The Traitor's Daughter (39 page)

He intensified his efforts and felt the incorporeal substance of the shield begin to soften. Another minute’s effort weakened the barrier to the point of ruin, and then he felt it collapse. The way was clear, and he could lead them in. He actually took a step or two forward before the training of a lifetime halted him. Perhaps his prudence was excessive, for the atmospheric/receptive shield had been thoroughly disabled, but proper procedure dictated a follow-up investigation, and accordingly he projected his arcane antennae.

A moment later his questing vision encountered a flash of hot dazzlement. Pain speared into his mind, sharp and deep enough to rock his concentration. He tottered, and one hand rose to shield his eyes; a useless instinctive reaction, for the radiance was not perceived by means of the physical senses. It took all the experience and technique at his command to retain mental control, and the effort left him gasping. Vinz opened his eyes. His companions, wholly ignorant of the arcane Retaliation seething in their path, were watching him closely—with some misgivings, he fancied, but the dominoes suppressed expression.

“Danger,” he informed them, a little breathless, but voice still creditably clear and calm. “Wait.”

Again they obeyed without question, unaware that he had very nearly led them all into a death trap. And how could that have happened, how could he have failed to note the existence of a sizable Retaliation hovering just behind the atmospheric/receptive shield? A corner of his mind was free to speculate, and an answer soon presented itself. His initial surveillance had missed the Retaliation because, at that time, the Retaliation had not yet come into being. The destruction of the atmospheric/receptive shield had triggered the generation of the second, far more lethal barrier. He had to admire the skill and ingenuity of such work, even while preparing to destroy it.

A few moments’ effort served to project a ShadowSon—an insubstantial replica of a man, complete in every detail, but invisible to the untrained eye. The ShadowSon, gifted with a handsome transparent face and a look of boundless good nature, advanced cheerily upon the booby-trapped doorway. When he reached it, the Retaliation smote so violently that the white-hot play of force defining the outline of the ShadowSon was dimly visible even to the uneducated eyes of the resistance soldiers. There was an audible sharp intake of breath, but no words.

The ShadowSon, lacking corporeality, sustained the attack unmoved. The fiery atmosphere enfolded him, the small lightning bolts pierced him through, but none of it possessed the power to alter his look of amiable tranquillity. Presently the lethal luminosity bled from the air, the killing bolts faded, and the ShadowSon turned a guileless eye upon his audience.

Stay
, Vinz enjoined in silence.

His creation obeyed and presently the assault resumed, its renewed fury dimly visible to untrained observers, blindingly brilliant to the eyes of Vinz. The glare crescendoed, the bolts of force arcing so plentifully and murderously that even the ShadowSon took note, gazing about him with an air of puzzled interest.

The bombardment diminished and slowed to a halt. The Retaliation’s energy was entirely spent. The ShadowSon stood unharmed, eyes blinking in mild bemusement.

Well done. You are free
, Vinz communicated.

Smiling happily, the ShadowSon dipped his handsome head in acknowledgment and ambled off into the night.

A final examination discovered no further danger. Vinz made for the entrance, the others close upon his heels. Through it without mishap and he stood inside Belandor House for the first time in his life.

It was a small mud-closet, plain and bare, clearly intended for the use of menials. No hint of arcane presence. Vinz led the way through the closet into the workshop beyond, and his heightened senses permitted him to see clearly in the absence of illumination—a privilege denied the companions stumbling in his wake. Belandor House was large and its plan was unknown to him, but probably the place shared many features in common with other great Vitrisian dwellings of its age and kind. Thus he would surely find the chambers of state and significance—including the master suite,
Aureste’s lair
—upon the first story above ground level. No need to use arcane power to guide him; better to conserve his resources.

