Mélusine (32 page)
Authors: Sarah Monette
"I'm not quite sure what that was, but I've lifted it from him. I do not think you will be troubled again."
"Being very kind," said the Kalliphorne. "We thanking very much."
"Thanking," said her husband. He sounded even weirder than she did, even less like a person, and I could see it took him more effort to get the word to come out.
"Then I think we should leave. Working that magic was quite remarkably uncomfortable, and I do not think things in the city are going to improve for some time to come."
"You rowing away."
"Yes," said Mr. von Heber.
"I guiding," she said, in a no-nonsense tone, like she wasn't going to take no lip from us. She said something to her husband in Teakettle, and started out of the room. We followed her meek as anybody could ask for. I saw her go into the water, headfirst and without barely a ripple Bernard set the lantern, and we got ourselves in the boat and shoved back off the ledge.
The Kalliphorne led us back to the pillar where we'd met her. She caught herself against it and said, "Following painted marks, you?"
"Yes, lady," I said. "I know the way."
"Wishing you good luck."
"Thank you, lady. Good luck to you, too."
"We will all need it," Mr. von Heber said.
"Good-bye," said the Kalliphorne and dropped off the pillar.
"Good-bye, lady," I said, then shouted after her, even though she'd already appeared, "You want out, go to the cade-skiffs—tell Cardenio I sent you!" And I don't got no fucking idea why I said it neither, except how much I hated Phoskis, and I knew Cardenio would help her if anybody would, and maybe I was a little dizzy with not being eaten. And I was betting she heard me, even if I couldn't see her.
"Start rowing," I said to Bernard.
He rowed and I steered, and we followed the marks without saying nothing for a long time.
Finally, like it was against his better judgment, Bernard said, "Is that story you told true?"
"Yeah," I said.
"You murdered a member of the House of Teverius?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"For shame, Bernard," said Mr. von Heber. "Weren't you listening?"
"Dammit, that's not what I mean!"
"You ever been a kept-thief?" I said. I should've had the sense to keep my mouth shut, but I didn't like Bernard, and my head hurt and my hands hurt, and sometimes you get off your own leash, you know?
"No, of course not."
"Then don't be so fucking quick to judge."
Mr. von Heber said, and maybe it was half an apology, "We don't have kept-thieves in Norvena Magna."
I said what Zephyr'd always said about kept-thieves: "It's a southern Perversion."
And maybe they heard something funny in my voice, because after that they left me alone.
It as almost dawn when we came out through the Hellmouth. I glanced back north and saw the Mirador still sort of smoldering, like its own damn funeral pyre. The smell of fire was everywhere, and if anybody'd cared to layodds, I would have bet that the tenements in Gilgamesh were burning, Probably there were fires in Simside and Queensdock, too. Fire runs through the Lower City about the same way the Winter Fever does, and once it starts, it's fucking hard to stop.
"What now?" Bernard said.
"Keep to the middle of the river," I said. "The cade-skiffs won't bother us, and most everybody else should be too busy to pay attention." Rindleshin was out there somewhere, and we were going to go sailing right through the middle of his territory, but Rindleshin was scared of the river like the rest of the Lower City, and I didn't think he'd be near it. The Sim bad luck, and you stay clear of it when things go wrong.
A couple times, people shouted at us from the banks, but they were in people looking for a way out of town, and we didn't pay them no mind Couldn't've fit another person in that boat even if we'd wanted to. Bernard found the current—the Sim runs faster once it gets back out in the day. light—and shipped the oars. It carried us through Simside and Queens-dock, past the big wharves and warehouses from the days of the Ophidii when there was more trade than farmers and fishermen up and down the river. And near the city wall, we went past Mad Elinor's Palace, where King Faramond's daughter spent the last indictions of her life, watching the river go past. The ballads say she wept into it, but them windows are awful high up, and even if you hung your head over the sill, I don't think you could be sure your tears got in the river. The ballads also say her son was never told her name—but he knew who she was, and he knew who his father was, and I don't think it's any wonder that King Henry Ophidius was noted for being a little peculiar.
The sun cleared the clouds to the east. The city walls rose over us, like a black bank of clouds themselves, and the river carried us out through the Septad Gate into the St. Grandin Swamp.
Felix
We leave Mélusine underground, like the dead. And the dead are behind us, in the halls of the Mirador beneath its burning crown, rising from their crypts and confines, released at last from the magic that forced them down.
No one alive knows the spells that the Cabal used in that, the first decisive strike of the Wizards' Coup; no one in the Mirador has been taught how to work with the magic of the dead. I know a little—what little Malkar would teach me—but I cannot work magic, and I cannot explain what I know, and I do not think anyone would listen to me anyway.
The anger and despair and terror of the necromancers has not abated in all these years, and the creatures of their bidding remember still what they were meant to do. And the warding spells of the Mirador, even those which are not broken, do not work on the dead. Many wizards were killed in the first onslaught, before anyone knew what was happening; among them were Erasmus Spalding, the Witchfinder Extraordinary, and Sherbourne Foss, who had been my friend. The last thing I ever said to him was designed to hurt, and despite what I said to Thaddeus, I find now that I remember my words perfectly: If you want the truth, you bore me, darling. He never even knew I didn't mean it.
It will not be safe to work magic in Mélusine for days, perhaps for months. It took all Gideon's strength of will to perform a minor healing on my broken fingers, and even that slipped and went awry in the working I can feel the stiffness in my aching, swollen-jointed fingers, and I know that they will never fully recover from what Malkar did.
