And then everything changed.
She looked up as a figure dropped down from high above, wearing a long black cloak that seemed to swirl around him. The tip of his cane rapped out as it tapped against the cobblestones. Master Thomas had arrived.
Gwen drew in a breath. This was not going to be easy.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jack let go of Gwen’s hand, staring at his old tutor.
Master Thomas had seemed ageless; he’d seemed a man who had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for over thirty years and somehow refused to allow it to wear on him. He had lacked a peer since the other two Masters had died; Jack knew that his tutor had hoped that Jack would grow to take their place. But now…Master Thomas looked old, old and tired. The only thing holding him upright was his sheer will to live and succeed.
Jack took one breath, and then another. He had no illusions about the difficulty of facing, and beating, his old tutor, even with Gwen by his side. Master Thomas had had more years than both of his opponents combined studying – and practicing – magic. He’d very likely forgotten more than they’d ever learned; no, Jack reminded himself, Master Thomas forgot nothing. He looked upon his old tutor and remembered the days when he’d learned magic, before he’d learned the truth behind his origins. Master Thomas had taught him purpose – and how to fix his mind on a goal and to work out how to achieve his aims. Jack knew that his rebellion would not have succeeded without those lessons…
…And he’d loved the old man. Jack’s real father would never be known, unless the farms had kept records of which man had impregnated which woman. There was a very strong possibility that Master Thomas might be his father, although Jack privately doubted it. Master Thomas might have been old, but he was still a virile man; if Masters beget Masters, there would be far more Master Magicians in the Royal Sorcerers Corps. His adopted father – the man he had thought was his real father until the day he’d discovered the truth – hadn’t really shaped Jack’s development. It had been Master Thomas who had taught him, disciplined him and – eventually – made him a man. Betraying Master Thomas had hurt more than being forced to flee Britain for France.
Master Thomas was wearing his black suit and top hat, leaning on his silver-topped cane. Jack wasn’t blind to the message Master Thomas was sending, even as he allowed himself to hope that Master Thomas was as tired as Gwen and himself. He represented authority and order, the authority of the British Empire; the Empire that ruled more than a quarter of the world. And Master Thomas, the man who had played a major role in building that Empire, would uphold it with his last breath. Whatever he might have thought – about the farms, about the wars of conquest, about the transportation of anyone who dared to object to the Empire’s dictates – he would keep it to himself. He was the Empire’s man.
Gwen spoke first, despite the exhaustion that Jack could hear in her voice. “Master,” she said, her voice almost breaking, “this is wrong.”
Master Thomas ignored her, his gaze fixed firmly on Jack. It had been the first time they’d seen each other for five years, apart from their brief encounter weeks ago at the ball, where Jack had been trying to escape. Master Thomas had taught him…and even though Jack had developed some tricks of his own, there was no way of knowing just how much Master Thomas knew. Combining Talking and Charming…Jack had never thought of that, not in the five years he’d spent experimenting and teaching in France. And he’d refused to even think about necromancy. There were some things that were best left in Pandora’s Box.
What else did Master Thomas know?
“She’s right,” Jack said. He pulled himself to his full height and stared down at his former tutor. “Master…you cannot allow this to go on.”
“You betrayed me,” Master Thomas said. His voice was almost a whisper. Controlling – or at least reanimating – so many revenants had drained his magic to the limit, yet he was still dangerous. Jack tightened his mental shields, watching carefully for any attempt to influence or destroy his mind. The most dangerous assassins in Britain’s service – all officially denied by the government, of course – were Movers with very weak powers. But they didn’t need to be strong to move a handful of cells around in a person’s brain, bringing on instant death. “I had thought you dead.”
“I don’t die,” Jack said. Magic didn’t make one invincible, but he believed – completely – that he wouldn’t die until he had served his purpose. It was one of the reasons he’d risked his insane attack on the Tower of London. “And I had thought that you were a better man than this.”
