Bookworm III (23 page)

But the Witch-King is still out there
, she thought, grimly.
I assume he must have a plan to handle dissent
.

“There were those other magicians,” Daria said. “The ones in red robes. Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Cass said. “But there’s quite a few of them outside our wards.”

“Deferens probably trained up a force of private combat sorcerers,” Elaine commented, thinking hard. Deferens probably hadn’t ... but the Witch-King had. And then he’d given the sorcerers to the new Emperor, strengthening his hand against the Great Houses. “They might be Inquisitor-grade.”

“And even if they’re not,” Cass sneered, “they could just wear black robes and everyone would mistake them for Inquisitors.”

“As long as no one asked to see their rings,” Johan pointed out, snidely.

Elaine finished her sandwich, then stood up and started to pace. “Tell me if this makes sense,” she said. “We can’t hope to beat Deferens alone, right?”

“Right,” Cass agreed, glumly. “He has the red-robes and the Inquisitors.”

“And the Golden Throne,” Elaine added. “Our only hope, therefore, is to continue the original mission, hunting down and destroying the Witch-King. We cannot stay in the city and hope for the best.”

“I wish I disagreed with you,” Cass said.

Elaine understood. As an Inquisitor, Cass had been taught to go straight for the threat and remove it, whatever the cost. Dark Wizards could not be allowed chances to recover, for fear they would return and pose much greater threats in future. Leaving Deferens in possession of the Golden City practically guaranteed a civil war, with or without the Witch-King. It could tear the Empire apart.

But any attempt to remove Deferens would prove fatal – and futile.

“There are assassins, right?” Johan said. He sounded unsure of his own words. “My father used to have a few hired killers on his payroll. We could find one and pay him to kill Deferens ...”

“Deferens will be extremely well protected, by both his own magic and the Imperial Palace,” Cass pointed out, rudely. “I doubt any assassin would take the hit for any amount of money, Johan, and he would be
very
unlikely to succeed. There hasn’t been a successful assassination attempt on a Grand Sorcerer for over seven hundred years.”

Johan looked up. “What happened to him?”

“He trusted the wrong woman and she killed him with the Death in Joy one night,” Cass said, with some amusement. “I believe he died happy.”

“I’m sure he did,” Daria said.

Elaine smiled. Johan threw her a questioning glance, but she wasn’t about to explain. The Death in Joy was a sex magic rite, used for draining someone’s life force when they were caught in orgasm, all defences down. Female assassins were very fond of it, if only because it required nothing beyond a limited magical talent and bad intentions. And their victims often died with a smile on their faces, without leaving any signs of a struggle.

“You’re a Privy Councillor,” Johan said, instead. “Couldn’t you convince the Great Houses to stand against him?”

“I doubt it,” Elaine said. “I was never a popular councillor.”

It was worse than that, she knew. She had never liked attending council meetings and had skipped out of them, where possible. Lady Light Spinner had even threatened to stick her to her chair, once upon a time. The other councillors had built networks of patronage and influence, boosting the careers of their friends and families in exchange for loyalty, but Elaine had never cared for power. In hindsight, allowing her crippling shyness to rule her mind might have been a mistake.

There’s nothing you can do about past mistakes
, she thought, recalling the advice of one of her tutors. He’d been one of the few she’d actually liked.
Bad rolls of the dice are inevitable, young lady. All you can do is roll with the mistake, learn from it and move on
.

“And they will worry about the hostages,” Cass offered. “Even if they are the youngest and most expendable members of their families, they will worry. I would have to think hard about whom to approach, if we tried to start an uprising.”

“My father wouldn’t give a damn if he’d sent me as the hostage,” Johan said, darkly. “Or even Chime. Her only value to him was who she married.”

“She would still have magic,” Cass pointed out. “Giving her up for nothing might rebound against him. The family magic ...”

“The family magic did nothing for me,” Johan hissed. “It wouldn’t do anything for Chime, either.”

“You don’t know that,” Cass said. “Powerless are rare ... and one of the reasons they’re rare is because their families kill them. But you remained alive.”

