The Silicon Mage Page 4

  The farmer who had given her a ride had introduced her to a friend of his in the next village, with instructions to take her on to a mutual acquaintance, a trusted Old Believer merchant in Sug’s Beck, the nearest large town. Neither would even listen to her offers of payment, but she had left a sapphire with the merchant, who, like most of his faith, turned a few crowns in whatever he could, telling him to give them both whatever credit the jewel would buy. The merchant, an elderly man in the long black robes and elaborately braided hair of his people, had bought other jewels from her to give her money for the journey and had thrown in gratis a hot meal—care of his wife—a cloak, since by then the rains had begun, and a new dress, “Because a nice girl like you needs more than one dress.”

  The journey itself was exhausting and uncomfortable beyond belief. Joanna spent the first three days in a stupor of exhaustion and afterward alternated between almost unbearable anxiety over how long it was taking, the gnawing awareness that if Antryg were dead or if she couldn’t manage his escape there was no way out of this world for her, and the unspeakable tedium of her fellow-passengers’ conversation. The Council could change their vote and execute Antryg at any time, if they hadn’t done “so weeks ago while she was still raiding the DARKMAGE files from the San Serano computer.

  Altogether, Joanna was heartily glad when the huge, unwieldy coach pulled into the yard of the Horn of the Hunter on the southern outskirts of Angelshand, and she stumbled—cramped, weary, and, she suspected, lousy—out of it for the last time into the raw, misty gloom of the early afternoon.

  “Call you a hack, ma’am?” one of the porters inquired, and Joanna nodded, though the thought of getting into another horse-drawn conveyance affected her with an almost physical nausea. As the cab rattled north through first the suburbs, then the outlying slums and factory districts of the capital of the Empire of Ferryth, Joanna felt again the quickening of her heart and the hard twist of anxiety in her belly as she recognized landmark after landmark in that dark granite city. Buildings the color of iron loomed above the sheet-steel of the river against a sky dark with autumn and factory soot. Above the jammed higgledy-piggledy of rotting half-timbered gambrels on Angel’s Island she caught a glimpse of the towers of the St. Cyr fortress, where the Bishop of Angelshand presided over the Inquisition and its Witchfinders. Even in this raw weather the streets teemed with beggars in rags, servants in a rainbow of livery, and swaggering sasenna in their black uniforms and razor-bright swords. Scarf-sellers, whores, and match and noodle vendors rubbed elbows with bourgeois ladies out for walks with their companions, clerks hurrying to their countinghouses, crossing-sweepers busily clearing horse dung out of the way for a copper, chimney sweeps, pickpockets, constables in red and blue uniforms, and butchers’ boys driving their quick-footed ponies and trailed by gangs of yapping pariah dogs. From the packed bridge that joined Angel’s Island with the wealthier precincts north of the river, Joanna glanced downstream to the harbor, where masts rose like a fire-stripped forest and the faint cries of the stevedores unloading all the wealth of the Empire mingled with the melancholy mewing of the gulls. Swirling below against the arches of the bridge, the river stank like the sewer it was.

  The cabman had known the house she’d asked for—a fortunate circumstance, since Joanna couldn’t remember the name of the square. By the time she climbed down and paid off the jarvey, the tightness in her chest had become almost unbearable; the fear that had slept in her all these last nine dreary days swelled again to smother her, the fear of being done with one stage and having to start on the next.

  It was Joanna’s nature to think in subroutines. It was, she supposed, the only thing which had permitted her to undertake her current impossible task. She had obtained as much of Suraklin’s files, Suraklin’s knowledge and personality, as she would be able to; she had prepared herself for the expedition—with the omission of a warm jacket, a hat, and a groundcloth, she reminded herself; she had made it this far. Over the course of the last nine interminable days she had tortured herself, like the victim of a Sunday-afternoon toothache, prodding at the pain and waiting for the dentist’s office to open on Monday, by wondering, What if he’s gone? What if he was arrested? What if he won’t help me...? Until she was almost ill with apprehension.

