Veiled (22 page)

“And you claimed to be a mercenary. Perhaps it would prevent further miscommunications if you were more honest about your motivations.”

“Okay then. I don't like you, I don't trust you, and I'm not helping you expand your political empire. Is that enough honesty?”

“And how does your old master factor into your calculations?”

My voice sharpened. “I don't see how that's anything to do with you.”

“I assume you at least know that Morden and Drakh are working together?” I didn't answer, but after a moment Levistus went on as if I'd agreed. “Should White Rose fall, the greatest beneficiary will not be Morden. It will be your old master. Whatever his long-term plans, it appears they involve placing Morden on the Council.” Levistus raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you still serve him after all?”

“Go screw yourself.”

Levistus watched me with an expression of polite inquiry. I drew a long breath and let it out, controlling myself.
Stupid. He's provoking me.
“I'm not responsible for what Richard does.”

“You are Drakh's apprentice.”

There was something in those words that was hard to describe. There was a kind of finality to it, as though Levistus were telling me something self-evident and timeless. Wind blows, fire consumes, I was Richard's apprentice, so it was and so it would always be. “I am who I choose to be.”

“The steel does not choose to be made into a knife.”

“I'm not your knife, or his.”

“Then who are you, Alexander Verus?” Levistus asked. “What do you stand for? Whom do you serve?”

“You don't have the right to demand answers to those questions.”

“Evasions. You have nothing upon which to stand. You do not understand yourself, and thus you are easily manipulated. Have you any conception of how far back your master has chosen your steps, shaped your path? You follow in his footsteps without the slightest understanding of how thoroughly you are controlled.”

I felt a twinge of fear at that. I had no way of knowing how much Levistus knew, or whether he was simply guessing, but what he was saying was too close to the things I secretly feared.
If you can't defend, attack.
“Fine,” I said. “Then what do
you
stand for, Levistus? You tried to have me killed, not once but over and over again. If I hadn't stopped you, you would have had Luna and Arachne killed too. You wouldn't have done it because you'd judged them
as unworthy. You wouldn't even have done it because you particularly wanted them dead. They were just in your way. You ordered their deaths with no more concern than you'd have for checking your bank balance. You're talking as though you think I'm going to take your opinions seriously. What can you
possibly
say that can outweigh everything you've done? Why should I listen to you?”

“Because you are involved in matters beyond your control,” Levistus said. “You no longer have the option of distancing yourself. Even should you abandon your position in the Keepers and go back to your isolation, it would only buy you a little time. You know that the confrontation will arrive. When it comes, on whose side will you stand?”

“I'm not on anyone's side.”

Levistus made a disgusted noise. “Do not play the fool. If you hinder me, you help Drakh. If you fight against your old master, you assist me. This is elementary common sense.”

“Is that how you justify what you do?” I asked. “Everything for the sake of victory?”

“The Council has maintained stability in this world for thousands of years,” Levistus said. “Without us, the Dark mages and the monsters would have torn human civilisation apart millennia ago. Is that what you hope to accomplish?”

“And when Griff tortured Luna to get to the fateweaver? When Belthas tried to Harvest Arachne for her power? That was all for the greater good, was it? Don't give me that bullshit.”

“Power will fall into someone's hands. Would you prefer that mages such as Drakh or Morden had it instead?”

“Don't dodge the question. How do you justify trying to kill me and my friends?”

“Agents are expendable,” Levistus said. Those odd colourless eyes rested on me with no particular expression. “In the sufficiently long term,
everyone
is expendable.”

“Including you?”

Levistus shrugged. It was an indifferent movement, and in an odd flash of insight I understood something about
Levistus that I hadn't realised before. Levistus
wasn't
doing this for himself, not really. He might act out of self-interest, but at some level he did genuinely believe that by keeping himself in power, he was making the world around him a better place.

It was a worrying thought. Someone who's amoral and selfish can be a threat to you, but they're also a threat to everyone
else
, and that tends to limit how much time they can spend on you personally. But someone who believes in what he's doing can convince other people that opposing you is the right thing to do. In the long run, that's a lot more dangerous. “Enough philosophy,” I said. “What do you want?”

“The conflict between us has grown unproductive,” Levistus said. “I am willing to consider a truce.”

I studied Levistus. “In other words, you've got enough on your plate with Morden that you don't have the time to keep going after me as well.”

