Bookworm III (45 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Johan wasn’t quite sure
what
to make of Knawel Haldane.

On one hand, it was a city far – far – larger than the Golden City. There were no mountains hemming it in, nor were there any society rules about what counted as a decent place to build a home. Instead of towering apartment blocks, pressed in together by the sheer weight of the population, there were smaller homes and apartments that he’d been told were surprisingly affordable, while the population seemed much less stressed than the folk he recalled from the Golden City. But, on the other hand, there was an ever-present stench of human waste that refused to fade from his nose.

“I think I hate the smell here,” he said to Daria, as they waited outside the Town Hall. “We need to move on.”

“It could be worse,” Daria said. She wrinkled her nose. “Believe me, it could be worse.”

Johan shuddered at the thought, then looked across at a handful of guardsmen on the other side of the square. They seemed nervous, unsurprisingly. There might be no stream of refugees from the Golden City – yet – but they had to have heard rumours about everything from riots in the street to live dragons. Hell, the moment they’d entered the city, a guardsman had asked them to report to the Town Hall. Elaine, reluctantly, had agreed.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, finally. Elaine’s emotions were always tightly controlled, but he could feel her irritation and impatience jumping down the bond. “Why did we come here again?”

“Because we need horses and supplies,” Daria said, patiently. “Are you always so impatient?”

Johan smiled at her. “Are you always so calm?”

“Always, except when the full moon rises,” Daria said. “Don’t pick a fight with me then if you value your life.”

“I won’t,” Johan said. He looked up at the darkening sky, nervously. “How long do we have until the full moon?”

“One week,” Daria said. “Maybe I’ll go howling through the woods for the night – each night.”

Johan opened his mouth to reply, then closed it as Elaine came out of the Town Hall, looking irked. “They’re unwilling to do anything,” she said. “They’re scared halfway to death.”

Daria nodded as she rose to her feet. “I could smell it from out here,” she said. “Didn’t they believe you?”

“I told them most of what had happened,” Elaine confirmed. “Some of their people saw the dragons, briefly. But I couldn’t tell them everything.”

Johan sighed, inwardly, as they found their way through a maze of streets to the address Hawke had given him. Not entirely to his surprise, it was another pub, crammed with nervous-looking customers. The chatter grew louder as they pushed open the door, then made their way over to the bar, but it was impossible to pick out a single word. They were using so many privacy wards that even unprotected conversation was garbled.

“Hey,” he said, waving to the bartender. “I have a note for you.”

The bartender glanced at the note, then waved to a waitress wearing a long shapeless dress that was buttoned all the way up to her neck. She nodded to Johan – her sour pinched face barely twitching – and then led the way into a smaller room. It was so completely empty that there wasn’t even a table, let alone chairs or a sofa.

“Wait here,” she said, in a voice so tart it could sour lemons. “Do you want drinks?”

“No, thank you,” Elaine said. “We’ll wait.”

Johan frowned as Elaine leant against the wall. He’d walked for hours, the few times he’d managed to get out of the house, and Daria was a werewolf, but it was clear that Elaine wasn’t used to walking very far. Her entire body was aching and she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he doubted that sleep was an option. The crisis in the Golden City was only ten miles away, after all. A team of men riding an Iron Dragon could be there within an hour, perhaps much less.

Should have sabotaged the rails before we left,
he thought, grimly.
Why didn’t we think of that
?

“The waitress is strongly religious,” Daria commented. “Her sect aren’t supposed to have any form of sexual relationships, outside procreation.”

Johan blinked. “How can you tell?”

“The way she dresses, the way she moves,” Daria said. “And her smell, which is completely unblemished by any man. I dare say she would rather be working somewhere else, but has to work here for some reason.”

She broke off as the door opened, revealing a tall man wearing an apron and carrying a small bag in one hand. Johan eyed him, feeling uncomfortably reminded of his father; the face was different, but there was the same attitude of absolute superiority he’d hated seeing on his father’s face. The man wasn’t a magician, he thought, and yet he was still convinced he was in charge.

