Part 25 (1/2)
The Overduke's Palace, a Parlor ”Orders is orders ma'am,” said Captain Rockbush stoically. ”His lords.h.i.+p is the only one who can revoke 'em.”
”But if what we heard is true, then it wasnot Lord Anton who gave those orders,” Velma patiently argued.
”I was there, ma'am, I oughter know Lord Anton from Lord Botello, who was a sight shorter and dead these two weeks.”
”But Lord Anton has been possessed by Botello!”
”Perhaps so, ma'am, but it's not my place to make that judgment. Besides, this here Lord Cadmus might be telling you a tale so as to make an escape. I will afford that it is very original. I've not heard better.”
”But he positively reeks of sulfur-doesn't that tell you something?”
”Only that Lord Anton was at work in his Black Room. Maybe he had call for sulfur in his magics. Or rotten eggs. Not my place to make inquiries into his business, ma'am.”
Cadmus, sitting on the edge of one of the comfy chairs, buried his head in his hands and groaned. ”It's all right, Velma. This is the price of my trusting the wrong man. My gawds, a dead man at that. And they say the dead don't lie.”
The other guard, posted at the door by Rockbush, stifled a snort of reaction. Whether it was amus.e.m.e.nt or derision was hard to say. Rockbush was rather more conscious of his training in palace deportment and shot him a glare. The doctor stood by a window, looking squintily thoughtful.
”Perhaps Lord Perdle might be of a.s.sistance,” he suggested. ”Maybe,” said Velma. ”But he's not here in the palace. It would be very hard to convince him that anything was off with Anton, either. Perdle's a good minister, but doesn't have a lot of imagination.”
”I'm really very, very sorry,” Cadmus moaned. ”I know it won't help, but there it is.”
”I'm sure someone will forgive you,” she said, not too consolingly. ”But right now we need a way of putting Anton back where he belongs.”
”No question about it. With Botello pretending to be overduke there's all manner of mischief he can get up to.”
”I'm more concerned about getting Anton out of h.e.l.l,” she snapped.
Cadmus winced. ”Um, yes, sorry. That must be our first course of action.”
”So what do we do?” she demanded.
He opened his mouth, but no brilliant solution came out. He tried thinking a bit, but came up empty there, as well. Had the few hours he'd spent in a mindlock destroyed his ability to reason? Impossible.
Cadmus was fully aware and awake now and trying hard not to s.h.i.+ver as various possibilities about his own immediate future came unbidden to him. Those were gruesomely clear. Nearly all had him wasting away in a dungeon bound up in different kinds of torture devices; the rest had to do with quicker modes of death. It was one thing to hear about the stuff when at a party with a ghost story theme, quite another to face the prospect of learning about them firsthand. Botello would want this inconvenient witness quite thoroughly gone.
”Logically,” said the doctor, ”we must confront Lord Anton-that is to say Botello. If he is Botello. Are you sure?”
”Abundantly so, my dear fellow,” Cadmus answered. ”He will deny all, though.”
”Certainly he would, whether or not what you told us is true. But the motivation behind the denial will be different for each man. If he is Lord Anton he will have one sort of reaction. If he is Lord Botello, another. But how to determine which is which? Perhaps the lady would be able to shed some light should she be a witness to-”
”Forget it,” said Velma. ”Let's just a.s.sume he's Botello and take it from there, 'cause if he's really Anton it's gonna be easier to get forgiveness than permission.”
”Permission to do what?”
”I don't know! Cadmus has all the magic training, ask him.”
Cadmus groaned again. ”Magic training, but no magic. He sc.r.a.ped me clean.”
”What?”
”It's all gone. I can feel it inside, that is, I can't feel it inside. This happened to me once before when I had a really bad cold, was flat on my back for weeks. Though I got well again physically I was still recovering astrally. Took me months to build up to full magical strength again.” ”Indeed,” said the doctor. ”I've heard the same complaint from other Talents; physical ills and even pregnancy affects their working powers. What about now?”
”Now?”
”Recovering what you've lost.”
”That's the dodgy bit; there's no magical energy to be had. Botello's drained it all away.”
”All of it?”
”Yes! That's why there are no Talents left in Rumpock!”
”That's not just a rumor?”
”No! The Talents who were in town the night the h.e.l.l-river first rolled through were gone by morning.
He never told me what happened to them, but I think they'd been absorbed into it.”
”Absorbed. Uh-hum.” The doctor sounded dubious, but lacking Talent himself it was understandable.
”No one was reported as missing, though.”
”Because of the river! It did something to nearly everyone's memory. Oh, bother. You believe it, don't you, Velma?”
”Anton believed it, and I believed him,” she hedged. ”But back to the main problem. How do we get Botello out of him and Anton back from h.e.l.l? Without magic?”
”We can't.”
”We might come morning.”
”What do you mean?”
”The dawn meeting of the remaining Talents? You and Anton talked about it at dinner.”
”ButI wasn't there. That was Botello in my body, remember?”
She nodded. ”And neither of us noticed any difference in your manner, either. It could be real hard proving Anton's Botello.”
Cadmus looked up, nonplused and annoyed. ”You mean you didn't see anything odd about my behavior?”
”Sorry. It's not the sort of thing you normally have to look out for.”
He bit back a very ungentlemanly word. b.l.o.o.d.y Botello. Not only had he done a mindlock and impersonated him, but had beengood at it. Cadmus hated the idea of being that easy to mimic.