Risen, p.27
Risen, page 27
part #12 of Alex Verus Series
‘You are to be admitted,’ the marid said. ‘Others are forbidden.’
‘I’m not here for Anne,’ Luna said clearly. ‘I’m here for you.’
‘You are neither bearer nor host.’ Variam’s gaze rested on Luna, dark and clear. ‘This bearer wishes you no harm, cursed one, but should you force a conflict, all your fortune will not spare your life.’
‘We don’t want a conflict,’ I said. ‘But neither do you.’
Variam looked at me without expression.
‘You lived under my roof a long time,’ I said. ‘Ten years next January. If you really wanted humanity destroyed or subjugated, you’ve had plenty of chances. I don’t think you want this war any more than we do. “Only law is eternal” – that was what you told me, wasn’t it? I think the only reason you’re obeying the sultan’s orders is out of a sense of obligation.’
‘Allegiance binds as a contract,’ Variam replied. ‘Desires crumble and fade. Only the eternal remains.’
‘Then how about this?’ I said. ‘I make a contract with you. A new contract, with a clean slate. What you’re doing right now, using Variam . . . it’s against the principles you’ve always followed. Back in my shop, you’d take victims, but you’d always give them a choice. Vari didn’t get a choice. He was taken against his will.’ I looked at Variam. ‘So?’
The marid studied me for a moment. ‘No.’
My heart sank. That answer had been final and certain. ‘Why? Is it because I’m your host? You can’t grant wishes to me?’
‘No.’
‘Then what? Tell me!’
‘A contract is of the future,’ the marid said in that weird dissonant voice. ‘Both promise, and price. But you, Mage Verus, have no future with which to bargain. For you, what is, is what must be.’
I stared at Variam. He didn’t move, and as I looked at the futures I saw that there was nothing I could say to change his mind.
I thought about the focus in my hand, the fateweaver in my arm. I didn’t know if it could banish the marid, and I didn’t think I’d survive another trip into Elsewhere. But I had no other ideas.
Screw it. I took a step forward, my left hand tightening around the lattice. Battle plans and tactics began to flow through my mind. I needed to—
‘No!’ Luna said.
I stopped. Luna stepped up beside me, and as she did the silver mist of her curse brightened, glowing in my sight. ‘He may not have a future,’ Luna said, her voice sharp and commanding. ‘But I do. You lived in the Arcana Emporium when Alex owned it. Well, now it’s passed to me. I’ll offer you the same deal. Leave Variam, return to the monkey’s paw and the Emporium. You can take your victims, as long as they’re willing. One per year, no more. Leave us in peace, keep to those terms, and I’ll let you use the shop for as long as it’s mine.’
‘I am commanded to stand guard,’ the marid said.
Luna nodded towards the stairs. ‘No one but Alex to be admitted, right? Fine. I won’t go up there, and I won’t let anyone besides Alex from our group go up there either. You have my word.’
The marid paused. I felt the futures shift, and hope leapt within me. It’s actually thinking about it.
Luna’s curse blazed like the sun, so bright it was hard to look at. ‘This violates neither command nor allegiance,’ the marid mused. ‘There is no contradiction.’
Luna stood very still, her curse flaring around her. I held my breath.
‘When the shop passes on, you will find another to fulfil your obligation,’ the marid said. It studied Luna with those unblinking dark eyes. ‘Fail, and I will take both this bearer, and you.’
Luna hesitated for a long moment. ‘Agreed.’
The marid looked at me. ‘You relinquish the position of host?’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘Step forward.’
Luna did. The marid let her approach; she stopped within arm’s reach.
‘The contract is offered,’ the marid said. It held out a hand to Luna; resting on Variam’s palm was the blue and white cylinder of the monkey’s paw.
Luna shifted her whip from her right hand to her left. She reached out for the monkey’s paw and her hand met Variam’s, the blue-white cylinder forming a link between them.
The marid spoke one final time through Variam’s lips, and this time its voice was deeper, louder. ‘Done.’
