Last to Rise(28)

“Right. OK. Whatever, wherever they are, we still need more time. More – well, more everything. Glow, mages, information. Some cardinals to help – you know more than a quarter have left the city? Bribed their way through the Mishan gate and taken what they could with them? The rest, well… they want volunteers for down by the Storad gate, for when, inevitably, they finally batter it down. Only despite the fact we’re pumping out guns as fast as we can, they won’t let just anyone have them. One cardinal has a man down there checking everyone with a gun, giving them an informal inquisition. Testing their faith. Just in case they might use that gun on anyone other than Storad. Ridiculous.” Perak stopped pacing and took a deep breath. “Sorry. The cardinals are my problem, one I’m hoping will be sorted soon, at least as far as them wanting to hand you over goes. As for this problem… Jake, we found another tunnel, we think it comes out up by the pass. Can you —”



Jake cocked her head, cool as ice despite what Perak was asking of her. I wouldn’t have done it. “Of course. I’ll see what I can do.”



“Carefully.”



A cryptic smile, a shrug as she smoothed her hands over the scabbards of her swords.



“Thank you. Because we need information,” Perak said. “And because we’ve got a little plan, or rather Lise has. Even more urgent now, if Allit is right. Take as many men as you think you’ll need. Specials, the rest of my guard, whatever you need. I’d rather you came back with nothing than didn’t come back.”



Jake didn’t waste time or words, just cast a glance at Pasha – a glance full of words I was sure were being spoken in their heads – and left.



“Right then,” Perak went on. “Let’s see… we need to assume it’s now Allit saw, to be on the safe side. Lise and I had this plan… yes. Yes, it should still help, might give us time at least. Wherever those machines are, it won’t hurt and might help. I’ll see what Lise has ready. In the morning we’ll try it, or rather you will. A bit of rearrangement, if you’re up to it?”



I’ll give him this – he could have laid it all out, laid it all on thick. How ultimately it was my actions that had led us to this mess, when I’d shut down the pain factories that were supplying all our Glow. But he didn’t. He never did. He was never one to hold a grudge – that was me, but even I couldn’t this time. I did suppress a big-arsed sigh though.



“What do you need me to do?”



When Perak told me the reason for our previous little escapade into the tunnel and how it worked so very well with what he wanted to try, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. It could hardly be worse than being shot at.



We couldn’t start Perak’s plan right away because it was getting dark and we were going to need light, so when he left I headed for the office and settled down at my desk to contemplate a new note Lastri had left about another possible mage. It might make a nice distraction and, with more cardinals having left, there were fewer to try to drag me off. Hopefully. I intended to be careful anyway, but by now the thought of any young mage left to do himself a mischief was just another thing taking chunks out of my stupid new conscience. I couldn’t leave him to blow himself up, and it’d stop me having to think too much and end up choking on my own bile.



To sleep first, or not? My brain said, Yes, sleep, if you don’t you’ll be batshit any time now and the city doesn’t need another Slump, especially given what you’re going to be doing come sun-up. My poor purple hand said, Hah, fat chance, I’m going to keep you up all night; and the black chimed in and said, Yes, might as well use that juice, twist your hand some more, fall in, come back…



I came to with a start when Pasha sauntered in, whistling. Whistling? Normally he was a bunch of jittered nerves, burning anger and electric energy just waiting to get out. Not today. He looked… relaxed, which, all things considered – like Jake was off into who knew what kind of shitstorm – was surprising. Then again, Pasha always did tend to surprise me.



Like I said, he was usually burning up with anger at some injustice somewhere, but today his eyes didn’t have their normal smoulder. And come to think of it, Jake had looked unusually relaxed too. Usually she was buttoned up tighter than a virgin’s knickers, ice queen all the way. Yet despite the seriousness of what Perak and I had been talking about, the seriousness of everything, of tunnels, slabs of rock, Storad and massive machines blowing the crap out of our gates, there had been a soft little smile and a faraway look to her, to them both. I could imagine a few reasons for that, but in the interests of not getting an ulcer I decided not to think of them.