Burned

11

Most people in the world don’t travel much. In a lot of cases it’s because they just don’t want to. Either they don’t have any real interest in seeing other places, or they’re too occupied with the life they’re living already. But for a lot of people, it’s not a case of not wanting to, it’s that they can’t – either they don’t have the time or the money, or there’s something actively preventing them from leaving. When you’re in that second group, you usually have fantasies about getting to travel and see the world, visiting different cultures and having new experiences. There are people who spend their whole lives dreaming about journeys overseas.

So it’s really kind of sad that once you finally do get to spend a lot of time travelling, you tend not to appreciate it very much. Take me, for instance. I’ve visited more countries of the world than I can easily remember. I’ve even visited places not in this world, from bubble realms to shadow realms to the dreamscapes of Elsewhere. I’ve stood upon the tops of towers and looked out over castles the size of cities, walked through ancient forests where the trees have passed hundreds of years without hearing a human footstep, seen impossible alien landscapes that could never exist on Earth. Unfortunately, in pretty much every one of those cases, I’ve generally had more pressing concerns to worry about – either there are people trying to kill me, or people who might want to kill me, or things that aren’t people that might want to kill me, or people or things that don’t necessarily want to kill me but nevertheless are important enough that it’s highly advisable for me to pay attention to them instead of spending my time sightseeing. Usually the place I’m visiting becomes a blur, a few brief images standing out in my memory while I spend my time dealing with various threats and problems. And by the time they’re all sorted out, it’s time to move on.

A prime example was the location I was at now. Aleppo is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and it’s famous for its historical heritage. It used to form one end of the ancient Silk Road, and it’s been ruled over the centuries by Romans, Byzantines, Mameluks, Ottomans and just about everyone else who had an empire in the area. Each of them left behind their own architectural legacy, and the Old City is supposed to be fascinating. It would have been nice to wander around and see the sights.

Right now I was not wandering around and seeing the sights for three reasons. First, it was dark. Second, the city was in the middle of a civil war. And third, I was supposed to be conducting surveillance on the inhabitants of the building across the street. Which was why, instead of enjoying the experiences of travel and new cultures, I was crouched on a dusty rooftop, hiding behind a parapet, shivering in the cold and trying to make sure that no one on the other side could see me, since from looking into the futures I already knew that they had assault rifles and were following a policy of shooting first and asking questions later.

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t an especially unusual night for me. Sometimes I really question my life choices.

‘You know,’ I said quietly, my voice just loud enough to carry to where Caldera was lying by my side, ‘this is a pretty crappy way to spend Christmas Eve.’

‘Get used to it,’ Caldera whispered back, not taking her eyes off the building ahead. ‘You got a count?’

‘Can’t get close enough,’ I whispered back. The street was a wide one, and the wind was blowing towards us, so there wasn’t much chance of being overheard, but I kept my voice down all the same. ‘At least twenty.’ It could be more; any of the futures in which I tried to move closer devolved into shooting, and once that happened my future selves didn’t really have the time to get an exact count.

‘Whose side are they on?’

‘Don’t know, don’t care.’ The men in the opposite building could be rebels, or Islamic State, or heavily armed tourists for all I knew. ‘Whoever they are, they’re not friendly.’

A chill wind blew across the rooftop. The building we were on looked as though it had been a coffee house once, before the war. Some sort of explosive had demolished the rear half and left it in ruins. Caldera was silent and I could tell something was bothering her. ‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered.

‘What are they doing here?’ Caldera whispered.

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t like it either.’ Yes, this was a war zone, but it was far too much of a coincidence that these guys had just happened to set up shop in the one building in Aleppo that we had to visit. Especially since they were obviously on the alert.

‘You think Drakh’s in there?’ Caldera whispered.

‘I can’t sense any magic.’

‘Me neither, but they could be staying dark.’ Caldera looked at me. ‘Drakh and his mages hole up in the basement, use those guys as a screen?’

‘Maybe,’ I said doubtfully. It didn’t feel right to me.

Caldera looked up, frowning, then put one hand to her ear. ‘Received, on our way,’ she murmured. ‘Out.’ She looked at me. ‘Captain wants us back.’

We crept back and down to the first floor. Four men were waiting for us in the ruined remains of a bedroom: Captain Elandis, another Keeper I didn’t know and a pair of Council security men. ‘Verus,’ Elandis said. He was tall and thin, with aristocratic looks and a faded scar on one cheek. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Twenty at least, maybe more,’ I said. ‘Can’t tell which faction they’re with, but they’re not friendly.’

‘We’ve already got a count,’ Elandis said. ‘And they’re Islamic State, incidentally. What I want to know is defences. Traps, wards, anything that’s a risk.’

‘I can’t see any,’ I said. ‘Guns, yes, but they don’t seem to have any magical protections at all.’

‘Mines or explosives?’

‘Just a few grenades.’

Elandis nodded. ‘Get back to your positions. I want to know if anything changes.’ We returned to our positions on the rooftop and waited.

Time passed. The rooftop kept getting colder, and I had to rub my arms to keep myself warm, staying behind the parapet to make sure I wasn’t seen. Once we heard a distant burst of gunfire from somewhere off to the east, but it soon died away. There was little movement from the rooftop opposite. In the movies, war zones are filled with shouts and dramatic charges, but a real battlefield just looks empty, to the point where, if you don’t know what to look for, you probably won’t notice that it’s a battlefield at all. Everyone with any brains is behind cover with their head down. I could just make out the two shapes on the rooftop across from us, but only because I had my divination to help. Occasionally one of them would shift position, the movement almost invisible in the darkness.

