by Martha Wells
The next ironbound door opened into a tiny gray-walled court, little more than a shaft to let in light and air, then another door opened for them and she knew from the thick odor of carbolic that they were passing into the prison Infirmary.
It was a high, stone-walled chamber, with a vaulted ceiling overhead, with still visible oval patches of newer stone high on the walls where windows had been filled in long ago. The further end was walled off by wooden partitions but the beds in the two long rows nearest them seemed to be mostly occupied by constables or warders. There were guards at the door they had just come through and a few women in dresses of the dull brown of the prison warder uniform: wardresses probably hastily pressed into service to tend the injured.
From the shape and size of the place it had probably once been an old chapel. Madeline saw another door at the opposite end that would lead further into the prison interior. Then she spotted a man who must be the Infirmarian, a stoop-shouldered young man with a frazzled appearance and spectacles, dressed in an old suit with a stained apron over it. Halle saw him too but apparently not quite quickly enough, because he made to dodge behind a curtained partition and stopped when the Infirmarian called, "Doctor Halle! I didn’t realize you were here."
Halle glanced at her and stepped forward to shake hands as the younger doctor hurried toward him, saying, "We’ve had quite a day, as you can see."
"Yes," Halle said, "I’ve been called in to speak to the governor about something. I’m not sure if he’ll still be able to keep our appointment in this emergency, but I thought I’d better—"
"Of course, but while you’re here, could you look at this one case, just for a moment . . . ."
Halle’s lips thinned in frustration but he allowed himself to be led away. Madeline kept her eye on him, making sure the Infirmarian was only leading him down the row of beds a little ways, though she supposed it was too early to suspect traps. Halle’s explanation had been offered smoothly enough, though a little too readily; fortunately the other doctor seemed too busy for suspicion. And who would suspect Doctor Cyran Halle of as mad a plan as this?
She should use the time to gather information and try to discover if Ronsarde had been recaptured and if there had been anyone with him. One of the prison wardresses was standing nearby, washing her hands in a metal sink against the wall. Madeline started toward her.
"Madame!" someone said. Madeline was too well-trained from stagework to jump guiltily or allow herself any other reaction. She ignored the preemptory summons and kept walking. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a man approaching her. This is trouble, she thought. He was older, stern-faced, dressed in a dark, very correct suit. Not another doctor. With the way her luck was running it was probably the prison governor himself.
He came straight toward her and she had to stop and acknowledge him with a nervous little duck of the head, the gesture a woman in her position would be expected to make. The nervous part wasn’t hard to manage. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"Doctor Halle’s nurse, sir." That should quiet him and send him off. Doctor Halle was a frequent visitor here.
Instead the man turned, spotted Halle with the other doctor and stared at him, his eyes darkening with suspicion. Madeline felt a coldness grow in the pit of her stomach.
Halle glanced up and saw him. He was too far away for Madeline to read his expression accurately, but she didn’t think he looked happy. He excused himself to the Infirmarian and came toward them.
"Doctor Halle," the man said as he approached. "What are you doing here?"
Halle’s expression was grim. He hesitated, then said, "Could we speak privately, Sir Redian?"
All Madeline felt was disgust at her luck. She didn’t need to be told this was some high official of the prison, someone who wouldn’t believe their hastily concocted lies. Redian eyed Halle a moment, then said, "Come this way."
Halle started after him but Madeline stayed where she was, trying to fade into the furniture. But Redian snapped, "Your nurse also, please."
Madeline swore under her breath. Of course, I was always more accustomed to stealing scenes than to disappearing into the chorus. Halle glanced back at her, his features betraying nothing, and she had no choice but to follow.
They were led away past a row of cubicles screened off by canvas partitions to a small office that must belong to the Infirmarian. It was cramped, the desk and shelves overflowing with papers, books, and medical glassware; not nearly grand enough for someone with a "Sir" in front of his name. Redian closed the door behind them and said, "Well?"
