The Royal Sorceress

by Christopher Nuttall

  Another dog appeared in front of them as they reached a set of buildings. They looked as decayed and abandoned as the other slums, but there was something about them that caught Gwen’s attention. She studied it thoughtfully, trying to understand, yet the nagging thought at the back of her mind refused to come into the open. The dog sat up and paced forwards, disturbingly human eyes locked on their faces. Master Thomas stopped and held out his hand, allowing the dog to sniff it sharply. There was a long pause and then the dog sat back on its haunches. Its face twisted and warped into the face of a man, almost doglike in its intensity. Gwen stumbled backwards, but Master Thomas caught her arm.

  “It has been so long,” the dog-man said. “I thought that it would never end.”

  Gwen spoke before she could stop herself. “You live here, among the monsters?”

  The dog-man looked at her, inquisitively. “My apprentice,” Master Thomas said, sharply. “She is welcome in this place.”

  “No one is welcome in this place,” the dog-man said. His voice was deep, almost a growl. Gwen saw his tongue as his mouth opened and blinked in disbelief. It was far longer than the average human tongue. “I have lived here for many years. I find the solitude reassuring. The other dogs know that I am not one of them and give me my privacy. One day I shall die here, alone, mourned by none.”

  Master Thomas shrugged. “You chose it,” he said. “You could have gone elsewhere.”

  “True,” the dog-man agreed. “I hope you know what you are doing, Master Thomas. Some things are best left buried.”

  His face twisted and warped, falling back to the doggish form. He stood up on all four legs, winked at Gwen with one canine eye, and started to walk off into the shadows. Gwen felt sick, a strange combination of fear and pity overcoming her. A man who was half-dog, just like the werewolves who worked for Scotland Yard...but really, was there any better guard for a building in a place where few humans would dare to tread? It struck her, suddenly, that he might even have a doggy family...the thought was sickening, so sickening that she tried to push it out of her head. How could anyone live like that?

  “He was never quite sane when we found him,” Master Thomas said, answering her unspoken question. “There was a report of a werewolf haunting the backstreets of London. We hunted him down and found him; God only knows what happened to his family, or even if he had a family. He was happier as a dog than a man, for sure. Eventually, we asked him to serve as a guard here – and he took us up on it. All he ever wanted was to be left alone.”

  His lips thinned as he used his magic to open the building. Gwen stared in puzzlement, and then understood; only a magician could open the doors, perhaps only a Master. There was magic infused into the walls, she realised; it would be very difficult to break them down, even with explosives. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to prevent people from breaking in– or, a part of her mind whispered, to prevent something from breaking out. But what could be hidden inside the building and remain dangerous for so long?

  “There’s always a price,” Master Thomas said, more to himself than to Gwen. “There’s always a price for whatever you want to do. And even stability comes with a price.”

  Gwen recoiled. The stench pouring out of the building was unbearable. It was wrong, something that shouldn’t exist; she staggered backwards, hearing the buzzing of angry flies in her ears. Master Thomas seemed unmoved, or perhaps he knew how to use his magic to shield himself from the stink. The feral dogs, she realised suddenly, were howling. Something was very badly wrong...

  And then the first creature stepped into view.

  “No,” Gwen said. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “No...”

  “There is no choice,” Master Thomas said. “There is always a price for stability.”

  Chapter Forty

  No,” Gwen said, again. All fear of punishment had been driven from her mind. “You can’t...”

  The undead revenant advanced forward, step by step. It had once been human, but there was nothing left of humanity in this rotting corpse. The stench rolled forward, forcing her back; Master Thomas remained unaffected. Its greying skin seemed almost to be falling off its bones; it staggered slightly and flakes of dead flesh dropped to the ground. Yellow eyes, utterly inhuman, fixed on Gwen’s face and refused to move. The revenant seemed to pause, almost as if it was listening for something, and then it started forward again. Gwen had to fight down an urge to run, or to hide. This couldn’t be happening.

  A second revenant appeared, followed by a third. It had once been female, Gwen could tell; one breast was dangling towards the ground, hanging by a piece of torn skin. She could see bones poking out from the dead flesh, somehow holding the monster together. The lead revenant opened its mouth – it lolled open, almost like a tired dog’s mouth might – and moaned. Almost as one, the other revenants echoed the moan. Their dead gazes were fixed on Gwen’s face. She could sense the magic holding them upright now, a magic that buzzed and crackled around Master Thomas. He was no necromancer…but he had the talent, just like he had all of the other talents. But to use necromancy – even to be a pure necromancer – was death, Gwen knew; Master Thomas was responsible for hunting down necromancers. The mere possession of the talent was an automatic death sentence.

  There hadn’t been many books on necromancy in Cavendish Hall, almost as if researchers were frightened to write down what they knew. The revenants were slow, but incredibly deadly. They couldn’t be frightened; they had to be destroyed. Each revenant would keep moving as long as it could, no matter what happened to the body. Pain didn’t stop them; the only thing that did stop them was fire. Their bodies had to be incinerated to stop them in their tracks. And that required magic, or a flamethrower.

