《Maki and the Mysterious Murder》 Part 1: In which Maki discovers a mysterious murder. Maki wormed and zipped through the colourful crowds, squeezing through any space that opened to him, bursting with sudden acceleration and twisting and shaping his body - an octopus of mob navigation. He darted across a road, just avoiding the smoke-farting trundle of a Nommo bus. It was the curse of weekends. Whereas normally the weeks were filled with the orderly ranks of workers on the move, heads down and shirts buttoned to their throats, on the weekends everybody emerged from their homes to meander. Stopping in the middle of the street to gaze myopically at the latest fashions or blocking entire sidewalks with their aimless wandering. As if no one had anywhere to be. Maki had things to do and places to be and it didn¡¯t help that his head was still sore from last night with the Professor. The sun was a blazing nail in his forehead and every noise was a jagged glass worm wriggling behind his eyes. Chiot¨¦ might have been old but that just seemed to mean she absorbed the rum rather than let it intoxicate her, like a dried up piece of driftwood in the rain. He knifed his arm between a tittering couple and before they could wonder what was happening he had wedged his narrow body past them. It helped that he was a clear foot taller than most people in Bal¨¦. The local stock, the Orundi, were characteristically squat and broad, whereas Maki looked as if he had been pinched at both ends and pulled taut. He was more than that, of course. Lean with the gaunt hardness of a runner, which he was. Sharp featured and topped with a storm-cloud of hair, which every morning he wrangled into some kind of sense. It was too stubborn and springy to be a ponytail - a poodle tail perhaps. He plotted a route from his vantage point and lowered his chin like a ram about to charge, which given the goatish cast of his unshaven chin, was not the most flattering look for him. Most of the time, he was thankful that the office space he rented was set so close to the city centre. It meant that when he remembered to eat he could find a selection of caf¨¦s and diners to choose from, even at the stupid hours that he was struck by inconvenient hunger. It was only those two or three days at the end of every week, when suddenly he had to share his street with everybody else. ¡°Dr. Engazi!¡± Maki winced, but did not look around. If anything, his pace accelerated, his long legs eating up the distance to the door of his office building. ¡°Dr. Engazi, wait!¡± He shoved his hand into the pocket of his loose linen trousers, scrabbling for his set of keys. The voice was getting closer, he could hear her pressing through the crowd behind him. Why did keys all look the same! ¡°I just have a quick question for you!¡± He growled, finally finding the right one and ramming it into the lock. He twisted it one way and then the right way, a flush of triumph crossing his face as he tugged the door open. But a hand touched against his back and his heart sank in his chest. He muttered a curse silently, before plastering a smile across his lips and turning in place. One of his students, an arm crushing a haphazardly packed binder to her stomach, her young face blooming with questions and an eager curiosity. Maki¡¯s stomach clenched in emotional pain, squeezing out black bile, the melancholic humour. ¡°Dr. Engazi,¡± she breathed, all-conquering. ¡°I¡¯m so glad I could catch you. You move quick!¡± He returned with a sick smile. ¡°I was almost safe.¡± She chuckled. One of the Haeponese exchange students. Yisung-something, that was it. His smile had shades of a grimace. It wasn¡¯t that she was too smart, Maki liked smart students, that made his job all the easier. It was that she was too eager. Eager students wanted to talk to him about things. It wasn¡¯t even as if he was a proper professor. He taught one class at Bal¨¦ University. Just one. Introduction to Theories of Translocation. There wasn¡¯t even a practical element, it was all in the books. ¡°I¡¯ve been having some trouble with the assignment you set last week. I¡¯ve been emailing, but¡­¡± She let the sentence trail off and Maki felt a twinge of guilt. Not for ignoring the emails, that was endemic to his character, but for fermenting this escalation in his required efforts. Best to skip right over that though, he wouldn¡¯t want Yisung to feel awkward on his behalf. ¡°What¡¯s troubling you?¡± He asked, while pulling the door open. She swept a scrap of paper from her bundle. ¡°None of the books on the reading list are left in the library! I don¡¯t know how to write the essay without a bibliography.¡± ¡°My book should help with that. If you¡¯ve bough-¡± ¡°I have bought your book, Professor,¡± Yisung said, trying to cut through his prevarications. ¡°It¡¯s no-¡± Her eyes widened as she caught herself about to criticise the Master Work. Maki didn¡¯t blame her. He had churned out his textbook after an academic publisher had come to him saying there was a hole in the market that needed filling. A meeting later and with dreams of being the next Holji and Wimot, he had got to writing. Really, he had to be grateful to Yisung for even buying a copy - the handful of ringots he would get on his next royalty statement might even buy him a cheap chapati. So he snatched the paper from her hand and held out his hand for a pen, which she dutifully provided. She even held up her binder as a surface for him to write on. ¡°Ignore those books then, they are probably too general. You should have gone straight to the journals anyway. I¡¯m too kind in giving you these names after telling you that, but you did track me down¡­¡± He scribbled a handful of names from the top of his head onto the paper, his handwriting as messy as his mind. One of them would be bound to point her in the right direction, and in any case, it was all useful reading. He had never allowed himself to get glued to a reading list when he was a student. And look how he had turned out! ¡°Okay?¡± She looked at the list like he had handed her the formula for the Elixir of Life and nodded, her mouth opening in a way that Maki suspected was going to pin him in his doorway a lot longer. This is why he didn¡¯t answer emails! Give them an opening and they¡¯ll think he¡¯s got nothing better to do with his time. ¡°And now, I¡¯m afraid to say I really must get on. I¡¯ll see you in class¡­ with an essay I hope.¡± He chuckled, peering around the door as he closed it in Yisung¡¯s face. He took a deep breath, letting the feeling of Sanctuary suffuse him which was topped off with the click of the lock. It was a security door, one that locked whenever it closed, so he was safe from his students at last. He swept his hands over the springy coils of his hair and then shook out his arms, holding them away from his body, fingers spread, the traditional gesture of a magician about to perform magic. ¡°To work!¡± He bounded up the flight of stairs, taking them two at a time, long arms swinging as he pumped himself up to the second storey. His office was mostly floor, the walls shedding with maps. Modern satellite surveys of the globe; decades old projections in primary colours showing countries that had since blended and diluted; here and there ancient hand-drawn maps - various countries planted as the centre point and monsters filling the empty seas. Why else have a map made, unless it was to proclaim that the world spun around your axis? A section of his floor was a thin slab of slate, just like a blackboard, a must-have feature in any office where magic was going to be performed. When circles and runes needed to be drawn and redrawn, the ease of being able to wipe away the failed experiments could not be over-valued. Maki skipped over his floorboard, dancing between the chalky remnants of an earlier experiment, and slapped on his workstation. It was an old ox of a computer, warming up with the sound of a helicopter taking off. He had named it Kukele, after an architect from Hierarchy times who was famous for building monuments that lasted a thousand years. He whistled a tune as the operating system booted up, idly pushing his papers around his desk, looking at titles and his scrawled notes. One of them caught his eye, and the tune he was butchering his way through quietly died. He lifted the sheet gingerly, lips still pursed in the undead whistle, as if the paper might burst into flames at any moment. Carefully, he placed it on his lap, his hand snatching the rollerball of his computer, quickly bringing up his digital calendar. There was, with tomorrow¡¯s date flashing an ominous purple, a very unhappy flag waiting for him. Maki tugged his hands down his cheeks, pulling his mouth into an exaggerated frown. ¡°Shiiiiiiiit,¡± he breathed, his gaze tugged to a corner of the room, wherein lay, with books and papers and boxes of takeaway stacked and strewn and slopped, a large tightly sealed crate. A tightly sealed crate that he had pushed into that corner and reminded himself to deal with long before the deadline date. Which was tomorrow. It was his main source of income. The teaching and the writing was pocket money and a way to keep close to the University. What Maki really did for a living was transport by commission. It was mainly urgent deliveries for the small- and medium-sized players in Bal¨¦, the companies that couldn¡¯t afford to keep a teleporter on payroll full time. He sent documents that legally had to be hardcopies to and from the signatories; he moved shipments instantly to demanding customers. Once he had even ¡®ported in a piping hot meal for the diva Mosquita from her favourite hometown restaurant when she had been on the Bal¨¦ leg of her tour of Horesh. There was another kind of commission though. A type that Maki really, really did try to keep to a minimum, but that were always going to be a part of a freelance ¡®portist¡¯s catalogue. There were no custom officials waiting in the slipstreams of etheric travel, no contraband inspections or forms to fill out with self-incriminating tick boxes. Some clients appreciated such facts. The crate was of such a species, delivered to Maki¡¯s office by young men with thick limbs and gold teeth. He had been instructed that under no circumstances was he to open the container and that was fine by Maki. It was about the length and width of a sarcophagus and there was no way that he wanted to come face to face with a corpse. Or whatever else Mr. Q. Unknown packed into an unmarked crate. He sighed and kissed his teeth. First things first. With a kick he propelled himself and his chair across the room, towards the small fridge in one corner. He yanked the door open and nodded with approval. Both shelves of the icebox were stacked with canned energy drinks, a particularly syrupy brew called Angel Sweat that most people mixed with vile tasting alcohol. There was also a sad looking cucumber, which Maki ignored. The can popped open with a satisfying tsssch, releasing its chemical scent with a spray. Glugging down the soda, he walked over to the crate, eyeing it up like it was a rival prize fighter. Maki swept the detritus off the top of the crate and was satisfied to see that he had already done the most physically demanding part of the project - shaping the mount that would house the beacon. Somewhere in his office was a length of carnelian, a gemstone magically infused with the target coordinates for the translocation, that had been handed to him along with the crate. Each mounting had to be handcrafted from teak to create a space that the unique beacon would slot into. And in an uncommon show of industriousness, it appeared that past-Maki had already done that hard work. He lifted his can in a toast to his once-and-better-self, before pushing the wheeled crate to the centre of his floorboard. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. He returned to his chair, plonking down in front of Kukele and clicking open three different programs. There were a lot of calculations he needed to make, the nature of the spelling he was about to do depending on all kinds of gnostic factors; seasons and ley lines and the alignment of the elements, as well as more exoteric knowledge like the spin of the planet and the height differential between locations. He rolled his head around the pivot of his neck then cracked his knuckles. One final touch was needed. He clicked another program and after a moment¡¯s digital thought, the speakers started pumping out the savannah bass of M¡¯kolo and the Fighting Bees. Maki got to work. *** Six hours later and Maki blinked, eyelids scraping along his corneas and pressing together, wringing out the kind of soreness that only came from cooking them on an electronic screen after marinating the orbs in two litres of energy drink. With a noise that was something between the hooting of a monkey and the trumpeting of a hippopotamus, he stood, reaching his arms as high as he could, back popping and knees clicking. He unfurled like a golemist¡¯s marionette, just as stiffly and slightly more creepily. He pushed a fist into his hair, and like he was dragging his body by the follicles, pulled himself over to the window. Bal¨¦ had grown on top of a high plateau set in the middle of a vast plain. With the right view, the sunsets were like a cyclopean bead of molten gold settling on the ledge of the horizon, a god gilding the curve of the world. Maki did not have that view. Across from him was a billboard advertising an industrial trade show. Hard-hatted men and women smiling far too wide at wind turbines and oil derricks. The red light of dusk just made them look demonic, the vanguard of some steam-driven invasion force. The tagline of the sponsoring company made it especially unwelcome in Bal¨¦: Carnavar; Natural Magic. Maki huffed and turned back to his computer screen. He really had to stop overloading on that drink, it was frying the few brain cells that kept him grounded. Down the screen a status bar was slowly filling - the software verifying and validating his spellwork. It wasn¡¯t the first time he had run the program today, but he was fairly confident it would be the last time. While he waited, he swung about on his chair, twisting to face the project. In the hours since he had started, he had drawn and rubbed out and redrawn glyphs and forms around the crate. A few chalk marks also marred the hard-wearing plastic of the container itself. There was something crawling around the lesser used parts of his mind though, a niggling itch. Had he failed to account for some feature of the packaging? If the crate weighed more than anticipated, it might manifest in some stranger¡¯s house halfway to its destination, or worse, crack open mid-transport and spray its contents across u-dimensional space. But no, Mr. Q Unknown¡¯s goons had given him a manifest with the exact measurements of the package, and Maki had double checked them when it had arrived. Sure, he had written those notes on the back of a receipt for a pile of journals he had failed to read, but the quality of the materials did not speak to the accuracy of his findings. It was probably just the contents. Despite his professionalism, and his self-enforced rules of violating client trust - he desperately wanted to know what was inside. Even now, laying his hands on the teak beacon housing, he quested inwards with his university-honed senses, groping for that little tingle that might indicate some forbidden magic- His eyes snapped open. The bloody beacon. Maki stirred into a frenzy. The next half an hour was spent turning over his office. He scrambled through drawers, threw aside papers and books. Precarious formations of empty containers and blank CDs that had stood for weeks were pulled asunder. He looked in places that the gemstone had no business being and chided himself for wasting time when it did not appear there. He was a whirlwind, a hurricane. He was making a mess. At the end of Method One, Maki sighed and picked up a book from the floor. With all due care, he slipped it onto its proper place on the shelf. This was Method Two of searching: tidy his office up. Put everything into its place and surely anything extra would turn up. It was the most scientific way of approaching the problem. It took significantly longer for Maki to clean his office than it had to unclean it, but he went to it with a purpose that was single-minded. While his computer played music that was more suited to a military campaign, he made piles, filed notes and assigned a corner of the office to the Why Didn''t I Throw That Away a Week Ago objects. By the end of it, and with the sun well and truly dipping below the horizon, he had found a pair of what he had to assume was his underwear, a small plastic lion figurine and a picture of his mother. But no gemstone beacon. This called for Method Three. With a theatrical sigh he slumped onto the coach that had previously been employed as a cradle storing another commission and stared at a map of Horesh. Casually, his mind deliberately emptied of anything resembling the desire to find the beacon, he let his gaze wander. It came to rest on his fridge. Even as he walked over to it, Maki was shaking his head. In the course of his searchings he had open and slammed the fridge four times, each time finding new and invective ways to refer to the unperturbed cucumber. But what if he had missed it? He would hate himself if he didn¡¯t check and the gemstone later turned out to be in there. It wasn¡¯t, and the cucumber suffered the full measure of Maki¡¯s wrath for once again refusing to be a length of cut carnelian. Wiping the cucumber pulp from his hand, Maki dropped onto the couch again, this time his brow furrowed in furious concentration. He had checked everywhere in his office, ergo, the beacon was not in his office. Therefore, it was somewhere else. He pressed his hands to his temples. Where would he have put it? Why would he even have moved it from his office? Professor Chiot¨¦¡¯s grinning face flashed across his mind¡¯s eye and he groaned loudly. It was all coming back to him, albeit soaked in stale rum. She had told him that her latest research efforts had to do with the properties of gemstones and he had brought the only one he had to hand. No doubt it was still in her office in the University. If he was very lucky, she hadn¡¯t started experimenting on it. Maki slapped his hand against his thigh repeatedly. ¡°Don¡¯t.Drink.With.Old.People!