We stumbled out into a hallway, and I dragged Benny to a halt. I could hear Ah’té roaring and crashing and destroying Silkstar’s furniture and tasteless Mycedan-tat sculptures. I had no doubt Lowriver had me tagged again and was directing her god after us. If she were smart, she would summon another ghost ahead of us, wait for us to blunder into it, then spring the god. But right now, she wasn’t thinking straight. A knife in the kidney would do that to you, mega-powered mage or not.
I pulled Benny around to face me. “You need to find Sereh and get her out of here. I’ll distract Ah’té and lead it away.”
I could see Benny’s instinct to protect his daughter warring with his loyalty to me. I knew Sereh would win out in the end, but I didn’t have time to waste.
“You can’t beat that thing on your own,” he said.
“I can’t beat it with your help, either. Find Sereh. Fetch the Ash Guard. Get them up here.”
I wasn’t suicidal by nature. If I thought we could get out together, or if I thought Benny’s help would be enough to defeat Ah’té, I would have grabbed hold of him and refused to let him go. But nothing he could do would help. No matter how unlikely, this was our only chance. I gave Benny a shove down the hallway.
“Circle around. Get Sereh.”
Then I pulled in raw magic and sent a futile burst at the god.
“Come on, you bastard,” I shouted, and staggered off in the opposite direction to Benny.
Apparently, needling an ancient, dead beast god wasn’t the best of ideas. It came through the wall behind me in a single bound, exploding wood panels like autumn leaves. It missed me by an arm’s-stretch and smashed into the opposite wall, collapsing it.
The ceiling came down. I just had time to throw up another magical shield. A heavy beam hit my shield, and I felt the impact all through my body. I shoved myself away, using the shield as a lever, and ran.
The next I-didn’t-know-how-many minutes became a game of giant cat-bear-wolf and tiny wounded mouse as Ah’té stalked me through Silkstar’s palace. The trail of destruction was something impressive to behold. How half the city hadn’t turned up to watch the spectacle was a mystery to me.
Because it’s only been a couple of minutes, I told myself, and most of the people in Agatos are sensible enough to keep well clear of out-of-control magic.
Eventually, the Ash Guard would show up. If Lowriver hadn’t managed to pin this on me by having her tame god turn me into thinly-sliced mage and leaving me as prime suspect (deceased) by then, she was going to find herself in a city load of shit.
All I had to do was hang on for — what? — twenty minutes?
Some hope. Every part of my body was in agony. The magic I had thrown at Lowriver had done me damage inside, and every step was ripping me up.
I was halfway across a large drawing room when Ah’té broke through the wall behind me. Its fur was spiked with broken wood and matted with dirt from the half demolished building.
The beast god was vast. Its arched back pressed up against the ceiling, sending cracks racing across the painted plaster. Claws chewed holes in the marble floor. Its eyes fixed on me, and I felt a surge of primal, ancestral terror, that of a child fleeing a stalking beast through the dark forest, knowing he couldn’t escape. Every fear that had fed the god over generations, making it strong. Thousands of years when humans had shivered around their fires, listening to the howl of wolves or the soft padding of feet just beyond the firelight, all the desperate sacrifices and prayers to the beast god to turn its gaze from them. That terror was part of my blood, no matter how distant it was. This brief, modern city, this veneer of civilisation wasn’t enough to breed the terror out of me. There was nowhere to run from a beast god.
You died! You’re dead! I didn’t know how gods were born or how they died, but I did know that Ah’té was ancient history, only an echo. Men had found their way out of the dark and left their old gods behind.
“I’m not some frightened hunter,” I shouted. “I’m a mage of Agatos!”
I wrenched my eyes away.
Ah’té roared and leapt at me.
Depths! Now I had really done it.
I threw myself backwards. My foot caught on a stool. I fell, rolled, came up again, and sprinted for the shuttered door ahead of me. I chucked a spell at it, smashed it open, and dived through a couple of yards ahead of Ah’té.
