‘Should have brought the whole Order,’ muttered Diana.
Nanda and Alexander stood slightly to one side, conferring. ‘Konrad,’ she hissed softly. ‘The fire. They will not expect it to spread up here. The stone walls of the cellars should have confined it. They did not think we knew of the chute, nor that we would use it.’
Good point, he said uselessly. It would take a little time for the lower levels of the house to burn through, but once that happened the fire would spread up to ground level — including the hall. It would be too late, then, to extinguish it; the whole house would likely burn.
That would damage their plans. But what to do until then? The fire would spread slowly through the stone-built and sparsely furnished kitchens and pantries. Meanwhile, Jakub and Olya Vasilescu were free to proceed.
And proceed they did. A roar of protest interrupted whatever Nanda was trying to say next. Two young men dressed in the livery of grooms marched into the hall, bearing between them a struggling youth. Their faces were hard, merciless; whatever souls powered their muscular limbs were not their own. They threw the youth down upon the cold stone floor before Jakub Vasilescu and kicked him into submission.
It happened quickly after that. A moment, no more, and the youth collapsed, boneless, like a marionette with cut strings. A fresh, screaming ghost rose from the prone corpse; the waiting host fell upon it with a cry, and tore the spirit to shreds.
Konrad swallowed.
Then the young man rose, wobbling, to his feet, his face set in the same grimly exultant lines as the two grooms. Another dead necromancer given borrowed limbs; or was it one of the waiting flunkies who had received the fresh, new body as his reward? It hardly mattered which. Jakub issued crisp orders to the youth, who received them with a nod, and went out with the two grooms.
This process was to be repeated many times over the next quarter of an hour. Konrad tried not to look too hard at his own, stolen face. He could not bear the malice, the cruelty and the obscene jubilation that he saw there. Had he ever worn those expressions?
He forced himself to think. We have not the numbers for this, he said.
‘You think not?’ muttered Lev sourly.
Where is Tasha? And Anichka?
‘Tasha is somewhere in there.’ Lev tilted his head in the direction of the furore in the great hall.
I am here, said Anichka from close by, making Konrad jump. She had mastered the art of near invisibility remarkably quickly. Had she taken spirit-form before? Quite possible.
If we cannot win by force we must win by trickery, Konrad said.
‘Trickery.’ Lev said the word in a flat, unimpressed tone.
But Anichka said, I am listening. Have you an idea?
I do. But we are going to need Tasha. Serpents, find her and bring her here.
He asked a great deal of them, he knew. They had fled the hall already, outnumbered and endangered by the mass of wraiths there gathered. Konrad dimly sensed them some way above, coiled into a cowed, protective knot.
Master, whined Ootapi. They will tear us apart.
And they might. Had Konrad not witnessed just such an occurrence moments before? You are capable of great stealth, when you need it, he reminded them. Tasha is out there somewhere alone. She needs you and we need her.
Why then do you not go, Master? hissed Eetapi.
A fair question, and Konrad had not time to argue with them about it. Perhaps he had expected enough of them already.
Steeling himself, he took a deep breath — cursing himself for a fool, upon remembering that he need not breathe anymore — and did his best to suppress the glow of his soul that must give away his presence among so many spectres.
I will go, said Anichka.
‘Go where?’ said Tasha, coming up behind Konrad.
Where have you been? Fear and frustration made Konrad shout. He had just been about to plunge himself into great danger on her behalf.
‘In there.’ Tasha nodded her head at the hall. ‘And other places. What, were you about to go after me? I am flattered.’ She grinned, her usual cheeky expression, but the salute she gave him was a shade less ironic than usual.
All right, Konrad said ungraciously. What did you find out?
‘They are a lot stronger than we are.’
You think?
Tasha nodded gravely. ‘I am glad you didn’t go in. They would rip you to pieces in seconds.’
Encouraging.
‘So! I recommend we don’t fight them.’
I had a mind to indulge in a spot of fakery.
‘You have my attention.’
Konrad outlined his plan.
To his dismay, Tasha laughed. ‘But you hate theatricals.’
Yes.
