“Nothing important, of course,” Daria said, as they walked up the stairs and into the apartment. Elaine was surprised at how much she’d missed it. “I think that they never actually send us anything important. We’d probably fall down dead from shock if they did.”
Elaine glanced at one of the pieces of junk mail – an advertisement for an eatery that offered food at all hours of the day – and then threw it towards the bin. Miss Prim had been known to rage that the printing press hadn’t really been a benefit to librarianship, even though it made it easier for printers to produce thousands of books. Whatever had been published back before the printing press had
needed
to be published, but now
anyone
could publish a book, from a genuine magical textbook to a trashy romantic novel. There were other libraries in the city that catered for people who wanted to read fiction. It didn’t have to be based on reality.
“I was expecting something from my Guardian,” Elaine said. She didn’t want to admit how much not receiving something hurt, even though she had little reason to expect it. He’d certainly made his feelings clear the last time they’d spoken, four years ago. “You’d think he would have cared enough to ensure that I was well.”
“What do you expect from a man so inbred that his ears stick out?” Daria demanded. “You know that he never really cared for the duties forced on him by his rank. And it isn’t as if you became anything important to him. Forget him and concentrate on getting better.”
She grinned, suddenly. “Do you want to come out tonight with me? I could take you to the dance hall and find you a nice attractive man to dance with...”
“I couldn’t,” Elaine said, softly. And she couldn’t. If she were to go, she’d be nothing more than a wallflower, watching helplessly as others, more confident than herself, danced the night away. And the thought of a man dancing with her...she wanted it, but how could she work up the nerve? “You go and have fun. I’ll be here when you get back.”
A thought crossed her mind. There were spells in her mind now that could change how a person thought. Perhaps, with a little rewriting, she could use one on herself. If she made herself more confident, she could go dancing and enjoy herself the way that other girls enjoyed themselves. But she knew how dangerous such spells could be. She might rewrite her personality permanently. Or maybe even have the spell wearing off after she had started, but before she was finished.
She looked over at her roommate and felt the old flash of envy. Daria was kind and caring, but she had the kind of life that Elaine wanted. And that hurt more than she wanted to admit.
“I should stay with you,” Daria said. “You shouldn’t be alone for the first night...and druids don’t count. Do you know that they swear vows of chastity that are bound into the magic? They can’t even get hard...”
Elaine flushed. “Shame really,” Daria added, mischievously. “I thought that that younger druid was right up your street. Young, educated, bookish...he was lovely. Shame about the vows he took...”
“But he worked with female patients,” Elaine pointed out. There were female druids, but not that many of them. “Without the oaths, who knows what he might do when he was alone...”
“But men aren’t
animals
,” Daria said. She paused in mock consideration. “Actually, they
are
animals. I misspoke...”
She broke off as the magic field surrounding the Golden City suddenly twisted, snapping into a new configuration. Elaine felt the sense of loss running through the city, feeling tears prickling at the corner of her eyes as she looked up at her friend. Daria, irrepressible Daria, looked as if she were about to cry. They both knew what had happened.
The Grand Sorcerer was dead.
Chapter Five
Only the very wealthy, or those belonging to an incredibly old bloodline, enjoyed large gardens in the Golden City. The city had always been confined by the Five Peaks, for reasons that had probably made sense long before the rise of the Empire. Some of the knowledge in Elaine’s mind whispered that the city’s founders had tapped vast levels of natural magic below the mountains, using it to protect the heart of their vast empire. Maybe it was nothing more than tradition these days, but it was still forbidden to build outside the mountains, even away from the Blight.
Maxim, Lord Howarth, had never lacked for money and breeding. From what Elaine had heard during her long stay at the orphanage, Lord Howarth was merely the latest in a long line of inbred aristocrats piling up debts on the gaming tables while protecting his aristocratic rights with a single-minded determination that would have taken him far, had he applied it to anything else. Even the Golden City’s notoriously unmerciful creditors preferred to wait and bide their time rather than try to collect from one of the city’s foremost bloodlines, knowing that attempting to bully him into paying up might earn them the wrath of the entire aristocracy. Elaine found it hard to understand why anyone would choose to squander so much wealth and status on gambling and whoring, not when his name could get him into any establishment in the land. He was little more than a waste of life.
