Chapter Seven

It felt like an eternity before the Inquisitors returned to the holding chamber, long enough for Elaine to erect a whole new series of mental defences. They wouldn’t hold forever, she knew all too well, but at least they would preserve her mental integrity long enough to allow her to think and plan without opening herself to the spell. The spell itself seemed content to keep control of her body, while biding its time. She was chillingly aware that it was just waiting for her to run out of magic and collapse before it took her over completely.

“On your feet,” the Inquisitor ordered. “Are you presentable?”

Elaine glowered at him as her body obeyed orders and rose. She had never been particularly vain, not like Daria or Millicent, but she was sure she wasn’t at her best. Her face was probably showing signs of her inner struggle, her robes were torn and dirtied and her hair was completely out of line. The idea of being presentable was absurd, given the circumstances.

“Probably not,” she snarled, feeling the compulsion to answer the question welling up within her. The spell’s inventor had a lot to answer for. “But unless you’re willing to give me a proper bathroom and a pair of stylists, this is the best I can do.”

The thought made her temper worsen. Elaine had never really believed in the gods, but there was a certain amount of satisfaction to be had in listing the hundreds of different hells and imagining which one might be playing host to the demented spell-inventor and everyone who had ever listened to him. The Inquisitor didn’t seem concerned by her comment – he’d probably heard worse every day of his career – and merely took her by the arm, then frog-marched her out of the holding chamber. Elaine wondered why he didn’t just issue orders and let the spell do its dirty work, then pushed the thought aside as she was half-pulled up the stairs and down towards the Throne Room. The vast army of soldiers she’d seen when she’d entered was gone.

She looked up at the Inquisitor and dared a question. “Where have the soldiers gone?”

“Out on the streets,” the Inquisitor answered. “The population must be kept under control.”

Elaine blinked in surprise. She’d expected nothing more than a command to shut up – again – or a slap across the face. Instead, she’d received an answer. She puzzled over it as the Inquisitor led her through a pair of doors, wondering if the Inquisitor was resisting his oaths on some level. No matter the oaths he’d sworn, he couldn’t be entirely happy about finding himself the servant of a new Emperor. At least the Grand Sorceress had been intelligent as well as powerful and capable.

They entered the antechamber and waited, patiently. It didn’t seem to have changed much from when Elaine had last visited, apart from a handful of portraits that had been placed on the walls. They were showing legendary emperors, characters who were as much myth as reality, people who were the very distant ancestors of the man sitting on the Golden Throne, waiting for her. The newcomer had to have put them up, Elaine decided, as she studied the nearest portrait. Light Spinner wouldn’t have wanted to remind anyone that there had been a time before the Grand Sorcerers.

Not that anyone would have doubted it, Elaine thought, coldly. There is always a beginning and an end.

She pushed the thought aside as the doorway leading to the Throne Room swung open, seemingly of its own accord. Magic washed out at her, scanning her down to her component atoms, then pulled back, allowing her to enter the chamber. The Inquisitor gave her a push, then marched beside her as she stepped through the door. This time, the Golden Throne was glowing, emitting a radiance that was only visible to someone with magic ... and a man was seated on the Throne, lounging there as if he had every right to belong. And his face ...

Elaine stopped, dead. Vlad Deferens.

“Ah, Elaine,” Deferens said, with faux courtesy. “Come in, come in.”

Elaine cursed under her breath as her legs did as they were commanded. She walked forward until she was standing right in front of the Throne, staring at it – and its occupant – as if they were the only people in the room. There was something about the magic that caught her attention and pulled her to it, almost effortlessly. Everyone had known the Grand Sorceress and her predecessors were powerful magicians, and knew not to push them too far, but the Emperors inherited their positions through birth. The Throne helped keep their followers humble.

“It must be a surprise to see me here,” Deferens said. “Or did you expect me all along?”

“No,” Elaine said, truthfully. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“You never took me seriously,” Deferens commented. His voice hardened. “Did you?”

Elaine winced. She’d disliked Deferens from the moment she’d first heard of him, when she’d learnt about his views on women. If given unlimited power, Deferens would reduce women to servitude, if they were lucky. She didn’t understand how anyone could harbour such misogynist thoughts, but he came from an entire country of misogynists. Humiliating him in public, when she’d thought she would die as soon as the whole affair was over and there was a new Grand Sorcerer, had seemed a good idea at the time.

“I always took you seriously,” she said. “I just never liked you.”

“And now I am the Emperor,” Deferens said.

Elaine half-closed her eyes in the hopes it would make it easier to see, but it didn’t work. The radiance from the Throne was magical, after all. It wasn’t something she could just block out, as long as magic ran in her blood. The Golden Throne was far more than just a seat, she knew; it was something more, something protective. And it couldn’t be fooled. If Deferens had been accepted by the Throne, he was the rightful heir.

