The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (46 page)

  Nightmares. This was just another dream. He stopped and looked about him, and the creatures faded away into the dark. And Sandy… Sandy was gone too. They had taken him and they were going to kill him. Mal broke into a run, leaping from tussock to tussock and then into the air, running across the roiling mist as if it were solid ground.

  There. A glow in the mist below him, warm and welcoming, like candlelight. He dived towards it, but at the last moment pulled back. This must be done gently, instinct told him. His feet touched earth once more. No, not earth, nor grass, but an uneven pavement of small stone blocks with weeds growing in the cracks. A wall of pale golden light, shot through with rainbow colours like a soap bubble, shimmered just beyond the reach of his fingertips. Smiling, he stepped through it–

 

Coby woke from a dream in which she had been sewing pieces of red and gold silk onto the walls of the theatre whilst Master Naismith tried to distract her with readings from Marlowe's
The Massacre at Paris.
Then she remembered, and her heart contracted with grief.

  On the bed beside her, Master Catlyn smiled in his sleep. She smiled back, then to her surprise he sat up, eyes wide and unseeing. Moving slowly he got to his feet, pulled on his boots and began to walk towards the night-black window. She opened her mouth to call out his name, but the words died on her lips. As she watched, the window melted away, becoming a tunnel through trees whose branches laced overhead, shimmering green in the sunlight. She glanced away for a moment, back towards the darkened room. The faint glow of the skrayling lamp illuminated the walls and floor, cold as Thames water. It was still night. She turned to the window again. In the tunnel it was daylight. She clutched the cross about her neck and whispered a prayer.

  As he moved towards the mouth of the tunnel, another figure appeared at its far end, his mirror image in all but dress: another Master Catlyn, thin-faced and shabby but unmistakable. The missing twin. Sandy raised his arms in greeting and Mal stepped into the tunnel. Coby sprang up from the bed with a cry – but the sunlight flared and she was thrown back, blinded.

  When she opened her eyes again, Mal – and the tunnel – were gone.

 
 
 

Mal staggered and fell against the edge of the bed.

  "Hendricks?"

  He blinked, trying to make out the pale shape in the darkness. The figure on the bed stirred and sat up.

  "
Rehi?
"

  The voice was familiar, even as the word itself hovered on the brink of meaning.
Brother
.

  "Sandy?" Mal scrambled onto the bed, grasping his brother's shoulders. "What are you doing here?"

  He looked about the room. This was not the Tower. Two arched windows, rather than a rectangular one, and on the wrong side of the bed to boot.

  "Where am I?"

  His eyes were adjusting to the darkness now. The room was about the same size as the one he had been in moments ago, but with bare stone walls instead of panels and plaster. The windows were glazed on the inside; on the outside, thick iron bars set into pale, fresh mortar spanned each narrow opening. Through them Mal could make out a lawn running down to the dark moonlight-flecked surface of a river, and on the opposite bank, a vast dark shape, all high crenellated walls and towers. A faint gleam of candlelight revealed windows here and there, some far above the ground. A palace or castle by the river. Was he in Southwark, looking north towards the Tower, or somewhere else entirely? Only daylight would tell.

  Sandy came over to stand at the other window. He began to sing softly, this time in English.

 

 

  "Sandy?"

  His brother did not respond, only stared out into the darkness. He was dressed in a fine woollen doublet and hose, a little worn around the seams like a rich man's cast-offs, and a crisp new linen shirt. His hair had been cut short and he was cleanshaven. Only the manacles around his wrists, and the fetters on his ankles, betrayed the fact he was no guest here.

 

 

  Mal stepped closer, wondering why Sandy had chosen that particular song. The change of words, from "sisters" to "brothers", was no slip of the tongue, of that he was certain. He laid a hand on his shoulder.

  "Sandy? It's a bit soon for Christmas carols, eh?"

  Sandy turned to look at him, and his eyes widened. He cocked his head to one side, studying Mal's face.

