E MILY HAD STARTED TO SUSPECT THAT something had gone wrong even before she felt the wards sounding the alarm.
The plan had been very simple. Marah could carry the blood-linked parchment into the warehouse, allowing Emily – who remained outside – to keep Marah’s presence concealed while dismantling the wards. She’d assumed the interior of the complex would not be so heavily warded, which would let her concentrate on opening doors rather than cracking wards, but that assumption had been in error. Emily hadn’t seen any place so heavily laden with individual wards since she’d left school, and those wards had been relatively simple, existing in their own little world. These wards were so tangled that they should have been interfering with each other, creating gaps in the spellware she could exploit, but they seemed to work together in perfect harmony. Emily couldn’t help but find it intimidating. It would need just a single mind to devise such perfect wards but casting them would require several wardmasters working in unison. It was an impressive display of both power and skill.
She started to unlock the weird knot of magic spells, an instant before she sensed the wards sounding the alarm. Something had gone wrong. Marah had tripped an isolated alarm ward, perhaps, or the wardmaster had noticed Emily’s hacking. She hadn’t sensed a living mind connected to the wards, but she was far from all-knowing. There could be someone watching the wards from a safe distance, remaining well clear to ensure they couldn’t be spotted until it was too late. Emily gritted her teeth, mentally reached through the parchment, and started to rip the spellware apart. The alarms grew louder, but it no longer mattered. The advantage of surprise was gone.
Emily heard someone shouting as she stood and hurried towards the door, not bothering to be subtle as she forced the locking charm and pushed it open. Marah was inside the warehouse, caught like a rat in a trap. Emily had a great deal of confidence in her apprentice’s skill and determination, but she had no illusions about how far Marah had yet to go. Marah would be in deep trouble if she were caught by a first-year student, let alone a fully qualified magician. It would end very badly for her.
The front room – Emily couldn’t help thinking of it as an office – was manned by three women, eyes dead and tunics covering their necks. They looked up, moving with a strange mixture of speed and lethargy, and drew pistols from their belts. Emily didn’t hesitate. She slammed a force punch across the room, feeling a twinge of guilt as the women were thrown back and their weapons sent sailing through the air. Most magicians might not realize the pistols were a very real threat, although that was changing as firearms became more widespread and more lethal, but she knew better. She followed up with a cancellation charm, undoing the nasty knot of magic around their necks. Their collars popped open and fell to the ground. They collapsed to their knees, their bodies twitching with the released magic, then they all staggered towards the door. Emily let them go. There was no way in hell they’d alert the slavers now.
Not willingly , Emily reminded herself. But they could be enslaved again if they don’t get out of here in time.
She glanced around the office, noting the surprisingly modern filing cabinets, then hurried into the next corridor. A set of young men saw her and raised their fists, moving with eerie silence as they charged. Their faces were as dead as the previous set of slaves… Emily cast another cancellation charm and darted past them as they collapsed, kicking one man who tried to grab onto her leg. The slaves groaned in pain, their bodies cramping visibly. Emily hoped that meant they’d tried to fight the collars, even though it had been pointless. She reached the end of the corridor, then muttered a brief healing charm. The former slaves needed to get out before it was too late.
She kept moving, shaking her head in disbelief as the sheer size of the warehouse opened in front of her. It was bigger than anything she’d ever seen, rows of shelves and frameworks that reminded her of documentaries she’d seen about shipping warehouses back home. There was something disconcertingly modern about it, although warehouses and shipping were hardly a modern invention. She felt a flicker of guilt as she spotted two more slaves running towards her. Their collars were forcing them to try to stop her, even though it was futile. Emily freed them both, then hurried onwards. The warehouse’s interior seemed to grow larger and yet more confining at the same time, to the point she paused long enough to check she hadn’t slipped into a pocket dimension. There was none and yet… she found it hard to escape the sense the building really was bigger on the inside. It was just too big.
The thought nagged at her mind as she tried to sense Marah, but the remnants of the wards made it difficult. The charmed parchment wasn't moving and yet… Emily stopped as she spotted a half-opened crate, laden with muskets and flintlocks. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the maker’s mark. Cockatrice. That wasn’t good news. If someone had been shipping weapons to Valadon… she scowled, inwardly, as she spotted the rails embedded within the floor. They presumably brought the railroad cars into the warehouse, loaded them up and sent them on their way. The king’s inspectors might not bother to inspect the cargo or… if she was any judge, they could be easily bribed.