  But the narrow, disdainful townhouse in its fashionable setting was unchanged as she crossed the broad rectangle of autumn-brown grass in the center of Governor’s Square. Five or six carriages, their teams thickly blanketed and puffing steam from their nostrils like dragons in idle, stood near the curb. The coachmen, both male and female, had gotten up a coal fire in a brazier on one corner and were huddled around it, warming their hands and talking shop. Her heart pounding, Joanna hitched her overstuffed backpack up over one shoulder and climbed the marble steps of the one house in this world in which she hoped for refuge while she made her plans.

  An extremely gorgeous young footman in fuchsia livery answered her knock, and looked down his beautiful nose at her when she admitted, blushing, that she didn’t have a card to lay upon his little silver tray. Add calling cards, she thought irrelevantly, to the list for next time. “I’m afraid I haven’t any with me,” she said meekly, wishing she had had access to a hot bath and a dress that hadn’t been worn for six or seven consecutive days in a crowded coach. The young footman’s expression of disbelief deepened; Joanna found herself picturing what the Prince Regent would say about him, and immediately felt better. “If you’ll tell Magister Magus that Joanna Sheraton is here, I think he’ll want to see me.”

  The young man looked as if he did not see how this could be possible, but only said, “Very well, Miss. Walk this way,” an unconscious Marx Brothers straight line which made Joanna want to giggle. It was odd, she thought, following him up the oval curve of the open stairway, how fleeing for her life from the abomination in the darkness had seemed less anxiety-producing than facing another person and asking for help.

  And he has to help me, she thought blindly. I have to start somewhere...

  Magister Magus’ drawing room was, as usual, crowded with overdressed ladies with high-piled hair, an ocean of jacquard petticoats, lace sleeve flounces, and jewelry that reduced Joanna’s paltry hoard to bargain-basement gleanings. Most of their maids were better dressed than Joanna, and all of them looked down their rice-powdered noses at her travel-stained blue dress and the limp cloak that the footman took away. One elegant young matron who couldn’t have been more than eighteen nudged her neighbor and nodded toward Joanna with a remark concealed behind a painted chicken-skin fan. The others, after a cursory glance, simply ignored her.

  After nine days of stagecoach gossip and the endless accounts of her fellow passengers’ illnesses and child-births, Joanna was just as glad.

  She was human enough to be thoroughly gratified, however, when a second footman opened the inner ebony doors of the drawing room, to usher out a solemn-looking lady in her sixties, and said, “Miss Sheraton?”

  Demurely, Joanna got to her feet. As the doors shut behind her she heard a muffled, “Well, really!” The footman lifted a curtain from an arch, and Joanna found herself in a small consulting chamber even more opulently furnished than the lush pink-and-black room outside. Incense burned before a hematite statue of Kahieret, God of the Mages, withdrawn and dark as the velvet that draped its niche, and Magister Magus himself was just rising from his chair of inlaid ebony.

  “My dear child!” He strode to her across the tufted silk of the carpet and caught her hands. “Antryg’s friend the systems designer—your hands are freezing! I can spare but a moment now, my dear, but I’ve ordered tea for you in the dining room...”

  She grinned shakily, relief at being recognized, let alone welcomed, making her throat feel suddenly hot and close. “It’s all right. I can’t have your customers getting in a snit.”

  “Are you hungry?” His eyes were anxious—light, almost white-green, within startling dark rings around the irises; he must have been months tracking down the p
eridots of just that color set among the diamonds of his pectoral cross. In spite of the black velvet robe and all the trappings of a fashionable society charlatan, there was a genuine warmth to him, a caring wholly apart from his professional charm. “My dear child, I’d heard...” He hesitated, seeing the sudden tightness of her expression, and veered from mentioning what she already must know. “Well, I was afraid you’d been hurt as well.”

  She shook her head, furiously fighting the urge to lean on that slender velvet shoulder and cry. It was unexpectedly, achingly good to be with someone who believed her and who would understand.

