Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling (42 page)

Elaine nodded as they reached the cell. The charm on the door allowed them to look inside without being seen, which let her study Hawthorne for a long moment. He looked
old
; the spells that had kept him youthful had snapped when his magic had been stolen. Judging by his bent form, he didn’t have more than a few years left in him.

“He’s been mumbling all day,” the Guardsman on duty said. “I haven’t been able to make out the words.”

“Let me look at him,” Elaine said. She hesitated, remembering her snapped wand. “Can I borrow your wand?”

Dread looked at her for a long moment, then reached into his robes and produced a simple wooden wand. His spare, Elaine realised; he carried more than one. But she wasn’t too surprised that he was reluctant to give her his normal wand, not when it was important to him. Most male magicians took their wands very seriously, even if they didn’t need them.

She took the wand and stepped into the cell, passing through a ward that kept Hawthorne firmly on the other side. The Dark Wizard – the
former
Dark Wizard – didn’t even look up at her; she couldn’t help noticing that they hadn’t bothered to chain his hands and feet, as if he were a mundane. She wondered if the lack of care was a studied insult to the powerless man; once, there would have been iron chains, dampening potions and at least five Inquisitors guarding him at all times. Now, there was just a crippled old man.

This man would have raped you and forced you to bear his children
, her thoughts reminded her.
You should not feel sorry for him
.

Lifting the wand, she cast the first diagnostic charm. The charm seemed confused; Hawthorne was thirty years old at most, yet his body was much older ... and damaged by magic. Elaine nodded, unsurprised, then cast the most subtle magic detection spell she knew, one used by druids when inspecting children for traces of magic. There was nothing, not even a tiny flicker. Hawthorne was not only completely powerless, he was effectively a mundane.

“What would happen,” she mused aloud, “if you had children now?”

Hawthorne lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were blank, full of a bleak hopelessness that chilled her to the bone. He believed, he truly believed, that magic separated out the true humans from the clay-men who only
looked
human. And now he was nothing more than one of the clay-men. By his own lights, he was a subhuman monster, worthy only of servitude to the true humans. Elaine couldn’t help feeling that Johan had been right. Hawthorne had only got what he deserved.

She cast the final charm and examined the results. Hawthorne had, at best, two years to live. Somehow, she doubted it would matter. His death sentence had been passed before his escape and, now that he had been recaptured, the sentence could be carried out. Dread could do it on the spot, if necessary. But she knew that they needed answers first.

“He’s been touched,” she told Dread, as soon as she stepped out of the cell. “
He
has his hooks in him – or had. Can you see what he can tell you?”

“I can try,” Dread said. He sounded rather doubtful. “But his mind appears to have been damaged.”

“Not really,” Elaine assured him. The charms had made that clear. It was easy enough to tell when a person’s mind had been damaged and Hawthorne’s mind seemed intact. “He’s just retreated into shock.”

“You may as well keep the wand,” Dread said, as she turned to leave. “There’s nowhere here to get a proper one.”

“Thank you,” Elaine said. She wasn’t blind to the significance of the offer – or the fact that, in some cultures, it was almost a marriage proposal. But Dread didn’t mean it like that. If he’d ever been interested in anyone, with the possible exception of the Princess, he’d never shown it. “I’m going to take Johan back to the cabin, so please let us know if something happens.”

She scowled as she walked out of the station, thinking hard. Something was
definitely
going to happen, that was a given. Johan had just turned the world upside down. And, once the factions realised the truth, they would react. They’d want him ... and they wouldn’t want anyone else to have him. Her lips quirked into a bitter smile. Even Light Spinner would have her doubts about keeping him alive. They’d do something, all right ...

The only question was
what
?

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Lord Conidian,” May said, as she slipped into his study, “Lord Deferens is here to see you.”

Duncan lifted an eyebrow in surprise. Deferens had never visited him before – or anyone else, as far as his quiet enquiries had been able to prove. For all of his obvious power and connections, Deferens seemed to have little to do with his fellow Privy Councillors. It hadn’t been until the Leveller incident that Deferens had even
spoken
to him outside the palace. And yet he clearly had the power to do him great good or great harm ...

