“They’re fighting all around us,” Meredith said. She was looking nervously from side to side at the walls. “If the Keepers see us—”
“They’ve got their hands full,” I said. There was a battle going on on the ground floor below us at this very moment. But the corridor we were in was empty, and I was pretty sure I knew why. We were following the same route that Richard and Anne had taken, and they’d blasted their way through anyone who’d tried to stop them. Right now, the path to the control centre was undefended.
Of course, just because a route’s undefended doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way.
Running footsteps sounded from a side passage up ahead. “We’ve got a speed bump,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
“Wait, a speed bump? What kind—?”
The footsteps grew louder, and a Keeper came running into our corridor just ahead of us, skidding to a halt as she saw us. It was Caldera, dressed in her working clothes and webbing belt with the dust and sweat of combat on her. “I’ve found them,” Caldera said into her communicator. “Moving to engage.” She started towards us. “Verus, you’re under arrest. Stay where you are.”
I came to a halt, picking out possible futures and identifying candidates. One jumped out and I started feeding it, watching it grow. Force mage. That’ll do.
Caldera came to a halt twenty feet away. Her eyes flicked to Meredith, who took a half step back behind me. “And Meredith Blake,” Caldera said. “You’re wanted for questioning as well.”
“You’re in my way,” I told Caldera.
“You’re here with Richard?” Caldera said. “Because if—”
“I don’t have time for you right now.”
Caldera planted herself. “Looking for a rematch?”
“I don’t have to. There’s a Dark force mage one level below you who’s a really bad shot.”
Caldera frowned. “What’s that—?”
The force blast tore out the floor under Caldera, destroying a section of corridor about ten feet wide. With a rumble the flooring collapsed, sending Caldera tumbling down in an avalanche of concrete and stone. I saw Caldera’s hands fly up, earth magic reinforcing her as she fell, then she was gone.
I walked around the hole in the floor. Dust clouds obscured the view down, but I could hear shouts and the sounds of combat. “Keep up,” I said over my shoulder.
“This is crazy!” Meredith whispered. “They’re going to be after us!”
A chunk of concrete came flying up through the hole in the floor, shattering against the ceiling and raining fist-sized chunks of stone onto the other side of the hole. “Like I said, they’ve got their hands full.” I’d already plotted out the rest of our course. We were clear all the way to the control centre.
Admittedly, part of the reason we had a clear route was because right now, that route was a dead end. The corridor went through two right-angle turns and then ended in what was apparently a mirrored wall, slightly convex.
“We can’t get through that,” Meredith said nervously, looking over her shoulder. “That’s a stasis sphere.”
“More likely a barrier,” I said absently. I could feel the time magic radiating from the “mirror.” There’s no way to see how deep a stasis effect goes, but putting a stasis effect on yourself makes no sense as a defence against any kind of prolonged attack. I finished checking the futures and nodded. The wards on the fortress would bar standard gates, but they were less effective against the dreamstone, and the stasis spell had weakened the wards immediately around it. With the fateweaver’s help, I could push through. “Okay, showtime. Once we’re inside, there’ll be no more talk. You remember what you have to do?”
“Yes . . .”
“Are you going to do it?”
“All right.”
I looked at Meredith. That had been too easy. “You’re afraid of them.”
“Of course I’m afraid of them! They’re going to kill me as soon as they see me!”
“You don’t need to be seen.” I walked closer to Meredith, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. “Last year at the Tiger’s Palace, Deleo tried to disintegrate you. You remember what she said right before she did it?”
Meredith didn’t answer.
“There are two ways in which I’m different from Deleo,” I told Meredith. “The first is that I won’t ask you to do anything you aren’t capable of. If I give you an order, it means I know it can work, and I’m using my power to make sure it will work.” I paused to make sure that Meredith was listening. “The second way I’m different from Deleo? I’m a lot faster to write off losses. Do you need a demonstration of that?”
“No,” Meredith said quietly.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
I reached out through the dreamstone and opened up a gate to Elsewhere, then took Meredith’s hand and led her unresisting through it. I don’t think she recognised what it was. She certainly didn’t have time to look around or notice the trails of light coming from her skin before I opened a second gateway and took us back into the real world.
The control centre of Sal Sarque’s fortress was a two-storey room, with a raised gantry running around the second level. We’d arrived on the upper level, and my feet hadn’t even touched the floor before I knew we weren’t alone. I silently motioned Meredith to a position where she’d be able to look down into the room by craning her neck; her eyes were wide with fear but she nodded. Then I strode out onto the gantry.
The floor of the control centre held desks filled with computer equipment. The far wall was covered with flat-screen monitors, most of them blacked out or showing static. There was only one entrance, a pair of thick steel double doors at ground level.
I’d come in at the aftermath of a battle. Bodies lay unmoving around overturned swivel chairs and broken desks. Some were still recognisable; others were scatterings of black dust, only the magical residue giving away that they’d once been human. There had been casualties on both sides, but from the positioning, most of them had probably been Council.
Six people were still alive and upright: four from Richard’s side, and two from the defenders’. Richard was standing close to the entrance. He’d glanced up as I appeared, registering my appearance with no sign of surprise, then turned back to what he’d been looking at before. By his side was Anne. The jinn formed a flickering black aura about her, looming up and behind her like a vast shadow. Behind them was Crystal, hanging back where she could watch everyone, and a little ahead of Richard to the other side was Rachel.
Facing them was Sal Sarque. The Senior Council member had been backed up nearly to the far wall, but he looked uninjured, and he was holding a remote control of some kind above his head. Hiding behind him was Solace, eyes darting left to right as she tried to look for a way out. Sal Sarque was standing in plain view—he didn’t even have a shield up—but none of Richard’s cabal were making a move to attack.
Several pairs of eyes glanced at me as I appeared on the gantry, though most of them flicked right back again. Only two people kept their eyes on me. Rachel, and Anne.
For just an instant I hesitated. This was way, way too many enemies together in one place, and my old instincts—the ones that had kept me alive for so long—were shouting at me to back off and leave them to it. But then I shook the feeling off and walked forward to rest one hand on the railing. “I’m sorry,” I said, pitching my voice to carry. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Calling in more?” Sal Sarque shouted. “Bring them on!”
“Oh, Richard didn’t call me,” I said. I walked down the gantry, feeling Rachel’s and Anne’s eyes follow me. “I just decided we should talk.”
“If you wanted a discussion,” Richard said, not taking his eyes off Sal Sarque, “you could have chosen a more convenient time.”