Three Stories About Ghosts

  “They didn’t, though,” John said, raising an eyebrow. “They built two.”

  Agatha’s face fell. She sighed and nodded as they picked up their pace toward the central desk, but were beaten there by a crowd of young soldiers. By the time they arrived, all three clerks were occupied with at least a dozen soldiers of varying ranks querying the whereabouts of their commanders.

  John recognised a few of the names they sought as Anton’s deputies. From the frenzied conversations, John caught snippets of some great upheaval out east, but with his basic understanding of Hungarian, and the urgency of the competing conversations, he wasn’t able to make out any details.

  His mind turned back to the crystal at the tower’s apex. The weapons couldn’t possibly have been used in anger, could they?

  “John?” Trish asked in his mind. “John, look.”

  He let her turn his head up towards a window to his right, roughly a third of the way up the tower. It looked like a cafeteria, and a massive television screen took up an entire wall. Even at this distance, John could make out the shape of the Hungarian Tower, tilted on its side, the crystal at its apex flashing tendril after tendril of power down onto a target on the ground.

  “By the Sky Mother,” Agatha said as she walked up beside him and looked at the footage. “What is that?”

  “Arkannon Class HL-7,” John answered, his mind numb. The footage was recent. In all likelihood, the tower had only just rematerialized here from whatever fight was being shown on the news screen. He had to find Anton.

  “What?” Agatha asked, still staring at the screen in the distance.

  John looked over to her. “Like our Mark 33 Trebuchet,” his mind answered as though unbidden. He shook his head, tried to focus, and fished another scholin weed bottle from his jacket. He cracked the wax seal and down the whole thing in three gulps, ignoring the glance Agatha shot at him. “War,” he said, as the gears of his mind shook off their rust and whirred back into action.

  All around them, soldiers still dashed this way and that, but he knew from some unknown instinct that they were being watched. He wanted to go to the front desk and ask for Anton, but nothing he’d seen since they’d arrived had made any sense. Why were they ushered in without challenge on arrival, especially if the tower had been in a fight?

  “Trish,” he whispered. “Can you get a closer look, maybe hear what the news is saying?” He peered but couldn’t make out any text running along the bottom of the screen from this distance, only the emblem of the Oxford Broadcasting Wisdom’s World Service. The anchor, who John didn’t recognise, seemed shaken, her skin almost as pale as her ivory blouse and jacket.

  “Hold on,” Trish answered as he felt her drift out of his mind. Within the space of a breath, the anchor’s voice rang loud in his head.

  “These images, again,” the anchor said, “from some minutes ago outside the Khanate’s perimeter wards, where former Arch Magus Anton Virga still resists the mutineers with what remains of his forces and the support of his Cossack allies.” The anchor paused, straightened her jacket, turned in her chair, and looked straight at a new camera. “We now move live to the Hungarian Tower, where our correspondent Sofia is ready to report from the press conference being held by the leader of the mutineers, former commander, and now self-appointed Arch Magus, Maurius Duma.”

  “We need to leave,” John said, but he felt Agatha’s hand on his arm.

  “Shh,” she answered, “don’t move a muscle now. Don’t even turn your head.”

  What in the Sky Mother’s love was happening? Where was Anton? Who was this Maurius, and what was he doing bearing Hungary’s might down on the Cossacks? How could anyone succeed in a mutiny here?

  “I need to find Anton,” he said.

  “For now, they’re closing in around us. Hold for my signal.”

  John’s heart skipped another beat. Who was coming for them? Was that why they’d been ushered inside—straight into a trap? But why wouldn’t they use an internal turret to kill them, if that’s what they wanted? “But, if they wanted us dead they’d—”

  “Whatever idiot was in command must have ordered the internal turrets drained to power the attack on the Cossack perimeter wards on the news screen. They’re empty, and I think the same idiot ordered the big weapon recharged first.”

