The Golden Key (101 page)

But how strange he felt. Dizzy, a little queasy, perspective altered as if he’d suddenly grown an inch or two in height. And his hands hurt. They hurt in every knuckle as he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself. His muscles were sluggish. He couldn’t understand it; a few moments ago he’d been taut with tension. His pulse was as dull as if drugged, when it ought to be racing with the last of his fear.

Still, the frightening aimlessness was gone, and he had substance again, bones and flesh and eyes. He used those eyes to look around in befuddlement.

A hand that was his own held up a framed canvas. Other fingers, also his, delicately displayed a needle. As the sliver of gold poised at the painted chest, he recognized what sort of painting it was, and the face within it.

By why would this man puncture the heart of his own
Peintraddo Chieva
?

He tried to move, to reach out, to stop what was to come. He looked down at his awkward, hurting, listless hands.

They were not his hands. They were gnarled and mottled and
they were not his hands.

All the strength drained out of him and he staggered against the chair. He looked up and saw a face by lamplight.

The face was his own. His mouth smiled at him. But it was not his smile.

“Like looking into a living mirror,” said his voice.

He had not spoken. The lungs and throat and tongue and lips he
felt had not created speech. Yet he heard his own voice, issuing from his own mouth.

“Premio D-Dioniso—” And he flinched on hearing the deep tones, desiccated as old parchment, that came from his own throat. Not his own voice, not anything like his own—

“Sario.” His mouth smiled at him. Not his smile. “And Ignaddio and Martain and even Riobaro—yes, even he. All Sario. But after tonight …
Rafeyo.
”

“
Sario
—?”

He heard the voice that was not his, and looked at the hands that were not his, and at the painted face that was not his—and at the living face that
was
his.

Had been his.

When the needle pierced the painted heart, he finally understood. And, in understanding and in agony, died.

  FIFTY-FIVE  

Soothing
the tension of Rafeyo’s terror—rapid pulse and respiration, tremors, all the mindless responses to being for a time mindless—was the work of a few moments. It was like calming a frightened child, and indeed the words he murmured in his head as he stroked the new hands over the new arms and legs and chest were those of a loving father: “Hush, I’m here, don’t be afraid, carrido ninito, I’m here now.”

Sario stretched luxuriously, getting the feel of this strong young body. A little shorter than Dioniso, but he was only nineteen and probably hadn’t finished growing. He inspected the hands by lamplight—the precious, supple hands—enjoying the long straight fingers and fine skin. Slowly, as if he at last explored the body of a coveted woman, he ran his palms over the new body. Rounded muscles of shoulders and upper arms; firm chest; flat belly; lean thighs—he laughed as manhood twitched and stirred, and on a whim caressed it to hardness. The swift surge of delight startled him. It had been years since he’d felt so urgent a response.

But with no time to indulge it, he took his hands away. All Rafeyo’s sketches must be soaked to unidentifiable impotence. He had no way of knowing which of them had been bespelled. The paints with his blood in them must be locked away for the far future, when he would need them to paint himself out of Rafeyo and into another strong young man. But first the old wreck that had been Dioniso must be carried to bed. Tomorrow it would be sadly reported that the honored Premio Frato had died in his sleep of a seizure, probably of the heart. Which, in a way, he had.

Sario slipped the golden needle from the portrait and lit a match to burn it clean. Sancterria, he thought, amused; though the needle was long since hallowed by usage. Consecrated, for him, for having belonged to Saavedra—a gift from one of their cousins in hopes of encouraging embroidery rather than paint on canvas. She’d scorned it and given it to him for work on frescoes.

Through the heart with a golden needle that had been hers—it
was both fitting, in memory of the pain she’d given him long ago, and merciful to Rafeyo. In the past he’d experimented with sliding it into the painting’s head, but correct placement was tricky and sometimes produced only a violent headache. The abdomen he had used only once, and shuddered to recall it. Ignaddio, that had been; his first host, taken before he’d thought of the needle and used a paletto knife in the painted belly. The resulting mess stank to the skies and took hours to clean up.

Now he stored the purified, newly sanctified needle in a little silver box. He knelt beside the cooling corpse and undid the first buttons of the shirt, preparing to check for a telltale drop of congealing blood. Once, to his horror, the aged heart had burst at the touch of the needle and pumped blood all over his hands. Ever since (eiha, who had it been? Ettoro, perhaps), he’d kept a clean shirt handy just in case.

He was about to inspect the chest when the door opened behind him. Surely he’d locked it—yes, of course, and so had Rafeyo when he entered. But someone else must have a key. With sickening certainty, he knew who it was.

“Rafeyo!”

Tazia swirled into the room, white silk cloak and festive yellow gown rustling importantly. Sario tried to position his body to hide Dioniso, hoping the lamplight was dim enough. As he looked up, with startled dismay involuntarily—if appropriately—scrawled on his face, he wondered how it was possible for the same chi’patro blood that had created Saavedra’s wistful loveliness to produce this woman. Tazia was beautiful, but there was an obviousness about her, a polished and disciplined perfection that could disgust, in time. She was inbred, overbred, the way lapdogs were too closely mated for looks without thought to temperament or intelligence.

