Author: Benedict Jacka
Category: Science
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“Alex, you’re not inviting her on a date. I’m not talking about asking her. Anne has been tempted by the jinn’s power many times, and at present she is resisting that temptation, and the keystone of that resistance is her relationship with you. I want you to destroy that keystone. Please do not insult my intelligence by asking how. You are more than capable of solving that problem yourself.”
“If Anne calls on that jinn again, she won’t be able to get it out,” I said. “She’ll lose herself.”
“To an extent.”
“There’s no way she’d do that willingly. You’re asking me to force her.”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath. “What’ll happen to her?”
“She will fight on the front lines in the war to overthrow the Light Council,” Richard said. “I can’t promise she’ll be entirely safe, but I fully expect her to survive. Actually, with that jinn, she’ll be considerably safer than she has been with you. You will have access to her as long as it does not interfere with her duties. Provided she wants to see you, of course. Depending on the means you use to convince her, you may find it wise to allow a cooling-off period before attempting to resume your relationship. But I think she will come to understand the necessity of your actions given time.”
“Except that it won’t be her,” I said quietly. “Will it? She’ll be some combination of your slave and the jinn’s puppet.”
Richard held out his hands, palms upwards, in an equivocal gesture.
“What happens to her afterwards?”
“I have no objection to making some quality-of-life efforts on her behalf. However, the job comes first.”
I took a breath. “Was this what you did to Rachel?”
Richard raised an eyebrow.
“That thing inside her head,” I said. I’d caught a glimpse of it once, a long time ago, while visiting Rachel’s Elsewhere. Back then, I hadn’t understood what it was, but all of a sudden, it made sense. “It’s a jinn, isn’t it? Were you planning this, right from the start? Was she the prototype?”
“More accurately, it was a possibility I was considering,” Richard said. “I had taken certain steps to facilitate the process, but before I could take action, Rachel linked with a jinn on her own. The results were . . . mixed, but she did provide some valuable insights about the necessary conditions in the forging of a human-jinn bond.”
“You’ve got one too, haven’t you?” I said. “That was what you were using in the fighting in the Vault.”
“You’re stalling, Alex.”
I was running out of cards to play. “You know the jinn isn’t going to follow your orders,” I said. “It hates humans. All of them.”
“I will take care of the jinn.”
“How are—?”
“That is not your concern. Enough questions.”
“One more question,” I said. “What if I say no?”
“I’m afraid you don’t quite understand,” Richard said. “You are going to help me. Your choice is whether to do so willingly. I don’t often give people second chances. I gave you two, and you turned them both down. Understand clearly that this is your last. Should you reject this final offer, there will be no more reprieves. I will take the necessary steps to gain what I need without your cooperation. You will not enjoy the experience.
“And so you come to the point of decision. Assist me, and bring Anne under my control. Or refuse, and suffer the consequences. There is no third option. Choose.”
I found myself remembering that conversation with Dark Anne in Elsewhere. She’d told me that I’d never convinced anyone with my words, that no one ever listened when I talked about what I believed in. Maybe she’d been so vehement because Anne was one of the few people who had listened. And that was why Richard wanted to use me now. To manipulate her, trick her, or break her the way I’d done with my enemies in the past.
A terrible weariness seeped through me. I knew where this was going, and I knew the answer I was going to give. It wasn’t even a choice. I wanted so badly to drag this out, buy a few more moments, and I knew it was hopeless. The edge of the cliff was getting nearer, and all I could think of was digging my heels in to slow down the inevitable.
I opened my mouth, took a deep breath. Saying the next word was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. “No.”
Silence. I kept my eyes down at the floor.
“I see,” Richard said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I couldn’t bring myself to meet Richard’s gaze; all I could do was put some bitterness into my words. “I guess I haven’t exactly turned out to be what you wanted in an apprentice.”
“I am disappointed, yes.” Richard’s voice was calm, and all of a sudden I felt sure that he’d known what my answer was going to be, known it before I said it. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why refuse? You must know what the consequences will be. Why choose a course so obviously self-destructive?”
I could have lied, tried to spin a story, but if this was going to be the end, I wanted to tell the truth. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” I managed to look up. Richard was watching me, apparently curious. “You’re right, it is my fault that I’m here. I’ve made bad decisions and I’ve done a lot of things I’m not happy about. But there’s one thing I’ve never done, and that’s betray a friend. What you want me to do to Anne . . . it’d be taking everything I love, everything that matters to me, and breaking it. I won’t do it.”
Richard looked at me, and I met his gaze. The fear was still there, but now, at the end, there was an odd sense of freedom. I didn’t have to play games anymore.
“That is unfortunate,” Richard said at last. He rose to his feet, straightened his jacket, then nodded to me. “Good-bye, Alex.” He walked out and the door closed behind him. There was something final about the sound.
chapter 7
I had a brief wait before the door opened again. Long enough to see who was coming, and to prepare for the worst.
