39 - A Silver Soldier

“No mage should ever be considered harmless. Even low-level mages are a deadly threat: while they can’t directly hurt an agent wearing combat armor, they can turn the environment - and even civilian bystanders - against them.

Any confrontation with mages must happen in the most favorable conditions, with the full team ready and a careful study of the location.

ThauCon agents conducting a raid should plan carefully, and always be ready for unanticipated threats.”

* ThauCon operational doctrine

[Daravoi]

“We have a problem,” Iketek says, slowly.

I sigh. Of course it’s time for disaster. And we didn’t even get our dessert.

“What did Korentis do?” I ask. I make it sound snarky, but I feel sick. This whole plan is suicide. If Korentis gets caught inside the labs, what are we going to do, fight our way in with Elsefire?

Could I do that?

“Korentis was fine the last time I could check - now xe’s in a silver-lined room, so I can’t communicate with xem.” Iketek says. She’s always hard to read, but I can tell she’s worried. “Look at this.”

She slides her tablet toward me, pushing aside the small plates of colorful rich people's vegetables.

The tablet shows a grainy video feed, probably from one of the cheap cameras Iketek set up in the neighborhood. There’s a team of people in black-and-silver armor, running through the metro station, less than five minutes from here.

“Well, fuck,” I say. “We’re dead.”

I knew this would happen. When I ran away from the caravan. When I decided to stick with obviously mad Korentis. When I agreed to help Iketek. At every step, I knew I was putting a knife to my own throat.

But what else could I have done? Stay on the caravan and wait for the inevitable discovery, and lynch mob? Or turn my back on the closest thing to friends I had since I was ten years old? Fuck no. Better a walk to the hangman than a life spent running, alone.

“The situation isn’t that dire yet,” Iketek says, her voice a whisper now. “The elevator down takes two and half minutes. If Korentis comes out right now, we can make it.”

She looks at me with her hard, icy eyes.

I understand the unspoken message - we could get out safely, if we left Korentis behind. That’s not the kind of thing you say out loud. But we both know it.

Would she stay, if I weren’t here? She’s not a sentimental one.

Would Korentis stay, for me? Or would xe run, and make up some bullshit to justify it to xemself later?

It doesn’t matter. You don’t let down your mates. Even if one is a cold-blooded criminal and the other a flighty, spoiled brat.

“If xe takes too long… emergency way out?” I ask. Not that we have much choice - once they’ll reach the tower, trying to sneak past the ThauCon agents would be incredibly dangerous.

Iketek nods. “Definitely our best chance. If Korentis rejoins us, we flee that way, and ThauCon can die mad about it. But…”

She stops, frowning. Then she looks up, through the glass panes covering the terrace we’re eating on.

“Quad-copter,” she whispers. “They’re coming from below and above.”

Unmaker’s tits. We let ourselves be trapped like rats in an airlock.

“You still can’t reach Korentis?” I ask. I hate pressure, I feel the need to stop and think about the situation, but of course we don’t have time.

“Not yet,” she says.

“Can you…” I begin.

“Shut up,” Iketek snaps. “I’m trying to get information.”

Something else that I hate: being useless. In the caravans, I learned quickly to make myself useful - I didn’t have much choice. There’s always something to clean, to fix or to carry, on an airship. But with this job, most of what I do is sit and wait while Iketek and Korentis pull off their weird shit.

I really should try to get a handle on the Sight or Mind paths. But Kore and Iketek’s explanations about their powers make no sense to me. I think I’m too practical-minded for that.

What I do better than them is practical preparations. So, once again, I study the place we’re in.

A wide, heated terrace, roofed by hexagonal glass tiles set in a steel frame. The glass might be bulletproof, but I won’t bet my life on it.

There’s a terrace three floors below ours, shifted on the right - we could jump to it with some magic, but it wouldn’t help much.

Our terrace is connected by two doors to the restaurant’s main hall - a vast open space partitioned by stupid trellises covered in vines, so that it kinda looks like nature, for people too fancy to actually go see nature.

All those plants block firing lines, hopefully. But they won’t stop Elsefire.

The restaurant has two side-rooms, one toilet room, and a dedicated elevator connecting to the kitchens below. Only two doors…

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Oh, Lost Stars,” Iketek says, going rigid.

“What?” I ask.

“They’re coming for us, not for Korentis,” she says.

“How?” I ask, “we’re not the ones who sneaked into a ThauCon lab!”

Fuck, the Men in Silver are coming to get me. There are soldiers here to kill us, and we’re still sitting at our table like we’re talking about the weather.

“Maybe our Lies aren’t as good as we hoped,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that they’ll be here in less than three minutes.”

The terrace has good sound-proofing, but even so, we hear the roar of an approaching quad-copter. I look up and see it - fuck, it’s almost over this tower already. Those things are huge up close, monsters of black metal and whirling blades.

“We must leave,” I say, sweat drenching my stupid landfall-style tunic.

“We still have a couple of minutes,” Iketek answers, as calm as if we were discussing brands of tea. “If we leave by the emergency route, we must wait for the chopper to land anyway. The real problem is Korentis. If xe isn’t here in a minute, xe’ll be cut off from us. And xe’s still inside the secure laboratory. Why is xe taking that long?”

I really, really don’t like waiting for soldiers to come and drag us to Memory Square. But of course, she’s right, fleeing before they land would be worse, since they could follow us with the quad-copter.

I clench and unclench my fists, my muscles so rigid I fear they may snap at any second. “Should we go up and try to get Kore out?” I ask.

