Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9) (9 page)

“
I
am not
sure I like this,” said Shahad. There were fewer revellers here near the outskirts of Maial but those who were there filled the night with their songs and screams. From up ahead came the sound of frantic drumming and feverish piping. Lights blazed from a big house. The gates were thrown open so all could enter. It sounded like most of the neighbourhood were already there.

“I would have thought you would have been all for it. It gets the investigation moving,” Kormak said.

“It smacks of deceit. It feels underhand.”

“The murder of your wife was hardly the work of an honourable man, was it?”

“That is true.”

They reached the gates of Count Balthazar’s mansion. The sounds of revelry came from within. The gardens were crowded. Couples intertwined beneath jacaranda trees, coupled beneath bushes. The air smelled of dreamsmoke and wyrmspike. The revelries had already reached a feverish pitch and the night was yet young.

Shahad shouldered his way forward, Kormak followed with Rhiana alongside him. Zamara and the marines went with him. The guests in the garden saw the soldiers coming. Servants and bodyguards moved to meet them but stepped back when they saw the overwhelming force they faced. If there were more bodyguards around, it seemed the revels kept them busy.

Shahad advanced upon a tall, slender man and said, “Tell Count Balthazar I am here to see him.”

“May I enquire what it is about?” the man replied. He had the servile yet refined voice of a house servant.

“Tell him I want to talk to him about my wife’s death. No. Better yet lead me to him and I’ll tell him myself.”

“That is very unorthodox, sir. Perhaps it would be better if you allowed me to communicate with my master. He is indisposed.”

“You will be indisposed, permanently, if you do not take me to him now!”

The snarl in Shahad’s voice would have intimidated far tougher men than Count Balthazar’s butler.

The man turned on his heel and said, “Very well, sir. Under protest. Please follow me.”

He led them through the mansion. There were screams at the sight of so many armed men. If they had hoped to avoid provoking the nobles by doing this, Kormak felt sure it was not going to work.

They tramped upstairs past alcoves containing busts and statues of distinguished ancestors beneath which drunken men and women lolled. The butler led them to the last door in the corridor and banged on it. “Sire, you have a visitor. Count Shahad. He wishes to speak with you on a matter of some urgency.”

Shahad kicked the door open. He bounded into the room, raced across to the bed and picked up its male occupant by the throat. “I want to talk to you about my wife’s death.”

His victim was a tall, powerful man, but he struggled in vain against the Baron’s massive strength. His two nubile female companions emerged from the bed and raced for the door, only to be restrained by Zamara’s marines.

Count Balthazar’s face had gone red. His breathing was raspy.

“I don’t think he can talk to you,” Kormak said. “You are choking him.”

Shahad shrugged and dropped his man.

“What is the meaning of this outrage?” Count Balthazar demanded. He was wrapped only in a nightgown, but he managed to retain his dignity. It was rather impressive. His hair was dark and his face was smooth, but there was something about the eyes that made him seem much older than he looked.

Shahad reached down and grabbed his testicles with one huge hand. He squeezed. Count Balthazar whimpered and went white. “My wife was killed last night. She was killed because she was part of your circle. You are going to tell me all about it, or I am going to kill you.”

“This is a dishonourable act.”

“Would you prefer I called on you and challenged you to a formal duel?”

Count Balthazar was having some difficulty speaking again. Tears rolled down from the corners of his eyes. Kormak heard the sounds of the crowd outside. Some people were trying to organise resistance against this invasion. Others were leaving as quickly as they could.

“Too bad!” Shahad said. He picked the man up again and slammed him against the wall.

Count Balthazar groaned. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I had nothing to do with killing your wife, you madman.”

“I am not hearing what I wanted to hear.”

Shahad carried him over to the large slatted windows, kicked those open and stepped out onto the balcony. He raised Count Balthazar above his head.

“I see you have an ornamental pool down there,” Shahad said. “I don’t know if I can toss you far enough so that you land in it. I am not sure it would be wise anyway. If you landed on top of that statue of Permius, you’d probably be impaled on his sword. What say you we give it a try anyway?”

Balthazar shouted, “I don’t know what you are talking about, you lunatic. Put me down. Put me down!”

