Bookworm III Read online

  She braced herself, then ran out of the room and down the corridor as soon as the servants were out of sight. One room held a couple of men sitting at desks, but neither of them looked up and saw her as she ran past; another held a handful of guards, playing cards or trying to catch up on their sleep. Elaine felt a sudden flicker of magic running through the palace, followed by a series of dongs. The palace was under attack! She tried to slip into the nearest room as she heard the soldiers snap to their feet, but the door was locked. And, before she could summon the strength to open it, the soldiers saw her.

  “Stop,” one of them shouted. “Stop now!”

  Elaine turned and fled down the stairs. The soldiers gave chase, one of them chanting a spell out loud as he ran. Elaine could have deflected it, if she’d had her magic, but right now she couldn’t have cast even the simplest of spells. The tripping jinx struck her and sent her cart-wheeling to the floor; she barely managed to get her hands out to break her fall before she banged her nose into the ground. One of the soldiers ran up behind her and pressed his foot on her back, trapping her as soundly as any spell, while his companions surrounded her, laughing nastily. They didn’t know who she was, Elaine realised through a haze of pain, but they did know she was female. They were going to have some fun.

  A low growl echoed through the corridor. Elaine looked up, just in time to see a small wolf streak out of the shadows and lash into the men with teeth and claw. It had always surprised her, once she’d actually learnt the truth, that Daria made such a small werewolf, but size didn’t matter. Daria’s teeth and claws tore through the men as if they were made of paper, killing the magic user before he could cast a single spell. Behind her, a blonde-haired woman carrying a wand ran up to Elaine and helped her to her feet. Elaine leant against her gratefully, then blinked in surprise as she recognised Cass. It had been months since she’d last seen the young Inquisitor ...

  “Don’t worry,” Cass said. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  A shout echoed down from the edge of the corridor. A small army of soldiers had arrived, led by a pair of men in red robes. Cass lifted her wand and cast a spell, sending a wave of fire washing up the corridor towards them, then followed up with a handful of lighter prank jinxes. Elaine stared at her, puzzled, then slowly worked out that the pranks would be harder for the magicians to handle when they would be expecting lethal spells. She heard two of the soldiers screaming in pain as the fire burned through their armour, then Cass cast another spell, levitating Elaine into the air.

  “I can walk,” Elaine protested.

  “No, you can’t,” Cass said. She waved her wand, sending Elaine floating off down the corridor. “You’re right on the edge of collapsing into a useless heap.”

  Elaine had no time to argue. Johan waved to her as the spell carried her towards a gaping hole in the wall, then turned his attention towards the guards. Cass ran back, waving her wand over her shoulder and casting spell after spell into the inferno. Flashes of light were coming back at her, then there was a low thump and the fires evaporated into nothingness.

  Cass swore out loud. “You!”

  “You’re trespassing, girlie,” a male voice said. It sounded oddly familiar to Elaine, but not that familiar. It wasn’t Dread. “And you deserted your post.”

  “The Emperor is mad,” Cass said. “He’s ... oh, what’s the use?”

  Elaine turned her head, just in time to see a dark-skinned man wearing Inquisitor robes lift a wand and cast a spell towards Cass. The younger Inquisitor blocked it, but was sent stumbling back by the sheer force of the impact. Daria roared and lunged, only to be picked up by a wave of magic and hurled right into a wall. Elaine stared in horror as blood leaked from Daria’s haunches, staining her fur. Werewolves healed quickly, but it was quite possible the Inquisitor wouldn’t give her time to heal. Cass hurled another spell and then another, but both of them were blocked effortlessly. The Inquisitor was advancing forward ...

  Johan stepped forward, raising his arm. A fireball of staggering power appeared between him and his target, then flew forward, aimed right at the Inquisitor. The man lifted a shield, then yelped as the flames burned right through his protections. Elaine had a momentary vision of him engulfed by fire, then closed her eyes as the levitation spell carried her into the darkened passageway. Behind her, Cass scooped up Daria and ran after them, closing the passage as she moved. It wouldn’t be long before the other Inquisitors caught up with them ...