Stone rained down around me as I hit cool flagstones. I was in the central courtyard of Thousand Walls. Around me, bees hummed uneasily in dozens of hives. Silkstar had been an adherent of Belethea, goddess of bees. This was a holy place to her.
Except Belethea wasn’t here. She was as dead as Ah’té was supposed to be.
Even so, something about the place gave Ah’té pause. The beast god stopped at the edge of the courtyard, sniffing. I found my feet and stumbled away across the flagstones.
Still the beast god hesitated, and the beehives seethed with growing rage.
Ah’té placed one great paw into the courtyard. Nothing happened. It put back its head and howled. The sound turned my spine to liquid. My knees bent, and I almost fell.
The beast god padded towards me. I drew in raw magic and prepared for a last, futile gesture.
If there was one thing I had noticed about Lowriver during our brief and unpleasant acquaintance, it was that she couldn’t resist a gloat. As I backed away from the approaching god, she emerged from another doorway, dragging Benny behind her.
I swore. You were supposed to get out of here, you daft bastard.
Benny winked at me.
I stared at him. He had lost it. He had finally snapped. It had all been too much for him. Gods, magic, his kid in mortal danger. His mind had gone. I couldn’t say I was surprised.
I prepared another arrow of magic. If only Lowriver could be distracted for a second.
Lowriver’s other hand was still pressed against her wound, somehow holding the injury at bay. I wouldn’t have known how to start with a spell like that. The wound wasn’t enough to weaken her magic, though. I could see the defensive spells woven about her. My arrow wouldn’t dent them. The pouch at her belt blazed with the power held in the relic of the dead god. It was sustaining Ah’té’s connection to the world and feeding Lowriver with all the raw magic she could ever need.
Benny winked again, meaningfully.
What you expect me to do? As a message, a wink was surpassingly crap.
Maybe he just had something in his eye.
Fuck it. I threw the arrow.
Lowriver smiled as my magic shattered.
If I hadn’t been watching Benny like a hawk, I would never have seen his hand slide down and his nimble fingers pry open Lowriver’s pouch. I pulled in more power. Watch me! Not him! Lowriver’s gloating smile widened.
Then Ah’té’s claw was in Benny’s hand. In the same movement, he twisted, breaking Lowriver’s grip, and skipped a couple of steps away. He held up the claw triumphantly.
Lowriver spun on him with a shout of rage. Raw magic waterfalled into her. She shaped it into a weapon and raised her hands.
Benny, whose plan clearly hadn’t stretched beyond this point, glanced desperately around for some way out. There was nothing. No defence. Nowhere to run.
He popped the claw into his mouth and swallowed.
I just had time to shout, “For fuck’s sake, Benny!” before everything happened at once.
The raw magic from the claw that had fed Lowriver and sustained Ah’té and that was now inside Benny cut off abruptly. Ah’té disintegrated into ectoplasm, its link to the ghost finally severed. Lowriver threw the magic she had already drawn in at Benny. It engulfed him in blinding fury. Lowriver sagged back, drained. And I lobbed a broken brick at her head.
I missed with my aim, but the brick caught her a glancing blow on one arm, knocking her further off balance and probably hurting like a bastard.
The magic around Benny faded. I expected to see him in pieces, blood and bone and flesh shredded and cast a
bout the courtyard. Instead, I saw two things. Benny bent over, arms wrapped around himself as though trying to hold everything in place, and, seemingly superimposed over him, as if they occupied the same space, the ghostly figure of Ah’té. Benny’s skin heaved, as though it were trying to reshape itself.
Lowriver stared at him, her face uncomprehending. The ghost of Ah’té put back its head and howled silently.
Lowriver broke. She must have seen her plans crumbling in front of her and chosen the only option left to her. She ran.
She headed for the main courtyard doors. I didn’t even try to stop her. I had nothing left.
Then Lowriver’s magic finally seemed to fail. Her legs gave way, and blood pumped from her wound again. With an effort that must have been pure will, she rose and kept going.