“As I understand it, you have been making your own preparations for your old master's return,” Levistus said. “I'm sure you have already calculated your chances of survival should you fight me and him at the same time. You would be wise to limit your enemies.”

“I thought you said that Richard was controlling everything I did.” I tilted my head, looking at Levistus curiously. “If I'm so much his servant, why would he be coming after me?”

“As I said—everyone is expendable.”

“Including your allies.” I tapped two fingers on my arm. “If all you wanted was a truce, all you needed to do was stop going after me. That means you want more.”

“As a part of our agreement,” Levistus said, “you will cease working against my interests. This means you will take no action against White Rose.”

I'd carried on tapping my fingers; as Levistus spoke I stopped for a second, then continued. “You realise I'm working for the Keepers now,” I said. I kept my voice casual. “I'm supposed to do what they tell me.”

“The Keepers serve the Council. They do not all serve the same Council.”

“Did it ever occur to you that this kind of corruption might be exactly why the Council has so much trouble effectively opposing Dark mages in the first place?”

“I am not here to engage you in a debate,” Levistus said. “Well?”

“You know,” I said, “I can't help noticing that this deal seems a little uneven. You started all this by telling me to work for you or else. When I took the ‘or else,' you tried to have me killed. Now you're offering to
stop
trying to have me killed, and in exchange I'm supposed to commit treason yet again. Bit slanted in your favour, don't you think?”

“It is the offer you have.”

“I'll make you a counteroffer,” I said. “I'll go back to the Keepers and do my job. You go back to the Council and do your job. We both ignore each other.”

“Please tell me you are not truly this stupid.”

“You know something, Levistus?” I said. “I'm getting a little tired of your backhanded insults. You talk like you're the gatekeeper of civilisation and I'm the barbarian. It's irritating.”

“Your irritation does not concern me,” Levistus said. “And your counteroffer is noted and rejected. My terms stand. Do you accept them, or reject them?”

“Your ‘terms' are a glorified threat. Either I do what you want, or you'll keep on being my enemy. You don't have anything to offer me.”

“Correct. I will ask one final time. What is your answer?”

I looked at Levistus for a long moment. I could lie, obviously. Pretend to agree, then work against him. But I seriously doubted that Levistus was going to act any differently whether I told him yes or no. As far as he was concerned, I was just another Dark mage.

Just another mage . . .

“What happened to Leo?” I said.

Levistus blinked. It was a very small motion, there and gone in a second, but he didn't manage to conceal it. For the first time in the conversation, I'd surprised him. “Who?”

“The kid Caldera and I found last night.” I kept my voice
calm. “The mages who sent the mantis golem took him. What happened to him?”

“I don't see how that's relevant.”

I looked back at Levistus for a long moment. “No,” I said at last. “I suppose you wouldn't.”

“Well?”

“The answer's no,” I said. “I'm not going to be your agent to protect White Rose. In fact, I'm not working for you in any capacity. I don't like you, Levistus. I've told you that twice already, and I don't think you've really listened, so I'll explain more thoroughly this time. I don't like how you act, I don't like what you do, and I don't like what you stand for. You represent everything I most hate about the Council. You have no respect for human life, you deal constantly in betrayals, and yet somehow you also manage at the same time to be completely convinced of your moral superiority over everyone who isn't a Light mage. Maybe you
are
Morden and Richard's enemy, and maybe helping one of you does mean hurting the other. But there's a certain point where trying to choose the lesser of two evils is just an exercise in futility. It doesn't matter which of you wins; you're both so bad that I honestly can't decide who'd be worse. Working for you would be just as corrupting as being Richard's apprentice, even if I trusted you enough to do it, which I don't.” I looked up at Levistus. “Does that explain it well enough for you?”

Levistus looked back at me for a second. “You disappoint me.”

“Not halfway close to how disappointed I am in you. When I was a kid, I read stories where the white wizards were all good and moral. Do you have any idea how depressing it was to find out what the Light Council was really like?”

“Enough.”