That single uncompromising word didn’t give Halle much to work with and Madeline couldn’t contribute without ruining her role. She stood with downcast eyes, her hands beginning to sweat on the handle of Doctor Halle’s medical bag. The walls that blocked this office off from the rest of the Infirmary were thin and would conceal no loud noises. She wondered if she would have time to get the pistol out of the bag if Redian called for help, and exactly what good that might do her. The little room had no windows to leap out of. No, if Halle couldn’t talk his way out of this, and it seemed unlikely, their only chance would be to take Redian hostage. And that’s no chance at all, she thought.
Halle said, "I’m not sure what the cause is for this suspicion."
It was evasive but it made Redian talk. Glaring, he said, "The reason for suspicion is that your colleague Ronsarde escaped from the constables under what I lightly call extremely suspicious circumstances. The last reliable report we have is that he entered this institution. Now I find you here."
"That’s ridiculous," Halle said, incredulous and annoyed. "Ronsarde was abducted, almost killed, you can’t accuse him—"
"I was on the steps when the riot started," Redian retorted. "I know what I saw."
Halle had managed to distract him into a side issue but he was still only playing for time. "I don’t care what you saw." Halle turned, took the medical bag from Madeline and opened it as if looking for something, then set it down in the chair she was standing next to, all the while saying angrily, "And if you knew anything at all you would realize the charges against him were complete fabrications."
Brilliant, Madeline thought and started to breathe again. He had placed the pistol easily within reach, almost directly under her hand. It wasn’t quite as good as working with Nicholas but close, very close. Halle turned back to face Redian, shifting enough to the side that he blocked the man’s view of both the bag and Madeline’s right arm. That might give her the edge she needed; if she didn’t manage to surprise Redian, he would have time to call for help.
"That is hardly the point," Redian was saying. "If Ronsarde had a hand in this riot—" He stopped, grimaced and added, "And that is hardly the point either. I want to know why you’ve come here, Halle. Do you have anything to do with the armed men who forced their way through one of the guard rooms after Ronsarde escaped?"
"I can’t believe you are accusing me—"
"Oh, we haven’t caught them yet, but we will. Now give me an answer or I’ll have you turned over to the Prefecture on suspicion of collusion in an escape."
Madeline dropped her handkerchief and bent down to reach for it, reaching instead into the bag and finding the grip of the pistol. The door burst open and Halle started and turned. Madeline had a heartbeat to make the decision and stayed where she was, half bent over, her hand inside the bag. She looked at the door and saw a young man in constable’s uniform standing there, and almost drew the gun, but he wasn’t looking at her.
The constable was breathing hard, his eyes wide. He said to Redian, "Sir! We found five dead men in the lower level."
"What?"
"They’re torn apart—it’s sorcery, like what was outside."
Forgetting Halle, Redian strode to the door, following the constable. Halle looked at Madeline, his face a study in mixed relief and consternation. "Follow him?" he asked softly.
"Yes," she whispered and pulled the pistol out of the bag and slipped it
into the pocket of her jacket.
Nicholas approached the archway carefully. Gas hadn’t been laid on in the last few corridors and it was as dark as pitch. Their source of light was a stub of candle Crack had had in his pocket, lit from one of the last sconces. It was now dripping hot wax onto Nicholas’s glove as he slid carefully along the damp wall. The curve of it and the way it was constructed suggested the prison sewer outlet was just on the other side. He hoped they wouldn’t have ghouls to contend with as well, though he didn’t see any way in from the sewer tunnel.
Nicholas reached the darker shadow across the wall that was the low opening of the archway. A current of air came from it, also damp, but just as stale and flat as the atmosphere in all the passages. It was not an encouraging sign.
Improvements in the walls, gas laid on, new doors, Nicholas thought. Let them not have had time to block in the catacombs that led up from the old fortress’s crypt to the new prison’s mortuary. Let fate grant him that one small favor.
