Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  Jacqueline glanced up at her sister and frowned. It had been a very long time since they’d played the games so favored by the identical twins in the family, games where a case of mistaken identity could easily conclude with death or dismemberment. “We’re not as identical as we used to be,” she pointed out.

  Forcing her hand away from the notch in her ear, Louise shrugged. That one visible scar had complicated this part of the plan. Without it, it would’ve been enough for her to wear black as well. With it, she’d needed Jacqueline’s cooperation. “If we wore our hair the same way …”

  “It’s a childish idea, Louise. Childish and mean.” Jacqueline crossed to the bed and held the dress up against her body. The demi-train spilled, like fresh blood, over her bare feet. She smiled. “I like it.”

  In the east wing of the Chateau, Dmitri stared, perplexed, at the evening clothes laid out on his bed. “These are mine.”

  “Of course they are.”

  He adjusted the towel wrapped around his waist. “But I left them at the townhouse.”

  “I had them sent for.”

  “But Aurek …”

  “One of my servants got them from one of your servants. Aurek wasn’t involved. I told you, you mean nothing to him now.” Louise laid her fingers on his bare shoulder just to feel the muscle shiver at her touch. “You saved my life. It was the least I could do.”

  He shook his head; golden curls still damp from the bath tumbled down into his eyes. “I still can’t believe that a giant rat came right into the house,” he declared. “Right into the room!”

  “It was young. The young seldom take the time to think things through.”

  “Young?” Frowning slightly, he turned to face her. “How could you tell? Are the adults so much larger?” The white rat had been the largest he’d ever seen—except, of course, for the wererat he’d fought in the ruins. His frown deepened, and he felt himself totter on the edge of an important discovery. He remembered how he’d looked down at the body and thought that something was wrong. “Louise, could that white rat … I mean, is it possible it was a wererat?”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about that rat!” Louise snapped. When he recoiled slightly at her anger, she grabbed at her control and stared up into guileless violet eyes with as much false concern as she could muster. “I’m so worried about you. I need to know how you feel. Are you sure you’re well enough to come downstairs? If anything should happen to you …” Her voice trailed off as though she were already anticipating the loss.

  Reassured, Dmitri lightly stroked the velvet curve of her cheek with the backs of two fingers. He wanted to sweep her up into his arms, but he sensed she wouldn’t welcome the move. She was so small and delicate that sometimes he felt like a clumsy giant beside her. “I’m fine,” he told her softly. “It was the strangest thing, but after days of not knowing up from down, I woke this morning almost clearheaded, and as the day’s gone on, I’ve regained more and more of my strength. It’s almost as though I’m intended to be at your side tonight.”

  “Almost as though,” Louise repeated. The low doses of poison appeared to have worked perfectly. She turned away from him and forced a catch into her voice. “You know that Aurek is going to be there?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  Giving thanks that he couldn’t see her face, she smiled, enjoying his pain. “Jacqueline insisted he be invited.” One finger traced the tin edge of the hip bath set up before the fire. “I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t be.” He took a step toward her. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “He’s so powerful.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  She shook her head, ebony curls dancing across the back of her neck. “He’s your brother. If it came to a choice between us …”

  “Louise.”

  She allowed her name to pull her around. Dmitri’s expression of besotted gallantry was all she could have hoped for, even though it made her slightly nauseous.

  “Haven’t I already chosen?” he asked. “You have my heart in your hands.”

  His heart in her hands. She relished the sight of it, dripping and bloody, impaled on her claws, then reluctantly banished the vision as she pulled an ancient dagger from the folds of her skirt. “This is for you.”

  “But I have a blade.”

  “Not like this one. This dagger has been enchanted to cut through any magical defense. It’s one of the ancient artifacts of my house.”

  His eyes widened with awe as he stared down at the scuffed leather scabbard and the protruding wirewrapped hilt. “And you want me to have it?”

