Burned (28 page)

‘That’s better,’ Vihaela said. ‘Bring any friends?’

‘Why?’ I asked. I kept my voice steady and my muscles relaxed. I was pretty sure Vihaela could read physiological signs the way Anne could, and I didn’t want to show fear. ‘Feeling lonely?’

‘Little bit.’ Vihaela sounded cheerful. She usually does. It doesn’t make her any less creepy: rather the reverse. ‘Nice gun. Planning to use it?’

I was still holding the assault rifle. I didn’t raise it. ‘I’m kind of on the clock,’ I said. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’

‘As long as it’s interesting.’

‘I can’t help noticing that you’re standing right in front of that ramp,’ I said. ‘Almost as though you’re on guard.’

‘I’m hoping some of your guys will make it up here eventually,’ Vihaela said. ‘Don’t see why the guys down there should have all the fun.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Fun. So would you have any particular objection to me going past?’

‘Awww,’ Vihaela said with a smile. ‘You’re so polite. Much nicer than the Keepers.’

‘So is that a yes?’

‘Try and get by me and I’ll turn every drop of fluid in your body into acid.’

I wondered briefly if Vihaela could actually do that, and decided I didn’t want to find out. I was only wearing one protective item: a fire-hunger stone, designed to ward against against fire-and heat-based spells. Against Vihaela’s magic it wouldn’t do a thing. ‘Can I put that down as a maybe?’

Vihaela sighed. ‘Look, Verus, right now I don’t have a reason to hurt you. Be a good boy and run along before that changes.’

I started to answer and then paused. At the edge of my hearing I could hear shouts from down below. Something in the futures … ‘You were asking if I’d brought any friends?’ I said. ‘I’ve got someone I think you should meet.’

Footsteps sounded behind me and I stepped to the side. Vihaela looked in the direction of the sound with interest. A moment later Landis came striding out into the light. ‘Ah, Verus!’ Orange-red light glowed around Landis; he smelled of smoke and flame, but he seemed to have come through the battle without a scratch. ‘Started without us?’

‘No, I was waiting for you.’

A group of Council security appeared out of the darkness behind Landis. One was obviously wounded, but the others had their guns up, and as they saw Vihaela they sighted on her. ‘No need for that, chaps,’ Landis said, waving a hand without turning around.

The Council security hesitated, glancing at each other. ‘Sir?’

‘Let’s try to make sure you all get home in one piece, eh? Go secure the ramp and get a signal to Rain.’

The Council security looked at Landis, looked at Vihaela, then lowered their guns and backed off into the darkness. ‘Really?’ Vihaela asked. She’d watched the guns being trained on her with mild curiosity. ‘Not even as a diversion?’

‘A little expensive for my tastes,’ Landis said.

‘All the same to me.’ Vihaela took a couple of steps forward and stretched, interlacing her fingers above her head, then looked at Landis appraisingly. ‘Landis, right?’

Landis dipped his head. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance.’

‘You
are
polite.’ Vihaela studied Landis for a second, then smiled. ‘You know, I was a little sore about never getting to face you in the White Rose raid.’

Landis made an open-handed gesture, as if to say
after you
.

Vihaela shifted her stance slightly. It was only a small movement, but suddenly the futures looked very different. Landis took a half-step back, his body tilted at forty-five degrees to Vihaela, left hand down, right hand at his waist. The moment seemed to stretch out, both mages perfectly still. I held my breath, not daring to move. I was close, if not quite close enough to be caught in a stray blast, but I was looking at where Vihaela was standing. She’d moved a little forward from the spot she’d been guarding, and already the base of the ramp behind her was starting to disappear into the gloom.
Just a little further …

Landis moved and suddenly both mages were casting. A fireblast darted out from Landis, Vihaela countered with something too fast to see, spells flurried with a
crack
… and then the two of them were standing still once again. Landis’s stance had shifted and Vihaela was smiling. ‘Not bad,’ she said.

Landis didn’t answer.

Green-black light struck from Vihaela’s hands, arcing in. Just before it hit, a shield of flame appeared, only a couple of feet in diameter but in exactly the right position to block the attack. Energy cracked and the spell came apart. Vihaela tried again, this time from the other side. Again Landis blocked.

‘So you can actually fight,’ Vihaela said. ‘What are you doing with the Keepers?’