‘How long to our window?’ I whispered.

‘T minus thirty-five,’ Caldera whispered.

‘This is wrong,’ I whispered. ‘Why aren’t we seeing anything?’

‘You think Drakh isn’t there yet?’ Caldera whispered. ‘Going to gate in last minute?’

‘That makes no sense. He has to secure the place first.’

‘So maybe he’s there already after all.’

Then why aren’t there any wards? I didn’t like this. We were missing something.

Caldera looked up, listening to something I couldn’t hear. ‘Elandis gave the order,’ Caldera whispered. ‘They’re going in.’

I nodded.

A minute passed, then two. Something flickered on my senses. ‘Feel that?’ Caldera whispered.

‘Gate magic,’ I murmured. A moment later it came again. It was followed by other spells: air and water, and some kind of living magic that was hard to pin down. It was coming from the building opposite. More spells, complex and quick. I couldn’t hear anything or see anything, but I knew that something was happening.

The shapes of the two rooftop guards hadn’t moved. They were still sitting up on that rooftop, quiet and still. Then as I watched, a cloud of darkness seemed to swallow one of them. I saw the second one turn his head, there was a scrape of movement, then something rolled over him too fast to see and he vanished.

‘What the hell was that?’ I said quietly. The rooftop was still again, and empty. If I hadn’t been watching closely I never would have noticed anything.

‘Shh,’ Caldera said.

Minutes ticked by. There was still no sound, but I could sense magic. Gradually the feeling of the spells being used changed: less like combat magic, more like defence and utility. They weren’t fighting any more – they were digging in.

Caldera cocked her head, listening, then looked at me. ‘We can go in.’

We went down the stairs and crossed the street, picking our way between the burned-out cars. By the time we reached our target building’s front door, it was being guarded by two Council security with sub-machine guns. They let us through without comment.

Inside was a hive of activity. Council security were everywhere, setting up defence posts and clearing lines of fire, while Keepers worked on defensive wards. Scattered around on the floor were bodies, and a Council security man was going around picking up their dropped weapons. There was one just by the door, and I took a look as we passed. He’d been killed by a single bullet to the back of the head. The safety catch on his rifle was still on.

Rain met us by what had once been a shopping counter. ‘Verus, get down to the basement and start checking at the entry point. Caldera, go with him.’

‘You don’t need me up here?’ Caldera asked.

‘Securing the area is the perimeter team’s job,’ Rain said. ‘Getting the relic is ours.’

Caldera shrugged and obeyed. We headed for the staircase, and I saw a blue-green flash that made me turn my head. A Keeper was going around the room, cleaning up the bodies. As I watched, he reached the corpse by the door that I’d noticed earlier. He pointed a hand downwards, there was another blue-green flash, and the body puffed into dust. I turned away.

The basement was dark and cold, and hadn’t been used in a long time. Broken barrels were lined against the far wall, and a thick layer of dust covered the floor. Someone had thought to come down and set up an electric light with a portable generator, and its hum was the only sound in the gloom.

Two Keepers, Slate and Trask, were waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. They’re from Caldera’s order and they’re partners, more or less. Slate is stockier and lighter-skinned, while Trask is taller and darker, but both are tough, and look it. I regarded them with mixed feelings. Slate and Trask know their business, but I wasn’t looking forward to working with Slate.

Slate gave me his usual scowl upon seeing me. ‘Over there,’ he said, jerking his head.

The far wall of the basement was different from the rest. The other walls were crude brick, but this was finely worked stone carved into a frieze of leaves and branches; the bricks and mortar to the left and right were old, but something told me that the wall in front of me was older still. It had stood here for a long, long time before workmen had turned this area into a sub-level of the building above.

I couldn’t sense any magic from the wall. It didn’t hold any energy or charge, and a quick glance through the futures confirmed that it wouldn’t respond to any standard tests. But in a little under half an hour, this would become an active gate into a bubble realm. If the Council’s intelligence report was accurate, no password or key was required. Anyone with the ability to channel through focus items could do the job. I looked ahead, trying to confirm whether—

‘Well?’ Slate said from behind me. ‘Can you open it or not?’

I shot an annoyed look back at Slate. ‘Not with you yakking on, I can’t.’

Slate rolled his eyes. I went back to studying the futures. Again they were disrupted.

I sighed. ‘Slate.’

‘What?’

‘Can you give me some peace and quiet?’

‘Didn’t say anything.’

‘No, but you’re going to, and it’s breaking my concentration.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Slate said, aggrieved. ‘I’m just—’

‘Look, just take his word for it,’ Caldera interrupted. ‘It’ll go a lot faster.’

Slate looked bad-tempered but he obeyed, and looking ahead I could tell he’d actually stay quiet this time. I searched through the futures in which I waited out the time and tried to open the gate, exploring the paths.

It was fifteen minutes before zero hour when Rain came downstairs. Caldera spoke to him quietly, and Rain raised his eyebrows but waited. I kept path-walking for a minute longer, then went over. ‘Well?’ Rain asked.

‘It’s going to work,’ I said. ‘Gate’ll be accessible right on the dot.’

‘Any hostiles on the other side?’

‘No.’

‘What’s the environment?’

‘Dark, cold, empty. Feels deserted. No traps or wards or guardians. It’s big, though. We’re going to have to search.’

