Flight Into Darkness (36 page)

“Forgive me, my king,” whispered Ruaud.

But Nilaihah did not fall. He pressed one taloned hand over the wound to try to staunch the bleeding. The other hand slowly raised the spear, pointing the bloodstained tip at Ruaud.

By now Ruaud could hear voices. His Guerriers had come to the rescue. But the doors to the chapel were locked and bolted. He began to back away down the aisle.

Nilaihah launched the spear at him. It caught him full in the chest, the force of the thrust pinning him to the wooden door.

The daemon strode toward him and pulled out the Dragonslayer's spear and cast it away.

“Enguerrand—” Ruaud tried to say his pupil's name, but his mouth had filled with blood. As he slid slowly down, he saw the dazzling form of Nilaihah rising on golden wings, making for the far window.

* * * 

“What's happened here?” As Linnaius brought his craft swooping down toward the palace of Swanholm, he saw flames and smoke rising from the East Wing. Far below he saw the lines of servants and guards working to extinguish the fire, pumping water from the lake, passing buckets from hand to hand. But in spite of their efforts, the fire had taken hold; and from the air Linnaius could see the flames gusting toward the rest of the palace.

He pressed his fingers to his forehead, summoning a swift storm wind to blow rain clouds to aid their efforts. Soon the sky darkened and rain began to pour down, dampening the flames. Gaping open to the sky, a ruin of fire-blackened timbers and tumbled stone, the wing looked as if it had been subjected to an intense bombardment. And yet there was no sign of enemy troops encamped in the park or patrolling the grounds.

Linnaius made his way on foot through the rain into the palace, searching for anyone, courtier or guard, who could give him information. Dust lay everywhere and a pungent smell of smoke clouded the lofty entrance hall.

“Why is this entrance unguarded?” he demanded, his voice echoing around the empty hall. A man appeared at the far end, hurrying toward him.

“Magus!” he cried. “Thank God you've come.”

Linnaius recognized Eugene's majordomo; usually spotlessly attired, his palace livery was drenched and his face was smeared with fire smuts.

“The princess,” the majordomo said, his voice rasping as he coughed the smoke from his throat. “We tried to stop him—but he was too strong for us.”

“He?” Linnaius said.

“Count Alvborg.”

“Oskar Alvborg,” Linnaius repeated, his heart growing cold at the sound of that name; Alvborg was a rebellious nobleman who had long borne a grudge against Eugene. “What has Alvborg done with Princess Karila?”

The majordomo seemed to be struggling to get the words out.

“He—he transformed into a dragon. And then he abducted her.”

“Drakhaoul.” This was worse than Linnaius had expected. “A Drakhaoul has taken the princess.” And the hidden text he had discovered
months ago at the monastery in Azhkendir returned to his mind, laden with a new, ominous relevance.

For only by the sacrifice of the Emperor's children in that far-distant place can that Door ever be opened again and the dread Prince Nagazdiel released. And no mortal would dare stoop to such a base and inhuman act.

“No mortal would dare,” Linnaius murmured as he hurried back to his sky craft, “but a Drakhaoul…”

“Whatever dreadful sounds you may hear, don't interrupt the ceremony,” Ruaud had warned Alain Friard.

But Friard was about to disobey his commanding officer for the first time in twenty years of service. He had waited long enough. His duty was to protect the Maistre.

First there had been muffled voices, raised as if in argument. Friard had heard laughter; horrible, mocking laughter that made his skin crawl. And then the sudden, bloodcurdling cry that sounded as if it issued from the throat of a fiend in torment.

Friard tugged at the door. When he found it was locked, he pounded on it with his fists, yelling, “Open up!” with the full force of his lungs.

“What's wrong, Captain?” Lieutenant Viaud came running up, followed by several of his men.

“We've got to break this door down. The Maistre's in danger!”

And at that instant a sudden, violent thud set the door timbers shuddering.

Both officers stopped, staring at the door. Friard pointed. A pointed metal tip had penetrated the door panel and blood dripped from its sharp end. Someone on the far side had been pinned to the door, like a butterfly to a collector's tray.

As they watched, mesmerized, the spearhead was withdrawn. Seconds later came the sound of shattering glass.

“Come on, lads, put your shoulders to this door!” Friard cried. When, a few moments later, they broke the bolts and burst into the chapel beyond, they almost fell over a body lying on the tiled floor in an ever-widening pool of blood.

“Ruaud!” Friard forgot all military protocol and knelt beside his old comrade in arms, gently turning him over. The Maistre's robes were soaked with bright scarlet and more was frothing and bubbling from his lips as he tried to speak.

“Who did this?” Friard propped the Maistre's head up against his knee as Viaud attempted to staunch the flow of blood with his scarf.

“The—king.” Ruaud's hand rose feebly, trying to point. “Drakhaoul—took—the king.” Friard followed the direction of the pointing finger and saw that the arched window above the altar was shattered, as if someone—or
something
—had burst its way through. Surely the Maistre couldn't mean that the king had been abducted by a Drakhaoul?

“Find the king!” Viaud ordered his men.

“And send for a doctor,” added Friard automatically, although he knew from one look at the Maistre's pale face that it was too late.

“I—I tried to stop him, Alain.” Ruaud tried to speak again and Friard saw the desperation in his eyes as one hand rose to try to grip his coat.

