E MILY’S BACK ITCHED AS SHE PACKED the last of her supplies into her bag.
It hadn’t been easy to talk, so dispassionately, about matters she knew bothered Marah at a primal level. She could – she did – understand Marah’s feelings, understand the point she was trying to make. She knew where Marah was coming from… and, emotionally, she agreed with the younger girl. It was frustrating, sometimes, watching the world advance in fits and starts, when she could push it in the right direction and force it to go faster. But she knew that if she did that, it would only lead to disaster, losing hearts and minds and empowering the very worst people with everything they needed to undermine the changing world order. She wanted to do it, yet she knew better than to try.
She checked her supplies thoughtfully, wondering when and where the trap would be sprung. Virgil had been kind enough to give them an address… would he wait for them there, in his place of power, or would he ambush them on the way? Emily had briefly considered leaving Marah behind, or taking a very roundabout route to the warehouse, but both were pointless as long as Virgil had a sample of Marah’s blood. Emily wished, not for the first time, that she had a way to cut that link, yet it simply couldn’t be done as long as their enemy held her blood. The real danger, she reflected numbly, was that he might have more than one sample. Blood didn’t remain potent forever – even the best alchemists couldn’t preserve it indefinitely – but it would be several years, at best, before she knew the danger was past.
Emily looked at Marah, wondering which way the girl would jump. Would she listen to Emily, when the time came, or would she allow Virgil to lure her back into his web of lies? He’d used her blood to steer her thoughts, to influence her… to convince her he had nothing but her best interests in mind. In hindsight, Emily wondered just when and where it had started. Virgil could have taken the sample the very first night she spent in his lair and used it ruthlessly. Was there a limit on how much a blood sample could be used? Emily didn’t know. It had never been tested, as far as she knew. But then, anything involving blood was highly dubious. If anyone had tested the theory, they hadn’t written or shared their results.
That might change, in the days to come , she thought, grimly. The White Council was effectively gone, and there were few Mediators left. Even if Alassa managed to pull the council back together, it would be years before the Mediators could be reformed… if it could be done at all. The magical community had never been happy with any sort of oversight, and most of the greater families had only gone along with it due to fear of the necromancers. The laws against dangerous experiments no longer have any teeth .
She tried not to shudder. Too many research sorcerers, Void had told her, had a great deal of curiosity mingled with immense power and a complete lack of scruples. Too many sorcerers had flown too close to the sun, unleashing havoc or creating monsters as they took their experiments as far as they would go, heedless of their own safety as well as common morality. She had felt the urge herself, when she’d experimented with advanced magic that drew on concepts from Earth. She knew some of her ideas were incredibly dangerous, and others dangerously immoral, and yet she felt the urge to put them into practice anyway. How much harder would it be for a born sorcerer, raised to think all others were beneath him, to resist the urge? Too many hadn’t even tried .
“It’s time,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. She’d laid the groundwork as best as she could, preparing for an ambush that could take any form… she wondered, again, just what Virgil was really doing. What was his endgame? Chaos? Or revolution? Or… or what? “Shall we go?”
Marah’s face flickered as she stood and picked up her own bag. Emily watched her without making it obvious, wondering if the girl was having second or even third thoughts. She had been told to think about what she was doing, to ask herself why she was doing it… was it enough? Or was she so lost in her own emotions that she couldn’t think straight? Emily’s back itched again as she turned, opened the door and led the way down the stairs. The air felt hot and heavy, the building’s wards stronger than ever before. Their landlord had to be worried about the coming storm.
The soldiers won’t attack the magic quarter , Emily told herself. But the magicians can’t keep themselves sealed off forever .
She braced herself as she stepped through the door and onto the street. The air somehow felt hot and cold at the same time, a heavy tension hanging over the city like a storm about to break. She looked towards the end of the street and winced as she saw the barricade, thrown together by the street’s magicians and strengthened with layer upon layer of spells. Clearly, the local residents weren’t confident their district would remain untouched. Emily wondered if they were right. The aristos had never been entirely pleased about magicians remaining above their authority, and now – thanks to magitech – they had the tools to do something about it. It was possible the prince thought he could isolate the district, or… or that the fighting would spill into the magic quarter unintentionally. She turned away, forcing herself to walk to the other end. There were barricades there too.
“There should be more magicians,” Marah muttered, as they were allowed to pass through the barricade. “Where are they?”
“They might have decided to get out before the fighting started,” Emily said. In theory, the magicians could keep their territory safe. In practice, who knew? The really powerful magicians rarely lived in mundane towns. They preferred to live in magical communities or on their own estates, isolated from the mundane world. “Whatever the outcome, it’s unlikely the city will return to normal in a hurry.”
