Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling (30 page)

“Let me know if you know any masters who might take on an apprentice,” Jayne said. “But if I can’t get in before I complete my schooling, I will just have to brew on my own and wait.”

She shook her head. “What do
you
want to do with your life?”

The food arrived, saving Johan from actually having to answer. It was strange to his eyes, a combination of meat, cheese, fried bread and raw vegetables, the sort of thing he would never have been allowed to eat at home. But it tasted very nice, he discovered, as he took a bite; the only downside was that they were expected to eat with their fingers, rather than knives and forks. Jayne dug in as though it didn’t bother her; Johan hesitated, remembering his father’s lessons. Eating with one’s fingers was not a good sign.

Hell with it
, he told himself, and dived into the food.

“You never answered,” Jayne said, as she took a break between bites. “What
do
you want to do with your life?”

Johan considered the question. As a child, he’d wanted to be a great magician; as a Powerless, he’d wanted to go into one of the careers that
didn’t
involve magic. But now ... he just wanted to prove himself, if only
to
himself. He needed to know what he could do.

“I want to prove myself,” he said, out loud. “I could be great.”

Jayne smiled. “I’m sure you could be,” she said, “but how do you intend to
become
great?”

“I wish I knew,” Johan said, after a long moment. What
could
he do to become great? If he caught the remaining three terrorists ... assuming, of course, that there
were
only three of them left ... would that make him great? Or would it just make him more of a target? “I’ll just see what happens.”

“My father was fond of saying that
real
heroes go out and find opportunities to make themselves great,” Jayne said. “They didn’t just sit on their buttocks and wait for opportunity to come pass them by.”

Elaine did
, Johan thought. But Elaine hadn’t
wanted
to be a heroine. Indeed, she’d managed to bury the truth behind a wall of mystery and a deliberately cultivated appearance of being nothing more than a simple librarian. Or was she really the mask and the heroine something she’d had to be, for a time, then discarded when it was no longer necessary?

“I’ll just have to see what happens,” he said, drolly. “But if I do become a great hero, you can be my Potions Mistress.”

Jayne giggled. “I think I will be making the latest discoveries that will change the world far more than your heroism,” she said, dryly. “You can kill a monster; I can come up with a potion that prolongs life. Which of us will change the world more?”

Johan smiled, then took another bite of his food while studying her. She was
gorgeous
; he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, then slip his hand into her shirt ... angrily, he pushed the thought aside as he felt a stirring in his loins. He didn’t want to blow his chances by moving too far, too fast. Who knew
how
she would react to his touch?

They finished their dinner, paid – it was a very reasonable price – and then headed out of the door. Johan looked around, wondering who would follow them, then turned his attention back to Jayne as she led him back towards the Peerless School. The night seemed to have grown darker, with fewer people on the streets; even the streetlamps seemed to have dimmed, somehow. Or perhaps he was just imagining it.

“Thank you for being a gentleman,” Jayne said. Johan felt a flicker of relief, suddenly realising that if he’d pushed her, the results would have been bad. Even if he didn’t wind up being turned into a slug or an earthworm, he would certainly never have had another chance to go out with her. “I really appreciated it.”

“I never go too far on the first date,” Johan said, trying to sound experienced. By her smile, he suspected he hadn’t succeeded. “And I had a lovely time too.”

They stopped outside the apartment block. Before Johan had more than a few seconds to feel awkward, Jayne pulled him into a hug and pressed her lips against his. Johan froze, then somehow forced himself to kiss her back. The feeling moved rapidly from awkward to enjoyable and, again, he felt a stirring in his loins. She was pressing her breasts against his chest ...

She stepped backwards, breaking the embrace. “I’ll see you again,” she promised. Johan, who had been having wild visions of inviting her home to the Great Library, felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. “Tomorrow, in fact.”

Johan watched her go, then turned to walk home. If anyone had seen him, he knew, the big grin on his face would tell them exactly what had happened.

