Bookworm III (47 page)

Elaine considered it. “I think I don’t blame you for lashing out at them,” she said. “And I know you did it, at least in part, to avenge what you thought was my death.”

“But I don’t regret it,” Johan snapped. “I don’t feel guilt!”

“Tell me,” Elaine said. “Do you think you should?”

“
I don’t know
,” Johan insisted.

Elaine understood, better than she wanted to admit. She’d been bullied, yet her bullies hadn’t been members of her family. Johan, on the other hand, had been bullied endlessly, merely for having been born without magic. He’d been so badly abused that he lacked any real empathy for his tormentors – and only a moron or a monster would expect him to have any. It was hard, so very hard, to blame him for ripping that precious gift out of their bodies, even though it had terrified the entire city. The magicians she knew would sooner castrate themselves than lose their magic.

She reached up and caught his hand, holding it gently. “I once cast a tripping jinx on Millicent,” she said. “She was walking down the stairs at the time and she almost broke her neck.”

“Good,” Johan said, after a moment.

“I thought so too,” Elaine said. “Until it dawned on me, afterwards, that I could have killed her.”

She didn’t know who had reported her, but
someone
had. Serving a month of detentions had been bad enough, she recalled, yet the lecture had been worse. The Administrator had pointed out, in exacting detail, just how close Elaine had come to being a murderess. A few inches further and Millicent would have been past all help, even with the strongest druids on call. She would sooner be beaten to within an inch of her life than endure a second such lecture.

“
They
could have killed me,” Johan said.

“But they didn’t,” Elaine countered. “I think you need to decide, now, what you’re going to do, the next time you see them. Are you going to let it pass or are you going to lash out at them again.”

“I don’t know,” Johan said. “I want revenge ...”

“You can take it,” Elaine said. “But will it be worth the effect it will have on you?”

She looked back towards where they’d buried the life-charm, then sighed. “I went to Ida, once,” she said. “That was about six months before we met, a week after I became a Bookworm. Dread followed me there.”

“He must have been interested in you,” Johan said, mischievously. “You are quite pretty.”

Elaine felt her face heat. She glared at him, then went on.

“We talked about what power could do to people,” she recalled. “I didn’t understand what he was trying to say at first. It was an odd conversation, you see. I didn’t realise that he thought
I
might have had a power boost, rather than ... well, rather than having the Great Library dumped into my head. He pointed out that people who suddenly gained power tended to go a little insane.”

“I’m not insane,” Johan said. “Am I?”

“And then there was one of my co-workers,” Elaine continued, not answering the question. “Her husband won favour – I don’t know how – and got promoted up a rank or two. It came with quite a decent pay rise, enough to put him in the upper middle class. But it turned him from a nice man into a complete asshole.”

Johan frowned. “Are you sure
she
wasn’t the one who changed?”

“I didn’t notice any change in her,” Elaine said. She had to admit he had a point. Sudden wealth could ruin a woman as easily as it could ruin a man. “Point is: he’d been jumped forward too quickly, so he didn’t adapt slowly to the change in circumstances. You have the same problem. You started out as a young man without magic, then you gained magic ... and not just
any
magic, but something radically different from anyone else. Right now, you could become a champion of righteousness ... or you could become a monster.”

“I won’t become a monster,” Johan said. He gave her a look that spoke of endless trust and respect. “You won’t let me.”

“I will certainly
try
to keep you sane,” Elaine said, “but ...”

She broke off as she sensed a flicker of magic. Someone was standing by the grave, hidden behind a complex concealment charm.

Johan looked down at her. “What ...?”

And then a rock flew out of nowhere and struck Johan neatly between the eyes. Elaine almost blacked out herself as her apprentice crumpled, hitting the ground with a terrifying thud. The shock stunned her, but she shook it off, somehow. She didn’t dare collapse now, not when she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who was standing behind the charm.

“Dread,” she said, pulling herself to her feet. Her legs felt wobbly, but somehow she managed to remain standing upright. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Daria growled, low in her throat, as the Inquisitor made his appearance.

