Scholar's Plot (30 page)

“I’ll bet he did.” I could picture the scene that courtier had planned, Pendarian University presenting their newly “Gifted” rabbits to get more funding, and some rival stepping forward with a detailed record of exactly how those rabbits had been switched for their more Gifted kindred. But one thing still didn’t make sense.

“Why tell us this now? You’re talking pretty freely, for a man who blackmailed the person he owed to get his legal debt reduced.”

Michael, who’d probably planned to approach this question more slowly, shot me a startled look. But if a guarded man like Quicken was being this open, he had to have a reason. I was beginning to worry about what that reason was.

“And why run now, in the middle of the night?” I went on, getting more nervous as I spoke. “Why not quit your job openly, say you’re moving to join Barrows or something, and pack up all your furniture to take with you? You don’t have to do this.” I gestured to the dark, silent fields. “What’s happening? It’s tonight, isn’t it, whatever you’re running from? It’s going to happen tonight.”

Quicken looked at me in some alarm, but for the first time since I’d seen him at the hearing his shoulders straightened.

“That’s what she wanted out of the bargain,” he said. “That I clear out tonight. She said it’s all going wrong, too many people beginning to look too close.”

“’Twas not you who burned those papers,” Michael said. “’Twas the professor, trying to cover her tracks. To get rid of the original notes she took. She couldn’t just destroy them because too many people had seen them; Benton, Stint, all her scholar assistants.”

Quicken waved this aside. “Aye, but that’s not all of it. She said there’s something else she has to take care of. Said she’d get me out of the debt if I’d run this very night. That way she could blame whatever she plans to do on me, but since I’d be clean away to another fiefdom it wouldn’t hurt either of us. And I could keep the money. And all the evidence she’d cheated would be gone, and no one would ever suspect she did it.”

“Did what?” I asked, with considerable interest.

“She didn’t say. I didn’t ask,” Quicken admitted. “I did tell her I wouldn’t be party to killing anyone, and she promised she wouldn’t do that. She promised. Only…”

“You don’t trust her,” I said.

We left Quicken on the deserted road, with all his world packed into the small cart that waited for him, and ran to get our horses. This main road was smooth enough to alternate between a walk and a trot, which slow as it might feel was the fastest way to cover the miles back to town.

Even though the discovery that Professor Dayless meant to act tonight sent the need for haste shivering down my nerves.

“What else do you think she needs to destroy?” I asked Fisk, on one of the stretches where we walked to let our horses recover their wind. “She got rid of the notes that incriminated her in that first fire.”

“How should I know?” Fisk sounded as twitchy as I felt. “Once we’ve stopped her we can ask. I’m more worried about why she killed Hotchkiss.”

“Do you still think ’tis his death at the core of this?”

Fisk turned a glare on me, but I waved it aside. “Not that. At the moment, I don’t give a tinker’s curse which of us takes charge. But we’ve found no connection between Hotchkiss and either Dayless or the project.”

“Benton being framed connects them. The blackmailees all have alibis, and we haven’t found anything else that could have gotten Hotchkiss killed.”

“Yes, but she could have known where Hotchkiss was working, and planted the forged thesis there without him knowing anything about it.”

“Or she could have bribed him to find it,” Fisk said. “And even if she didn’t, he might have figured out for himself that it was forged. Either way, he would then have turned around and tried to blackmail
her
. That fits.”

It did fit. And worse… “If ’tis true, then she’s already killed once.”

It’s all going wrong, too many people beginning to look too close
, she’d told Quicken.

Fisk was already kicking Tipple into a trot, and Chant followed with no more than my tension to spur him on.

’Twas still some time before we caught sight of the sleeping town, its wide skirts no more than a jagged line on the horizon. The university’s tall classrooms and bell tower stood out more clearly. And by the light of the great Green Moon, I saw a wisp of white drift up from a dark rectangle at the campus’ western edge.

I pulled Chant to a stop, staring, and Fisk brought Tipple up to us.

“What is it?”

Before I could answer another hazy finger reached toward the sky, and I heard Fisk’s breath catch. I put our thoughts into words.

“She’s done it. She’s burning the tower.”

Fisk urged Tipple into a gallop before I finished speaking, but Chant and I soon caught up with them as Tipple has shorter legs.

