The Ruined City (20 page)

Everything she related was entirely true, but some facts she deliberately omitted. She divulged nothing of Ghostly identities, hierarchies, plans, habits, resources, or whereabouts. She certainly made no mention of Dr. Falaste Rione’s dangerous sister. Nor did she breathe a word of her own marriage to Onartino Belandor. She could hardly have brought herself to speak of it to her father, much less Uncle Nalio, and her sense of mortification was absurd, for she had nothing to be ashamed of. The so-called marriage had been a twisted travesty. It hadn’t even been legitimate—not really—and of course, it had meant nothing at all. She had escaped unstained; she was the Maidenlady Jianna still. So she assured
herself. Yet nothing could banish her rush of horror at the thought that—for the space of a day or two, between the wedding and his death—she had been Onartino’s wife, and his property.

Nalio was pestering her with questions. He wanted details and specifics, particularly those relating to this Dr. Falaste Rione, with whom she had spent so much time. Who was this Rione person? What was his background, his credentials? Had he treated her with the respect due a member of House Belandor? He was clearly no gentleman, else he would have escorted her home to Belandor House and transferred her safely into the keeping of the acting head of the household.

“He did escort me home.” Jianna strove for patience. “He just didn’t come inside.”

“I trust you made it clear to the fellow that he deserved a reward for his services?”

She felt the angry blood rush to her cheeks. “I think he was pressed for time,” she returned obliquely.

“But how very extraordinary.”

“Yes.” She deliberately misinterpreted. “He
is
extraordinary.” Oh, to pry him loose from this topic! She did not want to speak of Falaste Rione to Uncle Nalio, or to anyone else, for that matter. Somehow even the most commonplace, casual queries seemed invasive. Determined to change the subject, she plied her uncle with questions of her own, to which he replied at length. She verified, not to her surprise, that her father had been off upon some nameless jaunt at the time of the attack upon Belandor House. Of course. Aureste had at that time been launching his own assault upon Ironheart, of which Nalio appeared to know little or nothing. Hardly surprising—Aureste was not wont to confide in his youngest brother. Nalio knew only that Aureste had returned from that mysterious excursion frustrated, black-tempered, and distracted. He had undeniably applied himself to the healing of Belandor House, yet somehow, sometimes, his mind had seemed elsewhere. Nalio did not know why.

But Jianna did.

She fired off more questions and quickly learned as much as Nalio knew of his brothers’ current expedition north, but it seemed that the verifiable facts were few. Innesq and others of his ilk were needed to scrub down the Source in some abstruse, unnatural manner that only arcanists could possibly understand. If they failed, egregiously unpleasant things would happen. But then, unpleasant things were already happening all over town. More and more Vitrisians were dying of the plague these days, but the dead refused to rest in peace; they had developed an unseemly fondness for aimless rambling. At least, it looked aimless, but who could really say? The dead themselves offered no insight, consistently refusing to answer all questions put to them.

The Wanderers, as they were often known, while displaying no violent tendencies, were nonetheless dangerous by reason of extreme contagiousness, combined with unwelcome sociability. Their taste for living company was so marked that a certain alarmist element of the population actually imagined the corpses engaged in an organized effort to spread the plague. This was nonsensical, in Nalio’s opinion. The unfortunate remnants retained just enough of memory and feeling to long for contact with what had once been their own kind; it was nothing more than a final twitch of human instinct. Of course, “human instinct” could hardly account for the similarly gregarious behavior of the Sishmindri revenants. In all likelihood, the poor dead beasts simply demonstrated their continuing need and desire for firm human leadership, but again, the foolish alarmist element had taken fright. The result? There were sections of Vitrisi wherein Sishmindris were being slaughtered on sight—an appalling waste, in Nalio’s opinion.

Uncle Innesq would find it appalling, too
, thought Jianna.
But not for the same reasons. And Father?