“Tell me something,” she said. “When did you know you were the heir?”

Deferens frowned. “I have always known,” he said. “My family have cherished the bloodline for a thousand years.”

“But when did you know?” Elaine repeated. “How did you learn?”

And who, she asked herself, am I talking to right now?

She leant forward, studying Deferens closely. He had always been unkempt, prancing around in skimpy clothes so he could show off his muscled arms and legs, but now there was something a little different about him. Deferens had an ... edge to him that hadn’t been there before, she was sure. And that edge meant that he might have been touched by the Witch-King.

Or touched by the Golden Throne, she thought. Who knows what the Throne does to successful candidates.

“I just knew,” Deferens said.

Elaine shook her head, slowly. She would bet her small fortune that Deferens hadn’t known, until he’d been nudged into taking the Golden Throne. His family would be protected by their ignorance – and their distance from the Golden City. And their warped social structure might have been designed to allow the Witch-King to breed them, as a dog-breeder might breed his dogs. By controlling the women so precisely, the Witch-King might have been able to ensure that Deferens had precisely the right link to the Imperial Bloodline that he needed to take the Throne.

And we told ourselves that we were so clever when we blocked his first attempt to grab the Throne, she thought, bitterly. How did one beat an opponent who had literally centuries to lay his plans? Did Kane lay waste to part of the city just to cover the Witch-King’s plans?

She yelped as a sharp smack exploded against her bottom. “As I was saying,” Deferens said, as the Inquisitor stepped backwards, “I now rule the world.”

“So it would seem,” Elaine said, resisting the urge to rub her behind. “You don’t rule everyone, not yet.”

Deferens smirked. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said. His expression became ugly. “And now it is time for you to pledge your loyalty.”

“Go to one of the hells and stay there,” Elaine snapped.

He surprised her by laughing. “The spell my puppets used on you will wear you down, eventually,” he said. “You will be worse than an oath-sworn servant then, my dear Elaine; you will be a slave, a helpless slave, unable to resist even the slightest order. You, of all the people in this city, know it. Swear to me and you will maintain at least some freedom.”

Elaine bit her lip. He was right, she knew. Sooner or later, she would have to sleep – and when she opened her eyes, she would be as obedient and helpless as Deferens could possibly want. But she would still have a chance to beat the spell, if she could sit down and focus for a few hours, before it was too late. Swearing an oath of loyalty to him would destroy any chance of resistance for good.

“Never,” she said.

“In a day or two, perhaps less,” Deferens said. “Perhaps much less.”

He rose to his feet and leered down at her. The radiance faded slightly, allowing Elaine to tear her attention away from him and look around. A young girl – Charity Conidian, she thought – was kneeling in the shadow of the Golden Throne, her eyes wide with fear. Despite her own condition, Elaine felt a stab of sympathy. Charity had probably been bullied into offering Deferens her oath, even though she was technically a Family Head. She would now be nothing more than his slave, as long as her magic held out.

“You should look over there,” Deferens said. He pointed one long finger into a dark corner, where something lurked in the shadows. “What do you make of it?”

Elaine frowned, puzzled by the abrupt change in subject. The object looked humanoid, but too still to be a living human. An animate statue? There were legends about statues that only moved when one wasn’t looking, legends that various sorcerers had tried to make real after realising what wonderful guards they would make. But only the very greatest of them could animate a single statue, let alone protect it from counterspells cast by roving thieves.

“Let me show you,” Deferens said. He cast a spell, crafting a beam of light which he shone into the corner. “Now what do you see?”

Elaine stared in horror as she realised that it was no statue. She was, as far as she knew, the only living person who knew what Light Spinner looked like, under her veil. The Grand Sorceress had experimented with wild magic, in her younger days, and she’d been lucky. She’d only escaped with heavy scarring, scarring that – like Elaine’s eyes – no amount of magic could hope to fix. And she’d hidden her face for fear of what would happen if people knew she’d been scarred so badly. It was hard, Elaine knew, to blame her. People who were touched by wild magic tended to go insane very quickly.

And the statue wasn’t of Light Spinner, it was Light Spinner.

She stepped forward, drawn by a compulsion she didn’t recognise, until she was touching the stone. Normally, there would have been a shimmer of magic around any transfigured object, human or animal. But the statue had only the faintest glimmerings of magic, suggesting that the spell hadn’t just petrified Light Spinner, it had locked her so firmly in place that even her thoughts had shut down completely. Perhaps it was a mercy, Elaine knew. Being an object, even for a few brief moments, could be terrifying.

Deferens caught her shoulder, his touch making her want to cringe away. “Impressed?”

Elaine pulled herself free of him. “What have you done to her?”

“Merely taken what was mine,” Deferens said. “And now ... will you swear to me?”