“We'll get his majesty back,” Alain said staunchly. “You know you can count on us.”

“Be caref—” Ruaud began to cough and a sudden gush of blood drowned his words. His blue eyes, which had been fixed on Friard's face, lost their focus and stared through Friard, beyond him. The hand that had been grasping at his collar fell away. “Maistre? Maistre!” Friard's voice broke. Ruaud was gone. He had died trying to protect the king, whom he had loved as dearly as a son. He laid the Maistre gently down on the tiles and drew a shaking hand over his eyes, closing the lids.

Viaud, coming back down the aisle, stopped abruptly. He knelt beside his commander's body and began to murmur the words of the Sergian prayer for the dying. Friard tried to join in but his voice was choked with tears. He wanted time to mourn the Maistre properly, but if he had understood Ruaud's dying words correctly, they were faced with an unprecedented crisis. Francia had lost not only the head of the Commanderie but her king, who had been abducted by one of the daemons he had been trying to defeat.

Part III

CHAPTER 1

One moment, all the bells of Mirom were dinning out a joyful cacophony in celebration of the birth of Prince Rostevan, heir to the Empire of New Rossiya. Then the sky began to darken.

At first Celestine thought it no more than an oncoming thunderstorm, blowing inland off the Straits.

I must find shelter before the storm breaks.

Alone and destitute, she had arrived a day earlier in the bustling capital of Muscobar and had been trudging from theater to theater in search of work. If she had been rash enough to use her real name, the concert managers would have fought for her to appear in their halls and opera houses. But she was a wanted woman on the run from the Francian Inquisition. She could not afford to reveal her true identity.

She was desperately hungry, having spent the last of her money on paying her passage to the city, and the only way she knew to earn a living was by her voice. Yet no one was interested enough in a shabbily dressed woman to bother to ask to hear her sing. Time after time, she was turned away at the stage door. “We're not auditioning. Come back next month.”

If only I weren't so light-headed, I could think straight enough to work out a plan.

Around her, people were gazing up at the sky and pointing. Celestine looked up too, wondering if it might be an eclipse of the sun, not a storm after all. There was an eerie, lurid quality to the remaining daylight that made her feel uneasy. The stout flower seller on the corner of the square began to pack away, muttering as she
waddled toward her cart with buckets of autumn flowers: purple asters, bronze and gold chrysanthemums. A delicious smell of frying batter drifted across from where a stallholder was cooking
blinis
and Celestine felt her empty stomach rumble.

“Celestine. Celestine!”
The Faie was calling, the urgent voice piercing her mind like a silvered barb. Celestine looked around the wide square, wondering where she could go to speak with the Faie undisturbed. The
blini
stallholder had raised his eyes to heaven, one hand extended, as if he were anticipating rain. Celestine wavered, torn between her need for food and the Faie's increasingly frantic cries.

“The unimaginable is happening. This darkness is leaking from the Realm of Shadows.”

“The Realm of Shadows?” Celestine whispered. “Isn't that a sign that the world is about to end?” The Holy Texts were full of warnings about the end of the world, which would be preceded by a great darkness.

“
My father. Are the Drakhaouls trying to set my father free?”

Why had the Faie begun to talk of her father? How could an aethyrial spirit have a mother or a father? Celestine, head spinning from lack of food, began to wonder if she was hallucinating.

The darkness was drifting across the sky from the south, like tendrils of smoke unfurling, then merging together to blot out the sun. And it was growing colder as the light was extinguished. The Muscobites began to show signs of alarm, some running, others making the holy sign across their bodies. Celestine saw many making their way up the wide steps of the church opposite, whose bells had been ringing out so joyfully only a few minutes before. As a Guerrier of the Sergian Commanderie, her first instinct was to follow them into a holy place for protection. But, she remembered with a grimace, she had forfeited her right to be called Guerrier when she had drugged the two Inquisition officers sent to arrest her.

In the eyes of the Order, I'm now a criminal on the run. No, worse than a criminal, I'm a practitioner of the Forbidden Arts.

So she ran in the opposite direction, going against the increasing tide of people hurrying to the church as the darkness spread.

The Water Gardens were usually thronged with people at that time of day, many visiting the Tea Pavilion overlooking the lake for ices and other delicious refreshments. As it was daytime, no one had troubled to light the lamps that illumined the winding gravel paths, and
Celestine had to make her way through the gathering gloom. She sought refuge in a gazebo near the pavilion. The gazebo smelled of damp and rotting wood; the autumn leaves were falling fast, clogging the still grey lake waters.

Celestine put down her little bag of belongings and sat gazing out at the darkening gardens. Her empty stomach ached.

The waitresses were leaving the pavilion, gazing up at the sky and talking anxiously about thunderstorms; a waiter stopped to lock the door before hurrying after them. Celestine crept out and tried the door handle. But as hard as she rattled it, the lock resisted all her efforts to force it. She went around the back, only to discover that the Tea Pavilion was impregnable. Built on stilts like a Khitari teahouse, with scarlet-and-black lacquered wood and a low, sloping roof, the windows overlooked the lake and were protected by carved grilles. In her frustration, she kicked at the door, bruising her toes.

She sank down on the top step, defeated, leaning her back against the unyielding door. And then she began to laugh, hard, painful, self-deprecating laughter that only made her empty stomach hurt more.

“How did I come to this?” she gasped, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “Where did I go wrong?”