‘Right.’ She relayed his ideas to Nanda and Alexander, both of whom, he was gratified to see, fell in with the plan at once.
‘A little blasphemy never hurt anybody,’ said Nanda.
Alexander developed a pained look. ‘What would you say are the chances of my being smited from on high?’
‘Acceptable,’ said Tasha.
‘Acceptable for whom, you or me?’
Diana gave a wintry smile. ‘Let it be known that our Malykant is fully deranged and his word ought not to be trusted.’
Alexander blinked. ‘I see.’
‘Are you still prepared to go ahead with it?’ She fixed the inspector with a gimlet eye.
‘For some reason, I am.’
‘Excellent. I shall bear any unfavourable consequences that might arise from… certain quarters.’
‘Good of you,’ said Alexander faintly.
Nan? said Konrad. He was asking a great deal of her, too.
‘I am with you,’ she said. ‘As always.’
Konrad permitted himself a moment’s heartglow.
‘Right,’ said Diana. ‘Tasha, you and I and Martita are with Konrad and the inspector. Anichka, Lev and the serpents, with Nanda. That ought to be sufficient?’
I think so, said Konrad.
‘Then we go.’ Diana stepped farther away from the door, tucking herself into a shadowed corner.
Then, to Konrad’s utter astonishment, she collapsed. Not gracefully, in an elegant swoon. She fell like a tree, and her spirit rose, shimmering, into the air.
Tasha whistled. ‘Not even I saw that one coming.’
You are lamaeni?! Konrad’s mind reeled.
The shade of Diana chuckled. Who better to lead The Malykt’s Order? Or did you think it was because of my good looks and ineffable charm?
Konrad, perhaps wisely, made no response.
Chapter Ten
It began as a glittering black forest, creeping in icy fingers across the ceiling of the great hall. Scarcely noticeable; just a deepening chill and a darkening of the gloom. A slow blossoming at first, soon pitch hoarfrost raced down the walls and carpeted the stone floor, spreading in eerie fractals radiating an otherworldly cold.
Then the voices began. A babble of distant distress, they grew nearer, louder and more insistent. Frigid whispers emerged, the sort that echo through the bones and set the teeth on edge.
If the hoarfrost escaped the notice of the coven and its followers, the voices did not — especially when they began, as one, to scream. Jakub Vasilescu, barking orders to his coven and gesturing with Konrad’s expressive hands, broke off.
Olya, in Anichka’s form, paled and stared, aghast, at the frost-blackened ceiling. ‘This — this is not — who is that? This is unnecessary! Be still at once.’
Her words were barely audible in the tumult.
Jakub interjected with a roar. ‘SILENCE!’ He stood tall, wreathed in power and dark magic, radiating authority. If ever there was a vision of man who expected obedience without question, here was he.
The screaming only intensified. The cacophony had abandoned words, and exhibited their distress in a stream of incomprehensible babble, at piercing volume. The wordless tumult emanated from the walls, from the stones set into the floor, from the air itself.
The shades of the coven and their followers, so confident moments before, faltered now, and shrank closer to one another.
The servant-wraiths vanished altogether.
Just when Konrad judged the senseless howls had done their work, came then a radiant light streaming through the wide-open double doors. No mere daylight, this, as of a pale sun rising; white, clear light blazed, intense as core-fire, setting the carpet of hoarfrost sparkling with a scintillating light to dazzle the eyes.
Jakub faltered, and took a step back.
In the midst of that light appeared a figure in silhouette. A woman, impossibly tall, statuesque, wreathed in an effulgence too bright to look into. She paused there some time, as her light filtered into every corner of the dark hallway.
When she spoke, the cacophony of voices fell silent in respect.
What manner of desecration is this? whispered she, and her voice echoed.
Jakub drew himself up, though it cost him a visible effort. ‘Eject this woman,’ he barked.
His host of ghostly followers gathered themselves up, and… hesitated.
For the lady was attended not only by a bright, cleansing light, but by warmth and vibrancy as well. A greenish glow threaded its way into the clear white light; not the sickly green of ill-health but the vivid hue of fresh, new growth. Frost melted under its onslaught, replaced by unfurling tendrils and budding leaves.
