Alex Verus 5: Hidden (28 page)

“So, I’m Alex Verus,” I said. “Want to shake paws?”

The fox gave me a look.

“Just offering. Okay. I need to get into the central keep.”

The fox gave a sharp exhale-sneeze and gave its head a quick shake.

“I know it’s not exactly a safe plan. I’m kind of short on options.”

The fox looked in the direction of the front gate.

“Wouldn’t work, there’s a squad of shadows guarding it. Besides, I’m not just looking out for myself. I need to get my friend out too.”

Head tilt.

“She’s a human mage, female. You saw her a couple of days ago. She’s Sagash’s enemy as well.”

Tail flick, another look towards the gates.

“No, I’m not leaving her behind. I promised I’d help get you out, remember? Same goes for her. I don’t leave people behind if I can help it.”

The fox tilted its head, seemed to be thinking about it, then twitched its ears.

“So like I said, I need to get into the keep. Can you get me in?”

The fox seemed to consider for a moment, then blinked.

“Is that a yes?”

Blink.

“One for yes, two for no, right?”

Blink blink.

“Wait, what?”

The fox let its tongue pant out. It looked like it was grinning.

“A blink fox who’s a troll. Great.” I stood up, wincing a little at the stiffness in my muscles. The fox watched but didn’t jump back. “You ready to go?”

I set out southwest towards the keep. The fox trotted behind at a distance.

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I
spent most of the trip thinking about Richard.

It had been more than ten years since I’d seen Richard in the flesh, but it felt like less. Last year I’d made a couple of ill-advised trips to Elsewhere, viewing the past through Rachel’s eyes. It had been there that I’d learnt why Richard had vanished all those years ago—he’d used a blood sacrifice to open a gateway to another world. Leaving Rachel in charge of his estate, he’d disappeared . . . until now.

Why had he come back? I didn’t even know enough to make an educated guess. I’d never really understood Richard—what he wanted, what kind of person he was, what his ambitions were. The ease with which he’d been able to find the two of us had shaken me. If he’d wanted us dead or captured, he could have done it without lifting a finger.

But he hadn’t. He’d offered us a chance to join him, and walked away. Why?

No matter how I thought about it, the only answer that made any sense was that he’d meant it. He really
had
been offering us the opportunity to join his team. And when we’d said no, he’d let us go . . . leaving the door open for the future.

His last words had been
next time
. Richard could be a lot of things, but one thing I’d never known him to be was inefficient. If he did something, it was for a reason. And that meant that he thought next time, I might say yes.

The thought of that was so terrifying that I almost didn’t want to get out of the castle. Crystal was dangerous, Sagash was deadly, but both of them put together didn’t scare me even half as much as Richard did. Crystal was a known quantity—she was a plotter and I wasn’t going to underestimate her, but I’d beaten her once before. And while Sagash might be pretty terrifying in his inhuman way, he didn’t have much reason to notice me. Richard did.

And then there was the lurking fear underneath: that Richard’s offer had been our only way out. That by saying no, I’d guaranteed that neither of us would get out alive. The plan I had in mind was
very
dicey. If it didn’t work, then my choice to turn Richard down might end up being the biggest mistake I’d ever made . . . and one of the last.

Well, at least if I get killed doing this I won’t have to deal with Richard afterwards. That’s a plus.

I’d make a really bad suicide counsellor.

I shook it off and kept walking. One way or another, this would be over soon.

S
agash’s keep looked even more intimidating up close. Black walls stretched up to the sky, battlements topped the towers, and small arrow-slit windows peeked out over nearby courtyards. The main entrance was a small inset door. Looking at the keep from here, the out-of-place feeling was stronger. The rest of the castle might be ancient, but it was cohesive. The keep didn’t fit; it felt darker, colder. Two shadows stood guard outside.

A quiet whine made me turn aside from where I was crouching, overlooking the front gate. The fox looked towards the gate, looked back at me, and blinked twice. “I’m not even thinking about it,” I said. “Even if I got past the shadows, they’d see me coming.”

