The Iron Trial

by Holly Black

  There was silence. Call wondered what would happen if he reached behind himself, grabbed one of the beakers or jars, and threw it at the Enemy — could he buy himself time? Could he run?

  “Drew!” said the mage again, and now there was something else in his voice — something like alarm. He strode past Call impatiently, stalking through the double doors into the wooden chamber beyond.

  There was a long moment of utter silence. Call looked around desperately, trying to see if there were any other doors, any other ways out of this room besides the way he’d come in. There weren’t. There were only bookshelves piled with dusty tomes, tables loaded with alchemical materials, and, high up the walls, small fire elementals set into hammered copper niches lighting the room with their glow. The elementals stared down at Call with their blank black eyes as he heard the noise from the other room — a long, keening cry of grief and despair.

  “DREW!”

  Havoc wailed. Call picked up one of the glass beakers and staggered to the double doors. Pain was shooting through his leg, up into his body, like razor blades stabbing through his veins. He wanted to fall over; he wanted to lie on the ground and let unconsciousness take him. He grabbed for the arch of the doorway and stared.

  The Enemy was on his knees, Drew lying half across his lap, limp and unresponsive. His skin had already begun to turn a cold blue color. He was never going to wake up again.

  Call’s heart gave a dull thud of horror. He couldn’t seem to wrench his gaze away from the Enemy hunched over Drew’s body, his staff lying discarded on the floor beside him. His scarred hands raked through Drew’s hair, again and again. “My son,” he whispered. “My poor son.”

  His son? Call thought. Drew is the Enemy of Death’s son?

  Suddenly, the Enemy’s head jerked up. Even through the mask, Call could sense the glare of his eyes: They were bent on Call, and they were black with laserlike fury. “You,” he hissed. “You did this. You unleashed the elemental that killed my child.”

  Call swallowed and backed up, but the Enemy was already rising, seizing his staff. He swung it toward Call, and Call stumbled, the beaker flying out of his hand to shatter on the floor. He went down on one knee, his bent leg screaming in pain. “I didn’t —” he began. “It was an accident —”

  “Get up,” snarled the Enemy. “Get up, Callum Hunt, and face me.”

  Slowly, Call rose to his feet and faced the silver-masked man across the room. Call was shaking all over, shaking from the pain in his legs and from the tension in his body, from fear and adrenaline and the thwarted desire to run. The Enemy’s face was set in a furious expression, his eyes glittering with rage and grief.

  Call wanted to open his mouth, wanted to say something in his own defense, but there was nothing. Drew lay unmoving, still and vacant-eyed among the smashed remains of the glass container — he was dead, and it was Call’s fault. He couldn’t explain himself, couldn’t defend himself. He was facing the Enemy of Death, who had slain whole armies. He would hardly hesitate at one single boy.

  Call’s hand slipped from Miri’s hilt. There was only one thing left to do.

  Taking a deep breath, he got ready to die.

  He hoped that Tamara and Aaron had made it past the Chaos-ridden, out the window, and back on the path toward the Magisterium.

  He hoped that, since Havoc was Chaos-ridden, the Enemy wouldn’t be too hard on him for not being an evil zombie dog.

  He hoped his dad wouldn’t be too mad at him for going to the Magisterium and getting killed, just the way he had always been warned he would.

  He hoped Master Rufus wouldn’t give his spot to Jasper.

  The mage was close enough that Call could feel the heat of his breathing, could see the twist of his narrow mouth, the glint of his eyes, and the tremors that ran through his whole body.

  “If you’re going to kill me,” Call said, “go ahead. Do it.”

  The mage raised his staff — and flung it aside. He dropped to his knees, his head bent, his whole posture one of supplication, as if he were begging Call for mercy. “Master, my Master,” he rasped. “Forgive me. I did not see.”

  Call stared in confusion. What did he mean?