Rumor had it, Nalio confided, that certain presumably plague-crazed Sishmindris had turned feral, even going so far
as to attack and kill their human overlords. Old wives’ tales, to be sure. All but impossible to imagine the quiet, placid creatures capable of such behavior. But if by chance the rumors actually contained a grain of truth—if murderous Sishmindris haunted the streets of Vitrisi—then the threat was negligible, for they would never set web-toed foot upon Belandor property.

Nobody
and
nothing
could possibly break in—not while Nalio Belandor was in charge. In addition to all of his brother’s arcane safeguards—all of them reinstated and reinforced prior to Innesq’s departure—there were plenty of mundane protective measures in place as well. Newly hired guards and sentries, formidably armed and stationed everywhere, indoors and out. Heavy locks of the most modern design, installed throughout the inhabited north wing. Hidden observation points. Cached weapons, secretly stored at key locations. An alarm system of bells and chimes. And then there were the fiendishly clever concealed
pitfalls
, designed to entrap and incapacitate intruders. He could not permit himself to enlarge upon that topic. The key element in the effectiveness of the pitfalls lay in
secrecy
. Suffice it to say, any would-be intruder was sure to encounter highly unwelcome … surprises, thanks to the vigilance and diligence of Nalio Belandor. In the past, security had been lax, and the results had been horrendous, but all of that had changed, under the stewardship of … Nalio.

To Jianna, it made little sense. It seemed that what was left of Belandor House had been transformed into some sort of a small fortress, not unlike Ironheart. Under the rule of Uncle Nalio, there were locks, bars, hidden pitfalls, innumerable regulations, and it was altogether unpleasant. There was no cause for real concern, however, for all of it was temporary. Aureste and Innesq would return within days, and then life would resume its accustomed aspect—at least, so far as possible within a largely ruined mansion overlooking a restive, fearful, angry, smoke-palled, plague-ridden, corpse-trodden city.

The meal was approaching its conclusion, and he was studying her with a thoughtful air that set alarm bells pealing inside her head.

“Is something amiss, Uncle?” she inquired, a shade too sweetly.

“All is adequately ordered,” he reassured her. “Your return introduces an unexpected element, but we shall alter the design accordingly.”

What in the world was he blathering about?

“I must decide what is to be done with you,” he explained, evidently noting her look of incomprehension.

“What do you mean—
done
with me?” She frowned, puzzled and uneasy. “I’ve come home, that’s all.”

“I must determine the course best serving the interests of House Belandor,” he announced, alight with noble resolution.

She did not understand what he had in mind, but he needed to be put in his place, and she replied very gently, “Surely it is my father’s place to do so, upon his return.”

“Surely. But who can say when that will be? My brother’s absence may continue for weeks—months—years. During that period, whatever its duration, it is my bounden duty to act as head of the household.”

She wanted to argue, but there was nothing to say. He was right.

“It is even possible,” Nalio mused, “that neither of my brothers will return at all. I do not wish to alarm you, niece, but the world is often harsh and cruel. It is wise to consider all possibilities, one of which is that the burden I have assumed will be mine to bear for life.”

Burden
—
you canting hypocrite! You’d like nothing better
.

Perhaps her thoughts showed in her eyes, for Nalio’s narrow face suffused, and he tilted his head back to look down his nose at her. “I will—will—will do my duty,” he proclaimed. “And be assured that you—you—you will do yours.”

“And what might that be?”

“When I have decided, I will—will—will let you know!”

“I see. As far as that goes, I believe I’ll wait upon my father’s will.” Pushing her chair back from the table, Jianna stood up.

“Sit down this instant. This conversation is not over.”

“Uncle, I bid you good evening.” Head high, Jianna marched from the room. His voice was hammering at her back, but she did not stop.

