Hour of Need tlom-6 Read online

  Hour of Need

  ( The laws of Magic - 6 )

  Michael Pryor

  Hour of Need

  Michael Pryor

  1

  ‘You’re the one who betrayed us! I always knew it was you!’

  Aubrey Fitzwilliam flinched as the accusation echoed on the rock walls of the cave that had been their home for almost a month. Slowly, he put aside the spellcraft notebook and climbed to his feet, trying not to startle the wild-eyed Holmlander. A restraining spell was on his lips but he was unwilling to use magic unless he had to, not with the magic detectors around Dr Tremaine’s estate below.

  ‘Traitor!’ von Stralick snarled at him. ‘You, and the rest of them! Everywhere!’

  Softly: ‘I’m not a traitor, Hugo.’

  ‘Liar.’ Fists clenched, Hugo von Stralick, the ex-Holmland spy, advanced. ‘We have photographs.’

  ‘Put the stone down, Hugo. You’re sick.’

  ‘Hah! Sick, am I?’

  A grunt, then the stone thumped into the wall not far from Aubrey’s head. He sighed. Von Stralick may have been sick, but enough was enough. Aubrey lunged and caught him around the waist. A feeble blow or two landed on Aubrey’s back, then von Stralick faltered, groaning. His knees buckled and Aubrey had to move quickly to avoid falling on top of him.

  ‘Traitor,’ von Stralick murmured as he lay stretched out on the rocky floor. His eyes fluttered, then closed. His face was a disturbing chalky-white. He was shivering, too, and when Aubrey touched his forehead he was dismayed at how hot it was.

  Alarmed, he dragged von Stralick back to the pile of tree branches that was his bed and arranged him as comfortably as he could. Von Stralick’s lips moved, a meaningless stream of half-words and names, as if he were alternately reading from a street directory and a poorly compiled dictionary. What had begun as a simple cold, a few days after they’d found the cave in the crag, had worsened gradually until the Holmlander had collapsed while working on their sketch maps of Tremaine’s estate. In the days since then, Aubrey had been dividing his time between tending him, finding food and water, and working on the spells that could win the war, all in isolation.

  Aubrey had thought von Stralick had been getting better, but it had obviously been wishful thinking. The fever and the delirium hadn’t broken. Aubrey was now worried that the ex-Holmland spy was going to die.

  Aubrey lifted von Stralick’s head and held up the canteen. Water dribbled out of his mouth, but Aubrey thought he swallowed a little. He sighed at the prospect of the water wasted, knowing he’d have to collect more, spending hours holding the canteen to the rock crevices to catch the remnants of the frequent rain that swept across the heights. When he was so close to finalising the construction of his spells, he hated losing time like that.

  The weather had been trying. In this northern part of Holmland, summer had hurried off the stage and autumn had well and truly taken its place. The nights had become decidedly chilly, the rain more frequent, the days noticeably shorter. None of this had helped von Stralick’s condition.

  Aubrey studied von Stralick’s face. The spy’s teeth were bared as he shivered, and Aubrey decided he had no choice but to risk a gentle heat spell.

  He’d been avoiding magic. With Dr Tremaine so close, Aubrey hadn’t wanted to do anything that could alert the rogue sorcerer to their presence, not before he was ready to implement the spells he’d spent so much time over. With von Stralick this ill, however, he had little choice.

  He composed himself and reworked a basic Thermal Magic spell, adjusting the parameters for location and dimension to encompass von Stralick’s wasted frame. Aubrey tugged his filthy jacket around him as he took care with the intensity variable, to provide a gentle warmth rather than a roasting heat.

  Von Stralick’s shivering faded as the spell began to work.

  Aubrey nodded and ran a hand through his hair – hair that had long forgotten its military cut and was starting to resemble the pelt of one of the more disreputable forest animals, the sort that skulk about around the roots of trees waiting for something to die and fall from the branches. He was glad that the only human being in close proximity was insensible, for he was sure he smelled dreadful. If he looked anything like von Stralick’s red-eyed, grimy, dishevelled appearance, he was ready to apply for a position as understudy to the Wild Man of Borneo.