“Send him in,” he ordered, glancing around to make sure that nothing informative was in view. Deferens wasn’t one of his children; Duncan knew that he might be a political ally now, but that could change within days. It was better not to tell him more than he actively needed to know. “And bring us both Kava.”

Deferens was wearing another eye-catching red suit as he stepped into the room, matched with a kilt that hung down to just above his knees. Duncan watched, as emotionlessly as possible, as Deferens placed his staff carelessly against the wall and then sat down on the other side of Duncan’s desk. His unkempt beard seemed to have grown longer, although his moustache was nicely trimmed. Duncan honestly wasn’t sure if he was displaying a masculinity that was intended to shock or if he was overcompensating for something. Or perhaps he was just wearing his national dress.

Making a mental note to look it up, Duncan sat upright and looked Deferens in the eye. No doubt the younger magician had come to call in the debt Duncan owed him. It would be bad, after the sheer size of the favour Deferens had done
him
, but at least the debt would be cleared. Not to repay a debt had consequences both mundane and magical. Deferens would certainly try to make the latter as unpleasant as possible.

“So,” he said. “What brings you to my abode at this early hour?”

Deferens smirked. “You haven’t heard,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Why not?”

Duncan felt a trickle of alarm running down the back of his neck. “Heard what?”

“About your son,” Deferens said. There was an odd note of near-hysteria in his voice. “About what he did.”

“Jamal?” Duncan asked, puzzled. Jamal had stayed inside since his release from the Watchtower; the changes Duncan had made to the wards had ensured it. “What did he do this time?”

“
Johan
,” Deferens corrected. “Did you hear about what he did near the Western Hills?”

Duncan frowned, then shook his head. He hated not to hear anything at once, but if it were only rumour so far it might not have reached one of his clients yet. And Deferens clearly had very good sources, wherever they were. He’d certainly been able to help Duncan visit Jamal in his cell and then have him released, even conditionally.

“The Dark Wizard Hawthorne attacked Falconine City,” Deferens said. “Your son was amongst those who rallied to stop him. He went after the Dark Wizard alone.”

Duncan felt his heart sink. A Dark Wizard didn’t earn his title by being rude to people or writing nasty letters to the broadsheets; he earned it through using dark magic to damage his mind, destroying whatever scruples he’d had left. Most of them self-destructed before too long, if the Inquisitors didn’t get them, but before they died they often killed hundreds of people. Hawthorne had shown an unusual longevity, even before he’d been captured the first time around. It had only made him more dangerous.

And Johan ... if Johan had faced a Dark Wizard, Johan was almost certainly dead.

“Johan
won
,” Deferens said.

Duncan stared at him in disbelief. A Dark Wizard was a formidable foe. Even Inquisitors hesitated to go after one alone. Normal procedure, as far as he knew, was to dispatch at least
three
Inquisitors in pursuit. Even a rumoured Dark Wizard received the full treatment. For Johan, a magician who had only had his powers for two weeks, to fight one and
win
...

“Strength is not everything,”
one of his tutors had said, years ago.
“A magician with vast amounts of raw power can still be tied in knots by a magician with less power, but knows what the hell he’s doing. So be careful! And learn!”

“He won,” Duncan said, stunned. “How?”

“That is indeed the question,” Deferens said. “The piece of information that is
not
yet widely known is this. Your son took his magic.”

Duncan frowned. “
Hawthorne’s
magic?”

“Yes,” Deferens said, bluntly. “The Dark Wizard, according to my source, is no longer a magician at all. He’s powerless, so powerless they haven’t even bothered to chain him up.”

“Impossible,” Duncan said. He refused to believe it. “You can dampen a person’s magic, you can force them not to use it, but you can’t just
take
it! Even a necromantic rite wouldn’t let you take a person’s
magic
.”