The word echoed around the chamber, growing louder: done-done-done-DONE-DONE. I felt a snap of power, like a thunderclap without sound. Every light in the chamber went dark, then flicked back on again.
The light went out of Variam’s eyes. His eyes slid closed and he slumped to the floor.
Luna staggered backwards. The silver mist around her shrank, fading to a sliver. Luna bent forward with her hands on her knees, breathing hard.
‘Holy shit,’ I said. ‘You actually made that work.’
Luna gave a shaky laugh. I wasn’t sure she had the breath to talk.
Variam was lying unconscious on the floor and he wasn’t getting up, but he didn’t seem hurt. The monkey’s paw was lying where it had fallen from his grip. Luna bent and picked it up.
As she rose, I glimpsed Luna’s face, side-lit by the lights, and caught my breath. There was something in her expression I’d never seen before, something distant that spoke of knowledge and the burden of old choices. For a moment, I felt as though I were seeing Luna as she’d look in ten or twenty years. She didn’t look like an apprentice, or a young woman. She looked like a . . .
. . . Mage.
I blinked and the moment was gone. Luna stared at the monkey’s paw, then shoved it into her pocket and looked down at Variam. ‘He’s not getting up, is he?’
I turned my head and called back towards the entrance. ‘Ji-yeong?’
Ji-yeong stepped out from behind the doors. For a while back there, she’d considered leaving. I’d felt the moment she’d decided to stay. ‘Would you mind?’ I asked.
‘You want me to carry your luggage now?’ Ji-yeong said, then rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, fine. It won’t do my reputation any harm to come out with a marid host over my shoulder.’ She walked to Variam.
‘Well,’ I told Luna. ‘Guess this is goodbye.’
Luna looked tired but she stepped up next to me and reached out a hand. The last flickers of silver mist around her turned gold as she touched my forehead, and I felt something warm flow into me. ‘Last blessing. Maybe it’ll help.’
I nodded, turning to go. Beside us, Ji-yeong hauled Variam up in a fireman’s carry.
‘Alex,’ Luna said.
I paused.
Luna was looking straight at me. ‘You said last night that if you didn’t come back, it might be for the best. Well, I didn’t say this then, but I’m saying it now. If there’s any way you can make it back from this – any way – you take it. You don’t give up; you fight to the end. You understand?’
I nodded.
‘Promise me,’ Luna said. There was a fierceness in her eyes.
‘I promise,’ I told her.
Luna said nothing more. I took a last look at Variam, slung unconscious over Ji-yeong’s shoulder, then walked away. As I entered the stairwell, I glanced back and saw Luna standing there in her battle armour. She was still watching, and as I looked she raised a hand in salute. Then my movement made the walls of the keep come between us and she was gone.
Memories came back as I climbed the keep’s central stairwell. The last time I’d been here, I’d taken a route not so different from this, though back then it had been Sagash I’d come to see. Another of those tremors ran through the keep. Definitely stronger.
I listened in on the Council’s tactical circuit; the evacuation was in full swing. I waited to confirm that the gates were still open and that Luna and Variam would be able to make it out, then switched it off. I didn’t need the distraction.
From the feel of my shoulder, I could tell that the fateweaver had replaced it fully. Its tendrils must be deep into my chest. Well, it didn’t really matter any more. I only needed to last long enough to make it into Elsewhere.
Sagash’s personal quarters were connected directly to the stairs, a vault door leading off from the landing. A squad of jinn stood guarding it. Their gazes tracked me as I came up around the stairs.
I planted the sovnya at my feet and looked up at them. ‘Move or die.’
The jinn stared down with malice in their eyes, but they parted. I climbed the stairs and marched through their ranks. None moved to stop me.
The door was massive, made of solid metal, and ajar. I heaved it open, then stepped through. It swung shut behind me with an echoing boom.
The room within was cylindrical, with a high gallery. Waiting for me on the far side was Anne.
