Rip had a sense of something foul striking the door and then recoiling in hurt or fear. But it hadn’t gone far; he could feel that too. Still, for the moment he felt safe. Safer even than in their prison up above. He turned to look at the room they were in. Kay and Neesa stared at him, pale and frightened. Beside him Mandy gave a sigh and slid to the floor, huddling in on herself, her eyes staring at nothing.
Rip looked around. They were in a bedroom. It was furnished with stark simplicity, and yet the furnishings themselves were finely made, like more of old Emmet’s stories, or the ones Ma had told him about palaces in the sky. The furniture was all carved delicately out of dark wood, and polished, and there was cloth on the seats, fine weave with a pattern in it. There were no mirrors or pictures on the walls, or the large cloth hangings like in the other room, but Rip knew this room was used by gentlefolk. Then he noticed Neesa was staring and he turned to see where her eyes looked; opposite where he stood was a doorway.
Neesa pointed and said, in soft tones, ‘She’s in there.’
As though drawn, he went toward it, but when he got there he hesitated. Something bad was behind this door. Not something wicked in itself, like what waited for them out in the corridor. It was as if something bad was happening in the room behind the door.
But Rip had to see and fear didn’t hold him long. He opened the door. The room was dim, as though some of the shades of night still lingered there and candles brightened it only slightly. There was a bed in the middle of the room and on the bed was a beautiful young woman. Asleep? No, she wasn’t breathing. The woman was dead. He took an involuntary step backward, then stopped.
Rip looked closer at her, fascinated and appalled. He took in a long, slow breath of horror, having realized somehow that though she should be dead, she wasn’t. Then he slammed the door and leaned against it, feeling sick. When he looked up he saw that the others had also seen what he had. Did you feel it? he wondered, but didn’t dare say anything out loud. It was like the presences: for some reason he didn’t think it would be wise to acknowledge what he’d felt.
‘That’s a dead lady,’ Kay said, whiter than ever.
Neesa whispered, ‘No. She’s not dead.’
‘But she’s not moving,’ Rip said. ‘She’s not breathing.’
‘She’s not dead,’ Neesa repeated. ‘She talks to me.’
‘We can’t stay here!’ Rip sounded accusing and panicked.
The others looked at him in surprise. Mandy said, ‘Where else can we go?’
Rip insisted. ‘We can’t stay here!’
Kay sat on a chair nearest the door and said, ‘I can’t move.’
Neesa came and put her hand on Rip’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right. We’ll be safe here…for a little while.’
Rip didn’t know what to say. He had no idea where else they could hide, so he sat on the floor. He was tired and hungry and scared. Right now, despite the lady in the other room, this place felt safer than any place he had been since waking up.
Rip looked around the room; there was a decanter on a table beside the bed and a goblet. He went over to it and took a sniff. Wine. He wrinkled his nose–he didn’t like wine unless it was well watered. But he was thirsty enough not to really care. He poured himself a draught and he took a swallow.
His eyes flew open. It was good! It spread a fragrant warmth through his mouth and down his throat all the way to his belly. From there it sped to warm his skin. He looked uncertainly at Neesa, then decided that she wouldn’t be harmed by just a little. No doubt she was as thirsty as he’d been.
‘Let’s eat,’ he said. Then bringing the decanter and cup with him, he sat down in the middle of the floor.
Mandy licked her lips, then nodded and fetched out the bread and cheese from her pillowcase. Neesa gnawed a chunk off the loaf with a look of fierce concentration that almost made Rip laugh.
‘We can’t eat here!’ Kay said, barely containing his whisper. ‘There’s a dead woman in there. We’ll die!’
Mandy snorted. She took the loaf from Neesa and broke herself off a piece. ‘We will not!’ she said. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You always eat when someone dies. Gran died, and we all ate these pastries and things; even Mother, and she was crying.’
‘Drink this,’ Rip said and offered Kay a goblet of the wine.
Kay recoiled, his face full of disgust. ‘I’m not going to drink that! It’s probably poisoned.’
Rip rolled his eyes. ‘It’s not poisoned. I just drank some, do I look like I’ve been poisoned?’