“And yet it happened,” Deferens said. His voice was suddenly very serious. “I have verified the information as best I can. It is accurate. “

Duncan felt his mind reel, unable to process the implications. Magic separated the powerful from the powerless ... but what if the powerful could be stripped of their power? He couldn’t imagine being without his magic; even as a child, he had played with his own magic and learned how to wield it. And without magic ...

He would no longer be the Patriarch of House Conidian.

Cold fear trickled down his spine. Just what had he and his wife brought into the world, then allowed Jamal to midwife?

“Tell me,” Deferens said, breaking into his thoughts. “Could you live without magic?”

Duncan blanched. His entire
life
revolved around magic. Without it, he would no longer be a Privy Councillor, no longer Head of a Great House ... he wouldn’t even be able to
live
in his own house. The building was saturated in magic, all keyed to the Head of the Household; without his magic, his power would be gone. He wouldn’t even be able to open a door without Jamal’s permission ... assuming, of course, that the house recognised Jamal as his heir. And it would be far worse for the families who had lived in their houses for generations. If they lost their magic, the houses would assume that they were intruders and evict them.

“So far,” Deferens said, “only a few people know the truth.”

Duncan scowled at him, his eyes narrowing. “You seem to be remarkably well informed,” he said, darkly. “Just who is your source within the Inquisition?”

“Let’s just say that their decision to bring in outsiders to make up the numbers was somewhat ill-judged,” Deferens said. He made a show of stroking his beard, contemplatively. “Not all of them were as loyal as they could have been.”

He winked at Duncan, then sobered. “But it won’t be long before the news gets out,” he added. “And there will be
panic
among the magical community.”

Duncan could imagine it. If magic was all that separated them from the mundanes, what would happen to them if their magic was suddenly gone? They’d want to kill Johan before he could take magic from someone else ... and yet they’d also be terrified, if they believed that Johan was too powerful to challenge. Duncan could easily imagine them turning on his family, just because he’d birthed the monster. It wasn’t rational, but panicking people were never rational.

“You need to decide what you intend to do about it,” Deferens said, standing up. “Because this situation might just shatter the balance of power.”

“I know,” Duncan said.

The possibilities seemed endless – and terrifying. If Johan could take someone’s magic at will, he might become Light Spinner’s most feared enforcer. The fragile balance of power between the Grand Sorceress and the Great Houses would be shattered beyond repair. Or Johan might even take the seat of Grand Sorcerer for himself – or, perhaps, for the Head Librarian. It was becoming alarmingly clear, Duncan realised, that he had underestimated Elaine No-Kin. What if
she
intend to take advantage of her charge?

He watched the younger magician leave the room, then wrote a quick note to Jayne and her father. If Jayne was the only tool they had to influence Johan, they would have to use her ... because he doubted that there was anything else. He’d offered Johan everything from Marina – a bride who would allow him to enter High Society at the very highest levels – to becoming Prime Heir, but Johan had refused them all. All he’d wanted was to walk away from the family ...

I could disown him
, Duncan thought,
or find him an apprenticeship ... but I’d still be blamed for his mere existence
...

Cursing under his breath, he summoned Sergeant Brandish to his study. The Sergeant had been a City Guardsman before retirement and, as the elder brother of sisters who did private tuition, had plenty of experience keeping unruly young men in line. Jamal already hated him, Duncan had been amused to discover, but the Sergeant would continue to supervise him until he was ready to return to polite society. If, of course, that would ever happen. Duncan, looking at the sheer scale of the disaster Jamal had helped to create, had his doubts.

“Sir,” the Sergeant said. He was short, but tough; the unmarked uniform he wore was tight enough to show off his muscles when he flexed. “Your son is currently working on his studies.”

Duncan nodded, impatiently. He’d been reluctant to allow Jamal anywhere near the family books, but it was good training for the Prime Heir ... if, of course, he
remained
the Prime Heir. Charity had also been studying the same books, under a rather less gimlet eye. Her progress was slower than Jamal, but she had much less experience. And, of course, she was also still studying. Duncan had seriously considered pulling her out of the Peerless School early so she could concentrate on preparing to become the Prime Heir, but he knew that she would never forgive him for it. One child hating him was too much.