The Immortal Heights (4 page)

“My guardian once told me, ‘Sometimes fear is the only appropriate response,'” said Fairfax kindly.

Amara shook her head and seemed about to say something when she stopped and felt her pocket. “Excuse me.”

Out came her two-way notebook. “It's a message from a patrol—she was caught about ten miles from the base when the bell jar dome came down. When the second batch of armored chariots went by just now, she decided to follow them as far as she could. And she writes that they have just crashed into the desert.”

The observation post was entirely silent as she wrote a response. Titus could hear her breathe as she stared at the page, waiting for the answer.

She exhaled carefully as she looked up. “Your allies say they had nothing to do with it.”

The Bane again.

Amara turned to Fairfax. “Why them too?”

“Because if they were to learn that their compatriots died in the wake of their flight, they would have suspicions too.” Fairfax gripped Titus by the arm. “And you know what? The Bane will want to pin the deaths on something else. Someone else. So he will send others to come and witness the carnage.”

They had all better get out while getting out was still possible.

“The air is being analyzed right now. If it's safe to travel through with our breathing masks on, I will call for a general evacuation,” said Amara. “Your Highness, Miss Seabourne, will you come with us or will you prefer to seek your own path?”

Fairfax glanced at Titus. “We will seek our own path.”

As they had always done.

“Besides, you will be safer without us around, Durga Devi,” added Fairfax.

“I will go with them,” said Kashkari.

“Have you dreamed of it?” asked Amara solemnly.

Kashkari had once told Fairfax that his people did not consider visions as the future written in stone. Amara, on the other hand, seemed to take his prophetic dreams with extreme seriousness.

“No,” answered Kashkari. “But I don't need dreams to tell me
which way my destiny lies. Tell Vasudev I'm sorry we missed each other.”

“I will. And I'll look after him for you—and trust that we'll meet again someday.”

“Look after yourself too.”

Kashkari's voice was oddly cracked. With some shock Titus realized that Kashkari was barely holding himself together—there was every chance he would not see either his brother or the woman he loved again. Ever.

Amara took his face in her hands and kissed him tenderly on his forehead. “Be safe and come back to us, my brother.”

CHAPTER
4

SILENT AND SWIFT THEY FLEW,
headed toward an eastern horizon that was beginning to be limned by a band of soft golden light, fading up to a still inky, star-studded sky.

It took Iolanthe some time to realize that she was shaking.

They had been in a rush, selecting fresh carpets and other tools and supplies that they might need. And then there had been the anxiety, glancing behind—and all around—every few seconds to make sure that they hadn't been spotted.

All throughout, however, the image of wyverns plucking dead riders off one another flashed again and again in her mind. She had been calm enough as she described the Bane's twisted reasons, but now, with immediate dangers fading, the anger that had been kept to a low simmer threatened to boil over.

Her experience with Atlantis, though harrowing, had been on an
extremely personal level: Master Haywood's imprisonment, Titus's Inquisition, Wintervale's death, Atlantis's relentless search for her in the Sahara—not to mention the horrifying knowledge that her capture would lead to her being used in sacrificial magic to prolong the Bane's life. All this and more sometimes made it feel as if her family, her friends, and the Bane were the only ones involved in this struggle.

Even though she knew otherwise.

The sight of all the dead Atlanteans, however, at last brought the point home. Hundreds of soldiers who had served the Bane loyally and valiantly, dead because he could not allow even a smidgen of truth to tarnish his reputation at home. Because if they knew the truth about him, they—or at least some of them—would risk their own lives to end the travesty that was his rule.

Titus nudged his carpet closer. “You all right?”

“It has always been about him, hasn't it, this empire he has built?” she said, still seething. “He wanted control over the mage world not for the greater glory of Atlantis or the honor of the Atlanteans, but only so that he could immediately get his hands on the next great elemental mage.”

“Oh, I do not doubt he also enjoys power tremendously,” said Titus. “But I agree that in the end it has been driven by fear, by his unwillingness to leave this world because of what might await him in the next.”

She glanced at him. He too was driven by a fear of dying. And
he too had at times sacrificed personal integrity in order to further his goal. At the beginning of their partnership, a relationship then fraught with distrust, she had demanded angrily what the difference was between Atlantis and him, as they were both happy to hold her against her will.