‘Besides,’ Mandy said, offering Kay a piece of bread and a chunk of cheese, ‘who would keep poison on their night table?’
‘I’ll take some!’ Neesa said, reaching out for the goblet.
Rip gave it to her. After she swallowed three times, Mandy forced her hand down and said, ‘Just another sip. Can’t have you passing out on us.’ Rip nodded. Like any farm-boy, he had witnessed the effects of too much wine on his father and the other men in the area during festivals and he knew it wouldn’t take much to get the small girl completely drunk.
Neesa seemed on the verge of complaint when Rip pulled the cup away, but kept her objections to herself. Kay reached, shamefaced, for the goblet.
‘Wait your turn,’ Mandy said and took it for herself.
Kay gave her a weak smile and backed off. He went to the window and looked out. ‘Could we get down from here if we knotted the sheets together?’ he asked.
Rip went over and looked out of the window. It was a sheer drop of perhaps forty feet onto a flagstone courtyard. He just looked at Kay and walked back to the others.
Kay turned from the window, pouting, and slid down the wall to sit in a crouch and eat his bread. After a moment, he began to sob, then to cry in earnest. He made a sad and unattractive sight, his face bright red, his mouth wide open, revealing half-chewed gobbets of bread.
Rip and Mandy looked at one another uncomfortably, uncertain how to react. This was so unlike Kay, who would have laughed unmercifully if one of them had broken down so completely. Neesa looked at Kay for a moment, then pushed herself up from the floor and went over to pat him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be sad,’ she said.
After a moment Kay looked up at Rip, tears pouring down his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I’m sorry. But I am so scared.’ He leaned over, putting his cheek against Neesa’s head, and continued to weep.
Neesa frowned, then put her hand up to the top of her head. ‘You’re getting my hair wet,’ she accused.
‘Sorry,’ Kay said and lifted his head. He got his crying under control.
‘We’re all scared,’ Rip assured him. ‘I don’t like saying it, but I am.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ Kay asked, tears threatening to break loose again. He pointed to the inner door. ‘There’s a dead woman behind there.’ Then he pointed to the outer door, ‘And there’s a ghost in the hall. We can’t get out of the window. What are we going to do?’
Mandy pushed the goblet at him before he could go off again. ‘Drink,’ she said with ferocious emphasis. Kay did so and it seemed to help.
Rip stared glumly at the opposite wall. It was decorated with a carving of a plant in an urn. It was very elaborate, with all kinds of curlicues, not very pretty, but well done. As he stared, it seemed to him that something was wrong with that wall. From the way it projected into the room there should be a closet in it, but there wasn’t. And now that he thought about it, the wall in the corridor was straight and smooth. So why was the wall on the inside bent like that? Can it be a secret passage like King Akter used to escape the wicked uncle? he thought.
Suddenly Neesa said, ‘Yes!’ She stood and walked right to where Rip was looking, and went to the wall as if hypnotized and began pressing every berry and flower centre, tracing every curve of every frond, looking for something that might press in.
He hadn’t been too sure just what a secret passage was or how it worked when Emmet had tol
d him the story, but he hadn’t seen a real castle then. They were so big. Could he actually be looking at one right now?
‘What are you doing?’ Mandy asked.
Neesa pressed one last projection. It sank beneath her finger and something clicked. The wall swung open with a soft creak. Rip approached and stared at it breathlessly for a long moment then Kay and Mandy came to stand beside him.
‘Open it,’ Kay said, looking pale and dazed.
Rip did. The opening revealed a set of steps leading into pitch blackness.
‘Dark,’ Neesa said, taking hold of Mandy’s hand.
‘We’ll need candles,’ Mandy said, ever practical. ‘There’s some in that woman’s room…’
‘No!’ Kay said and grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t go in there!’
Rip silently agreed.
‘Well what are we supposed to do?’ she demanded. ‘If we take that one,’ she pointed to the night table, ‘they’ll know someone was here.’
‘They’ll know someone was here anyway,’ Rip said. ‘We drank most of the wine, remember?’
