Mélusine (35 page)

Authors: Sarah Monette

BOOK: Mélusine

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"Felix Harrowgate can lead me to him," he said. Whatever a strong divination was, it sure seemed to work just the way he said divination didn't. But I didn't want to get into that, either, and at least now I knew that he had a goal, that there was going to be a point where he said, "Okay, we're done," and I could go home.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"You want to hire me to help you kill this Beaumont Livy. You're offering a third of whatever money you've got by the time we're done. Okay. I'll do it."

"You sound like you've done this kind of thing before," said Mr. von Heber.

I shrugged. "You think Cornell Teverius was the only one?"

"Oh," said Mr. von Heber, and it took him a second to get past it. "In any event, here is your third of my take from last night." He dug in his pocket and handed me two half-gorgons and a septa-centime piece. "And will you now, for the love of all the powers, let me get that foul dye out of your hair?"

"You're the boss," I said.

Felix

We reached Hermione near dusk. The hotel they chose was called the Chimera Among the Roses, a defiantly royalist sentiment that had probably gotten someone nearly hanged 150 years ago. Not even the lioness cared now, and it was clear that the hotel manager had no idea of what his sign meant. I thought of Magnus.

The wizards commandeered half the hotel, including the private parlor and all the best bedrooms. I observed that Thaddeus was still stuck with the baggage, sharing a room with Gideon and me, the volatile and undesirable elements of the party. I wondered if he had been asked to stand surety for our good behavior, like a thief-keeper retrieving a child from the Ebastine.

Thaddeus was angry enough. He and Gideon argued in Kekropian half the evening, and the colors around them showed me the depths of loathing underneath their sparring. They hated each other, and still I did not know why. I sat on the bed I was sharing with Thaddeus and rubbed at my aching hands. Thaddeus and Gideon ignored me; Thaddeus knew that I was as stupid as an owl about languages, and that there was thus no need to fear that I would understand their quarrel.

I caught occasional words—the Bastion, my name, Malkar's name, the Kekropian word for necromancy—enough to understand that they were still arguing about what Malkar had done and how, about his purpose and the Bastion's purpose behind him. But I was still completely unprepared when Gideon turned and demanded, "Felix! What do you think?"

Thaddeus snorted. "You'll get more sense out of the hotel cat. Besides, Lady Victoria and I already tried."

"Yes, I heard you. Felix, what do you think Malkar hopes to accomplish?"

"I… I don't know. Not what you think."

"What do you mean by that?" Thaddeus said, dark with suspicion.

"That he's Malkar. That he never wants what you think."

"Madness," Thaddeus said.

"Do you think so?" said Gideon. "I am inclined to think otherwise."

"Yes, well, it's not news that
your
mind is twisted." And he added viciously, "You always were a little sneak."

Gideon said, "Is this really the time to bring up the past?"

"Why not? Why in the name of God should we
not
talk about it? We were boys together." And Thaddeus smiled, although there was nothing good-humored or friendly about it. "Come, Gideon, let us reminisce."

"Thaddeus—"

"Yes, let's. I can tell Felix about being beaten for daring to ask questions, and you can tell him about being Louis Goliath's favorite minion. Don't you think?"

"Thaddeus—"

"Or are there other stories you'd like to tell? Perhaps you could tell him about the mystery cults of the Bastion. I'm sure he'd be fascinated, Perhaps he'll write a monograph."

"Thaddeus,
enough
." The colors around Gideon were terrible with rage and old pain and fear. "Baiting me accomplishes nothing, and baiting Felix…" I shrank back under the look he gave me. But all the passion seemed to go out of him, and he said tiredly, "Baiting Felix should be beneath you."

"Aren't we the gentleman?" Thaddeus said.

"No. I'm a docker's brat from Thrax. As you know and have known any time these past fifteen years. But at least I know what's decent behavior and what's not. I had imagined a man of your ideals would be able to distinguish that as well, but clearly I was mistaken."

"Are you quite finished being pompous?"

"Probably not. If you mean, shall we let our disagreement rest until tomorrow—by all means. Good night, Thaddeus."