The fox trotted a few steps away, then looked back at me again. “That way? Okay . . .”

The fox led me down some steps, around the corner of a building, through a ground-floor window into a room filled with wooden crates, and to a dark stairwell leading down. It trotted down two steps and then looked back, amber eyes shining out of the blackness. I followed it down.

The steps led down into tunnels. It looked as if it had once been some sort of sewer, but the tunnels were bone dry and covered in dust. The fox led me left and right and left, winding back and forth, and before long I’d lost all sense of direction. The tunnels were pitch-black and I used my torch to navigate, freeing up my divination magic to try and map out the maze. The fox led the way, slipping through narrow passages, pausing at intersections for me to catch up. Twice I had to squeeze through gaps that were roomy for a fox but only
just
big enough for a human, the second of which had been caused by a very unstable-looking rockfall. I held my breath the whole way through.

At last the fox led me to a solid wooden door, dark brown in the glow from my torch. I tried the handle; it didn’t open and I inspected the keyhole. “Looks like it’s locked”—I glanced down at the fox—“not that you care. Is it bolted or barred?”

The fox seemed to think about this for a second, then winked out in a flicker of space magic. A few seconds later it reappeared, then blinked twice.

“All right.” I set to work with my picks. Lockpicking isn’t a specialty of mine, but I keep my hand in. The lock was stiff, but its design was old and simple, and after a few minutes there was a scraping sound and a click.

The door opened into an ancient storeroom. It didn’t look very different from the tunnels, but I knew I was getting close. A ladder led upwards, and I could feel the presence of a gate ward above.

I closed the door without locking it. This time the fox didn’t move ahead, staying by the door. “I know,” I said. “You don’t want to go into the gate ward.”

Blink.

I couldn’t blame the blink fox. If my only defence was teleportation, I wouldn’t want to go into an area that blocked that either. “I’m going up,” I said. “You should find a place with a view of the exits and sit and watch for a while. I haven’t forgotten my promise. If you see me come out, link up with me and we’ll try to make it out from there. If you don’t . . .” I trailed off, wondering how to finish that sentence.

The fox tilted its head, watching me, then there was a flicker of space magic and it was gone, leaving me alone in the room. I started climbing.

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T
he ladder came up into another storeroom. The door wasn’t locked this time, and I came out onto a ground-floor corridor.

I could tell the instant I stepped into the keep. The walls here were smooth instead of rough, dim sunlight filtering through the narrow windows onto black stone instead of the yellowish bricks of the rest of the castle. The air was cold, and I found myself shivering. I could feel magical auras overlapping around me, but I didn’t stop to analyse; it was only a matter of time until Crystal or the other apprentices picked me up. Speed was my best defence now, and I moved quickly down the corridor, scanning ahead. At the end was a staircase, leading up and down. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could hear a very faint murmur of sound from below. The sub-basement Ji-yeong had told me about; Anne would be down there. I went up.

Sagash’s laboratories on the first floor were very easy to find, marked by a cluster of wards and protective spells. The door was solid metal and wouldn’t have looked out of place on a missile silo. I studied the adjacent panel on the wall, then touched a finger to a small recessed sphere and channelled a thread of magic through it. I stood back and waited.

Twenty seconds passed, forty. I forced myself to stand still and look relaxed. I knew I was being watched but didn’t let myself glance up. At last there was a click from the panel.

“Mage Sagash?” I said. “My name’s Verus. If it’s convenient, I’d like to have a word.”

The silence dragged out: fifteen seconds, thirty. Then there was a muffled thump and a grinding sound, and the metal door swung open, moving very slowly before stopping with a clang. I stepped inside.

The room within was shaped like a wide cylinder. The door I’d entered by led onto a balcony that ran around the upper level, looking down onto a bare circular floor on which a ring was marked. At the opposite side of the balcony, another open door led deeper into the keep. A set of metal stairs curled down from the balcony to the lower level.

