Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (10 page)

Lideman hissed. “What are you doing?”

“All magic requires blood, Doctor,” the soothsayer said. He made a fist over the bowl; a steady
tap
,
tap
counted out the droplets as they fell. Lideman shook his head, disgusted.

Kody was disgusted too, but he couldn’t help asking, “Why yours?”

“He is
mekhleth
,” Oded said, as though it were obvious.

Kody let it go.

When he was satisfied the bowl contained enough blood, Oded handed Merden a cloth and said, “I am ready.”

Merden turned to the others, his expression solemn. “If you would leave, do so now. Once the ceremony begins, it must not be interrupted, no matter what. To do so would certainly kill the boy, and very possibly the rest of us as well.”

Lenoir and Kody had heard this warning before, but Lideman looked shocked. “What do you mean,
kill the boy
? What are you planning on doing to him?”

“I must cast out the demon young,” Oded said. “They will not wish to be cast out. They will fight me, and when they fail, they will seek a new place. I must bind them so they cannot jump from the boy to us.”

“If Oded’s focus wavers at any stage, the demons will break free,” Merden said.

Lideman wore that same wry look as he had before, when Oded had first mentioned demons. Lenoir saw it too. “Whether you believe in demons or not,” the inspector said, “I can assure you that what is about to take place here will disturb you, and you will certainly have the instinct to recoil, if not to flee altogether.”

“I did,” Kody put in.
In fact, I’m having it right now.

“As did I,” said Lenoir, “even though Merden had already warned us not to. Be as skeptical as you like, Doctor, but at all costs, follow his guidance.”

Lideman sighed and rolled his eyes. “Very well, Inspector, I shall not move.”

“Nor make a sound,” Merden said, looking at each of them in turn. Then he nodded once at Oded. The witchdoctor returned the gesture before turning his back on them.

Here we go.

L
enoir took a deep, steadying breath. He would rather be just about anywhere else, but he had started them on this path, and he had to see it through. He jammed his hands in his pockets in case they should start to tremble. It would not do for him to look like a frightened child in front of Kody.

It began innocuously enough. Oded lit the sickle of tapers along the boy’s right flank, speaking a word with each one, which Merden echoed in his cavernous baritone. (Apparently, the rule about keeping silent did not apply to him.) The light from the tapers glinted against the crystals on the opposite side of the table. The boy’s prone silhouette appeared in the mirror of the facets, wreathed in flame, giving the eerie impression that he was trapped within.
Like the flaming prisons of the below,
Lenoir thought with a shiver.

Oded dipped his fingers in the bowl of blood, then flicked them, sending a spray into the darkness. He spoke a single word, sharp-edged and delicate. The candles flared, searing the darkness and forcing Lenoir to avert his eyes. When he looked back, the boy’s figure seemed to be made entirely of shadow. A trick of the light, surely, but no matter how hard Lenoir squinted, only the boy’s
outline was visible. Yet somehow, his silhouette inside the crystals had become more detailed; Lenoir could even see the contours of his face.
What in the below?

Oded let out a shriek and leapt upon the boy, hands wrapping around the child’s throat.

Lenoir started. Beside him, Lideman moved as if to intervene, but Merden’s hand shot out and seized the physician by the arm, his fingers digging into the man’s clothing. The urgent look in Merden’s eyes seemed to be enough; Lideman subsided, visibly distressed. A few feet away, the shadowy form of the boy writhed and kicked. Oded leaned into him, bringing all his weight to bear, his face twisted grotesquely as he throttled his patient. Kody swayed a little on his feet, fighting the urge to rush to the boy’s aid. Lenoir had to look away lest he give in to the same impulse. His eyes strayed instinctively to the crystals, to the reflection of the boy trapped within.

The reflection was not moving.

Lenoir started. His gaze snapped back and forth between the crystals and the cot, unable to reconcile what he was seeing. Oded and the shadow continued to grapple, but the image of the boy in the crystals remained motionless—peaceful, even—a surreal counterpoint to the brutal struggle taking place only a few inches away.
Impossible,
Lenoir’s mind told him, but the evidence of his eyes was undeniable. Whatever was happening on that cot, it did not seem to be affecting the boy.
But if that is not the boy, then what . . . ?

The shadow on the cot bucked violently and froze, back arched, as though suspended from a cord tied to its navel. Still, the reflection in the crystals did not move. Oded straightened, his grip slackening, his expression wary.

The shadow exploded.

A rush of stinging wind blasted Lenoir full in the face, forcing his eyes closed. Then a buzzing unlike anything he had ever heard surrounded him. When he opened his
eyes, he saw what looked like a massive swarm of black hornets gathered above Oded’s head. Except they were not hornets, but fragments of shadow, somehow visible in spite of the gloom, each one an impenetrable blot of dark against dark. Lenoir glanced down at the cot. The boy was gone, yet his reflection remained in the crystal, still as a painting.

