The Long Road to Damascus

THE LONG ROAD TO DAMASCUS
by Morrighan



Chapter 8: The Art of War


"Nice work, Rosier."

It was nearly a year since he'd last heard his own name, spoken out loud.

The sound was so familiar, and yet so strange that for a moment he felt disoriented - caught between two identities, and for an instant at a loss to choose between them. He'd adapted so easily to his assumed name - and identity - that it felt like he'd half- forgotten his own, that his own self had been half-overlaid by Gudgeon's history, Gudgeon's family and personality.

He'd come so far, so fast that he'd never had time to think about what he was giving up to become Gudgeon. His place in the Master's Circle, his family, his team-mates at the Wimborne Wasps ... he was even inclined to feel nostalgic about his old school friends, of all people.

Suddenly, he wanted to go home...

"Accio."

He was only dimly aware of the softly muttered word. His first inkling of danger only came when his wand slid lightly from his fingers into Jerry's waiting hand.

He looked up sharply, too late. "What?" he asked stupidly, as his reserve wand slid from the sleeve of his jacket, and Tom caught it neatly, left-handed, his own wand already drawn in his other hand. Rosier's eyes flicked between the two colleagues with a sudden pang of fear. Both of them had their wands drawn - drawn and aimed at his heart.

"Sorry about this, and all that." Jerry said, in his unpleasant reedy voice. "But the Master asked us to tidy up any loose ends once you'd finished. You're one of them."

"Me? Why?" The shock was perfectly genuine, but a part of his brain was already calculating rapidly, whispering in his ear, keep them talking. He made a quick mental inventory of his weapons. His wands were gone. He'd used two of his knives trying to escape the B-Mounties, and the third had snapped in the ensuing struggle. The hilt, with an inch of blade, was in its sheath. Leave it there. They'd strike for sure if his hands went anywhere near his pockets. "But you said you'd be getting me home as soon as the job was done. You promised." Without conscious instruction, his voice rose plaintively.

Jerry gave a snide smile. "Did we say that, Tom?"

"We might well have done, Jerry. In fact, I do believe we did."

"We did? We must have been lying."

Overconfident. That's good, the voice told him. And they're standing far too close together.

It was his stepfather, Antoine Rosier, he had to thank for that. Antoine had begun to forge him into a fighter the moment he'd been old enough to walk unaided, and Evan had been training every day by the time he was three. When his limbs became too tired to perform the techniques accurately, Antoine would sit him down and talk him through the theory and strategy of combat, whether it was Magical, Muggle or psychological, until he was rested enough to continue.

The training had come to an abrupt halt when the young Evan had been ten years old. He had been hospitalised for three months after the cumulative effects of eight years of over-training finally took their toll. But it had been too late by then: the teachings had had their effect. The moment he had been well enough to be allowed on his feet he had headed straight to the hospital's gymnasium, and resumed conscientiously the training routines Antoine had taken such care to instill into him.

Antoine had done his work well; but right now his stepson needed a miracle.

He was about ten foot away from them, he estimated. A good distance for them; a very poor one for an unarmed, injured man. Bad situation. He needed more time.

"But why?" His voice shocked, and just a little aggrieved; his eyes watching them for just a single moment of inattention. "I succeeded. I got her."

"You haven't been listening to that wireless, have you, kiddo? They've got your number. The B-Mounties are after you."

"And everybody knows," Tom murmured, "that the Mounties always get their man."

"And it's our job to make sure they don't. The Master ... isn't to be implicated, not in this one." Jerry shifted lightly on the balls of his feet, weighing the wand in his hand. Rosier tensed.

"But I'd never - " More time. Keep them talking. He scanned the room again, almost without conscious thought, weighing, evaluating it. The door was locked. The window might not be. Probably unbreakable. He really didn't fancy trying to kick his way through the door. "You know I'm never careless." The chairs would be a hazard, of course. Too flimsy for weapons, too close to be ignored. Particularly the one by the window.

