Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  ‘I am Anna. I lead this particular coterie.’

  ‘What is it, a coterie, really?’

  ‘It’s how magi group together. We combine our abilities, enhancing their effects. It increases the effectiveness of our sense and other powers.’

  ‘And that’s what’s happening, I’m joining this coterie?’

  ‘Wow, you’re quick,’ Anna said, her eyes twinkling.

  ‘Sorry, I just mean. I’m not trained. Not fully. I have Sentio and Avatari, but I’ve never learned Novo. I never completed my training.’

  ‘I’m aware. You’re training so far has been…unorthodox. You were expedited weren’t you?’

  Seb nodded. ‘They wanted that thing out of my head quickly.’

  ‘So you learned Sentio and Avatari in what, two years?’

  ‘About six months.’

  Grim whistled. Anna’s jaw dropped. ‘Six months?’

  ‘Give or take a week, why, is that bad?’

  ‘Bad? No. That’s unbelievable. You must have some real talent!’

  ‘I think there were extenuating circumstances,’ he said, trying to suppress the heat in his cheeks.’

  ‘Nonsense, that showed some real skills there. But anyway, going forwards, I’ll lead your daily hands on training out in the field. Enzo will teach you Novo and round-off what you already have.’

  ‘Oh, lucky you,’ Alex said. ‘Hope you’ve got some good padding there, Seb.’

  ‘Why do I not like the sound of that?’

  ‘She’s teasing, ish.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, not believing her for one instant.

  ‘Good. Now, with that out of the way. Are you ready?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To work, of course.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Unlike Seb’s last time stepping into a Way, when he’d fallen for what felt like minutes in a pitch black vacuum that sucked the air from his lungs, this experience was altogether less traumatic. He walked into the portal. The world turned to white lines for a split second, before the group emerged into a dimly-lit cavern. There was a chill in the air that bit him to the core. Avatari flared in an instant, the cold receding into nothing.

  ‘Where are we?’ he said.

  The cavern was in fact a small room, carved into the rock. It contained an aged table, with four chairs sat around it. A chest sat in the corner, crumbled with age.

  ‘Edinburgh,’ Anna said, stooping to avoid cracking her head on the ceiling.

  ‘Isn’t Edinburgh, you know, some kind of city?’

  ‘It is, but underneath there used to exist a second city of sorts. Back in the 1700’s they built a raft of chambers that the poor swarmed to. It’s abandoned now, of course, but they still do tourist tours in these parts. Now let’s get out of here before I do my back in.’

  Seb only had to dip his head as he followed the others out of the chamber. The wall to the left of the landing point was in fact an illusion, tingling with the Weave. Sentio saw through it, and he stepped out into a narrow alley lit by one solitary lantern. Both ends trailed off into the gloom.

  ‘So why aren’t we worried about accidentally bumping into a tour group?’ he said.

  ‘Grim?’ Anna said.

  ‘The tourists stick to the known, recently open paths. These tunnels are still lost. Hidden to the eyes of the Unaware.’

  Seb followed in silence. Casually, a link between the magi was formed. He didn’t invite it, nor did he have to join them, it simply emerged into being around them. At once his own sense was magnified tenfold, and he nearly stumbled in shock.

  People. Thousands of people. All of them nearby.

  ‘You okay, kid?’ Grim said.

  ‘Yeah, sorry. It’s just, there are so many people near us.’

  ‘You need to focus your sense more. Yes, there are people present, but at what plane? Narrow your focus. Look on, look up, look down. What do you see?’

  Seb paused. Narrow my focus. Easy enough, he thought. He channelled again. The beam shrunk, looking straight ahead. At once the countless echoes shrank into a handful. He cast his sense upwards, into the ceiling. Thousands came back again.

  He smiled. Grim joined him.

  ‘I think he’s getting it!’ the grey-haired mage said.

  Seb continued on, trying to keep the grin from absorbing his face completely.

