The Halls of Stormweather s-1 Page 8

  The women also encountered more of the Hulorn's retainers, though never in any condition to aid them. Most had fallen victim to the same trance that had overtaken the majority of the people in the amphitheater and proved resistant to any effort to rouse them. Others lay dismembered, slain by some beast now roaming the building. One fellow-or woman, it was hard to tell-looked as if something had reached down his throat and turned him inside out. Several more had changed into inert figures of gnarled wood, red clay, glass, or, in one instance, a patchwork of all three.

  Tazi studied the carnage with ghoulish fascination. "This is not a spectacle being staged for your amusement," Shamur told her in disgust. "These were innocent people, senselessly slaughtered."

  "If I sniffle and dab at my eyes, will it bring them back to life?" Tazi replied. "Besides, if it's all so tragic, why are you looking so bright-eyed and chipper?"

  "I'm not," Shamur said, yet, now that Tazi had prompted her to consider herself, she couldn't help wondering if the girl was right. Oh, she felt all the emotions that any ordinary woman would if trapped in the same ghastly situation. Pity for the victims of Bloodquill's magic. Anxiety for Tazi's life and her own. But along with the fear came a delicious sharpening of the senses. The addictive intensity in pursuit of which a lass from one of the wealthiest families in Selgaunt had embraced the perilous life of a thief.

  She was still trying to banish or at least conceal her exhilaration when she and Tazi passed a mirror. The reflections inside the glass lay at right angles to their sources, as if the two women were walking straight up a wal*****

  No. Shamur wasn't looking at her own recumbent reflection, not anymore. She was standing beside the ornately carved canopy bed of a young woman who looked exactly like her and had even borne her name. Her grand-niece, of whom she'd grown fond in the tendays since she'd slipped back into Selgaunt, and who had mysteriously and quite unexpectedly died in the night.

  Hook-nosed, curly bearded Lindrian, Shamur's nephew and the dead girl's father, hammered his temple with the palm of his hand. "Why?" he sobbed. "Why, why, why?"

  "To destroy us," Fendo growled. He was Shamur's brother, now hideously aged to a bloated, gouty old man and head of the Karn family. Despite his physical decline, his wits remained as keen as ever, and Shamur didn't doubt that his inference was correct. Somehow, his granddaughter had been murdered.

  Once Shamur had come to terms with the fact that the interplay of magical forces in the crypt had somehow exiled her in the future, she'd decided to return home and discover what had become of her family. It ought to be safe enough if she was careful. Even after half a century, it was unlikely that the other merchant noble families had forgotten or forgiven her thefts, but they no doubt assumed her dead, or at least withered into a doddering crone.

  When she'd revealed herself to Fendo, he'd welcomed her with open arms. Still, all was far from well. The Karns had recently experienced a succession of disastrous business reversals, and now stood on the brink of bankruptcy. Fendo firmly believed some hidden enemy had engineered the family's ruin, but had had no success in discovering the culprit's identity.

  Shamur contemplated a new series of robberies, but the Karns' debts were so enormous that even she couldn't steal enough to keep them afloat. The only hope was an alliance by marriage with another merchant noble house willing to provide a massive infusion of cash.

  Happily, Thamalon Uskevren then sued for the hand of Lindrian's daughter, the only marriageable child in the family. The Uskevren were rich, but many of their peers still scorned them for once trafficking with pirates. Perhaps Thamalon was willing to pay dearly for a Karn bride because he hoped the union would help his own house regain respectability. Or conceivably, as he professed, he truly loved the girl. Either way, it didn't matter. What did matter was that deliverance was at hand.

  Or it had been. Until the Karns' unknown foe had employed poison or black magic to snatch it away. Now…

  Fendo gripped Shamur's arm with his dry, feeble, liver-spotted hand. Surprised, she turned to face him, and was taken aback by the feverish glitter in his rheumy eyes.

  "You look exactly like her," he said, "and no one outside the household knows you've returned."

  *****

  "Mother?" Tazi said.