  Aubrey monitored the heat spell, and was relieved. Von Stralick had settled. Aubrey chewed his lip for a moment, then touched the Holmlander’s forehead. It was much cooler, and he allowed himself to hope that some sort of crisis had passed.

  He picked up his spellcraft notebook from where it had accidentally been kicked during the struggle. His pencil was worn to a stub, but the break from his magic preparation had been useful in refreshing his perspective. When he studied the intricate spell formulation he’d been working on, he realised that it was nearly finished.

  What had begun as a mission to find Dr Tremaine’s estate and to confront the rogue sorcerer had suffered a major setback with von Stralick’s illness. After the Holmlander collapsed with fever, Aubrey had no choice but to nurse his companion. As his condition worsened, Aubrey had much time on his hands – but using this rare gift, he had formulated a daring move that could end the war with a single stroke.

  2

  The Crag that overlooked Dr .Tremaine’s retreat was high in the Alemmani Mountains. It caught the wind, no matter from what direction it came, and it constantly reminded Aubrey that this part of Holmland was the natural home of ice and snow – and probably bears and wolves. ‘Forbidding’ was the kindest thing that could be said about it, but its dramatic outlook probably appealed to the rogue sorcerer. That, and the relative isolation.

  After leaving Stalsfrieden, their three-hundred-mile cross-country scramble had taken Aubrey and von Stralick more than a fortnight. They’d become expert in avoiding Holmland troops, but Aubrey had come to understand that ‘living off the land’ sounded altogether grander than the reality, which was actually a constant scrounging for food and water. Occasionally, while pawing at the leaf mould in the darkness of woods, he’d wished he’d studied mycology instead of magic, just so he could have known the difference between the edible mushrooms and the attractive ones that end up driving people mad. Unwilling to court such a fate, he had to forgo mushrooms as a possible dietary addition.

  On their journey, four days after leaving the ruins of Baron von Grolman’s golem-making factory, it had been von Stralick who had insisted on finding some news. While Aubrey hid in what proved to be a mosquito-infested bog, von Stralick, after doing his best to improve his bedraggled appearance, strolled into the reasonably sized town of Pagen and bought a newspaper.

  Aubrey had been sickened by the triumphant headlines that crowed over his father’s disgrace. More correctly, of course, it was Aubrey’s disgrace: ‘the traitor son of Albion’. He took some solace in that it confirmed that Caroline and George had arrived home safely, because Sir Darius had implemented Aubrey’s plan: he had denounced his own son before the Holmlanders could publish their photographs. Aubrey was now, officially, the blackest of black villains in Albion. He was the son of privilege who had turned his back on everything the nation had done for him.

  When Aubrey stared at the headlines, he could almost hear the cries for his blood, the press running riot; he only hoped that his father’s pre-emptive action meant that he could stand firm, positioning himself as the wronged father of an ungrateful son, and that the public would feel sorry for him.

  Aubrey wasn’t confident, however, that this would mean that he would be treated as a hero in Holmland. Traitors rarely were. If he dared to make himself public, a cell was no doubt waiting for him somewhere secret and unofficial, and a m
essy, undignified fate would soon be his.

  Or something even more dire, he thought, judging from what he’d glimpsed of the activities of Dr Tremaine’s retreat in the weeks since they’d arrived at their destination.

  Dr Tremaine’s stronghold was a local landmark. From its position right on the edge of an impressive granite cliff, it had a view over the mountains and the woods that surrounded it, then the open expanses of farmland. The city of Bardenford was perhaps twenty miles away, clearly seen by day or by night. The retreat wasn’t cut off, however. A tarmac road had been rammed through the forest, switching backward and forward up the face of the mountain until it arrived at the gatehouse. The road was wide enough for supply lorries and comfortable enough for town cars.

  Over the time of Aubrey’s enforced vigil, Dr Tremaine had come and gone, sometimes several times in one day, mostly driving himself in a bright red, open-topped roadster. Aubrey had come to recognise the scream of the motor as it hurtled along the road in a way no other driver dared.