  "Who are you?" he asked. The chains clinked as he lifted his hands to grasp Mal's chin.

  "I'm your brother," Mal replied.

  "Who are you? What is your name?"

  "Mal. Maliverny Catlyn. Your brother."

  Sandy relaxed his grip, then slapped Mal so hard his teeth rattled.

  "Wrong answer!"

  "Sandy! What is wrong with you?"

  "Who are you? What did you find out?" He seized Mal by the shoulders. "Tell me! You can't hide in there forever, you know."

  Mal placed his hands either side of his brother's head. "Alexander, listen to me. We have to get out of here–"

  Sandy let out an ear-splitting shriek and clapped his hands to his head.

  "Oh God, make them stop! Please, Mal, make them stop…"

  Mal took his brother in his arms, and Sandy immediately went limp, almost falling to the floor before Mal could catch him. Mal carried him over to the curtained bed and laid him down. Sandy curled into a ball, making a thin keening sound. Mal had never seen him this bad before, not since–

  "Maggots," Sandy muttered. "They eat you from the inside, gnawing, gnawing…"

  God's teeth, what had they been doing to him? Though it was too dark to see much, Mal gently probed his brother's head and limbs for bruises, cuts or any other signs of torture. Nothing. What, then, had they done to bring him to such a state of torment? Who were their captors, and how in the name of all that was holy had he been brought here? Drugged and abducted from the Tower? Was Kiiren somehow behind all this?

  He stumbled over to the door. It was locked, of course. He pounded on it, demanding that their captor show himself. There was no response. He went back to the bed and lay down beside Sandy, stroking his brother's hair. Best to conserve his strength and wait until morning. Perhaps daylight would show him a way out of here.

 

Ambassador Kiiren burst into the room dressed only in his underlinens, his short hair dishevelled.

  "Where is Catlyn-
tuur
?"

  Coby shrugged helplessly and gestured to the window. "I… I thought I saw him disappear into a tunnel of light."

  It sounded so ridiculous, and yet the skrayling did not seem surprised. Instead he picked up the lamp and swirled its contents so that it glowed a little more brightly, then set it back on the chest. Coby wrapped her arms about her knees, unsure of how one ought to behave in the presence of a foreign ambassador in his night attire.

  "Did he wear his earring, last night?" Kiiren asked.

  Coby stared at him. "His earring? You mean the black pearl?"

  "Yes. Please, try to remember. It is important."

  She cast her mind back over the evening's events.

  "I was lying on the bed, here, and he was playing his lute," she said. "I remember looking up at him and noticing that his earlobe was bloody. I thought perhaps he'd hurt himself, during the…"

  Kiiren looked grave. "Please, tell me everything," he said, sitting down on the end of the bed. "Go back to beginning, from moment you arrived here."

  She recounted all she could remember of the evening's events, wondering as she did so how the ambassador had known Mal was gone.

  "Stop," he said when she started describing the tunnel. "You say there was another Catlyn-
tuur
?"

  "Yes, his brother Sandy." She paused, knowing she was going against Mal's wishes. But the ambassador needed to know what was going on. "His twin."

  Kiiren stared at her for a moment, his face sickly pale in the lamplight, then he buried his face in his hands, murmuring something in his own tongue.

  "Your Excellency? Are you unwell? Shall I fetch your servants?"

  He looked up. "No. No, that is not necessary." He got to his feet and went over to the window.

  "Where is he?" Coby asked.

  "West of here, beyond city. Not very far, but not near."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "When you close your eyes, how can you be sure where your hand is?"

  She shrugged. "I just know. I feel it."

  "Just so." He smiled, and sat down again.

  "The thing I saw: the tunnel. It was real, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "But how…?"

  "It is gift of our people, to walk from our dreams into those of others. When bond is strong or need very great, mind can bridge worlds. Dreams can pass into waking world, and things of waking world into dream."