  Minutes later, the passageway emerged into a wider room. Alcoves recessed into the walls on each side. Some of them bore the resemblances of old market stalls, with simple tables at the front with rusted tools and implements upon them. One of the alcoves contained an anvil and a dust-covered forge. A hammer, the handle long since rotten with age, lay on the floor.

  ‘So people used to live down here, and work too?’ Seb said, trailing his finger along the table.

  ‘In their hundreds, but the chambers have no access to air filtration. As they became more and more full, it simply became too dangerous to live here anymore. Disease was rife, and people were forced to leave. It was closed for years - which suited us - before they opened it again a few years ago.’

  Seb nodded to himself. The others carried on marching towards another door, again hidden by an illusion, leaving it looking just like brick. Anna stopped just before she stepped through and looked back at him.

  ‘I’m getting ahead of myself. Alex, Jaden, go ahead, check the way is clear for us to emerge. I’ll brief Seb.’

  The two magi nodded and vanished into the wall. Grim took up his position by the illusionary exit, casually dipping his head into and out of the brick, which made Seb’s stomach shift uncomfortably.

  ‘Right, we’re about to emerge into the world of the Unaware. Although the Consensus is broken, it still exists, at least in the minds of the Unaware. It will still work against us. Only when they realise what has happened in bigger numbers will we see real, drastic effects on reality. And if we do our job right, that won’t come to pass.’

  ‘Our job? What is that?’

  ‘The crux of what we’re about. What the coterie’s do. We hunt the sheol of course. But they are lesser in number now, but with the Brotherhood gone, we must assume more of this responsibility ourselves.’

  ‘Why didn’t you work with the Brotherhood; I mean before?’

  ‘We used to, at least in the beginning. Over time though the Families believed that they needed to sever their ties with the old world and adapt to the new. The Brotherhood was a reminder of the One War, of what had happened with Balor and Danu. And Nazgath. We forged ahead on our own, and only the Magistry and the Brotherhood remained of the old world.’

  ‘Mostly,’ Grim interrupted.

  ‘Sorry?’ Seb said.

  ‘Enough of that, Grim. That conversation is not for today,’ Anna said, a tone creeping into her voice that Seb hadn’t heard previously. Grim shut up in an instant, his eyes fixed on the wall.

  ‘So we hunt the sheol?’ Seb said, trying to dispel the sudden tension in the air.

  ‘That is one task. The other is more fundamental, and some would say, more controversial.’

  ‘How so?’

  Anna shifted on her feet. Her lips pursed and she frowned, clearly looking for the right words to say.

  ‘Purging,’ Grim said, receiving a stern glare from Anna.

  A memory came to mind. Something Caleb had once told him. When Aware not belonging to a family were found by the Magistry, or, it seemed, any magi, then their minds were burned free of the Weave. The idea was that it protected the purity of the mage order, but no one seemed to care about the damage it did to those that underwent the process. Not that he’d ever seen it in the flesh.

  ‘Oh,’ he heard himself say.

  ‘Seb, I know this might be uncomfortable for you to hear, but purging, or cleansing as I prefer to call it, is more necessary now than ever. So many more are becoming Aware, and if we did not act, then they could turn insane, or worse. We cannot allow that to happen.’

  ‘And what happens to those that we cleans
e?’

  ‘If we catch them early enough, then nothing. Their connection to the Weave is severed with no effect, aside from no memory of the cleansing process itself.’

  ‘And if not?’

  ‘Then it depends. Often, if the connection is too far ingrained and they haven’t been trained, then the mind of an Aware will simply not be able to handle its unique relationship with reality. They will hear and see things that aren’t there, pick up thoughts and emotions without knowing why. They will unravel as their hold on reality slips away. Without our intervention they will appear to have simply lost their mind.’

  ‘And what does our intervention do at this stage? Can they be saved?’

  Alex’s head appeared from the wall. ‘You coming?’

  ‘One minute. Are we clear?’

  ‘For now. Nothing in a hundred yards.’

  ‘We’ll be right there.’

  Alex vanished. Anna fixed Seb with troubled eyes.

  ‘I know this is hard for you to hear, especially considering your background.’

