The Conjuring Man, page 15
We need to work out ways to adapt healing spells so they can be cast through spell circuits, he thought. And quickly, too.
The bells rang. Adam breathed a sigh of relief as he dismissed the class. Thankfully, he didn’t have to organise drill and marching practice, let alone sort out who belonged to what fighting unit. He’d thought the university’s defenders were poorly organised, but the city’s forces were far worse. There was no real cohesion, not even a shared understanding of how things should be done ... there wasn’t even a single chain of command. Some units were led by elected officers, while others insisted on putting everything to a vote before doing anything. If he’d been in charge, he would have hired mercenaries to organise his troops and to hell with what everyone else thought. Right now, he suspected ordering the troops to march north would lead to half of them heading south and the rest refusing to move at all.
“You’re a soldier,” a voice said. “Didn’t you know your father’s name?”
Adam looked up, his heart sinking as he saw Jasper. What was he doing in Farrakhan? It was difficult to believe he’d volunteered for anything to do with the rebellion and civil war, although it was possible he’d been volunteered by someone who was thoroughly sick of him. Or ... Adam dismissed the thought tiredly. Jasper knew a few basic healing spells. The odds were good he’d been told to go to the city and put his services at their disposal.
“I wish I knew more about what I was doing,” Adam said, shaking his head. “There are just too many gaps in my knowledge.”
“You shouldn’t be here at all,” Jasper told him. “Why aren’t you back at the university, coming up with more conjuring tricks?”
Adam scowled. Jasper had a point. Adam really shouldn’t be anywhere near the front lines, at least until there were more people up to speed on runic tiles and spell circuits. He wasn’t egotistical enough to think no one else could do it, but most mundanes lacked his background in theoretical magic and most magicians overpowered runic tiles just by using them. It would take months, if not years, for someone else to catch up with him. The university hadn’t even had time to come up with a proper curriculum for anyone who wanted to try.
“I am needed in too many places at once,” he said, finally. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“They wanted help moving junk around,” Jasper said, easily. “And so I came.”
Adam felt his stomach growl. “I’m off for lunch,” he said. “You can do whatever you like.”
He sighed, inwardly, as Jasper followed him. The streets were chaotic, filled with everything from marching militiamen of one faction or another to speakers haranguing passers-by with their politics. One was demanding free love for all, another the communal ownership of everything from food and drink to property ... others, he noted wryly, were even more insane, less likely to get anyone interested in following them. A line of shackled prisoners were helping clear the damaged buildings, former soldiers and administrators who’d been captured and – surprisingly – not slaughtered on the spot. Their guards looked ready to finish the job in an instant if any of them stepped out of line.
His eyes narrowed. Farrakhan was happy, almost jubilant, and yet there was also an edge of unease. There were few children on the streets – almost all boys – and hardly anyone was alone. The shops were open – the rebels had been lucky to discover food supplies that had been held in reserve, but Adam knew it was just a matter of time before prices started to rise, even thought the new council had banned any increase. It reminded him of Beneficence just after Vesperian’s Folly had become impossible to miss ...
“Look at them,” Jasper said, as they reached the tents. “Do they have a chance?”
Adam shrugged. The Heart’s Ease Levellers – and the university volunteers – had turned a park into a giant campsite, ensuring their people had somewhere to sleep without disturbing the rest of the city, then set up a soup kitchen intended for everyone. He’d heard complaints about sharing too much, and about not having enough for everyone back at Heart’s Eye, but he found it hard to take them seriously. The university needed to support the rebels if it was to survive the next few months ...
He helped himself to a plate of stew and bread, then looked around for more interesting company. There was no one he recognised within sight, save for a young man who’d moved into the princess’s camp as soon as Matt had died and never come out again. Adam had no idea what he was thinking, although he did have to admit the princess would probably reward anyone who helped her when her cause seemed doomed. It was just a shame the princess couldn’t be trusted, not completely. Betty was right. Her aristos would press her to keep the commoners in their place after she took the throne ...
