Alex Verus 5: Hidden (23 page)

Anne tilted her head, puzzled. I looked into the futures in which we waited where we were. There
was
someone coming.
What the hell?
I couldn’t see any immediate combat, but there was no way I should have missed something that blatant. It wasn’t the castle—the shrouds didn’t block divination magic. I couldn’t have been
that
careless . . . could I? “We’ve got company,” I said. “Back to the windmill, quick!”

Anne’s eyes went wide. We hurried back to the windmill and up the steps to the doorway, where I turned. That was better—now we had some cover. “Who is it?” Anne asked.

“Working on it.” I still couldn’t see any combat but that wasn’t much reassurance—just because the encounter didn’t start with violence didn’t mean it wouldn’t end that way, and we didn’t have any friends in this place that I knew of. I focused on a single future, narrowing it down to get a clearer vision. It was a man, coming closer. Not Sagash. Not his apprentices. That was strange—why was I standing like that? It was as though I were scared of something. It was a little tricky to focus on the image, but not too hard. There. It was—

Wait, that couldn’t be right.

Oh, Jesus.

Anne looked at me sharply. “Alex? Are you okay?”

I stood frozen, staring into space. All I could do was look at the futures over and over again, as if doing it would make them change.

“Alex,”
Anne said, looking worried. She touched a hand to my shoulder. “Your heart rate just jumped. What’s wrong?”

My heart was hammering in my chest. I wasn’t imagining any of it, it was all real.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit . . .
I felt my hands starting to shake and turned on Anne. “Run. Now!”

Anne looked at me, puzzled. “What?”

“Get out of here.” I spoke as fast as I could, the words tumbling out of my mouth. “Someone’s coming, you can’t be here when he arrives. Get up to the top of the windmill, you can get away that way. Go!”

“Who’s coming?”

“There’s no time! Get out of here!”

“Then . . . why aren’t you running as well?”

I was too paralysed to come up with an answer. Anne looked at me, then when I didn’t reply she shook her head. “I’m staying.”

“No!”

“If it’s a person coming, I can defend myself better than you can.”

“I’m not asking!” Terror was making it hard for me to think clearly; I pointed up towards the ceiling. “Do as I say and get out of here,
now
!”

“You’re not my master, and I don’t think you’re thinking straight. Besides . . .” Something flickered in Anne’s eyes. “I’m tired of things happening to other people because of me. Whoever’s coming, it can’t be Sagash or his apprentices or you’d have said. Who is it?”

I stared at Anne, then slumped a little. “You win,” I said quietly. “Make sure you don’t regret it.”

Doubt showed in Anne’s eyes, and she looked at me with a frown. I think it wasn’t until then that she got a glimpse of just how afraid I really was. I turned towards the grassy space and we waited in silence.

I spend a lot of time running from things. It works, up to a point. Most of the time when you’re in danger, the one who’s threatening you isn’t after
you
, not personally. They just want something you have, or you’re in the way for some reason. Get away from them and stay away long enough, and things will change.

But sometimes what the other person wants isn’t a thing, or a piece of information, or some other short-term goal. Sometimes what they want is
you
. And when that happens, then all running does is put things off. It’ll delay them, but if they want you badly enough then eventually they’ll catch up again. Sooner or later you’ll have to face them—the most you can do is choose the time and the place.

Anne and I waited in the doorway, looking out across the pond towards the castle walls. To our left, the sails of the windmill kept turning, the rhythmic creaking sound echoing through stone and wood. The sun still hadn’t yet reached a high enough point in the sky to look down onto our little enclave, and the grass and water were left in shadow. There was a doorway in the castle wall, and from the courtyard beyond I heard footsteps. At my side I felt Anne turn her head, looking through the wall towards something only she could see.

The footsteps grew louder and I felt light-headed, grey spots sparkling before my eyes. Old words came back to my mind, Tobruk’s voice speaking to me from another time, vicious and cruel.
He’s going to find you and he’s going to hurt you and you’re going to die. Make sure you stay alive till then, Alex. I want to see your face.
I’d never really believed he was telling the truth.

