Burned (26 page)

Two Keepers, Slate and Trask, were waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. They’re from Caldera’s order and they’re partners, more or less. Slate is stockier and lighter-skinned, while Trask is taller and darker, but both are tough, and look it. I regarded them with mixed feelings. Slate and Trask know their business, but I wasn’t looking forward to working with Slate.

Slate gave me his usual scowl upon seeing me. ‘Over there,’ he said, jerking his head.

The far wall of the basement was different from the rest. The other walls were crude brick, but this was finely worked stone carved into a frieze of leaves and branches; the bricks and mortar to the left and right were old, but something told me that the wall in front of me was older still. It had stood here for a long, long time before workmen had turned this area into a sub-level of the building above.

I couldn’t sense any magic from the wall. It didn’t hold any energy or charge, and a quick glance through the futures confirmed that it wouldn’t respond to any standard tests. But in a little under half an hour, this would become an active gate into a bubble realm. If the Council’s intelligence report was accurate, no password or key was required. Anyone with the ability to channel through focus items could do the job. I looked ahead, trying to confirm whether—

‘Well?’ Slate said from behind me. ‘Can you open it or not?’

I shot an annoyed look back at Slate. ‘Not with you yakking on, I can’t.’

Slate rolled his eyes. I went back to studying the futures. Again they were disrupted.

I sighed. ‘Slate.’

‘What?’

‘Can you give me some peace and quiet?’

‘Didn’t say anything.’

‘No, but you’re
going
to, and it’s breaking my concentration.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Slate said, aggrieved. ‘I’m just—’

‘Look, just take his word for it,’ Caldera interrupted. ‘It’ll go a lot faster.’

Slate looked bad-tempered but he obeyed, and looking ahead I could tell he’d actually stay quiet this time. I searched through the futures in which I waited out the time and tried to open the gate, exploring the paths.

It was fifteen minutes before zero hour when Rain came downstairs. Caldera spoke to him quietly, and Rain raised his eyebrows but waited. I kept path-walking for a minute longer, then went over. ‘Well?’ Rain asked.

‘It’s going to work,’ I said. ‘Gate’ll be accessible right on the dot.’

‘Any hostiles on the other side?’

‘No.’

‘What’s the environment?’

‘Dark, cold, empty. Feels deserted. No traps or wards or guardians. It’s big, though. We’re going to have to search.’

‘Any sign of Drakh or his cabal?’

‘No.’

Rain nodded. ‘Coatl’s looking for you upstairs.’

I came up the stairs into noise and commotion. The bodies had been cleaned away, but Council security were hurrying around and I could hear someone giving orders. I could feel more wards being woven, stronger ones this time, and there was a sense of urgency in the air.

Coatl was waiting for me near the stairs. He was wearing a suit of body armour that made him look rather out of place, like an office worker dressed up for a re-enactment. ‘Hoi, Verus,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a problem.’

A Keeper came striding past, shouting something about getting snipers on the roof. ‘You mean all this?’ I said.

‘No,’ Coatl said. ‘There’s a Keeper in your squad by the name of Ares. Square face, short hair, balding. Took a call just before going down. Couldn’t make out most of it, but it was about you, and it didn’t sound friendly.’

‘The I-don’t-like-him sort of unfriendly? Or I’m-going-to-shoot-him-in-the-head?’

‘Dunno, but I’d watch your back if I were you.’

‘Great.’ I sighed. ‘Well, I’ve gone on missions with Keepers planning to murder me before. At least this time I know which one it is.’

A squad of three Council security came running past, weapons up and faces grim. They jogged out the door and disappeared into the darkness, another man pulling the door shut behind them. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘Eyes in the sky are tracking a group headed right for us,’ Coatl said. ‘A hundred at least, and they’re armed. Doesn’t feel like a coincidence to me.’

‘Me either. You going to be okay?’

Coatl snorted. ‘I’ll be hiding behind the battle mages. We’ll keep ’em off you.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ If they couldn’t, we’d be trapped. ‘Good luck.’

‘You too.’

By the time I made it back down to the basement, it was packed. Keepers and security men were crammed into the room, and I had to squeeze through the crowd. Despite the numbers, they were keeping a respectful distance from the wall. Landis had arrived too, and he gave me a cheery wave and a pat on the shoulder as I passed.

