Fated: An Alex Verus Novel (21 page)

‘Need it. You heard about the attack?’

I looked at Griff inquiringly, which he seemed to take as a no. ‘Some team, Friday night. Broke through the barrier and set off the relic guardian. Hell of a mess.’

‘How many were there?’

‘Three, maybe four. Wish we’d gotten a good look at them.’

Glad you didn’t
. ‘Are we clear for civilians?’

Griff nodded as we reached the top of the stairs. ‘Museum’s closed until further notice. Everyone you meet’s been cleared.’ The restaurant at the top of the stairs had been converted into a temporary headquarters, and a dozen or so mages were gathered there: the investigation team. They all stopped to watch as we walked in and I could tell they knew who I was even before Griff introduced me.

Other mages have an odd attitude towards diviners. By
the standards of, say, elemental mages, diviners are complete wimps. We can’t gate, we can’t attack, we can’t shield and when it comes to physical action our magic is about as useful as a bicycle in a trampolining contest. But we can see anywhere and learn anything and there’s no secret we can’t uncover if we try hard enough. So when an elemental mage looks at a diviner, the elemental mage knows he could take him in a straight fight with no more effort than it would take to tie his shoes. On the other hand, the elemental mage also knows that the diviner could find out every one of his most dirty and embarrassing secrets and, should he feel like it, post copies of them to everyone the elemental mage has ever met. It creates a mixture of uneasiness and contempt that doesn’t encourage warm feelings. There’s a reason most of my friends aren’t mages.

So as I was introduced to the team I wasn’t expecting a big welcome, and I didn’t get one; polite neutrality was the order of the day. But just because I wasn’t making friends didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. It was the defences I was interested in, and from what I could see they’d been beefed up heavily. There were overlapping wards over the entire museum, both alarms and transportation locks. The roped-off area I’d gated into was probably one of only two or three spots still accessible.

Once the investigation team and I had finished pretending to be friendly, Griff led me into the museum, passing more guards on the way. The landing above now held four guards instead of two, and the barrier had been strengthened – now it was an opaque wall blocking the top of the stairs. ‘Barrier’s pass-coded,’ Griff said as we walked up the stairs. ‘Pretty much the only thing that went right for us.
The mages who mounted the raid couldn’t get round the alarm. Had to set it off as they went in.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said, studying the ward. The password had been changed and I made a mental note to spend sixty seconds or so and re-crack it before I left. It’s funny, really. Even when people go specifically looking for a diviner, they still never seem to grasp what we can do.

The room inside was the same. The statue was still at the centre, the stone man looking forward imperiously with his hand extended, and I gave it a narrow look. If you’re going to build something that sets a lightning elemental on anyone who touches it wrong, you could at least have the decency to put up a warning sign or something. This time, though, there was company.

Another mage was examining the statue on his knees, a teenager in scuffed brown clothes. He had a mop of untidy black hair and a pair of glasses that he kept pushing up the bridge of his nose, only for them to fall back down again a second later.

‘Sonder,’ Griff said, and the young man jumped to his feet, startled. ‘Diviner’s here. Show him around.’ He turned to me. ‘You good?’

I nodded. ‘I’ll get to work.’

‘Sonder’ll get you whatever you need. Tell me if you get anywhere. We could use a break.’ Griff turned and walked back down the stairs, vanishing through the black wall of the barrier without a ripple.

Sonder scrambled to his feet. ‘Um, hi. Oh, you’re the diviner?’

‘That’s me,’ I said, looking around.

‘I’m David. Everyone calls me Sonder, though.’ Sonder started to extend his hand, then hesitated and stopped.
‘You’re here to look at it too? Oh!’ I had walked up to the statue and Sonder hovered anxiously, not quite willing to pull me away. ‘Don’t put anything in the left hand!’

‘Relax,’ I said as I examined the statue. ‘I wasn’t planning to.’