‘Any sign of Drakh or his cabal?’

‘No.’

Rain nodded. ‘Coatl’s looking for you upstairs.’

I came up the stairs into noise and commotion. The bodies had been cleaned away, but Council security were hurrying around and I could hear someone giving orders. I could feel more wards being woven, stronger ones this time, and there was a sense of urgency in the air.

Coatl was waiting for me near the stairs. He was wearing a suit of body armour that made him look rather out of place, like an office worker dressed up for a re-enactment. ‘Hoi, Verus,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a problem.’

A Keeper came striding past, shouting something about getting snipers on the roof. ‘You mean all this?’ I said.

‘No,’ Coatl said. ‘There’s a Keeper in your squad by the name of Ares. Square face, short hair, balding. Took a call just before going down. Couldn’t make out most of it, but it was about you, and it didn’t sound friendly.’

‘The I-don’t-like-him sort of unfriendly? Or I’m-going-to-shoot-him-in-the-head?’

‘Dunno, but I’d watch your back if I were you.’

‘Great.’ I sighed. ‘Well, I’ve gone on missions with Keepers planning to murder me before. At least this time I know which one it is.’

A squad of three Council security came running past, weapons up and faces grim. They jogged out the door and disappeared into the darkness, another man pulling the door shut behind them. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘Eyes in the sky are tracking a group headed right for us,’ Coatl said. ‘A hundred at least, and they’re armed. Doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me.’

‘Me either. You going to be okay?’

Coatl snorted. ‘I’ll be hiding behind the battle mages. We’ll keep ’em off you.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ If they couldn’t, we’d be trapped. ‘Good luck.’

‘You too.’

By the time I made it back down to the basement, it was packed. Keepers and security men were crammed into the room, and I had to squeeze through the crowd. Despite the numbers, they were keeping a respectful distance from the wall. Landis had arrived too, and he gave me a cheery wave and a pat on the shoulder as I passed.

Rain was waiting at the front. ‘We good?’ he asked.

I checked the futures. ‘Looks in order.’

Slate was staring at me, and I could guess why. He wanted to know why Rain was taking my word for it. From flickers in the future I knew other Keepers were wondering the same thing, but none spoke out, maybe because they already knew what the answer would be. Rain had made the decision to trust me, and that was that. Which made me a member of the team … at least until Rain changed his mind. If he did, I knew Slate would turn on me without thinking twice, and he wouldn’t be the only one.

The room fell silent as the minutes slipped by. I spent the time examining the bubble realm I’d soon be entering. The more I saw of this place, the less I liked it. It might not try to kill us on first entry, but it wasn’t friendly. I could hear the murmur of whispered conversations from behind me, but as the last sixty seconds ticked away, even that died down. I knew everyone else was counting. Fifteen seconds. Ten. Five. Four. Three …

‘Time,’ someone said from behind me, but I was already moving. I placed my hand on one of the leaves carved into the stone, channelled a thread of magic into it, then stepped back.

For a moment nothing happened, then a split opened in the ancient stone. Slowly and silently, two gates swung back into nothingness. As they did, they seemed to submerge themselves in shadow, as though they were sinking beneath the surface of some black liquid. The opening gates revealed a black veil, smooth and vertical and faintly reflective, and they kept swinging back until they had disappeared behind the darkness. A rectangular opening in the wall looked out at us, black and empty. From beginning to end the process had been absolutely quiet.

The Keeper force looked back at the entrance. There was something eerie about the silence. ‘Verus?’ Rain said. ‘Is it safe?’

For answer I walked into the darkness. ‘Wait—’ Rain started to say, then the black veil swallowed me. A chill seemed to slide along my skin as I passed through, then I was on the other side.

I came out into darkness. Not the darkness of the cellar, but the kind of total pitch black where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. It was cold but not freezing, and my shoes echoed on hard stone. I pulled a torch from my belt and clicked it on; the beam was weak and feeble, but it pushed back the darkness enough to create a splash of light around my feet. In the glow, I could see that the stone I was standing on was pale and flat. I couldn’t see any walls or furniture, or for that matter anything at all. I might have been standing in the middle of nowhere.

Turning around, I found that I could see back into the basement, though the view was shrouded and darkened, like looking through a dirty window. The gate hung unsupported in mid-air, no sound coming through the veil. There was a figure approaching the gate; it was Rain, and as I watched, he passed through, his boots coming down on to the stone. He looked up, saw me and walked over. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘you can just say yes.’

‘We didn’t really have time to sit around while I convinced them it wasn’t a trap.’

More Keepers were coming through behind Rain, along with Council security. As the mages arrived, light spells began to flicker into existence: white, red, blue, grey. I saw Caldera come through, an orb of brown light igniting at her palm as she peered around her, with Landis following closely behind. The lights illuminated the place but didn’t seem to reach very far. I still couldn’t see anything above us or to either side.

‘Lumen,’ Rain called, and a petite woman who’d just stepped through the gate changed direction to walk towards us. She wore white and violet robes that made her stand out against the body armour and fatigues of the security men behind her. ‘Let’s turn the lights on.’

Lumen nodded and raised one hand. A sphere of pure white light appeared and began to float upwards. It grew larger and brighter as it did, until it was ten feet high and so bright I had to look away.

‘Brighter,’ Rain said.

‘I’m trying.’

‘We need to see.’

‘I’m trying.’ Lumen sounded frustrated. ‘Something’s wrong.’

