. Everyone was shouting. Edmund at the Magister. Grace at Edmund. Kasimir’s spokesman at everyone, amplified accusations of obstructing justice. Himself at nothing, as his chains burned. Through it all sizzled the Magister’s terror.
“Doctor Czernin, silence it now! Silence it!”
“Mercedes! Mercedes, think about what the hell you’re doing!”
Istvan drew his knife.
The mercenary brought up his sabre, lights flickering through the eyes of his helmet. “You wanted peace, desperate one, oath-breaker, shaper, betrayer – and I brought it.”
“Mercedes!”
Let it talk. Please let it talk. Sometimes, it spoke in Pietro’s voice.
Istvan lunged.
“I did as you commanded,” the Susurration proclaimed, parrying, empty. “I destroyed in sorrow, and saved what I could. Why should anyone else have to die? Why should anyone else suffer?”
Blade striking blade. He had sheared through metal, once, the armor of tanks and airplanes, the cold skin of sorcerous mockeries that fell from the heavens. He couldn’t, now. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.
Don’t kill it.
“I did what you wanted,” it said. “Soon... I’ll do what is right.”
The mercenary trembled. The sabre fell from his grasp, a flash that tumbled from the catwalk. Clanged. Tumbled further, whirling over and over, vanishing into the rusted depths. Its owner slumped, a heap of nerveless armor.
Silenced. Not by Istvan’s hand, but silenced.
Istvan sheathed his knife and sank down beside him, clutching at his wrists. The man was unconscious... but not empty. The Susurration was gone. It had given him up. Freed him. Judging from what Kasimir’s spokesman was shouting, would it be enough to avoid a summary execution? Traitor, traitor. Deal with him. Take him away.
The pie box lay crushed, its contents spilled and dripping.
Edmund drew up behind him. “You all right?”
Istvan watched the fluids fall, pale syrup and cinnamon. Apple. It was apple. “I miss pastries.”
“You wouldn’t want that one anyway.”
“It’s American, isn’t it? Apple pie?”
“As much as baseball and men in funny masks. Would you like a hand up?”
It was a pointless gesture. A formality. Silly, offering such a thing to a ghost.
Istvan took it.
“Magister Hahn,” said Grace Wu, “I’m starting to think you weren’t being level with us.”
Lord Kasimir and his spokesman stood beside her, the third mercenary making his way across the catwalk towards their “traitor.”
The Magister remained at the table, sitting down, slowly. Terror yet churned, hidden. An old fear, old grief, old desperation. “It lies,” she said. “You’ve fought it this long. You know that.”
The mercenary drew closer, blade drawn, intent on the fallen man.
Istvan tapped the butt of his knife on his breastplate. “Harm him,” he hissed, “and terrible things will happen.”
The mercenary sheathed his sabre.
“Mercedes,” said Edmund, ignoring the altercation and, to his credit, not edging away, “blaming you for its very existence here doesn’t sound like a minor fabrication to me.”
“It intended to disrupt our efforts and that it has done,” she replied. “I suggest we return to discussing the ritual we–”
“You say you stopped the Wizard War,” interrupted Grace, “and if the Susurration was your plan, what was the plan for afterward, huh? What if we hadn’t been there to stop it? What then?”
“Ms Wu, your fortress will be facing a terrible choice less than two days from now and you are dwelling on may-have-beens.”
Grace slammed her fists on the table. “Because this
is all your fault!”
The catwalk trembled. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. The telescope groaned, the deep bongs and pops of stressed metal.
Istvan drew closer to Edmund, curbing the urge to take hold of his arm but unable to stop the protective shadow of a wing. She hadn’t hit the table that hard. She was strong, but not that strong.
Grace lifted her hands away. “It’s doing what?” she asked the air, as she’d done before. She backed up. “I thought it was dead.” She searched the floor: the platform, the mechanisms below. “Diego, I thought they were dead!”
“Earthquake?” asked Edmund. He looked down, too, reaching for his hat.
“No,” Istvan said. “No, I don’t think so.”
Edmund stared at him. “Oh, hell.” He turned to shout at the rest of the room. “Everyone, take a few moments to get out of the building, now!”
The ground exploded.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Edmund ran for Grace. Mercedes was more important, in a geopolitical sense, and the mercenary who had fallen couldn’t flee, himself, but Edmund ran for Grace.
The machinery below rolled upwards, roaring.
He ran. Grace was faster.
She snatched up the fallen mercenary and bolted for the door. Right past Edmund. Eyes wide open, but not looking at him. Shouting, but not to him. He couldn’t make out what she was saying over the sound of the building falling apart.
He spun around but couldn’t touch her. Istvan swept through her path, mid-leap, and she didn’t stop. Didn’t pause. Electric arcs crackled along the rails, the door slammed open, and both she and her armored ally were gone.
Wheels and motors and rusting braces crashed into the catwalk – and kept going. Upwards. Pierced by jagged pillars of iron, curved, the light sparkling on smoky serrations of glass. Sparks spun away from smashed bulbs. The telescope toppled ponderously towards the platform, its underpinnings severed. The box of Bernault devices rolled towards the edge, one side shattered, spilling blue-white globes that tumbled in a dozen different directions. It wasn’t the machinery that roared.
Lord Kasimir and his men vanished in a clang and a tearing of dust-choked air.
Mercedes remained. Magister by unanimous vote, never asked and never explaining what she had done to earn it. The end of the Wizard War. The beginning of a new world, battered but breathing. Not the blast. The convergence. Shokat Anoushak’s strange, mad decision to cross the ocean with an entourage of armies, to search for something she had never found – until the last.