Web of Lies (The Hundred Halls Book 2)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  "So...the clinic is different from Golden Willow, how?" asked Pi, knocking glass from the front counter with her hand.

  "Golden Willow is so removed from the world, so bureaucratic. We brought them the Rod of Dominion last year, one of the most powerful artifacts on the planet, and I'm not able to assist them using it because of their rules."

  Pi raised an amused eyebrow and placed a hand over her heart. "Aurelia Silverthorne can't take following the rules? What has the world come to?"

  "I want to fix the world, in the world," she said, jabbing her finger on the counter. "Which means working where the problems are."

  "You sound like Mom and Dad," said Pi, forlornly.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" said Aurie, hands on her hips.

  "Doesn't it bother you that we know nothing about our family? Were they ashamed?" asked Pi, throwing her hands in the air.

  "They didn't talk much about it," said Aurie. "But why does it matter? We make our own history."

  "You're not curious? Just a little bit?" asked Pi, nose scrunched. "What if we're the descendants of mass murderers? Or some weird supernatural creatures? Or royalty?"

  "Secret princesses? Really? What does it matter? It doesn't change who you are," said Aurie.

  "But it does! What if my true motives for doing things are hidden from me? My first and only instinct is to go for power. That bothers me. I'm always thinking about how to collect and acquire more. I almost stayed in Coterie, even when I knew they were bad people, because I knew they would be the best hall for my development."

  "It doesn't work like that," said Aurie.

  "Says the sister who got Mom and Dad's good side." Pi turned in a huff, crossed her arms, and faced the side wall.

  "Pythia! Don't you think that what happened to them is the reason why you search for power? To protect yourself? To protect me?" asked Aurie.

  "But what if that's not the only reason?" said Pi, over her shoulder.

  Aurie was about to continue the argument, but she sensed the presence of someone standing outside the broken front window. Someone short of stature.

  "Nezumi!" she said.

  Then she saw his expression, and his clothes, and realized something was very wrong. Before, he'd been modestly dressed. A little bohemian, on the poor side, but generally well kept. Now it looked like he'd been rolling in mud and garbage. Smelled like it too.

  "What is that stench?" asked Pi from behind her. "I think I'm going to retch."

  Nezumi's eyes were ringed with sadness.

  "Are you okay? How's your family?" asked Aurie.

  "Annabelle coughs all time now. Undercity not good for little tail," he said meekly.

  "If you bring her here, I could try and heal her," Aurie offered.

  "No!" he said, recoiling. "Magic done bad enough. No more home. Now live in hole fighting for scraps."

  "But you came back?" she asked hopefully. "You need help?"

  "Came back to find Annabelle's wub-wub," he said, then added when they both looked at him strangely, "It's a crochet troll doll. She left it, you know, before."

  "I'm sorry, Nezumi," she said. "I had no idea what would happen."

  "Mages never do!" he snapped, baring his teeth. "Always power now, little people hurt later. Always pushing, never listening. I tell you about wakers, but you just arrogant mage."

  The way he quivered with fear made her realize how brave he was standing up to her. She was, to him, everything that was wrong in the world. He wasn't afraid of the wakers, but of people like her.

  "What are the wakers?" asked Pi.

  Nezumi gave her sister a sideways glance.

  "Who she?"

  "Pythia," said Aurie. "My sister."

  "Mage?"

  Aurie nodded.

  Nezumi gave Pi a snarl before taking a quick step back. Pi laughed, which Aurie hoped wouldn't hurt his feelings.

  "Bad mages," he muttered.

  Pi took a step forward. "Would you rather have mages on your side or against you?"

  "No mages," said Nezumi, emphatically.

  "We can't help you there," said Pi.

  Aurie opened her mouth to say something, but Pi cut her off.

  "Look," said Pi. "I know my sister caused you major problems, but trust me, she didn't do it on purpose. She's the most good-hearted person I know. Tell her what those creatures are so that we can help."

  "Mages only make worse," said Nezumi.

