Half a dozen men and women in black academic gowns and silver skullcaps entered the auditorium behind Arecagen, all of them gray-haired and wrinkled. In any other profession they’d have been washed up, one foot in the grave, but scholars improved with age, and sorcerers even more so. Shadrak had never seen so many gaudy rings, oversized medallions, and crystal-tipped wands. They looked like a chorus line from one of Dame Consilia’s productions.
Striding for the stage as if he owned the place, Arecagen leveled his staff at Nils. “I’ll deal with you later. As for you,” he said to Ilesa, “I’ve been keeping a close eye on your movements.” He tossed a crystal sphere into the air and deftly caught it. “Though there’s been some kind of time lag, and I keep losing the image, otherwise I’d have caught up with you sooner. My ring, if you please.” He pocketed the sphere and held out his hand expectantly.
“Since when was it yours?” Shadrak asked. He strained at the straps binding his wrists, but all that did was tighten them more till they chafed his skin.
“Quiet,” Nils hissed. “I’m already neck deep in shite.”
“That explains the smell,” Ilesa said, then to Arecagen, “The midget’s right. You’ve no claim on the ring.”
“Neither do you,” Shadrak said. “It’s me that stole it.”
“And I stole it from you,” Nils said.
“And I stole it from you,” Ilesa said with a smug grin. “So that makes it mine.”
Arecagen levitated above the ground and arced through the air a good twenty yards, landing on the stage light as a feather, right in front of Ilesa. Black flames erupted from the top of his staff.
“And now you will surrender it to me.”
Clattering came from the loges as crossbows swung toward Arecagen. Jeb stepped forward, gun raised, noxious gas already trickling from the mouth slit of his mask. The rogues dotted about the auditorium stalked toward the academy sorcerers, who turned to face them.
“Can’t,” Ilesa said. Grey fur sprouted from the backs of her hands. Her ears began to elongate, and her face stretched into a snout. Her next words were growled through yellow fangs. “It’s not here.” And then she was a wolf springing for Arecagen’s throat.
Silver motes sparkled in a sphere around the sorcerer, and the wolf that was Ilesa bounced off, then flew toward the fly floor in the form of a bat.
The goons who’d bound Nils and Shadrak lunged for Arecagen, but fists of emerald energy soared from the auditorium and punched them from their feet. The academics! Barrin lifted his head to stare at the smoke pluming from his chest, then groaned and slumped back down. Nikos couldn’t even do that; his head was a melted mess that oozed down over his shoulders. That was the cue for the rogues who’d been gossiping on the edge of the stage to flee to the wings like startled rats.
Those stalking the scholars were greeted with a shower of fizzing sparks, and, like the heroes they were, scattered for the side exits.
Jeb’s gun bucked in his hand and thunder boomed. This time the sphere surrounding Arecagen flared golden, and when it died down he was gone, leaving behind the stench of sulfur.
“Fargin, back toward me,” Shadrak said, even as Arecagen’s academics fanned out across the auditorium, the air about their wands warping and buckling. Ilesa’s four remaining ex-Dybbuks stepped forward to meet the threat, palms raised and effusing crimson light.
“What for?” Nils said, even though he’d already started to comply.
“Just do as you’re told.”
Pressure built from the direction of the Academy sorcerers. A quick glance revealed inky tendrils projecting from their wands and weaving a dark and gaseous web that inched toward the stage. One of the ex-Dybbuks discharged a bolt of sizzling red lightning at the creeping magic; it sputtered and dispersed with a pathetic phwat.
“One more step… and stop,” Shadrak said, just before Nils bumped into him. “Feel behind with your fingers.”
“I ain’t feeling nothing I can’t see,” Nils said, but he’d already started probing the ridges of one of Shadrak’s baldrics.
A succession of clacks sounded from the loges, and crossbow bolts streaked in silvery blurs toward the Academy sorcerers. Most of the quarrels lodged in the ghostly web as it continued its inexorable advance. One got through, and a scholarly old woman keeled over with the shaft protruding from her eye. She hit the floor hard, and a patch of the web vanished.
“Up a bit,” Shadrak said. “To the left.”
“Ouch!” Nils hissed. “Cut my bleedin’ finger!”
“Pull it free of the baldric. It’s a razor star. Good, now pass it to me. Careful!”
The sorcerous web brushed the edge of the stage, started to roil over it. The ex-Dybbuks joined their crimson streams into one then sent it scything through the nebulous mass. Where it cut, the web dispersed, only to re-form as the scholars redoubled their efforts.
Shadrak took a pinch grip on the razor star then bent his wrists so he could saw at the leather binding them. The instant he was free he returned the razor star to his baldric and ran for the wings.
“Oi!” Nils yelled. “What about me?”
Jeb grabbed the lad by the collar and dragged him toward the other side of the stage.
The flash and flicker of sorcerous battle followed Shadrak into the darkness of the wings. Up above, he glimpsed a large bat hanging from the eaves, watching everything happening below and doing nothing—at least nothing that would involve any degree of risk.
Shadrak pushed through a black drape and ran blind along a dark corridor. He heard the scuff and scamper of Ilesa’s rogues fleeing left and right, presumably along the theater’s labyrinth of tributary passages. But Shadrak kept to the main artery until up ahead he saw light limning a pitch black door. Slowing to a walk, he cast a quick look behind, then kicked the door open.
The burst of sudden daylight blinded him for a second. He covered his face with his cloak, vision a succession of white flashes.
Bekra Cy. That’s who they said had the ring now. Someone in the taverns was bound to have heard of her, and if not, then Magwitch would know something, surely. A moment more, and he’d be on his way. No sorcerous bitch was doing him out of his commission.
Dropping the cloak, he blinked a few times till the alley he’d exited onto came into focus, then he blinked again as his eyes came to rest on the black coat of a huge figure blocking the way.
The Ghost.
Shadrak stumbled back a step and hit wood. The door had closed behind him. The Ghost took one heavy step toward him, then another.
Shadrak turned, rattled the doorknob. Locked. Another step from behind him. Cold fingers touched his shoulder, passed through his cloak. He spun back to see the Ghost leering down at him, hand disappearing to the wrist beneath Shadrak’s shirt. Ice entered his chest, formed a fist around his heart. He started to shake, clamped his jaw shut, refusing to scream.
Silver erupted behind the Ghost. A fizz and a flash, a muffled boom. A vise clamped down on Shadrak’s skull. Darkness pressed in from every side, narrowed to a strip, a sliver, a pinprick, and then nothing.