Scholar of Decay

by Tanya Huff

  “You don’t know enough about him anyway,” Louise conceded, frowning slightly. “Come walk with me; I always plan better when I’m moving.”

  “But I thought we …”

  She pressed a finger against his lips. “Don’t think.”

  When they paused on the bridge joining Isle Delanuit—whether the Renier family’s Chateau Delanuit had given its name to the island or the island to the Chateau was not entirely clear—to Craindre Island, Dmitri pointed up into the sky. Although the air held a chill that foreshadowed winter, the sky was clear, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. “Do you know what they call that constellation in Borca?”

  Louise pressed her cheek into his shoulder, willing, for the moment, to allow him to instruct her. “No, what?”

  “We call it the Broken Heart.”

  She tugged him into motion again. “I don’t believe in broken hearts.”

  He smiled adoringly down at her, his eyes adapted enough to the darkness to see the pale beauty of her face. “Then you’ll never break mine.”

  Under the bridge, clinging easily to the rough stonework, the white wererat followed, shaking its head. She won’t break your heart, you idiot. She’ll rip it out and eat it.

  “I think,” Louise murmured as they started along one of the city’s many riverside esplanades, “that your little test was just a bit too simple. It isn’t enough to know that your brother is a wizard; we need to know how much of a wizard he is.”

  By now, Dmitri knew better than to ask her why. “I guess I could find out,” he offered doubtfully.

  “How? He won’t tell you anything; we’ve already established that.” She felt his arm grow rigid under her fingers and tightened her grip, pleased with his anger. “No, my sweet, you’ve done enough. Leave this to me.”

  “But if he frightens you …”

  Although her eyes glittered in anticipation, she managed to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “We should face our fears, don’t you think?”

  “No. I don’t think,” he continued quickly as he felt her tense, “because you don’t want me to.” Her smile was all the reward he could have desired.

  “It would help if we knew what he was searching for.”

  “Knowledge.” Dmitri tried not to grind his teeth at the memory of Aurek’s sanctimonious one-word reply. “That’s what he said when I asked him but, as you pointed out, I know he’s not telling the truth.”

  Louise ignored him. “What would a wizard be searching abandoned buildings for?” she mused, chewing on her lower lip.

  “Abandoned wizardry?” The look she turned on him stopped him in his tracks, the soles of his boots slapping down hard against the pavement. “What? What did I say?”

  “Exactly the right thing.”

  Surprised by her response, he beamed. “So you’re pleased?”

  She gave his arm a squeeze and turned him back toward the Renier estate. “Very pleased.”

  Her words were a promise, and Dmitri felt his pulse quicken.

  While they walked, Louise made gleeful plans. If Aurek Nuikin was searching for magical items in the abandoned buildings of Pont-a-Museau, she’d just see to it that he found a few and, if he survived the finding, she’d know for sure if she could use him.

  At the bridge, Dmitri shook his head and looked out over the city. Lights were burning in a number of windows and, though he couldn’t see it, he knew the party they’d left earlier was still going on—would be going on until dawn. “I don’t understand why everyone says this city is so dangerous. Standing here, with you, I feel perfectly safe.”

  He jumped as a half-starved alley cat slunk out of the shadows, and then he laughed at his reaction. “Mind you, that’s not to say that some of the stories I’ve heard haven’t made an impression.”

  Scrawny body low to the ground, scarred ears flat against a triangular head, tail lashing the night, the cat glared up at Louise and hissed.

  Louise glanced down over one slender shoulder and hissed back.

  The cat leaped into the air, tripped over its own hind legs, and fled in terror.

  The sewer system that ran under Pont-a-Museau was a marvel. The stone tunnels spread under all of the islands and both shores of the mainland. The occasional collapsed ceiling notwithstanding, it was possible to use them in combination with the river and the canals to get anywhere in the city.

