The Geomancer (14 page)

Gareth didn't reply to keep from forcing his friend to air more of the failures he was experiencing. They slipped through silent warrens until they reached the Rue de Lille, strewn with garbage and mounds of bricks from tumbled buildings. Shapes flitted overhead, but none seemed to be following or even noticing.

Finally ahead of them was the Quai Voltaire and an unremarkable building overlooking the Seine where Kasteel had said they should rendezvous with his nest of rebels. Gareth eyed the area and scented the wet air, trying to uncover any sort of peculiarity in the setting. An unnecessary second glance from a figure drifting overhead. An impatient glare from a shadow on the corner. A furtive slip of claws. Anything to tip him to a potential ambush.

Gareth waited until the skies seemed relatively clear, then he nodded quickly to Adele before lifting off the ground. He rose up along the wall to an attic window in the grey tile roof. He gripped the glassless window frame and listened. The voices inside were distant, but he recognized the authoritative boom of Kasteel. Gareth counted seven different voices, but smelled more waiting silently.

He slipped in the window and landed lightly on the floor. He crept to the door, hardly touching, pushing himself along the wall. On the floor below, he heard the sounds of heavy strides, probably Kasteel's, and the rebel leader was muttering impatiently. “He should be here today at some point. I left them just north of Senlis with directions.”

“Is
she
still with him?” came an unknown voice with a quaver of fear.

“Yes,” Kasteel said gruffly. “She is always with him.”

“What is she like?”

“She's quiet and calm. But she looks through you as if she sees your weakest trait immediately.”

“You saw her kill some of us?”

“Stop!” Kasteel cried. “She doesn't matter. She is nothing more than Lord Gareth's claws. She is an emanation of his will.”

Gareth smiled. Let them believe as they would. For now it worked in his favor.

“She won't destroy Paris, will she?” asked the first quavering voice. “I mean, she'll tell us first so we can leave, right? She'll let us live like Lord Gareth lived, since we follow him.”

Kasteel growled with a touch more dread than anger. “With Lord Gareth, we have nothing to fear from her. Paris is falling apart, but we have to stay together. That is our strength.”

Gareth had glided down the decrepit staircase and stood outside the large room where Kasteel paced from end to end with others following his every move. Kasteel went to the front window, searching the street and darkening sky.

“Waiting for someone?” Gareth asked.

Kasteel spun in shock. The other vampires in the room, perhaps twenty of them, leapt in alarm. They were all dressed in a poor fashion, even for vampires. They looked at Kasteel for confirmation and the rebel leader tried to overcome his embarrassment at being taken by surprise in his own lair.

“My lord.” Kasteel bowed. “Yes, we were waiting for you. Welcome.” He craned his neck to peer past Gareth into the hallway. “Is the Death Br—the empress with you?”

“You'll see her when she desires it.” Gareth pulled back his hood, glancing at the others. “I brought visitors.”

Adele watched the dumbfounded faces around the room when Lothaire and Caterina entered. It had been a momentous few days for the young rebels. First Gareth, then the Death Bringer, and now the lords of the Paris clan. Kasteel was speechless, unable to grasp the events that were piling on top of him. The rest of the rebels looked to him for guidance, but found none from their chief.

Gareth threw off his cloak and said to Kasteel, “Post guards. Put someone on the roof and on each floor. Anyone could walk in, as I did.”

Kasteel sent several of his group scurrying up the stairs, all of them staring back at Gareth as they went. Nadzia went without orders to a front window where she alternated studying the street outside and the rarefied company in the room.

Then Adele let her protection fade. All the vampires saw her suddenly appear in their midst. Some shouted in alarm. Caterina suppressed a startled shudder and glared with suspicion. Adele remained placid, trying not to smile at the childish prank.

The queen asked her, “How do you do that?”

“Magic,” Adele replied without cynicism.

“Why can't all humans do it? Why are you special?”

Lothaire nervously cleared his throat. “My dear, don't interrogate the Death Bringer. She need not answer to us. We're here to answer
her
questions.”

Caterina raised her eyebrows in challenge. “I'm sure the Death Bringer doesn't mind. She is traveling with vampires after all.” She looked toward Gareth. “She obviously holds us in some minor esteem.”

“I hold some of you in high esteem.” Adele was direct but not cold. “However, call me Adele. Death Bringer puts a damper on polite conversation, I think.”

“Very well.” Caterina nodded in bemused acceptance. “What would
you
like to know?”

“Tell us about the Witchfinder.”

“I know very little,” Caterina said and paused, but when heads turned to Lothaire, she added, “He knows even less.”

“True, I'm afraid.” The king grinned with embarrassment. “I've never even seen him. I only know he exists because I've been told he does.”

“But
you've
seen him?” Gareth asked Caterina.

“Only once or twice. He's an older human with a long white beard. He seems quite at home among vampires. In fact, he acts as an equal.” She said the last line with natural haughtiness. She couldn't keep herself from glancing at Adele, but there was a touching flash of shame. She wandered the room as she talked, pausing next to Nadzia and, with a remarkable hint of unconscious motherhood, she cupped the young female's cheek with a hand and smiled down at her. “You're the same age as my oldest daughter Isolde.” Caterina brushed hair from the surprised Nadzia's face before turning back to Adele. “He came to Paris with Lady Hallow.”