  “This is a test. A test of my loyalty and commitment.” The Enemy took a ragged breath. It was clear that he was barely controlling himself through sheer force of will. “If you, my Master, decreed that Drew must die, then his death must be to a greater purpose.” The words seemed sliced out of his throat, as if it pained him to speak them. “Now I, too, have a personal stake in our quest. My Master is wise. As always, he is wise.”

  “What?” Call said, his voice trembling. “I don’t understand. Your Master? Aren’t you the Enemy of Death?”

  To Call’s utter shock, the mage raised his hands and drew off the silver mask, baring the face beneath it. It was a scarred face, an old, lined, weathered face. It was a strangely familiar face, but it was not the face of Constantine Madden.

  “No, Callum Hunt. I am not the Enemy of Death,” he said. “You are.”

  W-WHAT?” CALL GAPED. “Who are you? Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it is the truth,” said the mage, holding the silver mask in his hand. “You are Constantine Madden. And if you look at me closely, you will know my name as well.”

  The mage was still kneeling at Call’s feet, his mouth beginning to twist into a bitter smile.

  He’s insane, Call thought. He has to be. What he’s saying doesn’t make any sense.

  But the familiarity of his face — Call had seen him before, at least in photographs.

  “You’re Master Joseph,” Call said. “You taught the Enemy of Death.”

  “I taught you,” said Master Joseph. “May I rise, Master?”

  Call said nothing. I’m trapped, he thought. I’m trapped in here with an insane mage and a dead body.

  Apparently taking this as permission, Master Joseph stood with some effort. “Drew said that your memories were gone, but I couldn’t believe it. I thought that when you saw me, when I told you the truth about yourself, you might recall something. No matter. You may not remember, but I assure you, Callum Hunt, the spark of life within you — the soul, if you will — all that animates the shell of your body belongs to Constantine Madden. The real Callum Hunt died as a mewling baby.”

  “This is crazy,” Call said. “Things like that, they don’t happen. You can’t just swap souls.”

  “True, I cannot,” said the mage. “But you can. If you will permit me, Master?”

  He held out his hand. After a moment, Call realized that he was asking for permission to take Call’s hand in his.

  Call knew he shouldn’t touch Master Joseph. Much of magic was communicated through touch: touching elements, drawing their power through you. But even though what Master Joseph was saying was insane, there was something in it that pulled at Call, something his mind couldn’t let go of.

  Slowly, he held out his hand, and Master Joseph took it, wrapping his wide, scarred fingers around Call’s smaller ones.

  “See,” he whispered, and an electric jolt went through Call. His vision whitened, and all of a sudden, it was like he was seeing scenes projected onto a massive screen in front of him.

  He saw two armies facing off against each other on a vast plain. It was a mage war — explosions of fire, arrows of ice, and gusts of gale-force wind hurtled among the fighters. Call saw familiar faces: a much younger Master Rufus, a teenage Master Lemuel, Tamara’s mother and father, and, riding a fire elemental at the head of them all, Verity Torres. Chaos magic spilled darkly from her outstretched hands as she hurtled across the field.

  Master Joseph rose up, a heavy object in his hand. It glittered the color of copper — it looked like a copper claw, fingers outstretched like talons. He gathered a burst of wind magic and sent it sailing through the air. It buried itself in Verity’s throat.

  She fell backward, blood ribboning through the air, and the fire elemental she had been riding howled and
reared back. A bolt of lightning shot from its claws — it struck Master Joseph and he fell, his silver mask dislodging to show his face beneath.

  “It’s not Constantine!” cried a hoarse voice. Alastair Hunt’s voice. “It’s Master Joseph!”

  The scene shifted. Master Joseph stood in a room made of scarlet marble. He was shouting at a group of cowering mages. “Where is he? I demand that you tell me what happened to him!”

  The heavy tread of feet came from the open door. The mages broke apart, creating an aisle down which marched four of the Chaos-ridden, carrying a body between them. The body of a young man with blond hair, a huge wound in his chest, his clothes soaked in blood. They set the body down at Joseph’s feet.

