by K. E. Mills
Miserable bastards.
There was still no sign of Lional or the dragon. But even as he ran he could feel the lick of flames, the burn of acid poison, and hear the ominous slapping of wings.
Miraculously he reached the palace in one piece and started looking for a way inside. Forget the enormous front doors. An obvious entrance like that, in full view of any dragons that happened to be strolling past, would be asking for trouble. Instead, skin crawling, he jittered his way along a blank section of wall—what, not even any windows to clamber through?—until he stumbled around a cornery bit—
—and over another body.
Damn.
It was Reggie, Melissande’s sort-of boyhood chum and erstwhile house arrest guard, tumbled out of an inconspicuous side-door at the foot of a long, steep staircase. Some kind of special secret palace guard in-and-out, perhaps. From the ugly angle of Reggie’s crooked head it seemed the fall had broken his loyal neck. There wasn’t time to feel grief or guilt, to kneel and press the young man’s eyelids down over his clouding, sightless eyes. To shed a tear. Lional and his dragon were coming.
“Sorry, Reggie,” he said, gingerly stepping over the sprawled corpse. “Sorry.”
Somewhere deep inside himself someone was screaming. It was the old Gerald, the Gerald he’d been before the cave. Before he surrendered to Lional, to cowardice, and created that glorious, murderous dragon.
No. Stop. Reg was right, you can’t do this. Those grimoires are poison. Stop right now, Dunnywood, before it’s too late.
But he couldn’t afford to listen to his ghost. These drastic times were his doing and only drastic action could undo them.
The secret guard staircase took him up and up and at last to an open doorway. Stepping through it into a deserted corridor, he realized from the painting on the wall in front of him—a particularly memorable flock of bilious-looking geese—that he wasn’t far from Melissande’s apartments. But did that mean Lional’s kingly suite was close by? He’d never been given an actual top-to-bottom palace tour. He had no idea where the bastard put his head down at night… and he didn’t have time to waste searching this antiquated rabbit-warren. There had to be a faster way of finding that Lexicon.
Frustrated, uncertain, Gerald banged a fist hard against the corridor wall beside him. That small pain woke lightly sleeping memories of his recent, harsher sufferings—and he abruptly straightened. Really? Was it possible? It should be. Shugat had tasted Lional in his blood. And if Shugat could, then surely so could he. And if he could then that meant…
Closing his eyes, he sank himself deep within. Sent his potentia questing. When it found Lional’s lingering, filthy fingerprints he shuddered. So. He was marked for life, then. The foul incants Lional breathed into his mouth were become a part of him, part of his matrix, flesh, blood and bone. The notion was horrifying. Almost as horrifying as what he contemplated doing now.
Maybe Reg was right. Maybe there was another way to—
Stop it, Dunwoody. Stop trying to wriggle out of this. You know you have to. There’s no other way.
So. He’d found Lional’s mark. Now to use the mad king’s foulness to track down his private suite in the palace.
Shuddering anew, Gerald wrapped a thread of potentia around Lional’s hideous echo. Then he turned the rest of his magical self outwards and sought for the echo’s counterpart—memories of Lional—contained within the confines of the palace.
No, not there. That’s the dining room. Not there either, that’s the Large Audience Chamber. And that’s the Small one. Come on, come on. I want his bolt hole. I want his lair.
He was being tugged to the easiest places, the public places, where he’d already been. And why was that? Because, Tavistock or not, the glorious dragon or not, he was still at heart a Third Grade wizard with a Third Grade wizard’s grasp of magic? Or was it Lional being crafty? Even in his own kingdom was he protecting himself?
Of course he is. Lional’s mad and dangerous but he’s not an idiot. With a succession of First Grade wizards on the loose of course he’d protect himself.
So. Don’t look for Lional’s echo. Look for his fingerprints, on carpet and brick.
Straight away, because it was close, he stumbled across the incant Lional had used to keep Melissande locked behind her own doors. Very nasty. Brilliant, but nasty. It was nothing short of a miracle that Monk had been able to break it. Briefly he felt a burst of pride in his friend. Crazy Monk Markham, the metaphysical genius. On the heels of pride, sorrow.