‘Chatty type, aren’t you?’ Landis said.

‘You know, that fire shield won’t do a thing against bullets,’ Vihaela said conversationally. ‘One shot from those men behind you and you’re dead.’

‘If you think that’ll work, why don’t you chance your arm?’

Vihaela smiled again. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’

‘You know, my dear, I really don’t have all day,’ Landis said. ‘If you’re going to—’

Vihaela struck again, and this time she didn’t stop. Green-black energy darted at Landis and I had a fleeting impression of living magic, twisted and deadly, intended to kill or cripple. A shield of fire formed around Landis, leaping out at and destroying the spells as they came in, then the air around Vihaela exploded in a bloom of flame. Vihaela came striding out, her footwork smooth and precise, the dark light of her own shield a shadow around her. She struck back and Landis countered, the spells too quick to follow. I’ve seen my share of mage duels but I still couldn’t track the movements. Landis and Vihaela were just too fast, their spells too complex. I was lucky that Vihaela was too busy to pay any attention to me; even with my divination, if she attacked me like that, I didn’t fancy my chances.

But in the course of the battle, Vihaela had moved, and she wasn’t standing in front of the ramp any more.
Here goes nothing.
I stepped back into the darkness, letting the gloom envelop me …

Vihaela sent a last spell at Landis and pivoted away, breaking off. ‘Don’t even think about it, Verus,’ she called out, not taking her eyes off the Keeper.

‘Why don’t you go ahead, Alex?’ Landis said without looking at me. ‘We might be here a while.’

‘I told you what I’d do if you tried to get past me,’ Vihaela said. Her voice was confident. ‘I don’t need the light to know where you—’

Hidden in the darkness, I pulled my mist cloak from my pack and slung it around my shoulders.

I’d spent a long time debating whether to wear my armour for this trip. In the end the thing that had swayed me had been the chance of betrayal. My armour’s good against low-to medium-strength attacks, but depending on it to protect against a high-level battle mage is kind of the equivalent of crashing your car at a hundred miles an hour and expecting to be okay because you’re wearing your seat belt. Anyone from the Keeper force who wanted me dead would be able to study me at their leisure before attacking, and they’d have more than enough time to decide exactly how hard they needed to hit me to be sure of a kill. (Admittedly my armour would have been
great
at stopping glancing hits from spells and stray bullets in that battle down below, but you can’t have everything. Imbued items are possessive, and they don’t play well with others.)

My mist cloak is a shapeless covering of soft grey cloth. It’s unobtrusive and radiates no magic, and it had been easy for me to keep it concealed in my backpack. It doesn’t stop attacks, but it makes me almost completely invisible to magical senses like deathsight or lifesight. To Vihaela, it would have seemed as though I’d simply vanished into thin air.

Vihaela cut off mid-sentence, and for the first time that I’d seen her, she actually looked startled. Landis didn’t give her a chance to recover, hitting her with a combination of spells, a fireball and another explosive blast striking at the Dark mage before walls of flame sealed her into a box of searing heat. For a moment Vihaela was on the defensive, all her attention on protecting herself, then she recovered, walking out through the wall of fire and counterattacking Landis while a flick of her wrist sent a field of dark energy to hover at the base of the ramp, blocking it off. I couldn’t tell exactly what the spell did but I knew it wouldn’t be anything good.

But she was too late. In those few seconds, I’d made it on to the ramp and up and out of range.

I kept running as the sounds of battle faded behind me. I was
really
pushing my luck now – too many people had seen me, and if Landis couldn’t keep Vihaela busy I was in serious trouble – but you don’t put someone like Vihaela on guard duty unless it’s for something important. I knew I had to be close.

And as it turned out, I was.

The ramp levelled off on to another platform, much larger this time. As I looked through the futures in which I explored it, I knew that this was the last one. There was another ramp leading down but no more ramps leading up: we’d been gaining height with each one, and this was the place we’d been ascending to. There was nowhere higher to go.

Sitting in the centre of the circular platform was a stone sarcophagus. It wasn’t large, but it still stood out for being the only object or furnishing I’d seen in this entire desolate bubble realm. Half a dozen figures were clustered around it, two of them bent over the sarcophagus and the others on guard. All had their faces concealed by masks or by spells, but it wasn’t hard to figure out whose side they were on.