  "There are good mages and bad mages. Bad things too, like demons or undead. But we can't deal with them unless we know what they are," said Pi.

  Aurie wasn't sure this tactic was working, but nothing she'd said had helped, so she let it go.

  "No," he said, shaking his head sadly. "You just make worse for someone else."

  Pi moved in front of him so he couldn't leave. "I didn't give you permission to leave."

  "Pi—" Aurie began, but Pi shook her off.

  Behind Nezumi's back, Aurie pleaded with Pi not to do it this way.

  "I get it," said Pi. "You're scared. People with magic are scary. But not everyone's bad. She's one of the good ones."

  "What about you?" asked Nezumi.

  Pi gave a halfhearted shrug. "You'd probably rather not know. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that she wants to help. We want to help. But we can't unless we know what we're facing."

  Nezumi tried to step around Pi, but she wouldn't let him. It hurt Aurie to see him herded in that way, but she knew it was for the best.

  "The winged creature," said Aurie, remembering the leathery beat of its wings in the darkness. "What is it?"

  Nezumi was quiet a long time before squeaking out an answer. "I heard whispers from others it called Grat. A demon that some stupid mage let escape. It brought the wakers."

  "How long ago?"

  "I not know," said Nezumi.

  "Do you know where it lives?" asked Pi.

  Nezumi looked too afraid to speak. "I not say, or demon know and punish me."

  "Nezumi, if you tell us, we can get rid of him so you can return to your home. Make the demon and the wakers go away," said Aurie.

  He looked near to tears. His nose twitched furiously. Aurie hated doing this to him. He was worried about his family. She almost put an arm around him until she saw the gunk stuck to his sweater.

  "Nezumi," said Pi as if she were speaking to a troublesome student.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and, keeping his hand covertly by his side, pointed in an easterly direction.

  "We need more than that," said Aurie.

  Nezumi whimpered. "587 Merlin Avenue."

  "Thank you, Nezumi," said Aurie. "You've been a big help. I swear to you I'm going to fix this."

  "Can I go?" he asked as if any more time with them might cause him to spontaneously combust.

  Pi stepped out of the way, and he scurried across the street to his old residence.

  "You're not giving up, are you?" asked Pi.

  "No," said Aurie. "If I can't handle this, how can I change anything?"

  "That demon sounds particularly nasty. You can't go after it like this," said Pi.

  "Not today," said Aurie. "But soon. I have to prepare. I want to get this clinic off the ground after the holidays, give people like Nezumi and his family a chance."

  "I'd better be with you when you deal with this demon," said Pi, tutting her finger in Aurie's direction.

  Aurie smiled back.

  "Dooset daram, little sister. I wouldn't have it any other way."

  Chapter Fourteen

  The waterfall blocking Patron Gray's office gave her a bit of heartburn before she charged through, trying not to imagine suckered tentacles tripping her into the roiling pool. Aurie had asked around about the nature of the guardian, but no one in Arcanium had ever heard of a creature in the water.

  Patron Gray was shouting into a cell phone about some ill-carried-out task when Aurie arrived. The little dragon was curled around his neck, its scaled eye ridges glowering with an intensity m
atching its master's.

  After a flickering glance, her patron snapped his fingers and pointed to the seat opposite his desk while he continued pacing. Then he seemed to realize the nature of his conversation, quietly excused himself, and disappeared into a hallway behind his office. His angry responses turned muffled, then quickly disappeared, indicating the size of the area behind his office was much larger than Aurie first thought.

  Aurie swore Patron Gray had bigger bags under his eyes than last time. She'd only caught a snippet of his conversation, but it sounded like hall politics. She guessed he was talking to a patron from another hall, but besides the Cabal, she didn't know much else about interwoven loyalties.

  He'd summoned her on short notice for a lesson on mendancy. Her regular practice of the craft left her with a growing irritation.

