Burned

2

I trailed back upstairs into the living room and dropped on to the sofa. All of a sudden, the energy that had kept me going through the discussion was gone.

Like all diviners, I’m a thinker. When I get a problem, my first instinct is to unpack it, holding it up and turning it around to look at it from different angles. Sometimes I see the answer instantly, but other times it needs more work, and that’s when I go to other people for advice. All the time I’m talking it over with them, only half of my mind is on the discussion. The other half is picking away at the problem, examining it in the light of their suggestions, waiting for the flash of insight that signals a solution. Sometimes it’s a half solution, sometimes it’s a full solution, but it’s rarely wrong. When I get that feeling, I know I’m on the right track.

But sometimes I don’t get that feeling at all.

Luna, Variam, Talisid and Sonder’s suggestions had been logical, and the courses of action we’d settled on made sense. I thought it could work. But I didn’t know it would work. And without that, I was feeling a lingering unease that wouldn’t go away. My limbs were cold, and I shivered. The weather outside was freezing, and even here in my room the heat didn’t seem to be winning.

Something cool nudged my hand. I looked up to see Hermes next to me, standing on the carpet. ‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘It might work. Maybe…’

Hermes gave me a questioning look.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’ I shook my head and got to my feet. I felt off-balance, and over the years, I’ve learned that when that happens, there’s one person I should be talking to. ‘I’m going to Arachne’s. Want to come?’

Hermes blinked once.

I got my coat, then walked to the desk and took out my gate stone for Arachne’s lair. Despite the name, it wasn’t a stone but a piece of wood, old and weathered and carved with runes. I wasn’t expecting any trouble, but all the same, I looked into the futures in which I gated to Arachne’s lair. Down to the storeroom, through the portal and—

Ow. What the hell?

I looked again. Pain, violence. As I focused, the futures shifted. Combat, more violence … I pulled back, resetting myself, starting a path-walk, and this time I was paying full attention. What would happen if I used this gate stone, stepped out into Arachne’s ravine and stood there?

I’d get the crap beaten out of me, that was what. ‘Okay, change of plans,’ I told Hermes. ‘We’ve got some trouble waiting outside Arachne’s lair.’ I moved my future self around, trying to find out more about the attackers. Human, that was obvious. Two … no, three. ‘Team of three. First two are either adepts or sensitives, I think. Third one…’ I tried a future in which I shone a torch in that direction, getting a clear look before I was clubbed to the ground. ‘Wait a minute. I know that guy.’ White, early twenties, close-shaven brown hair. I’d never seen him, but I recognised the face all the same. Maybe a photo …?

I snapped my fingers. ‘Got it. Wolf.’

Hermes cocked his head at me.

‘Yeah, you wouldn’t know him. It’s not his real name: he’s an ex-Light apprentice, James something. Water magic, got kicked out of the apprentice programme, then declared himself to be a full mage. No one listened and the Keepers have pulled him in a few times for petty stuff. That was how I saw his file.’ I frowned. ‘I wonder what he’s trying to do…’

Hermes waited.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘They’re using clubs. You know, I don’t think they’re trying to kill me at all. I think they just want to give me a good old-fashioned beating.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Old school.’

Hermes tilted his head, then back again.

‘Because they want to send a message, I’m guessing.’ I frowned as I tried to look through the futures in which my future self got beaten to a pulp, then shook my head. ‘Well, whatever it is, these guys are amateur hour.’

Hermes opened his mouth to show his teeth.

‘Yeah,’ I said. Hermes can’t talk, but he and I understand each other pretty well. I’d have some help for this one. I put down the gate stone and headed for my room. ‘Let’s gear up.’

I took my armour out of the wardrobe and pulled it on. My armour is a suit of dark mesh with raised plates covering stationary areas, matt-black and flexible. It looks serious, and it is. The reactive mesh isn’t impenetrable, but it’s very tough and it responds to attacks, changing its shape to deflect a blow. The plates have grown and thickened over the years, adjusting to the shape of my body. I added my standard collection of items to my belt and pockets and then descended one floor.