We were near enough to run the horses all the way to town, though once we entered the narrow streets the shadows forced us to slow again. A fall, any injury to us or the horses, would have slowed us even more.

’Twas during one of those achingly slow trots down a very dark street — too dark for trotting to be safe, in truth — that Fisk spoke.

“You fought a fire with magic once before. Can you do it again?”

He had to raise his voice over clatter of the horse’s hooves, but if some sleepy townsman overheard it no longer seemed the catastrophe I’d once have thought it.

“Yes,” I said, with an assurance that took even me by surprise. “I think I can.”

Fisk cast me an odd look, but we then turned into a moonlit lane and were able to canter once more, and the chance to talk was lost.

By the time we reached the university gates our horses were exhausted, and we could no longer see the smoke. But the bitter scent of burning lay in the air, most uncommon on a pleasant summer night.

The gatekeeper must have heard our approach. He came stumbling out of a nearby building, jogging across the grass in his nightshirt to peer at us through the bars.

The gates, of course, were closed.

“Let us in,” I shouted. “The tower’s on fire!”

He’d been pulling his keys from his pocket, but now he turned to stare at the dark campus, though even Fisk and I, with our sound eyes, could see nothing from here. Then he sniffed the air and his expression changed. 
He snatched up his whistle and began to blow, a shrill blast that tore the nerves as a cat’s claw tears skin.

He dropped it only to put his key into the lock, and began to shout instead, “Fire! Fire in the tower.”

“The west tower,” Fisk inserted neatly, when he paused to draw breath. “Where Professor Dayless works.”

“Fire,” the man’s voice boomed. “Fire in the west tower.”

The gates opened, and he dragged one aside for Fisk and me to gallop through. As we passed I heard the whistle blow again, several times, followed by more shouts of fire in the tower.

The grassy lawns between those wide-spaced buildings were perfect for speed, and our weary horses did their courageous best. They got us to the tower just 
as other shouts and whistles began to sound, spreading from the distant gate. The alarm would no doubt travel quickly, but an evil orange light now glowed behind most of the fourth floor windows, and some on the third floor had begun to flicker.

The guard sat slumped in his chair, not moving when we pulled our gasping horses to a stop, dismounted, or even when I shouted and Fisk started up the steps.

Fisk didn’t bother to shake the man, but went through his pockets with brisk efficiency. At least he was breathing, which relieved my worst fear.

“Drugged?”

“Who knows. Curse her, she took his keys!”

After that ’twas hardly worthwhile to try the door, but I did so — because if it was unlocked we’d no time to play the fool.

But of course ’twas locked, and Fisk brushed me aside almost before I’d released the latch.

“Can you pick it?”

“Not fast, but Hotchkiss was a trusted member of the staff, and locksmiths often use the same pin patterns.”

He pulled out the librarian’s keys and began trying likely ones.

I went to the guard, felt the back of his skull for lumps or blood, lifted his head gently to be sure his neck wasn’t broken … and since ’twas not, I gave him a hard slap. His eyelids fluttered, which encouraged me, and I slapped him several times. He’d started to move, and reached up weakly to stop me, when I heard a click and Fisk’s triumphant cry.

“Go down!” I ordered, dragging the guard to the top of the steps. “The tower’s on fire.”

I wasn’t sure he’d obey, but even if he rolled down ’twould do him little harm and I’d no time for more.

Fisk opened the door. I expected a roar of flames and a billow of smoke. But almost more alarming, a great draft tugged at my shirt sleeves, as though the building had drawn breath. The grumbling mutter of the fire grew louder.

We need to breathe
. ’Twas a prayer in the heart as much as a thought, and as I stepped into the stifling darkness of the tower’s entry a bubble of fresh night air followed me in.

Since magic is visible to me I could see the bubble’s skin of power, glowing softly in the dimness. ’Twas not the perfect sphere I’d shaped in my mind, but a lumpy oval that wavered and bent as drafts of hot air pushed against it. But I could also feel its connection to the magic that flowed from me, and despite its shifting shape it felt secure.

Fisk had stopped at the jeweler’s door, pulling out his keys, but when I stepped up beside him and the bubble flowed over his head he yelped and dropped them.

“We’ll get your friend on our way out,” I promised. “First let’s check the second floor. I’m worried about Stint.”