‘But if we take the candle they might guess we went this way.’ Mandy’s face had a stubborn look.
‘They won’t know!’ insisted Rip. ‘They’d have to find the passage like Neesa did.’ Then he looked at Neesa. ‘I was thinking about a passage, from a story my pa told me. How did you know?’
‘I didn’t,’ answered Neesa. ‘She told me.’ With a nod of her head she indicated the next room.
Rip couldn’t repress a shudder. ‘Look, they might think we were here, but they’ll think we left by the door.’ He marched over and unlocked it, suddenly certain that whatever had tried to follow them into the room was not there. He didn’t know why he knew, just that it felt right. ‘So, they’ll look all over the place, and even if they come back and find this passage, we’ll have been gone a long time,’ Rip explained.
He went to the night table, checked the bedside drawer and found two more candles and a striker. Handing one to Mandy, he stuffed the other into his shirt, then lit the one in her hand and took it from her. They were very good candles–wax, not tallow dips–Ma had three like them for special times. Then he put the striker in his shirt next to the other candle.
He and Mandy looked at one another for a long moment, then Mandy’s eyes flickered toward the corridor. She took a deep breath. ‘You go first,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow.’
Rip took a deep breath to steady himself and hoped it didn’t show. He was afraid of that dark hole between the walls too. But since they had no other way to go he supposed they might as well get it over with.
A timid knock on the door of Lyman Malachy’s laboratory brought his head up from his work table. A glance at the Baron who sat beside him was met with a frown.
‘Come in,’ Malachy said. He wiped his hands and stepped toward the door. The Baron rose from his chair and put aside his book.
A very nervous and greasy-looking mercenary opened the door and advanced a half pace into the room. His posture was absurdly deferential.
‘Sorry to interrupt yer worships,’ the man said, bobbing in an almost continuous bow, eyes flickering to the geometric shapes on parchments pinned to the walls, to things chalked on the floor, to books and instruments.
‘The, uh, the children…’
Lyman closed his eyes; he’d known it was going to be bad, but if something had happened to those children heads would roll. ‘Ye-sss?’ he said aloud.
‘They’ve, uh, the little brats have escaped, yer worships.’
The Baron shifted his stance and Lyman knew without looking that he was giving the messenger a look that might cause a strong man to faint. This fool was not a strong man. The wizard moved to defuse the situation.
‘You mean they’re out of their room,’ Lyman said calmly. ‘In point of fact they cannot get out of the house.’ Speaking over his shoulder to the Baron he said, ‘I’ve made arrangements.’ He turned back to the mercenary. ‘So they’ll be somewhere in the house.’ Flicking his hand in a gesture of dismissal he said, ‘Go and find them. And, mind you don’t harm them. I very much doubt you’d like the consequences if you so much as scratch one of them. Do you understand?’
The man nodded and backed out, bowing, pulling the door closed after him.
Lyman shrugged. ‘Damned nuisance!’
Bernarr frowned. ‘Indeed,’ he said coldly. He sat down again. ‘Why do you have so many at one time? We won’t need another one for at least a week.’
The wizard bit his lips and looked thoughtfully at the Baron. Then he went over and pulled a chair close to the one in which Bernarr was sitting. ‘I’ve been collecting them for several reasons,’ he admitted. ‘One, it’s not that easy to find a child born on the day your lady…entered her present state. And though the spell we found to extend her life by using the life-energy of these children has at least kept her condition from deteriorating, well,’ he extended his hands palms up and shrugged, ‘it hasn’t improved it at all.’
‘I thought that I saw something the last time,’ Bernarr said. He stared into the distance as though remembering. ‘A twitch of her mouth, and a finger, I’m sure I saw one finger move, ever so slightly.’
‘Mmm, mm, yes, just possibly,’ Lyman agreed. ‘But we need more, much more, my lord. After all, our goal is to free her completely, is it not?’
Bernarr’s eyes shifted toward the wizard and narrowed. ‘What is in your mind?’ he asked in a slow, quiet voice.