  "Yes," Shamur said, wrenching her gaze away from the mirror. "I'm all right. Let's keep moving." As they stalked on down the corridor, she wondered grimly why the magic was forcing her to relive all the bad times, the moments when life took a calamitous turn for the worse.

  Well, no point brooding about it. Better to stay alert and savor the pleasantly edgy feeling that came from knowing danger was all around. That and the gladsome weight of a broadsword in her hand.

  The hallway took a turn that hadn't existed before the start of the opera, then came to a dead end. The obstruction at its terminus resembled a plug of raw, fatty mutton. The Uskevren women backtracked and ultimately found another route that led to the exit they'd used before.

  "Let's hope this still goes to the Hunting Garden, and not to the Great Glacier or someplace," Tazi said wryly. She opened the door.

  The music swelled, and Shamur's head spun. The dizziness passed in an instant, and she saw that the door did indeed still provide access to the amphitheater, not that the look of the place was especially inviting.

  The bowl in the earth seethed with violet sparks, as if millions of fireflies were swarming there. The luminous cloud was so thick that it was difficult to make out the forms inside it, but Shamur could tell that most of the audience still sat entranced. One figure, however, its arms vanished and its legs fused together, was laboriously worming its way up one of the aisles, while on one of the benches farthest from the stage, a man and a woman were feasting on the brains of a corpse with a shattered skull.

  A few pinpoints of light scintillated beyond the confines of the open-air theater as well, and here and there, the landscape rippled with miragelike images-a snowy mountaintop, a city of spindly pastel towers floating on clouds, a subterranean flow of glowing lava-as Guerren's magic evidently labored to open gates between the Hunting Garden and elsewhere.

  "Come on," Tazi said. The two women strode forward.

  "We may have to use force to stop the musicians," Shamur said, "but don't kill them. They don't know what they're doing."

  "What kind of bloodthirsty jackass do you think I am?" Tazi replied. Pinwheels of red and yellow light spun in the air before them.

  The colors streamed and arranged themselves into shapes, becoming a pair of creatures half human and half leopard, with gorgeous gold rosettes on their crimson pelts. Each held a short, curved, single-edged sword in either hand, and roaring, they attacked.

  When Shamur retreated a step, the slick sole of her shoe slipped on the path, nearly costing Shamur her balance. Even so, she succeeded in parrying her adversary's first stroke, then split its skull before it could attempt a second. She pivoted just in time to see Tazi execute the risky but frequently effective maneuver known as the Boar's Thrust, simultaneous squatting to duck the remaining leopard man's cut and driving her point into its belly. The creature made a choking sound and collapsed.

  "Nicely done," Shamur said. Tazi stared at her as if her mother's praise was the weirdest prodigy she'd encountered yet.

  After an awkward instant of silence, the two women marched on toward the amphitheater, their weapons at the ready. Shamur's blood was up. Conjure up some more servants, she thought savagely. We can kill anything you can throw at us. But, having failed with that tactic once, Bloodquill's magic fell back on its most effective defense. Once again, the music seemed to blare, and the shining haze in the bowl blazed dazzlingly bright. Something scooped her up*****

  Shamur sat beside her grandniece's dressing table suffering a maid to paint her face. Once she might have preferred to apply the cosmetics herself, but she was afraid she'd lost the knack. She hadn't bothered with such fripperies since she'd fled the city.

  Ilmater's bleeding w
ounds, how she wished she could run away again!

  Lindrian hovered over her to ensure that the servant made her look precisely as his poor dead daughter would have chosen to look. And to assail her with advice.

  "You must always remember," he said, restlessly prowling about her chair, "the girl looked like you, but inside, she was your opposite."

  "I know," Shamur sighed. "I was acquainted with her too, if you recall."

  "She was refined," the bearded man continued as if he hadn't heard. "Sensitive. Gentle. Timid, even. She would no more have used vulgar language, or spoken an unkind word-"

  "Than she would have robbed Vilden Talendar at sword point," Shamur gritted. "I understand."