“Not by choice,” Johan snapped. “I would have gone if they’d let me!”

Elaine winced as she turned and stared at the bookshelves. If she had been on her own, she might have seriously considered just sealing the wards and remaining trapped in the building, alone and untouchable. There were no shortage of books to read and she would die of old age long before she ate her way through the food supplies. But she couldn’t do that, she knew, no matter how tempting it was. Johan, Daria and Cass wouldn’t want to stay with her for the rest of their lives ... and the Witch-King, once he rose again, would eventually shatter the wards protecting her. And then the world would fall into darkness.

But what does he want
? she asked herself.
And what would it cost us to give it to him
?

She shuddered. There were so many different stories in the history books, even the ones that had been officially forbidden, that it was impossible to know for sure. She could imagine him wanting his living flesh and blood back, if only to enjoy life as a human again, and then wanting to rule the world ... what had he wanted, back then? But the history books vacillated between dismissing the whole thing as a bid for power and a desperate attempt to deliver the entire world to the dark gods. Clearly,
something
had gone very badly wrong with the great hero of the First Necromantic War. Had he looked into the darkness long enough for it to look back?

Dark thoughts dripped through Elaine’s mind. No one else, not even Light Spinner, knew just how many forbidden and forgotten spells were stored in the Black Vault. Elaine knew, all too well; there were spells she could use, if she wanted, to boost her meagre power reserves, but they all came with a terrifying price. Sanity, for starters ...

There were spells so powerful that to attempt to cast them on one’s own risked death, spells that released so much magic that they could have unpredictable side effects, spells so nasty that even being caught in the backwash could have disastrous results, spells that invoked the darkest of the dark gods ... and spells that risked ending everything, if cast with the right preparations. Elaine sometimes wondered if a god had been playing with her life, dangling power in front of her with one hand and keeping her away from it with the other. It would have been nice to have extra power at the Peerless School, but now ... if she wanted to try some of the more dangerous spells in her mind, she would have had to boost her power first, destroying her mind in the process.

It just isn’t fair
, she thought, with a flash of self pity.
If they catch me, they can use me as a mobile library of deadly spells. But I can’t use the spells for myself.

Life isn’t fair
, her mind responded, dryly.
And would you want to destroy the entire world anyway? Even the Witch-King isn’t that insane ...

Daria cleared her throat. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better,” Elaine said. A plan was already forming in her mind. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Chapter Nineteen

The streets surrounding the Imperial Palace, the Great Library and the Peerless School were deserted, save for the soldiers, combat sorcerers and a pair of Inquisitors. Charity, who had attended the Peerless School as a younger girl, had been used to seeing the streets filled with students and those who served them; now, she couldn’t help feeling, as the sun slowly rose in the sky, that something was dreadfully wrong. It just felt odd.

She turned her attention towards the Peerless School and sighed. The school had been placed into lockdown by the new Administrator, Light Spinner’s personal appointee to the building, while he waited to see what happened. He would have no choice, Charity was sure, but to swear loyalty to the Emperor soon enough. The Peerless School had served the Imperial Bloodline long before the first Grand Sorcerer had taken up the post and it was still reflected in the oaths.

Light flared around the Great Library as the wardcrafters kept pounding on the wards, poking and prodding at defences that had been old when the first Grand Sorcerer took power. The wards were tough, the sorcerers had noted, but nothing lasted forever. Charity smiled to herself as she sensed the magic crackling through the air, only to fade back into the wards surrounding the building. It looked as though the Head Librarian would remain trapped indefinitely, along with her companions.

A grim-faced Inquisitor eyed her darkly as she stepped up to stand beside him, then turned his attention back to the wards. Charity took the hint and kept her mouth shut, merely watching as the wards shimmered in and out of visibility. She was no expert, but it looked as though the wards were resisting everything the wardcrafters did to weaken them before attempting to break the protections down. They were definitely much more complex than the wards she’d had to take over, when she’d become the Family Head. Her father hadn’t been capable of producing anything as powerful and complex as the wards surrounding the Great Library.

