by David Drake
If it bit my head off, my own problems were over. I let the helmet down the rest of the way.
I was able to breathe, though the air must be coming in past my chin. I could see objects in sharp pastels against a velvety soft black background. I could see the artifacts on the shelves, and when I turned my head the Count’s weapon was equally clear. I could also see the portion of his shield above its holster—and as a faint shadow, the shape of the rest of it beneath the leather.
The helmet showed Ancient artifacts. I drew my own weapon and held it in front of me. It glowed a yellow denser than most of the artifacts I was seeing.
At the bottom of the wall across from me was a square of faint violet. To either side of it were more clearly defined artifacts, but the square was certainly something.
I took the helmet off and set it back on the shelf from where Osbourn had taken it. “This is a remarkable device, Count Thomas. There’s no doubt that your ancestor was a Maker, and a Maker of unusual skill.”
“Not an ancestor,” Thomas said, looking away. “A relative, that’s all.”
“Now…” I said, walking toward the square on the far wall. I had to pass around the bed to get there. “What’s this?”
“That?” said Count Thomas. “It’s a mirror, isn’t it?”
Arcone started to move back from the doorway. I said, “Master Arcone! Come here if you will!”
“Arcone, get your ass back here!” Thomas shouted.
I don’t know for sure what would’ve happened then if Lord Osbourn hadn’t sprinted out the door through which the secretary had vanished. They returned a moment later. Osbourn’s left hand gripped Arcone’s shoulder, and his right held his weapon. It wasn’t switched on.
“Master Arcone?” I said. I wasn’t shouting now. “What’s this bronze panel?”
“Well, it looks like a mirror, doesn’t it?” the secretary said.
His tone made the words insulting. Lord Osbourn must’ve thought so too, because he clouted Arcone with the butt of his weapon. The secretary yelped and fell to his knees.
“It may have started out as a mirror,” I said, “but it’s mounted too low to use here and the bracket’s secured with a lock like the one you put on the outside door. What is this, Master Arcone?”
I switched on my weapon. Arcone quivered and closed his eyes. I cut the lock away, trying to be as neat as Count Thomas had been. The padlock clinked to the floor; then the iron bracket clanged down, bringing with it the thin bronze mirror. That last rattled hollowly.
“What is it, Arcone?” I shouted as I turned with the weapon in my hand.
“It’s a prison!” he said, his face in his hands. “It’s dangerous so I closed it off! King Fidele says that a son of the family was a monster and they put him here where he couldn’t get out!”
“Whose family?” Thomas said, frowning. “Fidele didn’t have a son—or a wife, even.”
“No, no, in old times,” the secretary said. Blood from the cut on his temple was leaking down his cheek. He was looking down at the floor. “Very old times, King Fidele thought—Ancient times, even.”
“How could he have known that?” I said. “There’s no books surviving from Ancient times.”
“But there’s things,” Arcone said. “Artifacts, and some of them told him things from the way he wrote in his notebook.”
“That notebook?” I said, gesturing to the red volume that I’d placed on the lectern.
“Yes, that’s where he tells the things he did as a Maker,” Arcone said. “It was dangerous, just as I said. Fidele thought that he couldn’t have children because of the things he’d done as a Maker. I blocked off the tunnel for safety!”
“Where’s my son, Arcone?” Count Thomas said. His voice wasn’t loud, but I didn’t like the tremble I heard in it. It reminded me of the sound a really big cat makes in the back of its throat.
“I don’t know!” Arcone said. “He came to see me that night but he was drunk and I don’t know where he went then!”
“You treacherous bastard,” Count Thomas said. “You killed him and dragged him through that tunnel, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t kill him!” Arcone said. “By the Almighty, he was just drunk!”
I knelt to look into the tunnel again. I could see the far end, fifty feet or so away. The space beyond it was faint, twilit. There were objects there, maybe trees, but I couldn’t be sure.
