Burned (27 page)

My survival instincts shouted
no!
and the future in which I fell off the edge vanished. ‘Nothing,’ I said to Rain. ‘Don’t fall off.’

The bridge turned out to be less of a bridge and more of a ramp, bringing us steadily upwards before levelling off on to another platform. My divination led us to a second ramp. Behind us, I was vaguely aware of Council security igniting chemical flares, one at the base and top of each ramp and others spaced out at intervals on the flat. They burned with a bright red glow, but even so, the darkness swallowed each one in seconds. It would be easy to get turned around here.

On the third platform I slowed and stopped. ‘This one’s got four ramps leading off,’ I told Rain. ‘Two going down, two going up.’

‘Which way to the relic?’

‘I’m going to need to check on my own.’

‘Do it,’ Rain said. ‘I’ll get the air and earth mages to check for air movements and tracks. Meet back here in five minutes.’

I walked into the darkness. The blackness swallowed me in seconds, the lights from Rain’s group becoming a fuzzy grey glow and then disappearing completely. It would scare most people, but I’ve spent a long time learning how to navigate with my divination, and I can move faster in pitch darkness than most people can in full daylight. I did a circuit around the platform, stopping at each ramp to examine the futures in which I explored off on my own. One was easy to rule out. The other two were harder, but after a while I was fairly sure of our orientation.

I started to turn back, then hesitated. With my divination I knew that if I went straight back at this angle, I’d reach Rain. But a stray future had caught my eye, and I still had a minute or two before the time limit was up …

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I moved left, letting my feet tread softly on the stone. I knew that I was circling around the main body of the group. Peering into the darkness, I saw the first traces of light and heard muffled voices. I looked into the futures in which I drew closer.

‘… any of your business,’ Caldera was saying.

‘I’d say it is,’ Ares said. ‘And yours.’

‘You have a problem with Verus, take it to Rain.’ Caldera was down on one knee, one hand to the stone. She looked as though she’d been checking for something, but now her head was twisted around to look up at the other Keeper. ‘It’s his job.’

‘Actually, it’s your job.’ Ares squatted down, looking steadily at Caldera. ‘Has Verus told you why he’s here?’

Caldera shrugged.

Ares gave Caldera a curious look. ‘So you don’t know.’

‘He’s an auxiliary.’

‘The Council’s declared Verus an outlaw. As soon as the resolution becomes public, he’s to be executed on sight.’

Caldera turned to stare at him.

‘It’s nothing personal,’ Ares said. ‘Just orders.’

‘I think you’re full of it,’ Caldera said.

‘No bullshit. It’s real.’

‘You got a warrant?’

‘You know that’s not how it works.’

Caldera shook her head and looked away.

‘We don’t have to like what the Council tells us to do,’ Ares said. ‘We just have to do it.’ He rose to his feet. ‘You don’t believe me? Ask him yourself.’ He walked away into the darkness.

Caldera didn’t look after him at first, but once Ares was gone, she got to her feet and stared down at the stone, brow furrowed. A chime sounded in my ear from the communicator, and I knew our five minutes were up. Caldera turned and walked back towards the body of the group, and I followed.

Rain was at the centre of a small group of mages. ‘… eyes in the sky won’t do any good,’ another man was saying to Rain. I knew him vaguely: he was an air mage called Stratus. ‘Just too dark.’

Rain looked at me. ‘Either of the upward ramps should work,’ I said. ‘It looks as though they join up further on.’

Rain nodded absently. ‘That matches. Caldera?’

Caldera looked up, caught off guard. ‘Huh?’

‘Any tracks?’

‘Tracks, right.’ Caldera shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Then we go straight,’ Rain said. ‘Let’s move.’

The group started moving again, and I fell back into my position a couple of steps behind Rain. I could feel Caldera’s eyes on me.

We kept walking through the darkness, our lights the only illumination in a black and silent world. There were more junctions, ramps leading up and down from flat platforms, each as featureless as the last. With no maps or landmarks, we had to stop each time and rely on detection spells. I could feel Rain growing restless, and I knew why: almost an hour had passed. In about two hours, the gate would close. Our safety margin was shrinking fast.