***

Duncan hadn’t expected much from the spies he’d placed in and around the Great Library. Johan was with the Head Librarian, which meant that he was under the protection of the most powerful set of wards in the city. But the gamble had paid off; one of his spies had spotted Johan leaving the building, accompanied by a young girl of roughly the same age. The spy, familiar with all of the Great Houses, had even identified her.

Interesting
, Duncan told himself. House Rendang was fading fast, having lost most of its clients years before the previous Grand Sorcerer had died. Was this a power play on their part or was it a genuine relationship? Either way, it was something he could use to his own advantage.

Picking up a piece of paper, he wrote a note. It was time for him to start taking House Rendang seriously. And
that
was all they wanted from the Golden City.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“It went very well,” Johan said, the following morning. “I had a wonderful time.”

Elaine smiled. As promised, she’d followed Johan with Inquisitor Cass – Cass hadn’t bothered to wear a glamour, which had resulted in them being interrupted by men intent on buying her a drink – but she hadn’t eavesdropped on him. She
had
seen the kiss, however. It had suggested that Jayne was not adverse to the idea of a relationship after all.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “Are you ready for our trip?”

“I have to leave a note for her,” Johan said, suddenly. “I didn’t even tell her I was going!”

“An apprentice is at the whims of his master,” Elaine pointed out. Johan might not be her apprentice in truth, but he was definitely working with her. “Jayne will understand ... but you can leave her a note if you like.”

“I will,” Johan said, reaching for a piece of paper. “Um ... what should I say?”

“The truth,” Elaine said. “The Head Librarian is taking you out to the country for a few days, but you’ll be back soon. And that you’ll write.”

Johan looked up, dismayed. “Write?”

“It lets her know that you’re thinking of her,” Elaine pointed out. “Girls like that, don’t you know?”

She smiled again at his expression, then returned to her own thoughts. No matter how she looked at it, it would be good to be out of the city for a few days. The Inquisitors had turned up nothing to track down the killer, which meant that the whole city was on edge. Deferens and the Conidian were demanding action, Johan’s father with the added suggestion that his son should be freed from captivity. After all, he’d pointed out yesterday, Johan might suffer consequences if he testified against his elder brother. Somehow, he’d managed to make it seem as though he was genuinely concerned for Johan.

He might well be
, Elaine conceded, reluctantly. She
hated
people who could make black seem white, up seem down and right seem wrong – or vice versa. Johan’s father might get his eldest son completely out of trouble; the gods knew he had even been pressing for a
visit
.

“Thank you,” Johan said. He scowled down at the bag at his feet. “Did I pack enough?”

“Put a few more books in,” Elaine said. “No, not ones from here; ones from bookstores. You will need something to read during the ride.”

She watched him finish, then used a simple charm to render both bags effectively weightless. They couldn’t take the carriage to the station, not if they wanted to remain unseen. No one without wealth and power would take a carriage in the Golden City. Hefting her own bag, containing a selection of books as well as clothes, she headed towards the door. Johan followed her a moment later.

“I meant to ask,” he said, softly. “Is it
safe
for you to leave the Great Library?”

Elaine scowled. “The wards will work well enough for Vane,” she said. She had a feeling that wasn’t entirely what he’d
meant
. “Sadly, the library isn’t my personal possession – or home. I just wear it until I retire.”

Johan gave her a sharp look, but said nothing else. Elaine led him out of the library by one of the hidden exits, then started to walk down towards the station. They could pass a bookstore on the way.

***

Johan had never seen a bookstore before – or even a library, before Elaine had taken him into the Great Library. The bookstore awed him; there were thousands of books, many of them of dubious value. Charity had enjoyed reading romance before her father had found out and forbidden her to read any more; Johan had read a couple and decided that they were either utterly mushy or terrifyingly perverse. Who would have thought that magic could be used to enhance the sexual experience? Apart from teenage magicians, that was.

