Bookworm III (8 page)

And who in the name of all the gods
was
he?

The Witch-King had to be involved, Elaine was sure. No one else could hide a branch of the Imperial Bloodline from view for generations, perhaps supervising their breeding without letting them know just who and what they were. She tried to calculate the odds in favour of it being a coincidence, and gave up after ten minutes of pointless contemplation. No, the Witch-King had to be involved, which meant that the entire Golden City – and the Inquisitors – were effectively in the hands of the enemy. And they’d never seen it coming.

We knew the bastard could make plans over generations
, Elaine told herself.
He was alive, a living breathing human, when the last Emperor sat on the Throne. Why didn’t we consider the possibility of him preserving and protecting a surviving member of the Imperial Bloodline?

Because it was unthinkable
, her own thoughts answered her.
We were all taught that the Imperial Bloodline was dead and gone. It never occurred to us to think otherwise
.

Bitterly, she sat back and concentrated on erecting more defences. Despair would simply help the spell force its way into her mind, she knew, and when her defences fell she would be lost forever. She had to hold on and pray, somehow, that she could find a way to escape before it was too late. But with her magic tied up in fending off the spell, she knew it would be difficult ...

And if she fell asleep, it would be the end.

Chapter Six

“This is really something,” Johan said.

Daria turned to look at him. “It is?”

“Yes,” Johan said, as he looked at the carriages. “It is.”

Johan had grown up in a family where duty was everything, where his older brother was expected to carry on the family name and his younger siblings were expected to marry people who could bring new assets to the family. Their father had trained them to do their part for the family – apart from Johan, who had been considered the family embarrassment at best and a potential disaster at worst. There had been little true love in the family, he knew; truly loving parents would not have allowed them to grow into warped little humans. They had cared more for the family name than for the children who would bear it.

But the Travellers
were
a loving family. The kids ran around happily, while the older children and adults actually worked together. It was almost as if there were dozens of parents for each child, as if whoever had actually birthed the child didn’t matter. He saw a child fall and scrape his knee, then get comforted by the nearest pair of adults ... and then go right back to having fun. It was something he had never known in his former home.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Daria said, after a moment. “You and Elaine will be sharing a carriage, I’m afraid, so please check it out” – she jabbed a finger at one of the carriages – “and let me know if it’s suitable.”

Johan nodded, then walked over to the carriage. A handful of boys and girls, all roughly his age, were sitting in front of it, chatting as they read sheets of paper. He couldn’t help thinking that the girls were prettier than his sisters, even though they weren’t using glamours to hide any tiny imperfections on their faces. But they were also definitely werewolves ... indeed, almost all of the Travellers were werewolves. He wasn’t just looking at a family, he told himself; he was looking at a
pack
. There was no such thing as a lone wolf.

He forced himself to look away from the girls as they started to giggle – like Daria, they could smell the change in his scent – and climbed up into the carriage. On the outside, it was surprisingly small; inside, it was remarkably roomy. Someone had clearly been using magic to enhance the space inside, he realised; it wasn’t as impressive as parts of the Great Library, but it was easily large enough for two people. The small collection of pots and pans hanging from the ceiling caught his eye and he looked up at them, then smiled. Hopefully, neither Elaine nor himself would be expected to cook. Their adventures in the mountains had convinced him that he would never make a good chef.

We’re going to be undressing together
, he thought, and flushed. Maybe Daria had a point, putting them together, but it was going to be embarrassing as hell.
I’ll leave her alone to change, then change myself, if we do
.

He sat down on the bed, then closed his eyes and tried to feel for Elaine’s presence. It was the furthest they’d been apart since forming the apprenticeship bond, but he could still feel her in the back of his mind. He smiled to himself, feeling an odd sense of reassurance just from knowing the bond was there. Elaine could no more abandon him than she could cut off one of her own hands. The bond, for all that it was weighted in favour of the master – or mistress, in this case – carried obligations of its own.