“Who's this Lady Hallow you've been talking about?” Adele could tell immediately that the name was familiar to everyone, but she had never heard it, and that struck her as unusual.

Lothaire and Caterina both glanced with silent amusement at Gareth, who said, “She is a member of my clan. She was one of Cesare's chief advisors. Second only to Flay in importance at court.”

Caterina gave Gareth a chiding glance over something unsaid. “Lady Hallow came to Paris where she offered the services of the Witchfinder as a token of goodwill.”

“What services does he perform?” Adele let her curiosity about Lady Hallow drift away because of more important issues.

“I'm not sure,” Caterina said calmly. “We were never privy to those discussions. I did see those blue stones handed about, but I have no idea what they're supposed to be.”

Adele didn't want to accuse the queen of lying or holding back information. Certainly Gareth didn't appear suspicious of her. “You'll forgive me, but you are the king and queen. How is it that this man can operate without your full knowledge?”

Caterina frosted over. “He is the tool of Lady Hallow, who is involved in the defense of Paris against your armies. She has given him liberty to pursue victory as he sees fit.”

“I see.” Adele gave Caterina a hard stare. “Do you know where the Witchfinder is now?”

“No. He left Paris days ago in a bloodman airship, with some of our packs. Honore says he was off somewhere far to the east, and was going to be gone for several months at least. He is supposed to return before your army tries to destroy us in the spring.”

Lothaire blurted out, “Honore granted him an estate south of the city. That's where he stays most of the time.”

“Good.” Adele dropped her pack on the floor. “I'll have something to eat and then we'll have a look there.”

Caterina continued to study Adele. “We wouldn't be averse to this Witchfinder being removed. We consider him to be a vestige of Cesare's reign, and therefore he belongs to Gareth. Do with him as you will.”

Adele nodded with acceptance and offered a smile. She patted the hilt of her dagger. “That's the plan.”

Gareth's face was partially covered, similar to his Greyfriar garb. It was an easy enough explanation to tell the wagon driver that his face had been disfigured by a vampire. The farmer hadn't shown much interest in Gareth or Adele as he drove out of the city. He had taken them within a few miles of their destination before dropping the pair on the rutted path with the muttered words, “None who enter Versailles ever return.”

Adele and Gareth made their way through the deserted village. There was no sign of recent habitation. Tree roots broke and tumbled the cobblestone streets. Adele stumbled, hoping for an instant that it was only a loose stone, but knowing it was an attack of vertigo. She pressed her hand against a rough tree trunk, trying to keep from sinking to her knees.

“Adele!” Gareth grabbed her.

“It's the same thing,” she gasped. “Like outside Bruges.”

“Go back. I'll search the area.”

“No.” Adele straightened with a deep breath, focusing on a nearby window pane to calm the dizziness. “You won't know what to look for. I'm fine now. It just hit me by surprise. It's not as bad as before.”

As they slipped quietly through the ivy-covered rows of gutted buildings, more waves of nausea washed over Adele. She took long wet breaths, willing herself to ignore her body and focus on the outside. Stone after stone underfoot. Noting each tree they passed. Every time she looked up, she saw the roof of the grand palace of Versailles that loomed over the squat buildings grow larger. She extended her mind into the putrid malaise that saturated the area, scouring for any sweet scents and clinging to faint hints of rhythm amidst the screaming cacophony.

Adele felt Gareth's worried gaze on her, even while he kept an eye on the skies for challenges. The wind shifted and she grew ill again, but not from the repulsive aura of twisted geomancy. Rather it was the sadly familiar stench of dead bodies.

They worked their way to the rear of the palace where formerly precise arrangements of arbors were wild tangles of brush. The decrepit gardens fell away and engineered terracing was now just a rolling natural landscape recaptured by the forest.

Adele stared up at the massive yellow stone edifice with row after row of high rectangular windows, most broken. Sections of the roof appeared to be caved in and the walls were strangled with vines. “Do you believe the queen when she tells you the Witchfinder isn't here?”

“I do.”

“You trust both of them, don't you?”

“With my life. Those aren't the true Lothaire and Caterina you saw. Lothaire ran a fairly enlightened regime.
Enlightened
by vampire standards, in any case. Other clan lords took that to mean Lothaire was soft, which he was. But he was thoughtful too. He was never satisfied with cruelty as a belief system.” Gareth grew quiet. “He has no idea what to do. Watching his son grow up under my brother's specter must be horrible for him.”

In the past, Adele had only seen Gareth express such deep emotions about two others, his father and his old retainer, Baudoin. He was a singular person, preferring his own company, with the exception of Adele. However, she had watched him with Lothaire and saw the way he interacted with the king. It was unlike the way he had interacted with anyone else. Gareth immediately fell into a posture and language of easy familiarity that Adele had never seen before. Even with the tension of the situation, he and Lothaire acted like old friends. She had never seen Gareth with a
friend
. That strange, new Gareth was fascinating and attractive. She would have liked to have seen Gareth as he was in those days, exploring Paris with Lothaire. Watching the grim figure before her, it was almost impossible to imagine him as an adventurous young man. She smirked cynically when she realized that he wouldn't have been a young
man
, and his adventures would've included hunting humans for blood.