The Immortal Heights (20 page)

But he had not even found the great elemental mage yet. And
there was no telling how much longer it would take him. He buried his face in his hands. He would have to be far more prepared than he was.

Far, far more prepared.

A burst of laughter came from somewhere outside his door. A gaggle of other junior boys were talking together in the corridor, planning for something fun. With a needle-stab in his heart, he remembered his brief hour of almost-happiness, of the possibility of a normal life.

There was no question of that now—no newly made friends or legendary outings on the hot air balloon. There would be only work. And then, after that, more work.

He pulled out his wand, pointed it at the corner of the last page of the vision, and marked it with a skull symbol. And then he pointed the wand at his own temple.

Titus swayed.

He had lied to himself. The suppression of the memory had never been about forgetting its particular details, but all about not remembering his mother's utter heartbreak—and that soap-bubble-in-the-sun moment when he could have taken his life down a very different path.

Someone squeezed his hand—Fairfax. “Are you all right?”

He nodded.

No one else seemed to notice him. They were all busily—and
warily—examining their new surroundings. He had hoped they would find themselves in the cavernous interior of a state library, housed in a palace so opulent that it bankrupted the royal treasury and caused the downfall of the last king of Atlantis.

What he had not expected was a cramped, disorderly study, full of books on every horizontal surface. The light spilling in from the gap between the curtains illuminated plates littered with cake crumbs and bits of bread crust, cups with dried rings of tea at the bottom, and a miscellany of slippers and socks under the big desk before the window.

Fairfax touched her palm to his face. “Are you
sure
you are all right?”

He shook his head. He was only so brave—and no braver.

“I'll keep you safe,” she said.

His heart leaped a little. “Have you forgiven me?”

“You overestimate my magnanimity. I'm not done slapping you yet—and that's why you aren't going to die anytime soon.”

The corners of his lips lifted slightly.

The pad of her thumb caressed his cheek. “Remember that.”

Kashkari was the first to state the obvious. “I don't believe we are in the grand library of Royalis—at least not in the stacks.”

“Is that where we are supposed to be?” Aramia asked, her voice squeaky. “If so, could we be in a librarian's office?”

Haywood, who was peering out from behind the curtains, answered, “Doesn't seem like it, unless the library at Royalis is
surrounded by an ordinary residential street. We are several floors up, by the way.”

Titus looked out the window himself. The street below was lit as if for an evening event, except it was echoingly empty. Lining the sidewalks were perfectly spherical bushes trimmed to less than two feet in diameter. The apartment buildings opposite, of fewer stories than the one in which he stood, were joined at the seams and smooth of facade. The communal garden on the roof was nice enough, even in the harsh light that flooded it; but it, too, offered no nooks or crannies where a toddler could conceal himself, let alone a full-grown mage.

Then he realized that the buildings across the street were not shorter, but were situated lower—they were on a slope. And he had a clear view all the way to the waterfront and the sea beyond. The maelstrom of Atlantis was fifty miles from the coast and too far to see, but Lucidias was a rather remarkable place in and of itself, a great metropolis built on the slenderest ribbon of workable land, a city that was largely new and seemingly perfectly regulated.

There were certain districts in Delamer that never slept—at most they quieted for an hour or so before dawn. The waterfront near Delamer Harbor was one such place. But its equivalent in Lucidias was as empty as a classroom during school holiday.

Little wonder, when it too was lit like an outdoor stage. Where was the source of the light? He looked up—and the hair on the back of his neck rose. Something hung high above the waterfront,
something enormous. A floating fortress that was very nearly the size of the Citadel, light flooding out from its belly.

Across the room, Kashkari opened the door a crack and peered out. “Looks like an apartment of some kind.”

Titus was about to reach for Fairfax and alert her to the floating fortress when she said, “Shhh.”

Kashkari immediately closed the door. Titus listened, his head bent. A bed creaked somewhere in the apartment. Footsteps, then the sound of a commode being used. More shuffling steps, and a body of seemingly considerable weight fell into a mattress, making the bed groan just a little.

Titus exhaled.

“Here, look at this,” Aramia whispered, even though they had a sound circle in place.

She had turned a coat hanging on the back of the door inside out. On the lining was sewn a label that said,
If found, please return to Professor Pelias Pelion, 25 Halcyons Boulevard, University District, Lucidias.