My safe room is locked, warded with multiple effects and lined with steel. I went through the locks and pulled open the metal door, then stepped inside. Hermes stayed out in the hallway, and I didn’t blame him. While the Arcana Emporium’s supposed to be a magic shop, the magical items I have on sale on the ground floor are strictly small potatoes. Weak wands and orbs that require a mage to wield them and don’t do anything all that spectacular even then; ambient focuses that can work on their own by drawing in local energy but have only the most limited of effects; old accoutrements that have been used enough times to have accumulated a little resonance. But for every twenty or thirty items I get that are weak or faded, I pick up one that’s genuinely dangerous. My safe room is where I keep them.

The imbued items were on the left wall. A crocodile-hilted sword stood out, gleaming dully in the light, as did a small white and blue lacquered tube. I didn’t go near either of them. Instead I went to a tall cabinet in the far corner and opened it. Inside was a small but formidable arsenal. I tapped one finger to my lips and studied the choices.

Mounted in pride of place at the centre of the collection was a Heckler & Koch MP7. It’s a nasty, compact little firearm the size of a sub-machine gun. I’d taken it off a guy called Garrick a few years ago – he hadn’t come back to reclaim it, and in exchange I hadn’t gone after him for trying to shoot me through the head with a sniper rifle, which seemed to me like a fair trade. Using it, I could probably kill all three men outside Arachne’s lair in about ten seconds.

‘Overkill,’ I decided, and glanced briefly at the pair of handguns on the shelf underneath. One was my old 1911; another was a smaller calibre automatic that I’d acquired earlier this year at the expense of some guy whose name I’d never learned. They were less suited to extended combat than the MP7, but they’d get the job done.

‘Overkill.’ I took down a sword from its mountings and half-drew it from its sheath. Metal hissed against leather, and I turned the blade, watching it glint in the light. The sword was a jian, a little over two feet long. I’m familiar with most blades, but I generally prefer smaller ones. It smelled of oil … and blood? I shook my head. Imagination. The blade was clean. ‘Overkill,’ I said again, resheathed the blade, and hung it back up. The next item I took up was a can of pepper spray. The stuff’s illegal in the UK, but it’s not hard to get if you know where to look. The pepper spray went back, to be replaced by a quarterstaff. It was a dull grey in colour; to an observer, it would look like steel. I held this one for a little longer before deciding. The heft felt good, and I spun it once, hearing the metal whoosh through the still air. ‘Still overkill,’ I said at last. The staff went back in the cabinet and I closed the doors, walked out of the safe room, and locked the door behind me, feeling the wards reset as I did. Hermes had watched the entire process with curiosity. As I turned to go downstairs, he trotted to follow.

Down in the storeroom, I went through two more items before finding what I was looking for: a cylindrical length of wood about seven-eighths of an inch in diameter and a little under three feet in length. The Japanese would call it a hanbo: native English speakers might call it a dowel, baton or cudgel, but more likely they’d just call it a stick. I spun it in one hand and nodded. Now just one more thing on the defence side …

Ah. I went out of the room, unlocked the back door and stepped out into the freezing air. The dustbins out in the back alley were black plastic. I picked the lid off one of them and held it in my left hand, testing its heft. Thick plastic, but still light. ‘Perfect,’ I said, and went back inside.

A glance at the futures confirmed that my ambushers weren’t going anywhere. I went back upstairs and did a leisurely warm-up. Neck rotations, arm circles, then several different leg stretches. I paid particular attention to the hamstring muscle at the back of the thigh; it’s easy to get a strain there if you don’t warm up properly. Once I was done I went back downstairs, picked up the stick and the dustbin lid and checked to see if my ambushers were in a good position. There wasn’t any way to nail it down precisely, but the futures in which I opened the gate right now were a little less favourable than I liked, so I waited around, running through a few practice strikes and blocks. Most of my shop and flat is warded from gates; the spot I was standing in was the single small volume in which the wards on the shop were shaped so as to allow space magic to function unhindered. After five minutes, I felt the futures shift and checked. About an eighty per cent chance that they were going to be in an L formation rather than a surround. Good as it’s going to get. ‘Ready?’ I asked Hermes.

Hermes blinked once.

I tucked the stick under my arm, took out the gate stone and began channelling. Using a focus item is easy for most mages – all you need is the item and a bit of applied knowledge. It’s harder for me, but I’m very familiar with the location I was gating to and I wasn’t in any hurry. After a couple of minutes the air before me darkened and formed an oval. Through the portal, stars twinkled through the shadows of bare branches. I was looking out on to the darkness of Hampstead Heath.

