The Keeper meeting was urgent but not important. After all this time, it was unlikely that the information they’d turned up would be anything useful – it was far more likely that they were just using it as another opportunity to dig for evidence that I was a security risk. The Keepers had never got over the episode a year and a half ago where they’d done their best to arrest me at Canary Wharf. I’d escaped and made them look stupid into the bargain, and they weren’t going to forgive me for either of those things any time soon. On the other hand, I couldn’t openly ignore the request either. ‘Can you handle the Keepers? If you go in my place, they can quiz you, but you should be able to get out of anything compromising by telling them you weren’t there. Just let me know if they try to pull anything.’
Anne nodded. ‘And Druss?’
‘I’ll have to go,’ I said. Giving reports to Druss did nothing to aid the recovery effort, but it was politically important. Druss the Red was one of the few (if marginal) allies I had on the Council, and if he asked for something, I did it. That’s how patronage works. ‘Get back to his aide and schedule a time. Anything else for the day?’
‘Just the usual. There’s the security briefing, but …’ Anne frowned. ‘That’s odd.’
‘What?’
‘A new notification.’ Anne touched the message focus. ‘It wasn’t there when I checked just a minute ago. It must have just come in as soon as I started reading.’
I looked up, alert. ‘What does it say?’
‘It’s asking for you at one of the secure conference rooms at your earliest convenience. But it doesn’t say who you’re supposed to be meeting or who sent it.’
‘Doesn’t need to,’ I said. A tingle had gone through me at Anne’s words. I knew exactly who’d sent that message. Important and urgent tasks you do right away.
The secure conference rooms in the War Rooms are far below the Belfry. We took the stairs down, winding our way deep into the earth. The deeper we got, the fewer people we saw. More than a thousand people use the War Rooms every day, but even so, that number doesn’t even come close to filling the place. There are lower levels that are all but deserted: some holding living or training quarters that are currently mothballed; others marked as ‘storage’, though exactly what they’re storing isn’t specified.
We came to a halt at the end of an empty corridor. A blank metal door stood before us, with an outdated speaker system by its side. I pressed the button by the microphone. ‘This is Verus.’
There was a pause, then a voice sounded through the speaker. ‘I see you’ve brought your aide.’
‘Yes.’
There was silence. By my side, I felt Anne shift. I had the feeling that the person on the other end was involved in a discussion as to whether to ask me to send Anne away. If they did, I was going to tell them no. I’d already looked through the futures of us coming down this corridor, and I was pretty sure that I was going to win an argument if they chose to start one … but the silence stretched out longer than I was expecting, to nearly a minute.
At last the voice came through the speaker again. ‘Please come in.’
I pushed the door and it swung freely. Anne and I walked inside.
The room within was more spartan than the rooms I was used to meeting in, walled and furnished in concrete and metal. The secure conference rooms are older than the blocks in which the Council usually conduct their business, and they’re not designed for comfort: the temperature was a few degrees colder than the upper levels of the War Rooms, which are kept at a steady twenty-two degrees centigrade all year round. The only reason people use the rooms down here is if they don’t want attention.
Two of the three mages occupying the conference room were ones I’d been expecting. White-haired Bahamus, sitting at the table, looked calm and comfortable, and Talisid, balding and unobtrusive, stood a little way off to the side. It was the third mage who made me stop and stare. I’d had time to check the futures, but the thing about divination is that you never have the time to check everything. So you take shortcuts. In this case I’d confirmed that it really was Talisid who’d sent the message, and I’d checked the futures for any sign of danger. But while I’d confirmed that Talisid would be there, I hadn’t checked to see who else would be there, and the mage sitting at the end of the table watching us enter was one of the last I’d expected.
Maradok is a mage with straw-coloured hair and a long, mournful-looking face. He could be an English civil servant, if you don’t look too closely at his eyes. I’d seen him off and on in briefings over the past few months, and our relationship had been cool, for good reason. I looked at Talisid. ‘What is he doing here?’
‘I was about to ask the same with regard to the healer,’ Maradok said. ‘I was under the impression this was a secure briefing.’
‘Anne is here because she’s my aide and because I trust her,’ I said coldly. ‘Neither of which applies to you.’
Talisid coughed. ‘Perhaps some introductions are in order.’
‘No, no, I think we all know exactly who everyone else is,’ I said. ‘What I’d like to know is why you called me here using what was supposed to be our secure contact method to meet someone who’s tried to have me assassinated.’
‘And I would like to know why an ex-Dark apprentice with no security clearance is accompanying him,’ Maradok replied.
Bahamus lifted a hand. ‘Enough.’
Maradok is from Council intelligence, and this was the second time we’d crossed paths. The first time had been a year and a half ago, when he’d sent a team of Light mages to kill me in my sleep. That attack was the reason that I was living in the Hollow now, as well as the reason that Luna was currently running the Arcana Emporium instead of me. When I’d called him on his actions, Maradok had told me that he’d done it because long-range divinations had predicted that I was going to be instrumental in aiding Richard’s rise to power. It hadn’t convinced me, to put it mildly, and nothing in the intervening months had made me like him any more.
‘Perhaps we should start at the beginning,’ Bahamus said. ‘Verus, Anne, would you care to take a seat?’
With misgivings I pulled out a chair, picking the leftmost place at the table so that I could watch Bahamus and Maradok at the same time. ‘I believe all of you have met in person with the exception of Mage Anne Walker,’ Bahamus said. ‘Mage Walker, these are Mages Talisid and Maradok. Both work for the Council in an advisory capacity.’
He means they’re both Council intelligence, I voiced silently to Anne. They work for the Guardians, which means they report to him but also to Sal Sarque.
Isn’t that the same guy who sent that fire mage who burned me nearly to death? Anne asked.
Yes.
Great.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,’ Talisid said courteously. ‘Verus has spoken very well of you.’
‘Thank you,’ Anne said in her soft voice. ‘That’s very kind. Mage Maradok, it’s a pleasure to meet you too.’
Maradok inclined his head. ‘Likewise.’
He’s looking at me like he’s a snake and I’m a bird he’s deciding whether he wants to eat, Anne voiced silently.
Oh, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that’s how he sees everyone.
‘Now that that’s out of the way,’ Bahamus said, ‘we have a matter of some importance to discuss. From the fact that your aide is here, I assume you are willing to take responsibility for bringing her in on this.’