My divination was our main guide now, but I could feel Ares’ presence towards the back of the group, distracting me. Already my thoughts had started to branch down worrying paths: was he here to make sure the relic was recovered, or to make sure I didn’t get out? What was Caldera going to do? And was it just a coincidence that he was a fire mage? The fact that he used fire magic didn’t necessarily prove anything – elemental mages are the most common family, and there are more fire mages than any other type by a long way – but I couldn’t help but think about that attack on my shop, and that figure wreathed in flame. He’d been a trained battle mage too. A Keeper from the Order of the Shield would be a pretty good fit …

I pushed the thoughts away and went back to our more immediate problem. I’d been putting together a mental map of this place, using the futures in which I explored the side ramps to gain additional information, and a nasty suspicion was starting to nag at me. I sped up slightly, catching up to Rain. ‘We might have a problem,’ I said quietly.

Rain glanced at me. A sphere of blue light was hanging in the air over his shoulder, but his skin was so dark that it soaked up the glow, making the whites of his eyes stand out in an eerie way. Ahead of us, two Council security men were on point with torches. ‘This is not a good time for problems.’

‘I’ve been mapping out this place and the pattern is looking like a spiderweb. Lots of paths leading in to a central point.’

‘And?’

‘The design doesn’t make much sense for a place with only one entrance,’ I said. ‘It makes plenty of sense for multiple entrances.’

‘You think Drakh’s cabal are in here too,’ Rain said quietly.

‘It’s been bugging me how easily we got in here,’ I said. ‘If Richard wants this relic so badly, why didn’t he put a proper guard on the entrance? Those men weren’t a match for a Keeper force. Unless they weren’t really meant to stop us at all. Just to slow us down and make us think we’re winning. Meanwhile Drakh’s group slip in from the other side.’

‘If you’re right,’ Rain said, ‘what can we do about it?’

‘Call a halt,’ I said. ‘If I path-walk searching specifically for other mages, without any other interference, I should be able to find them.’

Rain was silent.

‘It’ll give us some advance warning.’

‘Assuming they’re there at all,’ Rain said. ‘And assuming that they aren’t retrieving the relic already, in which case we need to be faster rather than slower.’

‘…Yes.’

Rain shook his head. ‘We can’t afford the time. I’ll put everyone on alert, but we’re cutting it close as is. Stay as close as you can to the front and watch for ambushes.’

I made a face but didn’t argue. As I moved up to catch up with the point men, I heard Rain starting to give orders.

The further we went, the faster a pace Rain set. At each junction, he allowed less time to search out a new path, sometimes taking no more than thirty seconds’ break before we set off again. I understood why he was doing it, but it was frustrating. Rain was using elemental mage thinking: strike fast and hard, counting on your toughness to shrug off any hits. If I’d been alone, with time to search, I could have found a path through and been sure whether it was safe. But the presence of the Keepers and the Council security was clogging the futures – I couldn’t stop and build a proper chain without one of them bumping into me and disrupting it. And the darkness was making it hard enough already. If we ran into an ambush, I wouldn’t be able to give much warning.

And just as I was thinking that, it happened.

We’d just reached the top of a ramp when something flashed on my precognition. I stopped dead, got one good look at what was going to happen and snapped at the two point men just in front of me. ‘Look out!’

The two of them turned to stare. I wheeled. ‘Rain! Incoming!’

‘Shields!’ Rain called instantly, raising his hand as he did. A barrier of blue light, translucent and slightly curved, materialised in front of the two point men, who were already scrambling back. Other mages began to cast shields of their own, and that was the point at which the mages ambushing us figured out that they’d been made and opened up on us.

Fireballs came flashing out of the darkness, dull red beads of light that exploded into bursts of flame upon striking a target. The first two detonated on Rain’s shield, then a volley of force missiles came scything in, horizontal and razor-sharp, thrown with enough power to cut a man in half. Water shields are good against fire, not so good against force. The blades broke through, hissing past, and I heard a scream from behind. I was already running, breaking right. I couldn’t see what was happening, but I knew that I needed to get out of the line of fire. Already the Keepers and Council security were shooting back, and I could hear the staccato
takatakatakatak
of the sub-machine-guns, combined with the
whoosh
of battle magic, fire and force and air.

