Burned

17

I’d planned for all the different ways I could die that night. I hadn’t planned on staying alive. Now that I’d been left alone, I didn’t know what to do. The after-effects of adrenaline shock had set in, and I was shivering and exhausted. I used the gate stone to travel back to the hotel room in Melbourne, wondering if Anne would be there. She wasn’t, but the bed was. I collapsed and was asleep in seconds.

I woke up to find that the sun had set. My body clock was out of sync and I felt disorientated, out of place. I lay awake in the room for more than an hour, listening to the city and feeling the warm breeze through the blinds. Eventually I got up and emptied out my dwindling supply of gate stones on to the bed, then stared down at them for a long time, trying to figure out where to go. In the end I picked out the one for my safe house in Wales. It seemed as good a choice as any other.

I gated back into a cold winter’s day. The weather was overcast but dry, and thick masses of cloud drifted overhead, their undersides forming a pattern of light and dark. My house had been damaged, but not seriously – the lock had been broken and the rooms inside had been searched, clothes and food thrown out of cupboards and left scattered on the floor, but the walls and windows were intact. I spent an hour or so clearing up, then sat down at the kitchen table to wait.

It was about two o’clock when the futures steadied enough for me to be sure when my visitor would arrive. I left by the front entrance, drawing the broken door closed behind me, and stood by the garden wall. The brambles growing around the leafless trees were denser than they had been last year, and were starting to encroach upon the front lawn. From off to the right, the rush of the small river blended with the sound of the wind, and the green hills looked down upon the valley from either side. I waited.

The sun was starting to sink in the western sky when the figure appeared through the trees. My farmhouse is at the end of the valley, and the road doesn’t go any farther. I stood waiting as the man came down the road and crossed the broken-down old bridge over the river. He walked up on to the overgrown lawn, formal shoes leaving imprints in the thick grass, and came to a halt twenty feet away. ‘Verus,’ Morden said. ‘It’s been a while.’

I looked at Morden, studying him. The Dark mage looked the same as ever: dark hair and eyes, smooth good looks, with a smile that always seemed to hover at the corners of his mouth. He wore a long black coat and a scarf, and his hands, clasped in front of him, were covered with leather gloves. He didn’t wear his Council chain of office, but he didn’t need to. We both knew what he was.

‘Well then,’ Morden asked when I didn’t speak. He nodded to the door behind me. ‘Shall we go inside?’

‘I’d rather not drag this out any more than I have to.’

Morden inclined his head slightly. ‘As you wish.’

‘I always had the feeling that you gave up on that relic a little too easily,’ I said. ‘I knew you weren’t going to kill me inside that bubble. I didn’t know why.’ I watched Morden, standing alone in the afternoon light. Dressed in his city clothes, he looked out of place against the green valley. ‘Did you have this planned all along?’

‘Say rather that it was one of a range of acceptable alternatives. It’s really quite fortunate for you that it was.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘Ah, yes.’ Morden smiled. ‘I’ll admit, I was pleased with that. Council members are allowed to appoint a small number of personal assistants as their liaisons. It turns out that any such liaison is for all intents and purposes treated as a member of the organisation they’re assigned to. An old law. Originally it was put in place to enable Light mages to appoint independents.’

‘And they never got around to specifying that it didn’t apply when the Council member in question was Dark,’ I said. ‘Very neat of you.’

‘I do try. Oh, incidentally, a similar arrangement is in place with your friend Miss Walker. She’s now a Light mage and a member of the Council healer corps. If you could pass that on to her, I’d appreciate it.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘I’m going to assume you didn’t do this out of sudden altruism.’

‘Nothing in life is free, Verus.’

‘So. What’s the price?’

‘Do you remember that conversation we had back in my living room?’ Morden said. ‘No? Well, it was quite some time ago. I was speaking to you about rogues. And how they often end up re-joining the tradition in which they were initially trained.’ Morden looked at me. ‘We’ve given you a long time outside the family. It’s time you came home.’

‘And if I don’t?’ I said. ‘No, wait. Let me guess. These appointments of yours are reversible, aren’t they? As long as Anne and I are in your employment, that death sentence is suspended. But if you ever decide to let us go…’

‘I’m glad we’re on the same page,’ Morden said. ‘You’ll be reporting to Richard directly. There’s a meeting at his mansion tomorrow at ten o’clock. You’re expected at nine. I understand your old master is very keen to catch up.’

‘No.’