Rain was waiting at the front. ‘We good?’ he asked.

I checked the futures. ‘Looks in order.’

Slate was staring at me, and I could guess why. He wanted to know why Rain was taking my word for it. From flickers in the future I knew other Keepers were wondering the same thing, but none spoke out, maybe because they already knew what the answer would be. Rain had made the decision to trust me, and that was that. Which made me a member of the team … at least until Rain changed his mind. If he did, I knew Slate would turn on me without thinking twice, and he wouldn’t be the only one.

The room fell silent as the minutes slipped by. I spent the time examining the bubble realm I’d soon be entering. The more I saw of this place, the less I liked it. It might not try to kill us on first entry, but it wasn’t friendly. I could hear the murmur of whispered conversations from behind me, but as the last sixty seconds ticked away, even that died down. I knew everyone else was counting. Fifteen seconds. Ten. Five. Four. Three …

‘Time,’ someone said from behind me, but I was already moving. I placed my hand on one of the leaves carved into the stone, channelled a thread of magic into it, then stepped back.

For a moment nothing happened, then a split opened in the ancient stone. Slowly and silently, two gates swung back into nothingness. As they did, they seemed to submerge themselves in shadow, as though they were sinking beneath the surface of some black liquid. The opening gates revealed a black veil, smooth and vertical and faintly reflective, and they kept swinging back until they had disappeared behind the darkness. A rectangular opening in the wall looked out at us, black and empty. From beginning to end the process had been absolutely quiet.

The Keeper force looked back at the entrance. There was something eerie about the silence. ‘Verus?’ Rain said. ‘Is it safe?’

For answer I walked into the darkness. ‘Wait—’ Rain started to say, then the black veil swallowed me. A chill seemed to slide along my skin as I passed through, then I was on the other side.

I came out into darkness. Not the darkness of the cellar, but the kind of total pitch black where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. It was cold but not freezing, and my shoes echoed on hard stone. I pulled a torch from my belt and clicked it on; the beam was weak and feeble, but it pushed back the darkness enough to create a splash of light around my feet. In the glow, I could see that the stone I was standing on was pale and flat. I couldn’t see any walls or furniture, or for that matter anything at all. I might have been standing in the middle of nowhere.

Turning around, I found that I could see back into the basement, though the view was shrouded and darkened, like looking through a dirty window. The gate hung unsupported in mid-air, no sound coming through the veil. There was a figure approaching the gate; it was Rain, and as I watched, he passed through, his boots coming down on to the stone. He looked up, saw me and walked over. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘you can just say yes.’

‘We didn’t really have time to sit around while I convinced them it wasn’t a trap.’

More Keepers were coming through behind Rain, along with Council security. As the mages arrived, light spells began to flicker into existence: white, red, blue, grey. I saw Caldera come through, an orb of brown light igniting at her palm as she peered around her, with Landis following closely behind. The lights illuminated the place but didn’t seem to reach very far. I still couldn’t see anything above us or to either side.

‘Lumen,’ Rain called, and a petite woman who’d just stepped through the gate changed direction to walk towards us. She wore white and violet robes that made her stand out against the body armour and fatigues of the security men behind her. ‘Let’s turn the lights on.’

Lumen nodded and raised one hand. A sphere of pure white light appeared and began to float upwards. It grew larger and brighter as it did, until it was ten feet high and so bright I had to look away.

‘Brighter,’ Rain said.

‘I’m trying.’

‘We need to see.’

‘I’m
trying
.’ Lumen sounded frustrated. ‘Something’s wrong.’

I started to look back at the sphere and had to shield my eyes. The amount of white light pouring out of it was so intense that I couldn’t even look nearby without being dazzled. But when I turned away, I realised what Lumen meant. At our feet, the light was turning night into day … but only where we were standing. By the time the light was thirty feet away, the shadows were starting to return, turning the stone into gloom, and by fifty feet I couldn’t see at all.

‘We need this place lit up,’ Rain said. ‘Use more power.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ Lumen said. ‘It’s not helping.’

‘Rain,’ I said quietly. I kept my voice down but didn’t hide the urgency in it. ‘You might want to keep everyone together.’

Rain looked around. A few of the Keepers and Council security had started to drift away, and as they had their lights had faded into the gloom, almost disappearing from sight. ‘Everyone stay close!’ Rain shouted. ‘Keep in visual range!’

