Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  Dmitri took a deep breath and sat carefully down on one of the less rickety chairs. His brother was obviously going to make this as hard on him as possible. Smug and sanctimonious. I should’ve known. He watched Edik put down cutlery and china—none of the pieces matched—and waited until the servant left the room before asking, “So, uh, how goes the search?”

  “It goes.”

  “Have you found what you’re searching for?” Dmitri helped himself to some of the turtle soup steaming in a white tureen in the center of the table.

  “No.”

  “Just what are you searching for Aurek? You’ve never said.”

  “Knowledge.”

  “Of what?” He threw down his spoon. “I mean, there’s a lot of stuff out there that it’s not healthy to know about, and if you’re looking for something that could put you, or me, in danger, then I think I’ve got a right to be told.”

  Aurek stared out at him from under pale brows. “You,” he said emphatically, “have put yourself in more danger than I ever could.”

  “Oh, it’s that again, is it?” Dmitri shoved his chair back from the table and stood. Though Dmitri was about to slam out of the room, something in the set of his brother’s shoulders stopped him. Never a large man, for all his height, Aurek had lost weight over the last few days, and it almost seemed possible to see grief scraping him thinner moment by moment. Impulsively, Dmitri reached out and touched him lightly on the back of one hand. “I’m sorry about what I said,” he murmured. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  Turning his hand, Aurek grasped his brother’s fingers for a moment, then gestured at his chair. “Your soup’s getting cold.”

  They ate in an easier silence than had been between them for some time.

  Edik had brought in the pudding when Dmitri decided he might as well ask. “Aurek, what really happened that afternoon in your study? How did Natalia die?”

  How did Natalia die? Aurek stared blindly down the table, not seeing the dishes, the candles, anything in his line of sight. Blood roared in his ears. How did Natalia die?

  “Aurek?”

  Dmitri’s voice faded. The dining room faded. Pont-a-Museau faded.

  He was back in his study, sleeves rolled up, contentedly copying the contents of a battered scroll onto a new parchment page. Drawing in a deep breath, he smiled at the dusty scent of leather-bound books. Heavily laden shelves surrounded him on all four sides, leaving only enough space for a narrow door and a small window—and he had the window only because Natalia insisted he couldn’t spend all his time sitting in the dark.

  “Sunlight,” he’d told her, “is bad for books.”

  “Lack of it will turn you into a mushroom.” She’d gone up on her toes to kiss him and murmur against his mouth, “Do it for me?”

  And so he had a window because, when it came right down to it, he could deny her nothing—especially not when she asked for so little.

  “I could give you the world.…”

  Her smile held all the world in it. “Give me your heart.”

  Separate from the other books, resting on a simple wooden pedestal, was his pride and joy. He could feel the power pulsing from it even from where he sat. It almost felt as though it had a life of its own. In its pages, carefully sewn to a red leather binding, were over a hundred spells, each carefully copied from a hundred different sources. Most were minor, practically common knowledge. Some were complex and beautiful and the result of a lifetime spent listening, searching, wanting to know. A few—a few were dark and perilous, and he didn’t like to remember what he’d had to do to find them.

  The book made his Natalia nervous, but he’d patiently explained how knowledge was the only thing in the world that was pure and untainted, and she’d laughed and believed him when he said there was no danger.

  He dipped his quill and enjoyed the way the ink seemed almost to flow into words on its own. When the door opened behind him, he smiled and called out. “It can’t possibly have been an hour already, my love. I’ve barely gotten started.”

  The blow to the back of his head took him completely by surprise. He grunted in pain, his face slammed down into the desk, and his hand knocked the inkwell flying. Through the oblivion attempting to claim him, he saw a man hurrying toward the pedestal. Wild tufts of gray hair stood out from the intruder’s head as he passed his hands rapidly back and forth over the book.

  The sudden realization that his protections were failing gave Aurek strength enough to find his voice but, unfortunately, not much more. His attack bounced off the other man, gaining his attention but doing no damage.