¡± But he did not allow himself to wallow in self-pity, nor stew in the worry of what Mr. Q Unknown would do to him if his package did not appear in the appointed place. He pulled himself free of any and all emotional dipping pools and rubbed his hands together. If there was any point to the four years he had spent getting a degree and the six years after that obtaining a doctorate, it was that he could get places quickly. He moved to the door of his ensuite bathroom, and pulled it closed until the latch clicked. Then he stared at it, lips slowly curling down into a frown. This was a kind of magic he had been doing for years, the one two and three of translocating. He reached for the doorknob and twisted, pushing at the door. Smart kids could do this trick; put a coin in one pocket, pull it out from another. The door budged, but only an inch, so he lowered his shoulder against it and shoved. Step through one door¡­ ¡­stumble out of another. *** Bal¨¦ University had started its long life as eight towers, one for each of the traditional schools of magic, arranged in an irregular octagon to reflect the constellation of the Hierophant. Over time the remit of the University had grown and the importance of the schools had diminished. New buildings were added, departments were amalgamated or divided. What was once the centre and beating heart of magical education diversified. When the Silicon Revolution had kicked off in the basements of BU¡¯s ur-computer science labs, the upsurge of importance had taken over the entirety of the Tower of Abjuring in less than five years. Magic still held a grip on the institution of course. Tradition was too powerful a force, too strong a pull to be so blithely cast aside, despite all the efforts of the University¡¯s Vice-Chancellor. While departments like Philosophy and Sociology were forced to share space in the cramped Tower of Enchantment, huddling under the painted glare of ancient wizards, the magical departments had claimed the Tower of Conjuration, richly appointed and the ostentatious official gateway to the University grounds. Maki tripped out of a cupboard door, clattering across the mosaic floor and almost going head first into a fat-bellied pillar. He straightened quickly, peering about with a raised chin, determined that he would not be embarrassed by what had been a fairly impressive feat of nonverbal spellwork. Fortunately, there was no one about at this hour and he was free to get his bearings without having to explain why he had just fallen out of a storage cupboard. It was a favoured exit point for Maki, being within a quick dash to all the lecture rooms he might be assigned to teach in. It made the dreaded morning lecture series just about bearable. It also wasn¡¯t too far from Chiot¨¦¡¯s office. She was a fixture of the department, the Chimera of the School of Alteration - which was a largely ceremonial appointment, but one she took great relish in declaring at parties. She was also, and Maki made sure that he never told her this, the smartest person he knew. In the early days of computing, when they were brown clicking boxes and the sole refuge of the socially inept, she had been the one to see the potential for computers to work alongside traditional magic. Her program, WellSpelt 1.0 had been the first successful software that could digitally validate spells - saving practitioners the hours of time they would otherwise have to spend manually checking their craft. It wasn¡¯t flawless but it could have made Chiot¨¦ superbly rich - indeed, some people had got rich off the back of their own derivatives - but instead she had made the code open source and given it away for free. The University had carefully guarded her ever since, giving her the freedom to pursue whatever projects she wished and exploiting the prestige her name brought to the institution. For her part, Chiot¨¦ did not seem inclined to leave. Maki hurried along the corridors towards her office, his flip flops flapping loudly on the cool stone chips. As well as being his smartest friend, she was also his weirdest friend. While she was balanced right on the cutting edge of the synthesis between magic and technology, she also harboured old-fashioned arcane philosophies, stuff that most academics had safely relegated to the ¡°History of¡­¡± sections of the syllabus. Pantheism, the Ngiruko and Ngaritu Courts, the Harodine Thesis. Kamula. She had theories for them all, even wrote papers about them. Of course, they didn''t appear in the journals that published her articles on gemstone storage lattices - The Dunking Stool couldn''t be seen supporting that kind of thing. The Professor didn''t seem to mind that her most prolific writings were relegated to pulp journals like Witchocracy. So long as someone was reading them. Maki grunted, approaching her door. He was probably the aural equivalent; as long as someone was listening, it didn¡¯t much matter that he thought she was batty and drank all her rum. The words Professor Chiot¨¦ Hounsol were engraved in the door at what Maki presumed was Orundi eye height. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. "Professor?" There was no answer, exactly what he had feared, and surely enough, the door was locked. He was starting to feel like the world was enacting a very personal vengeance against him, which was completely unfair, given how highly he valued himself. Maki considered his options. He might be able to find a university porter wandering the halls, who might have the key to the Professor''s office and whom he might be able to convince to unlock it and allow him to root around unsupervised. Or they might just boot him out and tell him to come back in actual office hours. That was too many mights for Maki, without even factoring in that the porter''s room was down three flights of stairs. Instead Maki pulled a length of chalk from his pocket. Much like an evoker wouldn''t go anywhere without a candle, a ''portist always had a stash of chalk secreted on their person. After a particularly long day, Maki had once found a nub nestled in his hair. He quickly but expertly drew a circle beside the doorknob. There were probably easier ways of getting through it, but none that Maki could think of that wouldn¡¯t leave a permanent mark. He filled the circle with glyphs, making some rough and generous estimations on things like the thickness of the door. Then he placed his hand on the circle and pushed through it. There had been debate in the past that this kind of magic properly belonged under the auspices of the school of Alteration since it transmuted the substance of the door into something permeable. Maki didn¡¯t buy it - he wasn¡¯t changing the door in any way, just bypassing it. Which was helpful when needing to turn the latch of a lock on the other side of a closed door. He rubbed off the chalk as best he could before turning the knob and pushing the door open. It swung inwards silently, revealing a pitch black office. Even so, Maki stepped forward cautiously, craning his long neck and leading with a quiet, ¡°Professor?¡± There was something very nerve-wracking about entering a dark room without permission. Not only the ever-present danger of being discovered by the rightful authorities, but the creeping sense that the room itself held a malignant disdain for him. Low-hanging light fittings, table edges at shin-height and caltrop-like plugs mysteriously left unplugged. Such was the vengeance of the furnished against trespassers. Maki wasn¡¯t going to risk it so he reached around the door frame to flick the lights on. The first thing he saw were the remains of Chiot¨¦''s computer, a blown out ruin, the casing cracked and blackened, tangled wires like disembowelled guts. Then he saw the Professor herself. She was slumped back in her chair, arms hanging loose by her sides. She stared up at the ceiling. She looked like she could not believe that she couldn''t see the stars. Finally, he saw the neat little hole in her chest. Part 2: Lingering Dread and its variety of flavours. Bauma Otoun¨¦ patted Maki¡¯s bony knee and squeezed the meat of his thigh. It was the next day, and he had still not slept. Rather, he had been released from the black and green embrace of the police and instead of shuffling home he had found himself knocking on the door of Bauma¡¯s shop. She ran an apothecary - not The ¡®Appy Apothecary or Bauma¡¯s Potions, just an apothecary, because when her ancestors had first opened, it was the kind of time when shops didn¡¯t have names or logos or brands. It was one of Maki¡¯s favourite places, not only because Bauma stocked a good collection of the weird reagents that spellwork required, but also because it was a nexus for the interesting type of people who still bought their magic from local suppliers. It was where he had first met the Professor. When she had finished flicking the sash of her floral sabisas against his cheek for having the temerity to disturb her Nekkerday lie in, he explained what he had seen. Then she had dragged him into a rib-cracking hug, yanked him off the street and into her shop. ¡°What did the police talk to you about?¡± she asked, her normally loud voice subdued. Maki sighed and scratched at his neck. ¡°Well, they were really keen to know what I was doing in her office with two moons shining.¡± Bauma looked at her palms. ¡°What were you doing there?¡± ¡°I told you. I forgot something of mine in her office las- the night before last. It was urgent that I get it back.¡± ¡°What did you forget?¡± Maki surged forward, fingers gripping the arms of his chair in tight claws. ¡°What are these questions? Come out and say what you want to say, Bauma!¡± Just then, Tayunti, Bauma¡¯s partner, stepped carefully down the stairs that led to the living quarters. In her hands was a tray with three steaming mugs. Something about her arrival sponged up the anger leaking from Maki, and his face creased as he leaned back. ¡°Here. I always find these things are easier to bear after some tea.¡± It could not be said that Maki accepted the beverage with good grace, but it was certainly with more manners than he usually displayed. Without fail, whenever he was offered a drink at Bauma¡¯s, he would crack some joke about potion makers mixing their powders with their sugars. No one said anything for a while, the threesome sitting there in separate compartments of silence. Maki hid his face behind a hand. "It was a beacon." "A gemstone? Alright, so what¡¯s the problem?" It was hard admitting such things to Bauma. Maki''s voice was strangled in much the same way it would be if he were confessing to a predilection for rubbing oiled up puppies against his crotch. "It was for one of those jobs..." He muttered, unable to meet her gaze. Bauma scowled. She rearranged her sabisas across her chest silently. Then she bunched a trailing edge of the long colourful wrap and used it to assault Maki. "Idiot boy! I told you. I said to your stupid goat face ''Dr. Engazi don''t you be mixing up with that kind of person. No good comes of it.'' I know you heard me as well, because you made this ugly gnome face you make when you think you know better than someone clearly smarter than you." Maki sheltered behind his arms, nodding with his flagellation. He could have summoned up all sorts of excuses; that he needed the money; that the shady stuff also led to more legitimate business; that he got bored teleporting drunk suits to a beach. That he had drunk way too much Angel Sweat that day and had been wired to the eyeballs and feeling invincible. But he couldn¡¯t blame all his problems on his addiction to energy drinks. He deserved the slapping. ¡°Love, that¡¯s just his face.¡± Tayunti laid a hand on Bauma''s arm and she relented. "What did the police say?" She finally asked, clothes primly rearranged. Maki shrugged. "I didn''t tell them. I panicked and tossed my wallet onto a chair and picked it up when they arrived." This time both of the woman were shocked and Maki got an excellent view of their tonsils. "You lied to the people investigating the murder of our friend?" He winced. When it was put like that it did make him sound like something that crawled out from under a rock, or worked in the corporate ethics department of an investment bank. "Come on now. I brought it over that night. It''s nothing to do with what happened to the Professor." Then he caught up to what the other two had already figured and his face fell. "No. You don''t think that this is about... Me?" Maki bolted to his feet, tea cup almost spilling over. He darted to the window and peered out, eyes blazing wide. ¡°But she had nothing to do with it! It makes no sense¡­¡± Suddenly the street outside the window was populated by a cast of ruinous villains, blood-drinking warlocks and necromancers. Never mind that Maki had friends who were warlocks drinking donated blood and forensic necromancers; these were the evil ones. Then a cloud parted and the demons were driven away by a shaft of brightness. ¡°No. It¡¯s got to be a coincidence.¡± He shook his head. ¡°You¡¯ve both seen the emails the Professor used to get. Those nutjobs saying she¡¯s going to get Bal¨¦ burned to the ground.¡± It had been one of Chiot¨¦¡¯s quirks. Printing off the most vitriolic and hateful of her ¡°fanmail¡± and bringing it the shop to read out loud. Her favourites had been the ones that had claimed she was working for one of the magical secret societies that still haunted Bal¨¦, influencing events from behind the scenes. They were closely followed by the ones claiming to be from those self-same societies, threatening her for revealing their innermost secrets. Promising the wrath of Dragon. ¡°Make up your bloody minds!¡± she had cackled, grinning like a goblin. At first Maki had been horrified. Some of the threats were beyond the usual anonymous rage and floundered deep into the territory of the actually dangerous. But then she had taken him aside and shown him the number of emails she had received and the threat had been blunted by sheer volume. The everyday exhausted paranoia. ¡°We just want you to be careful, Maki. Once people like that get their talons into you, it can be very hard to get unhooked.¡± ¡°What would you know of it?¡± It came out crueller than he had intended, a voice that he hardly recognised as his own. Bauma scoffed. ¡°I¡¯ve been running an independent business for longer than you, sonny. You think they¡¯ve never come to me asking for this potion or that salve? You think I¡¯ve never been tempted by the money?¡± There were magicians who could snatch words out of the air, and it wasn¡¯t the first time that Maki wished he was one of them. He knew that Bauma, and shops like hers, were suffering in the wake of the Silicon Revolution. Websites like [email protected] promised next day delivery of grimoires and reagents to the doorstep and had a range of products that made most local businesses look provincial. Of course she had been tempted by the less salubrious side of commerce. Tayunti continued for her. ¡°It¡¯s not worth it. What happened to Chiot¨¦ wasn¡¯t anything to do with this, but even so. It¡¯s not worth it.