The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1

by Anne Lyle

"Then woe is me, poor child for Thee!

  And every mourn and say,

  For thy parting neither say nor sing,

  Bye, bye, lully, lullay."

  "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.

  "O brothers too, how may we do,

  For to preserve this day

  This poor youngling for whom we do sing

  Bye, bye, lully, lullay."

  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.

  The door opened, and a heavily built man wearing blue and white livery and armed with a quarterstaff came into the room, looking around warily as if expecting an attack. He eyed Mal with puzzlement, then stepped aside to let his companion past: a plump-faced, pretty girl of about sixteen, carrying a plate of bread and a flagon. As she came into the room, Sandy stirred and sat up. The girl screamed and dropped the plate.

  "Oi, what's this?" the retainer shouted, swinging the staff in an arc before him.

  Mal ran at him, but the man was too fast. He jabbed the end of the staff at Mal's breastbone, knocking the wind out of him, and backed out of the room with an oath. The door slammed shut before Mal could reach it, and a key scraped in the lock.

  Mal pounded on the door, more out of frustration than any hope that it would be opened again. He turned and leant back against it, breathing gingerly against the ache in the centre of his chest. Sandy was kneeling on the floor, gnawing at a hunk of fallen bread like a starving man.

  "I don't suppose they brought enough for two," Mal joked, then realised it was the truth. The girl had screamed because she had not been expecting two prisoners. Which suggested he had not been brought here by Sandy's captors.

  He squatted next to his brother and examined the thick metal bands about his wrists. Bronze, not iron. Strange, to make gyves of the stuff, unless… Kiiren had said that lodestone protected against evil spirits, and anchored the soul to the body. Did iron do something similar? Mal stared at his brother and made the sign of the cross. That… thing inside him had reached out across the bond between them and used witchcraft to twist Mal's dreams to its own ends.

  He went back to the window. The palace on the far riverbank was silhouetted against the rising sun, and Mal had to shield his eyes from the reflections off its many gilded onion domes. A pale stone building with dozens of slender towers and chimneys: not the sprawling red-brick complex that was Hampton Court; nor was it Greenwich, which faced north and stood at the foot of a steep hill. Richmond, then. So whose house was this? Who was so powerful that he would dare traffic with demons under the very nose of Prince Robert?

  Ned was dozing in a tangle of warm sheets when the knock came at the door. Not Baines again, surely?

  "Master Parrish?" a high voice piped. "Master Faulkner? Are you in there?"

  Damn. Hendricks.

  "Hang on!" he shouted, scrambling out of bed and pulling on his drawers.

  He opened the door and ushered the boy inside. Hendricks took one look at Ned and turned away, blushing, to gaze fixedly at a playbill nailed to the inside of the door. The paper was yellowed with age and torn around the edges, and the ink blurred from damp, but the title was still clear: "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, written by Christopher Marlowe".

  "Is Master Parrish…" The boy hesitated. "Did he get out safely?"

  Ned rummaged in the laundry basket for a not-too-filthy shirt, sniffed one, threw it on the floor, and eventually settled for yesterday's. It smelt faintly of the charnel house, but it would have to do.

  "He's well. Gone to buy–" He looked up and froze, shirt forgotten. "Why are you wearing Mal's sword? What's happened?"

  "Master Catlyn has been spirited away," the boy replied, hugging his ribs and looking as if he was about to burst into tears.

  "What? I thought he went back to the Tower with the ambassador."

  "He did. And I… He asked me to go there, to tell him about the fire."

  "You were there when it happened?" Ned asked. "Who was it? And how in Christ's name did they conjure him out under the noses of the beefeaters?"

  "Conjure is the right word," Hendricks replied. "He was stolen away by magic. Skrayling magic."

  "God's teeth!" Ned crossed himself. "You're not jesting, are you?"

  Hendricks shook his head. He seemed about to say more, but footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. Before Ned could stop him, Hendricks had thrown the door open.

  "Master Parrish!"

  Hendricks flung his arms around the startled actor, who tossed a warm loaf in Ned's direction then returned the embrace.

  "Faith, what's all this?" Gabriel murmured, looking askance at Ned over the boy's shoulder.

  Ned shrugged in reply. Voice shaking, Hendricks repeated the story he'd told Ned.

  "Ambassador Kiiren says they are both away west of London," he added, "in one of the royal palaces or perhaps near it."

  "Why should we believe that?" Ned replied. "If skrayling magic stole Mal away, the ambassador could be in on it."

  "I don't think so," Hendricks said. "He seemed very upset."

  "Upset at having his schemes discovered, more like."

  "Enough!" Gabriel glared at him. "Come, let's break our fast and decide what to do about this."

  Ned finished dressing and they gathered around the small table, perched on an assortment of stools and chests. After a couple of abortive attempts to sit down whilst wearing the rapier, Hendricks eventually unbuckled the sword belt and laid it on the bed.

  "Near one of the palaces, eh?" Gabriel said, pouring three tankards of small ale. "Doesn't narrow it down a lot."

  Hendricks made no reply, only picked at his bread. Ned smiled to himself. So, it was as he had suspected. Mal might deny any interest in boys, but there was something between those two, if only on Hendricks' side. God knew Mal's ambivalence had never stopped Ned from dreaming.

  "Could be Molesey Prior, near Hampton Court," Gabriel went on. "Or Syon House. Essex is a friend of Northumberland, and we all know what they say about the Percys."

  "You think the wizard earl has discovered the secret of skrayling magic?" Ned asked.

  "Could be."

  "My lord Suffolk might know," Hendricks said in a small voice.

  "Suffolk? Yes. Ferrymead Park borders the Syon estate. If not the duke himself, then perhaps his servants know some gossip."

  Gabriel got to his feet, brushed crumbs from his doublet and put on a soft velvet cap that covered most of his singed hair.

  "Going somewhere?" Ned asked.

  "I think we should pay our respects to
our patron, don't you, Hendricks?"

  The boy obediently rose and went to open the door, though not without a longing glance back at the rapier on the bed. Ned drained his tankard and made ready to join them.

  "Not you," Gabriel said.

  Ned opened his mouth to protest, but Gabriel silenced him with a kiss.