The High House (35 page)

The three fled south, away from the base of the tor, in the direction where Carter had seen the least number of approaching anarchists. Soldiers scattered all around them, terrified by the destruction of their comrades. A pair of anarchists rushed by as well, heedless of the men, as panicked as the rest. In the confusion, the three companions soon crossed the outskirts of town. Carter glanced over his shoulder, then stopped in astonishment. “Look!” He pointed toward the hillock.

The entire, ghastly tor was sliding in upon itself, vanishing into a deep cavity, the noise of its crumbling like paper being crushed. It was gone in seconds, leaving a deep, steaming pit.

“How?” Settlefrost cried.

“The ghost image of the tor was fabrication, like the soldiers,” Carter said. “Beneath its cover they destroyed the real tor. But for what purpose?”

“The treasure of the tor,” Settlefrost said sadly. “There were said to be great riches, powerful magics hidden beneath the mound. We thought it legend. It must be what they sought all along.”

“I wonder if they found it?” Duskin said.

Carter shrugged. “I hope we never find out. The name of the country will be Innman Crater from now on, I suppose.”

“I have to go back,” Settlefrost said, sudden determination on his brow.

“If the anarchists don’t kill you, your own people might,” Carter said.

“Yes, that’s true. But I failed as a leader and now they need my help. I have to rally them for a stand against the anarchists. Now that there are fewer soldiers, we might have a chance.”

“Be careful what treaties you found,” Carter said. “When all is done I will bring the forces of the White Circle here. If the country is not in proper order, you will answer to me, Settlefrost.”

Settlefrost quailed and slipped away between the houses, too frightened to say good-bye.

“Will he barter with the anarchists again?” Duskin asked. “We should have taken him with us.”

“No. I believe he will do his best. He had conscience enough to know his wickedness, and he was, after all, truly a prisoner in his own high estate. If he shows courage his people may yet follow him. If he doesn’t he won’t survive.”

They hurried across the fields that had been stripped by the anarchists, their desolation no illusion. Neither was the train, for its tracks remained whole and the sallow engine stood beyond the brown smoke covering the vale. The Bobby must have needed it to take the plundered goods from the country, and perhaps to transport the people themselves, undoubtedly to some horrible fate. Beyond the train, Carter caught sight of the anarchists, opposite their own position, hurrying toward the town. To the south, the fields were clear, but more than twenty armed men were rushing to intercept them from the east. The brothers broke into a run toward the distant gables.

Immediately, Carter knew the race would be close. The two men veered to the left, angling away from their adversaries, forcing the band to travel farther to intercept them. A hail of bullets ripped the earth behind them. Carter pulled his own pistol and fired, a careless shot to provoke their caution, but to his wonder a man fell. He chuckled humorlessly at his luck, thinking they might yet escape, then groaned as three other anarchists plunged out of the house from the southeast. The brothers veered even farther west and redoubled their efforts, but by the time they were within a hundred yards of the gables, the three pursuers had drawn close; one of them, apparently a gifted runner, had pulled far ahead of the other two, and his bullets whizzed by the men. Both Duskin and Carter returned fire, and the man fell, clutching his side. The companions were among the white terraces of the house before the other two came within range.

They slipped behind a stand of tall oaks, losing themselves among the boughs, doubling back to the right along the tree line. As the two anarchists reached the house, they met the brothers’ waiting gun sights, and were downed at once. The respite gave Carter and Duskin time to clamber onto a wooden porch and reach a tidy white door. Bullets tore at the posts and door frame as they clambered into a large kitchen, bolting the door behind them.

They sped between aisles of pots and pans, cutlery and low ovens, through a storeroom filled with sacks of flour, where a pair of aproned men, struggling with a heavy box, called after them to halt. Heedless, the brothers came to a rickety stair at the end of the room, leading down into darkness. They hurriedly lit a lamp and descended into a dirty, unpromising basement scarcely likely to have another exit, with dirt floors and cobwebs crisscrossed through the middle of the room. Worse, the cooks would probably report them to the anarchists.

