All is Fair

by Emma Newman

  “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus,” she said. “One of my favourites.”

  “I like most of the stuff he did before his religious phase,” Rupert said, sweeping food wrappers off the sofa and onto the floor. “Shame that got to him too. Got a bit out of control, all that God stuff. Never mind. Sit down, make yourself at home.”

  “A package has been deposited, sir,” Hedges said. “Would you like me to collect it?”

  “Yeah, do that.” He looked at Margritte. “You warm enough?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s all, then,” he said to the golem and it rolled off.

  Just as the lull in conversation was getting uncomfortable, Benson arrived with the tea. It was in a large earthenware mug, rather garishly painted, and stronger and with more sugar than she liked, but it still made her feel better. Rupert slurped his tea and gave a loud sigh of pleasure, which Margritte did her best to ignore.

  Hedges returned soon after with a small box. Rupert abandoned his mug and opened the box on the desk. He pulled out a letter, read it quickly, then rummaged around in the top drawer of his desk until he found a pair of thick leather gloves covered in strange marks.

  Margritte cupped her hands around the mug and watched Rupert lift a lump of clay out of the box. It had unfamiliar symbols carved into it and she realised it was something sorcerous. She looked away, choosing to stare at the Dali painting rather than something she probably shouldn’t see.

  “Well, fuck me sideways with a toothbrush,” Rupert murmured. “If this hadn’t been designed to kill me I’d think it was a thing of beauty.”

  “Do you know who made it?”

  “Not yet. Wessex or Northumbria, I reckon, they’re both pricks. Hedges – magnifier.”

  The golem rolled over to him and the tools attached to its left arm rotated until a magnifying glass clicked into place and was extended into a position between the clay and Rupert’s eyes.

  “Ekstrand, you sonofabitch!” He dropped the clay back in the box and swatted the magnifying glass away. Hedges rolled backwards into a corner as Benson left the room at speed, as if it had been frightened away by Rupert’s outburst. “The Sorcerer of Wessex tried to kill me! Us! What a bastard!”

  “Is that a… usual problem?”

  “Not without a declaration of war – in triplicate. It was totally out of the blue! He’s a weird bugger but even so, trying to murder someone because they’re better at solving riddles than you is a bit fucking extreme, don’t you think?”

  Margritte just nodded. She wanted to go home.

  “He’s always had it in for me.” Rupert’s rant was building up steam. “He got it into his head I wanted Bath. Why would I want that place? Boring shitty little city at the bottom of a valley with a few natural springs. Whoopdy-fucking-do! Nothing–”

  “Wait!” Margritte held up a hand. “He’s the Sorcerer of Aquae Sulis?”

  “It’s in his domain, yeah.”

  “Oh, my.” She put the mug on the floor, having lost her appetite for tea. “William Iris helped him to rescue the Master of Ceremonies, just before he moved to Londinium. That was the night the Rosas fell. Ekstrand turned up in the middle of a party because of William.”

  “Ekstrand working with an Iris?” Rupert shook his head. “Nah, he hates the puppets, always has.”

  “It’s true. William found out what the Rosas were doing and got Ekstrand to rescue Lavandula. Or so they wanted everyone to believe.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “What if it was all a ruse to remove the Rosas so William could take Londinium?”

  “Nah,” Rupert shook his head. “Ekstrand playing politics with the Fae-touched? Not his style.”

  “But let’s look at what’s happened so far. The Rosa Duke of Londinium falls because William pins Lavandula’s disappearance on them and convinces Ekstrand to report it to the King and Queen. Then William turns up in Londinium, makes a half-hearted attempt at running for the Dukedom, realises he can’t get the support and so frames Bartholomew and legitimises his murder. Now Ekstrand attacks you, out of the blue. If you were killed, Oxenford would be thrown into chaos, making it ripe for the plucking. Ekstrand and the Irises move in and take it.”

  “Why haven’t the Irises taken over Aquae Sulis?”

  “Because they don’t need to. They have the city sewn up with the Papavers. Oxenford is next on their list, I’m certain of it.”

