I turned. She’d stopped a few paces from me, another magister halting just behind her, folding his arms almost defensively.
“Department-head of Special Investigations, Mistress of the Pool of Reflections…”
It wasn’t like the title she hid behind was any less stupid-sounding than a champion’s. I managed to grunt out the words, but my teeth felt like they were trying to prise themselves loose and my vision was starting to blur.
She wore a slight smile on her lips – whether due to the faux-politeness of my response, or the pained way I made it, I couldn’t tell. Then, once she knew I’d seen it, the smile disappeared.
She looked my robe (newly cleaned) up and down.
“You’ve come a long way in a few weeks,” she said appraisingly, stepping away from the protective-looking magister hovering behind her. She’d dropped the sarcasm, replacing it with a voice that couldn’t have been more-obviously buttering me up if it had drowned me in lard.
“Has it only been a few weeks? It’s been too long! I really missed our chats.”
Her eyes narrowed only briefly. “I also. Have you considered –“
“Considered your offer? Joining up?” I let my excitement flow, spoke in a confidential manner. “Gosh, Keliko, I don’t know what’s going on at your place – see, I asked my people to speak with your people, and it all just got lost somewhere around ‘Cram it up your a-’”
She’d already started talking over me, patient and undeterred. “I see, I see. Might I introduce Zakimel –” she gestured, and the magister behind her nodded slowly to me “– who will be representing the Magisterium’s interests on this excursion?”
I regarded him, and realised I knew him. He’d swapped his red-and-silver robe for blue-and-gold, but he was the same gaunt, bald-headed man who’d appeared in my glyphstone more than once. His thick moustache of neatly-combed grey hairs bristled as he glared at me.
Zakimel. The arch-diviner Em had mentioned several times – I’d never put two and two together till now.
Yet another arch-diviner for the trip?
“Special Investigations gets all the arch-magisters, then?” I asked, perhaps a bit brazenly – if he wasn’t going to say hi to me, why should I be the one to extend the first gesture? I looked back at Henthae. “Is that what Em’s destined for, once you’re done putting her through night-shifts?”
“Why are you asking me?” she replied.
“Should I be asking him?” I nodded at Zakimel, who stood a little straighter, raising his chin.
“I mean to say that Emrelet’s future is her own,” the arch-enchantress protested in a stiff voice. “If she were to choose –“
“I already know how you guide her choices, thank you, and I –“
“And I know how you guide her,” she cut me off, smiling once more. “If you insist I must dismount, get off your own horse first, as they say.”
“I don’t set her examinations –“
“Such is my role,” Henthae said curtly. “It is my job to keep your lover safe.”
My eyes only widened slightly.
The question of Em’s safety – the perfect way to disarm me, divest me of my high horse and send me crashing on my back to the earth.
But surely there was no way she could know anything like that for certain, could she? Em could hardly be fated to die if she went on the mission with us. Not with the strongest arch-diviners in the world going to Zadhal – that would throw all the predictions off, that much was obvious…
The vagaries of predestination were starting to bother me.
“You mean – if she went to Zadhal – she would –“
“I’ll say no more.” Henthae sighed, half-turning aside. “If there’s nothing else, Zakimel, I leave him to you.”
“Wait – there is one thing,” I blurted. “Ciraya. You need to be working on her, not Em. Make her your pet project. She could really go somewhere in the Magisterium, if you gave her a chance.”
From the exaggerated way Zakimel’s face twisted in derision, I almost thought I could hear his moustache rustle, despite the crackling of the damned Door less than a stone’s throw away.
“Ciraya?” Henthae sounded surprised, looking back at me. “I have already done much for the girl. You saw what happened to Belexor, scion of a noble house of Mund, when he merely changed your shape. You know what she did, don’t you?”
I thought back, not for the first time, to that initial interview in the Maginox.
‘… but Fe was so hungry…’
Would Henthae really give me answers?
“She – she killed some people?”
Henthae dared laugh about it. “Oh, yes. You really should ask her. She was exonerated of all charges, of course, but… I’ll take your recommendation onboard, Feychilde, for what it’s worth. Farewell.”
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She turned to leave.
Who was I kidding? It wasn’t like she was going to care what I thought about her magisters, was it? If anything, I might’ve just dropped Ciraya in it.
“All I know is, I bet she saved more lives,” I finished, folding my own arms across my chest; I flared my wings half-unconsciously.
“Of course,” Henthae called over her shoulder as she made her way out of the group of champions and magisters, “but you and I both know that means nothing.”
I glared at her back, thinking of her hypocrisy – Ciraya had been spared because those she’d killed were poor, negligible, I’d have bet, while Belexor’s victim had been a new champion, a potential asset…
“Farewell, Special Head,” I muttered under my breath.
I moved my eyes to Zakimel. The older man had heard, and he was gazing calmly at me, a thin smile on his lips. Not a smile of pleasure – one of challenge. He was happy to continue staring at me quietly. He knew I was a babbler. He had the advantage, as I grew more and more uncomfortable, more and more rattled by the Door, every second that ticked by.
Suddenly Shallowlie was next to me, corpse-mask in place, looking up at me through the eyeholes. I happily turned away from the silent arch-magister.
“Whad’do you fink of i’, Feychile?”
She spoke in grunts, tension beneath the thick accent that told me she was going through the exact same thing as me.
“Unbearable.” I smiled tightly at her. “You?”
