Something flashed in Adrianna’s eyes, and she looked down at the ground for a few seconds, as if trying to rein in her anger. When she spoke, it was with deliberate slowness, as though each word was difficult for her.
“After all these years, you still do not realise what a Shadowmage is capable of. Forbeck knew, but he kept it chained, muzzled. You do the same thing, but through sheer ignorance. I can show you what power a Shadowmage unleashed has, Lucius. Two of us, working together in concert, would have been unstoppable! I can take over your teaching, shape you into one of the most potent mages this miserable world has ever seen.”
“Adrianna...” Lucius began, slowly coming to an unnerving conclusion. “Have you taken over the Shadowmages’ guild?”
She waved his question away as if irrelevant. “Two of us could achieve so much, Lucius. The guild as a whole could become all-powerful in this city.” She smiled dangerously. “Even almighty.”
He stared at her.
“Still, there is time for you to make amends, Lucius,” Adrianna said. “I have a task you can aid me with. Follow me.”
She spun around to head down one of the other passages, but stopped when Lucius called out to her, keeping her back to him.
“I cannot help you in this,” he said.
“You will.”
“Adrianna, I don’t want to become your enemy.”
Looking over her shoulder, Adrianna gave him a dark look.
“No,” she said. “You don’t.”
Lucius watched her disappear down the tunnel. For the moment, at least, he knew he was safe. If Adrianna needed him, she would not kill him unless he forced her hand. Wiping his brow of sweat, he started after her, apprehensive of what favour she would require of him in order to keep the peace between them.
The passage dropped again, a little steeper than before, and opened out into another chamber. Before him was an unfurled bedroll, together with a small store of bread, dried meat, and wine. Adrianna had evidently spent some time in this lair already. As he entered the chamber, his eyes were drawn to one side, and he gasped.
Arms forced either side of her head by manacles of glowing silver energy, Elaine was held fast, Adrianna’s prisoner. A similar band of energy blazed across her face, effectively gagging her. When she saw him, Elaine’s eyes narrowed with loathing, and he groaned under his breath, dreading whatever Adrianna had been telling her.
“Oh, Adrianna, what have you done?” he said quietly, as much to himself as the two women.
“Your thieving whore has been my guest here,” Adrianna said. She stood next to Elaine, arms folded again over her chest.
“As you can imagine, we have had all sorts of things to talk about.”
“So what do you want?” he asked, refusing to be baited. He would deal with the fallout with Elaine at a later time, when both of their lives were not in danger.
Adrianna smiled, malice creeping across her face. “There is a ship outside the harbour, waiting for a break in the storms so it can safely negotiate the monoliths and enter Turnitia. I will calm the storms, so it can sail into the harbour–”
“You can do that?” Lucius asked in amazement, interrupting her. The energy that had to be harnessed in order to attempt such a thing was almost beyond his comprehension.
She gave him a contemptuous look before continuing. “The ship is full of Vos soldiers. A lot of them. They are here to lock down the city, and wipe out the last of the Shadowmages.”
“You want to destroy the ship.”
“Of course.”
“So why not just smash them against the harbour defences? It would be a lot easier.”
“Because, fool,” Adrianna said, spitting at his stupidity, “I want the people of the city to see it happen. To understand what is going to happen to anyone who supports the Empire.”
His shoulders sagging as he realised he would not be able to reason with Adrianna, Lucius sighed helplessly. While the thieves had certainly killed their fair share of soldiers, the cold-blooded drowning of hundreds of men was not something he could easily stomach. He looked at her bleakly.
“Why are you doing this?”
Eyes narrowing as if she were looking at something deeply repulsive, Adrianna spoke quietly at first, her voice slowly rising.
“Unlike you, I was here when the Empire first came to this city. They promised everything in the world, but brought with them terror and death. You fled. You didn’t see them attack the Shadowmages the first time around, wiping us out one by one.”
