Bookworm III (2 page)

“I will, if you will release me,” she said. She hesitated, then took the skull ring off her finger and dropped it into her pocket. “Can I retake the oaths afterwards?”

“If you wish to return to the Inquisitors, you may retake the oaths,” Light Spinner said.

Cass bowed her head, then stepped forward when Light Spinner rose to her feet. The oaths were suddenly
very
prominent within her mind, sworn words that were woven into her magic by old rituals. Obey the Emperor – and the Grand Sorcerer. It was the only way to ensure stability, she knew, given how many magicians were prepared to fight for power. The Grand Sorcerer wasn’t just the most powerful magician in the world, as far as anyone knew; he or she was supported by a corps of other powerful magicians. It was hard for anyone to challenge the Inquisitors.

“In the name of the Emperor, wherever he may be, I release you from your oaths,” Light Spinner said. “I ...”

Cass barely heard her as magic suddenly shimmered around her. The oaths had been part of her for years, long enough that she’d forgotten what it was like to be free of them, to be free of a compulsion she had accepted willingly as part of her job. Now ... magic danced and twisted, reminding her that she was a powerful magician ... and that she was free. It would be easy, now, to do whatever she liked, to be the ultimate spoilt brat. Magic made it so easy ...

She reached into her pocket and took the ring. It burned against her flesh the moment she touched it, growing hotter and hotter every second. Only Inquisitors could wear the rings.

“I will take that,” Light Spinner said. “It will be held in trust for you. And I suggest you change or glamour your clothes.”

“Thank you,” Cass said, placing the ring on the table. It felt as if she had given up a piece of herself. Moments later, her black robes became a simple pair of trousers and a shirt. She’d worn plain clothes often enough, but this was different. She might never be an Inquisitor again. “Please give it to my superiors if I don’t return.”

She took a deep breath, then calmed herself. The job still needed to be done, even if she was no longer bound by her oaths.

“I thank you,” she said, formally. She had never heard of an Inquisitor being released from the oaths before, if only because they rarely lived long enough to retire. Now ... it was growing harder to remember why she had sworn the oaths in the first place. “And I will carry out your
requests
.”

“Good,” the Grand Sorceress said. She motioned for Cass to follow her out of the giant chamber, into a smaller office lined with giant bookshelves. “This is what I want you to do.”

Chapter One

The chamber under the Great Library was
crammed
with books.

Elaine let out a sigh as she surveyed the groaning tables, utterly heaving with books, maps and records recovered from a dozen smaller libraries within the city. Some of them dated back to the Necromantic Wars, when the Witch-King had been first hero, then villain; others were much younger, either copies of copies or outright fakes. The dusty tomes all
looked
old – some of them clearly hadn’t been touched for years – but a quick inspection was often enough to reveal that they weren’t what they seemed. It was astonishing, really, just how many Great Houses had seen fit to embellish their roles in building the empire over the years.

Or maybe it isn’t astonishing at all
, Elaine thought, as she ran her fingers through her long brown hair.
Grand Sorcerers come and go, but the Great Houses last forever
.

She looked down at one of the tomes and cursed its author under her breath. The knowledge in her head was enough to tell her that the writer had been making it up as he went along, although anyone could have worked it out for himself if he’d read the book with a critical eye. There were at least nine outright contradictions within the book, while one whole segment was devoted to discussing a ritual that Elaine knew wouldn’t actually work, no matter how enthusiastically the participants danced naked under the moonlight. Apparently, it was an old family ritual, but Elaine had her doubts.
She
rather suspected it had been written by a dirty old man.

Walking to the next table, she looked down at the maps they’d recovered from one of the Great Houses. Some of them showed recognisable continents; others, more detailed, showed the world as it had been before the Necromantic Wars. Elaine scribbled down notes to herself in her notebook, hoping a quick comparison with a modern map would show her lands familiar to the Witch-King. If they found a place he considered secure, she was sure, they would find his lich. And then they could destroy him before it was too late.