19
Sagash’s duelling arena had two levels: a raised balcony halfway to the ceiling, and a lower floor with a duelling ring marked on the stone. A set of iron stairs joined the two levels, and a door at the far end led into what had once been Sagash’s laboratory.
Anne was on the upper level, bare forearms resting against the balcony rail, the pale skin of her legs and arms standing out against the darkness. This room had been where Anne’s other self had been born. Perhaps today it would be where she’d meet her end.
‘You summoned me, marid,’ I told the sultan. ‘I have come.’
The sultan studied me through Anne’s eyes. ‘I assume this is your work.’
‘I’d call it more of a team effort. But I was co-ordinating, if that’s what you’re asking.’
While I spoke, most of my attention was on path-walking, my thoughts whirling with futures and attack plans. The focus was ready in my left hand. It should be able to stun her . . . if I got close.
I focused on the futures in which I interacted with Arachne’s last gift, the black skater dress that Anne was wearing. I didn’t know if Arachne had seen all the way ahead to this moment, but if she had, she might have modified the imbued item with a back door, some kind of hidden vulnerability that would let me close the distance. I knew it was a long shot. Dark Anne wasn’t stupid – she’d have gone over that dress with a fine-tooth comb – but there was always the chance she might have missed something. I looked into the futures in which I channelled into the dress, evading the flashes of combat to the ones where I tried to activate it . . .
And my heart leapt. There! A latent spell, subtle and well-hidden. And one that could be triggered from range.
‘You think too highly of yourself, human.’ The scornful words of the jinn sounded jarring in Anne’s soft voice. ‘You believe conquering this hovel of a keep is a deed worthy of pride?’
‘Sorry it doesn’t meet your expectations,’ I said. I narrowed my vision into the futures, carefully keeping any trace of excitement out of my voice. ‘But look on the bright side. It’s about to be destroyed anyway.’
‘A suitable fate for the works of your kind.’
I found the future I was looking for, one where I dodged the jinn’s attacks long enough to trigger the spell. I saw it activate, unfolding like a flower. It was powerful but almost impossible to detect, and I looked ahead eagerly to see what it would do. A paralysis effect, or a stun? Or – my hopes leapt – something that would banish the jinn altogether? I might not have to use Elsewhere at all. I could get out of here alive. I focused, my heart pounding. The futures parted and I finally got a clear look. It was a spell of . . .
. . . healing.
Some kind of healing effect designed to repair trauma to the mind and body.
It wasn’t going to disable the jinn. In fact, from what I could see, it would actually make Anne slightly stronger.
I wanted to sigh. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing else today had been easy, why should I expect this to be?
‘And were that not enough,’ the sultan continued, ‘you have required me to go through this whole demeaning process again. Who knows how long it will take to find a new shadow realm and a new set of suitable hosts?’ It frowned at me. ‘In a more just age, I would have the time to punish you appropriately.’
There was one good thing about listening to the marid: there was no way I could hear its words and still have the slightest illusion that I was talking to Anne. Looking at her face still made my heart twist, but as long as I concentrated on the futures and on what I was hearing, I could forget that I was facing the woman I loved.
I put the dress out of my mind. ‘You did say you wanted to talk to me,’ I told the marid. ‘Did you have anything to say, or shall we just skip to the part where we kill each other?’
‘Very well,’ the marid said. ‘You are to become the new bearer for the entity which in your language you call the Sun That Brings Death.’
I blinked. ‘Um, I’m honoured. Mind if I ask what I’ve done to deserve this?’
‘You have done nothing to deserve this,’ the jinn stated. ‘But this host, for reasons that do not interest me, would prefer that you survive. Your opposition bolsters her resistance, which is an irritation that distracts me from more important matters. As such, I have decided that you shall serve at my side. Punishment for your crimes against my person shall be deferred.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m not quite sure what to say.’
‘I have no interest in anything you might say.’
‘Okay, here’s the thing,’ I said. ‘The British Council have really not given me many reasons to like them, and the Dark mages looking to replace them aren’t any better. So I came in here figuring that I’d at least try talking things out. But honestly, it’s taken less than five minutes of listening to you to make me realise that no matter how bad the Light and Dark mages of this country are, they’re—’
‘Silence,’ the marid said.
