Tales of the Vangen: The Black Ministry's Betrayal (Book 1)

Chapter 48: A Dangerous Question Answered

Dux glared down at Magus, their faces shadowed in the torchlight. For a long while nothing was said until the silence was simply too much to bear. "I want answers, Magus. Is the Emperor dead or not?"

Magus merely shrugged, his bony shoulders cracking up, then down. "Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. Hard to say. That Golden Heart of his exceeded all expectations. Yes. No. Maybe. It's all relative to what you believe."

An obtuse answer. One that Dux didn't like hearing. Instead of pressing the question, though, he chose to ask another. "What is the Golden Heart exactly? Why is it so important?"

Magus licked his lips as he gathered up his words. "It's an Artifact—a tool. A device, in a way. A means to manipulate Magick without the need for natural Talent like myself. "

Dux bunched his eyebrows as he tried to process what was being said to him. Tactics. Strategums. Cyphers. These were what he knew. Not this mystical mumbo jumbo Magus was spouting. "So the Magisters. Are they—"

"Talentless," Magus cut in with a sour note in his voice. "Artificial wielders of magick without the years of experience needed to understand the power they possess. They are like children playing God."

A shiver went up Dux's spine as he recalled his encounter with Cannis. Children playing God, indeed. He wiped a clammy hand over his face, trying his best to compose himself. "And all of them possess Golden Hearts of their own."

Magus laughed, much to Dux's surprise. "Oh, sweet Nido. No, no, no. The Emperor would never have allowed that. No, he gave them their hearts with promises of power if they swore their allegiance to him. The hearts were minor things, however. Drawing upon fractions of power contained within the Golden Heart. Separate yet connected, but ultimately shackling them to his will. What better way to keep a Sorcerer loyal?"

Dux knew his next question then, even though deep down, he did not want it answered. Pandora's box lay before him begging so desperately to be opened. His life. His sanity. All would be put to the test with his next question.

"How do you know all this?" Dux asked. His voice felt small then in that shadowed cell. Magus smiled then, revealing rows of yellow, gnarled teeth.

"Simple, really. Because I was the one who built the Golden Heart."

Memories of the past came to Dux, like the passing of old etchings. That warm spring morning in Orienta. The brass lump soaring overhead. The blinding light afterward that nearly consumed them all. Such power. Such destruction. And then there was Lady Kent and the omen her Attuned had uttered not hours after.

Dux swallowed, his throat now impossibly dry. "So that sphere back in Orienta—"

"Was a lie," Magus interjected. "Yes. It was, in fact, a heart. My heart to be precise."

"The heart of Magnus," Dux said, his thoughts whirling in his skull. "You're Magnus. The Great Magi of Byzantia."

The Magician held up his hands, the chains rattling in mock applause. "In the flesh." Dux glared down at him, too stunned to say anything. Magnus gave a creaky smile. "I never got to thank you properly for helping me escape that night before the whole Pyres Day incident," he held out his hand. "So, thanks for all that."

"That's fecking impossible!" Dux barked. The torch in his hand trembled, bouncing shadows off an equally trembling Magnus. The old man pulled back, holding up his hands defensively this time.

"I swear to you it's the truth!"

"There's no way, "Dux began to pace, a habit he'd formed from years of plotting and scheming In Macedonibus, Austerland, and Orienta. Twenty years of pacing. All the while staring down at the man who called himself Magnus. "There's just no way. The Magnus I remember was barely a year older than me when I helped him escape. If you are who you say you are, how is that you're this decrepit?"