Auum heard footsteps. He faded into the shadows and indicated to Ghaal and Miirt that an intruder was approaching. A man appeared from an intersection of the narrow, winding artisans’ quarter. He turned right and towards Auum. The TaiGethen withdrew further into his chosen doorway and ceased all movement. He watched.
The man was dressed in plain shirt and trousers and wore a light cloak about his shoulders. He was of average height, with short dark hair. He appeared unhurried. However, his actions marked him out as a man not merely out for a stroll. He was criss-crossing the street, crouching occasionally and laying his hands on blank stone or timber. Each time he did so, he uttered words of incantation.
Auum waited and watched. There was little point in doing anything else. The man, clearly a mage, moved closer. He crouched to attend to a spell not five feet from Auum, crabbed two paces to his left and saw Auum’s boots.
‘Ah,’ he said.
He tried to leap out of the way but Auum’s hand was already around his neck, pushing his head back and lifting him upright.
‘Ah, indeed,’ said Auum. ‘Do not attempt to cast. Do not attempt to cry out, or I will kill you.’
‘What do you want? Why are you here? We thought . . .’
‘Speak. Thought what?’
‘Thought . . . you were hiding elsewhere.’
‘Then I have disappointed you. What are you doing here?’
‘Just walking. These are the streets where I was born,’ said the mage brightly.
‘And where you will die if you lie to me again. You were studying trap spells - wards you call them. Why?’
The mage’s brightness had deserted him and he had begun to shake. He put his hands to Auum’s to try and shift his grip. It was like trying to crush stone.
‘Please, you’re hurting me.’
Auum cocked his head. ‘I know. What of it?’
‘I’ll tell you if you let me go.’
Auum shrugged and released his grip. The mage turned to bolt and collided with Miirt’s fist. He doubled over, coughing and retching, dropping to his knees.
‘Speak,’ said Auum.
‘It’s nothing,’ gasped the mage, wrapping his arms around his stomach. ‘We have to test the segments of the defensive grid. Check the linkage. Can’t afford any errors.’
Auum looked up at his Tai. Both shook their heads.
‘We do not believe you. Try harder.’
‘It’s true, I swear.’
‘Kill him,’ said Auum.
A short blade flashed in Ghaal’s hand. He dragged back the mage’s head and struck down, stopping a hair’s breadth from breaking the skin. The mage fouled himself and held up his hands.
‘Please no,’ he said, wheezing and crying. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Speak.’
‘Septern changed the exclusions of the wards. We hoped you were still in the grid somewhere. Needed to trap you here. Anything larger than a dog will trip them when they go active. I was checking to see the exclusion formula had filtered down to the periphery. Please, I’m telling the truth.’
‘Yes.’ Auum took a step back, happy to be away from the stench of excrement and urine. ‘When will the grid be active?’
‘When all the mages have reported back to the college.’
‘You will not be reporting back,’ said Auum.
‘Please!’ The mage held out his hands in supplication. ‘I told you the truth. Please.’
‘You will come with us. We have a place where you can clean yourself.’
‘Yes, yes of course. Thank you.’
Auum’s nose wrinkled at the pathetic gratitude. ‘You may be of some use to us yet.’
‘I’m hoping you recognise this place,’ said Hirad.
They’d walked out into an area of scrubland that bordered the blank faces of warehouses. The scrub was littered with pieces of stone and broken timber. A quick scout of the immediate area had told them that the college was to their north. Directly opposite the warehouses, more buildings rose about a half a mile away, and the city walls loomed a further mile or so distant.
Sol was sitting with his back to a wall while the pain in various parts of his body settled. He’d fussed over Jonas’s scrapes and cuts until the boy had pushed him away with a comment about his age and ability to look after himself. Sol felt tired and at a loss.
‘I’m too old for all this racing about,’ he said.
‘Well you should die and pick yourself a younger body,’ said Hirad. ‘It does wonders, you know. Anyway. Where are we, exactly?’
‘South-east corner of the city. Not too far from the east gates. This used to be a pretty rich area until the demons came. It never got rebuilt and all people did was steal the stone and wood to repair elsewhere. I think Denser wanted it to be some form of remembrance park or something. As you can see, dreams are yet to become reality.’
‘We ride around here quite a lot,’ said Jonas.
‘Didn’t I tell you not to because of the risk of injuring your horse on all this loose stone? Full of holes, this place.’
Jonas shrugged. ‘Probably. Anyway, we’re lucky we didn’t appear in the middle of the college or somewhere like that, aren’t we? At least I can tell you every way out of here that takes us away from most patrol routes.’
‘Yes, but where are we going?’ asked Ilkar. ‘Back to where the dead were? Auum won’t have stayed there.’
‘Yes, but he said he’d be in the eastern quarter somewhere,’ said Sol.
‘Diera’s relatively close to here, so Sha-Kaan said.’ Sirendor was walking in small circles, scanning the Xeteskian night.
Sol nodded. ‘I have no doubt at all that Denser would use her as a hostage if he had to. So if she’s calm and safe as we are told, that means she’s away from him and we can assume Auum has been as good as his word yet again. The question is, where would he hide her and himself?’
‘Some place with trees. With high-sided buildings and plenty of routes in and out,’ said Hirad. ‘When I was running with the TaiGethen back on Calaius, he used to keep going on about keeping every option available for as long as possible and having height on any enemy. Easy in the rainforest, not quite so easy here because he doesn’t know it so well. How’s Xetesk off for parks?’
‘Well, there are a good number of squares with gardens. There’s the old Park of Remembrance but that’s just lawns and grazing these days. Jonas?’
‘There are three or four squares a short ride from here,’ said Jonas. ‘The park is way over the other side of the city and it’s too open if Auum wants what Hirad says he does.’
