Modern Magick 8 Read online

  ‘Would he have left it behind?’ said Jay.

  ‘That’s the thing we were thinking,’ said Alban, shaking his head. ‘If he had to leave our Britain, it seems far-fetched to imagine he’d abandon his life’s work. And where better to complete so ambitious a project, but here?’

  ‘Ohh,’ I said, and stood straighter, electrified. ‘It’s here.’

  ‘Specifically, probably, somewhere in those very mountains you’re looking for,’ said Alban. ‘If it wasn’t in Vale.’

  ‘How do you know we already went to Vale?’

  He grinned. ‘Because I went up there first. Something about the trail of disaster and chaos I found struck me as very Ves-like.’

  I blushed. ‘It was necessary.’

  ‘It always is.’

  ‘So we’re looking for Torvaston’s masterpiece,’ I said hurriedly. ‘A thing which, if it had ever worked, could’ve saved Farringale.’

  ‘And which could save countless other enclaves,’ said Alban. ‘Both those over-flooded with magick, and those starving to death without it.’

  My eyes widened. ‘This is big.’

  ‘Very. And there’s one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You aren’t the only ones.’

  ‘What?’

  Almost imperceptibly, he winced. ‘That’s the other thing I needed to tell you. There was a… spy uncovered, at Mandridore.’

  ‘Uh oh.’

  ‘Um, more than one. We’ve reason to think somebody gained access to these papers some time ago, may have had opportunity to translate at least parts of it. And someone, probably the same someone, had been trying very hard to get their hands on that scroll-case from Farringale.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said, with sinking heart. ‘Someone with ties to Ancestria Magicka.’

  ‘Bingo. And, Ves, I think they’re already here.’

  Of course they were. It was the answer to every question I’d ever asked myself about Fenella Beaumont’s motives, or Ancestria Magicka’s aims.

  The mere thought of such an artefact falling into those hands brought me out into a cold sweat.

  And they were, once again, way ahead of us.

  ‘Giddy gods,’ I said faintly. ‘We’re doomed.’

  4

  Following Alban’s several shocking disclosures, an appalled silence fell. I wrestled with a growing sense of panic, and more or less succeeded in stuffing it back down. Worst time in the history of magick to panic, Ves.

  Jay shook himself. ‘Plan?’ he said. ‘We need a plan.’

  ‘I suppose the plan’s unchanged,’ I said, watching Wyr with narrowed eyes. Something about him didn’t seem quite right… ‘I mean, we still need to get into Torvaston’s secret mountain enclave.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jay.

  ‘Just with a bit more urgency than before… you aren’t actually deaf, are you?’ I said, the latter directed at Wyr, who lay prone on the floor. His air of casual ease had seemed a bit studied.

  He rolled his eyes and sat up. ‘She’s good,’ he said, indicating Emellana with a nod of his head. ‘But so am I.’

  ‘So you heard all of that.’

  ‘A fair bit of it, yes.’

  ‘I’ve a theory,’ I said. ‘Let’s test it.’

  Wyr waited.

  ‘Ancestria Magicka.’

  Wyr sat like a stone, carefully failing to react.

  ‘Last time I said that, you twitched.’

  ‘Doubtful.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Did not.’

  ‘Can’t I just wring his neck?’ I said plaintively, to no one in particular.

  ‘No,’ said Jay.

  ‘Damnit.’

  ‘But I might.’

  Wyr held up his hands, and scooted back a bit. ‘I deny everything.’

  ‘He’s heard of Ancestria Magicka, I’m sure of it,’ I said, ignoring Wyr. ‘How do you suppose that’s possible?’

  ‘He’s met them before,’ said Jay.

  ‘Right. It’s no coincidence that we ran into you, is it?’ I nudged Wyr with my foot, a gesture not quite a kick. ‘You were meant to intercept us.’

  ‘Nope,’ said Wyr.

  With a sudden, swift movement, Emellana did exactly what I’d been dying to do. She swept the stupid hat off his head, and hurled it out over the peak. The wind caught it, and sent it sailing merrily away.

  ‘Hey—’ said Wyr.

