“They certainly spent more than enough time trying to discover what that leverage might be.”
“And got absolutely nowhere,” I said. I’d had to sit through innumerable frustrating interviews with Keepers convinced that I had the key to prying out Morden’s secrets. “Personally? I think they never found anything because there wasn’t anything to find. You were helping Richard voluntarily. But that didn’t answer the question as to why. All the time you were under Council arrest, you were taking an enormous risk. You could have been disappeared or ‘killed trying to escape’ at any time.”
“The risk was a little smaller than you think,” Morden said. “The Council can be ruthless when threatened, but so long as they feel that they are in control, their inclination is towards caution. Live prisoners can be made dead if need be; the reverse is not the case.”
“But in politics, there are always unpredictable elements.”
Morden smiled slightly. “What would be your explanation?”
“I think you were never driven by self-interest at all,” I said. “That was why the Council could never figure you out, and it was why you were able to work with Richard so easily. Richard wants to be in charge, and everything he’s done has been with a view to increasing his power. But you’ve been quite willing to give your own power up.”
“Have I?”
“Several times,” I said. “Take that raid you organised on the Vault. The other mages who went on the raid benefited from the items they took. Richard benefited because of his plans for Anne. But you lost your position on the Junior Council, and instead of fleeing afterwards, you let them take you into custody. And you didn’t take any steps to make sure Anne would be under your personal control. You let Richard and Vihaela handle all of it.”
“So what do you believe my motivations to be?”
“If you and Richard had both wanted to be the one in charge, one of you would have betrayed the other by now,” I said. “So as much as you like to talk about the Dark way, I don’t think accumulating personal power is your priority at all. Strange as it sounds, I think you’re actually an idealist. You want the Dark philosophy and mind-set to be spread and understood. What I don’t understand is why you launched that raid. You had what you wanted, you were on the Junior Council. Why sabotage it?”
“From the moment I joined the Council, efforts were made to remove me,” Morden said. “You were caught up in several of those plots yourself, and once you took over my seat you became the target of them in turn. What I suspect you may not have recognised is that removing me—or you—was never the primary objective. In the long term, the Council was not concerned with who sat in that seat; they were concerned with controlling its resident. If they had succeeded, the mages occupying it would have followed Light norms and constrained themselves according to Council beliefs. Within a generation they would have been Dark in name only, and treated with contempt by their former allies. That was the real danger.”
“And so you blew everything up?”
“The Council’s support of that goal was too strong to overcome by purely political means. It still is, to a lesser degree. That may change.”
I thought about that for a minute. Morden’s explanation wasn’t what I’d been expecting, but I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve it. I’d had the feeling for a while that Morden had been playing a completely different game to everyone else.
“But these are long-term concerns,” Morden said. “Yours are more immediate, I suspect. Why are you here, Verus?”
“I need to win a war with the Council,” I said. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to help.”
“Do you have something in mind?”
I gained a certain amount of respect for Morden in that instant that I was never to lose. It was the sheer lack of worry in his voice. I explained what I had in mind in two sentences.
Morden didn’t seem surprised. “And how do you plan to accomplish that?”
“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t think a frontal attack is a good idea.”
“Given the Council’s current state of readiness, I would agree.”
“Which is why I’m here,” I said. “I was hoping in your dealings with the Council you might have come across something I could use as a stepping-stone.”
“It should be possible,” Morden said. “I’ll need a day or two to look into things, but I have a target in mind that should suit your needs.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Will there be any issues of allegiance?”
“You mean as regards Drakh?”
“I’m fairly sure that I’m not Richard’s favourite person at the moment.”
“Drakh and I may be allies, but I am not accountable to him for my every action,” Morden said. “If he confronts me on the issue, I will tell him that I believe that your success would be in my, and his, best interests, which is entirely true. Should he choose to press the matter, however, I will not stand in his way. I suspect it will not be long before you have to resolve your issues with Drakh directly.”
“Oh, I’ve been expecting that for a while,” I said. We’d come most of the way around in a circle and were approaching the house once again. “Your new apprentices didn’t back off all that far, by the way.”
“They can be somewhat reckless,” Morden said with a glance back at where the four of them were hidden. “Still, an excess of spirit is better than an excess of caution.”
“I didn’t know that adepts were your type.”
“Perhaps I’ve learned from you,” Morden said with a slight smile. “In any case, if there’s nothing else, I have other business. I’ll be in touch.”
—
The image of those four adepts nagged at me on my way home, and midway through the journey I realised why. Two girls, two boys, living in the mansion of a Dark mage. They’d been a couple of years older than I was when I’d joined Richard, but the parallels were uncomfortably close. I wondered if they’d end up on the same path as Morden’s last Chosen.
There was another realisation too, something that was harder to explain. I had the feeling that Morden was going to survive all this. He wasn’t aiming to settle grudges and wasn’t seeking the crown, and because of that everyone else would always have someone they wanted dead more badly than him. When this was over he was going to be walking away, back to the forests and streams of his shadow realm and to his new group of disciples. The same wasn’t likely to be true for me.
chapter 4
I warned you this could happen,” Klara said.
“I know.”
It was the next day and I was sitting in my cottage in the Hollow. I’d taken off my shirt, and Klara was bent over my right arm, her eyes studying it intently. Klara is a German life mage, thin and unsmiling. I didn’t really know her well enough to trust her, but with Anne gone, Klara was the best I was going to get.
“If we had amputated immediately, you would have only lost a hand,” Klara said. Her fingers pressed lightly on the not-quite-flesh where the fateweaver had replaced my skin, a faint green light spreading from the fingertips. “Now, you will lose the forearm as well. Continue to wait, and it will be the shoulder.”
“Is that still what you’re recommending?”
Klara sighed and sat back, the light at her hand fading. “No. The item has tied into your pattern and nervous system. I do not know if it could be safely removed, not without a better understanding of its workings.”
“What about the stiffness?”
“Your elbow cartilage is being converted.” Klara nodded down at my right elbow. “The item has finished transmuting your radius and ulna and is spreading to the humerus. I expect within another day or so the process will be completed and your elbow will return to full functionality.”