  “I guess I didn’t hit you quite hard enough, did I?” The long, beardless face, the heavy-lidded eyes, the narrow nose and thin-lipped mouth, all belonged to a total stranger. “I abhor violence, but I found it impossible to resist in this instance. You were just so oblivious.” One hand dropped into his pocket, and the other rose to shoulder height.

  Aurek flung himself to the floor at the last possible instant, feeling the heat of the lightning bolt as it passed. Obviously, the thief had come prepared. Aurek fought to clear the pounding pain from his head as he felt another protection ripped aside.

  Rising to his knees, he had time to see a gloved hand gesture in his direction, then he was brutally lifted and thrust back against the shelves, a massive, invisible weight crushing his chest. Gasping for breath, he struggled to remember.

  He knew what to do if only he could concentrate, but the need to breathe kept shoving all other concerns aside.

  Then the last of the protections fell, and the thief held the book. Laughing maniacally, he held it above his head and danced in place. “Power calls to power,” he cried.

  “Aurek?” Natalia stepped into the study and stared in confusion at the stranger. “Who are you?”

  He smiled at her. “Fate,” he said, and cradling the book against his chest, began to mutter quick syllables under his breath.

  Aurek recognized the spell, though it was one so unpredictable he’d never dared to use it himself. When the wild-haired thief had gathered power enough to carry him, he’d be gone.

  “What are you doing with my husband’s book?” Natalia hadn’t seen Aurek, pressed up against the wall. Brows pulled down, she advanced on the intruder. “Put it down! Now!”

  He ignored her, but then he had to. If his focus wavered for even a moment …

  All at once, Aurek felt the pressure on his chest ease as the power holding him was drawn away. The next instant, he dropped to his knees, sucking in great lungfuls of air.

  He had no time for subtlety. Crawling forward, he scooped up the fallen inkwell and threw the carved stone with all his strength at the intruder’s face.

  It hit just as Natalia grabbed the arm holding the book.

  The explosion lifted Aurek up and smacked him hard against the wall. He heard Natalia scream his name, he heard laughter—no longer merely maniacal but insane—then he heard nothing at all for some time. When he regained consciousness, he was alone in the study except for a corpse with a crushed temple … and a tiny porcelain statue—hands lifted in a futile attempt at protection, face twisted in horror—holding the soul of his wife.

  Between the red leather covers of the book nothing remained but a fine, gray ash.

  He’d told everyone Natalia had died in the attempted robbery. She was so fragile, so incredibly vulnerable; the lie would help to keep her safe.

  He had to keep her safe. He had to find a way to free her.

  “Aurek?”

  Dmitri’s voice calling his name pulled him back to the present, and he managed to focus on his brother’s concerned face.

  “Are you all right?”

  He shook his head and reached for his wineglass, his throat too dry for words. With the glass halfway to his mouth, he saw the wild-haired wizard’s face suddenly reflected in the liquid.

  “Aurek?”

  The reflection began to laugh.

  “NO!” The glass shattered agains
t the far wall, a deep purple stain dribbling down the plaster.

  “Aurek! What’s wrong?”

  Breathing heavily, Aurek flung himself back from the table. “I don’t want …” He closed his eyes and tried again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  So Your Brother Doesn’t Want to Talk About It.” Louise tilted her head and looked up at Dmitri from under thick black lashes. “Doesn’t he trust you?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Unable to remain still, Dmitri leaped up off the garden bench and began to pace, his path delineated by the spill of light that shone through the windows of the house and turned the shadows of the dancers inside into contorted silhouettes. “He just doesn’t want to talk to me about Natalia’s death because it still upsets him so much.”

  “Oh.”

  He recognized the tone. “You don’t think that’s the reason, do you?”

  “He’s your brother.” She stretched out a leg and admired the way the moonlight shimmered in the blue silk draped over her calf. “If you think that’s the reason …”

  “What do you think?”