A woman walked in and shut the door behind her. “Hello, Verus,” she said pleasantly. She was a little taller than average, with sculpted features and gold hair that fell around her shoulders. She looked maybe thirty, though I knew she was at least ten years older. She wore an expensive-looking suit, and her eyes were cold.
Cold was a good word to describe Crystal. When I’d first run into her, she’d been in charge of an apprentice tournament at Fountain Reach. I later found out that she’d been responsible for sending several of those apprentices—and who knows how many others—to be slaughtered in a blood ritual. I’d never seen any sign that she felt the slightest remorse for what she’d done. Crystal was a mind mage, a domination specialist, and her presence here meant nothing good.
I looked back for a moment before answering. “Anne should have killed you back in Sagash’s castle.”
“Anne is stupid.”
“So what did Richard promise you?” I said. “Power?”
“Of a sort,” Crystal said. She pulled back a sleeve of her jacket to reveal a bracelet. “I imagine you recognise this.”
“Yeah,” I said. The bracelet was thick, as long as Crystal’s thumb, and made of age-darkened silver. Spiralling patterns were carved on it, and a pink-purple stone was set into the centre. Unlike some of the imbued items on the Council’s list, it didn’t have a name, but its description had mentioned that it acted as an amplifier for certain applications of mind magic.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Crystal said. She held it up, the stone’s colour shifting as it caught and reflected the light. “I always had my eye on this one back when I was a Light mage. The Council wouldn’t let me have it. It would have made things so much easier if they had. Do you know what it does?”
I looked at her in silence.
“Domination has so many drawbacks,” Crystal said. “You can control t
he target, even make them take complex actions, but you have to direct them for even the smallest things. It makes their behaviour clumsy. Stilted. You might fool a stranger, but not someone who knows the target well. This item allows you to overcome that limitation. It smooths the control, and taps their memories to copy incidental details. You choose the behaviour, they carry it out.”
I thought about attacking Crystal, going for the throat. With surprise and a little time, I might be able to break her neck. But I wouldn’t have surprise—she was very much ready for me—and there were guards outside ready to burst in.
“You’ve sabotaged my plans twice now, Alex,” Crystal said. “Once at Fountain Reach, once in Sagash’s shadow realm. I could have retired by now. Gone somewhere nice and relaxing. But you took all that away.”
“I guess we don’t always get what we want.”
“Oh, I think I’m going to do quite well out of this,” Crystal said. “If Drakh succeeds in his plan—and I have good reason to believe he will—I’ll have all the resources of the Council to plunder. That’s quite a step up, don’t you think? But let’s get down to business. When Drakh told us what he wanted to achieve with Anne, Vihaela told him that she could do it in five minutes by torturing you while Anne watched. Have you ever seen Vihaela work? She’s very good. Obviously that kind of manipulation wouldn’t influence anyone sensible, but as I said, Anne’s stupid. And she actually cares for you for some reason.” Crystal shrugged. “I imagine it wouldn’t take long before Anne called up that jinn to make it stop. But Drakh chose my plan instead. Do you want to know why?”
I didn’t answer.
“Drakh thought it was more elegant,” Crystal said. “And it is, but that wasn’t why I picked it. I picked it because this way is going to hurt you so much more.” Crystal straightened. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a very long time.”
Mental pressure crushed down on me like a vice. I’d been ready for it and tried to push back Crystal’s attack, but it felt like trying to push back a wave. There was no point of leverage.
I braced myself, holding my defences. It felt like holding up a circular wall, with my thoughts and self protected at the centre. But the pressure from Crystal didn’t stop; it just kept mounting and mounting. There was no way for me to strike back. At least not mentally—
I took a step forward, but Crystal was already speaking a command word. A wall of force flared up between the two of us, and I came to a halt, staring at her. She was only a few feet away, but it might as well have been a mile. Holding Crystal off wasn’t getting any easier; it was getting harder. Already I was getting tired, and as I looked at Crystal I felt fear. She was smiling, and didn’t look tired at all.
“That wall should last a few minutes,” Crystal said. “Probably enough for me to finish the job. But if I can’t, what does it matter? You can’t beat me in psychic combat; all you can do is hold me off. And there’s no one coming to help.”
I’d been looking frantically through the futures, trying to find one where I won. There wasn’t one. In every future I could see, Crystal overwhelmed me. The only variable was how long it took. And even as I watched, the numbers were shrinking. There was no rescue coming, no reprieve that I could reach if I held out. Before long, the futures in which Crystal hadn’t won would dwindle to dozens, then a handful, then three, then one, then zero.
Crystal was going to take control of me.
I was terrified of what that would mean. I fought back desperately.
It wasn’t enough.
* * *
Ten minutes later, I exited the room, closed the door behind me, and walked out past the guards and down the corridor. Reaching the end, I turned left. My movements were steady and normal.