It didn’t look like a laboratory. It looked like an arena. Why Sagash kept an arena between his personal lab and the rest of the keep was a question I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to.

Sagash himself was standing in the open doorway leading through to the labs, and the past few days hadn’t improved his appearance. He was dressed in black, the clothes dusty and ragged, as though they’d been worn for a very long time, and he stood very straight with his hands clasped behind his back as he watched me. He didn’t speak.

“Sagash,” I said. “Thank you for seeing me. I understand you’re quite busy.”

“Explain why you are here,” Sagash rasped. His voice was just as unnerving as I remembered.

“Well, I did try to set up an appointment, but you’re a hard person to reach.”

“Do not play games. If your master has sent you here for some purpose, reveal it.”

Ding.
I didn’t let anything show on my face, but I felt a little surge of excitement. Maybe I could pull this off after all.

Light mages think all Dark mages live in a state of violent anarchy. They’re half right . . . but only half. Dark mages might compete with each other and they might prey on each other, but they’re not completely stupid. If they always fought on sight they’d have wiped themselves out long ago, and what’s developed over the years to regulate that is a kind of code of conduct. The catch is, the code only applies if they consider you a Dark mage in the first place. When I’m with the Light mages, the fact that I’m Richard’s ex-apprentice is an albatross around my neck, but when I’m with Dark mages then in a strange way it makes me part of the club. Dark apprentices like Darren and Ji-yeong fight first and talk later. Mages like Sagash and Morden talk first,
then
decide whether to fight. Dark negotiations are a razor’s edge, civility side by side with the potential for sudden violence. Light mages have trouble with that, even when they know intellectually how it’s supposed to work—there’s just something about it that they’re never quite comfortable with. Maybe you have to grow up with it.

The funny thing was that really, all the work I’d done to get the blink fox’s help and sneak in had just been to make a first impression. My plan centred on talking to Sagash—in theory I could have just walked up to the front gate and rung the doorbell. Of course, that would have meant getting past his apprentices and Crystal. Showing up like this was a statement: I was telling him that his shadows hadn’t been able to keep me out, and his apprentices hadn’t either. It was a provocation, but still less dangerous than to let him feel as though I was weak enough to be brushed aside. I needed to treat with him as an equal.

“So I don’t know if you remember, but we’ve met before,” I said. “It was—”

“In the Tiger’s Palace.” Sagash didn’t bring up the changes I’d made to my appearance. Fashion clearly wasn’t one of his interests.

“Oh good. So I don’t need to go over that again.”

“You approached me for information on Anne Walker,” Sagash rasped. “If you have disturbed me to repeat the same question I will be unhappy.”

“Actually, what I had in mind was the opposite. I have some information I’d like to trade.”

“Explain.”

“Basically it has to do with the project you’re working on. There’s a plot against you that I’ve found out about. In exchange, I’d like you to help me out with what I asked you about before.”

“What plot?” Sagash rasped. He didn’t move, but I knew I had his attention. When you’re dealing with paranoids, a conspiracy is an easy sell.

“So have we got a deal?”

“You are trying my patience.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything that’ll require any expenditure of time or resources on your part,” I said. “Or that’ll require siding with any factions. You won’t even have to leave this shadow realm. All I’m asking is that after you’ve heard what I have to say, if you agree that what I’ve just said is fair, you’ll help me out.”

Sagash stared at me. I waited, hiding my tension. I didn’t know how much time I had, and with my conversation with Sagash occupying all the visible futures I couldn’t look far enough ahead to see. I listened for the sound of movement in the corridor behind.

“Your terms are provisionally accepted,” Sagash rasped. “Convince me I should keep them.”

First step done.
“Well, then,” I said. “I’m afraid you’ve been led down a dead end. The research you’ve been working on isn’t going to be any use for extending your life span, or anything else for that matter.”