  “If your brother attacks, this might be the only thing that can save me.” She lifted his hand and laid the dagger across the palm, folding his fingers tightly around it. “I not only trust you with this family treasure, I trust you with my life.”

  His left knee hit the floor, and he pressed her hand against his lips, murmuring, “I will not fail you.”

  She lightly stroked his curls with her free hand. “I know.”

  A few moments later, outside in the dusty corridor that stretched the length of the east wing, Louise beckoned the servant who had been tending Dmitri for the last few days. “You stopped giving him whatever-it-was last night?”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “Before he goes downstairs, bring him a little more in a glass of wine. He’s too clearheaded. I want him reacting, not thinking.”

  “It will be a difficult dosage, mistress, to affect the brain and not the body.”

  “Can you do it?” Her claws dimpled the flesh of his throat.

  He started to nod and thought better of it. “Yes, mistress.”

  Humming a popular dance tune to herself, Louise hurried to her suite to dress. The dagger, while undeniably old, was neither a family heirloom nor enchanted. It was, however, very sharp. Although her fettered wizard would no doubt have defenses up, he wouldn’t be expecting an attack from his brother. If Dmitri could be convinced to attack—convinced that Aurek had attacked her and not Jacqueline—he just might get through and rid her of a powerful and dangerous enemy. If he didn’t, and was killed in the attempt, she would instead be rid of an increasingly tiresome and no longer necessary young fool.

  “I can’t lose.”

  A short distance away, in the bedchamber of his townhouse, Aurek twitched the sleeves of his dark gray evening jacket into place over pale gray silk cuffs. He had bathed and dressed and could delay the moment no longer. Walking slowly into his study, he stared for a long minute at the single parchment sheet that lay in the center of the desk. Filled top to bottom, left to right with his untidy scrawl, it was the only solution he’d been able to devise, and he had no idea if it would be enough. On the desk beside the spell were two small metal rods. They’d been, before he removed both head and point, nails he’d had Edik pull from a loose board.

  Two rods.

  Two rods would hold both the Renier sisters, but at only half the strength of holding Jacqueline alone. He hesitated, listened to the laughter, and slid only a single rod into his pocket. He couldn’t risk it. Not when Natalia could be so easily destroyed.

  Closing his eyes for a moment, he wished that there were another way. He couldn’t trust Louise Renier, but he had to believe that she would return his wife and brother unharmed. To not believe—that way lay madness.

  When he opened his eyes, he was facing the alcove and the empty pedestal. Heart heavy, he stepped toward it and dropped to his knees, resting his forehead against the fluted wood. There were a hundred things he wanted to say—a thousand things, perhaps—but he needed to say them to Natalia, to laughing, loving flesh and blood, not to the figurine where his pride had trapped her, not to empty space.

  Finally, he stood; he had no reason to stay and every reason to leave. It was time.

  Behind him, in the empty room, a clear white light continued to burn in the alcove.

  Edik, waiting by the front door, noted the set of his master’s shou
lders, the almost fatalistic light in the pale eyes, and knew without being told that everything would be risked tonight. Worry masked behind efficiency, he bowed and said, “The boat is already at the slip, sir.”

  “I won’t be taking the boat.” Aurek pulled his braid free and shrugged his greatcoat up onto his shoulders. “I’m walking.”

  “Sir?” Both Edik’s brows rose, the closest he came to astonishment.

  “I want to be alone.”

  “But, sir, to be alone at night in Pont-a-Museau …”

  “Is dangerous?” Accepting the offered hat and gloves, Aurek joined in, for a moment, with the laughter in his head. He was still chuckling quietly as he went out the door and down the stairs into the darkness.

  Most of those who traveled to Chateau Delanuit that night traveled by water. The advancing season had driven away the last lingering stink of rot, and though a tracery of frost along the shoreline made heavy wraps a necessity, the trip had become as pleasant as it ever got.

