“I will discuss it with my fellows,” Tam said, finally. “I cannot make such a decision on my own.”
So there are other leaders, Emily thought. Or...how many Levellers are left?
Cat clearly had the same thought. “How many of you are there?”
Tam looked back at him, evenly. “The king arrested many of the inner circles,” he said, “but we were very popular. It was fashionable to be a Leveller. Most of the outer circles remain untouched, just...cut off from the other circles.”
And you won’t give us precise numbers, Emily thought. She could understand why the Levellers had been popular–a society based on aristocracy would birth a great many people who thought meritocracy was a good idea–but the purge would have frightened many of them into destroying their cards. Others wouldn’t know who to trust. You don’t even know if you can trust us.
“We need an answer soon,” Emily said. She didn’t know what they’d do without the Levellers...if, indeed, the Levellers could make a valued contribution. Hire mercenaries and try to storm the Tower? Or put one of Jade’s more outlandish plans into operation? Or...she didn’t know. “And if you get a message to us soon, we would be grateful.”
“It will come at a high price,” Tam said. “We’ll want major concessions and reforms.”
“After the war,” Emily said. “We have to win first.”
Tam’s face darkened. “We want ironclad promises, backed by oaths,” he said. “We will not trust empty words again.”
Emily felt Cat shifting uncomfortably behind her. She didn’t feel much better herself, even though she should have expected it. Asking for an oath, demanding an oath...it just wasn’t done. It was a clear sign that they weren’t trusted to keep their word. But how could she blame them? Randor had made promises, when his crown had been threatened, that he hadn’t tried to keep. He’d thought that ennobling Paren–and a handful of others–would be enough to keep them from turning against him. But he’d underestimated Paren’s commitment to meritocracy.
And Nanette’s meddling, Emily reminded herself. She poisoned the well badly.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. “I believe that Alassa will swear an oath, once you and she agree on the exact wording,” she said, carefully. They’d have to get Alassa out of the Tower first. “However, there will have to be a careful balance between the old and the new.”
“We will no longer allow ourselves to be used as slaves,” Tam told her. “We want clear laws, applicable to all, and a very definite say in how our taxes are to be collected and spent.”
“I believe Alassa would find that acceptable,” Emily said. “However, you would have to work out a set of proposals.”
“And then come to an agreement with you,” Tam said. He met her eyes, just for a second. “I hope you can be trusted, Lady Emily. You have brought good and you have brought evil.”
“I gave people tools,” Emily said. “What they did with them, the choices they made...I wasn’t responsible for that.”
Tam bowed his head, then stood. “We will get in touch,” he said. “And when we do, we will either commit ourselves to you or back off.”
“And that’s all we can hope for, at the moment,” Emily said. She wondered, idly, just how long the Levellers would need to make up their minds. If they were as scattered as Tam implied, they might be on the verge of breaking into several different factions. “We’ll have more detailed discussions later.”
“We will,” Tam said. “I...”
A bell started to ring, clanging loudly. Below them, Emily heard doors crashing open and people running up and down the stairs. Outside, she could hear people shouting in outrage.
“The soldiers,” Tam gasped. “They’re found us!”
Chapter Seventeen
FOR A LONG MOMENT, NO ONE moved. Emily found it hard to think. History was repeating itself...they’d been found, they were going to be caught...and even if they blasted their way out, their presence would be revealed to the entire city. Randor would know to look for them–and, perhaps, to rid himself of a liability. Imaiqah might not survive the night...
“They’re hitting the ground floor,” Cat snapped, shaking her out of her trance. The sound of rioting downstairs was growing louder. “We have to go up!”
He looked up at the ceiling until he spotted a hatch. “Emily, can you sense a magician down there?”
Emily reached out with her senses. The brothel’s wards were already collapsing–they hadn’t been designed to keep out anyone who really wanted in–but she couldn’t sense a magician outside. That didn’t mean anything, she reminded herself sharply; the magician might be shielding himself from detection. But she was unusually sensitive to magic. If the magician–if there was a magician–used his magic, she’d probably be able to sense something.