  “Don’t pass out,” Cass ordered, as she propelled Elaine down the corridor. “Whatever you do, don’t pass out.”

  “I’m trying,” Elaine muttered. Her body wasn’t sore, but it was tired.Every muscle in her flesh was calling out for immediate rest. “What ... what happened to him?”

  “Dead, I think,” Johan said. There was a savage note to his voice she hoped never to hear again. “He was trying to kill us.”

  “He was bound by his oaths,” Cass said, tartly. “But yes, he would have killed us if he could.”

  “It’s Deferens’s fault,” Elaine said, through the haze that threatened to overwhelm her mind. “He stoned Light Spinner, took the Golden Throne.”

  Cass leant down. “Keep talking,” she urged. “Talk about ... talk about something we don’t know.”

  Elaine snickered, tiredly, but she understood what Cass wanted. “No one really knows if the gods exist,” she said. It was one question that she hadn’t been able to answer, despite having all the knowledge of the Great Library dumped into her head. “But there are hundreds of spells that call on them and some of them actually work. They only work if you call on the gods.”

  “Better not say that too loudly,” Cass advised. “You’ll be stoned to death merely for suggesting there are no gods.”

  She was right, Elaine knew. There were hundreds of thousands of gods, ranging from simple household gods to giant figures with millions of worshippers. And yet, were they real or figments of human imagination? Elaine had seen enough of the history of magic to know that the early magicians might easily have served as the catalyst for human belief in gods. But there was no point in casting a spell that called on other magicians, at least not without that magician’s consent. The gods were different.

  No one denies that the gods exist, she thought. They merely don’t worship all of them.

  She shuddered at the memory. The orphanage had always been short of food, but – every day – she’d been forced to place a small offering in the shrine as a gift to the gods. Between them, the orphan children had given away enough food to feed a dozen more orphans. She’d thought the god ate the food, but one day two boys had been expelled for sneaking down at night and stealing the food from the shrine. Gods or no gods, it had been very hard to blame them.

  “The spells that work are the ones that call on the embodiment of various concepts,” she said, wearily. It was growing harder to focus. “Random gods don’t seem to grant wishes, but embodiments do. You can call on the God of Love to cast a love spell, or the God of Justice if you wish for true justice. Why do those spells work?”

  “Because the gods are real?” Johan asked. “People ask them for favours and they are granted?”

  “Or because the spells are calling on the concept, rather than any god,” Elaine said. “A balancing spell calls on the God of Justice, but can only ever be applied to a living person, rather than an object. It is a poor thinker who blames the weapon rather than the person who wields it.”

  “There are weapons that contaminate the mind of anyone fool enough to carry them,” Cass pointed out.

  “And spells calling on the God of Justice would show it,” Elaine said, through her tiredness. “The user would not be held to account for what he did, if he picked the weapon up in true innocence. But someone who made a deliberate decision to use a cursed blade would be held accountable for his sins, even though the blade might have made them worse.”

  She coughed, then cleared her throat. “I don’t know what it proves, but it prov
es something.”

  “That you should keep your mouth shut,” Cass said, dryly. “Denying the gods will get you in hot water.”

  “There are too many,” Johan said.

  “Doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Cass said. She paused, then propelled Elaine though the hatch and into the Great Library. “Can you still touch the wards?”

  Elaine concentrated. The Great Library might be quiet, but it was very far from dead. Magic surged through her, allowing her to focus her mind on the wards and tighten them against all intruders. A quick scan of the building revealed that there were a handful of guards outside, but no one actually inside, apart from her and her party. She locked the doors, warded them firmly and, as an afterthought, sealed up the secret passageway as well. It hadn’t been part of the protective wards earlier, she saw. They’d been programmed to ignore the passageway unless their mistress knew it existed.

