Brown River Queen (5 page)

Evis nudged one with the toe of his boot. It failed to rise up and smite him.

The Corpsemaster’s household staff, I believe. I see no signs of violence.

“Looks like they just fell over,” I said. “Any lingering signs that they might get up again, maybe take exception to our visit?”

None. These are mere remains. Whatever once animated them is departed.

Evis made his way to the door set at the other end of the room and tried the latch.

“Locked,” he said. “Any reason we need to linger here, Stitches?”

The sorceress turned, hands upraised, hair floating about her head as if she were falling feet-first down a chasm. She made two full turns, strange lights playing about her black-nailed fingers, her jaw working behind those sewn, bloody lips.

No. There is simply nothing here. Or, perhaps more precisely, there is nothing present my own skills are capable of detecting.

Evis nodded, reached into his pocket and produced his own key. “Never thought I’d actually use this thing. Wish me luck.”

He shoved the key into the lock and turned it before I could speak. Again, the door swung open, revealing nothing but darkness behind it.

Evis stuck his fool head through before Stitches, despite her diminutive size, grabbed his collar and hauled him back.

I will go first, Mr. Prestley. Need I remind you in whose home we are?

Evis grinned and made a grand sweeping motion toward the half-open door.

“After you, sorceress. I was only having a quick peek.”

Impetuous youth. But, as the deed is done, what did you see?

“Bodies, like these. Twenty, maybe more. No movement.”

“Impetuous youth,” I said. “That’s a new one. The hall itself—was it long, straight, and did you see a pair of big iron-banded doors on the left, about halfway down?”

Evis nodded an affirmative.

I sighed. “That’s the kitchen. We’ll be needing my key soon.”

Something sparked and flashed in the air around Stitches. Her hair went wild, standing out in every direction, most of it trying to aim itself at a moving spot that seemed to play along the walls around us.

We must hurry. A crowd is gathering beyond the Corpsemaster’s ward spells. Some within it are applying certain pressures to the wards.

“Will they hold?”

I cannot say. Haste is our best ally.

And with that, she was through the door, casting the fierce light of day about her. The kitchen was cold and dark and empty. There were no bodies. There was an empty teakettle on a stove, a cup in the sink, a plain wooden chair pushed back from the Corpsemaster’s monstrous oak table.

Something in the tableau stirred a memory. My last sight of my own mother’s kitchen. Her favorite cup in the sink, her favorite chair pushed back. Both waiting for their mistress to return. Both waiting in vain because she was gone and never coming home again.

Stitches poked here and prodded there, playing her strange lights throughout the room, sending glowing orbs soaring before they returned to her, whispering and flashing.

Nothing,
she said.
Old magic, yes, but old magic steadily failing.

“The last door isn’t far,” I said, gripping my key. I was ready to wade through corpses stacked knee-high if doing so would get me away from that lone cup and that angled chair. “Leave here and take a left. Hidden door by a lamp. Up a secret stair.”

Stitches regarded me with eyes that wept blood around the threads which held them shut.

And she told you this room was a means of escape?
 

“That’s what she said. If Rannit fell. If all hope was lost.”

Interesting. Shall we proceed?

Without waiting for an answer, she swept through the kitchen’s only door, a parade of darting lights in her wake. Evis and I followed, stepping over fallen bodies as we entered the hall.

Something like thunder rumbled and the Corpsemaster’s old house shook. Stitches halted and loosed a bolt of baby lightning that arced up through the ceiling before exploding with enough force to send down a rain of dust and leave Evis and I half-deaf.

I never liked any of those assholes. Cover your ears.

We did, and the bolt she threw this time dwarfed the first and knocked the breath right out of me. A portion of the ceiling collapsed, spilling dry corpses in a heap to the floor and revealing a disturbing patch of sky in which the stars spun and whirled as if battered by rushing waters.

Evis pushed his dark spectacles up on his nose. “So much for subtlety,” he muttered.

Stitches shrugged and sauntered ahead. Evis and I picked our way through the new pile of corpses and I, for one, was glad to lose sight of that moving, unsettled sky.

I found the lamp. It had been burning when I saw it last. Now it merely sputtered, the white mageflame reduced to little more than a spark. Stitches regarded it silently for a moment before turning her ruined face to me.

“Like this,” I said, grabbing the lamp and twisting it clockwise.

A section of solid granite wall opened, pulled back without sound or fuss. Stitches cast her bevy of flying lights into the darkness, and we saw the stairs leading up and the mummified body heaped at the bottom.

“The door at the top is locked. I’ve got the key. Might as well go first.”

As you wish. I sense no overtly hostile magics in your path.

I clambered up the stairs, careful not to step in the dead man’s dusty remains. We gathered on the top landing.
 

I put my key back in my pocket. Evis whistled. Stitches waved her hands about and sent her pet lights flying to and fro about us.

The door was gone. The massive iron hinges remained, though they were drooped and warped from the heat that had consumed the wooden door.
 

“If memory serves, that door was nearly a foot thick.”

“Someone wasn’t satisfied with just a knock.” Evis peered past the door and into the shadows lurking inside. “I see something moving, maybe twenty feet in.”

Amazing,
said Stitches. Awe filled her not-words.
Tarry, gentlemen. This needs study.

So we tarried. By squinting, I convinced myself I too could see hints of motion in the dark. The motion suggested I was seeing the top portion of a monstrous wheel of some sort, turning quickly and without any sound.
 