Out of the workroom and into a narrow corridor Vinz led the way and now there was a very little light, just enough to define the boundaries of that space, its source not immediately apparent. Around a corner, and the light was far brighter, almost beating upon his dilated pupils. Several yards ahead rose a narrow wooden stairway. Upon the bottom tread sat the first human sentry so far encountered within Belandor House. It was an old man, white head bent over some sort of work in his lap. He seemed to be polishing a collection of metal buckles by the light of a tiny oil lamp. The sentry looked up, presenting an astonished wizened face, and it struck Vinz as odd that a gaffer of such obvious decrepitude should have been assigned guard duty in the dead of night. Were there no younger men better suited to the job?

Before there was time to ponder the question, a couple of his companions loped by him like masked wolves. The lamplight winked on plunging steel. A cry quavered and the old sentry tumbled full length at the foot of the stairs. At once one of the killers snatched up the lamp, then paused, evidently awaiting direction.

Vinz gasped, shocked and all but sickened. Despite all mental preparation, the speed and ruthlessness of the homicide had taken him by surprise, and now his focus blurred dangerously. His arcane perceptions wavered and for one hideous instant he looked upon his surroundings with the myopic eyes of an ordinary mortal, and saw
nothing
. A quick inhalation of a certain reddish powder restored equilibrium. Alarm and uncertainty receded. Vinz glanced about him, passing quickly over the dead gaffer. His surroundings seemed to glow with their own inner light, outer surfaces transparent, inner realities revealed. His companions were looking to him and now he could easily see the faces beneath the masks, not in terms of feature and complexion, but rather as aggregates of individual experience.

Without hesitation he led them up the stairs and out into a broad corridor whose marble floors, high ceilings, tall windows with brocade hangings, crystal, and gilding cosmeticized the magnificent public face of Belandor House. To the right, vast carven doorways opened upon a cavernous space whose far reaches were lost even to his enhanced vision—almost certainly a state ballroom or banqueting hall of some sort. To the left must lie the grandest personal suites, and in that direction he turned his steps. His followers trailed in his wake. Only one of them, the man carrying the oil lamp snatched from the murdered sentry, paused long enough to touch flame to a window hanging. The fabric ignited and fire ascended.

We won’t be able to come back this way when we leave
. The prospect failed to alarm Vinz. His last inhalation had fortified him beyond reach of distracting emotion, or so he believed. He did not relish the thought of the mansion’s destruction, but at that moment it failed to prick his armored conscience. As for their ultimate departure, he did not doubt that his skills would discover or create a way out for them all.

Before them loomed an archway, its bland curve spattered with bright patches of arcane awareness. He darkened the patches in quick succession and led the men through. Fire bloomed in their wake. Smoke commenced a lazy drift along the corridor.

Thus far the invasion had proceeded in silence and secrecy. Now a side door opened and a rumpled individual, perhaps roused from slumber by the smell of smoke, stepped forth into the corridor. A servant, Vinz saw at a glance, young and stoutly built—the first remotely qualified human guard he had encountered within Belandor House. The young fellow took in the scene at a glance, and sleep fled his eyes. The intruders cut him down in an instant, but not before he managed to loose a resounding outcry.

That will bring them
. The prospect that would ordinarily have unnerved Vinz Corvestri scarcely daunted him now. Should Belandor reinforcements appear, the strength of the resistance men, backed by the powers of a skilled arcanist, would easily defeat them.

And sure enough, another figure came stumbling into their midst, a manifestly terrified young woman, and she died before she could utter a scream. Compunction gnawed at the foundations of Vinz’s confidence. Smoke scratched at the back of his throat. Firmly he excluded both distractions.

Find Aureste
.

On along the corridor, around a corner, to another wakeful archway that had to be sent to sleep; then under it and on until his augmented instincts told that he stood within a few yards of significant prey, an individual of Belandor lineage.
The
individual?

The nearest door was unguarded and unlocked. He led them through it into a plainly furnished, almost ascetic receiving chamber,
not grand enough for a magnifico
, and thence into a simple chamber whose sole occupant, stirring from slumber, sat up in bed.

Vinz glimpsed a pale angular visage, heavy black brows, great dark eyes still smudged with sleep
—Aureste
!—then noted the haggard, almost fragile look of the face, the comparatively narrow shoulders and emaciated frame, the unusual length and delicacy of the fingers. His glance jumped to the wheeled chair waiting beside the bed. Not Aureste. This was Aureste’s younger brother Innesq, a reclusive cripple.

