She just knew. On an intensely deep level, sheknew .
Several minutes and one staircase and secret door later she quietly emerged into the relatively fresh air of the Darmo stables. They were on the large side; she didn"t have to worry about waking the lads who worked here. Their quarters were on the far end of the building. The horses didn"t matter either. A few poked their heads out, curious, but none made a fuss. Strange. They should have been all twitchy what with the earthquake. Unless its row had been confined solely to the chamber. b.l.o.o.d.y metaphysics. More trouble than they were worth.
Making her way past the stalls, she unlatched a door to the outside. Real fresh air at last. How sweet it was, but she couldn"t pause to breathe; she had to find out for sure.
Filima hurried along a graveled path toward the wall enclosing the estate grounds. She could just make out one of the gates in the waning moonlight. Beyond the gate was blackness. Her heart caught in her throat and wedged there.
The gate, made of iron bars painted white, opened directly onto one of the roads leading down a gentle slope into Rumpock. That road was now completely hidden by thick, black fog, which was waist-high to her.
Oh, dear gawds, Botello, what have you done?
The whole town would see it. They"d panic. They would blame her once the story was out. Never mind the dead Botello,she would get the brunt of their fear and fury. Not even Overduke Anton could protect her then. They"d break into Darmo House, drag her and all the servants out, and after they"d finished tearing everyone to pieces hang those pieces from the bell tower.
Filima dropped back from the gate, fighting nausea. It wasn"t just her skin at risk, but dozens of others.
Even if she left town this minute, providing the fog allowed her pa.s.sage, the whole of the Darmo household would suffer. She"d just inherited the lot of them, was responsible for the welfare and safety of dozens of her people. Maybe she"d not been high-born into such duty, but she fully understood the necessity that the show must go on.
But how? Pretend this disaster never happened?
Hmm. There was something useful there. Desperation was a wonderful clarifier. What if she pretended to be as ignorant as anyone else about that fog? That was one way out. How could she make Botello disappear, though?
Don"t even try.
By the time she got back to the Black Room, she had it worked through. Of course, everything hinged on her getting him upstairs without being spotted by any of the servitors she was going to try to protect.
She could trust all of them to keep a secret . . . for five minutes. Not nearly long enough.
Botello was as she"d left him, sprawled amid the fragments of pots, crocks, and scrying mirror. His heavy hooded robe had indeed protected him well. There wasn"t a mark on him. Brushing off debris, she folded his arms tight over his chest, bent his legs up, grabbed a double handful of robe and dragged him out.
It wasn"t as hard as she"d antic.i.p.ated. Fear was a superb tonic, lending her even more strength than she"d shown against the demon. Facing it down was nothing compared to hauling Botello"s corpse through the tunnel, up two flights of stairs, and into their bedroom. The last stage was almost effortless as the house floors were always in a state of high polish, making it easy to slide him along.
Once the last door was shut and locked she had to resist the urge to drop over in her tracks. Instead, she began the unpleasant task of stripping Botello to his skin. She stopped once to flee to her bath chamber and throw up in the tub there. That took some time. It couldn"t be helped. She ran water to wash away her weakness, then wet down a towel to wipe her face. The same towel served to wipe away all trace of the noisome liquids that had splashed them both. Within an hour Botello was clean, his usual night tunic pulled over him, and he was tucked into his side of the bed. Clean herself in her tunic, Filima bundled their clothes-robe, shoes, dress, underclothes, the lot-together and made one last foray down the back stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. In a brick-encased side chamber she found the incinerator, an ingenious monstrosity for household debris that also kept a huge supply of fresh river water piping hot for bathing and other sundry purposes. She threw the bundle into the firebox, pushing it in deep with a long-handled poker. When everything was fully aflame, she hurried back to her room.
Nowshe could drop in her tracks.
But not quite.
She had to drop in her tracks in the bed, lying next to Botello. They may have grown apart in the marriage, but they still slept together.
Hadslept together. That was over.
Except for this one last time.
There he lay, cold and still and so very, very, awfully and utterly dead, and if she thought about it she"d get sick again or start screaming. Yet she had to lie next to him.
Filima was known to be a late sleeper. While dawn crept up and the morning wore on, while the house woke and went about its normal ch.o.r.es, she would have to lie there for hours on end until it was her usual time to wake.
I can"t do that.
So what if she"d been an instrument of the gawds down in the Black Room? Up here she was just herself: scared, sick, tired to the bone, and wishing the whole night had never happened.
But she made herself do it. The bedclothes had to look right.
She took care not to touch him as she eased between the sheets. It was impossible to lie still. Tremors coursed through her body, making her shake as though from fever. The release of tears she had to put off. Once begun, she wouldn"t be able to stop and it would seem odd if her face was found to be puffed and red.