  “I never knew about the passageway,” she muttered, as she forced herself to sit up. She was drawing power from the wards, but it wouldn’t last for long, unless she wished to permanently bind herself to the library. “And because I didn’t know, I never warded it against intruders.”

  “Lucky you didn’t, really,” Cass said. “You got the spell out of your mind?”

  “I think so,” Elaine said. “I gave it to a guard.”

  Cass snickered. “And what did he manage to do for you?”

  “There’s three thousand soldiers in the city,” Elaine said. She yawned, suddenly. “And I really need to sleep.”

  “Good idea,” Cass said. “Is the building secure?”

  “It’s as secure as I can make it,” Elaine said. “Are there any other secret passageways?”

  “None that I know about,” Cass said. “But I was never told everything.”

  Elaine muttered a tired curse. There was no point in trying to scan the building for more secret passageways. The wards wouldn’t show them to her, let alone block them, unless she already knew they existed. She considered several options for trying to block hypothetical passageways anyway, but they would all do significant damage to the wards. And to think, she told herself, that she had thought she was the absolute mistress of the Great Library.

  “I’ve done my best,” she said. Her entire body sagged. “Can you help me to my chambers?”

  “You might be better sleeping here,” Cass said. “But I can levitate you to the reading room, if you think that will help.”

  “Please,” Elaine said.

  Cass cast a spell, levitating Elaine into the air. The magic of the Great Library fluttered around them doubtfully, then allowed Cass to move Elaine through the door and into the giant reading room. Elaine smiled at seeing the room dark and empty – she could have kept the library in perfect order if it wasn’t for those pesky users – and then sighed as Cass lowered her to the ground. Johan gave her a concerned look, then knelt down beside her. Behind her, Daria slowly returned to human form and stretched her bruised body. Her chest and lower thighs were black and blue.

  “I’m healing quickly,” she said, when Elaine looked at her. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Cass squatted on her haunches next to Elaine. “Are you sure you got rid of the spell?”

  “I don’t know,” Elaine admitted. She had destroyed or evicted the active parts of the spell, but it had left traces within her mind. A few hours of sleep might give it time to damage her ... or perhaps the damage would come later, once she lowered her guard. She needed a mind healer or someone else experienced in repairing spell damage, but she knew she would find neither. “I need to sleep and I don’t want to sleep.”

  “There are potions you could take,” Johan offered. “The ones that keep the students awake while they’re cramming for a test ...”

  “They also tend to catch up with you,” Cass pointed out, sharply. “The only way to be sure would be to scan Elaine’s mind for damage, but the mere act of scanning might invigorate the spell.”

  She reached out and rested a hand on Elaine’s shoulder. “We’ll take care of you, I promise,” she said. “And we won’t let you go.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Elaine said, softly. She closed her eyes, feeling the wards brushing against her mind. It was going to be a problem when she left the city, she knew; she’d intended to pass them to Vane before she joined Johan and Daria with the Travellers. Instead, she might have to carry them indefinitely or risk the library falling into Deferens’s hands. “How ... how did Light Spinner know?”

  “I think she merely wanted you to have an escort,” Cass said. Her voice seemed to be coming from a far distance. “I would have had to bring Johan in for study, if I had still been bound by my oaths when I discovered he was still alive. Instead, I get to help the pair of you.”

  “And thank you,” Elaine said, now utterly exhausted. “I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  Cass grunted. Elaine winced in sympathy. Cass had trained for years to be an Inquisitor, to wear the skull-ring. Light Spinner had made her throw it away, even if there was a prospect of returning to the ranks at a later date. And there weren’t that many Inquisitors. Cass would have known the one they’d faced, the one Johan might have killed; she would have known and respected the older man, even if she didn’t like him. She would certainly mourn his death.

  “There’s a temple on the lower levels, if you wish to pray,” Elaine offered. “I ...”

  “Thank you,” Cass said. “But I will be fine.”