“Your reasons for this conclusion?”

“Let me take a guess,” I said. “You’ve been extra busy lately. In fact, I’d guess that the only spare time you’ve taken has been to visit that party. I’m also going to guess that the reason the research has been taking so much time has been because of Crystal. Either some extra details she just recently told you about, or something she suggested you do.”

“You are well informed,” Sagash rasped. “Please explain how you came to know of Crystal’s presence.”

“Oh, I wasn’t looking for her. Though the Council are . . . which I assume is why you haven’t been advertising it. I’m guessing the idea is that no one’s supposed to draw attention to her being here? Having a bunch of Council Keepers banging on the front door would be a bit of a disruption.”

“It appears disruption is inevitable. Once again, explain how you came to know of this.”

Sagash hadn’t closed the door behind me, and from down the corridor I was starting to hear snatches of voices. Both Crystal and Darren could sense me through walls; they’d probably started hunting me down within seconds of my entering the keep.
Let’s see if I can time this just right.
“Because someone in your castle decided to kidnap Anne Walker and bring her here, all while keeping it a secret from you so that you’d be left to deal with the consequences afterwards.”

“Who?”

I paused a few seconds, listening to the approaching footsteps.
Three . . . two . . .
“Her,” I said, and pointed towards the doorway just as Crystal appeared.

I had to give Crystal credit. The shielding around Sagash’s lab had hidden me from her mindsight, but as she saw me she didn’t even blink. Darren and Sam piled through after her and I stayed calm, watching with folded arms. Darren and Sam saw me and tensed, Darren’s expression darkening as black light gathered at his hands.

“Hold.” Sagash’s rasping voice cut across the room.

Darren’s spell winked out instantly. Sam looked cautiously between Sagash and me. “Master,” he said. “Is there a problem?”

“An excellent question,” Sagash rasped. “I was under the impression that you were keeping my castle free of outsiders.”

“Sorry, they’ve been busy,” I chipped in. “They’re the reason Anne was in this castle in the first place, and they’ve been spending the last few days trying to catch her without you noticing.”

An identical pair of
oh shit
expressions crossed Darren’s and Sam’s faces. They’d obviously been expecting me to blast my way into the keep and attack—they hadn’t been expecting me to go to their master, and it was clear which they thought was worse. I saw a new set of futures branch off, Crystal backing off towards the door, and I opened my mouth to call her out.

Sagash beat me to it. Two shadows appeared in the doorway, blocking the exit, and the futures of Crystal retreating winked out. “Mage Crystal?” Sagash rasped. He hadn’t given any order that I’d seen, but the two shadows had their eyes fixed on the mind mage. “If you’re not too busy, perhaps you could clarify.”

Crystal paused, and for a fraction of a second I saw a branching spread of futures of sudden violence, Crystal trying to fight her way out through the shadows, Darren and Sam switching suddenly from attacking to helping—

—and gone. “That mage’s name is Verus,” Crystal stated. “One of the agents the Council sent after me to terminate my research. He’s a diviner, and highly dangerous. We should kill him immediately.”

“That
would
keep me from telling Sagash what you’ve been up to, yes,” I said dryly. “Assuming you could pull it off. Did you interrupt your ritual on Anne to run up here, or did I make it before you had the chance to start?”

“He’s lying,” Crystal said calmly to Sagash. She didn’t look at me or acknowledge my presence. “I’ve dealt with this man before and he is a highly accomplished manipulator. Trust him or let him live and you’ll be destroyed as Vitus was.”

“I hope you haven’t been using her as your social secretary,” I told Sagash.

“You need to—”

“Enough,” Sagash rasped.

Crystal and I fell silent. Darren and Sam were standing between us, hesitating. They might have taken the lead in the fight at the windmill, but here they were both very obviously out of their league.

Sagash pointed a skeletal finger at me. “You claimed my apprentices are the reason this girl is currently within my castle.”