‘Well, I’ll discuss it with Bahamus,’ Talisid said. ‘But I don’t think he’ll be able to commit to anything that permanent. Remember, you’re negotiating in the entire Council’s name.’
‘Then tell Bahamus he can bloody well go do it himself.’
‘Verus …’
‘I’m not kidding,’ I said. ‘This is already really dicey. I’m trying to negotiate something between Morden, the entire Council and Onyx. That is way too many people who don’t trust each other. The best result that I can realistically hope for is to come back from Morden’s mansion with a take-it-or-leave-it offer from Onyx that you probably won’t like very much. A prolonged negotiation is not an option. Even if Onyx is willing to be that patient – which he won’t be – it’s a guarantee that news is going to leak. At which point you can say bye-bye to any chance of catching Richard.’
Talisid was silent, and I knew I’d got through. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll tell him, but I can already tell you, he isn’t going to like it.’
Talisid was right – Bahamus didn’t like it – but I didn’t back down, and in the end he had to give in. By the time the date of the meeting with Onyx rolled around, I had his agreement that I had full authority to negotiate with the Dark mage. Or so he said, anyway.
In reality, I knew there was nothing stopping Bahamus from backing out, and I figured that there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that he’d try to argue with any terms I came back with. If that happened, the deal was doomed, but oh well. At least by then, I’d be out of range. Now I just needed to make sure I survived the meeting.
‘You look pretty well armed,’ Anne said.
‘Yeah, well,’ I said. We were in the Hollow, and I was finishing my preparations. I was wearing my armour, the plate-and-mesh following the lines of my body, and I could feel the imbued item’s presence, watchful and protective. A webbing belt held a short-sword on my left side and a gun on my right, along with a host of pouches. Normally I go to an effort to hide my gear, but I wasn’t bothering this time, and that let me bring a larger arsenal than usual. The dreamstone was there, along with condensers, force-walls, glitterdust, life rings, flares, explosive, antitoxin, a revivify, salves and generally more tools than I was ever likely to use. That wasn’t counting the coat I was wearing over my armour, or the vest beneath it. ‘This is one of those situations where the time for subtlety has been and gone.’
‘I thought you liked to keep your weapons hidden,’ Anne said. She was sitting on my bed with her arms curled around her legs, and she’d been watching me gear up with apparent interest.
‘That’s because I like to avoid escalating things,’ I said. I checked my gun, made sure that it was loaded and that the safety was on, then tucked a spare magazine into a pouch. I thought about adding a second, then decided it was overkill, even for this. If you’re ever in a situation where you need more than one reload, you’re in more trouble than a handgun can help with. ‘The idea is, if you don’t look like you’re armed, then someone is more likely to shout at you to stop rather than just trying to kill you on sight. Onyx is already at the point where he’s trying to kill me on sight.’
‘Do you think all that stuff is really going to help?’
‘Probably not,’ I admitted. ‘If things go bad, odds are I’m going to be dead inside thirty seconds. Probably more like ten.’
‘Then why bother?’
‘For the cases where we don’t get into an all-out fight with Onyx but we do run into some other kind of trouble. Besides, it sends the message that I’m taking him seriously. There’s a chance that might help.’
I finished checking my gear and headed out. ‘You know, you could stand to be wearing a little more yourself,’ I told Anne as I started channelling through my gate stone.
‘This is what I’m used to,’ Anne said. For this meeting she’d gone back to her old outfit of jeans, running shoes and a light jacket. They had some magical reinforcement, enough to be better than nothing, but not by much.
‘You really need to get some proper armour,’ I told her. ‘I know those things you’re wearing have been treated, but there’s only so much you can do with fabric. Even a knife thrust would probably go through.’
‘If someone’s close enough to do that, I’m not really worried.’
‘And if they just shoot you?’ I said. ‘That hasn’t worked out too well in the past.’
‘I’m quite a lot tougher now than I was then,’ Anne said. ‘Armour’s a good idea for you because you can’t afford to take any serious hits. I can.’
‘If someone gets a head shot, it won’t matter how tough you are.’
‘Same for you,’ Anne pointed out. ‘Besides, armour slows you down.’
‘I think you just undervalue armour because your own abilities ignore it.’
‘I’ve also seen it be more of a hindrance than a help. Whenever I see someone wearing a big clunky suit, I know that if I get in close, they’re not going to be able to move fast enough to get away.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. You see the cases where armour doesn’t save someone, but you don’t see the ones where it would …’
We kept going as I opened the gate to our first staging point and from there to another. It was an old argument that we’d had several times. Ever since Anne had been targeted last year, I’d been trying to convince her to wear something more protective, and she’d been refusing. To be fair, she did have a point. Like most life mages, Anne is incredibly resilient, and any injury that doesn’t kill her instantly is basically nothing more than an inconvenience. Unfortunately, battle mages have lots of ways of killing you instantly, and while a set of armour probably isn’t going to do much if they manage to land a direct hit, it can make the difference. I think Anne just likes being able to move as freely as possible, which, to be honest, is how I used to do things as well. If I was being really honest I might have considered that my pressuring her on this subject might be an indication of an increased tendency to worry about her, but that was a topic I was trying to avoid thinking about. In any case, it was brought to an end as we gated from the second staging point to where we were meeting Variam and Luna.
All mages use staging points – empty, out-of-the-way places that you use in order to avoid gating directly from one destination to another. It’s possible, if difficult, to trace one gate, but tracing a series of them is usually impractical. I have a dozen gate stones linked to staging points these days, and I rotate them on a daily basis and replace them on a monthly one.
Unfortunately, gate stones are useless for going anywhere you haven’t been already. Morden’s mansion was a place I’d visited before, but it wasn’t exactly practical for me to set up a gate stone for there, and given how secret this meeting was supposed to be, I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask around to see if someone else had one. Luckily, while I can’t use gate magic myself, I have friends who can.
‘Took you long enough,’ Variam said as we walked in and let the gate close behind us.
‘Oh hush,’ Luna said. ‘You guys ready?’
‘As we’ll ever be,’ I said. The staging point was a clearing in a forestry area, pine needles covering the ground. The occasional bird chirped from above, but only rarely; coniferous woods are sparsely inhabited, which makes them ideal for my purposes. ‘You good to go?’
‘Yeah, except for one thing,’ Variam said, looking at Anne. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Vari …’ Anne said.
‘I’m serious. Alex was saying there’s a good chance Onyx is going to try to kill him on sight.’