He indicated the revenants, lurking behind his former tutor. The other rebels were pulling back, either unwilling to face the Royal Sorcerer or attempting to take advantage of the delay to establish other defence lines further into London. Now the threat had been proved real, Davy would be able to move troops from the city defences to Soho in hopes of stopping the infection before it ran out of control.
“This is madness,” he said. “Even if you win, you’ll blight the British Empire for the rest of time.”
Master Thomas stared at him. “The Empire has been the greatest force for good in the world since the end of the Roman Empire,” he said. “I will not allow the Empire to rot away from within, to lose sight of its true nature, to weaken itself to the point where a horde of mangy barbarians can topple the Empire. I will do whatever it takes to end this quickly.”
“Even necromancy?” Gwen asked. Jack risked a glance at her. The girl was breathing heavily, clearly exhausted. They’d both been using their magic furiously, burning through the revenants before they could reach the barricades. “How many people in this city are innocents, caught up in the desperate struggle to survive?”
“It always starts like that,” Master Thomas said. “The people with high ideals and lofty plans come forth and give the poor their bread and circuses. It isn’t more than a few decades until the poor riot when they are refused their surplus, even through the state is bankrupting itself trying to provide for their care and feeding. And then the state spends itself into collapse and shatters.”
“You don’t see the poor,” Jack said, quietly. “I have seen men forced onto the streets because they are crippled, crippled in factory accidents that would be avoidable if the factory owners spent a little more of their profits on safety. I have seen women forced into prostitution because it is the only way they can pay the bills and feed their children. I have watched children grow up on the streets, watching people who have so much while they have so little – and I have seen those children hang for stealing a crust of bread. And they were the lucky ones. Some of those children are used for sexual gratification by their lords and masters. I killed Lord Fitzroy for what he was doing to the children.”
His gaze sharpened. “You speak as if the poor choose to be poor,” he said. “You speak as though hard work would earn them a palace, with enough food to feed their families and education that will allow them to rise to the very highest levels of society. But it won’t; each child born into a poor family finds that the odds are already stacked against him. They are forced onto the streets or into workhouses – or into the arms of thieves who use them to steal from the rich, or those who merely earn a few coins every day. There is no hope – why should they not rebel against you and your masters? What do they have to lose?”
“They could go to the Americas, or South Africa,” Master Thomas pointed out, mildly. “There are still vast lands awaiting settlement in the American West, or deep in the heart of Africa.”
Jack snorted. “Very few poor families could scrape together the money to emigrate,” he said. “They have to place themselves in the hands of richer men, who treat them as slaves or worse. How many of them ever earn the forty acres and a mule promised by the emigration companies?”
He sighed. “The world is stacked against them,” he said. “Drink is freely available on the street, leading to violence as men drown their sorrows and become drunkards, drinking themselves to dea
th. There is no hope, Master Thomas; tell me – what do they have to lose?”
Master Thomas took a step forward, and another, lifting his cane almost as if it were a shield, or a sword. “The rebels always think that the problems can be solved easily,” he said, softly. “And yet...if you took the total wealth of the British Empire and shared it out among its population, how much would they each receive? And tell me; how long would it be before gambling and indulgence had recreated the pattern of rich and poor?”
He shook his head. “I always thought well of you, Jackson,” he said. “Give up now and you won’t be harmed.”
Jack felt something twisting and dying inside his soul. He’d hoped that Master Thomas would understand, but instead...his former tutor had drawn heavily on his magic, using a talent few understood and even fewer possessed. Necromancy placed great strain on the mind, according to some of the experts...could it be that Master Thomas was on the edge of madness? Or had he already stepped over the edge?
“I always respected you,” Jack said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Master Thomas lifted his stick, and then brought it down suddenly in a slashing motion. Jack jumped aside as...something flashed through the air, right where he’d been standing. He heard a scream from behind him and cursed. Master Thomas had revealed another trick, one that might be deadlier than mental control or magic potion to enhance one’s endurance. Jack brought his own magic up around him, shielding his body from a second burst of magic, and then launched a counterattack. A beam of light lanced from his fingers, only to dissipate harmlessly in front of its target. Jack smiled, inwardly. Master Thomas would hardly be challenged by such a direct attack, but perhaps he’d be distracted...