I started to look back at the sphere and had to shield my eyes. The amount of white light pouring out of it was so intense that I couldn’t even look nearby without being dazzled. But when I turned away, I realised what Lumen meant. At our feet, the light was turning night into day … but only where we were standing. By the time the light was thirty feet away, the shadows were starting to return, turning the stone into gloom, and by fifty feet I couldn’t see at all.

‘We need this place lit up,’ Rain said. ‘Use more power.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ Lumen said. ‘It’s not helping.’

‘Rain,’ I said quietly. I kept my voice down but didn’t hide the urgency in it. ‘You might want to keep everyone together.’

Rain looked around. A few of the Keepers and Council security had started to drift away, and as they had their lights had faded into the gloom, almost disappearing from sight. ‘Everyone stay close!’ Rain shouted. ‘Keep in visual range!’

The Keepers who’d been starting to drift away stopped and the group pulled together again. In truth, no one had gone far – pack instinct had kept anyone from wandering off – but even so, it had taken only seconds for us to almost lose contact. Rain turned back to the woman next to him. ‘Talk to me.’

‘There’s something not right about this place.’ Lumen kept her voice down too. ‘The air’s clear, there shouldn’t be any visual interference, but light isn’t propagating the way it should.’

‘You know physical laws can work differently inside bubbles,’ I said. It’s one of the big ways they differ from shadow realms. A shadow realm is grown as a reflection of a location in our world, but the creator of a bubble realm can shape it into damn near anything, which includes messing with the laws of physics.

‘Options?’ Rain asked me.

I shrugged. ‘If Lumen’s right and this is light-based, then everyone using visual spells is going to have their effective range cut. Fire mages definitely; probably the water and light mages too. Caldera’s tremorsense might still work. My path-walking definitely does.’

Rain nodded. ‘Then you’re at the front with me.’

Our force formed up and headed into the darkness. There were a total of eleven mages under Rain’s command: me, Caldera, Landis, Slate, Trask and half a dozen more that I knew less well. I was the only auxiliary; everyone else was a member of the Order of the Star or the Order of the Shield. Accompanying us were nearly thirty Council security. All carried guns, and some were transporting heavier equipment: demolition gear, maybe, or heavy weapons. It’s rare for the Council to send more than one or two Keepers on a mission. Even dedicated combat operations usually don’t merit more than six. This was the largest Keeper group I’d ever been a part of.

It was a formidable force, but it didn’t make me feel particularly reassured. In theory the Keepers are supposed to work for the Council as a whole, with no loyalty to any one particular faction. In practice, every major Light political faction has sympathisers among the Keepers and the auxiliary corps. If you’re lucky, this just means that they’ll leak information. If you’re not … well, I’ve had Keepers try to kill me before. Given the state of affairs with Maradok and Levistus, I was going to be pretty surprised if the same thing didn’t happen again before the day was out.

But I could feel Caldera’s presence behind me, with Landis nearby, and that did make me feel better. ‘Caldera?’ I murmured, dropping back. ‘Keeper to our right. Square face, starting to lose his hair. Know the guy?’

‘Who—?’

‘Don’t look.’

Caldera obeyed, waiting until she could sneak a sidelong glance. ‘Ares?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘He’s Order of the Shield. Haven’t worked with him before.’

Landis fell into step on the other side. ‘I know the chap. What’s bothering you?’

‘Coatl told me to keep an eye on him.’ I kept my voice very low. Ares was far enough away that he shouldn’t be able to overhear, but there are spells that can boost one’s senses. ‘Apparently he doesn’t like me very much.’

‘Hmm.’ Landis stroked his jaw.

‘Hmm, what?’

‘Well, he’s got no reason to love Dark mages, I can tell you that,’ Landis said. ‘Still, he’s no loose cannon. Wouldn’t expect him to go tilting at windmills.’

‘It’s not windmills I’m worried about.’ If the guy was working for Maradok, it wouldn’t be hard for him to arrange an ‘accident’ while people were distracted. ‘What’s his magic type?’

‘Fire. Good at what he does. If you’re that concerned, I’d keep your distance if I were you.’

‘Should have worn your armour,’ Caldera said.

I kept quiet in response to that one. There’s a reason I didn’t.

A shape formed out of the darkness ahead: a bridge, made out of the same pale stone and sloping upwards. To either side of the bridge, the stone stopped abruptly. Behind it was only a void. Rain came to a halt and gestured towards me; I walked forward to catch him up. ‘What’s down there?’ Rain asked, pointing into the blackness.

I looked into the future in which I stepped off the edge. It’s one of the more difficult tricks to do as a diviner, not because the spell’s a particularly complicated one, but because of the mental state you need to be in to make it work. Divination only sees possible futures; to look into the futures in which you do something potentially suicidal, you have to be willing to actually do it. To get it to work you have to use a kind of self-hypnosis, putting yourself into a trance of pure dispassionate curiosity. I saw my future self plunge into the darkness and fall. And fall. And fall. All-enveloping blackness, air rushing as I plummeted down a bottomless pit …

My survival instincts shouted no! and the future in which I fell off the edge vanished. ‘Nothing,’ I said to Rain. ‘Don’t fall off.’

The bridge turned out to be less of a bridge and more of a ramp, bringing us steadily upwards before levelling off on to another platform. My divination led us to a second ramp. Behind us, I was vaguely aware of Council security igniting chemical flares, one at the base and top of each ramp and others spaced out at intervals on the flat. They burned with a bright red glow, but even so, the darkness swallowed each one in seconds. It would be easy to get turned around here.

