Time seemed to slow as my futures branched. In one, the man behind me used the stock of his gun to club me on the back of the neck, stunning me and knocking me face down; the other man followed up, both of them aiming their weapons at me, shouting questions and threats. But that future was already ghostlike and fading as I turned from it towards others. In a handful of futures I spun away, drawing my gun and firing. Usually I killed one; in some I killed two, but all three men had me in their sights and nearly all the possibilities ended with bullets ripping through my body.
I blanked out those futures and looked at the ones where I caught the man behind and used him as a shield. Instantly the futures opened up: the possibilities in which the other two men fired on me were rarer, and in most strands didn’t happen at all. Their hesitation wouldn’t last long, but it would be long enough for me to kill the man in front of me, then the one I was holding, then . . .
. . . the future terminated with a bullet through my head. The problem was the third man, hiding in good cover in the rocks to my right. In most of the futures in which I shot at him, I missed. In a few, I hit. That on its own wasn’t a problem, but the ones in which I hit branched further: there was just time for the man’s own trigger finger to squeeze, the bullet passing mine and taking me with him. And while I could choose which future I took, I couldn’t choose which future he took. I needed a way to eliminate the risk.
I widened my search slightly and found a cluster of futures where I wasn’t at risk of being shot. In all of them, I ducked down slightly, but I couldn’t see why—ah. He had his rifle propped on the rocks, and couldn’t depress its elevation below a certain angle without taking a second to shift his weight. I had the chain of events I needed. I opened my mind and called upon the fateweaver.
The future I’d chosen seemed to light up, energy flowing from my right hand up my arm and out into time and space. Unwelcome possibilities vanished, while the sequence of events I needed pulsed with light and strength, becoming an unbreakable chain. In an instant, every other future was banished, leaving only the fate that I chose.
It had all taken less than a second. Behind me, the second man’s gun was just coming down.
I stepped left and turned. The movement was so casual that by the time the man behind me realised he was going to miss, his gun was swinging through empty air and he was stumbling past. He clutched at me and I took his hand, twisting it up and behind his back in a wristlock that drove him up onto his toes. At the same time I was sinking, using the movement to cover my right hand as it reached behind my back so that by the time the man in front of me saw the gun, it was already aimed at him. His eyes started to go wide.
I shot him through the head, aimed right and shot the man in the rocks, shoved the barrel up under the plates of the body armour of the man I was holding and fired a third time. He jerked and went limp, and I let him fall. The echoes of the shots rolled around the mountainside, rebounding from the far slopes to return again before fading into silence. I was left crouching, surrounded by three dead men, alone once more.
I straightened, holstered my gun, and kept climbing.
Another thirty seconds brought me to the way in. An illusion of a rock face covered a short tunnel that led to a thick metal door. The walls of the tunnel held traps, the door held a formidable-looking lock, and the whole area was heavily warded. It was a well-hidden and well-defended entrance.
Or at least it had been. The illusion spell had been broken, leaving the tunnel clearly visible, and the traps beyond had been triggered or destroyed. The only reason I could tell the tunnel had been warded was from its magical signatures, and even those were fading. The door had been ripped off its hinges, the solid steel bent and warped, leaving a gap that led into darkness. Beyond, nothing stirred; the area was silent but for the whistling wind.
It was about the most obvious Do Not Enter sign I’d ever seen. No prizes for guessing what I was about to do. Even after everything that had happened, I was still a diviner, and if there’s one thing diviners do, it’s poke their noses where they’re not wanted.
Well, if you’re going to do something stupid, you might as well have company.
I reached into my pocket, took out a small dull yellow pyramid, and set it down on the flattest piece of ground I could find. Then I stepped back and reached out mentally, stretching out my thoughts over a gap that was both unimaginably vast and thinner than a razor. Vari, I said. Clear to gate.
Thirty seconds passed. Sixty. Then the air above the pyramid glowed, turning from yellow to orange-red. Space seemed to ignite as flame flared into existence in a vertical oval, six feet high and three feet wide. The centre of the oval darkened and the oval became a ring, a gate linking two points in space, providing a view to a leafy forest, shadowed and gloomy. A young man stepped through, head turning as he scanned from side to side.
Variam Singh is small and compact, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. He used to be wiry, but he’s filled out since he joined the Keepers. As far as I can tell, pretty much all the extra weight is muscle—Vari joined the Order of the Shield just as the Council was ramping up for war, and his first year as a journeyman mage was a busy one. He spared a glance at the bodies down the slope, then focused on the ruined door with a scowl. “Shit.”
“Yup.”
“We’re too late, aren’t we?” Variam said.
“Half an hour,” I said. “She might still be inside.”
Variam gave me a look.
We started towards the entrance. “Jagadev’s goons?” Variam asked, nodding his head back down the slope.
“More likely a scout-response team,” I said. “The Chinese Council claims this territory these days.”
“How long till more show up?”
“None on the way, but let’s not hang around.”
We entered the tunnel, Variam conjuring up a flame of bright orange light. It danced and flickered, casting shadows on the rocky walls. I glanced at Variam’s black robes and turban. “No armour?”
“I’m supposed to be on my lunch break,” Variam said. “I check out a set of armour from the ready room, they might get a little suspicious. We clear?”
“Clear.”
The doorway led through into a long, straight corridor, its walls made from smooth blocks of stone. A pair of torches burned in sconces, the magical flames casting light but no heat. Variam took a step forward.
Futures flashed up in front of me. “Stop!” I said sharply.
Variam froze instantly. “What?”
“Stay where you are and don’t move forward,” I said. “Watch.” I looked around until I found a pebble about the size of a large grape, stepped up next to Variam, and tossed it underhand.
A blade swept out of the wall in a silver flash, hitting the pebble in midair with a whangggg! and sending it bouncing back down the corridor. Variam jumped away, but before he’d even landed, the blade had disappeared back into the wall. It had missed him by about two feet.
“Bloody hell,” Variam said.
“Optical trigger,” I said, nodding down the corridor. “Laser, probably. No magical signature, no heat signature, and that blade’s strong enough to cut an armoured man in half. You know what’s interesting?”
“You mean apart from that?” Variam glared at me. “No. No, I don’t.”
“What’s interesting,” I said, “is that that’s exactly the kind of trap you’d use to kill a life mage or a fire mage.”
“Thanks,” Variam said. He scanned the ceiling, focusing on what looked like a piece of ornamental ironwork. “Sensor’s in that?”