  Alabaster shoulders lifted and fell in a graceful shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” He dropped to his knees by her side and captured one of her hands in both of his. “Your opinion,” he told her earnestly, “means more to me than life itself.”

  Carefully hidden in an overgrown tangle that was once a shrubbery, a white wererat rolled its eyes in disgust and mimed throwing up. The little Nuikin had a talent for saying the most nauseating things.

  “It occurs to me …” Louise traced the line of his jaw with a fingernail, not quite hard enough to hurt, “… that a scholar would be more interested in sharing his discoveries. Spreading knowledge as it were. Teaching.”

  “Well, he’s always been …”

  “Secretive?”

  Golden brows dipped down. He’d been about to say “private” but, staring into the emerald depths of Louise’s eyes, secretive suddenly seemed the better word.

  “He’s definitely more than he appears,” she mused, tapping her lower lip. “But the question is, how much more?”

  “Why do you care?” Dmitri asked cautiously. He was ready to apologize in case he’d offended, but Louise’s continuing interest in his brother had begun to bother him. Aurek this and Aurek that—“Why can’t you be more like him?” “Why can’t you be less like him?”—he’d heard nothing but Aurek from his sisters all his life. Louise was supposed to be interested in him, not in Aurek.

  Louise heard the jealousy in his voice and hid a smile. “He frightens me,” she said.

  From the shrubbery, the white wererat stared at her cousin with open-mouthed admiration. The little Nuikin didn’t stand a chance.

  “He spoke to me at Joelle’s party,” Louise continued, her hands clutching Dmitri’s in heated entreaty. “And there’s a taint of …” Her grip tightened, and she delivered her final pronouncement with no trace of self-consciousness. “… wizardry about him.”

  It wasn’t until he stepped out over the ruins of the door that Aurek realized the hour had grown so late. The sun had obviously set some time before, and evening had nearly been overtaken by night. He shrugged his pack higher on his shoulders and carefully made his way down the crumbling townhouse stairs. There were families—or at the very least, people—living in the houses on either side, but the building he’d searched was empty. All the buildings he searched were empty. Apparently, the traces of power that drew him kept others away.

  “Have you found anything of interest?” inquired a silken voice from the shadows.

  His heart beating a little faster, Aurek turned and waited as Jacqueline Renier approached. She burned in the dusk like a black flame, and he wondered how many moths had scorched their wings flying too close. “I would have informed you if I had,” he told her flatly, keeping any and all reaction completely hidden.

  “Good. I appreciate a man who remembers his commitments.” Falling into step beside him, she shot him an enigmatic look from under thick lashes. “But after all this time, you must have found something?”

  “Little things,” he admitted. “Broken things.” Her silence seemed to pull a further explanation from him. “Today, I found a mirror.” Whole, it would have been used for simple scrying. “Or, if you prefer, I found pieces of a mirror.”

  “Which you left where they were.”

  “I have no interest in mirrors.” His lips pressed to a thin line, he waited for her to ask him where his interests lay.

  But after a long pause, all she said was, “I can see that. You’re growing a beard.”

  Aurek felt as though something had just slipped through his fingers, but he had no idea what it might have been. Until this moment, he’d had no doubt that Jacqueline Renier would take full advantage of any opening he might give her.

  They walked together in an almost companionable silence and once, when a number of paving stones had disappeared from their path, leaving a rough and shallow hole, Aurek held out his arm, forgetting for that instant just who exactly he was with. Jacqueline looked down at the bend of his elbow in some astonishment, then, with a gurgle of laughter, allowed him to help her over the break.

  At the bridge to Lacheur Island, she stopped, and he realized that she wasn’t going to accompany him across. “You’re a fascinating man, Aurek Nuikin, and not much fascinates me anymore.” Her manner bordered on friendly as she extended her gloved hand.

  He took it, and lightly brushed his lips over the knuckles. Get your sister away from my brother. The words hung in the back of his throat, but something stopped him from voicing them. The last thing he wanted to do was direct Jacqueline’s attention to Dmitri. He found himself saying instead, “I was wondering, who took that piece out of Louise’s ear?”

