The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) (65 page)

“
Where is Phinneas?” Claudja demanded in the most regal tone she could summon.

Uella beckoned with a finger, the nail a dark red that matched her dress.

“
Come this way, and I will show you.”

“
I am not going anywhere with you, Devil Woman,” Claudja said. Uella frowned.

“
First off, I am a demon, not a devil. No tail, as you can see. Second…what do I call you?”

Claudja was not about to go on casual terms with a demon.

“
I am the Duchess of Chengdea.”

“
Good for you. Second, Duchess, you absolutely are coming with me. But I leave it to you if you wish to walk, or would prefer being bound and dragged.”

Claudja’s heart was racing and the palms of her clenched hands were clammy.

“
Shall I get a rope?” Uella grinned, but Claudja stepped away from the wall. The demoness gave a disappointed cluck and a shrug, then turned to lead the way out into the hall, turning to the right. Her gown was open in the back from neck to her slim waist, allowing her wings plenty of room.

There was indeed a bearded devil in the hall, standing just to the left of the door and holding a pole arm with a cluster of sharp blades and twisting hooks at the top. Claudja shied away from the creature and followed Uella, who was skipping away down a wide passage lined with doors on both sides, illuminated by candles in ornate candelabras. The demoness was whistling an unfamiliar tune. Claudja looked back over her shoulder and saw that the bearded devil was following them, albeit it at a polite distance behind.

Uella skipped along gaily for quite a while before halting before another door where a bearded devil stood guard, and Claudja hurried forward hopefully. As she arrived the demoness pulled open the door and Claudja looked into a room very much like her own. Phinneas Phoarty was just sitting up in the bed, where he had been lying atop the covers. His face looked freshly scrubbed though his eyes were sunken and exhausted, and his gray wizard robes were clean. They actually looked like they had been pressed.

Claudja and Phin shouted each others names, but Uella slammed the door and shot the bolt.

“
Everyone brushed and watered, as you can see,” the demoness beamed.

The door shook as Phin put a shoulder against it and he continued to shout, asking Claudja if she was all right.

“
I’m fine,” she said back through the door, though she had no idea if she was or not.

Phin hammered with his hands, echoing loudly in the long hall. Uella frowned.

“
Phin, calm down,” Claudja called, but he was still shouting rather than listening. A deep snarl rumbled from Uella’s throat and she bawled, “THAT’S ENOUGH, MAGGOT!” in a booming voice.

Phin’s room must have had a similar table and chair situation as Claudja’s, for it sounded as though the Wizard reeled back into them, knocking furniture to the floor and falling himself with a grunt.

“
Ahem,” Uella said. “This way now, Duchess.”

The demoness pranced on, whistling again, and Claudja took a last look at Phin’s door before following. One bearded devil still followed her, while the second remained at its post.

The hall ended at an open doorway beyond which a wide staircase with multiple landings descended along the outer wall of an open square shaft. Everything was of stone, presumably the same black material as the rest of Vod’Adia, but here all was painted in a soft brown tone that looked warm in the flickering light of more candles. The stairs were carpeted and the stone banisters were intricately carved with whirling designs. Claudja could see down the middle of the shaft all five stories to the ground, to a floor that looked like white marble.

Uella led the way down by the expedient of hiking her gown up over her boots and sliding sidesaddle down each banister, crying “
Weeeee
!” every time, and waiting giggling at each landing for Claudja to walk down the steps behind her. Claudja started to wonder if insanity was typical to all demons, or if Uella was peculiar even for her kind.

The landing of the second floor had no wall on the outside of the shaft, leaving a balcony with a banister across the open space. Uella sat on the banister, swinging her feet over the side, and Claudja gasped as she looked out past the demon‘s furled wings. They had reached the outward end of the long gallery, and Claudja saw with some surprise that the adjoining tower was hollow within, just an enormous space like the interior of a silo with windowless black walls and a floor of naked white stone. Several torches burned on stands down on the floor beyond the banister, and their light did not reach all the way up the round walls to the ceiling high above. It did illuminate a great pair of doors at ground level, across from the balcony where Claudja stood and Uella sat. Even as the Duchess looked at them, the two wooden portals were swinging open.

“
Such timing,” Uella said happily.

The doors swung wide and a single figure stepped into the torchlight from the night beyond, a male devil with a tail and a single hoof that struck up a spark each time it touched the floor. It walked in past the torches, turned around and gave a deep bow, moving its arms in a sharp gray jacket as though bidding others to enter. Two more figures did so slowly, creeping into the cavernous space and looking all around. On the left was a man in ragged armor carrying a crossbow pointed at the floor, and on the right with a short bow at a half-pull, familiar in her triangular half-cloak now coated a dusty gray, was Matilda Lanai.

*

The party had all understood the devil Balan’s voice as he promised them safe passage, and vowed that neither he nor his minions would do them any harm. Tilda did not believe the creature for a moment, and when Zeb relayed Nesha-tari’s assurances that the devil must adhere to the letter of all promises it made, she did not believe the Zant sorceress either.

Nesha-tari was determined to go to the palace with the creature, and the Westerners would of course go with her. John Deskata said nothing, but plainly meant to go along as well. After exchanging several skeptical glances, Tilda, Zeb, and Brother Heggenauer joined the others rather than remain behind in the house.

The party lit torches and followed Balan’s sparking hoof across the open ground around the palace, crossing an arching footbridge over a dry ditch along the way. As they approached the tall doors to the northernmost of the nine towers ringing the place, everyone but Nesha-tari readied their weapons. Tilda and Zeb moved to the front with their bows.

The doors opened just as Balan approached them and the devil walked through to stand in the middle of a large open area, turning and beckoning to the party. Tilda glanced at Zeb, who met her eyes.