“Not yet,” she said. The sound of running footsteps was growing louder. People were shouting and screaming in outrage. “We have to move.”
Cat closed his eyes for a long moment and gestured at the hatch. It exploded outwards, revealing an attic. Emily was mildly impressed by his control. She was practically standing right next to him and she’d barely sensed anything. He caught Tam’s hand a second later, pulling him under the hatch. Emily followed them, bracing herself. Levitation spells always made her feel unsteady.
She gritted her teeth as she heard someone outside the door, snapping off a locking spell. It wouldn’t hold for long, particularly when the soldiers started hacking the door down, but it might buy them a few seconds. Cat levitated himself and Tam up through the hatch, into the attic; Emily hesitated, then followed them through the hatch. The spell, as always, felt as if it were going to shatter the moment she took her mind off it. It was a very fragile spell. She knew better than to use it anywhere near hostile magicians.
The air was dry and very dusty–and dark. Emily cast a night-vision spell and looked up and down the attic, noting how the owners had never bothered to cover the supporting beams with anything that might have been able to take their weight. A single foot wrong would be enough to plunge them through the ceiling of the room below and right into enemy hands. Cat glanced around, then picked his way rapidly towards a wooden ladder leading up to a hatch in the roof. Down below, Emily could hear cursing in deep masculine voices. How long would it take them to guess where their prey had gone? If they thought to look up...
We have to have left some sign of our escape route, she thought, as Cat reached the ladder and started upwards. Tam stood at the bottom, looking around blankly. It took Emily a moment to realize that he had no way to see in the dark. Imaiqah wouldn’t have had a problem, but she was the sole magician in her family. Tam is completely dependent upon us.
The noise from outside grew louder as Cat pushed open the hatch. It was dark outside, but the moon provided enough light to see. Emily waited for Tam to scurry up the ladder himself, then looked back. The sounds from below were getting louder. She doubted it would take the soldiers that long to find a stepladder or simply form a human chain. She’d seen men climb on their comrade’s backs to reach high places during Martial Magic...
“Emily,” Cat hissed. “Hurry!”
Emily nodded and started up the ladder. It creaked and swayed under her weight, as if it was constantly on the verge of falling to pieces. The wood felt unclean under her hand...she didn’t want to think about what the brothel’s staff might have been doing with the ladder. She hoped she didn’t cut herself as she reached the top and scrambled onto the roof. The last thing she wanted was to leave a bloodstain for the soldiers to find.
“There’s a riot going on,” Tam breathed, nodding towards the edge of the rooftop. “The people are fighting the soldiers.”
“It won’t be long before the soldiers scatter them,” Cat said. He pointed towards the castle, glowing in the distance. “Do you hear that?”
Emily nodded. She could hear the sound of marching men, weapons clashing against their armor. It was the sort of thing that would drive Sergeant Miles i
nto a fit of homicidal rage–damaging one’s own weapons was the ultimate sin–but she had to admit the sound was intimidating. The weaker hearts amongst the crowd would probably already be retreating into the side streets and alleyways–and, if the soldiers were smart, they’d let them go. There was no point in risking a pitched battle in a confined space if it could be avoided.
“This way,” Cat said. “Hurry.”
Emily looked down the row of houses, feeling another surge of déjà vu. The rooftops were wider in some places, but thinner in others...with greater gaps between one building and the next. As she followed Cat, she tried not to think about the prospect of falling five stories to her death even though the sergeant had drilled a handful of levitation and hard-landing spells into her head. A single enemy sorcerer–or even a student magician–could give her a very hard landing indeed if she tried to fly.
