Or so the story goes . . . but I might have got it wrong. Light mages learn stories like this as they grow up, picking up the culture and the traditions, but I spent my childhood in the normal world and my apprenticeship surrounded by Dark mages, and a good part of my life since then has revolved around my shop. I’ve never really been inside the Light mage circles. For that matter, this was the first time I’d ever actually been to the War Rooms.
I suppose I should look on the bright side. I might be going to an indictment, but at least it wasn’t mine. Yet.
Getting through security took longer than I expected. The security personnel hired by the Council are famous for their complete lack of any kind of a sense of humour, and I was kept answering questions until Haken finally showed up. “There you are,” Haken said, then addressed the man who’d been interviewing me. “He’s with me.”
The security man checked Haken’s signet, then handed my card back without a smile. “Took you long enough,” Haken said as he led me into the tunnels.
“Sorry. First time.”
“Fair enough. Just don’t go wandering off, okay?”
We turned into a wider corridor, smaller passages branching off. To my surprise, the tunnels actually felt a lot more spacious than Keeper headquarters. The tunnel ceiling was high, a good twenty feet or so, and the walls were made out of some strange kind of stone, light grey with tiny white flecks that gleamed in the light. The tunnels were electric-lit, bright spherical lamps set at regular intervals along the walls, and the corridor was filled with people, men and women hurrying back and forth. There was a bustling, serious feel to the movement, brisk and impersonal.
The corridor opened up into a huge hallway with an arched roof. Craning my neck and looking upwards, I saw that the ceiling was divided by gold buttresses, each supporting chandeliers that glowed with white light. Massive cylindrical pillars ran from the buttresses down to the floor. The floor itself was grey-white stone, inlaid with patterns that looked like ancient coats of arms, and made of some hard material that echoed with our footsteps. And there were a lot of footsteps; I could see at least thirty people, some crossing the wide-open space at the centre and others talking in the shadows of the pillars. Circular alcoves were situated along the walls, and corridors led off deeper into the War Rooms. There were wooden desks at the far end, and beyond them I saw three sets of guarded doors.
“Come on, Verus,” Haken said. I’d slowed down to stare. “You look like a tourist.”
I caught Haken up. “Okay, I have to admit, this is impressive.”
“This is the Belfry,” Haken said. As we crossed the floor, he pointed out the doors beyond the desks. “Far doors lead to the Star Chamber and the Conclave. The ones on the right go to the Courts of Justice. If you’re not Inner Circle, you aren’t allowed in without a pass, so go to the clerk on the right.”
We reached the far side and Haken spoke briefly with the woman behind one of the desks, then returned. “They’ve already started.”
“What’s started?” I asked as Haken headed towards one of the alcoves. “The indictment?”
“Yeah.”
“So . . . how does this whole indictment thing work again?”
The alcoves were arched and lined in gold; a circular table sat in the middle of a curved bench. Haken dropped into the seat and leant back. “The indictment’s a formal statement by the Council that someone’s committed a crime. No indictment, no arrest.”
I sat opposite. “I thought Keepers could make arrests on their own.”
“Yeah, but it’s not our authority—it’s delegated. We can do small stuff on our own account, but anything important has to be authorised by a Council jury.” Haken nodded towards the doors. “Rain—he’s the Keeper in charge of the case—he’s making an argument to a panel of judges. They say yes, we go out and arrest whoever’s name’s on the paper. They say no, we go back to the office and find something else to do.”
I looked across at the closed doors. There was something vaguely disturbing about the idea that someone—maybe a lot of someones—was having their life decided by others right now. What would happen if an indictment like that was brought against me? “Are we supposed to be there?”
“We’re on the witness list,” Haken said. “They might call us up to give evidence, so we have to make ourselves available as long as the case is still going.” He shrugged and pulled out a folder and a pen. “You might want to get comfortable.”
I looked back at him, raised my eyebrows, then took a look around the Belfry. The place was still busy; it didn’t seem as though nothing was happening. I settled down to wait.
It was three hours later.
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” I said. “How long are they going to take?”
Haken shrugged. He had his folder open on the table and was reading through a thick report, making notes in the margins. “You’re the diviner.”
Watching the people walking back and forth over the floor of the Belfry had been interesting, for a while. After the first hour, I’d started checking everybody walking in our direction, looking to see if they were approaching us. I’d spent the second and part of the third hour writing e-mails on my phone. Now we were getting into the fourth hour and I still hadn’t spotted any future in which we’d be called for. “You know, I used to have all kinds of ideas about what working for the Council would be like. Never occurred to me that it mostly came down to sitting around waiting.”
“Haven’t worked with many bureaucracies, have you?”
“Not so much.” I looked around. “Does this place have a sandwich shop or something?”
Haken looked at me. “You’re asking whether the centre of government of the Light Council of Britain has a sandwich shop.”
“Well, it’d be useful.”
Haken shook his head.
“Does it usually take them this long?”
“No. Most indictments are open-and-shut. Five or ten minutes, once the formalities are done. Maybe an hour, if it’s a breach of the Concord or they’re authorising deadly force.”
“So what does it mean if they’ve taken three hours?”
Haken leant back, resting his head against the padded bench, and tapped the table. His fingers rapped against the wood as he stared past my shoulder. “I heard there were going to be Council members at this one.”
“I’m guessing that’s not a good thing.”
“Yeah. If they issue an indictment against all of White Rose, it’s going to get ugly.”
“Is that what they’re arguing about? How seriously they’re going to take this?”
“The ones who’ve really been on our case over Rayfield are the Guardians and the Unitarians,” Haken said. “Probably the Guardians are going to be pushing for a full indictment and the Unitarians are going to want the whole thing dropped. Usually the Centrists are with the Unitarians on this one, but Rayfield was Nirvathis’s apprentice, so . . .” He shrugged.
I tried to follow what Haken was getting at and couldn’t. It was an uncomfortable feeling—usually I’m the one who understands what’s going on. Now I was the clueless one and I didn’t like it. Council politics are byzantine and I was out of my depth.
One part I did understand: the attack last night and what it meant. I studied Haken, searching through the futures to see how he’d react to what I was about to say. “Is that all there is?”
“What do you mean?”
“White Rose have their own areas of influence, don’t they?”
“Maybe.”
“From what I’ve heard, some of White Rose’s clients work for the Council,” I said. “Maybe they’re on the Council.”
Haken glanced out over the floor. It looked casual, but I noticed his eyes do a quick sweep of every area within earshot. “You might want to be careful where you talk about stuff like that.”
“Yeah, well, if I’m getting called as a witness, you probably want me to have some idea what I should be saying. So am I right? It’s not about which factions want to do something about White Rose, it’s about which factions are in bed with them. Kind of literally, in this case.”