Scholar of Decay (17 page)

Dmitri bounded over to her side as she returned to the party. “You came!”

“Of course I did.” She was in a mood to be generous so she ignored the implied accusation.

“I brought Aurek.” He glanced around, looking for his brother. It shouldn’t have been hard to find him, as both Nuikins were taller and blonder than nearly everyone else in the room. “I don’t know where he’s gone.”

Louise tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and steered him toward the tables laden with food. “I expect he went home.”

“Home?”

“That’s right. After I spoke with him, I saw him practically run from the room.” She smiled up into Dmitri’s puzzled frown and twisted the knife. “Looks like he’s forgotten all about you.”

“Should I go back for the young master, sir?”

One foot already on the dock, Aurek stared back at the boatman in confusion. “What?”

“The young master, he’s still at the party. Should I go back for him, sir?”

“Yes. Whatever.” It didn’t matter; nothing mattered except the amulet he clutched in his fist. Terrified of losing the chance it represented, he hadn’t opened his hand since he’d closed it. He raced up the dock, across the esplanade, and into the house. Grabbing up the candles waiting at the foot of the stairs, he took the steps three at a time, pounded down the second floor hallway, and entered his study.

Gasping for breath, he closed the door and almost reverently spread his fingers. “It’s a key, Lia. A key to unlock a book such as I once owned. And the one who created it had power, my love.” His gaze gently stroked the statue of his wife. “Enough power to have commanded the spell we need. When I find the workshop, and I unlock the book, perhaps … perhaps I can finally free you.”

The words on the disc said merely “I AM THE WAY.” They were an automatic result of turning the amulet into a key; when the spell was cast, the words appeared. But until he found the book, Aurek had no use for the spell that unlocked it and, in order to find the book, he needed only the physical existence of the amulet itself.

A workshop containing an item of such power, even if the amulet
was all the workshop contained, had to be shielded, or he would have found it himself. But now, now he had a guide.

Ignoring the hot path of tears running over both cheeks and into his beard, Aurek crossed to his desk and carefully laid out a map of the city. It wasn’t a very good map, but it showed all sixteen islands and both shores and it would be enough to serve his immediate needs.

Slipping the chain over the index finger of his left hand, he stretched the hand out over the map, the disc dangling below. “Where did you come from?” he murmured. “You must show me where.”

The amulet began to swing, slowly at first, then faster and faster, across the map one way and then the other, its path growing more chaotic with every pass.

“Show me!” Aurek barked.

A spark of pure power raced down the chain and exploded against the parchment. The amulet stopped, stretched out to the right, the chain stiff, the angle defying gravity. The air stank of sulfur.

A hole had been burned into the map directly below the point where the amulet hung motionless. The east bank. The area they called the Narrows. Not a pleasant area, but then, so little of Pont-a-Museau was. Once in the Narrows, Aurek had no doubt the amulet would lead him to the workshop. Power called to power.

And in the workshop …

He looked over at his wife, touched the faint glimmer of her life, and his face twisted with new hope. Every moment of her suffering ate into his soul. “Oh, Lia. Oh, my dear one, this could be our salvation.”

The Houses in the Narrows Were Originally Much
the same as the houses in many other parts of Pont-a-Museau. Once, in another time and another place, they had been tall and elegant, their four stories faced with pale gray stone, the lintels over doors and windows carved with fanciful plants and animals. Wrought-iron balconies had extended out from the base of floor-to-ceiling windows, railings cleverly sculpted to look like trailing vines.

But in the Narrows—thus named because it ran along the east side of the narrowest river channel, not, as some thought, because the forest pressed so close against it—most of the facing stones had fallen to lie shattered on the broken pavement in front of those few buildings that remained standing. The carvings had been all but obliterated by mold and lichens and other less savory growths. Windows were gaping holes into darkness, and the bravest, or most desperate, of the scavengers had long since removed every scrap of iron.

A number of the exterior walls had crumbled completely, and even buildings with all four walls intact leaned dangerously far off rotting foundations.

As Aurek’s canalboat approached the narrow entrance of what had once been a private slip, he squinted against the rain gusting into his face and tried to work out exactly where the amulet was leading him. He didn’t feel the icy water running under his collar and down his back. He didn’t hear the boatman softly cursing as he maneuvered around a bloated and unrecognizable body snagged by a mat of floating garbage. He didn’t see the desolation or the danger.

