The Gate of Gods (Fall of the Ile-Rien) (45 page)

“Come along,” Nicholas said from the corridor, deadpan. “We’re wasting time.”

Tremaine jammed her weapon back into her coat pocket with a snarl.

“One of those men was wearing an army fatigue jacket, and Berganmot’s apprentice must have been with the retreat,” Gerard pointed out quietly.

“Yes. Madame Cusard and her nephew were the only ones I recognized,” Nicholas admitted. “I left her in charge of part of my organization when I left Vienne last. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was recruiting the retreating soldiers, but it will make her vulnerable to spies. She will realize that herself, of course. I don’t expect any of the other remaining members of the organization to have contact with anyone but her.”

“Oh, that’s jolly,” Tremaine muttered. “So who do we think is going to be at the Vintner’s Row mews?”

“The Gardier will be there, of course,” Nicholas said with a faint air of impatience. “The person we actually want to contact will be waiting for us near there.”

Tremaine swore under her breath, and said to Ilias, “Do you understand why I’m like this now?”

“I understood before,” he told her, and got a suspicious glare in response.
That didn’t help.
He resolved just to look blank if she asked him something like that again.

They started down the corridor and Giliead asked Nicholas quietly, “Will you give them a sphere?”

“That boy may have some natural talent, but he’s a bit undisciplined,” Gerard objected.

“If the right person is waiting for us at Vintner’s Row,” Nicholas answered obliquely, “they’ll get their sphere.”

T
remaine had to admit the rail tunnels had been a good idea, even with the encounter with Nicholas’s old gang. The tunnels had allowed them to rapidly leave the Castillion Gardens area without being seen. But once they climbed up to street level again, the situation hadn’t changed much. From a vantage point down the dark street they could see there were Gardier at the Cabellard Gate. A large party with spotlights and a sorcerer crystal was camped out to one side of the two-story stone arch that framed the giant gate. But past the patrol’s lights the night was silent and intensely dark.

The old city wall wound off on both sides, with inns, shops, a garage and even a tumbledown block of flats built right up against it. For decades the wall had been nothing but a quaint historical obstruction and some of the buildings leaning familiarly against it had been there since the previous century.

Giliead and Ilias went ahead to scout a way over, while Tremaine, Nicholas and Gerard waited in the shelter of a looted grocer’s shop, safely out of sight of the gate. Ilias returned after a short time to guide them down Cabellard Street to a set of flats that had been artists’ studios. The artists had had a little patio atop the flat roof, and it was an easy climb from there to the broad top of the city wall, and from there a slightly harder climb down to the roof of an inn.

Once they got down to the ground, Nicholas led the way through the maze of smaller avenues to Vintner’s Row, barely hesitating in the dark. It was a good distance from the gate, and Tremaine’s feet were beginning to hurt by the time they reached the street. They took cover in a Martine-Viendo Wire office that had lost its front façade in some small explosion. “The mews is the building down toward the end, the one with the three arches,” Nicholas said, taking a cautious look around the edge of the empty doorway. The bay window and most of the storefront was blasted out, with piles of broken brick and shattered glass mixed with plaster dust. Nicholas had chosen it in particular; Tremaine felt he had a reason, but wasn’t going to oblige him by asking for it. “It used to be a large stable but was converted to an automobile court. There may still be a supply of gasoline there. I rather hope so. It will make a handy diversion.”

Behind her, Tremaine heard a faint movement as Giliead twitched. Quietly grim, he said, “There’s a Gardier wizard crystal up there somewhere. I just felt it.”

“They’re going to blow that place up, aren’t they?” Tremaine asked quietly. “Not the Cusards, but whoever Madame Cusard reported to.”

“What about the Gardier?” Ilias asked, keeping his eyes on the back entrance while Giliead watched the front. “Can’t their crystal stop the building from blowing up?”

“It could, if the Gardier knew there was a bomb,” Gerard answered softly. “But I suspect they don’t know, and even if they’ve done the mechanical disruption spell as a precaution, it won’t work on a few sticks of explosive and a long fuse.”

Nicholas turned his back, using his hand torch to look at his pocket watch, shielding the light from the street. “We should know in the next—”

The explosion from the far end of the street made Tremaine flinch back against the brick and clap her hands over her ears. Plaster chips and dust rained down from the ruined ceiling above and the ground trembled. Fire lit the night, making the area around the ruined telegraph office even darker. She shook the plaster dust out of her hair and over the not-so-distant roar of fire, heard Nicholas say with satisfaction, “Yes, I think the gasoline was still stored there.”

