by Martha Wells
Madele motioned at her to be quiet. She stood, setting aside her knitting, and moved to the front of the hearth. Her head was tilted to one side intense, as she listened with complete concentration to the night.
Nicholas got to his feet, glancing at the front door to make sure the lock was turned, for all the good that might do.
Madele frowned. "Can you hear it, girl? My ears aren’t as good as they were."
"No." Madeline shook her head, her brows drawn together in frustration. "Nothing but the wind. You know I was never good at that."
Madele snorted in denial, but said only, "I need to know where it is."
Madeline went to the front window and Nicholas headed toward the back room. It was crowded with furniture, bureaus, chests, and an enormous cabinet bed. He blew out the candlelamp on the wall and opened the shutters on the single window, standing to one side of it in case something broke through. He could see nothing through the dusty panes but a moonlit stretch of empty ground and a clump of trees and brush swaying in the wind. He went back to the doorway.
Madeline had cautiously twitched back the curtain on the front window and was kneeling on the floor, peering out. "I can’t see anything," she reported. "There might be something just behind the big oak, but the side of the house is blocking the view."
"I need to know," Madele gasped the words. Her face was pinched and drawn, as if she was in pain.
"I’ll go out the back and look," Nicholas told Madeline. "See if you can find a length of rope; I’ll need it to get back in."
Madeline started to speak, stopped, then cursed under her breath and got to her feet. Nicholas took that for agreement.
He opened the catch on the back window and raised it slowly, hoping the wind would cover any betraying noise and that the Sending’s hearing wasn’t keen. The outdoor air was dry and sharp, without any scent of the rain that the clouds and wind seemed to promise. He slid one leg over the sill, found footing on a wooden beam below, and slipped out to cling to the stone facing.
He dropped to the ground, landing on packed dirt. He couldn’t hear anything but the wind roaring through the trees and the dry winter grass of the fields; it was like standing on the beach at Chaire when the tide was coming in.
Nicholas found the wooden half-door and eased it open, slipping into the barn beneath the house. The docile horse stamped and snorted in its stall, agitated, and the goats were rushing back and forth in their pen from fear. He went to the door that led to the front yard and edged it open.
The wind swept dirt over the packed earth and made the oak tree stir and groan with the weight of its branches. The surrounding fields were empty in the snatches of moonlight. Nicholas pushed the door open a little further, meaning to step out, when suddenly the mule in the barn behind him brayed.
He saw it then, just past the giant shadow of the oak, a piece of darkness that the moon didn’t touch, the wind couldn’t shift. He was astonished at the size of it. The thing that came up through the floor of the house was only part of it, he realized. The creature itself, whatever form it took, was taller than the tree that towered over Madele’s house.
He edged the door closed for all the protection that might give the animals within and crossed back to the opposite door, giving the mule a pat on the neck as he passed.
Madeline had already dropped the rope from the window and tied it off to the bedframe and he scrambled up it easily. She was standing nearby in the warm room, her arms folded and her face tense, and Madele was waiting in the bedroom doorway. "It’s just past the oak tree," Nicholas told her, locking the window catch. "I couldn’t tell what it was, except that it’s immense—"
The roof creaked suddenly and a little dust fell from the beams.
"Ahh," Madele said. "That’ll be it, then," and turned back to the main room.
Nicholas and Madeline exchanged a look and followed her.
The house started to shake. Nicholas put one hand on the table to steady himself. He wondered if it would come through the floor again. That seemed most likely. Or perhaps through the roof. This house was more sturdily built than the one in Lethe Square; more dust fell from the trembling roof beams but the walls still held.
Madele was staring at the fireplace, kneading her hands and muttering to herself incomprehensibly. The iron pots and hooks hanging above the hearth rattled against the stone; the flames crackled as fine dust and hardened chunks of soot fell into them.
Something drew Nicholas’s eyes upward. The stones of the chimney near the ceiling bulged out suddenly, as if whatever was within was about to explode across the room. Impossibly the bulge travelled downward toward the hearth, the stones appearing almost liquid as it passed.