“No,” Elaine said.

“I could order you to swear to me,” Deferens leered.

“I don’t think it would work,” Elaine said. Oaths didn’t take unless they were sworn willingly, although there were plenty of ways the line between willing and unwilling could be fudged by an unscrupulous sorcerer. “And besides, as you say, your spell would leave me helpless anyway.”

Deferens gave her a puzzled look. For the first time, she thought she saw a glimmer of respect in his eyes.

“And you would sooner be broken completely than swear to me?” he asked. “You have very strange priorities.”

“Go to the hells,” Elaine said.

She braced herself, expecting torture or drugs, anything that could break her will and allow the spell to do its work. Instead, Deferens merely laughed.

“I could kill you,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Elaine said. Taunting him might get her killed, but that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, not really. She knew she couldn’t hold out for long if they brought out the thumbscrews. “You wouldn’t get the knowledge in my mind if you blew me into little pieces, would you? You need to keep me alive.”

“And I can promise you humiliation after humiliation when the spell completes its work,” Deferens hissed, angrily. “Can you imagine how you could be used when I wasn’t tapping your brains?”

Elaine wondered how hard he’d had to bite back a killing spell. If half the rumours Daria had dug up, while she was laying bets on the outcome of the competition to choose the next Grand Sorcerer, were true, Deferens had never taken any cheek from anyone ... unless, of course, he’d needed them. He had a certain charm, Light Spinner had once admitted, that was surprisingly disarming. But not when he held all the cards.

“Better make sure you don’t accidentally kill me,” Elaine taunted. “Where would you be then?”

Deferens glowered down at her, then pointed a finger at the wall. “Stand there ... no, kneel there,” he ordered. “And watch as I consolidate my power.”

Elaine obeyed, helplessly. He was trying to rub in just how helpless she was and, she had to admit, it was working. Her body did as it was told, while her mind was under siege. The longer she stayed awake, the weaker she’d be and, eventually, she would fall. She was mildly surprised he hadn’t knocked her out, but he probably had no idea what would happen if she was forced to sleep. Very little was actually known about the long-term effects of the spell because it normally worked at lightning speed.

She turned as she reached the wall and knelt, then watched grimly as Charity rose to her feet and headed towards the door. Deferens himself sat on the Throne, drawing strength from the power shimmering through the Palace’s wards, and waited. Moments later, the first of the city councillors stepped through the door and stared at Deferens. His comrades followed him into the Throne Room, their faces slack with shock.

They never expected to deal with a real Emperor, Elaine thought. None of us saw this coming.

She gritted her teeth as the councillors chattered amongst themselves, then walked slowly towards the Throne and prostrated themselves before it, following protocol that had gone out of fashion when the last Emperor had died. They – or rather their predecessors – had made a deal with the Grand Sorcerers; they would continue to run the city, while respecting the Grand Sorcerer’s authority. As the Grand Sorcerers hadn’t wanted the hassle of running the Golden City, they’d agreed to the deal. But now ... who knew what an Emperor would want to do? And one so magically powerful?

“You may rise,” Deferens said. “Do you respect my right as Emperor?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the Council Leader said, quickly. It would have been suicide to say anything else. “You have taken for yourself the Golden Throne. As such, we are honour-bound to recognise your lineage.”

“Then I thank you,” Deferens said. There was no hint of irony in his tone. “Your positions are confirmed, my councillors, and will remain in your families, as long as you obey. Should you not obey, your families will be banished from the Golden City and exiled to far-flung islands.”

A fate worse than death, Elaine thought, sardonically.

She sighed, inwardly. It was, for them. The Golden City was their home – and the centre of power for the entire Empire. To leave the cramped city, confined by the mountains, would mean abandoning the power their families had built up over the generations. Even if they proved to be big fish outside the city, almost anywhere else within the Empire, they would still be small fry compared to those who remained in the Golden City. No wonder Johan’s father had spent so much money on moving into the city, after Kane had killed so many of the city’s previous residents. It was his one shot at propelling his family right into the very highest levels of power.

And it would have succeeded too, Elaine thought, if he’d treated Johan a little better.

Her knees were aching by the time the last of the supplicants had entered the Throne Room, pledged his loyalty – there didn’t seem to be any women among them – and retreated back into the antechamber. She distracted herself by setting up new defences, even though she knew it was just a matter of time before she lost control – and herself.

“You can take her back to her quarters,” Deferens ordered Charity, gesturing with one hand towards Elaine. “And make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, like trying to kill herself.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Charity said.

Elaine swore, mentally, as Charity beckoned her forward. Suicide was wrong, but the thought had crossed her mind as a last resort. How far had she fallen, she wondered, if she was praying for someone not to order her to preserve her own life?

“Come with me,” Charity said.

Helplessly, Elaine obeyed.