  Master Joseph crumpled, taking the body of the young man in his arms. “Master,” he hissed. “Oh, my Master, death’s enemy …”

  The boy’s eyes opened. They were gray — Call had never seen Constantine Madden’s eyes before, never thought to ask what color they were. They were the same gray as Call’s. Gray and empty as a winter sky. His scarred face was slack, emotionless.

  Master Joseph gasped. “What is this?” he demanded, turning to the other mages with fury on his face. “His body lives, if barely, but his soul — where is his soul?”

  The scene shifted again. Call was standing in a cave carved of ice. The walls were white, shifting in color where shadows touched them. The floor was scattered with bodies: mages lying crumpled, some with their eyes open, some in pools of frozen blood.

  Call knew where he was. The Cold Massacre. He closed his eyes, but it made no difference — he could still see, since the images were inside his mind. He watched Master Joseph pick his way among the murdered, stopping here and there to turn over a body and stare at its face. After a few moments, Call realized what he was doing. He was examining the dead children, not touching the adults. At last, he stopped and stared, and Call saw what he was looking at. Not a body at all, but a set of words, carved into the ice.

  KILL THE CHILD

  Again, the scenes shifted, and now they were fluttering by fast, like leaves in a breeze: Master Joseph in one town or city after another, searching, always searching, examining the birth records in a hospital, property records, any possible lead …

  Master Joseph standing on the concrete of a playground, watching a group of boys threatening a smaller boy. Suddenly, the ground underfoot shook and trembled, a huge crack splitting the playground nearly in half. As the bullies ran off, the smaller boy on the ground levered himself up, gazing around with a bewildered look. Call recognized himself. Skinny, dark-haired, with gray eyes just like Constantine’s, his bad leg twisted beneath him.

  He felt Master Joseph begin to smile….

  Call came back to reality with a shock, as if he had slammed into his body from a great height. He staggered back, yanking his hand out of Master Joseph’s. “No,” he choked. “No, I don’t understand….”

  “Oh, I think you do,” said the mage. “I think you understand very well, Callum Hunt.”

  “Stop that,” Call said. “Stop calling me Callum Hunt like that — it’s creepy. My name is Call.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Master Joseph. “That’s the name that belongs to that body, that shell you wear. A name that you will discard when you are ready, just as you will discard that body and enter Constantine’s.”

  Call threw up his hands. “I can’t do that! And do you know why? Because Constantine Madden is still around. I really, really don’t understand how I can be this person that’s out leading armies and raising chaos elementals and making giant wolves with freaky eyes when that person already exists and is SOMEBODY ELSE!” Call was shouting, but his voice sounded pleading, even to his own ears. He just wanted all this to stop. He couldn’t help hearing the horrible echo of his father’s words again and again.

  Call, you must listen to me. You don’t know what you are.

  “Still around?” Master Joseph said with a bitter smile. “Oh, the Assembly and the Magisterium believe that Constantine is still actively engaged with the world, because that is what we wished them to believe. But who has seen him? Who has spoken to him since the Cold Massacre?”

  “People have seen him …” Call began. “He’s met with the Assembly! He signed the Treaty.”

  “Masked,” said Master Joseph, holding up the silver mask he had been wearing when Call had first seen him. “I impersonated him at the battle with Verity Torres; I knew I could do it again. The Enemy has remained hidden since the Cold Massacre, and when he absolutely had to show himself, I went in his place. But Constantine himself? He was mortally wounded twelve years ago, in the cave where Sarah Hunt and so many others died. But as he felt the life ebbing from him, he used what he had already learned — the method of moving one soul to another body — to save himself. Just like he was able to take a piece of chaos and place it inside the Chaos-ridden, he took his own soul and placed it inside the optimal vessel at hand. You.”

  “But I was never at the Cold Massacre. I was born in a hospital. My leg —”

  “A lie told to you by Alastair Hunt. Your leg was shattered when Sarah Hunt dropped you onto the ice,” said Master Joseph. “She knew what had happened. The soul of her child had been forced out, and the soul of Constantine Madden took its place. Her child had become the Enemy.”

