Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  “This is so lame,” Yves muttered. “The same people, the same music, the same stupid plots and counterplots.” He threw both arms open wide and scowled at the dance floor where couples whirled carefully around each other, the family members a little more graceful maneuvering and a little more brutal on impact. “We dance, we drink, we eat; nothing ever changes.”

  “Food’s better,” Georges pointed out, mouth full.

  Yves flicked a piece of cake onto the floor. “So what? That’s just because Jules Ebert is sucking up.”

  Ebert’s family had started as scavengers and risen in a generation and a half to control all of the grain that came into the city. Those who wanted breads of any kind had to deal with Jules Ebert. This was his first attempt to buy his way into the privileged upper classes, and he was spending most of his time sweating in fearful anticipation. A chance to gorge at another’s expense was enough for most of the Reniers, but social success required either Jacqueline or Louise—neither of whom had so far put in an appearance.

  Georges swallowed and pointed. “Looks like the little Nuikin dragged his big brother along.”

  “And it looks like Chantel’s attached herself to the little Nuikin,” Yves growled. “She’s going to get her tail ripped off if she isn’t careful.”

  Georges shrugged. “Louise said we could play with him when she didn’t want him, and she isn’t … Hey!” He clamped his palm against bleeding scratches on one cheek and glared at his cousin.

  Yves lifted his upper lip off his teeth. “Who said I was talking about Louise?”

  “You’re jealous!”

  Realizing he’d given away far more than he’d intended to, Yves crammed a cake into his mouth and muttered around it, “Who said I was talking about me?”

  Ignoring the blood dripping onto his tattered collar, Georges allowed Yves the point and continued eating. If Yves wanted Chantel, that was no business of his. If Chantel wanted the little Nuikin, that was no business of his either. Of the two ways to survive in the family, aggression or invisibility, he chose the latter, and he worked very hard at staying out of those corners where he’d have no choice but to fight.

  I will grow old, he thought with smug satisfaction, keeping one eye out for Annette and the twins and the other on Yves just in case his temper flared again. The family had an overabundance of power seekers, but faithful lieutenants were much harder to find.

  Across the room, a sudden burst of wild laughter spun Aurek around to find the source. A portly matron stared at him in some astonishment and dragged her laughing beau to a more private area.

  Fighting to keep his hands from trembling, Aurek took a long swallow of wine—white wine that held no reflection. In every chuckle, every giggle, every snicker throughout the house, he could hear echos of the wizard who had destroyed his life. Faith had turned to ash again and again as the ruins of the city yielded nothing, and he feared that by holding so tightly to the small amount of hope remaining, he’d begun to let go of sanity.

  He was lost outside the safety of his study or the parameters of his search. Dancers swirled by, random shapes and colors assaulting the rigid self-control he struggled to maintain. The music struck his ears as a cacophony of individual notes without tune or pattern. It had been a mistake to come.

  But would it have been a greater mistake to annoy the Reniers of Richemulot further?

  Searching for a little quiet and a chance to pull himself together, Aurek made his way to the cardroom. Although the noise levels were just as high, at least no one was laughing. He watched Laurent Haurie blatantly cheat while sycophantic members of the merchant class marveled at his luck and praised his ability. Married to Antoinette Renier, the elder and seldom-seen sister of Jacqueline and Louise, Laurent obviously took as much advantage of the relationship as he could. Aurek couldn’t see a blood member of the family bothering to cheat at cards. Not only would every one of them expect to win, they’d expect the other players to take care of it.

  Eyes glittering in the lamplight, Laurent threw down his final grubby cardboard rectangle. “I win again,” he crowed. “Once more, the imperial suite.”

  The emperor on the face of the card began to laugh maniacally, his wild hair all but burying the seven pointed crown.

  “No!”

  In the sudden silence, the dance music spilled loudly into the room.

  Laurent stood, mouth twisted unpleasantly, and slowly turned. “Are you suggesting I didn’t win?” he snarled.