Vitrisi lay well behind them. For long, monotonous hours, the Belandor carriage and its satellites traveled north along the Nor’wilders Way over rolling, mist-smudged terrain marked by little more than the occasional small farmhouse rising amid empty fields. The sky was colorless and the land correspondingly drab, but the stark, wintry countryside offered one signal advantage. Here, far from the busy pyres of the city, the air was blessedly free of smoke.

Clean air notwithstanding, the scene was dull, and the Magnifico Aureste soon lost all interest. Drawing forth a list compiled by Nalio, supposedly describing each and every weapon carried by the Belandor party, down to the last miniature palm-bodkin—he lost himself in practical issues of distribution.

Innesq Belandor did not share his brother’s boredom. The hours passed, and his eyes never strayed from the passing landscape. Judging by the smile of almost child-like wonder and pleasure lighting his face, the sight of the world beyond Belandor House—beyond Vitrisi itself—was unlikely to pall within the near future. When night came and they halted to make camp, Innesq’s interest did not wane. The sight of the servants pitching the tents clearly fascinated him. The care and feeding of the horses, the preparation of the evening meal, even the digging of a communal latrine seemed to hold him spellbound. When the heat rising from the cookfire punched an incorporeal fist into the mists hovering about the campsite and Innesq lost track of all else, Aureste gave up
vying for his brother’s attention. At some point Innesq would surely return to reality, but for now he was conversationally useless.

In the morning the journey resumed, and it was a repeat in almost every particular of the previous day’s travel. So, too, were the following three days, but after that, the character of the land altered. Curves sharpened to angles, the grade of the road grew steeper, and the fields gave way to virgin moorland. The road itself—faint, narrow, ill defined—seemed more concept than reality. Progress slowed, and the carriage lumbered laboriously over land beginning to manifest hints of springtime mud.

The particularly teeth-rattling navigation of a stony stretch one sunless afternoon led Aureste to question his brother.

“With your great gift, would it not be a simple matter for you to—how shall I put it—facilitate progress?”

“Grant the horses the power of flight, perhaps?” Innesq inquired. “Or better yet, devise some means of compressing the next several days’ time into the space of a single hour?”

“Either would do nicely, but my imagination isn’t quite that fertile. I wondered only if you might not contrive to smooth the road a bit.”

“Ah. That I might, but I will not.”

“You could shorten our journey by days.”

“The cost is too high. Remember, each and every arcane exercise exacts its price in strength and vital energy. These commodities replenish themselves, but time is needed. The task that I and my colleagues face demands the highest talents and skills of all. I cannot afford to spend my resources upon such serviceable feats as the smoothing of roads, kindling of fires upon damp wood, or renewing the freshness of spoiled food. For now, I must play the miser. You understand me?”

“Oh, certainly. Certainly.” Aureste’s attention returned to weaponry, and the scenery flowed by.

In the time that followed, Innesq maintained his resolution. When they reached Boundary Water and crossed by way of a
bridge so ancient and rotten that the timbers groaned and split beneath the weight of the carriage, he offered no arcane assistance, despite his obvious sympathy for the nervousness of the horses. When one of a supply wagon’s wheels sank in mud, he did not help. And when mutual accusations of theft exploded between a couple of the guards, and it lay within his power to locate the missing article of contention, he uttered not a single potent syllable.

To Aureste, it smacked of artistic affectation. His brother’s powers seemed inexhaustible, and he perceived no great need of exaggerated economy. Inwardly he chafed at avoidable delays, but deferred as always to Innesq in all matters arcane.

They pressed north, and the way further darkened when they reached a region of tree-clad slopes. Here the road narrowed, worming a constricted path among the pines, whose tall forms blocked much of the tired light. At times the shade lay so thick and heavy that it became necessary to light the carriage lanterns at midday. Despite the dimness and difficulties, no serious mishap occurred, which was fortunate, for there were no locals to whom they could have turned for assistance—no villages, roadside inns, not so much as an isolated woodsman’s hut. The region through which they passed seemed uninhabited; presumably the soggy hills offered little hope of profit to men.