Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) (2 page)

“Yancy Lazarus,” the arch-mage said, deliberately ignoring Jack and focusing on me with laser-like intensity. “You have been acquitted on the charge of treason, but a myriad of other crimes still remain against you. Most notably, leaving the Guild without proper authorization in March, 1998, as well as
countless
acts of unlawful vigilantism. Acts which no one here”—she paused and shot a sidelong scowl at Black Jack—“can dispute. The facts are what they are. And, for your crimes, you face a penalty of fifty years in the
Tullianum
. Minimum.”

My brow furrowed and my jaw clenched tight as muscles tensed.

The Tullianum. A prison. Worse than a prison.

A dank, dusty hole in the earth, situated in the heart of the sprawling red dunes of the Australian Outback, where they dropped a host of supernatural criminals and left them more or less for dead. The Tullianum was like the unholy love child of Mad Max’s Thunder Dome and a
Game of Thrones
episode: all rusted iron, spiked armor, creepy incest, and cannibal kings running amok. And a strange confluence of ley lines and telluric currents made it one of the few places on Earth where magi couldn’t touch the Vis.

I wasn’t going there. Not ever. They’d have to kill me first.

“So, do you have anything to say before we pass sentence?” the arch-mage asked with her perpetual glower of condemnation.

I
wanted
to tell them to go blow each other and shove their stupid sentence right up their flabby collective asses, but I didn’t. ’Cause handcuffs. And exile. And friggin’
Tullianum
. Also, the end of the known world, I guess. Couldn’t forget about that, much as I wanted to. I sighed, bottling that anger up for the time being, holding it for when I really needed its power.

“Look,” I said evenly, lips curling down at the corners, “everyone in this room knows I wouldn’t be here if I had any other choice. Any. Other. Choice. And believe me, I’ve tried everything else I can think of. Every source I have has turned up all of jack-shit. Dead ends all around, and I’m playing against a shot clock, so I need this Guild and I specifically need information only you”—I nodded toward the arch-mage—“have.

“And I know you have it ’cause Fortuna, Lady-friggin’-Luck, told me. Straight from her mouth to my ear. So here I am, because I need you. But here’s the thing, you need me too. All of you need me. Sure, you can throw me into the Tullianum, and you know what? I’ll laugh my ass off as civilization crumbles and turns to dust, as the whole world turns into one giant hell no one can escape from. And it’ll be your fault, Borgstorm. That hell will be your legacy. So unless you give me a hand, you all can bend over and kiss your sanctimonious assess goodbye,
comprende?
”

I heard a round of barely muffled sniggers and a handful of outraged gasps from behind me, which quickly died as the arch-mage swept her icy glare around the room, staring down anyone who seemed to even
think
about making a peep.

“Arch-Mage, get on with it already,” Black Jack said, uncrossing his arms. “You don’t want to see the world collapse and we reached a sentence
yesterday
. Everyone knows this is just a show to frighten the poor lad.” He paused and rubbed at his chin while he regarded me. “Obviously your tactic isn’t working, so let us dispense with the dramatics, yes?”

The arch-mage rounded on the man, eyes narrowed, hands planted on hips disapprovingly, annoyance peeking through a few small cracks in her normally unflappable exterior.

“Enough, Elder Engelbrecht,” she said, a whip-crack of command. “
Enough.
I mean it. Take your seat and kindly keep your opinions to yourself or I will have Fist Leader Quinn remove you from these proceedings, Elder-mage or no.”

Jack grunted, folded his arms again, and shifted from foot to foot as though earnestly deciding whether or not to just walk out. But then, at last, he nodded and sat, a disgruntled frown stealing across his mouth.

“Now where was I?” she said, turning back to me. “Right, your sentence. Despite your numerous crimes, the Guild recognizes your long and distinguished service to our order. We also recognize the will of the Lady Wyrd regarding the delicate matter which you have described to us in detail. Thus, we have charitably decided to grant you a pardon. And do not forget it is
charity
.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. Yeah,
charity
. Still, some unseen tension melted away from my shoulders at the words.

“This charity, however, is conditional,” she said after a moment, which instantly tanked my sudden flood of relief. “Your fifty-year prison sentence will be commuted. You will serve out your time in mandatory service to the Guild. You will be readmitted to the Guild with good standing, but you will be stripped of rank and accolades. You will be admitted as a junior member and will serve as a probationary Judge until you prove yourself worthy and reliable of greater trust.”

“You can’t do this to me!” I hollered, bucking against my restraints, a thick vein pulsing in my neck. “This is bullshit! Slavery is what it is. Friggin’ slavery!”

She held up a single finger, face the definition of smug self-satisfaction. “That is where you’re wrong, because I most certainly can. Perhaps the Guild was content to let you roam for a time, but if I have taken anything away from this trial, it’s that you are too dangerous to let be. We made a mistake, letting you go your own way, but that is an error I am determined to rectify. The Guild watches over our own, and like it or not you belong to us. And you
will
be accountable to us.”

“If I say no?” I asked, body tense, nearly shaking. “If I call this bullshit for what it is and refuse to play along?”

She leaned forward, elbows resting along her thighs. “Then—and please mark my words
very
carefully—I will bring every resource available to bear against you. The full weight of the Guild will crush you. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Crystal,” I replied through clenched teeth.

“Good. And to ensure your compliance toward these ends,” she continued, “you will be assigned to an active Judge, who will act as your case supervisor. Your case supervisor will shadow you. Will monitor you. Will report directly to me. And if you don’t toe the line—and I mean to the letter—I will issue a kill order, whether you’re the Hand of Fate or not. If you flee and fail to report in to your supervisor, I will issue a kill order. If you perform so much as a single unauthorized act of vigilantism, I will issue a kill order. Do you have any questions?” she asked, then gave a disapproving sniff.