  John tried to keep his head still as he turned his eyes to follow the drifts of mana moving through the tower’s industrial levels. Agatha was right. The internal weapons structure seemed completely drained. As the reality of their situation began to dawn on him, he found his mind wouldn’t be still anymore. He needed to act, but for the moment, patience was the best path forward.

  “Here,” Trish said, drawing his attention back to the screen.

  A tall, burly man, dressed in the same deep blue uniform as the others around but with the golden chevrons of the Arch Magus on his brown leather lapels, stood at a microphoned podium. The black falcon seal of the office of the Hungarian Arch Magus adorned the podium and hung on the curtained wall behind him. He was flanked on each side by Knight-Magus Etienne Louis of the Frankish Confederacy in the azure robe and chestnut staff of his full battle regalia, and Commander Leon Grupa of the Polish Hussars, with a similar staff and the ceremonial plumed armour of his order.

  This was wrong. A hot pain gnawed at his chest, and he had to grip his wand handle tight to try and keep himself composed as the imposter on the TV screen started to address the room.

  “Magi, sorcerers,” he said in a rich baritone, “warlocks and witches, ladies”—he paused and inclined his balding head—“and gentlemen.” He gestured to the men on either side of him. “The Hungarian Tower of Magi, the Frankish Confederacy, and the Holy Order of the Polish Hussars welcome you to Budapest, where the first action of this new holy crusade has begun in earnest.”

  John’s legs struggled to keep him upright. What in the Sky Mother’s name was happening?

  “I am not one for lofty speeches, so I shall be brief. The honour of our great nation shall be restored as we begin construction on the recommissioning of the Pride of Hungary. Long have our people suffered abuse at the hands of the very peoples that destroyed the great sister tower to the one in which you all sit. Well, we say now, ‘No longer!’ As Arch Magus of our illustrious tower, and commander of this crusade, I issue three declarations.”

  John tried to glance around without moving and found the soldiers watching the press briefing on their phones or the various computers that were dotted around. He cursed himself for having come here. When he’d set off from Goodland Cottage, Anton was the Arch Magus of the tower, and in the space of an hour the world had turned itself upside down and he’d walked right into a lion’s den. Still, if Anton was alive and fighting alongside the Khanate as the news report said, he had to find a way to tell him that the tower’s interior turrets were drained. He didn’t know why’d they’d been let inside—any trap they’d been led to would have been sprung by now—but he still thanked the Sky Mother that she’d let him learn this much at least.

  “My first decree,” Marius continued on the TV, “as Arch Magus of the Hungarian Tower of Magi is to secede from the Treaty of Damavand. We will no longer be restrained by its callous terms, or a party to the corrupt, bureaucratic Oxford Forum that governs it.”

  Agatha grabbed John’s arm. He glanced over at her. The serenity of her countenance was brutal. Ever sinew and muscle in her frame was taut, and her jaw clenched. She was a flat sky, coiled in power, about to burst into a storm.

  “My second decree,” Marius continued, “is the declaration of war on the powers of Sindhustan and Ashbal. In the Sky Mother’s name, we shall exact justice for what was taken from us.”

  The appartures leading out of the tower were pressed up against its outer walls; they were all blocked shut by strong wards, but they were their best hope of escape.

  “We need to get to the appartures,” he whispered.

  Agatha scoffed. “They’re blocked. Are you blind?”


  “My third decree,” Maurius continued in his briefing, “is to demand reparations from all major world powers to begin the reconstruction of the Pride of Hungary. Thank you all for coming. There will be no questions. Good day to you all.”

  John turned back to see Maurius stomp away from the podium as the room erupted in a furore, but he paused as a young reporter pushed her way through his guards and shouted her question out almost at his face.

  “Maurius Duma, by what thought process do you believe the Sky Mother would sanction such an act of pure greed and barbarity?” the reporter asked, her glasses on her head and a notepad in her hand.

  Maurius paused a moment, and the room erupted into open violence as the guards pinned her to the floor and he ordered her thrown from the tower’s apex.

