Word of Honour

Aubrey hurried across the uneven and protesting floor to see that Caroline had found Bloch. She was crouching, cradling his head, but the unnatural angle of his limbs indicated that the Holmlander had been subject to much of the force of the storm.

'The bag,' he said, when he saw Aubrey's face. 'I should not –'

He broke off and his body jerked with a horrible spasm. He started to cough, but hissed with pain and bit it back.

'Rest,' Aubrey said. 'Help will be here soon.'

'I should not have opened it.' Bloch fought for breath after each word.

'It wouldn't have mattered,' Aubrey said, and even as he said it, he realised it was the truth. 'The weather magic was in the bag, but it was compressed.' That was why I felt more than one layer of magic. 'It would have expanded some time. Soon.'

Aubrey bit his lip. It was messy magic. Spell compression was useful, sometimes, to let a spell unfold at a bidden time. It could let a non-magician set a spell in place, where a magician was unavailable. But compression was touchy. Templeton's First Law of Compression had been hammered out over fifty years ago, in the laboratories of experimental magic in Greythorn. Professor Victor Templeton had established, after much trial and error, that the force required to keep a spell in compression is proportional to the force of the spell itself. Mighty spells required much power to keep them compressed.

While rebuilding the experimental magic laboratories at Greythorn, Professor Templeton had engraved his Second Law of Compression over the doorway: an inadequately compressed spell, when it works free, will be multiplied in effect by the power of the spell used to compress it. Or, in student shorthand, bad compression leads to horribly bad outcomes.

To which Aubrey was tempted to add Fitzwilliam's Corollary to the Laws of Compression: Compression isn't worth it.

Bloch mumbled, then quivered. 'My arm isn't working,' he said, in a conversational tone. 'My nose itches.'

Caroline scratched it for him.

'I don't suppose it's a good sign,' Bloch said, 'not being able to move my limbs.'

'No,' Aubrey said. He didn't see how he could say anything else.

'I didn't think so.' Bloch glanced at Aubrey. 'It's Fitzwilliam, isn't it?'

'That's right.'

'I thought so.' He paused and grimaced. 'Thought so,' he repeated, softly.

'Don't speak. Save your strength.'

'For what?' Bloch tried a laugh, but the result was horrible – wet and desperate. 'I suppose I should tell you something important, seeing as I'm dying.'

'Sh,' Caroline said. 'Easy now.'

'Don't,' Bloch said. 'I know what's happening.'

'Are you in pain?' Aubrey asked.

'I was. Now I'm not.' He licked his lips. 'There is a plot. To steal Albion's gold. From the bank.'

'The Bank of Albion?'

Bloch nodded. 'Your Albionite friend. The magician.'

Aubrey clutched the man's shoulder. 'It's Tremaine's plot? Tell me more.'

'I will.' He looked puzzled for a moment, and he cocked his head as if listening. Then he glanced at something over Aubrey's head.

And died.

THE POLICE ARRIVED, JUST AFTER THE HOLMLANDERS flooded back. Brandt came to his senses and began issuing orders before realising that nothing could be done. He moved about among his countrymen, attempting to console them.

Craddock and a dozen Magisterium operatives arrived soon after, while the ambulance porters were attending to Bloch's body. Craddock made immediately for Aubrey, while his operatives fanned out and examined the area. He crossed his arms and grimly looked over the ruins of the hall, a scene that still shocked Aubrey with the completeness of its devastation. 'Holmlanders against Holmlanders, here in Albion. Can't have this.'

'What makes you think it's Holmlanders who were responsible?'

'Who else do you think it could be? Disaffected local troublemakers?'

'It's possible.'

'Possible, but not likely. Manfred warned us that the refugee Holmlanders had attracted attention at the highest level back in Fisherberg. He didn't foresee this sort of action, though.' He rubbed his long chin. 'Ruthless or careless?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Was this action ruthless or simply sloppy work?'

Such practical issues had been far from Aubrey's mind. He'd been too stunned by the ferocity of the attack and – he admitted – too relieved that he and Caroline had survived. They had survived, where Bloch hadn't. In the lottery that was the unfolding of events, it could have happened differently. He could have opened the bag. The spell may not have gone off. Bloch may have taken the bag outside and the effects would have been felt over a wider area.

Aubrey had been lucky. Caroline had been lucky. He was thankful.

With an effort, he turned to Craddock's question. 'I hope they were careless. I'm afraid they were ruthless.'

Craddock nodded. 'This is real.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Sometimes, we forget that this struggle is real. We see it as a game, a jolly spate of push and shove, of wrangling over who's the best.' He looked tired and Aubrey was startled to find himself feeling sympathy for the man. 'It's murky stuff we're dealing with, Fitzwilliam, down in the depths that no-one sees. Are you up to it?'

'I hope so.'

'Good man. Now, I understand you're interested in forensic magic? Go and see what you can learn from my people. Top notch, all of them. Ah, Miss Hepworth, good to see you're unharmed.'

Craddock went to Caroline. Aubrey winced, and limped a little, as he picked his way over to the nearest of the black-clad Magisterium operatives.

This sort of thing signalled a new world, a world that Aubrey didn't like the look of. It made him even more determined that Holmland wouldn't force a war. With that sort of attitude, it would be a war of a sort that had never been seen before – indiscriminate, callous, but on a scale beyond imagining.

He could hear Dr Tremaine's laughter.

FORENSIC MAGIC WAS A CURIOUS MIXTURE OF THE commonplace and the arcane. Sharp eyes were useful, but more essential was a finely attuned magical sensitivity. Here, Aubrey was able to help. Such a thing was passive, like a mirror catching a sunbeam, and required no magical effort. He could sense magic, taste its flavour and feel its texture, without affecting his condition at all.

After a quick briefing, he became part of the line of Magisterium operatives that picked its way across the site, bent nearly double. He concentrated hard and was only dimly aware of the activity to one side, where the police were blocking off access, hauling wooden barricades across the lanes between the surrounding buildings.

He could feel the magical residue that overlay the disaster area, a wasteful, clumsy sign that tended to suggest the perpetrators were in the careless camp rather than the ruthless. Although he admitted they could be both. Some of the residue had a tantalisingly familiar aspect about it, but he couldn't find enough to be more definitive than that. It could be a Continental approach; it could be a Holmland style of magic. Or it could be someone who'd studied under a Continental master and actually lived around the corner.