Hermes disappeared, teleporting through the gate and away into the night. I stepped through, taking the stick out from under my arm and letting the gate vanish behind me. As it did, I stabbed right.

The man to my side had just started his forward rush, his arm raised. He was a force adept, and the spell he was using would have made the club in his hand come down with crushing force, enough to break my arm if I stood to meet it. He couldn’t, however, see in the dark. The tip of my stick hit just beneath his breastbone, sinking deep as the momentum of his rush drove him on to it. He lost his breath in a gasp as he went down.

I twisted left, raising the dustbin lid as I did to catch a blow as it landed on the hard plastic, the shock going up my arm. Second man. I couldn’t see what he looked like, but I’d spent time watching the futures in which he attacked. This one’s adept ability was perception-based. He moved in the pitch darkness of the ravine as though it were broad daylight, swinging his club like a baseball bat, and I gave ground. The dustbin lid rang under the rain of blows. Blue light flashed to my right and I sidestepped, feeling a spell whip past, letting the adept come between me and the threat. He did, and as he stepped in, I reversed course, moving in to meet him, shield high and weapon low. His club glanced off the lid; mine found his ankle. There was the distinctive crack of wood on bone and the adept yelled, hopping, tumbling to the ground. I stepped in, dropping my stick, ducking low; another spell flashed overhead as I drew my stun focus from my pocket and stabbed the adept with it as he tried to scramble to his feet. Life magic passed into him in a green flicker, and I came to my feet in the same motion.

In the pale blue light illuminating the ravine, I could see that both adepts were down. The first was struggling and gasping; the second was still. The light was coming from the third man and the staff of glowing blue energy in his hands. It would have looked impressive if he hadn’t been staring with his mouth open. My preparations – planning, weapon selection, warm-up, waiting for the right moment to gate and gating – had taken a bit under half an hour. The fight had lasted around five seconds. Pretty typical for a diviner.

I walked back towards the first adept as he struggled to breathe, picking up my stick as I did, and hit him with one carefully measured blow. There was a thud and he dropped. I turned to the mage and raised my eyebrows. ‘You coming?’

Wolf – James – stared at me.

‘You coming?’ I said again. James was about thirty feet away. ‘Or do I have to go to you?’

‘Go to—!’ James seemed to bolster himself. ‘You know who I am?’

‘Yes, your name’s James Redman and you’re probably one of the weakest elemental mages in Britain.’

‘My name’s Wolf!’

I sighed. ‘Sure it is.’

‘You come near me and I’ll fuck you up!’

I just looked at him.

‘What, you want a piece of me?’ James hefted the glowing staff. ‘Bring it, bitch! And that’s – that’s a dustbin lid? You’re coming after me with a fucking dustbin lid?’ James gave a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘You know who I am? You think you can take me? You—’

James kept talking and I tuned him out. Most of the time, when people posture, you don’t really need to listen to the words. The content is always more or less the same – they’re tough, you should be scared of them, yadda yadda yadda. The real communication is done with body language and tone of voice. I already knew that James wasn’t going to take a shot at me, not in any time frame that mattered. Instead I looked into the futures where I tried talking to him, seeing what information I could pick out. How about if I tried guessing who’d sent him …?

Well, it’s not Levistus. Not that that was really a surprise: Levistus would have sent a much higher grade of assassin. Not Morden, for similar reasons. Not Onyx, not Deleo, not Cinder, not Crystal, not Lyle, not Barrayar, not Avis, not Ordith, not Sagash, not Darren, not … okay, I have way too many enemies to do this one at a time. I pulled back my focus and looked to see if any name I could come up with would work. Didn’t seem like it. Someone new? Probably not all that high on the power scale, if this is the best they can send …

‘—well? You hearing me, bitch?’

‘Stop calling me “bitch”,’ I said absently. ‘A bitch is a female dog. I like dogs.’

James stared at me. ‘I’ll call you what I want, bitch.’

‘Whatever. Look, James—’

‘My name’s Wolf.’

‘James. I’ve got things to do. You got hired to send me a message, right? Let’s hear it.’

James gave me a disbelieving look.

‘Last chance to do this the easy way.’

‘Oh yeah?’ James spread his arms wide. The staff flickered in one hand. It looked like a standard elemental weapon, designed to apply kinetic energy, possibly with some on-hit effect. ‘Let’s do this! Come on!’

