Cloud Castles (21 page)

‘Four,’ interrupted Jyp. ‘Get our asses out again. Let’s us not forget that. Okay, who’s got the cloak of invisibility?’

‘It might not be any good. The chances are, whatever Lutz has in the grounds, lights or alarms or whatever, they’re activated by motion detectors – and the most practical outdoor kind is still infra-red. Heat-activated, that is, Mall. Probably with imaging devices, so the security people can get an instant picture.’

Mall shook her head. ‘Ruin for Diana’s foresters and all stout fellows that live by the moon! What do we, cloak ourselves about?’

‘Not exactly. Clothes won’t stop heat radiating – but there are other ways. I’d planned to trace the cables with a metal detector and use a pipe freezer, but Katjka’s got a better idea. If you can get us over that fence without touching the top – and quick.’

Jyp looked at Mall, she at him. He groaned quietly. ‘Okay, strongest first. You, then Steve. Just don’t tread on my ear this time, okay?’

He stood up, peered about warily, then sprinted lightly forward down the bank to the fence and ducked into the shadow of a great ash, his feet hardly crackling in the leaf-mould. He touched the fence gingerly, then
grasped it, splayed his legs and hunched his head down. The moment he was ready Mall rose lithely to her feet, stepped back a pace or two, then with no more of a run-up sprang right from the lip of the bank onto Jyp’s shoulders, and in the instant of landing bent her knees and shot straight upwards as if from a springboard. She rolled in mid-air, and caught an overhanging ash-branch as if it were a polished trapeze. The crash as it bent and swung under her weight sounded appallingly loud, but she dangled there quite calmly and let it settle. Somewhere, the other side of the grounds, a dog barked, but no others answered it, and it sank to silence. Mall swung herself easily up over the fence and shinned along onto the heavier branch next door, her weight bending it till it stooped low over Jyp’s head. ‘I’d sooner you climbed, not jumped,’ came his hoarse whisper. ‘If it’s okay with you.’

I clambered from the bankside to his shoulders, my sword slapping at my calf, and straightening unsteadily up I caught the wiry hand reached down to me. It drew me up with little effort, to meet eyes that positively blazed with effort and excitement; and I was reminded that not all Mall’s strength was of the body. Below us Katjka was already shinning up Jyp, which he proclaimed he enjoyed a lot more – ‘though I surely wish,’ he puffed, steadying her ankles on his shoulders, ‘that you’d left your fancy heels and brought your broomstick. Got her?’

Katjka joined us on the branch, which was creaking alarmingly. We helped her back to the trunk, then dangled down to where Jyp could just grasp our fingers. For such a lean man he was surprisingly heavy, but Mall took most of the weight. ‘We should really have left you,’ I wheezed, ‘as a pointman to help us back out – but somehow I don’t think you’d have liked that, would you? Well, Katjka, it’s your play now.’

She nodded. ‘Lower me to the ground. Behind the tree, here.’ No alarms went off as she touched the mould lightly, then squatted scratching in the earth with a stick, singing an eerie little off-key dance rhythm as if to herself. Sounds pattered on the earth; faint wisps of steam arose; wings rustled suddenly in the branches around us, as if some sleeping small birds had been disturbed. Mall sucked her teeth and
watched from above. At last Katjka looked up, and beckoned. ‘Come!’ she whispered. ‘Come down to me, Stefan!’

It sounded weird, in that damp stillness; but I swung myself down by my hands, and dropped lightly to the earth. Her hand closed on my arm, and the sharp air stung my nostrils. ‘Sso? Do you feel it?’

The air was slightly acrid but it was also very cool, cold even. Mall dropped lightly beside us and shivered, rubbing her arms hard before reaching up for Jyp. ‘A bastard winter’s breath you’ve brought upon us, little spae-witch! I knew not you’d this much of the weather-lore about you!’

‘
Nej
, I do not!’ She sounded amused, and her whisper made her sibilances creepy as hell. ‘Thiss iss no crude breath of Boreas, be ssure of that!’

‘You’re telling me!’ exclaimed Jyp, hopping about as much as he dared. ‘Lord, it’s gettin’ colder!’

‘Cold enough to blind an eye that ssees heat?’ enquired Katjka. ‘If not, it ssoon will be. Come, we must move!’