She shook her head, then stepped past the table and looked down at a mirror, lying in one of the half-empty boxes. It sparkled with magic when she tested it, but none of the spells seemed to do more than alter the reflected image. On impulse, she picked it up and studied her reflection, watching as the mirror showed her how she could improve her looks, if she was prepared to put in the time and effort. Shaking her head, she put it down on the table again. The mirror had probably been crafted for some minor daughter, someone who wouldn’t be expected to achieve anything beyond looking pretty and marrying well. No one else would have the time to primp and preen every day.

Not when they could use glamours instead
, she thought, coldly. The mirror hadn’t been designed by a skilled magician, she was sure. It hadn’t noticed the glamour covering her eyes, let alone made suggestions for improvement. But there was no real improvement, she was sure, for eyes that glowed a brilliant red. All she could do was keep them hidden and pray no one looked past the glamour. Red eyes were
not
a good sign.

The next set of texts were copies of ones in the Great Library. She made a note of their titles, then marked them down to be returned to their owners. None of the owners had been
pleased
to give up their private libraries, after all, but the Grand Sorceress had been insistent. Elaine hoped – prayed – that none of them realised that
she
had requested access to their libraries, if only because she didn’t need more enemies. Being a Privy Councillor made Elaine a target for anyone who wanted power, even though she was hardly the Grand Sorceress. And if they’d known just how much knowledge was locked in her head ...

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Some of the knowledge had faded, but everything to do with magic was as sharp and clear as it had been on the day she’d woken up and discovered just what had happened to her. The Great Library, repository for every last piece of magical knowledge in the Empire, had been copied and dumped into her head, including thousands upon thousands of forbidden spells that successive Grand Sorcerers had kept under lock and key. She knew she’d been lucky not to be executed, after the truth of her parentage had come out, but there were days when she wondered if she had
really
been lucky. No matter what precautions she took, she knew – all too well – that she was vulnerable to a more powerful magician.

They don’t know
, she told herself.

But she knew one person – entity – who
did
know. The Witch-King had spent centuries manipulating events within the Empire, preparing for his rebirth. They’d been lucky to stave off his first assault on the Golden City and no one had heard anything from him since, but she knew it was just a matter of time. And yet, the Witch-King was functionally immortal. He could pull in his horns and wait for another couple of hundred years before he made another play for power, by which time everyone who knew he was still alive would be dead. How did one fight an entity who thought in decades and spent centuries crafting his plans?

She sighed again, feeling a headache building up under her skin. The headaches had been growing more frequent as she’d delved into the tomes, looking for something – anything – that would cut the search short, but there was nothing. She’d even spent hours reviewing history, looking for traces of the Witch-King’s influence, only to discover that it was largely impossible to tell what might have been his work and what was nothing more than a coincidence. All she’d ended up with, for her trouble, was a series of headaches and a hundred conspiracy theories.
Anything
could be the Witch-King, anything at all. The only thing that kept her from giving up was the certain knowledge that if the Witch-King was as omniscient as he seemed, he would have won by now.

The wards surrounding the Great Library shimmered, once, then sent her an alert. Johan had left his apartment, right next to hers, and was making his way down towards the underground chamber. The labyrinth spell prepared itself to grip him, leaving him walking in circles endlessly until Elaine or one of the other librarians could come to see who had tried to enter the private sections of the library. She hastily told the spell to let him through, then reached out with her mind, trying to sense Johan’s presence. The knowledge in her head told her she should be able to sense his presence anywhere, whenever she wanted to know where he was or what he was doing. But she barely sensed the merest flicker of his presence until he stepped into the chamber.

Elaine greeted him with a tired smile. Johan Conidian was tall and handsome – and, until very recently, Powerless. His family had practically kept him a prisoner until he’d developed magic, a very strange form of magic. Elaine had studied his power extensively, since the first day he’d used his magic, and yet she had no idea how it worked. Or, for that matter, why the apprenticeship bond hadn’t been sealed. They had sworn willingly, after all; he had accepted her as his mistress, even though it was rare for a female to take a male apprentice or vice versa. But the bond hadn’t formed properly.

