He did, reluctantly at first, with hesitant little side glances at me every now and again. I didn’t really expect much, at least not for him to see what I saw. He’d been filled with every sermon, from Dendal’s essays on morality to Pasha’s passionate rants about the ’Pit’s version of the Goddess. None of this sanitised, soulless crap down there. In the ’Pit she was all blood and glory, enough to turn a boy’s head.
So I wasn’t expecting much, maybe just a new perspective for him, outside himself and into the world. Make him think. That’s what Ministry has traditionally hated, above all else – someone who thinks for themselves rather than swallowing what they are fed. Maybe what they hated about pain-mages. If there’s one thing to be said for dislocating your thumbs to cast a spell, it’s that it really makes you think about what’s necessary and what’s just fluff.
Allit looked up with longing, as anyone from Under might. A wintry sun managed to break through a gap in the clouds. And then he saw something else. His eyes jerked wide and he snapped back towards me, away from the edge. When he tried to speak, nothing came out for a moment, until a breathy, horrified whisper. “I can see them. They’re coming, more machines, bigger machines. I can see them. Mountains, men, machines. They’re coming.”
The ragged edge to his voice made rivulets of ice run down my back. I didn’t need to be Pasha, rummage in his head with my magic, to know that Allit was so scared he was about to piss himself. And this was a boy who’d taken to hurting himself on a regular basis like a bird took to the air. It was about then that I noticed what he was doing with his hand – he had hold of his cut thumb and was pinching the two edges of the wound together, tighter and tighter, twisting as he went. Pain, meet magic.
“Allit?” I grabbed his shoulder with my good hand. “Allit, what are you seeing? Where are you seeing it? Allit?”
He shook himself like a boy waking from a bad dream, his hands trembling so hard they looked in danger of falling off. “We need to go find the others. Find Perak. Tell them. More Storad coming, no good, it’s no good. More machines. Bigger ones, with, with…”
He rubbed a shaking hand over his eyes and I realised he was trying not to cry, trying to be a man about it. When I was a kid I always loved being big brother to Perak, though I came to loathe it later, to fear it, to run from it whenever I could. Events and people were trying to cure me of that, with varying success. But when Perak was small, when Ma was alive and our father still lived with us, and Perak looked at me like I knew everything… Yeah, I loved being big brother then. Looking at Allit, at the fear in his thin, hunched shoulders, the way he looked at me like I had the answer to everything, like I was some sort of god, well, maybe it turned my head. Who doesn’t like to be thought of as a god? Big brothering slid back into me like it was coming home.
I got him to his feet and draped an arm over his shoulder. “It’s all right, Allit. I’m going to make sure it’s all right.”
I’ve always been a superb liar.
Chapter Six
By the time we got back to the offices, Allit had himself under control, of sorts. I really was starting to like this kid because he reminded me of me, when I still had stars in my eyes and hope in my by now grubby little soul.
I told Allit to go see if there was anything to eat in the kitchen – not because I thought there was anything worth eating in there (I knew there wasn’t) but more to keep him out of the way while I talked to Pasha. Lastri gave me a glare like I’d tried to poison the kid or something, and went to see what she could do about fattening him up. Not a lot, probably.
Of course, with Pasha being the way he was, the way his magic ran, I didn’t need to tell him much. He cast a surreptitious glance at Dendal, who was oblivious to anything but what was dancing in his head. Unspoken, we’d taken to not telling him everything. Most of it, but not everything. Whatever else he might be, and he’s a lot of things, Dendal was a gentle soul and these were not about to be gentle times. Crazy perhaps – I mean, when he remembered, he was a powerful mage, the strongest we had – but he also had an in-built faith in people that I couldn’t quite bring myself to destroy. That’s without the wandering through his days humming to himself and playing with imaginary fairies, which could be fatal if he lost concentration at a vital point. We told ourselves we were keeping him in reserve, and perhaps we were.
I checked for any traps my desk might have laid for me and sank warily into the chair behind it. Pasha came and took up his customary position on the corner of the desk, his back to Dendal and his candles so that his outline seemed to flicker with a halo of light.