  He got no further, for Emellana picked him up, and stood poised to send him sailing straight after his hat. ‘Still no?’ she said in a pleasant tone.

  Wyr swallowed. Good he might be, but I’d love to see the levitation charm that could contend with a precipitate fall down about a thousand feet. ‘Er,’ he said. ‘Okay, I might have heard of them.’

  ‘They hired you,’ said Em.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What were you supposed to do?’

  Wyr sighed, hanging in Emellana’s uncompromising grip like a sack of bricks. ‘I was meant to help you.’

  ‘Help us?’ I said, frowning. ‘Why? Oh.’ I scrubbed at my face, frustrated with myself. ‘They wanted the scroll-case.’

  Wyr smiled nastily. ‘It was good of you to make it so easy for me.’

  ‘And Addie?’

  ‘The unicorn? Anything else I could get off you I could keep. That was the deal.’

  ‘Except the scroll-case?’ I growled. ‘Did you hand that over, or did you keep it?’

  Wyr opened his mouth, and shut it again.

  I found that Emellana was looking gravely at me. ‘You’ve an idea?’ I said to her.

  ‘I think it is a good thing that Wyr has crossed our path again.’

  I blinked. ‘It is?’

  ‘For one thing, it seems clear that the scroll-case may be important. If Mr. Wyr no longer has it, he is one of the few people who knows where it is.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘He may also be one of the few people who knows where Torvaston’s hideaway is to be found.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’

  ‘Why were you hired?’ she said to Wyr. ‘You’re some kind of treasure hunter, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s a nicer name than “thief”, I’ll give you that,’ said Wyr.

  ‘You know all the old stories, especially those pertaining to ancient magick and potent artefacts. And you’ve made it your life’s business to track them down. You’re clearly on the best of terms with the traders up at Vale.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ said Wyr.

  ‘You know where Torvaston’s hideaway is because you’ve been there. Ancestria Magicka probably hired you for that very purpose.’

  Wyr examined his fingernails. ‘I hate to contradict you when you’re being so charmingly complimentary, but you’re giving me too much credit. I haven’t been in there, because no one has.’

  ‘No one?’

  ‘No. The entrance is known, but what’s behind it remains a mystery because no one can open the damned door. Believe me. I’ve tried.’

  ‘The scroll-case,’ I said. ‘Is that why you wanted it?’

  ‘I don’t imagine you noticed,’ said Wyr, ‘because it’s faded, and camouflaged to boot. But there’s a mark on that map just about exactly where the entrance is. Coincidence? I think not.’

  ‘So you think something about the scroll-case either opens the door, or could explain how.’

  ‘We’re hoping so.’

  By “we”, I supposed he meant his crummy employers, too.

  But.

  ‘The case itself?’ I said. ‘Or something, perhaps, that was in it.’

  I had the satisfaction of having, finally, disconcerted Wyr. ‘There was something in it?’ he said, looking in disbelief at me.

  ‘When we found it, yes.’

  ‘And you did what with the contents, exactly?’

  ‘That would be my business.’ I looked at the Baron. Hopefully my eyes said: Tell me you brought the fork, the watch and the snuff box.

/>   Hopefully his smile said, Of course I did.

  For once, Wyr appeared to have nothing to say.

  I smiled. If he’d trotted off to Fenella Sodding Beaumont with that scroll-case and imagined he’d solved the mystery, he was in for a disappointment. They all were.

  Provided, of course, that I was right, and it wasn’t the case itself that held the secret.

  Was it madness to gamble the entire success of our mission on the probability that a silver fork, a gilded pocket-watch and a questionably-decorated snuff box held the key to a lost enclave that generations had failed to penetrate?

  Yes.

  But madness is kind of my style.

  ‘Well,’ I said to Wyr. ‘You’d better throw in your lot with us.’

  ‘What?’ said Jay.

  ‘Why?’ said Wyr.

  ‘Because that case isn’t going to get either you or Ancestria Magicka very far without its contents. And that means we’ve a much better chance of getting in than any of the rest of you.’

  ‘Therefore?’

  ‘Therefore, showing us the door is likely to work out better for your greedy little dreams.’