  ‘Do they die? Those that are too far gone?’

  A pause. Anna took a breath. ‘It’s for their own good.’

  He looked at the ground. ‘I see.’ It could’ve been me, he thought.

  ‘We must go now, Seb. We can talk more about this later, okay?’

  ‘Sure, I think I’ve heard enough for now, anyway.’

  ‘I would agree.’

  Anna nodded once at Grim, who vanished into the wall. ‘After you,’ she said, a sorry smile on her face as she looked at Seb.

  Without further thought, Seb took a step through the illusion, and returned to the modern world.

  ***

  It was the smell that hit him first. A mixture of sewage and surface rubbish. He held his hand over his mouth as he took another step forwards, Alex and Jaden grinning back at him.

  ‘Jesus, where is this? I thought Edinburgh was meant to be a nice place?’

  ‘It is, on the whole. We just needed a place to come out that is away from prying eyes. Fortunately, this Way appears in an alley that’s little more than a rain channel and rubbish chute combined.’

  Anna materialised behind him. ‘Good,’ she said, looking round. ‘We all good?’

  A murmur of acknowledgement came back at her.

  ‘Good. Then let us move. Alex, you have the address?’

  Alex tapped the side of her head. ‘Yup,’ she said, ‘but it’s addresses. Plural.’

  ‘What, really?’

  ‘Three.’

  Grim cursed. ‘It is getting worse.’

  ‘What is?’ Seb said, watching the exchange like a tennis match, utterly confused.

  ‘The awakenings that are occurring. It is on a scale we’ve never experienced before.’ Anna stopped and shook her head. ‘Seb, you will come with me. Grim, Alex, Jaden, you take the other two, we’ll take the first address. Meet back here in three hours.’

  The others left at once, trudging through puddles towards the end of the alley, where night-time traffic and shoppers crossed the exit at irregular intervals. The three magi stopped, looked both ways, before vanishing into the populous. Anna looked back.

  ‘You ready?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  They emerged onto a main high street. The rain was pouring heavily now, and Seb zipped up his coat and pulled the hood up. Water pattered on the fabric, and he raised his body temperature with Avatari, warding off the chill that seemed to hang in the air.

  ‘Where is this address?’

  ‘Not far. Ten minutes that way,’ Anna said, pointed up a road that ascended upwards between two sets of identical blocks of flats.

  ‘Do we not have cars? Walking seems a bit of a long-winded way of travelling.’

  Anna laughed at that. ‘Seb, this isn’t the dark ages. I think sometimes it helps to be amongst the Unaware. The Consensus is strongest here, amongst them and their conjured reality. This is no rural mansion away from the interference of observers, you know.’

  Seb let out a casual sense, thousands of echoes came back. He slammed his shield up immediately.

  ‘See?’ Anna said, that knowing smile on her face again.

  ‘It’s immense, the amount of echoes you get back,’ he said as they entered the estate that housed the two blocks.

  ‘It’s part of your Novo training. In order to use Novo, you must be so exact with your Sentio, so precise, as any mistake can prove catastrophic.’

  ‘How so?’ He looked left and right, not seeing, but sensing a handful of people who were aware of their presence, but hiding out of sight.

  ‘Later.’

  Anna stopped.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We have a welcome party.’

  Four of them came out. Four men. Young, around Seb’s age. They weren’t sheol, but their minds were disjointed, almost feral. Bestial urges guided them, focused on Anna.

  ‘They’re not friendly,’ Seb said, channelling Avatari.

  ‘No, Seb, you won’t need that here.’

  ‘But -’

  ‘Trust me.’

  The leader of the men sauntered to a halt in front of them. His eyes were glassy and a smell of dope and booze drifted over the air.

  ‘You don’t belong here.’

  ‘We’re just visiting. We won’t be staying.’

  The man nodded, his drunken movements prolonged, clumsy.

  ‘Then,’ he said, swaying on his feet, ‘you must pay the entrance fee.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Five hundred quid,’ he said, before the drunken smile became something more sinister as he looked at Anna, ‘or a go on that.’