She put the thought aside as she followed the parchment into a smaller building, half-hidden within the bigger warehouse. A handful of subtle wards, carefully designed to make her think she wanted to turn and walk away, hacked at her mind; she gritted her teeth and kept moving, cursing under her breath as she felt illusions glimmering around her. The wards were hard to spot, let alone counter. Marah had been lucky. If she hadn’t been carrying the parchment, she would never have found the hidden compartment. The wards would have steered her around the entrance, without her ever knowing she’d missed anything. Emily suspected she knew, now, why the inspectors had found nothing. Unless they’d included a well-trained magician, they would have just walked past and…
Her heart skipped a beat as she stepped through the makeshift corridor and into the large chamber. She’d seen some horrors in her time, but this… it was so big, so unthinkably horrific, that she had trouble even looking at it. Men, women, and children, as naked as the day they were born, trapped in a metal framework that was utter torture. It had to be. Slaves might be kept chained up, although it was pointless if they were collared, but this level of bondage was overkill. The collars around their necks were bad enough; the metal chains and spreaders were worse. They could barely move and… she sensed magic flowing around them, through the chains… she shivered as she saw the runes carved into the metal. It reminded her of something, only…
Mountaintop , she thought. The memory chilled her. The school had powered its wards through draining failed students, but this… this was worse. Far worse. What the hell are they doing?
She frowned as she realized the spellware was slowly coming apart. She couldn’t tell if it was safe, much less if there was a way to free the prisoners without killing them. The slavers would be fools to let their slaves live, after using them for… for what? Emily recalled what she’d seen as she studied the metal nightmare, feeling sick as she put the pieces together. The system was draining magic – and life – from its victims, and channeling it… where? Into a battery? Or into a magician? If someone had found a way to regulate the flow of magic…
Emily heard Marah cry out and forced herself to turn away and follow the sound. The row of kneeling prisoners seemed never ending, their naked bodies covered with wards that plucked at Emily’s mind, trying to make her forget what she’d seen. It reminded her of something else, something that steadily refused to come to her. The spellware was a strange mix of regular charms and magitech… her heart sank as she looked down, spotting the spell circuits embedded in the floor. She’d wondered what would happen, if her enemies figured out how to produce magiwriters for themselves, but they hadn’t needed to bother. The problem with regulating the flow of magic was that the magic would often break its bonds… here, with bonds that had no physical existence, the magic couldn’t break free. Their worst nightmare was coming true. It was necromancy on an industrial scale.
She braced herself as she turned the corner and spotted Marah, trading fireballs with a pair of wand-wielding magicians. They seemed more practiced than Emily’s apprentice, Emily noted, although they weren’t trying to overwhelm her. Marah had chosen her spot well, hiding behind a nightmarish piece of twisted metal and crystal that defied her understanding… Emily guessed her opponents were trying to avoid damaging the crystal. Emily reached for her own magic, blasting the closest magician in the back with an overpowered freeze spell. The other turned, raising his wand, only to be hit with a fireball. Emily felt sick as the stench of burning flesh billowed through the air. Marah had put the fireball right through the man’s head.
Marah hurried to join her. “What are they doing?”
“Using these people as a power source,” Emily said. She could sense the spellwork fraying in a manner that puzzled her. “I think…”
She inspected the frozen man, then cast a handful of spells to keep him under control before releasing him. He collapsed into a ball, whimpering like a child; Emily grimaced as she saw a dark stain appear on his pants. His eyes were wide and staring and utterly, utterly, blank.
Marah gave her a sidelong look. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing,” Emily said. It wasn’t quite true, but none of the spells she’d used should have wiped the man’s mind . He hadn’t lost his memories, he’d lost everything . A security spell, she guessed, to make it impossible for him to betray his masters. His keening was that of a newborn baby. “Whoever hired him wanted to make sure he couldn’t talk.”
She pressed her fingers against the man’s head, trying to tell if he was faking or if the memories were locked away, rather than wiped, but felt nothing. The man’s mind was empty, completely empty. He’d have to relearn everything from scratch… she swallowed hard and forced herself to stand, noting that Marah didn’t seem too worried about the man she’d killed. There was no point in trying to help him. A fireball through the head was instantly lethal.
“We have to get them out of here,” Marah insisted. “How…?”
“Give me a moment,” Emily snapped. The nightmarish system was difficult, almost impossible, to parse. “If you break the wrong thing, you could kill them!”
Marah paced the chamber as Emily inspected the contraption. It was bizarre as well as nightmarish, designed in a manner that managed to combine remarkable skill and a complete lack of scruples with an amateurishness that puzzled her. No one in their right mind would mess around with necromancy – and if they tried, they wouldn’t be in their right mind for long – and yet, whoever had put the nightmare together had clearly been sane enough to make it work. It reminded her of the holocaust, how the Nazis had committed murder on an industrial scale. She had seen atrocities before, but this… just looking at it made her feel dirty. She didn’t want to meet the mind that could conceive such a nightmare, then give birth to it.