It burst out of the mouth of the hearth in a cloud of soot and ash, a giant hand, skeletal, yellowed by decay, too large to have fit through the chimney, larger now than the hearth behind it.
Nicholas thought he shouted, though he couldn’t understand the words himself. He heard Madeline cursing. Madele hadn’t moved. She was easily within its reach, standing like a statue, staring intently at the thing.
It hung there and Nicholas saw it was formed as if human, five fingers, the right number of bones. Time seemed distorted; he wanted to reach Madele to take her shoulder and pull her away from it, but he couldn’t move.
Then it withdrew, drawing back into the hearth, disappearing up the chimney hole that was far too small for it to fit through. The bulge travelled back up the stone chimney, vanishing as it climbed past the ceiling.
Nicholas realized his knees were shaking, that his grip on the table was the only thing keeping him upright. He thought he had imagined it, except the pots had been knocked to the floor and he had seen the thing’s knuckles brush them aside when it emerged.
Madele’s head dropped and she buried her face in her hands. Madeline pushed past him to catch her shoulders, but the old woman shook her off. Madele lifted her head and her eyes were bright and wicked. "Open the door," she said. "Tell me what you see."
Nicholas went to the door and tore it open. He saw nothing at first. The wind had risen alarmingly, making the house groan and tossing the branches of the oak tree. Then he realized that the tree was making far too much noise; a wind of the strength to stir those immense branches would have knocked the house flat. Thunder shook the stone under him and in the blazing white crack of the lightning, he saw the Sending.
It was white and huge, wrapped in the branches of the oak tree, struggling to free itself. He saw the hand that had reached down the chimney stretching up above the tossing branches, its claw-like fingers curled in agony. In the lightning flash of illumination, a branch whipped up and wrapped around the straining skeletal arm and snatched it back down into the tree.
The light was gone, leaving the yard to darkness and the rush of the wind. Nicholas slammed the door and leaned against it.
Madele was picking up the scattered pots from the floor, clucking to herself. "Well?" Madeline asked.
"The tree appears to be eating it," Nicholas reported soberly. He was glad his voice didn’t shake.
"You’re lucky you came here," Madele said. She straightened and rubbed her back. "That tree was a Great Spell. I made it years and years ago, when I was young and I first came to live here. The Sending isn’t fighting me as I am now, old and withered and dry. It’s fighting me as I was then, at my prime." She lifted her head, listening to the wind against the stones, and maybe to something else. "And whoever Sent it is far more powerful than I am. Then or now."
The wind didn’t die down for another hour and after that Madele said it was safe to go outside. There was no trace of the Sending, except a scatter of broken twigs and detritus beneath the heavy branches of the guardian oak.
"It’s a lovely day not to be under a death sentence from a Sending," Madeline said, as they came out into the morning light from the dark interior of the stables. They had driven back to Lodun, starting before dawn to reach the town in good time, and had just turned the hir
ed horse and trap back over to the owner. Madeline was in male dress again, Madele having nothing suitable for town that she could borrow. They were both dusty, tired, and somewhat the worse for wear.
Before they left Madele’s house, Nicholas had told the sorceress about Arisilde and asked for her help. She had stood next to their pony trap while he harnessed the horse and had said, "Arisilde Damal, hmm? And he studied at Lodun? I don’t think I’ve heard of him."
Nicholas thought that was probably just as well and didn’t comment.
After a long moment of thought, she asked, "Is Ian Vardis still Court Sorcerer?"
"No, he died years ago. Rahene Fallier has the position."
"Ahh," she said. "Don’t know him. That’s good." There was another long pause and Nicholas devoted his attention to adjusting the harness. He wouldn’t beg her, if that’s what she was waiting for. Finally she asked, "Is it a spell, or just an illness?"
"We weren’t sure."
Her brows lifted in surprise.
He hesitated, then said, "He’s an opium addict."