I sighed. ‘Hermes?’ I said out loud to the sky. ‘Any time you’re ready.’

Hermes blinked into view behind James and sank his teeth into the back of James’s ankle. James screamed, staggering. He tried to twist around to see what had bitten him but Hermes hung on, letting James’s momentum drag him around. James flailed awkwardly one-handed with the staff, trying to beat Hermes away, before managing to get a grip with both hands and swinging back as hard as he could.

The moment before the staff landed, Hermes blinked out of existence, teleporting away. The swing hit only air and James staggered sideways.

‘Hey,’ I said from behind him.

James spun. I let him get most of the way around before introducing my stick to his head. He hit the ground and I continued to apply the stick to various points on his body until he stopped trying to cast spells. By that point, the light from the water staff he had been using was gone, along with the staff itself (concentration-based spells and beatings don’t mix) so I took out my pocket torch and clicked it on, shining it downwards. ‘Ready to talk?’

‘Oh, fuck,’ James moaned. He was lying on the ground in a foetal position. ‘It hurts.’

‘Who sent you?’

‘I don’t know! I just—’

I struck down, deliberately making the blow slow enough to see coming. James caught a glimpse through the light and raised an arm to protect his head. The stick landed on his right hand with a snapping crack. James screamed.

‘Okay, James,’ I said once he’d quieted down enough to hear me. ‘This game is called “How many of your bones do I have to break before you answer my questions?” Right now the counter is on “one”. In another twenty seconds, I’ll be advancing it to “two”.’

‘All right! Jesus, it was Symmaris, okay? It was Symmaris!’

‘And what did Symmaris tell you to do?’

‘Just to … just to rough you up a bit, okay? Nothing serious, we weren’t going to hurt you or anything.’

‘Uh-huh. And what were you supposed to tell me afterwards?’

‘To stay away from Drakh.’

I paused. ‘What?’

‘From Drakh. For the job. You know?’

‘What job?’

‘I don’t fucking know. They—’

I lifted the stick.

‘No! Jesus, I’m telling you the truth, I swear! There was some thing, some, some job you were supposed to be doing, working with Drakh, I don’t know, something important, and Symmaris, she wanted to warn you to back off, right? That was all she told us. That was it!’

I stared down at James, searching through the futures. It sounded flimsy, but as I explored different interrogation options, I realised to my surprise that he was actually telling the truth. I shook my head. ‘You really came to the wrong neighbourhood.’

‘Look, please, just let me go. I didn’t know. I’ll tell Symmaris whatever you like, I swear—’

‘I don’t work for Drakh,’ I said.

James paused. ‘Huh?’

‘I don’t work for Richard Drakh,’ I said again. ‘Your boss got the wrong guy. If you’d done your homework and asked around instead of coming here, you and your boys could be back at home having a pint right now.’ I gestured back towards the two adepts. The one I’d hit with the stun focus was stirring and moaning. The other had rolled over on to his side and was throwing up. ‘Get your mates and gate. If you pull anything like this on me a second time, you won’t be around for a third. Understand?’

James nodded quickly. ‘Yeah. Okay.’

‘Get lost.’

James stumbled to his feet and hurried over to the two adepts. I watched patiently as he started opening a gate. ‘James?’ I said when he was a minute into the spell.

I saw the muscles in James’s back tense. The blue light around his hand flickered and he nearly dropped the spell. Slowly he turned, shoulders hunched, the whites of his eyes showing.

I flicked the beam of the torch down where the two adepts had fallen. ‘They dropped their clubs.’

James stared at me, then down at the shadowy outlines of the clubs where they lay on the ground.

‘Pick them up, please,’ I said. ‘I’m not cleaning up after you.’

Slowly James obeyed, holding the wooden cudgels awkwardly in his injured hand, then went back to opening the gate. By the time he was done both adepts were on their feet, one supporting the other. The three of them shot scared looks at me as they shuffled through the gate and out of sight. I watched it close behind them. The blue light faded and I was alone in the darkness.

‘Idiots,’ I said into the night. I checked to make sure no one else was coming, then walked to the edge of the ravine. Hermes blinked into position behind me, trotting at my heels. I pressed two fingers to one of the roots beneath the oak tree, waited for the signature of the open connection and spoke. ‘Arachne? It’s Alex. We need to talk.’

