Fated

private soldiers, equipped with modern weapons and magical aids.

These two weren’t mages, or even adepts, but they were alert and competent. As well as that, I could tell from here that the top of the stairwell behind them was warded with a barrier. The barrier would contain a well-hidden alarm; anyone entering the fourth floor without the magical key, whether by foot or by spell, would set off a silent warning signal. Knowing the Council, the guards wouldn’t be trusted with the password key. An elemental mage could blast through the guards and the barrier, but would set off the alarm. A more subtle mage would be able to avoid raising the alarm, but they wouldn’t be able to get through the barrier.

It was a typical Council defence: cost-effective and ruthless. The job of those two guards was to be, basically, cannon fodder. If a mage attacked them, their chances of survival were nil. Their only purpose was to raise the alarm and give advance warning to Council reinforcements gating in. But no matter what I thought of the methods, I had to admit it was a fairly good setup. For a normal mage, getting past both the guards and the barrier without raising the alarm would take hours of preparation, if not days.

It took me slightly over five minutes. When you know exactly what will set off an alarm, then you know exactly what won’t. Think about it.

The fourth floor was sealed off from the rest of the museum with boards and screens. Worn red carpet covered the floor and a scattered handful of lights cast the room in a dim glow. Standing in the centre of the room was a statue.

I should probably mention at this point that what I was doing was, under mage law, illegal as hell. The Council might turn a blind eye to torture and murder, but trespassing, well, that’s serious. With my reputation, I’d be in serious trouble if I was caught. However, I was pretty sure by this point that I’d be in more serious trouble if I stayed home. I had no particular desire to sit around waiting for the next guy in line to take a shot at me.

I scanned the room. A few other exhibits had been pushed into the corners: a vase, a standing lamp, something that looked like a totem pole. None radiated magic. A lift was at the far end, but it was dark and unpowered. There were no windows. Apart from the stairs I’d climbed to enter this room, there was no way in and no way out, which meant I was standing in a dead end if anything went wrong. I would have to work fast.

The statue was of a man, life-size, wearing robes that looked like ancient ancestors of the ceremonial gear Light mages wear to formal occasions. He looked in his fifties or sixties, with a flowing beard. His right hand grasped a wand, while his left hand was held out in front of him, palm up and slightly cupped as though asking for something. The face was superbly detailed, right down to the age lines and the set of the eyes; the sculptor had obviously used magic to preserve his work. The expression and pose of the man was commanding, proud. I circled the statue once more then, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out and touched it.

Nothing happened, as I’d known it would. The statue looked and felt like stone, though slightly cooler to the touch than stone should be. This was Lyle’s relic, all right. Even without my mage’s sight, I could feel power radiating from the thing. I looked around the room, putting together what must have happened. The museum had gotten hold of the statue and brought it here. The Council had found it, sent agents. Their orders would have been to study the item, determine its power. First they would have tried to activate the statue, then if that didn’t work they would have tried to move it.

What had happened then?

I turned back to the statue, studying the face. The expression was calm, but with a hint of something else – arrogance? Danger? Looking closely, I could see traces of old scars. A battle mage, then, and a good one, if he’d lived to that age. The more I looked, the more I felt there was something expectant about the statue, as though it were waiting for something.

The outstretched hand lay there, open and inviting. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I put something into it.

I watched the scene unfolding ahead of me for just a second, then broke off the vision and stepped back hastily until my back fetched up against the wall. Suddenly I understood exactly why Lyle and Cinder needed a diviner, and what had happened the last time someone had tried to activate this thing. The statue had been perfectly preserved – and its defence system had been perfectly preserved, too. I’d learned all I needed to know. It was time to get out of here.

I’d taken two steps towards the door when I heard the sound from downstairs. It was a quiet sound, the sound of something soft and heavy falling, and it made me stop dead.

Remember what I said about diviners learning to focus on the futures that tell you what you need to know? Well, it comes with a drawback. If you’re focusing on one set of futures, you aren’t paying attention to the others. So if you’re about to be cornered by some people you really don’t want to meet, you won’t notice it until something draws your attention – something like the sound of a body hitting the floor.

It was not turning out to be a good day.

Most people’s first response to danger is to run away. It’s a survival instinct which natural selection has done a good job of encouraging. It’s an old saying that if you’re being chased, you only have to outrun one person. If everyone else runs away and you don’t, by default that makes you the one person. Hence people whose first response to danger isn’t to run away tend to get weeded out of the gene pool by teeth, or bullets, or fireballs, as the case may be.

Personally, my first response to danger is to take a closer look and see what’s going on. Refer back to what I said about diviners being curious. Also refer back to what I said about there not being many of us. I looked into the future of what I would see if I ran downstairs, following the gaze of my future self.

The first thing I saw were the two guards who’d been stationed on the landing. Both were now lying on the floor, quite dead. Standing over them were three figures. As my future self saw the figures, they saw me, and I got one glimpse of what they’d do before I cut the vision off abruptly. Just that look was all I needed to know that I did not want to be found here.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I knew I had fewer than thirty seconds. Running was out, fighting was out. The only choice left was to hide. I moved into one of the corners, sliding in behind the totem pole so its irregular shape would break up my outline, then pulled the hood of my mist cloak over my head. The footsteps below stopped, and I knew they’d reached the barrier. There was a flicker of green light and the barrier was gone. Figures strode in.

There were three of them, two men and a woman, quick and quiet, their heads turning as they checked the corners. All three were masked and wore dark clothes, but even with the masks I recognised the hulking shape of the nearest. It was Cinder. He looked straight at the corner in which I was hiding, but his eyes swept past without seeing. ‘Empty.’