  The extended Renier family spent as much time in the sewers as they did anywhere else. The other inhabitants of the city did what they could to avoid spending any time in the sewers at all. Those townspeople who entered seldom did so under their own power and never survived the experience.

  Staying well back and in deepest shadow, the white wererat followed its ebony counterpart through the sewers. Although Louise had not brought Dmitri under the city with her, Chantel was still curious about where her cousin was going. Overhead, in the most decayed of the buildings, lived the most desperate of the refugees who had come to Pont-a-Museau. While the entire family tended to treat the area as a private hunting preserve, none of them were in the habit of visiting it with a couple of dozen common rats in tow.

  And they were obviously under Louise’s command. Safe behind a buttress, Chantel smoothed back her whiskers and watched as Louise changed into her intermediate form. The older wererat studied the ceiling for a moment, nodded in satisfaction, and began to move a spill of rock away from an old, rusty iron door.

  Chantel barely managed to close her teeth on a surprised gasp that surely would have given her away and very likely gotten her killed. She wouldn’t!

  The deep catacombs that ran under the sewers were out of bounds to the younger members of the family. Not because Jacqueline objected to losing relatives—Chantel had heard her say that at the rate certain people reproduced, she welcomed a good culling now and then to keep the numbers in line—but because winning a battle with even an immature wererat made the goblins cocky and annoying. As a result, all but a few secret entrances to the deep catacombs had been closed and locked.

  And were supposed to remain that way.

  But there was Louise taking a large iron key from the pouch she wore strapped to her chest and unlocking the door. Chantel frowned. Louise had to know the entrances that remained open, so what was she doing?

  Abused metal shrieked.

  Chantel leaped back and clapped her front paws over sensitive ears. A moment later, when she dared to look again, she saw the last of the rats disappear into the dark opening. She waited a moment longer, decided Louise must have already descended and, whiskers twitching, cautiously approached the door.

  Standing on the ledge, she listened to the last of the rats move down the stairs, put a front leg over the threshold, and changed her mind. More important than what Louise was doing in the catacombs was her manner of entry. The closed doors were not supposed to be opened. After grooming accumulated muck from ivory flanks, Chantel started back toward the center of town. Knowledge, delivered to the right person, was power.

  Louise ignored the goblin-sign. The smart ones would avoid her; the stupid ones, she’d kill. Almost covering the ceiling, huge, spreading patches of phosphorescent lichens glistened with a pale green luminescence just barely sufficient for wererat vision. As inadequate as they were, she was glad of them—a lantern would’ve meant a two-legged form, and two legs were not enough security given the fine patina of slime that made the footing less than stable.

  Dragging the rats behind her by force of will, she hurried along the narrow ledge that ran just above the murky water on both sides of the catacombs. At one point, where a section of the ledge had crumbled—the stone looked almost as though it had been eaten away—she leaped the gap with care. Jacqueline might know everything that hunted this deep below the city, but no one else did.

  Feeling ill-used, she smacked one of the rats with her tail, knocking it off the ledge. It surfaced, squeaked once, and suddenly disappeared, leaving only a pattern of ripples behind.

  Louise moved
a little faster, even though she realized that whatever was in the water had to stay there. Had the creature been able to hunt on land, the goblins wouldn’t have infested the catacombs in such numbers. And if my dear sister knows what’s down here, she has no right to keep that kind of information to herself. I could get hurt. But does she care? No.

  She was still silently complaining when the ledge widened out to become a deep landing at the foot of a broad flight of shallow stairs. The walls at bottom bore the crumbling remains of a number of fanciful creatures carved into the yellow-gray stone, and glyphs covered the huge blocks that delineated the doorway.

  Settling herself in a spot where she could watch both the doorway and the catacombs—and as far from the door as possible—Louise sent the rats up the stairs. It took nearly total concentration to force them over the threshold, and one died on the topmost step—too terrified to obey but not strong enough to resist.