  "Magic," Coby whispered.

  "If you wish to call it so." He cocked his head on one side. "You are afraid now?"

  "No! Well, perhaps a little."

  He smiled. "Without fear we are fools, yes?"

  "So Mal – Master Catlyn – has gone into the dream world?"

  "And back again into your world, but not here."

  "He is with Sandy?"

  "Yes."

  "Can… Can humans possessed by skraylings do that?"

  Kiiren stared at her. "Possessed?"

  "Last night…" She swallowed, afraid she was betraying a confidence. "Master Catlyn told me he believed his brother is possessed by the spirit of a skrayling."

  "That is not quite truth, but close enough."

  "So, what do we do?" she asked. "To get them back."

  "We must find them first." He sat cross-legged on the end of the bed and folded his hands in his lap.

  "More magic?"

  Kiiren held up his hand. "No speaking, please."

  The skrayling sat motionless, his eyes closed. Coby hugged her knees tighter, expecting another uncanny apparition to materialise at any moment. Long minutes passed. Surely there ought to be something by now, mysterious glowing lights or a wind out of nowhere to blow out the candles? Not that there were any candles, only the strange blue lamp fading into darkness. Coby laid her cheek against her knees and closed her eyes, imagining Mal waiting for her at the end of a tunnel of light, arms held out to embrace her–

  She jerked awake.

  "It is done," the ambassador said, clapping his hands together.

  He climbed stiffly off the bed. The lamp had gone out, replaced by the pale light of dawn.

  "Do you know where they are?" Coby cried, scrambling after him.

  "I saw great house by river. Where might that be?"

  Coby's heart sank. "There are dozens of great houses along the Thames, sir."

  "As great as Nonsuch?"

  "They are in one of the royal palaces?" That made no sense. Why would Prince Robert hire ruffians to abduct Sandy, when he could have the Privy Council order the arrest of anyone he pleased?

  "In, or near." Kiiren shook his head. "
Amayi
, what have you done?"

  "Excellency?"

  "My apologies, I did not mean you."

  He swept out of the chamber, still muttering imprecations under his breath.

  "Your Excellency, should I alert Sir Francis Walsingham?" she called out after him.

  Kiiren stopped dead in his tracks. "No. We can trust no one with this."

  "But–"

  He fixed her with cold yellow eyes and she shrank back a little.

  "We will say Catlyn-
tuur
is sick after fire and I tend him," the ambassador said. "No one, not even Leland-
tuur
, will risk anger of Queen Elizabeth by doubting my word."

  "There must be something I can do."

  "This is not human business. Please, go back to your friends and leave this to me."

  He strode up the steps to his chamber and disappeared inside. Coby bit back tears of fury. How could the ambassador be so kind one moment, and so cold and arrogant the next? He was just like other skraylings after all. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her shoes. Master Catlyn was out there, and she was going to find him if it was the last thing she did. On impulse she picked up his sword belt, rapier and dagger, and wrapped them in a cloak. They were no use to him here, and if she did find him, he might be glad of some cold steel between him and his enemies.

  With a last glance back at the closed bedchamber door, she made her way out of the ambassador's apartments and through the outer ward to the gates of the castle, which stood open in the cold light of early morning. Torches still burned in the gateway, casting a warm yellow glow against the mist rolling in off the river. Coby stepped aside into the shadow of a tower, strapped the sword belt around her waist and then wrapped the cloak around her for warmth. The rapier was heavy, and so long that its tip scraped on the ground unless she kept her left hand pressed against the hilt. She began to walk more quickly, praying the guards would not notice.

  The ambassador was right about one thing: she still had friends, and they owed Master Catlyn a debt of honour. She would show the skraylings this was human business after all.

 

Mal jerked awake to the sound of keys rattling. He got to his feet, groping for his rapier hilt. Too late he recalled he had removed his weapons before settling down next to Hendricks.