Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling (48 page)

Johan reached into his pocket and produced the piece of paper – and a silver knife. “I do,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Elaine checked, out of habit; it was the right piece of paper. “And I have the knife.”

“Good,” Elaine said. She reached into her own robes and pulled out her own knife. The oath was already memorised, ready to be spoken. When the time came, they would cut their palms and clasp hands, allowing their blood to mingle. It would seal the magic between them, binding mistress and apprentice together. Even after the five years were over, there would still be a link. “Come with me.”

The garden seemed to grow colder as she led the way up towards the patch of stone. Magic crackled around the plinth, an echo of all the oaths that had been sworn since the Golden City had been founded. The first Grand Sorcerer had intended to keep a record of such oaths, Elaine knew, but it hadn’t stopped the monks from creating somewhere truly holy. Even those who doubted the existence of the gods didn’t doubt the power of magic – or of oaths, sworn by two magicians. And even if they had, it was oaths that bound the Empire together.

She looked up to see the first rays of sunlight sweeping down towards the garden. The trees shielded where they were standing, but that would change in a few minutes. She drew her wand, cast a numbing charm on her right hand, then cast a second charm on Johan’s hand. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, part of the ceremony, but the last thing they needed was pain to distract them when there was so little time. Blood-based rituals had to be completed very quickly or they would have to be started again, if the caster was lucky. There were plenty of horror stories about what happened to people who cast rituals that went wrong.

“All right,” she said, as she lowered her wand. Her hand already felt useless, barely responsive to her thoughts. It was never easy to use such spells on one’s own body. “When I give the order, cut your palm and clasp hands with me, then speak your oath.”

Johan nodded, lifting his knife. “I’m ready ...”

The magic surrounding them spiked, suddenly. Elaine threw herself aside as a blast of red light came out of the darkness, aimed directly at her. There were
figures
there, emerging from the trees; Elaine stared in horror as she realised that someone had decided to profane the ceremony. Desperately, she lifted her wand and threw a spell at one of them, blowing him backwards to land amongst the trees. Two of his compatriots threw spells back at her, propelled with such power that all she could do was dodge.

“Get back,” she snapped at Johan. He wasn’t ready to duel with anyone, even if he had managed to beat a Dark Wizard. She had no idea how bad it could become if he tried to fight. “
Go
!”

She swore as she darted back, looking around. The sunlight was already streaming down into the grove; the ceremony was ruined, utterly. They would have to do it again tomorrow, right down to the smallest detail. She cast an emergency charm, summoning Dread and the Inquisitors, then raised her wand just in time to block another curse. Blue-green balefire flared in front of her, then crackled out of existence. Johan’s bubble-shield stopped two more curses; his hands were raised, but he looked unsure of what to do. One of the magicians just crumbled to the ground; the others jumped back, then started hurling spells at Johan. One of them even animated the statues and sent them running at him. Elaine was almost impressed.

That moment of inattention killed her. She barely noticed the magic surge before it struck her, slicing through her protections and right into her flesh. Her body went rigid, as if she could no longer move; she tried to muster a counter-spell that didn’t involve her wand or hand gestures, but it was already too late. She was glass, she realised numbly; she’d felt the spell before, back at the Peerless School. A second spell sent her falling over backwards ...

... And her body and thoughts shattered into a million pieces.

Chapter Forty

“No!”

Johan had been unsure of what to do as the newcomers attacked. All he’d been able to think of was self-protection, using his magic to shield himself from their attacks. But then a curse had stuck Elaine and she’d turned to glass and ...

She’d shattered.

He didn’t know what would happen to someone who was transfigured into an inanimate object, which was then destroyed. A person who died in an animal form returned to human upon death, he knew, but what about a shattered form? Should she be spread across the ground in a thousand bloody pieces or was she merely trapped, eternally suffering? There was no way to know, merely ... she was dead. His one friend, the one person who had cared for him and taught him and had been willing to give up her job to offer him an apprenticeship was dead ...