I wanted to punch her in the teeth, but the thought of imminent death or worse kept my jaw clenched tight. Though barely.

“Excellent,” the arch-mage intoned. “Then please rise.”

The guard standing next to me, a wiry guy with a lean build and a gaunt, over-serious face, roughly pulled me up from achy knees. She turned, starring Black Jack down. “Since you seem to be so
invested
in probationary Judge Lazarus, please escort him from this closed session and take him to meet his supervisory officer, Judge Drukiski. That will be all.”

TWO:

Probationary Matters

Jack and I stepped out of the drafty, old repurposed chapel; a boxy single-story structure of weathered gray stone with a pointed steeple jabbing at the heavens like a bony finger. The sky overhead was gray and gloomy, fat with clouds which threatened rain. In my experience, the sky over the Guild headquarters
always
looked like that, though. England—despite being supremely badass and the birthplace of some pretty awesome stuff—has some spectacularly shitty weather.

“I would say welcome back,” Jack said as we headed into the village proper, ambling along a cobblestone footpath that cut through a field of lush grass, neat and well maintained, “but I can’t imagine this was the welcome you were expecting. Chains, trials, threats of execution.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what things had come to either. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the sentence. A man should have the freedom to choose his own destiny, and I fought against it, but this isn’t the Guild you knew.

“This thing”—he gestured toward the town, Moorchester, a swatch of wood-slated roofs peeking up from the rolling green hills below—“this thing we have worked so hard to build, it’s fallen far, my friend.” He sounded wistful, sad. “The Guild has never been perfect, but we haven’t been this divided since the Great War. There is a cancer working amongst our number, I think. Subverting our members. Fracturing our loyalties. The suspicion, the fear, the infighting—it will kill us if we don’t find a way to stop it. But I fear we are too weak to do what needs doing.”

He lapsed into silence for a time, the crunch of gravel and stone loud beneath our feet.

I regarded the village below us: a rustic town full of timeworn brick houses and quaint stone shops nestled
deep
,
deep
in the Gloucestershire boonies, ensuring there was never any unwanted foot traffic. The whole place looked like it belonged on some English travel brochure, but I knew damned well no outsider would ever accidentally find their way to this forgotten slice of England. Every building, every shop, every street was owned and operated by the Guild in one form or another, and only those in the know ever ventured here.

We hit a curving blacktop road with an old gray stone wall running along either side, which led from the base of the hill housing the chapel and into the heart of the town. “What the hell is going on around here?” I finally asked. “Was I expecting a welcome home party, prodigal-son style? No. But this shit is crazy, Jack. Crazy. Those people in there wanted to crucify me. I think they would’ve if they could’ve gotten away with it.”

He shrugged, then seesawed his head from side to side while we walked. “When you left all those years ago, it had big repercussions. True, not many of the senior members stood for you when you proposed war against the Morrigan, but among the junior members you had more support than you might think. Much more. And that support swelled when our members started to vanish. Not a lot of members, understand, but more than we’d ever lost before. Taken. Casualties in a new, unspoken war.

“I imagine this will be of little comfort now, but you were right when you said other monsters would come for us. They did, a little at a time. Probing our limits, encroaching on territory the Guild has held for hundreds of years. As you can imagine, tensions escalated after that. Iron Stan pushed for more power to combat the new threats growing on every side. Junior members, discontent at their lack of a voice in Guild politics, started to make waves. Ugly times.” He waved a hand through the air,
old history
.

“But then came that business with Randy Shelton and the Lich, Koschei,” he said. “Benjamin Altschuler’s grandson, kidnapped. Accusations of a mole in the upper ranks of the Guild. Maxim Kozlov, chair of the Junior Council, assassinated. Like the proverbial match in the powder-keg.” He threw up a hand, fingers spreading wide, mimicking an explosion.

I sure as shit remembered Kozlov’s murder—I’d been the one to find him tied up to a chair, flayed alive. Talk about ugly times.

“The word
traitor
has been bandied around a lot since then,” Jack said, gazing vacantly off into the distance. “Even after James Sullivan brought Shelton in, things got worse, not better. The night before Shelton was to stand trial, he disappeared.” He snapped thick fingers, his knuckles scarred from countless brawls.

Those scars were hard-earned, I knew.

Before Black Jack had been elevated to the Elder Council, he’d been leader of the Fist—he’d been James’s boss once upon a time. Guy had more black-ops under his belt than any other mage alive. Rambo-style badass didn’t even begin to cover it, and with his general dislike for all things political, he was something of a role model for me. As much as a sixty-eight-year-old can have role models.

“Gone, like that,” Jack continued, “and now James is missing. Working with Morrigan, according to you—who, only months ago, the Guild suspected of being the instrument in Kozlov’s demise.” He shrugged, then folded his hands behind his back, thick robes swishing as he moved. “In such an atmosphere, you can see why you might not be received with open arms, eh? I fear no one in the Guild is completely free from suspicion these days. To make matters worse, that suspicion is not unfounded.” His voice was now a whisper, near drowned out by the breeze. “It is distinctly possible a traitor still remains among our numbers.”

On the right, beside the stone wall edging the narrow asphalt road, was a graveyard—slabs of granite poking up from the green earth like blunt stone teeth. I’d buried more than a few friends in that field. Good men and women who’d paid the ultimate price in service to the Guild. Despite the fact that Ailia was still technically alive, she had a plot all her own there, complete with a headstone, though no body lay in the ground.