The tunnel wasn’t just a hole: it was an Ancient artifact. That’s why I’d seen it glowing through the sheet of bronze when I wore the helmet. I wouldn’t be able to make out what sort of Artifact it was, however.
I heard a weapon switch on and looked back. As I did, Count Thomas stabbed Arcone through the base of the throat. The blood vessels were too big for the thrust to cauterize them. The secretary fell backward in a gush of blood. Any final scream was silenced when the blade severed his windpipe.
Arcone hit the floor with a thump. Thomas, still holding his weapon, was breathing heavily.
I sighed. “This isn’t going to make finding your son easier, you know,” I said.
CHAPTER 21
One Step at a Time
I told everybody to go on about their business while I read King Fidele’s notes. I figured this would take a couple days. That wasn’t a big problem because the risk of war between the landowners had gone way down.
It hadn’t vanished, though. Thomas and Alfred didn’t like each other one bit and the attitude carried over to their men. There was a town called Histance, after the node. Though the miners drank in different bars from the cattlemen, they were likely to meet in the street. Fights were common, large brawls happened, and there was a chance of real war.
I’d deal with that later. Right now I had to learn about what the hole we’d found led to.
When Lord Osbourn realized that I truly had no time for him, he went off on his own. If that meant joining Baga in drinking the local taverns out of wine, there was a problem for another time. I’d regret if Osbourn reverted to what he’d become when he arrived in Dun Add, but he’d have to go on his own some time if he was going to be any good to the Commonwealth or his family.
I took the red codex out into the gazebo in the formal garden. The plantings, mostly roses, were well tended. Count Thomas didn’t strike me as a great garden enthusiast, which made me wonder about his wife. That didn’t matter to me, but I wonder about things.
The sheets of the book had been written over a period of years before they were gathered and bound. They were all in the same hand, but the handwriting grew more irregular with time. I had a real problem making out what Fidele was saying in the final half-dozen entries, which is why I wanted the better light outside.
I started at the beginning. I didn’t know when Fidele had discovered the tunnel—or whatever I ought to call it—and I couldn’t ask Arcone where in the book I should look for the discussion.
I didn’t blame the Count for what he’d done, but I wished he hadn’t.
Actually, starting at the beginning was probably the best choice anyway. I had fun going through the descriptions of the pieces Fidele had found, how he’d worked on them, and how they’d wound up. I kept making trips back into the fort to find the item that Fidele was describing and then comparing my use of it to what the red book said.
Lord Osbourn came back in the evening as I was losing light and planning to go in. “The Count has set us up to eat at his table,” Osbourn said. “If that’s all right, sir?”
“Sure,” I said, though it could look like we were being bribed. There was no way you could act that might not lead somebody to complain about it. Dun Add was no worse about that than Beune had been. I’d decided a long time ago to just go ahead and ignore people being nasty.
“What have you been doing?” I said as we headed back to the fort. I was carrying an artifact to put away again. It was a clock that kept time according to no system that I’d ever heard of. The display graded through colors from mid-yellow through violet�
�and probably beyond, because the lengthy stretch of black before the sequence resumed at mid-yellow suggested to me that the users would have seen more colors.
“Well, I ran into Captain Dessin in the White Cockerel,” Osbourn said. “We’ve been sparring on the village plaza. Just for fun, you know, but it kinda entertains the locals, you know.”
I put the clock away, then set King Fidele’s book on the lectern, figuring that was safer than keeping it with me at mealtime. “How is Dessin’s equipment?” I asked.
“No better than you’d expect out here,” Osbourn said with an easy assumption of expertise. He was probably right, but it amused me anyway. “I’ve loaned him the Black Death’s equipment. It’s yours for defeating him in a duel, but I didn’t think you’d mind if Dessin used it.”
I stopped in the door into the yellow-brick addition. I’d figured we could ask somebody where meals would be served. I looked at Lord Osbourn and said, “I don’t mind. That’s good thinking. How is Dessin?”
