Gold Throne in Shadow (23 page)

The doorman bowed deeply before turning to crank open the heavy iron door. It squealed on its hinges, flakes of rust drifting down, finally coming to a stop halfway open. With an apologetic smile the doorman threw his body against the door, trying to move it, in vain.

“That's okay,” Christopher said. “By the way, an excellent performance.” He had the distinct suspicion that the doorman loaded the hinges with rust flakes in between each visitor.

“A last detail, my lord,” the doorman said. “You must rely on the wizard to provide illumination.”

Christopher took his light-stone out of his pocket and handed it to Torme, ignoring the doorman's outstretched hand. Stepping around the edge of the door, Christopher entered the tower.

The room inside was completely dark, not even allowing the light from outside to enter. Shadow, solid and monolithic, started at the edge of the door, a black fog impenetrable and featureless save for the glow of magically illuminated paving stones leading into the tower. Stepping into the darkness was unearthly. He could see nothing but the stones. He could only see his hand if it were in the path of the stones, a blank silhouette.

“Knock three times when you've changed your mind,” the doorman called. Christopher looked back, but he could see nothing outside of the tower, either, the intangible fog cutting off all vision. He could hear the door cranking shut, however, and the solid thud when it meshed into the stone lintel.

When the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, he discovered he was not immune to superstition and spookery.

But the vision of the little girl came to him, and in an instant the theatrics were wasted. Striding across the glowing stones brought him to a spiral iron staircase, every other step illuminated like the path. Unwilling to endure any cruel tricks, he took the staircase two steps at a time, until it deposited him on what he guessed was the third floor, a room of only ordinary darkness.

This room was dressed like a crypt, with rough stone benches and a handful of light-stones flickering from iron candelabra sticking out in regular intervals from the wall. The color they shed was black, a feat Christopher found wholly inexplicable, until he realized they must be in the ultraviolet spectrum. His skin shone with an unnatural reflection, as did cobwebs draped around the room. He reached out and touched one. Brittle with age, it crackled in his hand.

“Why do you disturb my rest?” The voice was sonorous, and Christopher turned to see where it came from.

The wizard sat on a stone throne, draped in black robes. Christopher could not see his face under the hood. But remembering Lalania's description rendered the illusions ineffectual.

“For good reason, Lord Wizard. I have come to report a murder.”

“Isn't that what I pay the Captain for?” The querulousness of the question diminished the effect of the grave tone.

“This is beyond his ability,” Christopher said. He had completely forgotten to even mention it to the Captain, but he knew it would have been a waste of time. “The murderer is a professional assassin.”

The wizard tapped long fingernails on the stone arm of his throne. “I presume the assassin stalks you. So why does this concern me?”

Christopher came straight to the point. “I want your help in finding her.”

Leaning back, the wizard shook his head gently, so as not to disturb the careful folds of his hood. “You fail on two points. First, I have no incentive to help you, and secondly, I could not if I wanted to. Hunting down an Invisible Guild rat is a job for dogs and policemen, not wizards.”

“Then give me permission to search the city.” He would funnel every adult woman through a zone of truth if he had to.

But the wizard anticipated him. “I will not let you turn my city upside down and shake it until everything falls loose. I would hear no end of complaining, and I cannot bear it. Have you not done enough already?”

“Then what are you going to do?” Christopher demanded.

“The obvious solution would be to remove the attraction. Banishing your army would be easier than banishing one invisible woman.”

The wizard's tone was ironic, but the truth of it washed over Christopher like fresh water.

“Yes. Banish me. Build me a fort to the south, and I will take my army and my person away from here. For the small cost of a week of your time, I will extend your southern border twenty miles, giving your farmers the protection of at least an early warning.” He was making up plans as fast as he talked, all the pieces tumbling into place easily. “They will flock to those empty lands, raising your taxes. My soldiers will only trouble your tavern keepers every few weeks, when their pockets are full of silver. And I may be able to find some ulvenmen, which will make the King happy.”

The wizard stopped his improv with a raised hand.

“I see your point. Indeed, it makes so much sense one wonders why no commander has ever volunteered it before. I confess a certain curiosity as to your motivation.”

Because life in this city had lost its allure, slain by a single white quarrel. And also, paradoxically, because it had too much allure. Not just the teenage girl in his bed, but the desire to upend the entire social order, which the wizard would probably interpret as a threat to his rule.

“Because I am haunted by too many women,” he said, trying to give an answer that was reasonably close to the truth. The luscious body of his young seductress, still fresh in his memory, brought him not even a shred of guilt-tinged arousal. In his mind she wore the face of the young mother he had so terribly failed.

The wizard laughed, forgetting his role as undead overlord. Then he caught himself, and tried to cover it up with a fit of coughing.

“It's okay,” Christopher said. “I know it's just an illusion.”

“How?” Then, again, in the graveyard tones. “How do you defeat my magic?”

“What incentive do I have to reveal my secrets?” Cheeky, yes, perhaps even impertinent in the face of so much rank, but Christopher was buoyed by his sudden plan. Though escape was no victory, it was better than despair.

“To earn my favor. Does that mean so little to you?”

A sense of relief washed through Christopher. The mere fact that the wizard was arguing meant Christopher had room to negotiate.

“Now that you mention it, I would like to ask a favor of you. Can you teach me to fly?”

The wizard was taken aback. “I thought you a priest.”

“I am, but of a god of Travel. I can memorize the spell, I just don't know how to use it.”

