Skeletons in the Closet (Phantom Rising Book 2)

by Davyne DeSye

  CHAPTER 23

  CHRISTINE AND THE SULTANA

  It had been some time since Christine had discovered Erik’s trap door, but even so, she had only made two exploratory midnight trips into the tunnel. This was not for fear of discovery – although that fear sometimes paralyzed her – but because she must conserve her matchsticks. The servant girls, simple as they were, would not likely provide Christine with another opportunity to gather more, nor believe that such an attempt was again accidental.

  The first night she entered the tunnel, Christine had proceeded slowly, terrified that her lamp light might be seen glimmering through a peephole or behind a mirror. She was therefore relieved to discover that each peephole was covered, and each mirror draped. She did not lift the coverings for fear of having her lamp observed, and she was in no way prepared to traverse the tunnel in darkness.

  That night she traveled the tunnel toward the right, noting the number and placement of the various peepholes, mirrors and trapdoors, and traversing some small way down several adjoining tunnels doing the same. When she felt in danger of expanding the mental map she was building beyond her ability to remember, she retraced her steps, testing her memory against the reality of the return trip. Once at her room again, she walked the same tunnel to the right, noting the number of steps needed to reach each memorized peephole, mirror, trapdoor, or cross tunnel. She used a memory trick Erik had taught her – changing each number of steps into a musical note, and assigning a whole-, half-, quarter-, or eighth-note to the four different types of landmarks. As she explored, she strung the notes together to form a crude melody she could remember. She dared not hum it aloud, but a third repetition of the right-hand tunnel secured it in mind. She repeated the task in an exploration of the tunnel to the left, and added to her initial melody. Hours later, in bed, she sang to herself, adding words to the melody. She was pleased with herself.

  On her second night of exploration – some several nights later – she tested her memory, and finding it adequate, expanded her exploration, and added to the melody. At no time and in neither direction of travel did she come to the end of the tunnel, despite the fact that she had traversed more meters of tunnel than existed in their entire home in Sweden. And at no time did she come to what appeared to be a trapdoor leading to the outside. She began to despair. The tunnel maze seemed endless.

  Without discovering a door to the outside, Christine could only let herself into another room of the vast palace, and thus far, she still had no idea which rooms were behind each peephole or trapdoor. In fact, if the rooms were particularly large, several of the trapdoors could lead into the same room. She lay abed that night singing her melody and wondering whether she should prepare to travel the tunnels in darkness and use the peepholes to explore the rooms beyond hers, or whether she should stop trying to build her mental map and attempt to find an exit to the outside.

  But what would she do once outside? No doubt she would remain on the palace grounds, and no doubt those grounds were guarded. She needed more information.

  This night she determined to travel the tunnels without light. She would look into each room as she came to it, and hope to discover something useful. She opened the hidden door to the tunnel, still unable to help peering toward the locked door of her room as she waited for the hidden door to open. Her heart pounded as she stepped into the dark space beyond. She closed her eyes – there was no difference to the blackness – but then opened them again, feeling more at ease with the thought of facing the darkness. Perhaps she would see some scrap of light where none had been visible to her in the lamplight. She reached her hand to the near wall, and began counting the steps of her melody. She thrilled when the correct number of steps brought her to the first peephole. She held her breath as she slid aside the cover.

  Her excitement was dashed as she discovered that the room beyond was dark. She could see nothing. Or perhaps the peephole had been covered over? She moved on to the next, and the next, and the next. Her bright hopes for the evening crumbled to ashes as she discovered that most of the peepholes revealed nothing but more darkness. Only in the occasional room did a lamp remain lit, and often it was dimmed to the point of providing Christine little clue as to the size or purpose of the room, and no indication of whether the room was occupied. She continued with her task even through her growing despondency.

  She wondered as she counted her steps toward the next landmark if she could dare to enter the tunnel during the day when the rooms would be lighted – either by lamp or by daylight. She could conceive of no way to do this without being discovered.

  Christine reached the end of her melody, the end of her explored section of the tunnel maze. She began to turn to complete her return trip and then stopped and blinked into the darkness. Was the unbroken darkness of the tunnel causing an illusion of some small brightening ahead of her? Did her eyes in craving vision create a ghost of one ahead of her? She blinked again, but vision did not fade. She turned and gazed into the blackness from which she had come, and then turned again to the path ahead. There was a definite brightening before her.

  She moved forward, counting her steps from the end of her melody. The brightness increased as she walked, and came from a long way from where she had previously stopped. After some seventy-eight steps, she reached her goal. It was a huge drapery that must shroud the back of the greatest mirror Christine had ever seen, and from the edge of the drapery, light. Christine held up the skirt of her nightclothes to prevent it from settling in the dust and squatted. She lifted the bottom corner of the drape to peer into the brightly lit room.