A messenger ran up to him as he finished his meal. “Sir, begging your pardon, Lady Dalia requests your presence in Ninth Street!”
Jasper snickered. “Lady Dalia?”
“Don’t cause trouble,” Adam muttered back. He wasn’t sure what, if any, title Dalia and her peers actually had. The debate over who should be on the council had been going back and forth for the last few days, with no clear resolution. Personally, he suspected they’d be better off agreeing to a temporary council, then working out the rules to elect councillors to its permanent replacement. “They have no long-standing traditions to call on.”
He put his plate aside to be washed, then followed the messenger through a maze of streets into what was very clearly an upper-class district. Farrakhan felt a great deal more randomly designed than Beneficence, as if there’d been several different teams working to build the city without any shared vision of the outcome. Even the richer parts of the city felt surprisingly chaotic, with smaller homes pressing against mansions and their attendant gardens. A number had been destroyed in the fighting or had been commandeered by the council and turned into makeshift hospitals and barracks. Adam hoped, wherever the original owners were, that they were fuming. They could have done a great deal for their city, but instead they’d chosen to be selfish and support the king ...
“Wow,” Jasper said. “How rich do you have to be to live here?”
Adam gave him an odd look. “It isn’t about wealth,” he said, although he knew wealth played a major role in it. “It’s about who you are, and who you know, and how many generations you can trace on your family tree. A wealthy merchant with millions of gold crowns in the bank couldn’t buy a mansion here, even though he could buy the entire city and never notice the cost, while a poor aristo with a bloodline could buy a place even if he didn’t have two coins to rub together. The owners won’t sell to a merchant even if he paid well over the odds. If they did, their neighbours would unite to block the sale.”
He frowned. Jasper was from a magical family, right? He should have understood it wasn’t just about money. Who you knew was often more important if you wanted to enter the lives of the rich and famous ...
Jasper tensed. “There’s magic up ahead,” he said. “Quite a bit of it.”
Adam felt his hand drop to the wand in his belt. He’d charged it earlier, and he was sure the wand would remain charged for days, but it was hard to be sure. What were they facing? And why ... his eyes narrowed as he spotted the makeshift command post, a gaggle of red-armed men gathered outside a mansion’s walls. Dalia herself was standing on her subordinate’s shoulders, peering into the distance. She dropped down a moment later, just in time to dodge a flash of light that darted over her head and vanished. Her face was grim. Adam felt a flicker of ice washing down his spine.
Dalia nodded to them as they joined her. “We have a problem,” she said, stiffly. “There’s a rogue sorcerer in there and he won’t come out.”
Jasper snorted. “Is it his house?”
“No,” Dalia snapped. Her dark face seemed to darken further. “The house was cleared yesterday and it was decided to turn it into a hospital. The staff arrived an hour ago only to discover the sorcerer had already taken up residence. He told them to leave and backed it up with magic. And now we have to get him out.”
“It’s his house,” Jasper objected.
“It was never his house,” Dalia said, again. “And it never will be.”
Adam nodded stiffly, feeling an odd little tremor of fear as he surveyed the broken wall. It was an old rule that a magician’s house was untouchable, that a magician could do whatever he liked to anyone who stepped inside the wards without permission. And yet, if the mansion didn’t belong to the newcomer ...
“Perhaps you should come to terms with him,” Jasper teased. “He might be too powerful to dislodge.”
Adam shook his head. “If he was that powerful, he would have had a safe place already,” he said. It was a rare magician who wouldn’t turn his home into his place of power. Master Pittwater had safeguarded his shop so thoroughly it had been a surprise when Matt had somehow blown a hole in the wards and destroyed the entire building. “No, he’s not that tough.”
“But I decline to help,” Jasper said. “Can you deal with him, without your tricks?”