Thaddeus gave him a savage parody of a bow. "Good night, Gideon." And snarled at me, "Good night, Felix."

He stalked out. The silence he left behind him seemed almost too thick to breathe. After a moment, Gideon pushed his hair off his face with both hands, then turned to me and said, gently, "You need to sleep."

"Yes, Gideon," I said and lay down obediently, huddled around my aching hands. But I did not sleep, could not sleep. I was still awake when Thaddeus came back in some hours later, and went to sleep finally with his stiff, angry presence like a sword beside me in the bed.

Mildmay

You got no idea how weird it was to look in the palm-size mirror that Mr. von Heber had. I hadn't been a redhead since my fourth indiction, and I barely even knew how to look at myself. I don't like mirrors anyway, and I looked fucked up. I mean, just plain wrong.

"Powers, I look like a freak," I said.

Mr. von Heber didn't even look up from his cards. "You looked even more peculiar with a half-grown-out dye job, I assure you. Why on earth does it bother you so much?"

"No reason."

"Oh, come now." He did look up, then, and his eyes were like skewers. "Really. Why?"

I put the mirror down. I didn't smash it, although I felt like it. " 'Cause I don't like people looking at my face, okay?"

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry." Something in his eyes changed, and I had the funny feeling that he was seeing
me
now, instead of just the guy on his stupid card, the Knight of Swords. "How did it happen?"

"A knife fight. I had a septad and six, and I was stupid with it. I knew the other guy was no good, and
he
knew he was no good. If he'd been good, I'd've lost an eye. Or part of my nose. Or, you know, I'd be dead. So I guess I'm lucky."

"It is sometimes difficult to be grateful for luck," he said, real slow and careful, like now
he
wanted to break something, and I knew what he meant.

"Yeah," I said. "Sometimes it is."

Mr. von Heber laid his cards out over and over again all day, and then after we closed up The Mule's Daughter, fuck me if he didn't start laying 'em out again. Bernard rolled his eyes at me, and I took his meaning. No point arguing. Me and Bernard went to sleep, but we were woken up a couple hours later by Mr. von Heber cursing something terrible. I sat up and saw he'd dropped his cards. But it didn't seem like that was what he was pissed off about. "What's west of Mélusine?" he said when he saw I was awake. "West and south."

"Um," I said. "Dunno. What kind of thing you after?"

"I don't know! The Spire card keeps coming up, but I'll be damned if I can figure out why."

I thought, while Bernard got down on the floor and started picking up the cards. "There's a river. The Linlowing. It runs into the Sim about three septad-miles south of here. There's some decent-sized towns. Lotta farm land."

"Towns. Anything like a tower, or a cathedral—anything like that?"

Bernard said, "Couldn't this wait until morning?"

"No," Mr. von Heber said, and he was still staring at me like he was going to open up my skull to look for the answers here in a minute.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm sorry, but I really don't. You could ask Jeannne-Phalene."

"Ha!" said Mr. von Heber. He grabbed his canes and was off. Bernard barely got up in time to hold the door for him.

And my stupid fucking curiosity got the better of me, and I went after them.

Jeanne-Phalange always took the night shift at the front desk of the Long Time Coming. She liked to deal with the nighttime weirdness herself.

"Nice hair," she said to me when I followed Bernard into the lobby.

"Thanks." I caught the look Mr. von Heber was giving me and said,

"Jeanne-Phalene, you know about any towers or anything southwest of here?"

"Towers? I think there's an old wizard's tower or something in Hermione, but—"

"Hermione?" said Mr. von Heber. "How far away is Hermione?"

"Two days if you got a fast horse. Half a decad if you don't. Or you can catch the diligence to Sharcross. It takes about three days."

"Thank you," said Mr. von Heber, with a look on his face that said as how the diligence could go right on without us, and that'd be okay. "We'll leave tomorrow then."

"Okay," said Jeanne-Phalange, "but you know Ricko's going to be sobbing into his beer barrels."

Mr. von Heber waved that away—him and Ricko didn't like each other one little bit—and said, "Come on," to Bernard and me. "We'd better get some sleep."