  Their real threat wasn’t in their shambling forms, all the books had asserted. They spread the necromantic plague. A human who was bitten by one of the revenants would fall ill quickly and die within a few days – and rise from the dead as one of the undead monsters. Some people had thought that revenants were miracles, back when the first necromancer had inadvertently awakened the dead; they’d learned quickly that nothing of the former living personality remained. The only thing that drove the revenants was a desire for living human flesh. They would happily eat their former friends and family, using their flesh to sustain their existence. Even being close to a swarm of revenants was dangerous. Some people had tried eating their flesh once and caught the plague.

  And a single revenant was stupid, the books had said; it was quite easy to stop, provided that one had the right tools. But a mob of revenants shared a communal intelligence. They were hardly as intelligent as a human, thankfully, yet they definitely showed signs of being able to hunt down humans through actual tactics, rather than just shambling after the nearest human. No one really understood how they tracked down the living, but they did – nowhere was truly safe from a mass of revenants. The book’s writer had noted that revenants could bring down trees, dumping any human who climbed up the tree to escape the mob into their midst. A small army of them would be utterly lethal. And extremely difficult to stop.

  “They thought that necromancy could be used as a weapon at one time,” Master Thomas said. “The French had managed to slip an army into Louisiana and it was feared that they would be able to land on our shores. I was asked to develop necromancy as a weapon; eventually, I created these storage bunkers. The revenants have no need to fear cold; indeed, it preserves their dead flesh. As long as they remained inside these buildings, they were inert – and they were guarded, just in case.”

  Gwen stared at him, wildly. “Master…you can’t unleash them on London.”

  Master Thomas sounded almost reasonable. “You heard Lord Liverpool,” he said, quietly. “The longer the rebellion holds London, the weaker the Empire becomes. And how long will it be before we find ourselves confronted with more rebellions than we can put down? We have to stamp this rebellion out before…”

  “By turning London into a necropolis?”
Gwen demanded. “There are hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in this city!”

  “I know,” Master Thomas said. He sounded…regretful. “Many of them are no doubt loyal to the British Crown. But we cannot take the risk of the rebellion spreading, Gwen. We have to do whatever it takes to stop it.”

  “If you do this,” Gwen said, “the world will never forgive you.”

  She shuddered as the revenants continued to inch forward, drawn to their living flesh. They’d be deadly, all right. London would have to be burned to the ground to stop them – and the rebels couldn’t do that, not without destroying themselves in the process. The revenants would be almost unstoppable. She’d sworn an oath to the King, she’d accepted service with the Crown, but…this wasn’t right. And there was the prospect of her family being caught up in the mass slaughter. The thought of David or Laura rising again as revenants…

  “The world will not care,” Master Thomas predicted. “The world cares nothing for common decency. Do you not see how absurd society is? The same men who will be shocked to hear a swearword used in front of a lady – a lady – will think nothing of going to a whorehouse and satisfying their lusts on a common whore. Lord Liverpool knows that the only way to deal with this threat is to act decisively – and to hell with our posterity. What would posterity say if we lost the Empire because of our scruples?”

  He fixed his gaze on her. “It’s time for you to go back to Oxford,” he said. “And you will say nothing about this to anyone you meet.”

  “No,” Gwen said, flatly. She pulled herself to her full height, trying to ignore the shambling mass of revenants. They kept pressing forward…how many, she asked herself desperately, had been crammed into the building? Revenants didn’t need to eat, or sleep; they certainly didn’t object to living amidst vast numbers of their fellows. There could be hundreds, or thousands, within London, hidden from the public’s view. “I won’t allow you to do this.”

  “You swore an oath,” Master Thomas said. He didn’t sound angry, just…tired. “I know what you’re feeling. Once upon a time, I would have shared your feeling.”

  Gwen tried to reach out to him. “But…what happened to you?”

  “I learned that the world doesn’t care,” Master Thomas said. “There is no point in clinging to the moral high ground if you lose everything that matters to you. The rebellion will be destroyed, Gwen. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “No,” Gwen said, again. She couldn’t destroy them all, not on her own. But she knew who could help her – and who needed to be aware of the threat. Perhaps the revenants could be destroyed before they escaped Soho and entered the populated parts of London. “I won’t let you do this.”

  She stepped backwards and launched herself into the air. Master Thomas looked after her, seemingly confused. Gwen herself wasn’t sure of what she was doing, but she couldn’t stay near the shambling monsters any longer. Their very presence was making her feel sick. The sky seemed to welcome her…and then her magic seemed to twist against her, despite her best efforts. It wasn’t like having a Mover try to knock her out of the sky; it was more like…her own power was no longer obeying her will. She floated down towards the ground and fell to her knees the moment she touched down. Her body was simply refusing to do as she demanded.

