Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) (35 page)

I started to speak, and suddenly everything went blank.

The next thing I remember is lying against a pillar on the opposite side of the hall. I guess Khazad must have thrown me, though I don’t remember it. The back of my head was wet, and my right side felt like fire. Once my head had cleared enough for me to hear, I realised Khazad was talking again. “—and then Onyx told me to go back and kill
you! Amazing how things work out, right? Even promised me a reward.”

I tasted copper and spat blood. I knew this was my last chance.
Cat and mouse
, I thought dizzily.
The way to win is not to be the mouse
. “Only one mage can use it,” I said to the floor.

“I mean, I’d have done it for free.”

I made myself look up. Khazad was strolling towards me, keeping a casual eye on me to see whether I was going to make things interesting. I drew a breath and spoke clearly, meeting his eyes. “Only one mage can use the fateweaver. That mage is going to be Onyx. Once he has it, he won’t need you. You think Onyx is planning to come back to Morden
with
anyone? You think he’s going to share the credit? Why do you think you’re still wearing that bracelet?”

Khazad stopped, and I knew I’d gotten through. I kept pushing. “Onyx told you he’d take it off if you killed me, didn’t he? He’s lying. As soon as you’ve done your job, he’ll trigger it. Once he’s got the fateweaver, there’s no reason to leave you alive. Why do you think Morden didn’t care about us being recognised? We were never meant to survive this. None of us were. We’re just one more set of pawns—”

“Shut up,” Khazad said. He stared down at me. I held very still and felt my life hanging in the balance. I knew Khazad was waiting for me to keep talking, but I didn’t. Everything I’d said was true. My only hope was that Khazad would realise it.

Khazad stepped forward and held out his right arm. “Take it off.”

I swallowed. “I can’t,” I said very carefully. “But I can change it so it won’t work.” I began to rise, just slightly.

“Stay on your knees,” Khazad said, and I froze. Khazad touched his left hand to the side of my neck. It felt very cold, and I could feel the tension of a spell hovering in his fingers, waiting to be let loose. “You have five minutes.”

I swallowed. “I do this, you let me go.”

Khazad studied me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “Agreed,” he said at last. He held his right wrist in front of me, the bracelet gleaming dully. “Do it.”

Have you ever had to work under pressure? You probably think you have. You’re wrong. Real pressure is knowing that if you make a mistake you’ll be dead without ever knowing what you did wrong.

Believe me when I say I worked
very
carefully.

“It’s done,” I said after a few minutes, lowering my tool. Khazad looked down at the bracelet. It looked the same as before. I’d made the same change that I’d made to Rachel’s and Cinder’s.

“If Onyx triggers it?” Khazad asked.

“Nothing.”

Khazad nodded. “You said you’d let me go,” I said, my mouth dry.

Khazad looked down at me and I held my breath. His eyes were opaque, dark. Up close Khazad smelt of dust and death, the scent of old bones. I felt the thoughts running through his head, saw the futures shift.
Come on, Khazad
, I prayed silently.
Be a typical Dark mage. Play with your food
.

“Go on,” Khazad said, and stepped back.

Slowly I picked myself up. My head spun, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall. My body ached all down my right side where I’d been thrown against the pillar, and my head was pounding. When my vision cleared, Khazad was still watching. I limped away.

Khazad let me get almost to the end of the hall. “Oh, Verus?”

I stopped and turned. Khazad was standing there, smiling. The hallway was quiet.

As Khazad lifted his arm to cast the spell that would kill me, I made a small gesture with the fingers of my right hand, the same one Onyx had made.

Black lightning surged from the bracelet on Khazad’s wrist, crackling over his body, and the spell he’d been about to throw dissolved. Shock flashed across his face, followed by agony. He hit the floor with a scream.

“Did you know death bracelets work on a signal?” I said to Khazad. The bracelet was still discharging, pouring out
lethal energy as Khazad writhed and screamed. I walked back towards Khazad and stopped, my voice absent. “They’re old magic, these things. Not many people study them anymore. If you understand how they work, you can change the signal. Make it respond to your command, instead of someone else’s.”

Khazad’s head snapped up. He glared at me, but all he could do was twist in agony as the negative energy crackled into his body, his limbs, his heart. “You—” he managed to gasp. “You—”

I looked down at Khazad without expression. “I warned you. At the ball. I gave you a chance. But you could never believe it, could you? That someone like me could ever be a threat to someone like you.” I paused. “Tobruk was the same, you know. Right to the end.”

Khazad couldn’t speak anymore, but he stared hate at me even as he clawed at the stone. I looked down and I watched the black lightning play over his body, and I waited for him to die.

I didn’t wait long.

W
hen Starbreeze arrived, I was slumped against one of the pillars. Starbreeze whisked in and hovered over Khazad’s body, looking down with wrinkled nose. She was in her elfin form, short stickingup hair and skinny arms. “Dead man,” she announced.

“Dead man,” I agreed. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my muscles. “Starbreeze, I need to get to the heart of this place. The centre. Can you take me there?”

“Middle?” Starbreeze said in interest.

“Middle.”

“Middle!” Starbreeze swept around me and turned my body to air. I had one last glimpse of Khazad’s corpse, then Starbreeze whisked me forward, through the gaps in the stonework, carrying me the last stretch of the way.

