The Illusionists Read online

  Frith tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  Because, perhaps, a tiny part of him was beginning to believe her.

  ‘Then, well … to tell you the truth, I missed home. Things changed. Angle Tar changed – for the better, I think.’ She nodded to him. ‘You helped in that, or rather you will. But I was alone by that point, and I’d just got so tired of all the adventuring. I’d seen all I wanted to see. And I thought and thought about it, and I kept coming back to this place, the way it’d been when I was a girl. It was the simplest place in the world. I understood it. I missed it. And I just wanted to bring my son up in it. That’s all I wanted – to settle down and be forgot. I couldn’t be forgot in the world we’d created. You’ll see, in the future, what happens to the Talented. The best thing for everyone was if I just disappeared. So I did.’

  She took a breath. He saw the tremble in her shoulders, and realised. This was hard for her.

  ‘I found out how to come all the way back to the past,’ she said. ‘You can do it through the Castle. You can do most anything through the Castle. That’s why it’s such an attractive place. Such a dangerous place. I swore I’d never use the Castle again after that. D’you know, that was part of the problem? We weaken the walls when we’re in the Castle – the Talented. After a while, it starts to bleed into reality. It makes it so much easier for them to get loose.’

  He didn’t need to ask what ‘they’ referred to. He remembered those things now. Oh yes.

  ‘What … happened to White? Jason’s father?’ he said.

  ‘That ain’t your business.’

  Frith was silent.

  She caught his expression. ‘I know,’ she said, mildly. ‘It’s a lot to take in. Trust me, I know.’

  ‘Why take on … yourself … as an apprentice? Wasn’t that dangerous? Didn’t she recognise you? Didn’t anybody?’

  Fernie tutted. ‘I came back here before she was even born. It wasn’t like she’d see me and think, Ooh, that fat old witch looks just like I might in forty years’ time. People don’t think like that. You know people. I was a bit nervy, though. I had my face reshaped a touch before I made the journey, and my eyes changed, just in case. They used to be brown.’

  Frith studied her eyes. They were a sharp blue.

  ‘I took on a new name and said I came from a village on the southern coast. Well, no one moves around a lot here, and no one was going to check that sort of thing. And time moved on, and you came and went, and then Oaker moved up North, changed his name to Jason. And I was all alone again. And then it got closer to the year, and then the month, and then the day where I remembered being picked for hedgewitching. And I just couldn’t help it. I just wanted to see her, Frith. I promised myself I wouldn’t meddle. I’d meddled with the future enough and I swore I’d never do it again. So I thought, Well, I could take her on. Try to steer her straight, you know? Make sure she was loved. Looked after. She never had no real parents to do that. I remember how troublesome I was as a kid. I s’pose I just wanted to look after myself.’

  Her voice cut strangely, and Frith realised with a sharp stab of surprise that she was trying not to cry.

  ‘It was selfish, I know,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I am a selfish creature. But I try not to be. That’s why I’ll let Jason go with you. I’ll let it all go and be content with the life I’ve made.’

  Her eyes were wet with tears, and she wiped them away crossly.

  Frith took her hand and she looked at him in surprise. Her skin was warm, rough and calloused. ‘This is, genuinely,’ he said, ‘the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.’

  She laughed a cracked little laugh.

  ‘S’okay,’ she said. ‘Really. You’ll understand, soon enough. It’ll come to you. Just mind you don’t go telling anyone else about it. I never did with Rue.’

  ‘So you spent all that time around Rue and never told her the future?’

  ‘It ain’t fair to do that,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine, if you knew what was to happen to you? How would you act? Wouldn’t you be wondering the whole time if it was really you doing it, or if you were just doing it ’cos you knew that was what you were supposed to do?’

  ‘I understand the logic. But what if you knew something about the future that could change someone’s life? How do you justify keeping what you know to yourself?’

  ‘I broke that rule more than once,’ said Fernie. ‘And all I can say is, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.’

  ‘So when I meet White again like you say I will, I’m just supposed to not tell him about Jason? I just don’t tell him that he’s standing in front of his own son? How do you make decisions for people’s lives like that?’

  ‘Because the alternative is cruel. Why would you tell him? What good would it do?’

  ‘He should know his son.’

  ‘Should he? Should you burden him with that? And then you’ll have to tell him it’s because he never gets to see his son in the future. And then, of course, he’ll want to know why he never gets to see his son in the future. And even if you say nothing, he’ll know. ’Cos the only things that would stop him from seeing his own son grow up are bad things. So now you’ve ruined his life, because he’ll be obsessed with the bad thing that’s going to happen. Every day it’ll be on his mind – is this the day the bad thing happens? The question’ll eat at him ’til there’s nothing left. And he won’t never again live in the present. What kind of a life is that that you’ve given him now?’

  Frith was silent.

  Fernie touched his arm gently. ‘All you can do is live like you don’t know what’s going to happen. Like I said, it’s the only way to stop yourself going mad. Take it from someone who’s lived more than enough lives in more than enough times – live in the now, Frith, dear. You only get one life. Make it count. Every day, make it count.’