Unexpectedly, she dozed off. Only a few minutes worth, but enough to disorient her. For several seconds all was well, then memory tilted her back into turmoil again. She didn"t want to sleep. What if she tossed and turned right over onto him? Ugh.
She got out of bed and paced and sat and paced and looked out the window and brushed her hair and paced and sat and looked out the window and blew her nose and paced and wished the d.a.m.n sun would come up and sat and paced. Had that fog blotted out the whole sky?
When the agonizingly slow process of dawn did finally begin, she peered anxiously down at the slice of town she could see. The black river undulated through the streets, still at waist height so far as she could tell.
And . . . people were walking in it. She could just make out the distant figures of early risers beginning their day. They went about their business without haste, without a sign that anything was amiss. What was wrong with them? They should have been ringing alarm bells and running around shouting their neighbors awake and sending messengers to the overduke"s palace demanding answers and action. Unless they couldn"tsee it. If that stuff was strictly magical in nature then most people would remain ignorant of its existence. Perhaps only those like her born with a measure of Talent would be aware. No town-wide panic to worry about, but she"d still have to deal with some kind of blame. Best to wait things out and see what happened.
Someone knocked softly at the door.
She stared at it, her heart thumping hard. Who was-?
Oh. Botello"s valet. The man was under orders to come the same time every morning no matter how late an hour his master had gotten to bed. Standing orders from the lord of the house. Filima usually slept through it all.
In about three seconds the valet would come in to shake Botello awake. She had tonot be out of bed.
In two seconds she"d dashed from the window and dove under the covers. Her eyes clamped shut, and she a.s.sumed a relaxed sleep posture just as the door opened. She heard the man"s careful tiptoeing across the room and the rustle as he touched Botello and murmured to him it was time to wake.
Far a very insane moment, Filima fancied she heard Botello"s usual low grunt in reply and the shift and creak of the bed as he got out. That was ever her signal to turn over and snuggle deeper into her pillows.
It didn"t happen, of course, but the thought alone almost made it real, almost made her scream.
The valet called again to his master, whispering. Silence and a long pause. Another rustle as sheets were drawn back, and then the man"s gasp of shock. A longer pause as he made sure. Then he made sure again. A heavy, groaning sigh. He retreated quickly and used the bell pull, having the presence of mind to use the codes for the butler and Filima"s chief personal maid. Both would be needed for the coming crisis.
Filima heard the bells ringing distantly within the house.
Then the valet was on her side of the bed, gently touching her shoulder. She twitched, a sleeper who did not want to be disturbed. Mornings were not a good time for her and they all knew it.
"My lady? Please, my lady, you need to get up." The man sounded very unhappy, pleading. She hated the crack in his voice, knew she would hate the look he would have. When she opened her eyes to squint at him his expression was such as to tell even a stranger that something very bad was at hand.
"Yes, what is it, Jules?" she mumbled thickly.
"My lady, please come with me." He got her dressing gown from a chair and held it before him, ready for her. His hands shook.
"What is it, a fire?" She pretended to struggle to consciousness. When did she suddenly become such a great actress?
"No, my lady, please. Your maid is on the way. But you must get out of bed."
"What is the matter?" She shot a little more alert, sitting up. "Botello? What"s going on? Botello?" She turned to him. Had to touch him. She wasn"t acting when she recoiled from the stiffening corpse.
No need now to hold back the screams.
Chapter Twelve.
Botello"s Black Room, Back in the Present None of us had anything to say for awhile. Filima was all talked out, hoa.r.s.e and blowing her nose for the umpteenth time. Even Terrin kept quiet, which was a singular feat for him. Shankey and I exchanged looks, then looked at Filima, then all around the chamber, trying to imagine what it had been like during the big fight. And how it had been for Filima having to haul her dead husband up to their room. And for two solid weeks keeping up the show of the fiction she"d invented about him dying peacefully in his bed, all the time with that black fog rolling in every night as a grim reminder.
"Whooh," I muttered, full of fresh respect for her.
Shankey echoed me.
She continued, her voice subdued. "After that it seemed best to keep quiet and hope the mess would resolve itself. Each sunset I"d pray for the h.e.l.l-river not to appear, but it kept coming. So I"ve been scrying every day, asking for a solution, asking for a cure, asking to find a way to put it all back and retrieve the lost Talents. Then when I asked to be shown someone who could really help-youwere there in the image."
Lucky me, I said to myself.
Shankey made anahem sound. "My lady, if you would, I was wondering one thing . . . if Lord Botello was pulled into the mirror how was his body still here?"
"I don"t know." Her head was down as she stood over that bare spot on the floor.
"That"s easy," said Terrin. "What got dragged off was his astral form."