Fisk’s eyes were wide, and grew even wider as his hand passed out of the bubble when he picked up the keys.

“This is … this is magic?” He pulled his hand back in, then reached through the skin of the bubble once more, wiggling his fingers, trying to track its shape.

“Come on.” I pulled him toward the stairs as I spoke. “You can play after we’ve found Stint.”

Fisk hooked a hand through my belt, to keep near me as we climbed the stairs, but I think he was still experimenting with that division between hot and cold air — he stumbled several times, once tugging my belt so hard he almost pulled me over. ’Twas fascinating, 
I must admit. My hand on the stair’s railing, outside the bubble, grew hotter and hotter as we climbed. But the air inside stayed cool and fresh, even though we both breathed it.

At the far end of the second floor hallway only moonlight lit the windows, but I still hoped we wouldn’t have to go farther up. I ran down the hall to the laboratory door, and Fisk followed perforce. Thank goodness none of the other doors bore a lock.

Moonlight flowed though these windows too, glittering on glassware and picking out the limp body that lay face down on the floor.

We flung ourselves down beside Stint, Fisk rolling him over, while I wished/willed/wanted the bubble to flow over his head, for he too needed to
breathe
. But he didn’t stir and dread gripped me.

“Is he dead?”

Fisk laid his hand lightly over Stint’s nose and mouth. “He’s breathing. Drugged like the guard, 
probably, which means we’ll never wake him enough to walk down stairs.”

Stint was a big man, with both muscle and a bit of fat.

“I’ll get his arms, you get his feet,” I said.

We carried him down the corridor thus, but when we reached the stairs — the rather steep stairs — we decided to each take an arm and drag him. If he slid from step to step his back shouldn’t suffer too badly and his head wouldn’t even be bumped.

This proved harder in the doing than the planning, for Stint’s limp body kept rolling down upon us, and his rump hit the steps harder than I’d intended. But ’twas not till we were nearly at the bottom that a crash shook the staircase, and the fire roared once more.

“That’s the roof.” Fisk had to raise his voice, to be heard above the flames. “The fourth floor’s gone.”

“I don’t think there’d be anyone up there,” I said. “She already took care of Benton, but Stint probably became suspicious after her performance at the hearing … this morning?”

It seemed more like a week had passed, but I had no time to consider the matter. The air outside our overstretched shelter was growing hotter, and we dragged Stint swiftly down the hallway till we reached the jeweler’s door, where Fisk dropped the arm he held with a thump.

“You take him the rest of the way. I’ll get the jeweler out.”

I hated to leave him, but he was right. The fire was so loud I didn’t argue, grabbing Stint’s arm and pulling his suddenly-much-heavier weight across the smooth stone floor.

The bubble seemed to cling to Fisk a moment before it let him go. As I reached the entry, I looked back to see him patiently trying key after key in the lock.

’Twas only when I passed through the door that the bubble vanished, as if it had never been. But Fisk hadn’t seemed to be suffocating, and as several scholars rushed to help me carry Stint down the landing stairs I was too busy to give it further heed.

I explained that the professor had been drugged, not smothered by the smoke, just as the guard had, and we carried him off to the medical scholars who were setting up a field surgery under the guidance of one of their professors.

Scholars clad in britches and untied shirts, or even their nightgowns, were running everywhere, rolling barrels of water forward and flinging buckets about. As I turned back my mind began to sort the chaos, and I realized they were flinging water on the walls of nearby buildings and the grass around the tower — but not the tower itself. Even as that thought crossed my mind, 
the rhythmic thwack of axes stopped, and first of the big elms on the other side of the courtyard’s wall crashed down, and was hastily dragged off by a team of shouting students. The sound of axes resumed, and the next tree shivered.

The tower had been given up for lost, and I stood far enough from it to see why. Flames soared from the roof, dazzling against the darkness. With stone walls between those flames and the firefighters, ’twas clearly a hopeless cause.

Was Fisk still inside? The lower floors were untouched, but that wouldn’t last much longer.

I was hurrying back to the tower when I saw the jeweler dash out, his arms full of shining bits of metal. He was coughing as he ran down the steps, but aside from that he showed no harm. Several scholars caught his arms and guided him to the medical camp. I stopped, and waited for Fisk to follow him. And waited. And waited.