Madele was now favoring him with one of Madeline’s expressions of sardonic incredulity that seemed to question his sanity. It was worse coming from her, since her thick gray brows heightened the effect. Stung, Nicholas said, "If you feel its beyond your admittedly failing skills—"
Madele rolled her eyes, annoyed. "He a thief too?"
"Yes," Nicholas snapped.
"Then I’ll come," she had said, smiling and showing her missing teeth. "I like thieves."
Madele had promised to come to Vienne tomorrow which would give her time for making various arrangements for the upkeep of the house and animals with her neighbors. Nicholas hadn’t been sure she would really come, if he could really count on her help, but after Madeline emerged from the house to have a half-hour argument with her over what train the old woman would take from Lodun, he felt she did, at least, mean to travel to Vienne.
Now, here in Lodun, he could only hope she would keep her promise. "Can you arrange the train tickets and check at the hotel to see if there’s any word from Reynard or Isham?" Nicholas asked Madeline. He had left both with instructions to send a telegram in care of the railroad hotel if there were any new developments with Octave or with Arisilde’s condition. "I need to pursue another line of investigation."
Madeline brushed road dust from her lapels. "Concerning how Octave became so intimately acquainted with Edouard’s work?"
Nicholas’s expression was enigmatic. "Yes, and how did you ever guess that?"
"Edouard performed most of his experiments here, didn’t he?" She leaned back against the post and tipped back her hat thoughtfully, very much in character as a young man. The street was sparsely occupied, mainly by townspeople on errands or farmers’ carts, with a few students in ragged scholar’s gowns hurrying along the walk toward the university gates, probably just recovering from a night spent in the cabarets. "I assume you don’t suspect Wirhan Asilva, since we were going to him for help?"
"No, not Asilva." Asilva had helped Nicholas remove the contents of Edouard’s Lodun workroom after the old philosopher’s arrest, something that could have landed Nicholas in prison and put Asilva, as a sorcerer and subject to charges of necromancy, under a death sentence. He had also fought for Edouard’s release up until the last moment, even as he had protested that Edouard’s spheres were dangerous and should never have been created. He didn’t think Asilva would betray his old friend, even years after Edouard’s death. "There’s something Arisilde said that has made me wonder about Ilamires Rohan. And if we eliminate Arisilde and Asilva, he’s the only other sorcerer familiar with the situation who is still alive now."
"That we know of." Madeline looked doubtful. "Rohan was Master of Lodun and Arisilde’s teacher. He could be extremely dangerous, to say the least."
"That depends." Nicholas took Madeline’s arm.
"On what?"
"On whether he merely gave the information to Octave or if he is Octave’s mad sorcerer."
"If that’s the case, it won’t be safe to confront him. Are you sure—"
"I’m sure of one thing. That ‘safe’ is not a state of being any of us are going to experience again until this is over."
Nicholas spoke to several old acquaintances at the cafe near the northern university gates and discovered that his quarry was not only in town, but that he would be at home later this afternoon entertaining guests. That was ideal for what Nicholas had in mind and it also gave him time to look for more information on Constant Macob.
For that the best place was the Albaran Library, currently housed in one of the oldest structures in Lodun. Standing in the foyer of that venerable building, in the smell of aged paper and dust and time, Nicholas’s student days seemed only a short while ago, as if the intervening years had meant nothing. He dismissed that thought with annoyance. The past was the past, as dead as Edouard. But on impulse, he found one of the attendants and asked for Doctor Uberque.
The attendant led him to a room in the outer wall of the bastion that had once been part of an inner defensive corridor. There were still trapdoors high in the walls and the ceiling, originally placed there so boiling oil could be poured down on anyone who broke through the outer doors. But now the corridor had been partitioned off into half a dozen high-ceilinged rooms and the walls were lined with shelves. The narrow windows that had been crossbow or musket slits were now filled with stained glass. Doctor Uberque stood in front of a large table covered with books and papers. He waved away the attendant before the man could introduce them and said, "Nicholas Valiarde. Did you come back to finish your degree?" He was a tall man with sparse white hair and a lined, good-humored face. He wore a black and purple master scholar’s gown open over his suit, as if he had just come from a tutoring session.