She halted outside the gates and hesitated. By law, each orphan who remained in the orphanage when they entered their teenage years had to have a guardian from among the aristocracy. It was one reason why the orphanage worked hard to have each child placed in a good home – or at least somewhere away from the orphanage – before they grew up, if only because the aristocrat might have resented the demands on his time. There were stories of some orphans who had been adopted into wealthy families and given a chance to succeed, but as far as Elaine knew they were only stories. Adopted children couldn’t compete with bloodline in the aristocratic world. It was more likely that an illegitimate son would be retrospectively legitimised than an orphan would be brought into the family.
Lord Howarth had been appointed Elaine’s Guardian when she’d turned thirteen and grown into a woman. She wasn’t sure why Lord Howarth had accepted the position in the first place – given his breeding and general reputation, he could probably have avoided the responsibility – nor why he’d never severed ties between them once Elaine had graduated from the Peerless School. Not that he’d ever done much for her, she had to admit. He gave her one interview per year, asked her a handful of questions that sounded as if he didn’t care...and nothing else. He hadn’t even bothered to mark her graduation with a party, let alone see her after she’d graduated. Elaine had honestly never expected to see him again.
Bracing herself, she walked up to the gate and pressed her hand against the seal. A man like Lord Howarth had little trouble in purchasing the most secure wards in the empire, even though he was no magician himself. Rumour had it that he kept a small army on the grounds to protect his privacy, including a pair of combat magicians. Elaine should have found out, but didn’t. She cursed her own oversight as the gates slowly hissed open, revealing a long pathway leading up towards the mansion. The grassy field surrounding the building would have been fun to run on as a child, if she’d ever been allowed. Lord Howarth had no children of his own. His line might end with him.
Knowledge whispered in the back of her mind as she walked up the pathway towards the house. Someone in the Howarth line had played a vitally important role in founding the Empire, and in fighting and winning the First Necromantic War. Elaine pressed one hand to her head as the knowledge refused to congeal into specifics; whoever had written the sealed histories had refused to be too clear on what had actually happened. It was strange – surely they should have expected the records to be sealed until long after their death – but there was nothing she could do about it. Perhaps the writer had had reason to believe that the wards surrounding the Great Library weren’t as impenetrable as everyone had thought.
The steps leading up to the house were surrounded by statues, strange demonic creatures cast in stone and empowered by magic. Elaine had known, even before running afoul of the curse in Duke Gama’s book, that they were the house’s first line of defence, but now she knew how to create them for herself, if she wanted unstoppable defenders. They weren’t the most dangerous known to magicians, yet they were almost impossible to defeat by anything less than a sorcerer with a great deal of power to spare. A footpad with a sword wouldn’t be able to hold one off for a second. Very few would dare to slip into Lord Howarth’s territory uninvited and only a handful would have survived the experience.
She put one foot on the steps and felt magic crackling around her, before it slowly faded away into nothingness. The wooden door at the top of the steps – strengthened by magic – opened, revealing a hulking monstrosity of a man. Judd, Lord Howarth’s butler, had given her nightmares from the first day she’d visited his mansion to have her Guardianship formally confirmed, even though he’d never been anything other than polite to her. The knowledge bubbling through her mind confirmed that there had been good reason to fear. Judd was very far from human, a rocky statue granted human seeming and powered by a spellbound demon. Elaine had heard that Judd had been around for centuries – something that should have been impossible, even with the strongest magic – and now she knew why. Her Guardian’s long-distant ancestor had created a servant for his family who would be loyal, obedient – and utterly unstoppable. Destroying the fleshy form wouldn’t release the demon from the spells binding it to the mortal plane, merely allow it to bring more of its power to bear against the imprudent trespasser.