¡± Maki returned to his armchair, taking the time to sip his tea and wash away the taste of his last comment. He looked at his friends and found the open concern on their faces a little hard to handle. ¡°I need to get out from under this, don¡¯t I?¡± They nodded in perfect time with each other. Maki drank some more tea. ¡°I need to get that beacon back. Today.¡± The two women shook their heads. ¡°No, you¡¯re right. Chiot¨¦ is dead. She¡¯s dead. And I don¡¯t want to end up the same way - not for a couple more ringots in the bank. I¡¯ve got to wipe my hands clean. Do the job and walk away.¡± He was nodding, convinced by his own rhetoric. He drummed his hands against his thigh, staring at the unfolding of future events, looking through Tayunti and Bauma. ¡°There¡¯s a way to do this¡­ I think I got it. Yeah¡± ¡°Maki!¡± Bauma said, snapping a beaded sash against his knee. ¡°Do not do anything illegal! Whatever it is you are thinking, don¡¯t do that. We¡¯ll figure something out together.¡± But Maki was grinning, wide as a cheesemonger at a cracker sale. ¡°I better get moving. There¡¯s a lot to prepare. Thanks - helped me see things a lot more clearly.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Bauma rocked up to her feet from the deep couch but Maki was quicker, darting across the room to the door. The hollow bones above the lintel clattered as he pulled it open and then he was gone. Bauma turned on Tayunti, hands jammed onto her wide hips. ¡°You put something in the tea, didn¡¯t you?¡± The Haeponese woman had the fortitude not to blush, but her courage failed in matching her partner¡¯s glare. ¡°Just mixed in some river wort and royal jelly¡­¡± Bauma¡¯s eyes widened, the whites stark and bright from her dark skin. ¡°I thought it would perk him up, keep him from getting too despondent about what happened to the Professor.¡± ¡°Oh yes well! A master alchemist at work you were. Rolled him right through the mourning period.¡± She pressed her hand to her shaven scalp. ¡°Thousand Bells.¡± ¡°Should we tell someone? The police?¡± ¡°That our idiot friend wants to break into their crime scene? Again?¡± Bauma shook her and held out her hand. ¡°Love, I think we should get back to our lie in. Everyone knows the shop doesn¡¯t open til noon on Nekkerday.¡± *** There was probably a part of every adult, the part that was still a big wobbly kid, that fantasised that if they really wanted to - if they suffered the appropriately tragic back story and then trained every day - that they could don the night black garb of an urban commando and disappear into the shadows. So while Maki once more padded around the empty halls of the Tower of Conjuration at night, this time clad in some serious shoes and the only black clothes he could scrounge up, he felt a swelling euphoria filling his chest, pushing his lips into a grin. He passed a window and did some crude marchat moves. "Badass," he whispered at his reflection. The Tower was mostly deserted - what had happened had driven people out of the building like a wailing fire alarm. But there were still police officers patrolling the grounds and guarding the entrances. Common mythology was that killers had this urge to return to the scene of their crime - some said to bask in the life energy of the one they had killed, others that they got off on seeing the aftermath of their carnage. Police procedure dismissed most of that as superstition and worried about the much more garden-variety Common Idiot looking for a morbid souvenir or unique selfie. Maki had avoided them not with any flashy tech or puissant magic, but with the cunning taught to all students of a good university. There were always ingresses into old buildings that were less well-known; backdoors, tradesman entrances or even just creaky old windows that didn¡¯t latch properly. Maki had dropped through one of these, his brain mashing up the theme music to a half-dozen action movies as he hustled. To his very great relief - he had been planning a completely blind hop spell and wasn¡¯t sure he wanted to put the theory into practice - the corridor of Chiot¨¦¡¯s office was completely unguarded. And even better, her door was unlocked, simply Xed across with POLICE DO NOT CROSS tape, purple and unwelcoming. But Maki hesitated at the door. Reality poked a needle hole in the water balloon of his confidence. The last time he had gone through this door he had seen the murdered body of his friend. Everything rational in him told him that there was nothing to fear but everything else in him was demanding that he turn around, that the room was churning with a kind of darkness he did not want to unleash. All the energy, the drive that had pushed him through the day, powered the magic that he had prepared for this moment. It fizzled in the face of Chiot¨¦¡¯s cut glass doorknob. It was worse than the come down of his energy drinks and Maki bunched his fists up by his side, angry at his own impotence. ¡°Don¡¯t be an asshole,¡± he muttered. If he didn¡¯t go through with his plan then for all he knew he was next on Mr. Q Unknown¡¯s list of Top Five People to Shoot. He had to take care of himself. And besides, he had seen the Professor once already; it couldn¡¯t be as bad as that. His hand acted on the Executive Order, before some rogue faction of his brain could intervene. He twisted and pushed and the door swung open. As a boy growing up in Sombilad, a country plagued by the necromancer queens in the fall of Hierarchy centuries ago, Maki had been weaned on the stories of the restless dead. So he was more relieved than he would admit to see that the police - well, he hoped it was the police - had removed the Professor''s body. Even so, he checked behind the door just in case she had transformed into a ravening, eye-sprouting, kumo. She had not, she was just dead and gone. A twinge tugged at his heart and he rubbed his chest. The last time he had spoken to Chiot¨¦ she had been so excited, rabbiting on and on about her research, inexhaustible. She had been more enthused about magic than Maki had been as an undergraduate. And all that time her killer had been coming. If Maki had stayed the night, slept on the couch as he had in the past, would the Professor still be alive? Or would they both be just as dead? Ask nine diviners, get ten answers, as the old saying went. The duty officers would check the room eventually, so Maki got to work. *** He searched high and he searched low. He wriggled under the desk and couch. He even stuck his hand into the charred bowels of the Professor''s computer. With each place that he looked, his stomach knotted further, a slick tightening. He had presumed, with all the certainty of a man standing safe in a circle of daylight and common sense, that it would be a simple matter of picking up the beacon from where it had rolled and triggering the spellword of the recall magic he had spent most of the day preparing. In then out then off goes the package and Maki would be free and clear with no mythical spear points hanging above his neck. But in the shadows of a murder scene, picking his way around so as not to make it too obvious that someone had pillaged it, things were less clear. Every nook was mouth, whispering foolish possibilities: Did you drunkenly hide the beacon in me? asked a wicker box. Obviously you placed it up here for safe-keeping¡­ The bookshelf muttered. A chattering of empty promises. All of them were possible, despite being so damn improbable. He debated the likelihood that the police had taken it away with the body. They had certainly left little plastic markers around the place, numbering the items of interest, but they hadn¡¯t removed any of the items themselves. His weight shifted from one foot to the other and his breaths were shallow. A frightening thought was bludgeoning its way to the forefront of his mind. Just then, a flutter of movement caught his eye. Without pausing to think, he ducked behind the desk. He had left the office door open, justifying that he would be able to better hear someone approaching. He peeked over the lip of the desk, expecting to see the waggling illumination of a flash- or magelight. It wasn¡¯t the police though. The corridor leading to Professor Chiot¨¦¡¯s office was a checkerboard of light and dark, the ambient illumination from the outdoors meaning the windows along the wall left long puddles of light. A figure walked down the checkerboard, garbed in loose black clothes that put Maki in mind of the old ceremonial military robes. When the figure stepped into the shafts of light, though, they became even more indistinct, like shadows were snapping into place to protect their identity. With the regularity of the windows it became a rhythm, the gloom waxing and waning. It gave the illusion that the figure was pulsing with an inner luminescence. Throbbing with power. It was a kind of magic that Maki had never heard of before and the quiet analytical part of his brain happily worried at the problem. Some kind of abjuring perhaps? The magnitude of the illumination strengthening a shadow shield? But Maki, you forget the school of Illusion, of which this play of light is most surely an example. I must interject, Maki! The subject has obviously conjured and bound a shadow elemental. The less verbose and infinitely more effective part of him had a particularly convincing line of argumentation: It''s coming this way! For all that the figure appeared to saunter, they moved with an alarming rapidity. Maki ducked his head down beneath the desk just as they pushed the door the rest of the way open. Under the desk, Maki could see a black-clad pair of legs surveying the room. Black cloth with even blacker embroidery, patterns that Maki couldn''t make out in the darkness. No one wore clothes like that anymore. They had gone out of style with last of the Bal¨¦nese independence movements. The only place to see them were period dramas and the odd kooky society. The slippered feet shuffled and Maki discovered just how loud the human lungs were. Bloody meaty bellows! He tried to inch himself further underneath the desk, with each breath expecting to be clubbed or stabbed or something even more horrific. Instead the figure began to cast. Their voice was high-pitched but muffled by their mask, and even if it wasn''t, Maki wasn''t enough of a spellwright to reverse engineer what its results would be. Anything but necromancy, that¡¯s all he hoped. He hunched his head and came directly eye-level with a discreet but open cupboard. For a moment the muttering and gesticulating anachronism was forgotten and Maki stared into that narrow space. He knew it well. It was the secret cupboard where Chiot¨¦ hid her notes while she wasn¡¯t working on them. The night he had come over he had personally seen the Professor slide her battered notebooks in. He remembered joking about coming back later to steal her research and she had laughed and waggled her finger, reminding him that everyone would be able to see the results soon enough. It was empty. "Who''s there?" The question was quiet but commanding and it dragged Maki reluctantly back to the present. The feet began to step around the desk, grim as any executioner striding up to the block. ¡°You cannot hide from me.¡± Maki grimaced and made a decision, his brain hurrying to catch up with some flimsy post-hoc rationalising. He popped to his feet, shooting up like a tree caught on a time-lapse camera. The figure leapt back, hands raising defensively. Maki had never had to learn how to be intimidating, his height had taken care of that from a young age. His gaze darted across the room one last time. ¡°You!¡± The figure hissed, hand shooting out to grab Maki¡¯s wrist. He tried to wrench it away, but not before he got the uncomfortable sensation of scales sliding along his skin. Then the words were on his lips, slippery magically charged syllables sizzling the spit on his tongue. ¡°Kukuom ku- *** The translocating of living subjects spread across a range of comfort levels - from a pleasant tingling up the spine to bullet-ants-under-the-skin agony. The recall spell, which rushed Maki back towards its anchor point, tugging him along the path he had taken like he was an incorporeal bungee jumper, was somewhere towards the gut-inverting end of the spectrum. Somehow, despite not having a physical stomach during the travel, Maki wanted to empty it through his pores. It was not enjoyable. *** ...rundi!¡± Maki came together kneeling in the middle of an elaborate arrangement of chalk-drawn squares and symbols, rewound through space. He curled up over his thighs, kowtowing a candle that puffed out while ectoplasmic ropes fell away and faded from around his limbs. He brutally suppressed the urge to heave, his arms wrapping around his stomach. Everything in him was clenched tight and not just from the discombobulating translocation. The beacon had not been in the office. He knew the proper logical forms; absence of evidence was not evidence of absence and all. But it should not have been hard to find in the first place. And the police would not have taken it - it seemed they were still cataloging the scene. With all the weird shit the Professor had in her office a very commonplace length of carnelian would not have registered as a Clue. Which, as far as Maki was concerned, meant only one thing. The killer had taken the beacon after they murdered Chiot¨¦. His body staged a quiet revolution, overthrowing the benevolent dictatorship of his brain. Then he threw up. The killer had taken the beacon. This was about him. Part 3: Secret Words and other well-known phenomena. Maki stared at nothing, slumped deep in the armchair. One hand held a ceramic bowl while the other used chopsticks to grope for the noodles and pushed them towards his face. He chewed mechanically. "What do you think?" Tayunti asked Bauma in a low voice, the two women huddled close together across the room from the currently dislocated translocator. "I don''t know," She sighed at her partner. ¡°I''m beginning to get very worried. I don''t think he''s making it up." She bit her lip. "Even that... Wizard?" It was what Maki had called the figure in the black robes. It wasn''t exactly a nonsense term, but it wasn''t really fashionable any more. "That''s what worries me the most. You know the kind of people who go in for all that olde worlde shit as well as I do." Tayunti hushed ever quieter, like the black spectre was haunting the shop. "The societies? You told me they were jokes. Self-important old men wearing their great-grandfather''s robes and pretending they know something everyone else doesn''t. That''s what you said." Bauma raised a quiet finger of objection. "I said most of them were like that. The Cabal of the Luminous Truth shares space with a daycare for goodness sake." Tayunti''s eyes flashed. "And the others?" Bauma kissed her teeth. "They are more." She pressed her hand to her forehead, the weight of her burdens showing suddenly. "Or at least they are better at pretending they are." ¡°What could they possibly want with Maki?¡± ¡°Nothing, probably. But the package he¡¯s moving for his mystery client? There are still working Hierarchy relics to be found and the societies have always had their eyes on those. But it could be anything else. Maybe the stars just weren¡¯t right for Maki. Maybe a bloody transataumancer ordained it.¡± ¡°So what can we do to help?¡± Tough question, Tayunti. They had already done a lot - taking him in when he had shown up on their doorstep, listening to his disjointed story before giving him a sleeping draught and bundling him into their spare bed. He was looking a little better from the snooze, less like he was a mannequin from a clothing line designed for scarecrows. They both turned towards him, watched him carefully place his bowl of breakfast noodles to one side and stand. ¡°Bauma. Do you have:¡± and he counted backwards along his fingers. ¡°Crushed carnelian; black chalk; bismuth crystals. Coffee?¡± ¡°You know I do, Maki.¡± He nodded. ¡°Coffee first, then the rest. I¡¯ll need to pop back to my office as well, grab my notes.¡± ¡°What are you planning?¡± asked Tayunti, stepping over to block the door in case he should try and make another run for it. ¡°Do either of you know how a beacon actually works? No, I didn¡¯t think so. It¡¯s not really important, but to put it in terms you might be able to understand¡­¡± It took a lot of momentum to ignore the rapidly narrowing eyes of the two women, but Maki had it. ¡°I should be able to reverse the ¡®polarity¡¯ of the beacon¡¯s magic. So instead of using it to send something to a specific location, I can send myself to its current location. So, coffee?