  Elaine sighed, then nodded. The wards billowed around her protectively, offering support. She drew on it gratefully, then felt herself fall into darkness. She almost caught herself, fearing the consequences of going to sleep, but exhaustion overwhelmed her.

  The darkness absorbed her moments later ...

  And then she was asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charity snapped awake as she heard alarms echoing through the Imperial Palace. For a long moment she was helplessly confused, unsure of what was going on. Had the Grand Sorcerer recovered and attacked the Emperor, the Great Houses mounted an offensive or ... she pulled herself out of bed, silently grateful she hadn’t bothered to undress, then padded over to the door. It was locked and warded, keeping her prisoner.

  The Emperor doesn’t trust me, she thought, rolling her eyes in a manner she hadn’t dared do to her father for years. And yet I gave him my oaths.

  She sat down on the bed and looked around. There hadn’t been much time to inspect the rooms before she’d collapsed into the bed, but now she had all the time in the world to see what sort of quarters she’d been given. Judging from the pink decor and a handful of paintings featuring horses and unicorns, it had probably been intended for a very young girl, maybe someone below ten years old. She couldn’t decide if the room had been given to her as an oversight or an unsubtle insult. The Emperor’s homeland certainly regarded grown women as little better than children, unable to think for themselves or do anything without male permission and supervision.

  Idiots, she thought, savagely. It was a weakness, she told herself, a flaw in their armour someone could exploit. But the oaths she’d sworn ensured she could never exploit the weakness for herself. Someone else would have to deduce its existence and use it for themselves. And all the while, I’m trapped here like a fool.

  She paced the room restlessly, checking out the bathroom – it would have been spectacular, to a ten-year-old girl – and the tiny cabinet crammed with food. There were layers of protective spells everywhere, designed to ensure a safe environment for a child. Charity was sure that if she tried to drown herself in the baths, the spells would sound the alarm and prevent her from dying. A child, of course, might be drowned by accident. But the spells seemed to be designed to ensure the child’s safety without actually requiring anyone to interact with the poor child.

  I think she would have been lonely, Charity thought, wondering just who the child had been, before she’d presumably grown up. To the best of her knowledge, none of the Grand S
orcerers of recent times had had children. But if they’d had a child that they’d wanted to keep hidden, they could hardly have done better than craft the room for the child and leave her there. I wonder if Johan felt the same way.

  She shuddered as she inspected the knives and forks. It was a dining set, like the one she’d been given when her mother had deemed her old enough to start practicing for the day she would have to host dinners, but everything was enchanted. A knife wouldn’t cut living flesh, the spells blunting it beyond use every time the child might have cut herself. The forks too were charmed, as if the child had been at risk of stabbing herself in the eye. Charity had grown up in a Great House and yet she had been exposed to more risk, largely thanks to her brother. What manner of child had grown up in these rooms?

  A small cupboard revealed a cradle, a bassinet and a pram, all locked and warded against human contact. Charity shook her head, then closed the door and walked back to the bed, turning the mystery over and over in her head. It provided a distraction, at least, from her worries about what was going on outside. She sat down and tried to meditate, knowing she would not be able to go back to sleep. It was nearly an hour before the door opened, revealing a grey-haired Inquisitor. She couldn’t help the flash of guilt that rushed through her mind, remembering the last time she had met an Inquisitor. He had had some very sharp things to say about how she’d treated her Powerless brother.

  “My Lady,” the Inquisitor said. He was oddly familiar, although she couldn’t place him. “You will accompany me.”

  Charity nodded, then stood and allowed the older man to lead her out of the room and down the long corridor. Hundreds of soldiers ran everywhere, carrying weapons and looking alert ... although, if they had been alert, perhaps there wouldn’t have been a security breach in the first place. Behind them, a number of men in red robes paced from place to place, waving wands in the air and chanting loudly. They were sorcerers, Charity could tell, but they didn’t seem to have been trained at the Peerless School. But they shouldn’t have been trained anywhere else.