He reached out with his magic, picking up chunks of debris from the remains of the first barricade. Launching a second pulse of magic right at Master Thomas, he pulled the debris forward and hurled it towards his target’s back. Master Thomas leapt upwards sharply, dodging the debris with ease. Years of practice had given him what amounted to a set of eyes in the back of his head. It was literally impossible to sneak up on him. Master Thomas landed on a rooftop, ignoring the flames licking their way around the building, and raised his stick, pointing it right at Jack’s chest. A blast of magic struck him before he could dodge, hurling him back into a second barrage. It was followed by a hail of debris...
Master Thomas leapt into the air as Gwen fired a long burst of magic into the roof, just under his feet. Jack grinned as he deflected the raining debris; he’d almost forgotten that Gwen was present. And she’d pulled a sly trick on Master Thomas; he could counter a burst of magic aimed at him, but with the rooftop disintegrating under her magic he might well be hurled into the flames. Instead, he landed on the cobblestones and launched his own burst of magic at Jack. Seconds before the beam reached his shields, it split up into a dozen smaller beams, each one coming at Jack from a separate direction. Jack was impressed – he hadn’t known that anyone, even an experienced Blazer, could do that – and had only seconds to react. He threw himself out of the way, finding some cover against a stone wall, just as the beams of light twisted and came right at him. His shields absorbed them as Gwen threw her own bursts of magic at Master Thomas. Their tutor said a word Jack was surprised to discover he even knew and waved a hand at Gwen. She was hurled backwards and pressed against the cobblestones.
Jack reacted instantly. Focusing his own magic, he launched it right towards Master Thomas. His shields held it, but Jack was already infusing magic into a set of broken cobblestones. They exploded all around Master Thomas, forcing him to stagger backwards. Gwen was bleeding from her nose and mouth, but she was alive. Jack stared up at Master Thomas, realising that his old tutor – the man he had once admired – had lost all trace of sanity. His attack on Gwen had been murderous. It would have killed her if Jack hadn’t saved her life.
Cursing, he allowed his magic to pick up debris and throw it at Master Thomas. None of it would get through his defences, but it would keep him occupied, just for a handful of seconds. Jack used them to reach out to the revenants and pick them up, throwing them after the debris. A single bite would prove as fatal to a necromancer, he assumed, as it would to a mundane human. Master Thomas wouldn’t know any better, if only because there had been a shortage of volunteers to test such dangerous theories. No one had ever survived a bite from one of the undead. The lucky ones lost conscious quickly, sparing them the torment of feeling their body dying around them. Master Thomas lashed out, shattering the undead bodies and scattering pieces of flesh and bone everywhere, almost as if he was on the verge of panic. Jack grinned, despite himself and closed in. Perhaps there was a chance...
...But no. Master Thomas kept moving, jumping backwards and launching bursts of magic of his own. More subtle attacks followed, some chillingly effective, others easy to sense, but harder to deflect. Jack hadn’t realised just how much Master Thomas had learned over the years, even though he’d been the sole practicing Master for nearly twenty years. Master Saul and Master Luke had died quickly, fighting the French and Spanish – at least according to one version of the tale. No one was quite sure what had actually happened to them. Grimly, Jack wondered if Master Thomas had killed them – but no, that couldn’t be possible. Master Saul and Master Luke were as highborn as any grand society dame could hope for. They wouldn’t have sided with the poor and the downtrodden.