Lyman rubbed his hands excitedly. ‘The very book that you’re reading gave me the idea,’ he said. ‘If we can raise a life-force powerful enough we may well succeed in curing and waking your lady.’
Furious, the Baron lunged forward, grasping the front of the wizard’s robe in his gnarled hand. ‘Why have you not told me this before?’
‘Because I did not know about it,’ Lyman said with a sick smile. ‘We only just acquired that book, you know.’
The Baron let him go and leaned back in his chair. ‘Show me!’
Nervously, the wizard took the book, sped through the pages and presented it to the Baron once he’d found what he was looking for.
Bernarr studied the text, frowning over the curious antique phrasing. Then his eyebrows rose and his mouth opened.
‘Seven times seven,’ the wizard babbled. ‘A mystical number, you see.’
‘Forty-nine?’ Bernarr said in disbelief. ‘Forty-nine! Are you mad? Why not nine times nine? That, too, is a mystical number.’
‘Unnecessary,’ Lyman said with a wave of his hand. ‘The effect isn’t increased if the number of sacrifices is larger.’
‘It sickens me to murder these children one at a time!’ the Baron exclaimed. ‘But…forty-nine? We will be awash in blood.’
‘What I think will increase the effect,’ Lyman said as if he hadn’t heard the Baron’s objections, ‘is to sacrifice them all at once.’
Bernarr stared at him. ‘Forty-nine at once? Is that what you said?’
‘Yes. You see we’ll create a means to collect all the life-force at once and direct it to your lady. Such a large jolt is sure to do the trick.’
‘Are you suggesting that we recruit forty-seven helpers in such a bloody act?’ Bernarr looked at him warily, as though uncertain about the wizard’s sanity.
‘Gods forbid!’ Lyman exclaimed. ‘No, no, that wouldn’t do at all. The blow must be struck absolutely simultaneously in all forty-nine cases. One could never co-ordinate that, even if your helpers practised for weeks.’
Interested in spite of his disgust, the Baron asked, ‘Then how do you propose to accomplish such a thing?’
‘I’ve designed a machine.’ The wizard jumped to his feet and went to the work table. He returned with a roll of parchment and spread it on his knees. ‘You see,’ he indicated several points on the drawing, ‘when the original blow is struck all the other knives descend as well.’
Bernarr leaned over the drawing, studying its particulars. ‘But how can you
be sure you’ll have enough pressure?’
‘That’s what these cylinders are,’ Lyman said, indicating them on the drawing. ‘They’re twenty-pound weights and, of course, the knives will be extremely sharp. So?’ He looked at his patron. ‘What do you think?’
‘Fascinating,’ Bernarr murmured. Then he shook his head. ‘But I cannot like it. Bad enough to take them one by one, but this many at once will draw attention.’ He thought for a moment, then shook his head again. ‘No. I don’t see how we can do it.’
The wizard drew back, affronted. ‘Well, of course, the ideal solution would be to use a child born at the exact instant that your lady was endangered. That would have been your son.’ He looked at the Baron with a stiff-lipped frown. ‘But, unfortunately you impulsively made that impossible. Didn’t you?’
Bernarr glared at him. ‘Well you might have said something at the time,’ he pointed out.
Lyman sniffed. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But you didn’t trust me then and might not have listened. And you were understandably distraught; another man might have succumbed to a paternal impulse and kept the child while letting his beloved go, but you saw the boy as the cause of her death–’ a black look from Bernarr caused him to amend his statement, ‘–her unfortunate condition, and had him disposed of.’
Something flickered across the Baron’s face and not for the first time Lyman wondered if there was more involved in that choice than he understood, even after all these years. He said, ‘Still, a terrible waste.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Hmm. Do you know where they buried him? Perhaps I can do something with the bones.’
Bernarr thought about that. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘I wasn’t interested at the time. And you’ve never mentioned it before.’ He frowned. ‘I will ask the midwife. She still lives in a nearby village. She will know what was done with the creature.’
‘Excellent, my lord,’ Lyman said, smiling. ‘And do keep the plan and think about my other suggestion. I fear that without your son it may be the only way to bring your lady back.’