I waited, preparing myself. His magic was drained, but I didn’t dare rely on a truth spell. He might just have enough power to subvert it from the inside. It would be easy to control his body, to turn him into a puppet, but a great deal harder to control his mind. The defiant look he gave me suggested he’d had the same thought. He might have protected himself against normal means of interrogation, from spells and potions to simple torture. I’d done something similar myself. If done properly, it was easy to mislead an interrogator. They knew their subject was telling the truth.
My magic blurred into the ground below. Roots burst free, wrapping themselves around his arms and legs. I watched his eyes go wide, an instant before they were hooded again. He thought he could outwait me, that his magic would regenerate - in time - and give him a chance to escape. I shrugged and directed one of the roots to smack him across the head. He sagged. Taking no chances, I brushed a finger against his forehead and cast a sleep spell to make sure he’d stay unconscious. It wouldn’t be easy to use soul magic when he was asleep - it had its dangers - but it was safer than leaving him awake. I didn’t want him fighting me.
His nightmares will provide enough of a challenge, I thought, as I knelt beside his head and glanced up at the night sky. It was just past midnight. I had no idea how long it would be before my opponent was missed, but it wouldn’t be that long before the town started to rise with the sun. This has to work - and work quickly.
I rested my hand on his forehead and began the spell. It had taken me a long time to learn soul magics, even though I’d been told I had a talent for them. It was never quite as simple as it sounded, if only because one had to lower one’s own defences while reading another person’s mind. It didn’t take a powerful magician to shove a mind-reader out. I pushed down, feeling the first flurry of random thoughts and feelings brushing against my mind. I did my best to ignore them. The flickering images meant nothing.
Memories rose in front of me, trying to pull me down. There seemed to be little or no connection between them, as if the unconscious mind was darting from memory to memory without following a chain of mental links. I wondered, just for a moment, if it was a defensive spell, one designed to make it hard for me to pull anything from his mind. The images were so blurred it was hard to see, the mental undertow pulling me further into his thoughts. If he woke while I was inside him ... I’d heard horror stories that suggested it would be an utter disaster. I had to move quickly. His unconscious mind already knew something was wrong.
I saw a memory I recognised - Whitehall - and followed it through a chain of links that took me through a storm of other memories. My opponent - his unconscious mind insisted he was called Chuter - had gone to Whitehall, had studied there ... and had been expelled, after being caught doing something ... his mind shied away from precisely what. I knew it had to have been bad. The Grandmaster hated expulsion and only sanctioned it as the last resort, after scoldings, beatings and punishment details had all failed. What the hell had he done? I didn’t want to know. I’d seen students get away with everything from molesting younger students to attempted murder. One student had even tried to feed his rival to a vampire! What was so terrible the Grandmaster had kicked him out on his ass?
It wasn’t that long ago, I thought. His time at Whitehall was after mine.
The memories grew stronger as I followed the thread. Chuter had gone from place to place, seeking education. He had enough training to be useful ... particularly to someone who was often on the wrong side of the law. His apprenticeship ... I recoiled from the memories, shaking my head in disgust. The master had been thoroughly unpleasant. And yet, Chuter had learnt his lessons well. He’d killed the bastard, stolen everything he could from the shop and fled. Eventually, he’d ended up in Yolanda. He hadn’t been welcome. Someone had remembered him. And then ...
I frowned, inwardly, as his mind struggled not to surrender the next few memories. They came in flashes of insight, wedded to pain. Chuter had been recruited. His master had given him a set of very specific instructions. Kidnap people ... magical and mundane. Take them to a fort, far from the city. Hand them over and claim the reward and ... the memories veered suddenly, boiling with poison. Chuter had been ... I tried not to retch. I’d seen all sorts of horrors, yet there were limits. I gritted my teeth, keeping myself under tight control as I tried to catch a glimpse of the master. Chuter had seen him. He had to have. No magician with half a brain - and Chuter was intelligent, if vile - would have been happy working for a masked man. The risk of simply being left holding the bag was too high.
His mind screamed, then crumbled. I felt his memories shattering as I hurled myself out of his mind and back into my body. The world seemed to blink. I heard a grunt of pain, then nothing. Chuter was a limp bag of bones on the ground. Drool dripped from his mouth and pooled under his chin. I didn’t need to perform any tests to know his mind had been destroyed. He was well past any justice I might choose to mete out.
I swallowed,