The bubble realm was total chaos. Everything was pitch-black, fire was coming in from different directions and I had no idea what was happening. I could hear shouts and screams, conflicting orders. People were spreading out in the darkness, trying to find cover or a clear shot, the two sides intermingling. A figure appeared out of the darkness in front of me, backing away, casting a spell; we both saw each other and did a double take as we tried to work out who we were looking at. The man was dressed in black, with a mask, and as I saw it I realised he had to be one of our attackers; I swerved back into the gloom. He didn’t shoot after me, probably still unsure of who I was. The battle was darkness and screams and confusion, spells and bullets striking friend and foe. I saw a future in which I was shot and dodged right, saw another in which I was hit by a spell and dodged left and ran right into someone else.

This one was taller, his shape illuminated in the glow of a light to the side, and he was quicker on the draw. He caught my movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his gun towards me; it was some sort of assault rifle and I ducked out of the line of fire, grabbing the rifle by the hand guard. We struggled briefly, wrestling for the gun; he was wearing a ski mask and as our gazes met I saw blue eyes go wide. He hesitated for the tiniest instant, then drove a kick at me that would have broken a rib. I slid aside, hit him in the face, then got both hands on the rifle and twisted it out of his grasp. He stumbled and fell, but turned the fall into a roll; I felt the flash of some kind of magic and as he came up he was holding a sub-machine-gun. I turned and ran, losing myself in the darkness then throwing myself flat. From behind I heard a sharp
takatakatakatak!
and felt the burst go over my head. The futures cleared; I pulled myself to my feet and kept running. Up ahead was a ramp, sloping upwards, and I took it.

As I jogged up the ramp, the sounds of the shots and yells began to die away. I slowed and stopped, listening, and realised that I’d gone right through the battle and out the other side. The Dark mages were in between me and Rain’s Keepers.

I could find somewhere safe to hole up in the darkness and wait for the fighting to be over. On the other hand, my instincts were telling me that that ambush had been designed to stop us, not to kill us. Which isn’t to say that Richard was going to be bothered about a few dead bodies, but it wasn’t the objective. What he wanted was that relic, and if I kept going, I might be able to interfere.

It only took me a few seconds to make my mind up. I was still playing on Rain and Caldera’s team, and I still needed that relic found. Besides, I prefer to take the initiative when I can. It’s always better to have the other guy reacting to you.

The next platform had a couple of men on it. They weren’t friendly, but I was able to skirt around them to reach another ramp. As I approached the top, though, I began to slow down. Once again there was someone there, but this time it was someone I wasn’t going to be able to dodge so easily. I came to a stop just below the lip of the ramp, searching through the futures for ways in which I could get past.
Damn, she’s right in the way.
If only she were a little further out, I might be able to sneak—

‘You going to hide there all day, Verus?’ a voice called out of the darkness.

I sighed.
So much for sneaking.
I straightened and walked out into the open.

The platforms had been getting smaller, and this one was no more than sixty or seventy feet across. As I walked out over it, a green glow appeared out of the gloom. The glow became a pair of floating orbs of light, each the dark green of holly leaves, and standing between the orbs, her arms folded, was a woman called Vihaela.

Vihaela is dark-skinned and tall, with black hair that curls up at the tips. She’s good-looking in an unusual sort of way – striking rather than pretty – and she dresses well, in layered clothes of brown and black. I’d come face to face with Vihaela exactly once before, for only a few minutes, but that had been more than enough for her to make an impression. Being a Dark mage comes with a certain automatic intimidation factor – yes, it’s technically possible for one to be weak and unthreatening, but no one really believes that when they’re standing in front of you – but however you measure threat levels among the Dark mages of Britain, Vihaela would be right at the top of the list, which would probably have to be written from hearsay given how few mages would voluntarily step into the same room as her. Vihaela has a reputation for being an expert with life and death magic, and an extremely skilled torturer. As for her abilities as a battle mage, the last time I’d seen her, she’d taken on Caldera and Slate at the same time without breaking a sweat. As if that weren’t enough, she was tied to Morden definitely, Richard almost definitely, and all in all was easily among the top five people I least wanted to come face to face with in a dark abandoned place. All of a sudden I wasn’t so sure that going forward had been such a smart move.