‘I’m not here for Anne,’ Luna said clearly. ‘I’m here for you.’
‘You are neither bearer nor host.’ Variam’s gaze rested on Luna, dark and clear. ‘This bearer wishes you no harm, cursed one, but should you force a conflict, all your fortune will not spare your life.’
‘We don’t want a conflict,’ I said. ‘But neither do you.’
Variam looked at me without expression.
‘You lived under my roof a long time,’ I said. ‘Ten years next January. If you really wanted humanity destroyed or subjugated, you’ve had plenty of chances. I don’t think you want this war any more than we do. “Only law is eternal” – that was what you told me, wasn’t it? I think the only reason you’re obeying the sultan’s orders is out of a sense of obligation.’
‘Allegiance binds as a contract,’ Variam replied. ‘Desires crumble and fade. Only the eternal remains.’
‘Then how about this?’ I said. ‘I make a contract with you. A new contract, with a clean slate. What you’re doing right now, using Variam . . . it’s against the principles you’ve always followed. Back in my shop, you’d take victims, but you’d always give them a choice. Vari didn’t get a choice. He was taken against his will.’ I looked at Variam. ‘So?’
The marid studied me for a moment. ‘No.’
My heart sank. That answer had been final and certain. ‘Why? Is it because I’m your host? You can’t grant wishes to me?’
‘No.’
‘Then what? Tell me!’
‘A contract is of the future,’ the marid said in that weird dissonant voice. ‘Both promise, and price. But you, Mage Verus, have no future with which to bargain. For you, what is, is what must be.’
I stared at Variam. He didn’t move, and as I looked at the futures I saw that there was nothing I could say to change his mind.
I thought about the focus in my hand, the fateweaver in my arm. I didn’t know if it could banish the marid, and I didn’t think I’d survive another trip into Elsewhere. But I had no other ideas.
Screw it. I took a step forward, my left hand tightening around the lattice. Battle plans and tactics began to flow through my mind. I needed to—
‘No!’ Luna said.
I stopped. Luna stepped up beside me, and as she did the silver mist of her curse brightened, glowing in my sight. ‘He may not have a future,’ Luna said, her voice sharp and commanding. ‘But I do. You lived in the Arcana Emporium when Alex owned it. Well, now it’s passed to me. I’ll offer you the same deal. Leave Variam, return to the monkey’s paw and the Emporium. You can take your victims, as long as they’re willing. One per year, no more. Leave us in peace, keep to those terms, and I’ll let you use the shop for as long as it’s mine.’
‘I am commanded to stand guard,’ the marid said.
Luna nodded towards the stairs. ‘No one but Alex to be admitted, right? Fine. I won’t go up there, and I won’t let anyone besides Alex from our group go up there either. You have my word.’
The marid paused. I felt the futures shift, and hope leapt within me. It’s actually thinking about it.
Luna’s curse blazed like the sun, so bright it was hard to look at. ‘This violates neither command nor allegiance,’ the marid mused. ‘There is no contradiction.’
Luna stood very still, her curse flaring around her. I held my breath.
‘When the shop passes on, you will find another to fulfil your obligation,’ the marid said. It studied Luna with those unblinking dark eyes. ‘Fail, and I will take both this bearer, and you.’
Luna hesitated for a long moment. ‘Agreed.’
The marid looked at me. ‘You relinquish the position of host?’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘Step forward.’
Luna did. The marid let her approach; she stopped within arm’s reach.
‘The contract is offered,’ the marid said. It held out a hand to Luna; resting on Variam’s palm was the blue and white cylinder of the monkey’s paw.
Luna shifted her whip from her right hand to her left. She reached out for the monkey’s paw and her hand met Variam’s, the blue-white cylinder forming a link between them.
The marid spoke one final time through Variam’s lips, and this time its voice was deeper, louder. ‘Done.’
The word echoed around the chamber, growing louder: done-done-done-DONE-DONE. I felt a snap of power, like a thunderclap without sound. Every light in the chamber went dark, then flicked back on again.
The light went out of Variam’s eyes. His eyes slid closed and he slumped to the floor.
Luna staggered backwards. The silver mist around her shrank, fading to a sliver. Luna bent forward with her hands on her knees, breathing hard.
‘Holy shit,’ I said. ‘You actually made that work.’
Luna gave a shaky laugh. I wasn’t sure she had the breath to talk.
Variam was lying unconscious on the floor and he wasn’t getting up, but he didn’t seem hurt. The monkey’s paw was lying where it had fallen from his grip. Luna bent and picked it up.
As she rose, I glimpsed Luna’s face, side-lit by the lights, and caught my breath. There was something in her expression I’d never seen before, something distant that spoke of knowledge and the burden of old choices. For a moment, I felt as though I were seeing Luna as she’d look in ten or twenty years. She didn’t look like an apprentice, or a young woman. She looked like a . . .
. . . Mage.
I blinked and the moment was gone. Luna stared at the monkey’s paw, then shoved it into her pocket and looked down at Variam. ‘He’s not getting up, is he?’
I turned my head and called back towards the entrance. ‘Ji-yeong?’
Ji-yeong stepped out from behind the doors. For a while back there, she’d considered leaving. I’d felt the moment she’d decided to stay. ‘Would you mind?’ I asked.
‘You want me to carry your luggage now?’ Ji-yeong said, then rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, fine. It won’t do my reputation any harm to come out with a marid host over my shoulder.’ She walked to Variam.
‘Well,’ I told Luna. ‘Guess this is goodbye.’
Luna looked tired but she stepped up next to me and reached out a hand. The last flickers of silver mist around her turned gold as she touched my forehead, and I felt something warm flow into me. ‘Last blessing. Maybe it’ll help.’
I nodded, turning to go. Beside us, Ji-yeong hauled Variam up in a fireman’s carry.
‘Alex,’ Luna said.
I paused.
Luna was looking straight at me. ‘You said last night that if you didn’t come back, it might be for the best. Well, I didn’t say this then, but I’m saying it now. If there’s any way you can make it back from this – any way – you take it. You don’t give up; you fight to the end. You understand?’
I nodded.
‘Promise me,’ Luna said. There was a fierceness in her eyes.
‘I promise,’ I told her.
Luna said nothing more. I took a last look at Variam, slung unconscious over Ji-yeong’s shoulder, then walked away. As I entered the stairwell, I glanced back and saw Luna standing there in her battle armour. She was still watching, and as I looked she raised a hand in salute. Then my movement made the walls of the keep come between us and she was gone.
Memories came back as I climbed the keep’s central stairwell. The last time I’d been here, I’d taken a route not so different from this, though back then it had been Sagash I’d come to see. Another of those tremors ran through the keep. Definitely stronger.
I listened in on the Council’s tactical circuit; the evacuation was in full swing. I waited to confirm that the gates were still open and that Luna and Variam would be able to make it out, then switched it off. I didn’t need the distraction.