  Time was up. John glanced around, trying not to move his head, as he counted at least three dozen guards coming in to encircle them.

  “Do you know how appartures work, Agatha?” he asked.

  “No,” she hissed.

  “I do, and I know we can’t fight our way out of here, so please listen to me. On my count, we’ll dash to the leftmost apparture on the east wall of the tower.”

  John took in a long breath, held it. He ran a hand along his long coat’s inner pockets, feeling for his mana stores.

  “I have three canisters. You?”

  “Again, John, you need to understand normal people don’t walk around with condensed mana.”

  He shook his head. Nowhere near enough to fight off so many. He took one canister out, placed it in Agatha’s hand, and tried to steady his galloping heart.

  “Don’t take it yet. I’m going to blast open a ward at the appartures.”

  “And then what, genius? They’ve blocked all access, and unless you’ve gone blind, I’m sure you’ve seen the guards.”

  John nodded. “Blocked to every other apparture in the world, yes.”

  “And so what’s the point—”

  “No one ever blocks access to the same apparture, though. It’s never even considered. Who in their right mind would waste so much power, given you couldn’t go more than a few meters?”

  “What?”

  “If we can make it to the outside, we can blast a hole in the tower’s base and dive down to safety.”

  For the first time, Agatha tore her gaze from the TV screen, on which the young reporter was now being carried to the tower’s apex for execution. She looked over at him.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Though every nerve in his body screamed at him for the delay, he paused to see where they were throwing the reporter from.

  “West appartures,” he said as he gestured over to the TV screen. “We need to come out at the northwest edge of the tower.”

  Agatha stared at him for a moment and slowly nodded.

  “Brace your neck. Ready?”

  She took in a breath and nodded again.

  In an instant, John drained the first of his two remaining canisters into his wand, shook away the sudden rush, and summoned a monstrous gust of air behind them. He braced his neck as he was wrenched forward, crossing almost the entire width of the tower to the appartures against its outer wall in less than a second. He didn’t have time to recover, but flowed from the spell straight into a warding disc that he cut loose and let float behind them.

  His heart caught for a moment as he saw the interior turrets of the tower turn towards them, their automated wand arrays whirring into action, but they had no power left to loose. He thanked the Sky Mother for the idiocy of whoever commanded them to be drained. He had to get that information to Anton. A few moments later, the first of the soldiers opened up, leveling a small chestnut branch at them and crashing three sharp bursts of power against his ward. John poured the last of his power into it and turned to the apparture.

  He cracked the last canister open, drew its power, shuddered for a moment, and shaped it into a sharp point that he drove straight into the apparture’s warding. It held for a moment, but as further blasts crackled and snapped off his ward, he felt Trish’s mind lend strength to his spell and together they managed to tear the warding away from the apparture.

  “You first,” he shouted over the cacophony of blasts as his ward started to fray at the edges.

  “How do I do this?” Agatha asked, but John only took her by the arm and shoved her into the apparture.

  “Hold on.” As he’d predicted, the apparture’s control screen flashed red for every destination on Earth; but he read the serial number above the entry portal and punched that into the destination field, and it flashed green. In a moment, Agatha snapped out of existence, and he heard the woosh and snap of her materialising on the outside. He glanced back as his ward started to bulge inward and tear under sustained attack, then punched in the same destination—shifted two meters to the right—and darted into the portal.

  His insides twisted and lurched as he snapped into existence above the metal walkways that criss-crossed the tower’s base and fell onto it, managing to maintain his balance as he bent his knees. He glanced back to see that he was mere inches from the cushion of mana that supported the tower, and breathed a prayer of thanks that he didn’t miscalculate. Agatha stood holding her head to his left, but they didn’t have time to recover.

  “Hurry,” he said, fighting down the nausea. “Empty the canister and shape it into a cone.”

