Bookworm III Read online

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER NUTTALL

  The Mind’s Eye

  Bookworm series

  Bookworm

  Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling

  Dizzy Spells series

  A Life Less Ordinary

  Royal Sorceress series

  The Royal Sorceress

  The Great Game

  Necropolis

  INVERSE SHADOWS UNIVERSE

  SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

  The Best Laid Plans…

  Elaine and Johan are preparing to leave Golden City, with Daria and the travellers, in order to search for the Witch-King. The Grand Sorceress instructs Inquisitor Cass to help them. But before Elaine can leave she is arrested by two Inquisitors on the orders of the Emperor. When she resists she is hit with a powerful spell that forces her to concentrate all her efforts on protecting her mind from its intrusion. Taken to the palace she finds that the Grand Sorceress has been removed and the Throne has accepted an heir to the Empire. Realising this has to be the work of the Witch-King, Elaine must defeat the spell that is eating away at her defences if she is to escape and destroy him. Meanwhile, Johan, Daria and Cass are trying to find a way to get to Elaine and break her out of the cell in which she is being held.

  The Golden City is still widely devastated from the disastrous battle for power that followed the death of the previous Grand Sorcerer. The recent escalating breakdown of social order can only be made worse by the return of an Emperor and the imposition of martial law. The Privy Councillors and Heads of the Great Houses succumb to the power of the new Emperor, as he amasses a huge army. It is up to Elaine and her friends, with some unexpected help, to prevent an all-out war.

  The third instalment in the Bookworm series, The Best Laid Plans follows on immediately from the events in The Very Ugly Duckling, with Elaine and Johan joined by other favourite characters as they try to track down the Witch-King.

  Bookworm III

  The Best Laid Plans

  Christopher Nuttall

  Elsewhen Press

  Bookworm III: The Best Laid Plans

  First published in Great Britain by Elsewhen Press, 2015

  An imprint of Alnpete Limited

  Copyright © Christopher Nuttall, 2015. All rights reserved

  The right of Christopher Nuttall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, telepathic, magical, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Elsewhen Press, PO Box 757, Dartford, Kent DA2 7TQ

  www.elsewhen.co.uk

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-908168-66-5 Print edition

  ISBN 978-1-908168-76-4 eBook edition

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  Elsewhen Press & Planet-Clock Design are trademarks of Alnpete Limited

  Converted to eBook format by Elsewhen Press

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, libraries, and events are either a product of the author’s fertile imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, repositories, places or people (living, dead or undead) is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  To Eric Jalil Nuttall, my son

  Prologue

  The Golden City was on edge.

  Inquisitor Cass could feel it as she strode through the streets, her long black robes spinning out around her, marking her as an Inquisitor to all who cared to stare. The handful of people on the streets were careful not to stare, even though she was morbidly certain they would have ogled her if she’d been wearing something – anything – else. She’d left the Peerless School a full year ahead of her contemporaries and looked ridiculously young for her position. But then, being underestimated was always an advantage.

  She smiled to the guards as she reached the walls surrounding the Golden Palace, then stepped through the wards, feeling the waves of magic protecting the Grand Sorceress shimmering against her personal protections before they parted, allowing her to enter the complex. The guards nodded respectfully to her – they had no magic and were really only there for show – and stood back, trusting in the Grand Sorceress’s wards to keep out the really dangerous threats. Cass kept walking forward, allowing the magic surrounding the Golden Palace to guide her steps. Slowly, inch by inch, it led her through a long corridor and into the antechamber, outside the Throne Room. There were more guards standing there, watching the long line of petitioners who had somehow managed to slip into the building in hopes of seeking an audience with the Grand Sorceress. Judging from the looks some of them aimed at Cass when they thought she wasn’t looking, their persistence wasn’t getting them anywhere.

  The stone door swung open, allowing her into the Throne Room. As always, the sheer magnificence of the room took her breath away. The walls were covered in gold, while the floors were solid marble, engraved with golden images of the great heroes of the Necromantic Wars. In the exact centre of the room, surrounded by silver runes of power, was the Golden Throne itself. Cass felt the tug of the magic shimmering around the Throne and had to force herself to pull away. When there had been an Emperor in the Golden City, she was sure, his presence had been enough to dominate the chamber. Now ...