They passed through two empty rooms, forced the only remaining door, and found themselves in another deserted chamber, their only company a pair of squeaking rats squinting at the glow of the lantern. In the corner Carter spied a dumbwaiter; its box had deteriorated into shards over time, leaving the shaft open. Light streamed down from a large opening above.

Duskin used his hands for a stirrup to boost Carter up to the higher bracing boards in the shaft, which he could use for footholds. A score of thoughts ran through Carter’s mind as he gripped the timber and pulled himself up, of the collapsing tor and the melting soldiers, of his own doubts about whether he should have stayed in the town and rallied the soldiers against the anarchists, or, if not, made a stand against them himself. Yet, Master or no, he doubted he could have commanded the troops in time. And even with the Words of Power and the Lightning Sword, he did not believe he could hold off a garrison.

As his fingers tightened over the lip of the opening and he struggled to pull himself up, he also realized he would never be truly lost in the High House again, for even as he pushed the half-closed dumbwaiter door aside, the maps came to mind, and he knew where he was. He had bypassed the kitchen altogether and entered an upper corridor.

Duskin followed quickly after, bracing himself against both sides of the shaft to climb, and in a moment they were reunited. The passage was dirty from neglect, uncarpeted, its wooden floors bare of finish. Far off, they heard the shouts and running feet of their pursuers. Carter led them, without hesitation, toward a metal stairs.

He considered using the Word of Secret Ways, and a new realization came to him, that it would do no good because there were no hidden passages anywhere nearby. Where the knowledge came from, he did not know, except that it was part of being the Master. He wondered, with vague uneasiness, what other powers he would eventually claim if he survived to come into his full inheritance.

They spent the remainder of the day in cat and mouse, fleeing the footfalls of their enemies, climbing ever higher into the house, for Carter intended to rise nearly to the attic, before descending again to the outer boundary of Innman Tor, where it connected with the White Circle. It was a circuitous route, but an unexpected one, and he hoped to outmaneuver his enemies. He also sensed he would find secret ways in the upper reaches.

By the time twilight fell across gray, moth-eaten curtains, they had attained to the highest portions of the house, and peered from smudged windows overlooking the crater where the tor had stood. Having heard no sign of the anarchists for the past hour, they chanced a few hours rest, exhaustion demanding nothing else. The rooms had been deserted many years; all the furnishings had been taken; the closets lay empty; only the soft prints of mice disturbed the dust; and Carter remembered a proverb his father often used: “as few as the men in Innman Tor,” a homily no doubt common in the house.

He took the first watch. The moon, obscured by the clouds, transformed them to sullen Chinese lanterns while Carter fretted. He wondered if the rain would ever end, or if all creation were to be swept beneath the torrents, covered by the darkness. The anarchists would surely expect the brothers to seek the Long Corridor, and would muster their forces at the border. As the night wore on, and the strands of moonlight sought to break through the cloud cover, Carter cast ever for a way to escape.

Duskin relieved him near one o’clock, and he slept till four, when they rose, ate a mouthful of food, and continued on their way, going ever upward, having no other plan, though despair had crept into Carter’s heart.

His one hope lay in the hidden passages he sensed in the upper stories, and they labored until noon to reach them. Finally, in a musty corridor, in the pinnacle of that portion of the house, he spoke the Word of Secret Ways, and the mansion trembled at its speaking. A blue rectangle appeared on the wall to his left, and a blue square in the ceiling. Momentary surprise crossed his face.

“What’s wrong?” Duskin asked.

“Through the maps within me, I sensed the panel on the wall, but not the trapdoor above. Why should that be?”

“I don’t know. Which should we take?”

Carter thought a moment. “The trapdoor. Surely our enemies can’t subvert the Words of Power; there must be something unique beyond it.”

They searched the vacant halls until they found a surviving dresser to use for a step. As Carter pushed against the door, a spring mechanism released, dragging it aside. He set the lantern on the floor above before pulling himself through. Though momentarily blinded by his own light, he saw well enough to determine that no one waited in the gloom.

He helped Duskin up, then looked about.

“There’s something strange about this,” Carter said, as his lantern revealed the beginnings of a large chamber. An odd familiarity swept him, along with a half-remembered fear, and as the sloping walls, the tall ceiling, the bare wooden floors, and the dust told their story, he drew a sharp breath.