On the third platform I slowed and stopped. ‘This one’s got four ramps leading off,’ I told Rain. ‘Two going down, two going up.’

‘Which way to the relic?’

‘I’m going to need to check on my own.’

‘Do it,’ Rain said. ‘I’ll get the air and earth mages to check for air movements and tracks. Meet back here in five minutes.’

I walked into the darkness. The blackness swallowed me in seconds, the lights from Rain’s group becoming a fuzzy grey glow and then disappearing completely. It would scare most people, but I’ve spent a long time learning how to navigate with my divination, and I can move faster in pitch darkness than most people can in full daylight. I did a circuit around the platform, stopping at each ramp to examine the futures in which I explored off on my own. One was easy to rule out. The other two were harder, but after a while I was fairly sure of our orientation.

I started to turn back, then hesitated. With my divination I knew that if I went straight back at this angle, I’d reach Rain. But a stray future had caught my eye, and I still had a minute or two before the time limit was up …

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I moved left, letting my feet tread softly on the stone. I knew that I was circling around the main body of the group. Peering into the darkness, I saw the first traces of light and heard muffled voices. I looked into the futures in which I drew closer.

‘… any of your business,’ Caldera was saying.

‘I’d say it is,’ Ares said. ‘And yours.’

‘You have a problem with Verus, take it to Rain.’ Caldera was down on one knee, one hand to the stone. She looked as though she’d been checking for something, but now her head was twisted around to look up at the other Keeper. ‘It’s his job.’

‘Actually, it’s your job.’ Ares squatted down, looking steadily at Caldera. ‘Has Verus told you why he’s here?’

Caldera shrugged.

Ares gave Caldera a curious look. ‘So you don’t know.’

‘He’s an auxiliary.’

‘The Council’s declared Verus an outlaw. As soon as the resolution becomes public, he’s to be executed on sight.’

Caldera turned to stare at him.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ Ares said. ‘Just orders.’

‘I think you’re full of it,’ Caldera said.

‘No bullshit. It’s real.’

‘You got a warrant?’

‘You know that’s not how it works.’

Caldera shook her head and looked away.

‘We don’t have to like what the Council tells us to do,’ Ares said. ‘We just have to do it.’ He rose to his feet. ‘You don’t believe me? Ask him yourself.’ He walked away into the darkness.

Caldera didn’t look after him at first, but once Ares was gone, she got to her feet and stared down at the stone, brow furrowed. A chime sounded in my ear from the communicator, and I knew our five minutes were up. Caldera turned and walked back towards the body of the group, and I followed.

Rain was at the centre of a small group of mages. ‘… eyes in the sky won’t do any good,’ another man was saying to Rain. I knew him vaguely: he was an air mage called Stratus. ‘Just too dark.’

Rain looked at me. ‘Either of the upward ramps should work,’ I said. ‘It looks as though they join up further on.’

Rain nodded absently. ‘That matches. Caldera?’

Caldera looked up, caught off guard. ‘Huh?’

‘Any tracks?’

‘Tracks, right.’ Caldera shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Then we go straight,’ Rain said. ‘Let’s move.’

The group started moving again, and I fell back into my position a couple of steps behind Rain. I could feel Caldera’s eyes on me.

We kept walking through the darkness, our lights the only illumination in a black and silent world. There were more junctions, ramps leading up and down from flat platforms, each as featureless as the last. With no maps or landmarks, we had to stop each time and rely on detection spells. I could feel Rain growing restless, and I knew why: almost an hour had passed. In about two hours, the gate would close. Our safety margin was shrinking fast.

My divination was our main guide now, but I could feel Ares’ presence towards the back of the group, distracting me. Already my thoughts had started to branch down worrying paths: was he here to make sure the relic was recovered, or to make sure I didn’t get out? What was Caldera going to do? And was it just a coincidence that he was a fire mage? The fact that he used fire magic didn’t necessarily prove anything – elemental mages are the most common family, and there are more fire mages than any other type by a long way – but I couldn’t help but think about that attack on my shop, and that figure wreathed in flame. He’d been a trained battle mage too. A Keeper from the Order of the Shield would be a pretty good fit …

I pushed the thoughts away and went back to our more immediate problem. I’d been putting together a mental map of this place, using the futures in which I explored the side ramps to gain additional information, and a nasty suspicion was starting to nag at me. I sped up slightly, catching up to Rain. ‘We might have a problem,’ I said quietly.

Rain glanced at me. A sphere of blue light was hanging in the air over his shoulder, but his skin was so dark that it soaked up the glow, making the whites of his eyes stand out in an eerie way. Ahead of us, two Council security men were on point with torches. ‘This is not a good time for problems.’

‘I’ve been mapping out this place and the pattern is looking like a spiderweb. Lots of paths leading in to a central point.’

‘And?’

‘The design doesn’t make much sense for a place with only one entrance,’ I said. ‘It makes plenty of sense for multiple entrances.’

‘You think Drakh’s cabal are in here too,’ Rain said quietly.

‘It’s been bugging me how easily we got in here,’ I said. ‘If Richard wants this relic so badly, why didn’t he put a proper guard on the entrance? Those men weren’t a match for a Keeper force. Unless they weren’t really meant to stop us at all. Just to slow us down and make us think we’re winning. Meanwhile Drakh’s group slip in from the other side.’