He’s going to be so angry when he finds out what I’ve done.
With a grunt he wrenched himself away from that profitless line of thinking. It didn’t matter how Monk felt, or Reg, or Melissande. Or at least he couldn’t let it matter. He let himself sink more deeply into that dark place Lional had hollowed out inside him.
Sentiment is weakness.
Eyes still closed, leaning against the corridor wall now, his body shaking, he pushed further and harder. Stirred up in his blood, the remains of Lional’s curses started screaming. Or were they his own screams? Either way, it didn’t matter. The only important thing now was finding the Lexicon.
A tug on his potentia. A sharp rebound. A sudden burning conviction. That way. On a deep breath he opened his eyes, pushed off the wall and started walking. Instinct dragged him along, dragged him almost to jogging, down corridor after corridor, up staircase after staircase, heading for the palace’s highest floor. The closer he got to Lional’s domain the harder his potentia tugged at him, so tuned now was it to Lional’s caustic thaumic signature.
He didn’t encounter another soul. Every last servant had fled, every single government lackey had deserted his or her post. With their sleepy little kingdom turned on its head, with a dragon raining acid and fire from the sky and their sovereign hunting them instead of protecting them, what could they do except run? But how many had run only to die anyway, in the palace gardens or on its carriageways or down in the city?
And is Zazoor feeling proud of himself, sitting there safe in his little bubble? Is his Holy Shugat pleased? What kind of gods does the old man serve, that he could sit there with all his power and not lift a finger to help the innocent?
Resentful anger simmering, warming him, helping to keep his fears at bay, Gerald kept on through the eerily empty palace. His heart thumped and his breath whistled as he climbed yet another daunting flight of stairs. The next opened door he fell through would take him into the attics or onto the roof, wouldn’t it?
But no. The next door he eased open showed him an opulent corridor—where Lional’s thaumic presence shouted loud enough to send him deaf, dumb and blind. Shouted so cruelly he staggered and dropped to his knees, one hand still clutching the door knob, the other fisting to his head. Lional, ever prudent, had warded the corridor with a brutal keep-your-distance hex. Snarling the hallway in thaumic barbed wire, armed with teeth and talons and a bloody minded ferocity, it tore at his potentia until he was whimpering in his throat.
I can’t break through that. How can I break through that? I’m only as good as the incants I know right now, and I don’t know any incant that could dismantle this hex. Not even Reg taught me an incant strong enough for this.
So—was that it? Had he been defeated before he ever really started? Looked like it. Looked like Lional’s native cunning had beaten him without so much as raising a sweat. For all the good he could do here he might as well have stayed in the cave, in the dark, and starved slowly to death. Letting go of the door knob he folded to the floor and rolled himself into a tight ball, battered by Lional’s inimical magics.
Gerald Dunwoody, what are you doing? Stop being such a pathetic tosser!
Startled, he unrolled himself and sat up. “Reg?”
But he was alone. That was just Reg’s voice, the voice of his conscience, kicking him in the pants. Ashamed, he scrubbed his hands across his face. Oh, lord, he was pathetic, wasn’t he?
If I don’t get back on my feet and finish
what I started then I’m no better than Shugat and Zazoor, hiding behind their precious, indolent gods.
Through slitted eyes he stared the length of the gilded, plushly carpeted corridor. Saw, at its far end, Lional’s hexed double doors. Beyond that flimsy barrier lay Grummen’s Lexicon and Saint Snodgrass alone knew what other proscribed texts. He was yards, mere yards, from laying his hands on the weapons he needed to defeat Lional, save New Ottosland—and possibly the rest of the world. And the only thing standing between him and victory over New Ottosland’s mad king was this one measly, wicked, obliterating hex—which he didn’t have the first notion how to dismantle.
But I made a dragon, so I can bloody well do this.