Blinded by hope and pride combined, he leaped up onto the dock’s one remaining beam and, without turning, told the boatman to wait.

“No, sir, I won’t.”

Oblivious to the slick and treacherous footing, Aurek whirled around, such blatant insubordination reaching him the way nothing else had been able to.

“You won’t?” he repeated, barely believing what he’d heard.

“No, sir.” The boatman was respectful, but adamant. “There’s things in these here ruins, sir, worser than what you’ll find in the rest of the city. If I stays tied up here, there’ll be nothing left of me, or me boat, when you gets back.”

“Then anchor out in the channel,” Aurek commanded. He didn’t have time for this.

The boatman shook his head, collected rainwater spraying off the greasy brim of his hat, obviously more afraid of what lurked in the Narrows than he was of Aurek. “Even if the weather permitted, which it don’t, sir, it ain’t no safer out there.” Gnarled hands clasped over the handle of his oar, he gathered his courage and looked his employer in the eye. “You gots power, sir, or them young bloods from way back would’ve taken care of me before now, but you’re not going to be here, so neither am I. What I will do is go out to the main channel and come back. As long as I keep movin’ I guess I should be safe enough.”

“I don’t know how long this is going to take me,” Aurek warned him.

The boatman shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll keep coming back till you do.”

Aurek stared at him for a long moment, trying to force his mind to work on something, anything besides the amulet and the hope it represented. There was obvious merit in what had been suggested: a live boatman returning for him was infinitely preferable to a dead one waiting. “All right,” he agreed abruptly, “but be here when I return.”

“You can count on it, sir.” Leaning his weight on the oar, he backed the boat out into the current and allowed the prow to sweep around to the north. “Two things, sir!” His voice battered through the noise of wind and rain like a club. “Don’t be caught here after dark, and you’ll be a sight safer if you keeps moving!”

Watching him row away, Aurek was touched by an instant of dread, and he felt, for that instant, more alone than he’d ever been in his life.

“Which is ridiculous,” he told himself, making his way to the relatively solid ground of the esplanade. “I’m no more alone now than I have been during any search.”

Except he’d never searched in the Narrows. His voice hung in the air like an intruder, and he decided it might be a good idea not to speak aloud. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he pulled out the amulet and, as rain added new stains to the silk, carefully unwrapped it.

Deep in the Narrows, three heads lifted on dried and desiccated necks. Three faces, identical in death as they’d never been in life, turned toward the river. Years ago, they’d been set to guard the
contents of a wizard’s workshop. With no concept of time, they neither knew, nor cared, how long ago that order had been given.

Something had been stolen.

They would get it back.

But the outside was too big, too open, too confusing. They lost contact with the stolen object. Regained contact. Lost it again. Gray light had come. And falling water. Unable to reason, or even truly think, they knew only three things:

They were to guard the contents of the workshop.

Something had been stolen.

They had to get it back.

Then, suddenly, they made contact once again.

Unable to do anything but smile, as their lips had long since shriveled back into interchangeable rictus grins, they shuffled toward the river.

Tucking the damp silk back into his pocket, Aurek hung the amulet’s chain over the index finger of his left hand, looped it once for security, and let the disc swing free. It spun in place for a moment, then slowly began to inscribe an arc on the air. At the apex of its swing, it stopped.

East. Wiping the rain from his eyes, Aurek moved away from the river, following the tug of power against his hand. The cracked and uneven paving stones were slippery, and every step brought with it the potential for a fall. He wanted to run, to leap, to shout, but he allowed caution to rule and walked in careful silence.

East. Then slightly north. Rounding a blind corner, he found the amulet pointed directly at a pile of rubble, all that remained of a once-grand house, its rain-slicked stone too high and too unstable to climb. Aurek fingered the leather loop in his pocket but
left it where it was. With no idea of what he’d face upon finding the workshop, spending unnecessary power could be more than foolish—it could be suicidal. Before he wasted what could not easily be replaced, he’d search for another way around.

The way he found was not one he would’ve taken under other circumstances. The cavity was dank and dark, and the entry barely broader than his shoulders. But when he knelt to peer into it, he was sure he could see gray daylight in the distance—on the other side of the rubble.