‘If you’re right,’ Rain said, ‘what can we do about it?’

‘Call a halt,’ I said. ‘If I path-walk searching specifically for other mages, without any other interference, I should be able to find them.’

Rain was silent.

‘It’ll give us some advance warning.’

‘Assuming they’re there at all,’ Rain said. ‘And assuming that they aren’t retrieving the relic already, in which case we need to be faster rather than slower.’

‘…Yes.’

Rain shook his head. ‘We can’t afford the time. I’ll put everyone on alert, but we’re cutting it close as is. Stay as close as you can to the front and watch for ambushes.’

I made a face but didn’t argue. As I moved up to catch up with the point men, I heard Rain starting to give orders.

The further we went, the faster a pace Rain set. At each junction, he allowed less time to search out a new path, sometimes taking no more than thirty seconds’ break before we set off again. I understood why he was doing it, but it was frustrating. Rain was using elemental mage thinking: strike fast and hard, counting on your toughness to shrug off any hits. If I’d been alone, with time to search, I could have found a path through and been sure whether it was safe. But the presence of the Keepers and the Council security was clogging the futures – I couldn’t stop and build a proper chain without one of them bumping into me and disrupting it. And the darkness was making it hard enough already. If we ran into an ambush, I wouldn’t be able to give much warning.

And just as I was thinking that, it happened.

We’d just reached the top of a ramp when something flashed on my precognition. I stopped dead, got one good look at what was going to happen and snapped at the two point men just in front of me. ‘Look out!’

The two of them turned to stare. I wheeled. ‘Rain! Incoming!’

‘Shields!’ Rain called instantly, raising his hand as he did. A barrier of blue light, translucent and slightly curved, materialised in front of the two point men, who were already scrambling back. Other mages began to cast shields of their own, and that was the point at which the mages ambushing us figured out that they’d been made and opened up on us.

Fireballs came flashing out of the darkness, dull red beads of light that exploded into bursts of flame upon striking a target. The first two detonated on Rain’s shield, then a volley of force missiles came scything in, horizontal and razor-sharp, thrown with enough power to cut a man in half. Water shields are good against fire, not so good against force. The blades broke through, hissing past, and I heard a scream from behind. I was already running, breaking right. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I knew that I needed to get out of the line of fire. Already the Keepers and Council security were shooting back, and I could hear the staccato takatakatakatak of the sub-machine-guns, combined with the whoosh of battle magic, fire and force and air.

The bubble realm was total chaos. Everything was pitch-black, fire was coming in from different directions and I had no idea what was happening. I could hear shouts and screams, conflicting orders. People were spreading out in the darkness, trying to find cover or a clear shot, the two sides intermingling. A figure appeared out of the darkness in front of me, backing away, casting a spell; we both saw each other and did a double take as we tried to work out who we were looking at. The man was dressed in black, with a mask, and as I saw it I realised he had to be one of our attackers; I swerved back into the gloom. He didn’t shoot after me, probably still unsure of who I was. The battle was darkness and screams and confusion, spells and bullets striking friend and foe. I saw a future in which I was shot and dodged right, saw another in which I was hit by a spell and dodged left and ran right into someone else.

This one was taller, his shape illuminated in the glow of a light to the side, and he was quicker on the draw. He caught my movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his gun towards me; it was some sort of assault rifle and I ducked out of the line of fire, grabbing the rifle by the hand guard. We struggled briefly, wrestling for the gun; he was wearing a ski mask and as our gazes met I saw blue eyes go wide. He hesitated for the tiniest instant, then drove a kick at me that would have broken a rib. I slid aside, hit him in the face, then got both hands on the rifle and twisted it out of his grasp. He stumbled and fell, but turned the fall into a roll; I felt the flash of some kind of magic and as he came up he was holding a sub-machine-gun. I turned and ran, losing myself in the darkness then throwing myself flat. From behind I heard a sharp takatakatakatak! and felt the burst go over my head. The futures cleared; I pulled myself to my feet and kept running. Up ahead was a ramp, sloping upwards, and I took it.

As I jogged up the ramp, the sounds of the shots and yells began to die away. I slowed and stopped, listening, and realised that I’d gone right through the battle and out the other side. The Dark mages were in between me and Rain’s Keepers.

I could find somewhere safe to hole up in the darkness and wait for the fighting to be over. On the other hand, my instincts were telling me that that ambush had been designed to stop us, not to kill us. Which isn’t to say that Richard was going to be bothered about a few dead bodies, but it wasn’t the objective. What he wanted was that relic, and if I kept going, I might be able to interfere.

It only took me a few seconds to make my mind up. I was still playing on Rain and Caldera’s team, and I still needed that relic found. Besides, I prefer to take the initiative when I can. It’s always better to have the other guy reacting to you.

The next platform had a couple of men on it. They weren’t friendly, but I was able to skirt around them to reach another ramp. As I approached the top, though, I began to slow down. Once again there was someone there, but this time it was someone I wasn’t going to be able to dodge so easily. I came to a stop just below the lip of the ramp, searching through the futures for ways in which I could get past. Damn, she’s right in the way. If only she were a little further out, I might be able to sneak—

‘You going to hide there all day, Verus?’ a voice called out of the darkness.

I sighed. So much for sneaking. I straightened and walked out into the open.