"He said no loose ends, Rosier. That means you." He evaluated the wireless and then abandoned the idea. Too far away, too heavy to throw. The same went for the ashtray. The papers on the table he ignored.

"And orders are orders, aren't they Jerry?" A Muggle pen had rolled off the table and lay tantalisingly by the table leg. Useful ... if he could get his hands on it. "And we always obey the master, don't we now?"

"So..." Jerry raised his wand, just as Rosier feinted to the left. The shot went wild, and before either could cast again, he had retaliated.

It was a short, clumsy fight, and Antoine Rosier, had he seen it, would have been incandescent with disapproval.

Evan had chosen a low-level attack - half-dive, half-roll, which took him well below the firing line. It was effective, in its way - his shoulder caught Tom squarely in the groin, as his outstretched right arm pulled Jerry down with them - but he landed badly, and the strain it put on his injured leg lost him a vital half-second before he reoriented himself. Tom had gone down hard, his head cracking heavily against the corner of the table, but in the lost second Jerry had begun to roll sideways, and succeeded in freeing his wand hand. Rosier threw himself clumsily across Jerry, ignoring loud complaints from knee and ankle, and seized the end of the wand.

It must have formed a hilarious tableau: two grown men engaged in a tug of war over a small strip of wood. Rosier could almost feel his stepfather watching him in silent disgust, muttering some quiet imprecation about 'indiscipline'.

The imagined rebuke had its intended effect. He wrenched away the wand so forcefully that it snapped three inches from the tip. He thrust it quickly out of reach, and as he did so, his hand connected with the biro lying by the table leg, and without conscious instruction from his brain, closed around it.

Jerry was rolling on the floor, trying to unbalance him, but he hadn't the strength: Rosier was too heavy. He hauled his legs across until he was kneeling on Jerry's chest, and placed the point of the biro firmly against Jerry's Adam's apple.

There was a sudden, tense stillness, and for the first time, Rosier saw Jerry's eyes meet his.

"If the Dark Lord wanted me dead," he said softly, "he wouldn't have sent a pair of amateurs to do the job."

Jerry spluttered, and tried to push the Biro away with his free hand, but Rosier knocked his hand away, pinning it under his left knee. Jerry struggled again, futilely: Rosier outweighed him by over thirty kilos.

The pressure from the biro increased.

"You know I don't do Cruciatus or shit like that," Rosier said softly, the tension in his voice carefully controlled. "But don't start thinking I'm soft." A slow breath sucked in through his lower teeth. The room was utterly still. "I'm not soft. I know what I'm doing." More pressure. "Did the Master tell you to kill me?"

Jerry said nothing. Rosier's eyes flicked over to Tom. The man was still unconscious.

"Tell me."

Still no answer.

"Listen to me. There's a small bone in the throat." A jab with the biro; Jerry choked a little. "Dunno what it's called. That's not important. Someone once told me if you break it you die. No fixes. Takes about an hour to choke you to death." Another jab. "Dunno if it's true or not. Good time to find out." He let the pressure up slightly so that Jerry could speak.

"He just said ... to deal with anything that might lead back to us. He said nothing should incriminate the cause."

"That's good. Then I'm going back to Britain."

Jerry sneered up at him. "Hardly. You're dead, and Gudgeon's a marked man. You're a liability now, Rosier. You think he'll want you back?"

"That's for him to say. Not you."

Jerry started to squirm under him again, desperately trying to throw Rosier off- balance, trying to free his pinioned arms. Rosier lifted the point of the biro from the throat and let it rest very lightly on Jerry's left eyeball. Jerry stilled instantly.

"You wouldn't harm one of your master's chosen, would you?" There was a slightly panicky note in his voice, and Rosier knew he had won.

"Not fatally." He threw the biro away in one quick motion, swinging his fist back across in a hammer-fist strike. It struck Jerry on the temple.