“Elaine,” he said. He looked older, somehow; older and angrier. “I would like you to accompany me back to the Golden City.”

Elaine eyed him warily, holding her wand in one hand. His wand was dangling from his belt, but she didn’t relax. She knew, all too well, that he didn’t need it to work magic. He wouldn’t have become an Inquisitor without becoming proficient at working magic without a wand.

“I must respectfully decline,” she said, although she knew it was futile. “The Emperor is a pawn of the Witch-King.”

The flash of frustration she saw in his eyes confirmed her worst suspicions. He
knew
what was happening, yet he couldn’t break his oaths and intervene. If Vlad Deferens was the Emperor, then Vlad Deferens was the Emperor ... and, no matter what he did, Dread had to do as he was commanded.

“The Emperor has ordered me to bring you back to the Golden City,” Dread said. He hadn’t moved, but that too meant nothing. Dread was old enough to be her father, yet he was both stronger and faster than her. “I can leave your friends here if you come with me now.”

Elaine thought rapidly. She didn’t dare allow him to take her back to the city – and yet she didn’t dare try to fight him. Dread wasn’t a mad Dark Wizard; he was a trained Inquisitor, with more power and experience than she could imagine. And he’d been smart enough to knock out Johan first, before his presence was completely blown. The greatest threat to him had been neutralised before they knew they were under attack.

“I can’t do that,” Elaine said. She hesitated, then gambled. “If the Witch-King is using Deferens as a puppet, do you have to obey him?”

“The oaths admit of no such loophole,” Dread said. “He is the person sitting in the Golden Throne. He must be obeyed.”

“But it’s madness,” Elaine protested. She stared at him, willing him to understand. “The Witch-King wants me to set the seal on his victory.”

“I know,” Dread said. His entire body quivered. “But I can delay no longer.”

Daria snapped into wolf form and attacked, lunging forward at terrifying speed. Dread raised a ward, then ducked, snapping out a spell as he moved. Silver dust appeared from nowhere, surrounding Daria like a deadly cloud. It would be deadly too, Elaine knew, as she hastily cast a counterspell. Silver dust wouldn’t be immediately fatal to a werewolf, not like a silver knife to the heart, but it would condemn Daria to a slow and unpleasant death. Daria choked, even as the dust started to fade, then roared angrily. Dread threw a spell at her and blasted her wolf body right across the clearing, right into a tree. Elaine took advantage of his distraction to fire a spell at him, but he blocked it without apparent effort.

“This is pointless,” he said. He sounded as though he was trying to talk down to her ... and yet there was a hard edge to his voice she didn’t quite understand. “You don’t stand a chance against me. Let me take you back to the Golden City and your friends can be left here.”

Elaine shuddered as he threw a freeze spell at her. It was the simplest of charms, used by students at the Peerless School, yet there was so much power behind it that blocking the spell required all of her concentration. Dread looked bored, rather than surprised, as she batted it aside, then simply threw another one. This time, Elaine ducked and dodged the spell, allowing it to zap over her shoulder and strike a tree. The fireball she hurled back at him struck his shields and vanished.

“Pointless,” Dread repeated.

He was toying with her, Elaine knew. It was odd, yet somehow heartening. No normal Inquisitor would stoop to toying with an opponent, not even when the opponent was so much weaker than him. Dread was fighting his oaths, doing just enough to satisfy them without actually
winning
... and trying to buy her time to produce a victory. But she honestly didn’t know how to win.

She launched another fireball at him, then cast a second charm on the ground below his leather boots. It turned to mud; he started to sink, slipping and sliding as he tried to take a step forward. Elaine braced herself, then cast another freeze spell, turning the ground to ice and trapping his feet in the ground. Dread looked up at her, then flicked his finger. Elaine found herself picked up by an invisible force and slammed against the nearest tree.

“Pointless,” Dread said, again.

Elaine muttered a charm under her breath. The force holding her in place twisted and threw itself back at Dread. He held up his hand, deflecting the wave of magic, then yanked his feet free of the ground and took a step forward. Elaine cast another spell, this time sucking up dirt and earth from the soil and throwing it right into his face. A wash of muddy water came back at her, soaking her dress. Dread stepped through the haze, smiling coldly. Elaine hastily created a dozen images of herself, each one accurate in every detail, but the Inquisitor was not fooled. He just kept walking towards her.