Of this woman’s ferocious character he had no doubts. As her gaze flickered to the painting of Corasson and then to the corpse on the floor behind him, she proved that brains at least had not been bred out of the Grijalvas.

“He caught you,” she said quite calmly. “You should have been more careful. How did you kill him?”

“I didn’t! He—he just—he was furious, and then he just died!”

She arched a brow, as if she
almost
believed him, then shrugged. “Eiha, he was close to fifty, and that’s obscenely old for a Limner. He mustn’t be found here. We’ll have to take him to his room so it looks as if he died in his sleep.”

“You always think of everything, matra meya.” He knew instantly
that it was the wrong diminutive, though her surprise turned at once to a smile.

“Of course I do, carrido. Here, I’ll help. Did you finish before he came in?”

As they straightened out crooked limbs, he told her. Whined, actually; it was characteristic of Rafeyo when thwarted. “I don’t know what happened. It didn’t work. I did everything just right, I know I did—but it didn’t work!”

Tazia shot him an angry glance across Dioniso’s prostrate body. “If you did all of it correctly, why
didn’t
it work?”

“I don’t know!”

She sat back on the high heels of her gold-stitched slippers. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed, Rafeyo. But you’ll try again.”

“But if I don’t know what happened, how can I fix it?”

“You’ll be an acknowledged Limner soon. Nothing will be kept from you then. You’ll identify your mistakes—”

“I didn’t do anything wrong, I know I didn’t!”

“You will identify your mistakes,” she repeated sternly, “and rectify them. And then you must paint as quickly as possible, because Arrigo has agreed to the thing we discussed.”

“He has?” Sario hoped his expression wasn’t too blank. He hadn’t yet spent the usual long hours at a mirror, experimenting with control of a new face. And he was worried about controlling the body, too—the legs and the reach were shorter, the weight less, the poise of the head just different enough to unbalance him a trifle.

“He’s quite eager,” Tazia was saying, her voice sour. “And he won’t like waiting until you spell his bitch of a wife to obedience. On the other hand, I’ll have more time to work on Serenissa. Which reminds me, can you paint her amenable to bearing his bastard? It would help.”

Sario reeled. A Grijalva bastard? Was she insane? Time sideslipped and he was once again the Sario he’d been born, learning that Saavedra was pregnant. Savagely he thrust away centuries-old emotion and fixed his mind on the appalling woman before him.

“Well?” she demanded. “Can you? And make it a girl?”

“I—I think so.” Rising, he compelled his muscles to steadiness and reached down to help her up. Touching her was unexpectedly disgusting. “I should clean up in here and hide the painting. Can you get him into the hall? I’ll be there in a minute to help.”

“You want
me
to drag him? Eiha, ‘cordo. But hurry.”

Each of them took a leg and lugged Dioniso to the door. As Sario opened it, Tazia cast a last look at the painting of Corasson.

“She’s nowhere to be seen in that. How can the magic work if she’s not in the painting?”

He thought fast. Tazia obviously knew nothing of her son’s plans for arson. “It’s a special spell,” he said. “It creates a whole atmosphere at Corasson.”

Her black eyes went wide. “Do you mean that the very air she breathes would contain spells of obedience to Arrigo’s wishes? How marvelous!” Alight with pride, she leaned over to kiss his cheek. He resisted the impulse to wipe his skin. “You never told me such things could be done. You’ve surpassed the greatest Limners, Rafeyo. Even Riobaro!”

“I try,” he said, sketching a grin onto his face. “Drag him as far as you can. His rooms are down the stairs at the end of the hall.”

“Don’t be too long.”

“You’re wonderful, Mother. Did I ever tell you that?”

“I try,” she replied, and winked.

“I don’t like this,” Zevierin said softly. “You had no reason to follow her from Lissina’s except vague suspicion.”

“Tazia looked entirely too pleased with herself to please me.” Leilias walked boldly into the Limners’ wing of the Palasso, where not even female servants were allowed, and started for the nearest staircase. “And I suppose it was ‘vague suspicion’ that made you tell Cabral to destroy that drawing!”

“Not that stair, it takes forever. This corridor is faster.” He waited until she was beside him again, then caught lightly at her arm. “How can you be sure she’s in the Limners’ quarters?”

“Who else would she visit here but her son? Zevi, I wasted a lot of time finding you in that crowd outside. She may already have done what she came to do and left by now. We have to hurry.”

“What do you think she might be doing?”

“How do I know?” she cried, frustrated, and flinched as her voice echoed. More quietly, she continued, “Why here, when she can see Rafeyo anytime at her caza? Why tonight, with everyone gone and the Palasso deserted?”

“’Cordo,” he agreed reluctantly. “The senior estudos are one floor up from the Viehos Fratos. Come on.”

They climbed one flight and were halfway up another when they
heard a woman’s voice rise in some impressively creative cursing. Leilias froze at Zevierin’s side.