Levistus didn't speak loudly, but there was something in his tone that made me fall silent. When I didn't speak for a few seconds, he went on. “You appear to be under the illusion that you have some level of choice. That this is an option that you are free to take or leave.” He regarded me steadily.
“You claim that I have been your enemy. This is false. You are, at most, an inconvenience. Should you continue to work against me, that will change. For the first time, I will devote significant resources to your removal. I will not do so out of any personal grudge. I will do so because, as an active tool of Morden and of Drakh, you are a sufficient threat to warrant it.” Levistus's voice was quite normal, and he looked at me steadily as he continued to speak. “You will be placed under siege. Your allies will be driven away or killed. Your bases of operation will be attacked. The process will not necessarily be swift. It is possible you will survive for months or even years. However, given enough time, the end is inevitable. You will be destroyed. And when you fall, there will be no one left to mourn your passing.”

I looked back at Levistus, and as I saw the expression on his face I felt a chill. It wasn't so much the threat. I've been threatened plenty of times by mages, often in quite graphic and unpleasant ways. This was something different. I think what scared me the most was the matter-of-fact tone of voice. Levistus didn't think he was bluffing. He had absolutely no doubt that he could do what he promised, and it shook me more than I'd really expected. For the first time I had a real, almost tangible sense of just how dangerous the man standing in front of me was.

I didn't have an answer. Levistus turned and walked away. His footsteps echoed and faded into the background noise of the corridors, and I was left sitting alone by the pool. I looked down at the fish swimming in the water and wondered what I was going to do.

A few minutes later I heard footsteps and a woman in mage robes walked through the rock garden. As she saw me she paused. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

She gave me a doubtful look. “Should you be here?”

I took a moment to think about it. “I'm not really sure,” I said at last. I rose to my feet and walked out the way I came.

I
t was a couple of hours later when Haken reappeared on the Belfry floor. He was frowning down at the stone and didn't look up as he made his way over. “How did it go?” I asked.

Haken glanced up. I was sitting in the alcove in exactly the same place I'd been in when he'd left. “What?”

“The indictment.”

“Oh,” Haken dropped onto the bench. “Could have been worse.” He shrugged. “Rain got the worst of it, he's the one in charge. Going to screw up his chances for his next promotion.”

“So what did they want to know?” I asked. “More about the case?”

“No one cares about the case anymore. This whole thing's become about White Rose. That's what the prosecutor was pushing for—they want an indictment against the whole organisation. Centrists aren't going to agree to that but . . .”

“Then what are they going to do?”

“Fuck knows,” Haken said with a sigh. “All I know is
that we'll be the ones the shit lands on. Come on, let's get out of here.”

We got up and started walking out of the Belfry the way we'd arrived. “They kept you in there a long time,” I said.

“Lot of questions.”

“When did they let you out?”

“Look, Verus, you know what ‘closed proceedings' are, right? I'm not supposed to talk to you about this stuff.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

We headed down the tunnels, making the rest of the trip in silence. I didn't say what I was thinking. While I'd been free in the Belfry, I'd kept myself busy by searching through the futures of questioning the other mages there. Most hadn't been talkative but I'd found one clerk who'd been willing to help, and she'd told me (or rather, would have told me) that Haken had gotten out of the indictment proceedings forty-five minutes ago.

I was fairly sure it didn't take forty-five minutes to walk from the judicial chambers to the Belfry. I wondered what Haken had been doing before rejoining me.

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N
ight was falling by the time we made it out onto the city streets. “You're not on the witness list anymore, but you're still on call,” Haken said. “When they make their decision there's a good chance you're going to be called up. Make sure you're ready to move on short notice.”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe. They might move fast on this one.”

I nodded. “Oh, one more thing,” Haken said. “You still have that focus you found at the station?”

“Sure.”

Haken held a hand out. “You'd better hand it in.”

I took a green spherical focus out of my pocket and passed it over. “You're going to drop it off at the station?”

“Yeah. You might as well go home and get some rest. Don't know when we'll get the order to move.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I walked away down the road. The entrance to the War Rooms that we'd used was on a side street, and there wasn't much traffic. Behind me, I could sense Haken taking out his phone to make a call. I turned the first corner, stopped, put my back up against the building, and waited.

Watching through my future selves, I saw Haken talk on his phone for a few minutes. Eventually he hung up, gave a glance in the direction in which I'd disappeared, then turned and went back into the building that led down into the War Rooms.

“That's not the way back to the station, Haken,” I murmured. I waited for a few minutes more just in case he reappeared, then headed for Westminster.

