Legend of the Lakes

by Clara O'Connor

  “This sample belongs to someone identified as a latent with late-stage Maledictio.” He indicated that we should look through the darkfield microscope to see for ourselves. The blood on the platform of the microscope looked like any other blood – a red splotch on a glass plate. But through the magnification and illumination of the device, it was different to what I had seen blood in biology class before. The balls of red blood cells held a dark shadow, which must be the illness. But that was not what caught my eye, dancing through this sample was a vague shimmer.

  “You’re investigating magic in the blood?” I asked.

  “Yes, they… we have made great strides in locating the presence of magic in sections of the population. The rise of the illness surfaced a great many who we would not otherwise have been aware of. It is impossible to test everyone, but as people fell ill, the research was able to go faster and we could identify them sooner,” he said, stumbling over the words.

  It was true then, what Devyn had suspected. The Empire had used the Mallacht – or Maledictio as they called it – to identify and target those with the illness, but why then had Londinium gone to such lengths to get a treatment? A treatment that they then only made available to the wealthy elite… or was the answer that simple? One world for the poor, another for the rich.

  He swapped out the sample for another.

  “This is mine,” he said and, looking through, I found myself in a different universe to the first sample. Where there had been a shimmer across the first, this one had a trail of incandescent stars dancing through it. It sang to me, took my breath away; it was entrancing.

  “And this one…” He put a third on the platform. I lowered my eye to the scope, but before I had even focussed I could see the glow. It was utterly breathtaking. The joy of the bright stars glittering in the blood was like looking at the sky on the clearest new-moon winter’s night. The previous sample was more like a summer’s night at a full moon: stars were visible, but the full beauty of the celestial heavens was not on display. This time, where there had been a hundred stars before, now there were thousands. “Her blood is beyond compare.”

  Gideon snarled behind me, and I stepped in front of him as he made to attack.

  Marcus stood frozen, like prey before the predator.

  “Don’t.” He looked casually out at the watching sentinels. “There are more outside in the corridor.”

  “You—” I stopped short, wary of the city’s invidious big brother, I knew the charms we wore weren’t infallible.

  “There are no microphones in here,” Marcus said quickly. “And the masks make it impossible for the cameras too.”

  “Where is she?” I breathed. That blood, that blood belonged to my daughter.

  “She’s safe.”

  “Where is she?” Gideon gritted from behind me.

  “I can get her to you,” Marcus said quickly. “I have a plan, but I need your help.”

  “Ha!” Bronwyn scoffed, her pitch high.

  Marcus and his bargains, always trying to trade lives, like it was some big chess game.

  “I will get her out. We’ll get her outside the walls just before the delegation exits. She’ll be waiting for you.”

  “That’s impossible. Nobody gets out without papers,” Bronwyn said, continuing to speak for the group, fully filled in on the information Linus had shared with me.

  “She will if she’s with the right escort.”

  “You?” Bronwyn’s eyes narrowed.

  “No. I go nowhere without guards.” His eyes shifted to the sentinels on the other side of the glass. “But a praetorian guard won’t be stopped.”

  “The one who brought us here? How can you trust him?”

  “His wife and children, they got ill. He approached my father, thinking he would make an exception, that he would help them,” his eyes lowered. “He was wrong.”

  “Did they die?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. Kasen never speaks of them,” Marcus sighed. “But he will help. He is fond of her.”

  He really was going to do this.

  “What do you want?” Bronwyn gritted out.

  “Take a seat. I need to take your bloods,” he said, picking up a tourniquet. None of us moved. “I told them I could persuade you to let me take samples. We can only continue to speak if you are seen to comply.”

  “Mine is all you get,” Gideon said tightly, pulling off the lab coat and outer jacket to reveal the fine leather armour he wore underneath. Baring his forearm, the healthy veins pulsed with life as they ran under the oathbinding tattoo he wore there.

  “I’ll need Bronwyn’s as well,” he insisted. “I have a vial prepared to pass off as Cassandra’s.”

