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First and most common is simple enough: someone new takes over. It’s generally a trusted lieutenant (who, half the time, is responsible for murdering their boss in the first place) or a close family member (they account for the other half) who steps up to take command. Mercenary wonderists become especially valuable at times like these, because it’s a lot easier to consolidate power if the rank and file of your troops have a reason not to question the legitimacy of your precipitous rise to power. In those situations, our jobs basically go on as normal– well, other than the customary change-of-boss surcharge added to the bill.
The next possibility is that after the boss dies, the job falls apart. There’s chaos and looting, a few acts of judicious revenge. When that happens, mercenaries like us steal what we can and get out of town before the whole place turns into one hellish blaze of sadistic carnage.
Lastly, there’s the situation where the wonderists are presumed responsible and a posse is put together to capture and kill us. I really don’t blame people for jumping to the conclusion that everything must be our fault. I mean, it’s hard for regular folks to wrap their heads around the various forms of magic or to understand our limits; they generally have no idea what is or isn’t possible. Why wouldn’t they assume that if things went badly, it must have had something to do with us? To protect themselves from our spells, they assemble whatever artefacts they can lay their hands on for such occasions, and basically hunt us down like rabid dogs.
It’s a hazard of the job. No big deal.
This, though? This wasn’t that.
What had happened to Ascendant Lucien was end-times kind of stuff. This was everything that made people fearful and resentful of wonderists all coming together at once. This was ‘whatever our personal disputes – be they who ought to rule the country or who murdered whose children – surely we can all get behind the idea that whatreallymatters is capturing those fuckers and disposing of them in the worst way possible– well, whichever “worst” way is left over after what they did to the Ascendant’.
The response to such reasoned argument would inevitably be, ‘Well, my good man, I despise you and your entire lineage, but damned right, we’ve got to kill those bastards.’
I wouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised if outrage over what had happened to Ascendant Lucien couldn’t bring about world peace, however temporary that state of affairs might be.
I can only blame what came out of my mouth next on the fact that I’d been dangling by my ankle from a tethering spell for rather a long time and the blood had rushed to my head. It’s well known that this has been known to cause any number of cognitive impairments and induce even the most rational of individuals to say things that are patently insane.
‘Let’s not panic,’ I said.
Green, who was looking more and more like the name we’d saddled him with responded to my call for calm by turning the iron-rimmed hourglass a fraction more, advancing events second by second until we saw Lucien’s guards and retainers first rush into his tent and then run back out again, moving twice as fast while screaming at the tops of their lungs.
We all heard them crying, ‘The wonderists have murdered Ascendant Lucien! Seal every exit from the camp! Kill any you find!’
And then came the worst part. ‘Summon the Glorians!’
‘That’s not good,’ Corrigan muttered. He reached out a hand and put it on Green’s, making him turn the hourglass forward a bit more.
There they were, eleven men and women, tall and majestic in shining steel armour, their gold-trimmed white cloaks fluttering elegantly in the night breeze. On each right shoulder was strapped a golden gauntlet, representing the hand of a Lord Celestine guiding them towards the path of virtue and necessity. When it was time to begin the interrogations, torture and executions, the justiciars would put on those gauntlets, so that all would know their verdicts were not personal; they were being administered by the hands of the Celestines themselves.
One of them standing outside the entrance to Lucien’s tent turned around, almost as if he could see us watching him, even though these events must have taken place at least half an hour ago. The blessings granted to the justiciars by their chosen Celestine lends their skin a warm, beneficent glow that could almost make you believe they’re the good guys.
The one who’d turned was about my height, maybe a little broader, thanks to his armour. Dark hair like mine in a military cut made him look almost dashing. His gaze was pure Glorian Justiciar: piercing, commanding and filled with the righteous determination that someone nearby was deserving of punishment.
I could have sworn he was looking right at me.
Chapter 8
Better a Big Betrayal than a Small One
‘It wasn’t me,’ I yelled, not quite sure if I was shouting at the apparition Green had conjured or the assembled company of panicking wonderists, all of whom were pretty sure their cushy lives as war mages for a successful and generous Ascendant had come to an abrupt and very messy end. They were in no doubt whatsoever over the question of who to blame.
‘I had nothing to do with summoning the hellborn!’ I shouted again.
I was feelingextremelygrateful that Tenebris had set the price for the conjuration higher than he knew I could afford– but that, alas, left a nagging question rattling around in my already throbbing skull: which of the other wonderists happily letting me take the blame for this disasterhadmet the price?
Corrigan backhanded me across the face, which somehow hurt worse because I was hanging upside down. When Narghan’s tether spun me back around, Corrigan was holding up three fingers in front of my face. I thought he was about to blast me with some Tempestoral bolt of ouch-my-flesh-is-burning-away that I hadn’t seen him use before, but it turned out he was only using his fingers to count off his assessment of my innocence. ‘First, I don’t care. Second, I don’t believe you, and third, it makes no difference now.’
The others were shuffling about like children needing to pee, muttering to themselves, hands rifling through their own pockets as if maybe they’d find some magnificent spell they’d forgotten that would instantly solve all their problems.
Locke Fandaris had taken off his bandolier of keys, examining each one, no doubt wondering which would get him far enough away not to have to worry about the Glorian Justiciars catching up to him– or whether, perhaps, he should just drop himself in the lava pit he’d originally planned for me.
Lady Smoke was so anxious the murky smog surrounding her had started dissipating like fog burning away beneath a rising sun. This was one of those times when wearing actual clothes would have come in handy to protect her modesty. Not that I looked, of course– I’m a gentleman in that regard.
‘Can we not fight them, Silords?’ Green asked in that way the young and inexperienced do when they have this inkling that perhaps they’re about to deliver their first stirring speech, one assured to launch them into a grand career as a hero. Seeing the reactions of his fellows, he added, much more sensibly, ‘Or maybe we should run away?’
Not even Zyphis laughed at that.
There’s actually no such thing as ‘getting away’ from a court of Glorians. Kill one, and the rest will hunt you down with even greater determination. Justiciars can’t be bought, and they never give up. They’re sometimes called the ‘Twice-Blessed’ on account of the two benedictions granted them by the Celestines: the first makes them immune to non-Auroral forms of magic, so wonderists like us can’t blast them, curse them or so much as give them a nasty itch in their crotches.