“I think I can guess what happened,” continued Aramia. “The book was in the grand library. But even books in a grand library can be loaned out, especially to those with academic credentials. Professor Pelion borrowed the Crucible, and that's why we are in his home.”

This was a problem. In the library they could expect to wait undisturbed until morning before venturing out, to avoid running
afoul of the curfew. But in a private home, with a restless sleeper . . .

“What about the option Miss Tiberius mentioned?” said Haywood. “That of bribing a night worker?”

Kashkari frowned. “Where do we find a night worker?”

“Shouldn't there be one in such a building?” asked Haywood. “If only to make sure no one slips out during the curfew hours?”

“I can go down and have a look,” said Kashkari.

Fairfax held up her hand. Titus heard it too: someone had bumped into something, and that sound came from the opposite end of the apartment from the professor's bedroom.

It was easy enough for a careful mage to stop a door or a floor from creaking, but an accidental collision still made sounds.

Was it the professor's adolescent child sneaking back home after a wild night out? Or perhaps even his servant? Or was that too benign a direction of thought? Had the Bane somehow already discovered the exact place to capture those who had come for his downfall?

They took up positions on either side of the door. Outside the wind howled. The professor coughed in his bedroom, an explosive noise in the quiet of the night.

The door opened, slowly, soundlessly. A short, squat, masked figure tiptoed inside, closed the door—and crumpled sideways.

Kashkari sprang forward, caught the intruder, and laid the mage on the rug before the professor's desk. Titus sneaked a look into the corridor to make sure no one else was coming.

Then he closed the door again and nodded at Kashkari, who peeled back the mask from the intruder's face.

He, Kashkari, and Fairfax sucked in a collective breath.

Mrs. Hancock.

CHAPTER
17

KASHKARI HAD USED A FAIRLY
mild stunning spell. It was not long before they brought Mrs. Hancock around.

Fear flooded her eyes as she found herself surrounded, but she relaxed somewhat once she recognized the faces closest to her. “You are already here,” she whispered.

“Sorry for striking you unconscious,” said Kashkari, the volume of his voice just as low.

The professor, on his bed, coughed again.

“Go back into the book,” said Mrs. Hancock. “Let me take you to my place. We'll be safer there.”

Titus hesitated. If Mrs. Hancock was now acting on Atlantis's behalf, then they were doomed. But then he recalled that Mrs. Hancock was bound by a blood oath not to harm either him or Fairfax. “All right, but let me close the book and reopen it, so that it will be safer inside.”

He had come out of the Crucible with a brooch he had picked up from the top of Helgira's ivory-inlaid chest. When the Crucible was used as a portal and something was brought out, then the book did not “close,” and one could quickly return.

But the inside of the Crucible became increasingly dangerous if it was left “open” for too long. “I'll come with you,” said Fairfax.

They returned to the Crucible with wands drawn. No shower of swords and maces rained down upon them, but strange creatures were emerging from the woods west of the meadow, skulking toward Sleeping Beauty's castle.

At the sight of a band of ogres, Titus quickly dropped the brooch to the ground and said, holding on to Fairfax's hand, “And they lived happily ever after.”

Three minutes later, the entire company that had come to Atlantis was once again on the meadow, which looked peaceful enough for the moment.

“What could possibly draw so many characters from so many tales this way?” asked Fairfax.

Titus was already setting up a perimeter defense. “It might be Sleeping Beauty's story. I have a vague recollection of my mother telling me that some previous prince or princess had added the description of a stupendous treasure hidden inside the castle. But my mother did not like how crowded that made the area around the castle—the lure of lucre is apparently much stronger than the lure of Sleeping Beauty herself—so she stripped out that addition in her
copy of the Crucible, which later became my copy.

“I did not see evidence of anyone streaming toward the castle in the Citadel's copy. But that one had a phantom behemoth guarding the castle, and I would say that is in itself more than enough to keep away those who are merely greedy and opportunistic.”

Fairfax looked at him with narrowed eyes.

Suddenly he remembered that once upon a time he had refused to let her look at Sleeping Beauty in his copy of the Crucible. In the days before they trusted each other completely, he had modified Sleeping Beauty in his copy of the Crucible to look exactly like her—and had not wanted her to know or guess why he would not allow her to ascend to the garret of the castle where the princess slept her years away.