  And there it was. Utterly in the open. He knew who I was. Had taken precautions to ensure my blood, if taken, wouldn’t give me away.

  “How?” Bronwyn asked.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I wasn’t actually sure until now.”

  He tied off the tourniquet around Gideon’s arm. “I know that Gideon is Rion’s man, and if Cassandra was here she would be closely guarded. Last night I thought maybe I was wrong, that the woman he shadows truly was just his wife, but I had to take a chance.”

  So that must be why our joined hands had thrown him.

  “At the very least I knew you could both be trusted to get a message to her,” he continued as he went about his work. “Féile is well. She is happy, but she wants to go home, and I want to help you take her there.”

  “Your deal?” I prompted.

  “I need you to treat the ley lines. We know that’s what you’ve been doing in the north. The Empire has spent centuries stamping out all trace of magic, but the ley lines left untended have become corrupted, and the land is failing. Calchas has been tending the line here under the Strand. He’s using the latents,” Marcus explained.

  “Using the latents how?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’ve never been there. They say it’s not safe. They give me pills that cut me off from my magic to shield me. I’m not even permitted to help people that way anymore. Féile is also given the suppressant.” His hands clenched at his sides. “When they figured out the technique to identify magic in the blood, they were excited, but research on how to treat the illness stopped. He’s using latents to heal the ley line, I think.”

  Thousands of disappeared latents, Linus had said. That’s where they were going. He must be throwing untrained latents at the problem. The ley line had to be burning them up; it would be like throwing cups of water at a firestorm. Desperate for magic, it would burn through the little they had in moments. I remembered Elsa’s lifeless body after the incident at Keswick.

  “Thousands,” I said hollowly.

  “What?” Marcus asked. “Thousands of what?”

  “You think that’s what happening to them?” Gideon asked as Marcus stuck the syringe in, the pinch earning him a glare from the warrior.

  “There are thousands of ill disappearing across the city; it’s been going on for years,” I caught Marcus up tartly. “All of them, I’m sure, have a little vial all neatly labelled somewhere here in your labs.”

  I frowned. Where there were blood tests there would be records. Why had Linus’s hackers not been able to find them?

  Marcus dabbed at the prick of blood that surfaced as he withdrew the needle. Taking Gideon’s other hand, he bent it to press a small ball of cotton wool over the puncture wound, earning himself an offended glare from the hardened, muscular specimen on the chair in front of him.

  “So many.” Marcus looked at me with horror in his eyes. “You have to stop this.”

  “How am I supposed to stop this?” What could one person possibly do against Calchas and his legions?

  “You’re strong now. I’ve heard that you healed the line that runs through the borderlands.”

  “I did,” I confirmed absently as I evaluated what of Avalon’s power remained in my veins, calculating the level of corruption I had sensed in
Glastonbury and how much the May line had needed. Was there enough left? The line under Londinium would be in a far worse state than the Keswick line which at least had been tended by Fidelma and the druids all these years.

  “No.” Gideon’s eyes glowed above his mask. “We are here for Féile. If we can’t take her with us, we will need everything you have to get back in.”

  “Gideon,” Bronwyn censured, casting a slit-eyed burn at Marcus who had begun his task of eliciting her blood. She was right. We were foolish to speak freely in front of Marcus. We had trusted him before and look where that had got us.

  Marcus cast a look at the waiting sentinels.

  “Cassandra, I need you to take a seat. They must see me take your blood.”

  I sat uneasily in the chair Bronwyn had just vacated. Gideon subtly manoeuvred himself so he obstructed the view of our audience.

  “You take one drop of her blood, and I will end you here,” he threatened. Having seen Féile’s blood under the microscope, my blood would leave no one in any doubt of my identity as Lady of the Lake

  “I’m not. We just need it to look as if I’m taking her blood, the same as you and Bronwyn,” Marcus gritted, showing us the vial he had prepared in his lab pocket.