Kormak said, “Hold for a minute. I think he is ready to talk.”

“I will speak to you, sir, if you will restrain this maniac.”

Shahad dropped him onto the heavily carpeted floor and put a booted foot on his chest. Balthazar glared up at him. There was no fear there, only burning hate.

Kormak looked around the room. A collection of manuscripts sat on the well-stocked bookshelves. He walked over and picked a text about alchemy. He examined another. It concerned the legendary fountain of youth. They were the sort of books any dilettante scholar of the art might be expected to possess. These had been marked up more than most. There was nothing here that under normal circumstances he would have summoned the Inquisition for, but these were not normal circumstances.

“If you are planning on prolonging your life, you might want to answer Baron Shahad’s questions and my own,” Kormak said. He kept his tone conversational. “The Holy Church frowns on such works as these.”

Balthazar stared at him. He seemed to take in his height and his scars and the way the sword rested on his back. His face went even paler and just for a moment his eyes flickered over to one corner of the room as if seeking to see whether something was there. Kormak walked over to the place. The man looked at the walls now. Shahad had fallen silent, curious as to what Kormak was doing.

Kormak reached the corner. There was nothing obvious there. No bookcase. No wardrobe. No cupboard. He tapped the wall and heard a faint hollow sound. “What have we here?”

Count Balthazar seemed to have sobered up very quickly. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Kormak tapped the wall again. Another hollow thud.

“You can’t just barge in here and start smashing up the house,” Count Balthazar said. “There is such a thing as private property you know.”

“I can do as I wish,” Kormak said. “I have the full authority of the Crown and the Church behind me, and I have reason to believe that you are sworn to the powers of Shadow.”

The man’s laugh sounded hollow and dry. “That is insane.”

“You will have a chance to defend yourself before the Inquisition.”

“Oh, I’ll bet I will and who are you?”

“My name is Kormak. I am a Guardian of the Dawn and in this matter, the personal representative of King Aemon of Siderea.”

“You have proof of this?”

“I will happily provide it at the appropriate time.”

“Am I under arrest then?”

“You might be.”

“Then get this lunatic off me.”

“Count Shahad is acting in a private capacity. He believes he has a score to settle with you. I believe that too.”

Count Balthazar looked suspicious, then awareness of the situation dawned on him. “You are hiding behind his name.”

“I am hiding behind nothing. The situation is exactly as I stated.”

“And you will simply let him kill me.”

Kormak tapped on the wall again. He was tempted to ask Count Balthazar how to open the panel, but it would be too easy for him to set off any traps that might be behind it. He took his elder sign from his chest and touched the area. It did not grow warm. No spell was disrupted. Whatever was there was either dormant or mechanical in nature.

Count Balthazar stared at him. “You seek to break into my treasure vault. Are you some common thief?”

“Let us just say your selection of books interests me. I believe I might find a darker collection of tomes hidden there.”

Count Balthazar looked smug. “By all means, go ahead.”

It was always possible the vault was trapped. It might trigger if tampered with. Kormak had encountered such things in the past. That might be why Count Balthazar was encouraging him. Or he might be bluffing. Kormak looked at Rhiana, to see if she had sensed anything. She gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

“If you have nothing to hide, you will open it for me.”

Kormak gestured, and Shahad took his foot off Count Balthazar’s chest. Balthazar rose to his feet, dusted himself down with one hand. Shahad pushed him forward towards Kormak. The shouting outside had intensified. It sounded like someone had got the bodyguards organised into a fighting force. There were heavy footsteps on the stairs.

Count Balthazar smirked. “I think you are going to have to leave now,” he said. “Come back with a warrant from the King and I will cooperate fully. I see no reason to endure this illegal search.”

He almost shouted the words so that everyone could hear him. Shahad put a beefy arm around his neck and began to choke him. “You cannot hide behind the law on this. I will kill you myself.”

“That would be murder,” Count Balthazar gasped.

“I am prepared to stand trial for that. Are you prepared to go and meet the Shadow?”

Count Balthazar smiled and said, “Yes.”

