Author: Benedict Jacka
Category: Science
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“So what about you?” Dark Anne said. “Because the way I remember it, you’ve killed way more people than that. What about the Nightstalkers? Or that raid you did on that Light mage in Scotland, Belthas or whatever his name was? We weren’t there but Luna told us the story. What was the body count on that again?”
“There’s a difference between fighting because you have to and fighting because you want to. Both of those times you’re talking about, I was pushed to my limits. Last year in San Vittore, you weren’t. You could easily have neutralised them without having to—”
Dark Anne gave a loud sigh and rolled her eyes.
I broke off. “I’m sorry. Am I not holding your attention?”
“Bored.”
“You have something better to be doing?”
“No, which should just emphasise how boring this is.” Anne leant forward slightly, the chains clinking as she shifted. “Why do you do this?”
“What, talk to you?”
“No, turn conversations into some kind of ethics lecture. I mean, I actually like you, and when you start on this I still want to beat my head against a wall because it hurts less. Blah blah right and wrong blah responsibility blah. Okay, Alex, harsh truth time, you listening? You’ve never changed anyone’s mind with this stuff. Ever.”
“I’ve—”
“No, not even then. Either it’s someone like Luna, and she’s already going to do what you tell her, or it’s everyone else, and they don’t care what you say. Think about it. When have you managed to argue someone into thinking you’re right and they’re wrong?”
“It’s not like I keep records.”
“You haven’t! Because no one cares! Yes, people listen to you, but they listen because they think you’re scary and competent. The times you’ve made some Dark mage or adept punk back down, you think it was because you convinced them? They back off because they think you’re dangerous. And that’s the only reason anyone ever pays attention to the words coming out of your mouth.”
I looked back at her. “Well,” I said after a moment, “you’re making me realise one thing. Anne is right to keep you locked up down here.”
Dark Anne narrowed her eyes. “For now.”
“For now?” I asked. “I hate to break this to you, but Anne’s stronger than you are. The reason you were able to overpower her back then was because you had the jinn backing you up. One-on-one, for all your tough-girl talk? You can’t match her.”
“Like I said,” Dark Anne said. “For now. Someday she’ll need me.”
“Seems to me she’s doing pretty well on her own.”
“Please. You only think that because you’ve forgotten what I can do. If I’d been in that research facility, I’d have taken them all down solo. “
“Which isn’t going to happen, because of how badly you screwed up last year,” I said. “Anne is not giving you control again. Ever. Long term, you want to get out of here, you have exactly one way to do it.”
“Which is?”
“Merge with her,” I said. “Become one person again. Seriously, do you realise how insane you sound? You can’t keep this up forever. Sooner or later the two of you are going to have to work something out that doesn’t come down to locking the other in a dungeon.”
“I don’t know. Sticking her in here and seeing how she likes it seems pretty good to me.”
“Which you can’t do without the jinn,” I said. “Which you can’t call back.”
“She can.”
“Right, Anne’s going to go to the super-powerful eldritch entity that’s already possessed her three times and invite it back for another try. Are you really that stupid?”
“Maybe not now,” Dark Anne said. “But like she was saying, we’ve got a lot of enemies, haven’t we? Sagash and Crystal, Morden and Richard, all those Light Guardians and Crusaders. Not to mention all of your new best friends on the Council. Someday things will get bad enough and she’ll be desperate enough. Maybe not this month, maybe not this year, but it’ll happen. You think Anne’s so pure and innocent, but you don’t know her like I do. When things really go to hell, she’ll do whatever it takes to survive. Until then? I can wait.”
I gave Dark Anne a look, then turned and walked away.
“I’m not going anywhere, Alex,” Dark Anne called after me. “Someday we’ll be face-to-face again. And I won’t be so nice next time.”
There was more, but the closing door cut off her voice. I started the long climb up the spiral staircase, alone with my thoughts.
chapter 5
My talk with the two Annes left me feeling uneasy. For the next few days I turned it over in the back of my mind, trying to come up with something I could do.
Nine days passed. I lived in the Hollow, travelling to the War Rooms each day with Anne. There was plenty to do: the war was still on a slow burn, and there was no sign of anyone on the Council plotting a move, but there were the usual problems that needed to be managed, and they kept me busy. Arachne stayed at home in her lair, and I visited her twice more. Luna kept working in the Arcana Emporium, and Variam was busy with his work as a Keeper.
* * *
Tuesday the eighth of August started like any other day.
I woke up next to Anne and we went outside for our morning workout. For me the focus was on fitness, calisthenics, and resistance work with a few martial arts forms. For Anne it was hand-to-hand training; she was getting better, though she still wasn’t as aggressive as I knew she could be. Once we were done, we headed back to change and to discuss the day’s work over breakfast. The current issue was once again the adepts—with the news of Richard’s new training program added to the existing steady trickle that had been joining him, the Council was considering various heavy-handed responses. I didn’t like any of them, but coming up with a viable alternative that I could sell the Senior Council on was tough. After that I made some calls, while Anne gave Karyos her daily checkup, and once we were both ready we gated via staging points to the War Rooms.