It wasn't a heavy blow - the angle was wrong for that, even with the twist on impact to maximise the force - but it gave Rosier enough time to pull his spare wand from Tom's unresisting left hand.

"Somnus," he muttered, and stood back from the two men, now peacefully asleep on the floor. He stooped over Tom for a moment to check that he'd not broken his skull, but there seemed to be no blood there. He didn't stop to investigate further. Tom would have to take his chances.

He gathered up his other wand, unlocked the door and went out, locking it again behind him. He had eight hours exactly before they would awake. Plenty of time to get away.

* * * * *


Snape slammed the door of the training hall behind him, almost hard enough to relieve his feelings, and sneered behind his mask at the other occupant of the training hall. The high vaulted ceiling of the hall rang with the echoes of the slamming door as he stalked in, his hands balled into fists.

All right, so maybe he was being punished, and getting off very lightly at that, but he did not have to like it. Secondment to the training unit he could cope with, demeaning though it was, but to assign him to a beginner - a complete beginner! That was an insult. Especially as by all accounts the candidate was skating the bottom of the minimum requirements and had only got in at all by her personal connections to some very high-ranking Death Eaters.

Which meant he wouldn't even be able to relieve his feelings by making the recruit's life a misery anyway.

She was waiting just inside the door, and took an involuntary step backwards when she saw him. He stopped and surveyed her with distaste.

She was short and slight, and the 'plain black' robe she was supposed to be wearing was far too ornate to be inconspicuous anywhere. As custom demanded of neophytes, she was unmasked, and her face looked pale and terrified. She took another step backwards under the force of his gaze.

That in itself was surprising. Female Death Eaters were a rare breed - he knew of only six in the entire organisation - but they were among the most dangerous of all the Dark Lord's servants. There was a hard intenseness about them that amounted almost to fanaticism. They drove themselves harder, pushed themselves further, excelled the male recruits in every field save physical strength. Not to mention that most of them had a talent for manipulation that equalled the Dark Lord himself. It was rumoured among the Death Eaters that the Ministry was now advising its Aurors to kill the women first, (a source of great pride to the female Death Eaters) - not that any of them were ever caught.

Whereas this! - this one, on the other hand, was not even making an effort to hide her fear. She looked weak and terrified, and, quite frankly, a most unsuitable Death Eater.

He'd have his work cut out just to bring her up to the standard at which most new recruits started.

"Miss Rathbone, is it not?"

She nodded, her eyes terrified. Show some backbone, girl! Then at least he could justify giving her a hard time.

"I have been assigned to you to conduct your preliminary training. This will last between one and two months ... depending on your aptitude." Nearer two months, if she was as incapable as she looked - and (he thought angrily,) if he couldn't get her off his hands sooner.

She looked up at him uncertainly. "Er ... okay, Mr ... I'm sorry, I wasn't told your name." A silence. "I mean what do I call you?"

So not completely stupid. That was something.

"Choose a name."

"Er ... what?"

"You choose a name. For me." That was standard procedure. The name chosen by the recruit could give nothing away, not even so much as a habitual soubriquet.

"Oh." Another wary gaze. "Then, er-" she watched him again, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Gamaliel. Will Gamaliel do?"

Snape blinked involuntarily. "As well as any," he said, his tone carefully neutral.

He surveyed her for the second time, with more attention. She seemed small and frail-looking, probably in her late teens or early twenties, though she was wearing so much makeup it was hard to tell. Her face was unmemorable, almost insignificant; her body language gave her the air of a shrinking violet. Wimp.

Still, it should be possible to do something with her. After all, someone had managed to turn Wilko into a halfway passable Death Eater. Better begin, he thought moodily.

"We'll start with defence techniques," he said softly. He saw her relax slightly. She probably remembered some of it from Hogwarts - and so she should. "That's right. Standard seventh-year syllabus. You should be word-perfect."

She tensed again. Good. There was no point in life easy for the little fool.