Rhiana shouted a warning. Balthazar reached out, touched Shahad’s arm and spoke a word of power. Something black flickered from his hand, a serpent of Shadow. Shahad screamed. His face twisted in agony. His arm went limp and he dropped to the ground.

Balthazar turned and glared at Kormak. An aura of greenish darkness flared around his hand. The marines flinched back. Kormak stepped forward. He held his elder sign between himself and Count Balthazar. “You cannot escape,” he said.

“You are very sure of yourself.”

“The Holy Sun protects me.”

“But he does not protect them.” Count Balthazar gestured. Tendrils of Shadow flickered from his hands. The room darkened. Kormak drew his blade. The tendrils flashed past him and struck the marines. They too screamed and began to fall.

The sound of fighting erupted in the corridor as the marines and the bodyguards came into contact. The marines were at a disadvantage, hearing their comrades going down and howling in agony and not knowing what was going on. The fight was going to go badly for them.

Kormak glanced back. Count Balthazar raced out to the balcony and jumped. Kormak charged across the room and looked down. Balthazar had made it to the pool and was climbing out of it. The nimbus of black light still played around his hands. Those that noticed it screamed.

Kormak leapt. He arced downwards, blade at the ready, knees flexing as the soft turf absorbed the impact of landing.

Balthazar snarled. “Too late, Guardian. I am beyond your reach.”

He raised his hand, and a curtain of darkness swirled around him. Kormak felt his elder sign grow warm. He held his breath in case there was some poison amid the mist of shadows. All around he could hear the sounds of screaming as people fled in terror.

He was in deep trouble if Balthazar could see in this gloom. He shifted his position. As he moved, he left a deep trail in the curtain of shadow. His amulets dissolved it as he passed through. Slowly the darkness faded leaving behind no trace of the elusive Count. He had fled under cover of his sorcery.

That could have gone better, Kormak thought. Still, he had established that Balthazar was indeed a servant of the Shadow and that Shahad’s wife had been involved in a dark cult. It was a start.

From inside the house came the sound of fighting.

What was left of the crowd stared at Kormak with mute horror then began to scatter. They all knew what they had seen there. Kormak entered the mansion and headed towards the stairs. Ahead of him the bodyguards still fought.

“Enough!” Kormak shouted.

The bodyguards at the back turned to face him.

“I am a Guardian of the Order of the Dawn, in the service of King-Emperor Aemon. Hinder me on pain of death.”

“You think we believe that?” said one of the bodyguards. He sounded drunk.

“If you don’t stop fighting I will kill you.”

“Try it . . .” said the man, springing at Kormak blade drawn. Kormak downed him with a blow. His next strike disarmed the man’s companion.

“Balthazar was a servant of Shadow,” Kormak shouted. “Only servants of the Shadow would fight to keep him from justice.”

The bodyguards looked at him. The marines stepped back. Kormak stared at the men until they dropped their blades. He pushed past them and into the room. Shahad was on the ground writhing in agony. Kormak reached out and touched his arm with the elder sign. Slowly the big man’s spasms subsided. Sweat stood out on his brow. His eyes became less wild. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like that. Not even when I had the breakbone fever. What was it?”

“Sorcery of the Shadow.” Kormak kept his voice level. Shahad seemed on the edge of tears.

“This is worse than I thought,” he said. “Khiyana was involved with these people.”

Kormak nodded. “We need to find out who else was. If we don’t do that soon, they will flee or foment rebellion. It’s time to go back to the Governor and tell him what we found.”

“What about the vault here?” Shahad asked. “Balthazar was willing to die rather than let us see it.”

“It’s probably trapped,” Kormak said.

“I don’t care,” said Shahad. He smashed his huge fist into the wall where Kormak had been tapping.

“No! Wait!”

Shahad hit the wall again. A panel gave way and a space below the wall was revealed along with a shattered locking mechanism. The door swung open. Inside was a small chamber, barely more than a cupboard. On the shelves lay books and scrolls of various sorts. Kormak looked at the nearest one. It was bound in black leather. He touched it with his elder sign and a protective ward sizzled away to nothing. He flicked it open and looked upon words written in the tongue of the Old Ones.