The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) (59 page)

Calling upon the magical strands, he constructed a spell he had seen performed before, but had never attempted. Shaping the arcane energy to call wind currents to his command, he shaped an invisible, shallow bowl just beyond the cliff’s edge. Raising a foot, he stepped tentatively over the lethal drop.

His foot was buoyed up by a solid support of air. It felt like stepping into a bowl of corn and, hesitantly, he brought his other foot on board. Arms instinctively outstretched for balance, he hung motionless in mid-air.

Conscious that a flying man would bring unwanted attention from the labourers working further down the cliffs, he willed the cushion of air into movement, and Lucius gently floated downwards to the black rag.

The cliff side bowed out during his descent, hiding a cleft from casual view. Only someone suicidal enough to try and scale the sheer surface would find it. Shifting the flow of air supporting him, Lucius descended into the cleft and spotted a small cave or tunnel, boring straight into the cliff side. He dropped to its level and stooped as he stepped onto solid ground.

Inside, the cave quickly widened, its ceiling rising so he could stand. He took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and noticed that, a little further in, the rocky walls seemed to glow with their own dull, green-tinged light. Lucius had heard of luminescent moss in the past, but this seemed different somehow to him, and he suspected the light was being sustained by magic as he felt the threads ripple with the presence of an existing enchantment. The threads began to noticeably buckle and twist as he took a further step inside, causing him to halt quickly.

There was another spell at work here, some sort of ward or trap to discourage unwanted visitors, as unlikely as they might be. Having no wish to inadvertently activate the spell, he created his own shield against it, drawing upon the same shadow magic that created the ward. Wreathing himself in the conjuration, he thus appeared invisible to the spell, and he walked past with trepidation, ready to react if his assumptions about it were wrong.

The tunnel twisted a little before descending on a gentle slope, the route always lit by the softly glowing rocks. He marvelled at the construction of this place, and the effort it must have taken to bore this far into the cliff. Whether it had been done by mundane means or magical, it was something of an achievement.

Lucius felt the presence of Adrianna a moment before he saw her. The tunnel jinked slightly to the left and, as he rounded the corner, widened out into a roughly hewn chamber with two more passages leading off it, deeper into the cliff. Before them stood Adrianna, arms folded across her chest while her dark eyes bored into his.

He did not need to see Adrianna’s face to feel her fury, for it punched through the air like a hammer. More disturbing to him were the threads of magic he saw in his mind, pitching and twisting as if reacting to her very presence. Lucius had known that meeting Adrianna was dangerous but, for the first time, he gave himself only even odds for walking out of her lair alive.

“Adrianna...” Lucius began, but immediately faltered. He realised that he really did not know the woman before him at all.

“Useless, feckless, ignorant thief,” she hissed. “You have wasted everything you have ever been given. You are no more use than a miserable beggar, scrabbling for whatever scraps Vos leaves on the table for you to steal.”

Lucius took a breath before speaking.

“Adrianna, what have you done?” he asked. “All those people...”

“Idiot! If you had accepted our alliance, if you had joined me, this war would be over already! The power of the Empire would be in ruins, and this city would be free again. And where were you instead? Playing bandit in the hills!”

For a second, Lucius was speechless. “And what did you think you were going to achieve? Do you know how many innocent people you have killed?”

She gave him a scornful look. “Together, we could have blasted the Citadel into ruins, then marched on the Cathedral. Vos would have had nowhere to run! We could have blasted every one of them clear out of the city!”

“And how many others would have died? My God, Adrianna, there are dead children in the markets! How does that advance your cause?”

“If it means the Empire withdraws, a few dead, more or less, certainly does not hinder it,” she said flatly.

“We don’t have to be like this, Adrianna,” Lucius said evenly; if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Adrianna would not look kindly on any display of weakness. “That banditry in the hills you talk about probably did more damage to the Empire in the long run than your own attack. You don’t have to become like Vos in order to beat it.”

“You fool,” she said, as if talking to a particularly slow child. “Becoming like Vos has no relevance whatsoever. What matters is who wins! Who is left standing after this war is done – and it will be done very soon, Lucius, mark my words.”

“There is another way.”

“No,” she said. “Not any more. They have started to strike at us. We
must
hit back, and harder. Show them that we are invincible, that whatever hurt they bring upon us will be revisited upon them a hundredfold.”

He tried another tack. “Even if I had been there, two mages cannot defeat the entire Citadel, let alone every soldier Vos has stationed in the city.”

Something flashed in Adrianna’s eyes, and she looked down at the ground for a few seconds, as if trying to rein in her anger. When she spoke, it was with deliberate slowness, as though each word was difficult for her.

“After all these years, you still do not realise what a Shadowmage is capable of. Forbeck knew, but he kept it chained, muzzled. You do the same thing, but through sheer ignorance. I can show you what power a Shadowmage unleashed has, Lucius. Two of us, working together in concert, would have been unstoppable! I can take over your teaching, shape you into one of the most potent mages this miserable world has ever seen.”

“Adrianna...” Lucius began, slowly coming to an unnerving conclusion. “Have you taken over the Shadowmages’ guild?”

She waved his question away as if irrelevant. “Two of us could achieve so much, Lucius. The guild as a whole could become all-powerful in this city.” She smiled dangerously. “Even almighty.”

He stared at her.

