“Was hoping you could tell me.”
“There’s no record of your signet being used to access the top door,” Caldera said. “And when I tried to check the video feed, there’s a problem with the cameras. What are you playing at?”
“Nothing.”
“Is this another one of your stunts where you break into somewhere to show off?”
“No.”
“I’m serious, okay? If you’ve been tampering with the security systems then you need to tell me right the hell now. No one is in a mood to screw around and—”
“I said no,” I said in annoyance. “Go check up on it, since I know that’s what you’re going to do anyway. I only just got in the damn facility.”
Caldera stared at me. “Fine,” she said at last.
I left. The guards buzzed me out, and when I was almost at the exit I turned to look back. Caldera was still staring at me, and as I looked back at her I felt a sudden flash of unease. Those two mages who’d tried to abduct me had as good as admitted that they’d had Keeper help. Just for a moment, I imagined Caldera standing in a security room, arms folded, watching the fight on a TV screen.
I pushed the image away. Caldera might hold a grudge, but she’d always been straight. She wouldn’t betray me like that.
Would she?
I turned and walked into the tunnel, but the unease didn’t go away.
chapter 7
“So what are you going to do?” Anne asked.
It was the next day, and Anne and I were out on the slope of a hill in Wales. Cold winds blew across the hilltop above, but the valley we were in gave us shelter from the worst of the gusts. White clouds were scattered across a blue sky, and from our vantage point we could see the clouds’ shadows below, the high winds sending them gliding across fields and hedges faster than a man could run.
“I spoke to Talisid last night,” I said. “He’s pretty sure that they’re a pair of mages called Lightbringer and Zilean. Officially, they’re aligned with the Guardian and Crusader factions and work as Keeper auxiliaries. Unofficially, they’re part of the Crusaders’ black-ops squad. He didn’t know whether they were involved in what happened to Morden’s last couple of aides, but after yesterday, I think it’s a safe bet that the answer’s yes.”
“But Talisid’s with the Guardians,” Anne said. “Can’t he stop them?”
I shrugged. “I’m not optimistic.”
“But you’re working for him!”
“Which is a secret,” I said. “And if Talisid tells everyone in the Guardians about that, then Morden and Richard will find out about fifteen minutes later, and then what do you think’ll happen?”
We were sitting on a flat-topped granite rock halfway up the hillside. I was wearing a T-shirt, my jumper lying on the grass and sweat cooling on my skin. Anne sat cross-legged on the rock itself. The wind still carried the bite of the Welsh winter, but Anne didn’t seem to feel the cold.
“Are you going to report it to Rain?” Anne asked.
“What’s the point?” I said. “I can’t even get a new desk delivered without the order getting lost in the files. Lightbringer and Zilean will just deny it, the investigation will get bogged down in paperwork, and by the time it finally starts they’ll have had more than long enough to scrub any evidence. And all the time that’s going on, the Crusaders will be busy spinning it as another example of the evil, manipulative Dark mages taking advantage of their position in the Council to make false accusations against honourable Keepers who are just doing their job.”
“So what are you going to do? Just wait for them to try again?”
“That, and keep a better lookout next time.”
Anne let out an angry breath and looked away.
I leant back against the rock. “So how’s your job as a Council healer?”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Anne said. “They won’t let me treat so much as a paper cut.”
“I thought they’d authorised you.”
“Turns out they only certified me for emergency healing, and only if I’m on duty. Except that they’re never short of emergency healers except in a war, so they never have to put me on duty, so they don’t. Ninety-five percent of what they do is physiology adjustments and treatments for basic stuff, and they won’t let me touch that. And do you know the worst part? They won’t let me do anything else either. I tried to start up my clinic again, and they told me I wasn’t allowed! I’m not allowed to do any kind of healing without a licence, which you need to jump through so many hoops to get that it’ll take me a year at least, and that’s if they sign off on it at all. So I just go in every day, and I sit at my desk and do nothing, waiting for someone to call. I was more useful working in the supermarket.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said, and stood. “Okay, I’m ready to go again.”
| | | | | | | | |
I used to think of myself as pretty fit. My magic type means I have to rely on my body more than most mages, and so I’ve got a motive to stay in shape and strong. But when you’ve got a tool as useful as divination, it’s easy to fall into the trap of over-relying on it, and that climb last month had come as a wake-up call.
It all came down to that conversation with Arachne. I needed to be stronger, and while being in shape probably wouldn’t make all that big a difference in the grand scheme of things, it was a good place to start. I was never going to be as strong as Caldera or as tough as Morden, and no reflexes can match the speed of a time mage or an air mage. But I could narrow the edge, and that was what I was trying to do.
With a little help.
I ran a circuit around the hill, following a sheep track through the grass. One third of the way around the hillside the grass broke up into a field of boulders, great hulks of granite half buried in the ground, and I ran up the side of one and started jumping from one to the other, trying not to let my feet touch the grass. The second-last jump was a little farther than I could safely reach and I felt a twinge of pain as my feet slammed into it. I hopped off the last boulder and kept going.
Two thirds of the way around was a ruined stone cottage. Its tiny front porch was the only flat piece of ground on the hillside, and I dropped down to do calisthenics. Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, pull-ups using what was left of the roof, then I went down into a plank, resting on my forearms and toes, keeping my body straight. I held the position as long as I could, my muscles trembling, until at last my arms and abdominals gave out and I collapsed gasping to the ground. I stayed down for a few seconds, catching my breath, then pulled myself up.
My lungs were burning by the time I made it back to Anne. “Thirty seconds faster,” she said, checking her watch. “Did you do fewer sets?”
“No,” I managed to get out, sucking in deep breaths. The cold air felt like an ice pack. “Same.”
Anne hopped off the rock and laid a hand on my chest. Green light glowed, and I felt warmth flowing through me, taking away the pain. The burning in my lungs faded first, followed by the soreness in my muscles, and then all of it was gone and I felt fresh and active and full of energy, as though I could run for miles. I was also starving.
“Looks good,” Anne said. “You had a slight sprain in your knee, by the way.”
“Should I go again?”
“You could, but I think that’s enough for the day.”
“Good,” I said. “Then I’m going to eat everything in that pack.”
I’d brought along a packed lunch, and given my experience with the effects of Anne’s spells, I’d made it big enough for about four people. One chicken wrap, two beef sandwiches, an apple, three bananas, a couple of cereal bars, a mini-cheese, and a salami later, I was feeling human again. “Is this what you feel like all the time?” I asked Anne.