The arch opened onto an immense circular area surmounted by a dome that was dizzying in its circumference and its height. Numbed by the profound majesty of the place, Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised to see clouds forming in the faraway loftiness. More giant pillars marched around the perimeter, reinforcing the impression of a classical temple – but one inflated many, many times. Right in the centre of the floor was a round window a few yards across, admitting light from the world below. A spicy hint drifted through the air, reminding Aubrey of incense. At first he’d thought it silent inside the dome, but when he listened more carefully, at the edge of perception was a faint, constant hum.
Aubrey didn’t need any confirmation of Dr Tremaine’s powers, but this unlikely edifice inside a magically conjured battleship was evidence of his mastery of magic. The dome was a feat that would be impossible without prodigious magic. No natural material – stone, metal, timber – could support its own weight over such an expanse, a hundred yards across. As well, its diameter was easily larger than the beam width of the Sylvia, a casual twisting of the Law of Dimensionality – but to what end?
After the initial, overwhelming impact, Aubrey was puzzled by the gaudiness of the whole thing. It was loud, bombastic, vainglorious. Dr Tremaine enjoyed theatricality, but the magnitude of this display was unlike him.
Aubrey had never thought that the ex-Sorcerer Royal was prey to the overweening pride that affected so many of those who achieved power, even though his power was far beyond the measuring of most mortals. His ambitions, although extraordinary, were entirely self-centred. Extending his life was an entirely natural decision, making the most of an excellent state of affairs where he was who he was. Power, riches, control were only important in that they enabled Dr Tremaine to be Dr Tremaine forever. No need for godhood or anything like that. Tremaine Eternal was all that anyone could wish, after all.
Which is why this display upset Aubrey. It was too grand. Who was he showing off for? When he had nearly succeeded in destroying Albion from beneath, his base of operations had been a noisy, clanking monstrosity of pipes and cables: ultimate functionality. Here, though, was a statement of pride that Aubrey would have thought Dr Tremaine completely indifferent to.
Just inside the arch, Caroline leaned back against the curved inner surface of the dome, just above the pediment, and pointed. He narrowed his eyes, blinked, and peered again.
Each pillar stood on a large block of white marble. On top of many of these blocks, before the fluted lines of the pillar began, was a lifelike human statue.
‘Caryatids,’ Caroline said softly.
Aubrey nodded, but he wondered at how tall the caryatids were, the size of the dome making it difficult to gain a real sense of perspective.
The air of careful precision created by the silent space was only ruined by countless cracks in the surface of the floor, spidery fractures that spread in all directions, marring its surface right from the raised walkway just inside the circle of pillars to the very edge of the central pool of light. Aubrey shaded his eyes, blocking off the central shaft of light, and the cracks sparkled in a way that was startlingly familiar.
‘Silver?’ Sophie murmured.
Aubrey thought so. The floor wasn’t cracked. It was covered with a silver tracery that was almost vegetative, as if it had grown across the floor and overrun it in its abundance.
Sophie tapped him on the shoulder, then extended her arm. He followed her gesture and saw how the festooned cables entered the dome and left the black sheathing behind. Shining silver, they spread all over its sides like a tenacious jungle creeper, achieving the same encompassing effect as on the floor. The silver tracery crept down the sides of the pillars that didn’t have caryatids, joining the floor and the ceilings and making the whole place a mesh of exquisitely conducting silver.
This was more silver than could be provided for by melting down a few silver platters – this was the output of entire silver mines. Aubrey knew that Holmland, once upon a time, had silver mines in the south, near Augsbruck, but they had run dry two centuries ago. Most of its silver these days came from across the sea, from the Andean countries, but Holmland had no access to them. Thanks to the Albion navy, Holmland shipments from this part of the world – including the guano Holmland had needed before inventing the synthetic ammonia process – had been blockaded.
Dr Tremaine must have had access to another source of silver.
Aubrey almost reeled backward as a half-remembered sliver of information slapped into his brain, as if it had been extended for miles on a very large elastic band and had just snapped back.
