I looked at Variam, keeping quiet. “There was someone who said he could help,” Variam said. “A ‘Light’ mage, or that was what he called himself, guy called Ebber. Know what that little weasel did? He went and talked things over with Sagash and decided it was all just fine. He said we were better off like that!” Variam stared past me. “She was in that place for months.”
“Did you break her out?” I asked.
“No,” Variam said reluctantly. He sounded as if he didn’t like to admit it. “She did. But I helped her get away. And we gave that bastard Sagash something to think about before we left.”
I looked over at Anne. She was writing on the pad, listening carefully to what Hobson said. “What did Ebber do?”
Variam gave a snort. “Oh, he was pissed. More upset about us running away than he was about Sagash kidnapping her. Would have taken us back if he could.”
“And that was when Jagadev came to you,” I said. “He offered you protection, told you that as long as you stayed with him mages like Sagash and Ebber wouldn’t bother you. And you convinced Anne.”
“Yeah, so?” Variam looked at me, challenging. “That’s how it works in your world, right? If you’re not with someone, some mage like you can just pick you off. Well, we’re with him.”
I met Variam’s gaze. He looked angry and I was pretty sure he wasn’t lying. He might be exaggerating. . but unfortunately nothing in his story was even the slightest bit hard to believe. Dark mages do press-gang apprentices. They won’t usually touch one under the protection of another mage, but a teenager new to their powers and alone and ignorant of the magical world is easy prey. And once you’re in, leaving is not an option.
Under Council law, a Light apprentice can’t be forced to take the oaths. But Dark mages have no such laws. And once a Dark mage has got their claws into someone, precious few Light mages are willing to take the risks involved in rescuing them. Much easier to turn a blind eye and smooth things over-it’s not worth risking the peace treaty for one apprentice, is it? And once you’ve gone that far, it’s really not that big an extra step to give the Dark mages a little bit of quiet assistance. After all, contacts on the other side are very useful and if you don’t help them get an apprentice back they’re just going to go to someone else. .
It’s easy to hate all Light mages for the actions of a few, and I’ve fallen into that trap myself in the past. But the world’s more complicated than that. “You know,” I said, “just because some mages act like that doesn’t mean they all do.”
“Right,” Variam said with a sneer. “All the others are bad but you’re the good guy.”
“Not exactly.”
Variam shook his head. “You don’t have a clue what it’s like. None of you do.”
“You might be surprised,” I said mildly.
“Bullshit. You get invitations to parties, you get guys like Talisid showing up to offer you jobs. You’re part of the club; you don’t know how hard it is for us.”
I started to answer, then paused. So you know it was Talisid who gave me the job? Interesting. “So why do you think I took the job?”
“You want the apprentices for yourselves, right? You don’t care what happens to them. You only help them if they’re yours.”
“You and Anne aren’t mine,” I said.
“So?”
“If I only care about apprentices who are mine, what am I doing here?”
“How should I know?”
“I’m just trying to make you see the logic here,” I said. “By your reasoning, if I treat you cruelly like Sagash, then that means I’m self-serving and don’t care about you. But if I’m nice and try to help you, then that means I must have some evil hidden purpose which also means I’m self-serving and don’t care about you. Is that about right?”
Variam just glowered. “Whatever.”
“They’re going,” I said, looking up.
Hobson had left the table and was hurrying away. I watched him curiously. Up until I’d arrived at the services I’d been more than half-expecting a trap, if for no other reason than that I remembered very clearly what had happened the last time Anne had been driven somewhere alone in that Bentley. But Hobson’s behaviour didn’t fit with that. Acting scared and nervous, okay-but he’d asked Anne to come to a public place, somewhere that would be crowded even at this late hour. That was the kind of thing you’d do if you were worried about a trap.
But if Hobson wasn’t involved himself, that meant. .
Anne had risen and was just leaving via the services’ front doors. “Come on,” I said to Variam, and walked quickly after her.
I was halfway there when I felt something shift in the futures ahead. I took one glance at them and broke into a run. The automatic doors slid open in front of me as I ran out into the night.
Anne was halfway across the car park, a slim shadow against the dark lines of cars, just about to turn down one of the rows. “Anne!” I shouted from behind her.
Anne stopped, turned. I kept running towards her. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was looking at me in surprise. “Alex?”
“Behind you!” I shouted.
Anne turned back just as the figure flicked into view behind her. Her eyes went wide and she jumped out of reach as the shape reached out, grasping.
A second later I slammed into it. The darkness hid the creature’s features; it had the silhouette of a human but was heavier. We both went down and hit the tarmac and I rolled away fast, staying out of reach.
A second figure stepped out of the darkness right next to Anne, reaching for her neck. I’d seen it coming and aimed a kick from the ground that took out its knee. The second one hit the ground next to the first and I scrambled to my feet, backing away with Anne. “Variam!” I shouted. “They’re constructs, destroy them!”
Both constructs were rising to their feet and in the futures ahead of us I could see the paths they would take, solid lines of light changing to match our actions but without choice or initiative of their own. One was still locked onto Anne; the other was heading for me. But it took them a few seconds to reach us and Variam got there first.
Mages of Variam’s type are called fire mages, but that’s not really what they do. Their real power is over heat: generating it, controlling it, moving it. It’s true that most fire mages do use fire in their spells, but that’s as much psychological as anything; fire is what they think of, so that’s what they create. Variam’s approach was a little different. Instead of creating bolts of fire or some kind of flamethrower, he just poured a ton of heat into the area right between the two constructs.
Fire magic’s not subtle and it’s not great at defence, but for sheer destructive power there’s not much that can beat it. There was a hissing sound and a thump of superheated air, a backwash of heat making me cover my eyes. When I opened them again the constructs were gone. A five-foot circle of tarmac where they’d been standing was steaming, and the corners of two car fenders that had been in the blast were glowing a faint yellow and starting to droop.
“Where’d they go?” Variam said in surprise.
“I don’t know.” I looked around. I could see figures in the darkness of the car park but they were too far away, and as I concentrated I saw that they had the branching futures of humans. “I-Anne, move!”
Anne started and tried to jump away, but this time she wasn’t quick enough. One of the constructs seized her from behind, and a second later the other did the same to me.
Constructs move, but they aren’t alive-they’re dead things animated by magic, created to fulfil a certain purpose. All constructs are built with a guidance program, and once a construct’s been given a command it’ll keep going until the task’s completed. They’re strong-stronger than any human-but that’s not what makes them so dangerous. A construct can’t feel pain or fear or boredom. They don’t get hurt, they don’t get tired, and most of all they don’t stop. If you get away from one, it’ll just keep coming. The only way to stop a construct is to completely destroy it, either by breaking the spell that animates it or by doing such massive damage to its body that it can’t physically hold together anymore.