I hesitated. My mist cloak would keep me hidden as long as I stayed in the darkness, but the Dark mages had a pair of bright electric lights throwing a white glow around the sarcophagus, providing illumination for them to work by.
Maybe sit here and wait?
I looked into the future. The Keepers could follow the trail the same way I had …

… but not in time. The Dark mages would be finished in only a few minutes. Landis and the rest wouldn’t make it by then.

Stealth was out. My mist cloak can hide me from magical senses, but not from bright light. Fighting wasn’t even worth considering. I didn’t want to take on
one
Dark mage, much less six. Maybe it was time to think outside the box. What would happen if I just walked up and talked to them?

Interesting.
Depending on how I made the approach, they might or might not be jumpy enough to attack, but I couldn’t actually see any future in which they killed me. Maybe Richard had given them orders to avoid fatalities if possible. The Council wouldn’t care very much one way or the other about a few dead security operatives, but killing a Keeper would have repercussions.

Or maybe it’s not about repercussions. Maybe it’s about me.

I hesitated for an instant, then made up my mind.
Time to live dangerously.
I laid the gun down on the stone, then walked out into the light.

The Dark mages spun to face me. Black energy leaped to the hands of one, fire to the hands of another. I kept still, not making any sudden moves. The good news was that I was pretty sure that Rachel and Onyx weren’t here. If they had been, they’d have shot first and asked questions afterwards. ‘Hi, guys,’ I said. ‘How are you doing?’

Several of the Dark mages just stared at me. I think the sheer lunacy of what I’d done had caught them off guard. ‘Looking to die, Keeper?’ one of them said.

‘That’s not really up to you, is it?’

Two of the mages turned to look at each other. ‘Burn him?’ the fire mage asked.

‘I wouldn’t,’ I told him.

‘Yeah?’ the fire mage said. From the subtleties of the magic playing around his hands, I could tell it wasn’t Cinder.
Pity.
‘Give me a good reason.’

‘Because it’s not your decision.’ I turned to one of the figures at the centre of the group and played my best card. ‘It’s Morden’s.’

The Dark mages stared at me in silence. I looked back at them without blinking. ‘This guy nuts?’ one of the others asked.

‘Fuck it,’ one of them said. ‘Just kill him.’ But he didn’t move.

I kept looking at Morden. His face was shrouded in darkness, but I knew it was him. ‘Well?’

‘You’re very confident for one caught alone,’ Morden said. There was an odd buzz to his words, and the pitch was different. The more he spoke, though, the more I could recognise his voice. Spells can only hide so much.

‘So, here’s what I had in mind,’ I said. ‘You guys pack up and leave, and I won’t say anything to the Keepers about who you are or what you were doing here. We all go home happy.’

One of the Dark mages laughed. ‘That’s an interesting offer,’ Morden said. ‘Unfortunately for you, you’re in no position to enforce it.’ He gestured to the two mages by the sarcophagus. ‘Get back to work. You two, if Verus tries to interfere, incapacitate him. Make it painful but non-fatal, please.’

The mage Morden had been talking to looked unimpressed at the ‘non-fatal’ part but obeyed. ‘I’d go with my plan if I were you,’ I said.

‘Or you’ll do what?’ one of the Dark mages said.

‘Or I’ll let you go,’ I said. ‘Then once you’re gone, I’ll give a full report to the Keepers. In particular, I’ll explain how you, Morden, were personally involved in attacking Keeper personnel and taking a relic against express Council instructions.’ I looked at Morden’s back. ‘How much longer do you think you’ll keep that Council seat once that happens?’

Morden paused.

‘Take your time,’ I said.

‘Verus, you’ve survived until now by not putting yourself in direct opposition to the mages you deal with,’ Morden said. ‘I would advise against changing that.’

‘Everyone finds something to take a stand for sooner or later.’

‘You think the Council will take your word for it?’ Morden said. ‘With your reputation?’

‘You think they’ll care? The Crusaders and the Guardians hate you
way
more than they hate me. Levistus and the rest of his faction will jump on it hands first. I mean, I could let them do a mental probe, but honestly, I doubt they’ll even want one. They couldn’t care less if I’m telling the truth. They’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of you ever since you walked into the Conclave.’