  The Grand Sorceress, Lady Light Spinner, sat at a small table, positioned neatly in the shadow of the Golden Throne. Her face was hidden behind a veil, as always, but her posture was tense, while her hand signed documents in a swift, almost frantic manner, suggesting she too was on edge. It was hard to blame her, Cass knew. During her elevation, a Dark Wizard had done significant damage to the Golden City, while only scant days ago several Great Houses had collapsed into chaos. The Empire was weaker than it had been for centuries.

  “Wait,” Light Spinner ordered.

  Cass went down on one knee, then forced herself to remain calm, despite her puzzlement at having been summoned to the palace. Junior Inquisitors were rarely called before the Grand Sorceress unless they had done something truly spectacular ... or fallen flat on their faces, embarrassing both themselves and their trainers. But Cass knew that s
he had done neither, not recently. She’d done her duty ...

  The Grand Sorceress looked up at her, suddenly. “You may rise,” she said. “And speak freely.”

  “Thank you,” Cass said.

  She wondered, absently, what the Grand Sorceress made of her. At twenty-five, she was the youngest Inquisitor on active duty – and certainly the prettiest, with long blonde hair that framed a heart-shaped face. The Grand Sorceress wouldn’t have hidden her face, Cass was sure, if there hadn’t been a good reason to hide. But why? Even the Inquisition didn’t know why the Grand Sorceress chose to wear the veil.

  “You swore your oaths to the Grand Sorcerer,” Light Spinner said. “Did you not?”

  “Yes,” Cass said. “I did.”

  She frowned at the question. Light Spinner, the Grand Sorceress, knew she’d sworn the Inquisitor Oaths. Cass couldn’t have entered the Watchtower without having sworn the oaths and bound herself to their service. And, as Grand Sorceress, Light Spinner was entitled to her obedience. Cass could no more have disobeyed a direct order from the Grand Sorceress than she could have chosen to ignore a magic-abusing fool in the streets.

  “I have a specific task for you,” the Grand Sorceress said. “It will require you to be released from your oaths, should you accept.”

  Cass blinked, genuinely shocked. The Inquisitors were all powerful magicians – and very well trained. Their oaths kept them from being anything more than the Grand Sorcerer’s enforcers, rather than joining other magicians in the endless battle for supremacy. For the Grand Sorceress to release her from her oaths ... it made no sense. Cass could have carried out almost any order the Grand Sorceress chose to give without being freed from her sworn words.

  “My Lady,” she said, carefully. “I ...”

  The Grand Sorceress held up one gloved hand. “There are issues you need to understand,” she said. “Johan Conidian is alive.”

  Cass felt an odd flicker of fear. There were ways to strip a magician of his or her magic, if necessary, but they required careful rituals and complex spellwork. Johan Conidian, on the other hand, had developed a form of magic that allowed him to take a person’s magic without the rituals, something that had terrified every magician who had heard about it. They lived in a world where magic was power, she knew. How could they be faulted for being terrified when they sensed that they could lose their power?

  And that everyone they were mean to would be mean to them, once they were powerless, Cass thought, silently.

  “I am sending him and Elaine, the Head Librarian, out of the city,” Light Spinner continued. “They will not be able to attend the Conference” – she gave an odd little chuckle – “but instead they will be carrying out a mission for me. You will accompany them and provide what assistance you can.”

  “But not as an Inquisitor,” Cass said, slowly.

  “No,” Light Spinner agreed. “You will go as an independent magician.”

  Cass considered it, reluctantly. The Inquisitors were among the most capable magicians in the world – and she’d worked hard to join their ranks. It had been far from easy, not when the Senior Inquisitors had taken great pride in pushing the younger volunteers to breaking point, hoping to force out anyone who could break before it was too late. And it was always harder for a woman ... she’d survived, somehow, and gained her robe and staff. The thought of simply abandoning her achievement was horrific.