“Assuming they apply to us too,” he muttered to himself. “The rules seem to be different for me.”

He sighed. There were times when he wished his magic was
normal
, just like the magic of his brothers and sisters. The bond not forming properly didn’t strike him as a good sign. He’d spoken to a couple of apprentices who had visited the library and both of them had shared a much more intimate link with their masters than he enjoyed with Elaine. But it was better – by far – than being Powerless. His family would have kept him prisoner indefinitely, he suspected, or they would have killed him eventually. There had been quite a few children listed in the books who had vanished from the records, somewhere around the time they would have attended the Peerless School. Had they been sent for private tutoring ... or had they been killed for being Powerless? There was no way to know.

And then he felt a sudden shockwave of alarm from Elaine.

He jumped to his feet ... and banged his skull against the low ceiling. Cursing, he rubbed his head with one hand as he tried to reach out to Elaine. But there was nothing, beyond a sense that something was very, very wrong. Elaine’s presence was always light and ghostly in his mind, as if she was nothing more than a dream or a figment of his imagination, but now it had faded almost to nothingness. He was aware of her when she slept, he knew; he’d never sensed any change in the bond. But now ... was she dead?

There was a tap on the door. “Are you alright?”

Johan gritted his teeth against the pain, then opened the door. A young girl, barely older than himself, was standing outside, her white hair spilling down over her chest. She’d been one of the children outside, he recalled, probably one of the ones who had giggled at him. But right now it hardly mattered.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Can you fetch Daria? Now.”

He jumped out of the carriage as the girl sped away, feeling his head spinning in pain. It was difficult to separate his own thoughts and feelings from Elaine’s, despite the simple fact that they were two different people. Some of the weirder cautionary tales about apprenticeship bonds had warned that two people could blur together, if they didn’t keep a barrier between themselves at all times. It hadn’t seemed possible, to Johan, because Elaine was very definitely a woman, but now he had his doubts. He sat down on the ground and forced himself to focus his mind. The pain didn’t make it easy.

“Johan,” Daria said. He looked up to see her standing, looming over him. “What happened?”

“Something’s wrong with Elaine,” Johan said. The pain was fading now, but the sense of her presence was also faint. He had no idea what could produce such an effect. According to the books, apprenticeship bonds could
not
be accidentally broken, short of one partner dying while the other survived. And it was next to impossible to sever a bond before time even if both parties consented. “She’s in trouble.”

Daria’s eyes narrowed. “And you know that how?”

“We have a bond,” Johan reminded her. “And now she’s very faint in my mind.”

“The Mothers and Fathers want to leave,” Daria muttered. She held out a hand to Johan. “I think we may have to go with them or let them go without us.”

Johan took her hand and allowed her to help him to his feet. She was strong, stronger than he’d realised. He’d known that werewolves had enhanced senses of smell, even in human form, but he hadn’t known they were physically strong too. Up close, her scent was almost overpowering, a wild scent that played hell with his mind. Part of him wanted to stay close to her; the remainder wanted to run, to leave her far behind. It was easy to remember, now, that werewolves were predators. And to understand why they were feared.

“We can’t leave Elaine here,” he said, trying to sound firm. A lifetime in his family’s house had taught him never to try to assert himself. Even the spellbound maids had enjoyed more magic than himself. “I
won’t
leave her here.”

“Nor will I,” Daria assured him. She let go of his hand, then turned and started to stride towards the largest carriage. “Come with me.”

Johan followed her as she walked up to the carriage and then around it, to where a group of men and women were chatting. It was an odd sight; there were times when the group seemed to defer to one or two members and times when they just argued and argued, as if there was no one really in charge. Johan recalled, from what little he’d read, that werewolf packs tended to have an alpha male and an alpha female, but – being partly human – there was a great deal of competition for the posts. He couldn’t help wondering how they settled arguments amongst themselves without one of the combatants dying. Maybe they fought to first blood instead.