We were only too willing. Whatever she’d done, it was sucking the heat right out of our bones, and it was no illusion; it clung around us like mist as we moved cautiously out between the trees. But the slight haze seemed to be the result of the cold, not its cause. Only moving kept our blood circulating and our teeth from chattering – though they were ready to. I was unnerved enough anyway, but something right at my elbow was making it a whole lot worse, something I couldn’t see. At the last tree we hesitated. The corner of the great house trimmed off the moonlight sharp as a razor, leaving a wide-open space of grey lawn to cross, with only a few bits of bush and topiary to duck behind. But Katjka strode out fearlessly, and the icy cold seemed to stir her skirts like a slow breeze. Mall plunged after her, with Jyp and me in her wake; we ran all the way to the first possible shelter, and ducked down, shivering.

No alarms; no stirring; nothing. We spared a second to draw lung-searing breaths, then, keeping together, we scuttled for the next shelter, a weirdly sculpted privet. As we dropped down behind it I saw, too late, a concealed plastic frontage at the base, and found myself staring straight into what was evidently a PIR heat scanner. A good one, too; but it didn’t react. Jyp indicated the casing with a nervous finger. It had the faint rime you find in an overcooled freezer. We were just about
to move again when suddenly Mall, in the lead, thrust out a hand to stop us, and sniffed the air. ‘Dogs!’ she hissed.

Jyp nudged her and pointed. Out ahead something was emerging from the shadow, a brace of sleek Rottweilers, dock-tailed and blunt-jawed, straining at their release harnesses as their handler looked alertly around. Mall slid her hand down to her sword; so did I. Jyp had a two-foot bolo blade, heavy enough to double as sword or cleaver, but it was his double-barrelled pistol he reached for. I wrapped a protective arm about Katjka, but to my surprise she shook it off and motioned us forward. ‘But the dogs’ll scent us any moment!’ I whispered fiercely. Too fiercely; I saw the blunt heads lift, the teeth flash in the moonlight. The guard couldn’t have heard me, but they could. Katjka just gave me an enigmatic smile, and stood up, still hidden. The cold became an icy breeze, swirling around us—

The dogs leaped in the air suddenly, both of them, and fell struggling and snapping at each other, tangling lead and harness. The startled handler barely snatched his hand away in time, and released the harness before the beasts could strangle themselves. Suddenly freed, the two huge dogs leaped up and bolted, haring away around the corner of the house with their handler running furiously behind. ‘Scared as cottontails!’ breathed Jyp. ‘Or I’m a butternut squash!’

Mall sniffed again. ‘No more of the brutes near. Yet I’d look to find some roaming without let—’

‘No,’ said Katjka. ‘They have ssome dogs, yes, for dissplay; but they could not let them run free, not here. Not if the things you fear are practised here; and that guard, he seemed not as surprised as might be expected. This would have happened before. Even those brutes are clean beasts of their kind, they cannot bear ssuch presences as they would sense here – or with uss.’

Mall turned on her. ‘With
us?
What sayst, little witch?’

Katjka’s eyes gleamed the self-same grey as the moonlight, unhealthy and pallid. ‘I told you I had no weather-lore. But there was another way. Alwayss there is chill, where the dead are walking.’

‘The …’ Jyp’s whisper failed him. He looked
wildly over his shoulder.

‘War has rolled over this earth, of the Hundred Years, the Peasantss’ Revolt, many more. Many lay unburied on this ssoil, their death hard, their bones scattered. Their shades still look back, and are not hard to recall, for a brief time. We walk … in company.’

Jyp’s face was ashen; Mall’s eyes narrowed. I found there was a huge lump in my gullet, and I couldn’t choke it down.

‘Fear is folly!’ said Katjka sharply. ‘Use them while we may!’ Ducking out from behind the bush, she darted the last long stretch to the wall of the house. We almost fell over ourselves keeping up with her, and the biting air swirled alongside us. We piled gasping into the angle of a great old chimneystack, looking up for any sign of movement at the windows. They were huge and heavy, and very probably they had motion detectors set in the frames, like the ones Lutz had had installed in our depots; that didn’t worry me. I’d chosen this side of the building carefully. The terrace was here, and high above it an elegant turret; and between them lengths of good solid downpipe and guttering. I latched onto one swiftly, feeling carefully around for spikes, non-drying paint or any other little tricks, but it seemed Lutz hadn’t taken this approach seriously; and the metal felt easily strong enough to take my weight. I flashed the others a brief grin, looped a sling around the pipe and began to climb, fast. Four storeys didn’t look that high, but I soon began to wish I’d done more freestyle mountaineering, and that I dared use resin chalk. My fingers were more numb than I’d thought, and as I passed a window the panes frosted briefly, as at a passing breath; I had to force myself not to shudder. The dead were still with me, then; but weren’t they always? I clamped a grip so hard it hurt, and clambered on.

