I stared after Anne’s retreating back. She didn’t turn to look at me, and I very briefly considered going after her. But that wasn’t what I’d come here to do.
Anne disappeared, leaving me alone. From the look of the futures, I didn’t think she was coming back. I picked up my gun and walked forward.
chapter 12
The control centre under Levistus’s mansion was a wide, one-storey room, filled with desks and chairs. Computer equipment and magical focuses split the desktop space between them. The floor was polished and squeaked under my shoes, a grid of lights shone from above, and the hum of machinery was a steady noise in the background.
The room was empty, but it didn’t feel deserted. Someone had been here only minutes ago. I had the feeling I knew who.
The MP7 was back in my hands, the dispel focus back in my pocket. I channelled a steady thread of power into the focus, letting it recharge as I strode down between the desks. Banks of security monitors displayed CCTV images of the mansion, the swimming pool, the gate room. A projection focus sat dark and inactive, but I could sense a fading charge. A moment’s study told me that it had been set to view the entrance hall in the basement. Someone had stood here watching the battle. I could almost smell Levistus’s scent, trace his footprints.
A space magic signature at the back of the room caught my attention. I moved closer.
There was a freestanding gate against the back wall, a dark wood arch seven feet tall carved in intricate patterns. Like the projection focus, it held a fading magical residue. It had been deactivated, but it was locked, not burned out. A quick search revealed a password and a small override focus hidden in the wall. I said the password, touched the focus, and felt the gate stir to life. I’d only need to channel a little energy and I could step through. It would lead me into . . .
I frowned. A ruin? Why would Levistus have a permanent gate to an empty ruin?
I focused with my magesight, checking futures. As I studied the lines of the gate spell, I noticed inconsistencies. This wasn’t the destination that the gate had been originally set to. It had been altered recently, and the changes concealed. A misdirection.
There was no way to tell where the gate had originally led, but the gate focus had been used for a very long time to go to the same place over and over again, and the focus “remembered” that destination, just as a book will fall open to a frequently read page. I reached out with the fateweaver to see if there was any chance that the gate would slip back to its original target. There was, but it was a very, very small chance.
A moment’s work with the fateweaver and it was a one hundred percent chance. I touched the gate and channelled. Energy flowed; the lines of the spell shifted, and the archway darkened into a masked portal.
I knew as soon as I stepped through that I’d found Levistus’s shadow realm.
Columns of crystal and frosted glass spiralled to a pale blue ceiling, circular walls framing a large rounded room. Pedestals and standing shelves held magic items of all kinds, radiating dozens of overlapping magical auras. The shadow realm felt small, probably reaching barely further than the walls of the room.
Levistus was bent over a desk, concentrating on something. As I stepped through he whirled, with an expression as close to shock as I’d ever seen on his face.
It had been six years since I first met Levistus, and he’d changed very little. Thinning white hair, odd colourless eyes set in a face smoothed to stillness. “You!” he said. “How did . . . ?”
“Your gate protections aren’t as good as you think,” I told him.
Levistus’s expression calmed, returning to the masklike, impassive look that I remembered from all those Council meetings. “So I see,” he said. “I take it Caldera is dead?”
“Do you care?”
“I had imagined you might.”
I began walking, circling Levistus. He turned to face me as I moved. “You know, I was expecting you to be there for the big fight,” I told him. “Not that I’m complaining. If I’d had to deal with you throwing mental attacks at the same time as I fought that mantis golem, I might actually have been in trouble.”
“A leader’s role is to direct, not fight in the trenches,” Levistus said. “A lesson your time on the Council apparently failed to teach you.”
“Well, when it comes to staying off the front lines, you’re certainly the expert. And you’re right. Maybe if I’d spent less time leading raids and more time building up political power, the way you did, I wouldn’t be here now. But then again, leading from the front teaches you things. Like how to win a battle.”
“Win?” Levistus said. “You believe you’ve won?”
I’d circled half the room, passing focuses and weapons and scrying items. I’d drifted closer as I moved: I’d started maybe fifty feet away from Levistus, and now the distance was down to more like forty. “Not yet.”
Levistus didn’t answer.
“I assume you know why I’m here.”
“Yes, Verus, I know precisely why you are here,” Levistus said. “Once a Dark mage, always a Dark mage. Crude, destructive, and ultimately predictable.”
“Yeah, that was what you thought back when you picked me to be your disposable diviner to get the fateweaver for you,” I said. “Has it ever occurred to you that the whole reason I was drawn into Council politics was because of you? If you hadn’t spent so long trying to destroy me, I wouldn’t have become the person I am right now. It’s funny, but in a way, you kind of created me.”
“I had no part in creating you,” Levistus said sharply. “Your path was set by your master a long time ago.”
I gave a slight smile. “Touched a nerve? I hope so, Levistus, because I really want to make sure you understand just how much of this is your own fault. Don’t get me wrong: the fact that I’m going to kill you in a few minutes is one hundred percent my decision, but you had so many chances to stop this. Back when we first met in Canary Wharf, do you have any idea just how little I cared about Light politics? Yes, I didn’t like the Council, but I really didn’t give two shits about who was on the Council. You were the one who changed that. First you tried to use me to steal the fateweaver, then you tried to have me assassinated when I got involved with Belthas, then you pointed the Nightstalkers in my direction the year after . . . I don’t think a year’s gone by when you haven’t tried to murder me or someone I care about. You know the worst thing? How pointless it all was. At any time, all you had to do was walk away. You could have stopped it after that failed death sentence; you could have stopped it after I was raised to the Council. Even right up until this week, I was still willing to call a truce. But you just couldn’t let it go.”