“When we get to Mrs. Hancock's house,” he said, “I will take a look at the text of Sleeping Beauty's story and see if I can undo the change.”

She plucked a blade of the knee-high grass that covered the meadow. “Maybe not.”

“Why not?” asked her guardian.

“It might confer an advantage on the way back: those of us still left standing will know what to expect; Atlantis, not so much.”

He supposed it was true that other than Fairfax and himself, no one else had been prophesied to die. That meant nothing, however, when it came to their chances of survival. But he did not want to say no to her—they had so little time left. “I will leave it as it is then.”

“I hope some of you live to take advantage of that,” she said to the company.

Haywood winced. Kashkari looked grim; Aramia, suitably afraid.

The only one who seemed to be made of blithe assurance was the commander of a rebel base. “Thank you, Miss Seabourne,” said Amara. “I have every intention of doing just that.”

Mrs. Hancock lived on a street of small two-story row houses. The houses were of identical frontage and height, their combined rooftop enclosed by low, decorative parapets.

The floating fortress could not be seen from Mrs. Hancock's window. Titus had described it as best as he could to his companions, while they were still in transit in the Crucible. But for something like that, seeing was believing.

He slid the shutters into place and pulled the curtains shut. “You may turn on those sconces now,” he said to Mrs. Hancock.

A soft light with a hint of apricot came on, illuminating an interior not unlike Mrs. Hancock's parlor in Mrs. Dawlish's house. Mrs. Dawlish's house had been full of print chintz and embroidered flowers, but Mrs. Hancock's parlor had always been bare to the point of austerity. But whereas her English parlor had drawer pulls marked by the stylized whirlpool that symbolized Atlantis, here there were no such patriotic decorations.

“How are you?” asked Fairfax, embracing Mrs. Hancock warmly. “We wondered what became of you.”

“I thought you'd run and hid yourself somewhere in England,” said Kashkari.

London, Titus would have wagered, in one of the more crowded districts where the addition of a middle-aged woman who dressed in brown sacks would never have been noticed.

“Sit down, please,” said Mrs. Hancock, distributing several plates of unfamiliar-looking snacks. “I considered it. In the first minutes after Mrs. Dawlish's house became overrun with Atlantean agents, every other moment I had to restrain myself from slipping away and disappearing among the English. And then I came to my senses. If my superiors suspected me, I would already have been arrested. I wasn't—so I decided I must use my position to its greatest advantage.

“I made every effort to look eager to help my compatriots. Poor Cooper was quite distraught that I was so civil, indeed obsequious, to the men who were carting things from your rooms. And it hurt more than I thought it would, to lose Cooper's good opinion. But I had to do what I had to do.

“What I didn't expect was that I was immediately recalled to Atlantis for questioning. Though I readily agreed, once again I very nearly fled. In the end I told myself it was providential: if I was to help topple the Bane, it would not be from some hidey-hole in the slums of London.

“So I came back. I'd bought this house shortly before I was assigned to Eton College. I return twice a year to appear normal—our
superiors are suspicious of anyone who seems to be cutting ties with Atlantis. I pay to keep the house and the garden in good shape, host dinners for my neighbors, and tell them how much I look forward to moving back when I'm retired.

“And I submitted cheerfully to the interrogations—under truth serum, of course. But what my interrogators didn't know was that I'd taken an anti-truth serum before I left my house.”

“What?” exclaimed Titus. “An anti-truth serum exists?”

She sighed and nodded. “It was one of the things that haunted Icarus Khalkedon.”

Icarus Khalkedon, while he yet lived, had been the Bane's personal oracle, providing answers to the Bane's most pressing questions.

“I told you that the Bane often asked about those who presented future threats to his rule. One of the answers Icarus gave was the name Ligea Eos. Mrs. Eos was troubled by the Bane's practice of interviewing his senior staff under truth serum on a regular basis—her husband being one of those senior staff. The moment her husband began questioning the regime, she knew he was doomed, unless she could do something.