The man who stepped out onto the grass was maybe forty or fifty, though few trying to guess his age would have bothered. Everything about him was ordinary: brown hair, brown eyes, average height, average build. Most people would have glanced over him without a second thought. I couldn’t have told you what he was wearing; just the sight of him was enough to freeze my blood. He stood in the shadow of the castle wall, looking straight towards me, and I held my breath.

“Alex,” Richard said. “It’s been a long time.”

I
first met Richard in my last year of school, only a few days before my eighteenth birthday. Within a month I’d left school, left home, and moved into Richard’s mansion, the last apprentice of four. Richard is very good at being persuasive.

We studied magic in Richard’s mansion and were sent on missions together, but the lessons that really stuck in my memory weren’t to do with magic or fieldwork, but ways of thinking. I’d always been clever, but for most of my life I’d never really
used
it for anything, at least nothing practical. I’d thought of intelligence as an academic thing, not something you used in the real world. Richard showed me differently. Seeing patterns and predicting them, analysing people’s behaviour, looking multiple steps ahead . . . always thinking, always planning, never standing still. The other three threw themselves into their magic, and in raw power they left me further behind every day, but the biggest thing I learnt from Richard was that the mind can be a more powerful weapon than any spell. There were a hundred little tricks I learnt from watching him, and I remembered them all. It didn’t take me long to decide that I was better than Richard was. I was still a teenager, and like most teenagers I was sure I was smarter than my teachers. Richard might be good at planning, but I was a
diviner
.

A year after I moved into Richard’s mansion he sent us on a mission to Arizona, hunting down two kids our age, a girl and a boy. What happened to them both was ugly, and I started having second thoughts. After taking longer than I should have, I decided I was going to break the girl, Catherine, out from where Richard was keeping her prisoner. It never occurred to me that I could fail. I knew the mansion inside out, I knew the security systems, and I could predict where everyone was going to be. I had it all planned out.

It didn’t work.

I had a lot of time afterwards to think about what I’d done wrong. Looking back on things and picking up all the little details I’d missed, I realised that Richard had not only known what I’d been planning, he’d known pretty much
everything
that I’d been doing while I’d been at the mansion, all the little minor disobediences which I’d thought I’d been so clever in hiding. He’d let it slide, not because he hadn’t known, but because I hadn’t stepped far enough over the line.

Pain is an effective teacher. I learnt my lesson, and when I finally escaped the mansion, I did it at a time when Richard was too busy with his major plans to come after me himself. Instead he’d sent Tobruk. Tobruk was crueller and more sadistic than Richard, but for all his power he wasn’t dangerous in the same way. I tricked Tobruk and lured him into a trap, and he paid for it with his life. And then I kept running and hiding, waiting for Richard to come after me himself, and I knew that if he did then that would be the end, because while I could outsmart Tobruk I could never outsmart Richard. It took me a long time to realise that Richard wasn’t coming, and an even longer time to make myself believe it. I’d almost managed to convince myself that I’d never see him again.

Until now.

The castle was quiet. In the distance I could hear a bird calling, but here by the windmill the only sound was the rustle of the wind and the creak of the sails. I stood in the windmill’s doorway, half a step in front of Anne, the two of us staring down at the man on the grass. The moment stretched out.

“I’m glad to see you’re together,” Richard said. His voice was deep and powerful. The first few times I met Richard, that voice of his had always felt oddly jarring—you’d ignore him until he spoke, then all of a sudden he’d dominate the room. Once you got to know him better, you didn’t need the voice to remind you. “Why don’t you introduce me to your companion?”

“I . . .” Speaking was difficult; my voice sounded cracked and uneven. I took a breath and tried again. “This is Richard Drakh. My—teacher.”

I didn’t turn to look at Anne, but I felt her tense as she made the connection. “And you must be Anne Walker,” Richard said to her with a nod. He came to a halt and looked back to me with raised eyebrows, obviously waiting for me to speak.

I didn’t. My mind had gone blank and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“No questions, Alex?” Richard said. He looked interested.

“How did you get here?” Anne said from over my shoulder. She was staring at Richard. “Did Sagash let you in?”