  Call heard a roaring in his ears. “My mother wouldn’t —”

  “Your mother?” sneered Master Joseph. “Sarah Hunt was only the mother of the shell that contains you. Even she knew it. She didn’t have the strength to do it herself, but she left a message. A message for those who would come upon the battlefield after she was dead.”

  “The words in the ice,” Call whispered. He felt dizzy and sick.

  “Kill the child,” said Master Joseph, with a cruel satisfaction. “She scratched it into the ice with the tip of that knife you carry. It was her last act in this world.”

  Call felt as if he were about to throw up. He reached behind him for the edge of a table and leaned back against it, breathing hard.

  “The soul of Callum Hunt is dead,” said Joseph. “Forced from your body, that soul shriveled up and died. Constantine Madden’s soul has taken root and grown, newborn and intact. Since then, his followers have labored to make it seem like he wasn’t gone from the world, so that you would be safe. Protected. So that you would have time to mature. So that you would live.”

  Call wants to live. That was what Call had, jokingly, added to the Cinquain in his mind; now it didn’t seem like a joke. Now, in horror, he wondered just how true it was. Had he wanted to live so much that he’d stolen another person’s life? Could that have really been him?

  “I don’t remember anything about being Constantine Madden,” Call whispered. “I’ve only ever been me —”

  “Constantine always knew he could die,” said Joseph. “It was his greatest fear, death. He tried again and again to bring back his brother, but he could never recover his brother’s soul, all that made Jericho who he was. He resolved to do whatever it took to remain alive. All this time, we have waited, Call, for you to be old enough. And here you are, nearly ready. Soon, the war will begin again in earnest … and this time we are sure to win.”

  Master Joseph’s eyes were shining with something that seemed a lot like madness.

  “I don’t see why you think I’d ever be on your side,” Call said. “You took Aaron —”

  “Yes,” said Joseph, “but we wanted you.”

  “So you went through all that effort, the kidnapping, just to get me here to — what? To tell me all this? Why not tell me before? Why not grab me before I even ever went to the Magisterium?”

  “Because we thought you knew,” Master Joseph ground out. “I thought you were lying low on purpose — allowing your mind and body to grow so that you might once again become the formidable foe to the Assembly that you were before. I did not approach you because I assumed that if you wished to be approached, you would have contacted me.”
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br />   Call laughed bitterly. “So you didn’t come near me because you didn’t want to blow my cover, and all that time, I didn’t even know I had a cover? That’s freaking hilarious.”

  “I see nothing amusing about it.” Master Joseph didn’t change expression. “It is fortunate that my son — that Drew was able to ascertain that you had no idea who you really are, or you might have inadvertently given yourself away.”

  Call stared at Master Joseph. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked abruptly.

  “Kill you? I’ve been waiting for you,” Joseph said. “All these many years.”

  “Well, your whole stupid plan has been for nothing, then,” Call said. “I am going to go back and tell Master Rufus who I really am. I am going to tell everyone at the Magisterium that my father was right, and that they should have listened to him. And I’m going to stop you.”

  Master Joseph smiled, shaking his head. “I think I know you a little better than that, in any guise. You’ll go back and you’ll finish your Iron Year, and when you return for your Copper Year, we’ll talk again.”

  “No, we won’t.” Call felt childish and small, the weight of the horror overwhelming him. “I’ll tell them —”

  “Tell them what you are? They’ll bind your magic.”

  “They won’t —”

  “They will,” said Master Joseph. “If they don’t kill you. They’ll bind your magic and they’ll send you away to a father who knows now, for certain, that he is not your father.”

  Call swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought, until this moment, what Alastair’s reaction would be to this revelation. His father, who had begged Rufus to bind his magic … just in case.

  “You’ll lose your friends. Do you really think they’d let you close to their precious Makar, knowing who you are? They will raise Aaron Stewart to be your enemy. That’s what they’ve been looking for all this time. That’s what Aaron is. He is not your companion. He is your destruction.”