Brilliant magic crackled over his protective bubble, seeking a way in. Johan gritted his teeth, feeling cold anger burning through his body, then concentrated on precisely what he wanted to happen. A magician, waving his wand frantically as he threw curse after curse, exploded into a shower of rats, which scattered in all directions. Another vanished with a pop, so completely that air rushed in to fill the space where he had been. A third caught fire and screamed, held alive and aware as the flames burned his body to ash; Johan ignored the screams, hunting for the remaining magicians. The fourth was tossed into the air and thrown far from the city. A fifth magician, trying to run, collapsed as every bone in his body shattered into dust.

Johan took a step forward, then stopped. A sixth magician was cowering on the ground, shaking madly. Johan gestured, willing the wizard to float up into the air and spun him around; somehow, he was unsurprised to discover that he recognised him. Jamal might have shorn his hair, but there was no mistaking the face or eyes. Or maybe he had finally just mastered the art of seeing through glamours.

“Well,” he said, bitterly. “Look who
I
found.”

Jamal stared at him, his eyes shocked and uncomprehending. Johan stared back at his brother, cursing himself for a fool. He should have killed Jamal at the Waving Wand, even though the owner would have tried to curse him into next week. If he had, Elaine would still be alive. If he had ... he fought down the urge to scream. She’d given him everything and he’d turned her into a target. Jamal and his gang of thugs had killed her as surely as they’d killed the mundanes, back when the whole affair had begun. Had it really only been three weeks ago? It felt like years.

“You swore that you would not hurt anyone else,” he snapped, glaring at his brother. “Why didn’t you die?”

Jamal cackled, blood pouring from his mouth as he spoke. “You’re not a mundane any longer,” he said, between gasps. “You’re a
freak
.”

Johan felt the urge to just rip Jamal apart with his bare hands starting to rise up within him. Somehow, he managed to force it aside. Jamal was right; his oath had only protected mundanes, not magicians ... it might not even protect a Powerless. But Johan was no longer powerless. And he’d let his brother live.

“You’ll kill our father,” he protested, as the implications dawned on him. “You killed Elaine. That’s
murder.
”

Jamal laughed, bitterly. “Killing traitors is not murder,” he said. “And you are still a
freak
.”

Johan stared at him in shock. Killing Elaine wouldn’t break Jamal’s oath, but it would definitely break their father’s oath to keep his son from engaging in criminal activity. Their father would die, leaving Jamal – who was still the Prime Heir – Head of House Conidian, his position unchallengeable. Had Jamal calculated that he could still come out ahead, Johan asked himself, or had he merely escaped justice one final time? It would be far harder to send the Head of a Great House to the headsman than even a firstborn son.

“Why?” He hissed. “Why did you do this?”

“Had to be done, you
freak
,” Jamal said. “You ...”

Johan reached out and gripped his neck. “Tell me,” he demanded. Jamal’s eyes went blank, as if someone had cast a hypnotic curse on him. Johan
had
, he realised. His need to know the truth had led him to accidentally enslave Jamal’s mind. “Why did you come after us? Why did you kill Elaine?”

“Father ordered me to kill you,” Jamal said, his voice dazed. There was no possibility of deceit. “You’re a danger to everyone now. For the good of the house, you have to die.”

“No,” Johan said. The very thought was staggering. “He couldn’t ...”

But he knew his father too well. Everything he did was for the good of the family, everything from keeping Johan a prisoner to indulging Jamal, making sure that the former stayed out of sight and the latter was ready to step into his father’s shoes at a moment’s notice. There had been dangerously powerful magicians before, but none of them had ever offered the prospect of turning the entire world upside down, not like Johan.

“You talked to the Leveller scum,” Jamal said. “What would happen if you allied with them?”

“What indeed?” Johan asked. “And you ... why did I let you live?”

He stared down at his brother, broken and humiliated, and felt cold rage driving him forward. The web of life shimmered in front of him, showing him precisely how Jamal drew on magic and shaped it into spells. No longer caring if he hurt Jamal – or himself – Johan reached out and snapped Jamal’s connection to the web. His brother howled, the shock snapping him out of his near-trance; Johan let go of him and watched, dispassionately, as he fell to the ground, hands scrabbling at the stone.

“No power,” he said, softly. “You’re a
Powerless
.”