“A reasonable conclusion, but no. Sagash is occupied with his own research these days, and he tends not to react well to distractions.”

“Then . . . how did you get in? The shadow realm’s gate locked.”

“Yes, it is.”

I swallowed and Richard turned his attention to me. I had to take a breath before I could trust my voice to be steady enough. “Why are you here?”

“Now
that
is a more interesting question,” Richard said. “What do you think the answer is?”

“I think you’re here for me,” I said quietly.

Richard gave me a quizzical look. “Strictly true, I suppose, but why?”

“Because I turned against you,” I said. It was difficult to say out loud, but I wanted this out in the open. “That’s it, isn’t it? I betrayed you, so you gave me to Tobruk. Then when I got away, you sent him after me. Now you’re here to finish what Tobruk started.”

Silence. The wind blew across the grass. Richard studied me for a long moment; I held my breath, and I could feel Anne doing the same. If Richard chose to make a fight of it, I had no illusions that I’d survive. The most I could hope for would be that Anne might get away.

Then suddenly Richard smiled. “Alex. Not everything is about you.”

I stared at Richard. Whatever I’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “Did you really think I was here for revenge?” Richard asked. “What would I be taking revenge for?”

“I . . .” I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t how I’d thought the conversation would go. “Catherine.”

“Catherine was a necessary component in my plans, and unfortunately she was not replaceable. You tried to remove her, and so I was forced to keep you confined. I wasn’t going to kill you, Alex. I simply removed you from the situation until you could no longer interfere.”

I stared at Richard. “As for Tobruk,” Richard continued, “I did not send him after you. In fact, I specifically ordered him
not
to pursue you, an order Tobruk chose to disregard. If he had survived, I would have been quite as upset with him as I was with you.” Richard tilted his head. “Does that answer your question? Let me put it another way. What significant harm have you ever done me that I would hold a grudge for?”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d been keyed up, ready for Richard to attack. Except . . . I’d never really thought about why. I’d been so caught up in how I felt towards Richard that I’d never thought about how
he
might feel towards
me
. I’d tried to rescue Catherine, and I’d failed. I’d tried to stop what was happening in Richard’s mansion, and I’d failed at that too. The four of us had ended up fighting and fleeing and dying until only one was left to take on the mantle of Richard’s Chosen . . . just as he’d wanted.

Richard was right—I
had
only been thinking about myself. I’d hated Richard, but why should Richard hate me? He’d
won
. When you crush your opponents that completely, you don’t carry a grudge against them afterwards.

“You’re playing with us,” Anne said abruptly.

I looked at her in surprise. Anne was standing to her full height, looking across at Richard. “Is this a threat? You found us, so unless we do what you want then you’ll tell them where we are?”

Richard looked back at her calmly. “What would you do if it was?”

I felt Anne tense. “No,” I said sharply. “Don’t.”

Anne hesitated, looking between us, and the moment was gone. “I did not come here to assist Sagash or his apprentices,” Richard said. “Your conflicts with them are no concern of mine.” He raised his eyebrows. “Unless you’d like to change that.”

“Then how did you find us?” Anne said slowly. “How did you know we were here?”

Richard glanced at me. “Alex?”

My thoughts were starting to work again. My mind still felt slow and clumsy, but I forced myself to think. “He’s not working with Sagash,” I said, half to Anne, half to myself. Richard didn’t lie—that was one of the things which made him so dangerous. He might leave things out, but if he said something directly, then you knew he was telling the truth. Either that, or he was just good enough never to get caught. “He found out some other way.” Richard had said that he was here for me, or partly so. Who had known I was looking for Anne? My friends, Sonder, Caldera . . . and the mages I’d spoken to at the Tiger’s Palace. Ordith, Meredith . . . Morden. Arachne had linked Morden’s name to Richard, and he’d said . . .

“Morden,” I said. I felt Anne look towards me, and I turned my head just far enough that I could see her without taking my eyes off Richard. “I saw him the day before I came. He told me to forget about you, that he’d find you and take care of it.” I looked back at Richard. “He told you and you tracked us here . . .”