His mother. Caroline. The near disaster of the arctic voyage. The assassination attempt near St Ivan’s in the far north of Muscovia, which had been almost certainly the work of Holmlanders. St Ivan’s was the last stopping-off point for polar expeditions – but also the site of undeveloped lead and silver mines.
When the attempt on his mother’s life had occurred, it had perplexed him. Why were Holmland agents positioned in that area? On the off chance that Lady Rose, wife of the Albion PM, would show up there sooner or later, given her penchant for Arctic seabirds? Did that mean that Holmland also had some lonely agents – ones who had offended someone higher up – perched on whatever that island was called in the middle of the great ocean, the one with all the iguanas and giant tortoises and finches with interchangeable beaks that proved that finches were very adaptable and would have taken over the world if not for being trapped on the very same island that these forlorn agents spent most of their time regretting that they’d ever heard of?
Or were the agents in St Ivan’s on another mission, one so secret that any possibility of a whisper making its way back to Albion must be dealt with immediately by assassination? Commandeering a silver mine or two, for instance?
Dr Tremaine’s plans ran very deep and were laid a long time ago. He was like a chess master, one who saw dozens of moves ahead while playing a score of simultaneous games, blindfolded, with a secret rule book only he knew about.
Aubrey shivered and then started, a combination of physical reactions not to be recommended, like sneezing and yawning at the same time. He had a horrible thought that perhaps their very presence was part of one of Dr Tremaine’s plans. Perhaps they were being manipulated to appear at this very time and this very place for reasons which would only become apparent when Dr Tremaine had them trapped and their life was ebbing away.
Aubrey shook his head. He couldn’t afford to think like that. If he did, giving up was the only sensible thing to do, since Dr Tremaine knew everything, controlled everything. That would be intolerable. Aubrey Fitzwilliam wasn’t one to give up. He wasn’t about to let Dr Tremaine have his way. He was tired of the great manipulator turning the whole world into a machine designed to bring about full and utter realisation of his plans.
No. Like the Gallian peasants who’d found another interesting use for a sturdy wooden shoe, Aubrey was about to throw something into Dr Tremaine’s works.
The cables spreading into the domed temple left them with nothing to drag themselves by, but Aubrey wasn’t concerned. He gently pushed himself off and drifted, like a soap bubble, up and along the inner surface of the dome. When he came close to the silver webbing, he carefully bumped himself away and continued to rise, higher and higher, toward the central shaft of light.
Caroline, Sophie and George followed his course.
As Aubrey came closer to the very top of the dome he slowed his progress by placing a palm on the silver webbing, then he grimaced as he felt the magic trickling through it, a bizarre sensation like numbers hurrying along his skin.
Peering down hundreds of feet, Aubrey found that he was looking through the window in the floor to Trinovant far below. It was almost as if he were standing above a pool of water and seeing the rocky floor beneath the water. The roads and buildings of Newbourne rolled past, then the wool stores and carpet factories of Shoreham Road.
Caroline came close and whispe
red into his ear. ‘Sophie is hurting.’
Sophie was waiting, but she had shied away from the central shaft of light. She doubled over and clutched at her head. George was at her side, and shot Aubrey an imploring look.
Aubrey motioned. His friends gathered and they put their heads together. ‘The magic is affecting you, Sophie. I think you’ll be less uncomfortable once we get down.’
She nodded miserably. ‘I didn’t know it would be like this.’
‘I’ll let us down slowly. As we go, let’s separate and spread ourselves around the dome. I’ll move to twelve o’clock.’ Momentary puzzlement, then nods all around. ‘Caroline, take six o’clock, George nine o’clock, Sophie three o’clock. He’s nearby, so let’s see if we can flush him out.’
Aubrey spoke the cancellation spell quietly and he felt the flip-flop in his stomach that announced that his buoyancy had changed. Instead of being lighter than air he was now very slightly heavier. He kept that state constant while they each worked their way, palms against the meshwork, to their positions around the perimeter of the dome. When they reached the pediment level, Aubrey accelerated their rate of descent, until his friends and he were descending at something like walking pace.