  When Dr Tremaine was present, prominent Holmlanders often visited. As well as the Chancellor, many uniformed figures were brought to the door, the amount of brass and the number of medals on their chests signalling that these men were important and probably bullet-proof, thanks to the amount of metal they wore.

  After several of these meetings, Dr Tremaine had leaped into his motorcar and shot down the road, and Aubrey had been wracked with frustration. Had Dr Tremaine some afterthought that couldn’t wait? Was he going somewhere else with news of what he’d just learned? Or was he looking for a rendezvous with one or more of the Holmlanders, a roadside meeting that they might not welcome?

  Aubrey wondered if the man slept at all. He was a whirlwind, a force of nature in his machinations to turn the formidable estate into a base and a site for magical operations of an as-yet-unspecified nature. The tell-tale wafts of magic that prickled Aubrey’s magical senses had been alternately tantalising, puzzling and extremely, extremely worrying.

  Within the walls of the estate were a number of buildings. From the thick cables and the unceasing whine, one clearly housed an electrical generator. Another sported a tall chimney and could be a foundry or furnace of some kind.

  The purpose of the scattering of other structures – clearly newer than the main house, and perhaps temporary – was uncertain, but Aubrey wouldn’t have minded wagering that at least one was a laboratory. The others? Living quarters, perhaps? Workshops? Prisons?

  Cut off as they were, the lack of information frustrated Aubrey. He was desperate to know what was going on. What about the siege of Divodorum? What about the progress of the wider war? And what about his friends?

  He worried about Caroline and the way she’d farewelled him after the Stalsfrieden mission. He examined the incident from a dozen different points of view, a hundred different points of view. He probed it, dissected it, weighed and analysed it. Then he abandoned any effort at a scientific approach and he began to alternate between wild optimism and unutterable pessimism, both states being totally resistant to evidence. With little effort, he was able to construe Caroline’s action as pity, as irritation, even as forgetfulness, before he veered around and started thinking it might have been a sign of actual affection. This being the conclusion he hoped for most, it was naturally the one he was quickest to discount.

  Long ago he’d accepted that his mission – his personal mission to win Caroline – had gone by the board. Matters of the heart were out of his hands, overtaken by matters military and political. Out of my hands? He nearly laughed. As if matters of the heart had ever been in his hands.

  He had to derive satisfaction from properly undertaking his intelligence gathering task, and he took some grim pleasure when he saw something that indicated the level of success of his sabotage at Baron von Grolman’s factory.

  This noteworthy observation had occurred a week ago, when a lorry had made a canvas-shrouded delivery. When it unloaded, Aubrey had been instantly on his feet.

  Three Holmland soldiers were needed to manhandle the ominous metal shape from the back of the lorry. When they stood it upright on a trolley, it towered over them. It took all their effort, but the monstrous golem-machine hybrid was eventually wheeled into one of the temporary buildings to the north of the main house.

  Aubrey had hoped that his efforts to destroy the hideous creations back in Stalsfrieden had been successful. The contagion spell embedded in the enhanced coal that was the vital, energising element in the creatures would infect golem after golem. Besides, if the spell hadn’t been successful, Dr Tremaine would have had hundreds of ghastly mechanised soldiers ready to storm through Allied lines and lead a Holmland assault on Gallia, and he was sure that they would have heard of such a triumph while crossing Holmland.

  But why had a single mechanised golem been brought to Dr Tremaine’s retreat?

  Movement below had caught Aubrey’s eye and when he had the binoculars focused again, Dr Tremaine was entering the building where the mechanised golem had been taken.

  A tense hour later, Dr Tremaine burst out of the back doors of the building, his arms full of metalwork. He shouldered through one of the gates at the rear of the estate. He strode to the edge of the cliff and, with one disgusted motion, flung the metal wide. The pieces fell in a glittering arc, but Aubrey had time to see a boxlike head and what was unmistakably a compact chimney.

  Since leaving Caroline and George, Aubrey had had few moments of pleasure, but he smiled as he noted Tremaine’s actions in a notebook – adding to the pages and pages of observations, all in fine, approved Directorate form.