The pipes were solid and well maintained, and I found ample hand and toe holds on their joints and fastenings. The hard part was the guttering, between the second and third storeys and again at the top, a great knobbly overhang of water-grooved masonry lined with a lead channel that almost tore free under my scrabbling fingertips, and decanted a tasteful mix of leaves and anonymous muck down my neck. Dead pigeons, probably; by the time I reached the roof I was past caring. Fortunately when this pile was built roof-tops had been places to come and enjoy the view, so there was an ornamental parapet I could pinch-grip, carved into flatulent family mottoes and
po-faced pious slogans. I mantelshelfed myself in over the V of HVMILITAS, watching for wires or contacts, and collapsed, wheezing. What felt like a century had actually taken about five minutes, but I still couldn’t hang around; I looped my line round the A, which looked the most solid, and let it down. Jyp came shinning up at speed, leaning down to lend Katjka a hand; Mall boosted her from behind, swung her long legs over the parapet and looped in the rope, leaving it tied for a fast descent.

The air up here felt a lot warmer, for reasons I didn’t want to think about, but we were still shivering. Jyp produced a bronze flask and handed it around; the contents were clear, odourless, slightly greasy and went off like a bomb in my throat. White Lightning, as fearsome a spot of blockade whiskey as ever dissolved a liver.

‘Hope you put the enamel back on the bathtub,’ I told him as I handed it back.

He snorted. ‘Where this was ‘stilled they don’t
have
bathtubs.’

It wasn’t exactly the Water of Life, but it had a remarkably heartening effect on us all. We turned and confronted what we’d been carefully ignoring, the great glass cupola in the roof. It was curtained and dark, a shadow-pool in which nothing stirred except our mirrored faces. Some of the stained-glass panes were hinged to open. ‘Ten to one he’s got those jiggered,’ remarked Jyp. ‘But these ones here don’t look too strong-set.’

Swiftly we attacked the surrounding lead, and soon we could more or less lift out one of the fixed panes. Jyp held us back. ‘Hey, how about these here detector things inside?’

Katjka shook her head. ‘Not if he uses this room as we believe. He could not risk … ssomething triggering them, and his guards rushing in. There will be other ssafeguards, depend on it.’

I parted the curtains and peered in, with Katjka’s breath warm on my cheek. Nothing but silence, heavy and undisturbed, and the faint mustiness of a room seldom opened. Nervously I fished out my flashlight; the darkness seemed to drink the beam, showing me only a narrow circle of pale carpet. ‘It’s under there,’ I whispered.

Jyp looked to Katjka, who shrugged. ‘I ssense nothing. That does not mean nothing is there.’

Mall was already sliding her legs through
the gap. I caught her arm, but she shook it off. ‘I stand shielded, in some wise!’ she whispered, paying out a short length of line. ‘I first, then let the little witch follow. Only then, you men!’ Without further ado she kicked off, caught the line and swung for an instant as it snapped taut, scanning the floor with her light, then dropped the last foot or two to the carpet, landing with feather delicacy. Katjka followed, muttering curses as she snagged a petticoat on a nail. Mall caught her round the waist and lowered her soundlessly, and after she’d sniffed the air a little Jyp and I were allowed to follow. We stood on the deep carpet, shining our flashlights aimlessly around the oval walls, feeling the anticlimax after all the effort of getting in.

Jyp shrugged. ‘Well, if your friend does mess with things he oughtn’t in here, he covers up real well. Looks boring as a bishop’s bedroom!’

Mall’s grin flashed in the faint light. ‘Ah, mind, the tales I could tell of prelates …’

Katjka spat like a cat, and began to claw at the nearest of the elegant cabinets that lined the walls. It was locked, but somehow the lock popped back under her clutching fingers. Metal gleamed within the mirrored shelves, those ornate vessels I’d seen, silver and gold and silver-gilt. With frenetic energy she rounded on the next one, revealing astrolabes and other marvellous old scientific instruments, richly chased and decorated, worth a fortune if they were genuine.

I balked slightly. ‘This could be just some of Lutz’s antiques, Katjka. He’s a well-known collector after all – and seriously rich—’ But she opened the next cabinet, and I recoiled. It held only folds of rich heavy cloth, faded and dusty-looking but gleaming with bullion embroidery. But all across them were spatters and stains, and the stink of them rolled out into the still air.