by Karen Chance
She screamed and ran into the crowd, straight into the path of the elephant. It trumpeted its fear at the sight of a stream of fire headed right for it, and I guess its instinct was to try to put it out, because one of those massive feet came down with the force of a steam-driven pylon, right on top of her. And then another one for good measure. And then I looked away because it was either that or be really ill.
“You did me a service,” Pritkin was saying. “That was the return. Do not presume on my goodwill again.” He climbed onto the railing, still watching me out of the corner of his eye, and when Parindra made another flying swoop, he caught hold of the edge of the carpet and was gone.
“Pritkin!” I shouted the wrong name, but it didn’t matter; by the time the words were out of my mouth, he was already out of earshot. He was not, however, out of trouble.
It took Parindra all of a second to notice that he’d picked up a hitchhiker. He kicked out with his foot, but Pritkin grimly held on, which seemed to annoy the Indian Consul. He took the rug straight up, five or six stories above the tops of the houses, before trying again. This time, he succeeded, dislodging Pritkin with a kick that looked vicious even from this far away, and that sent him flying off into the night.
I stared, my heart in my throat, knowing that even a mage couldn’t survive a fall from that height. But before the scream working its way up my throat could get out, a filmy mass formed above his head, glowing pale blue against the black sky, like a neon jellyfish. The bottom of it flowed over Pritkin’s hands and arms, the rest ballooning up overhead, slowing his rate of descent to a crawl.
I’d known shields could do a lot of things, but a parachute was a new one. It was working, though, and unless there was a breeze I couldn’t feel, he was in at least some control of the thing. And he wasn’t trying to get back into the house; he was navigating a course in the other direction.
“Human magic never ceases to amaze,” Mircea said from behind me.
I whirled. “We have to get him!”
“Ming-de has agreed to take us with her when she makes her exit, which will be very soon. I do not know how she will react to having an unknown mage on board.”
“Not help him—get him! He has the Codex!”
Mircea’s gaze sharpened. “You’re certain? You saw it?”
“I didn’t need to,” I said viciously. “He’s trying to leave. And there’s no way he’d do that unless he already has what he wants.” Somewhere, under that monster of a cape, he had it on him. And now he was getting away with it.
Mircea was looking at me oddly. “You know this mage?” I did a double take, then remembered that Mircea hadn’t seen Pritkin without the hood up on the cape. That was good as far as the integrity of the timeline went, but it meant that he didn’t know the conniving, devious, dangerous son of a bitch we were up against.
Before I could answer, there was a flash of red light and a crack that was audible even over the sounds of battle. And between one blink and the next, Pritkin simply vanished. “What the…He’s gone!”
“Stay here.” Mircea jumped over the railing, wading through the carnage to where Ming-de had just emerged from the house. Her thronelike chair was back in hover mode, gliding serenely through the chaos, her fans cutting a broad swath in front of her while her guards hacked and slashed at everything on either side. But the fans apparently recognized Mircea, because they let him through to talk with their mistress.
In a moment, he was back, using a knife he took off a passing mage to pry at one of the orbs in the dragon’s claws. “What are you doing?”
“I promised to take you through the ley lines. It seems I will keep that promise sooner than I had thought.” With a flick of the wrist, the orb came loose in his hand. Ming-de floated gently up the ramp, which pulled in after her. The whole ship began to shake, and slowly rose off the ground, like the hot-air balloon it wasn’t.
“Wait!” I raised my voice to be heard over the sound of a couple dozen spells hitting the barge all at once; it looked like the mages weren’t too pleased at Ming-de’s early exit. “I don’t understand!”
“I will explain later. But if you wish to catch the mage, we must move quickly.”
“But ley lines are massive energy sources!” The way the pixie had described them, they were a cross between a volcanic eruption and a nuclear reactor. “We can’t go in there!”
“I assure you, we can,” Mircea said, putting an arm around my waist as the shuddering barge cleared the rooftops.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” I said shrilly, as he jumped up onto the narrow railing around the barge, balancing us there with a complete lack of appreciation for little things like rickety construction, pissed-off war mages and, oh, gravity.
