Burned (25 page)

‘First question,’ Helikaon said. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’

‘So I’m guessing you know about the Council resolution.’

‘I might live on rocks, but I don’t hide under them.’ Helikaon looked at me with eyebrows raised. ‘Well?’

‘I’m trying to get the resolution overturned.’

‘You’re going a bloody stupid way about it,’ Helikaon said. ‘Hanging around with a bunch of Keepers? How long before one of them tries to put a knife in your back?’

‘How much did Alaundo tell you?’

‘Enough to make it clear you’ve outstayed your welcome. What was the first thing I taught you about fights?’

‘Not to be there when they happened,’ I said with a sigh. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘No. It’s not.’ Helikaon pointed at me. ‘Get out of here. Right now. You can send your apologies later. Don’t stop until you’ve put a few countries between you and everyone else.’

‘I can’t leave, not yet. I’ve got people that are depending on me.’

‘This is about that girl, isn’t it? Your apprentice?’

‘She’s scheduled to take her journeyman test on Friday,’ I said. ‘The resolution doesn’t come due until Saturday. If I still haven’t managed to sort anything out by then … then maybe I’ll be going with your plan.’

‘And what makes you think you’ll be free to leave?’ Helikaon said. ‘What happens if the Keepers decide to pick you up Thursday night and hold you a couple of days for questioning? Forty-eight hours in a cell and oops, isn’t that funny, looks like now all of a sudden you’re guilty of something else. You think that hasn’t occurred to them? You think they’re stupid?’

I was silent. ‘Listen, Alex,’ Helikaon said. ‘This operation doesn’t matter.’

‘If it doesn’t matter, why are you helping them?’

‘You think I’m taking a trip to Syria?’ Helikaon snorted. ‘World travelling’s for the youngsters. I’m staying back here with Alaundo. Bit of path-walking and we can tell them what they need to know without ever leaving the building. That’s the smart way to do things. And if things go wrong, turns out your old master has brought along a bit too much for the Council to deal with … well, that’s what the Keepers are paid for. Let ’em deal with it.’

‘Do the Keepers know that’s your attitude?’

‘Stop trying to change the subject. I’m not going in on the ground because it doesn’t matter who gets this relic. Doesn’t matter if the Council gets it, doesn’t matter if Drakh gets it. I don’t risk my life for them. You shouldn’t either.’

‘I’m not doing it for the Council.’

‘Doesn’t matter who you’re doing it for.’ Helikaon pointed at me. ‘You remember what I told you, back when you first came to me? When you asked me whose side I was on?’

‘You said you weren’t on anyone’s side,’ I said. It had been one of my first memories of Helikaon, and it had left an impression. ‘You said that someone’s always going to be in charge, and that it didn’t matter if they were Light or Dark, they’d still need diviners.’

‘Because the only guy who wins in a war is the one selling the bullets.’ Helikaon shook his head. ‘I told you back in that business with the fateweaver. Don’t get involved. You didn’t listen. You’ve been getting deeper and deeper.’

‘If you’re going to tell me to stop it, that’s not really an option right now.’

‘Too late for that. It’s time to cut and run.’

‘And Luna?’ I said. ‘The others who are in the firing line? What about them?’

‘Cut ’em loose.’

I looked at Helikaon. He met my gaze without blinking, his eyes flat and hard. ‘Last call, Alex,’ Helikaon said. ‘Warning lights are on and the needle’s in the red. Are you going down with the ship, or not?’

I was silent for a little while. I didn’t want to risk alienating Helikaon … but at the end of the day, I already knew what the answer was going to be. I’d been walking a different path from him for a long time. ‘If I have to run, then I’ll run,’ I said at last. ‘But I’m not abandoning my friends.’

Helikaon looked back at me for a long moment, then got to his feet and walked out of the room.

I watched the door close. I could tell from looking into the futures that Helikaon wasn’t coming back, and I wondered if he ever would. I had the feeling that the answer might be no.

Most people in the world don’t travel much. In a lot of cases it’s because they just don’t want to. Either they don’t have any real interest in seeing other places, or they’re too occupied with the life they’re living already. But for a lot of people, it’s not a case of not wanting to, it’s that they can’t – either they don’t have the time or the money, or there’s something actively preventing them from leaving. When you’re in that second group, you usually have fantasies about getting to travel and see the world, visiting different cultures and having new experiences. There are people who spend their whole lives dreaming about journeys overseas.

