Bahamus simply looked at me.
‘Wait. Morden?’
‘He is the most natural choice, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You’re hoping to get Morden to betray Richard?’
‘From what you’ve told us, and from all we’ve been able to discover, Mage Drakh is the undisputed ruler of his cabal,’ Talisid said. ‘The only two with the influence to make requests of him are Morden and Vihaela. Of the two, Morden seems the best choice for several reasons.’
‘I’m not arguing with that, but … what possible motivation would Morden have to help?’
‘For one, the fact that we have him under arrest,’ Talisid said. ‘For another, the fact that if he chooses not to cooperate, we will regretfully have to revert to our initial plan. Namely, his execution.’
‘And if he says yes, then what?’ I said. ‘He gets to retake his seat on the Council as though nothing happened?’
‘No,’ Bahamus said. ‘Regardless of any mitigating factors, Morden is clearly guilty of his crimes. He will be removed from the Council, one way or another. However, if he cooperates, he will keep his life and his freedom. And the ruling that keeps one seat of the Junior Council open to Dark mages will be allowed to stand. His legacy – if you can call it that – will live on.’
Something about Bahamus’s last words made me look up. The older mage was looking at me steadily. ‘The seat will still be for Dark mages,’ I repeated.
‘Under the circumstances, I would prefer it should the seat remain in the hands of someone whose loyalty had been established. I am certain I could persuade a majority of the Senior Council to share this view.’
I sat quite still. Was he saying … ?
Is he bribing you? Anne asked.
It sounds like it, doesn’t it? ‘I … see.’
‘Can we count on your cooperation in this matter?’ Bahamus asked.
‘I don’t have any objection in principle,’ I said slowly. ‘However, I have to wonder what it is that you’re hoping for me to contribute.’
‘To start with, you would be the one conducting the negotiations with Morden,’ Bahamus said. ‘Given your extensive history with him, you would seem to be the most qualified.’
‘So I’m the one who gets to tell him to turn Richard in or we chop his head off?’
‘Essentially.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Assuming he agrees to the terms, what’s the next step? I mean, he can’t exactly hand you Richard while sitting in a cell. Are you going to let him out on bail?’
‘No,’ Talisid said. ‘He would, to put it mildly, be considered a flight risk. And I seriously doubt any of our usual security measures could keep him in the country should he be set free. However, he still has followers. We expect him to work through them or similar intermediaries.’
And no prizes for guessing who’s going to be the go-between. Still, it’s not as though I was expecting to get this for nothing …
‘I realise that this is short notice,’ Bahamus said, ‘but I’m afraid that we will need an answer from you now.’
I looked back at the three men in front of me. All three were watching me closely, though with subtly different shades of expression. I already knew that this was not a do-it-or-else offer – if I said no, Anne and I would be walking out. But with deals like this, you don’t get take-backs. I was going to have to pick a side immediately.
I thought quickly and made my decision.
5
Why did you say yes? Anne asked.
We were walking back up through the tunnels of the War Rooms, the temperature slowly rising as we drew closer to the surface. Do you think I shouldn’t have? I asked.
Not exactly, Anne said slowly. But isn’t it going to be dangerous?
Probably, I said. But if I said no, they’d just find someone else. This way at least I get to stay in the loop. And honestly, I think I’ve got a better chance of dealing with Morden than some random Council functionary.
We passed out of a storage wing and took a spiral staircase upwards, our footsteps echoing off the stone. Besides, I said, I think what Bahamus was saying is basically right. Executing Morden isn’t going to solve any of their problems unless they get Richard as well. And Morden might be able to do that.
Might?
Richard’s pretty good at seeing things coming, I admitted. Honestly, even if they do turn Morden, I wouldn’t give the plan more than a fifty-fifty chance at best. Most likely result is that they recover a few more imbued items and do his organisation a bit of damage, but nothing fatal.
We walked a little way further in silence. That isn’t what’s really bothering you though, is it? Anne asked.
I nodded. The way Morden was arrested.
What about it?
You remember how that happened? I said. The Keepers sent a strike team to Morden’s mansion. And Morden gave himself up. No resistance, no escape attempts. He just let them arrest him.
Okay …
Why? I asked. If he’d wanted to run, he could have. And if he’d wanted to fight, he could have given the Keepers a pretty hard time of it. He didn’t do either.
You think he wanted to be arrested?
Maybe, but that doesn’t make much sense either. It’s not as though he’s accomplishing anything sitting in that cell. Anyway, I don’t think we can make much of a guess at his motives. What’s really bothering me is something different. This offer is designed to appeal to Morden’s self-interest. Do what the Council says, or they’ll kill you. Right?
Right.
But by letting himself be arrested, he’s put himself in danger already. I mean, if the Council had wanted his trial done, they could have finished it and had him executed already. Or he could have been killed ‘resisting arrest’. Not like it’s the first time that has happened. So letting them arrest him points to one of two things. Either he’s got some kind of trump card that he’s very confident is going to get him out of jail … or he believes enough in what he’s doing that he’s willing to put his life on the line to do it.
Anne frowned, thinking. I’ve never really thought about what Morden believes in. Do you really think he could be that dedicated?
I don’t know, I said. Doesn’t exactly seem to fit with the Dark mind-set. But if it is, then this whole ‘offer you can’t refuse’ is going to be a lot less convincing than Bahamus and Maradok are hoping it’ll be.
Are you going to go see him?
Not much point putting it off. Sort out those meetings with the Keepers and with Druss, then it’ll be time to look up visiting hours.
One of the differences between magical and mundane society: there are a lot fewer prisons.
The habit of dealing with lawbreakers by sticking them in a confined space for a long time is pretty new, historically speaking – it only really caught on in a big way a couple of centuries ago, and so far the Light Councils of the world haven’t chosen to follow suit. For one thing, it’s a lot trickier to imprison a mage than a normal. While there are ways to make it harder for a mage to use their magic, it’s time-consuming, takes a lot of resources and isn’t guaranteed to work. Doing it on a large scale for a significant fraction of the magical population would be prohibitively expensive … or at least that’s what the Council says. My personal suspicion is that it also has a lot to do with the Council lacking the religious and moral beliefs that brought the mundane world’s prison reform movement about in the first place. Either way, if you commit a crime against the Council, you won’t generally be thrown in prison. Minor offences are punishable by fines or service; major ones usually get the death penalty, and there isn’t much in between.