  ‘Right,’ said Wyr. ‘You’re just going to turn me loose in there and let me grab whatever I want. Sure.’

  ‘There’s one thing in there that we want. I don’t think we need to care too much about the rest. Anything merely materially valuable is yours.’ If we didn’t manage to put a sock in him somewhere between here and the other side of that long-sealed door, anyway. I didn’t give a crap about jewels and courtly goblets and what the hell else. I just wanted Torvaston’s failed moonsilver project, and the books.

  ‘Ves…’ said Miranda, doubtfully.

  ‘Got a better idea?’

  She hesitated. ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Nor did anyone else, judging from the silence. Alban, to my delight, exuded a serene confidence in my judgement that I found highly gratifying.

  I hoped it wasn’t just a pretence.

  ‘You’re on,’ said Wyr at last, and held out his hand to me.

  I crossed to where he still dangled in Emellana’s grip, and shook it. ‘One thing,’ I said. ‘If you screw us over again, Emellana and the Baron will have you for dinner.’

  ‘We like meat,’ Alban offered, with a friendly smile.

  Wyr gave him a sour look. ‘Got it.’

  Emellana didn’t so much set him down as drop him from a great height.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Wyr, and picked himself up. ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘Just deserts,’ said Em.

  I did so like her style.

  Jay sidled my way. ‘Where did all that come from?’ he said in an undertone.

  ‘About the contents of the case?’ I whispered back. ‘Do you recall much about the history of table etiquette?’

  ‘Not… really.’

  ‘I was forgetting it myself, until just now. See, we saw a metal utensil with a handle and twin prongs and immediately connected it with tableware. And it does resemble an early fork. But the fork didn’t come into common use in western Europe until the eighteenth century, and this thing has to be like a century and a half older than that.’

  ‘It isn’t a fork!’

  ‘Exactly. Also, the pocket-watch isn’t so badly out of place, except that it has two hands. Early ones had only an hour hand.’

  ‘So it… isn’t telling the time?’

  ‘Might be. Might be tracking something else entirely.’

  ‘And the box?’

  I shrugged. ‘Snuff was coming into fashion by the early sixteen hundreds, so it could just be a snuff box. Then again, maybe not. And there’s no saying that it was used to hold snuff, even if it is.’

  Jay grinned. ‘Who knew a taste for historical trivia could be so useful.’

  ‘Well, me. It’s not like it’s the first time.’

  ‘The secret of your success?’

  I thought about that. ‘Yes,’ I decided. ‘It pretty much is.’

  5

  ‘You know he’s going to mess us up first chance he gets?’ said Jay, eyeing Wyr sourly. The subject of his justifiable resentment was still in Emellana’s custody, engaged in some loud debate I had not bothered to listen to. But as I watched, Emellana released him — none too gently — and his gaze fastened instantly on Jay and I, obviously holding secret counsels without him.

  ‘I know,’ I murmured. ‘I’m counting on it.’

  ‘Wha—’ said Jay.

  Slightly louder, I said: ‘I know, Jay, and you’re right to be concerned. Just don’t tell him about the Wand and the ring, all right? It’s best if he doesn’t know what was in that scroll-case.’

  Jay, to his credit, only blinked once at me in confusion before his face cleared to impassiveness, and he nodded. His eyes shifted sideways to Wyr in a creditable display of craftiness.

  Wyr gave no sign of having heard me. ‘Ready to go?’ he said, and I noticed he gave Baron Alban a wide berth as he passed.

  ‘Quickly, please.’

  Miranda, to my surprise, spoke up. ‘One question, first. Whereabouts did you leave your new employers, Wyr?’

  ‘Lady Fenella? Truth be told, I haven’t seen her in a while.’

  I thought I saw relief on Miranda’s face, before she turned away. No wonder. She’d defected to Fenella Beaumont’s miserable organisation, only to (hopefully) defect back; she wasn’t going to be popular with anybody, at this rate.

  Course, one could rely on nothing Wyr said. Me, I counted on running into a few of our least favourite foes the moment we got anywhere near Torvaston’s Enclave.

  Couldn’t be helped.

  ‘Tokens?’ said Wyr.