  “I don’t like the way you’re making sense.” Rupert looked back into the box. “I want to think you’re just obsessed, you know, grief-stricken and seeing Iris plots everywhere but… fuck. It sounds plausible. I heard a rumour the Prince was pissed off with Iris – maybe it’s because of this.” He shook his head. “I’m sure there was something important I had to remember about Ekstrand…”

  “Sir,” Benson was back at the doorway, holding several volumes of the leather-bound books with a sheet of paper on top. “Recent incidences of Northumbria, Wessex and Ekstrand. The most recent entry indexed under ‘Ekstrand’ is marked ‘critical’ – would you like me to read it to you?”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  “Ekstrand has called a Moot. No fucking way I’m going to that when everything has gone tits up here. I’d rather f–”

  Rupert snapped his fingers. “The Moot! Pull the footage the drones took and bring it to me on my laptop.”

  “Moot?” Margritte asked.

  “It’s when all the Sorcerers get together on neutral ground and have arguments about pissy little things when they’re not allowed to kill each other. Ekstrand called one a few weeks ago but I had my hands full here with all the Rosa fallout. I thought it would be a waste of time – he never brings anything interesting to the table. So I sent some of my drones to film it.”

  “This seems like Sorcerer business,” Margritte said, getting up. The talk of drones and “filming” things made such little sense it was making her headache worse. “Perhaps it would be best if I went home now.”

  “Soon, soon. I just want to see if anything – ah, put it here, Benson.”

  The “laptop” appeared to be a smaller version of the computer she’d seen in Convocation House. She sat back down, regretting staying for that drink. She didn’t feel like she was being held prisoner, but he was hardly respecting her wish to leave. Did he need an audience? Perhaps he’d forgotten what it was like to have a human being around and couldn’t bear to have it end yet.

  She’d learned more about the Sorcerers in the last ten minutes than in the last two hundred years. Was it simply that the Sorcerer of Essex was a recluse and the others weren’t, thereby giving her a skewed impression? It was a taboo subject in Society, the Sorcerers effectively being the jailers of their patrons. She wondered what Lord Tulip would make of it all. Was there any way she could turn it to her advantage?

  Rupert was hunched over the screen and after a few minutes said, “But Ekstrand didn’t even turn up. What kind of arsehole calls a Moot and then doesn’t even show up for it?”

  Margritte peered around his side and saw grainy pictures of the entrance to a castle’s inner keep. “Perhaps he was just late,” she suggested.

  “I’ll fast forward.” He pressed a button and shoved his hands in his pockets. The picture didn’t change but numbers in the bottom right corner sped through minutes then hours. “Looks like they went ahead without him; none of them have come out again. Hang on…” He tapped a button and the numbers froze. “What the fuck is that?”

  Bizarre markings were appearing on the wall. Rupert moved his finger about on a square below the keys and the area being written on filled the screen. The symbols glowed briefly then disappeared.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is writing that,” Rupert said. “Doesn’t look like a ward kicking off. Not one I know anyway.”

  “Are they sorcerous symbols?”

  He scratched his chin. “Kinda. Some of them.” They watched the writing appear briefly all along the wall until it went out of sight down
the side of the keep. Rupert sped the pictures up again. The symbols made a brief reappearance after presumably being written around the whole building, then went out of sight.

  Rupert cracked his knuckles as he watched and it made Margritte shudder. “This is a bloody long Moot.”

  “Could that strange writing have trapped them inside?”

  “Maybe. Oh, hang on, someone else has arrived.”

  Margritte sat down, not wanting to watch. He could realise how much she’d seen already and she didn’t want to give him any more incentive to keep her there indefinitely.

  “That’s Ekstrand and one of his Arbiters. The Arbiter’s checking the symbols disappeared – Ekstrand must have cast them out of shot. What the… is that a walking gargoyle?”

  Margritte twitched, then resisted the urge to look, no matter how bizarre it sounded. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the sofa cushion.

  “Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit, no.”

  She opened them to see Rupert twist to face her, as white as bone china.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ekstrand killed them.”

  “Who?”

