Scholar of Decay (22 page)

All his instincts screamed, “Evil! Evil! Evil!”

How could he find his Natalia’s freedom in such a place? But how could he run away without being certain? Without, at least, discovering the full extent of the knowledge behind the shields? Hidden knowledge was wasted knowledge.

“There are no evil spells,” he reminded himself sternly. “Only spells put to evil uses.”

Manic laughter drew his gaze down to a scummy puddle filling a shallow depression worn into the stone just past the lowest step. A wild-haired man stared up at him from under heavy lids, thin lips twisted into a sneer.
You’re a fool, Nuikin. You were a fool then, and you’re a fool now
.

Teeth gritted so tightly that the pull of muscles along his jaw broke open the scab barely formed over his torn ear, Aurek stomped the puddle into a hundred scattered water droplets, each with its own laughing image. Resisting the urge to burn them all to faceless steam, Aurek began to purposefully climb the stairs.

The laughter followed him.

I don’t really hear it. It’s all in my head. I don’t really hear it. He’s dead. Repeating that mantra over and over, Aurek climbed a little faster, miserably aware that he couldn’t out-climb memory.

At the top of the stairs he paused, a little out of breath, and studied the arched doorway. Grotesque faces stared back at him from the stone. Some were meant to be men, and some were meant to be beasts, but the sculptor had captured on each of them an expression of utter terror. The unknown artist’s skill was so great that rather than feel sympathy for such torment, the observer felt caught up in their horror. Aurek couldn’t stop himself from glancing back over his shoulder, as if to see what they were watching for.

For a moment, he thought … but no. There was, as he knew there would be, nothing behind him.

Louise darted back behind the curve of a buttress, wondering what could possibly have caused Aurek Nuikin to turn around at the exact moment she stood exposed on the ledge. She didn’t think he saw her—his circle of light spread barely to the bottom of the stairs and humans had notoriously limited vision—but her heart pounded in her chest. Sitting back on her haunches, she groomed her whiskers with quick, jerky motions.

She was too close to success to spook him now. She couldn’t take the chance, not when in another moment she’d know.

And if he was as powerful as she suspected? What a weapon he’d be to wield against her twin!

On either side of the archway, facing each other across five and a half feet of open space, was a slit about three inches high and twelve
inches long cut into the stone. Checking for traps, and not finding any, Aurek curiously approached the slit on the left.

His initial impression was incorrect. The slit hadn’t been cut into the stone; the pale gray blocks had been laid to form it. Beckoning a light closer, Aurek peered into the cavity. He could see nothing but the identical stones of the back wall; if anything lay abandoned on the floor, the angle was too steep for him to see it. Not until he crossed over to the right did he discover what the cavities had been used for.

Finger bones, their ends cracked and shattered from trying dig a way to freedom, lay on the bottom of the slit, time having long since turned tendons and ligaments to dust.

As he could feel no power gathered specifically around either cavity, Aurek could only assume that there had been no magical purpose in bricking these two people in alive. They weren’t guardians, and they were far too enclosed to have been an effective deterrent. Without the chance that had left the finger bones in sight, there would have been no way of knowing the cavities ever had been occupied. Had they been enemies? Slaves bought especially for the purpose? Had the ancient wizard gathered power from their terror and their lingering deaths? Had he taken pleasure in their dying? Had he put them there merely because he enjoyed causing pain?

Aurek hated unanswered questions. The search for solutions had driven him all his adult life. Unfortunately, he searched for a specific solution now and had no time to waste on uncovering general knowledge.

But after his Natalia was freed and he could approach scholarship once again not in necessity but in joy … He made a silent promise to the two and, heart pounding with near-painful anticipation, turned to face the entrance to the workshop.

There was no actual door, just the archway opening into the
room. But light stopped at the inner edge of the arch, as though the shield protecting the workshop and its contents from discovery kept it from entering. If I have to remove the shield, Aurek mused, fingers splayed out but not quite touching the perimeter of the light, I won’t be entering the workshop today.

But the shield wasn’t a physical barrier and should have no effect on the physical plane.

Should have no effect.

Although the shield and his lights were the only spells Aurek could sense running, the shield itself would prevent him from sensing power use within its borders. He had no way of knowing what he’d step into. But it would take time and energy he didn’t want to expend to lower the shield.

Why should his Natalia have to wait any longer?

He rolled the piece of zombie bone between his fingers. He’d already destroyed the workshop’s guardians, and he could surely defeat anything that remained. He had, during the course of his life, learned more than most men would ever know.

Caution or cowardice; he would not force his Natalia to wait for her freedom.

Squaring his shoulders, he stepped through the shield.

Yes!

Louise crept closer, her ebony fur making her a large, rat-shaped shadow in the near darkness. There was nothing to do now but watch and wait and dream of the day when she would be Lord of Richemulot.

Overhead, the patch of mist drifted closer as though it, too, watched and waited.

Aurek stood perfectly still, the archway a blank sheet of opaque nothing at his back. In front of him were cases upon cases of books and scrolls. More lay scattered over a massive table, its surface scarred with a hundred ancient experiments. Metal cylinders, glassware of all descriptions, and squat clay jars sealed with stoppers of cork and wax jostled for room with pieces of bone, half a dozen whole skulls of various species, horns and claws and teeth. What had once been a human brain lay like a gigantic shriveled prune on a silver tray. A cabinet, six feet high by three feet wide by two feet deep, held a multitude of tiny drawers, each meticulously labeled in a language Aurek couldn’t read.

Yet.

In the far corner, a horsehide chair and worn footstool sat in a cluster of tall iron candlesticks. A thick book bound in pale leather and a pair of round spectacles rested on the small table drawn close to the chair.

The dust, which should have lain over everything like a translucent gray blanket, had been disturbed in a number of places. Red-brown stains were splattered over many of the nearer scrolls, and the drying body of half a rat still held a scrap of vellum in its teeth.

Perhaps Louise’s cousin used them to run interference when he retrieved the amulet, Aurek mused. With the rats keeping the zombies occupied, it would be easy enough to go quickly in and out again.

Trembling in reaction, Aurek reminded himself to breathe and moved forward, stepping over the body of a dead rat without even noticing it. He understood now why his own book had drawn the attention it had. He could no more walk away from this room than he could voluntarily stop his heart from beating. Such a huge
amount of knowledge gathered in one place! Eyes wide, he lightly caressed one of the scrolls. Time had left them dry and brittle, but the preservation spells had held, and even the most delicate could still be read.

The spell he needed was here. He’d grown so attuned to it over the course of his desperate search that he could feel its presence without having to do anything but stand and stare.

Slowly he turned toward the book by the chair. He would undoubtedly already know a sizable proportion of the spells it contained—the spells that every wizard learned in common before scholarship turned to a specific path—but even if the book held only the one spell he had yet to learn, it was worth everything he’d gone through to find it.

In an alcove, a six-foot nightmare of bone straightened. A horned skull turned on a human spine over the shoulder bones of a bear. Dried blood flaked out of joints and crevices as it flexed clawed hands. Empty sockets stared at the intruder’s back.