  She was looking away from the Magus, and in any case her sight was suddenly blurred, but she felt the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder. “Now, my dear,” that fluent, beautiful voice said. “We’ll talk about it after you’ve rested a little and eaten. Are you...?” He hesitated again. Looking up, Joanna saw tact and concern for her struggling in his face with worry for himself and almost laughed in spite of her tears.

  “No, I’m not on the run. Nobody’s after me.” At least, she amended, not the authorities. She decided not to mention Suraklin until Magus was sitting down.

  He made a deprecating noise, as if such considerations were the furthest thing from his mind, but looked relieved.

  Then silence hung between them, silence balanced on the edge of an indrawn breath, like the silence in a lovers’ quarrel in which neither dares speak for fear of the chain of events the next, inevitable utterance must unleash. The swollen hurt of the dread she had carried in her for nearly six weeks was nearly unbearable, but now that she faced the first person whom she could ask, the first person who could tell her, she found the words stuck in her throat.

  And the Magus, looking down into her eyes, wore an expression of such pity and such unhappiness that he must be the one to answer the question which he knew she would ask that she felt her heart and bowels turn to sodden and ruinous ash. He knew what she was going to ask him, she thought, and he knew he’d have to be the one to tell her she had failed before she had begun.

  Her voice was very small. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Magus sighed, not pretending he did not understand of whom they spoke. “I wish it wasn’t me who has to tell you this,” he said gently and took her hand in his, as if the touch of his fingers could somehow lessen what was to come. “No, he isn’t dead, but—his mind is gone. The Inquisition tortured him, you know. I’m not sure what all they did, but when they were done, there wasn’t much left. My child, I’m sorry.”

  Chapter III

  I’M GOING TO HAVE TO DO this all by myself. Joanna stared blankly out into the misty charcoal gloom visible beyond the dining room windows, feeling the weight of terror constricting her chest like an iron band.

  And then, Oh, Antryg, I’m sorry.

  Joanna had never been a believer in sorry. Up until the last moment, when the wizards walked through the patio doors of Gary’s house in Agoura, she could have cut Antryg’s bonds and let him flee into the night.

  She wondered why she had believed that a love as intense as the one she felt for him had to be suspect, that anything she wanted that badly couldn’t be right.

  Weak tears gathered in the inner corners of her eyes and she gritted her teeth against them, thankful for the warmth of the cup of steaming tea cradled in her cold hands.

  “I doubt that either of us would even recognize him anymore,” Magister Magus was saying gently. “They say for days all he did was huddle in a corner and weep, or scream and pound on the walls with his hands.” Joanna shut her eyes, remembering the splints on those twisted fingers. “I’ve heard that these days he has visions and holds long conversations with obscure saints.”

  I betrayed him to that, Joanna thought, her mind numb with fear and grief. I betrayed him and now I have to face Suraklin alone. She didn’t know which was worse.

  It was six in the evening and already quite dark. The Magus’ ladies had all departed to have their hair done up for the evening’s balls and opera visits, and the narrow townhouse was quiet, save for the distant clink of metal and porcelain in the kitchen where dinner was being prepared. A steady drizzle pattered against the window beyond its claret-red velvet drapes, and Joanna felt cold to the bottommost reaches of her soul.

  She realized she had let her silence last too long. Looking around, she saw the Magus regarding her anxiously, kindly concern in his fashionably painted eyes. She swallowed and set her teacup down unsipped, forcing her voice steady. “Who told you that?”

  He shook his head, as if to dispel her forlorn hope it was all rumor. “It’s common knowledge, child. I’ve spoken to Church sasenna and hasu who’ve guarded him. The guard on the Tower has been trebled; since he’s taken to having visions, the Bishop changes them nearly every week. Most of the Church sasenna have taken monks’ vows as well; the visions inspired a certain amount of sympathy and awe, since he describes quite accurately saints of whom he’s obviously never heard.”

  He folded his slender hands, clearly concerned both for his friend and for her. Out of his impressive black velvet robes, he looked like any well-to-do professional of the city in his white shirtsleeves, stockings, dark breeches, and vest. The Prince Regent, Joanna reflected with tired irony, in his sable linen and black-jeweled rings, looked far more like a necromancer than this dapper little faker.