T
he heart of the facility was a huge circular room. Columns rose around the edge, supporting a high domed roof. There were inscriptions of some kind on the walls, but the light was too dim to make them out clearly. On the columns were magelights, weak and widely spaced, leaving the room just bright enough to see in, yet dark enough to cast shadows. The middle of the room was bare except for a dais at the exact centre. Upon the dais was a pedestal. Two figures stood before it.

Starbreeze set me down behind one of the columns, hidden in the darkness. As I scanned the area I felt other presences. We weren’t alone.

“Alex,” Starbreeze whispered.

“I know,” I said quietly. I peered around the column. Griff and Luna were on the dais at the centre, just visible in the gloom. Luna was standing stiffly upright, as if she were being held, and Griff was close. Too close. There was a small cage of force over the pedestal’s surface, and something was inside it.

“Men,” Starbreeze whispered.

“I know,” I said again. Griff and Luna weren’t the only ones here. I could sense three more: two hiding in the columns to the left, and one opposite. A moment later, I knew who they were. Cinder and Rachel to the left, and Onyx up ahead. From where they were standing, they could see Griff and Luna, but they couldn’t see each other.

“Three more,” I whispered to Starbreeze.

Starbreeze shook her head vigourously. “No!”

“What?”

“Another.” Starbreeze pointed towards the ceiling.

I looked up and saw nothing. I scanned the area and again found nothing…and then had a sinking feeling as I realised who it was. “Oh. Right. Her.”

“She’s wrong.”

“You can feel her?”

Starbreeze shivered.
“Wrong.”
She swept in a tight circle, looking distressed. I looked into the futures in which I moved forward towards the dais, getting a closer look.

The pedestal on the dais was three feet high, and resting on it was a plain, slim, ivory-coloured wand. A cube of unbreakable force topped the pedestal, just barely visible against the darkness. A moment later, I saw why Griff hadn’t opened it. On the rim of the pedestal, just outside the force barrier, were square holders exactly the right size and shape to place Luna’s cube into, just like the one at the entrance. Three of them.

Griff was up on the dais. He was holding Luna’s arm twisted up behind her back, forcing her onto tiptoes. “Think harder,” he was saying.

“I don’t know!”

I focused on Griff with my mage’s sight and saw that the silvery mist of Luna’s curse was crammed in so brightly around him that he looked like a searchlight, the glow so intense that it actually made it hard to see. I’d never seen the curse so concentrated, and more and more was pouring in. Griff twisted Luna’s arm a little higher, and she gasped; the silvery mist flowing from her into Griff seemed to intensify. “Think harder,” Griff said again.

“I don’t
know
!” Luna’s voice was high, laced with pain. “How could I know? I’ve never been here!”

Griff pushed Luna sprawling to the floor. He lifted a hand, and pale brown energy glowed. The stone of the dais flowed and reshaped itself into chains, locking around Luna’s ankles and binding her to the foot of the pedestal. “Well, then,” he said calmly. “We’ve got a problem.”

I snapped back to the present. “I’m going to get her.”

Starbreeze looked upset. “No!”

I shook my head. “Let’s go,” Starbreeze urged. “Away.”

“Griff’s going to kill her.”

Starbreeze shrugged.

“You don’t care. I know.” I looked at Starbreeze. “But I do. I need you to send a message. Whispering wind.”

“Who?”

“Cinder and Rachel. The two over there.” I pointed, then leant close and whispered into Starbreeze’s ear.
“Cinder, Deleo. It’s Alex Verus. Onyx is waiting in ambush behind the column at the north side of the chamber, ten pillars to the left of where you are now. He’s expecting you to come from the middle.”

There was a moment’s silence as Starbreeze carried the message, then a whisper floated back.
“Verus, you bastard! How the hell are you still alive?”

I smiled.
“Hi, Cinder. Before you ask, we’ve still got a common enemy.”

“You think we owe you anything?”

I didn’t reply. After a second, I heard Rachel’s voice through the whispering wind.
“Is he moving?”

“No.”

“Tell us if he does.”

Then silence. Starbreeze looked at me. “Gone.”

I nodded and started to plan my course.

“Alex!”

I turned to see Starbreeze floating in the air, gazing at me imploringly. She looked miserable, and even with everything else, I felt a sudden stab of pity. Starbreeze is a creature of whim and freedom and ever-changing movement. Violence isn’t in her nature. She was lost here, out of her depth, and I knew her instincts were telling her to flee. One word and she’d take me with her.

“Sorry, Starbreeze,” I told her. “I can’t run this time.” I pulled up the hood of my mist cloak and disappeared into the shadows.

As I circled the room, I reached out with all my senses, keeping tabs on the other mages. Onyx was watching and waiting, a spider in his web. Rachel and Cinder were creeping around towards him, and as far as I could tell Onyx hadn’t spotted them. I knew I wouldn’t see Thirteen until she struck, so I didn’t waste time worrying about her. Most of my attention was focused on Luna and Griff. Once I’d circled far enough I stepped into the open, trusting to my mist cloak and my magic to keep me unseen.

I could make out the outline of the fateweaver through the barrier, and for the first time in days, I was calm. All my decisions were made. I would take the fateweaver and use it. If I succeeded, Luna and I would live. If I failed, both of us would die. As I walked softly forward, I wondered if Abithriax was watching us, pieces on the chessboard all fighting for the same prize.

My circling had taken me behind Griff, and as I crept across the open stone I could see that he was focused on Luna. “Put the cube in,” he ordered.

“I don’t know which!”

There was the thud of a blow landing, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I heard Luna gasp. “Figure it out,” Griff said.