But these are the Levellers
, he reminded himself.
They will not honour a magician just because he is a magician
.

“No names, not here,” the man said, as he closed the door behind him. “I have been asked to give you all the help I can. What do you need?”

“Horses, food and a map,” Elaine said. “And, if you have it, permission to use the Emperor’s Roads.”

“That will require a heavy bribe,” the man said. “But I can get it for you. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible,” Elaine said.

“I can get the horses and permits to you within two hours,” the man said. “Any quicker and you might be better off requesting them from the council.”

“Two hours would be fine,” Elaine assured him.

“I’ll see to it,” the man said. “I’ll have food and drink sent here for you now, too. Travel food is rarely nice.”

He nodded, then stepped back out of the door and closed it behind him. “Nice guy,” Daria said, “but also very nervous. I guess he’s heard the rumours too.”

“Probably,” Elaine said. She sat down, resting her back against the wall. “Is it normal to ache so badly?”

“It’s your muscles being stretched for the first time in ... years,” Daria said, as Johan sat down next to Elaine. “You could do with stretching a few more muscles too.”

“I hate you,” Elaine said, without heat.

“Here’s another question,” Daria said. “How long has it been since you rode a horse?”

“I learnt at the Peerless School,” Elaine said. “The beasts never liked me.”

“I’d better make sure yours stays in line,” Daria said. “But I’d be much happier running beside you, in wolf form.”

She nodded, then paced out of the room. Johan watched her go, then looked at Elaine. She seemed tired, but he could feel the stress, guilt and shame running through her mind. Johan understood, in a way; he’d liked Cass and to have her die, perhaps for nothing, was horrific. It was hard to blame Elaine for feeling guilty. Cass would have survived if Elaine had insisted she come with them.

But Cass was also a strong magician
, Johan thought.
How could we have stopped her from going?

“We’ll avenge her,” he said, putting his arm around her. It was never easy to know what to say, but he meant it. “One day, we will kill Deferens and his master.”

“I hope so,” Elaine said. She relaxed into his arm for a long moment, then straightened up. “I have a letter she wanted me to give you, if she ... if she didn’t make it. I don’t know what it actually says.”

Johan blinked. “For me?”

“One of them,” Elaine said. She pulled it out of her pocket, then passed it to him. “It will be charmed so only you can read it. Make sure you don’t let anyone else open the letter, or handle the paper.”

“My father taught me that much,” Johan said. “But why would she write a letter to me?”

Elaine shrugged.

Johan examined the paper closely, then pressed his fingertip against the rune Cass had drawn on the back. Magic sparkled around his finger for a second and the envelope grew warm, then the heat suddenly died. Shaking his head, he opened the envelope and pulled out a scrap of paper, followed by a heart-shaped pendant. He put it down sharply – who knew what spells were attached to it? – and scanned the letter quickly. Cass had clearly been in a hurry when she’d been writing and it showed.

Johan.

If you’re reading this, I am dead. Anything less will not alter the charm I have given your mentor, or the hex I placed on this letter. Should someone – even you – have tried to open it prior to my death, the paper would have been destroyed. Your magic is strange and unpredictable, but even you should be unable to read this letter early.

I have a confession to make. We are related.

I don’t know if you knew, although you certainly did not know my pedigree. Like most of the Great Houses, House Lakeside had a habit of trying to mate its cadet branches with children from lesser bloodlines or new blood magicians. My great-great-grandfather, a third son of the House, was married to a daughter of House Conidian. At the time, your family was considered very lowly indeed; important outside the Golden City, minimally important within the mountains. I do not know if your father knew of the connection – I never had a chance to check the records and see if he’d worked with House Lakeside – but I was certainly not aware of it until after you manifested powers and we looked into your bloodline.