“Adrianna–” he started, but she cut him off.
“You didn’t see it. I did. I watched Master Roe die. Now Forbeck is gone, and I won’t permit the Empire to kill us off again, not after everything we have achieved since.” She took several steps towards Lucius to emphasise her point. “The Vos Empire is evil, Lucius. You know that. They have a twisted bitch in power who sends her lackeys everywhere to act in her cruel name. I will do anything – absolutely anything – to safeguard this city and my guild.”
“Even if that turns you into one of them?”
She snorted. “People are going to die in this war, as they die in any war. But I won’t subjugate the city. I won’t lock people in the Citadel. I won’t bleed them dry with taxes. I could not care less how people want to live their lives. I just want to make sure Shadowmages have a place where they can practise their art without persecution.”
“And that is worth the deaths of innocents?”
“Defeating Vos is worth the deaths of a few innocents, certainly. It is a means to an end, Lucius, nothing more.”
“The end does not justify this means.”
He watched as Adrianna walked back to Elaine. “Well,” she said. “That is not important right now. You are going to help me.”
Knowing what was coming, Lucius asked the question anyway. “And if I refuse?”
Adriana looked at him, then crouched down beside Elaine, running her hand through the thief’s hair.
“Then your bitch will die.”
Elaine turned to look at Adrianna, their faces no more than a few inches apart. Lucius shuddered at the thief’s murderous look, realising that, even if he managed to persuade Adrianna to release Elaine, one of them would be dead by the end of the week. He was not wholly sure whose side he would run to, if both asked for his aid.
“You give me no choice,” he said softly.
“No,” she said, smiling at him. “I haven’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WALKING SEVERAL PACES behind Adrianna, his head bowed, Lucius’ mind raced as he tried to find a way out of the horrors he was about to take part in. He would not have liked to take on Adrianna on the best of days, much less when she was prepared for him. How could he match her talent for spellcasting when she held all the cards?
At least Lucius had persuaded her to release Elaine before they embarked on this attack. Adrianna had relented to his demand too quickly for his liking, and he suspected it was all part of a game, a demonstration perhaps that she saw no difficulty in reaching Elaine once more if he reneged on his agreement. For her own part, Elaine had shown no gratitude as Lucius levitated her up the cliff face on his platform of air. Refusing to meet his gaze, she had marched back into the city. He feared what plans she was now making, and whether they included him.
Lengthening his stride, Lucius caught up with Adrianna as they approached the cluster of cliffside cranes and lifts that served the docks. He cleared his throat.
“You may be right about working together, Aidy,” he started. “Maybe I have been concentrating too much on the thieves. You and I could target the Vos leadership of the city, maybe take out the Citadel’s commander, and the Preacher Divine too – he would be a very visible loss for the Empire.”
“Now you are starting to think properly, Lucius,” Adrianna said. “That is a good idea, and one we will attend to in due course. However, the leadership will be weakened without their soldiers. Trust me, this way is better.”
He was silent for a moment.
“So why come to me through Elaine?”
Adrianna shrugged. “Over the past few months, you have reverted back to your old ways. You have become... unreliable. She seemed the simplest route to guarantee your obedience.”
“You told her about us, didn’t you?”
Adrianna flashed him an amused look.
“I thought she would be interested. It hardly matters, either way,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “She might have cared for you quite a lot, I think. But she was not right for you. Don’t pretend you were in love with her.”
He looked at Adrianna curiously. “Do you think I love you?”
“I think you fear me. For the moment, that is enough.”
Lucius sighed in desperation. “I can understand your anger towards Vos – I have lost at least as much myself. But you are courting madness with these attacks, Adrianna.”
“Fool!” she spat. “You think me insane? You are not seeing this as I do. There is a wider world, Lucius, one beyond the petty concerns of thieves and their whores. Do you still not understand? There is a chance, a very real chance, for a better future for the Shadowmages. We just have to reach out and take it! We have suffered from leaders who have been too blind to events in the outside world, who have believed that the pure study of magic can fend off the interference of others.”
