Chapter Forty-One

Her thoughts were ... shattered.

One of the protections must have worked, Elaine thought, through a wave of ... pain that wasn’t really pain. Her memories seemed dull, almost as if they belonged to someone else; her thoughts keep breaking up and reforming in her mind. Something had happened to push her right to the brink of death, but what? Her thoughts slipped together, blurring into one ...

Elaine sat upright, glancing around urgently. The sun was rising; her memory shuddered, then spat out a reminder. She’d been with Johan, on the verge of taking him as her apprentice, when they’d been attacked. And then there had been a spell ... her mind shied away from what had happened afterwards. Instead, she looked around for Johan, but the only person she saw was Dread.

Her mouth felt dry, but somehow she managed to speak. “What ... what happened?”

“I was hoping you could answer that question,” Dread said, as Elaine sat upright. At least the protections had managed to repair her clothes as well as her body. “You were shattered glass ... and now you’re human again.”

Elaine shuddered. If the protective spell hadn’t worked – or hadn’t worked perfectly – she would have been eternally trapped between life and death, unable to do anything other than to go mad. Suddenly, she thought she understood the Witch-King perfectly. He’d been so afraid of death that he’d bound himself to a decaying body that would never, no matter how much magic he used, be human again. And maybe one of his spells had also prevented him from taking refuge in madness.

She heard a sobbing sound and glanced over towards one of the trees. A young man who could almost pass for an older version of Johan was sitting there, crying. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Elaine frowned, then realised that it had to be Jamal, Johan’s elder brother. The oaths he’d been forced to offer the Inquisitors hadn’t been enough to keep him from returning to crime and terrorism.

“There is no magic in him,” Dread said, quietly. He held out a hand, helping Elaine to stand up. Her legs felt oddly fragile, as if she’d broken them again. “And I haven’t been able to get any sense out of him at all.”

Elaine leaned on Dread and stared over at Jamal. He looked broken, as if everything had finally proven too much for him. It was clear that he had soiled himself. Elaine shuddered again at the vacant look on his face, then turned away. Jamal wasn’t her problem, as unpleasant as he was; Johan was her problem. And where the hell was he?

“We don’t know,” Dread said. “Where do you think he might be?”

He thinks I’m dead, Elaine thought. She’d wondered if Johan would have tried something to restore her, but no magic could bring back the dead. Every time it was tried, the results were always bad. Speaking to the ghost of someone long gone was about the best magic could do. Where would he go if he thought I was dead?

“He’s gone home,” she said, in sudden horrified realisation. “He’ll think that his father authorised this attack.”

“He might well have done,” Dread pointed out, as they started to walk towards the edge of the garden. “The oath would have forced him to ensure that Jamal did nothing criminal.”

Elaine gritted her teeth. The oath might not have been violated, not if Jamal had been ordered to kill his brother. Johan had still been under his father’s authority; if he believed that his son had transgressed too far, the Conidian would have been within his rights to order his son killed. It wouldn’t have been criminal if Jamal had been acting under orders. She turned to look at the sobbing youth, then decided that it was unlikely that they would get any sense out of him. He could just wait there for the Inquisitors to pick him up.

“Send a warning to the Grand Sorceress,” she said. There were more people in the street now, all of them glancing at her in surprise. Inquisitors were not known for helping people, at least unless they were truly important. Elaine silently bid goodbye to her anonymity; before now, hardly anyone outside the Privy Council and library staff had known who she was. The broadsheets would probably follow her with as much interest as they showed to the other senior aristocracy. “Tell her that we might be looking at another Kane.”

Dread muttered a curse under his breath. “Lord Conidian has a great deal to answer for,” he said. “I shall so advise the Grand Sorceress.”

Elaine suspected that it was already too late. They should have moved to make Johan her apprentice the moment they realised just what he could do, rather than leave him hanging until the tree finally came crashing down. The Conidian had been too persistent in his efforts to regain control of his son for them to assume that he would stop, once Jamal had been released. Perhaps they should have bargained, gained Johan’s freedom from his family in exchange for Jamal’s release from jail. But it was too late now.

He thinks I’m dead, Elaine thought, numbly. Johan had shown himself willing to blame himself for incidents that were outside his control. What would he do now that he thought his only real friend was dead – and that his father was responsible for her death? He had power enough to do real damage to the city and the established order. What is he thinking now?

They turned the corner – and ran straight into a roadblock. A pair of Inquisitors were driving people out of the street, warning them to stay away from the houses. Elaine sensed that many of the occupants had raised their wards, sealing themselves inside their homes; she wondered if they had an inkling of what was going on or if they merely had a guilty conscience. The men and women who lived here, in the heart of the Golden City, had committed many crimes to reach their lofty stations. They had just been lucky enough to avoid being caught before it was too late, before they couldn’t be arrested and charged.