‘Can you take us to these squares?’
‘With my eyes shut, Father.’
Sol stood up slowly and grimaced at the state of his body.
‘That won’t be necessary. Lead on. Hirad, up front with him just in case you remember some of your Tai training on markers and tracks.’
‘Fat chance,’ said Ilkar. ‘He has trouble walking and breathing at the same time most days.’
‘Can we keep it quiet?’ asked Sol. ‘We’re not welcome here.’
Jonas led them to a wide street that ran away in the direction of the east gates. Every house, every tenement and business, was shuttered and quiet. No lights could be seen, no noise could be heard close by.
‘This place has been evacuated,’ said Sirendor quietly.
Sol nodded. ‘I presume Septern’s ward grid has been laid by now. No doubt Denser was planning to squeeze the entire population into the western side of the city beyond the college. I hope he’s right about which gate the Garonin come through. He’s taking a big gamble.’
‘It won’t make a damned bit of difference,’ said Hirad. ‘It’s not a gamble, Unknown, it’s a guaranteed defeat.’
‘I want everyone to stop right now.’ Ilkar’s voice brooked no dissent.
‘What’s up, Ilks?’
‘Well, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but if we’re about to walk into a ward grid, our chances of walking out of it again are slim in the extreme, wouldn’t you say?’
‘The elf in man’s clothing has a point,’ said Hirad.
‘But you go right on walking, Hirad. Test my theory, why don’t you?’
‘Touchy, touchy.’
‘Focus,’ hissed Sol. ‘Ilkar, what I know is that Septern was intending to tune out anything man-sized. He was also going on about leaving the grid dormant until the Garonin got here. Something about maintaining cohesion of wards and retaining mana stamina; does that make sense?’
‘Kind of. And easy enough if you’re a genius, like him. Put it this way. If he hasn’t done the things you said he was talking about, every step could be our last.’
‘Can’t you detect them as we approach them?’ asked Sirendor.
Ilkar’s face was glum. ‘Not now. That kind of fine work is denied me. Our turn to gamble. How big was this grid going to be, anyway? ’
‘The whole eastern half of the city if we had time,’ said Sol.
Ilkar whistled. ‘Now that is something I’d like to see.’
Hirad began walking. ‘Well, if the Garonin get here before we’re done, you’re going to get your wish. Come on, Raven, and sons of Raven, let’s get out of here.’
‘Hirad, be careful.’
‘How?’ asked Hirad over his shoulder. ‘If I can’t see it, how can I avoid it?’
Jonas fell into step with him, and at an indication from the boy the two of them turned left. Sol spread his hands and began to follow. They’d turned into a wide residential street that led towards the eastern grain store. Ten yards along it, Ilkar gasped.
‘Whoa,’ he said, dropping to his haunches and blowing hard. ‘That is not good.’
‘Jonas, Hirad. Stop moving. Ilkar? Talk to me.’
Sol’s eyes darted left, right and up. Nothing out of the ordinary.
‘Something . . .’ Ilkar closed his eyes and reached out with his hands. ‘Something.’
‘What?’ Sol thought he heard a whisper on the wind. A sound from his distant past.
‘There’s—’ began Ilkar.
‘How interesting,’ said a voice from above their heads. ‘Even without a college Heart, a Julatsan may still feel a construct should it contain enough power, I see.’
Two figures descended slowly into view, hovering thirty-odd feet away. Denser and Septern.
‘I wondered how long it would be before you came back here to get your wife and completely bugger things up, Sol. Did you really think a dragon opening a second Klene corridor in one day could go unnoticed in my city?’
‘I will do what I came here to do, Denser, and that includes beating you to a bloody pulp. One punch for every time I considered you my trusted friend. That’s a lot of punches.’
‘A couple of points, if I may. First of all, no, you won’t lay a finger on me, and I’ll tell you why in a moment. Secondly, and it’s a small thing, but I have, um, adjusted my name. Just to aid the record keeping of the college, you know.’
Sol felt a rush of sadness, the end of possibility. A closing-down on the potential for redemption.
‘You’ve taken the “y”, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. So it’s Densyr, not Denser.’
‘Makes no difference to me,’ growled Hirad. ‘You’re still a traitor to The Raven and Balaia and you will die for it.’
Densyr chuckled. ‘How I have missed your idle threats, Hirad. Now, as Ilkar will be able to tell you when he gets his breath back, you have walked into the middle of a cell of explosive fire-based ward constructs which, as luck would have it, Septern was able to make active when we spotted you. These wards, like all of them across the city, have been tuned to include moving shapes of your size, but I’ll leave it to you to decide whether to believe that or not. I don’t really have the time to care.
‘Should you stay exactly in the positions you are, you will come to no harm. Not until the Garonin blunder into them in a day or so, anyway. I’m sorry it has come to this and I truly don’t want to kill any of you. So the choice remains yours. To try and get out of your current predicament or to come voluntarily into custody and let me decide your fates when the battle is won.
‘I’ll leave you for a few hours to make up your minds. I trust I don’t need to demonstrate what happens when a ward is triggered?’
‘Not for my benefit,’ said Ilkar.
‘Good. Until later then.’
Septern and Densyr rose quickly into the night and were lost, missing much of Hirad’s colourful volley of abuse.
‘Do you mind?’ said Sol. ‘My son is standing next to you.’
‘It isn’t like I haven’t heard all those words before,’ said Jonas.
‘But perhaps not strung together with such alacrity and with the multiple repetition of certain choice terms, eh?’
‘So do we believe that bastard?’ asked Sirendor, who was standing next to Ilkar.
‘Ilkar?’ asked Sol.
Ilkar, who had recovered from the shock of the surge of mana all about them, scratched at his chin.