  The most alarming development he’d seen, however, had been the magicians who had been brought to the stronghold. Aubrey had found it hard to believe the number of well-known experts who’d been bundled into the outbuildings, though it did explain the disappearances of prominent magical people over the previous few months. He’d recognised Maud Connolly, Parvo Ahonen, Charles Beecher and a score or more prominent theoreticians and scholars. None of them showed any delight at being there, unless manacles and gags had suddenly become signs of honour rather than devices of restraint.

  This influx of magical practitioners and theoreticians was disturbing, especially when Aubrey added Professor Mansfield and Lanka Ravi to their numbers. At Baron von Grolman’s factory, Dr Tremaine had mentioned that he had these two luminaries in his keeping, which suggested that he was assembling a formidable array of magical talent, but to what end?

  One of the first magical theoreticians to arrive at the complex had been Professor Bromhead, Trismegistus chair of magic at the University of Greythorn for twenty years. A few days after he’d been dragged from a motorcar, the aged savant had appeared in a walled garden to the west of the main house. He’d wandered about, attended by an armed guard. Aubrey hadn’t recognised him at first and he had focused on the lonely figure simply because of a strange device attached to his face. It was a cross between a muzzle, a helmet and a clamp, a metal and wire contraption enveloping the man’s head, but particularly strong around his mouth and jaw. After some careful focusing of the binoculars, Aubrey was finally able to make out who it was and, grimly, he understood that at least part of the function of the device was to stop Professor Bromhead from speaking – and to stop him from casting a spell.

  Each of the savants who arrived – some in the middle of the night – appeared later in the walled garden, guarded and wearing the same cage, confirming their identity as magicians, even the ones who Aubrey didn’t know by sight. They were allowed this exercise time for an hour every second day, but otherwise they were hidden away in the clutch of outbuildings to the north of the sprawling two-storey hunting lodge that was the main house.

  Nothing good could come from Dr Tremaine’s assembling such a battery of magical knowledge. Aubrey could continue to observe, hoping to communicate this intelligence with the Directorate and then wait for orders – or he could contrive a way to stop the most dangerous man in the world tak
ing the next step in his bloody plan.

  With only a few rocks and his wits at his disposal – and with a deathly ill companion to care for – the latter was an unlikely choice, but Aubrey had never resiled from a challenge. He was in a position to intervene, and so he would.

  3

  Late the next morning, lying on his stomach at the entrance of the cave and barely breathing, Aubrey held Dr Tremaine in the sights of the rusty Oberndorf rifle that von Stralick had stolen from a farmhouse on their cross-Holmland scramble. The rogue sorcerer was perfectly positioned, standing on the road outside the gates of his cliff-top retreat. Aubrey swallowed, acutely conscious that all his spellwork and preparation had led to this: he had one chance to remove Dr Tremaine and put an end to his warmongering. A careful, steady squeeze of the trigger and it would all be over.

  A sound came from behind him. Aubrey tensed, then forced himself to relax. Von Stralick was sleeping comfortably since his fever had broken.

  Aubrey waited a moment, but when all was quiet he wiped sweat from his forehead with a finger and looked to re-centre his sights.

  In the long nights tending to von Stralick and thinking about how to end the war, Aubrey had come to understand, with more than a little reluctance and with a great deal of conscience-searching, that he had to put aside the misgivings he had about firearms. It was the best method he had – the only method he had – to do what was needed.

  It was time to shoot Dr Tremaine with a very special projectile.

  A standard bullet wasn’t going to stop the rogue sorcerer; Aubrey had seen him walk away after being shot at close range. Something extraordinary was called for and Aubrey had devoted himself to it.

  Trapped in the cave and tending to the dangerously ill von Stralick, Aubrey had brought together all his thinking about magic, all of the reading, experimenting and theorising, to construct the complex array of spells which had replaced the bullet in the sole cartridge they had. This magic was some of the most intricate that he’d ever attempted, merging elements from a number of wildly different spells he’d worked with in the past. Hour after hour, in between tending von Stralick, he’d taken apart compression spells, intensification spells, amplification spells, spells that juggled aspects of Familiarity, Entanglement, Attraction, combining them and recombining them, splicing, reworking until he was able to construct a spell-ridden object smaller than his fingernail, but as deadly as anything he’d ever created.