I’m not sure how long we stood there. My knees went stiff. Evis leaned against the wall and to this day, I believe he took a short nap. More thunders grumbled in the distance, though none was so intense as to rain down dust or disturb Stitches.
 

I pondered the ruined hinges and finally decided it would take between three and four casks of the Corpsemaster’s finest gunpowder to blow down her door. That, or a single slouching wand-waver with a spell and a grudge.
 

I found myself hoping the Corpsemaster hadn’t been behind the door when it was breached. Anything hot enough to melt iron and so thoroughly consume such a quantity of oak would have made mere ashes of flesh and bone.
 

Stitches lowered her hands.
 

We may enter. Take care and remain close. There is a powerful magic at work nearby.

She stepped through the ruined door and we did the same, flanking her, staying one step behind.

She did something and the room filled with light. At the same time, the hint of motion I’d seen sprang into perfect clarity.

Evis’s jaw dropped just as far as mine.

The room itself was just a room. Stone walls. Same for the floor and the ceiling. There used to be a magelamp on a chain suspended from the center of the ceiling. Now the chains hung empty and were fused together in a lump.

But against the far wall, magic wheeled and spun.

Stay where you are,
warned Stitches.
 

Take a wheel. Make it three stories tall. Taller. Then fill it with spokes made of moonlight.

Set entire worlds in the spaces between spokes. Give the whole works a spin, and step back to see what you hath wrought.

Snow-capped mountains.

flash

Deep forest, sunlight slanting down through green, green boughs.

flash

Mermaids singing on spray-soaked stones.

flash

Hayfield gleaming in the sun.

flash

Mirror-smooth lake and sandy shore.

Evis spoke first. “Think she’s somewhere in there?”

Stitches raised her arms. A scurrying army of red-skinned imps—complete with tiny red horns and barbed crimson tails—fell from the air about her, converged on the spinning wheel of worlds, and began leaping into the spaces between the spokes.

I suspect not,
said Stitches.
But a few moments will either confirm or dispute my suspicions.

An imp sat down on the toe of my boot. I kicked it off, and it shook its fist at me and squeaked in indignation before reluctantly joining its brethren in their rush toward the wheel.

It is as I feared. The spellwork is damaged. Persons who attempt to use it will be dispersed across a number of worlds.

“Dammit. Can you tell who used it last?”

I can only determine that it has seen no significant discharge of arcane energies.

“Dumbed down for the lay folk, please?”

The Corpsemaster has not passed this way.

“I can’t picture her letting anyone wreck her house and walk away unscathed,” Evis said. “Looks like we’ll have to get used to the idea that she’s gone.”

“I’m going to miss the old spook.” No sooner had I spoken the words that I realized what a poor epitaph they made. “She stayed her hand when killing was the easy way. She kept her word when she didn’t have to. She made me a biscuit once. It was awful but I appreciate the effort.”

“Amen.” Evis faced Stitches. “Is there anything to be gained with further exploration? Anything we can safely remove and return to the House?”

Stitches turned in circles briefly as her hair floated about her head.

Regrettably, no. We are not the first to enter this place. The items we might have safely removed are gone and the ones which remain are far beyond my skills. Worse, I can detect three distinct structural spells about to fail due to pressures from without.
 

A groaning from the ceiling and a sudden pitching of the floor punctuated her words.

“Time to go, then. Markhat. Your hat.”

“What?”

Stitches whirled and headed for the door. Dust drifted down from the ceiling as the bones of the house groaned and shifted.

I reached up and something slapped my hand. I fell into place behind Evis and yanked my hat off to find a red-skinned imp perched atop it, hanging on with both little red claws and little red tail.

The floor tilted. The imp looked up at me, eyes wide, and squeaked something unintelligible. “Stay put or get stomped,” I said, and I pulled my hat down tight on my head and charged down the steps while the Corpsemaster’s house fell apart around me.

I made it out the Corpsemaster’s front door, my hat, my imp, and my head intact. Evis emerged complaining of the dust on his good black cloak. Stitches loosed half a dozen bolts of lightning into the sky and ran for the carriage, her hands trailing smoke.

The ground heaved. Behind us, the Corpsemaster’s home sank a dozen feet into the ground. Roof tiles flew, exploding on the street and sending shards of black slate whizzing through the air like a sleet of stones.

The carriage was in motion as I caught hold and dived inside. Evis hauled me in, Stitches cast a soft aura over us, and we sped off into the night as the old spook’s house vanished down into the earth.

I panted and puffed and mopped sweat. Stitches mumbled to her hands and tended to her tame flying lights. Evis leaned back and grinned, not even breathing hard.

“That wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

We are hardly out of the proverbial woods,
said Stitches.
The collapse of the house has attracted quite a few onlookers.

“Any of them coming after us?”

Stitches was silent for a long time while the driver exhorted his ponies to make haste.

No. They seem more interested in the ruin of the house. I gather the lower levels housed a few items of particular
interest
to certain esoteric tastes.

“Lucky for us,” I said.

A tiny voice above my head mimicked my words, though I believe it exaggerated the breathlessness thereof.

Evis laughed. “Looky, looky. Markhat picked up another stray. What’s the Missus going to say, old friend? You can’t tie a ribbon around that and call it a kitten.”

I felt a scampering on my hat, and then tiny claws climbed carefully down my ear before settling on my shoulder. I felt its tail drape itself loosely around my neck, and it chittered something brief and harsh.