Morden paused. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Screw Richard,’ I said. ‘And screw you too. I’ve spent my whole life getting away from him. You think threatening me is going to make me go back?’ I shook my head. ‘Not in a million years.’

Morden studied me for a long moment. ‘I see.’

My precognition warned me, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. I was almost at the door when thunder cracked and black lightning blotted out the sun. Death energy filled me with nausea, and the kinetic strike picked me up and threw me into the door with enough force to smash it off its hinges and send me rolling across the kitchen, fetching up against the legs of the table.

My vision was dim, white and grey spots flashing across my eyes. I struggled to pull myself up, retching; I could taste bile and my limbs were weak, barely able to move. A silhouette appeared in the doorway.

‘You know, Verus, I think I’ve allowed you to develop a mistaken impression of me.’ Morden’s voice sounded faint and I could barely hear him over the buzzing in my ears. He stepped into the house, broken splinters of the door crunching beneath his feet, and as he entered he pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his pocket. ‘I’ve tolerated your past behaviour out of respect for your former master. I had hoped that you would appreciate this. Instead it appears to have encouraged you to believe that I am some sort of paper tiger, full of empty threats. All you need to do is to stand up to me and I will crumple away.’ Morden squatted down in front of me. His dark eyes bored into me, and he wasn’t smiling any more. ‘Allow me to correct your misapprehension.’

I choked as Morden’s hand closed around my throat. Morden straightened, dragging me to my feet, black energy crackling about his arm. I’m taller and heavier than Morden, but the Dark mage’s face showed no trace of effort as he lifted me up. I clawed at his fingers, struggling to breathe, then lost my breath in a gasp as Morden slammed me into the wall. My feet dangled six inches above the floor.

‘Now that I have your attention,’ Morden said, ‘let me make myself quite clear. You will be resuming your position as Richard’s assistant. If you choose not to co-operate, I will select someone you care for and I will have them killed. I will not choose your ex-apprentice, not at first. Instead I will choose a casual friend, perhaps a distant relation. You will not be informed of whom. The first you will know of it is when you are informed of their disappearance. If that is insufficient to persuade you, I will move on to someone else. And then someone else. Your mother might make an interesting choice. After that, perhaps your father. Then that giant spider you seem so fond of. If you still do not co-operate, then I will move on to your young friends in the magical world. And if I am somehow able to work my way through every member of your friends and family without motivating you, do you know what I will do?’

I couldn’t answer. Morden’s hand was like a steel vice around my throat. The spots swimming in front of my eyes were going from grey to black. I clawed uselessly at it, growing lightheaded.

‘Nothing,’ Morden said. ‘I will leave you alone, and alive, knowing that you have sacrificed everyone and everything you cared for to preserve your own life. At which point I will give up on you and wait for you to come after me in a hopeless attempt at revenge. Because by that point you will no longer be of any use to me. This – and nothing less – is the price for attempting to defy me. Do you understand?’

I couldn’t speak. My ears were starting to roar, and I could barely make out Morden’s voice.

Morden dropped me. My feet went out from underneath me and I crashed to the floor. I sucked in great gasps of air, my sight slowly returning. My throat felt like steel knives were stabbing into it, but I pulled in the air frantically.

‘I said, do you understand?’ Morden asked from above me. ‘Or perhaps you would like a demonstration? I believe there’s a Chinese adept in London that I can have brought here on short notice.’

It took my pain-dulled thoughts a second to realise who Morden was talking about. Xiaofan. Fear stabbed through me. ‘No,’ I said hoarsely.

‘Are you going to co-operate?’

I had to take another breath before I could answer. It hurt to talk, but my fear was greater than the pain. I knew Morden wasn’t bluffing. ‘Yes.’

‘The exact words, please, Verus.’

I didn’t want to say it. But what choice did I have?

None. ‘I’ll do as you say,’ I said. My voice was raw, but even so, I could hear the hate in it.

But if Morden heard it, he didn’t care. ‘Good.’ Something fell past my field of vision, bouncing on the tiles with a tak-tak-tak. It was a piece of black stone, obsidian maybe. ‘Your new gate stone,’ Morden said. His shoes squeaked as he walked to the door. Painfully, I raised my head to see him pulling on his gloves once again. ‘Oh, and please, no more overly dramatic suicide attempts,’ Morden said. ‘Should you die before I release you from your service, I will have your entire family killed. Your life is no longer yours to spend.’ Morden paused, silhouetted in the doorway against the winter sky, and glanced back at me. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He turned and was gone.