“
If this goes horribly wrong, will you do me a favor?” he whispered.

“
What?”

“
Shoot me first. Plumb in the head.”

A single bark of laughter that sounded slightly hysterical snuck out of Tilda’s mouth before she pressed her lips together tightly.

She and Zeb crept in, scanning the vast space all around which was mostly lost in shadows that reeked of ambush. Balan waited for them with a wide smile, and when they neared the edge of illumination from the torches on iron stands set around him, someone shouted Tilda’s name from across the room.

Tilda drew her bow fully and sighted down the shaft on Balan’s forehead, as he was still the only target she could see. From the easy way the devil smiled back at Tilda she was sure a non-magical arrow would bounce off his head without leaving a scratch. Running footsteps against stone sounded from across the tower and behind the devil for the entire structure was hollow inside, and suddenly the Duchess Claudja Perforce of Chengdea was running past the torches, looking fresher and cleaner than she had any right to, and with her gray eyes open wide.

Tilda could not bring herself to turn her bow on the Duchess, but Claudja must have seen the look of alarm in her eyes. The Duchess slid to a halt on the smooth flagstones while she was still several strides away.

“
Is this a trick?” Tilda barked. Claudja stared at her.

“
If it was, would I say so?”

“
Duchess Perforce,” Heggenauer said, his shield clanging against the back of his breastplate as he hurried forward, carrying a torch along with his mace.

“
Brother Heggenauer?” Claudja’s stunned eyes snapped between Tilda and the priest. “What are the two of you doing here?”

“
Um. It’s sort of a rescue,” Tilda said.

Claudja kept staring at the two of them, and her narrow shoulders trembled one time.

“
That is the stupidest, kindest thing I’ve ever heard,” the Duchess said, then swept forward and hugged both Tilda and Heggenauer soundly. Tilda relaxed her drawn bow and Heggenauer held his torch away in time to avoid shooting the Duchess, or setting her on fire.

“
No trick,” Balan called from the center of the round chamber. “Consider it a gesture of good faith. Are anyone else’s eyes feeling misty?”

“
Where is the Wizard, Balan?” Nesha-tari demanded, and Tilda turned to look at her over Claudja’s arm.

“
Nesha-tari?” she asked.

“
What?” Nesha-tari said, still glaring at Balan.

“
I understand you.”

Nesha-tari’s blue eyes turned to Tilda, and her fine brown eyebrows raised.

“
I understand you as well.”

“
That would also be my doing,” Balan called. “A simple enough spell, but one that greatly eases communication. In answer to your question, Madame Nesha-tari, the Circle Wizard is here. In my custody.”

Claudja released Tilda and Heggenauer and spun on the devil, her clothes and face now dusty again from the hug.

“
He is upstairs, in this building. A room on the fifth floor.”

“
There you have it,” Balan held out a hand. “Your friend has seen him only moments ago, alive and well.”

“
Why do I doubt you will simply permit us to retrieve him, fiendish one?” Uriako Shikashe said grimly, causing everyone to stare at him.

Balan nodded. “You are catching on, noble swordsman. First things first, we need to talk.”

“
What if we just want to go up and get him ourselves?” Deskata asked.

“
You won’t make it. Safe passage does not hold if you people attack us first.”

“
Tilda, what is going on? Who are these people?” Claudja asked. Tilda sighed.

“
Claudja…it’s such a long story. I don’t even know where to start.”

They had spoken quietly, but Balan plainly heard them.

“
Take a minute and work it out. In fact, I think you all could use a little time before we get down to brass tacks.”

The devil waved a hand and across the tower a smaller pair of double doors opened beneath a balcony, revealing a brightly-lit room with a table and chairs in the center. Several open doors lined the walls.

“
There are drawn baths waiting in the side rooms, enough for everyone unless you feel like doubling-up with a buddy. Help yourselves to the beverages and nibbles. Your friend can assure you that all of it is safe, as of course do I.”

“
I do not need a bath, Balan,” Nesha-tari sneered. The devil clutched its lapels and looked solemn.

“
Madame Nesha-tari, you know that I am unable to speak an untrue word. That being said, you do need a bath, Madame. The whole lot of you smell like a fire in a junkyard. No offense.”

The party glanced around at each other, but no one raised a word of denial.

“
So there it is,” Balan clapped his hands. “Make use of our hospitality, or do not. I will leave you to your own devices for the time being, and return in an hour or so.”

The devil turned and strode for the stairs. Tilda did not know if she should try to stop him, and looking around it did not appear anyone else did either. Balan halted himself at the foot of the stairs.

“
I should probably add that the various demons and daemons hereabouts are technically
not
my minions, nor are they under my control. Please do not go wandering around, for if you encounter any of them they will surely attack you out of hand.”

Balan bowed again, then put a hand on the end of the banister, spun around it, and disappeared with a rustle of his coat tails.

The party entered the rooms the devil had indicated, and though some of them may have had no intention of touching the food on the table nor of trying the waters, the temptation of it all was too much. Nesha-tari headed for a tub immediately and slammed the door shut behind her, and Zeb did not keel over after bolting several strips of salted venison. Everyone bathed and ate after that, and did what they could to beat the dust out of their clothes.

After she had washed, Tilda sat at the table with Claudja and the two hurriedly covered what had happened to them both over the last several days. Tilda said she was sorry about Sir Towsan, and assured the Duchess that the Jobians in Camp Town had taken the knight to their temple in honor.

“
The men who killed him met justice,” Claudja said with her eyes hard, though she did not elaborate.

“
John will no doubt be pleased,” Tilda muttered.

“
Who is John?” Claudja asked, looking around the room. Zeb was trying to strike up a conversation with Shikashe, but the samurai was no less taciturn now that he could have communicated had he wanted to do so.