She caught sight of the thronging crowd as she jumped over an alleyway and cursed under her breath, hoping that most of the locals would have the sense to get out of the way before it was too late. Anyone caught in the open would be sure of a beating, if nothing else. Randor might round up a handful of rioters, just to make an example of them. Justice in Zangaria was swift, punitive and not given to admitting that it might have hung the wrong man. An innocent man might go to his grave with his name unfairly blackened.
“We’ll have to levitate across the gap,” Cat called back. “There’s no way we can jump it.”
Emily swallowed, hard. If they were seen flying through the air...Cat was right, there was no choice, but if they were seen it would reveal the fact that there were magicians amongst the rebels. It wouldn’t necessarily lead to Randor pointing the finger at Jade–or her–yet she couldn’t take that for granted. Not that it mattered. There were too many soldiers attacking the crowds below, driving them back with the flat of their swords, for them to open a rooftop hatch or clamber down the outside ladders. They’d be caught in a flash.
She looked down and instantly regretted it. The soldiers were battering their way through the crowds, knocking men and women to the ground and trampling over them. They weren’t using the edges of their blades, thank goodness, but the death toll would still be terrifyingly high. The thought made her sick. A handful of boys and young men rained stones and makeshift weapons down on the soldiers–she saw a handful fall under the barrage–yet it wasn’t enough to stop them. The crowd simply couldn’t fight the soldiers in the open.
Someone shouted behind her. She turned to see a handful of soldiers scrambling onto the roof. They seemed to be coming from the brothel, but...she shook her head. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting away without revealing too much to the king’s investigators. And they had to jump...
“Hang on,” Cat said.
He clutched Tam to him, then threw himself into the air and over the street. Emily cast her own spell, trying to fly as quickly as possible. They’d have bare seconds to react–if that–if another magician saw them. She glanced down, suddenly very glad she wasn’t wearing a skirt, as she flew through the air. No one seemed to be looking up. They were too busy clearing the streets. The shouts from behind her grew louder as she landed on the far side and fled after Cat. He glanced back, once, then kept moving.
The buildings got older and darker as they hurried towards the docks. Emily saw hidden walkways and concealed shacks, some built on top of buildings that dated all the way back to the kingdom’s foundation. Street urchins and unemployed men glanced at them blearily as they ran past, too worn down by life to give much of a damn about the distant riot or the advancing soldiers. Emily shuddered, reminding herself–again–that there was a darker side to everything. The unemployed men were the ones who had been unable to get jobs to support themselves, yet couldn’t go back to serfdom. No lord would take in a serf who’d run away.
She glanced back as they reached the end of the row, trying to see if the soldiers were still after them. A small army–or a handful of sorcerers–might be able to track them, but she doubted the soldiers had time. Rioters tended to be nasty when pressed, even if they didn’t have any real weapons. It was quite possible that the soldiers had been called back to deal with the riot before it got out of hand.
Or that they didn’t know who to expect, she thought. Randor would have pulled out all the stops to catch Jade. Or her, perhaps. If they only knew about Tam...
She put the thought aside for later contemplation as Cat found a ladder and peered down into the darkened alleyway. Alexis reminded her, at little, of photographs she’d seen of Manhattan, where most buildings had staircases on the outer walls to allow people to escape in case of fire. There were few staircases, but there were quite a lot of ladders. It made a certain kind of sense. She doubted King Randor or any of his predecessors had pushed for it–health and safety was hardly a governmental concern–but flames spread quickly through the crammed tenement blocks. The residents would want to be sure they could get out quickly if fire started to spread.
“I’ll go as far down as I can,” Cat said, shortly. “Tam, follow me in five minutes; Emily, bring up the rear.”
Emily nodded, looking around as Cat started down into the darkness. It was unlikely the ladders reached all the way to the ground, which meant there would either be a ladder they could lower on the first floor or a gap they’d have to drop down to land on the pavement. The ladder didn’t look particularly safe to her–she kicked herself for taking a close look at the mouldy wood and rusty metal–but it seemed to have endured.