"How about we begin" he said in his softest, smoothest voice, "with you telling me what the five categories of defence against hostile spellwork?"

"Er-" Echo's voice squeaked, and Snape could almost hear her fighting to get it back under her control. "Blocking, deflection, evasion..." she stumbled and came to a halt. Inside his mask, the sneer deepened. He said nothing.

"Countering and ... redirecting?"

"Correct." He saw her relax visibly, and his anger increased. The five basic principles of defence work - and she had to take time to work out an answer! "Now explain them to me."

"Okay ... well ... um- Blocking is ... blocking, I mean-" she faltered, realising how bad that sounded. "It's when the spell gets obstructed or absorbed before it reaches its target. It includes ... " She was gabbling now, from a mixture of relief and fear. "It includes most of the shielding spells, using an object as a shield and letting a non- essential part of the body take the force of the hex."

"Name some of the shielding spells."

"Er ... diffusivo and vormaur."

"Good enough. Continue."

"Deflection ... deflection's what most people mean when they talk about blocking. It's using a wand motion to knock the spell off-course. It's the most common way of responding to hexes." She hesitated, her eyes flicking about the room as if searching for inspiration, or an exit. "You let it strike the tip of your wand and then angle it away. You can get armour that does it automatically. And there's some charms. Refractus's the most common."

"And evasion?"

"Getting out of the way." It sounded silly, and she nearly smiled at the words "It doesn't work if the hex is heat-seeking or targeted in some other way. It's a last resort."

"Go on."

There was a long pause, and on her face there was the look of one whose mind has just gone completely blank. Snape watched without satisfaction as a slow veil of terror settled over her features. "What was next?" she asked in a very small voice indeed.

"Try counterattacking."

"It's ... um ... hitting them first. Doing a hex that's faster. But you have to be really quick for that. I couldn't ever do it."

"You will have to learn. Now tell me about redirecting."

"It's like deflecting, only you send the spell straight back at your opponent."

"Correct. In essence, you are using your opponent's spell against them. Name a deflecting spell."

"Er ... Verso. That's the most common."

"Can you do it?"

"Sometimes."

"That's something." The tone of voice implied quite clearly that it wasn't much. In fact, it was the only spark of promise the pathetic child had shown so far. There were very few magicians who could use the verso charm at all without intensive training. "What class do the neutralising charms fall into?"

"Er ... blocking?"

"Correct. Why?"

Echo gulped. "Because it absorbs the charm rather than deflecting it, I think."

"Yes. Now, when would you use evasion?"

"When you didn't have a wand?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" The cold sarcasm in his voice took even him by surprise. The girl shrank away from him as if he had struck her.

"Er ... for spells you can't block or deflect." That sounded far too much like a lucky guess for his liking. He let her flush and bluster for a few minutes before she managed to work out the answer - unblockable curses and hexes which covered a wide target area - and all the time his contempt deepened. This child was nothing - privilege without ambition, and intelligence without application. What she thought she was playing at he had no idea.

He carried on firing questions, passing from defence techniques on to hexes. Her knowledge was even more sketchy there, and he wondered once more what on earth the stupid girl thought she was playing at. Most young recruits came to the Death Eaters full of themselves, having gorged themselves on the forbidden knowledge and champing like horses at the bit to show what they could do. This one still seemed to be stuck on the basics. That's what happens when you try to bring in unsuitable candidates, the Death Eater part of him muttered. The other part, for which as yet there was no name, was merely relieved that at least Rathbone was unlikely to be a danger to anyone but herself for quite a while yet.

"I strongly recommend you reread your seventh year notes before we meet again tomorrow night," he said when he had ascertained how little she knew about hexes. "You will need to master it thoroughly before we can progress."

"Oh. Yes - of course."

"Now ... let's see if you can actually do any of these techniques. Flagellus."