  “I did.” Jacqueline smiled at the memory. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “An uncle once said he couldn’t tell us apart. Now he can.”

  She withdrew her hand, half turned, and murmured, “I hear that your wife is dead. How sad.” When he made no reply, she added, “I’m sure you did all you could to prevent such an unfortunate … accident.”

  Natalia. He closed his eyes for an instant to deal with the sudden overwhelming feeling of guilt, and when he opened them again, Jacqueline was an impossible distance away. He watched, almost mesmerized, until her slim, black-clad figure blended with the shadows. “It is dangerous to walk alone at night in Pont-a-Museau,” he said softly, but he meant the warning for the people of the city, not for Jacqueline Renier.

  Hidden behind a faded but clean curtain, Dmitri peered out at the esplanade bordering the river in front of their house and tried unsuccessfully not to fidget. Its foundation undermined by the water, a considerable chunk of paving by the dock had collapsed, leaving a hole too wide to jump and impossible to avoid. There had been a rough plank bridge laid over it, but Dmitri had removed the boards earlier in the afternoon while Edik was busy in the kitchen.

  Now, he waited for Aurek. He hated waiting, and he wasn’t good at it.

  When Aurek reached the hole, he’d have two choices: either do something wizardlike to get over it, or go a very long way around—not a pleasant prospect given the time and the reputation of the city.

  It was almost full dark, the sky the deep sapphire that colored the moments between evening and night. It was also hours later than Aurek usually returned and, in spite of himself, Dmitri began to worry. Although the musicians did their nightly best to drown them out and everyone else seemed happy to ignore them, he was sure he’d heard screams rising like an incriminating counterpoint behind more than one evening’s merrymaking.

  Concern warring with irritation, he’d just decided to take a lantern out searching when he saw Aurek approaching, his pale hair ghostly in the shadows. Relief that the test would soon be complete overwhelmed any other emotions.

  “Finally,” he muttered, drawing back a little from the wind
ow. “Now we’ll see.”

  The hole was a black pit in the gray stone. Aurek stopped on the far side, looked around for the boards, and threw up his hands in patent exasperation. He didn’t seem surprised the bridge was missing, but then, scavenging was Pont-a-Museau’s leading industry.

  “He’s thinking about how late it’s getting,” Dmitri told himself as Aurek glanced at the sky. “And he’s working out how far he’ll have to walk if he goes around.”

  Dmitri planned to run out with the planks if Aurek decided to go around; he wanted to test his brother, not risk getting him killed. He didn’t have a good explanation of why he’d removed the boards in the first place, but as Aurek never listened to him anyway, he supposed that didn’t matter.

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot as Aurek studied the pit and then methodically scanned the area. “He’s checking to see that he’s unobserved.”

  Apparently satisfied, Aurek slid his right hand into the pocket of his jacket and brought it out with something—it didn’t look like a ring, but Dmitri was too far away to be sure—around his thumb. With the hand held parallel to the ground, he floated over the hole.

  Dmitri felt his jaw drop.

  “You were right.”

  Louise tousled a golden curl. “Of course I was. I always am. What was I right about this time?”

  “Aurek. He’s a wizard. And he never told me.” Staring just past her, his eyes unfocused, Dmitri recounted the result of his little test.

  “Floated across?” She pouted. “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” he asked bitterly, refusing to meet her gaze. His sisters probably knew and had never seen fit to tell him either. Edik knew, of course; Edik knew everything. He wondered how many other people had been let in on the secret while he’d maliciously been kept ignorant.

  Laying her palm flat against his chest, Louise could feel his heart beating, young and strong and hers. “You’re upset because he doesn’t trust you.”

  “I’m upset because he’s my brother, and I don’t know anything about him.” Which was true as far as it went. It just didn’t go far enough. He’d spent his whole life trying to measure up to Aurek, and now he’d found out he never could.