No ghouls or other inhuman products of an insane sorcerer’s craft leapt out at him and he slipped inside the archway. He lifted the candle.
The jumbled contents of the low-ceilinged chamber were in the disarray he remembered. Old bones, splintered wood from coffins, broken fragments of fine stone that had once sealed grave vaults, all heaped on the stone-flagged floor and covered with dust and filth. Except that a path had been hewn through it, pushing the jumbled mounds to the walls, and at the far end the passage that should have led upward was sealed with nearly new brick.
Nicholas was too tired to curse Fate at the moment. He would have to remember to do it later. They must have had escapes, somehow. He couldn’t take credit for that. When he had broken Crack out a few years ago he had left a reasonable substitute in the form of a recent corpse from the city morgue in his place; Crack was marked down in the prison records as dead. This debacle was the result of untidy persons who broke out on their own and left trails any fool could follow.
He ducked back out the archway and returned down the passage to where the others waited. "It’s blocked. There’s only one alternative."
"Steal guard uniforms and try to bluff our way out," Reynard said. His sour expression revealed how likely he thought the chances of success were.
Nicholas knew success was not only unlikely, but with Inspector Ronsarde along, wounded and sure to be recognized by any constable they might pass, it was damned impossible. At this point he was even desperate enough to risk the sewer, but they had no way to get to it. "I’m open to suggestions," he said dryly.
Leaning heavily against the wall, Ronsarde said promptly, "I have one."
"If it’s the one you’ve had the last three times I asked, I don’t want to hear it again," Nicholas said. He was aware his patience was wearing thin, making him more likely to make mistakes, but there was little he could do about it now.
Ronsarde only grew more determined. "You said yourself, if I am not with you it would be relatively easy to explain your presence. You could walk out of here with a blessing from the prison officials—"
"And leave you to bleed to death?" Nicholas interrupted. What kind of man do you take me for? He wanted to ask, and managed to hold it back just in time. Damn fool question to ask Ronsarde, when he didn’t know himself.
"It is out of the question," Reynard said, but he said it in his cavalry captain’s voice, very unlike the indolent tone of the bored sybarite that he usually affected. "Because it would be giving in to the bastard, whoever he is, who has gotten us into this with his damned sorcery. And that’s what he wants us to do, so that is what must be avoided at all cost. That’s elementary, for God’s sake."
"This sorcerer wants you dead," Nicholas elaborated. He was grateful that Reynard was still supporting him; raised mostly in the slums among the criminal classes, among which he counted his paternal relatives, he wasn’t accustomed to that kind of loyalty. "He went to an untold amount of trouble to arrange it. You must be close to discovering him. If you’re taken by the authorities he’ll move against you again, probably even more swiftly and probably taking quite a few other innocent bystanders down along with you."
Ronsarde, who wasn’t used to being argued with so effectively, said heatedly, "You forget the most likely hypothesis is that the man is simply barking mad and has seized on me the same way he evidently has seized on you gentlemen, and he’ll pursue us to the end no matter how close or how far we may be from discovering his identity or whereabouts."
Nicholas and Reynard both started to answer but Crack, having reached the end of his patience, snapped, "You’re doing it again. You’re standing still and arguing."
Nicholas took a deep breath. "You’re right; let’s keep moving." He turned and started back down the corridor.
Crack shouldered Ronsarde’s arm despite the Inspector’s mutinous glare and followed. Reynard caught up to Nicholas in a couple of long strides and asked, "Where are we going?"
"If I knew—" Nicholas began, speaking through gritted teeth.
Obviously feeling he had to make up for his earlier show of nobility, Reynard said, "Sorry, sorry. Just trying to think ahead again; I can’t seem to shake the habit."
Nicholas said, "Try."
Madeline and Halle followed Redian out into the Infirmary again. There was a stretcher sitting on one of the long wooden tables holding the body of a man. Madeline caught a glimpse of flesh torn away to the bone and grabbed Doctor Halle’s arm. This was partly in relief that the body was that of a constable and not Nicholas, Reynard or Crack, and partly to keep Halle from rushing up to it with the other doctors.
