It seemed to me that Pasha took a perverse amount of delight in it. He had ways of using his thought magic that I’d never dreamed of, and some of them were deliciously evil. I don’t suppose he’d ever have used them, being the good guy that he was, but being told you’re unholy by all the people you respect, well, if you hear it often enough, and you’re contrary enough, perhaps you want to prove them right. Pasha had a hard little grin on his face, one that didn’t bode well for anyone getting in his way. Sometimes I wish I had his talent so that I could know what people were thinking, but I was pretty sure being a good boy for the Goddess wasn’t on his mind. Maybe something a bit more visceral, like the Downside version of the Goddess. Blood and vengeance, perhaps. I had the feeling that mousy little Pasha had just turned lion again.
He didn’t have any more feeling than I did, but it had to be worth a try. The sick crack of him dislocating his fingers was followed by fruitless minutes searching for anyone outside. If there was anyone, he couldn’t hear them. Which made it a shock when the key ground in the lock and the door flew open.
Sadly, it didn’t open on to freedom but on to the pissed-off face of Dench. Well, part of his face–the rest was covered with an Inquisitor’s helm which didn’t really go with the mous tache. Behind him, another two Inquisitors loomed in the doorway.
Dench smiled and in the absence of seeing anything of his eyes, my own seemed glued to the moustache.
“Think I’m that stupid, that I’d leave you with her any longer than I had to? Oh, Rojan. I thought you knew me better. Only for long enough to fetch these gents here, plenty of time before Whelar’s little concoction wore off enough for you to do anything useful.”
He was right, which didn’t make it any easier to hear. We were still half numb and too slow to avoid the Inquisitors as they grabbed us, one each. Dench snatched Lise’s syringe out of my hand.
“I’ll take that, thanks.”
And without magic, without enough juice to zap a rat, that was all it took. Two beefy Inquisitors and a syringe. Made me feel pretty pathetic. Dench took a savage pleasure in shoving the needle into my neck, and I could feel enough for it to hurt in a vague, dreamy kind of way which seemed to disappoint him before he did the same to Pasha.
“That should be enough to keep you where I want you, for long enough.” Dench jerked his head at the Inquisitors and they shoved us through the door. “And you’re going to do what I want, Rojan. Just what I want, because if you don’t, poor Lise’s recovery could very well become a relapse.”
Odd, how regretful he sounded, but that wasn’t what filled my mind.
Fire spread out from the needle mark in my neck, ran through me in heartbeats, made that heart speed like a Rapture addict sprinting for his life from Namrat come to take him. What had Lise done to Whelar’s concoction? I didn’t care, because it wasn’t numbness that Dench had injected us with, wasn’t dead legs that made me stagger. It was feeling, not just feeling but feeling. Every nerve ending blazed with it, my fingertips fizzed with life, my skin felt like it was on fire. Sadly, every little ache also became magnified, so that I had to bite down on a scream when my bad hand brushed my leg.
But the best, and the worst, was the juice. I didn’t just have some, I was overflowing with it. It should have dripped down my cheeks, out of my nose. I was surprised when I blinked and lightning didn’t shoot down the corridor and blast the crap out of a fresco of some happy horseshit that involved things looking sparkly and nice.
With the juice, came the black. And, oh, it was loud now. It had power. It knew me better than I know myself, and it used it. Dip in, Rojan. Just a bit. You could have more magic than you ever thought possible. Forget blowing up temples, you could blow up the whole of Ministry. Take the whole fucking lot down, once and for all. You and me, Rojan, we could fire Top of the World, let the light Under. We could scare the crap out of the Storad and Mishans, enough to make sure we had no war. We could make it so it was kittens and sunbeams for everyone. Come on, come in, just a while, just a moment. Be everything, be everyone, leave all your fears at the door. Come in, you know you want to.
I staggered again, barely able to hold myself up. Dench smiled at that and must have thought I was numb as fuck, and I almost wished I was. Pasha glanced my way from the grip of an Inquisitor and I could see it in his eyes, too. He didn’t need to say a damned word, not out loud or in my head. Say nothing, do nothing. Yet.
I tried to still the black, tried to shut up the small voice in me that said Yes, yes, let’s blow it all the fuck up, right now, and start again, properly this time. The black is all your hopes come true and all your fears soothed away, and that is very, very tempting and I wanted it. When I shut my eyes I could see the spires of Top of the World in rubble, could see the vast estates of Clouds melt away and sunlight, real, first-hand sunlight, lay a cleansing hand on Under, scour it of corruption and take the Shitty out of No-Hope.
I was on the verge of doing it and to fuck with the consequences when Pasha fell into me, accidentally-on-purpose almost certainly. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to distract me from temptation. Just as well, really.
The Inquisitors shoved us down a short corridor that ended in a mean little door. Dench didn’t send us through, not yet.
“We have to ally with the Storad. There’s nothing else for it. They’re at our gates with machines Dwarf would have been proud of, and we’re screwed. I’m sorry, Rojan, I really am, but I’m doing what I can for Mahala, for the Goddess. And to do that, to pacify the Storad, keep them sweet with the ministers, I need someone else to take the blame for the murders–what I wanted you to do in the first place, find a scapegoat. Nice bit of providence, Guinto coming to confess like that. The Goddess provides, eh? I know you’re a contrary bastard, so don’t forget that Lise is under my protection. And Pasha should remember that I’ll have Jake in my hands within the hour. Goddess’s tits, she left a bloody trail, but it won’t be long. Not long. So you two play like good little boys, confirm Guinto’s guilt and you won’t end the day in the Slump. It’s the best I could do for you both. It’ll be easy. Just testify that a priest is a bad man and you save the city. It’s a lie–but a lie that will help people live, and most certainly help the people you love to live.”
And then he shoved us through the door into my idea of hell.