She cursed inwardly, wishing she’d been smart enough to flee the city, just like Jamal and her father. The Emperor owned her now, body and soul, and she had no choice but to obey his orders. And he’d ordered her to stay with the men until they broke though the wards. She shivered – sun or no sun, it was still cold and snow was lying on the ground – then cast a warming charm around herself. All she could do was follow orders and hope the Emperor didn’t recall her to the palace. If nothing else, she had more latitude when she was away from his presence.

There was a sudden flicker of light around the building, followed by a flare of magic. The wards shimmered into view, then started to shatter. Charity blinked in disbelief – the wards shouldn’t have fallen so quickly – then stared as the sorcerers started to run forward. The Inquisitor caught her arm before she could join them, clearly suspecting trouble. But it was too late. There was a brilliant flash of light – Charity covered her eyes, too late to do any good – and then darkness descended like a thunderbolt. Panic gibbered at the corner of her mind as she sank to the pavement, one hand grasping desperately for her wand. She’d been blinded and was effectively helpless. Anything could be out there in the darkness, anything at all.

“Stay still,” a harsh voice snapped. The Inquisitor, she assumed. “Don’t move, whatever you do.”

Charity obeyed, helplessly. Magic spiked around her – she could still sense magic, thankfully – and then it faded away. But she couldn’t see anything but darkness.

***

It was odd, but true that most magical protections were geared to resist magical threats. Any sorcerer worthy of the name knew a hundred wards capable of stopping a punch or a thrown rock, yet few would admit to using them. Sorcerers never brawled with their fists, while their power kept mundanes from being willing to challenge them to fights. It was a poor sorcerer, Elaine had been taught, who could be killed by a mere powerless mundane. His death would serve to improve the breed.

She plunged her mind into the wards, then generated a powerful flash of light, bright enough to do real damage to anyone watching without custom protections. The view through the wards showed the wardcrafters and some of the red-robed men stumbling backwards in disarray, suggesting that they hadn’t been smart enough to include protections against blindness. She smirked to herself, then thrust out a wave of raw magic that disrupted or destroyed the spells they were using to try to crack the wards. They’d been primed for limited feedback, not a shockwave that overfilled their reservoirs and shattered the containment fields. It struck her, suddenly, that she could keep doing it indefinitely, if she didn’t mind risking cracks in the wards. But with a team of skilled wardcrafters on the other side, there was too great a chance of disaster.

Instead, she focused her mind on something else. The stone surrounding the Great Library was already charmed, serving as part of the building’s defences. She churned it up with the wards, then forced it outwards as a wave of dust, propelled by the wards themselves. Anyone smart enough to protect themselves against flashes of light would find themselves blinded by the dust, forcing them to concentrate hard on saving themselves from breathing in all kinds of poison. The stone alone would be hazardous to their health. She grinned unpleasantly, then turned to run, resetting the wards as she moved. It was time to leave the Great Library for good.

She couldn’t help feeling a pang as she ran down into the entrance hall, where Cass and Daria were already pushing the moving statues out into the streets. They’d been glamoured to look like escaping fugitives, something that would hopefully cause more confusion as the forces outside gathered themselves and started banishing the dust. Cass winked at her, then tapped the first statue with her wand. It broke into a run and headed towards where the largest group of sorcerers had been standing, before the first flash of light. The others followed, one by one.

“Come on,” Cass snapped. “They won’t stay shocked for long.”

Elaine nodded, glancing back into the Great Library. She had known she would have to leave, but not like this, not leaving the building open to her prospective enemies. Part of her wanted to tell them to leave her and make their escape ... she shook her head, then sent one final command to the wards. She might not be able to lockdown the library completely, not from the outside, but she could make sure that no one got their hands on the Black Vault without her assistance. The wards responded, perhaps sensing her urgency, although she hadn’t
thought
they could think for themselves. One by one, powerful wards dropped into place, hiding the Black Vault. Even Vane would be unable to find it without Elaine’s presence.