Aubrey kept his back to the pillar and worked to drag his rifle from his shoulders. If Dr Tremaine presented himself, he wanted to be ready.
His feet told him that they’d reached the base of the pillar and he held the rifle at the ready. George landed, arms spread, knees bent, alert. Sophie waved. Aubrey couldn’t see Caroline, as the central shaft of light blocked his view in that direction.
He flexed his knees and cast the spell that returned their last remaining weight to them. He grimaced as his joints creaked, adjusting to their load-bearing responsibilities again. He swallowed hard and he tracked across the monumental space with his rifle, his finger on the trigger, ready to fire as soon as he saw the man who had created this improbable place.
George, to his right, crouched, one hand on the marble in front of him. Aubrey did the same as he watched for movement. Dr Tremaine was nearby, but he couldn’t tell in what direction, or how far away he was. The magic all around him was playing havoc with his perceptions.
Aubrey went to climb down from the base of the pillar but froze, mid-clamber, when he glanced over his shoulder.
The bottom of the pillar wasn’t a caryatid, it was a clear tube. Ten feet of crystal separated the pillar from its base, and inside this tube was a gaunt, haunted-looking man dressed in tweeds. Enclosing his head was one of the cages from Dr Tremaine’s stronghold. A long silver tendril snaked up from the top of the helmet and vanished up into the middle of the pillar.
Professor Bromhead. The erstwhile Trismegistus chair of magic at Greythorn University. One of Dr Tremaine’s captives.
Wildly, Aubrey looked around Dr Tremaine’s creation. Many of the pillars had a similar figure at the base.
Without a thought as to who could be watching, solely responding to the plight of the dead-eyed magical theoretician, Aubrey scrambled until he was face to face with the unfortunate Bromhead. He spread his hands on the crystal that separated them. It was tough, not giving at all, even when he hammered on it with a fist and then the butt of his rifle, sending booming echoes around the stillness.
The only sign that Professor Bromhead was alive was the slight movement of his throat. His knees were bent, his shoulders hunched, his chin drooping almost to his chest. He didn’t react to Aubrey’s fearsome pounding.
‘He cannot hear you. None of them can.’
Aubrey’s nerves were so taut that when he spun on one foot he nearly fell off the base of the pillar.
Leaning against the base of the next column was Sylvia Tremaine, Dr Tremaine’s younger sister.
SYLVIA TREMAINE WAS SO MUCH MORE ALIVE THAN the last time Aubrey had encountered her, which, since she had been at death’s door, made reasonable sense. Her eyes were bright, her skin was tight and supple, her black hair lustrous, but it was the mobility of her face, the smooth confidence with which she leaned, arms crossed, against the marble, and even the canary yellow dress and gloves she wore that signalled that she was whole and integrated, far from the poor splinter of a soul that Aubrey had encountered inside the Tremaine Pearl. ‘I’m glad you finally appeared.’ She smothered a yawn. ‘It’s getting so boring here.’
‘Boring?’ Aubrey groped for the right response. They were in the middle of a war that had already cost the lives of thousands and displaced many more. Her brother was on the cusp of reaping the consciousness of a million or more in a stroke. While all of this was going on, Sylvia Tremaine was bored?
Without taking his eyes from her, Aubrey eased himself to the edge of the pillar base and dropped to the floor. ‘Where’s your brother?’ he asked. It came out brusquely.
‘He’s back there somewhere, making his arrangements.’ She tossed her head, gesturing between the pillars. Aubrey risked a glance, but couldn’t see anything. A few paces away, greyness swallowed everything.
‘I see. You’re looking well.’
‘I am well. Thanks to you, Mordecai finally found a way to revive and restore me.’
‘Thanks to me?’
‘Something about your shattered soul, binding and a magical connection, if I remember correctly.’
Aubrey didn’t like the way she was looking at him. It reminded him too much of an animal with an eye on something small and tasty. ‘Unfortunately it interrupted his great work, but it couldn’t be helped.’
