Then what are you going to do? Luna asked. If Vari’s right, then as soon as you leave, you’re getting dropped right back in that storeroom. They’ll all be waiting.
I could camp out in here and wait for them to get bored.
You think that’ll work?
I found the trigger for the door and channelled a flow of magic. The door opened about a quarter of the way, then grated to a stop. Not really.
The controls weren’t responding, but the gap was big enough for me to fit, and I squeezed through into a corridor going left and right. So what are you going to do? Luna asked. Fight your way through one-handed?
Suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Looking through the futures, I couldn’t recognise any of the paths ahead. Apparently the cube had dropped me into a different part of the bubble realm from last time. I picked a direction at random and kept going. Luna was silent for a moment, and I had the feeling that she was talking. Okay, she said at last. What if we attack at the same time that you’re coming out? We pull some of them away from the storeroom and you’ll have a better chance.
Yeah, they’re not going to fall for that. Onyx and Pyre will send a few guys to keep you busy while they stay by the statue. Only way you’re going to pull them off is to fight your way right into the mansion.
We could.
And if you do, you’ll be too deep to disengage. Chances are whoever’s at the front will get killed.
If we don’t, you’ll get killed.
I’m not letting you guys do a suicide run against Onyx and Pyre, I said. Look, if I can get the fateweaver, it’ll open up options. Maybe I can figure out a way to bypass the sink effect. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’ve got better chances of getting away solo than the three of you have with a frontal attack.
Right, Luna said. She didn’t sound happy. Because using the fateweaver to fight Onyx worked so well last time.
Hey, I’ve got out of worse situations than this.
Name one.
Uh . . . I said. Got to go. I’ll be in touch.
I kept on walking, following the curving corridors. The only sounds were the echo of my footsteps and the occasional drip of blood. I wondered if Abithriax was watching me now, and how I’d look if he was. He’d see a mage in battered and burned armour, right hand ruined, left hand holding the cube that was the key to his prison. What would he be feeling as he looked at me? Curiosity? Contempt?
“So I’ve always wondered,” I asked the cube. “Why did you choose Luna anyway?”
The cube didn’t answer.
“I mean, you obviously picked her out. I knew that as soon as she told me the story about how she ‘found’ you. I was just never sure as to why.”
The corridor ended in a door. I set the cube down on the floor and took out my tools. “I suppose you could have just bonded with the first girl to pick you up,” I said over my shoulder as I started working on the door. This one was more complicated, needing a password as well as a specific magical signal. “But I never got the feeling that that was what you were doing. You always struck me as the kind of imbued item that has a purpose. So what was it? What were you created for?”
The locking mechanism gave way. I put my tools back in my pocket, picked up the cube, and put a hand to the door. It slid open with a hiss.
The room within was a death trap. Mirrors covered the walls, floor, and ceiling, even the backs of the doors, all tilted at slight angles. A tiny panel at the far corner held three projectors, aimed so that the energy beams they sent out would reflect over and over throughout the room in a deadly lattice able to cut flesh and armour to ribbons.
Or at least that was what they would have done if they’d been active. The projector at the back of the room was inert, and without it, the room was just a lot of mirrors. A glance through the futures confirmed that it wasn’t going to activate. I walked in and took a closer look. The mechanism hadn’t been sabotaged or deactivated that I could see: it had just failed.
Now that I thought about it, a lot of the systems in the bubble realm seemed to be failing. I’d been passing flickering and dimmed lights, and that door that had jammed hadn’t been the only one. Maybe the entire place was finally falling apart. It had lasted for over a thousand years undisturbed, but that had been before Luna and I had broken its seals six years ago. Bubble realms aren’t all that stable.
“Maybe it’s because of us,” I said to myself as I opened the door and kept going. “When we opened this place back then, we must have disturbed a lot of stuff. And no one’s been doing maintenance.” I looked down at the cube. “Was that why you showed up? Because the Council had found the statue, and you knew that sooner or later they’d force a way in?”
The cube sat silently.
“Doesn’t explain why you’d pick Luna though. I mean, if you wanted the place opened, a Council mage would have made more sense. But then, if you just wanted it opened, you could have done that a long time ago. So what do you want? I guess maybe you want to keep Abithriax sealed, but at the rate it’s going, the prison might not last much longer . . .”
No answer.
“You know, I kind of feel like I’m doing all the work in this conversation.”
I kept working my way through the bubble realm. Not all the traps were inactive, but I had my divination and my memories, and unlike last time, I didn’t have a bunch of people chasing me. My hand kept bleeding. The bandages were soaked through, and I was starting to wonder if I should be worrying about blood loss.
And then, all of a sudden, I was there. The corridor opened up into a huge circular room, columns around the edge rising up into darkness. The lights set densely around the wall should have illuminated the room brightly, but only a handful still glowed, leaving deep, uneven shadows. At the centre of the room was a dais, and on the dais was a pedestal, a barrier of force shielding a small object within.
Time to end this. I checked to see that my route to the pedestal was clear, and stepped out.
At least, I’d meant to step out. Instead, I hesitated. Nothing was stopping me. I knew that I was perfectly safe, at least until I opened that barrier . . .
And that was the problem. As soon as I did, I was going to stop being safe.
Come on, I told myself. After everything else that’s happened the last few days, this should be easy. If you can make it through Richard’s shadow realm . . .
Except that in Richard’s shadow realm, I hadn’t been the one making the decisions. I’d just reacted to what had happened. Same with what had come afterwards. Even the raid we’d just done, in a way. Sure, I’d planned it, but the big choice had been made for me.
If I took up the fateweaver, I wouldn’t be able to react anymore. I was going to change, and I didn’t know how much of my old self would be left.
It’s not as though you have much choice.
But wasn’t that how I’d ended up like this? I’d adapted and reacted, telling myself that I was doing what I had to. And in doing so, I’d let Richard and the Council set the prevailing wind. Now that wind had blown me to the edge of a cliff.