The air felt hot and silent as she slowly scrambled down the ladder, glancing down every so often. Whoever had installed the emergency escape ladders had been too cheap to shell out for a ladder for the final story, unsurprisingly. She lowered herself down as far as she could, then dropped the rest of the way. The landing hurt worse than she’d expected, but at least they were down. There didn’t even seem to be anyone sleeping rough in the alley.
Cat smiled at her in the semi-gloom, his teeth flashing. Emily smiled back, feeling a sudden thrill that surprised her. They’d nearly been caught, but they’d escaped...she wished, suddenly, that they were alone. If Tam hadn’t been there...
She gritted her teeth as she heard the sound of running footsteps from the south. They had been seen or tracked, then. She tested her wards quickly, trying to determine if anyone was spying on them, but the wards seemed intact. Someone with a great deal of skill might be able to track her through her wards–they’d be a little too good–yet she found it hard to imagine such a person working for Randor. There was plenty of call for their services–and rewards Randor couldn’t bestow–available elsewhere.
“Tam, you sneak around and get back home,” Cat ordered. “If you make it back, we’ll set up a meeting through Master Abrams. If not...good luck.”
Tam smiled, rather weakly. “Thank you, both of you.”
He turned and hurried down the alleyway. Cat winked at Emily, then led her up the alleyway, right towards the sound of footsteps. The streets outside were almost completely empty, the locals having gone to join the riot or decided that it was better to run inside and bolt the door. Emily followed Cat across the road and into another alleyway, just as the soldiers came into view. They looked pissed.
“We have to distract them,” Cat said, shortly. “Do you remember how to cast a blinding flash?”
Emily snorted, rudely. It was a First-Year spell, one that was effective against mundanes–and charmed armor–but practically useless against real magicians. She should be able to cast it, although she took his point. It wasn’t a spell she used very often. She readied the spell as she heard the soldiers crashing after them. They wouldn’t be permanently blind, she told herself firmly. They’d just be badly shocked...
“Now,” Cat said.
Emily cast the spell, careful to turn her head away. The alleyway seemed to blaze with blinding light as night turned to day, making her eyes water even though she wasn’t looking at the flash. Grown men started to topple
like ninepins, hitting the cobbled ground or running headlong into walls. She felt a stab of guilt, even though she knew precisely what the soldiers would do to her if they realized she was female. The men hadn’t stood a chance.
Cat caught her arm and yanked her further down the alley. There would be other soldiers on the way, others who hadn’t seen the light. The blinded men shouted after them, hurling bloodcurdling threats through the air. Some of the threats made it clear that they hadn’t realized she was female. There was no point in trying to cut something off when she didn’t have one.
Not that what they’ll do instead will be an improvement, she reminded herself, sharply. If they try to capture me, I’ll have to take the risk of showing my full power.
They ran onwards through a maze of alleyways, casting a handful of spells to make life difficult for the pursuers without losing them completely. Tam would have as much time as he needed to get back home, if he could. Two magicians–or one, depending on what the soldiers had seen–would be an infinitively more valuable prize. She wondered, morbidly, just why the soldiers weren’t backing off and calling for their own magicians. Perhaps the king had offered vast rewards to anyone who brought him a rebel leader. A common-born soldier had ample reason to want to earn a knighthood.
“I think that’s far enough,” Cat said, as they crossed another intersection. The pursuit seemed to be slowing down as they moved deeper into the docklands, although the locals didn’t seem to want to throw the intruders out. They probably didn’t know who was on which side, let alone have any reason to risk their lives. “Shall we lose them?”
He cast an illusion of two shadowy figures running ahead of them, then Emily concealed their presence as they hid in a nearby alleyway and watched. The soldiers ran past, weapons clashing against their armor...charmed armor, covered in runes. It was a good thing they hadn’t tried to fight with more powerful magics, Emily decided. They might have been killed before they could overwhelm the armor.
The Princess in the Tower (Schooled in Magic Book 15) Page 17