  “Would the Sigil of Darkness do that to him?”

  The Magus thought about it a moment, frowning. “I don’t see how it would,” he said finally. “After all, he was imprisoned under its influence for seven years and it did him no harm.”

  “But then it was just on the doors of the Tower, wasn’t it, and not around his neck?”

  “Around his neck?” The revulsion on his face was almost nausea.

  “On an iron collar,” Joanna said. “They soldered it there, after he had signed his confession, I think because someone on the Council was holding out against voting for his execution.”

  The dog wizard looked away, utterly sickened.

  Hesitantly, she added, “I saw it in a dream...”

  “I don’t wonder that you did. The screaming of his soul at the touch of that thing...” He swung back to look at her. “Do you know what the Sigil of Darkness is, child? What it does?” And, when she only looked blankly at him, he went on, “It is an utterly abominable thing to wizards, utterly abominable. It does more than cripple our power. It is the antithesis of power; it is anti-power, and the greater one’s strength, the greater the—I suppose pain is the closest word, but it isn’t that. It eats power, eats at us through our power. Torturing him these last six weeks would have been more merciful. God help him, no wonder he went mad.” He flinched, pressing his long fingers against his mouth in the frame of its silky little Van Dyke beard, as if he could feel the cold stain of that poison through the secret magic that underlay his flamboyant charlatanry.

  Frostbitten fingers hurt when they were warmed—Joanna recognized the stabbing ache somewhere in her chest as being of the same order, the pain of hope flaring in the ash. “Then if the Sigil were removed...”

  Pity in his thin face, the Magus took her hands. “Child, it’s hopeless. You would only destroy yourself. Antryg is my friend. Since I wasn’t blind when you were here with him, I know you love him...”

  “It isn’t that,” Joanna said stubbornly. “My—love for him—has nothing to do with this, nor the fact that I put him where he is now, that I was the one who drugged him and gave him to the Council...”

  Magus made a shocked noise.

  “It’s that I have a job to do and I can’t do it without wizard’s help. I can’t do it without Antryg’s help. He’s the only one besides myself who even believes there is a threat, a worldwide threat, in these—these periods of deadness, of draining, of the death of magic and hope. And from everything I’ve heard, he’s for damn sure the only mage who’s capable of taking on Suraklin.”

  She hadn’t meant to speak that name to him so soon. The si
lence that followed it was curiously like that which follows thunder in the night, a hush through which the tiny sounds of the servants in the kitchen, the faint patter of the rain, and the tinkly rattle of a carriage over the wet cobblestones outside seemed clear as music. Magus’ black eyebrows seemed to stand out like smudges of ink against a face gone suddenly very white.

  He said softly, “That’s impossible. Suraklin is dead.”

  “Suraklin’s original body is dead.” Joanna’s grip tightened slightly over the Magus’ fingers as they flinched, as if to keep him from flight at the mere mention of the Dark Mage. “Suraklin’s mind, his knowledge, and his personality have been living in the minds of others, like a self-perpetuating worm-program on a computer disk that lies about its own existence and eventually eats up all the other programs. And now he’s getting ready to download into a computer for real, a computer powered by electricity that will be generated by the life-energies of everyone in the world. The deadness is going to become permanent, Magus. Everyone’s magic will fade, as yours has faded. Suraklin will have it all.”

  She looked across the table at the Magus and saw in his horror-stricken green eyes that, deny it though he might to her, to others, or to himself, he knew she spoke the truth. He whispered, “Then when Antryg was here with you in the fall...”

  “He was looking for Suraklin.”

  The Magus pulled his hands away from her and stared out into the rainy darkness. “Dear God.”

  “And he couldn’t confide in you or me or anyone, because he knew that anyone at all might be under Suraklin’s influence.” As Magus might be, Joanna thought, with sudden disgust at herself. Oh, well, too late now. No wonder Antryg came across as a hopeless paranoid. “Magus, I need help.”