  The others laughed. Seb couldn’t take it anymore. These were the kind of scum he used to spend his nights hiding from back in Brightford.

  Not now.

  Not anymore.

  He stepped forwards, past Anna. The leader took a drunken step backwards.

  ‘Oh-oh lads, we’ve got a brave one here. Are you a knight, little boy?’

  ‘Back off.’

  That sinister leer returned. The man reached into his jeans, Seb sensing the intention before the weapon even appeared. The man’s hand came out, a short knife now pointed in Seb’s direction.

  ‘Why don’t you make me?’

  The man took a step forward, followed by his comrades, all high on Dutch courage.

  ‘Stop.’

  It was Anna’s voice, but distorted, deeper. Seb’s shield rippled, something tugging at the Consensus. The lead man stopped in his tracks, all effects of drunkenness vanishing in an instant. His eyes were like saucers; pin-sized pupils locked on the female mage. Seb glanced back. He couldn’t see whatever the goon was seeing, but she was obviously projecting some kind of illusion. He could sense something going on, but it appeared to him as if Anna was there as normal, albeit with a slight shimmering effect covering her.

  Whatever she was projecting it worked. The lead goon dropped the knife into the mud. He began to whimper, and something wet that wasn’t rain blossomed in his pants. The others looked at him in confusion, unsure of how to act.

  ‘Leave. Now. Do not return.’ Anna’s voice was low in volume but high in menace. The goon managed a single, jerky nod before turning and falling into the mud. He scrambled to his hands and knees before breaking off into a run back into the shadows. The others needed no second invitation and followed suit. Their auras vanished into the darkness.

  ‘Come on,’ Anna said, the strange tone gone now as she trudged forwards.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘A subtle application of Novo. I use Sentio to read his fears, which was much easier considering how drunk he was. I then placed an image in his mind, one that only he could see.’

  ‘So you appeared to him as whatever it is he feared?’

  ‘It would’ve been more of an overlay, alternating between seeing me, and seeing the thing he feared the most.’

  ‘It worked well.’

  They stop
ped at the second building on the left. A path of paving stones, cracked all the way, led up to an automated door. Except this one no longer worked. A sign stuck on the front proclaimed, “It’s fucked. Push.”

  So they did.

  ‘Each scenario is different, Seb,’ Anna said, stopping in a lobby that stunk of sweat and urine. He felt it as her sense blazed out, scanning upwards into the building.

  ‘How so?’

  She stopped sensing and nodded to a fire door that led to a flight of stairs.

  ‘Subtlety is the key to Novo. The Consensus won’t allow anything overt, nothing that couldn’t happen in the eyes of the Unaware. So you have to use it in ways that are less obvious. See a car coming to run you over? Do you stop it with a wall of force or jerk the steering wheel to one side? The reality of one Unaware is much easier to override than several.’

  ‘That’s why you just did the leader? Take him out, the rest will follow.’

  Anna stopped mid-step. She turned to him, a curious smile on her face.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Something I learned, you know, before.’

  Anna nodded, not questioning further.

  ***

  Ten floors later, by which time Seb’s Avatari was working flat out to stop him wheezing in fatigue, they emerged onto a wide hallway. The carpet was torn and covered with a vast array of stains. The walls were painted a sickly pea-green. The smell was even worse, if that was possible, than the lobby they’d entered by. Several people resided here, most of them asleep, but at the far end, pulsing erratic senses, was the person they sought.

  ‘Down there,’ Anna said.

  The end door, number 211, was already ajar as they reached it. The light from the hall peeked inside, illuminating a small patch of hallway where piles of unopened mail pressed against the door. Beyond that, the flat lay in total darkness.

  Anna pushed open the door. Seb followed. He sensed out now, keeping the beam narrow, local to the flat. He found their target instantly, cowering in a room that joined the main lounge. Their aura fluctuated between a dull and bright blue, the difference between the Unaware and Aware. As he channelled Avatari, he heard quiet whimpers that drifted across the darkness.