  “Hey! What’s that?” Georges leaned out dangerously far over the bow of the boat and shaded his eyes from the lantern light. “There’s something in the water at the base of the bridge.”

  “So what?” Yves muttered from his place near the stern. He’d sunk so far into the folds of his greatcoat that only his eyes and nose were visible between the upswept points of his collar. “There’s always something in the water.”

  “Yeah, but this is big.” Still hanging out over the bow, Georges turned his head farther than was humanly possible and looked back over his shoulder. “And it’s white.”

  As Yves surged to his feet, the boatman croaked a warning and leaned hard on his oar. Yves ignored him. Shoving past Annette, he pushed Henri into his brother’s lap—the twins were individuals tonight, for Henri still bled sluggishly from a gash along his jaw—and leaped up on the seat beside Georges. “Where?”

  “There. By the center pillar.”

  Something white and large bobbed up and down in the icy water, rubbing against the filthy stone, caught at the point where the current divided and passed to either side of the center support.

  “Boatman, take us there.”

  The boatman knew better than to protest. There was a small chance he could keep the boat from being caught in the eddies under the bridge and capsizing, and no chance at all of surviving an argument. Muscles straining, he guided the boat out of the safe channel and let the current aim it right at the bridge. At the last moment, he grabbed as much water as he could and swept the oar around, turning the boat across the current and bringing it to a gentle stop up against the pillar, the floating white shape squashing slightly between wood and stone. Heart in his throat, he started to breathe again.

  Yves stared over the side for a moment.

  “Well?” Aubert demanded.

  “It’s Chantel.”

  “Dead?”

  “No, you idiot,” Yves snarled, “she’s just gone in for a swim before the river freezes. Of course she’s dead!”

  “Who did it?” Georges asked, feeling that the question was more expected than necessary.

  Yves rolled his eyes. “Who do you think?”

  As one, the five turned toward Isle Delanuit and the Chateau—tonight so brilliantly lit that it chased the night away from its walls. They all knew where Chantel had been going, and why.

  “The little Nuikin?” Annette wondered aloud.

  “Against Chantel? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Lou—” Henri choked as his twin drove an elbow into his stomach and, with a jerk of his head at the boatman, hissed, “Family business, you fool.”

  “What are we going to do about it?” Georges wondered as Yves returned to his seat and motioned for the boatman to continue their journey.

  Yves stared at him in some surprise. “Do? Are you out of your mind? We’re not going to do anything.” He paused and swept a warning glance over his remaining cousins, one by one. “The river’s gotten a little cold for swimming, don’t you think?”

  Annette and the twins nodded. Georges shook his head. “I still think we should do something.”

  “We are going to do something,” Yves told him. “We’re going to be smart enough to survive.” But he locked his gaze on the river as Chantel’s body, pushed back into the current by their visit, continued on its final journey through Pont-a-Museau, and his lips were drawn up off the ivory gleam of his teeth.

  He’d expected it to happen but, now that it had, he found he didn’t like it much.

  Jacques started as Tante Louise swept out of his mother’s suite and started again when he realized it wasn’t his aunt. “Mama?”

  She turned and ebony brows rose. “Were you surprised to see me, Jacques?”

  “No, Mama, it’s just you never … I mean …” He swallowed. “You always wear black, Mama.”

  “Did you think I was your Tante Louise?”

  “Only for a moment, Mama.”

  “And what made you change your mind?”

  The question had an edge he recognized. “You’re much more beautiful than Tante Louise.”

  Jacqueline smiled and bent to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, my darling. If you don’t bother the musicians, you may watch for a while from the gallery.”

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  It wasn’t until she swept away with a rustle of crimson silk that he realized he still hadn’t told her about Tante Louise and the human.

  Although a multitude of lights glittered out on the river, all moving toward Isle Delanuit, the streets of the city were deserted. Aurek listened to the sound of his own boots slapping against the cobblestones of the esplanade and didn’t bother trying to convince himself that he was alone. As he approached the dark mouth of a particularly noxious alley, three shadows emerged from the masking night.