Adam hesitated, digging into his pocket. Jasper had a point. The law might say one thing – though no one really knew what the law said now, after the uprising – but possession was nine-tenths of the law, perhaps ten-tenths when magic was involved. His fingers touched a pressurised vial and pulled it free, his mind racing. If he failed, he’d be helplessly exposed to an angry magician. His wand wouldn’t be enough to save himself if the vial misfired ...
Dalia smirked, as she looked at Jasper. “Are you a coward? Are you afraid to confront another magician?”
Jasper scowled at her. “I decline to get involved,” he said. “He might be in the right ...”
“More like, you are afraid,” Dalia said. There was no hint of condemnation in her tone, but Adam heard it anyway. It wasn't the first time he’d heard a woman trying to push a man into doing something he didn’t want to do. “It’s natural to be afraid, when facing someone stronger than you. You cannot be faulted for refusing to confront him ...”
“You think I’m a coward?” Jasper raised his hand. “Do you know what I could do to you?”
Adam cursed under his breath, bracing himself. If Jasper hexed Dalia, all hell would break loose ...
“Of course.” Dalia didn’t look away from Jasper. Or back down. “I know exactly what you can do. You can pick on someone too helpless to stand up to you. Or you can show your bravery by standing up to a real threat, like the magician on the other side of the wall. What are you? A brave man or a coward?”
Jasper growled and spun around, darting through the hole before anyone could stop him. Adam had a moment to gasp in disbelief – he couldn’t believe that had worked – before following him, letting Jasper draw fire. The magician was standing by the door, hurling a handful of very simplistic spells towards Jasper and ignoring Adam. Adam slipped the vial into his hand, then threw it at the magician with all the force he could muster. It smashed against his chest, the durian flumes filling the air. The magician lifted a hand and chanted the words of a very old curse, the spell flickering into life before dying a second later. His eyes went wide, an instant before Jasper hit him with a stunning spell. He collapsed, out cold before he hit the ground.
“Good work,” Dalia said, behind him. “You’re braver than I took you for.”
Jasper flushed. Adam hid his amusement as he searched the magician, finding nothing save for a handful of coins. Their target hadn’t been carrying any tools or anything else ... hell, his clothes were practically rags, as if he’d worn them so often they were beyond repair. He wondered, idly, just who he was and why he’d thought he could just move into the mansion without anyone getting in his way. Adam didn’t hold Jasper’s abilities in high regard – Lilith was so far ahead of him that the gulf was insurmountable – but he could probably have taken out the magician without too much difficulty. And with the vial draining the older man’s magic ...
“Thank you,” Jasper said, sourly. “You’ll have to speak for me if someone gives me a hard time about this.”
Dalia smiled. Adam couldn’t help noticing it did interesting things to her chest. She’d unpinned her shirt a little to expose the tops of her breasts, perhaps to play up her femininity to manipulate Jasper further. He looked away hastily, unwilling to be caught staring. Lilith would kill him. And yet ...
“I will,” Dalia said. “And thank you.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Is it wrong to feel underdressed?”
Adam glanced at Lilith and frowned. He hadn’t seen her for a week and she looked stunning. Lilith wore a simple green dress, her unbound hair flowing down and around her shoulders and back, the dress hinting at her curves rather than showing any bare skin. The simple gold medallion hanging around her neck, glinting in the sunlight, drew the eye almost effortlessly. Adam found it hard not to stare as they paused outside the gates before making their way into the ceremonial ground. She didn’t look remotely underdressed.
“I don’t think you are,” he said, finally. “You look wonderful.”
Lilith shot him a sharp look. Adam took her hand and led her through the gates. The vast majority of the crowd wore their work clothes – leather protective tunics for the craftsmen, fancier outfits for the merchants – in a statement that was, he was sure, political as well as economical. Some of the older and wealthier women wore formal dresses – they were upper middle class rather than upper class – but they were very much in the minority. He suspected it was a bad move on their part, when the new government – patched together after a week of heavy negotiation – wasn't keen on inherited wealth. They’d swept away all traces of inherited titles and precedences during their first session, insisting that no one had to doff their cap or give way to anyone else. Adam didn’t know how it would work out, but they were off to a good start.
