I checked the futures, and checked again. No attacks. I couldn’t see any trace of danger, not even if I walked out into the open and waved my arms. The only movement I could see was … phone calls? ‘This is getting ridiculous,’ I muttered under my breath, and pulled out my phone to dial Barrayar’s number again.
It rang and kept on ringing. My irritation rose. It was bad enough that the guy was going to murder me; he could at least have the courtesy to be punctual about it. Still Barrayar didn’t answer, and I wondered what he was doing. Maybe he’d spotted the mines? But then why hold back the snipers …?
Barrayar picked up with a click, and I didn’t hide the annoyance in my voice. ‘Can we hurry this up?’
‘I suppose you think you’re very clever.’
‘Apparently not enough. Are we going to get this started?’
‘Please don’t play stupid.’
I paused. There was something wrong with Barrayar’s voice. Before he had been calm, relaxed. Now all of a sudden his tone was cold. He was … angry? Angry about what? ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Do you really expect me to believe that you knew nothing about this?’ Barrayar said. ‘Or that the timing was a coincidence?’
‘What is going on with you?’
‘I suppose I should have expected it,’ Barrayar said. ‘Congratulations, Verus. You have your victory. I wonder how much you’ll have to pay for it.’ There was a click and the line went dead.
I stared at the phone, then looked out into the darkness. The men who had been moving to surround the building were gone. Looking into the futures in which I left the building, I couldn’t sense any contact. I was alone.
I waited there for over an hour, searching the futures. Barrayar didn’t come back and neither did the Keepers. Inside me, hope warred with fear: I was alive, but I was afraid to believe I was safe. It had to be some sort of trick. As the minutes crept by, I started to shiver. The January air was icy cold and I was still wearing the thin clothes I’d been using in Nigeria.
It was almost 3 a.m. when my phone rang. I pulled it out, vaguely recognised the number and answered. ‘Landis,’ I said. ‘Long time.’
‘At least you’re alive to answer the phone,’ Landis said. Despite the hour, he sounded alert. ‘Now perhaps you can explain to me just what on God’s green earth is going on here. I’m woken up in the middle of the night by Variam, who tells me that he’s been woken up in the middle of the night by Anne, who has a garbled story about bombs and blackmail and that you’re planning to commit suicide by immolating yourself somewhere down in the East End. Since you’re talking to me, I’m going to take a wild leap into the unknown and speculate that you haven’t emulated our lord and saviour by returning from the dead.’
‘Not so much.’
‘Good. So what the devil is happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said wearily. To the west, a truck rumbled along the raised A-road, the concrete pillars vibrating in the night.
‘Not the best time and place to be under the veil of ignorance and all that. You do know that the Keepers still have an open warrant on you?’
‘It’s not the Keepers I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘Barrayar’s men just had me, but then they pulled back. Can you find out what’s going on? I’m spinning in the dark.’
‘You don’t ask much, do you?’ Landis sighed. ‘All right, all right. I suppose it can’t hurt to check. But don’t expect quick answers.’ He hung up.
I kept waiting, and kept shivering. I wanted to leave this place, but I was afraid of what would happen if I did. My fingers were starting to tremble when Landis rang back.
‘Thought you said no quick answers,’ I said. I had to work to keep my teeth from chattering.
‘It seems a few things have changed.’
Something about Landis’s voice made me sit up and pay attention. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re now a Council Keeper.’ Landis’s tone was … neutral. All of a sudden, somehow, I had the feeling he was studying me. ‘Of the Order of the Star. There was quite a commotion in the office. It seems the documentation was brought in just a couple of hours ago.’
I stood very still, staring into the darkness. ‘What?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘I … No. How?’
‘You’ve been appointed as Light Council liaison to the Keepers. Turns out the position grants Keeper status. They had to look it up to make sure that was really how it worked.’
I looked at the phone. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘Verus? Are you there?’
‘…Yeah.’ I tried to process what had just happened. ‘I’m a Keeper?’
‘And as such, you’re a recognised Light mage. Which also means that you have the right to a full trial before any judgement can be passed upon you. Until that happens, the resolution delivering your death sentence is suspended. So, on the positive side, I’m not obliged to go execute you, which frankly I think is an improvement on the existing state of affairs.’
Landis’s earlier words caught up with me. A couple of hours. That was the call that had stopped Barrayar. ‘Well then,’ Landis said. ‘Since the excitement appears to be over, I think I’ll bid you goodnight.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘How did this happen? Was there a resolution?’
‘No resolution,’ Landis said. ‘Just an appointment. By one specific Council member.’
‘Who …?’ I stopped.
‘Yes,’ Landis said. ‘Your old friend Councillor Morden. Apparently you’re now his personal liaison.’ Landis paused. ‘Welcome to the club.’ He hung up.
I stood very still, the phone still held to my ear. I stayed there a long time, the cold seeping into my body, alone in the ruined building.
17
I’d planned for all the different ways I could die that night. I hadn’t planned on staying alive. Now that I’d been left alone, I didn’t know what to do. The after-effects of adrenaline shock had set in, and I was shivering and exhausted. I used the gate stone to travel back to the hotel room in Melbourne, wondering if Anne would be there. She wasn’t, but the bed was. I collapsed and was asleep in seconds.
I woke up to find that the sun had set. My body clock was out of sync and I felt disorientated, out of place. I lay awake in the room for more than an hour, listening to the city and feeling the warm breeze through the blinds. Eventually I got up and emptied out my dwindling supply of gate stones on to the bed, then stared down at them for a long time, trying to figure out where to go. In the end I picked out the one for my safe house in Wales. It seemed as good a choice as any other.
I gated back into a cold winter’s day. The weather was overcast but dry, and thick masses of cloud drifted overhead, their undersides forming a pattern of light and dark. My house had been damaged, but not seriously – the lock had been broken and the rooms inside had been searched, clothes and food thrown out of cupboards and left scattered on the floor, but the walls and windows were intact. I spent an hour or so clearing up, then sat down at the kitchen table to wait.
It was about two o’clock when the futures steadied enough for me to be sure when my visitor would arrive. I left by the front entrance, drawing the broken door closed behind me, and stood by the garden wall. The brambles growing around the leafless trees were denser than they had been last year, and were starting to encroach upon the front lawn. From off to the right, the rush of the small river blended with the sound of the wind, and the green hills looked down upon the valley from either side. I waited.