I felt it just as she reached the door. My own magic failing, too, as raw magic disappeared around us. I didn’t think Lowriver even realised what was happening.
She dragged the door open and stopped. She stood there, frozen. Then a sword blade erupted from her back. She jerked and desperately reached for magic, but there was none to be had. She slumped, and her body slid off the sword to the flagstones. Captain Meroi Gale strode out of the doorway, face and hands smeared with Ash, and looked around. Her gaze settled on me.
“You’ve made a bloody mess of this place, haven’t you?” she said.
I wobbled over to Benny and knelt beside him. His fists were clenched, and his face was tight.
“You all right?” I asked.
He nodded towards Captain Gale. “Think the Ash took care of it.” His voice sounded like a wood saw.
Now that I could see he wasn’t seriously harmed, I was furious. “What in the Depths were you thinking? You can’t do something like that. That was part of a fucking god, not some gem you nicked out of somebody’s jewellery box!”
Benny shrugged.
I looked up from my friend as Captain Gale crossed the courtyard to us.
“How did you know?” I managed.
She looked down at me, pityingly. For some reason, I seemed to get that look a lot.
“I did my job,” she said. “It would have been a whole lot easier if you had kept me better informed. We might have been able to prevent … all this.” She offered me a hand. “Can you stand?”
I nodded and let her help me to my feet.
“Good,” she said. “Because you’re under arrest.”
It was my turn to stare down at her. It was all too much. After everything that had happened, all the fit-ups and false allegations? I had been dragged through the Depths. My friends — my family, because that was what Benny and Sereh were — had nearly died. Only blind, stupid luck had seen us through.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.” I lifted my chin with dignity. “I’m tired, I’m hurt, I’ve nearly been killed half a dozen times tonight. I need to look after Benny and Sereh. I’m going home.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
She arrested me anyway. Then she kept us in the courtyard as other members of the Ash Guard appeared with various black-cloaked mages in tow. Lowriver’s acolytes, I supposed. I didn’t recognise most of them. There wasn’t much defiance in them, and none of them would meet my eyes. Cowards. You’re lucky the Ash Guard have you. If they had any sense, these mages would plead guilty to absolutely everything and spend the rest of their days safely locked up in Ash Guard cells. The Countess did not take betrayal kindly. I could attest to that.
Sereh joined us at some point, appearing out of the shadows to give me a shock. She was obviously hurt, but she was in a lot better shape than Benny or me. That didn’t stop Benny fussing over her until she finally pushed him off.
Then we were all hauled to the Ash Guard headquarters for a combination of bandaging and interrogation. I told them everything I could that wouldn’t incriminate me, which left quite a lot of holes.
Eventually, though, they let me go with a lecture about all of the crimes I had committed, which weren’t actually any concern of the Ash Guard, and a warning not to do them again. No one mentioned the stolen Ash.
Benny and Sereh were waiting for me outside. Together, we made our way back to Benny’s little house on the edge of the Warrens.
While Sereh disarmed the most deadly of her booby traps, I let myself slump onto a couch. Benny eyed my pile of possessions.
“Moving in, then, are you?”
“I was kind of evicted.”
Benny grunted. “Well, I do owe you.” He glared at me. “But you can’t leave everything a mess. I’ve seen your apartment, remember? And you’re not using this as an office. I’m not having your usual no-goods wandering in here with Sereh around.”
I refrained from pointing out that he was a thief and Sereh had just knifed a powerful mage in the kidney.
“And we’re going half and half with the food, so you’d better do some of the shopping.”
I threw up my hands in surrender. “I’m going to bed.”
I slept the rest of the night and most of the next day. My body was a ruin, and it needed the sleep to heal itself. When I awoke, I felt even more tired than when I’d gone to bed. The process by which a mage’s body repaired itself using raw magic was always exhausting, and I had needed a Depths of a lot of repairing. I still ached, but at least I didn’t feel like I was about to fall down dead.