“Hold on.”
I shook my head violently. “No, see, every time you say something like that, we end up doing something really—” Mircea crouched slightly and his muscles tensed. “Listen to me!” I shrieked. “We can’t—”
And then we did. Mircea jumped into what for a second was only thin air, then we were swept sideways into a rushing maelstrom of light and color, like being in the middle of bloodred rapids all pelting madly for a waterfall the size of Niagara. Flashes of blinding light exploded all around us, while molten channels of pure energy raced alongside and arced overhead. There was so much for my mind to take in that it was a moment before I realized we weren’t frying.
“We do not have shields like the mages,” Mircea said, looking euphoric, “but entering a ley line, even merely skimming the top, without them is madness. The energy forces would consume us in an instant.”
“Then why aren’t they?”
He pointed out a faint golden bubble of energy glowing softly all around us. Next to the pulsing swirl of the ley line, it was almost invisible. “The stronger mages can use the lines for rapid transport over short distances with merely their personal shields. Longer journeys require something more substantial.”
I stared around, amazed, as the energy stream rocketed us forward. “How did you even know this was here? There was nothing visible.”
“Not with the eyes, perhaps. But you could sense it, too, if you knew what to look for.” I was impressed for a moment, until Mircea suddenly grinned. “Or you can do what most of us do, and carry a map.”
“But you don’t have a map.”
“I lived in Paris for many years; I long ago memorized the lines’ locations,” he admitted. “I used them all the time.”
“You carried around something like that?” I gestured at the orb in his hands. The thing was as big as a soccer ball.
“There are pocket-sized shields, although they don’t give such a smooth ride.” A particularly large eddy in the electric current sent us spinning off to the left for a moment.
“Smooth?” I asked, clutching his arm to keep from falling.
“Oh, yes.” Mircea caressed the little sphere lovingly while somehow bringing us back into the center of the stream, where it was slightly calmer. “I will hate to have to return this.” He grinned at me again, obviously exulting in the wild ride. “It’s more than a shield. It can also help you find the lines, by glowing brighter when one is near, and can open a fissure if placed directly in its path.”
“But how are we supposed to find the mage in all this?”
Mircea pointed to a whirlpool of light up ahead. “Someone exited the line there, not long ago. I did not notice any other ley-line activity before his, did you?”
“I don’t know.” Between the spells and the duel and the whole thing with Pritkin, half a dozen could have been activated at once and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
“We will have to risk it,” Mircea said. “Hold on.”
“You know, I am really starting to hate that—”
And then we were falling, careening for the side of the line through a maelstrom of light and sound. For a moment I thought something had gone terribly wrong. But with a sudden absence of color and a resounding boom, like a
peal of thunder, we were once more standing on solid ground.
“The Latin Quarter,” I heard Mircea say, while my eyes fought to adjust. The shifting, brilliant colors of the line left pulsing shadows on my vision, like fireworks against the deep black of the sky. “This area is a warren of small streets even in our time. This will not be as simple as I’d hoped.”
I finally managed to focus on the only remaining source of light, the orb in his hands. It was glowing softly, although if it was still putting a shield around us, I couldn’t see it. Of course, I couldn’t see much of anything else, either. Beyond the small puddle of light, all I could make out were buildings rearing darkly on every side, reaching for the great span of the galaxy overhead.
“How can you tell where we are?” Even with vampiric sight, this was dark.
“That particular line runs through central Paris and the Ile de la Cité. And I can smell the Seine.”
Good for him. I could smell mostly layers of garbage that lay rotting in the gutters despite the cold weather. My shoe squelched in something slimy that stuck to my sole and sent up the vinegar reek of decaying fruit. Horse manure and the sharp scent of human urine were everywhere, as if the streets had been drenched with them. Somehow, the swashbuckling movies never mention that sort of thing.