“Johan,” she said. “Have you started to pack?”

“Yes,
mother
,” Johan said. He stopped, a moment later, his face filling with horror. “I ...”

Elaine stepped forward and rested her hand on his shoulder, trying to provide what comfort she could. Johan was emotionally unstable, unsurprisingly; his family had either viewed him as a cripple or a burden ... and
always
as an embarrassment. There were times when he was as mature as Elaine herself and times when he acted rather like a five-year-old, his mood swinging rapidly between happiness and tantrums. Elaine wondered, sometimes, if the reason the apprenticeship bond had remained incomplete had something to do with Johan’s mental state. It was impossible to take an apprentice who hadn’t passed puberty ...

... And while Johan was physically seventeen, his mental age was harder to determine.

It’s not impossible
, her thoughts mocked her.
It’s just forbidden
.

She gritted her teeth. More and more, the knowledge in her head was popping up to the forefront of her mind, pulled by the merest thought. Every time she thought about the limits of magic, something would emerge from the back of her mind, pointing out that the limits weren’t what she thought they were. If there was a power imbalance between an adult master and apprentice, it would be far, far worse if the apprentice happened to be a child. And then the master would have to cope with the child passing through puberty ...

“Elaine?” Johan asked. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Elaine lied. The knowledge wasn’t painful, but the understandings it brought bubbling up into her mind often were. Her teachers had never taught her how much had been buried by the Grand Sorcerers over the years, just to prevent it being abused. And she knew it all. “And yourself?”

Johan sobered. His family had been devastated – and, even though they’d been horrible to him, she knew part of him regretted it. It was quite possible the Conidian Family would never truly recover, not now that so many of its members were Powerless or dead. The senior surviving member – Charity Conidian – was only eighteen years old. How could she hold the family together in the wake of such a disaster?

And to think his father wanted Johan to take over as Prime Heir
, Elaine thought. She couldn’t blame the Conidian for wanting someone – anyone – to replace his bullying braggart of an older son. But Johan had been Powerless ... until he wasn’t.
But he couldn’t have handled it either
.

She shook her head, dismissing the thought.

“I think we have a rough plan for our travels,” she said. “The Travellers will take us up to the borderlands, at least, and then we will have to proceed on our own.”

“That’s what I came to tell you,” Johan said. “Your friend has arrived.”

“Daria?” Elaine asked. “She finally made it back?”

“Yep,” Johan said. “I asked your assistant to let her into your office while I came to fetch you.”

“You could just have sent a note,” Elaine reminded him, dryly. A normal apprentice would have been able to call his master, just by using the apprenticeship bond. Johan didn’t seem to have that option. “Or sent one of the staff down here.”

“I just wanted to look around,” Johan admitted. “This place ... I could have been happy here.”

Elaine felt a sudden, bitter stab of sympathy. Johan was bright, smart enough to rise high in the world, even without magic. But his family had kept him a virtual prisoner, not daring to let him run free for fear of what their enemies would do to him – and them, through him. He might have been Powerless, for no reason anyone could determine, but he still had the Conidian bloodline. A career in the Great Library would have suited both of them, if Johan had had even a spark of magic ...

... And now he had power and far too much unwanted attention.

They think he’s dead
, Elaine reminded herself. Light Spinner was the only other person who knew Johan was still alive.
Let them think he was a freakish accident ...

She cursed mentally. Inquisitor Dread had told her that several known Powerless had wound up dead over the last few days, either through being murdered by their families or being accidentally killed when the families were trying to trigger their powers. If, of course, Johan
wasn’t
just a freak accident. The hell of it was that there was no way any of the murderers could ever be punished. Their fathers held absolute authority over their children until they came into their magic. In hindsight, the marvel was that Johan had survived so long.