“Isn’t that what the Shadowmages’ guild is all about?”
She ignored his question. “I will not fail. You, you are no different from those doddery old men, the so-called masters. You are no better. You have no gift for leadership – you handed the entire thieves’ guild to that bitch because you did not know what else to do.”
“Then why invest this time in me?”
“Your training as a Shadowmage is far from complete. It is time you saw exactly what we are capable of.”
As they approached the nearest crane, they attracted the attention of the sweating labourers. Two decided that Adrianna would be impressed by cat calls and overly loud comments on her physique, growing lewder when she ignored them.
“I can’t work with this noise,” she said to Lucius. “Get rid of them.”
He looked at the labourers blankly, and then back to her.
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“I really don’t care,” she said distractedly, and Lucius realised she had already begun to prepare her magic. “Blow them off the cliff for all it matters, though I presume you’ll choose to do something less lethal.”
Turning to face them, Lucius tried hard to keep an apologetic look from his face.
“Get out of here,” he said to them, jerking his head in the direction of the city.
“You what?” said one of the cat callers, standing up straight from the wooden strut he had been slouched over, letting Lucius see his full height.
Looking him directly in the eye, Lucius flooded his hand with raw magical energy and hurled it to the ground just in front of the labourers’ feet. With a crashing boom, it exploded, showering them in clumps of earth.
One raised his hands to show he had no argument with Lucius, and ran past him. He was quickly followed by the others, though the cat caller looked surly as he departed.
Adrianna had walked to the very edge of the cliff, where she stood, motionless, the sea wind tugging at her clothing. Eyes half-closed, she seemed serene and calm. Lucius, however, saw something very different.
He saw the threads of magic react to Adrianna’s sorcery, bucking and twisting as she drew off vast amounts of energy. Then the strand fuelling the arcane forces of nature that she was attempting to control throbbed and exploded, eclipsing all the others with its radiance. It flashed and strobed as Adrianna took its power and shaped it.
The sound of waves crashing on the harbour defences, a constant noise in the city, disappeared. Mouth gaping, Lucius stared at Adrianna, seeing her eyes alight with the power she controlled. Even at the sea’s calmest, when ships dared to negotiate the narrow gaps between the defences, still the waves smashed and thundered. Now, they were utterly still. The magic required to influence something so mighty dwarfed his understanding.
As the sea wind began to blow steady, its usual choppy motion calmed by Adrianna to aid the ship’s passage into the harbour, she gave a wolfish smile, and once again Lucius felt the buildup of arcane force as she prepared to unleash her next spell, that would send the vessel to the seabed.
He looked at her curiously now, wondering why she had insisted he join her in this venture. Adrianna’s power and ability clearly exceeded his own, by several orders of magnitude, and she certainly did not need him to scare away a handful of dock workers. So why was he there? Did she want to demonstrate to him what Shadowmages could be capable of? Or was this some lesson in compliance, a warning if he refused her wishes in the future?
Whatever the answer, he resolved to ride her anger out for the moment, and find another way to get through to her later.
As the prow of the ship came into view, appearing from behind the central monolith that dominated the harbour, Lucius frowned.
The ship was a three-mast Vos merchantman, a broad vessel contoured to slice through the largest of rogue waves. He had been expecting to see one of the five-mast frigates the Empire favoured to move soldiers long distances around the coasts of the peninsula, bedecked with weaponry to hurl spears and blazing rocks onto a hostile shoreline.
The merchantman negotiated the harbour defences with deliberate care, sailors crossing the main deck and through the rigging and making adjustments to ensure the large ship did not approach the piers too quickly. As they caught sight of the harbour and cliffs, the sailors cheered, grateful to have survived another voyage across the churning seas. The deck soon filled with more people, streaming from belowdecks. Shielding his eyes from the sun, Lucius squinted to get a better look, as he could not imagine Vos discipline breaking down just because a friendly port had been sighted.