¡± Bauma flicked a trailing sash of her sabisas over her shoulder in such a way to convey profound disapproval of both Maki¡¯s patronising tone and his plan. She moved over to the shop¡¯s coffee machine, which was at once one of the most technologically complicated things in the shop as well as its steadiest earner. The sound of steaming water and gurgling pipes mainly drowned out her mutterings. ¡°Are you sure that¡¯s a good idea?¡± Tayunti ventured. ¡°There was a reason you came to stay with us last night.¡± ¡°Yes and no. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a good idea. But I¡¯ve been wracking my brain all morning and it is the best I can come up with. Nothing¡¯s changed since last night except now I know I have to get rid of the package sitting in my office. I¡¯m already a day late and I¡¯ve heard people like that prefer punctuality.¡± He looked mournfully at Tayunti. ¡°It¡¯s not going to fix itself.¡± She hesitated, but only for a moment. ¡°Crushed carnelian, black chalk and bismuth crystals?¡± Maki smiled. ¡°And coffee.¡± *** The preparations actually went very smoothly. After drinking his coffee far too quickly, Maki doored himself back to his office and quickly snatched up the various notes he had made. To his very great surprise, everything was as he had left it. He tried to avoid looking at the package that was the cause of all his problems but like a jilted lover at an office party there was a magnetic pull on his gaze. It was untouched and unharmed and still managed to glower back at him, wronged by his inattention, his little ¡®portings on the side. Back at the apothecary¡¯s shop, things progressed quickly. Tayunti and Bauma might not have known very much about translocating but they were both first-class alchemists and knew how to work together. And more importantly, they knew how to do what they were told accurately and thoughtfully. It helped that Bauma¡¯s usual clientele were not the sort who came round early on a Luntday morning, so the bone-clatters of a customer were few and far between. They measured out the reagents according to Maki¡¯s instructions, scribbled out answers to the exoteric calculations that were needed and drew out larger versions of the shapes he sketched in the black chalk. By midday Maki was satisfied with their effort, stork-stepping through the shapes drawn onto the floor and scuffing out and correcting whatever small errors he noticed. ¡°This should do.¡± He added a few glyphs at the intersection of two triangles. ¡°The trick.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the plan for when you arrive¡­ wherever you arrive?¡± Bauma asked. Maki nodded. He had been expecting that question and had thus formulated what he considered to be a fool proof plan. ¡°Step one: Grab the beacon. Step two: Run away. Any questions?¡± The ashen expressions that the ladies shared did not inspire great confidence. Tayunti wandered around the shop counter and reached beneath, pulling up a polished wooden club. ¡°Would you like?¡± Maki¡¯s eyebrows shot up. Somehow, he doubted if he would have been so surprised to see Bauma hefting the weapon, the woman would have loved to bash around some unruly customers. But in Tayunti¡¯s hands it looked so out of place that it took a moment before Maki remembered to shake his head. ¡°No, thank you. I don¡¯t want your¡­ club? Using a weapon would be in violation of step two of the plan. And I¡¯m going to stick to the plan.¡± He flicked his wrists, his sleeves already rolled up. At the gesture, the chalks line began to glow a deeper black - a phenomenon the scientists of the world always resented. Especially when Maki would leave a glowing sigil in the university physics lab with a sticky note just reading: Explain this one, Science. The magic was building, shaped by the arcane forms and directed by the combination of Maki¡¯s will and the reagents, it was an invisible presence. It pulsed and as the spell moved towards its crescendo, it created brief visual distortions in the air, like dribbles of water down a pane of glass. He closed his eyes, feeling the pull of the otherwhere beginning to tear at his substance. He had no notion of what to expect, where he would go or what he would see. Nothing leaked back through the fluctuating link with the beacon, nothing except a lingering sense of¡­ dampness. He wavered, mentally and physically. He wasn¡¯t really a brave man - it was just that currently his fears were running a race, and his fear of Mr. Q Unknown had a very good head start. ¡°Wish me luck,¡± he muttered to his friends, before releasing the structural hold on his physical body. Maki shattered into thousands, hundreds of thousands of shimmering shards, that fluttered as moths, a spherical flock that then dispersed into nothing in a silent explosion. *** There was a fleeting sensation of being everywhere at once, which was mostly incredibly dull given the sheer vastness and frankly lazy efforts of the empty black gulfs of space. But quickly, as much as time had meaning in the interstices of reality, the beacon began to assert its magitational pull on Maki¡¯s essence and he was pieced together in a shimmering swirl of fish-like flickers, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid spark. He glowed for a moment, his fractured form bleeding light until he was abruptly whole once more. He staggered, cut free from the magic propping him in place, his hands windmilling as he found his balance. He was in utter darkness and for a moment he wondered if the spell had gone awry, transporting him to some underground deposit of carnelian. He could hear the steady drip of water and the air was stale and earthy, the scent of stone. But then his eyes began to adjust and it became apparent that he was probably not in some primeval subterranean cave, not unless there were some very enterprising plumbers about. Rusty pipework and cracked concrete summed up the decor, with hints of colonising fungi and moss. Bal¨¦ on the plateau was the nice part of the city, but even it had its dingy and disused quarters. They were built down mostly, into the rock of the flat-topped mountain - ventures that hadn¡¯t succeeded or ruins that had been converted into modern spaces and then converted again into memorials to the vagaries of economics. There was an old metal door across from him that was hiding the main source of the light - the space between the door and frame glowing dim white-blue. If Maki knew anything about magic, and his webpage loudly proclaimed that he did, then he was fairly confident in recognising the hallmarks of a magelight. It was the cardinal rule of magic, its hard limit on any would-be Dark Lord - no casting without a caster. Which meant that there was someone waiting for him behind that door. It probably also explained why the reverse homing spell hadn¡¯t put him right on top of the beacon - the magelight¡¯s magic distorting his spell. Knowing his luck, the mystery guest was probably looking straight at the gemstone. The distance between fact and fiction suddenly became readily apparent to Maki. The heroes of all those movies and video games he consumed didn¡¯t need to think about what they were doing - the course of action presented itself and was taken in one swift, graceful movement. In the battle on the rooftop of a speeding train, Maki realised he would be the guy who turns to look when the hero abruptly drops flat. He didn¡¯t want to think about what was waiting for him through the door, for it just meant that he started to catalogue all the interesting ways in which he could be murdered. The possibility he considered to currently have highest probability was being shot in the face and left to rot in an abandoned basement. Not even the alchemists would know where to begin looking for him. So he tried to feign at being a hero, creeping towards the door. He didn¡¯t have many choices, in the plainest sense of the word - the room he had appeared in only had one exit. It wasn¡¯t locked, and for a rusty metal door set in a troglodytes¡¯ haven, it swung open fairly quietly. Maki nipped through, crouched low in what he assumed was good sneaking technique. The next room was much bigger and active in all the ways a decaying building could be. Pipes dripped and concrete flaked, vermin rustled and made themselves visible by trying to hide. There was graffiti on the wall, which meant that for a time at least, the basement had served as a hidey hole for one gang or another. A motionless point of light hung in the centre of the room, sending stark shadows leaping back from every protrusion, an explosion frozen in the umbral realm. The true source of the light was beneath, crouched in the muck with their back to Maki. Even though they were just a silhouette to him, there was no doubt in his mind that it was the same figure that had accosted him in the Professor¡¯s office. They were fiddling with something on the ground, but Maki couldn¡¯t make it out around their body. It had to be the beacon. But what was he to do? There was a lot of fancy magic a person could learn that would have been useful in this scenario - a conjuror might summon binding tentacles from a cephalopod dimension; a necromancer could raise the dead spirit of the building in some vengeful blood-from-the-walls manner. A certain annoying kind of evoker could just start flinging fireballs. But Maki had been called to the noble and peaceful art of translocating. In the comics he would just have teleported in a puff of smoke, grabbed the beacon and then bamfed away in another puff of smoke. But comics always left out the important bits; like re-orientating himself after the first jump so he didn¡¯t transport himself into the middle of a wall or the very long seconds it took to actually perform the magic. Maki was, he was discovering, not entirely equipped for the job. And, a lot louder than he thought he was. The wizard snapped their neck round and Maki¡¯s heart did a little somersault. Not only because he was instantly spotted, but also because as the wizard¡¯s head turned, their waist twisted around as well, and the object in their left hand came into view. It was one of the most recognisable shapes in all the world, as simple as a child folding down their last two fingers and pointing. Maki¡¯s hands moved without needing instruction - palms out, lifting above his head. ¡°Please¡­¡± he whispered, trying to find the wizard¡¯s eyes, to share in that common humanity but also knowing that they must have looked Chiot¨¦ in the eyes when they had shot her. The black figure moved like they had been choreographed, smoothly standing and turning. The gun remained by their side, but it remained threatening nonetheless. Weapons like that were not common in Bal¨¦, plateau or root, and it was the first one Maki had ever seen in real life. The magic light gilded its edges and the barrel was extended. Not a silencer, Maki manically corrected, a suppressor. ¡°You again. Dr. Engazi.¡± They took a step towards him and Maki shrank back, turning his head away. It was mildly gratifying that at least his killer would know his name, but it would be a cold comfort when the bullet drilled into his vitals. Why couldn¡¯t he stop looking at it? It was just an artfully shaped piece of metal. It wasn¡¯t as if there weren¡¯t nine hundred and nine spells that could do worse things to him than a gun. Maybe it was just that anyone could pick it up and instantly become deadly, whereas a spell always needed a well-trained caster. The wizard obviously picked up on the object of his obsessions, for they glanced at the weapon as if noticing it for the first time. They snorted and without ceremony tossed it to the floor. ¡°What are you doing here, Dr. Engazi?¡± Without the lethal threat of the gun hanging over him, Maki found himself relaxing slightly. His hands lowered and he straightened up. It was only when the relief almost caused a grin that he belatedly remembered the circumstances of their last meeting. ¡°The bea- the gemstone.¡± he muttered. The thought of lying didn¡¯t even enter his mind - the devious part of Maki still had his hands up. The wizard was physically taken aback, literally taking a half step away from him, like his words had been flecked in vomit. They reached into a pocket and withdrew the beacon. ¡°All that for this piece of¡­¡± they weighed it in their hand. ¡°Trash?¡± ¡°Please, this is between you and my client. I don¡¯t want to be involved.¡± ¡°Your client?¡± Maki had never been on very sure footing - not since waking up with a blinding headache and the firm conviction that gemstones were going to change the world somehow, or at least that the Professor was convinced that was the case. But even that rickety, cobbled together platform of beliefs was beginning to shudder in the face of the wizard¡¯s confusion. It collapsed completely when they began to laugh. ¡°Unbelievable¡­¡± The wizard looked at him silently for a long moment and Maki debated making a move. Unfortunately for the aspects of him proposing the motion, they did not bring a single viable plan to the table, so they were unanimously defeated. He stood frozen, annoyed at his own passivity. But something about him clearly met with the wizard¡¯s approval, for they reached up to their hood and mask, pulling them away to reveal that they were in fact she under the robes. Jekh, if Maki was any judge, her skin unlined and golden brown, her hair glossy and black, pinned up behind her head. It was not a turn of events that Maki had been expecting and he had no reply ready. Instead he got stuck into that glitchy, half-buffered video look of being about to speak without actually ever saying anything. ¡°Dr. Engazi. There is more at stake here than your professional reputation. Far more.¡± She tossed the beacon at him and Maki clapped seal-like for it, managing to miss it entirely. ¡°But the killer.¡± For even in such trying circumstances, Maki¡¯s monumental intellect had teased out that the wizard was unlikely to have been the murderer. ¡°They took my beacon¡­¡± The wizard nodded and took a step aside, gesturing at the discarded gun and a small pile of what looked like clothes. ¡°And then they brought it to this abandoned location and dumped it, along with the murder weapon and other incriminating items. Hidden amongst the disposed forever.¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Something about that filtered into the confused fog that constituted Maki¡¯s brain in that moment. ¡°They took Chiot¨¦¡¯s notes though. They aren¡¯t here.¡± ¡°Exactly. They threw away what was not needed and kept only what was important. Your involvement is a complete accident.¡± She folded her arms across her chest. Her Old Republic nose did not help with Maki¡¯s impression that she was looking down at him. ¡°A victim of the mere coincidence of your beacon being a gemstone.¡± Keeping his gaze on the wizard, he bent his knees and retrieved the length of carnelian. He had got what he had come for, at least. But getting it had not led him down the path to understanding as he had thought it would. Worse, suddenly he was back where he started. His friend was dead and he had no idea why. ¡°Who did this?¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know,¡± she finally muttered and for the first time, Maki thought he saw a hint of humanity in the woman¡¯s expression. In the harsh glare of the magelight she lowered her eyes and frowned. Then, as subtle as a change in the lighting, the wizard was back. ¡°Would you like to help us find out?¡± *** She took him to her car, which was a minor surprise. There weren¡¯t too many of those on the topside of Bal¨¦, not with the hassle of getting them up onto the plateau in the first place. There were the lifts of course, and the two winding ramps, but most people preferred to take the traditional route - walking onto one of the wide circular platforms set at the base of the mountain and being teleported as part of a crowd by a gang of ¡®portists working in harmony. Once up on the plateau public transport took over. And bicycles. Great shoals of bicycles dragged behind the placid slow-moving buses. The streets of Bal¨¦ had been designed when twisted, narrow alleys and huge pedestrian plazas were in vogue. It was a nice car though, foreign of course. Bal¨¦ did have its own attempt at a local car industry, a vanity project started the last time the city had made a push for independence. It still hobbled along, subsidised to the bone, but the vehicles they put out were more useful as a punchline on the comedy circuit than as transportation. Ironically, the people most likely to be seen in a Nommo Classic were the affluent city Councilors, trying to look Of The People. The wizard¡¯s car had air-conditioning, and soft leather seats. It was comforting enough to lull Maki into a false confidence. He had asked the wizard her name. ¡°Kulit Mozir,¡± she had answered with finality. Not a huge amount of openings to work with as conversations went. So he tried another, something that had bothered him since finding out she didn¡¯t want to kill him. ¡°How did you find that basement?