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I
caught the Jubilee line and then the London Overground, alighting at Hampstead Heath. By the time I stepped off the train and walked into the Heath itself, it was night. The sky was overcast, thick clouds blocking out both starlight and moonlight, leaving the Heath pitch-black. A cold wind blew as I walked deeper into the park, whipping at my clothes and filling the night with the sound of rustling leaves. There was no way to see and hardly any way to hear. Most people avoid the Heath on nights like this, and for good reason.

But I'm not most people, and a night like this suits me just fine. With my divination I can navigate in pitch-darkness as though it were broad daylight, and against the vast emptiness of the park, the few wandering people stood out like searchlights. As I strode through the night, the wind gusting through my hair, I felt my spirits rise. The War Rooms had been tense, claustrophobic. Out here, alone in the cold and the blackness, I felt at home.

I didn't hurry making my way to Arachne's cave. When I finally stepped down into the ravine, I took a moment out of the wind, then stepped to the overhanging tree, touched two fingers to a root that was quite invisible in the darkness, and spoke into thin air. “It's me.”

Arachne answered instantly. “Alex! Come right in. Everyone's waiting.”

With a soft rumble the earth parted, revealing a yawning cavern. I stepped through and the earth and roots wove themselves shut behind me.

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A
rachne's cavern felt warm and peaceful compared to the park outside. Globe lights cast a soft glow over the rocky cave, picking out the rainbow colours of the clothes draped over the sofas. Arachne was crouched at the far end. She's a giant spider who looks almost exactly like a blue-and-black tarantula that's been scaled up to ten feet tall, and she's probably the nicest magical creature you'll ever meet, assuming she'd let you in her lair in the first place, which isn't all that likely. Nowadays my little group of friends are all on Arachne's guest list, but it took them a while. Arachne's got her own reasons to be cautious of mages, and it's lucky for me that she isn't the type to judge all by the actions of a few.

And speaking of my friends, they were all there: Luna, waving from a sofa; Variam, leaning back near to her with his arms spread out; Anne, cross-legged in a chair of her own. “Hey, sleepyhead,” Luna said as I walked up to them. “What kept you?”

“Don't even start,” I told her. “However bad you think your day was, mine was worse.”

“Our day wasn't
that
bad,” Anne said.

“Don't tell him that!”

I smiled, then dropped into one of the sofas and shut my eyes with a sigh. I spend so much of my time looking ahead, watching for danger. Arachne's cave is one of only a handful of places where I don't have to do that. Behind the webs and the wards, I'm protected, and for once I can turn off my precognition and just relax. It's good to have somewhere you feel safe, even if it's only for a little while.

“So who wants to go first?” Variam said.

“Oh, go on,” Luna said. “I know you've been itching to tell us.”

“Alex?” Variam said. “You awake?”

“Just a little tired.” I opened my eyes. “I'm listening.”

Variam didn't need any more encouragement. “Okay,” he began. He looked as though he'd just arrived, although he was wearing his street clothes: some masters keep their apprentices to a formal dress code, but Landis isn't one of them. “We got a notice this morning that the Order of the Shield might be getting deployed, so we spent all day getting ready. First thing I did was look up the Order files on White Rose. Apparently the one from White Rose that the Council are thinking about going after is this woman called Vihaela.”

I searched back and remembered what Talisid told me. “The leader of White Rose is a guy called Marannis. Vihaela's his second, right?”

“Kind of,” Variam said. “From what I heard it's Vihaela who mostly runs everything. Some people are saying it looks like she's going to take over. Anyway, she's the one everyone's scared of.”

“And she's a Dark mage, right?” I said. I thought for a second and shook my head. “Don't really know anything about her.”

“I do,” Anne said.

We all looked at her in surprise. “Not in a good way,” Anne said. “When mages want to tell horror stories about life mages, she's one of the names they use.”

“Records have her listed as a death mage,” Variam said.

“They're not as far apart as you'd think.”

“What kind of horror stories?” Luna asked.

“She's a torturer,” Variam said. “The one who breaks down the White Rose slaves before they get handed over to the mind mages. If the reports are true, that was how she got into White Rose in the first place. Apparently even though she pretty much runs the organisation, she still deals with the new slaves herself. It's hard to find out about her because there are hardly any witnesses. Most of the people she gets her hands on never
get away, and the few the Council find are too afraid to talk. Even if they're miles away, they're so terrified of her coming after them that they don't even want to say her name. The only full account we've got is from some girl who used to be one of the brothel slaves. She said that Vihaela ran White Rose on a points system. If you did something to make a customer unhappy, you lost points. At the end of the month, whoever had the lowest points got transferred to her lab. They didn't come back.”