  It was a fantastic bedchamber, far more lavish in its appointments than her own, reducing her room to a mere cell in comparison of size and luxury. The mirror itself seemed two stories high and was wider than the large bed at the far end of the chamber. Christine’s eyes darted about from colorful mosaics to gleaming silver, from crystal to gold, until they fixed on something that brought her pounding heart into her throat. It was an immense painting, larger by far than Christine, and depicting in larger-than-life size the one person who could bring instant dread to her – the Sultana. Christine dropped the edge of the drape and brought fluttering fingers to her chest before remembering that her hands must be covered in dust. She remained squatting, reminding herself that she was hidden from view and forcing her breathing to return to a more normal pace. She had no doubts as to whose bedchamber lie on the other side of the mirror. She could imagine no one – not even the Shah himself – being so fond of his daughter as to face that portrait in their bedchamber. No one, that is, except the Sultana. Christine shuddered as she lifted the drape again.

  She looked from side to side to the extreme limits of her vision, trying to determine, where – if at all – a trapdoor might have been installed which could grant her entry to this room. She could not imagine ever wanting to enter the room, but this was the first room into which she had been able to see, and she must know if there was a secret entry. She dropped the drape again and began walking through the darkness back in the direction from which she had come. Her hands combed the wall beside her searching for anything that might indicate a trap door.

  There! Only ten steps. She ran back to the mirror and tried to peer in that direction. She could see the corner of an oversized, ornately decorated wardrobe that appeared to be the correct distance from the mirror. The trapdoor must open into the back of the wardrobe.

  Satisfaction and dread warred within her as Christine started her slow journey back toward her room. Her pulse pounded twice for every step she took, keeping a syncopated rhythm to her memory melody. She did not know how this information could help her – she wanted to get as far from the Sultana as possible, not to enter her bedchamber – but still she clung to the information with a brightness that matched the red spots before her light-blinded eyes.

  ***

  Days passed, nights passed, and even with explorations through the darkness, Christine did not expand her information much.
The internal map she tried to build in her mind of the configuration of the palace beyond the dim rooms she could see solidified in her mind. She began making plans for expanding her exploration of the tunnels, and for the building of a longer melody. It would be easiest to expand down the left tunnel, in the direction of the Sultana’s bedchamber, for this melody could be added to the end of her existing melody, while an expansion down the right tunnel would need to be added to the middle. She was far more interested, however, in expanding away from the Sultana’s chambers. She lay abed, musing with the task of breaking the melody into two separate songs – one for the right tunnel and one for the left – this would allow her to build on the end of each – when the door to her room opened. Christine looked toward the figures entering expecting the delivery of breakfast. Her eyes widened and her fists clenched in the bed linens.

  The Sultana stood in the open door. Her stance and her cold, cruel smile brought to mind the portrait Christine had seen hanging in the far bedchamber.

  “You do not look happy to see me,” the Sultana purred. “Your husband was pleased to see me again. Very pleased, I should say.” The Sultana swayed her hips forward and raised one hand to brush against her own breast.

  Christine said nothing. The unexpected appearance of the Sultana had brought such a level of fear to her rattling insides that she could not even muster anger at the woman’s ridiculous insinuation. Instead, her mind flew to her last meeting with the Sultana, and she edged further from the door, and closer to the far side of the bed.

  “He sends you his love… through me, of course.” The Sultana undulated toward the bed and, without taking her eyes from Christine, walked to the foot of the bed. She paused, then smiled again, this time with apparent warmth. Her eyes closed, and she inhaled as if lost in a sweet memory. She opened her eyes again and rounded the foot of the bed toward the side on which Christine now sat. Christine did not dare move away.

  “Do you not want the love he sent?” She moved closer to Christine. Christine could not think what to expect. She could only imagine that she would be struck again and for one brief second entertained the fantasy that Erik had struck the Sultana – that this was the “love” the Sultana would deliver in return.

  The Sultana’s hand rose, and Christine flinched away from what she thought would be a blow, but the hand, instead of striking, closed on the back of Christine’s neck. For a moment neither moved, and Christine’s eyes clouded with the welling of tears and the searing attention of the Sultana’s eyes. The Sultana lunged toward her, and Christine felt the woman’s lips on her own, and a warm questing tongue forcing its way into her mouth. Christine gagged and tried to pull away, but the Sultana clamped her hand all the tighter, and with the other arm now locked around Christine’s shoulder and back, pulled her closer to continue the kiss. Christine’s arms flailed against the other’s shoulders, trying to push her away, but slipping against the smooth fabric she wore. Christine thought to bite down on the Sultana’s tongue, but fear of the consequences kept her from acting. The Sultana pulled her closer still, until their breasts were pressing against each other, and pushed her mouth even more savagely against Christine’s until Christine’s teeth were cutting into her own lips. Christine cried out, but the sound, muffled as it was by the Sultana’s mouth, sounded distressingly like a moan of pleasure. Tears surged from her eyes like a fountain.

  In a sudden movement, the Sultana released her and threw her back on the bed. Christine, weeping, brought her hand to her lips, and with her tongue licked at the bruises and cuts her teeth had made on the inside of her lips. Her fingers smelled of roses.

  “Does Erik not kiss you with such passion?” The Sultana raised an eyebrow and raised one side of her mouth in a smirk.

  Christine shook her head and tried to quell her tears.

  “No? Ah, well perhaps Erik’s kiss was meant for me after all.” The Sultana mused and said, “Would you care to give it back to me?”