The platforms had been getting smaller, and this one was no more than sixty or seventy feet across. As I walked out over it, a green glow appeared out of the gloom. The glow became a pair of floating orbs of light, each the dark green of holly leaves, and standing between the orbs, her arms folded, was a woman called Vihaela.

Vihaela is dark-skinned and tall, with black hair that curls up at the tips. She’s good-looking in an unusual sort of way – striking rather than pretty – and she dresses well, in layered clothes of brown and black. I’d come face to face with Vihaela exactly once before, for only a few minutes, but that had been more than enough for her to make an impression. Being a Dark mage comes with a certain automatic intimidation factor – yes, it’s technically possible for one to be weak and unthreatening, but no one really believes that when they’re standing in front of you – but however you measure threat levels among the Dark mages of Britain, Vihaela would be right at the top of the list, which would probably have to be written from hearsay given how few mages would voluntarily step into the same room as her. Vihaela has a reputation for being an expert with life and death magic, and an extremely skilled torturer. As for her abilities as a battle mage, the last time I’d seen her, she’d taken on Caldera and Slate at the same time without breaking a sweat. As if that weren’t enough, she was tied to Morden definitely, Richard almost definitely, and all in all was easily among the top five people I least wanted to come face to face with in a dark abandoned place. All of a sudden I wasn’t so sure that going forward had been such a smart move.

‘That’s better,’ Vihaela said. ‘Bring any friends?’

‘Why?’ I asked. I kept my voice steady and my muscles relaxed. I was pretty sure Vihaela could read physiological signs the way Anne could, and I didn’t want to show fear. ‘Feeling lonely?’

‘Little bit.’ Vihaela sounded cheerful. She usually does. It doesn’t make her any less creepy: rather the reverse. ‘Nice gun. Planning to use it?’

I was still holding the assault rifle. I didn’t raise it. ‘I’m kind of on the clock,’ I said. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’

‘As long as it’s interesting.’

‘I can’t help noticing that you’re standing right in front of that ramp,’ I said. ‘Almost as though you’re on guard.’

‘I’m hoping some of your guys will make it up here eventually,’ Vihaela said. ‘Don’t see why the guys down there should have all the fun.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Fun. So would you have any particular objection to me going past?’

‘Awww,’ Vihaela said with a smile. ‘You’re so polite. Much nicer than the Keepers.’

‘So is that a yes?’

‘Try and get by me and I’ll turn every drop of fluid in your body into acid.’

I wondered briefly if Vihaela could actually do that, and decided I didn’t want to find out. I was only wearing one protective item: a fire-hunger stone, designed to ward against against fire-and heat-based spells. Against Vihaela’s magic it wouldn’t do a thing. ‘Can I put that down as a maybe?’

Vihaela sighed. ‘Look, Verus, right now I don’t have a reason to hurt you. Be a good boy and run along before that changes.’

I started to answer and then paused. At the edge of my hearing I could hear shouts from down below. Something in the futures … ‘You were asking if I’d brought any friends?’ I said. ‘I’ve got someone I think you should meet.’

Footsteps sounded behind me and I stepped to the side. Vihaela looked in the direction of the sound with interest. A moment later Landis came striding out into the light. ‘Ah, Verus!’ Orange-red light glowed around Landis; he smelled of smoke and flame, but he seemed to have come through the battle without a scratch. ‘Started without us?’

‘No, I was waiting for you.’

A group of Council security appeared out of the darkness behind Landis. One was obviously wounded, but the others had their guns up, and as they saw Vihaela they sighted on her. ‘No need for that, chaps,’ Landis said, waving a hand without turning around.

The Council security hesitated, glancing at each other. ‘Sir?’

‘Let’s try to make sure you all get home in one piece, eh? Go secure the ramp and get a signal to Rain.’

The Council security looked at Landis, looked at Vihaela, then lowered their guns and backed off into the darkness. ‘Really?’ Vihaela asked. She’d watched the guns being trained on her with mild curiosity. ‘Not even as a diversion?’

‘A little expensive for my tastes,’ Landis said.

‘All the same to me.’ Vihaela took a couple of steps forward and stretched, interlacing her fingers above her head, then looked at Landis appraisingly. ‘Landis, right?’

Landis dipped his head. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’

‘You are polite.’ Vihaela studied Landis for a second, then smiled. ‘You know, I was a little sore about never getting to face you in the White Rose raid.’

Landis made an open-handed gesture, as if to say after you.

Vihaela shifted her stance slightly. It was only a small movement, but suddenly the futures looked very different. Landis took a half-step back, his body tilted at forty-five degrees to Vihaela, left hand down, right hand at his waist. The moment seemed to stretch out, both mages perfectly still. I held my breath, not daring to move. I was close, if not quite close enough to be caught in a stray blast, but I was looking at where Vihaela was standing. She’d moved a little forward from the spot she’d been guarding, and already the base of the ramp behind her was starting to disappear into the gloom. Just a little further …

Landis moved and suddenly both mages were casting. A fireblast darted out from Landis, Vihaela countered with something too fast to see, spells flurried with a crack … and then the two of them were standing still once again. Landis’s stance had shifted and Vihaela was smiling. ‘Not bad,’ she said.

Landis didn’t answer.

Green-black light struck from Vihaela’s hands, arcing in. Just before it hit, a shield of flame appeared, only a couple of feet in diameter but in exactly the right position to block the attack. Energy cracked and the spell came apart. Vihaela tried again, this time from the other side. Again Landis blocked.