The tension rose, sharply, as they made their way down the street. There were more men and women on the streets, carrying weapons or hauling supplies to the Coalsack. A handful of bodies lay in the gutter, stripped naked… Emily wondered, numbly, if they’d been guards or spies or simply had the misfortune to have neighbors who took advantage of the chaos to lash out at them. There’d be no shortage of grudges being paid off, now that everyone expected the fighting to begin shortly. A few more bodies wouldn’t be noticed, in the coming nightmare. Whoever won, a great many people were going to die.
She gritted her teeth as she saw more people hurrying to the Coalsack, carrying everything they could, and others throwing up barricades everywhere. If there was any coherent plan for defending the district, she couldn’t see it. The barricades seemed to be being put up at random, including two that were facing the wrong direction… unless the locals were more worried about the Coalsack than the prince’s soldiers. Emily suspected they were wrong. The prince had hired enough mercenaries to storm the entire city, and mercenaries were not known for being gentle when they were certain to be murdered if they fell into enemy hands. They would march into the Coalsack, raping and slaughtering everyone they encountered. The prince would inherit a kingdom of the dead.
Someone shouted. Emily glanced back, just in time to see a handful of horsemen ride down the street, followed by a small army of mercenaries. A shower of bricks and stones rained down on them from high overhead, the street children picking up the random junk and turning it into weapons. The horsemen yanked their beasts to the side, trying to take cover under the overhang as they screamed orders to their men. The infantry crashed into the houses, only to run into a handful of makeshift traps. Emily hoped – prayed – the street children were fast enough to escape when the infantry reached the roof or the archers started picking them off from below. They wouldn’t be shown mercy.
Guns fired, muskets sweeping the rooftops. Emily shuddered as a youngster fell several stories and hit the ground hard. The gunners kept firing… their accuracy would be terrible, unless someone had managed to make a breakthrough, but they were putting out so many balls they’d almost certainly hit something . The archers were more dangerous… Emily muttered a subtle spell, steering a gust of wind over the musketmen. The smoke from their guns would make it harder to see, at least for a few seconds. It might buy the street children some time.
Marah summoned a fireball. “Let me…”
Emily grabbed her arm and yanked her down the street, an instant before a handful of arrows would have skewered them both. One struck her protections, shattering harmlessly… she cursed under her breath, all too aware that would have killed a magician a few years ago. Most magicians still didn’t think mere projectiles could be dangerous… her lips twisted as she kept pulling, unwilling to let themselves be dragged into the fight. They had a much bigger problem to handle.
“Let go of me,” Marah insisted. “I have to help them…”
“We have to free the slaves, before they get caught up in the fighting,” Emily said, feeling a flicker of dark amusement. Marah was forgetting herself… but who could blame her for wanting to fight? “Hurry.”
Marah shot her a nasty look as they picked up speed, heading towards the Coalsack. The fighting was spreading behind them, well short of the Coalsack itself; hundreds of people were streaming along the road, looking for a safety that no longer existed. Others were heading towards the fighting, ready to slow the mercenaries down as much as possible. The racket was growing louder, heavier guns booming… Emily cursed under her breath. The prince would have to be insane to bring cannons into the city, but… she knew he was a sadist. And desperate too. There was no way anyone could forge a compromise now.
She glanced back as she heard an explosion, saw a fireball rising into the air. A gunpowder trap, perhaps. Or something else… it didn’t matter. More gunshots rang out, echoing over the city. The flow of people into the Coalsack slowed as they passed through the barricades, men in simple outfits and red armbands directing traffic as best as they could. Women and young children were being steered deeper into the district, men were being given weapons and told to take their place on the barricades. Emily wrapped a glamour around them as they walked past the revolutionaries, making sure they remained unnoticed. A handful of dead bodies – more dead bodies – were hanging from makeshift gallows. Emily recognized Goodman Marco and shuddered. The man hadn’t fled fast enough to escape revolutionary justice.
“Serves him right,” Marah said, curtly. “If he’d sided with his own people…”
Emily shook her head but said nothing as they moved further into the Coalsack. It was bizarre, a strange mixture of creaky-looking apartment blocks and shops that had clearly seen better days. Women who were almost certainly whores, judging by their clothes, were setting up medical stations, aided by women who would never have been seen dead with them under any other circumstances. Children ran around, some drafted as messengers and others hanging back… Emily gritted her teeth, all too aware that many – if not all – of the children would die when the fighting swept over the district. The laws of war protected soldiers, and enemy civilians, but the Coalsack was in rebellion and rebels had no rights. There wouldn’t even be a demand for their surrender, just a bloody slaughter. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The prince may lose , she told herself. The defenders knew exactly what sort of fate awaited them, if they surrendered. If they even could . They’ll fight to the death and they might take the prince down, or destroy his armies .