My vision is warping and splintering again; I can feel the darkness waiting for me, feel myself sliding inch by inch, fingertip by fingertip, back into the world of monsters and ghosts out of which the Curia lifted me. Sometimes when I look at him, Thaddeus has the head of a raven.
I know that I missed huge swatches of the emergency Curia meeting that has led to us being, now, in this ancient tunnel beneath the Road of Ivory. We are going to Hermione, I know that much, where there is a long-disused, long-decayed wizard's tower, which the other wizards intend to wake and to use to work with the sundered and twisted magics of the Mirador. I, of course, will be no help; I have been brought along because it seems to be the point from which I can do the least damage. I am dangerous baggage, and the flatly hostile looks the guardsmen give me show that they know it.
There are six of them; none of them are men I know, and I am grateful for that. They are in this tunnel with us because of Shannon. However problematical, he is the closest thing Stephen has to an heir. Moreover, Shannon's famous—or infamous—charm will be useful in dealing with the Mayor of Hermione. The Mayor's distant kinship to Stephen's dead wife is unlikely, everyone says, to be sufficient to reconcile him to our presence, but Shannon's flattering attentions and the threat of force discreetly symbolized by the Protectorate Guard are hoped to do the trick.
Shannon walks at the head of the column, with Vicky. Neither by glance nor by word has he betrayed any awareness of my existence.
The wizards in the company are mostly the shy, inoffensive scholars who study thaumaturgical architecture, the only ones who have any hope of making sense of the ruins. Vicky also demanded the presence of Gideon Thraxios, who has the most recent information available on the Bastion's intentions and abilities. And Thaddeus is here as the baggage handler, my keeper. I did not miss the acrimonious arguments over that; Thaddeus did not want to come.
The tunnel is straight, level, and dry, and smells only faintly of sewers.
The guards, taking their duty seriously, have arranged themselves in the front and rear of the party. Their lieutenant is young, tall, hatchet-faced and eager, and (I think) already half in love with Shannon. I keep my head down and try not to force anyone to notice me.
But Thaddeus is not satisfied by my silence. He keeps asking questions, about my dreams, about Malkar, about the catastrophe for which I have been the conduit. I am painfully aware of the guards and the other wizards listening, but I cannot tell Thaddeus I don't want to talk about it. I have no right to refuse him information—not now, not after this latest disaster—and if the colors around him suggest that he is aware of my discomfiture and enjoys it… I am mad, I tell myself, and shut my eyes against the colors.
But still, I am grateful when Gideon drops back to walk on Thaddeus's other side and starts a low-voiced argument in Kekropian. I catch my own name once or twice, and I can guess the general thrust of their debate. I wish, miserably and without force, to be dead.
It is seven miles from the Mirador to Ivory Gate, a mile beyond that to the end of the tunnel. We walk steadily, though not very fast; the horrors of the night are visible in gray, haggard faces and staring eyes. It is an hour past dawn when we finally reach the spiraling ramp that takes us up into the daylight world, revenants ourselves.
The egress from the tunnel is concealed within a courier's way station. Courier horses are not stabled within Mélusine, where at certain times of day and in certain directions, a man on foot can make his way more swiftly and more safely through the congested traffic than a man on horseback. The station officer does not seem surprised to see us, whether because a messenger has reached him from the Mirador or because he has been watching the Mirador's roofs burn all night and is smart enough to draw the correct conclusion, I do not know. Obedient to the letter of authorization from Stephen that Vicky carries, he empties his stables for us and gives careful and precise directions to the lieutenant for finding the courier station between here and Hermione.
Most wizards, being sedentary creatures, ride with the grace of so many sacks of potatoes. Malkar taught me to ride, long ago in Arabel, and at least I do not disgrace myself in the confusion of the stableyard. My hands hurt, but Gideon's healing, warped though it is, has done its work, ad they are usable. I am glad that in the chaos no one thought to accuse him of heresy. I hope that it will not occur to Thaddeus later.
I hope that later I will still understand why it is important.
Mildmay
What you're supposed to do when you hire a boat from Phoskis is take it all the way down to Gracile, where he's got a goon who bags it and brings it back to Mélusine. The more I thought about it, though, the more that looked like a really bad idea. The goon in Gracile knew me, and he knew Phoskis hated me, and I didn't have no way to know if Phoskis had ever said, Oh, by the way, if Mildmay the Fox shows up, wring his neck for me, okay?
I said as much to Mr. von Heber, and I guess he'd been thinking about how lucky we'd been that the Kalliphorne had happened to have a use for us—besides being lunch, I mean—because he said, no fuss, "What do you suggest?"
"We ditch the boat and walk."
"Can we? The ground looks none too stable."
"Quicksand ain't gonna be our problem."
"No?" said Mr. von Heber, and Bernard was giving me the hairy eyeball again.
"Shit," I said. "There's things in the swamp."
"What kind of things?"
"You know. Gators. Ghouls."
"Charming," said Mr. von Heber. "And you think ghouls are better than a 'goon' in Gracile?"
"Yeah. We can maybe avoid the ghouls."
"Oh," said Mr. von Heber. "Yes, I see."
" 'Sides, you're a hocus, ain't you? You must got spells for this sort or thing."
"I might, but there's no guarantee just at the moment that they will work. The magic of the Mirador is thrashing around like a snake in its death convulsions."
"I still think we got a better chance. We can make for Alchemic—there's a hotel there that ain't too bad." I waved a hand westward and south. I'd been to Alchemic on Keeper's business a time or two, and the dead-eyed woman who ran the Long Time Coming would take your custom if you were dead yourself and rotting to boot. She didn't give a fuck so long as your money was good and you didn't cause no ruckus.
"Well, Bernard?" said Mr. von Heber.
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