A dark-colored automobile roared out of a side street, executed a hairpin turn in the center of Vintner’s Row, and screeched to a halt beside the office. Startled, Tremaine pushed off from the wall, aiming her pistol. Ilias whipped around and Giliead and Gerard backed rapidly away from the opening. Nicholas just looked over his shoulder, one brow lifted.

It was a big black touring car. Nicholas took a step forward, standing in the red glow of the fire now illuminating the street, deliberately showing himself to whoever was driving the automobile. Tremaine hesitated, wondering if he was mad, then realized it was a highly unlikely motorcar for the Gardier to be driving. The front passenger door flung open and a man leaned out. The firelight revealed the face of a handsome older man with long gray hair and Tremaine recognized Reynard Morane. “Get in,” he snapped.

Nicholas strode to the motorcar. Gerard followed, saying under his breath, “I should have known.”

I did know,
Tremaine thought, rolling her eyes and hurrying to pull open the back door. She climbed in, scrambling across the broad bench seat to make room for Giliead and Ilias. The two Syprians moved quickly enough, though Ilias made a disgusted noise. He hated automobiles.

As Nicholas made room for Gerard, Morane said, “Good God, it is you. What took you so long?” Tremaine had met Reynard Morane for the first time in Vienne, while the city was being evacuated. She had known before then that he was Captain of the Queen’s Guard; she hadn’t known that he was one of her guardians and a former crony of Nicholas’s.

“I was unavoidably detained,” Nicholas told him. As soon as the last door was shut, Morane slammed the motorcar into gear and sped off.

The headlamps weren’t lit as the automobile tore through the dark streets. Morane took the next turn, tires squealing, and Tremaine grabbed the back of the seat, swaying over into the door. The interior smelled of the fine glove-soft leather upholstery and faintly of old cigar smoke. Morane said, “Damn it, Nicholas, tell me where you’ve been.”

“How did he know where we were?” Ilias demanded in Syrnaic.

“To certain members of my original organization, ‘Vintner’s Row mews’ is a code for ‘Martine-Viendo Telegraph Office,’ ” Nicholas answered in Rienish, sounding vastly satisfied with himself.

“Of course it is,” Tremaine said under her breath, as Ilias swore in disbelief. The car jolted, throwing her against the door.
God, he drives like me.
She hoped Morane knew what he was doing. In the front seat, braced for an impact, Gerard said thickly, “If you’d like, once we’re far enough away from the Gardier patrol at the Cabellard Gate, I can cast an illusion so that no one outside the car can see the lamps.”

The motorcar took another turn and Tremaine heard Ilias swear softly, though Giliead was stoically silent. Her eyes had adjusted again and she could dimly see a street like a cavern, buildings leaning in close on either side. “That would be handy.” Morane sounded intrigued. “I didn’t have time to get our sorcerer to prepare anything— I only found the car half an hour ago.” In rising exasperation he added, “Nic, if you don’t tell me where the hell you’ve been—”

“I was spying on the Gardier, what did you think I was doing?” Nicholas’s dry voice was annoyed.

“I thought you were dead, obviously, the more fool me.” It came to Tremaine that Morane was, in his own way, nearly giddy with relief at seeing Nicholas. “Where are you all going, by the way? Not Parscia or Bisra, as I presume you came from there.”

“We came from Capidara,” Nicholas said. There was something in his voice Tremaine couldn’t quite define, but it made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. “We’re going to Lodun.”

Reynard hit the brakes and the big touring car slammed to a halt. Tremaine, clutching Giliead’s arm to keep from smashing her face into the front bench, saw Morane staring at Nicholas. “The
Ravenna,
” Morane said, his voice quiet but with a suppressed emotion underneath that made Tremaine’s breath catch in her throat. “She made it.”

“And now she’s back,” Nicholas said, and this time Tremaine recognized the tone in his voice. It was pure menace, and pure certainty, all at once. “With a vengeance.”