¡± She glanced at him, weighing him up on some rather unfairly weighted scales. ¡°I followed the Scent of Murder.¡± Well, that was a kind of magic he had never heard of and probably made her the best kind of wizard. A necromancer. And that had been the end to any of his questions - not for a lack of effort, for Maki was blithely wordy when he found a captive audience. It was just that there was something very tortoise-like about Kulit - not at all in her physicality, but in the essence of stoic silence, of patience. The ability to appear as if she did not understand nor care about the words coming out of his mouth. Maki eventually took the hint and settled in to see where they were headed. It was then he noticed Kulit¡¯s hands gripping the steering wheel. They were scaled, a mottled amber. There were a number of creatures in the world that combined human features with scales and none of them were ones Maki wanted to be sharing an enclosed space with. Ketu and N¨¹wa and Lamia, oh my. Their relations with humans had all been punctuated by someone dislocating their jaw and choking down a torso. Unconsciously, Maki puffed himself up and stuck out his elbows, trying to look as unswallowable as possible. Then Kulit reached to twist a knob on the dashboard and her sleeve pulled far enough up her wrist so that Maki could see that they were not her hands, but tightly-fitted gloves. Obviously. The silence from that point onwards was mainly his own work. They drove into one of the nicer districts of stately pale buildings, each one stamped with the logo of whichever department or corporation owned the insides. It quickly became apparent where they were heading, as like many students too young to have any good sense, Maki had once come to gawk at the self-proclaimed champions of magic. ¡°Oh shit, you really are one of them, aren¡¯t you?¡± Kulit just gave him a Look and pulled the car into the parking area next to the building. She turned off the engine and twisted in her seat. ¡°Is this going to be a problem, Dr. Engazi?¡± ¡°Oh what? That you are part of a secret shadowy league, with its own dark and twisted agenda. And not just any society, no, but the secret society. The one people think rig elections and silence dissenters with maze spells. Nah, we¡¯re cool.¡± Kulit pressed the fingertips of one hand between the knuckles of the other. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t believe everything you read on the internet. My order-¡± Maki interrupted. ¡°The Bloody Ancient and Exalted Order of the Secret Word!¡± ¡°My order,¡± Kulit continued, ¡°merely wants to safeguard a legacy of human ingenuity against the short-sighted forces of technological ¡®progress¡¯.¡± ¡°Sure, and the President just ran for office to help the poor. Did you read that off a press release?¡± ¡°Fine! Think what you wish. Can you at least accept that in this instance, we want the same thing?¡± Maki had to think about that one. There really was no telling what a magical society could want. He had no cognates but the wild rumours that abounded about them. ¡°I¡¯m not convinced yet. Let me talk to someone in charge and I¡¯ll make up my mind.¡± Kulit smirked and nodded, clicking open her door and getting out as she spoke. Maki hurried to keep up. ¡°It just so happens I was going to report to one of the Braided Circle. Does that satisfy you?¡± He swallowed. Like all magic enthusiasts of a certain age, the secret societies had once fascinated Maki, and the Order of the Secret Word was the most fascinating of them all. The claims of being the repository of ancient and forgotten knowledge, the layers upon layers of membership and nested secrecy, the central mystical goal. Reading about them was like living in a thriller novel. ¡°That¡¯s the top level.¡± He pronounced, remembering days of comparing societies with his friends, a top trumps game of which had the best heraldry or the coolest titles for its ranks. He trotted after Kulit¡¯s brisk pace up the stairs. ¡°I mean, they run the show?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± His palms were sweaty. Why were his palms sweaty? The last time that had happened he had thought he was going to get shot. Yes, the societies were meant to be strict magical meritocracies, so the most adept and powerful of mages were in charge, but surely that was just an old-fashioned boast? These days being able to hold your own in a magical duel was for the movies and military special forces. It was so distracting a claim though, that Maki hardly noticed the interior of the lodge. Kulit did not hang about, moving with purpose down corridors and up steps. There were few enough people about, and not one of them was chanting or wearing a cowled robe. They didn¡¯t even give Maki a second look, which considering he was penetrating their deepest levels of secrecy, he thought was rather blas¨¦ of them. ¡°Dr. Maki Engazi. Dr. Yorub Jonil, current Snakehead of the Braided Circle.¡± Kulit gestured to a small, rotund man with a great white smile and a smokestack tower of grey hair. ¡°Vice-Chancellor?¡± blurted Maki. The Vice-Chancellor of Bal¨¦ University flipped his wrists down, like Maki had just complimented him on his new shoes. ¡°But¡­ you hate the magical departments of the University? You¡¯re always threatening our funding.¡± Dr. Jonil had the look of an uncle who knew far too many stories of youthful parental indiscretions. ¡°And how many times have I been successful in that, Dr. Engazi? Maki? Yes, you will be Maki and I will be Yorub. So?¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± Now that he mentioned it, the loud speeches that the Vice-Chancellor always seemed to be making around budget time never appeared to have much of an effect. The twinkle in Yorub¡¯s eye was annoyingly knowing. ¡°You begin to see, don¡¯t you? An obnoxious voice is very easy to dismiss and the cause they carry with them so often gets tossed out at the same time. I provide a very weak standard to rally around for those who wish to diminish the importance of a magical education. A small role, but one I enjoy playing.¡± ¡°You lead the Secret Word?¡± It was hard for Maki to believe. He had never had much interaction with the Vice-Chancellor, nodded across the room in a few faculty parties, but he had seen him on the TV enough times. The man was a minor celebrity in the way that academics hoped to be, having written some successful books on the history of science - his most audacious claim being that the Hierarchy owed most of its hegemonic power not to its magical dominance but its technical achievements. ¡°I didn¡¯t even know you had studied magic.¡± ¡°My first degree was in Astrology actually.¡± Yorub smiled and took Maki¡¯s hand, patting it gently as he tugged him into a well-appointed study. It was a measure of Maki¡¯s discombobulation that he did not immediately move over to look at the titles of the books on the shelves, as was his normal practice upon meeting a new place. ¡°And lead is much too strong a word. The Snakehead is appointed according to portents and omens to ensure impartiality and we are only there to guide and structure the Braided Circle. Like the chair of any mundane committee really.¡± ¡°And the Dragon?¡± Maki could not resist the question. It wasn¡¯t as if he really believed in the existence of a hidden grandmaster, but what kind of nerd would he be if he didn¡¯t at least ask? Yorub sighed with a warm-hearted weariness. ¡°Oh, if we had a ringot for every time we were asked that question. No, Dragon is a myth. We do not feel the requirement to have a completely secret ruling cabal and then an even more secret leader on top of that. We do not operate at that level of absurdity.¡± Maki shrugged and dropped down onto one of the pillows on the floor. With a creak, Yorub lowered himself down opposite him. He looked for the wizard and found her prowling tiger-like behind him. She might as well have had ¡®bodyguard¡¯ stencilled onto her forehead for all her earlier tact. Maki actually found it a bit thrilling, that the societies had their own brand of magical enforcers and that she was one of them. That probably said a lot about his sexual orientation. ¡°I suppose you will want to know what¡¯s going on,¡± Yorub said. ¡°I want to know why someone would kill the Professor,¡± Maki replied, setting his gaze to stern. ¡°And why a society supposedly concerned with a decent magical education is so interested in her death.¡± Yorub glanced over his shoulder, presumably to give Kulit the order to disintegrate the insolent fool and Maki twitched, but was relieved to see the old man sigh and link his fingers across his generous belly. ¡°What did Professor Hounsol tell you about her latest research?¡± Maki waved his hand vaguely. ¡°She was wittering about an unusual effect she had noticed in the crystals she had used to store memories. Something about a degeneration, or instability?¡± ¡°It was much more than that. She¡¯d noticed that effect some months ago - that gemstones and crystals used to store magical information suffered a structural instability. The magic lattice itself was not affected, which probably explains why the anomaly was not detected until now. Or perhaps Chiot¨¦ was just smarter than everyone else.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand why noticing a minor quirk of spellwork would get her killed?¡± Yorub shook two fingers. ¡°That was just the beginning of her research, Maki. What Chiot¨¦ discovered was that the magic laced into the gemstones was feeding off its structure. At the tiniest scale, the gemstone was fuelling the magic.¡± Now that was like a litre of Angel Sweat applied directly to Maki¡¯s brain. He sat upright and his eyes glazed, the intellectual edge of his personality wedging itself to the front of his thoughts. ¡°But¡­¡± Yorub¡¯s voice was insistent though. ¡°She was on the cusp of something truly revolutionary. Evolutionary. We believe she was close to designing an arcane generator fuelled by gemstones.¡± ¡°Casting without a caster,¡± Maki whispered. ¡°Yes,¡± Yorub urged. ¡°You¡¯ve imagined the possibilities, we all have. With a source beyond our frail bodies we will be able to construct grand magical projects, the likes of which could scarce be dreamed of, even in the days of the Hierarchy. No longer will magic be the province of the educated and the privileged - everyone will be free to benefit from its bounty.¡± Maki¡¯s mouth fell open as he tried to process the sheer enormity of Chiot¨¦¡¯s discovery. While his brain was thus occupied, his mouth continued the conversation. ¡°I¡¯ll be out of a job,¡± he muttered, which made Kulit choke from behind his back. The Vice-Chancellor just grinned, teeth uncommonly bright. ¡°No no no. You will just have to evolve to fit a new landscape! Most people who use a computer have no idea how it works - the machines and programs are created by expert technicians. This will be the role of the magician in the future. Artisanal craftspeople for an unlimited power.¡± ¡°A power you wanted for yourselves.¡± For the nominal head of a secret society, Yorub had the good grace to look offended, but Maki jabbed an accusing finger toward him before he could get his blame-shifting motors started. ¡°Don¡¯t treat me like an idiot. I know the Professor wasn¡¯t just handing over all her findings to you. She thought people like you were a bunch of ass-backwards hermits. Which means that you were watching her, snooping where you had no business snooping. So don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re looking for her killer out of the kindness of your hearts. You want her research back.¡± Yorub made a small noise in the back of his throat and his lips pursed together. Maki recalled that no one knew where he was and that a very well trained enforcer was waiting over his shoulder. The Vice-Chancellor gave said bodyguard another long look before returning his gaze to Maki. ¡°It is true. We desperately want to get our hands on Professor Hounsol¡¯s research. I cannot believe that whoever has it now has anyone¡¯s but their own best interests at heart.¡± He steepled his fingers in front of his chin. ¡°Do you know why we are called the Order of the Secret Wo-¡± ¡°Kamula,¡± Maki interrupted, to Yorub¡¯s great chagrin. ¡°Everyone knows the word is Kamula. There are fourteen year olds posting on forums who write essays about it. The internet. You should check it out.¡± ¡°Yes, well. Kamula. That is what we are for, what we have always ever been for. And Kamula belongs to everyone, can only belong to everyone. We, the Braided Circle, believe that Chiot¨¦¡¯s generator may be a great step towards it.¡± Maki had to remember who he was dealing with, which meant taking his natural scepticism and keeping it warm under his arse for a time. Kamula. It had its technological reflection. That was called the Singularity - the point beyond which it was pointless to speculate on the powers our machines might have for they would have progressed past human capabilities. Designed without human designers. Kamula was something like that. It was the older sibling, born in an age when magicians were probing at the limits of their powers, working in concert to construct vast, reality-shaping rituals. It was meant to be the ultimate fusing of humankind and magic, the point where there would be no difference between the two. Where thought and will and casting were one. Apotheosis. There were legends of a handful of individuals making that leap: Clever Owu and the Divided Queen, a couple from Haepon and the other western countries. Even one, Prester Layne, the Wild Mage, from what became the March Federations, a region of the world hardly known for magical excellence. It had long since been quietly wheeled into a cluttered corner of the lore along with the faery courts and the Elixir of Life, occasionally to be dusted off and examined by historians and anthropologists. Microchips and microscopes would lead to the transcendence of humanity, not rituals and henges. Except in the halls of secret powers, it seemed. ¡°We would not keep this to ourselves. We could not.¡± Maki licked his teeth under his lips. He couldn¡¯t know whether or not the Vice-Chancellor was telling the truth - they were called secret societies for good reason. There were numerous theories of their codes and creeds but while there was enough to corroborate his story about being a benign organisation, there was also a swathe that painted the Order as the bastard offspring of a psychopath and a megalomaniac. But something in Yorub¡¯s little speech spoke to him in the language of Chiot¨¦. There was no doubt in Maki¡¯s mind that if she had been able to crack the secret of the arcane generator that she would have put the schematics up on her blog the next day. There was no self-aggrandizement to be found in her personality, only the glory of discovery and the never-ending awe at the world¡¯s majesty. He had never quite understood her, not really, never been able to not care what others thought like she could. What he did know was that she would not have stood for her discovery being hidden away. Maki didn¡¯t care about Kamula, firstly because he didn¡¯t accept the logic of its arguments and secondly because Kamula didn¡¯t keep the electricity running. But he did care about his friend, and what being a friend meant. It wasn¡¯t his strongest skill, for there were no rulebooks, or step-by-step guides to download, only the vague fog in his mind that was telling him that Chiot¨¦¡¯s legacy mattered, that it was an obligation that bridged the desert to the Land of the Dead. It was a very awkward feeling for Maki, being motivated by another¡¯s cause. At first he thought he just really needed to burp. Then a mobile buzzed and Kulit quickly excused herself to take a call. Much as if he had actually burped, the magic of the moment was broken. ¡°You were watching her then?¡± he asked, dropping the conversation back down to earth as fast as a poorly designed satellite. Yorub grimaced, then nodded. ¡°We were. We observe a few such people - keeping an eye on their research, in case we need to guide them in the right direction. The Professor may have refused our invitation to join, but as much as an outsider could be, she was one of us.¡± He sighed, but waved himself through the regret. ¡°We used the traditional techniques, scrying and the like. We were fairly certain that Professor Hounsol was aware of us watching. It seemed to amuse her more than anything. But lately it became apparent we were not the only one to have our eyes on the Professor. We watched a local private eye placing bugs around her office.