Elaine shrank back, feeling her mind desperately scrabbling for the handful of rites they’d been taught to banish demons – and the far deadlier rituals stuffed into her mind by the mysterious curse. Judd waited, as always giving the impression of endless patience combined with a certain disdain for her presence. Daria had once commented that servants were, if anything, even more snobbish than their masters. Judd certainly seemed to actively disapprove of Elaine’s presence. But then, who was she really? Nothing more than an orphan girl whose parents were mysteries and whose magical talent was hardly worth considering. If Lord Howarth had hoped that she would grow into something useful, he’d been bitterly disappointed.
“I’ve come to see my Guardian,” Elaine said, fighting to keep her voice steady. The same laws that insisted orphans had to have protectors from among the aristocracy also insisted that the orphan had the right to see her Guardian whenever she chose, but Lord Howarth had never considered himself bound by the rules. “I trust that he will see me?”
Judd seemed to consider, and then he bowed, using one great hand to invite her into the mansion. Elaine felt a trickle running down her back as she stepped inside, leaving Judd behind her to close the door, before he walked past her and down the long corridor. The first time she’d visited the mansion, Judd had given her a lecture on how everything in the building was charmed to prevent anyone from taking it off the premises – as if he’d expected her to be a thief! Now, with adult eyes, Elaine could see just how tacky most of the assembled valuables actually were, although that wouldn’t stop them from being worth more than her entire yearly salary. Lord Howarth’s family had been determined to acquire more material goods than anyone else and never give anything up. She paused to study a tiny golden statue of one of the gods, before a cough from Judd drew her back down the corridor. Lord Howarth had never been particularly religious. Elaine couldn’t remember ever having seen him entering a temple.
The butler paused outside a heavy stone door and knocked once. It swung open, revealing a study that had been designed for Lord Howarth’s father, a man who had been genuinely interested in the books he collected before his untimely death. Elaine had wanted to read some of the volumes on the shelves, but naturally she’d never been allowed to soil them with her grubby orphan hands. They weren’t books on magic, or they would have been examined by the Great Library after the Lord’s death. He’d been more interested in genealogy than magic. But all of his breeding hadn’t stopped him from drinking himself to death.
“Elaine,” a voice said. Lord Maxim Howarth was sprawled over one of his father’s couches, studying a leaflet from the racing tracks. There were all kinds of magical safeguards built into the fields to prevent cheating, all of which could be subverted with the correct spell. Elaine wondered just what her Guardian would say if he knew that she could ensure that his chosen horses always won, before pushing the thought aside. She’d never been
that
desperate for his approval. “I was...relieved to hear of your recovery.”
Tradition dictated that Elaine should go down on her knees before him, but a strength she didn’t know she had kept her upright. Lord Maxim Howarth wasn’t more than ten years older than her, yet he looked almost old enough to be her father. He’d been slim when she’d first seen him, but now even the most expert tailoring in the world couldn’t disguise his growing paunch or the lines on his face. His dark hair was thinning out and his eyes were too bright, a mark of some of the more complex – and illegal – potions he took to entertain himself. Some of them were banned even to people of his rank, which was probably why he wanted them. He’d always considered himself above the law.
“I am glad to hear it,” Elaine said, with equal insincerity. The law stated that her Guardian should continue to interest himself in her well-being until she married or reached a social position where she could be reasonably assured of a long and happy life, but Lord Howarth had never bothered to show any interest in her ever since she had graduated. She was surprised that he’d even heard that she’d been ill. “It was a most unpleasant experience.”
Lord Howarth shrugged. He’d probably felt worse after the first drink of narcotic potion. “But you recovered and your medical bills were met by the Great Library,” he said. He’d probably been worried that she’d try to make him pay for it, even though he could have afforded to finance hospital treatment for the entire city without even noticing the cost. “I fail to see what that has to do with me.”