  Aurek reached out and touched the card, now merely a badly painted portrait of an emperor no one knew. He had seen …

  What had he seen?

  “I’m talking to you, Borcan.”

  Finally focusing on Laurent’s face, some hint of the danger he was in penetrated Aurek’s panic. This man had actually married one of the Reniers. Married a wererat. The concept made him feel ill. “I’m sorry, were you talking to me?”

  “Are you deaf as well as stupid? You challenged my win.”

  “No. I didn’t. Of course you won.” Bowing quickly, Aurek hurried from the room.

  When Laurent merely watched him go, no one else tried to stop him. “Pet of my sister-in-law’s,” he said sitting down, as though that were explanation enough.

  Which it was.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Aurek. You look terrible.”

  He hadn’t seen Louise approach, and he jerked back a step, nearly stumbling over a heavy wood and leather chair.

  Hiding her smile, she waited until he steadied himself before continuing. “I’m glad you’re here tonight because I have something for you. A cousin of mine heard you were searching for magical artifacts in the ruins.” A raised hand, jeweled rings flashing on three of four fingers, cut off the protest she could see rising in his eyes. “Who knows how he heard? People will gossip. Anyway, he gave me something to give to you. Says he found it under the city in some sort of ruined workshop.”

  “Why did he give it to you?” Aurek asked, his voice hoarse as he fought to force the past back where it belonged.

  Louise smiled, showing teeth. “I expect it’s because your brother and I are such friends.” She reached into the heavy folds of her skirt and pulled out an untidy package.

  Desperately trying to regain the equilibrium he’d lost in the cardroom, Aurek shook his head.

  “You don’t want it?” A slender finger flicked back a fold of bloodstained silk. “Are you sure?”

  Aurek stared down at the flash of gold, his eyes widening as the power of the amulet, no longer blocked by the silk, began to seep out into the room. “He found this under the city?” Almost of its own volition, his hand stretched out toward the amulet. Hope rose unbidden.

  “That’s what I said. But if you don’t want it, I have better things to do than stand around offering it to you all evening.” With a twist of her wrist, she rewrapped the fabric and began to put the amulet away.

  “No.” Aurek nearly snatched it off her palm. He swallowed once, hard, as his fist enfolded it, then, obviously no longer even aware of her, whispered, “Thank you. Thank you very much.” And nearly ran from the room.

  “Well, I guess it was enough after all.” Louise looked around for someone to celebrate with, and her gaze fell on Jules Ebert who stood some distance away, staring at her in rapt adoration. She liked that in a man. Crossing to his side, she linked her arm in his while he was still trying to stammer out his appreciation. “Let’s go for a walk on the terrace,” she suggested, her tone making her meaning plain.

  When she was finished, she left the body where it fell.

  Dmitri bounded over to her side as she returned to the party. “You came!”

  “Of course I did.” She was in a mood to be generous so she ignored the implied accusation.

  “I brought Aurek.” He glanced around, looking for his brother. It shouldn’t have been hard to find him, as both Nuikins were taller and blonder than nearly everyone else in the room. “I don’t know where he’s gone.”

>   Louise tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and steered him toward the tables laden with food. “I expect he went home.”

  “Home?”

  “That’s right. After I spoke with him, I saw him practically run from the room.” She smiled up into Dmitri’s puzzled frown and twisted the knife. “Looks like he’s forgotten all about you.”

  “Should I go back for the young master, sir?”

  One foot already on the dock, Aurek stared back at the boatman in confusion. “What?”

  “The young master, he’s still at the party. Should I go back for him, sir?”

  “Yes. Whatever.” It didn’t matter; nothing mattered except the amulet he clutched in his fist. Terrified of losing the chance it represented, he hadn’t opened his hand since he’d closed it. He raced up the dock, across the esplanade, and into the house. Grabbing up the candles waiting at the foot of the stairs, he took the steps three at a time, pounded down the second floor hallway, and entered his study.