And this is him trying to lose
? she thought, dazed.
How the hell do I stop him
?

She hefted her wand and launched a lightning bolt, striking him directly on his wards. Light flared around him, but he seemed unharmed. She gritted her teeth, formulated a second spell, then hurled another lightning bolt. As magic sparkled around his wards, she launched the second spell into his protections. Piece by piece, they started to untangle his protections, converting them into raw magic. Few magicians could hope to cast such a complex spell, she knew; fewer still could hope to cancel it in the midst of a fight. But Dread had an unfair advantage. He knew her, all too well.

“Not bad,” Dread said. “But dangerous.”

He ignored the spell in favour of throwing another one at her. This time, it struck her protections and punched right through, slamming into her bare skin. Elaine screamed as she felt her body warp and twist, then start to shrink. It was no prank spell, she knew, as it did its dirty work; it was designed to allow Inquisitors to capture and transport prisoners without resorting to either compulsion spells or handcuffs. Somehow, despite the pain, she managed to counter the spell, then reverse its effects. But she collapsed to the ground as soon as the spell was cancelled.

Dread looked down at her for a long moment, then started concentrating on the spell attacking his wards. It had done a great deal of damage in a few seconds, Elaine noted, despite the throbbing pain running through her body. Even Dread, for all of his skill, was having problems removing it. He’d need to drop his wards altogether if he wanted to do it quickly, she told herself, but he knew better than to do it with potential threats all around him.

She forced her mind to focus, drawing on what power she could to repair the damage to her body. It ached in so many places, after the spell and forced landing; it was all she could do to push the pain into a small corner of her mind. The link she shared with Johan didn’t help; she cursed the irony mentally, even as she stared up at Dread. The Inquisitor’s mental struggle was all-too-visible behind his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But there are no loopholes left.”

Elaine winced as he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, then pushed her into the nearest tree. His movements were calm and unhurried, despite the spell that was still attacking his remaining wards. Elaine would have been impressed if she hadn’t been ruefully aware that he was going to take her back to Deferens, to face him one final time. She knew she wouldn’t survive the final meeting.

“I’m sorry too,” she said.

She summoned enough magic to cast an itching hex, then aimed it through a chink in his wards. Dread swore – she couldn’t recall him ever swearing before – and let go of her dress, just enough to let her cast a second spell. The world grew around her rapidly, her dress falling down around her, casting everything into darkness. Dread yanked the dress back and stared down at her tiny shape, then reached for her with a hand the size of an Iron Dragon. Elaine ran, her tiny legs taking her into the tree, then out of reach. He would have to shrink himself to come in after her ...

The tree shook, then was violently yanked out of the ground. Elaine swore as pieces of wood crashed down all around her, then ran, trusting in the dirt and dust to conceal her movements. She found herself falling forwards as the ground shook – Dread had dropped the tree – and landed in the mud. A hand grabbed for her, but she managed to dodge, then cast a complex summoning charm of her own. Dread looked down at her from a very great height, then looked away. A large fox was running towards him at speed, followed by dozens of other animals. The summoning charm was used by hunters to attract game, everything from foxes to deer. It looked as though it had done its work too well.

She took advantage of the distraction to snap back to normal size, then looked around for her friends. Johan was still lying stunned, while Daria was choking and coughing. The silver would have burned her throat, even if she had managed to banish it before it was fatal. Elaine hesitated, cursing her own uncertainty. She wanted to help her friend, but she knew the only person who could stop Dread was Johan. Bidding her friend a silent apology, she ran over to Johan and looked down at him. There was a nasty gash on his forehead where he’d been hit, leaking blood. She hesitated – a blow to the head could have caused brain damage, which needed a specialist druid to heal – and then cast a healing spell. Magic soaked through the gash, slowly knitting together the damaged skin. But she didn’t know if it would be enough.