He found himself moving from shelf to shelf, examining the books. There were no books on magic, unsurprisingly, but there were books on everything else. One entire stack appeared to be devoted to Lady Light Spinner, with several different biographies written by different authors just waiting for his attention. Elaine snorted and pointed out that anything written while she was still alive was completely untrustworthy. Very few people would dare to disrespect the Grand Sorceress, certainly not in print. In the end, seeing that Elaine was getting impatient, he picked up a handful of history books and a pair of thrillers, then paid for them at the counter. They were surprisingly cheap.

“The inventor of the printing press has a lot to answer for,” Elaine muttered, as they left. “I can’t have the books students most want to see copied, for fear of losing track of them, but they can waste their money and material on trash.”

Johan shrugged. “Why can’t the older books be copied?”

“The ones we have are integrated with the wards,” Elaine explained. “Stealing them would be impossible. But newer books ... they don’t integrate so well. And besides, they’d have to be copied in the library itself.”

She led him down the street at a brisk pace. “We don’t have much time,” she said, glancing at the sun. “The Iron Dragon leaves soon.”

Johan had
loved
to hear tales of the Iron Dragons – giant locomotives that ran on rails, without magic – but he rapidly discovered that the sight outdid the tales. He went to look at it as Elaine bought tickets, drawn by a fascination he found almost impossible to put into words. The Iron Dragon was colossal, a giant machine crouching on the tracks, steaming smoke into the air. A faint stench of burning surrounded it, but he didn’t take any notice as he peered into the cab. Inside, two men clad in the bare minimum of clothing were busy shovelling coal into the fire.

“There’s no magic,” he said. “None at all!”

“No,” Elaine agreed. “I believe that some of the earlier models had spells to ensure that the boiler didn’t burst, but as they grew more confident in their work they started refusing to allow magicians to help. Lucky, really; the shortage of magicians we have now would ensure that few could be spared, if they needed them.”

A man in a fancy uniform blew a whistle; Elaine hurried Johan forward and into one of the coaches, ahead of the guard as he shut the doors one by one. Inside, it was cramped, but surprisingly cosy. Elaine found a pair of window seats, motioned for him to sit down and pulled a book out of her bag. Johan, his gaze riveted to the window, refused a book when she offered it to him. A moment later, the coach lurched and started to move.

Johan had never really realised just how
small
the Golden City was. Hemmed in as it was by the Four Peaks, there was little room for expansion save upwards. It seemed like moments before the Iron Dragon plunged into a tunnel – the entire coach fell into darkness – and came out the other end in open countryside. The Watchtower could be seen dominating the mountains, but there were few signs of civilisation. There didn’t even seem to be any farms!

“They’re some distance from the city,” Elaine said. “The Emperors didn’t have full control over their Empire, so some of their aristocrats used the poor geography to pressure the Emperor whenever they wanted something. Now, of course, food shipments are reliable and fairly cheap.”

“And people enjoy hunting in the countryside,” Johan said, remembering Jamal’s boasts of happy hunting trips where he’d slaughtered hundreds of helpless animals. “They don’t
want
it turned into farmland.”

“No,” Elaine agreed. “They don’t.”

She turned her attention back to her book, but Johan stayed at the window, drinking in the sheer immensity of the countryside. He’d never really seen it before, not even when the family had been moving to the Golden City. They’d insisted that he stay inside the carriage, even when they’d been completely alone. Now, he could see the wilderness with his own two eyes ... and felt something calling to him. Why would he stay in the city when he could explore the world?

The wilderness gave way to farmland, but he still stared, watching people working in the fields. A handful of pieces of machinery seemed to be working with them, technology that reminded him of the Iron Dragon. He waved at a pair of farm girls, but they either didn’t see him or simply didn’t bother to wave back. The Iron Dragon passed through a small settlement – it was nothing more than a handful of houses – and then raced back into farmland.

They crossed a bridge that seemed to be made completely of iron, then passed a small building where several different flags were flying outside. It took him a moment to realise that they’d crossed the line between the Golden City’s jurisdiction and another part of the Empire, ruled by a client-king. But no matter how he stared, he couldn’t see any difference in the landscape outside the window. None of the people he saw looked different either.