"Huh." Shankey did some frowning. "I heard those were invisible. Not tangible."
"Hardly ever on this side of Reality, but back then this place was so charged up with magic energy his astral self would have been more solid than Gibraltar."
"Who"s that?"
"Sort of a "rock" star," I explained.
Terrin snarled. Good. He did his best work while annoyed. "Hush up with yourself, I"m on a roll.
Botello"s astral bod and all the brain and soul and the spirit luggage that goes with it got sucked in. When the mirror shattered that chopped his connection, what was left on this side-his physical self-died."
"I didn"t mean for that to happen," said Filima.
"Of course you didn"t," I told her, moving in with a comforting arm around her shoulders. I was sincere,not just trying to cop a feel. "He brought it onto himself."
"But he might not have died if I hadn"t interfered."
"True," said Terrin. "But you did and it was supposed to turn out that way." He was a great one for Fate and karma stuff. It was from him that I learned about there being no such thing as a coincidence. "The big question is what was he trying to do? I don"t mess around with demons like that. They can be fun and all, but he was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with them in a dumb-a.s.s way. Don"t you have any idea what he was up to?"
Filima shook her head. "I"ve been over it a hundred times, and told you all that I saw. I"ve gone through his papers and notes, but he used a personal code that would only make sense to him."
"You still got that stuff?"
"It"s up in his other Black Room."
"I wanna see. And why for is it always a "Black Room" for doing magic here? Why can"t it be purple?
Maybe something orange with green polka dots. I never saw such a sorry-a.s.s cliche world. You people gotta lighten up with yourselves, no wonder you got a black river. That"s depressing as h.e.l.l. Po-loo-shun allover the d.a.m.n place . . ." He led the way out, grumbling at shortcomings of all kinds.
Shankey stuck a thumb in his direction and asked me, "Is he all right?"
"Oh, yeah, couldn"t be better. It"s a sign he"s in a really good mood. The more he complains, the better for us. In case you hadn"t noticed, he sucked off the leftover magical energy in here."
"When? Was it like what he did upstairs?"
"Nah. Just a little finger waggling here and there, like licking the bowl to get the last of the cake frosting."
Only in this case the bowl had been br.i.m.m.i.n.g. The magic energy that had given my whiskers the twitchy itches was all gone now. Still didn"t make this place any friendlier.
"d.a.m.n, I would like to have seen-oh, beg pardon, my lady!" He snapped to abrupt attention.
Filima was one of those gals who could command whole regiments with the lifting of one eyebrow. She had both raised at us, evidently wanting to go after Terrin. She was all recovered from her great confession, thank you very much, and ready to do something else.
"Uh . . . yeah," I added, and escorted her toward the tunnel door.
The Overduke"s Palace, a Hallway Cadmus Burkus only gradually became aware that things were not right and not right in a b.l.o.o.d.y serious way. For one, he was only partly conscious, yet walking. Not the sort of activity that becomes a perfect gentleman even when he"s drunk. One tended to stumble into furniture and walls and thus provide much amusing but detrimental gossip for acquaintances to chew over for weeks on end. No, if one was drinking it was best done under circ.u.mstances where walking wasn"t required.
But he was not drunk. Exhausted and suffering the ill-effects of overeating at a rich table, but not drunk.Pity. He wanted a good drink, because instinct told him something more was going on and it was bad.
Very bad indeed, as in a b.l.o.o.d.y, b.l.o.o.d.yserious way. So what made him still able to walk?
Ah, that was it. He was being helped along. The a.s.sistance spared him from collisions with furniture and walls, but he was rather puzzled as to why two people were engaged in such a triplet exercise with him. It seemed to be two . . . holding firmly to each of his arms. Males. Large fellows. In the overduke"s black-and-silver colors.
What the devil was going on?
Cadmus tried to work that one out, and at the same time endeavored to fix his geographic location, determine the time of day-or night, as it was dark-and how he had come to be in such a state of affairs. It was quite a lot to do all in one go, and frankly he was not at his best. He was still diligently at it when a very beautiful young woman appeared in front of him, halting his escorts.
"Captain Rockbush, what are you doing?" she asked of one of the men.
Excellent. The very question Cadmus planned to voice himself, once he got the hang of talking again.
"Orders from Lord Anton, ma"am," was the prompt reply. "Lord Cadmus is to be confined for the time being in the-"
"Confined?"
"-in the dungeon, until-"
"The dungeon?"
"-until Lord Anton calls for him again."
"Why?" She was very shocked. Cadmus felt the same way. Hardly any of the overduke"s friends were ever tossed into dungeons. The man was a somber sort, orderly, not given to arbitrary judgments. If you were jailed it was for a d.a.m.n good reason.
Goodness, what could have happened to put the overduke off to such a degree? He always liked me.