  He took my arm and went through the motions of tying a tourniquet on, turning over my wrist to reveal the same dara-knot tattoo that Gideon wore. He lifted the syringe off the counter, but instead of putting it in my skin, he leaned in and allowed his lab coat to obscure his actions and instead held my hand.

  “Please,” he begged. “You must trust me. I promise I will get Féile to you.”

  “How can we trust you now?” My chin crumpled as I looked into the eyes of the man I had called my friend. “We trusted you before.”

  His eyes dropped and his shoulders hunched over. “I’m sorry.”

  “What is he apologising for, do you suppose?” Bronwyn directed her question at Gideon, her tone one of utter contempt. “Lying to us over and over? Or killing Devyn?”

  Marcus flinched at Devyn’s name.

  “I didn’t know they planned to kill him,” Marcus’s eyes locked with mine. “My father… You know why I did it. Citizens were dying. I know you don’t trust me, but you know me, you must believe I am trying to help people.”

  I looked at him clear-eyed. I did believe him. He had dedicated his life to trying to make other people’s lives better. I had come here for one reason only, to get my daughter back, and I had brought an army to do so. But people here were dying. I looked at Gideon. I could help; I could do both things.

  I stood restlessly, meeting Gideon’s gaze once more. I was going to do this. A familiar look of exasperation crossed what little of his face I could see above the surgical mask.

  “When can you get me in?”

  “Tomorrow night,” he said.

  I frowned. The autumn equinox was only days away, the closer we were to Mabon the more effective it would be. “The last night would be better.”

  “The night of the masquerade ball? Too risky. Your absence would be too noticeable,” Marcus dismissed.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “There are no guarantees. I may not be able to fix it, but I will do what I can. Whatever the outcome, you bring me my daughter.”

  “Agreed,” Marcus said quickly.

  “I am not the girl you left behind. I am trusting you not to betray me again. I am trusting you to give me back the most precious thing I have. Do not fail me.” I met his gaze directly. There was no explicit threat, but if he let me down again, I would end him.

  “I will make it right.” He extended his arm and took mine in the Briton clasp, hands gripping high on the forearm, inner wrists aligned. Blood to blood.

  A tingle ran through me as he gave his vow unprompted.

  “I swear.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There were several events the next evening, and we each made a brief appearance at one before excusing our early exit with vague talk of interest in other events. I chose the recital I had attended four years ago, an impulse which I knew wasn’t entirely unconscious that this was the one Camilla and Graham Shelton worked hardest to attend.

  When I got there, I spotted them straight away. It was strange. While I had never been close to Camilla, I had adored the man I’d known as my father. They had, as far as I knew, abandoned me as soon as my feet touched the sands of the arena. Had they felt any sadness, any heartbreak as I had faced the justice of the city, or had they been indifferent? Their task had been to raise me, to prepare me to marry Marcus Courtenay, to obey the Code – which they had done.

  Camilla held court, as aloof as ever, while Graham worked, busily networking, which I now appreciated was why they preferred the recital. Less noisy, less movement than other events where their targets were more difficult to engage in discussion on whatever business they were about. Their social status appeared to have remained intact, despite my disgrace, if appearances at the recital were anything to go by.

  Bronwyn caught my eye from across the room, and I slipped away, my breath quickening as I made my way down to the transport that would whisk us across to the livelier entertainments to be found at the forum, and Fidelma’s tent, where we had agreed to meet Kasen. Was I strong enough to do this? Was I expending my energy for the greater good at Féile’s expense? Could Marcus be trusted to deliver? Was I risking my life and that of Fidelma and Marina on a fool’s errand?

  I exited the basilica and took a porticoed corridor through the forum. What choice did we have? Ultimately even Gideon and Rion had been persuaded that this bargain was our best and only chance of rescuing Féile. Once outside the walls, our only recourse was a military assault on Londinium. Many Britons, including his father, cared only about finally leading the Britannic provinces in the war that had been brewing since Anglesey. For Gideon, only one outcome mattered. And the chances of recovering our daughter diminished the moment we were on the other side of those walls.