  “The Sorcerers. He’s checking they’re all dead. Ekstrand and I are the only ones left.” He paused the footage and dropped onto the sofa next to her. She carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, wanting to console him, having been ripped apart by her bereavement so recently. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He didn’t notice and she discreetly withdrew, thinking it better to keep her distance. “I can’t believe this. That’s why Ekstrand missed the Moot: he killed them all – except me. Look how pissed off he is – it’s because my body isn’t there.”

  She glanced at the screen, saw the bodies laid out, then looked away again. “So Londinium is without a Sorcerer? North or South?”

  “Yup.”

  “And William Iris, friend of Ekstrand, is rather conveniently the Duke. How interesting.”

  “That’s why Ekstrand tried to kill me,” Rupert said. “He wants to take the whole Heptarchy – make it one domain under him. And the Irises have two major cities in the Nether now. If they’re working together they’ll take Oxenford and then Jorvic. This is fucking huge.”

  Margritte took a deep breath. “We need to work together. We have to protect Oxenford from the Irises and from Ekstrand.”

  He nodded. “Hell, yeah. All right, let me get the Bod’ sorted and better protected. Then I’ll kill Ekstrand and help you take Londinium back, all right?”

  “How will you do that?”

  “Cut off the head of course,” he said. “We’ll get William Iris.” He stared at the screen. “After I’ve twatted Ekstrand.” He frowned. “I shouldn’t have let you see all this. But I wanted you to. That’s not good.”

  Margritte’s mouth went dry. “You have my word that not a single detail of my time here, or what has happened to the Sorcerers, will leave my lips once you let me go home.”

  He stared at her. “I shouldn’t have wanted you to stay. Maybe I should kill you, just to be sure.”

  She leaned back. “Is that really necessary?”

  He jumped up, making her heart fly into her throat. “Nah. That would suck. I like you, Maggie. Seems there’s enough death at the moment without me adding to it. Right?”

  She steadied her breathing and nodded. “Yes, Rupert. You’re absolutely right.”

  15

  Sam rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. He’d been reading the files for almost six hours and it was the first time he’d paused. His stomach growled like a wild bear and now he was tuning back into his body he realised how thirsty he was. He slid the file into one of the boxes, replaced the lid and put it back in its place.

  It felt like someone had gouged out his chest with a spoon. The things he’d read about would never go away, he would never be able to live his life in ignorance any more. There were people dying, suffering and struggling – that moment – all at the hands of Lord Iron and the other companies he worked with. If the devil was going to own a company, he’d be happy with CoFerrum Inc.

  He went out and closed the door, leaving all of Leanne’s letters there and taking only the keycard with him. As he walked through the warehouse, past other lock-ups containing other people’s secrets, he decided not to call that Martin bloke yet. He didn’t want to hand all that stuff over to a stranger and lose control of the real legacy Leanne had left him. No wonder she’d set up such a generous life-insurance package; she was always expecting to be found out and removed. Everything in that room had destroyed their marriage and he wasn’t going to just pass it on and get on with his life like it had never happened. She could have set things up to give Martin the location of the stash, but she didn’t, she trusted him with it. She wanted to explain what she’d done in such a way as to give him the chance to see what she had discovered. There was no way Leanne would ask him to help directly, no way she’d want to put him at the same kind of risk she’d lived with, but some part of her wanted to hand it over to him. She wanted him to act, he was sure of it.

  She didn’t know that the head of the very corporation she was investigating had taken him under his wing. He had an advantage over the environmentalists, who would need the media and politicians to act, and Sam knew all too well they wouldn’t do a thing. Iron’s wealth probably had them all sewn up and Sam had no faith in them. Besides, the atrocities spanned continents and the international entanglements would need multiple governments and agencies to cooperate for anything to change. It would take months, if not years – even if they were able to do anything about it. He could go straight to the top and see if Iron was even aware of what his company was doing, and then threaten him with exposure if he refused to do anything.

  He was just starting to formulate a plan when his mobile rang. It was his voicemail service so he listened to the message, relieved he wouldn’t have to speak to anyone.

