Part 28 (1/2)

'And while you apply your abundant mind to that dilemma, you and Rynde can carry our young visitor to somewhere more private.' He kicked Chris. 'I've got a few questions I've been saving up.'

'Wait a moment,' said Rynde. 'This one's mine.'

'This one,' said Glospin, pointing to Chris, 'is our way out. So keep your culinary fantasies to yourself.'

'He's mine.'

'He's no good to anyone par-braised and garnished.'

'Mine.'

Glospin produced some dice. 'Best of one.'

'Done.'

They crooked fingers over Chris's body. Owis raised a tentative hand. 'But if my predecessor's come back, what happens to me?'

'You?' Glospin smirked. 'What d'you think, Rynde? Cooked or raw?'

'Hung for a candleweek,' suggested Rynde. He poked Owis's stomach. 'Then smoked slowly over a citric fire to reduce the fat. There's enough there to last us a year.'

'Yike,' said Owis and shut up quickly. Glospin and Rynde threw dice over Chris. Rynde won.

Glospin fetched out a knife. 'Sorry. Defeat is not a concept I believe in.'

Rynde fingered the blade in his own pocket. He glanced along the gallery and he saw the approaching Drudge.

'Congratulations,' he said. 'You win.'

Glospin quickly nicked the skin on Chris's arm with his knife. He pulled back as the Drudge scooped Chris up and stalked away into the gloom.

He studied the blooded tip of the knife, sniffed it, held it to the light. 'The answer to your question, Owis, is simple.'

He smiled. 'You or the Doctor. One of you wil have to go.'

121.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Rice Cakes and a Banana

Chris dreamt he was awake.

He lay on a hard bed with a shawl over him. He'd just seen the murder again. Same characters, same location, same blood. And the white-haired figure was the man in the portrait. The man that Innocet called the first Doctor.

Towers of diamond lattice rose above him, like wine racks with coloured tubes instead of bottles. Above those, there were tangled branches merging with the solid, mottled sky. Something scampered along the underside of a branch, jumped across a gap and vanished behind the towers.

'Six,' said Innocet's voice.

Chris heard the clack of counters. He angled his head and saw Innocet and the Doctor hunched over a Sepulchasm board. The room could be a library, he thought. But there was no power to read the books.

'I was trying to get to my old room.' The Doctor threw a die. 'But there's a lagoon in the North annexe. Two again.'

'An underground stream comes in on the third level,' said Innocet.

Chris could hear them being polite.

'Only when I was thrown out, I left an experiment running that I didn't have time to finish. Some hybridized water-sligs that I crossed with a red-petalled orchid. I don't expect they survived.'

'Eight,' she said. The counters clacked. 'The creatures were locked in your room for one hundred and thirty years.

When they final y broke out they were as big as ichthydiles. There's a breeding colony in the annexe.'

'Ah. So that's why it's been closed off.'

'Forty-seven years ago, one of them strayed away from the colony. The Drudges trapped it in the kitchen. But no one could kill it, so it's still there.'

G.o.ddess, thought Chris. That was what was in the larder.

A die clattered. 'Two again!' complained the Doctor. 'This is ridiculous. I know you think I killed Quences, but it isn't true.'

'I saw you leave his room.'

'Impossible. I didn't come back to the House. They didn't even want me back. I was happy to concur.'

'Quences wanted you back. Nine. I'm catching up.'

'He was clinging to false hopes. But I wouldn't be tied down to his plans. And so Satthralope buried the place out of spite until I returned. Where's my Badger gone when I need him?'

'That dreadful old toy.'

'A present from Quences.'

'Oh, Snail,' she sighed, 'He always indulged you, you know.'

Snail! thought Chris. thought Chris.

There was a smile in the Doctor's voice. 'It's a very long time since I was called that.'

122.

'Yes.' She sounded duly embarra.s.sed. 'Once you were safe, Badger went off quite meekly with a Drudge.' There was a pause. 'So what was in Quences's will?'

'How can I possibly know that?'