Chapter Eighteen

Elaine’s eyes snapped open.

For a few moments, she honestly wasn’t sure where she was. Her memories were a blur; she recalled Deferens, and Charity Conidian, and then ... and then everything was blurred until she opened her eyes, back in the Great Library. The wards touched her mind seconds later, before she could start to panic. She knew where she was ... and she knew she was safe. And that was all that mattered.

Alarms echoed through the wards as she sat upright. There were people outside, people trying to break through the protections surrounding the library. Elaine tested the wards quickly, one by one, and discovered they were still holding firm. It would take days, perhaps weeks, for the wardcrafters to shatter the wards, or even force them to allow a handful of magicians to enter the building. And even if they did, the Great Library wouldn’t be defenceless. Corridors would lead to nowhere, entire subsections of the library would vanish, taking unwanted intruders with them ... and, at worst, the knowledge within the Black Vault could be turned against the enemy.

“Better stay still for the moment,” a voice advised. It took Elaine a moment to recognise Cass, kneeling beside her. “You’ve had a nasty shock.”

“I know,” Elaine said. Her mind hurt. She might have freed herself from the spell, but there was no way to know if she’d eradicated all of its traces. “What’s the situation?”

“The Great Library is surrounded,” Cass said. “Johan and Daria have gone to make breakfast. Other than that, I think I need to ask you.”

Elaine rubbed her forehead, then forced herself to stand. Cass caught her arm and steadied her as she rose to her feet. Her limbs felt weak, as if she’d been very ill, but she was growing stronger as she moved. The wards helped, allowing her to draw on a little of their power, even though it risked draining them at the worst possible moment. Elaine placed her hands on the nearest table and rested for a long second, then stood on her own. There was a chilling moment when she thought she was going to faint, then the sensation faded away into nothingness. She was alive and well.

“Thank you for your help,” she said. “But you’re going to have to tell me what happened in the palace. My mind’s a blur.”

She listened to Cass’s words, allowing them to unlock the blurred parts of her memory. “He had children,” she said, suddenly. “Children from the Great Houses. But why?”

“Hostages, perhaps,” Cass said, darkly. “Or worse.”

“Vlad Deferens is the Emperor,” Elaine said, shaking her head in disbelief. It sounded like a bad joke; she’d known that Deferens had been a contender for the post of Grand Sorcerer, but having him become the Emperor ... the Witch-King had certainly laid his plots very well. “And he’s taking hostages. Why?”

“The Great Houses won’t be happy about an Emperor,” Cass observed. “But I doubt they gave him anyone really important.”

Elaine nodded, slowly. The Great Houses were utterly ruthless at times. Johan’s father had been quite willing to do whatever it took to lure him back to the family, destroying a budding romance along the way. If the Family Heads had sent hostages, she would have bet half her salary that the hostages were the youngest children, the ones who were suitable only as pawns in the endless struggle for good marriages. Deferens might discover that he’d lulled himself into a false sense of security.

“I suppose,” she said, finally. “What do we do now?”

“Get out of this building,” Cass said. “We may be safe, for the moment, but we can’t do anything to help Light Spinner or stop the Emperor.”

She paused. “You were going to find the Witch-King,” she said. “Did it occur to you that he might be buried below the Golden City?”

Elaine shook her head. “I thought about it,” she answered, “but there are thousands of magicians in the city. Having his body hidden here would be an unacceptable risk.”

“But the Golden City was the capital of the Empire even back then,” Cass pointed out. “He might not have had a choice.”

Elaine closed her eyes, remembering the stories that had been decanted into her head. The Witch-King had been the hero of the First Necromantic War, then the villain of the Second. He had killed most of the Imperial Bloodline personally, perhaps in a desperate attempt to take power, then created great and terrifying armies to sweep across the land. And then he had been defeated, but his body had never been found. Could it have been slipped back to the Golden City? She doubted it; back then, there had been far more sorcerers with experience in dealing with the darkest of forbidden magics. They would have found the lich and destroyed it before the Witch-King could recover his strength.

And even if he had somehow evaded their watchful gaze, Elaine was sure, he would have had to hide from successive Grand Sorcerers and the Inquisitors too. She knew how thoroughly the Golden City was monitored for unexpected and unexplained bursts of magic, particularly after the Blight had been created. The Witch-King would have been taking a ghastly risk if he had kept his body in the city, assuming – of course – that he’d been able to leave. A lich wasn’t always mobile. It would depend, the knowledge in her head told her, on just what condition the body had been in, at the moment it had been frozen in mortal stasis. And there was no way she could answer that question until they found the body.

“It would be an insane risk,” she said, slowly. “And he would have had to make his way back to the city in any case.”

“Yeah,” Cass said. “So where did he fall?”

“Beyond the Garston Mountains,” Elaine said, flatly. “We were planning to go there when Deferens took the Golden Throne.”