Usually Arachne’s lair is one of the few places I can relax. Its wards and defences are extensive, and I know that Arachne’s been steadily improving them over the last few years. It’s not just paranoia: magical creatures like Arachne have no protection under the Concord, and if any mages decide to pick a fight with her, no one on the Council is going to do anything about it. Arachne’s only defences are those she creates herself, and though she never talks about it, I know she takes it seriously. Sitting here in the cavern, I was almost certainly safer than I was in my own shop.

Except that for the first time in years, being here wasn’t making me feel safe. Sure, I could hide here – for a while. But not for ever.

‘That’s the story,’ I said. I was sitting on one of the sofas, next to some bolts of red and blue silk. Hermes had hopped up on to another sofa and was watching with ears pricked.

‘I see,’ Arachne said. Arachne is a spider the size of an SUV, black-haired with highlights of cobalt-blue; she’s probably my oldest friend and one of the very few people I really trust. She’d been working on a dress when I’d arrived, but as soon as I’d started to give her the news she’d put it down and moved in close. Now she was resting in such a position that her front legs were only a couple of feet away, near enough that I could smell the herbal scent of her body. She’d been listening for twenty minutes, speaking only to ask for clarification. ‘Do you know anything further about your three attackers?’

‘Honestly?’ I said. ‘Right now I don’t much care. They’re small fry. I’ve got bigger problems.’

‘Small problems that aren’t dealt with can become larger problems,’ Arachne said. ‘Besides, I suspect the two may be related.’

I shrugged.

‘It concerns me that they knew to stage an ambush here,’ Arachne said.

‘Yeah, they knew where to find me,’ I said. ‘But if I don’t deal with this Council proposal, then it won’t matter that they knew where to find me, because inside of a week I won’t be here, or anywhere else in the country, or maybe not even alive. I do not have much room to manoeuvre here!’

Arachne looked at me patiently. ‘There’s no need to be snappish.’

I sighed, passing a hand in front of my face. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just off-balance.’ I looked up at Arachne. ‘Any good ideas? Because I could really use some.’

‘Moving Variam and Anne to Landis’s sponsorship is an obvious decision,’ Arachne said. ‘Pushing Luna through her journeyman tests is more risky, but seems to be the best of the possible alternatives. Though you’ll need help from Chalice.’

‘We’re meeting her tomorrow morning. I still hadn’t completely made up my mind on whether to trust her.’ I shrugged again. ‘Guess now I’ve got no choice.’

‘But that still leaves the question of your sentence,’ Arachne said. She studied me, eight eyes unblinking. ‘You understand why this is happening.’

‘Yeah. It’s the bill coming due for pissing off Levistus.’

‘No,’ Arachne said. ‘Levistus is the short-term manifestation of a long-term problem. If it hadn’t been Levistus, it would have been someone else.’

‘What long-term problem?’

‘Your independence,’ Arachne said. ‘Over the past few years, you have been offered numerous chances to side with those more powerful than yourself. Levistus tried to recruit you, as did Morden. Richard offered you your old place at his side. Talisid wanted you to become his spy. You turned them all down. Instead you have opted to remain separate and apart, beholden to no one.’

‘You know why we did that,’ I said. ‘I know our group’s not powerful, not compared to the real players. We can’t do much to change things. But at least we don’t have to make things worse.’

‘And that would be viable, were you only involved in small things,’ Arachne said. ‘But Levistus’s plans are not small things. Richard’s return is not a small thing. There are storms coming, and you will be caught in them.’

‘Then what are my options?’

‘Align yourself with one of the greater powers,’ Arachne said. ‘Or become a greater power. Or die.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. I wish I had better news.’

I sat in silence. ‘What if there’s another way?’ I said at last. ‘Find something to trade to one of the Council mages. Play them off against one another. I’ve done it before.’

‘Perhaps,’ Arachne said. ‘For a little while. But understand that to take this road – to make your own choices – is to walk the most difficult path. There will be sacrifices.’

I felt a chill go through me. It wasn’t physical cold – Arachne’s cave is warm. ‘Will I have you with me?’

‘I do not know how long I can stay,’ Arachne said. ‘But as long as I can help you, I will.’

I reached out and rested a hand on one of Arachne’s forelegs. Arachne reached up with her other foreleg to stroke my hair, her movements gentle. I closed my eyes and let myself relax, taking comfort in her presence. We stayed like that for a long time, silent in the lair.