M
orane drove out of the city, past the outskirts of deserted houses and commercial buildings, some of them burned-out shells, passing automobiles and trucks abandoned by the side of the road. Despite the darkness, Tremaine could tell some of the fires were recent; the bitter smell of smoke still hung in the air. When the fields and deserted estates gave way to heavy woods, Morane took an old farm track off the main road and followed it until they were deep into the forest. The heavy touring car took the ruts in stride, rumbling over every obstacle easily. He pulled off the road finally, into the deep shadow under a stand of big pines, the tires crackling on fallen cones and needles.

As soon as the engine cut, Ilias bailed out and staggered into the shadows to be ill in private. More dignified, Giliead climbed out slowly and walked deliberately over to lean weakly against the nearest tree.

“The illusion will keep anyone from seeing the car lamps, from above or from the road,” Gerard was saying. “It’s more complicated than the charm that conceals people, so it will take some time to cast.”

On the way out of Vienne, Morane had told them that they could take the automobile, that he could find another one to get back to town. “We have something for you in return,” Nicholas had told him. “A handy tool for a sorcerer, if you have one.”

“At the moment I’ve got a frightening old biddy of a hedgewitch and an octogenarian Aderassi academic, so any help would be greatly appreciated.” Morane had thrown a glance at Nicholas, causing the motorcar to sway dangerously close to a wrecked omnibus. “I presume Gerard has been constructing more Viller spheres? If you’ve got a spare one for me, I’ll kiss you.”

“If he stops this thing,” Ilias muttered in Syrnaic, from somewhere close to the floorboards, “I’ll do anything anybody wants.”

“Take deep breaths,” Tremaine advised. Giliead, who hadn’t moved except to brace himself against the motorcar’s sway, reached down to sympathetically ruffle Ilias’s hair.

“Tremaine’s married,” Nicholas told Morane, as if he expected the news to shock him as much as it apparently had Nicholas.

“Is she?” Morane was startled. “Good God, I’m old.”

Now, standing in the dark quiet clearing, Tremaine watched from a little distance as Gerard circled the touring car with the sphere, weaving the illusion. Behind her, Morane said quietly to Nicholas, “You realized there was a strong possibility Madame Cusard’s group was compromised, of course.”

“Of course. I hope she used this opportunity to pick out the traitor.”

“I’m hoping for good news when I get back. I hope it’s not Berganmot’s boy—we could use another sorcerer, even a half-trained one.” Morane was still looking at Nicholas, and in the dim light Tremaine saw him shake his head suddenly.

So did Nicholas. “Don’t get sentimental,” he said, but he had a smile in his voice.

“Bastard,” Reynard retorted, sounding fond. He looked away for a moment, regaining his composure, then continued, “If you’ve got maps, I can mark a path that should keep you out of the way of the major Gardier occupation areas. They’re keeping to the cities, ignoring the countryside, for the most part. But one of the last reports we had was that a large Gardier detachment was bypassing Vienne and was apparently headed straight for Lodun.”

Nicholas nodded, taking a folded map out of the inside pocket of his coat. “That’s not surprising. They have a use for the sorcerers there.”

Tremaine turned away, not wanting to hear it again. Reynard Morane had stayed here by choice, to fight this to the bitter end, and she hadn’t. She found Ilias, who had recovered enough to walk a perimeter of the clearing, sword propped on his shoulder. She thought Giliead might be scouting further off in the trees, nearly invisible in the shadows. She paced Ilias long enough to say quietly, “Watch out for fay.” They didn’t usually come this close to Vienne, but all the chaos and the lack of sorcerers would surely attract them.

He tilted his head, telling her he didn’t understand the word, and she clarified, “Like curselings. They can’t stand cold iron.” His sword and her pistol both qualified.

He nodded, and knowing she was making too much noise, she returned to the others. Morane had found a reasonably flat spot of ground to spread the map and was using a small pocket torch to see as he carefully marked a route with a pen.

Tremaine stood beside Nicholas. The light was reflecting off the map just enough for her to see his expression clearly, and she caught an unguarded look on his face. “You want to stay here, don’t you?” she asked him. She could understand it. Reynard’s information would give them a mostly clear path to Lodun. Getting there, and making the circle once they were within range of the town, was all Gerard’s job, and she, Ilias and Giliead were more than enough to guard him while he did it. Nicholas’s talents would be wasted. He belonged here in Vienne, where he could gather the threads of the organization that Reynard and the Cusards had kept alive and pull them back into a deadly web. “You should stay. We can handle it from here.”