Morning at the War Rooms meant meetings. I delivered a report to Druss the Red, after which I had to take part in a long, frustrating interview with a task force of Keepers from the Order of the Cloak. Anne had some tricky negotiations with Lyle and Julia, the aides to Undaaris and Alma. We met up again over lunch to compare notes.
Afternoon was a full Council session. While Anne waited outside, I met with the Senior and Junior Councils in the Star Chamber. The first two hours was reports—finance, security, public relations. It was tedious, but while my position was much better these days, it wasn’t secure enough that I felt safe not showing up. Next on the agenda was long-term strategy, which devolved into an hour-long argument between Sal Sarque and Bahamus. Neither was able to sway enough members for a majority, so the decision was postponed until next week. Finally came military announcements.
“. . . and they report that the cargo was talocan filaments,” Bahamus finished.
I pricked up my ears. “Sure about that?” Druss asked.
“The German Council wasn’t able to secure a sample,” Bahamus said. “But I’ve read the report provided by their universalists, and they were quite thorough. It seems overwhelmingly probable.”
Druss frowned. “What the hell’s Drakh up to with those?”
“Not exactly a mystery,” Sal Sarque said. “Some ritual.”
“Bloody expensive way to do a ritual.”
I listened closely. Talocan filaments are a type of infused component with some unusual properties that make them valuable for high-power magical rituals. They don’t get much use since they’re so awkward and time-consuming to make, which, as Druss had pointed out, made them expensive. Richard would have needed to put in a lot of work to get so many.
“Do we have any indication that Drakh’s cabal are planning any rituals that would benefit?” Alma asked.
Baha
mus shook his head. “They’ve been quiet for almost a month.”
“Yeah, and I don’t like it,” Druss said. “We were expecting retaliations over that facility, but we haven’t had a peep. Why?”
“Council intelligence thinks he may be suffering a manpower shortage.”
“What bloody manpower shortage? We haven’t taken down anyone from his inner circle all year.”
There were five members of the Senior Council present today: Bahamus, Druss the Red, Alma, Sal Sarque, and Levistus. The first two were more or less my allies, the last two were definitely my enemies, and Alma was somewhere in between but closer to the latter. Druss, the one who’d been speaking, was a big, powerfully built man with a thick beard.
“We’ve had multiple reports that Drakh’s forces are having issues with morale and momentum,” Bahamus said. His manner was steady; in all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen him lose his cool. “Remember, the pressure is on him in this war. He needs a constant stream of victories. A stalemate serves our interest, not his.”
“I’m afraid I can’t share your optimism, Bahamus,” Alma said. “In case you’ve forgotten, we are supposed to hold authority over all of magical Britain. A stalemate does not help our image at all.”
“That ship sailed a long time ago,” Druss said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Right now we’ve got a breather and we should be using it to go on the attack.”
“You’re the one who’s been telling us how dangerous Drakh’s forces are.”
“Which is why I don’t want to sit around while he lines up a punch.”
“We’ve discussed this,” Bahamus said. “Our offensive operations have consistently played into Drakh’s strengths. If we can hold out long enough, the Dark mages of Drakh’s coalition will fall to infighting as they always do.”
“That’ll only happen if Drakh shows weakness.”
The argument between Bahamus and Druss started up again, and I sat quietly and listened. Nowadays much of my time was spent on these disagreements, figuring out who to support and why. It wasn’t fun, but I’d come to learn that politics, at least in the Light world, mostly came down to having enough people on your side.
“Enough,” Alma said at last. “This is getting nowhere.”
“We can’t just keep sitting on our arses,” Druss said.
“Without knowledge of Drakh’s base of operations, there’s no way for us to launch an attack,” Alma said. “Have you made any progress on that?”
Druss was silent for a moment. “No.”
“Then as far as I can see, we’re going to have to table this,” Alma said. “I think we’ll adjourn.”
The meeting broke up. Sal Sarque moved to speak with Druss, the two of them talking quietly in one corner, while Alma met two other Junior Council members. I rose and stepped to one side as Bahamus approached me.
“I’ve spoken to the others regarding your proposal for the adepts,” Bahamus said. “They’re leaning towards supporting it.”
“Including the amnesty?” I said.
“Alma isn’t keen on that part.”
“It doesn’t matter if she’s keen, it’s essential! There’s no way we can possibly convince the adept community to be neutral unless it comes with a promise that we aren’t going to come after them as soon as we’re done with Drakh. She has to see that.”
The adepts had been one of the thorniest problems in this war. In the run-up to hostilities, Richard had worked hard to sway the adept community to his side, and unfortunately for the Council, he’d had a fair bit of success at it. Adepts are both less powerful and less organised than mages, but one thing they have on their side is numbers—depending on how you count them, there are between ten times and a hundred times as many adepts in Britain as there are Dark mages and Light mages put together. Even if only a few percent of them were fighting for Richard, that was a huge pool of manpower and resources that he could draw upon. I’d been doing what I could to win hearts and minds, but it was hard work, especially with mages like Alma, whose idea of diplomacy was to give someone a warning before crushing them.