Redian stared down at the body of the constable, his expression sickened. He said, "Has there been any sign of Ronsarde, or the men with him?"
"No, sir, nothing." The young constable looked ill. There were bloodstains on the sleeve of his uniform. "We thought they were in the other wing so the search was concentrated there, and we only sent a few men down to the cellars."
Madeline drew Halle back from the frightened group around the stretcher and said, "Whatever did this is searching for Nicholas and the others."
He nodded. "There are a great many passages down in the lower levels. I don’t know why they would have gone there unless they were forced to it . . . Wait, there was an escape using an old tunnel up from the crypt to the prison mortuary, so the tunnel was walled up. Could your friends have been making for it, thinking it was still in existence?"
Madeline bit her lip, considering. "When was it walled up?"
"Only last year."
"Yes, they could have thought it was still there."
Halle glanced back at Redian and began to move toward the corridor at the back of the Infirmary, drawing her with him. "Then I suggest we try to find them before anyone or anything else does."
"My thoughts exactly," Madeline murmured.
Nicholas traced their path back, finding a narrow stairway leading upward. They approached it with great caution since it was the only way up in this wing and the searchers might be watching it. But the intersection of corridors near the stairwell was just as empty as the other tunnels.
Leaving the others at the bottom, Nicholas went up to the first landing until he could lean around the wall and see what lay at the top. The head of the stairs was barred with a metal door with an iron grill in the top portion of it. He could tell the room beyond it was lit, that was all. After a moment of thought, he decided to risk it and crept upward toward the top of the stairs, glad that they were scarred stone instead of wood and there was no chance of creaking.
He edged cautiously up to the door and looked through the grill. Another guard room, with two warders and a constable deep in worried conversation. One of the warders had a rifle. That can’t be on our account, can it? Nicholas thought. We haven’t even killed anyone yet. No, it had to be for whatever was hunting them through this maze. They must know about the creature by now, surely. If the authorities killed the thing, at least it would be one less obs
tacle in their path, Nicholas decided, as he crept carefully back down the stairs. Of course it would also make it easier for the constables to hunt them. . . .
At the bottom of the stairwell the others were waiting anxiously. "Well?" Reynard asked.
"Two warders and a constable, well-armed." Nicholas described the door and the guard room briefly, then took a deep breath. This was not a good plan but it was all he could think of and they didn’t have the time to sit about waiting for him to turn brilliant. "Crack will pretend to be a warder, and fumble with the keys to open the door." Crack nodded, not bothering to question this. His coat was dark brown, close in color to the coats the warders wore and in the dim light of the stairwell, it would be temporarily convincing. "You’ll have a wounded man in tow to add an air of urgency."
"I shall be the wounded man, I think," Ronsarde said. He pointed to his right eye, which was nearly swollen shut and surrounded by a large purpling bruise. "This is rather convincing."
"It’ll do." It was too bad they couldn’t manage some more blood but. . . .
Nicholas reminded himself not to get wrapped up in detail. "And once the door is opened, Reynard and I will push through and take them by surprise." And then we shall all be shot and killed. He looked at Reynard, expecting him to say something along those lines.
Reynard merely smiled and said, "It sounds perfect to me."
Just then they heard raised voices from the upper reaches of the stairwell, echoing down from the guard room through the grill in the door. A low mumble of male tones, then a woman’s voice, the words muffled but clearly urgent. Frowning, Nicholas took an unconscious step up. It couldn’t be. "That sounds like—"
"Madeline," Reynard finished, looking worriedly at Nicholas. "She wouldn’t, surely she wouldn’t."
Crack swore and clapped a hand to his forehead, the greatest emotional outburst Nicholas thought he had ever seen from his henchman. And it was all the confirmation he needed. He climbed the stairs to the first landing, listening hard.