“Something’s wrong,” he said under his breath. None of those on the main deck were in uniform, and he was puzzled. It then struck him that there were children in the crowd. Some stood atop the railings that ran alongside the main deck, while others were being hoisted onto their parents’ shoulders for a better look at their first sight of Turnitia.
“Adrianna, stop,” he said. “You’ve made a mistake, that isn’t the ship you think it is.”
In return, she shrugged. “It will sink just as well.”
Lucius looked at her uncomprehendingly until he realised that this was what she had been planning all along. The tale of more soldiers being brought in to completely flood the city was a fabrication to manipulate him into doing what she desired. Right now, she just wanted to kill.
He took her arm, forcing her to face him. Her attention diverted from the ship, she gave him a mixed look of disgust and irritation.
“Let go of me,” Adrianna said.
Suppressing the impulse to swallow, he stared levelly back at her.
“I am not going to let you do this.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You will. One way or another, Lucius, you will, that I promise.”
“More innocents?” he shouted back, losing his patience. “How much more blood are you looking to cover yourself in, Adrianna? All those families, all those children in the market not enough for you?”
“It will never be enough, don’t you understand? Whether the Empire chooses to take over this city by force of arms or by colonisation, it makes no difference! Soldiers or civilians, they are both weapons used by Vos, and whichever weapon they choose to employ, I will destroy!”
Lucius could see she was serious in her decision, and cursed himself for seeing a rough sort of logic behind it, but he remained adamant.
“No, Adrianna. Just... no.”
For a split second she stared balefully back at him, and he prepared himself for a blast of magic. When she did strike, she caught him completely by surprise. Balling her fist, Adriann
a caught him hard on the left side of his chin.
Reeling under the forceful blow, Lucius staggered back until he found his feet. He immediately felt a surge of magic as Adrianna began building up the power to fuel a spell, aimed directly at him. He dragged on a thread, and aimed a bolt of raw energy at the ground before her feet, much as he had done with the labourers.
The crackling energy exploded as soon as it hit the ground, and knocked Adrianna back a step. As Lucius had hoped, the distraction had been enough to stall her spell, but she immediately resumed gathering energy, with far greater speed than he expected. Watching her build up to the spell’s peak, he pulled on the power of two threads, more out of instinct than design, crudely fashioning them into large, wide shields that interposed themselves between the two Shadowmages.
Screaming with the intensity of its speed, the sea wind was whipped by Adrianna into a living tornado. The air currents swept past her, barely ruffling her hair, then turned and sped, arrow-straight, toward Lucius. This piston of air smashed into his hastily erected shield, and he struggled to maintain its cohesion as the invisible barrier was flayed by Adrianna’s attack. Desperately, he flooded the shields with more energy, opening up a direct conduit from the magical threads.
Lucius was losing. The first shield vanished suddenly, its hold on reality vaporised by Adrianna’s attack. He felt a surge of energy as she directed her attention to annihilating the last barrier between them. Gritting his teeth with the effort, he commanded the shield to become tighter and narrower, focussed against her continuous blast. It was whittled away, inch by inch, the energy he was pouring into the arcane defence sapped away quicker than it was filled.
A sharp pain exploded in his head as the last barrier broke apart, and Lucius felt a solid punch on his chest as the column of air blasted into him. He was lifted bodily off his feet and flung from the cliff, spiralling through the sky as Adrianna’s magic lifted him higher and higher on a terminal arc. Then, her spell dissipated.
Lucius tumbled from the sky, his vision blurring as the world flashed past him: sky, cliffs, piers, sea, ship. Falling with mounting speed, he desperately sought to regain control of his magic but, for the first time, the threads did not appear in his mind’s eye. His attention was rooted firmly on the sea as it rushed up towards him with lethal acceleration.
The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) Page 42