  Not even for control of Richemulot would she cross through that doorway herself. She’d discovered this place years before when the goblin she’d been hunting ran in panic up the stairs and was thrown, broken and bleeding, back down, its body stinking of magic. Returning involved all the personal risk she was willing to take. The power oozing down the stairs sizzled over her skin and made her fur stand on end.

  The rats had been ordered to bring her the most powerful magical item they could carry. She only hoped she’d sent enough so that one, at least, would survive.

  As the last rat disappeared over the threshold, the sound of a battle began inside the room.

  Rats screamed.

  Three heartbeats later, a hideous laugh dragged razor-edged fingers along her spine. Although the sound had been muffled by stone and distance, Louise had to consciously force herself not to turn and flee. Trembling, she groomed and regroomed the same spot on her haunch, the air filling with ebony hair as fear made her shed.

  By the time silence fell, she’d regained most of her equilibrium and had begun to grow impatient. She could hear movement out in the catacombs as the goblins realized they had company and drew closer to check it out. They didn’t especially worry her, but their unseen presence was an irritant. Grinding her teeth, she wished one of them would do something stupid so she could use up some of the extra energy that kept her shifting in place.

  Finally a single wounded rat emerged carrying a gold amulet on a chain. Louise waited while it made its painful way down the stairs, its labored breathing nearly drowning out the slither and clunk of its dragging prize. When at last it reached the bottom, she rushed forward, snatched up the amulet, and hastily scurried away.

  The metal disc felt warm and greasy to the touch. Rubbing it between clawed fingers, Louise squinted at the raised inscription, but the words meant nothing to her. As long as they mean something to Aurek Nuikin … and they would. She could smell the hot scent of magic even over the stink of the catacombs.

  Tucking the heavy artifact into her pack, she waited a moment longer in case one of the other rats had survived. The more she had to tempt Aurek Nuikin down into the catacombs with, the better. The hackles lifted off the back of her neck as the sound of something much larger than a rat slowly approached the glyphed doorway. Dropping onto all fours, she spun around and sped toward the entrance to the upper levels.

  Behind her, the wounded rat struggled to keep up, blood bubbling from mouth and nose with every panicked breath.

  The shadows took on distinct goblin shapes.

  Before Louise had gone very far, the unmistakable sound of a morning star connecting with a small furred body echoed through the catacombs.

  “Overkill,” she snarled derisively, leaped the gap, and hurried home to plan.

  “Why,” Jacqueline wondered, picking a chunk of meat off a plate, discarding it, and choosing another, “are you telling me this?”

  “Don’t you want to know that Louise has opened one of the locked doors into the catacombs?”

  Jacqueline stared at her young relative. She chewed and swallowed, then said, “What makes you think I didn’t know?”

  “Did you?” Chantel asked pointedly.

  “That, my dear, is none of your business. Now, answer my question: why are you telling me?”

  “I can’t get Dmitri Nuikin away from Louise, but you can.”

  Not for a moment did Jacqueline assume Chantel was trying to save Dmitri for altruistic reasons; obviously, she wanted him for herself. The girl’s ambition amused her. “I thought I made it quite clear that night by the river that he is under my protection.”

  “I’m not going to hurt him, but he was my …” Suddenly remembering there was safety in numbers, Chantel corrected herself. “Our toy first.”

  “True enough. But why should I help you get him back?”

  “I’ve given you information.…”

  “Exactly. You’ve given me information, therefore you no longer have anything to trade.” She brushed a strand of hair back off her face. “I might also point out that my sister probably knows you’ve been following her. You’re white. You don’t exactly … blend.”

  “I’ve been white all my life,” Chantel protested indignantly.

  Jacqueline ceased to be amused. “And if you want to be white for much longer you won’t ever take that tone with me again.”

  Realizing that she’d overstepped the bounds, and well aware of the usual result, Chantel twitched and stammered, “I—I’m sorry, Jacqueline.”