  He didn’t know what to think. Not yet.

  ‘What now?’ he said.

  Fernie leaned back. ‘Now you get yourself and Jason back up to Capital. Try and sort out the mess going on up there.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll tell me whether I succeed.’

  Fernie snorted. ‘I ain’t telling you another blessed thing.’

  The train rattled comfortably.

  Frith watched the Bretagnine landscape slide away from him. The sky was brooding above it, spitting thin rain onto the windows, smearing his view. It was such an ordinary sight.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ said Jason. He was sat opposite Frith in their carriage. From the outside, they were two gentlemen of business, making their way back to the city. But if anyone were inside the carriage with them, would they be able to sense the tension in the air?

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m rather distracted,’ said Frith, at last.

  To say the least.

  He had tried to understand Fernie’s story. The kind of person it took to do the things she claimed to have done. The idea that when he’d come to recruit Rue all those months ago, he’d been sat there at that kitchen table looking at the same person in two bodies; that he had persuaded the old Rue to give up the young one to him. Though he now no longer believed he’d persuaded her at all. She’d let Rue go because she knew that was what had to happen. Because it had already happened to her.

  So he’d met Rue three times in three different guises. First as a witch who frightened him with her power, then as a ghost bringing him the fear of the future, and finally as a young girl, full of promise. Everywhere he turned, his memories led to her, or to her son.

  He was her creature.

  He wanted to believe that it didn’t make sense.

  ‘She told you, didn’t she?’ said Jason, breaking into his thoughts.

  Frith looked at him. His face was serious.

  ‘Told me what?’

  Jason looked away. ‘About my father. All of that.’

  Jesus.

  ‘You believe her.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jason. ‘But don’t feel bad about not believin
g. I didn’t at first, until she showed me the Castle. Just once. It’s easy to believe, once you’ve been there.’

  Frith didn’t want to agree with that. But it was. That place was still coming back to him, but he remembered how it was there. What it could do.

  Jason’s shoulders were stiff. His fingers curled around his mouth as he propped his chin up and stared out of the window. ‘They will circle each other in time. The old Rue and the young Rue. A forever dance, a never-ending loop of a girl. I think it’s incredible. But she’s paid a lot for it. I can see why she doesn’t want anything more to do with it.’

  ‘It’s an amazing power,’ Frith said, watching Jason. ‘I’m not sure you understand what people would do to get hold of it. Of her.’

  ‘I think I understand very well.’ Jason’s black eyes flickered onto Frith’s face and rested there, making his heart beat faster. ‘And I think she must believe in the man that you are, that you become, to give you access to that power and trust that you won’t try to use it.’

  Frith willed himself to hold Jason’s gaze. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I can’t make that woman do anything she doesn’t want to do.’

  Jason laughed. ‘It’s about time someone else shouldered that burden with me. She’s impossible.’ His expression changed, clouding.

  ‘We’ll come back to see her,’ said Frith. ‘As often as you like.’

  He’d let himself open up there, just a little. The ‘we’ implied so much that he could not now take back.

  Jason looked at him, and smiled.

  Trust did not come easily to someone like him. He suspected the same of Jason. He couldn’t know for certain what this thing was between them, but it seemed like it could be the beginning of something, if he took the risk. He’d never been one to gamble before.

  Today he felt like rolling the dice.

  CHAPTER 34

  WORLD

  GRETA

  ‘What’s this all about, Snearing?’ said Haramanga. He was head of the Talented task force in the Hispanic Federation, and Greta had never liked him. Too much of a questioner. ‘The Castle didn’t call this meeting.’

  ‘No,’ Alasdair replied. ‘I did.’

  Mutterings around the table.

  ‘We need to talk about what has been going on recently. And what we’re all going to do about it.’

  Snearing launched into his speech. Greta watched approvingly. She’d coached him on it, and he was doing well. There were barely any interruptions.

  After that, it only took an hour or so to thrash it out between them all. Alasdair had been worried that they would need some convincing. Greta had known better. No one had the smallest clue how to handle the Talented so far, and no one had thought beyond trying to harness their powers – officially, at least. Unofficially, they would all have contingency plans in place in case of failure, and they probably resembled hers.

  History would see her – see them all – differently. History would see the sacrifice they made – the few to save the many. That was the difference between good, courageous people and good but weak people. Good, courageous people made the hard choices so the weak people didn’t have to. And often it was the good but weak people who turned on them for it afterwards.

  But in the privacy of their own minds, some of those good, weak people would be breathing a sigh of relief.

  In the end, they took a vote on it. A few of the softer members around the table needed the reassurance of a complete commitment, not one dissenting voice.

  ‘Where’s Angle Tar?’ said Derger. ‘Frith. We need his vote, don’t we?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Frith has become indisposed,’ said Alasdair. ‘And Angle Tar have not managed to produce a replacement in time for this meeting. So I think we can say that their vote doesn’t count this time.’