  “Hi Sam, it’s Cathy. New number again, I’ve texted you so you’ve got it. I lost my old one when we were attacked. I was just calling to make sure you’re all right. Max came to see me and said you saved me from Lord Thorn and that your wife died and I wanted to say… I don’t know, that I was thinking of you and hoping you’re coping and stuff. Can you call and leave a message to let me know you’re all right? I don’t know when I’ll next get a chance to–”

  The message cut off – she’d run out of time – but there was a second one.

  “Sorry, I was talking too much. I’m staying in the Nether, Sam, I’m not going to find a way out. The system is fucked here and the more I learn about what’s going on, the more I know I need to change it, but I can only do that from the inside. I’ll pick up any messages you leave. If there’s an emergency, or if you really need somewhere to be away from family or stuff like that, come to Spencer House near Green Park in London and ask for Morgan. He’ll let you in and get me, but only do that if you really need to, all right? Take care, Sam. And thanks for helping me and Sophia.”

  He ended the call, and the text message with her number arrived. He called it straight away.

  “Cathy, it’s Sam. Don’t stay there, you have to get out. I know you’re scared of the Fae, I am too, but there has to be a way to be free of them. I have some stuff to take care of, then I’ll be in touch.”

  When he pressed the key to end the call he realised he was shaking. Leanne had spent all those years thinking she could just get that little bit closer to the top and change the world; now Cathy was falling into the same trap. He almost called her back to tell her that her husband had threatened him, but decided against it. If she lost her temper at her husband he’d know they’d been in touch and she’d only get into trouble.

  “It’s all a fucking mess,” he muttered. He had to go back to Lord Iron and sort him out. Then he had to go and find Cathy and make her realise she needed to get out before she ended up losing her life to a struggle she couldn’t win.

  The first thing Max saw when he woke was the gargoyle. It had be
en sitting in the same place all night, having gone there after Ekstrand’s threat.

  “We’re going to do something, aren’t we?” Its question sounded more like a statement.

  Max nodded, dressed and went down to breakfast. There was no sign of Ekstrand. “He’s in his study,” Petra said when he checked the living room. “We’re not to disturb him.”

  “There are Chapters all over the Heptarchy without a Sorcerer,” Max said. “He needs to take charge.”

  Petra put down her book and looked at him properly. “I’m sure Mr Ekstrand has a plan.”

  “Are you?”

  “Are you going to patrol again today?”

  “I want to see if Mr Ekstrand is going to give me any new instructions.”

  “I told you, we’re not allowed to disturb him.”

  Max was about to reply when Axon came to the doorway. “I think we need to.” He was holding a newspaper. “Look at this.”

  He went to the coffee table and laid it before Petra, pointing to an article.

  “Oxford scientist discovers Ekstrand syndrome.” Petra read the headline and looked up at Axon with surprise.

  “Go on,” he said and she looked back at the newspaper.

  “An Oxford psychologist, Dr Rupert Superior, has announced the discovery of a new psychological disorder, one he claims could put the entire country at risk, if not the world, were it to go untreated. Coined ‘The Ekstrand Syndrome’ and identifiable by a simple set of psychological tests, this discovery, Dr Superior asserts, is the most significant since the work of Sigmund Freud. ‘The Ekstrand Syndrome consists of certain personality traits which can appear relatively harmless in isolation,’ Dr Superior said, ‘but when presenting as a cluster in one individual can pose a significant threat to society. I discovered it in a patient with long-term trust issues and an inferiority complex. He began to commit violent acts in order to further his own egotistical fantasies and delusions about taking over the country. Unfortunately this patient is so dangerous that rather extreme measures needed to be taken to ensure the safety of others, but I believe that now the full extent of his problem – and the threat of the syndrome itself – have been identified, the individual will pose no further danger to innocent members of the public.’ When asked how sufferers of Ekstrand Syndrome can be identified, Dr Superior replied, ‘They are always men who believe themselves to be more intelligent than their peers despite repeated evidence to the contrary. They dedicate significant time and effort to trying to remove those considered a threat to their schemes and refuse to accept they might be wrong. Aside from the patient in question it’s my belief a not insubstantial number of Conservative Party members also suffer from Ekstrand Syndrome.’ Dr Superior has yet to publish a paper on the disorder.”