“Well, I’ll try to convince her.” Bahamus paused. “On another note, don’t spread this around, but we’ve completed the timesight analysis of that facility.”
“Finally. What took them so long?”
“Overstretched. Sonder has been busy on some other project. In any case, it seems as though it was a more important base than we realised. Drakh himself had visited it more than once. It looks as though its destruction may have significantly set them back.” Bahamus paused. “You’ve been doing good work, Verus. Keep it up.”
I smiled slightly. “Glad to know you feel that way.”
“Once we’re done with this, I’ll see if we can get your membership on the Junior Council made official. I know you’ve become a de facto member with everything that’s happened, but an announcement would help solidify things.”
“It . . . would, actually. It would help a lot. Do you think—?”
A voice spoke from across the table. “Bahamus.”
Bahamus turned. The man addressing him looked to be in his fifties, though I knew he was older, with thinning white hair and odd eyes that were so pale they were almost colourless. His name was Levistus, and he was quite possibly the worst enemy I had.
“You are needed for a closed session of the Senior Council,” Levistus said.
Bahamus frowned. “Can this wait?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Bahamus sighed and looked at me. “We’ll have to continue this later. I’ll contact you after the meeting.”
“All right.”
Bahamus left. Levistus’s pale eyes rested briefly on me, then he turned away.
* * *
Anne was waiting outside the Star Chamber. “That took a while.”
“Usual holdups.”
Half a dozen other mages were scattered around, though there was a general movement out. The end of the Council meeting signalled the last phase of the workday in the War Rooms. Various mages would stay for after-hours meetings, but from this point on the population would drop steadily.
Any trouble? Anne asked through the dreamstone.
Not so far. Did you hear back from the Keepers?
We kept up a mental chat as we made our way back to my office. Once there, I caught up on work while I waited for Bahamus to contact me. Half an hour passed, then an hour. An hour and a quarter. An hour and a half.
I looked at the clock in annoyance. “What’s taking him so long?”
“What’ll happen if you call him?” Anne asked.
“No answer. Nothing from Druss either.”
“Are they ever going to get in touch?”
I tapped my fingers on the desk, looking ahead. Unfortunately, the futures were murky. It’s easy to predict events that have already been set in motion, but it looked as though in this case, the key decisions had yet to be made. There were flickers of futures in which I had incoming calls, but all the most likely possibilities involved Anne and me sitting around for more than an hour.
“Forget it,” I said at last. “Let’s head to Arachne’s.”
* * *
The sun was dipping low by the time Anne and I arrived on Hampstead Heath. The western sky was lit up in oranges and reds, long shadows stretching out across the grass and down towards the ponds below. Shouts and snatches of laughter drifted on the summer breeze. Anne and I emerged from the ravine we use for gating and touched the entry node to Arachne’s cave. Arachne answered after only a moment, and we disappeared beneath the ground. The earth closed up behind us.
As always, I felt myself relax as we walked into Arachne’s cave. Warm lights glowed from around the rock walls, reflecting off a hundred pieces of cloth and silk. There are only really two places I feel safe these days, Arachne’s cave and the Hollow, and I
’ve been coming to Arachne’s cave for much longer. While I’m at the War Rooms—and most other places, for that matter—I have to constantly be looking ahead and watching for threats, and it’s exhausting. You can’t live like that 24/7, not if you want to keep your sanity.
I sprawled out on a sofa and got to work on my correspondence while Anne chatted with Arachne. The two of them have always got on well for whatever reason: usually when I introduce someone to Arachne there are problems, but Anne and Arachne seemed to fall into a friendly relationship immediately. Arachne worked away on something as the two of them talked, her legs moving more quickly than usual.
“There,” Arachne said at last. She picked up the article of clothing to hang from her front two legs. “Finished.”
I glanced up from my keyboard to look. It was a dress, black with shoulder straps, but I was more interested in what my magesight showed me. The thing had a magical aura, and it was strong: close to my armour, if not on a par with it. The spells that made it were integrated, smoothly woven in a way that made them hard to identify, though they had the feel of living and universal magic.
“It’s amazing,” Anne said.
“And powerful,” I said. “What’s it for? Wouldn’t work well as armour with that much of the arms bare.”
“Thank you, Anne,” Arachne said with a pointed look at me. “Not everything is about combat effectiveness.”
“Hey, I’m just saying. If you’re going to wear something that’ll catch that much attention, you might as well build some protection in.”
“Protection comes in different forms,” Arachne said. “I’m glad I could finish this in the end. Balancing its compatibility with its internal growth was more difficult than I’d expected.”
“It is alive, isn’t it?” Anne said, studying the dress in fascination. “Who’s it for?”