Jamal pulled himself to his feet – somehow – and hurled himself at Johan, who stepped to one side. His elder brother had always been too dependent on magic for everything from protection to fighting; Johan had had to learn to be quick on his feet, just to avoid the first few hexes cast by his siblings. It was easy to step aside and stick out a foot, tripping Jamal over and sending him falling back to the ground.

“No more respect,” Johan sneered. “No more fear. No more prospect of taking over from father. Nothing, but a lifetime spent as a prisoner – if indeed you last long enough to return home. I dare say that there are thousands of people who want a little revenge on you now.”

He kicked Jamal, then turned to look at where Elaine had fallen. She deserved a proper grave, but there was no time. If his father had been prepared to send Jamal out to kill him, risking his own death if the oath
bit
, he would have something else prepared in case Jamal failed. Johan took one last look, silently promising his dead friend bloody vengeance, then turned and started to walk towards the family house. Like so many other places in the Golden City, it was only a few minutes’ walk away.

There were few people on the streets; most of them barely noticed him, even though his face was twisted by fury. His magic was somehow pushing their attention away, he realised numbly; he was glad of it as he walked up the street towards the family’s house. The Inquisitors would certainly try to stop him if they knew what he had become and he didn’t want to be stopped, or be forced to fight Dread and his compatriots. Or perhaps he did; despite their own oaths, the Inquisitors had allowed Jamal and his friends to go free. If Johan had killed five of them and broken Jamal, that left four ...

Assuming that there were only ever ten of them
, a voice whispered, at the back of his mind.
Do you really think that Jamal was the only one with such extreme views? Or that his friends were the only ones who looked to inherit nothing, but their names and their magic
?

The voice was right, he realised. There
would
be others, others who thought that their power gave them the right to prey on people who couldn’t defend themselves. And they would no doubt cheer Elaine’s death, because she had been a low-power magician. They were in for a shock, he told himself, as he kept walking forward.
Johan
would deal with them.
Johan
would judge them. And, if they were unworthy of their magic,
Johan
would strip it from them. They would no longer be able to use their magic to earn honours and awards they did not deserve.

He stopped in front of the door and paused, then pushed himself forward. The wards didn’t rise up to try to stop him, although he was unsure if they simply thought he was allowed to enter or if he’d knocked them down without
meaning
to knock them down. He felt a pang of grief as he remembered talking to Elaine about how frustrating his powers were – he was never truly sure if he was doing something – and all the experiments they’d planned to try to test the limits. But now she was dead ...

No one will die like that again
, he promised her, as he twisted the door knob. Unsurprisingly, it opened; he decided that the wards had merely been configured to allow him to return, if he saw fit. His father’s attempts to force him back wouldn’t have worked if he couldn’t get back into the house. The thought made him snort as he stepped inside, then closed the door behind him. Once, he would have scurried back to his room as quickly as possible, hoping to escape the unwanted attentions of his father or siblings. Now ... now he could take his time and enjoy himself.

“Master Johan,” a voice said, in surprise. “You’re back!”

Johan turned to see May standing there. She had never been the worst of the maids, but she’d always looked down on him, even though he was her master’s child. And why not, he knew, when she picked up her attitude from the way his family treated him. Jamal had had his fun with May, Johan knew, but nothing could ever have enticed the girl into
his
bed. What had the powerless Johan to offer her?

“Yes,” he said. He concentrated; her clothes ripped as they were torn away from her body by an invisible force. Her breasts, the ones she had used to taunt him, sprang free, bobbling in front of his eyes. “I’m back.”

May stared at him, then turned to flee. Johan stuck her feet to the floor, sending her flying forward to crash to the ground. Magic surged through her, blurring the boundary between her body and the floor. She let out a screech of pain that almost made him think better of what he had done, then cold rage pushed him onwards. Leaving her behind – naked, trapped and helpless – he walked onwards to his father’s study. This time, the door was firmly locked. Johan closed his eyes and concentrated again, focusing on an image of the door crumbling to dust. When he opened them, the door was nothing more than falling sawdust. The wards had shattered at the merest touch of his magic.