And yet, they’re allying with the princess, he thought, as his eyes swept over the growing crowd. The rebel militiamen – from a dozen different militias – were rubbing shoulders with the princess’s personal guard and a handful of aristocratic supporters, none of whom looked happy to be there. They thought the princess would restore their rights, from what Adam had heard in the last few days, and the idea of granting any concessions to rebellious commoners was anathema to them. If they can’t figure out a way to get along, the alliance isn’t going to last for more than a few weeks.
He frowned as he watched the councillors take their places at the head of the shrine. It was standard protocol for a monarch to be crowned in the open air, in front of their people, but no one was sure if the city counted as a suitable place for the ceremony. Kings of Tarsier were supposed to be crowned in Lokane City and nowhere else, a point – he was sure – King Ephialtes’s supporters would make at great length. His lips quirked in amusement. He wasn’t a history expert, and many of the debates over the past few days had left him cold, but one thing was clear: the legalities of the situation didn’t matter, not when pitted against naked force and the cold realities of power. If the rightful heir to the throne didn’t have the power to make their claim stick, they’d lose to the person who did. And sometimes they had to make deals they didn’t want to make, just to secure their grip on the throne.
Princess Violet made all sorts of agreements in the last few days, he thought. He hadn’t been privy to the discussions, but he’d heard rumours spreading through the city. And if she refuses to stick to them ...
His eyes narrowed as the militiamen snapped to attention, bringing their rifles front and centre. It was a ragged display – the militiamen couldn’t move in perfect unison – but the message was clear: Farrakhan – and the Levellers – had enough military power to ensure they couldn’t be ignored, that trying to break agreements and dismiss their opinions would come with a very heavy price. The council had already made it clear that any attempt to take control of the militia, or disarm the population, would be treated as an act of war. Adam had no idea how it would play out, in the months and years to come, but the red line had been drawn. He just hoped no one would try to cross it.
The crowd shifted as Princess Violet stepped into view and walked to the shrine. She looked striking, wearing a loose copy of her father’s martial uniform rather than a dress or anything else that would draw attention to her femininity. It was surprisingly simple, compared to the kings of legend. She wore no gold braid, no medals, nothing beyond a simple red outfit that drew the eye. Adam wondered if it was deliberate calculation on her part or something her allies had insisted upon, as part of the ceremony. The Levellers had refused to admit any suggestion that Princess Violet had anything resembling divine right, stating instead she would be crowned by the will of the people – her people – and if she proved a poor or unworthy monarch she could be removed just as easily. Adam suspected the exact wording of the ceremony, and the formal proclamation of her accession, had been argued as extensively as everything else. Lawyers would be scrutinising every last word, debating the exact meaning of each and every one of them, just so they could determine what rights she’d surrendered and which she’d kept to herself.
Lilith squeezed his hand. “Is this a good idea?”
Adam hesitated. He wasn’t sure. The princess was the only heir to the throne they had – and she did have an army of her own, if one that could switch sides again – but the idea of recognising her as monarch, purely on bloodline, didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t need to look at historical examples to know that people who inherited their positions tended to be less capable than people who rose through merit, yet ... he had to admit the princess had nerve as well as bloodline. And besides, the princess had nowhere else to go. Her brother would never let her rest in peace, even if she abjured the throne and went into exile.
Princess Violet reached the shrine and knelt. There was a long pause, just long enough for Adam to wonder if something had gone wrong, then Chief Councillor Hayloft stepped forward and stopped in front of her. His face was grim. His election had involved a great deal of horse-trading between factions, and his authority was limited, unlike the former Lord Mayor. Betty stood beside him, her face carefully blank. The mere fact she was involved in the ceremony, no matter how carefully the details had been negotiated, meant she was nailing her colours to the mast. If something went wrong, she’d be blamed.
