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Finally, there are the time constraints. We couldn’t stay there much longer, because that would give the other wonderists time to set spell-traps around us.
All that added up to two choices. We could die quickly, or die slowly.
The solution to most thorny dilemmas, I have discovered after years of experiment, is to introduce a little chaos into the equation. This was the essence of my plan.
Picture this: Corrigan conjures up a particularly nasty Tempestoral bolt, but instead of firing it through the hull, he blasts a hole up through the four decks above us. True, this exposes us to the enemy, but it also provides us with a new means of escape. More importantly, it freaks out the guests and their well-armed retainers, who will inevitably start running around slashing at everything in sight in a bid to show they are protecting their paymasters. Meanwhile, Aradeus uses his Totemic affinity with every rat on the ship (oh, please– don’t bother telling me how cleanyourpleasure barge is; there arealwaysrodents) to start biting every ankle they can find, which will result in more chaos, and more people drawing weapons without being entirely sure who to attack.
I couldn’t risk asking Galass to fight, not just because blood magic has a bad habit of backfiring on the wielder’s comrades, but also because I’d decided that since I’d failed to save Fidick, I would at least keep her sane until I could rid her of that lousy mystical attunement. That didn’t mean she wasn’t crucial to my plan, mind.
No matter how skilfully we distracted the enemy, everything would fall apart if we couldn’t keep the angelic stable long enough for us to get her off the barge. Galass had shown herself to possess two qualities rarely found in one person: she was calm under pressure, and she had bucketloads of empathy– well, other than the time she exsanguinated that squad of Ascendant Lucien’s soldiers. Regardless, she had the best chance of helping the angelic through the maelstrom of homicidal desires that would be bombarding her as we moved up through the decks.
You’re still wondering about the jackal? Just a mutt. Sorry.
And in this ingenious plan, I would be the most important element, because the real danger was still the six wonderists and two justiciars who’d be working together to capture us. Our odds of defeating all of them were nil, but even that wasn’t the real problem, because our chances of fighting off just the two justiciars alone was also nil.
But I had a cunning plan. . .
Infernal magic is a despicable cesspool of manipulation and corruption. It’s all about giving a middle finger to the natural order of things. Engraved into my chest, just above my third rib on the left, were a pair of sigils for casting what are called reckless abandons. Normally, these wouldn’t have much effect on trained wonderists, and they’d do nothing at all against the disciplined minds of Glorian Justiciars. But combined with all that other chaos we were going to set off– the fire and lightning, frantic crew, panicking guests screaming at equally shouty well-armedretainers to get them out of this mess, not to mention the rats– those wonderists would be so confused about what was going on they’d be far more focused on protecting their own skins than hunting us down.
That still left us with our most intractable problem. Dignity and Fidelity were more than enough to defeat us, and now that they’d apparently got permission from On High to break whatever agreement they had with the prince, there would be nothing holding them back from obliterating everything in their way between the angelic and me.
Those reckless abandon spells, when cast on an unprepared mind, induce a state not unlike drunkenness– well, that’s assuming that while drunk you also happen to have an almost irresistible desire to blow shit up. The affected wonderists would start firing off every spell they knew, all the while giggling like idiots and probably prancing around with their underpants around their ankles. Yes, Iamsaying that Corrigan’s natural state iseerily similar to that of a drunken lunatic.
Fidelity and Dignity might be more powerful than all the other wonderists combined, but even they would be kept off-balance with all those esoteric fireworks going off at once, which should give us time to escape from what any reasonable person would have to agree was an otherwise impossible trap.
Ta-dah!
Now, maybe you’re thinking my plan was too cavalier to succeed, but let me assure you, as someone who’s had to pull off many such daring escapes in less than ideal circumstances, this one would have come off flawlessly, had it not been for one tiny problem.
‘The damned recruitment spell,’ I said aloud.
Corrigan, Galass, Aradeus and the angelic stared at me, possibly wondering why I was mumbling to myself while the thumping and thudding of hectic activity on the deck above us were getting considerably louder and more energetic. I reached out to touch the wall behind me and felt the unsettling tingle of various Totemic, sonoral and even luxoral spell-traps being set for us. That last one, well, who gives a shit, but the others might cause us real trouble. But what made my stomach really sink was the buzzing in my ears of two Glorian Justiciars issuing orders to the six wonderists now under their total and absolute control.
Thatwas what was screwing up my ingenious plan.
Had the major domo refused to give up the prince’s pet wonderists, my reckless abandon spells would have had a stellar chance. But once granted authority, Dignity would have placed the wonderists under an Auroral recruitment,a binding so powerful that for the next six hours their every action would be governed by his will alone, making any Infernal manipulations on my part utterly irrelevant. The wonderists and justiciars would work together with the efficiency of a well-schooled military squad, methodically and efficiently slaughtering Corrigan and Aradeus first, then they’d take me, Galass and the angelic prisoner for far worse punishments to come.
And Mister Bones would get it, too.
I felt the strangest sensation come over me. It wasn’t despair or anger, or even some wonderist’s spell messing with my mind. It was sadness.
I could admit to myself that part of me had been craving a confrontation with the justiciars– a fair fight, or as near to it as someone like me would ever get. Maybe I’d always hoped that when my time came, I’d go out in a blaze of ingloriousness, free from my own past, fighting alongside trusted friends.
‘Cade, you’ve got thirty seconds to figure out a way to get us out of here before I turn you over to the justiciars,’ Corrigan informed me.
My unease went deeper than that, though. There was a sense of betrayal burning a hole in my gut. The angelic had been right about me. I had always taken a perverse comfort in the idea that I was a failure who’d never lived up to the standards demanded by the Aurorals. For all that I mocked the Lords Celestine and their many hypocrisies, I’d still hoped the Auroral Song was truly as pure and perfect as they claimed, and it was me who had failed.
Except now those same pure and perfect Lords Celestine were selling angelics to petty local princes to use as pleasure slaves. They’d chosen a madman like Ascendant Lucien over rulers just as devout but considerably less power-hungry and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, Tenebris was discreetly offering every wonderist on the continent the same job up north he’d offered me.
Never before had Aurorals and Infernals so explicitly interfered in human affairs; their ‘Great Crusade’ against each other had been a war over souls, not territory.
‘Someone’s changed the game,’ I said out loud.
Galass and Aradeus stared at me as if perhaps I’d lost my mind, but Corrigan, for all that he’s an insensitive lout, has always been far cannier than most people credit him. He got it: the angelic’s enslavement was only the latest in a series of moves by the Lords Celestine that made absolutely no sense.
‘None of this “War of the Demesnes” shit has ever been our business,’ he reminded me. ‘Why should it be now?’
I glanced back at the angelic sitting on the bed, stroking Mister Bones. Apparently they’d come to an uneasy peace, for he was still snarling, even as he tilted his head so she could scratch behind his ear more effectively. With the desires of the other passengers still held at bay by my earlier workings, she looked rathercuriousabout the little jackal– and about everything and everyone around her.