Inquisitors are expected – required – to sunder all ties to their families when they place the ring on their finger for the first time. I do not believe that many of my former comrades knew of my family history, and if they did they would not have considered it important. Daughter of House Lakeside or not, I was no longer in line for either power or inheritance. In the unlikely event of me having children, they too would not be part of the family. We may share a faint biological link, but the family magics long since separated us.

And yet I feel guilty.

I knew nothing about you until the incident outside the Imperial Palace. Your father was quite successful in covering up your existence. I suspect that much of your early development was simply attributed to your brother – helped, of course, by the fact you lived well away from the Golden City. Few people in the Golden City really cared about your family, although – as you know – rumours did get out. I thought nothing of it when your family arrived in the Golden City, although we were trying desperately to clean up the mess after Kane by then.

I could have said something when we were thrust together. Maybe I should have done.

But I saw your treatment of your sisters and thought better of it.

I understand your anger at your family. In many ways, I was equally angry at mine. They did not expect me to be anything more than a decorative piece of window dressing, then an ornament hanging from the arm of some elderly wizard, willing to trade his blood for the family name. But I had power and drive, while you lacked power. I had options that were simply not, at the time, open to you.

But what you have to decide, sooner rather than later, is what you want to do with your newfound power.

Your sisters treated you badly. I don’t blame you for being traumatised – and I don’t blame you for wanting revenge. But they were – are – children. A child lacks the ability to tell right from wrong, to understand when a joke is no longer funny, to see the fine line between pranks and outright bullying. I will concede they were set a bad example by your parents and your older siblings. But tell me – what do you want to become?

You have shattered their lives already, for better or worse. Your parents are gone, your older brother has fled and your sister is Deferens’s slave. I do not care to imagine what will happen to your younger siblings if they too fall into his hands. They may be unhurt, physically, but their minds will be torn asunder. I have met Deferens in my working capacity and I can say, after hours of observation, that he holds women in total contempt. In many ways, he is far worse than your older brother. A rapist – even a serial rapist – would be a far better person to encounter than Vlad Deferens, particularly if he believes he holds the whip hand. Charity’s submission to him will not have impressed him. Indeed, he will only hold her in greater contempt because she gave up her freedom to save her life.

So tell me ... what do you want to become? The bully who terrorises his siblings as they terrorised him, or the child who rises up above his early life to be a truly great man?

I had Dread to tell me when I was being a fool – and he did, believe me. There was never a day when he didn’t find something to criticise, never a day when I didn’t do something wrong in his eyes. I hated him at the time, let me tell you. There were times when I seriously considered throwing a hex at him or simply telling him where to go and leaving for good. But I stuck with it ... and, at the end, I realised what he’d been trying to tell me all along. I made mistakes – everyone made mistakes – but that doesn’t matter so much as how you handle yourself when you make one. Do you realise you made a mistake and do what you can to fix it, or do you try to deny the possibility that you could ever be wrong?

And it gets much harder when you’re dealing with other people’s mistakes.

Your father made a thousand mistakes when dealing with you and your siblings. He spoilt Jamal, because Jamal was the first-born and always special in his eyes. He treated you like dirt, because you seemed to have no power and were thus useless to his dreams of dynasty. He treated Charity like I was treated, to some extent; she was prepared for marriage to a suitable partner, not to be Prime Heir. And I suspect the same happened to your younger siblings. Their role was to carry out your father’s plans, not to be young men and women in their own right.

I’ve seen the results of far too many mistakes in the years I spent on duty, Johan. It isn’t pleasant.

You have to deal with your father’s mistakes – but you have to do it without making mistakes of your own.

If you will accept advice from your great-great-cousin (or whatever the precise term for our relationship actually
is)
either mend fences with your siblings or leave them behind for good. Right now, you’re as much of a bogeyman – perhaps more – to them as Jamal ever was. Worse? You took magic from both their father and their older brother. A terror to any magician – and maybe that was why I didn’t speak to you when I was alive – but far, far worse to them. They knew
you
, after all.