Benny and Sereh seemed to be out, so I placed a ward on the building that would only let the three of us through. Any competent mage would be able to break it, but at least it would give me warning. I would do a proper job later, maybe ask Mica to put in something with a bit more kick when she got back from chasing Lowriver’s false trails. But first I had something else to do.
Imela Rush’s family didn’t live far from here. The mourning banners had been removed from the big, neat house on Long Step Avenue, which meant they had buried their daughter, probably in the burial shafts above the Warrens, not far from the Lady’s cedar grove. As a Master Servant, she could have had a place in the Silkstar family tombs in the Fields of the Dead, to the west of the Upper City, but I didn’t think her parents would even consider that. The Warrens run deep.
I paused outside their front door, gripped by the same reluctance to intrude that had made me hesitate before. I wouldn’t be welcome. I would just be another jab in an open wound. But they deserved to know the truth, and I had promised them. Turning away now would be cowardice.
I hadn’t worn my mage’s cloak this time, but Rush’s mother let me in anyway, wordlessly taking me through to their living room at the back of the house. Rush’s father was there, and if anything, he looked more gaunt than before. The whole big house seemed empty and hollow.
Imela Rush’s brothers weren’t here, and for that I was selfishly grateful. I didn’t want to have to deal with an angry, hurt apprentice mage again.
I explained everything I could about what had happened, and then I left. I hadn’t brought them comfort, but maybe in the end it would help to have answers to some of their questions. Maybe not.
Captain Gale was waiting outside Benny’s house when I got back. She had buggered my wards with her Ash already. She wasn’t wearing it smeared on her skin, but one of her hands rested firmly on a pouch at her waist.
“That’s not very trusting,” I said. “Are you here to arrest me again?”
She didn’t smile. “I could, you know. You’re a disaster. You crash around, breaking stuff and causing trouble.”
“But?”
She looked like she had swallowed a worm. “But the official position of the Ash Guard is that you’re useful out here. For now. Trouble finds you like flies find shit.” She could have chosen a more complementary comparison. “And when it does,” she continued, “you’re going to report it to us so we can deal with it properly.”
“You want me to squeal?”
“Don’t be childish. I want you to help avoid another situation like this. You’ve put the whole city in a dangerous place.”
“Me?” T
hat was a bit unfair. I had just been trying to stay alive, and the Ash Guard had been intent on pinning everything on me.
“Have you ever heard of the rule of three?”
I shook my head.
“There’s a reason why Agatos has always had three high mages. It’s about balance. None of them dares to make too big of a move, because they know the other two will resist them and they’ll lose. Two against one never plays out nicely. They stick with their domains and enjoy their games, but they keep the balance.”
“I thought that was the job of you guys,” I said.
Captain Gale sighed. “The Ash Guard is the sledgehammer. You don’t use a sledgehammer to balance things. You use it to smash shit.”
“And now there are just two high mages.”
“Yep. And both of them have enough of an ego to start eyeing each other’s territory. Things could get exciting out there.”
As she turned away, I called out after her, “I’m sorry.” For betraying her trust, for stealing her Ash, for lying to her. Depths, I didn’t even know what else.
She looked back, then shook her head. “It’s not enough.”
Benny and Sereh arrived back about an hour later, carrying food in wicker baskets. Benny headed for the small kitchen, while Sereh let herself out into the courtyard. I followed Benny to the kitchen.
“Want some help with the cooking?”
He glanced at me. “Mate, when I want food poisoning, I’ll let you know.”
I was about to tell Benny how insulted I was, even though he had tasted my cooking before and had a point, when someone knocked on the door.
“Get that, will you?”
I wandered over. I couldn’t deny that I felt a twinge of nerves as I pulled it open, even though Lowriver was dead and I had repaired the wards. There were still people out there who would be pissed off at me.
There was no one waiting outside, and although I glanced up and down the street, I couldn’t tell which of the passers-by had knocked.
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 32
