Faculty of Fire (59 page)

“We have a special place,” Romius replied. “With energy insulation and strong iron doors.”

The description reminded me of an ordinary prison.

“How long will they be there?”

“A couple of days.”

“And what’s going to happen to Shins ... Shinesimus?” asked Alice. “Can they cure him?”

“No doubt about it,” Romius reassured her. “The druids will put him back on his feet in no time, and it wouldn’t do you any harm to go and see them too,” he said, casting an eloquent glance at her lips. “Rest now, and then you must definitely go to the treatment station.”

Romius said goodbye to us and told one of the Craftsmen to show us to one of the studys, so we could get a rest and also ... so we wouldn’t get under their feet.

We walked past just a couple of yards away from the pupils, who were standing absolutely still. Their eyes were glassy, their gazes were completely blank ... Maybe my idea wouldn’t work, but there was nothing to stop me trying, was there?

When we had passed the entire row, I stopped and swung round.

“Oh, by the way, Dkharm!”

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Steel started slightly. Only slightly ...

“What’s going on?” Chas and Alice asked in surprise.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” I said airily. “I thought I saw something ...”

We entered the Academy through the breach in the doors and one of the Craftsmen showed us to a study and then brought us supper. Actually, when I thought about it, for the last two weeks, all our meals had been supper ...

We chatted for a little while longer and settled down to sleep where we could – Chas and I in armchairs, Alice on the couch.

I was woken a few hours later. Alice and Chas were still sleeping, but I thought I saw a pair of red eyes glint in the darkness.

Revel himself had come for me.

“Ready?” he asked instead of saying hello.

I yawned.

“For the check?”

“It’s not a check,” Revel reassured me. “Whatever we think about the others, it would be a mean, lowdown trick not to trust you after what has happened. Do you think we’re such rotten swine?”

I was rather startled by that.

“No, I don’t,” I hastily reassured him.

“Then don’t asked foolish questions.”

We reached the teleports.

“Have the teleports already been repaired?” I asked in surprise. “So quickly?”

“Not all of them,” Revel admitted. “Only the ones leading to the accommodation floors and the Craftsmens’ floor. By the way, someone, rummaged through them pretty thoroughly ...”

And I knew who it was. Everywhere I’d been during that day had been left in ruins or right royal disorder.

“Trolls, probably,” I suggested.

“Of course, who else?” Revel laughed.

Something told me he knew perfectly well exactly who was responsible for all the destruction.

We transited to the seventh floor, where Romius and Kelnmiir met us.

“Good morning, Zach,” said the vampire, breaking into a smile.

“Good morning,” I muttered

I had certain suspicions concerning this vampire. It seemed to me that he had been lying to me from the very beginning ...

“Well now, the time has come to learn your secret,” Romius told me.

“I don’t have any secrets,” I replied sullenly. “What’s happened to Shinesimus? Is he all right?”

“What could possibly happen to him?” Revel said with a casual wave of his hand. “I can say hello to him for you. I’m just going to visit his ward.”

“Yes, you must,” I responded. “And for Chas and Alice too.”

Master Revel left us, and we moved on down the corridor at a leisurely pace.

“And how are Caiten and all the others doing?” I asked.

“We’re working on them,” Romius said with a shrug. “No results so far.”

“No results?” I exclaimed, aghast. “You mean they’re going to stay like that?”

“No,” Romius said in a tired voice. “They’ll remove the effects of hypnosis. But we can’t identify the spy yet ...

“You know,” I said pointedly, “I have a few suspicions ...”

“Suspicions?” Romius asked. “All right, let’s hear them ...”

“I noticed a number of odd things, but these are only my inferences,” I said, making my excuses in advance. “Anyway ... I’ll tell you everything, and you make up your own mind. When the reservoir was blown up, we were on our own floor, and after the explosion we ran to the teleports, where we came across a troll. I told you about that already. Well, when we asked Steel later where the troll had caught him, he said he said he’d been to the restroom on his own floor ... that is, on our floor, because we all live on the same floor. So we ought to have run into each other, but we didn’t.”

“Pretty dubious,” the vampire mused.

“I agree,” I said with a nod. “But that’s still not all. Later, when we decided to go to the History Museum, Steel told us he’d never been there before. But that’s not true. Neville saw him in the Museum ...”

“Now, that’s a bit more serious,” Romius admitted. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to conceal my feeling of triumph. “Today, as I walked past him in the square, I casually called out a name that I’d heard the trolls use. I thought that it must be the traitor’s name ... because it’s definitely Tabernaclian. The trolls’ names sound different ...”

“What is the name?” Kelnmiir asked curiously.

“Dkharm.”

Romius and Kelnmiir looked at each other.

“Yes, that’s definitely a Tabernaclian name. But all ten of them were hypnotised. Even if that is his real name ... He was probably using a psychomatrix ...”

“Using what?” I asked, startled.

“Let me explain. To make it harder to identify a spy if he is caught, they use a method called a psychomatrix. The spy gives a mental command, and a different personality is imposed on top of his own. It’s like a special kind of self-hypnosis ... So he couldn’t possibly have responded to his own name.”

Kelnmiir protested sharply: “Why couldn’t he? Over his lifetime a man develops a reflex response to his own name. And by no means all phychomatrices are capable of suppressing it. I doubt that the spy had time to prepare a really good-quality psychomatrix ...”