I may not have a choice , she thought, numbly. Whoever did this has to be stopped .
Sweat prickled down her back as she poked and prodded the device. She felt as if she were disarming a bomb, trying desperately to figure out which wire to cut before the device exploded. She wasn’t in any immediate danger… or was she? The system channeled magic on a terrifying scale, to the point that anyone who knew how to use it could blast her with enough raw power to vaporize her. She couldn’t even tell where the magic was going… a nasty thought crossed her mind and she checked, then swore out loud as she realized she was right. The power was linked to a chat parchment, or something akin to it, and the magic was flowing elsewhere. It was just like Mountaintop.
And they only did that after I shut down the first system , she recalled. Either they came up with the idea independently, or they had a look at the Mountaintop system before Void showed his hand .
The warehouse shook. Emily sensed the wards collapsing and swore under her breath. She had no idea what was happening outside, but she doubted it was good. The former slaves would have run and then… and then what? She forced her awareness into the nightmarish magic, unpicking the last of the charms holding the spells in place. The entire system came apart at the seams, raw magic sparkling in random directions. Emily stepped back, hastily, as the device shattered, the link to the magic’s final destination snapping out of existence before she could trace it. She felt the warehouse shake again and staggered, wiping sweat from her brow. The slaves were starting to choke…
“Emily!”
Emily swore – the slave collars were tightening, choking the life out of their wearers – and hastily cast the strongest cancelation charm she could. The collars opened and fell to the ground, the rest of the metal nightmare collapsing moments later. The slaves gasped for breath, some fainting as the magic let go and others lashing out in anger. Emily saw a handful of men and women trying to stand, their bodies so thin it was hard to tell the men from the women until she looked at their genitals. Others were so drained they couldn’t move at all…
She raised her voice. “If you can walk, help the others to their feet and carry them out of here,” she ordered. She could smell fire… clearly, the warehouse owners had intended to make damned sure the slaves didn’t survive any attempt to release them. She recalled the smuggled guns and shuddered, wondering if the smugglers had brought gunpowder too. If there was a single barrel of powder within the warehouse, it was just a matter of time before the flames reached it and blew the slaves to hell. “Hurry!”
She helped a young woman to her feet and helped her to walk out of the inner compartment, motioning for Marah to do the same. The noise outside grew louder… she realized, suddenly, that the escaped slaves had started a riot. Slavery was technically illegal and… she put the thought aside as the former slaves staggered after her, the smell of fire growing stronger as they made it into the outer warehouse. She sensed magic sparking in the distance, a moment before she saw a sheet of flame blow out of nowhere and set fire to everything it could. The entire warehouse was on fire, threatening to take the evidence with it. The way they’d come was hopelessly blocked.
Her mind raced, looking for options. She couldn’t teleport everyone out, she couldn’t open a portal… most fire-suppression spells were dangerous against charmed blazes, while other tricks would be just as dangerous to the escaping slaves. She cast a wind spell, trying to push the flames back, as she led the way to the far side of the warehouse. The walls were strong, charmed against all threats; she gritted her teeth, pushed the chat parchment against the stone, and triggered a gravity-warping spell. Her vision twisted painfully, light bending around the walls, an instant before the stone shattered. The slaves, those who could walk, streamed past her, out into the open air.
Marah caught her arm as she staggered. “What do we…?”
“We have to move,” Emily snapped. She drew on her magic for energy, all too aware she would pay for it later. The riot was spreading rapidly, the workers reacting in horror to the prospect of spell-controlled slaves. It would get worse, she thought, as they saw the condition of the slaves. There were always fears that managers would seek to use magic to control their workers – Emily had no trouble believing some managers would think it a very good idea indeed – and the proof was right in front of them. “We need to…”
The air shimmered behind them, an instant before the warehouse exploded. She sensed magic within the blast, the remnants of the metal nightmare and God alone knew what else blasted into atoms. The shockwave hit them a moment later, knocking them to the ground. Emily grunted in pain as a wave of foul-smelling heat pulsed through the air, driving the rioters into a frenzy. The warehouse hadn’t just stored slaves, she guessed. There’d been illicit potion ingredients there too. The last time she’d seen a potions store catch fire, it had poisoned the entire street.
Marah staggered to her feet. “What now?”
“Home,” Emily said. They’d freed the slaves… she hoped, prayed, all the former slaves had gotten out before it was too late. She kicked herself, mentally, for not looting the filing cabinets when she’d had a chance. She’d have to hunt down the former slaves and see if they recalled anything useful, when the city calmed down. If it ever did. “And hurry.”