¡± ¡°What?¡± Maki sat upright on the floor. He had been in that bloody office! Said things! About non-fictional people! People he may or may not have drawn pay cheques from! ¡°We were na?ve.¡± And the guilt was not hidden on Yorub¡¯s face. Snakehead he may have been, but the Vice-Chancellor was a man who opened his heart wide to people and suffered for it. ¡°We did not believe that someone would go so far¡­¡± His voice trailed away. ¡°Do the police know about this guy?¡± ¡°When Kulit searched the office after your¡­ meeting, she found that the bugs had been removed. We presume that the Professor¡¯s computer was trashed not only to destroy her notes but also to remove any trace of the spyware they might have loaded onto her machine.¡± ¡°In other words, no, you¡¯re keeping that one to yourself.¡± ¡°Shall we speak more of keeping facts out of police hands, Dr. Engazi, or would that be too much like the heron calling the stork spindly-legged?¡± A mild but fair rebuke, given the carnelian weighing down his pocket. It still made Maki flush red, an unpleasant cocktail of embarrassment and anger. He swallowed it down. Any retort - and he had been working on a good one, something involving giving head like a snake - was cut short by Kulit striding into the room. She held her mobile up as if it signified something other than Kulit¡¯s poor taste in phone cases. ¡°That was Ceza. She was able to track down the account which paid the PI.¡± Arcs of electricity practically sizzled off the bodyguard, she was so energised. Maki wasn¡¯t wearing rubber boots but he had never been happy with ignorance. He raised his golf club into the thunderhead. ¡°Ceza?¡± A gorgon would have called the look Kulit gave him a little spine-chilling, but she answered the question. ¡°One of our Third Circle sisters. She works in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Bureau and I had her looking into our PI¡¯s bank accounts. We¡¯ve got a name, Snakehead.¡± ¡°Good work! Let¡¯s hear it.¡± The mention of the Order¡¯s penetration of Bal¨¦¡¯s civic structure was so casual that Maki almost accepted it without question. Then the weight of it dragged his jaw down. Unfortunately for him, his quiet finger waggle trying to raise a Point of Contention did not attract much notice. ¡°The person who paid the PI is one Opal Le¡¯Thosa. The money came out of a secondary account which Ceza couldn¡¯t track back any further. Any payments into that came from anonymous accounts from the Federations.¡± Even Maki knew that was a financial brick wall. The March Federations had made a name for themselves with their lax banking regulations, low tax rates and client secrecy provisions. If there was a name in their systems, it was hidden in a vault that didn¡¯t even open when the Horeshi government flexed its hegemonic muscles. For a minute he had really thought they had them. ¡°But,¡± Kulit continued, ¡°She has a primary account. Which every month gets paid a salary by the Nommo Motor Company.¡± ¡°Nommo?¡± Maki and Yorub said together, their disbelief harmonising rather nicely. ¡°Vice-President of Marketing is what it says online. Does rather well for someone working for a failing company.¡± ¡°You have to get to Nommo, Kulit,¡± Yorub ordered, his hand grasping at his chin, rubbing and tugging with his agitation. ¡°You must find those notes!¡± ¡°Nommo?¡± Maki was still stuck on that little titbit. Of all the organisations he would have pegged as being behind a murderous conspiracy, Nommo wasn¡¯t even doing the catering for the committee drawing up the shortlist. ¡°I¡¯ll head out now. The offices should still be empty.¡± Maki was up on his feet in a flash, mouth moving while his brain was still floating up through his lungs. ¡°I¡¯ll come with you.¡± The two Wordites both raised a single eyebrow, flicking their expressions to an italic angle. Finally he had the chance to think about what he was asking for and was rather surprised to find that his brain was in full support. ¡°You want to get to Nommo fast, right? There¡¯s no one faster.¡± Yorub and Kulit shared a silent communication and then the bodyguard gave a sharp nod. ¡°Very well. Show me what you can do.¡± Part 4: The irony of teleporting to a car manufacturer is lost on everyone. The root city of Bal¨¦ sprawled around the base of the mountain like a splatter of dark paint flicked onto the canvas of the plains. From the viewpoint of the plateau, the root looked to have little of the charm of the ancient city. While Bal¨¦ on the top was home to the University, museums and the glittering mirror-buildings of banks and corporate branches, the root was both less and more modern - the stage of human construction that might as well have been dubbed The Concrete Age. Too practical for fragile shards of glass or unnecessary twists of architecture, the root housed the workers who kept the plateau from descending into tooth and nail savagery, the manufacturing and utilities whose headquarters watched from way above, and the Rest. The uncategorised masses. Not even ten percent of the population of Bal¨¦ lived on the plateau, but somehow it was all people could think of when asked to represent that city. Contrary to the beliefs of those who roosted permanently on top of the plateau, the root city was not a never-ending slum. There were pleasant suburban districts, well-managed parks and the mandated Areas of Cultural Significance. The Nommo Motor Company had its headquarters near one of the latter of these, which made it easy for Maki to translocate Kulit and himself there. ¡®Easy¡¯ was a somewhat misleading adjective, for it referred only to the scribbled calculations he had made on the floorboard in the Order¡¯s lodge, muttering to himself and squinting at the map of Bal¨¦ they had provided for him. Not so easy was generating the energy to tear a dimensional door wide and stable enough for two people to pass through, especially when one of those people turned their nose up at his pronunciation of the magic words. Maki rested his forehead against the warm stone of the Atibal¨¦ Monument, sharing an intimate moment with the basalt arse of a Hero of the Worker¡¯s Collective. It was hard to describe magical exhaustion to someone who didn¡¯t cast. The common perception was that it was akin to physical fatigue but it was not. Maki had once tried to explain it to his marathon-running partner: ¡°It¡¯s like doing the Bal¨¦ to Gebrah race and immediately after being asked to solve a math problem. But the opposite. And not in your brain. In your animating spirit. Get it?¡± In any case, Maki had done a lot more off the cuff magic than he was used to and was feeling wrung out, a bit insubstantial. The patience Kulit showed for his condition was heart-warming - the bodyguard pursed her lips and strode away from the memorial without sparing him a solitary glance. Well, he had been the genius who had wanted to join the badass on her revenge fantasy. He groped the collectivist Hero one last time, pushing himself away from the statue and jogged after Kulit. Tower Nommo overlooked the memorial with a proprietary air. It was the only skyscraper in sight in the darkness of night and that made it imperious, despite being a rather unimpressive building in any other context. ¡°Hey Kulit,¡± Maki said, grinning. ¡°Why is a Nommo car better than a ticking time bomb?¡± ¡°A light is on.¡± ¡°Nope! It¡¯s because a Nommo car doesn¡¯t make that annoying ticking noise!¡± His bony shoulders bobbed as he chuckled. ¡°Ah, I¡¯ve got so many of those. Do you know why they don¡¯t make a -¡± Kulit grabbed him roughly and pointed her arm up at the building. Sighting along her finger Maki could see that three-quarters of the way up, a corner office was illuminated. ¡°Someone is in.¡± Apart from the lobby, the office was the only light on in Tower Nommo. Even from the ground, Maki could see its details sharply - a desk, a file cabinet. An erectly phallic cactus shoved into the corner. With the spotlight it all looked curiously staged, the setting for some dramatic reading. Act One, Scene One: the Mystery. "Who¡¯s working this late? Not Quality Control I can tell you that much." Maki glanced at Kulit slyly but she did not crack so much as a charitable lip curl. "You see, because Nommo cars are so sh-" "Can you get us up there?" She interrupted. His brow furrowed. "Yes," he began slowly. "By using the lifts?" She did have a mobile phone so presumably she knew about modern technology, but you could never be too sure with people who had joined cults. Kulit''s snakeskin gloves whispered as her hands balled into fists. Maki wondered how high she had to count in her head before she was ready to speak again. "I would rather not have to explain to the security guards what we want at this hour." "No, I suppose not," Maki conceded gracefully, planting his hands on his hips and squinting up at the office. If there was one thing he was averse to, and really the list went on and on, then it was appearing into a place with no idea what he might find there. Or who might find him. So he swung his gaze to the left, tracking along the storey. The dark glass was mostly impenetrable, but one hallway got a little bit more light through it than most and Maki spotted something interesting. "I have. An idea." "Excellent," Kulit said, stepping close and gripping his elbow, tucking in close by his side. Maki froze and turned to look at her. To his amazement, the wizard actually went a little red. "It''ll take a minute," he said, carefully prying her fingers from his arm. He pulled a nubbin of chalk from his pocket and sketched out a rectangle on the tarmac. ¡°Probably the easiest form of translocation is the swap. The world isn¡¯t nearly so upset when it feels things are taking up the right amount of space in the right places.¡± His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and looking from the rectangle up to the dark window, he hummed and hawed. ¡°Just takes a bit of focus¡­¡± He rubbed out a line and extended the rectangle. ¡°...And a little prowess.¡± Maki stepped into the rectangle and motioned for Kulit to join him. ¡°You see that filing cabinet backed up against the window there? There¡¯s no way we weigh more than it, concur?¡± The wizard frowned, but quickly nodded. ¡°Even empty, that thing will weigh a tonne.¡± She turned to watch him, felt the gathering of his energies. ¡°Are you sure you are looking at the right floor?¡± ¡°Of course I¡¯m looking at the right arsing floor! I¡¯m not a baked idiot.¡± Maki tossed his head, scoffing as he mentally shifted his focus up a storey to the correct filing cabinet. Hardly his fault that every floor had the same decor. He said the magic words. There was an inward rush of air, the chalk lifting off the tarmac for a moment before crashing back down, the thump a lot louder with the supporting percussion of a metal file cabinet smashing down onto the parking lot. It wobbled once then settled. A triumphant parakeet squawked as it fluttered down onto it, quickly asserting its squatting rights by shitting into one of the open drawers. *** The thirteenth floor was dark but Kulit did not cast a magelight. There was enough ambient light drizzling through the innumerable windows for the twosome to see, even if it did leave the world drained of color and fuzzy around the edges. Not that they were missing much. If Maki had to guess, he would have said the interior decorator had an unhealthy obsession with the warmth of bare metal. He was happy to let Kulit lead the way, he was busy concentrating on maintaining his stability. All the teleporting he had done was making him feel distinctly out of place. And that had a lot more literal meaning for a ''portist. One of the doors on the corridor was open and leaking light. And voices. A man. Rasping and deep. The hint of an accent: "Don''t pretend you''re surprised by this. I had a look at those notebooks before I handed them over. Took me a while maybe, but I figure you got the better end of the bargain." A woman. Tremulous, deeply uncomfortable: "You were paid what was agreed. Our obligations are fulfilled. You really shouldn¡¯t be here." "And I want to reopen those negotiations. You fucked me. Those notes are worth a fortune. I want more." There was a pause in which Kulit and Maki crept closer to the door. The man continued, "Or perhaps I should be telling this story to someone more interested?" "You don''t know anything. You''ll put yourself in a cell for nothing." Maki could see it in his head: the assassin, some scarred brute, probably a blond Marchlander, jacked up in black fatigues and combat boots and looming over the woman. "I knew enough to find you, Opal Le''Thosa. I know that an engine fuelled by crystals would be of great interest to Nommo." They were just behind the blade of light that crossed the carpet now and Maki leant in towards Kulit''s ear. "So I think we might be in the right place. What''s the plan?" Kulit did not answer. The wizard instead straightened up and without so much as a word to Maki, shoved open the door. "This is not a plan!" Maki hissed, his stomach clogging up his throat as he scurried to keep up. He tried to adopt some of Kulit''s dangerous swagger and followed her into the office. The denizens had been stunned into silence by their arrival and it painted a very different picture than the one Maki had dreamed up. Ms. Le''Thosa was very young. He had been expecting some sort of mature functionary - a woman with the steel edges necessary to order the death of another human being. Opal looked like she hadn''t even had enough time to frame her diploma, let alone sharpen up her edges. The assassin was certainly not his Maki-doppelg?nger. Dressed in casual shorts and wearing sunglasses and a cap he could have been anyone. Dark skin, five foot something, age twenty-five to forty. Basically, Maki might have described a good portion of the continent''s male population, let alone Bal¨¦''s. Mr. Indistinguishable. Opal broke the moment. "You can''t be up here. How did you get past security?" As she spoke she fussed with the receiver of her phone, wagging her finger at Maki and Kulit like they were a pair of lost work experience kids. Kulit took centre stage and Maki got to see her as he had the first time - an ambassador from a more dangerous Age. Potent. "We know what you did, Opal Le''Thosa." Kulit said, pointing an accusing finger. Maki drew himself up to his own towering height and put on his best Who-shat-in-my-soup face. But he recognised that his fearsomeness may already have been compromised by the fact that he was still wearing an inside-out band T-shirt and sweatpants. They were the only black clothes he could find when planning his raid of the Professor¡¯s office. Opal seemed to have noticed the same thing for she slammed her hands onto her hips and raised her chin. "I would like to see your warrant or the legal writ that entitles you to trespass on private property. If not I shall have to insist that you leave immediately." Kulit¡¯s eyes flashed, quite literally. Some small cantrip coupled with a degree of mental control that few practitioners bothered with. ¡°We are not the police.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t think so,¡± the assassin replied, sweeping his arm up from around his back. In his hand was a pistol and by the time Maki had recognised that fact, it was already firing at him. Or near him. He couldn¡¯t really tell because he was cowering as soon as he saw the metal shape, as if squinting could stop bullets. Two cracks, two world-breaking retorts and, Maki assumed, two cooling bodies. Who knew dying could be so painless? Not even a punch knocking the air out of him. Too painless really. It was a bit of a let-down to discover all those action movies had been lying to him. This death sequence was causing far too much unnecessary consternation to be permitted to continue. Maki opened his eyes and confirmed he was not at all perforated. Not even a flesh wound. He looked to Kulit for explanation and as he did he saw the tell-tale shimmer in the air - a slick of oil on the clear water of reality - that marked some kind of ward. Very nice of her to include him within its bounds, perhaps he could send her some flowers after this was all over? Though she might have mentioned that before he almost pissed himself. Ruined his credibility as a badass. So a card but no flowers. Kulit was much more composed, her hands moving in an elaborate dance, her voice strong as she began casting. There was no hesitation, no stumbling over the complex, unnatural syllables. Power gathered to her like a storm trapped in a milk bottle, enormous but compressed and bounded. Maki spectated, mouth gaping open. He was a fanboy on stage with his idol. The control, the pure talent. It only took her a handful of seconds and then she punched and the spell exploded. Gogol¡¯s Elephantine Eruption! Everything in front of Kulit was struck by an invisible kinetic force. The charge of an enraged bull elephant. Opal and the assassin were flung backwards against the wall, the desk leapt, the objects on its surface scattered like buckshot. A stapler punched through the window and sailed into the night. The cactus flopped over. ¡°Pow!