Ice crawled down her spine. The Alluvian armies were already on the border. If they marched west, they would get through the passes very quickly and then enter the city itself. And then… she swallowed, hard. Was that the point? Help the revolutionaries get control of Valadon, allowing them to spread the revolution far and wide? Or… or what? She didn’t know.
The streets grew quieter as they headed into the deeper, darker parts of the district. There were fewer people in evidence, most making their way to the barricades or drinking themselves senseless in bars that looked disgusting, the kind of places where dignity went to die. A drunkard waved at them, then staggered upright and tripped over his own feet before he could take a step towards them. Emily felt a wave of disgust as they left the man behind, lying on the street. He could have made something of himself, perhaps, if he hadn’t become dependent on alcohol. But she was honest enough to admit there were few other options for a man with no skills and no hope of getting them.
Marah gritted her teeth. “This is how the hopeless live.”
Emily nodded, not trusting herself to speak as the streets became darker and grimier: apartment blocks gave way to warehouses that managed to look both new and derelict. She guessed they’d been constructed years ago, before the New Learning, and then sidelined when the industrial district had been built on the other side of the city. Whoever owned them didn’t seem to have done much with them, although a couple were guarded and several more were heavily warded. She guessed they had been taken by the revolutionaries and converted into ammo dumps and training centers. They were certainly big enough to do both.
“It’s that warehouse there,” Marah said. “If my contacts were correct…”
Emily’s back itched, again, as she surveyed the warehouse. It reminded her of the first warehouse they’d seen, a long, low building connected to an apartment block that appeared as dark and silent as the grave. There were no wards… she frowned and inched closer, realizing the wards had been cast in a manner that made them surprisingly hard to detect from a distance. Odd, if the objective was to deter thieves… it made a certain kind of sense, she supposed, if one wanted to catch thieves. It would provide a fig-leaf of legality if the slavers could claim they only enslaved thieves. She didn’t think that argument would get very far, but it might…
Her mind raced as they neared the warehouse. Marah was too close to her…
“Let me work on the door,” she said, softly. “Go circle the warehouse and make sure we’re not being watched.”
Marah nodded, and hurried off. Emily watched her go for a moment, then tugged a piece of chat parchment from her pocket and slipped it into the wards. There was no reaction… Emily was almost disappointed. She had expected a much harder struggle to break into the warehouse, something that would leave her drained and headachy while her opponent prepared for battle. The lock itself was simple, easy to pick. She recalled her earlier thoughts and shivered. If someone broke into a magician’s house, anything the magician did to him was perfectly legal…
She put the other piece of chat parchment into place, setting her own trap, then studied the wards until Marah returned. They were oddly light, as if they were nothing more than a tripwire; the handful of nastier protections so blindingly obvious that it would be easy to deflect them, perhaps even disarm them without triggering any alarms. She suspected the real trap lay within… she wondered if they could subvert the wards and get in, then realized the trick. Marah’s former master had a sample of her blood. No matter what Emily did to the wards, he’d know the moment Marah entered the warehouse. There was nothing Emily could do about that .
Marah returned, looking grim. “There’s no one watching from outside,” she said, her voice troubled. “I didn’t see any lights inside the building either.”
Emily nodded. “I want you to stay outside,” she said. She doubted Marah would follow the instruction – she hadn’t worded it as an order, to make it easier for her to make up her own mind – but it would give her a few moments. “Keep an eye on the door, and signal if anyone comes.”
Marah hesitated, visibly. “I can…”
“Let me go first,” Emily said. If she entered the warehouse alone, after subverting the wards, she might manage to get the drop on Virgil. He wouldn’t know she was there until after she blasted him in the back. She wouldn’t waste time grandstanding. “Please stay here.”
She turned and opened the door, the wards twisting around her. It was easy enough to subvert them, to keep the complex lattice from sounding the alarm as she inched into a corridor and paused long enough to listen. The interior was dark and silent. She cast a night-vision spell and looked up and down, noting the bland corridor leading into the warehouse. There was no sign of anyone else.
But he has to be here , Emily thought. It was a trap. Where is he?
She inched forward, keeping one hand at the ready. The wards flickered and flared around her, forcing her to keep part of her mind focused on hacking them. They didn’t seem designed with any further surprises in store, but… her eyes narrowed as she felt something flicker through the wards, preparing herself for trouble.
Marah had entered the building.