The deflection was a little late, not that he'd expected anything else, and the tail-end of the curse caught her, making her yelp. "Not fast enough. Again." He threw another curse, and she responded slightly faster, the movements wild and exaggerated. "Sloppy technique. It's a wand, not a Beater's bat. Try again."

If there was one positive feature in the whole disgraceful situation, he thought moodily, it was that he was now in a situation where he was unlikely to have to do anything Dumbledore would disapprove of. He launched yet another curse at her, and watched her deflection with critical eyes. But then, he remembered with a jolt, he was hardly well-placed to do any good either. He was no use to anyone, out here on the sidelines. Whether anyone suspected him or not, he'd effectively been neutralised - and it had only been two weeks since -

Never mind that. At least he was alive, and probably safe. Whining over his current assignment would accomplish nothing.

He turned his attention back to the cowering Echo. "Pathetic. Sloppy technique, sketchy knowledge, even of the standard NEWTs syllabus. You're going to need to put in considerably more work than that if you want to make it as a Death Eater.

"Sorry," she said inadequately. "I'll work on it."

Sorry! he raged inwardly. A would-be Death Eater who apologises! "You'd better. Now, have you duelled?"

She shook her head. And this was the neophyte they'd assigned him!

Typical! Just typical. "Then we'll start slowly. Stick to defence moves for the time being. Try not to let any hexes hit you. I won't include the Unforgivables today."

"Oh shi- ... I mean okay."

He began without any of the preliminary bowing and posturing that others might have included, but by now she seemed to have learnt enough not to expect it.

Duelling, in the Death Eaters, was understood to be strictly a beginners' tool - a useful, if limited model for how genuine combat worked. They may have had a duelling specialist among the training staff, but Federico Lumbaya had been brought up in the simple and brutal Freetown Rules of combat, rather than the archaic pretensions of the Heidelberg Rules favoured by the western world. The Freetown rules (which permitted any style of fighting and any weapon not made of metal) may have been less unrealistic than most, but it still took no account of battleground geography, multiple opponents, weather conditions or any of a thousand other variables which the genuine fighter would have to consider.

And Rathbone probably had no idea just how lightly she was being let off.

She did better than he had expected: it was fully thirty seconds before her reactions began to slow, and even then she kept out of serious trouble for another ten. He speeded up his attacks. If the stupid little goose wanted to be a Death Eater, that was just fine by him. Let her pay the price.

He increased the pace again, and what technique she had abruptly fell apart. She was swiping wildly to deflect the hexes, sacrificing time and energy because of her over-exaggerated wand-work. The curses she was too slow to deflect were starting to find their targets, and the involuntary flinches as they struck cost her yet more time. She was retreating with every step, almost stumbling backwards now, and the misstep caused her to miss another two curses. Both struck her full-on, throwing her backwards. She stumbled again, and fell, and promptly burst into tears.

Snape stopped casting hexes. "What?" he asked, his voice deliberately aggressive.

Echo scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over the hem of her robe. "It's no good," she wailed. "'S never any good. I should have known I'd be useless." Her voice rose uncontrollably, and she nearly began sobbing again. "And I never even wanted to do it!"

For a fraction of a second, Snape seemed to have frozen to the spot, and then he strode forward, seizing her roughly by the shoulders. "You .... what?" He lifted her up, shaking her violently. "Then why in hell's name are you trying to join us?"

There was a long, shocked silence.

Snape let go of her quickly, suddenly terribly aware of where he was and what he was doing. He was in enough ill favour already - and assaulting Lucius Malfoy's sister-in-law was likely to get him into deep, deep trouble. Echo backed away from him slowly, staring up at him with her mouth open. Her face had gone milk-white, her blonde ringlets sticking sweatily to the heavily made-up face.

"Please Gamaliel - please don't tell Narcissa I said that," she whimpered, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her robe. Snape watched her, motionless. Her eye-makeup had run in long, pale blue smears down the elegant black fabric.