"Good night," said Jeanne-Phalange, and you could've used the irony in her voice to load a catapult. But she didn't ask questions. It was all the same to Jeanne-Phalange.

Felix

I wanted to find the yellow-eyed man, the
true
yellow-eyed man. But my dreams were full of murk and evil, and I could not raise myself clear of Hermione, of the wizard's tower at its center like the hub of a wheel.

In the daylight, I told myself I was being stupid. The wizard's tower wasn't anywhere near the center of the town, and it was certainly nothing like a hub; it was a stubby thing like a half-melted candle, two blocks focus the river that formed Hermione's southern boundary. But at night, the tower was black and terrible, and my dreams revolved helplessly around it.

On the third day, I tried to tell Thaddeus that there was something wrong with the tower, but he just laughed at me. That night, my dreams were worse than ever; there was something in the tower watching me, watching all of us. Its eyes were dark and hungry, and it was not alive.

It was late morning when I woke up, for when the dream had let me go, I had fallen into a sodden, heavy blackness that contained neither dreams nor rest. The others were gone—I could feel their absence—except Gideon, who was sitting in a chair by the window, making notes in the endpapers of a book called
A Treatise upon Spirit
. He said, without looking up, "They've gone to frighten the Mayor."

"Oh," I said. The colors around him were blue with concentration, luminous as the sky. I was afraid I would disturb him.

He said, "Breakfast is still laid out in the parlor."

"Thank you," I said. I got up, washed my face and hands, and went downstairs, where I breakfasted on soggy toast and congealed eggs and cold tea as strong as iron. It was better than nothing. I knew that a year ago I would have rung the bell, or shouted for the maid, and demanded fresh tea and new toast, but the knowledge was dim and distant and useless.

I stayed downstairs as long as I could, but I was anxious about the maids wanting to clear the room, and

the thought of having to speak to one of them, even to say, I beg your pardon, was more than I could bear. I went back to the bedroom. Gideon looked up at my entrance and did not say, Oh, it's you, although I saw it around him. Instead, after a moments contemplation, he put his book down and said, "Let's go out."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Surely there must be something in Hermione worth seeing besides that damned tower. Old fortifications or gardens or
something
."

"But won't Thaddeus—"

"Damn Thaddeus. Put your shoes on, and I'll ask the desk clerk about sites of interest."

Thaddeus would be angry if he found out. But I put my shoes on, because Gideon said to and because I had been stuck in that room for three days, and I did not love it. I was standing by the door, wondering if I should go downstairs to find Gideon or if I should wait, when he came back in.

"
There
you are. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Come on, then. The desk clerk says the Municipal Gardens across the river are worth a look."

"In the middle of Petrop?"

"There's a hedge maze. Hedge mazes are interesting year-round."

He was treating me like a person instead of an inconvenience or a disgrace. I could no more refuse to go with him than someone freezing to death could refuse the offer of a blanket. I put my coat on and followed him out of the Chimera Among the Roses.

It was a beautiful day for Petrop, the sun only half-obscured by clouds and the air no more than chilly. We walked briskly but without hurry, at first without speaking, but then Gideon began to tell me stories of his childhood in Thrax before he had been conscripted by the Bastion—in Kekropia, wizards could be pressed into service as young as thirteen—and I was able to respond with a few harmless, amusing things that I remembered from my early days in the Mirador. My mind was clear; although most of the people who passed us had the heads of animals, I knew that these were merely hallucinations, neither true nor necessary, and they did not frighten me.

As we descended a set of stairs toward the river, Gideon said, "I have been wondering since I first saw you: how did you come to Mélusine?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I did not think Troians ventured away from the coast."

"Who?"

He was a stair ahead of me; he turned to look up and back, frowning, "You
must
be Troian. Your hair, your height, your eyes and skin."

"I… I thought maybe I was Caloxan," I said timidly, skirting around the snarl of lies and truth, Malkar and Pharaohlight, that comprised my past.

"Caloxan!" He snorted. "You're Troian. You can't be anything else."