  But she could see the Grand Sorceress’s point. The oaths she’d sworn would push her in a certain direction, once she was face-to-face with Johan Conidian. His magic was new and utterly unprecedented, as far as anyone could tell. She had a duty to take him to the Watchtower or simply kill him, before he fell into unfriendly hands. If the last few months had taught her anything, it was that the peace and stability of the last fifty years was proving to be an illusion.

  And she knew her duty.

  “I will, if you will release me,” she said. She hesitated, then took the skull ring off her finger and dropped it into her pocket. “Can I retake the oaths afterwards?”

  “If you wish to return to the Inquisitors, you may retake the oaths,” Light Spinner said.

  Cass bowed her head, then stepped forward when Light Spinner rose to her feet. The oaths were suddenly very prominent within her mind, sworn words that were woven into her magic by old rituals. Obey the Emperor – and the Grand Sorcerer. It was the only way to ensure stability, she knew, given how many magicians were prepared to fight for power. The Grand Sorcerer wasn’t just the most powerful magician in the world, as far as anyone knew; he or she was supported by a corps of other powerful magicians. It was hard for anyone to challenge the Inquisitors.

  “In the name of the Emperor, wherever he may be, I release you from your oaths,” Light Spinner said. “I ...”

  Cass barely heard her as magic suddenly shimmered around her. The oaths had been part of her for years, long enough that she’d forgotten what it was like to be free of them, to be free of a compulsion she had accepted willingly as part of her job. Now ... magic danced and twisted, reminding her that she was a powerful magician ... and that she was free. It would be easy, now, to do whatever she liked, to be the ultimate spoilt brat. Magic made it so easy ...

  She reached into her pocket and took the ring. It burned against her flesh the moment she touched it, growing hotter and hotter every second. Only Inquisitors could wear the rings.

  “I will take that,” Light Spinner said. “It will be held in trust for you. And I suggest you change or glamour your clothes.”

  “Thank you,” Cass said, placing the ring on the table. It felt as if she had given up a piece of herself. Moments later, her black robes became a simple pair of trousers and a shirt. She’d worn plain clothes often enough, but this was different. She might never be an Inquisitor again. “Please give it to my superiors if I don’t return.”

  She took a deep breath, then calmed herself. The job still needed to be done, even if she was no longer bound by her oaths.

  “I thank you,” she said, formally. She had never heard of an Inquisitor being released from the oaths before, if only because they rarely lived long enough to retire. Now ... it was growing harder to remember why she had sworn the oaths in the first place. “And I will carry out your requests.”

  “Good,” the Grand Sorceress said. She motioned for Cass to follow her out of the giant chamber, into a smaller office lined with giant bookshelves. “This is what I want you to do.”

  Chapter One

  The chamber under the Great Library was crammed with books.

  Elaine let out a sigh as she surveyed the groaning tables, utterly heaving with books, maps and records recovered from a dozen smaller libraries within the city. Some of them dated back to the Necromantic Wars, when the Witch-King had been first hero, then villain; others were much younger, either copies of copies or outright fakes. The dusty tomes all looked old – some of them clearly hadn’t been touched for years – but a quick inspection was often enough to reveal that they weren’t what they seemed. It was astonishing, really, just how many Great Houses had seen fit to embellish their roles in building the empire over the years.

  Or maybe it isn’t astonishing at all, Elaine thought, as she ran her fingers through her long brown hair. Grand Sorcerers come and go, but the Great Houses last forever.

  She looked down at one of the tomes and cursed its author under her breath. The knowledge in her head was enough to tell her that the writer had been making it up as he went along, although anyone could have worked it out for himself if he’d read the book with a critical eye. There were at least nine outright contradictions within the book, while one whole segment was devoted to discussing a ritual that Elaine knew wouldn’t actually work, no matter how enthusiastically the participants danced naked under the moonlight. Apparently, it was an old family ritual, but Elaine had her doubts. She rather suspected it had been written by a dirty old man.

  Walking to the next table, she looked down at the maps they’d rec
overed from one of the Great Houses. Some of them showed recognisable continents; others, more detailed, showed the world as it had been before the Necromantic Wars. Elaine scribbled down notes to herself in her notebook, hoping a quick comparison with a modern map would show her lands familiar to the Witch-King. If they found a place he considered secure, she was sure, they would find his lich. And then they could destroy him before it was too late.