Richard gave me a single nod, the same gesture he’d always used when one of us had gotten something right. I felt a moment’s satisfaction, followed by a chill. Was I trying to
show off
for Richard? That was insane. Within minutes of seeing him I was falling back into my old habits, apprentice to master.

That actually scared me more than seeing him did.

“You’re here for me,” Anne said, and there was a new note to her voice, tense.

“More accurately, for both of you,” Richard said. “I’d like to offer you a position in my organisation.”

There was a dead silence. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. My mouth was dry.

“Not in the least,” Richard said calmly. “As I expect you’re aware, I’ve been quite busy since my return, and I’m somewhat understaffed. It’s so difficult to find competent diviners. Life mages as well. You’d be working under me or my associates, primarily on political or investigative assignments. Similar to your freelance work for the Council, though I can promise considerably more support and benefits.”

I felt a chill at the word
investigative
.
Talisid.
But Anne was already answering, and her voice was flat. “I’ve had a Dark master already.”

“I am aware,” Richard said. “However, I am not Sagash. I am only interested in willing servants.”

“Maybe you’re not Sagash,” Anne said. “But I’ve heard what happened to your last set of apprentices.”

“Ah,” Richard said. “I suspect we have a misunderstanding. The Council may have assigned you to their apprentice program, but quite frankly I think that reflects their own prejudices. I’d be happy to arrange instruction, but I believe treating you as an apprentice would undervalue your abilities. The position I was offering you was that of a mage.”

Anne stopped at that. “And if we say no?” I said.

“You mean, what will I do?” Richard said. “Nothing.”

“Then leave,” I said. It came out harsher than I’d wanted it to sound. “The answer’s no.”

“If that’s your decision,” Richard said. “Although there is more to my offer.”

“There’s nothing you can offer that would make me work for you again.” I managed to keep my voice under control, but just barely. I’d been ready for a fight, but even the suggestion that I’d willingly go back to him . . .

“In which case you can say no once again, and that’ll be the end of the matter. I do, however, strongly recommend that you hear me out. You may find it changes your opinions.”

I opened my mouth and felt Anne touch my side. It was only a brush of her fingers, but I got the message. With an effort I stayed quiet.

“Excellent,” Richard said. He didn’t look at all bothered that I’d said no. “There are two additional points to my offer I would like to make. Firstly, as a member of my organisation, you would both fall under my protection. I imagine both of you have your share of enemies. I think you will find they would be far less willing to provoke me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Except that we’d pick up all of
your
enemies too. No thanks.”

“And secondly, I would be willing to assist you with your more immediate problems.”

Here it comes.

“You appear to be unwilling guests in this shadow realm,” Richard said. “I can address that problem. In addition”—he glanced at Anne—“I can ensure nothing similar happens in the future.”

Anne reacted slightly. “You escaped from Sagash once,” Richard said. “And in doing so, you proved both your ability and strength of will. However, as you can see, Sagash’s power vastly dwarfs yours. You and Variam both have to be aware that should Sagash ever devote his full resources towards recapturing you, you would have very little chance of escape. So far he has not, but at any point that could change. Do you really want to live the rest of your life with that hanging over you? I have some leverage with Sagash, and unlike the Light Council, I can negotiate with him on equal terms. If you join me, I can guarantee as a condition of your employment that neither Sagash nor his apprentices will come after you ever again.”

I couldn’t help myself; I turned to look at Anne. She hesitated, her eyes flickering from me back to Richard, and I knew she was torn. It was one of the things Richard had always been so good at: finding what someone most wanted and offering it to them.

Richard was still speaking. “And then, of course, there’s your current situation. You and Alex are in very immediate danger. I entered this shadow realm, and I can bring you out the same way, quickly and safely. If you decline my offer, I will not harm you, but I will not help you either. You will be left to resolve this problem alone.”

Anne still hesitated, and I held my breath. I wanted to urge her not to do it but I knew I couldn’t. Staying here could mean our death. I was willing to risk that rather than go with Richard, but I couldn’t make that decision for Anne. If she said yes . . .

The futures shifted . . . and steadied. “You’re right,” Anne said, and her voice was clear. “We did escape from Sagash once.” She looked at Richard. “We can do it again.”