“This is the attic of the Last Dinosaur!”

“But we should be miles from there!”

A flame roared over their heads from a source not fifty feet away, illuminating the whole attic in a blazing flash. Jormungand towered above them, eyes gleaming red as the fire.

The flames died, leaving the men half-blind and helpless.

“Little steward, is this a young morsel you’ve brought me, a wrapped but uncooked hors d’oeuvre for an old friend?”

“Do not touch him!” Carter cried, drawing his Lightning Sword. Its light leapt upward, restoring their sight.

“Ahhh,” Jormungand said. “You have the jagged blade, and I see all the Words of Power within you. You have become the Master, indeed.”

Jormungand stretched on the floor, resting on his short, front appendages, an act that brought him nearer the men, sending them dancing backward. He sniffed at them like a hound.

Carter placed himself between the dinosaur and Duskin. “Your attic must extend over the whole house.”

“Simply because you find it in an unexpected place? It moves occasionally, though the stair always leads to your bedroom. If you come this way again, do not seek it above the trapdoor; it will have migrated.”

“Then we have shortened our journey many days,” Carter said. “And bypassed the anarchists. But, I don’t understand.”

“Never question miracles and the turns of fate and you will live a happier life,” Jormungand hissed. “So it was when you sought your father; it only cost you pain to learn of his demise. Better not to have gone.”

“You told me you didn’t know if he was alive or not.”

“Technically, part of him, the Thin Man, still lived, so I told no untruth. Did you expect wishing-well answers, a fortune cookie with a prehensile tale, your pet Oracle, domesticated and docile, waiting for a treat and a tummy pat to give you all the world’s wisdom? Life is harsh, ho-hum, so what; do you know how many beetles will perish in this attic today? Do they come to me, wanting the name of the spider that will eat them? Do they ask if their hatchlings will grow up great warriors, mated to females with comely chitin, winsome mandibles, and great leg segments? Don’t waste a dinosaur with questions unless you can interpret the answers.”

“Then tell me this, how can I recover the Master Keys?”

Jormungand snorted, startling the men. “Looking for a game plan, are we? Tea leaves read? The keys are in the Room of Horrors; you know it, and there is no escaping it, regardless of how you phrase the question. The Bobby cannot carry them with him until he has completely mastered them, for they are not easily bent toward evil, and would destroy him. Go there and take them if you can; the Book of Forgotten Things will show the way. No sleight of hand, mummers trick, wave of the wand, can do it for you.”

Carter went pale, thinking of the Room of Horrors.

“Is there anything else I can do for you? Manicure? Take a little off those toes? No? If you did not come to be eaten, feel no need to stay. I have grown wise enough to find only my own company satisfactory.”

Carter recovered and said, “Two questions more. What is the High House?”

Jormungand gave a low rumbling noise that Carter eventually recognized as laughter. He blew fire through his nostrils, and the flames beat hot on the men’s faces. “Tedious, tedious. Every Master comes around to ask that. And is that all you want to know? Would you rather I answered how to catch Leviathan on a hook? Do you wonder where the wind comes from, or the nature of the soul? Would you capture rain in a net? Have you a millennium for me to draw you a rough picture? Thumbnail sketch? Jormungand is amused. If we stood here till the end of the world, you and I, the explanation would not be done, for I could tell you mathematically, philosophically, theologically, scientifically, artistically, a thousand different ways: theorems and angles, proofs and disproofs, solve for X and solve for Y, Kant and can, Roger eats Bacon, Newtonian Adam’s apples, thermo-and-aero-hydro-electrodynamics. It would all mean nothing—pictures with words painted in mud, tinfoil copies of precious jewels, oil-slick dabbings with watercolor easels. Never close to the real thing.

“But I will tell you this, the High House is shooting stars and children’s tears, rainbows and the small tiny cracks between the bricks where the young grass grows; cold graves and gooseflesh, clear water when drowning, gray dust when dying of thirst, ancient engineers in railroad yards, mad ladies mumbling in the street. Is that clear? No? It will have to do. What is the next question?”