Dread let go of her arm – she could stand straight now, thankfully – and walked over to his brethren. Elaine watched him go, then concentrated on extending her magic perceptions as much as possible. House Conidian was wrapped in its wards, keeping the outside world from breaking in ... and anyone inside from getting out. Elaine wondered briefly if Johan had finally learned to manipulate wards or if it was their typical setting, before deciding that it didn’t matter. Johan had to be inside.

“You’ll need to hear this,” Dread called. He waved to her, beckoning her to follow him past the roadblock and up to a tent someone had erected just inside the secure zone. “It isn’t good news.”

The tent was surprisingly small on the inside, but there was still enough room for an Inquisitor and Duncan Conidian. One look told Elaine that something was very wrong with Johan’s father; he talked like a stuttering parrot, rather than the man she recalled from Privy Council meetings. She met his eyes and shuddered when she saw absolutely no life in them at all. Johan, she realised, had used a compulsion charm to make him obey – and, as always when he tried to cast standard spells, the results had been unexpected. Duncan Conidian no longer had a mind of his own.

“You are to bring the magicians before him for justice,” the Conidian said. “He will judge them all to see who prove worthy. Those who are not worthy will be stripped of their magic and forced to live as mundanes.”

Elaine stared at him for a long moment, then started to cast diagnostic charms. The Conidian had no magic any longer, she discovered; his son had stripped him of it, perhaps in a genuine attempt to save his father’s life. A magical oath couldn’t bite if the oath-breaker had no magic, she deduced. It wasn’t as if people had often lost their magic before Johan had appeared on the scene. And his mind had definitely been destroyed.

“So it would seem,” Dread said, when she outlined her conclusions. “Did he do that on purpose?”

Elaine shrugged. There was no way to know.

“Which leads to a more important question,” Dread said. “Can he be killed?”

Elaine swallowed. She liked Johan; she didn’t like the thought of trying to kill him. But she understood what Dread meant; if Johan had gone mad with power, he had to be stopped before he could do significant damage to the city. If Kane had made the Empire shake on its foundations, what could Johan do?

“Yes,” she said, bitterly. She had barely given the matter much thought, but there were several definite possibilities. Johan was strong, but his strength was matched by weaknesses. “Set up a killing ward; he won’t sense it until he walks right into it. And then make sure it kills instantly.”

She scowled. “He can protect himself as long as he focuses on protection,” she added. “So you have to distract him if it comes down to a straight fight.”

“He isn’t invincible,” one of the Inquisitors said. “He can be killed.”

“He might also be our best hope with the ... other problem,” Elaine pointed out, addressing Dread. Was the Witch-King behind everything that had happened? If so, killing Johan might be the only way to stop him. But if he wasn’t, Johan might be their best weapon against the damned lich. “We need to try to talk him down.”

“I think he’s gone mad,” Dread observed. “And who can really blame him?”

Elaine eyed him, surprised. That was unusually understanding for an Inquisitor. They were normally more concerned about punishing breaches of magical law than understanding why they had taken place. But then, she knew, Johan might merely be the first in a whole new breed of magician. The other Powerless might have had power all along, only to be killed by their families before it emerged. Johan might be needed in the future for more than just the Witch-King.

“But he is making demands,” the other Inquisitor pointed out. “What happens when those demands are refused?”

And they would be, Elaine knew. Even the Grand Sorceress couldn’t force magicians into a position where they might lose their powers – and the ones Johan would definitely want to face, the Heads of the Great Houses, would definitely refuse to enter House Conidian. No, it was far more likely that the Grand Sorceress would open some of the forbidden tomes from the Black Vault and unleash dark magic on the house, Johan might not be able to survive some of the darker spells, no matter how carefully he protected himself. There would be consequences if the spells were used – if the city’s population saw them, magicians would start trying to duplicate their effects – but that might not matter.

It wouldn’t, Elaine realised, bitterly. Johan is threatening to shatter the very foundations of our society.

She looked up at the other Inquisitor. “What about the rest of the family?”

“Still inside the house, we assume,” the Inquisitor said. He seemed doubtful about answering Elaine’s questions, but Dread nodded impatiently, convincing him to talk. “The only person to emerge was this ... puppet.”

He indicated Duncan Conidian. Elaine shivered, remembering just how badly Johan had been treated by his siblings. In hindsight, it was a miracle that he hadn’t gone completely mad with power the moment he’d realised he had it. Now ... with his friend presumed dead, he could torture his family in any way that pleased him. It was possible, she told herself, that the remainder of the family had been out of the house, but she knew it was unlikely. Most students wouldn’t have climbed out of bed until the sun was higher in the sky.