Lenoir could see the whites of Oded’s eyes. The healer stood there, immobile, watching the swarm as it darted and roiled, stretched and twisted, moving like a flock of starlings.
He does not know what to do,
Lenoir realized in growing horror
.
Whatever had just happened, Oded had not been expecting it. Neither had Merden, judging from the look on his face.

Panic welled up in Lenoir’s chest. Merden’s warning still rang in his ears, but it was slowly being drowned out, subsumed beneath the numbing drone of the shadow swarm. The buzzing filled his ears until his skull seemed to vibrate. His heart pounded so badly that he could feel it in his throat. All he could think of was how much he wanted to
get away from here
.
He looked at Kody and saw his own fear reflected in the sergeant’s wild-eyed gaze. Lideman, meanwhile, looked ready to faint.

Just when Lenoir had made up his mind to move, Oded came alive. He grabbed a bundle of herbs from the table and plunged it into the flames. They took light, sending up a dense plume of smoke, and Oded dove at the swarm, brandishing the bundle like a torch. The shadows veered away from the smoke. Oded dove in again, tracing an arc with the flaming bundle, and once again, the shadows twisted over themselves to avoid the fumes. Oded circled the swarm, trailing smoke, letting a wall of it rise toward the ceiling. Everywhere the smoke touched, the swarm receded, and soon Oded had it surrounded. The smoke climbed higher, drifting above the swarm in a lazy canopy. The healer had succeeded in weaving a net of the smoke, but what he intended to do with it, Lenoir could not guess.
Beside him, Merden stirred, watching Oded’s progress with frightening intensity. He seemed to understand what the healer was doing, but he made no move to help. Perhaps he did not dare.

Oded continued to tighten the noose. The fragments of shadow drew together, tighter and tighter, until they formed a dense cloud.

Merden twitched, his eyes blazing, as if to say,
Now!

Oded produced a knife from somewhere inside his cloak, a wickedly curved sickle of what looked like bone. He reached inside the ring of smoke and slashed at the air. In an instant, the swarm began to stretch, pulled toward the spot where Oded had sliced the air, as though he had opened some invisible drain in the fabric of the world. The buzzing grew louder, angrier, as the swarm was drawn into a shrinking swirl. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The last fleck of shadow vanished, leaving only . . . darkness.

Oded lunged at the spot where the swarm had disappeared, grabbing empty air and twisting his fist in a harsh movement. He shouted a string of words and drew the knife across the back of his arm, trailing a dark line of blood. Then he turned back to the cot. Swiping a hand across the cut he had just made, he waved a bloody palm over the sickle of small bones arranged near the head of the cot. The bones began to judder and shimmy. They moved, rearranging themselves into a shape Lenoir could not see. Then another gust of wind, a sudden darkness, and silence.

It was over.

A
thump
sounded in the gloom. Lenoir felt Merden move away from them. The soothsayer murmured a few words.

“Mekhleth,”
a familiar voice said weakly. Merden responded in hushed tones.

Lenoir’s fingers closed convulsively around a small box in his pocket: his precious stash of matches. He
rarely used them, for they were difficult to find and monstrously expensive. But he did not hesitate now. A flame hissed to life in his hands, and by its trembling light Lenoir saw that Oded had collapsed near the cot. Merden was helping him to stand. As for the cot itself, it held a small boy who appeared to be asleep. Lenoir approached on shaky legs, and saw that the boy’s chest rose and fell in a regular, if shallow, rhythm. He lit the nearest candle just as the match started to sputter between his fingers.

“What in the name of the Holy Host did we just see?” Kody whispered.

“The demon young were strong,” Oded said, as though that were any kind of answer. “I nearly failed.”

“But you did not,” Merden said. “A creative solution, my friend. Well done.” He might have been congratulating the healer for solving a particularly tricky riddle, so matter-of-fact was his tone.

“You attacked the boy!” Lideman was shaking violently, whether from rage or fear, Lenoir could not tell.

Merden gave him an icy look. “You are mistaken.”

“Leave it.” Lenoir had no patience for squabbling, especially not now. “What matters is whether the boy will recover. Oded?”

“He should. But that is only the first part of the treatment. The second part you saw yesterday. Once I have rested, I will begin. After that, the boy must be given this.” He held up a flask. Lenoir could not see what was inside, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful. “A few drops in water every hour for the first five days, and three times a day after that, until the potion is gone.”

Lideman eyed the flask suspiciously, but he took it. “What’s in it?”

“I will give you the list of ingredients,” the healer said. “But now, I must rest.”

Lenoir, Kody, and Lideman could not get out of the tent fast enough, and as soon as they were outside, Lideman unleashed his outrage. “
Madman! Charlatan!
I don’t
know how he achieved that awful spectacle—illusions and distractions and sleight of hand—but it is a scandal that he should be permitted to perform it on a sick child!”