So it’s really kind of sad that once you finally do get to spend a lot of time travelling, you tend not to appreciate it very much. Take me, for instance. I’ve visited more countries of the world than I can easily remember. I’ve even visited places
not
in this world, from bubble realms to shadow realms to the dreamscapes of Elsewhere. I’ve stood upon the tops of towers and looked out over castles the size of cities, walked through ancient forests where the trees have passed hundreds of years without hearing a human footstep, seen impossible alien landscapes that could never exist on Earth. Unfortunately, in pretty much every one of those cases, I’ve generally had more pressing concerns to worry about – either there are people trying to kill me, or people who might want to kill me, or things that aren’t people that might want to kill me, or people or things that don’t necessarily want to kill me but nevertheless are important enough that it’s highly advisable for me to pay attention to them instead of spending my time sightseeing. Usually the place I’m visiting becomes a blur, a few brief images standing out in my memory while I spend my time dealing with various threats and problems. And by the time they’re all sorted out, it’s time to move on.

A prime example was the location I was at now. Aleppo is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and it’s famous for its historical heritage. It used to form one end of the ancient Silk Road, and it’s been ruled over the centuries by Romans, Byzantines, Mameluks, Ottomans and just about everyone else who had an empire in the area. Each of them left behind their own architectural legacy, and the Old City is supposed to be fascinating. It would have been nice to wander around and see the sights.

Right now I was not wandering around and seeing the sights for three reasons. First, it was dark. Second, the city was in the middle of a civil war. And third, I was supposed to be conducting surveillance on the inhabitants of the building across the street. Which was why, instead of enjoying the experiences of travel and new cultures, I was crouched on a dusty rooftop, hiding behind a parapet, shivering in the cold and trying to make sure that no one on the other side could see me, since from looking into the futures I already knew that they had assault rifles and were following a policy of shooting first and asking questions later.

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t an especially unusual night for me. Sometimes I really question my life choices.

‘You know,’ I said quietly, my voice just loud enough to carry to where Caldera was lying by my side, ‘this is a pretty crappy way to spend Christmas Eve.’

‘Get used to it,’ Caldera whispered back, not taking her eyes off the building ahead. ‘You got a count?’

‘Can’t get close enough,’ I whispered back. The street was a wide one, and the wind was blowing towards us, so there wasn’t much chance of being overheard, but I kept my voice down all the same. ‘At least twenty.’ It could be more; any of the futures in which I tried to move closer devolved into shooting, and once that happened my future selves didn’t really have the time to get an exact count.

‘Whose side are they on?’

‘Don’t know, don’t care.’ The men in the opposite building could be rebels, or Islamic State, or heavily armed tourists for all I knew. ‘Whoever they are, they’re not friendly.’

A chill wind blew across the rooftop. The building we were on looked as though it had been a coffee house once, before the war. Some sort of explosive had demolished the rear half and left it in ruins. Caldera was silent and I could tell something was bothering her. ‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered.

‘What are they doing here?’ Caldera whispered.

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t like it either.’ Yes, this was a war zone, but it was far too much of a coincidence that these guys had just happened to set up shop in the one building in Aleppo that we had to visit. Especially since they were obviously on the alert.

‘You think Drakh’s in there?’ Caldera whispered.

‘I can’t sense any magic.’

‘Me neither, but they could be staying dark.’ Caldera looked at me. ‘Drakh and his mages hole up in the basement, use those guys as a screen?’

‘Maybe,’ I said doubtfully. It didn’t feel right to me.

Caldera looked up, frowning, then put one hand to her ear. ‘Received, on our way,’ she murmured. ‘Out.’ She looked at me. ‘Captain wants us back.’

We crept back and down to the first floor. Four men were waiting for us in the ruined remains of a bedroom: Captain Elandis, another Keeper I didn’t know and a pair of Council security men. ‘Verus,’ Elandis said. He was tall and thin, with aristocratic looks and a faded scar on one cheek. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Twenty at least, maybe more,’ I said. ‘Can’t tell which faction they’re with, but they’re not friendly.’