¡± Maki ejaculated, double fist pumping, but Kulit was still casting, not even taking a breath between one spell and the next. A rift opened up between her hands and bioluminescent tentacles uncoiled. ¡°Tentacles!¡± Maki yelled. The conjured limbs whipped out towards the prone figures. Opal was enveloped with a scream which was silenced when one of the thick, rubbery tentacles slapped over her mouth. But the assassin had already pushed himself off the floor, leaping to one side as the tentacles went for him, scrambling on all fours and shoulder barging his way into an adjoining room. The tentacles splattered moistly against the door, but their reach was not infinite and there was no way that anyone wanted whatever creature they were part of to squeeze its way into their dimension. ¡°He¡¯s getting away!¡± Maki pointed after the assassin. His legs took that as a command and accelerated him in the assassin¡¯s wake. The next room was a long meeting room and by the time Maki clattered into it, the door at the other end was sighing closed. So he pushed harder, tapping the deep well of his physical endurance. Every now and then there was a little discontinuity in his step, a slight jar hither and thither. But Maki had suffered from ''portist''s dislocation before and if anything, his spatial awareness was impeccable. So he careened into the corridor quick enough to see the assassin jetting down the hall. Maki accelerated again, his long legs stretching to chew up the carpet. There was no creator god, but if there had been, they would have placed Maki in the pile of people marked ''real good at running for a long time.'' But his experience was a liability in this case. For Maki had the unusual ability to both think and run at the same time. So as his feet pounded around a corner he was struck by the thought that he had no idea what he would do should he catch the assassin. He didn''t even know if the killer was carrying his gun anymore, but he would certainly be better at fighting than Maki, no matter how many marchat movies he had seen. That the assassin hadn''t come to this conclusion yet betrayed an admirable single-mindedness. Or maybe he just thought Maki was as devastating a mage as Kulit? A series of illuminated orange signs marked the path of his escape plan - an emotionless stick man fleeing hungry flames - and then it was one last stretch to the fire door. The fire door was the only destination on this corridor and the immediacy of it forced itself onto Maki''s consciousness. He did not have the magical arsenal that was available to Kulit - though he was very much interested in whichever secretive mountain monastery she had obviously been trained in - so he would have to get creative with his magic, something that every good tutor would warn against. Especially while running. He threw out his arm, teeth clenched together and breath hissing through them. The assassin opened the gap, sprinting towards the door. That''s right, you bastard, hit that door as hard as you can! But maybe not too hard. The calculations Maki had been doing were truly on the fly and he didn''t want the assassin to merely stumble over a speed bump. He wanted him to ram into a roadblock. The assassin lowered his shoulder and hit the door. But instead of bouncing open like any good emergency exit would, the door barely shifted an inch. It was an unexpected resistance and it was not gentle, the assassin''s surprised expression being briefly converted into two dimensions by the unyielding plane. He fell back and Maki stormed up behind him. Like all desperate and untrained fighters, he went for the most vicious attack he could think of, aiming a kick at the assassin''s head. But instead of a meaty impact of a foot getting acquainted to a cheek, Maki was jolted a step to the left by an abrupt dislocation, his swinging leg throwing him off balance, sending him tumbling onto the prone assassin. He shrieked and flailed, like he had just noticed a spider in his bath, fighting a titanic battle against an inch long enemy. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Much like his battles with submarine arachnids, it soon became apparent that Maki was the only one taking part. The assassin was a limp tangle of limbs around him and upon a cautious examination, Maki spotted a reddening mark on his forehead. Somewhere in his spasming, he had clearly connected an elbow to the man''s face. He patted the assassin''s thigh with a trembling, adrenaline and fear jumped hand. "It was a pull door, mate." But it didn''t quite work. Maki tried again, licking his dry lips: "Try k-knocking with your hand next time.¡± He paused, then experimented out loud: ¡°Bub." Neither sounded right. Quipping was a lot harder than it was made to look by the professionals. Maki sighed and pulled himself free of the assassin. The man was a distinctly average looking person, which in itself chilled the warmth of victory that Maki was feeling. There was perhaps no special story which allowed a person to become a killer. This wasn¡¯t a zealot or violent madman, just a person with a price - where humans were a resource, a death just became another commodity. Maki reached over the slumped body and pulled the fire door properly closed again, giving it a firm tug to make sure the latch clicked. In his desperation he had reached for the furthest doorway he was familiar with, knowing that the greater distance between the two portals would directly increase the difficulty of opening the door - like trying to shove open a door that was a mile thick. The only place that had come into his mind was the door to his parents¡¯ bedroom in Sombilad, half a continent away, so no wonder the assassin had bounced off it. But the last thing Maki wanted now was his mum going to the bathroom and ending up wandering the halls of Tower Nommo naked. Somehow she would find a way to make it about Maki¡¯s lack of procreation, never mind that he was stopping a dangerous criminal. He found himself in a bit of a dilemma. He didn¡¯t really want to stick around with the assassin - real life was not as convenient as video games, where a head injury guaranteed the mook was unconscious until the hero moved on to the next zone. But neither did he want to leave the villain alone, free and able to continue his escape once he came round. In the end he recognised his lack of expertise and scuttled back to Kulit. If there was anyone who knew what to do with a stunned killer, it was her. As he neared the door to the office, he slowed, a smirk hooking at the corner of his lips and drawing them up. He started to swagger and prepared his opening line. Guess who had just stopped a highly trained assassin? ¡°Oh remember that bad guy-¡± But his victory parade was cut short. Kulit was crouched over Opal, the Nommo lady¡¯s eyes rolled back in her head. The wizard¡¯s fingers were curled into claws, wisps of abcoloured smoke burning off them. So far so magical - could barely cast a cantrip without something glowing in odd dimensions. But Maki recoiled when he noticed that the tips of Kulit¡¯s gloved fingers were not pressed against Opal¡¯s forehead and temple - they were dipping into her skull. She looked up when Maki bumbled into the room but there weren¡¯t any pupils in her eyes. A void regarded Maki and he did not enjoy a single moment of it. Then Kulit broke off the spell, Opal¡¯s head thumping to the floor. The wizard blinked rapidly and there was a stutter of different eyes before they returned to her usual brown. Maki was glad that he hadn¡¯t eaten for a while, for seeing Kulit¡¯s eyes replaced by sets of uneven teeth was not something that would have survived a full stomach. ¡°We¡¯re in the wrong place,¡± she said, her tone as light as if Opal had just pointed out their hilarious error in map-reading, rather than having her mind invaded and her knowledge tugged out thread by thread. ¡°The notes aren¡¯t here.¡± Maki grimaced. ¡°But the,¡± he said and pointed over his shoulder, eloquently expressing the notion that they had chased down the assassin and his employer, that it stood to reason that Chiot¨¦¡¯s notes were somewhere here. ¡°We were all wrong. Nommo is just another link in this chain. We have to get back topside.¡± Maki clutched both hands into his hair and tugged. ¡°But it makes sense. Nommo make cars, cars have motors, ergo therefore and consequently¡­ a new kind of motor would actually make them innovative for once.¡± Even he could hear the shrill edge of an impending collapse in his voice. But he wanted it to be over! Find the killer, solve the case. Neat and simple and storybook. He didn¡¯t want it to go deeper, be any more convoluted. He wanted to get about a week¡¯s worth of sleep. ¡°It¡¯s not a motor, it¡¯s a generator. And now we need to get out of here before we miss it.¡± She was so damn collected - a perfectly clear digital signal in an analogue world. A knife in a drawer full of spoons. Purpose was a bullseye and she was streaking towards it. Confronted with her, Maki felt like a tangle of a person, Makis wandering here and there, pulled towards different ends. Never could he be as singular as she was. It was exhausting to even consider the self-discipline. ¡°We can¡¯t just leave them like this,¡± he said. ¡°Why not?¡± Kulit said, flicking her wrist with dismissive panache. ¡°They¡¯re just the¡­ moving parts of a bigger machine.¡± ¡°Because that man out there shot my friend in the chest,¡± he snapped. ¡°I don¡¯t care that it wasn¡¯t his idea or that she was just following orders. They could have said no and they didn¡¯t. That¡¯s why.¡± It was a flare of emotion that was hard to maintain in the face of Kulit¡¯s glacial charms. He was fairly sure that there was a set of finely-tuned mental scales inside her head, one side weighed down by Maki¡¯s usefulness, the other, the amount he annoyed her. As soon as it tipped the other way, she would have no compunction in leaving him behind. ¡°Fine.¡± Maki¡¯s face exploded into a grin. He should have gone into Charms he was so damn irresistible. *** It didn¡¯t take long for Kulit to take care of the two conspirators - conjuring ropes out of thin air and then enchanting them both with a sleeping spell. If everything went to plan, the first thing they would see when waking up would be the photogenic faces of Bal¨¦¡¯s finest. As Maki prepared the ritual that would either return them to the plateau or leave him a soul-drained dislocated husk, Kulit explained what she had extracted from Opal¡¯s mind. Maki only interrupted once, right at the beginning, before Kulit piled on enough truth to silence him. ¡°Isn¡¯t mind cracking against the Ou Jura Conventions?¡± he asked lightly, not even looking up from his markings. ¡°I do not recall my Order being signatories of those agreements.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± It¡¯s always wise to get a good kick in the sensibles every so often. Person gets bitten by lion, stops thinking of them as a furry cartoon animal. Does not get eaten by lion down the road. Maki gets reminded that Kulit is not just a woman tragically born without a sense of humour, but the ice-hearted agent of an ancient Order who also happens to be the most capable practitioner he has ever met. ¡°Still pretty fucking evil,¡± he added, but quietly, because bravery is a volume knob that Maki set firmly to three. Kulit didn¡¯t even take her eyes off the preparations. ¡°Evil is being content with the knowledge that a woman, a genius like none other, was shot for the sake of your promotion.¡± Fair point. *** It¡¯s not a motor, it¡¯s a generator. Maki had been right the first time, Nommo was not the kind of corporation that could organise a fart after a full meal, let alone a conspiracy to kill someone. But they were a conveniently local partner for something greater. Maki was under no illusions - Chiot¨¦¡¯s insight had the power to change the world, and people would be frightened of that. There were companies that had built themselves and their fortunes upon the foundation of the status quo. Bal¨¦ had grown bigger in the Silicon Revolution - puffed up electronic titans with binary money to spend - but out there in the world were the monsters of the industrial revolution, behemoths bloated on oil, flatulent with natural gas and bullishly territorial. Evil in the way of something that had long since overgrown its human hosts. Carnavar. Hearing Kulit say the name chilled Maki more than had she invoked some demonic princeling. Aborash the Vile Father of a Thousand Murders had nothing on Carnavar. Four years ago a pipe carrying their oil had burst in Yowry Bay off the coast of Orhoi. It had been an ecological disaster for the littoral country but somehow at the end of the negotiations their government was paying the majority of the clean-up costs and Carnavar was writing up record profits due to the higher price of the scarce oil. They always won. Even when they should be losing they won. Why would they allow magic to be pushed past the limits of the human body, allow power to be generated from something so abundant as crystals? They would kill it or control it. They did not have an office in Bal¨¦ but the delegates who had been attending the recent trade show were leaving by helicopter today. Or maybe it was tomorrow? It was proving very difficult for Maki to work out which day it actually was. He normally slept in between them. Whatever the case, if he and Kulit did not prevent the delegates from leaving Bal¨¦, it was unlikely they would ever track down the Professor¡¯s notes. Maki stood back and examined the chalk marks he had made on the carpet. The mystical symbols he had drawn were just blurs in his vision now, some magical aphasia caused by his soul-deep exhaustion wiping away his comprehension. Kulit assured him they looked accurate. He would have to trust her, because there was no way he could hope to perform the spell again. Maki took a deep breath, standing in his appointed place. The spell bubbled up from his gut, fizzing up his throat and then released into the air. They rippled, they melted. They moved. *** "I''m alive!" Maki threw his hands up into the air and promptly dislocated five paces to the right. He came together with his hands on his knees, curious that his body had moved and apparently left his stomach waiting in some churning bile dimension. It was just too bad he could not throw up ethereal discombobulation, because he was sure that would have made him feel much better. "I''m alive?" "You''re alive," confirmed Kulit, levering him upright and patting him on the back. "Good work." Maki beamed, or at least his lips wriggled in a manner that could denote pleasure in the right lighting. High praise indeed! He had ''ported them into the plaza beside the G''tem¨¦ Building, which was the architectural equivalent of a platypus - somehow it all came together. The plaza was only a stone''s throw from Maki''s office and had a designated translocating area with fixed anchor glyphs, possibly the only reason Maki''s spell had not sent the two of them on an impromptu vacation to the Outer Realms. For once Kulit did not dash off, merely striding towards the Old Republic colonnade that marked one of the many chimerical features of the G''tem¨¦. To one side, the sun peeked a shoulder over the horizon, dyeing the sky with a promise of another scorching day. Maki took a moment. There were meditative techniques, alchemical drugs, even siphoning spells that could help to restore or temporarily bolster a person¡¯s magickal energies but mostly what was needed was time. There was a theory going round in evolutionary circles that this was why humans required so much sleep, the shutdown of the body and unconscious access to spiritual realms acted as a balm and restorative on a strained soul. Whether or not that was true, Maki did not know, only that he had not slept properly since seeing the Professor. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It would end soon. Either way, it would have to end soon. He jog-stepped to catch up to Kulit, who was snarling into her phone. ¡°No. No. You can¡¯t tell me we - No, don¡¯t send a disc. I¡¯m at the G¡¯tem¨¦ now. Yes already!