I’d seen this effect before. You got it when attempting to use divination magic within an area that had been warded against scrying-heavily warded against scrying. As I focused on the mansion with my mage’s sight I realised that the walls were layered with overlapping shields of magical protection, so thick that from my position I couldn’t see through them at all. They were messy, uneven, but extremely powerful.
Now why would a private residence in the middle of nowhere have such heavy defences?
The obvious answer: because they had something to hide.
I waited for sunset. English winter days are short and it wasn’t even four o’clock before the sun began dipping behind the hills. As soon as the sun vanished the temperature dropped like a rock, but my cloak kept me from more than the odd shiver. I know from experience that it’s actually harder to spot someone in twilight than nighttime-the eye has trouble adjusting from the light sky to the dark ground-so once the sky had faded to blue-grey I set off downhill.
The dark woods were filled with roots and traps for unwary feet but my divination magic guided me safely through. My breath was visible in the cold air and the stars shone down from above, Orion and Sirius glowing brightly in a clear sky. I vaulted the garden wall and stole across the lawn, just one more shadow in the evening gloom.
Fountain Reach was occupied-that had been obvious from the cars and vans-but having watched the place for an hour I was fairly sure that there wasn’t much security and I didn’t pick up any danger as I approached. I reached the back of the mansion and studied the wards.
The more I looked at them, the more puzzled I got. Like the house, the wards had an organic look, as if they’d been grown rather than constructed. The design was massively inefficient but the sheer volume of energy made them formidable all the same. There was a gate ward, of course, and shields against spatial and temporal scrying, but search as I might I couldn’t discover any barrier to physical entry. Which was very strange-why would anyone expend so much energy on making a place impossible to view or gate into but do nothing to stop anyone from just walking in?
The divination ward worried me, though. It’s almost impossible to shut down a diviner’s magic completely but the wards were powerful enough to damp it, and as I looked into the futures of my entering I found that I could see much less further than normal. Futures thirty seconds away were fuzzy, and beyond that they degraded quickly into uselessness. My ability to see into the future is the only major edge I have. Having it even partially suppressed makes me very nervous.
But if I was careful thirty seconds ought to be enough. There were windows all along the ground floor and it took me no time at all to find one that had been left unlatched. I pushed it up and climbed inside, and into Fountain Reach.
chapter 5
The inside of Fountain Reach was quiet, distant voices muffled by the intervening walls. I’d come into some kind of sitting room and I moved to the door and listened. I could hear movement, but not close by.
From a legal point of view, what I was doing here was kind of a grey area. The Council comes down hard on anyone trespassing on Council property, but entering another mage’s residence isn’t specifically forbidden-what the Concord prohibits against other mages is “hostile action.” On the other hand, hostile is a pretty vague word. Mages tend to be trigger-happy about home defence and if Crystal found me sneaking around her mansion she’d quite likely shoot on sight. She’d have to justify it to the Council afterwards, but if she claimed I’d been there to attack her she’d probably get away with it-especially if I was too dead to say otherwise.
That last possibility didn’t appeal much, which was why I’d brought my mist cloak. My mist cloak doesn’t look very impressive-it’s just a length of soft cloth, coloured a sort of neutral grey, well cut but nothing worth taking note of. But when worn it has a camouflaging effect, its colours shifting to match the background behind, making its wearer fade into the scenery like a chameleon. If you stay in the shadows and don’t move, a mist cloak makes you damn near invisible.
More important, mist cloaks function against magical senses too. Mind mages like Crystal can sense the presence of other creatures by detecting their consciousness, “seeing” thoughts in the same way that you or I can see light. Without the mist cloak she’d spot me the instant I got close. With it I had a chance of staying hidden.
I stole into the corridor, senses alert. My ears and my magic told me that there were people to the left and right along the edge of the building. I went forward, deeper into the mansion.
Fountain Reach was a bizarre house, with corridors that twisted and changed in size and design. There was no logic to the layout: Staircases led into dead ends and windows looked into other rooms. There were people here-lots of people-but as I moved through the mansion I realised most were servants or caterers. The opening ceremony for the tournament was tomorrow and the staff were busy with preparations. The stealth probably hadn’t been necessary; with all the activity I could have just walked in the front door. As I moved deeper into the mansion the sounds of activity became fainter and fainter until they were silent. I’d known the place was big but the winding corridors made it seem bigger; with no direct routes it took a long time to get anywhere.
I’d been aiming for the bedrooms but found myself walking into what was obviously the duelling hall. It looked as though it had been a ballroom once, with a wide parquet floor and a high ceiling, but azimuth focuses had been erected at either end of the room and tables and chairs had been set up for refreshments. Despite the lights scattered around the hall, the place had a gloomy feel. I searched the room quickly and found focus weapons, protective gear, and scattered papers. In fact, exactly what you’d expect to find.
I went through the documents and found what looked like a schedule. The opening ceremony would be tomorrow evening and the elimination rounds would take place during the two days after that, with the finals the day after. The focus of the tournament seemed to be on the apprentice competition. The journeyman division had only a few mages competing while dozens of apprentices were scheduled to duel, with places still open.
Which told me. .
. . nothing useful at all. I straightened up from the papers, suddenly annoyed with myself. What was I doing here? I was taking risks sneaking into a place I really shouldn’t be in, and for what? To find out information that wasn’t a secret in the first place.
I could stick around and keep searching. But the mansion was huge, and with my ability to search through futures degraded I could look for days and not find anything. I turned and walked out.
I followed the corridors back, twisting and turning, until I came to a T junction. Had I come from the left or the right? I tried the left and it led me to a four-way intersection. I followed it down a flight of stairs that I thought was familiar, but it led into a hall lined with paintings that I was sure I hadn’t seen before. I retraced my steps to the intersection but all the corridors looked identical. I picked one and it led me to a T junction, but the passages onwards didn’t look familiar either.
I stopped, irritated. This was ridiculous. How could I be getting lost inside a house?
Usually, as long as my magic is working, I can always find my way home. All I have to do is search through the futures and look for the one in which I make it out. But with my divination range cut down, I couldn’t see far enough-and since I’m so used to never getting lost I hadn’t thought to memorise the route on the way in. It was a rookie mistake and it was embarrassing. I started down the corridor, trying to find my way to a window or some sort of landmark.