  ‘Oh, you must be heartbroken,’ said Derger, blithely. ‘But we need to make sure that this plan is nevertheless carried through in Angle Tar as well, Snearing.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m in contact with their – what do they call it? – Spymaster.’

  A few small chuckles at the quaint translation.

  ‘He has already agreed, in principle,’ said Alasdair. ‘He took our advice and began incarcerating the Talented as soon as the trouble started. He’ll do as he’s told.’

  The table seemed satisfied.

  As the chat around them grew, Greta briefly touched Alasdair’s arm. ‘You did well,’ she said, in a soft voice.

  Alasdair sighed. This whole thing had aged him. He was a good man, but he worried too much. ‘It feels … drastic. Hasn’t the problem stopped now?’

  And, irritatingly, he needed a lot of reassurance.

  ‘It’s … lessened,’ Greta said. ‘Certainly. But we have to think forward. It will happen again. We have to make sure it doesn’t. We’ll keep a few Talented, to carry on investigations. There’s one in particular I’m trying to recover. If we have him, we’ll be years ahead of everyone else here. We’re making strides with the genetics team – they think it’s only a matter of time before we isolate a set of Talented genes. And then … replication, perhaps. The possibilities are quite revolutionary.’ She paused. ‘But in the wrong hands, Alasdair … in the hands of these Talented children, people who can’t be controlled, can’t be reasoned with … the risk is just too great. This recent situation was very nearly a disaster, a worldwide crisis. The threat must be eliminated.’

  Alasdair massaged his brow. ‘It makes sense.’

  Greta squeezed his arm.

  Saving the world, one problem at a time.

  She pitied people who had no such meaning in their lives.

  CHAPTER 35

  ANGLE TAR

  WHITE

  ‘Someone to see you,’ said a voice outside the door.

  White looked up.

  Another round with the Spymaster, perhaps. There had been a tacit agreement between them when they’d first met, a few days ago – the Spymaster knew no conventional prison could hold White, and that he had therefore chosen to stay where he was. And White knew that the situation could be much worse – he could be stuffed with drugs and tortured to keep him there. So he stayed by choice instead.

  They weren’t telling him what was going on in the outside world, and they would not let any of the Talented come to see him. He wondered what they were afraid of. That didn’t stop Rue pulling him to her through her dreams at night, of course. But they didn’t know that.

  It was, all things considered, a decently comfortable room for a prison. He got the feeling he was in quarters reserved for the rich criminals.

  The door to his room opened.

  He looked up, and in walked the last person he had ever expected.

  White buried his head in his hands.

  ‘Well, you’re obviously ecstatic to see me,’ came the familiar voice.

  The door shut, locking the both of them in together.

  You don’t have to be afraid of him any more, said a voice in his head. You beat him. You won. You can leave any time you like.

  That only works if I want to spend the rest of my life on the run, he replied silently.

  The voice had nothing for that.

  ‘White,’ Frith’s voice commanded. ‘Look at me, at least.’

  There was nothing he could say or do to make it okay, so he raised his head.

  Frith stood before him. It hadn’t even been that long since they’d last seen each other, but something was off.

  Trees, whispering in the wind. Frith’s face contorted into a scream of rage.

  Frith broke his gaze, and laughed. ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘It’s you, Frith. You always find a way.’

  Frith seemed disturbed by that assessment. What was his game?

  ‘Do you want to know what happened to me?’ he said, after a moment. He was practically shifting on the spot. Nerves? He appeared to notice what he was doing, and sat him
self down.

  White watched him. Frith seemed to take his silence as assent.

  ‘You took half my memories with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been living as a ghost these last few weeks.’ He hesitated. ‘I still don’t … I still don’t quite remember what you did. But you did something. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Do you want a confession from me?’ said White.

  Frith stared at the wall.

  ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘Because I want to make something very clear to you. I understand why you did what you did to me. But my memories are … fractured now, I suppose. I don’t remember them the same way I used to. Things are different.’

  White held up a hand. Things were different, and enough was enough. He was not the White who had danced around Frith, playing his games. He could not be that White any more.

  ‘Frith,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do with me? Am I to be executed?’

  ‘Jesus, White,’ Frith breathed out, leaning back. Some of the stinging tension seemed to leave his shoulders. ‘No.’

  ‘Then what is my punishment?’

  ‘You won’t be punished.’ His voice was quiet. He was still staring at the wall.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then nothing, White. Then nothing. I’m not pressing charges against you. In fact, I’ve actively campaigned for your release.’

  White felt the sickness begin, in the pit of his belly. It tried to climb up the sides of him, but he swallowed it back down. He’d faced all his fear. He’d faced it and he’d beaten it. He needed to remember that from now on.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ he said. ‘So you can find a way to revenge yourself on me in the future?’

  Frith’s face flushed. ‘No, no. Listen to me. I’m trying to apologise to you.’

  The words hung in the air, fat and strange.

  ‘I’m sorry. For all of it.’ Frith’s voice became a flat, hard line. ‘That’s all I can give you.’

  White was mute.

  Frith sighed. ‘Please say something.’

  ‘I do not understand what you want.’

  ‘I want to move on.’