  She looked over at him, breathing hard, and did as he asked. He led her over to the intersection of two revolving discs beneath them, visible under the tightly woven mesh they stood on, and pointed at where the power flashed when the discs beneath them aligned.

  “We only get one cast, so make it count. Blow through that exact intersection,” he said, pointing down.

  “Well, get back then,” she half shouted back.

  He stood up and scanned the air around them. A few soldiers had spotted them and were turning their brooms to intercept, but he found what he was looking for as a gut-wrenching screech started to sound from above him. He summoned the last of his reserves into his wand, formed a net, and caught the young reporter as she plummeted. He’d been sure from the image shown on the TV screen that this was the right side, but still breathed a prayer of thanks as he found her.

  He eased her down to the ground as she shook from head to toe, her green suit splattered with blood, urine trickling down her leg.

  “Is it aligned?” Agatha asked.

  He turned back to find her holding a conical spell of destruction above the intersection. He was about to ask her to turn her spell the right way around, but realised she would know exactly what she was doing.

  “Yes.” He took the shaking reporter by the hand and shielded her as Agatha thrust her spell down, inverted it mid stream, and crashed it straight into the tower’s base. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, but as the spell’s outer edge crashed into the tower’s warding, driving all of its power into a concentrated point thinner than a human hair, neon blue sparks of North American mana shot out in all directions, and Agatha’s spell started to burn like molten metal through a sheet of ice.

  At first, the warding kept every sound contained so that all John could hear was the wind buffeting them, as the acrid taste of burning mana clawed at his sinuses. But soon the ground shook beneath them, the solid metal below their feet rippled like flesh, and the entire tower shook on its azure-blue cushion of mana.

  As he turned to shield the cowering reporter, the spell burned through the outer warding shielding the intersection and a soul-crushing crash blasted his ears and knocked him off his feet.

  Before he could stand, the first of the soldiers’ attacks smashed into the ground in front of him. Agatha spun, raised her wand and lanced the attacker through the heart. He lurched back and fell from his broom, his corpse splattering and falling through the mesh a hundred meters away.

  “Now!” he shouted as he picked up the reporter, tried his best to shield her from the flames still gushing from the hole Agatha ha
d blasted into the tower’s base, and jumped through it.

  “‘STAND ALONE, DIE alone. Death knows no border,’” John whispered. Those were the opening words of the Treaty of Damavand. The last time a war of this magnitude raged, death had come to every corner of the world. Every power had sworn never to let the blood of innocents sate the thirst of war again. Yet here they were. A few short hours ago, the world was at peace: and now, war.

  He shifted his weight as the train carriage rattled and moved, and sighed heavily. They’d waited only long enough to see the reporter picked up by the unattuned ambulance they’d called. Her injuries were physical, and no one would think to look for her in an unattuned hospital.

  He shuddered again as he recalled leaving her, but he’d done all he could for her. They’d moved through every dark alley they could for the first few minutes, eventually coming to a main road busy with bars and restaurants, all packed with unattuned people reveling through the night. It hadn’t taken him long to find a station for the Budapest Metro lines.

  He took the invoice Margaret Goodland had given him out of his pocket, and read it again. “Maurius Duma,” he whispered to himself, “Force Commander of the Hungarian Interior Militia.” Now, he was Arch Magus, and according to that Oxford Broadcasting Wisdom anchor, Anton sheltered with the Cossacks. This couldn’t be allowed to stand, not if he could help it.

  Trish had started to remember snippets here and there: she was sure that whatever was happening had started with those GPS trackers. But how? He needed answers, and he needed power. He and Agatha were both unmarked by the battle they’d survived, but completely drained of power, and their nerves were frayed to the point of exhaustion. John had given his last scholin weed bottle to Agatha.

  “John,” Agatha hissed as a man’s backpack jostled her and almost knocked her off of her feet. “What is this accursed place?” She grabbed the handrail tighter with both hands as the carriage lurched, shook for a moment, and rolled to a halt at a station.