Beautiful, Nan, Konrad breathed.
Around him he heard hushed whispers building: once someone had uttered that one, crucial word, Shandrigal, it was taken up and repeated all over the hall. The Shandrigal. It cannot be? The Shandrigal!
Right, then, Konrad murmured. Time to terrify the life out of them.
When the attention of everyone in the hall was fixed upon the vision of The Shandrigal descended upon Divoro, a blast of freezing air emanated from somewhere above, driving back all the gentle warmth Nanda had (somehow) brought with her. The wraiths fell back as one. This time, the babble of distressed voices were theirs.
The cold intensified. Jakub and Olya began to shiver, teeth gritted, baleful gaze turned upwards.
Down came The Malykt.
He manifested as little more than a shadow, barely man-shaped, His frame wreathed in roiling darkness. The killing cold of deep winter radiated from His form; a dark sound, like a mirthless laugh, made the walls shake and sent ice dripping down the walls.
What desecration is this? He said, a low, dire rumble; with every syllable, fresh frost bloomed. Ice crept up the feet and legs of those left alive, and blossomed across their faces.
Jakub’s nerve fractured. He stared up at the descending vision with fear in Konrad’s stolen eyes, shivering so violently in the wintry cold that his teeth chattered. ‘My Lord,’ gasped he. ‘We — I — I am Your servant!’
You are no servant of Mine. You have wrested my true servant from Me. Dare you stand before Me in his stolen form, and call yourself My own?
Konrad could just detect the inspector’s intonation in the words, cloaked though his every utterance was in eerie echo, and impossibly amplified. Tasha and Diana, bodiless and hidden, held him aloft. The serpents wreathed Nanda’s form in radiance; Diana’s arctic fox melded herself with the inspector, lending him all her ethereal powers.
The effect, Konrad felt, was impressive.
The Malykt spoke again. You have displeased Me, and shall suffer My wrath. The shadows around Alexander deepened as he began, inexorably, to descend, Jakub Vasilescu his target.
From the doorway, Nanda said, in her Shandrigal’s whisper, So too shall I express My displeasure. She took a step forward, and another, and the light moved with her, keeping her an indistinct silhouette.
Olya stared from one to the other, her face a rictus of fear.
But something… something happened. Her eyes narrowed; she looked, again, from The Malykt to The Shandrigal, and her fear faded. ‘Remember!’ she barked. ‘They do not manifest. Not ever. Is it not known that They do not?’
Damnit, Konrad muttered. She was right: no credible tale of a manifestation by either Great Spirit had ever been reported. Why should such powers condescend to show Themselves? He had been counting on the coven’s being too disturbed for such clear reflection.
But Olya’s words had their effect. The coven members flanking Jakub, gathered for a little while into a frightened knot, now separated, and drew themselves up. A few converged upon Nanda.
‘Who, then, are you?’ hissed Jakub, glowering upon the suspended form of Alexander some several feet above his head.
Emboldened, the swarm of wraiths closed in upon the inspector.
NO! shouted Konrad. Stand firm, Alexander!
They must not be permitted to reach the inspector, or Nanda. Desperate, Konrad reached for his Malykant’s powers — something he had not dared do since the loss of his body. Those powers were woven into his being, body and soul. Well, body and soul were parted, fracturing his identity as the Malykant. If he called, would anything answer?
No. He reached and strained and nothing came. He was a mere ghost after all, divested of everything that had ever made him the Malykant. As feeble as those pallid shades who had, so easily, fallen victim to the machinations of the Divoro coven. Ineffectual. Helpless.
Nanda stood tall and unafraid, and her light brightened to the eye-watering radiance of a small sun. Do you dare approach Me? She uttered, unfazed.
Her assailants barely hesitated. Two reached for her; Nanda flowed away, evading their grip with ease.
But in so doing, she gave herself away. What need would The Shandrigal have to dodge? Several more converged upon her; she could not evade them all.
‘Bring that one down here,’ barked Jakub, and the host of wraiths swooped upon Alexander.