  Gasping for breath, he closed the door and almost reverently spread his fingers. “It’s a key, Lia. A key to unlock a book such as I once owned. And the one who created it had power, my love.” His gaze gently stroked the statue of his wife. “Enough power to have commanded the spell we need. When I find the workshop, and I unlock the book, perhaps … perhaps I can finally free you.”

  The words on the disc said merely “I AM THE WAY.” They were an automatic result of turning the amulet into a key; when the spell was cast, the words appeared. But until he found the book, Aurek had no use for the spell that unlocked it and, in order to find the book, he needed only the physical existence of the amulet itself.

  A workshop containing an item of such power, even if the amulet was all the workshop contained, had to be shielded, or he would have found it himself. But now, now he had a guide.

  Ignoring the hot path of tears running over both cheeks and into his beard, Aurek crossed to his desk and carefully laid out a map of the city. It wasn’t a very good map, but it showed all sixteen islands and both shores and it would be enough to serve his immediate needs.

  Slipping the chain over the index finger of his left hand, he stretched the hand out over the map, the disc dangling below. “Where did you come from?” he murmured. “You must show me where.”

  The amulet began to swing, slowly at first, then faster and faster, across the map one way and then the other, its path growing more chaotic with every pass.

  “Show me!” Aurek barked.

  A spark of pure power raced down the chain and exploded against the parchment. The amulet stopped, stretched out to the right, the chain stiff, the angle defying gravity. The air stank of sulfur.

  A hole had been burned into the map directly below the point where the amulet hung motionless. The east bank. The area they called the Narrows. Not a pleasant area, but then, so little of Pont-a-Museau was. Once in the Narrows, Aurek had no doubt the amulet would lead him to the workshop. Power called to power.

  And in the workshop …

  He looked over at his wife, touched the faint glimmer of her life, and his face twisted with new hope. Every moment of her suffering ate into his soul. “Oh, Lia. Oh, my dear one, this could be our salvation.”

  The Houses in the Narrows Were Originally Much the same as the houses in many other parts of Pont-a-Museau. Once, in another time and another place, they had been tall and elegant, their four stories faced with pale gray stone, the lintels over doors and windows carved with fanciful plants and animals. Wrought-iron balconies had extended out from the base of floor-to-ceiling windows, railings cleverly sculpted to look like trailing vines.

  But in the Narrows—thus named because it ran along the east side of the narrowest river channel, not, as some thought, because the forest pressed so close against it—most of the facing stones had fallen to lie shattered on the broken pavement in front of those few buildings that remained standing. The carvings had been all but obliterated by mold and lichens and other less savory growths. Windows were gaping holes into darkness, and the bravest, or most desperate, of the scavengers had long since removed every scrap of iron.

  A number of the exterior walls had crumbled completely, and even buildings with all four walls intact leaned dangerously far off rotting foundations.

  As Aurek’s canalboat approached the narrow entrance of what had once been a private slip, he squinted against the rain gusting into his face and tried to work out exactly where the amulet was leading him. He didn’t feel the icy water running under his collar and down his back. He didn’t hear the boatman softly cursing as he maneuvered around a bloated and unrecognizable body snagged by a mat of floating garbage. He didn’t see the desolation or the danger.

  Blinded by hope and pride combined, he leaped up onto the dock’s one remaining beam and, without turning, told the boatman to wait.

  “No, sir, I won’t.”

  Oblivious to the slick and treacherous footing, Aurek whirled around, such blatant insubordination reaching him the way nothing else had been able to.

  “You won’t?” he repeated, barely believing what he’d heard.

  “No, sir.” The boatman was respectful, but adamant. “There’s things in these here ruins, sir, worser than what you’ll find in the rest of the city. If I stays tied up here, there’ll be nothing left of me, or me boat, when you gets back.”

  “Then anchor out in the channel,” Aurek commanded. He didn’t have time for this.