But beneath the Master of the Domain's sometimes caustic manner and streak of ruthlessness was a boy of active conscience and fundamental decency. A boy who, if anything, judged himself too harshly for his imperfections.

As she studied him, her despair began to fade. They were not impotent bystanders. They would take on this tyrant and, should Fortune smile upon them, topple him from power.

Besides, it was almost impossible not to be filled with hope when she looked at her beloved.

They were still alive, still free, and still together.

He leaned against the upright side of the carpet, his shoulders slumped forward—he must be unbearably weary, having been on the run since their arrival in the desert, hauling her mostly unconscious person alongside without even knowing who she was.

But she knew that if she suggested he needed rest, he would brush it aside. Fortunately for him, she was not above playing the damsel in distress. “I hate to admit it, but I'm getting a bit tired. Can we stop for a minute?”

“Of course,” he said immediately. “Let me find a good place.”

A suitable place, however, was not immediately to be had. There was nearly enough light to see, and the patch of desert they were traversing was flat and featureless.

As they searched, Iolanthe asked Kashkari, “Why did our allies contact Durga Devi during the battle? Do they all know one another?”

“You took the question right off my tongue,” said Titus.

“She does know, after a fashion, some parties with a good deal of power from the Domain,” answered Kashkari. “Remember when I was late coming back to school at the beginning of the Half?”

Terms at Eton College were referred to as Halves. For reasons that made sense only to nonmages, there were three Halves every year: Easter Half, which began in January and ended before Easter; Summer Half, wedged between Easter Holiday and summer holiday; and Michaelmas Half, covering roughly all of autumn.

The prince had brought Iolanthe to Eton at the beginning of Summer Half. They had become separated during the summer holiday, but had managed to reunite at school at the start of Michaelmas Half. That was when they had been informed that Kashkari's steamer had run into rough seas en route and had been delayed. Titus and Iolanthe had accepted the news at face value, neither suspecting that Kashkari might not be the nonmage Indian boy he very much seemed to be.

“I remember,” she said. He didn't come back until that fateful house party on the coast of the North Sea. “You told Titus later that
you were late because you and your brother were busy informing as many mages as possible that Madame Pierredure was long dead and any news of her emerging from retirement to lead a new resistance movement was Atlantis using her to round up those with rebellion on their minds.”

“And while we were doing that,” said Kashkari, “Amara was thinking on a more strategic level. We were no match for Atlantis either in the size of our force or the sophistication of our matériel. The plan had been to exchange training and know-how with other rebel bases, but with Atlantis's traps having reeled in so many rebels, she decided to investigate an offer of assistance she'd had from a mysterious source that claimed to be able to tap into the assets of a major mage realm.

“It was a huge risk, but Amara has never been afraid of risks. A meeting was arranged with a liaison in Casablanca. She then asked the liaison to prove that he truly had access to all the equipment and ammunition that he claimed. She was taken on a trip that lasted nearly twelve hours, and she was certain a large portion of it involved a sea voyage on a ship launched from a dry dock—even blindfolded and with her ears plugged, she could still smell the ocean and feel the rolling of the waves. When she was allowed to see again, she found herself in a huge cavern stockpiled with an eye-popping assortment of war machines.

“Amara is a cynic, so she asked how could she be certain that she wasn't looking at Atlantis's own stockpile. At which point she was
blindfolded again. But this time, she was only led around on foot for about thirty minutes. When the blindfold was taken off, she stood on the side of a heavily wooded slope. And through the trees she glimpsed the Right Hand of Titus in the distance.”

The Right Hand of Titus was a set of five mage-made peninsulas jutting out into the Atlantic from the coast of Delamer, the Domain's capital city. The Citadel, the Master of the Domain's official residence, sat upon the ring finger of the Right Hand of Titus.

“She was shown the facilities under the Serpentine Hills?” asked Titus, a speculative look in his eyes.

“Yes—she took a long, hard look at her surroundings to make sure she hadn't been tricked. Then she asked how could she be sure that she was actually dealing with someone with the power to deploy the war machines, and not just a lowly guard who had the password to the storage facilities.

“That was when she was informed of a diplomatic reception at the Citadel. She was told to walk in behind a cluster of late-arriving guests—and that she would have a five-minute window before she was discovered. Actually her instruction was to turn around and leave as soon as she got inside, to avoid discovery. But the matter of the new great elemental mage had been weighing heavily on her mind—it was an unknown that could change everything—and she resolved to speak to the prince directly about it.”