‘Oh good. The defence systems are really heavy. I mean, I haven’t actually seen them personally, but still.’

I gave a brief glance through the futures of me interacting with the statue and found that nothing had changed. Every future in which I put something in the statue’s hand led to the lightning elemental materialising in the middle of the room and trying to kill us. I took a look at the statue’s hands. While the left one was empty, the right one clasped an unmarked wand. I pointed to it. ‘This is what everyone’s here for?’

Sonder nodded. ‘That’s the fateweaver. It’s just a representation, though, the real thing is inside.’

‘Uh-huh. Sonder? Maybe you could help me with something.’

‘Really?’ Sonder sounded surprised, but pulled himself together quickly. ‘Well, okay. I mean, yes. If I can.’

‘Everyone keeps talking about getting inside this thing,’ I said. ‘How?’

‘Oh, right.’ Sonder seemed to relax. ‘Well, you see, the statue is the focal point for a Mobius spell. It’s one of the techniques that was lost during the post-war period, but one of the Alicaern manuscripts has a good description. A Mobius spell takes the section of space it enchants and gives it a half-twist to bring it out of phase with reality. The ends of the enclosed space collapse inwards and join with each other to form a spatial bubble. Now, obviously, the natural result of that would be that the bubble would
drift away, and of course once that happens there’s no way to reestablish a link, so you need a focus to anchor it to our physical universe. Once it’s been set up, there’s no way to find the bubble from anywhere in the universe except via the focus. We’ve actually discovered Mobius focuses before, but this is the first time …’

As Sonder kept talking, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Now I took a closer look I could see he was actually twenty or so; he just looked younger. He didn’t look like an apprentice, though – I pegged him as a new journeyman, still fresh out from under a master’s supervision. The ones outside had been less green. But were they tough enough?

There’s a reason Dark mages are feared. It’s not because their magic is any more powerful than its less evil counterpart, it’s because of the people who use it. Life as a Dark mage is savage and brutal, an endless war for status and power with shifting alliances and betrayals. The infighting is the reason Dark mages can’t unite; they’re actually far more dangerous to each other than anyone else, though it’s hard to remember that when one of them’s after you.

But the same infighting that weakens Dark mages as a group is also what makes them so deadly as individuals. Dark mages who survive to adulthood are the toughest and most ruthless people in the world. Light mages, on the other hand, live in a society where getting places is mostly about political skill, and most of the mages I’d met in the restaurant would have gotten on the team through having the right connections. Don’t get me wrong, politics among Light mages can be rough, but they play by rules. Dark mages don’t.

If Deleo, Cinder and Khazad decided they really wanted to get in here, I knew who I’d put my money on.

‘… so while there’s no way to test it, in theory there’s no actual reason why the gateway aspect of the focus would decay over time,’ Sonder was saying. He paused, seeming to realise that I’d been quiet. ‘Um, Mr Verus?’

‘Just Alex is fine,’ I said. ‘So what you’re saying is that this statue is the only door in, and it’s locked.’

Sonder hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose you could put it like that.’

‘If it’s locked, what’s the key?’

‘Well, that’s what the team’s been working on. The senior members are pretty sure it just needs the right type of key item placed into the statue’s hand. Unfortunately, um, there have been a few issues fabricating one.’

‘Hm.’ I gave Sonder a look. ‘Exactly how many times have they tried?’

‘Uh …’ Sonder scratched his head. ‘I’m not actually sure. I wasn’t allowed here until a few days ago.’

‘And how come there isn’t anyone else around?’

‘Ah, well … there were more when I arrived, but after they told me to try to figure out a way to get it open, they left. They told me to keep them up to date.’

‘Ah,’ I said. In other words, no one had the faintest clue how to open the thing. That was why Lyle had approached me on Friday – it was because the investigation team had tried literally
everything
else. I wondered how many times they’d set the lightning elemental off, and how many people had been killed or wounded before the mages had wised up and started keeping their distance. That was why everyone else was on the other side of the museum: they didn’t want to be in range if we became the next ones to trip the switch.