"You don't wish to become a Death Eater," he said, his voice empty and emotionless. "Then why are you here?"

"My sister," Echo whimpered. "She said she'd disown me if I didn't. Completely. She said I'd be no sister of hers."

"And so you decided to join us."

"I've got to."

Snape stared at her, torn for an agonising eternity between horror and contempt. That anyone would throw their life, their hope away, for so slight a reason! It was beyond folly; it was criminal insanity. Not that he had the right to comment, he reminded himself with sudden bitterness. He of all people should know better than that.

"It takes more than that, to serve the master," he said softly. "Once you are pledged to the Dark Lord, you are his - soul and body and mind. He remakes you, he moulds you into the creature of his choosing, to do his will and his work, forever." His eyes seemed to focus on Echo's face once again, a rigid, horror-stricken mask. He'd never seen that expression on a living face before. "It's an extortionately high price, isn't it, just to avoid your sister's wrath."

"I don't know."

"No ... I don't suppose you do." He inhaled deeply, and then released the air, trying to force some of the tension in his back to dissipate. "You will need a much better reason than that, if you truly mean to become a Death Eater." He paused, and examined the girl with genuine interest for the first time. "We had better finish here. Be here tomorrow at the same time. I will say nothing to your sister."

"Oh... okay. Thank you. Goodbye, then."

She hesitated for an instant, and then disapparated, the ornate folds of the black robe swirling around her as she vanished.

Snape watched her as she vanished, staring still after her long after she had disappeared. Then he turned his back deliberately, and stalked over to one of the dusty oak benches that lined the walls of the room, letting himself sink down onto it. The distinct beginnings of a headache was pounding dully at the inside of his cranium.

It was five minutes before the hour. The next recruit, and his trainer, would be there in a few minutes. He stood up again, and reached for his winter cloak which hung beside the door. There weren't any training tools to be cleared up; it would be a while before Rathbone would be competent enough to use them. If she ever got that far.

"You stupid, stupid bitch," he said, to the reverberating emptiness of the training hall, but only the echoes replied. The headache did not go away.

* * * * *


"Rosier."

The hall was deadly quiet. Rosier, prostrated before the feet of his master, did not dare move so much as a muscle. There was a note in the Master's voice that had sounded almost surprised, and it had smitten him with a sudden pang of doubt.

"Master," he said into the silence, the soft deep voice sounding sleepy and dull after the Dark Lord's high-pitched tones.

"I do not recall giving you permission to return, Rosier. Rise, and explain yourself."

Rosier rose, but remained on his knees. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the tiny bubbles of terror percolating through the layers of his mind. "Master ... I-" he began, and then paused again, searching for words. "When I completed the work you had graciously assigned to me, I returned to meet your agents." A pause, trying to find the words. "They felt that I was of no more use to your Lordship and should die immediately, rather than risk being caught and compromising your security. I ... I could not believe that that would be your will."

"So you presume to know my will. Interesting."

Rosier bowed his head, as if in shame. "Sire, I regret my presumption ... but I hoped that my usefulness to your cause was not truly at an end."

Rosier fell silent, and the Dark Lord scanned him closely.

"And if I said it was?"

"Then I would accept your word." He could feel a droplet of sweat making its distracting way down the small of his back. "Then I will accept my fate, as well as whatever penalty your lordship chooses to add for my disobedience."

Another pause, seconds lingering into minutes. Rosier could feel the Dark Lord's stare prickling on his skin, evaluating him, weighing him up. He waited, and waited again, as he heard the Dark Lord rise from his throne and approach him, laying a burning hand on his servant's head. Rosier did not flinch, not even slightly.

"If I did not know better, Rosier," the Dark Lord said, his voice a low purr. "I would say that you were too good to be true."

"I am my Master's loyal servant." Another pause. The hand was removed. The burning eyes raked his face, and he met their gaze with neither pride nor fear.

"Indeed, Rosier. Yes, indeed ... I do believe you are."