“Stop. You mean to say that if Steel is the spy, his personality is no more than a well-made psychomatrix?”

“Clever boy,” Kelnmiir said with a nod. “But which one is the psychomatrix, Steel or Dkharm ... that’s something we don’t know yet. So did Steel react to the Tabernaclian name or not?”

“I thought he did.”

“You thought?” the vampire asked. “All right, I’ll try to get to the bottom of this. When you know what you’re looking for and where to find it, it simplifies the process of searching considerably. But we’ll get to that later, right now let’s get to work on you.”

They took me to a rather strange room. It was small, with soft walls and a solitary bed standing in the middle.

“Lie down,” Romius told me and walked out.

I obediently lay down on the bed.

“Kelnmiir,” I said to the vampire. “I have a question for you ...”

“What is it?”

“Where did you get the blood from? The Craftsmen didn’t give it to you, I asked them.”

The vampire burst into laughter.

“Do you think I could hold out for two and half months in the Academy without blood?”

““What ...” it was a good thing I was already lying on the bed, or I might have fallen over. “You drank blood from one of the pupils?”

“No,” the vampire said briskly. “Any other theories?”

“Just don’t try to tell me that you brought in supplies of blood ...”

“You said it.”

“But that means ... you always had blood with you! And you could have handled those trolls who grabbed Caiten and the Vickers brothers ...”

Kelnmiir stuck a strange-looking gold bracelet on my wrist,

“Well, could you or couldn’t you?” I asked again.

“I could have,” the vampire admitted.

“So why did you ...” I was simply choking on my anger.

“But what about the spirit of the hunt?” the vampire asked me. “And apart from that I needed to talk to you alone ...”

What could I say to that? Vampires were
really
different from people ... I would never understand them ...

“That’s it,” said Kelnmiir, taking a step towards the door.

“Can I ask one more question? The last one,” I said hastily.

The vampire turned back: “Well?”

“When Alice was running away from the members of the Day Clan, why did you send her to my window? Wasn’t there anywhere else to hide?”

“Oh, well done!” Kelnmiir exclaimed. “You guessed.”

“What?” I asked, startled.

The vampire paused for a long moment before he eventually spoke: “I saw you in the square early that morning before the tests. Alice and I were hiding in a basement, and there was an excellent view of the spot where you were hanging around with the twin girls. I spotted the signs of hypnosis on you straight away, and while I had nothing else to do, I tried to analyse your condition.”

So that was why my head had started aching so badly then!

“And did Alice see me too?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“No, of course not,” the vampire declared. “She was preparing for the tests at the time.”

“And how is this connected with Alice ending up in my room?”

“Indirectly ...” said Kelnmiir and snapped his fingers. “Well, I expect Romius is tired of waiting for me. We’ll talk about this again. Lie down, relax.”

And the vampire skipped out of the room before I could open my mouth.

What did “lie down and relax” mean? And for how long? What a creep, starting to tell me and suddenly taking off like that ... I’d probably die of curiosity now!

I settled down comfortably on the bed. No, I couldn’t just lie there like that ... I had so many questions to ...

I opened my eyes slowly.

A ceiling.

Logical, I was lying on a bed ....

“Is anybody there?” I asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

Silence.

Ah yes ... there wasn’t anybody there.

I tried to get up off the bed, but my legs gave way and I fell. I climbed back on to the bed with an effort and tried to gather my strength ...

The door opened and Romius appeared in the doorway

“How are you feeling?”

From the tone of his voice, he was clearly in a buoyant mood.

“Bad,” I replied gloomily. I feel as If I’d been kicked for hours nonstop.”

“Don’t look at me,” my uncle said, throwing his hands up in the air. I haven’t laid a finger on you. It’s probably your old bruises aching. Our mistake. We should have taken you to the druids first ...”

Of course it was their mistake! But I was the one who had to pay for it.

“Well, have you cleared me of the effects of hypnosis?” I asked anxiously.

“Yes,” Romius said with a nod. “Oh, you really put Kelnmiir through the mill. Three whole days without a break.”

“Three days?” I exclaimed.

“What did you expect?” Romius asked in surprise. “Removing the effects of a ten-year old hypnosis without doing any damage to the person’s psyche ... you should be grateful he managed it in three days.”

“Not to the detriment of quality, I hope?” I enquired suspiciously.

“Entirely without detriment,” Romius assured me. “On the contrary.”

“On the contrary?”

“Let me start at the beginning,” my uncle said, trying to calm me down. “You were right about some things. Your aunt was definitely involved, although she wasn’t the one who applied the hypnosis. That was the work of a genuine specialist ...”

“Then why have you decided that my aunt was involved?” I asked, puzzled.

“Don’t interrupt, and everything will be clear soon,” Romius said strictly.

Ah, that was right, they really hated to be interrupted ...

“So, you were subjected to hypnosis about ten years ago. It was the work of a genuine specialist. The purpose of the hypnosis ...” – Romius paused for effect – “... was to limit your aptitude for magic ...”

Well, knock me down with a feather ...

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, just to make sure.

“A hundred per cent,” my uncle confirmed. “You realise yourself that no one but your aunt could ever have thought up anything like that. She was always a rather calculating woman, but to go that far ...”