“That’s the worst possible idea,” Iketek says, cold as usual. “We’d run into ThauCon, and we’d lead them to Korentis.”

As she says that, a faint tremor shakes the floor, and the chopper’s roar cuts off. They’ve landed. Fuck, there are Men in Silver, coming for us, just seven floors above.

People are looking up, checking their phone, some have the Stemlink-user’s empty stare. But no one is looking at me and screaming kill the mage. Yet.

“We might have to leave soon, Korentis or not,” Iketek says. “If they’re coming for us, we don’t have a choice. Xe can just slip out. But…”

She stops, her mouth agape.

A moment later, I feel it, too. A change - like the air becoming thicker, like a vibration in my chest. I hear a distant whisper, a tension building up - and then it’s gone, like a spring coiling and then suddenly releasing.

The other patrons don’t react, though.

Fuck. It was something in the Else.

“What was that?” I ask.

“Never felt that before,” Iketek says, slowly, her eyes wide. Is she panicking? If Iketek panics, I’ll lose it. “But… Abyss, I must talk to Korentis, even if I trigger alarms. No point being cautious, ThauCon found us anyway.”

She takes a deep breath, then golden sparks blossom in her green eyes, and she frowns in concentration.

I’m pretty sure a young woman at the next table is staring at us. But by now, keeping a low profile is beside the point. If the patrons try to lynch us, all the better. It will distract the Men in Silver.

“Ok, I found Kore,” Iketek says. “Xe has the relic! Something strange happened but…t important now. Xe’ll leave the labs soon, and - fuck. The ThauCons from the chopper are already going down the stairs. I nudged a few people into slowing them, but they’re just behind Kore.”

“Black Liar’s ass,” I say, “can he make it here if xe runs?”

“I wouldn’t trust Korentis to outrun a determined slug,” Iketek says. Then she nods, a hard line to her mouth. “It’s clear they don’t know xir position, though. We must make sure they stay focused on us. Xe’ll let them go past xir floor, then xe’ll go down while we keep them busy, and xe’ll escape from the fourth floor.”

Fourth floor - another of our contingency exits, in case we managed to reach the lower floors, but found the official exits blocked. It’s a long way down, though, and Kore gets winded by crossing the street.

“That's… sixty floors down.” I say. “Xe can’t risk taking an elevator.”

“Xe’ll walk,” Iketek says. “They won’t find xem easily, the little shit can change faces like I change shoes. And we’ll provide plenty of distraction.”

I clench my jaw, as anger surges up my chest like a tidal wave - she doesn’t care about Korentis, xe’s doing this to save her ass, and she…

I bit down my anger. I’m just being stupid, and I know it. Even if every instinct tells me we should stick together, fighting our way out if necessary. We can’t leave Korentis alone, xe can’t survive in the wild, and xe already used a lifetime luck to escape xir previous fuckups.

But maybe it’s my stupid crush on xem speaking, and Iketek is right. If ThauCons are between us and Korentis, there’s no way to flee together.

“So, we go now?” I ask.

Iketek shakes her head. “Let’s start with the diversion part. Be ready to summon your defense.”

She stands up, and now her eyes are full of molten gold. “Stand behind me,” she orders. “Be calm. Use the mental protection I taught you.”

I’m not sure what she’s going to do, but she’s the real mage here, so I obey. I stand up and move behind her. She’s facing the doors leading inside.

The young woman who was staring at us gets up as well. “What are you doing?” she says. “Are you ok?”

“I’m sorry,” Iketek says, emotionless. “I wish I didn’t need to put you all in danger. But these were the cards I was dealt.”

The young woman looks confused - then Iketek spreads her hands, fingers turning to golden glass, and she shapes a strand of liquid light in two flowing glyphs. I don’t even try to understand what she’s doing - all of Iketek’s bindings look like twisting, living snakes to me.

“Mage!” Someone yells, finally, pointing at us. “Don’t try to do anything, I’ll…”

“You should be afraid,” Iketek says, a terrible emptiness in her voice, and she flicks her wrists. The two glyphs converge, entwine in midair, and swell in a single mind-hurting sigil of golden light. It’s beautiful, it’s…

I’LL DIE. I’LL SO DIE.

ThauCon will get us, they’ll bind us in silver. They’ll shoot us, I remember their swords, their rifles, they’ll kill us. They’ll find Korentis, we’ll watch while they hurt xem, kill xem, they’ll hurt Iketek, they’ll hurt me, kill me, they’ll…

People scream, running away, tripping on each other. Some fall to their knees, some cry, paralyzed by fear.

What’s happening? It’s the Else. Something is coming, something terrible, claws and coils and fangs and fire, it will tear us apart. Korentis isn’t here, my clan isn’t here, they all left me, and now Iketek will leave me, and…

“I told you to protect yourself, idiot!” Iketek yells, and she grips my shoulder - her hand is made of glass and power, my tunic tears and chars at her touch.

She’s here. I’m not alone. Not yet. Defend yourself.

I squint my eyes and dive into the Else without any restraint - it doesn’t matter if they detect us, now. The world becomes red. Everything is made of glass, criss-crossed by thin darker lines, faults where things want to break.

And golden snakes, thousands of twisting reptiles radiating from Iketk’s spells, reach to the faint sparks of white light inside people’s heads. The snakes, they’ll kill us, devour…

Mind-magic. It’s just a spell. Iketek made it, and she’s here, with me.

“Everyone calm down!” someone yells, cutting over the screams “ThauCon here! Leave in a line! We’re here to deal with the situation!”

[scene continues]