“And that something was the invention of an anti-truth serum, which prevented the truth serum from taking effect—and gave safety to those who didn't entirely agree with the Bane. Or would have given safety, if she'd been able to disseminate the antidote as she'd have liked. As it was, agents watched her carefully for months. When she finally succeeded in producing a batch of anti-truth
serum, they confiscated her entire output and took her away. She was never seen again.

“But her creation was not immediately destroyed. Instead, it became a carefully guarded cache at the Commander's Palace. The Bane was considering giving doses to his military commanders on the eve of campaigns, so that they could not give away strategic secrets even if they were captured. I don't know that he ever did, but Icarus, during his seemingly innocent exploration of the palace, managed to pilfer a small quantity of it, in case I needed to lie under truth serum someday.

“My actual interrogation was relatively uneventful. The one who questioned me was someone I'd never met before—someone far higher up the chain of command than those I usually thought of as my superiors. She was quite annoyed that somehow I'd managed not to discover the plot against the Bane, despite having lived under the same roof for so long.

“I pointed out that by all appearances, the Master of the Domain was attending to classes and sports just like the other boys. Not to mention that he showed up on time for meals and Absences. And despite not being particularly warm or helpful, he gave no trouble as far as anyone could see.

“Thankfully, in this regard I could hide behind the Bane's own failure—he lived in that household for a number of weeks without realizing that the one he sought was just a few doors down. Of course I didn't say such a thing aloud, but that he didn't perceive it
went a long way toward absolving me, a simple woman whose powers of observation by no means rivaled his.

“When they were satisfied I'd been guilty of nothing more than incompetence, they put me on temporary suspension and let me go. I went to the nearest cathedral to give thanks and then, for old times' sake, I went to the library at Royalis and sat down in a garden.”

“Royalis, throughout the Bane's reign, has always been open to the public—it was one way in which he sought to distinguish himself from the old kings, who hoarded the wealth of the realm and left the people to starve. He was determined to show himself a kind overlord. Royalis was and is available for weddings and other celebratory receptions for only a nominal fee, and the mage on the street is welcome anytime—except during curfew hours—to enjoy the beauty of its many gardens.

“From what I understand, in the early years of the Bane's reign, Royalis was a practically never-ending wave of revelry in honor of nuptials, milestone birthdays, and so on. We were at last a realm prosperous at home and respected abroad, and the populace as a whole was in a festive mood that lasted a good long while.

“And then something changed. A chill crept in. The Bane was no longer just revered, but both revered and feared. Perhaps ordinary Atlanteans weren't exactly aware of this fear, but they knew they didn't want to hold their weddings on the grounds of Royalis, even if the venue was magnificent and practically free.

“By the time I was working at the library in Royalis, it had few
visitors—sometimes out-of-town tourists still wanted to see the place, but not too many others. When the Bane stayed at Royalis, its administrators strong-armed local schools into sending their pupils for educational visits, and various branches of government would hold award ceremonies and annual dinners at which attendance was compulsory, so that the Bane would still be under the impression that Royalis, the symbol of his generosity to his people, remained a popular and well-loved destination.

“As a result, when Icarus and I used to meet, the garden we most preferred was almost always deserted. No one knew of our association, and while the Bane might think it odd that Icarus named me to Eton, he probably thought it no more odd than any other oracular statement the significance of which had yet to be borne out by time.

“So there I was, once again sitting on our bench in that beautifully kept but lifeless garden, and it came to me out of the blue what the oracle in the prince's book had meant when she said,
And yes, you have seen it before
.

“At the time I thought she'd meant the copy of the Crucible in the prince's room, and I said that of course I'd seen it before—it had been there for years. That was truly spectacularly dense of me. A few months before, the Acting Inquisitor had held up a copy of such a book and asked whether the prince had used it as a portal—I should have realized then that multiple copies of this book existed. But you must understand that the prince had never remotely been my priority—to me he was largely incidental,
someone who was involved only because I needed an excuse to be waiting at Eton when the Bane walked in, after the great comet had come and gone.

“On that fateful day, after agents of Atlantis walked out of the prince's room with the Crucible, it finally dawned on me that the Acting Inquisitor had not been spouting nonsense, that the book truly was a portal. And it was while I sat on the bench in Icarus's and my favorite garden that I realized where exactly I had seen it, on that very bench, near the beginning of our friendship.