"No, sir." Nicholas managed not to smile. Uberque was single-minded in the extreme and was as unlikely to be curious about Nicholas’s need for this information as if he was any other student trying to write a monograph. "I’m in town on business, but I need information about a subject I thought you could supply."
"Yes?"
"Constant Macob."
Uberque’s eyes went distant. Nicholas had seen the same effect with storytellers in the marketplaces of Parscian cities. They were usually illiterate, but held thousands of lines of poetic sagas in their memories. After a moment Uberque said, "One of the executed sorcerers from the reign of King Rogere. A disreputable character."
"The sorcerer or the King?" Nicholas asked, taking a seat at the table.
Uberque took the question seriously. "Either, though that is a different topic entirely. Do you want a reference on Macob?"
"Please."
Doctor Uberque stepped to the shelves and paced along them thoughtfully. "Everyone remembers Macob as a necromancer and nothing more. Before him, you know, necromancy was frowned on, but it was quite legal. It was mainly concerned with methods of divination, then. Seeing ancient kings on one’s fingernail, and asking them for secret information." Uberque smiled. "Macob went on quite as any other sorcerer for a number of years. Then his wife and several of his children died in one of the plagues."
"It’s certain they died naturally?" Nicholas asked, one brow lifting in doubt.
"Well, he was suspected later of causing their deaths, but I don’t think he did. No, I don’t believe so. Healing magic only goes so far and the apothecaries at the time were nearly useless. I think it was after his eldest daughter died that Macob . . . changed."
"He went insane?"
"It’s hard to say. Judging from his actions, he must have done. But he didn’t behave like a madman. He was more than clever, more than cunning. His work during this time period was nothing short of brilliant. He continually astounded the masters of Lodun, he was given honors by the King, and he carried on an utterly normal private life in his home in the city. And he killed people. He was caught, in the end, only by accident. The house next to his was sold and the new owners w
ere adding a stables. A courtyard wall collapsed due to incompetence and it knocked down the wall of a wing of Macob’s house. He was away at the time. When the builders hastened to repair the damage, they found the first of the bodies." Uberque shrugged and continued, "No one will ever know how many he killed. Gabard Ventarin read Macob’s secret journals before he burned them and discovered that Macob had been advancing the frontiers of necromancy in quite a different direction than divination. He had learned how to draw power from not only death, but pain." Doctor Uberque paused, touching the spine of a book lightly. " ‘He called the dark fay allies and conspired with everything of decadence and filth. He brought death to the innocent and concealed the traces of his passing with chaos. . . .’ That’s from The Histories of Aden Cathare. You don’t want that, it doesn’t have anything helpful. The Executions of Rogere, that’s better. It’s only fifty years old and there’s half a dozen copies at least, so I can loan you one with a clear conscience." He frowned at the shelves. "It’s not here. No, it’s not here. We’ll go and have a look for it, shall we?"
The Executions of Rogere secured at last and Doctor Uberque thanked, Nicholas left the musty dimness of the old library and crossed the open gallery to one of the newer brick buildings that grew like mushrooms on the side of the older structures. The view between the pillars of the gallery was of the towers and courts of the medical college. The day was sunny and the breeze mild; another sign that winter was over for the year. Nicholas touched the pistol in his pocket. He doubted his next appointment would end so congenially.
Ilamires Rohan, former Master of Lodun University, still spent most of the year at his home on the university grounds. The house was four floors of tan-colored stone that took on a golden glow in the afternoon light, with small ornamental turrets along the roof line. It stood in the center of a large garden surrounded by a low stone wall. On leaving the Albaran Library Nicholas had passed through a students’ hall and picked up a reasonably presentable scholar’s gown from the pile at the bottom of a stairwell, discarded there by young students eager to escape tutoring sessions and enjoy the day. With that over his somewhat dusty suit, no one gave him a second look as he crossed the various college courts on the way to Rohan’s house.