Konrad! Diana’s voice lanced through his mind. He will not answer me.
He? Did she mean Alexander, Lev, or… or The Malykt?
Ah.
Konrad gathered himself, and screamed his frustration. He put every shred of his severed soul into the cry, sent it soaring into the aether, into the spirit planes and beyond.
It cost him dearly. He had not the might for such a gambit, not now, nor had the serpents the strength to hold him bound under it. His spirit weakened, fractured and split; shards of himself broke into ribbons and flowed away. He would break up entirely, dissolve into nothing but whispers and memories, and nothing would or could bring him back.
So be it. He screamed and screamed—
—and, abruptly, stopped, the sound cut off as sharply as a door closing.
Fear swamped him, a bone-deep terror that bereft him of words, of thoughts, of everything. He cowered, mindless with dread. Bodiless, it was so much worse…
Time slowed.
Yes, said a freezing, and too familiar, voice. Done. The words scattered his wits anew. He waited, trembling, for the end; his last thought was for Nanda. Take care of her. He knew no one would hear him, not now.
The light vanished, sounds faded, and Konrad’s wandering shade uttered one last sigh.
Then came the cold.
‘Konrad.’
Some indecipherable amount of time later, consciousness dawned. Slowly. Painfully.
Painfully.
Konrad permitted one eye to open a crack.
‘Alive,’ Tasha reported. Restored to her physical body, she was leaning over him. He appeared to be occupying a recumbent posture upon the floor, for hers was not the only anxious face looking down upon his. Nanda was there, too, and Alexander, and Diana. Above them hovered a distant ceiling, still dark with black ice.
He croaked something incoherent.
‘Yes, we are happy too,’ said Tasha, and patted him on the shoulder.
He felt it.
‘Good,’ said Diana, and withdrew. He heard her say something to someone else a moment later, and Lev’s voice answered. Then Anichka’s.
Konrad lifted his hands and stared at them in wonder. There they were, both of them, in the flesh: his own fi
ngers, all ten of them. His own, brown skin, hale and healthy.
He reached out to Nanda’s face, and felt soft skin under his fingertips.
‘But,’ he said after a while. ‘Why am I alive?’
‘Diana,’ said Nanda, with a faint smile. ‘Did… something, to Jakub. He is gone.’
‘Vapour,’ said Tasha, waving her fingers expressively to indicate dispersal.
‘Olya, too,’ Nanda went on. ‘And, apparently, the rest of them.’ She pointed.
Konrad turned his head, wincing as his neck muscles cramped. Still bodies lay across the floor like a litter of discarded coats, emptied of the shades that had possessed them. Whatever had become of their own souls, Konrad could not determine. It did not seem fair or just that he had been restored to his own limbs, and they had not.
Done, had said the Master. Some kind of deal was struck upon that syllable. What had it been? Konrad had offered himself in exchange for the safety of Nanda and Alexander. He had gone gladly into the cold. Why, then, was he alive?
He did not think it fit to correct Nanda’s mistake. Let her attribute the vanquishing of the Vasilescus to Diana, if she would. It was a less… difficult explanation.
Then again, was it a mistake? Nanda’s eyes held his, and he fathomed a number of unfathomable things from their expression. He thought of the warmth and the growth Nanda had summoned into the hall not long before. The Shandrigal’s handmaiden she was; how far was she permitted to borrow her Mistress’s power? She knew full well what was possible for a woman in Diana’s position, and what ought not to be.
Konrad looked at Alexander. ‘You were magnificent.’
The inspector actually blushed. ‘A pity it could not quite carry the day.’
‘Came damned close, though.’ Konrad sat up, and gave an involuntary squawk of pain as every muscle he possessed went into revolt. What had Jakub done? It was like lending out a hat and getting it back, battered and broken and barely fitting anymore.
Well, not lending out. Losing a hat to a thieving devil of a man. Ordinarily, one did not expect to get the hat back.
Konrad began to shiver.
‘Everything is… well?’ he said, glancing about. Were the wraiths gone, or was he simply unable to see them anymore?
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