“What if he healed the boy?” Kody said.

“Don’t be ridiculous! If there is any actual healing being done, it will be due entirely to
this.
” Lideman held up the flask.

“Perhaps,” Lenoir said, “but as long as it works, I, for one, am grateful.”

“You cannot possibly expect me to go through that”—Lideman waved vaguely in the direction of the tent—“that
ghastly
bit of theater. You should arrest that man, Inspector, not encourage him! He could have killed the child!”

Lenoir felt his own temper stir. “If it was merely theater, Doctor, then the child was not in any danger. You cannot have it both ways. If you are incapable of being open-minded, at least be logical
.
”

Lideman colored, but he took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “I sincerely hope this experiment does not backfire, Inspector. As for my adopting this ritual as a form of medicine . . .” He gave a mad little laugh and shook his head. “That is
quite
impossible. Good day.” With that, he spun on his heel and stalked away.

A moment later, his assistant appeared, carrying his ever-present ledger. “Excuse me, Inspector, was that Dr. Lideman?”

“It was.”

“Oh. I wanted to tell him that Sister Ora found some others who are willing to try.”

“Perhaps you should tell him, then.”

The assistant did not take the hint. “Four patients should be enough, don’t you think?”

“I would not know.”

Still the young man hovered, his eyes darting nervously to the tent. He lowered his voice. “How did it go?”

“I am not a physician, sir,” Lenoir said, letting ice crystals form on the words. “As for Dr. Lideman, I am quite certain he will not hesitate to give you his opinion on the matter. If you hurry, you can catch him.”

At last, the assistant fled.

There was a long stretch of silence. Lenoir and Kody watched the comings and goings about the pestilence tents, priests and nuns and medical students crisscrossing one another in a steady stream of industry. It was comforting somehow.

“What do you think we saw in there, Inspector?” Kody asked quietly.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it is as Lideman says, and it was all an illusion.”

“That would be some trick.”

Lenoir shrugged. “A few judiciously placed mirrors, some smoke to divert the eye . . .”

“And that giant swarm?”

“Perhaps Oded is a talented beekeeper.”

Kody gave a weak laugh. “Maybe.”

“Perhaps it does not matter. If the boy’s condition improves, Lideman may be persuaded to make more of the tonic, and perhaps that will be enough.”

“A lot of
perhaps
in that formula.”

Lenoir could not disagree.

“What happens now?” Kody asked.

Lenoir rubbed the back of his aching head and sighed. “We go home.”

*   *   *

The hounds were walking straight toward him. Nash looked down, pretending to consult his notes. At the same time, he reached up and adjusted the scarf around his face so that it covered more of his features. He was being paranoid, he knew; there was no way the hounds could possibly recognize him from the riot. Yet it was impossible to suppress the instinct to hide, as if they somehow
knew
what he’d done. He stopped and turned
away, writing furiously on his ledger to cover the furtive movement.

Footfalls sounded on the road. His pulse quickened. If the hounds looked closely, they’d see right away that he wasn’t a medical student. He was too old, and his clothes were too modest. And if he wasn’t a medical student, or a priest or a physician or a hound, then he had no reason to be here. He’d already invented a cover story that let him move freely among the men and women caring for the sick, but that story wouldn’t appease the hounds. On the contrary, it would probably land him in jail.
Keep walking, chaps,
Nash bid them silently as they passed.
Nothing to see here.
He didn’t even dare to glance at them, but kept scrawling crude oaths on the page in front of him, just to keep his pencil moving.

Gradually the footfalls receded, and when Nash looked up, the hounds were still headed toward Addleman’s Bridge, pulling the scarves from their faces as though they were on their way out. He sighed, half in relief, half in disappointment. Part of him actually wanted to get into it with the hounds. He was tired of sneaking around. As smug as he felt about inciting a riot with nothing more than a few whispered words, he preferred a more direct approach. On the other hand, he’d be crazy to confront them out in the open, where they could easily call for backup. Better to deal with them quietly, if it came to that.

Bloody hounds.
His employer had been right to worry. Day after day they’d come, sniffing around, asking questions. Nash was sniffing around too—after the hounds. His employer wanted to know what they were up to, how much they knew. That way, he could stay one step ahead of them. And if they got too close, it was Nash’s job to take care of them. Nash didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to put down a troublesome dog.

And they
were
troublesome, though what exactly they were up to, Nash couldn’t say. One minute, they seemed to be investigating the source of the plague, and the next,
they were looking for a cure. Now they’d dragged a pair of Adali witchdoctors into it. Creepy folk, those two. Nash wasn’t eager to cross them. He was pretty sure all that magic business was bollocks, but that didn’t mean he fancied putting his theory to the test. And besides, tying off loose ends was supposed to be Sukhan’s end of the deal. Still, Nash couldn’t let the hounds and their Adali friends get in the way of his employer’s plans.