  "I hope so," Lindrian fretted. "If Thamalon ever suspected we foisted an impostor on him! And not just any impostor, but the most infamous outlaw in recent memory! He'd likely have the marriage annulled and demand his gold back. He might even launch a feud against our house. And you, Aunt, he'd hand over to the city guard."

  Shamur threw a bottle of hand lotion and hit him in the center of his chest. "I said, I understand! Just get out of here, will you? Get out and let me prepare in peace!"

  Lindrian stared at her for a moment, then nodded and withdrew.

  Afterwards, as she headed downstairs, she felt faint, and seized the banister to keep herself from falling. Gods above, how could she, who hitherto had always followed her heart, go through with this masquerade? How could she entomb her own nature inside the persona of a woman who'd shared none of her tastes and inclinations? How could she, who had known true love, marry a stranger?

  Yet how could she not, when the alternative was to stand idly by and watch her family ruined. Now that Eskander and his comrades were gone, her kin were the only people she cared about or even knew. Moreover, she had a fey sense that it was her destiny to sacrifice herself in this manner. Why else had such a bizarre combination of circumstances landed her in the future? Why else had fate decreed that she and her grandniece would look exactly alike?

  The dizziness passed. She arranged her features into a smile that felt like an insipid simper, and, her skirts swishing, her hair scented with lavender, minced on down the steps to greet her betrothed.

  *****

  Abruptly Shamur and Tazi were back in the foyer. The passage of time had done nothing to sweeten the smell of the gorgon's carcass.

  "Damn it!" Tazi spat, kicking viciously as Rauthauvyr's head. The chiseled marble orb rolled clattering across the floor.

  "My sentiments precisely," Shamur said. "Our first removal from the Garden could have been happenstance, but this time, there isn't any doubt. Guerren's magic was aware of us somehow, aware we intended to stop it, and it distanced us from the musicians to forestall our efforts."

  "That's the way it looks to me, too," Tazi said. She strode to the door and opened it. The jungle was gone, and the turnaround and Selgaunt had returned. "Here's one bit of good luck, anyway. You could still go seek help, if you want to."

  "Bugger that," said Shamur. "We can beat this thing by ourselv-" She realized Tazi was staring at her, and caught herself up short. "What I mean is, we might not have enough time left before the opera reaches the finale. Moreover, the way space is twisting and tearing, any rescuers might be unable to find their way into the Palace, and they might fall into a stupor or turn into snails if they did."

  "All right, then," Tazi said, closing the door with a thump. "If we can't reach the floor of the amphitheater, what do we do?"

  "Remember Quyance, the man who interrupted the Hulorn? He knew dire things would happen if the opera was performed. If we find him, perhaps he can tell us something useful."

  Tazi frowned dubiously. "Don't you think the guards dragged him off to jail?"

  "It's possible, but he seemed harmless. With Andeth and half the aristocracy to watch over, perhaps they simply locked him up somewhere on the premises for the time being. Let's take a look around."

  They started toward a corridor, and Shamur once again felt the minimal traction between the slick soles of her slippers and the surface beneath. She hesitated for a second, then impatiently decided, to hell with it. "Bide a moment," she said. She pulled off the shoes, then used the edge of her broadsword to saw away her cumbersome skirt above the knees and slit the remainder of the garment up the sides.

  Tazi watched for a moment, shaking her head, then proceeded to treat her own gown in similar fashion, though she held on to her shoes, which evidently had rougher bottoms. "Not that I'm complaining, but someday you'll have to tell me who you are and what you did with my real mother."

  Shamur grinned. "I ate her."

  As the two searched, the discordant music swelled louder, and they saw an occasional violet spark glittering here inside the building. Strange odors hung in the passages, and a torrent of water poured from midair, vanishing again before it could strike the floor. Armies of shadows battled on the walls of one of the sculpture galleries, and the conflict bathed the floor in real blood. Most disquietingly of all, Shamur periodically fancied she glimpsed another version of herself and another Tazi prowling along ahead of them, but the pair always slipped around a corner or through a doorway before she could be sure.