The ground seemed to explode around him as magic flared up everywhere. It was an Infuser’s trick, one mastered by a magician who shared all of the talents. Jack was bitterly impressed even as he was hurled into the air, his magic protecting him from the worst of the shock. Master Thomas’s magic reached out to disrupt the magic keeping him airborne and he fell, only to be caught by Gwen’s magic before he hit the ground. Gwen might have been unpractised compared to either of the men, but she was strong. Jack felt an odd sensation that he realised, after a moment, was regret. They’d been born on wrong sides of the social divide. Who knew which way Gwen would jump after the fight was over, assuming that they both survived?
“You cannot win this fight,” Master Thomas informed them. Jack realised that he might well be right. He hadn’t limited himself to infusing magic into water, but also into his clothing and the rings he wore on his fingers. If Master Thomas had spent an hour or so every day infusing magic into a ring, being careful to ensure that the magic remained stable and wasn’t on the verge of blowing up, he would soon have a stockpile of magic that would allow him to keep fighting, hours after the other two had collapsed from exhaustion. “Give up. You’ll receive a fair trial.”
Jack laughed, suddenly very aware of the pain in his body. Master Magicians could take a great deal of damage – he suspected that they were using magic to heal themselves, without being consciously aware of what they were doing – but he was rapidly reaching his limits. And Gwen had never pushed herself so hard in all of her life. Strong as she was, she wouldn’t be able to remain on her feet much longer. But he wouldn’t consider retreat, or surrender. It would be the ultimate betrayal of the people whose cause he’d made his own.
“I don’t think we will receive anything in your kingdom of the dead,” he said. It hurt to speak. He could taste blood in his mouth, always a bad sign. “What do you think your masters will command you to do once they realise how many revenants you can control at once?”
He laughed and coughed. Red flecks were spewed out of his mouth and he wiped them away with his sleeve. “I’m sure that the undead will give their masters much less trouble,” he said. “None of that irritating lust for freedom. No bad habits like drinking and whoring and cheap nasty-smelling tobacco. Just obedience – everything they want in a single necropolis, a city of the dead. What’s a little matter like a law against necromancy when it’s so useful?”
Master Thomas glared at him, his face twisted with anger. Jack sensed his magic building up, reaching out to strike Jack down. He saw the rising sun behind his old teacher and almost smiled. The pain in
his chest told him that he would never live to see another sunrise, even if the fight ended before Master Thomas could kill him and put an end to the revolution.
He felt hands on his shoulder as he staggered backwards. Gwen had caught him just before he fell, holding him upright. A strange feeling flowed through him, almost as if Gwen was sharing some of her energy with Jack...he realised, with a sudden chuckle, just what she was doing. She was Healing him!
“I’m sorry, Gwen,” he whispered. It still hurt to talk. “I’m so sorry.”
Gathering all of his remaining magic, he hurled himself out of her arms and right at Master Thomas. His magic cancelled Master Thomas’s magic and they crashed together, the force of the impact knocking Master Thomas over backwards. He’d be healed in seconds, Jack knew, but it was just long enough. He pushed his hands against Master Thomas’s face – trying to forget the times they’d had before he’d fled to France – and infused magic into his skull. It destabilised seconds later.
The world vanished in a blinding flash.
Chapter Forty-Four
Gwen lifted her hand to shield her eyes. When the flash had faded, two dead bodies hit the ground, both horrifically charred. She stumbled forward, despite the pain that was demanding immediate attention. Master Thomas’s head had almost disintegrated, leaving a headless corpse. Jack had fewer obvious signs of death, but she didn’t have to feel for a pulse to know that he was gone. She felt hot tears dripping from her eyes. He couldn’t be dead...
But he was.
She stumbled backwards, unable to look at the corpse any longer. The flames seemed to be dying down without magic fuelling them, although they were still burning through the unclean slums. Gwen barely noticed the heat, or the sun rising in the distance; the two most important people in her life were dead, right in front of her. She was the sole survivor of a battle without precedent in the history of magic. Somehow, the thought failed to cheer her. There was truly nothing so dark as a battle won – apart from a battle lost. And there was still the army outside the city…London might fall yet.
The Royal Sorceress Page 40