The wizard hesitated, and then came to a decision. He pulled his hood back, so he could look Christopher directly in the face. The transformation from figure of dread to middle-aged insurance adjustor was more unbalancing than any of the theatrics had been.

“You would be a most unusual apprentice.”

“Not exactly an apprentice. After all, I'll be showing you something new, too.”

“You would be an odd choice of partner, as well.”

“It's true, I'm just plain odd.” Geek humor, but the wizard smirked, and then said the most unexpected thing possible.

“Would you like a drink? I've got some imported wine around here, somewhere.”

The emotional depletion of the entire day sagged at Christopher. “Yes, actually, I would.”

When the wizard stood up from the throne, he was a head shorter than Christopher. He started pushing at the lid of a stone coffin, and Christopher went to help him. Inside the coffin was a pile of hay and a number of bottles.

“Keeps it cool and dry during the day,” the wizard said. “These blasted summers are unbearable. Now . . . some glasses.” He stared absently into the distance, and Christopher could hear glass tinkling. Straight out of the stone wall floated a pair of huge goblets, suspended on thin air. This was spookier than anything else Christopher had seen in the tower, sending an involuntary twitch through his shoulders. The wizard seemed oblivious, absently snatching one of the goblets while he rooted around for a bottle.

Christopher steeled his nerve and plucked the remaining goblet out of the air. It came away in his hand with only the slightest resistance, and then it was just a glass.

Not just a glass. When he looked inside it, a huge beetle crawled out and fell to the floor.

“Blasted bugs,” the wizard snorted, and stomped on it.

“Um. Do you have a sink?” Christopher stared at the remains of the huge insect that had just been in his drinking vessel.

“Yes, this way.” He walked through the wall and disappeared. Christopher could not help himself; he extended a hand and watched it disappear into the wall, feeling nothing. It was, as he expected, mere illusion. He still closed his eyes as he stepped over the barrier.

On the other side was a staircase, circling up the side of the tower. The wizard was already halfway to the next floor, almost as if he had forgotten about Christopher.

“Sorry about the mess,” he mumbled, when Christopher came out of the top of the stairs into a fiendishly untidy room. A huge table dominated the center, and bookshelves lined the walls. Much to Christopher's amazement, there were books on the shelves. Perhaps a hundred volumes.

“Your library is impressive.”

“It's mostly junk,” the wizard said. “That whole set over there are just tax records. Why would anybody write that stuff down? You get what you get. Writing about it doesn't make it more. Oh, right, a sink.” Across the room, to another hidden doorway, and they walked through an illusionary bookcase to the next flight of stairs.

Living quarters, and if possible, even more untidy. But there was a sink in the corner, and water flowed from the tap when he depressed the lever.

“There's a tank on the roof,” the wizard said, “and I leave the phantasmal servant running at night to fill it. Cheaper than feeding an apprentice to do it.”

Christopher washed out his glass, moved a pile of dirty laundry from an old and faded armchair, and sat down. The wizard made a grand gesture, and the table swept itself clean, all of the junk sliding off the edge and floating gently to the floor. Almost all of it. There was sound of crockery shattering.

“Clumsy servant,” the wizard grumbled. “But watch this.” He said a word in a language Christopher had never heard before, and the cork popped out of the bottle and flew across the room.

“That's my limiter. When I can't remember the magic word, I know I've drunk too much.”

Christopher smiled at the attempt at humor. The wizard really must be desperately lonely. And no wonder: not only was he isolated by social class and profession; his paranoia was justified. His head was the most valuable thing in the county; boiled, it would yield enough tael to raise a commoner to Christopher's rank and still have enough change left over to buy a new suit and a haircut.

So Christopher held his glass out for wine and put his grief and anger aside.

“A toast to whatever peasant trod these grapes, so that we might have a moment's respite.” The wizard raised his glass, and Christopher joined him. It was the kind of toast Christopher could drink to.

“And to your god,” the wizard added politely, raising his glass again.

“Why? He didn't pick any grapes,” Christopher said. The wizard laughed, they took a long drink, and it was time to talk business.

“How?”

“You bring in a woman every week, but your mind-spell can be defeated.” Christopher was nervous about giving away Lalania's secret, even though it was necessary. He needed allies. He needed this ally.

“I knew that girl was too good to be true. The blonde, right?”

“Yes.” Thinking of the buxom girl in bed with this seedy little man was an uncomfortable image, so he took another long draft of wine.

“Dark take it, I know the spell landed. How did she undo it? Or was that your work?”

“No, she did it on her own, with paper. She wrote down her intentions and gave it to an innkeeper to return to her the next day. Reading what she had set out to do the night before apparently jogged her memory and let her remember everything.”

“Ah,” the wizard said. “I got lazy. Should have used two compulsions, one about coming here, and one about what happens when she does come here.”

“Or you could just avoid literate women.”

The wizard laughed again, a rusty sound, like he'd forgotten how to do it in front of company.

“That would be easier, I agree. You're just full of easy answers. I think I like your religion.”

Christopher had to laugh then. “Don't look to me for conversion. What I know about religion is less enlightening than your tax books.”

“Then I'll fulfill my part of the bargain. But before I tell you how to use the spell, I should tell you how to not kill yourself with it.”

That was a promising start.

Christopher pounded three times on the huge iron door. Then he did it again, just for the sound of it.

“Patience, my esteemed lord. I crank as fast as I can,” the doorman said. But Karl and Gregor were already pulling the door open.