She looked up as Johan and Daria entered the room, Johan carrying a large plate of bacon sandwiches and Daria carrying a tray with several mugs of hot tannin. Johan put his plate down on the nearest table, then leant forward and gave Elaine a hug. She hugged him back, then gently let go of the younger man. Johan reached for the plate and held it under her nose. Elaine took one of the sandwiches, then motioned for him to share them out. After so long without food, it tasted heavenly.

“It’s good to see you again,” Daria said, sitting next to Elaine as she munched her sandwich. “I was so worried.”

“Me too,” Elaine admitted. She took a breath, then filled them in on everything that had happened since she had been taken out of the Great Library. “He’s got control of everything.”

“Almost everything,” Cass corrected. “He doesn’t control the Great Library.”

Johan had a more immediate point. “He’s using my sister as ... as what?”

“An assistant, for the moment,” Elaine said. She knew what he was thinking. “She swore her oaths to him when he took the Golden Throne.”

“She actually gave him her oaths?” Cass said, in disbelief. “What a stupid bitch.”

“I imagine she wasn’t given a choice,” Elaine said, before Johan could explode with rage. He might have largely discarded his family, but Charity was the only one who had been good to him, from time to time. “Deferens had just taken the Throne and stoned Light Spinner. Charity probably thought it was a choice between offering her oaths or being killed outright.”

“She still shouldn’t have given him her oaths,” Cass said. “There will be no breaking them now, will there?”

Johan looked at her hopefully, but Elaine shook her head. Forcing someone into submission through a compulsion spell could be unreliable, if someone had the mental fortitude to fight back and break the spell, yet they who submitted willingly placed themselves completely at the mercy of their master. Charity could not hope to free herself, Elaine knew; her only hope was Deferens choosing to let her go. And that wasn’t likely to happen. What did she have to offer him, in exchange for her freedom, that he couldn’t simply order her to bring to him, if he wanted it?

But there is something Deferens might want, Elaine thought. Johan. Johan and me.

She kept that thought to herself. Instead, she turned to Cass. “How many Inquisitors are left?”

Cass hesitated for a long moment before answering. “Not counting me,” she said carefully, “twenty-four. Twenty-three now, assuming Akron didn’t survive the flames.”

Daria’s mouth fell open, revealing inhumanly sharp teeth. “Twenty-three Inquisitors for the entire world?”

“It isn’t something we normally tell people,” Cass said. “And I should bind you all to secrecy.”

Elaine wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or furious. She’d known the Inquisitors had taken heavy losses in the fight with Kane, but she hadn’t realised just how few remained. No one had known, apart from Light Spinner ... and she hadn’t been able to launch a recruiting drive for fear of tipping off her enemies. Twenty-three Inquisitors ... they would be a formidable force, particularly with a Grand Sorceress at their head, but hardly enough to stand off the massed power of the Great Houses. Light Spinner’s rule, the shortest in recorded history, had been weaker than anyone had dared suppose.

“They belong to Deferens now,” Daria said, sharply. “Would he choose to discard the women?”

“Perhaps,” Cass said. “But that would leave nineteen alive and well. And fifteen of them are in the city now.”

Elaine understood, suddenly, why Deferens had taken hostages. The Great Houses had never been able to challenge the Grand Sorcerers, but now ... now Deferens was Emperor, rather than claiming the title of Grand Sorcerer in his own right. He might look weak, even if he did have the Inquisitors on his side. If someone chose to challenge him openly, the whole edifice might come crumbling down.

But the Witch-King is still out there, she thought, grimly. I assume he must have a plan to handle dissent.

“There were those other magicians,” Daria said. “The ones in red robes. Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Cass said. “But there’s quite a few of them outside our wards.”

“Deferens probably trained up a force of private combat sorcerers,” Elaine commented, thinking hard. Deferens probably hadn’t ... but the Witch-King had. And then he’d given the sorcerers to the new Emperor, strengthening his hand against the Great Houses. “They might be Inquisitor-grade.”

“And even if they’re not,” Cass sneered, “they could just wear black robes and everyone would mistake them for Inquisitors.”

“As long as no one asked to see their rings,” Johan pointed out, snidely.

Elaine finished her sandwich, then stood up and started to pace. “Tell me if this makes sense,” she said. “We can’t hope to beat Deferens alone, right?”

“Right,” Cass agreed, glumly. “He has the red-robes and the Inquisitors.”

“And the Golden Throne,” Elaine added. “Our only hope, therefore, is to continue the original mission, hunting down and destroying the Witch-King. We cannot stay in the city and hope for the best.”

“I wish I disagreed with you,” Cass said.

Elaine understood. As an Inquisitor, Cass had been taught to go straight for the threat and remove it, whatever the cost. Dark Wizards could not be allowed chances to recover, for fear they would return and pose much greater threats in future. Leaving Deferens in possession of the Golden City practically guaranteed a civil war, with or without the Witch-King. It could tear the Empire apart.