  The head of the family bared her teeth in an expression that did not even approximate a smile. “Get out,” she said.

  Chantel ran.

  That evening, stepping into the gazebo where a canalboat waited, Louise nearly leaped out of her skin when Jacqueline appeared suddenly out of the shadows. Furious that not only had she reacted, but that her sister had seen the reaction—that smug self-satisfied smile could refer to nothing else—Louise gathered up the fringed ends of her shawl and refused to speak first.

  Jacqueline stepped closer and, still smiling, announced, “I hear you were in the lower tunnels this afternoon.”

  Louise waited, but her twin said nothing more. Obviously Jacqueline didn’t know about the amulet, now wrapped in bloodstained silk and safely tucked away, or she’d have mentioned it. She’d never been able to resist showing off just how much she knew, flaunting her power. Apparently, Louise thought with no small satisfaction, she doesn’t know everything and is not as powerful as she thinks. Cradling that small, secret pleasure, half-tempted to tell the story she’d spent the evening fabricating, Louise murmured, “What if I was?”

  “Nothing. Just be careful.” Jacqueline’s tone was edged with less-than-gentle sarcasm. “I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

  “Unless you did it yourself,” Louise amended silently at her sister’s departing back.

  “No.” His brother’s expression convincing him he’d been, perhaps, a bit abrupt, Aurek added, “I don’t care for parties and see no reason to attend. You, of course, may go or not, as you wish.”

  Dmitri caught at Aurek’s sleeve as he pushed past, not even noticing the resultant glare as his mind searched furiously for a way to persuade his brother that tonight’s event was one he shouldn’t miss. Louise had been very explicit about her expectations. “They’ve, uh, been asking about you.”

  Pale brows rose. “Who has?”

  Who indeed. “Well, you know …”

  “No. I don’t.” Aurek impatiently tapped the fingers of his free hand against the bottom curve of the bannister. “If I did, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  Biting back his rising anger at Aurek’s patronizing tone, Dmitri snapped, “The Reniers. That is, not the whole family but enough of them.” He saw he’d made an impression and hurriedly continued. “I think they may be getting, well, insulted that you’ve, you know, been ignoring them.”

  “I haven’t been ignoring them!”

  Dmitri shrugged. “It looks that way, doesn’t it? You never go anywhere they are.”

 
He seems pleased with himself, Aurek thought. I assume he got the reaction he wanted. Aurek set aside his annoyance, uncertain if it was directed at his brother or himself, and tried to consider Dmitri’s words objectively. While he couldn’t swear that none of the Renier family had seen him—there were enough common rats in the buildings he searched without assuming that the noises he heard were anything more—he had seen only Louise and Jacqueline since the party where he’d first met them. And the second meeting with Louise could hardly have been called a social occasion.

  If other members of the family felt they’d been insulted by his absence, they could easily interfere with his search. That must not be allowed to happen.

  “Very well,” he sighed, deploring the waste of his time. “I’ll go.”

  “Great.” Dmitri released him. “Now, about your clothes …”

  Aurek shook his head. “If you’re suggesting I go out looking like a ragbag, think again.” He lifted the small candelabra off the table at the bottom of the stairs and started toward the second floor, the three candles making his shadow dance against wallpaper Edik had glued piece by tattered piece back into place. “I have no wish to look like anything but what I am.”

  I have no wish to look like anything but what I am, Dmitri mocked silently. “And what is it you are?”

  Aurek paused, turned, and stared down at his brother in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you have something you’d like to tell me?”

  “Only what I’ve already told you: stop seeing Louise Renier.”

  Dmitri’s eyes flashed; he’d given Aurek a chance and had it thrown right back in his face. “You,” he snarled, “have no right to try to run my life.”

  To his surprise, Aurek merely stared at him a moment longer, his expression above the beard soft and sad. He sighed again, then said, as he continued climbing, “No. I don’t.”