I sighed. So much for talking.
The marid pointed to the walkway in front of where it stood. ‘Approach.’
I paused, then shrugged. ‘All right.’
I walked around the gallery. Another tremor went through the keep, making the balcony sway under my feet. ‘Halt,’ the marid said once I was close enough.
I did.
‘Remove your clothes.’
‘Okay, I know you’re possessing the one person who can actually get away with telling me that, but I prefer a little more romance.’
‘Do not test my patience.’
I looked back at Anne – the jinn – and laughed.
The marid waited for me to finish, and when it next spoke there was a flat, dangerous tone to its voice. ‘Your life hangs by a thread.’
I looked at the marid, my smile fading. ‘Oh, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just . . . you have any idea how long I spent coming up with plans to get this close? And it turns out, all I needed to do was follow your orders.’
‘You expect to use that weapon against me?’
‘This?’ I said, lifting the sovnya. ‘No, you’d kill me in a heartbeat. But here’s the thing about humans. We don’t have the powers you marids do, but working together, we can do some pretty impressive things.’
‘None of you can—’ the marid began.
I put every last bit of power into the disruption focus on my left hand and fired.
An impenetrable black-green shield flashed up around Anne. But the spell in the Council focus hadn’t been designed to attack the subject’s body, and as it struck the shield it flowed into it, the black wires of the jinn’s magic acting like conduits into Anne’s mind. Anne’s head jerked back and she fell.
Ever since I’d started walking towards the marid, I’d been using the fateweaver, subtly altering the futures to bring about a natural thinning of reality. Now I threw out my hand and channelled through the dreamstone, forming a gate to Elsewhere. It shimmered into existence, ten times faster than normal.
Anne was already recovering. She was on her hands and knees, and now she looked up, life magic flaring. But I hadn’t created the gate vertically; I’d formed it horizontally, at her feet.
Anne dropped through. With three running strides, I leapt after her.
Normally when I step into Elsewhere, it’s hardly any different from using a gate to travel to our world. You could almost believe you’ve stepped into the same place you came from. It’s subtle and quiet.
Entering Elsewhere this time was neither of those things.
As soon as Anne dropped through the portal, Elsewhere went mad. The ground and walls shredded away, the fragments warping through an impossible range of colours, violet and cerulean and deepest black. Space shimmered and twisted.
The gate that I could normally hold open for minutes tore itself apart in seconds. Anne was falling away from me and with an effort of will I closed the distance, but there was nothing to land on. All around was a spinning kaleidoscope of colours.
This had to be something to do with Anne. I caught hold of her arm; her eyes were closed but her body was blurred, vibrating, as if pulling in three different directions. I tried to shape the space around us, land us somewhere familiar—
And suddenly my feet were on solid ground. The swirl of colours vanished.
We were back in Anne’s Elsewhere. I was crouched on a plaza of smooth obsidian, stretching out around me to the high walls that blocked out all but the upper branches of the forest behind. The tower loomed over us, reaching towards the roiling sky. Storm-clouds thrashed and boiled in the heavens above, but the winds didn’t touch the air around me.
Anne was lying at my feet, unconscious. Or at least her body was.
Dark Anne and Light Anne were facing each other on the plaza, shouting at each other, their words blending together so that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their faces were twisted in fury, perfectly alike; the only way I could tell them apart was that one was wearing black and the other white. When I enter Elsewhere, I do it as a single entity, body and mind. Apparently with Anne, things were a little more complicated.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The jinn had been torn away, but it had already recovered and it was coming for us. ‘Both of you shut up!’ I shouted.
The two Annes turned on me with identical looks of anger.
They’re getting worse. I could feel the jinn drawing closer; we didn’t have long. ‘Settle this later,’ I told them. ‘Your marid is coming and it’s not in a good mood. We are going to bind it and that means you two need to work together.’