  “I won’t permit you to change this,” Master Thomas said. He still sounded more tired than angry. What was he doing to her? Gwen had thought she was capable, but Master Thomas had been practicing magic for nearly seventy years. He knew things she couldn’t even begin to imagine. Even Lord Blackburn, the most powerful Charmer in Britain, couldn’t control someone directly. Charm had its limits. “I’ve worked too hard for too long to allow you to change anything.”

  He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Gwen. “I told myself that I would be able to lay down my burden,” he said. “I was the last Master until he appeared – and I thought I could retire and devote my life to study. And then he turned on me and fled into the underworld, threatening to tear down everything I had built. I pinned my hopes on you. You at least should have known how lucky you were. Your excellent mind would be utterly wasted without magic.”

  Gwen struggled against his control, but it was impossible to break free. She couldn’t even feel his control; her body simply refused to obey her. What was he doing? Her mind ran in circles, gibbering on the edge of panic. No one could control another person directly, no one.

  “And now you turn on me too,” Master Thomas said. He was walking closer, followed by his small army of revenants. Gwen could see them even from her kneeling posture. They looked…hungry, their expressionless faces fixed in a horrifying grimace. No living human could ever hope to have such a dead face. How many had he stored in the warehouse? “I should have known better. I don’t get to rest, ever. I’ll die the Royal Sorcerer…”

  He stopped, right in front of Gwen. It took everything she had to lift her eyes to meet his gaze. He looked…determined. It was more frightening than anything else, even the lust she’d seen in the eyes of the first man she’d killed. Master Thomas intended to do something horrific to her, she was certain, something that would change her forever. And yet – no matter how she struggled, her body refused to move more than a few inches. Even breathing was difficult.

  “No,” Master Thomas said. “I’ll change you into someone like me. Someone who can always make the hard choices and do the hard things, whatever the cost; someone who can take up my burden and replace me when I die. I wish you’d been more like me naturally, but it seems that I alone can handle the burden without breaking or embracing madness.”

  Gwen managed to speak, somehow. “You have to stop this,” she said. Her lips felt icy cold, as if they were frozen solid. Speaking was a struggle. “You’ll destroy everything the Empire stands for…”

  “No,” Master Thomas said. “I will ensure that the Empire stands for all time.”

  Something clicked in Gwen’s mind. Master Thomas was a Master Magician. He could combine the talents. He’d told her as much long before she’d drunk his magic potion and used his magic to reinvigorate herself. And a Talker could send messages to another Talker or read a mundane person’s mind…and a Charmer could influence defenceless listeners. What would happen if someone combined the two abilities into one? They’d have the power to control a person directly, without having to Charm them into submission. No ordinary magician could do it, but a Master…somehow, understanding what was happening to her made it easy to see it happening. Master Thomas had slipped right through her mental shields and grasped her mind with his powers. And it had never occurred to her that he could do more than send messages to Talkers.

  His voice was whispering insidiously at the back of her mind, fiendishly difficult to separate from her own innermost thoughts and feelings. Why bother fighting? It was hopeless; Master Thomas was so much stronger than she was – she couldn’t hope to win. And he wasn’t going to hurt her, not really. He was merely going to make her better, more capable of doing her job. She should submit to him, accept his love and his judgement. He meant her no harm. And he knew better than her. And he knew better than her. And he knew better than her…

  Gwen gritted her teeth. She’d felt Lord Blackburn’s influence before, but even then she’d been able to sense that it was an unwanted intrusion in her mind. Master Thomas’s whisperings were partly of her own creation, she realised, springing from the part of her mind that believed that the struggle was hopeless. They were putting forward reasons to surrender, reasons woven into her thoughts so perfectly that it was impossible to recognise them as anything other than part of her. No wonder so many Talkers went insane under the bombardment of outside thoughts. Reading minds was hardly an enviable skill when the Talker was unable to block the inrushing thoughts in any way. They’d go mad inside their own skulls. Even the women at the farm might have been unable to block out other thoughts.

  It was so hard to focus, but she saw the revenants and her mind cleared, for a fe
w seconds. Carefully, she began to concentrate on pulling her shields back together. His grip was easy to sense now, but blocking it was incredibly difficult. Her very perception of his grip helped to weaken her defences, for it seemed impossible to keep him out. She recovered a little control – a very little control – and tried to move backwards, but it was useless. It wasn’t enough to break free of him completely.

  Desperately, she reached out with her magic, unsure of quite what she was hoping to achieve. Master Thomas had combined two of his powers; Gwen, she was sure, could do the same with a little practice. Somehow, she combined Moving and Infusing, pushing a little magic into the pavement behind her former tutor. Master Thomas had no time to react before an explosion knocked him forward, slamming him right into Gwen. Gwen cried out as he knocked her to the pavement, but managed to wriggle out from under him before he grabbed back control of her mind. Now he was distracted, she managed to raise the strongest mental shields she could and slam them firmly in place. Master Thomas was bleeding, she noted absently, but he didn’t seem badly wounded. He was pulling himself to his feet and reaching for her…