He could not raise his hand against a helpless invalid.

Even as Vinz confronted his own reluctance, the detached and purposeful portion of his mind currently governing his thoughts told him that the apparently vulnerable cripple was in fact the most dangerous adversary of them all. Innesq Belandor was an adept of formidable power, capable of single-handedly defeating any assault upon his home and avenging himself upon the attackers, if given the opportunity.

That opportunity would not be given.

Almost before he was fully conscious of his own intentions, Vinz Corvestri narrowed the energy that filled him to a single, concentrated beam capable of altering the nature of the atmosphere immediate to the man in the bed. For one brief moment the air surrounding the target would open, drawing Innesq Belandor’s life-force unto itself, a process that Innesq would probably experience as a paralyzing chill. Immediately thereafter the surfeited and nauseated atmosphere would regurgitate explosively, blasting the victim with his own stolen energy. It was to be hoped that Innesq would lose consciousness prior to immolation, but this could not be predicted with certainty.

Innesq was looking straight at him, sleepy confusion giving way to alarm, and Vinz could not let himself hesitate. Collecting his force, he held his breath and hurled his arcane bolt. What happened next defied a lifetime of experience.

In that split second of launching the attack, Vinz met his target’s eyes and saw comprehension there. Innesq Belandor knew that he was doomed; knew, and displayed no terror.

Arcane energy impinged violently upon the substance of the air and, deep within the recesses of his mind, Vinz sensed the atmospheric transformation. But it seemed not as he expected or remembered; it was foreign. Beyond foreign, profoundly alien. Incomprehensible. Impossible.
Impossible
.

There was no time to ponder the implications before the atmosphere voiced its anguish in an arcane shriek so vast that even the uninitiated of the resistance caught the faint echo of it, and cast their masked glances about in search of the origin. To the two men present possessing highly trained arcane abilities, the sound was overwhelming. Innesq Belandor’s face twisted and he pitched backward onto the pillows, struck unconscious or dead. Vinz was unaware that he himself uttered a cry. Pain clamored in his skull. For a moment he could neither hear nor see. He tottered and would have fallen but for the supporting arms of his companions. Seconds passed, and the atmospheric shrieking went on and on. His mind would give way, some part of him realized, if the assault continued. But even in the midst of torture and terror, some kernel of intellect remained free to marvel at this impossible failure of arcane principle that
could not fail
.

The air about him seemed to burn with furious, glorious light of a color not to be found in the physical world. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and it was killing him. But then he realized that the ineffable color and the shriek of the atmosphere were fading away and almost he imagined himself willing to endure the pain, if only he might continue to watch. Probably the resistance men were blind, but Innesq Belandor would see it clearly, if he retained life and consciousness. And if he did so, then he must be deprived of both forthwith.

It would have to be done with mundane weapons, for at that moment Vinz Corvestri could hardly stand upright unaided, much less wield the power of the Source. He would have to tell them to ply their blades quickly, while Innesq still lay dazed and defenseless, and he
would
tell them, just as soon as he regained his voice. In vain he strove to speak. Before the words could be forced out, a door in the opposite wall burst open and into the bedroom leaped a quartet of large Sishmindris garbed in the livery of House Belandor. All four were armed with stout truncheons—an amazing spectacle. Even more amazing was their ferocity. Their vocal sacs were gigantically distended, almost doubling the size of their heads. The small membranous frills edging their earholes were fully fanned. Their bulging eyes blazed, while their staccato croaks and hoots unmistakably translated to battle cries.

It was unbelievable, almost as much of an impossibility as the previous moment’s lunatic lapse of arcane reality. Sishmindris were inherently submissive creatures, formed for servitude and never defying much less threatening their human owners. And if by chance there existed amphibians capable of resisting this law of nature, there remained the law of man, which meted out death to any Sishmindri caught bearing arms.