She just nodded.
When I glanced at Zakimel, he’d turned aside to speak with one of his own number. Another arch-magister: a druid by the looks of things.
“How much longer, do you think?” I asked.
“Look,” the sorceress said, pointing.
I followed her finger –
Shadowcloud was on his way.
In a burst of telepathic sound, Timesnatcher’s voice started coming through:
“– do you mean, not there? I saw him!”
Shadowcloud replied: “Look, if Nighteye was there, he was hiding himself. Why didn’t he just say if he didn’t want to come? I can’t guarantee…”
Then Spiritwhisper, true to his name, whispered to me, “Thought I’d link you up before you missed this.”
“Thanks, Spirit.”
I quickly gathered that Nighteye’s absence wasn’t due to Leafcloak side-lining him again. Quite the opposite – she’d been impressed by his and Fangmoon’s efforts, in the end, and had recommended both of them for this particular quest… While I was a bit sceptical of her logic, right now the young arch-druid’s status as missing took precedence.
He’d helped me out numerous times, but the whole rat-to-man thing easily topped the list. I owed Nighteye – big-time. Hopefully he was just taking a much-needed leave of absence.
The psychic link was filled with offers of help, my own included, and after a few moments Timesnatcher cut through it all with a sharp bark of: “Silence!”
I actually preferred the din to the quiet that spread across my mental landscape – it had helped drown out the Door’s hum.
Our leaders gave a series of commands – on Timesnatcher’s say-so the magisters were linked up – Zakimel dispatched messages to his subordinates to ensure Nighteye wouldn’t stay missing for long – and Shadowcloud and Glimmermere passed by to imbue me with flight and warmth, energy and vigour.
“Arch-sorcerers to the fore. Let’s put you out of your misery first, eh? Once you’re through, set up wards as far out as you can, get some relief from this noise you can hear.” Timesnatcher waited for us to line up – me, Shallowlie, Direcrown… and the lilac-robed magister Direcrown had been speaking with, Valorin.
At least there’s someone here who’s newer to this stuff than me, I said to myself.
“He might be new to archmagery, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his magister training,” Zel reminded me.
True enough.
Valorin was mid-twenties and dark of complexion, short-haired and short-limbed. He was a little overweight but he carried it well with wide shoulders and a broad chest. He had big ears and intense, deep-set eyes, and a confident, professional look on his handsome face.
Perhaps I couldn’t condemn him outright just for chatting to Direcrown. I hadn’t been able to catch much of what they were saying – there’d been so many interesting conversations going on at the time – so they might’ve just been exchanging platitudes.
“Wiping out the undead in Zadhal is our priority,” Timesnatcher was saying. “Breaking their seals. Freeing their souls. Today, we take back our sister-city. It’ll be harder than I’m making it sound, but we’ve got the greatest force of archmages ever put to the task. Our glyphstones won’t work over there, but we’ve got the information from our previous expeditions, which I’ve shared with our enchanters – we’ll have maps, pinpointing us as we move towards our goals. We can do this. Mund is your priority; we’re not asking you to forget that. If you feel you must withdraw, then you must. But if you have the courage of your convictions, now is the day to show it. Stick together. We will be victorious. We will find the way.”
His mind-voice was firm, steady – too steady. I didn’t have to be an enchanter to be able to tell he was nervous too.
“No shields, Feychilde, Valorin,” Timesnatcher said.
How did he know we were the ones with them still active? Had he seen a future where we blew ourselves up, or was he wearing a gift of force-sight?
We both dropped our barriers in unison, and the arch-diviner went on: “Erect them again the moment you’re through, but don’t let them intersect the Door.”
That made sense, at least. I’d only need to be a few feet into Zadhal to bring up my circle, and if we wove our weave carefully right around the portal we’d be fine…
Netherhame had mentioned the likelihood of undead in the immediate vicinity. We had to be ready for anything.
“I will remind you all not to step through a portal in Zadhal or its surrounds. The sorcerous seal upon the place is ancient, necrotising the flesh born of Materium in under one tenth-second of exposure. Do not test its grip until we succeed and I give the all-clear. You will die – and worse. I very much don’t want to fight any archlich sorcerers, if it can be avoided.”
I looked to my left – the black-gowned Minnerveve, her corpse mask making her look serene as she gazed forwards. I looked to my right – the tall, rust-robed Direcrown with his jagged, silver-gold diadem and demonic steel face. And at the end, the lilac-robed Valorin, the only one of us freely baring his identity to the world, looking no less prepared for this than the champions.
Perhaps I am still the newbie here, I admitted to myself, and then turned, like them, to face the portal before which we’d gathered.
A magnificent wall of blue noise, crackling water, flowing fire.
Timesnatcher was now giving orders to the enchanters, preparing them to relink us as quickly as possible once they followed on our heels. We would retain our invisibility throughout, apparently – not that I could tell it was even there, given its enemies-only status.
And not that it was likely to do much against undead, with all their predatory senses.
I might’ve been the least-prepared, most inexperienced, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I felt an irresistible urge to get as far from this excruciating Door as possible, even if that meant crossing through it – and I was brimming-over with excitement and panic and this gods-damned humming…
I soared into the rippling blue ward-lines, ready to submerge myself in that pain the Door offered, submerge myself in it and pass through it into tranquillity – I moved forwards, and sensed the others like me rushing to follow in my wake.