Grimly determined, goaded—and he knew it—by an unaccustomed but undeniable sense of competition with the Department of Thaumaturgy’s one and only Monk Markham—he faced his fears. Faced Lional’s hexed doors. Braced himself—feet wide, shoulders thrown back, head lifted, teeth gritted—and opened himself fully to the worst of Lional’s magic.
CHAPTER THREE
It was like throwing himself into a writhing pit of insane vipers, or diving headfirst into a vat of boiling acid, or trying to ride a hundred wild horses bareback, all at once. The hex took him and shook him and tried to tear him apart. Flogged him and crushed him and threatened to splinter his bones.
Every instinct he possessed was screaming get out, run away but grimly he fought that cowardly impulse as hard and as bitterly as he fought Lional’s hex. His heart was drubbing so hard he was afraid it might burst—or that his eyeballs would explode or his jaw crack into pieces. He could feel a howl building in his throat. Prying his teeth apart he let it out and heard it bounce back and forth between the walls of the corridor, a skin-crawling cry of pain and near-insanity.
Lost within Lional’s merciless attack he flailed and thrashed, dimly aware of his battered potentia as it grappled with the onslaught of dark magic. He didn’t know how to help his strange powers, or control them, had no idea how to harness their strength to his need. If there was an elegant, subtle way to dismantle Lional’s incant, well, he had no idea what that was. And he didn’t have the time to work it out, either. Because time was precious and it was fast running out.
Oh, Saint Snodgrass. I could use some help about now…
Howling again, Gerald pulled his potentia back inside himself. Poured every last skerrick of his strength into crushing it small, then smaller, compressing it until it too was howling. He felt like he’d plucked the sun from the sky and was trying to stuff it into an egg cup—and the sun, his potentia, was fighting back. Rivers of sweat poured down his face, down his back. He could feel his spine bowing, his knees bending, could feel his heart trying to batter its way right through his ribs. His unremarkable body couldn’t take much more of this. Punished by Lional and by himself it was threatening to fly apart, to escape this unending torment in death.
No—no—just a little more—a little longer—
And on the screaming brink of self-destruction he let himself fly free.
Like molten fire his power poured out of him, angry and indiscriminate, to smash the bindings of Lional’s warding hex and obliterate its fabric. The keep-your-distance incant went up in flames and greasy smoke, stinking, unwholesome. Reeking of every foul enchantment Lional had so eagerly embraced.
Sobbing, Gerald fell forward onto his face, unable to save himself. The corridor’s plush carpeting saved him from a broken nose or worse. Gasping he lay there, excoriated, waiting for the flames and agony to subside. When he thought he could feel his bones whole within him, when he thought he could trust himself to sit up in one piece, he pushed himself off the carpet and looked around at the scorch marks on the gilded walls and the expensive carpet. Stared, astonished, at the smoking doors to Lional’s private apartments, drunkenly hanging from their half-melted hinges.
“Gosh,” he said, his voice a thin, surprised croak. “How about that, Reg? I did it.”
And surely Lional would know he’d done it, too. So what little time he had left, he’d be a fool to waste it. Wincing, he staggered back onto his feet, made his way along the unimpeded corridor—and crossed the threshold into Lional’s private domain.
It stank of dark magic.
Standing just inside the open doorway, one hand braced against its almost too hot to touch frame, Gerald fought to keep his stomach from turning itself inside out. Every breath sucked the stench of corrupted power into his lungs, sent it flooding through his veins. Was it his overworked imagination or did even his sweaty skin feel sticky and fouled with it?
I don’t understand. This entire palace reeks of Lional. How did none of the other court wizards not notice what was going on right under their noses? And what about Shugat and his gods? Am I supposed to think Lional just—what? Slipped their minds?
Possibly that was the most terrifying thing of all—that Lional possessed such strength, such mastery, that he could hide himself and his workings from the keen senses of a holy man like Shugat. That he could hide from the world-class First Grade metaphysical experts he’d hired to serve him. To die for him.
But then… who am I to talk? I didn’t notice, did I? If I’m so special, if I can do things that make a man like Monk panic, how come I didn’t realize the truth the moment I stepped out of the portal?
