“Could say the same of you,” I said. “Although that never seems to change very much.”
“Was that a compliment? Points for trying, but I’m more interested in what you’ve brought me.” Vihaela glided past, apparently forgetting I was there.
Anne stood her ground as Vihaela approached. Most mages won’t come close to a life mage, but if Vihaela was afraid of Anne, nothing in her movements showed it. She came to a stop within arm’s reach of the younger woman, looming so that Anne had to tilt her head up slightly. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Vihaela said, her voice like silk. She reached up to stroke Anne’s cheek.
It’s easy to forget just how fast Anne can move. One moment her arms were by her sides, the next her left hand was clasped around Vihaela’s wrist, halting the older woman’s fingers just short of her face. “Please don’t do that,” Anne said. Her voice was soft and clear.
“Lovely,” Vihaela said. She smiled at Anne. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a very beautiful young woman?”
“A lot of Dark mages have.” Anne held Vihaela’s gaze. “It was never for a reason I liked.”
“So suspicious,” Vihaela murmured. “How strong do you think those spells are?”
“Strong enough.”
Vihaela’s smile widened. “Let’s find out.”
“Anne!” I snapped.
A wall of black energy flashed up, separating me from Anne, and green-black light leapt from Vihaela’s hand into Anne’s arm and down into her body. The spell was one I’d never seen before, malignant and deadly, and the attack was quick as lightning. Most mages would have been overwhelmed in the first second.
But Anne is almost as fast as Vihaela, and my shout had given her a heartbeat’s warning. A barrier of leaf-green light flashed into existence around Anne’s body, holding Vihaela’s magic back. Black tendrils twined and snapped, but that thin, fragile-seeming shield of green held them away.
Vihaela stared down at Anne. She’d twisted her hand around to grasp Anne’s wrist and now leant forward, bearing down on the younger woman. Anne slid back a step, then steadied, and for a moment the two of them were still, the muscles in Anne’s arm straining. Then slowly, gradually, the green light of Anne’s magic began to push Vihaela’s spell back. The green-black snakes receded, fighting every inch of the way. Soft green tendrils twined their way up to Anne’s elbow, then up her forearm. Anne’s eyes gleamed red in the light as she held Vihaela’s gaze. The tendrils of Anne’s magic reached for Vihaela’s fingers, and I saw a flash of surprise on Vihaela’s face, just before her eyes narrowed and black light burst outward.
I stumbled back, shielding my eyes. My skin stung from the energy discharge, and I had a weapon in either hand, but as my eyesight cleared I saw that the fight was over. The wall was gone, as were Vihaela’s spells, and Vihaela was standing three steps back. From beginning to end the whole thing had taken less than ten seconds.
“So Sagash did teach you something,” Vihaela said.
“Stay away from me,” Anne said softly and clearly.
“Touchy, touchy.”
“Vihaela?” I said. I made an effort to make it sound like a suggestion rather than an order. “Maybe it might be a good idea if we left this for another time?”
“Hm?” Vihaela didn’t look at me. “Oh. I suppose.” She looked at Anne for a moment longer, then gave her a smile. “Be seeing you.” She walked past and out through the way we’d entered, both of us swivelling to watch her go. The door clicked shut behind her.
The room was silent. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. “Is she gone?” I asked once I was sure Vihaela was out of earshot.
Anne nodded once.
I resheathed my weapons. In my left hand I’d drawn a dispel focus, a slender silvery wand able to neutralise a single spell. In my right hand I’d drawn my dagger. Neither would have been much use against Vihaela. “You okay?”
Anne didn’t answer for a second and I was about to ask again, but then Anne took a deep breath and seemed to shake it off. When she turned to me she looked normal again, but there was a distant look in her eyes, and I wondered what she and Vihaela had shared in those few seconds. Life mages see the world very differently from other people. “Is she always like that?”
“Only with the people she’s interested in.”
The far door opened and the dama reappeared. It was still wearing that same empty smile, and when I saw what it was going to say, Vihaela went right out of my mind. “Mage Drakh will see you now.”
| | | | | | | | |
Flash back fourteen years.
“. . . on the first floor,” Richard was saying. “Pick an empty bedroom for your own. I believe the other three have already settled in.”
It was the beginning of winter. I was seventeen years old and had just left home, cutting ties with my mother to move into Richard’s mansion. I’d spent most of that first visit staring openmouthed. I’d never seen a house so big. “This place is huge,” I’d said.
“Yes.”
“How much did it cost?”
Richard smiled slightly. With hindsight, I know he was amused. “The value of money in the magical community is somewhat less than it was in your previous life.”
I looked at Richard. “How much do I get?”
“As much as you need, within reason. What would you use it for?”
“What do you mean?”
“There really isn’t much for you to buy. Food will be provided from the kitchen, and there is a selection of clothes and other necessities in the first-floor storeroom. Take what you need. If you need something else, ask Tristana or Zander. Oh, treat them with courtesy, please. I’ve instructed them to follow your orders, but if I discover you’ve harmed them, I’ll be upset.”
“What if I want to go somewhere?”
“Travel expenses?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re in the middle of Wales, Alex,” Richard said. “You can’t exactly flag down a taxi. I suppose you could walk to the nearest bus stop, but it’s several miles of woods and fields and I doubt it would take you anywhere you especially wanted to go.”
“Then how do I get anywhere?”
“Use a gate stone.”
“I don’t know how to use a gate stone.”
“Then I suggest you learn.”
I paused again. Now that I look back on it, I can see that Richard had already started teaching us. Most of his lessons weren’t direct; it was all done by implication. Here’s the playing field, here are the rules. If you want anything more, get it yourself. “Your introduction and first lesson will be in the living room at eight o’clock,” Richard said. “I’ll see you then.”
It was a dismissal, but I didn’t leave. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re giving us all this, and you’re helping us,” I said. “What do you get out of it?”
Richard smiled, and for the first time, he looked genuinely pleased, as though I was beginning to ask the right questions. “Everyone wants to leave something behind.”
I stared at him a moment longer before turning to go.
| | | | | | | | |
The whole memory flashed through my head as I stepped through the door of Richard’s study, there and gone in barely a second. Then it was forgotten as I focused on the man sitting behind the desk.
As far as looks go, Richard Drakh is average in almost every way. He’s neither short nor tall, neither thin nor fat, not particularly handsome or ugly or plain. His hair is medium brown, his eyes don’t draw attention, and he wears an understated suit that doesn’t look especially cheap or expensive. Put him on a London train, and he’d disappear into the crowd without a ripple. In the stories, the greatest Dark mages are always terrifying to look at, tall or striking or monstrous or all three at once. Richard was none of those things—in fact, Vihaela looked the part of a Dark master mage far more than he did. Yet it was Vihaela who obeyed Richard, not the other way around, and Richard struck more fear into me than she ever could. It was Richard who’d recruited me and trained me and taught me to be a Dark mage under his guidance, and it had been Richard who’d watched as I’d fallen from grace and been dragged away by Tobruk to the cells below.