The Keepers who’d been starting to drift away stopped and the group pulled together again. In truth, no one had gone far – pack instinct had kept anyone from wandering off – but even so, it had taken only seconds for us to almost lose contact. Rain turned back to the woman next to him. ‘Talk to me.’

‘There’s something not right about this place.’ Lumen kept her voice down too. ‘The air’s clear, there shouldn’t be any visual interference, but light isn’t propagating the way it should.’

‘You know physical laws can work differently inside bubbles,’ I said. It’s one of the big ways they differ from shadow realms. A shadow realm is grown as a reflection of a location in our world, but the creator of a bubble realm can shape it into damn near anything, which includes messing with the laws of physics.

‘Options?’ Rain asked me.

I shrugged. ‘If Lumen’s right and this is light-based, then everyone using visual spells is going to have their effective range cut. Fire mages definitely; probably the water and light mages too. Caldera’s tremorsense might still work. My path-walking definitely does.’

Rain nodded. ‘Then you’re at the front with me.’

Our force formed up and headed into the darkness. There were a total of eleven mages under Rain’s command: me, Caldera, Landis, Slate, Trask and half a dozen more that I knew less well. I was the only auxiliary; everyone else was a member of the Order of the Star or the Order of the Shield. Accompanying us were nearly thirty Council security. All carried guns, and some were transporting heavier equipment: demolition gear, maybe, or heavy weapons. It’s rare for the Council to send more than one or two Keepers on a mission. Even dedicated combat operations usually don’t merit more than six. This was the largest Keeper group I’d ever been a part of.

It was a formidable force, but it didn’t make me feel particularly reassured. In theory the Keepers are supposed to work for the Council as a whole, with no loyalty to any one particular faction. In practice, every major Light political faction has sympathisers among the Keepers and the auxiliary corps. If you’re lucky, this just means that they’ll leak information. If you’re not … well, I’ve had Keepers try to kill me before. Given the state of affairs with Maradok and Levistus, I was going to be pretty surprised if the same thing didn’t happen again before the day was out.

But I could feel Caldera’s presence behind me, with Landis nearby, and that did make me feel better. ‘Caldera?’ I murmured, dropping back. ‘Keeper to our right. Square face, starting to lose his hair. Know the guy?’

‘Who—?’

‘Don’t look.’

Caldera obeyed, waiting until she could sneak a sidelong glance. ‘Ares?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘He’s Order of the Shield. Haven’t worked with him before.’

Landis fell into step on the other side. ‘I know the chap. What’s bothering you?’

‘Coatl told me to keep an eye on him.’ I kept my voice very low. Ares was far enough away that he shouldn’t be able to overhear, but there are spells that can boost one’s senses. ‘Apparently he doesn’t like me very much.’

‘Hmm.’ Landis stroked his jaw.

‘Hmm, what?’

‘Well, he’s got no reason to love Dark mages, I can tell you that,’ Landis said. ‘Still, he’s no loose cannon. Wouldn’t expect him to go tilting at windmills.’

‘It’s not windmills I’m worried about.’ If the guy was working for Maradok, it wouldn’t be hard for him to arrange an ‘accident’ while people were distracted. ‘What’s his magic type?’

‘Fire. Good at what he does. If you’re that concerned, I’d keep your distance if I were you.’

‘Should have worn your armour,’ Caldera said.

I kept quiet in response to that one.
There’s a reason I didn’t.

A shape formed out of the darkness ahead: a bridge, made out of the same pale stone and sloping upwards. To either side of the bridge, the stone stopped abruptly. Behind it was only a void. Rain came to a halt and gestured towards me; I walked forward to catch him up. ‘What’s down there?’ Rain asked, pointing into the blackness.

I looked into the future in which I stepped off the edge. It’s one of the more difficult tricks to do as a diviner, not because the spell’s a particularly complicated one, but because of the mental state you need to be in to make it work. Divination only sees possible futures; to look into the futures in which you do something potentially suicidal, you have to be willing to actually do it. To get it to work you have to use a kind of self-hypnosis, putting yourself into a trance of pure dispassionate curiosity. I saw my future self plunge into the darkness and fall. And fall. And fall. All-enveloping blackness, air rushing as I plummeted down a bottomless pit …