“This way.” Mircea took my arm, which was a good thing because the cobblestones were uneven and what parts weren’t covered by a thin layer of ice were slimy.
The dark, winding street was too quiet, and so narrow that I constantly felt like someone was about to lean out from the shadows and grab me. Considering Pritkin’s preference for offense over defense, there was at least a chance that someone would. But we came to the end with no problems, and discovered a slightly brighter scene lit by a sliver of moon: the Seine, with the soaring towers of Notre Dame beyond it. The light snow of earlier in the evening had melted on the cobblestones, turning them into an icy mirror that reflected the huge cathedral perfectly. Unfortunately, they did not also reflect Pritkin.
Mircea’s head lifted, as if scenting the air. All I could smell was rotting fish and evidence that maybe clean-water laws hadn’t come into effect yet, but Mircea must have been able to filter those out. He started for the gaping mouth of another street, but before we could get there, a nearby hay-filled cart burst into flames. It sat beside the road, burning merrily for a moment, then hurtled straight at us.
Mircea pushed me out of the way, but lost valuable seconds in the process and ended up not quite clearing all of the flying bits of hay. I’d seen him handle fire before with aplomb, but there must have been something different about this one—maybe some potion residue still clinging to it—because it didn’t go out. Instead, it caught on the heavy fabric of his shirt and started to spread.
He tore off the shirt and flung it into the river, where it hissed and went out, but by then the fire had spread to his hair. Before I could reach him to try batting it out with my hands, he was suddenly gone, and I heard a splash. I whirled around to see ripples spreading over the water.
A moment later, his head broke the surface. The fire was out, but I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief before a knife slid against my throat. I froze.
“I do believe I mentioned that it would be unwise to follow me,” Pritkin said.
“It would be equally unwise to injure her,” Mircea said. I didn’t see him move, but Pritkin tensed.
“Stay where you are, vampire!” I felt the knife blade dent my skin, and a tiny trickle of warmth ran down my neck. Mircea halted, dripping, only a couple of yards away.
“You wish a very painful death, mage,” he said, and despite being covered in river slime that was slowly oozing down his chest, he made it sound believable. The orb had fallen from his hand when he went in the water, rolled against a too-tall cobblestone and stopped. As far as I could see by its low light, other than a few nasty-looking burns on his chest, he appeared to be okay. That did not make me any less furious with Pritkin.
I struggled, too mad to care that this wasn’t the same man who had held a knife to my throat once before. That Pritkin had had no reason to hurt me; this one, on the other hand, rightfully assumed that I wanted to steal from him. “Are you crazy? You could have killed him!”
“And may yet. I have given you fair warning; if you refuse to heed, I must and will have recourse to other means.”
“Like killing two people over a stupid spell? For God’s sake—”
“And which deity would you be invoking?” Pritkin asked, as the knife blade bit a little deeper. I was starting to feel blood pooling in the hollow of my throat. Even more worrying were Mircea’s eyes, which had flooded amber and were currently brighter than our substitute for a lantern. He was pissed. And that was so not good.
Mircea rarely lost his temper, but when he did, it was scary. I’d already seen it twice and really didn’t want another demonstration. Especially since Pritkin couldn’t die tonight. Neither of these men knew it, but one day, they would work together to make some pretty impressive history. Some of which would be mine. I needed the Codex, but my life depended on having them both alive when the dust cleared.
“Listen to me,” I said, my voice low and urgent. “We’ll leave you alone. You can have the damn book. All we need is one spell. Give it to us and we’ll go.”
“One spell,” Pritkin mused, while starting to move us backwards. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing; with Mircea’s speed, a few extra yards were meaningless. “And I wonder which that would be?”
I would have told him, but he’d increased the pressure enough that I was afraid the next thing I said would be the last thing. “Release her, mage, and I will consider allowing you to survive your punishment,” Mircea said, very softly.
