“I . . . suppose they do.”
“You hid all those people very well,” I said conversationally. “You’ll have to tell me how you did it sometime. I’m guessing a combination of illusion and divination. Divination to lay a false future, and illusion to conceal them every other way. Illusionists can do a lot, can’t they? They can make a subject invisible, hide the sounds they make, even conceal them from exotic senses like thermographic imaging or lifesight. But no matter how good they are, they can’t hide the amount of time it takes to send that many people through a gate.”
“You’re being paranoid, Verus,” Talisid said. But his voice had changed.
“Am I?” I said, and made an educated guess. “Then what was that signal you made just now?”
There was a second’s pause.
Then dozens of magical signatures lit up from the room I’d just left. Elemental magic, air and earth and fire with the signature of utility spells, space and time magic flashes, barriers and protections, wards spreading outwards. The Council had taken the bait in jaws of steel.
A dozen voices spoke at the same time through the communicator. “—spread out, spread—”
“Alpha team, perimeter!”
“Wards up NOW, I want wards—”
“Clear, cle—!”
The light on the focus winked out and the voices cut off.
I was already working on my gate, using the dreamstone to weave the fabric of Elsewhere to join the deep shadow realm back to Hyperborea. The Council’s search ring was expanding fast, but I’d known what was coming and they hadn’t. The gate opened, and I stepped through into Hyperborea.
The hiss of Hyperborea’s desert wind was very loud after the silence of the deep shadow realm. I took out my phone and checked the time. Excluding sync time, I’d been in there with the Council team for . . . call it four and a half minutes. Out here, it had been about five and a half hours.
It wouldn’t take Talisid’s team long to figure out that I was gone. But not long was going to have a very different meaning for them than for me.
Movement in the futures caught my attention and I slipped my phone back into my pocket. Time to deal with the rearguard.
Shapes emerged out of the desert haze, two, five, a dozen. There was a large Council security force in full battle gear, wearing body armour and holding submachine guns. The guns rose up to point in my direction as I came into view and didn’t come down. Two unarmoured figures walked at the centre of the squad: mages. There was a man, tall and middle-aged, and a stocky woman with a mouth full of chewing gum. They slowed as they saw me.
“Avenor,” I said. “Saffron.” I kept my tone courteous. If there’s a good chance you’re going to have to kill someone, you should at least be polite about it.
Avenor and Saffron halted, their eyes shifting from me to behind me. They looked on edge, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. They would have heard Talisid’s team go in, then settled down to wait, expecting to be here for no more than ten or twenty minutes. Instead they’d been left alone for over five hours.
“Mage Verus,” Avenor said cautiously.
I looked at the security men. “Sergeant Little,” I said. “It’s been a while. Nowy, Peterson, good to see you as well.”
The men watched me warily. They didn’t lower their guns, but from looking at the futures, I could tell they weren’t about to fire. I’d spent a long time leading combat missions as a Junior Councilman. Half of these men knew me personally, and the other half by reputation. From their body language and the shape of the futures, I knew they really didn’t want to get into a fight.
“Where’s Talisid?” Avenor said.
I raised my eyes. “Did you lose contact? Your communicator stopped working as soon as that gate closed behind him, maybe?”
Avenor watched me closely.
“Awkward,” I said. “Well, it’s been nice to catch up, but I’m afraid I have to go.”
“We’d prefer you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Avenor’s voice was hard. “Until your agreement with the Council is concluded, you are still a wanted fugitive under Council law. Attempt to leave and you will be placed under arrest.”
I looked straight at Avenor and spoke softly and clearly. “Talisid’s entire strike force just tried that and failed. You think you’re going to stop me with what you’ve got here?”
Avenor went very still. I felt a couple of soldiers take a step back. Avenor’s eyes flicked past my shoulder, and I knew what he was thinking. He was hoping that Talisid’s reinforcements would appear, and was starting to realise that they wouldn’t.
Saffron was less hesitant. “You’re under arrest.”
I looked back at her.
Saffron turned to glare at the security men. “Sergeant! Have your troops arrest that man.”
There was a dead silence, broken only by the whine of the wind. Several of the Council security men looked at each other.
“Sergeant!” Saffron shouted. “Little, or whatever your name was!”
Little nodded to her cautiously. “Keeper.”
“I gave you a direct order! Arrest that man!”
“Keeper Saffron,” Little said respectfully. “I feel that in this particular case this would be an inadvisable way to commit my men.”
“I don’t give a shit what you feel!” Saffron turned, addressing the men. “Arrest him now! Shoot him if you have to!”
The security men looked at her, at me, at each other. Then one of them lowered his gun. Two more glanced at him and followed suit. One by one the barrels descended to point down at the sand, until none were aiming at me.
Saffron stared, apparently lost for words.
“What’ll it be, Avenor?” I asked. “By the way, very shortly you’re going to be getting an urgent message from the Council. I’d suggest that you and your security team would be much better served by responding to that message than by getting yourselves killed in an attack on me. But it’s your call.”
Avenor looked from side to side. None of the men met his eyes, and the last futures in which he tried an attack faded away. He looked back at me, face hard. “This isn’t over.”
I let Avenor have the last word. With a nod to him and Saffron, I walked past. Both mages and the security men watched as I walked through the crowd, out through the other side, and disappeared into the desert haze. No one tried to stop me.
* * *