Collision: The Alliance Series Book Three (15 page)

“Great,” I muttered, as we left through the reception area to the third floor. Ada paused, looking around her. She wouldn’t have been on this floor before. The Law Division worked here, alongside councils from various worlds, which meant it was mostly empty meeting rooms. Except for the official Ambassador’s office, empty now Ms Weston had moved down to the first floor.

“No way.” Ada indicated a plaque on the back wall, extending across the corridor. “Over a hundred Ambassadors have been killed in action?”

Something twisted inside me. My mother’s name was on that list. I’d never looked that way if I could help it, and now, I turned my back. “Come on. Ms Weston’s going to be on the rampage already.”

“Yay,” she said.

Yeah. Pretty much.

As predicted, we found Ms Weston in raging thundercloud-mode. “Kay Walker!” she shouted, loud enough for everyone on the floor to hear. Like I hadn’t drawn enough attention already.

“Yes?” I said in my most polite voice.

“In here,” she said, beckoning me into her office with a sharp finger. “Now. Ada, you should inform your family you will be taking another trip to Vey-Xanetha.”

“Oh, right,” said Ada. Given how overprotective her older brother was, this might not turn out well. Though I wasn’t overly keen on the idea of Ms Weston throwing Ada headfirst into dangers only Ambassadors faced. Not at all. That goddamned plaque was a blazing reminder of the costs of this job.

Not now.
I needed to focus on the issue at hand: a raging mad Ms Weston. Was I the first Ambassador to blatantly use magic inside Central? Probably.

“Are you going to explain to me what that ungodly racket was?”

For a brief moment, I was tempted to answer with
yes
again, but I wasn’t that far beyond caring about getting another tongue-lashing. I summed up the situation, emphasising that I wasn’t the only person to use magic, and adding no one had yet found out who’d let people bring in a griffin in the first place.

“Yes,” she said, packing enough venom into that one word to kill a small animal. “Evidently,
someone
hasn’t been doing their job. But
you,
Kay. You of all people know
the risks of using magic. Earth’s levels are unstable. We’ve already contacted the media asking them to send out a public warning against using magic at all, now the level has climbed.”

Goddammit, she was right. “I used the same level as a stunner,” I said. “If I’d had one to hand, I’d have used it, but there was no other way to bring it down.”

“If you’d
missed,
Kay, anyone could have been hit. You know the rules. I refuse to authorise this.”

“I understand,” I said. “I wouldn’t have used it if I thought a chance of another person might get hit.”

Ms Weston’s lips were a thin line. “However perfected you think your skill at magic is,” she said, “it’s no excuse. If it wasn’t for the circumstances, I’d have you placed immediately on probation–as it is, however, your presence is required on Vey-Xanetha once again.”

I blinked. “It is? I thought the Passages were out of bounds.”

“We don’t have many options. It appears Earth is the only world being affected–us, and Vey-Xanetha. None of the other Alliances will volunteer Ambassadors to help.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yes,
seriously,
Kay,” said Ms Weston, eyes narrowing. At least she wasn’t yelling anymore. “As I’m sure you’re aware, it takes a great deal of prompting to spur the Alliance to action, and as we were the ones who tracked the disturbance to Vey-Xanetha, the mission has been left to us. Or, specifically, to you and the other magic-wielding Ambassadors on Earth.”

We’re the only ones? No way.

“That’s not enough people to search a whole world,” I said, shaking my head. “Even taking into account that the whole continent of Vey-Xanetha’s smaller than Europe–if the problem’s even there, and not in the middle of the ocean or on an iceberg.”

Ms Weston became dangerously still. “I am glad to hear you have at least read the research material,” she said. “As a matter of fact, we
do
have another way.” She placed an object flat on the desk. A gleaming black-coated metal rod.

“That’s…”

“A world-key,” she said. “To use the rather simplistic name. Carl’s authorised this one for use anywhere in the Passages. It’d be downright suicidal to expect you to walk all the way to the door.”

At least someone here had an iota of common sense.

“Authorised for who to use?” I asked.

“You, unfortunately,” she said. “Before you saw fit to demonstrate our incompetence with a blatant display of magic.”

Thanks.
“At least the offworlders know we can handle griffins,” I said. “Speaking of which, are there magic-wielders from other Alliances on Earth? There can’t be so few of us.” Especially considering Ada and Iriel weren’t even
from
Earth. And I was no natural magic-wielder.

“Unfortunately, they are preoccupied at the present time. I’ve certainly made my opinions clear to the council members at other Alliance branches, but right now, we’re the only branch with authorisation to send in a team. Mathran has requested you come and speak with him and the others at the base. And you should bear in mind, Kay, if I hear a whisper that you’ve used magic in Vey-Xanetha, you can consider your Ambassador’s licence hereafter revoked.”

An icy pit opened in my chest, but I met her eyes steadily. “I’m sure the person who brought the griffin into Central will be charged accordingly. As will the individual who used magic first.” Or, they would if I had anything to do with it.

I wasn’t naive enough to think I’d taken no risk in what I’d done. But God only knew the Alliance would be a laughing stock after this no matter what. At least no one had got hurt.

“I will see to it,” said Ms Weston. “And as for these deities of theirs, the research team, even those not from Vey-Xanetha seem to be convinced they are real beings… I wouldn’t concern yourself with them. Look for the evidence.”

That figured. She might as well have “sceptic” tattooed on her forehead–not that I was one to talk. Still, if
magic
were involved, then that was something else entirely.