‘So you can actually fight,’ Vihaela said. ‘What are you doing with the Keepers?’

‘Chatty type, aren’t you?’ Landis said.

‘You know, that fire shield won’t do a thing against bullets,’ Vihaela said conversationally. ‘One shot from those men behind you and you’re dead.’

‘If you think that’ll work, why don’t you chance your arm?’

Vihaela smiled again. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

‘You know, my dear, I really don’t have all day,’ Landis said. ‘If you’re going to—’

Vihaela struck again, and this time she didn’t stop. Green-black energy darted at Landis and I had a fleeting impression of living magic, twisted and deadly, intended to kill or cripple. A shield of fire formed around Landis, leaping out at and destroying the spells as they came in, then the air around Vihaela exploded in a bloom of flame. Vihaela came striding out, her footwork smooth and precise, the dark light of her own shield a shadow around her. She struck back and Landis countered, the spells too quick to follow. I’ve seen my share of mage duels but I still couldn’t track the movements. Landis and Vihaela were just too fast, their spells too complex. I was lucky that Vihaela was too busy to pay any attention to me; even with my divination, if she attacked me like that, I didn’t fancy my chances.

But in the course of the battle, Vihaela had moved, and she wasn’t standing in front of the ramp any more. Here goes nothing. I stepped back into the darkness, letting the gloom envelop me …

Vihaela sent a last spell at Landis and pivoted away, breaking off. ‘Don’t even think about it, Verus,’ she called out, not taking her eyes off the Keeper.

‘Why don’t you go ahead, Alex?’ Landis said without looking at me. ‘We might be here a while.’

‘I told you what I’d do if you tried to get past me,’ Vihaela said. Her voice was confident. ‘I don’t need the light to know where you—’

Hidden in the darkness, I pulled my mist cloak from my pack and slung it around my shoulders.

I’d spent a long time debating whether to wear my armour for this trip. In the end the thing that had swayed me had been the chance of betrayal. My armour’s good against low-to medium-strength attacks, but depending on it to protect against a high-level battle mage is kind of the equivalent of crashing your car at a hundred miles an hour and expecting to be okay because you’re wearing your seat belt. Anyone from the Keeper force who wanted me dead would be able to study me at their leisure before attacking, and they’d have more than enough time to decide exactly how hard they needed to hit me to be sure of a kill. (Admittedly my armour would have been great at stopping glancing hits from spells and stray bullets in that battle down below, but you can’t have everything. Imbued items are possessive, and they don’t play well with others.)

My mist cloak is a shapeless covering of soft grey cloth. It’s unobtrusive and radiates no magic, and it had been easy for me to keep it concealed in my backpack. It doesn’t stop attacks, but it makes me almost completely invisible to magical senses like deathsight or lifesight. To Vihaela, it would have seemed as though I’d simply vanished into thin air.

Vihaela cut off mid-sentence, and for the first time that I’d seen her, she actually looked startled. Landis didn’t give her a chance to recover, hitting her with a combination of spells, a fireball and another explosive blast striking at the Dark mage before walls of flame sealed her into a box of searing heat. For a moment Vihaela was on the defensive, all her attention on protecting herself, then she recovered, walking out through the wall of fire and counterattacking Landis while a flick of her wrist sent a field of dark energy to hover at the base of the ramp, blocking it off. I couldn’t tell exactly what the spell did but I knew it wouldn’t be anything good.

But she was too late. In those few seconds, I’d made it on to the ramp and up and out of range.

I kept running as the sounds of battle faded behind me. I was really pushing my luck now – too many people had seen me, and if Landis couldn’t keep Vihaela busy I was in serious trouble – but you don’t put someone like Vihaela on guard duty unless it’s for something important. I knew I had to be close.

And as it turned out, I was.

The ramp levelled off on to another platform, much larger this time. As I looked through the futures in which I explored it, I knew that this was the last one. There was another ramp leading down but no more ramps leading up: we’d been gaining height with each one, and this was the place we’d been ascending to. There was nowhere higher to go.

Sitting in the centre of the circular platform was a stone sarcophagus. It wasn’t large, but it still stood out for being the only object or furnishing I’d seen in this entire desolate bubble realm. Half a dozen figures were clustered around it, two of them bent over the sarcophagus and the others on guard. All had their faces concealed by masks or by spells, but it wasn’t hard to figure out whose side they were on.

I hesitated. My mist cloak would keep me hidden as long as I stayed in the darkness, but the Dark mages had a pair of bright electric lights throwing a white glow around the sarcophagus, providing illumination for them to work by. Maybe sit here and wait? I looked into the future. The Keepers could follow the trail the same way I had …

… but not in time. The Dark mages would be finished in only a few minutes. Landis and the rest wouldn’t make it by then.

Stealth was out. My mist cloak can hide me from magical senses, but not from bright light. Fighting wasn’t even worth considering. I didn’t want to take on one Dark mage, much less six. Maybe it was time to think outside the box. What would happen if I just walked up and talked to them?

Interesting. Depending on how I made the approach, they might or might not be jumpy enough to attack, but I couldn’t actually see any future in which they killed me. Maybe Richard had given them orders to avoid fatalities if possible. The Council wouldn’t care very much one way or the other about a few dead security operatives, but killing a Keeper would have repercussions.

Or maybe it’s not about repercussions. Maybe it’s about me.

I hesitated for an instant, then made up my mind. Time to live dangerously. I laid the gun down on the stone, then walked out into the light.