The Golden Tower (Magisterium #5)(30)

“You nearly died saving Jasper,” she said. “Constantine wouldn’t have. Maybe he’d have done some of the other stuff to look good, but I couldn’t think of any reason to do what you did other than being Jasper and Tamara and Gwenda’s friend. And then I started to think about the walks we used to take with Havoc and how horrible it would be for everyone to think something bad about me for something I couldn’t control. And then I thought that it wasn’t fair you had to almost die for me to think better of you. And then I heard you weren’t okay and I wondered if things would have been different if we hadn’t — if I hadn’t — ”

“It wasn’t that,” he started, but then the room tilted again and he got a lungful of smoke. He was standing on the deck of a ship and in the distance he saw an entire armada on fire. He watched mages leaping into the sea, but when they got to the water, tentacles reached up for them out of the depths. He needed to warn her. The girl. The girl who was sorry.

“There are elementals,” he told her urgently. “Under the waves. Waiting. They will drown you if you let them.”

“Oh, Call,” he heard her say, voice soft and broken up by sobs.



He was lying on a narrow wooden bed. He knew he was dying. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps and his body felt as if it were full of fire.

This was not what he had planned for his life. He had been a brilliant student of the best Magisterium in the empire. His teacher, Master Janusz, had been the wisest and most powerful Master, who had chosen him first at the Iron Trial. He was a Makar who could shape chaos. He had been assured of a long life of power and riches.

And then the coughing had begun. He had dismissed it at first as the product of exhaustion and long nights working in the laboratory he shared with his Master. Then, one night, the coughing had bent him double and he had seen the first red spray of blood across the floor.

Master Janusz had brought the best earth mages to heal him, but they could do nothing. His power had waned with his health, and he had become a prisoner in his garret, eating only when his landlady or Master Janusz brought him food, waiting in a fury for the inevitable.

At least until the day he realized.

He had always known it. The opposite of chaos is the soul. But he had never really, truly thought about what it meant. Since the day he had thought of it, he had lain in his bed, considering the possibilities, dwelling on method, on opportunity …

The door to his garret opened. It was Master Janusz. Still a man in his prime, he bustled over to the dying mage’s bedside. The man in the bed hated his former master. How dare he have health and a future when he had already had so many years?

He seethed as Master Janusz fussed with his pillows and used fire magic to light the candle by his bed. The room was already growing dark. He listened as the older mage wittered on about how he would be well soon enough, as soon as the weather was warmer.

“Nonsense,” he said, when he could stand it no longer. “I am going to die. You know it as well as I do.”

Master Janusz paused, looking stricken. “Poor Maugris,” he said. “It is a shame. You could have been a great Makar. One of the greatest the world has known. It is a shame and a pity for you to die so young.”

Rage came upon Maugris. He did not want pity. “I would have been the greatest Makar history has ever known!” he roared. “The world would have trembled before me!”

It was then that Master Janusz made his mistake. He came toward the man in the bed, hands outstretched. “You must calm yourself, my boy — ”

The dying mage reached out with all his strength, not of his body but of his mind. The idea that had burned inside him flared into life. He was a manipulator of chaos. Why couldn’t he also manipulate the soul?

He reached within Master Janusz with hands made of smoke and nothingness, and saw the other man’s eyes bulge. With all his strength, he tore his own soul free from its moorings and pushed — pushed it into Master Janusz, hearing the mage’s tinny scream as his soul was forced out into nothingness….

A few moments later the door burst open. The landlady, hearing the commotion, had raced upstairs. She saw before her a scene she had expected: her dying young tenant had expired, white-faced and still in his bed. Master Janusz stood in the center of the room, a dazed expression on his face.

“The boy,” she said. “He died?”

The Master did a very strange thing. He grinned from ear to ear. “Yes,” he said. “He is dead. But I will live forever.”



“Aaron.” It was Tamara’s voice. “Aaron, I know you’re in there.”

Call opened his eyes. They felt like heavy weights. Celia had gone, if she had really been there in the first place. Tamara was sitting next to his bed. She was holding one of his hands.

But it was kind of strange that she was calling him Aaron. He was pretty sure that he wasn’t Aaron. Except he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t. Memories swirled inside his head — a Chaos-ridden wolf puppy, a burning tower, a monster made of metal, a room full of mages, and he was one of them. One by one he killed them all, so they could never go against him. He watched them fall and laughed….

“I was the Scythe of Souls,” he croaked. “I was the Hooded Kestrel, Ludmilla of Prague, the Scourge of Luxembourg, the Commander of the Void. I was the one who burned down the towers of the world, who parted the sea, and death will die before I do!”