“Pretty good,” Osbourn said. Then he grinned and added, “But sir? I’m better. Most of the time, anyway.”
Dinner was roast lamb, extremely good though not fancy at all. The converters in the boat turned any kind of organic material into tasty food—now that the system was back in proper shape, that is. This meal wasn’t really better than what we’d eaten during the voyage, but the texture of meals through the converter was always a liquid, whether thick or thin. The roast was food.
Count Thomas when he wasn’t blustering seemed a pretty decent fellow. At first he was embarrassed by the way he’d carried on when we arrived, but Osbourn and I didn’t dwell on that, and before long it didn’t come up again.
His wife had died five years ago. As I’d guessed, he didn’t care about the garden—but she had. He kept a staff of three gardeners in memory of his late wife. That made me think of Mom and her tulips…and it made me like the Count more than I had.
The next morning I got back to reading Fidele’s notes. I found his discussion of the hole—the cell, as he put it—almost immediately.
Fidele had found the opening the same way I had: seeing its presence through wooden panelling when he put the helmet on for the first time. He didn’t explain where he’d gotten the helmet beyond saying that he’d traded for it. What he’d traded and to who were mysteries as well, but I’m as sure as I can be that the helmet was made by Beasts.
Fidele also wrote down a history of the cell. A Queen had been a great Maker. Those were Fidele’s words; but I was pretty sure that both “queen” and “Maker” were human approximations, and that the people he was writing about hadn’t been human.
The Queen’s son had been injured. She used a device to heal him, one of her great works. The son hadn’t been quite right after his healing, and as time went on he became less right.
Then the son became dangerous—a monster, perhaps a cannibal. There were attempts to kill the son, but they failed and made the situation worse. At last the Queen had placed her son in a portion of the node and walled it off from the Road. She had left a tunnel from which food could be lowered to the son but from which he could not escape. So it had remained for all time.
I closed the book, placed it back on the lectern in our chamber, and went in the drawing room to have something to drink. The local red wine was more to my taste than wine usually was, and I didn’t think I was going to get drunk on one tumblerful.
I was considering whether to have more when Lord Osbourn and the Count came in from the newest wing of the house. “Sir?” Osbourn said. “What have you learned?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. Words weren’t forming in my mind quite the way I was used to happening. I’d been lost in the story Fidele was telling, and I felt almost as scattered as I would have if something had shocked me out of a trance.
“Fidele’s notes say there’s an immortal monster on the other end of the hole in the wall,” I said after I got my thoughts organized. “He doesn’t say how he learned that. Count Thomas, your relative was dealing with the Beasts in a big way. I think they may have told him.”
“Then King Fidele is in Hell, where he belongs!” Thomas said, turning his head away. “That’s nothing to do with me.”
I thought of telling Thomas that I’d dealt with the Beasts also. That wouldn’t add anything useful to the situation. Instead I said, “The Beasts aren’t demons, sir. But that’s neither here nor there. The job now is to get your son back as quickly as we can. I need to go back to the opening.”
The three of us and a pair of male servants walked back to the stone fort. The mirror and bracket that Arcone had put over the opening to hide it still lay on the floor. The wainscoting that Fidele mentioned had vanished in the generations since his time.
I pulled a cushion off the bed to put under my head, then lay down on the floor by the opening. “This isn’t just a hole in the wall,” I said. “That wouldn’t have showed up through the helmet. I’m going to learn what it is before we do anything more.”
“Look,” Lord Osbourn said. “This monster—we’ve got to get Herbert out quick, don’t we? Or the monster will get him?”
“If it hasn’t already,” I agreed. Maybe I should’ve been more delicate in front of the father, but I’d never been much for that. “Regardless, I’m going to see what we’re dealing with here before we do anything else. It may take a couple hours.”
“We may not have a couple hours,” Osbourn said. He was standing beside the Count.