‘You studied under an academic mage, right?’ I asked Sonder. ‘What did you specialise in? Magical theory?’

Sonder blinked. ‘History, actually.’

‘Do you know who this is a statue of?’

Sonder paused. ‘You really want to know?’

I nodded and Sonder seemed to light up. ‘Wow. That’s … You know, you’re the first one who’s ever asked me that.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said, as I walked around the statue, studying it. ‘The mages on the team just wanted to know if you could open it.’

‘Yes. I mean … Um, well …’ Sonder cleared his throat, a little self-conscious. ‘Well, uh, the robes are in the Late Precursor style, and the design is very similar to the surviving pieces of post-war sculpture. The others think it’s just a statue but,’ Sonder pushed his glasses up, warming to his theme, ‘the very first thing I did was look through our records. Well, there wasn’t anything from the post-war period, but when I looked through our records of the Dark Wars I found it straightaway. His name was Abithriax, and he was a general in the Light armies.’ Sonder pointed to the wand clasped in the statue’s hand. ‘You see, the fateweavers weren’t just weapons, they were also symbols of rank. Now, according to the records, Abithriax was killed in the closing months of the Dark Wars, just a few years before this must have been built. So I don’t think this relic was just built to store the fateweaver, I think it was built as a tomb.’

I frowned. ‘A general’s tomb …’ I looked at the statue, proud and commanding. Somehow it felt right. ‘So you think they buried him with his weapon?’

Sonder nodded. ‘I think so. There aren’t any records I can find to confirm it though.’

‘No, I think you might be right.’ I stood thinking for
a little while. ‘Sonder, can you do me a favour? Keep researching this. I’m not sure if it’ll help us get in, but it might be important once we do.’

‘Oh. Um, yes, okay.’ Sonder paused. ‘You think you’re going to get inside?’

‘Yup.’

‘How?’

‘No idea.’

Sonder paused. ‘Then why are you so sure?’

I smiled. ‘Because so many people are after me. Give me some space – this might take a while.’

Sonder stepped well back and watched as I stood in front of the statue and closed my eyes. I stood quietly for a minute to clear my mind, then began methodically to look into the future.

The statue was the focal point of the room. I looked into the futures of my interacting with it and found it very easy. Every future in which I did anything to the statue, or placed anything in its hands, led to exactly the same result: the huge lightning elemental appearing in the middle of the room and attacking us. I was slightly reassured to notice that in none of the probable futures did the elemental get me. I was also reassured to notice that the future Sonder did a pretty good job of making himself scarce, too. He was obviously faster than he looked.

I settled down to the job of scanning through the futures one by one, looking for the future in which I activated the statue
without
triggering the elemental. It was slow, labori ous work, and time dragged by as I stood there searching through the futures as they flickered and changed, looking for the one in which I did the right thing. I went through a thousand futures, two thousand, three thousand,
trying every object, every action, every combination of spells. Nothing changed.

I was so absorbed that I actually jumped when my phone rang, snapping me out of my trance. I checked my watch to see that I’d been at it for two hours. Sonder was on the other side of the room, going through a stack of books. I shook myself awake and looked at my phone. The number was unknown. I picked up. ‘Talisid.’

‘Hello, Mr Verus,’ Talisid’s voice said. ‘I’m glad you made it home safely.’

‘I’d ask how you got my number, but I think I can guess.’

‘And I’d ask how you knew it was me, but I think I can guess that too. Have you given any thought to our offer?’

I glanced to check that Sonder wasn’t within hearing distance, did a brief scan for eavesdropping spells, then turned away and lowered my voice just to be on the safe side. ‘What exactly
are
you offering?’

‘Assistance. Starting from tomorrow, I’ll be present at the museum as official Council liaison. I’ll be able to help with any resources you require.’

‘And what would you want in exchange for this generosity?’