Fated

odds and ends: a jar of healing salve, a handful of tiny pieces of silver jewellery and two vials containing a pale blue liquid.

Next I went on to my mundane items. Most mages aren’t fond of technology but I prefer to take every advantage I can get. A small, powerful torch went on my belt along with a few tools and a slender-bladed knife held securely in its sheath. I reached for the drawer which held my gun, paused, then decided to leave it behind. It would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

Finally, I went to my wardrobe and took out my mist cloak. It’s not the most powerful item I own, but it’s the one I most trust. To casual eyes it looks like a length of some kind of grey-black cloth, thin and light and soft to the touch. If you keep looking, the colours seem to shift and flow at the edge of your vision, subtly enough that you might think you’d imagined it. Mist cloaks are woven from moonbeams and the webs of snowspiders, and they’re rare and little known items. They’re imbued items, not simple focuses, and as I put it on the colours rippled quickly before going still. I patted it affectionately, then turned to look at myself in the mirror.

I saw a tall figure, angular lines blurred by the shadows of the mist cloak. From beneath the hood a pale, quizzical face looked back at me, guarded and watchful, spiky black hair framing a pair of dark eyes. I studied myself for a moment, then turned to the door.

Time to get to work.

The sun had long set by the time I stepped off the ladder onto the roof of my flat. A few muted stars shone down from above, their faint glow almost drowned out by the yellow blaze of the London lights. Rooftops, chimneys and TV aerials were all around me, shadowed in the darkness, and from below came the sounds of the city. The air carried the scent of car exhausts and old brickwork.

Mages like to think their magic sets them above everyone else, and I guess in some ways that’s true. But when you get right down to it, mages are still people and, just like other people, they gossip. Lyle might think his Precursor relic was a secret, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t anywhere near as secret as he thought it was. And if the news was out, I knew someone who’d have heard all about it.

The roof of my flat’s maybe twenty feet square, peeling white paint bordered by a small parapet with a dusty chimney sticking up to one side. If you’re a good climber you can cross to other houses, and often I do. I stood in the centre, took the glass rod from my pocket and wove a tiny thread of magic through it, whispering as I did. ‘Starbreeze. Dancer of the air, friend to the clouds, you who know the secrets of the mountain peaks and all between earth and sky. I am Alexander Verus and I call to you. Come to me, lady of the wind.’ A faint breeze sprung up, as the whispering wind swept my words away and into the north. I repeated it again for south, west and east, then looked into the future.

The good news was that Starbreeze would be here soon. The bad news was that the assassin stalking me would be here sooner.

It’s nearly impossible to surprise an alert diviner. It’s how we survive in a world of things bigger and nastier than we are. I’d detected the man hunting me even before I’d stepped outside my door. The only question was what to do about it.

I don’t usually let people pick fights with me. It’s not hard to give someone the slip when you can see the future, and the kind of people who like picking fights tend to have lots of other enemies. It’s easier just to keep your head down and wait for someone else to deal with them. In this case, though, if I shook this mage off, the first thing he’d do would be to try and break into my shop, and that would risk him finding the cube. I was better off dealing with him directly.

Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to fight fair. I hopped down to the roof of the house next to me and kept going until I reached the roof of a small block of flats to my south, five buildings down. The building had been renovated ten years back, and the roof now held a couple of ventilators, but it still had the old chimney stacks near the edge. The combination of old and new made the roof cluttered, giving plenty of cover. I checked the roof to make sure the layout was as I remembered, then leant against one of the ventilators, closed my eyes, and waited.

Not much light from the streets below reached up to the city rooftops, but there was plenty of sound. From all around I could hear the muted chatter of people on the streets below, mixing with the rumble of cars carrying their passengers home for the last time before the weekend. The breeze carried the scent of Indian and Italian food – the restaurants were just starting on the dinnertime rush. All around was noise and bustle, but the roof itself was quiet. The only sound from nearby was the rustle of wings from roosting pigeons across the street. As I listened, the rustle suddenly went quiet.

I spoke into the darkness without opening my eyes. ‘You’ll miss.’

Black lightning cut the night air, slashing through the space I’d been in as I twisted away. The bolts were jet black, visible only as a greater darkness against the night sky, and they made no sound but a low hiss. I completed my spin with my back pressed against the ventilator, and as suddenly as it had begun, everything was still.

I leant just slightly around the ventilator’s edge. ‘Told you.’

The mage who’d attacked me was on the next roof over, a dark shape crouched behind a chimney. Looking into the futures in which I approached, I could see he was a small man, spindly and thin, wearing dark clothes and a mask that hid his face. He was squinting in my direction, one hand lifted to shield or strike. ‘Come out, little seer,’ the man said when I didn’t move. His voice was harsh, with a trace of an accent.

‘Why don’t you come over so I can see you better?’

I sensed the man’s lips curl in a smile. ‘Because I can see you … right now.’ As he said the last word another stream of black lightning flashed from his hand.

The black lightning was death magic, a kind of negative energy that kills by shutting down a body’s systems, especially the brain and heart. Death magic is incredibly fast, as quick as the lightning it resembles. As if that wasn’t enough, this particular attack was augmented with kinetic energy, giving it a physical punch as well. It’d be a real bitch to shield against, even if I could make shields, which I can’t.

But all the speed in the world doesn’t matter if the target’s not there. I’d ducked back out of sight as the man had cast his spell and the bolt struck the edge of the ventilator where my head had been, the lightning grounding as the impact made the metal shudder. I heard the man swear. ‘You know, I was expecting Cinder,’ I said conversationally. ‘Was he busy?’

‘Cinder’s a fool,’ the man snarled. I could sense he was off balance; he wasn’t used to missing.

‘He didn’t try to pick a fight with me,’ I said, then smiled into the darkness. ‘I’d say that makes him brighter than you … Khazad.’