“We don’t have any choice,” I said. “Now, leave me alone and I’ll figure things out as quick as I can. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“There’s one thing,” Lord Osbourn said. He stepped past my head and threw himself into the opening. He was holding his weapon but his shield was still holstered to give him one hand free.
“Come back, you bloody fool!” I shouted as I sat up. “Thomas, grab him!”
Count Thomas probably couldn’t have gotten to Osbourn any better than I could. Thomas started to crawl in after the boy, but I caught his arm. “We can go in later if that seems the right choice,” I said.
I’d have given pretty much anything to bring Osbourn back. It’s fine to say that whatever happened to him would be his own bloody fault, but that wouldn’t wash with May, or make me feel any better about it in the wee small hours either. Still, given that Osbourn was testing the tunnel, I watched carefully to see what would happen. It was just possible that whatever trap was put there would have rusted into uselessness in the hundreds, maybe thousands, of years since it was built.
Lord Osbourn was crawling along on all fours as fast as he could. The butt of his weapon clinked every time his right hand shifted forward. I couldn’t see anything past his body, though the walls weren’t dangerously tight.
The boy suddenly plunged to the end, as though the tunnel had become a well shaft. I heard a bleat of sound. I still saw a line-straight tunnel from me to the far end, but the direction of gravity for Osbourn had changed somewhere in the course of it.
He sprawled on the ground, a small figure at the end of the tunnel. “Osbourn!” I shouted. “Can you hear me?”
He probably couldn’t. He got up, looked in all directions, and scampered off.
Well, at least the fall hadn’t killed him.
I straightened and rubbed my eyes. “Lord Pal?” the Count said. “What do we do now?”
“You and your people—” I nodded in the direction the two servants who’d nervously moved back toward the door “—go away and let me make a proper survey of the situation, like I was trying to do before. Now, so I can get to work!”
Count Thomas blinked, then made shooing motions to his servants and followed them out of the room. He closed the door firmly behind them.
I wished I’d had sense enough to tell the others to leave right at the start, before Osbourn had made the situation worse. He was brave and eager, and young; I should’ve gue
ssed what would happen.
I fluffed the pillow, then lay down again and got to work.
I’d thought the tunnel was lined with carefully smoothed plaster, but it was as surely an artifact as the weapon in my pocket. I followed the intricate pattern as far as I could from where I lay. I could crawl into the tunnel and continue examining it, hoping that I’d be able to find and disable the aspect which redirected gravity before it dumped me beside Osbourn.
Or maybe I couldn’t. The whole construction was a mystery to me. If I’d had Guntram here to guide me—as he’d guided with the Ancient boat, the first time I’d examined one—I was pretty sure I could figure it out in time; but if I’d had Guntram, I wouldn’t have needed to figure out the cyst or cell or whatever. I was trying to get him back for the next time I needed him.
Though I couldn’t understand what the tunnel did, I was sure I could disable it. All I’d have to do was interrupt the ribbon of tungsten atoms which appeared to run the full length in a slow helix. That would close the tunnel, but it wouldn’t bring Lord Osbourn back. For that I had to be able to get into the cell and then return.
I stood up, checked my gear, and walked out of the building. There was a servant posted at the doorway to prevent anybody from disturbing me. He told me the Count had gone to look at my boat. That was where I wanted to be anyway, so I followed the track back to landingplace.
Count Thomas and about a score of people—some of them servants, but others ordinary villagers including several women, were outside the boat and just looking. Baga hadn’t let them inside, but he stood beside the short flight of steps to the open hatch. He clearly enjoyed being the center of attention.
Sam was chewing on a heavy bone—I think it was a hog thigh; his molars were splintering the bone. He carried it several steps with him as he came over to me, his whole hindquarters wagging with enthusiasm.
I petted Sam while Count Thomas and Baga joined me. The remaining spectators stayed where they were, shifting a little closer to one another and whispering while they stared at us.