“Still, there is time for you to make amends, Lucius,” Adrianna said. “I have a task you can aid me with. Follow me.”

She spun around to head down one of the other passages, but stopped when Lucius called out to her, keeping her back to him.

“I cannot help you in this,” he said.

“You will.”

“Adrianna, I don’t want to become your enemy.”

Looking over her shoulder, Adrianna gave him a dark look.

“No,” she said. “You don’t.”

Lucius watched her disappear down the tunnel. For the moment, at least, he knew he was safe. If Adrianna needed him, she would not kill him unless he forced her hand. Wiping his brow of sweat, he started after her, apprehensive of what favour she would require of him in order to keep the peace between them.

The passage dropped again, a little steeper than before, and opened out into another chamber. Before him was an unfurled bedroll, together with a small store of bread, dried meat, and wine. Adrianna had evidently spent some time in this lair already. As he entered the chamber, his eyes were drawn to one side, and he gasped.

Arms forced either side of her head by manacles of glowing silver energy, Elaine was held fast, Adrianna’s prisoner. A similar band of energy blazed across her face, effectively gagging her. When she saw him, Elaine’s eyes narrowed with loathing, and he groaned under his breath, dreading whatever Adrianna had been telling her.

“Oh, Adrianna, what have you done?” he said quietly, as much to himself as the two women.

“Your thieving whore has been my guest here,” Adrianna said. She stood next to Elaine, arms folded again over her chest.

“As you can imagine, we have had all sorts of things to talk about.”

“So what do you want?” he asked, refusing to be baited. He would deal with the fallout with Elaine at a later time, when both of their lives were not in danger.

Adrianna smiled, malice creeping across her face. “There is a ship outside the harbour, waiting for a break in the storms so it can safely negotiate the monoliths and enter Turnitia. I will calm the storms, so it can sail into the harbour–”

“You can do that?” Lucius asked in amazement, interrupting her. The energy that had to be harnessed in order to attempt such a thing was almost beyond his comprehension.

She gave him a contemptuous look before continuing. “The ship is full of Vos soldiers. A lot of them. They are here to lock down the city, and wipe out the last of the Shadowmages.”

“You want to destroy the ship.”

“Of course.”

“So why not just smash them against the harbour defences? It would be a lot easier.”

“Because, fool,” Adrianna said, spitting at his stupidity, “I want the people of the city to
see
it happen. To understand what is going to happen to anyone who supports the Empire.”

His shoulders sagging as he realised he would not be able to reason with Adrianna, Lucius sighed helplessly. While the thieves had certainly killed their fair share of soldiers, the cold-blooded drowning of hundreds of men was not something he could easily stomach. He looked at her bleakly.

“Why are you doing this?”

Eyes narrowing as if she were looking at something deeply repulsive, Adrianna spoke quietly at first, her voice slowly rising.

“Unlike you, I was here when the Empire first came to this city. They promised everything in the world, but brought with them terror and death. You fled. You didn’t see them attack the Shadowmages the first time around, wiping us out one by one.”

“Adrianna–” he started, but she cut him off.

“You didn’t see it. I did. I watched Master Roe die. Now Forbeck is gone, and I won’t permit the Empire to kill us off again, not after everything we have achieved since.” She took several steps towards Lucius to emphasise her point. “The Vos Empire is evil, Lucius. You know that. They have a twisted bitch in power who sends her lackeys everywhere to act in her cruel name. I will do anything – absolutely anything – to safeguard this city and my guild.”

“Even if that turns you into one of them?”

She snorted. “People are going to die in this war, as they die in any war. But I won’t subjugate the city. I won’t lock people in the Citadel. I won’t bleed them dry with taxes. I could not care less how people want to live their lives. I just want to make sure Shadowmages have a place where they can practise their art without persecution.”

“And that is worth the deaths of innocents?”

“Defeating Vos is worth the deaths of a few innocents, certainly. It is a means to an end, Lucius, nothing more.”

“The end does not justify this means.”

He watched as Adrianna walked back to Elaine. “Well,” she said. “That is not important right now. You
are
going to help me.”

Knowing what was coming, Lucius asked the question anyway. “And if I refuse?”

Adriana looked at him, then crouched down beside Elaine, running her hand through the thief’s hair.

“Then your bitch will die.”

Elaine turned to look at Adrianna, their faces no more than a few inches apart. Lucius shuddered at the thief’s murderous look, realising that, even if he managed to persuade Adrianna to release Elaine, one of them would be dead by the end of the week. He was not wholly sure whose side he would run to, if both asked for his aid.

“You give me no choice,” he said softly.

“No,” she said, smiling at him. “I haven’t.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

W
ALKING SEVERAL PACES
behind Adrianna, his head bowed, Lucius’ mind raced as he tried to find a way out of the horrors he was about to take part in. He would not have liked to take on Adrianna on the best of days, much less when she was prepared for him. How could he match her talent for spellcasting when she held all the cards?

At least Lucius had persuaded her to release Elaine before they embarked on this attack. Adrianna had relented to his demand too quickly for his liking, and he suspected it was all part of a game, a demonstration perhaps that she saw no difficulty in reaching Elaine once more if he reneged on his agreement. For her own part, Elaine had shown no gratitude as Lucius levitated her up the cliff face on his platform of air. Refusing to meet his gaze, she had marched back into the city. He feared what plans
she
was now making, and whether they included him.