But any attempt to remove Deferens would prove fatal – and futile.

“There are assassins, right?” Johan said. He sounded unsure of his own words. “My father used to have a few hired killers on his payroll. We could find one and pay him to kill Deferens ...”

“Deferens will be extremely well protected, by both his own magic and the Imperial Palace,” Cass pointed out, rudely. “I doubt any assassin would take the hit for any amount of money, Johan, and he would be very unlikely to succeed. There hasn’t been a successful assassination attempt on a Grand Sorcerer for over seven hundred years.”

Johan looked up. “What happened to him?”

“He trusted the wrong woman and she killed him with the Death in Joy one night,” Cass said, with some amusement. “I believe he died happy.”

“I’m sure he did,” Daria said.

Elaine smiled. Johan threw her a questioning glance, but she wasn’t about to explain. The Death in Joy was a sex magic rite, used for draining someone’s life force when they were caught in orgasm, all defences down. Female assassins were very fond of it, if only because it required nothing beyond a limited magical talent and bad intentions. And their victims often died with a smile on their faces, without leaving any signs of a struggle.

“You’re a Privy Councillor,” Johan said, instead. “Couldn’t you convince the Great Houses to stand against him?”

“I doubt it,” Elaine said. “I was never a popular councillor.”

It was worse than that, she knew. She had never liked attending council meetings and had skipped out of them, where possible. Lady Light Spinner had even threatened to stick her to her chair, once upon a time. The other councillors had built networks of patronage and influence, boosting the careers of their friends and families in exchange for loyalty, but Elaine had never cared for power. In hindsight, allowing her crippling shyness to rule her mind might have been a mistake.

There’s nothing you can do about past mistakes, she thought, recalling the advice of one of her tutors. He’d been one of the few she’d actually liked. Bad rolls of the dice are inevitable, young lady. All you can do is roll with the mistake, learn from it and move on.

“And they will worry about the hostages,” Cass offered. “Even if they are the youngest and most expendable members of their families, they will worry. I would have to think hard about whom to approach, if we tried to start an uprising.”

“My father wouldn’t give a damn if he’d sent me as the hostage,” Johan said, darkly. “Or even Chime. Her only value to him was who she married.”

“She would still have magic,” Cass pointed out. “Giving her up for nothing might rebound against him. The family magic ...”

“The family magic did nothing for me,” Johan hissed. “It wouldn’t do anything for Chime, either.”

“You don’t know that,” Cass said. “Powerless are rare ... and one of the reasons they’re rare is because their families kill them. But you remained alive.”

“Not by choice,” Johan snapped. “I would have gone if they’d let me!”

Elaine winced as she turned and stared at the bookshelves. If she had been on her own, she might have seriously considered just sealing the wards and remaining trapped in the building, alone and untouchable. There were no shortage of books to read and she would die of old age long before she ate her way through the food supplies. But she couldn’t do that, she knew, no matter how tempting it was. Johan, Daria and Cass wouldn’t want to stay with her for the rest of their lives ... and the Witch-King, once he rose again, would eventually shatter the wards protecting her. And then the world would fall into darkness.

But what does he want? she asked herself. And what would it cost us to give it to him?

She shuddered. There were so many different stories in the history books, even the ones that had been officially forbidden, that it was impossible to know for sure. She could imagine him wanting his living flesh and blood back, if only to enjoy life as a human again, and then wanting to rule the world ... what had he wanted, back then? But the history books vacillated between dismissing the whole thing as a bid for power and a desperate attempt to deliver the entire world to the dark gods. Clearly, something had gone very badly wrong with the great hero of the First Necromantic War. Had he looked into the darkness long enough for it to look back?

Dark thoughts dripped through Elaine’s mind. No one else, not even Light Spinner, knew just how many forbidden and forgotten spells were stored in the Black Vault. Elaine knew, all too well; there were spells she could use, if she wanted, to boost her meagre power reserves, but they all came with a terrifying price. Sanity, for starters ...

There were spells so powerful that to attempt to cast them on one’s own risked death, spells that released so much magic that they could have unpredictable side effects, spells so nasty that even being caught in the backwash could have disastrous results, spells that invoked the darkest of the dark gods ... and spells that risked ending everything, if cast with the right preparations. Elaine sometimes wondered if a god had been playing with her life, dangling power in front of her with one hand and keeping her away from it with the other. It would have been nice to have extra power at the Peerless School, but now ... if she wanted to try some of the more dangerous spells in her mind, she would have had to boost her power first, destroying her mind in the process.

It just isn’t fair, she thought, with a flash of self pity. If they catch me, they can use me as a mobile library of deadly spells. But I can’t use the spells for myself.

Life isn’t fair, her mind responded, dryly. And would you want to destroy the entire world anyway? Even the Witch-King isn’t that insane ...

Daria cleared her throat. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better,” Elaine said. A plan was already forming in her mind. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”