Aubrey realised that it was extremely difficult to look casual while holding a military rifle in both hands, but he summoned all the experience he had had on the stage to take the part of the juvenile lead – feckless and well-meaning in every way. He ambled, taking his time, doing his best to look aimless but working his way towards the central column of light. He gazed about the rotundity, giving his best shot at nonchalance. When he couldn’t see any of his friends he forced himself to be calm. They’ve hidden themselves, he thought. They’re doing exactly what they should. ‘This doesn’t look like your brother’s work.’
Sylvia followed him and laughed. It echoed from the pillars and the dome overhead. ‘Mordecai has an erratic sense of the dramatic, I’m afraid. He didn’t think it important, for instance, to set the stage for the greatest feat of magic of all time.’
‘I see. This is your conception of an appropriate stage, then?’
‘Given what I had to work with, it’s good enough. The concentrating lens that you’re marching toward, for instance, is hard to fit into any sort of design. And that’s not to mention that awful fountain of light and the magician array.’
‘Magician array?’
She swept a hand around the great circle of pillars. ‘These magicians that Mordecai has gathered, harnessed in series or parallel or whatever it is. Essential though Mordecai says they are, they were the very devil to work into something harmonious. I’m rather glad of my solution.’
‘Every column holds a person.’
‘More or less. More or less a person, I mean.’
‘How many?’
‘One hundred and twenty-eight. It’s a number with some significance apparently. I’ll let Mordecai explain that when he gets here.’
‘Which will be soon?’
‘He has some things to complete. Until then, I have to stop you from spoiling things.’
‘Spoiling things? That rather depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s my point of view that counts, at the moment, because I have this.’
He jerked around. Sylvia held a pistol that she didn’t have a few moments ago. ‘I think I was supposed to shoot you with it as soon as you arrived.’
‘He was expecting me?’
‘Oh yes. He said you were near.’
Aubrey took out his juvenile lead smile. ‘You don’t want to shoot me.’
‘Yes I do. You’re trying to stop us becoming immortal.’
‘And what’s wrong with t
hat?’ Now would be a good time for Caroline to lunge at her, he thought, making sure to keep Sylvia’s gaze locked on his. Or George to knock her over. Or Sophie to hit her with something.
‘Now, that rather depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?’ She mocked him with a laugh, and Aubrey knew that he was in more trouble than he’d thought. He’d mistaken her chat for humanity and thought that he’d seen a chink of light there, but he’d been deluding himself. She was a Tremaine, as self-centred as her brother. ‘Stopping our plans is wrong, according to us. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Why haven’t you shot me, then?’
‘I’m bored, remember? I’ve been waiting for ages for Mordecai to finalise things. When I’m bored, I like things to play with.’
Aubrey had a brief moment of regret about his rifle not being loaded with conventional rounds, dismissed it, and began sizing up distances. How far could he run? How fast? To the columns or to the shaft of light? ‘I think I left a pack of cards just outside. Let me get them for you.’
‘Mordecai doesn’t like to gloat, you know.’ She paused, and tapped the barrel of the revolver against her cheek. ‘No, that’s not it. It’s not that he doesn’t like it, he just doesn’t see the point. Whereas I understand that gloating is fun. Grovelling can be quite diverting, you know.’
‘You want me to grovel while you gloat.’
‘If you would, I’d appreciate it.’ She pouted. ‘If you won’t, of course, I’ll shoot you.’
‘You do know that people who talk most about shooting do least of it, don’t you?’
‘Really? Oh, I do so like giving the lie to things.’
With that, from a distance of only twenty yards, Sylvia Tremaine shot him.
The dome echoed with the boom of the pistol. Sylvia stared at her firearm with dismay while Aubrey stared at his unmarked, unharmed self and heard a waft of hot aridity that could only be magic.
‘I hate it when I miss,’ Sylvia said, then she actually stamped her foot on the floor.
‘Don’t do that, Sylvia. It makes you look petulant.’
Laws of Magic 6 Page 32