The unpalatable answer stared him rudely in the face. Because Lional was unique—and unthinkable. What Melissande’s brother had done was so heinous, so appalling, that nobody thought it could—or would—be done. Or had realized that not only did Lional have the twisted imagination, and the will, to conceive of this plan, but that he also had the means to make his demented dream come true.
Bloody Pomodoro Uffitzi. This is all his fault. If he hadn’t hoarded those grimoires… There’s always one who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Why does there always have to be one?
And so now, because Uffitzi had been an arrogant plonker, two nations and countless innocents stood on the brink of destruction.
“Unless that ratty old holy man changes his mind and does something before it’s too late,” he muttered, suddenly needing to hear a friendly voice. No matter he was talking to himself—even that was better than the resounding silence of Lional’s apartments.
Shugat. Mighty and mysterious and downright terrifying. Powerful enough to withstand the worst of Lional’s foul magics—yet unwilling to help the helpless people of New Ottosland.
And why is that? Why won’t he lift a finger? I don’t understand.
Unless…
Chilled with fresh horror, Gerald swiped stinging sweat from his eyes. Could Shugat want this? Could Kallarap’s holy man and its sultan and its gods want Lional to run the length of his madness unchecked? Were silence and inaction their way of ending New Ottosland without a single scimitar drawing blood? Of putting an end to their tariff payment problem without directly getting involved?
Or are they convinced that I can handle Lional without their assistance?
Either way, he was in trouble. New Ottosland was in trouble. Because here he stood, a Third Grade wizard—sort of, technically—with extra powers he didn’t begin to understand or control, who’d never so much as set foot in a proper wizarding academy, who’d received his barely adequate qualifications from a modest correspondence course that important wizards like Errol Haythwaite pretended didn’t even exist.
And somewhere not far enough away was Lional, who’d left mere metaphysics behind some four dead wizards ago and had transformed himself into something the world of thaumaturgy had never seen.
Oh, lord. If I don’t stop him here, today—if he gets past me and leaves New Ottosland—then he’ll just keep killing First Grade wizards and taking their potentias.
The thought of Lional, twinned with his dragon and wielding the power of ten First Grade wizards, or twenty, or more, weakened his knees so he nearly dropped back to the carpet. Squeezing his eyes tight shut he gritted his teeth to keep an unmanly whimper trappe
d in his throat.
I can’t do this. Dragon or no dragon I’m not good enough. Lional with a mere five potentias is more than I can handle. Come back, Reg. I need you. Tell me what to do.
Except—he already knew what to do. And he’d come here to do it. And if Reg were here she’d only try to stop him, so it was best she wasn’t. Because if anyone could talk him out of this crazy plan it was Reg.
“Stop bloody stalling, Dunnywood, you tosser,” he told himself savagely. “You’ve got no choice. Thousands of lives are depending on you—so get on with it.”
The burning tide of fear receded and a little strength returned to his numbed limbs. Swiping sweat again, he straightened out of his slump, took several deep breaths, ignoring the taint in the air, and for the first time looked at his surroundings properly. Lional’s apartments were dim, their curtains drawn and no lamps lit. The light from the corridor behind him barely washed over the threshold, as though the darkness of Lional’s soul were soaking it up, like a sponge.
Letting go of the door frame he snapped his fingers, hoping to ignite whatever candles or lamps might be usefully lying about the place. Incant accomplished he stared, blinking in the sudden illumination, expecting to see—
Well. Not this.
“Blimey, Reg,” he said, looking around. “I thought at least there’d be a cauldron or a skull. Something arcane and sinister and suitably repellent. Not to mention a few bucket loads of gilt and an ocean of velvet.”
But no. The room he stood in wasn’t plush or opulent or arcanely sinister. It was the antithesis of plush and opulent, every unadorned surface a stark black and white. No chairs, sofas, fountains or froufrous. One spindle-legged desk with a lone burning lamp on it. And not a single darkly arcane artifact in sight. If he hadn’t known without a doubt that this was Lional’s lair he’d never have believed it.