  Trying not to let the phantasmagoria unsettle her, she kept an eye out for the unobtrusive service passages leading away from the viewing rooms and performance halls. For it was hardly likely that the soldiers had imprisoned an alleged lunatic in a chamber containing valuable works of art, or in any other place the Hulorn's guests were likely to visit.

  Eventually the search led her and Tazi downstairs to the cellars. Here, mercifully, the wonders and anomalies seemed less abundant, though the music sounded as loudly as before.

  Tazi tested the handle of a stout door reinforced with iron bands, found it locked, and rapped on it. On the other side, someone gave a wordless, gurgling cry.

  The two women exchanged a glance, then kicked the door in unison. It banged in the frame, but held firm, and Shamur could tell that they could batter it for hours without effect.

  Tazi gave her mother a sidelong, uncharacteristically diffident look. "I… may be able to do something here," she said. From the small, beaded pouch on her belt she removed a supple roll of chamois. When she opened it, it proved to contain a shining assortment of steel picks and probes, tucked through a series of loops to hold them in place.

  Now it was Shamur's turn to stare at her companion in astonishment. She knew something of her daughter's wild and contrary ways, but still, was it possible? Tazi a thief, just as she herself had been? She supposed she ought to feel outrage, but the emotion wouldn't come, and she surprised both the girl and herself by bursting out laughing instead.

  "Yes, get us in," she said. "And may Mask kiss your fingers."

  Shamur saw with a wistful twinge of pride that Tazi's touch was as deft as her own had been. The lock, though relatively sophisticated, clicked and yielded in a trice. The older woman gave her daughter time to rise and ready her knife and long sword, then threw open the door.

  Inside was a low-ceilinged cell, with shackles intended to secure a brace of prisoners to the far wall. Unfortunately, the power of Guerren Bloodquill's music had altered the nature of the chains. They started out from their mountings as lengths of metal links, but after a few inches turned into thick, lush-smelling green vines, grown and twisted together to become some sort of plant. In the center of the intricate tangle dangled the helplessly writhing form of Quyance, with pairs of serrated, fleshy leaves clamped around his limbs like jaws. Judging from the little man's raw skin and blisters, the leaves secreted a juice that was slowly digesting him alive.

  Tazi exclaimed in disgust and hacked at the plant.

  Three gaping, traplike sets of leaves shot out at her like striking adders. Shamur swung her sword and severed one of them, and the younger woman accounted for the other two.

  Killing the plant proved to be far from easy. It had countless mouths with which to strike at its attackers and n
o obvious vital areas at which the women could aim their blows. Still, Shamur felt confident that she and Tazi would defeat it in time, because she assumed it couldn't pursue them when they found it expedient to retreat. It was, after all, rooted to the back wall, and probably to the floor as well.

  Then it made a fool of her by lunging, its roots either stretching or ripping free of their moorings. Shamur pivoted toward the doorway but couldn't reach it in time. A wave of creaking, rattling foliage slammed into her and Tazi, shoving them against the wall.

  The mass of the plant pressed all around Shamur, blinding, smothering. Pairs of leaves closed on her, soft but powerful, relentlessly stinging her with their acids and striving to immobilize her. Snarling, she cut at the thing over and over again.

  Finally, it stopped moving.

  "Mother?" Tazi gasped. "Are you all right?" From the sound of her voice, she was still only a yard of two away, but completely invisible inside the jumble of vines. These were already turning brown, and, from the stink of them, beginning to rot.

  "I'm fine," Shamur said. "You?"

  "The same, but that was close."

  "Close calls are good for you," Shamur said. It was a remark she'd often made to other thieves and adventurers. "They get your blood pumping."

  "Sometimes right out of your body," Tazi replied, "but I take your point."

  With considerable effort, the women struggled clear of the plant, then turned their attention to Quyance, stripping away the leaves and coils of liana that bound him. To Shamur's relief, the little man wasn't burned as badly as she'd initially feared.

  "Thank you," he whispered.

  "You're welcome," Shamur said. "I wish we could take you directly to a healer as well, but we haven't time. We have to stop the opera, and we need your help. Exactly who are you, Master Quyance, and what do you know about what's going on?"