He hung back as Daria spoke to the group, her face somehow seeming more canine than ever. It was spooky, almost; werewolves were bound by their curse, if he recalled correctly. They had free will and human-level intelligence, yet they also had wolfish patterns in their behaviour that were very hard to break. Judging from the way the pack elders shifted in their circle, it was quite likely that some of them thought – or felt – that Daria shouldn’t have interrupted.

Daria looked back at him. “They want to go now.”

“Then they can go,” Johan said. Elaine was more important than leaving the city with the Travellers. They could make their way to another city and then make contact with the Travellers there, or even hire horses from the closest Iron Dragon station to the badlands. “I need to go after Elaine ...”

A loud trumpet blew, silencing debate. Some of the wolves covered their ears – to them, the trumpet had been intolerably loud – while others howled in shock. The children, running between carriages in a wild game of catch, snapped into wolf forms and howled too, sending up a terrifying racket. Johan almost panicked – he’d read too many stories of howling wolves – as the werewolves huddled together, then relaxed as the parents urged them back into human forms. Daria caught his arm and tugged him away from them, towards a tall man carrying a trumpet in one hand and a scroll in the other.

“A herald?” Johan asked. He hadn’t seen one since the day they’d arrived in the city, when one of them had announced the arrival of the Conidian Family to anyone who cared to listen. “What’s he doing here?”

Daria shrugged.

The herald slowly unfolded his scroll, his every action suggesting that he was well aware of his own importance. Johan eyed the man’s uniform – a red, yellow and green creation that looked alarmingly like a trifle – and carefully kept his amusement to himself. Whoever had designed the uniforms had either been a sadist or had wanted to make damn sure that the wearer would be instantly recognised. Johan rather hoped the herald was paid good money for his efforts. Few people would want to wear such a uniform unless they were insulted with a fairly considerable bribe.

“Hear Ye, Hear Ye,” the herald said. His voice was loud enough to carry over the howling from the baby werewolves, probably augmented by some kind of charm. “Hear Ye. By the Grace of the gods – all hail the gods – our Emperor has returned to the city and claimed his Throne. All hail Emperor Vlad of the Golden City!”

Johan gaped at him. An Emperor? The genealogy tables his father had made him memorise, before he’d been confirmed as completely lacking in magic, had said there were no living members of the Imperial Bloodline in existence. And if they
had
been in existence, they wouldn’t have lived long enough to claim the Golden Throne. The Grand Sorcerers had been in power long enough to take precautions against any upstarts coming forward to take everything they’d built up over the years. Johan had no doubt, given how he’d been treated by his family, that any
genuine
descendant of the last Emperor would have spent the rest of his days croaking on a lily pad, if he was lucky. Or he might simply have been killed out of hand.

“By order of the Emperor, none may leave the city,” the herald continued. “Remain in your homes” – he cast a disdainful look at the carriages – “until his rule is established, then you may do as you see fit. All hail the Emperor!”

The herald blew his trumpet again, then rolled up the scroll and turned to leave. Johan hesitated, then ran after him. The man turned to face Johan, his face unpleasantly sweaty with fear. Clearly, he’d drawn the short straw when he’d been sent to inform the Travellers – and everyone else in the less pleasant parts of the city. And yet, there had been a time when Johan would have happily traded places with him, even if it
had
meant facing angry werewolves.

“You said there is an Emperor,” he said. “How?”

The herald eyed him, as Johan’s father had done when he had asked a particularly stupid question. “The Emperor took the Golden Throne,” he said, in tones Johan wouldn’t have used to address his youngest sister. But then, his sister had turned him into a doll more than once and played with him. “He has assumed control of the city.”

Johan swallowed. He didn’t know how anyone could have taken the Throne, but he suspected the worst. Had someone tricked the Golden Throne? Was that even possible? The Golden Throne was ancient, old enough to be impossible to alter without risking one’s complete destruction. Or was there a
real
Emperor seated on the Throne? What did that mean for the city?