  Knees bouncing, Aurie scanned the room to keep her mind off what was to come. A glass globe the size of a softball swirled with pink mist on the desk. Aurie reached out to touch it, but upon seeing the mist react to the approach of her finger, she thought better and put her hand back in her lap.

  Twin shelves dominated the left wall, filled with leather-bound books. She saw a few books she recognized, classic spell books of magical history, except these appeared old, edges nicked, indicating an earlier edition, well-read. Aurie was happily scanning the titles when her gaze fell upon Impossible Magics.

  Seeing it was such a surprise that she jumped slightly in her seat. Aurie had thought the existence of the book had been a mistake on Zayn's part, since no records existed in the main libraries of Arcanium. She hadn't realized that Patron Gray had a private collection that didn't show up on the lists.

  After checking for the sound of his voice, Aurie moved to the shelf and let her fingers linger on the binding of the book before pulling it out. The book was fragile, the binding loose, pages threatening to spill onto the floor, and one edge was blackened from fire.

  Aurie leaned the book against the middle shelf for support and carefully opened it, using her chest to keep the pages from escaping. A spark of discovery traveled through her when she realized the author of the tome was Invictus himself.

  A brief review of the table of contents revealed that Impossible Magics was a catalog of magics deemed uncastable due to the difficult natures of the potential spells. The list included things like raising the dead, stopping or manipulating time, traveling to distant galaxies, and summoning cities out of horsehair (no background was given about the need for this spell), to name a few. Each entry was a meandering thought-scape from Invictus about how such a thing might be accomplished, sometimes with fragments of spell ideas or lists of ways that he might narrow down the possibilities, almost as if he were free writing.

  By scanning the tome, Aurie learned that raising the dead was possible, but only within a short time frame after death, much like an emergency room might save someone, and only if the specific issues that led to death could be dealt with. There was no grand unifying spell that could accomplish the task without discrete knowledge. A busted heart had to be repaired before the victim was brought back, cancer had to be removed or the subject would just die again, and a head blown off with a shotgun was beyond the repair of medical or magical science.

  Not only was Aurie enamored with the study of the spells, but with the intense curiosity of the head patron. She could sense his childlike glee upon discovery, but also the deep wisdom as he analyzed the repercussions if the spells were possible, and how one might go about regulating their use. Invictus had been the one to bring magic out of the shadows with his patronage system, and she could sense his thought processes from his musing, much as one might of a Founding Father about America.

  Aurie could have spent days reading the tome, but remembering that Zayn, and by proxy probably the Cabal, had interest in Impossible Magics, Aurie scanned the list for the most promising spells. The last one on the list made her skin tingle: wish.

  She turned to the spell when a door closed from somewhere in back. Aurie quickly scanned the text, absorbing the highlights. Of all the spells Invictus had studied, he thought this one was the most impossible, because the spell would have to be capable of anything. Modern magical theory stated that spells were like computer algorithms, programmed to specific tasks. The complexity of a wish spell would require a spell infinitely difficult, which meant impossible. It was saner to consider each problem separately and design a spell for it rather than to try to make a catchall.

  Yet when she read the last line of the section, it indicated Invictus still thought such a spell possible, though he didn't illuminate how.

  Before she could close the tome, a group of pages slipped out, flipping through the air, right as the sound of footsteps approached. Aurie fell to her knees, scooping them up as fast as she could, jamming them back in, cringing as precious corners folded. She shoved the book into its home and threw herself onto the seat moments before Patron Gray strolled into the room.

  "Apologies, Aurelia," he said, his gaze flickering to the shelves as if he noticed something was wrong, "it was a call I had to take."

  "Was it about the Cabal?" she asked.

  The lines on his forehead deepened. "I told you not to worry about them and focus on your studies."

  The miniature silver dragon nibbled on Semyon's ear, bringing a forlorn smile to his lips. "I'm sorry, Menolly. I know I promised you food earlier if you were patient. But as you can see, I don't have time, so you can hunt minnows in the pool. No more than ten."