That was how Titus had first met Amara, at that reception. She had asked him for his elemental mage and had escaped quite
elegantly when the palace guards realized there was an intruder among the guests.

Kashkari sighed. “She is braver than any of us, but at times she can be quite impulsive. She regretted her action immediately, but it was too late. She had angered her contact, who saw her willfulness as a breach of faith. That potential alliance went no further.

“She returned to the base hours before I left for Eton. We discussed everything she'd seen—and her ultimate failure. That was when I decided to take the matter into my own hands. At that time we all thought that perhaps it was the Master of the Domain himself who was behind the overture.”

Titus was not—he had always been adamantly against anyone knowing anything about his work. Nor were war machines his modus operandi.

“In any case,” Kashkari went on, “it seems that Amara has been forgiven. It must have been the same mages who contacted her just now in her two-way notebook—that was how they had always got in touch with her, even though she had never matched her notebook with theirs.”

“Do you think it might be Dalbert?” Iolanthe asked Titus.

“Not Dalbert himself—he is careful not to be mixed up in something like this. But it might have been mages he considered trustworthy.”

“Good to know,” said Kashkari.

“True, we are not entirely alone,” replied Titus.

But his face was troubled, even as he uttered his apparently hopeful words.

They settled in a deep curve of a dune that undulated for miles.

Once Iolanthe discovered that the battle supplies they'd grabbed from the rebel base contained sachets of tea, she cleared a small space for them inside the dune, where she could summon a fire without being seen.

Over Titus's objection, of course. “You will overtax yourself,” he said, shaking his head.

“Please, Your Highness, show some respect for the great elemental mage of your time.”

They didn't have any cooking vessels, so she heated the sphere of water she'd summoned as it spun lazily a few inches above the fire. When she judged the water hot enough, she dropped in a pinch of tea leaves to steep.

The battle rations also came with pastries that had savory fillings of peas, potatoes, and spices.

“This is wonderful,” she said wholeheartedly. “We've had nothing but food cubes since we woke up in the desert. What I wouldn't give now for one of those breakfast spreads at Mrs. Dawlish's.”

Kashkari chewed meditatively. “When I was at Mrs. Dawlish's, I was always waiting for some dramatically eventful future to happen. But now that it's all happening, I wish I'd better appreciated the boring old days, when the most exciting thing I ever did was
occasionally vaulting to London, or to the West Sussex coast for a walk by the sea.”

Titus had already finished one pastry and was on to the next—this might be the fastest she'd ever seen him eat. “I miss rowing,” he said. “Cricket was incomprehensible, so I chose rowing. At first I thought it was only a little less stupid as a sport. And then it turned out that when I rowed I paid attention only to the rhythm of my breaths and the rhythm of my pulls—I did not think at all.”

Which must have been a lovely respite from the tyranny of his destiny.

In Summer Half, sometimes the cricketers walked down to the river and heckled the rowers. In her mind's eye she saw the four-man scull coming down the Thames, the rowers with their backs to the spectators, the blades of their oars slicing into the water in perfect unison and exact alignment.

She had been as enthusiastic a heckler as any cricketer, disparaging the rowers' form, speed, and general manliness. Titus usually ignored the cricketers, as befitting his lofty persona, but once—just once—he lifted his hand from the oar and flashed the cricketers an obscene gesture.

The cricketers had agreed that it was the best heckling session in their collective memory.

“I miss Cooper,” she said. “I miss all of them. I miss the pictures of Bechuanaland from my room—they made me feel nostalgic, even though I'd never been anywhere near the Kalahari.”

Into their warm enclosure a silence fell. Titus stared into the fire. Kashkari looked down at the sand at his feet. The sphere of hot water had turned a clear russet; she directed the tea into everyone's waterskins.

Then she exhaled and acknowledged the keenly felt absence. “And I really miss Wintervale. He would have loved to be here with us—he would have had the time of his life.”

Kashkari lifted his head. “You were the last one to see him, weren't you?”

And by “him,” Kashkari meant the real Wintervale, before he had been turned into a vessel of the Bane.

“I was, the day of the first cricket practice for the twenty-two. He'd been called back by his mother and just remembered that the wardrobe portal in his room no longer worked. And he was fretting over how long it would take to get home via nonmage transports.” She blew at the steam rising from her waterskin. “Such an ordinary parting. I never thought anything of it.”