“The stories are that Vihaela's supposed to use them for experiments.” Anne shook her head. “I don't know if they're true. I want to believe that it's just other mages trying to justify being afraid of life mages, but . . .”

“How do you know this stuff?” I said curiously. “Is this common knowledge in the apprentice program, or . . . ?”

“First I've heard of it,” Luna said.

“It's not,” Anne said. She didn't meet our eyes. “I'd rather not talk about it.”

“I'm afraid that Anne's stories aren't exaggerations,” Arachne said. She'd been sitting quietly, working away on a complicated pattern of green and blue thread as she listened; now she spoke, her voice clicking gently. “From what I've heard, if anything, they understate the case.”

“Have the Council tried to do anything about her?” I asked.

“No one'll agree to give evidence against her in court,” Variam said. “Apparently she goes out of her way to hunt down anyone who tries to spread stories.”

“Lovely,” I said. “Well, she sounds absolutely horrific. I really hope I don't run into her.”

“There's more,” Variam said. “She's connected to some high-up people with the Council. Guess whose name comes up linked to her?”

“Please don't say Levistus.”

“Nirvathis.”

“Great,” I muttered.
This just keeps getting better and bet
ter.

“Wasn't he Rayfield's master?” Luna said. “The one who started all this . . . ?”

“Nirvathis does what Levistus tells him,” I said. I frowned. “And Leo was meeting his apprentice at Pudding Mill Lane . . .” It sounded as though it must have been Vihaela who'd sent him there, or someone working for her. Leo had been carrying that little focus . . . What had been on it?

“This is really confusing,” Luna said. “Who's on which side?”

“There aren't just two sides,” I said. “More like four. How did things go with Chalice?”

Luna glanced at Anne, then turned back to me. “Good, I think.”

“I'm guessing there wasn't any trouble.”

Luna shook her head. “Nothing like that. Though . . . I got the feeling she might have known that we'd been preparing for it.”

“Chalice isn't stupid,” I said. Even from our brief meeting, that was something I was sure of. “She knows we've got reasons not to trust her. She'd have expected you to bring backup.”

“I don't think she brought anyone,” Anne said. “Not that I could see.”

“Mm,” I said. “She probably wouldn't need them.”

“Well, we didn't talk long,” Luna said. “It was mostly about chance magic. I was kind of expecting her to quiz me but she acted like she knew all she needed to already.”

“Did she say anything about the case?”

“No. She did ask what I thought about Morden's proposal, though.” Luna shrugged. “I told her that since I wasn't a mage, it didn't matter much to me. She told me not to be so sure.”

“Huh.”
I wonder what she meant by that?

“So?” Luna said. “What about you?”

“Well,” I said. “I spent half the day sitting around in a very nice waiting room, and about half an hour getting very thoroughly threatened by Levistus. He says if I don't play along with what he wants, he's going to destroy me. He also implied he'd do the same to you.”

Luna, Anne, and Variam exchanged looks. “Um,” Luna said. “Details?”

I told them the story.

Once I'd finished, there was a brief silence. “Okay then,” Luna said.

“What do you mean, ‘okay then'?” Variam said. “Fuck that guy.”

“Vari, wait,” Anne said in her soft voice. “We weren't there when you had to deal with this the first time.” She looked between me and Luna. “Can he really do it? Everything he's threatening?”

I hesitated. “Put it this way—I wouldn't like to test it.”

“We beat his assassins before,” Luna said.

“I don't think it's his assassins that we should be worrying about,” I said. “You remember the Nightstalkers? The reason they were left to go after me was because of him. It's that kind of thing I'm really scared of. If he sends an assassin, I can fight them. But if he just gets other Light mages to do the work instead . . . He could probably turn half the Council against me if he really tried.”

“This is so
stupid
,” Luna said. “He's got this fight with Morden. The whole Council is fighting amongst themselves about White Rose and this proposal with the Dark mages. And he decides to go after
you
?”

I didn't answer. What I was really thinking was something so childish that I was embarrassed to say it out loud:
It's not fair.
I already had Richard to worry about. Wasn't one overwhelmingly powerful enemy enough?