  The dragonling uncoiled her tail and leapt from his shoulder like a cat on the prowl, quickly disappearing into the waterfall room.

  "Where were we? Oh, yes. Mendancy. Time to see how well your studies are progressing," he said.

  Aurie followed him through the hallways to a small garden with an obsidian arch.

  The words "The garden network" tumbled out of her lips before she could stuff them back in.

  Patron Gray, still in thought about his earlier conversation, merely raised an eyebrow and said, "Each patron has a private access to it. A necessity for moving around the city without creating distractions."

  They portaled to a massive room with windows showing the surrounding city. The room was empty except for four posts thirty feet tall and a huge mat at the center.

  "We're in the Spire," said Aurie, recognizing the view. It looked higher than she expected. "Are we in Invictus' quarters?"

  "No one has access to those anymore," he said. "But this is directly below them. This is the room Invictus used for testing potential patrons."

  "Why can't anyone get into his quarters?" she asked.

  "That's a good question," he said, brow furrowed. "When he died, he took his secrets with him. Including how to replace him. The city of sorcery is slowly unraveling without a head patron."

  "Is that what the Cabal wants?" she asked.

  He tilted his head. "I told you no more questions about them."

  Aurie opened her mouth, but his face warned her away from it. Whatever other secrets this place held, he was not going to reveal them to her.

  "Put these on and climb that," he said, handing her two bracelets and indicating a wooden ladder on the nearest post.

  The bracelets looked similar to the ones she wore during the final trial her first year that allowed limited flight. The rungs were rough, and scratched her hands on the way up.

  On top of the pole, she looked down. "Now what?"

  Semyon spoke a command word, and the wooden mat lifted into the air, forming a bridge across the room thirty feet high. The middle sagged due to the weight.

  "Each of those slats have cracks in them. Some are broken in half and only held in place due to the nature of the magic contained in this room. On the whole, it's quite dodgy. Once you whisper the first wisps of mendancy, the room will cease to hold this bridge in midair. Your spell must bear the weight until you have crossed its length," he explained.

  "Shit," she muttered at the daunting task.

  "D
id you say something, Aurelia?" he asked, though she was fully aware that he'd heard her.

  "Can't wait to get started," she said, putting on a forced toothy grin.

  "Very well," he said.

  Aurie surveyed the woven mat. The nature of her challenge became clear. In one go, she had to convince the mat that it was solid enough to not only hold its weight, but hers as well.

  "You won't have this kind of time in a pinch," he reminded, spurring her into action. "You should be able to do it without thought."

  Aurie took a deep breath and summoned faez. Crouched on one knee, she whispered to the mat how rigid, how formed and solid it was, and before the first sentence was finished, the mat fell to the floor.

  "Again," said Patron Gray, speaking the command word that brought the mat back into position.

  She tried again, this time saying the words faster, to put the spell in place before the mat could fall, but she wasn't quick enough.

  "Again."

  Aurie tried again, flying through the words like an agile-tongued rapper, only to have it fall.

  "Again."

  This time with more faez.

  "Again."

  And fewer words.

  "Again."

  Aurie tried different versions of the spell, tried speaking them faster and slower, used other languages, and all manners of emphasis. After forty or fifty attempts, she'd lost count, she was feeling wobbly on the post.

  "Again."

  "I need a little break," she said.

  He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Why? You haven't accomplished anything yet. You're just trying the same bloody things that didn't work already. Give it some real effort, Aurelia. Your career as a wizard depends on it."

  Aurie growled and went back to it. Her attempts didn't get any better; in fact, they started to get worse as she was drained of faez. She complained a few times, but he reminded her that her access to the raw stuff of magic was unprecedented and the exhaustion was only in the mind.

  She kept going. One hundred, two hundred, she didn't know anymore.

  Her legs were shaking from standing on the pole for hours.

  She wasn't sure why, but when he said the word, "Again," she just screamed, pointed to the mat, and yelled, "Fucking bridge, you worthless pile of sticks."