  Aurek sighed and stared at the slouching figures. “What?” he asked with little interest, breath pluming on the chill air.

  Somewhat taken aback by his attitude, the shortest of the three made a quick recovery. Steel gleamed suddenly in his hand. “You gots money? Give it here.”

  “No.” Pulling off his gloves, Aurek shoved them into his pockets and began to bring his thumbs together, fingers spread. There was no longer any need for circumspection.

  “No?” Only the apparent leader carried a dagger; the other two held spiked cudgels they seemed anxious to use. “You stupid, rich man?”

  “No,” Aurek said again. But before he could release the fire, the trio suddenly disappeared beneath a half dozen giant rats and three or four times that number of their smaller cousins.

  Although there were no actual wererats among his guardians, it seemed obvious that Louise Renier intended him to reach the chateau with body and power intact. For the second time that evening, the laughter in his head exactly echoed his mood, and Aurek laughed with it as he continued past the screaming thieves and up onto the arc of the nearest bridge.

  In the ballroom of the chateau, Dmitri blinked as the whirling dancers broke into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors that made very little sense. Music and voices beat against his ears in rhythms he couldn’t seem to understand. He swayed, slopped a little wine down his jacket, and gratefully found a wall to lean against. Although he’d felt fine when he left his room, by the time he’d made his way downstairs his head seemed stuffed with cobwebs once again.

  He saw a brilliant red gown flash in and out of the dance, and his expression softened. Louise. She’d been worried about him, but when his body had effortlessly followed the patterns of their dance, instinct accomplishing what reason could not, she’d seemed reassured. Which was a good thing, for though he didn’t want to worry her, he wasn’t leaving her here alone without his protection.

  Frowning, he wondered what he was supposed to be protecting her from. Doesn’t matter, he thought, hand brushing the dagger, I’ll protect her from whatever it is.

  “Drunk so soon?”

  “Yves!” Dmitri grinned happily down at his friend. “Dr
unk? No. This is my first.” Frowning, he scrubbed at his jacket with his free hand. “And I’ve spilled most of it.”

  Yves’s nose wrinkled. He could smell the drug on the human’s breath and see the effect in his eyes. Why Louise—because it could only have been Louise or she’d have killed someone the moment she’d noticed her pet’s condition—would want to make Dmitri Nuikin stupider, he had no idea. Nor did he care.

  Nor, however, did he want Louise to have things her own way. It was an amazing feeling, almost completely overwhelming what he had previously considered to be a well-developed sense of self-preservation.

  His lip curled as he remembered white fur in cold water. Louise had been having her own way too often of late.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going outside to puke.”

  Dmitri looked confused. “But I don’t have to puke.”

  “You will when we get outside,” Yves told him, digging his fingers into Dmitri’s elbow and steering him through the crowd. When Louise had removed Chantel, she’d removed one-fifth of the protection provided by his circle of friends—and that was an acceptable reason for him to retaliate. It might be too late for vomiting to do Dmitri any good, too much of the drug might already be in his system, but it was a start.

  A few moments later, Dmitri looked up from his knees, one hand clamped around his stomach, the other bracing himself against the ground, a steaming puddle spreading into the dirt in front of him. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Yves grunted. The puddle smelled of bile, wine, and the drug. “Come on.”

  “Now where?”

  “Back inside.” The wererat effortlessly heaved the much larger man up onto his feet. “You look as if you could use a drink.”

  “You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Dmitri spat to get the taste out of his mouth and allowed himself to be led back into the ballroom. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t more upset about being hit. He felt that he should be, but it didn’t seem worth it to pursue the feeling. Except for the pain where Yves had punched him, and a burning senstion in his throat, he felt surprisingly better than he had. Sound and color still whirled his thoughts about his head, but he found it easier to hold them in place. “I think the cold has cleared my head.”