‘We’ve already got a count,’ Elandis said. ‘And they’re Islamic State, incidentally. What I want to know is defences. Traps, wards, anything that’s a risk.’

‘I can’t see any,’ I said. ‘Guns, yes, but they don’t seem to have any magical protections at all.’

‘Mines or explosives?’

‘Just a few grenades.’

Elandis nodded. ‘Get back to your positions. I want to know if anything changes.’ We returned to our positions on the rooftop and waited.

Time passed. The rooftop kept getting colder, and I had to rub my arms to keep myself warm, staying behind the parapet to make sure I wasn’t seen. Once we heard a distant burst of gunfire from somewhere off to the east, but it soon died away. There was little movement from the rooftop opposite. In the movies, war zones are filled with shouts and dramatic charges, but a real battlefield just looks empty, to the point where, if you don’t know what to look for, you probably won’t notice that it’s a battlefield at all. Everyone with any brains is behind cover with their head down. I could just make out the two shapes on the rooftop across from us, but only because I had my divination to help. Occasionally one of them would shift position, the movement almost invisible in the darkness.

‘How long to our window?’ I whispered.

‘T minus thirty-five,’ Caldera whispered.

‘This is wrong,’ I whispered. ‘Why aren’t we seeing anything?’

‘You think Drakh isn’t there yet?’ Caldera whispered. ‘Going to gate in last minute?’

‘That makes no sense. He
has
to secure the place first.’

‘So maybe he’s there already after all.’

Then why aren’t there any wards?
I didn’t like this. We were missing something.

Caldera looked up, listening to something I couldn’t hear. ‘Elandis gave the order,’ Caldera whispered. ‘They’re going in.’

I nodded.

A minute passed, then two. Something flickered on my senses. ‘Feel that?’ Caldera whispered.

‘Gate magic,’ I murmured. A moment later it came again. It was followed by other spells: air and water, and some kind of living magic that was hard to pin down. It was coming from the building opposite. More spells, complex and quick. I couldn’t hear anything or see anything, but I knew that something was happening.

The shapes of the two rooftop guards hadn’t moved. They were still sitting up on that rooftop, quiet and still. Then as I watched, a cloud of darkness seemed to swallow one of them. I saw the second one turn his head, there was a scrape of movement, then something rolled over him too fast to see and he vanished.

‘What the hell was that?’ I said quietly. The rooftop was still again, and empty. If I hadn’t been watching closely I never would have noticed anything.

‘Shh,’ Caldera said.

Minutes ticked by. There was still no sound, but I could sense magic. Gradually the feeling of the spells being used changed: less like combat magic, more like defence and utility. They weren’t fighting any more – they were digging in.

Caldera cocked her head, listening, then looked at me. ‘We can go in.’

We went down the stairs and crossed the street, picking our way between the burned-out cars. By the time we reached our target building’s front door, it was being guarded by two Council security with sub-machine guns. They let us through without comment.

Inside was a hive of activity. Council security were everywhere, setting up defence posts and clearing lines of fire, while Keepers worked on defensive wards. Scattered around on the floor were bodies, and a Council security man was going around picking up their dropped weapons. There was one just by the door, and I took a look as we passed. He’d been killed by a single bullet to the back of the head. The safety catch on his rifle was still on.

Rain met us by what had once been a shopping counter. ‘Verus, get down to the basement and start checking at the entry point. Caldera, go with him.’

‘You don’t need me up here?’ Caldera asked.

‘Securing the area is the perimeter team’s job,’ Rain said. ‘Getting the relic is ours.’

Caldera shrugged and obeyed. We headed for the staircase, and I saw a blue-green flash that made me turn my head. A Keeper was going around the room, cleaning up the bodies. As I watched, he reached the corpse by the door that I’d noticed earlier. He pointed a hand downwards, there was another blue-green flash, and the body puffed into dust. I turned away.

The basement was dark and cold, and hadn’t been used in a long time. Broken barrels were lined against the far wall, and a thick layer of dust covered the floor. Someone had thought to come down and set up an electric light with a portable generator, and its hum was the only sound in the gloom.