She reached into her pocket and touched the vial of blood. She’d planned to destroy it, once they’d sworn their oaths; the handful of charms she’d cast on the blood had revealed nothing of any significance. But it did suggest something else ...

Elaine closed her eyes, thinking it through. Johan’s magic was very good at dealing with direct threats. He could just imagine himself surrounded by an unbreakable barrier and he would be, at least until his concentration slipped. But there were more subtle forms of magic ... she considered the spells, one by one, then dismissed them. Johan deserved better from her than to be struck down by a cowardly spell. She needed to try to talk him down.

“I’m going to get in there,” she said, shortly. “Someone has to talk sense into his head.”

Dread gave her a long considering look. “You do realise that he may think that you’re someone pretending to be you?”

The other Inquisitor had a different objection. “The house is heavily warded,” he said. “We would need hours to break through the wards.”

Elaine wasn’t so sure. She might not be a powerful magician, but she had knowledge and precision – more of the former than any normal ward-maker or curse-breaker. Every ward had weaknesses, particularly the ones that had to allow multiple people to step through them without impediment. And she had a vial of Johan’s blood.

And she had his father. There were options. She just had to pluck up the nerve to use them.

“I think I can get in,” she said, willing Dread to believe her. “But I don’t know if I can take anyone else with me!”

Dread stepped away from her, pulling a tiny bracelet out of his pocket and putting it on. It was so unlike him to wear any form of jewellery that Elaine stared at it in surprise, but it still took her a moment to realise that a crystal ball was hidden amidst the gold. Dread started to mutter into it, too low for her to hear; his brother gave Elaine a long considering look, then stepped back and strode out of the tent.

“Very well,” Dread said, finally. He returned the bracelet to his pocket, then gave her a smile that was barely noticeable. “You’ll have your chance. But you won’t have long.”

Elaine nodded. Light Spinner was probably looking at the forbidden tomes right now, trying to find something that would allow her to end the crisis with a minimum of bloodshed – or anything so revealing that sorcerers would start work on trying to duplicate it. Elaine could have found her something, but she knew that she had to get to Johan first. The gods alone knew how much time she would be given before Light Spinner attacked.

“I’ll need him,” she said, indicating Duncan Conidian. “Can you help me get him outside.”

The wards felt ... strange, she realised, as they walked up to stand in front of the door. They crawled with magic, linked to aversion charms, jinxes and finally curses to deal with anyone persistent enough to brush aside the other effects, but there was something about them that was almost alive. She scowled as she reached out with her magic, wondering if the Conidian had broken the laws on creating magical artefacts that could actually think; there were too many horror stories about such devices for any breach of those laws to be taken lightly.

Or maybe they’re just confused, she thought, as she probed them gently. Their master isn’t dead, but he can no longer operate them; his Prime Heir isn’t any better. Who would be their master if both of them no longer have magic?

There was no way to know. Instead, she lifted her wand and cast the first spell, careful to keep one hand on Duncan Conidian at all times. He shuffled after her as she undid the first piece of the wards, then stepped through to challenge the second piece. Magic crackled around her as she pushed onwards; a single mistake, no matter how innocent, would see her revealed as an unwanted intruder. Sweat trickled down her back; she cast the next set of spells, closing her eyes to focus on the magic running all around her. The final ward rose up in front of her and she braced herself, then pushed Duncan Conidian forward. As she had hoped, the wards recognised their master’s blood and allowed them both to reach the door.

Inside, the magical energy died away to almost nothing. Elaine hadn’t been in many magical households, but she had expected more than this. She was almost disappointed; there should have been magic everywhere, blended into the stone, responsive only to the members of the family. But then, the Conidian Family was new to the city. It took years for a family home to become theirs. Carefully, she positioned Duncan Conidian somewhere where she hoped he would be safe – or at least stay out of the way – then started to advance down the corridor.

Elaine had barely gone any distance when she stumbled over the maid. She was naked, her feet clearly stuck to the floor; Elaine tapped her lips hastily when the maid stared at her, then knelt down beside her and tried to break the spell. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. Her body had melded itself to the floor. It would require very precise magic to free her. If Johan died, Elaine realised grimly, the maid might be stuck there for the rest of her life. Most magic didn’t last that long without renewal; Johan, on the other hand, had ensured that more than magic held the maid prisoner.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure she dared try to use his blood as a guide when the wards might react – harshly – to such magic. “Do you know where he is?”

The maid pointed down the corridor towards a heavy wooden door. It was ajar, as if he were inviting her in ... or, more likely, that he simply hadn’t bothered to close it. Elaine could hear a low whimpering sound from inside, as if someone had been broken so completely they couldn’t even cry. A cold shudder ran through her body, but she forced herself to stand upright.

“Thank you,” she said.

Wand in hand, she advanced slowly towards the door.