  I’d noticed Alban stuffing handfuls of the things into his pockets soon after he had appeared, but those would doubtless be to whichever henges he’d yet to go in search of us. Not much use. ‘We will be travelling with Patel Windways,’ I said.

  Wyr looked nonplussed.

  ‘That guy,’ I clarified, pointing at Jay.

  ‘You know that’s—’

  ‘Illegal,’ I said, interrupting him. ‘We know.’

  ‘You’ll be thieving in no time.’

  I opened my mouth to object to this monstrously unfair charge, but had to close it again in silence. Not only had I given the sneak permission to plunder Torvaston’s Enclave at his leisure, I also proposed to divest the place of its most important and valuable artefact myself. We could argue semantics and historical-rights-of-ownership all day, and it would still all boil down to something uncomfortably close to theft.

  Noticing he had successfully got under my skin, Wyr grinned at me. ‘Well, ladies and gents, we’re heading north,’ he said. ‘Far north.’

  I wasted a moment in useless doubts. He was a back-stabbing little shit. Would even the promise of uncontested plunder of a lost king’s personal effects be enough to keep him in line? Was he taking us to the Hyndorin Mountains, or was he once again sweeping us away to somewhere else?

  I shook the thoughts away. It was a gamble worth taking. The worst he could do was delay us (again); meanwhile, it could take us days or weeks to work out where to go without help.

  ‘Lead on,’ I said. ‘We’re right behind you.’

  That he had indeed taken us far north seemed indubitable, a half-hour or so later. We exited the last of a sequence of henge-complexes, each decreasing in size, upon a windy peak somewhere bone-chillingly cold. Also distressingly short on oxygen.

  Maybe this was the brilliant new plan. Drop us somewhere freezing and dangerously high up, and leave us to die of exposure.

  No, he couldn’t do that. The way out was embedded into the rock, a circle of weathered, craggy stones swept clean by the wind. The landscape offered little else in the way of hope. We stood, miserably huddled, on a soaring mountainside, surrounded by nothing but more mountains. Bleak and beautiful, these peaks were of a deep, dark stone; snow dusted the tops of those on the near horizon, rising still higher into the
mist-white skies.

  ‘This way,’ said Wyr, and set off, winding his way in between two jutting crags. He had his hands in his pockets, probably to protect them from the cold, but he seemed untouched by the conditions. He sauntered off, whistling.

  ‘Your ring is gone,’ said Alban in my ear.

  That cost me a pang. Yes, I had deliberately hung it out as bait for the double-crossing thief. No, I didn’t love losing it.

  ‘Then I guess I’m stuck with pink hair forever,’ I said.

  ‘Luckily, it suits you.’

  I smiled up at him. ‘You can definitely stay.’

  ‘That was the plan.’

  We set off after Wyr, me keeping a weather eye on the horizon for any unhappy surprises leaping out of the air. I trusted Jay to keep track of where we were going, in case we needed to find our way back to the henge. ‘You do have the mysterious miscellany somewhere about your person?’ I said softly to Alban.

  ‘You mean the other… articles? Yes, I do.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  He grinned. ‘Your faith in me is touching.’

  ‘Actually I had no idea if you’d thought to bring them along.’

  ‘…that was a gamble?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re a brave woman.’

  ‘Or stark raving mad. The point is the subject of some debate, at Home.’

  ‘Fair.’

  ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before we left.’

  ‘Other things on your mind.’

  True, but that was little excuse. I suppose the peculiar paraphernalia had seemed so random as to be hardly relevant, and I hadn’t set eyes on any of it since that last trip to Mandridore. I’d clean forgotten.

  Fortunate that we had Alban to rectify that particular mistake.

  Then again, if I had brought them with me, they would probably have disappeared into Wyr’s possession along with the scroll-case. Swings and roundabouts.

  Wyr led us on a winding route, bearing steadily downwards towards a sloping valley below. We walked for the best part of half an hour, getting colder by the minute. By the time he finally stopped, my teeth were chattering. Even Alban looked uncomfortable.

  ‘And here,’ said Wyr, ‘is where we all part ways with the straight and narrow.’ He gestured at the ground, his hand tracing a vaguely circular shape in the air.