  Kasen arrived in Fidelma’s tarot-reading tent bearing gifts – or rather, outfits to enable us to travel to our destination.

  “Mary le Strand is guarded.” This was the entrance to the ley line, a ground-level church from earlier times that still stood towards Charring Cross. He handed a sentinel’s uniform to Gideon and citizen clothing that had seen better days, to the rest of us. “You need to appear to be latents, there to tend the line. Just put this stuff on and keep your heads down.”

  “That will get us in, but how do we get out?” I asked. “Won’t being alive attract notice?”

  “Not all latents die on their first visit. Only the strongest are taken to the circle itself,” Kasen clarified grimly, before turning to eye Gideon. “Don’t suppose you could be persuaded to sit this one out? You’re a little oversized for a city dweller; you’ll draw attention.”

  Gideon snatched the uniform out of his hand.

  “I won’t,” he said shortly.

  We made our way separately across the city – Fidelma and Marina walking with me while Gideon strode ahead with Kasen – only regrouping as we neared the end of the Strand, at which point Kasen led the way with Gideon bringing up the rear.

  The Christian church of St Mary le Strand stood on an island of its own in the middle of the stream of traffic at river level. The architecture of the building was not entirely a fit with others at this level. It had been built sometime after the Treaty, an unusual enough fact as Christianity had been popular only briefly and religious building of any persuasion had dropped off altogether in the technological age and a spire at this level was highly inconvenient to the highwalks above. Kasen led us through an iron gate and up the steps of the columned entrance. He halted in front of a great wooden door and knocked.

  The door opened and he saluted the young sentinel standing within.

  “Tonight’s lot,” he stated, tilting his head in our direction.

  The guard seemed happy enough, and we trailed past, Gideon not even meriting the salute that Praetorian Kasen
had received. In fact, when I thought about it, Gideon and Kasen had attracted little notice as they walked ahead of us which, given the atmosphere in the city and the customary levels of respect that passing praetorian guards received as they patrolled, was in itself noteworthy.

  Kasen led us behind the altar and unlocked a metal door in the floor. I raised an eyebrow at Gideon.

  “You’ve got very good at that,” I commented. He had totally mastered the Griffin ability to blend into the background, the one that had so confounded me when I first met Devyn.

  “Practice makes perfect.” He smirked.

  “Nice,” I approved, before my stomach lurched at the impact of the oily wave that rolled over me as soon as the door opened.

  Gideon steadied me as I swayed on my feet. Fidelma and Marina both cringed a little at the foetid, discordant hum that crept up from the opening.

  Kasen waved us down the steps into a brightly lit cellar which seemed to be coated in a dull grey metal, and through another door at the back. I had to force myself to put one foot in front of the other. No wonder people were ill; the corruption of the line was thick in the atmosphere as we descended down the grey circular stairs that plunged deep into the bowels of Londinium. Moisture ran down the walls, giving them a darkly glistening aspect. The electric lights gave way to fiery torches as we went lower and lower, until we must have been below the river itself. The cloying stench in the back of my throat made me gag as I pushed on, closer to this thing that clawed at me.

  It was a desperate need, a dark, despairing, ugly thing. This was what had been leeching off me when I had been unprotected by the suppressant pills, it wasn’t use of magic that had made me exhausted and dizzy but this. The medication had created not only a barrier between me and my magic, but also a shield. I wanted a shield of lead now to wrap my body in as it pulled and tore at the edges of my magic, desperate and dying.

  We came at last to a cavernous room with a standing circle in place, niches in the rocks with ancient offerings still strewn beneath them and the faint traces of a Celtic symbol on the floor. I staggered back against Gideon as the onslaught battered against me. I laid a palm on the wet granite surface of the stone nearest to me, attempting to soothe the clamouring maw of need that came at me. It receded a little.