  The boatman shook his head, collected rainwater spraying off the greasy brim of his hat, obviously more afraid of what lurked in the Narrows than he was of Aurek. “Even if the weather permitted, which it don’t, sir, it ain’t no safer out there.” Gnarled hands clasped over the handle of his oar, he gathered his courage and looked his employer in the eye. “You gots power, sir, or them young bloods from way back would’ve taken care of me before now, but you’re not going to be here, so neither am I. What I will do is go out to the main channel and come back. As long as I keep movin’ I guess I should be safe enough.”

  “I don’t know how long this is going to take me,” Aurek warned him.

  The boatman shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll keep coming back till you do.”

  Aurek stared at him for a long moment, trying to force his mind to work on something, anything besides the amulet and the hope it represented. There was obvious merit in what had been suggested: a live boatman returning for him was infinitely preferable to a dead one waiting. “All right,” he agreed abruptly, “but be here when I return.”

  “You can count on it, sir.” Leaning his weight on the oar, he backed the boat out into the current and allowed the prow to sweep around to the north. “Two things, sir!” His voice battered through the noise of wind and rain like a club. “Don’t be caught here after dark, and you’ll be a sight safer if you keeps moving!”

  Watching him row away, Aurek was touched by an instant of dread, and he felt, for that instant, more alone than he’d ever been in his life.

  “Which is ridiculous,” he told himself, making his way to the relatively solid ground of the esplanade. “I’m no more alone now than I have been during any search.”

  Except he’d never searched in the Narrows. His voice hung in the air like an intruder, and he decided it might be a good idea not to speak aloud. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he pulled out the amulet and, as rain added new stains to the silk, carefully unwrapped it.

  Deep in the Narrows, three heads lifted on dried and desiccated necks. Three faces, identical in death as they’d never been in life, turned toward the river. Years ago, they’d been set to guard the contents of a wizard’s workshop. With no concept of time, they neither knew, nor cared, how long ago that order had been given.

  Something had been stolen.

  They would get it back.

  But the outside was too big, too open, too confusing. They lost contact with the stolen object. Regained contact. Lost it again. Gray light had come. And falling water. Unable to reason, or ev
en truly think, they knew only three things:

  They were to guard the contents of the workshop.

  Something had been stolen.

  They had to get it back.

  Then, suddenly, they made contact once again.

  Unable to do anything but smile, as their lips had long since shriveled back into interchangeable rictus grins, they shuffled toward the river.

  Tucking the damp silk back into his pocket, Aurek hung the amulet’s chain over the index finger of his left hand, looped it once for security, and let the disc swing free. It spun in place for a moment, then slowly began to inscribe an arc on the air. At the apex of its swing, it stopped.

  East. Wiping the rain from his eyes, Aurek moved away from the river, following the tug of power against his hand. The cracked and uneven paving stones were slippery, and every step brought with it the potential for a fall. He wanted to run, to leap, to shout, but he allowed caution to rule and walked in careful silence.

  East. Then slightly north. Rounding a blind corner, he found the amulet pointed directly at a pile of rubble, all that remained of a once-grand house, its rain-slicked stone too high and too unstable to climb. Aurek fingered the leather loop in his pocket but left it where it was. With no idea of what he’d face upon finding the workshop, spending unnecessary power could be more than foolish—it could be suicidal. Before he wasted what could not easily be replaced, he’d search for another way around.

  The way he found was not one he would’ve taken under other circumstances. The cavity was dank and dark, and the entry barely broader than his shoulders. But when he knelt to peer into it, he was sure he could see gray daylight in the distance—on the other side of the rubble.

  Carefully rewrapping the amulet, he shoved it to the bottom of an inside pocket and wriggled feet first into the opening.

  They lost it again.

  Their purposeful advance turned to an aimless wandering as bedraggled ravens watched in beady-eyed amusement from the shelter of shattered casements.