***

“You ready?” I asked the others, just inside the Passage entrance. Ada, Raj, and Iriel were behind me. I pressed the end of the world-key to the blank stretch of wall, nodding to Carl, who stood nearby, holding up his communicator screen with an image of the symbols I’d need to draw to open a doorway. He’d offered to do it himself, but I’d already committed them to memory.
Might as well get used to it,
I thought, tracing a horizontal line, then turning it into a sideways arrow. Besides each of the three points, I drew a small symbol, copied from the image. It wasn’t any language I recognised. Probably an ancient one used by the earliest Alliance members. But it worked. The arrowhead became a handle, and the doorway spread floor to ceiling. Iriel sucked in a breath, and Raj stared openly. Ada was the only person who didn’t look totally surprised. I knew Carl had used this device to open an emergency door to Aglaia when Ada needed to go and help stop the Conners. So this was how the senior Alliance members created doors to new worlds. Ordinarily, none of us would have been considered senior enough to access that information–but as Ms Weston said, this situation merited it.

I drew the last symbol above the handle, the one unique to Vey-Xanetha. Then I pushed on the door and it slid open.

Thick jungle blocked the view, and I shook my head. “That’s nowhere near the base.” I closed the door again. “I have to draw it again, right?”

“Just the world-symbol,” said Carl. “It’s the anchor. Keep drawing it, and sooner or later, you’ll get the right place.”

Encouraging.
It was impossible to pinpoint exactly where a doorway would end up, so the Alliance closely investigated anything that might mean a new connection between a world and the Passages in case they ended up in empty space or the middle of the sea.

I drew the symbol again. And again. Each time, the doorway opened somewhere different, but I knew there was a limit—world-keys were designed to hone in on places with a high magic level, maybe because they were made of a source themselves. So we wouldn’t end up too far from a habitable area. It still took over ten attempts before I recognised the stairs not far from the Passage door.

At least there were no three-headed birds or storms this time. I left the door open and we entered Vey-Xanetha again.

“I can’t believe you used magic in Central,” said Raj, who, of course, had found out about the whole griffin debacle once he’d got back to Central.

“I can’t believe you got arrested again,” I countered, and that shut him up. We climbed the stairs, even warier after what happened last time. At least we were armed, though Ms Weston’s ban on using magic didn’t do much to ease my misgivings.

“You’re both idiots,” said Iriel. “You should have asked someone who has experience dealing with large animals. And I don’t mean the senior guards.”

Raj snorted. “What, you can tame a griffin?”

“I’ve flown on one before, yes,” she said. “On Alvienne. I realise nobody could have tamed it while it was panicking, but you might at least have waited for the guards to arrive.”

“Yeah, but we had no weapons,” I said. “What if one of the offworlders had turned hostile? Some of them have magical enhancements. And all of them had something to complain about.”

“True,” said Iriel. “It’s a first-class disaster if I ever saw one. And now we get to deal with absentee gods and giant three-headed–”

“Did you have to mention that now?” said Raj, with a nervous glance at the sky. “I’m more of a diplomat than a fighter. Just so you know.”

“You trained as an Alliance guard,” said Iriel.

“You can’t reason with a chalder vox.”

We reached the top of the stairs. Mathran stood in the doorway to the base. We picked up the pace, very aware of the low-hanging red-tinted clouds which might hide anything.

Once inside the building, we gathered in the meeting room with Mathran and Avar, and explained how Earth got the worst of the backlash from whatever was happening here.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I would not trouble the Alliance with our woes, but the continent has yet to move. The summoners have not come here, either.”

“Summoners?” I said.

“You would call them… magic-wielders?”

My eyebrows shot up. “Are you one? A summoner?”

“Yes. I am a follower of Aktha.”

“And can you use magic? How does that work here?” Ada leaned forward in her seat, as keen for answers as me.

“We use the craft only at the deities’ direction.”

I blinked at him. “What does that mean?”

“You call it… channelling magic?”

“What, something
tells
you to use it?” asked Ada. “Like, consciously?”

“Is this not how magic works for you?”

Ada glanced at me, but I didn’t have a clue what he meant, either.

“Where we come from, magic obeys laws,” I said. “There aren’t any deities who control it. It’s… a force.”

He frowned. “Is that not the same as a… god?”

“A… what?” Ada’s eyes widened. “You’re saying ‘force’ and ‘god’ mean the same thing?”

“We use the word ‘hathet’.” He tapped on the spare communicator we’d brought. While we couldn’t make calls from here, it had an application that worked as a translator, but in written form. He showed me the symbol, then hit the button that translated it to English.

“Looks like it,” I said, but my heart started to beat faster. Magic in the Passages felt
like a separate entity sometimes, but a
god?
If the deities directed the summoners, it sounded like an odd reversion of the way humans could pull on magic to make it do as they wanted. Magic gained consciousness? That was possible?

The image of the smoky red magic-creature in the Passages came to mind, and the building suddenly seemed confining. My skin prickled all over. A creature of pure magic. Unnatural. Like these deities–unheard of anywhere else in the Multiverse.

“When you use magic,” I said, carefully, “if you were to use it to open that door…”

I hesitated, then checked to see if I could still feel magic. Just about. Curiosity rose, much as I tried to push it down.

Raj said, “Don’t. It’s not worth it.”

Damn. A risk like that here would get me worse than a lecture from Ms Weston. “In other worlds with high-magic levels, you can throw a spark of energy–of magic–and knock the door open. But then the same reaction will come back at you.”

“Like bouncing a rubber ball,” said Ada, to another confused expression from Mathran. “Um. If you have those here…” She looked helplessly at the rest of us.

Raj shrugged. “I’ve got nothing. Anyone bring a physics textbook with them?”

“Never mind,” I said. “We call it the backlash reaction, anyway. If you use magic, you or someone nearby can easily get hurt. Does that happen here?”