Fated

‘Find some more,’ snarled the second man. It was Khazad. Apparently going after me hadn’t been the only item on his to-do list for tonight. He was limping and smelt of rotting vegetables. Maybe he’d hit the dumpster on his way down. ‘I’m not done.’

‘Enough,’ the woman said sharply, and the sound of her voice made me forget all about Khazad. The clothes hid her shape and all I could see was a pair of blue eyes, but even a glance at them made me go still. I couldn’t place her voice, but somehow I felt as though I’d met her before. ‘Cinder, do your tests.’

Cinder made a gesture and dark red lights sprang up around the room, small red flames smouldering in mid-air. In the red glow, he studied the statue, turning his back to me. ‘How long we got?’

‘They’ll still be getting out of bed,’ Khazad said, his voice simmering with anger. ‘They get in our way, too bad for them.’

‘We aren’t here for you to play,’ the woman said. She checked a watch. ‘Two minutes. Cinder?’

The woman’s voice was sending chills through me. Something about it kept nagging at my memory, but I couldn’t quite match it. If I could just see her face … but in the red light, all I could make out were her eyes as she stood with arms folded, staring at the statue. She was average height and moved with a smooth grace.

‘Trying,’ Cinder muttered. He was holding up his hands, weaving glowing red threads around the statue. I could recognise it as a divining spell of some kind, but a crude one. He wasn’t going to learn anything useful. Cinder must have realised it the same time I did, because he lowered his hands and let the light die. ‘Need a diviner.’

Khazad looked at Cinder angrily. ‘You say something?’

Cinder returned Khazad’s gaze. ‘Said you’d bring Verus. Said you didn’t need any help.’

Khazad showed his teeth in a snarl. I could feel the hate radiating off him, and I made a mental note to make sure I stayed out of Khazad’s way for a while. I was getting the impression he wasn’t the forgive-and-forget type.

‘Cinder,’ the woman said again, and Cinder looked away from Khazad, breaking the stand-off. I couldn’t help but grin. Hey, don’t sell yourself short, guys. You did manage to bring along a diviner, you just can’t see him. Destroying the barrier had triggered an alarm, and Council reinforcements were on the way. I already knew that Khazad’s guess had been accurate. The reinforcements were going to be too late to do me any good.

But the three Dark mages didn’t know that. The woman took a final glance at her watch and shook her head. ‘We’re out of time.’

Reluctantly, Cinder held out his left hand. The woman handed him something the size of a tennis ball, covered in a dark cloth. Cinder turned to the statue and hesitated.

Khazad gave an ugly laugh. ‘Losing your nerve?’

‘Shut up, Khazad,’ The woman’s voice had a snap of authority to it. Khazad fell silent mid-laugh and glowered. The woman’s eyes swept past him and suddenly locked on the corner in which I was hiding.

I caught my breath. Blue eyes stared into mine. In the dim light, I knew that I would be only a shadow in the corner. But if she came forward even a little … I closed my fingers around the glass marble in my pocket.

‘Fine,’ Cinder growled. The woman dragged her eyes away to look at him, and I let out my breath silently. ‘Let’s do this.’

Cinder stepped forward towards the statue, unwrapping the whatever-it-was. His back was to me, and I wanted to find out what he was holding in his hands, but self-preservation made me look into the future instead. Cinder was going to place the thing into the statue’s hand, the statue was going to activate, and—

Oh, crap.

I’d been hoping these three knew what they were doing. Judging by what they were about to set off, it was obvious they didn’t.

As Cinder wove a protection spell around the statue, I knew I didn’t have much time. My current location was about to become very unhealthy. I could try stepping out to give the three Dark mages a warning, but I didn’t even bother checking what the consequences of that would be. Pretty much every future in which I stayed in this room led to me being burnt to a crisp within the next thirty seconds.

It was time to go back to Plan A: run away very quickly.

Cinder finished his spell, placed something in the statue’s hand, then stepped back. With his bulk between me and the statue, I couldn’t see what was happening, and all my attention was going towards calculating at exactly which point I should run. There was a faint white glow from the statue, dim in the red light, then a red flicker. Then the light died away and there was silence.

Khazad spoke into the vacuum. ‘Is that it?’

Never ask questions like that around active magic.

The room brightened with pale light, swallowing the red glow of Cinder’s magic in a white aura. Something large appeared in the room, just above the statue, and right in the middle of the three very surprised Dark mages.

And in the moment’s pause where the three of them were staring open-mouthed at the creature in front of them, I sprinted past and down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me.

I’ve been involved in a good few combats over the course of my life, and pretty much all of them have either started or ended with me running away. There is a reason for this. Mages can inconvenience, immobilise, hurt, injure, stab, slice, burn, bend, fold, spindle and mutilate you in a variety of creative ways, but pretty much all of them require that they know where you are. If you can stay out of sight it’s hard for them to know where you are, and if you can move faster than they can it’s hard for them to keep you in sight. So if you lead a lifestyle that brings you into frequent contact with unfriendly mages, and you have plans for your life that don’t involve getting turned into a small pile of charcoal, it’s a good idea to learn to run fast. To run fast you need training, fitness and, most of all, motivation.

I had three Dark mages and an angry guardian elemental behind me. I had motivation in spades.

As I tore down the stairs, I heard a shout from the woman, followed by a hollow boom and a red-black flash as