Or that was what someone would have seen. The truth was, it wasn’t me at all. The steps I took, the movements I made, even where I focused my eyes, were all under Crystal’s control, while I watched helplessly. It was like being a passenger in the back of a car with a screen between me and the front seats. I could see and hear, but I was just a spectator. It was a terrifying feeling, like falling through a black void. Through my eyes, I watched my body go up a flight of stairs, turn into another corridor, then open a door.
The room inside was a bedroom, and Anne jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the bed. Her restraints were gone; her clothes had taken some damage, but she looked in perfect health and her eyes lit up as she saw me. “Alex!”
I wanted to scream at Anne, to warn her. Instead I watched helplessly as my body took her in its arms. “It’s fine,” I heard myself say. “I’m okay.”
Anne held me tightly for a moment, then pulled back to look at me, worry visible on her face. “I couldn’t tell where you were. Vihaela was here and she told me that Richard was talking to you. What happened?”
My head shook. “It doesn’t matter. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. They just wanted to . . .” Anne trailed off and looked me up and down, frowning slightly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
My heart leapt. No! I’m not! Anne, it’s not me. You can tell that, can’t you?
“I’m fine,” my voice said. “Why? What happened?”
Anne hesitated and for a moment I felt hope, then she shook her head. “We can talk about it afterwards.”
My heart sank. Anne had been scanning me with her lifesight. It’s a perfect tool for diagnosing illness or injury, but it’s useless against mind magic, and right now it was telling Anne that there was nothing wrong with me. “Talk about what?” Crystal said with my voice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Anne said. “How did you get them to let you in here? What does Richard want?”
“He wants us to cooperate with him.” My body walked past Anne, sat down on the bed facing her. “I don’t think we can get away with turning them down this time.”
Anne looked unhappy but not surprised. “When Vihaela started talking to me, I thought that was the deal she was going to offer, or something worse. Though she didn’t . . .”
“Didn’t what?”
“Never mind.”
“I do mind.” My body leant forward, towards Anne. “Something’s bothering you. What’s wrong?”
“She was just trying to stir things up. It doesn’t matter.”
“How? What did she say?”
Anne hesitated, glanced around at the door. “Should we be talking about this here?”
“Richard said he’d give us time to talk privately.”
“That was what Vihaela said too,” Anne said. “Before . . .”
“Before what? Tell me.”
Anne! It’s not me! Can’t you tell? Crystal’s imitation was good, but not perfect. My voice and words were off from how the real me would have acted: I wouldn’t have spoken that way, wouldn’t have pushed so far. But it was close, too close. Maybe in a calmer environment, with more time, Anne might have been able to figure it out, but here . . . I tried to reach out to Anne telepathically, link to her mind, and ran into what felt like a solid wall.
“All right,” Anne said slowly. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“What?”
“Anything you want to tell me,” Anne said. Her reddish eyes stayed on me.
“What kind of thing?”
Anne looked at me for a long moment, seemed about to say something, then shook her head. “Never mind. It can wait.”
“No, it can’t.” My voice was harsh, forceful. “I want to hear it now.”
Anne drew back slightly, frowning. “I don’t . . . All right. Back when we first met, how much did you know about Jagadev?”
The question caught me off balance. Jagadev? Why . . . ?
“I’d never met him before,” Crystal said.
“What about after?” Anne was watching me closely now. “Did you find out anything?”
“Not
hing important.”
Anne waited. When no further answer came, she frowned. “Do you mean—?”
“Can you get to the point?”
“All right.” Anne seemed to brace herself. “Vihaela said . . . she said that all those deaths in my family and Vari’s, they weren’t accidents. They were because of Jagadev. I mean, I knew he had something against us, but I never knew exactly why. I thought it was just that we were humans, or mages, or . . . Is it true?”
“Yes.”
Anne stared at me.
“When did you find out?” Anne said when I didn’t speak.
“Probably around the time I met you.”
Anne drew a breath. “You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?”
“Did you want me to?”
“Did I—? Yes!”
I felt myself shrug. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“How could you think that? These are my parents!”
“I suppose.”
Anne looked at me in disbelief, then stood and walked away. She stood facing the wall, her shoulders rising and falling, before turning. “I spent years thinking about it, after my father died. When it was my mother, I was too young to remember, but after . . . I kept feeling it was my fault. That I’d done something wrong. And that was why I was in that house in Canonbury instead, with them treating me like . . . But if it was my fault, then I deserved it anyway. But now . . . you’re telling me it was Jagadev? For two years we were staying in his house, eating his food, doing what he told us. All that time, it was him?” Anne shook her head. “I know I’ve never talked much about my family. But you had to know how much this would matter. How could you keep this a secret all this time?”
Watching Anne’s expression felt like a knife twisting in my flesh. I wanted to writhe, look away, but I couldn’t, because it was true. I had kept it a secret, because—
“Because I’m a diviner,” my voice said. “Finding out people’s secrets and using them is what I do. And I couldn’t see any good way to make use of that one.”