“And if you refrain from dogging my heels, I will consider letting her go, once my work is done,” Pritkin replied. He sounded calm, but the heartbeat in the chest behind me was a little too loud for that. Mircea started to say something else, but Pritkin didn’t give him the chance. He reached up with his hand as if grabbing something in the air, and the night ripped open like a wound, all pulsing red against the dark. Mircea jumped, but too late; the ley line snatched us off our feet and we were gone.
The tumbling torrent spewed us out on what felt like a dirt road a moment later, but before I could even start to focus on the surroundings, we’d caught another line, this one blue, and vanished again. I lost track of how many we crisscrossed after that, the colors all running together—blue, white, purple, back to blue, and then red again. It was a much more turbulent ride than with the empress’s shield, and most of the time I barely had a chance to take a few stumbling steps before we were off again.
My eyes didn’t have time to adjust, but my other senses picked up on random clues at each stop: the pungent smell of rotting seaweed and the call of seagulls; the scent of manure and the bleat of sheep; the heat of some enclosed space and the stench of spilled wine. We’d just arrived at the last one, with afterimages still dancing in front of my eyes, when there was another crack and a brilliant flash of red and Mircea stepped out of nothing.
Pritkin swore and a fireball appeared in the air in front of us. I yelled, Mircea dodged and the fireball exploded—against the orb, which had been its target all along. For some reason, I expected the gold ball to shatter like glass, but it was made of sterner stuff. When the flames cleared, it looked exactly the same. Pritkin had used the moment of the explosion to tear open another ley line, this one yellow. It pulsed like a small sun right above our heads, and I could feel the pull of it, even as Mircea grabbed for us.
He got a hand on Pritkin, but the heavy folds of the cape made it hard to tell where the mage’s body was, and instead of an arm, he wrapped a fist around a handful of black cloth. The cape tore away as Pritkin made a flying lunge for the orb, scooping it up right as we were sucked into a golden void.
After a brief, tumultuous ride, a slap of wind hit my face and we dropped onto a surface that oozed wet
ly around my shoes. I leaned against something that felt like stone, my eyes refusing to focus on anything except leaping shadows, my lungs threatening to rebel against the sharpness of the night air. It was like jumping in the deep end of the pool when it’s not quite warm enough to swim, and the shock is all you can feel until you break the surface, gasping.
When I could focus again, all I saw in place of that jumping stream of vivid color was a world of black, stretching out around me in every direction like Pritkin’s missing cloak. But I could hear him gasping somewhere nearby, sounding about as frazzled as I felt. And I remembered Mircea saying that extended travel isn’t recommended without some kind of advanced shield. Maybe that’s why we’d stopped; maybe all the jumping around before he stole the orb had exhausted Pritkin. Too bad I was in no shape to capitalize on it.
I hung on to the frigid rock until it slowly came into focus. It was part of a stone and wood fence bordering an empty field, with nothing to see in the distance but charcoal smudges that might have been trees. Gray streamers of mist curled up from the wet ground, twisting around our ankles clammily, as Pritkin fumbled in his clothes for something. At his feet, the orb shone dimly through a veil of caked-on grime, having been treated to a mud bath when we landed.
It looked like I was on my own.
I sized this new Pritkin up as my heartbeat cautiously returned to normal. There were no fashionable knee pants, embroidered waistcoats or powdered wigs in evidence. He was dressed simply in a white shirt with long, full sleeves that, despite the weather, had been rolled up to show muscled forearms, and slim gray trousers that wouldn’t have looked that out of place two hundred years later. Of course, they were crisscrossed with a load of armaments, differing from his usual stash only in the lack of automated weapons.
The only jarring note was the sweep of gold-red hair. For some reason, I couldn’t seem to stop staring at it. I kept wanting to think of him as the man I knew, the one I occasionally called friend, but the hair wouldn’t let me. I glared at it resentfully, trying to come to grips with the rapid way my world had shifted. I’d already mourned our friendship, already dealt with his betrayal. Only to have to reevaluate him all over again, to start to trust—just to find out that I’d been right the first time.