  Again Christine shook her head. Her hand remained over her bruised lips.

  The Sultana gazed at her, and with a pouted pucker to her lips and a shrug of one shoulder, began moving around the bed, and back toward the door.

  “Erik never would have kissed you, unless you took it from him as you did me,” Christine said, without removing her hand from her lips. She realized her mistake as soon as the words were out, and prayed that she had not been heard. She prayed in vain. The Sultana whirled on her.

  “What. Did. You. Say?” She spoke with deliberation, somehow punctuating the words through clenched teeth.

  Christine shook her head again, hoping somehow to deny her words.

  The Sultana now walked toward the bed again, for the first time not swaying her hips in the over-dramatization of a woman’s walk, but moving forward with the stealth and control of a hunting cat.

  “You have no idea what has and still does exist between Erik and me,” the Sultana said. Gone was the characteristic purr, the false smile. Her mouth was stretched taut, her lips barely parted for her words, her teeth showing in a snarl.

  Christine shook her head, and still her hand remained on her swollen lips. She said, “No. No, you are right. I do not know.” Her mind whirled with thoughts but one stood out like a scream.

  Oh, but I do know. I do. I know all about you. How could I have been so foolish as to say what I did?

  The Sultana seemed to tower over her where she crouched on the bed. Christine’s tears were flowing again. The Sultana turned away from her, and took several steps toward the door. Christine gasped with relief before she heard the Sultana’s next words.

  “Guards,” she said. “Hold her.”

  The four guards rushed toward Christine, two coming over the bed toward her, and two racing around it to the other side. “No!” Christine screamed and tried to leap from the bed, although where she might escape to she had no idea. She was overtaken and brought back to the bed. Once on the bed, one guard gripped each of her limbs, and held her spread like a starfish across the loose linens. Christine struggled, then subsided as she realized the uselessness of her fight. The only sound she could hear was the panting of her own breath.

  It was then that the Sultana turned to face her again. She smiled at Christine as she advanced. When she reached the edge of the bed, she turned and sat. She put her hand out to stroke Christine’s forehead as though Christine were a sick child and she, the tender mother.

  “I have given you what Erik directed I give you,” she said, and this time Christine nodded in agreement.

  “Yes. Yes, thank you,” she said. She tried to smile, but could tell from the contortion of her mouth that she had failed. Her tears rolled down the side of her face into her ear.

  “And, now, I shall give you something I have been longing to give you.” She looked away, hand reaching for something out of Christine’s sight. She lifted her hand to show a short dagger she must have had hidden in her clothes. Holding the dagger handle between thumb and forefinger, she twirled the jeweled handle so that each gem glittered in the light.

  “No, no, please,” Christine whispered. “I was wrong in what I said. I was wrong.” As one, the guards turned their heads away from Christine, as if they did not wish to see what the Sultana would do next. Or perhaps she forbade them to watch?

  “You were wrong,” answered the Sultana. “But I have wanted to do this for so long… so long.” She seemed almost to swoon. Her eyes closed, then opened again. She looked at Christine with a face that spoke of love, but Christine saw the madness behind the amber eyes.

  What did Erik tell me about her? What does she need? Want? Other than the pleasure that comes with mutilating people?

  The dagger approached her cheek. She wanted to shake her head in denial of what was to come, but was afraid that the movement might lead to greater injury.

  The Sultana pressed the dagger point to Christine’s cheek, just under her cheekbone. Christine gasped as it pricked there. The gasp turned into a scream – a scream so p
owerful and loud that Christine did not believe it came from her own body – as the knife sliced down her cheek toward her chin. Her head jerked away from the Sultana even while her eyes tried to keep sight of the evil woman. No amount of pulling and jerking at her limbs seemed to loosen the guards’ grip. She felt locked in stone as she screamed again, the pain of her face seeming to radiate with a burning heat as she opened her mouth to let the sound escape. She smelled and tasted her own blood, and wondered if the knife had cut all the way through her cheek.

  The Sultana stood and turned Christine’s face toward her again. The muscles in Christine’s neck strained as she tried to oppose the action, but then gave way, and her wounded cheek pressed to the pillow. Christine whimpered and relaxed, pressing her cheek harder to the pillow.

  Yes, yes. I must stanch the blood flow.

  The Sultana leaned all her weight on Christine’s head, trapping her injured cheek to the pillow, and brought the knife to Christine’s other cheek. Christine thrashed as she realized what was to come next, but with a futility equal to that of her other struggles. She could see the glassy look of near ecstasy in the mad woman’s eyes.

  Think! What did Erik tell me? Outside of pain, she loves power over the powerless, she loves control, she loves witnessing fear and despair. She does not merely kill.

  “Mistress!” she cried. The last syllable elongated into another scream as the knife bit her other cheek and sliced again. She was still screaming when the Sultana released her head. Her pain and fear-widened eyes flicked to the Sultana and terror welled in her like a living beast. The Sultana’s eyes begin to move over her body as if she was contemplating where next to place her dagger. The terror clamped her throat and cut off the scream, and with barely time to gasp for breath she was speaking again.