¡± She rolled her eyes at Maki who nodded in blind sympathy. ¡°Stop talking. That isn¡¯t stopping. Stop. I just need to know when and from which pad the Carnavar delegation are booked to leave from. I don¡¯t care who it will piss off. Especially him, fuck him.¡± Maki giggled and pushed ahead to open the glass door that led in the belly of the G¡¯tem¨¦. The lobby was a colossal amphitheater-like space, tear-drop shaped emptiness, an allusion to the peace tents of the nomads of Horesh¡¯s past. So early in the morning it was empty but for a lone security guard who gave Maki a friendly wave. Sometimes it was nice to be reminded the rest of the world existed. While she continued to berate whichever minion was unfortunate enough to take her call, Kulit walked over to examine the helpful map of the building. Maki peered over her shoulder. The floorplan was confusing, there occasionally appeared to be more corners than the usual 360o would allow, so the standard view from above was augmented by separate diagrams exploding outwards floor by floor. Eventually he found the two arm-like protrusions of the helipads. One was on the ninth floor and the other was, extraordinarily, on one of the basement floors. ¡°Hack it. Don¡¯t tell me computers don¡¯t work like that, that¡¯s the only reason you were accepted into the Order in the first place. No, I don''t know what an ¡®isolated server¡¯ is!¡± Maki winced and took a step away from Kulit. The guard caught his eye and Maki smiled, wandering towards him. ¡°Morning,¡± he said, leaning his forearms on the guard¡¯s counter. ¡°Or does this still count as the night before?¡± The guard chuckled, eyes crinkling up. ¡°Ah, it¡¯s been a long night, true enough.¡± He looked around Maki. ¡°Your friend all right? Looks like she could have done with a couple more hours in bed.¡± Make waved a hand and tried to position himself to block the view. There was something about people raging into mobiles that tended to quickly lose them sympathy. Probably they looked like a tin-pot dictator chewing out a cringing subordinate for not properly crushing the rebellion. ¡°Might be you could help with that.¡± ¡°Yes? Let¡¯s hear it then.¡± It wasn¡¯t quite free of suspicion, but at least he was nice about it. ¡°You know there was a big trade show in town last week? Well, the big wigs from Carnavar were down but would you know they were booked solid in meetings, we didn¡¯t get our chance. Now I hear they are leaving today back to their headquarters.¡± Maki sighed and shook his head, a man just missed his big break. ¡°Could you tell us which pad they¡¯re leaving from? We just need a moment of their time.¡± The guard gave another of his gleaming smiles. Here was a man who brushed his teeth after every meal. ¡°Would you believe you just missed them? Came through only a minute before you did.¡± Maki¡¯s heart shrivelled in his chest, but he fought to hold his composure. ¡°Right. Than-¡± ¡°Matter of fact, that¡¯s probably the sound of their helicopter now.¡± The guard glanced at his computer screen. ¡°Coming into the pad on B2.¡± He could hear it! The chopped up air thumping down. Maki skipped from foot to foot. ¡°Thank you! You¡¯ve changed the world!¡± The guard scoffed and waved him away and Maki dashed over to Kulit, who was giving a detailed explanation of the exact transfiguration she would cast over the next person who dared to explain the reasons she would not get what she wanted. He caught her by her elbow and dragged her towards the elevator bank. ¡°Bee two,¡± he said, more grins than a barrel full of monkeys. She stared at him, shot a glance back at the guard who mouthed a cheery ¡°Good luck!¡± She hung up her phone. *** The Carnavar delegation was watching their helicopter descend to the pad when Kulit and Maki made it out. There were five of them. Two in suits and the rest with the bulky competence of security. One of them probably wasn¡¯t human, given the sheet-like jara that was draped over its head. The sound of the helicopter disguised their approach, so they got up pretty close before one of the bodyguards noticed them and tapped the male suit on the shoulder. The group turned and Maki swallowed down his fear. There was no point saying anything, not with the chopper¡¯s rotors tearing up the air, so the two groups just stared at each other. The two suits were old school company soldiers, their faces marked with identical Carnavar tattoos. That was a tradition that had gone out of fashion a decade ago - people changed jobs too quickly these days for that kind of loyalty and the new dot.hos didn¡¯t demand it anyway. Their knee length jackets were an expensive cut and matching and might as well have been a uniform - despite being a man and a woman, Maki felt that they were interchangeable. They probably had names, but they weren¡¯t important. In this at least, they were fleshy avatars of Carnavar. Strangely, in the hammering of the helicopter, wind slapping against his face, Maki felt peaceful. He had committed himself fully to this purpose, thrown everything he had at it. And what was worst of all, it was nothing at all to do with him. It was for the Professor, top to bottom. He smirked across at the probably-not-human bodyguard like it was in on the joke. Win or lose right here and it wouldn''t change anything. Maki had Done Good. Also, maybe, because in the coming confrontation he would be about as useful as a rubber spoon in a gunfight. Took a lot of the pressure off, being useless. And seeing as he was just about holding himself together, that was probably for the best. The blades whined down to a stop and the helicopter door was dragged open from the inside. SuitOne blinked, an android without its emotion chip turned on. ¡°Yes?¡± she asked. Kulit boiled forward, finger pointing like a wand. ¡°Return Professor Hounsol¡¯s notebook to me at once.¡± The two suits exchanged a look. The man turned back and shook his head. ¡°No.¡± Kulit lifted her chin. ¡°So be it.¡± She muttered, words sparking in the air. Maki would have expected the bodyguards to rush her, to interrupt her casting like any sensible magekiller, but the three just bunched together. He himself took a step back. He had decided Kulit was like a claymore explosive - it was best to be just behind her. The spell erupted, a jet of grey-green gas spraying towards the Carnavari, but instead of engulfing them in a soporific mist, the spray was wafted away as though by a gigantic invisible hand. Indeed, if Maki squinted at the strands of thick mist, they outlined cyclopean finger shapes. Kulit frowned and dismissed the spell, switching to drawing glowing glyphs that hovered and twisted in the air. They were not translocation glyphs, of a different genus entirely, and Maki could not begin to guess at their effects. Unfortunately for his curious mind, when Kulit launched the shapes at the bodyguards, they slapped into a resistance and guttered out. You had to admire her determination, for despite the fury at her own impotence, she moved quickly to another spell, this time not speaking but dancing through the motions. A cold wind blew up around Maki¡¯s feet and idly he tried to calculate how many schools she had mastered. ¡°Stop!¡± The wind died down. It was SuitTwo. ¡°You are wasting our time.¡± He reached into his jacket and pulled a necklace up, some jangling, clattering thing awash with puissance. They had charmed up some mercenary godling, or worshipped one into place, a company deity to go with the company car. Divine intervention on demand - the kind of magic that required corporate resourcing. ¡°You are very impressive, but I¡¯m afraid we really must be going now.¡± He turned to his counterpart, who lifted a briefcase into her hands and popped it open. ¡°We do find the societies you have in Bal¨¦ to be very quaint, but somewhat outdated,¡± he continued, reaching into the briefcase and pulling out Chiot¨¦¡¯s notebook. Maki recognised it immediately. The Professor had always used the same brand with this awful cartoon tiger holding an enormous pen printed on the cover. ¡°You cling to the delusions of your pre-eminence, as though talent with magic means anything in today¡¯s world.¡± The taunts combined with the sight of the prize was a red rag to Kulit¡¯s bull and she surged towards SuitTwo. She didn¡¯t get far. To their credit, the bodyguards that moved to intercept her did not take any special pleasure in the punch that dropped her to her knees, nor do anything but the necessary to dissuade her from that course of action. Maki wondered if he should have joined her in that futile charge, but not with any accusation in his mind. He could see they were utterly outmatched. ¡°It doesn¡¯t,¡± SuitTwo continued. ¡°No one cares about you or your utopian delusions. Without a single spell I could get any of a million people to do what I wanted for just the money in my wallet.¡± He turned towards the helicopter. In the body of the chopper, beside the seats, there was a kind of lockbox fitted onto the floor. From a pocket appeared a key. Maki frowned. Frowned gullies into his features. Frowned so hard he began to sweat. Once the notebook went into that box, it would disappear without a trace, he was sure of it. It was all he could think about. The weight of that understanding had him slowly drop down to the floor. ¡°Are you alright? You¡¯re sweating bullets.¡± It was SuitOne standing over him, but he didn¡¯t spare her a glance, just watched as SuitTwo first tugged, then yanked the lockbox open. The notebook slid into the darkness and the door was slapped closed, audibly locking. Gone. Maki collapsed, a defeated enemy kowtowing towards his conquerors. ¡°It has been amusing, but we really must get this back to headquarters, see if this Professor of yours lives up to her reputation.¡± The executives gave perfunctory bows and clambered into the helicopter. The bodyguards waited until they were comfortable, keeping a close eye on Kulit, before they hopped in as well. It seemed to take no time at all for the helicopter to power up to speed, blasting dust against the two kneeling figures. Like a toy lifted by an unsteady hand, the chopper wobbled into the air, slowly rotating as it ascended, heading towards the golden bowl that marked the sky above. Maki moved like a man recovering from a surgery, with tedious care, like he might tear himself open with any sudden moves. He palmed the floor, stroked it, before flopping down and rolling onto his back. He watched the helicopter rising, escaping. He heard, then felt Kulit casting another spell. This one was potent, the kind of spell that pressed hard against the boundaries between worlds. The harmonies of her chanting were taken up by reedy, inhuman throats. ¡°Don¡¯t bother,¡± Maki said from the floor. The chanting faltered but did not stop. ¡°If you bring down the chopper, what are the chances we¡¯ll be able to recover the notebook? Where I come from, explosion always beats paper.¡± Kulit continued for a few more verses of the cant, but Maki was sure that the spell didn¡¯t then continue into all the expletives she ended up muttering. ¡°They¡¯ll put it in vault,¡± she said quietly. ¡°Bury it for decades. Then when fossil fuels lose their sheen, or some other genius looks like they¡¯ll figure it out, it will appear again - but this time they¡¯ll lock so many patents and laws around it¡­ turn it into a product line.¡± She spat those last words as viciously as any of the Thousand Curses. High above them, the Carnavar helicopter had cleared the vertical tunnel and it faded from sight and sound. In the silence, her disappointment was audible. Maki didn¡¯t have to look at her to know that she was awash in it. She would be knee deep in it already and the tide would only be rising until it choked her. It was going to be a sunny day. The End Maki drifted towards his office, carried by the currents of traffic like a jellyfish. He was jostled and shoved by the battalions of suited workers, everyone fixated on their destination and unheeding of the secret invertebrate floating in their midst. There hadn¡¯t been much else to say to Kulit after. He had tried to tell her that it was okay, that there was nothing else she could have done, but there was no getting through to her. She wasn¡¯t listening to him, not with all those voices in her head telling her that she had failed, that she had put the cause of Kamula back another hundred years. There was no interrupting that chorus. So she had left him on the helipad. Muttered some bloodless platitudes thanking him for his help and pissed off, not even a wistful second glance. Didn¡¯t even offer to catch up on social media, let alone help him up off the floor. Wasn¡¯t extreme stress meant to bring people closer together? He leant heavily on the door to his office, patting his pockets and dredging up his key. Probably he should have gone home, or to the apothecary, some place where he could restore himself back towards a semblance of harmony. But there was something he wanted to check first. His office was just as he had left it all those days ago. On the desk, Kukele hummed quietly, her screen powered down but the computer heating the room with the whisk of the fan. The package that had caused all his troubles still dominated the centre of the room, a bulky grump of ignored potential. Maki patted it as he passed, slotting the carnelian beacon into its housing as he went, the stone slipping in as neat as the Platonic Tab A into Slot B. He did not dare to attempt the translocation today, not with the threatening possibility that every blink might see his eyeballs ¡®ported to someone else¡¯s head. But the box no longer worried him as it once had. The thuggish dangers of Mr. Q Unknown seemed almost welcomingly local. Bal¨¦ had become a very small place given all that he had been through and what was being a few days tardy between neighbours, anyway? His chair groaned under his weight when he threw himself onto it, spinning him towards his desk. For a few moments that was all. Maki stared at nothing and wondered some of the big questions. What was the destiny of the human race? The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Did anyone have any right to Chiot¨¦¡¯s work? What was he going to have for lunch? Eventually his gaze fell from nothing to the handle of the drawer of his desk. Up until now he had been avoiding that part of his room. ¡°Stop being a coward, Maki,¡± he told himself. So he waggled his fingers, snapped his wrists and then rolled up his non-existent sleeves. ¡°Shazam,¡± he muttered, yanking the draw open. He laughed, grin straining at his cheeks, great gulping donkey heehaws squashing his stomach up against his spine. He slapped his thigh and then punched the air with both hands. There was no crowd, but he heard the applause anyway. He laughed so hard he dislocated himself across the room, but that didn¡¯t stop him. He didn¡¯t think it was going to work. Didn¡¯t think he had anything left in him left to give. But there was some magic that even a child could do. Open one door, come out another. Sitting in the drawer, a maniacally enthusiastic tiger hefted an enormous pen. ¡°Ah, Kulit is going to murder me.¡± Maybe Carnavar would turn that helicopter around when they discovered his trick. Might be that thing under the jara would be unleashed upon Maki, to his great dissatisfaction. But by that time the Professor¡¯s codex would all be online, disseminating at fibre optic speeds, viral rebellion baby. And then what would be the point of dispensing pain and suffering? SuitOne and Two didn¡¯t have enough personality between them to feel anything as potent as hate and more importantly, there was no profit in it. And what else moved a person like that? Or at least, so Maki hoped. But funnily enough, lying on his back on a vaguely sticky floor, Maki found that he had no regrets. Either he was suffering from an energy drink withdrawal or some kind of horrible fatigue-related hollowing out. Or perhaps, this just once, every little bit of him was agreed on something. He smiled up at the ceiling and hoped that wherever Chiot¨¦ was floating around, that she had a good view of all that had happened. He had a feeling she would have enjoyed it. But if you think that means you can spend the rest of the day lying on your back dispensing worldly wisdom, you are sadly mistaken, you wily miscreant. Chiot¨¦ never really was one for plaudits or praise. Maki sighed and tried to sit up. After flailing like an upside down dung beetle for a few embarrassing moments, he rolled over and did it the slow fashioned way. One more hero job and then he could sleep. He turned on his scanner. Who knew that changing the world would taste like an energy drink? With a hint of cucumber.