Part 21 (1/2)
”My lord?” Cadmus now lay flat on his back, obviously exhausted and very shaken.
”I'm right here.” Botello stood over him like a mountain. Smiling.
”Are you all right?” ”Yes, but what exactly happened?”
”It was Botello Darmo, I can't explain how he did it, but-gawds, my gut's full to bursting.” Cadmus groaned and turned on his side.
Yes, well, Botello had indulged quite heavily at the dining table. Time to indulge some more now that he was in a body and in complete control of it. He was so very, very starved.
”Let me help you, my boy.” Reaching down, he took Cadmus's hand. The man was a fool, but hedid have magical energy, a goodly amount, and taking it fresh was far better than the stored stuff of the room.
Cadmus pa.s.sed out long before Botello finished draining him.
Chapter Eleven.
Just outside Botello Darmo's Black Room Shankey held his lantern high. The handkerchief he'd left behind seemed to be sprouting right out of the stone of the wall. ”Still there,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily. He must have been nervous.
I understood the feeling. We were all twitching a little, except Terrin, of course. Botello's burglar alarms were still in place, first hitting us with the dragon-with-a-sore-head noise routine, then a.s.saulting us with bad smells. Knowing they were harmless didn't help. Filima had a tight grip on my arm-which I didn't mind-and Shankey kept muttering-which I did. Terrin ignored all of us, forging ahead. All he did was to raise his arm once, and both noise and stink had ceased.
”Tasty,” he said. There was a decided bounce in his step again. He must have been sucking down magical energy like ice tea on a hot day.
The distractions gone, Shankey trotted ahead to the site of the secret door. He tried to pull the handkerchief out, but it stuck fast until he pushed. The stone slab door swiveled easily. Must have been a h.e.l.l of a good engineering job to make that happen.
Terrin had his own lantern and plunged inside. I gestured for Filima to proceed me, but she balked.
”Nothing in there but broken junk,” I told her.
She gave me a funny look, as though she might burst into laughter or sock me one and couldn't quite make up her mind. ”I'd rather wait out here.”
”So would I, but his nibs will want you inside. Come on. He won't let anything happen to you.”
She made a little sound to indicate faint confidence in that promise, then gathered her skirts up and stepped in. Shankey hesitated, like he wanted to bolt someplace very much elsewhere, then duty overcame desire and he followed his lady. Muttering. ”Day-um,” said Terrin. ”Don't you have maid service down here?” He kicked at pottery shards with his purple high-tops.
”No,” she said, looking around, visibly s.h.i.+vering. ”Botello never told me about this room.”
”I just bet he didn't. If I had a hidey-hole like this I sure wouldn't share. But you found out about it, anyway.” He shot her one of his patented, don't-you-tell-me-no-friggin'-lies looks.
She totally missed it, busy being wall-eyed about the surroundings. ”Yes, I found out. I followed him one night.”
”Through allthat ?” asked Shankey, pointing toward the tunnel and its defunct alarms.
”He dispelled the protections whenever he came down,” she explained.
”Meaning you followed him more than once?” I asked.
”Yes. He'd tell me he'd be going for a midnight walk on the grounds or be reading late in his study or something like that. He expected me to be stupid enough to believe him.”
Lot of disgust there. Couldn't blame her. On the other hand, Botello had been stupid enough to leave a raving gorgeous gal like Filima all on her lonesome. What a d.i.c.khead.
”Instead,” she continued, ”he would come down here.”
”Can't see the attraction myself,” I said. ”But didn't he have a magic room upstairs?”
”Yes, but not like this one. I'd have sensed something of what he was up to.”
”And that would be . . . ?”
”Nothing good.”
From the heebies I was getting by being here again, that went without saying, but I wanted her to be more specific.
”Was this his scrying mirror?” asked Terrin, pointing to the floor and a scatter of especially lethal-looking shards of polished stone.
She nodded.
”Where's the table it sat on?”
”There was none. He had it on a stand, like a dressing room mirror. It was quite large.”
”How large?”
She held her hand up just above her own height. ”Wide, too. Like a doorway.”
”Huh,” he grunted. ”Check this out.” He b.u.mped stone with his toe. I dropped to my haunches for a good close look, seeing a few dozen small replicas of myself peering back from the pieces. In a normal mirror it should have been just parts of me in the reflections, but scrying mirrors are different. I thought it had to do with polarization and the material, but had never followed up on the idea. ”What about it?”
”There's not that much here. I've broken mirrors before and they make a nasty mess. A big one.”
”Maybe the rest is under the other debris.”
”Not in this spot.”
I noticed that there wasn't much broken pottery stuff near where the mirror must have stood. Then there was the body-shaped clear area right next to it. That Sherlock Holmes movie I'd once seen came back to mind. Too badhe wasn't here to help out. I'd have preferred to have him do the talking for the next few minutes, not me, but he wouldn't know how to push the issue to get Filima to talk.
”Uh, Captain Shankey . . . you got some armor on, don't you?”
He gave a start at being addressed, but recovered. He must have the heebies, too. Bad. ”No, the house guard only wears armor on formal occasions.”
”Well, that's a leather vest, isn't it? That should protect you.”
”From what?” Now he looked as uneasy as his jumpy pal Debreban.
”The floor. I want you to lie down right here.” I pointed to the body-shaped bare spot.
”Why not you?”
” 'Cause I don't have the vest.”