The White Wolf's Son (11 page)

“Why
are
you here? Did McTalbayne send you to find me?”

“I don’t know who that is. I’m lost. This is an accident. I have relatives who look like you. Does the name Beck mean anything?”

He shook his head and finished his drink. The klaxon sounded again. The boss approached him to guide him back to his station.

“You must get me away from here,” whispered the boy suddenly. “If you are a friend, you must help set me free. What’s your
name?”

“Oonagh,” I said.

“That’s like my mother’s name! Do you know Tufnell Hill?” A desperate expression crossed his face. “Those two brought me here,
but…”

“What’s yours? What’s your name?”

“They call me Onric here,” he said. “My father—”

The guard came too close. He stopped whispering.

“I’ll try to free you,” I said, “but I’ll have to get help. I’m only a little girl.”

“You have given me more hope than anyone else,” he
said, his voice dropping so low that I could scarcely hear it. Then the foreman was beside him and leading him back to his
post.

I was confused. How could I be related to this boy I had never seen, who dwelled in a different age, in a different part of
the multiverse? I stepped out from behind the chains. Somebody shouted. Had they seen me? I bolted for the next door, entered
into the darkness behind it, remembered to turn the key and then tiptoed to the door into the corridor, which was still deserted.
Where could I get help for this Onric, I thought ironically, when I couldn’t even get help for myself!

I returned to the street. Maybe Lord Renyard would find someone to help me rescue Onric and get us both out of harm’s way!
Were we really related? Was this who Klosterheim and von Minct were searching for? Were they hoping I would lead them to the
boy? Did I, after all, have some sort of affinity with him?

In a daze, I managed to reach the bridge and return the way I’d come. Where was I going to find help? Raspazian’s seemed the
only likely place. I had to hope the Sebastocrater’s guards had left, as there was still a fair amount of activity on the
bridge.

I crossed over into the warehouse district, found a street I recognized and began to make my way up it. I heard the marching
feet of guardsmen behind me. I was so exhausted, I was almost ready to be captured.

Stepping back into a doorway, I felt sick with fear as a hand covered my mouth and an arm encircled my body and lifted me.
I struggled until I heard Kushy’s murmur in my ear. “Hush, little mort.” When we were back in the alleys he let me go. His
face was badly battered, and he had a wound in his left side. He seemed ashamed of
himself and kept apologizing to me. “His Lordship’s still not returned. There’s talk he’s captured.”

I was horrified. “What can we do?”

“Get you away from here,” he said. “Get you somewhere safe. I’ve no idea how Klosterheim has the guards on his side. It probably
means he’s persuaded the Sebastocrater that you’ve been kidnapped by us.”

“Herr Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental were supposed to be at his palace. They wouldn’t have let him do it!”

“We don’t know what’s happened, missy.” He was leading me into the tangle of twitterns running between the buildings. “We
need to find the chief. Meanwhile you can hide out here.” He opened a door, and we slipped into a poorly furnished room. There
was a cot in the corner, a table and some crudely made chairs. “Get some sleep,” he advised. “I’ll bring you some food in
the morning.”

I lay down to rest.

When Kushy still hadn’t returned by noon the next day, I became sure he was dead or captured. If they tortured him, they’d
learn where I was. The plight of the blind albino boy was still on my mind. I couldn’t just leave him. He had asked for help.
Taking the blanket from the cot, I left the hovel and made my way out into the creaking, tottering streets. First I must find
food. Then I must find the Sebastocrater. At least I would be able to tell him that Klosterheim had tricked him, and maybe
I could find and recruit Lord Renyard to help save the boy.

H
EAVING IN DAYLIGHT
was a risk, but I really needed to eat. At least I was no longer conspicuous. Dirty and poorly dressed, I slipped out into
the streets with no idea how I would find food. The Deep City was crowded with frightened people unused to the presence of
the city guards, even though the guards kept their distance according to ancient tradition. With Lord Renyard gone, there
was no one to demand a return to those old agreements. The guards, in their peculiar antique Greek armor, did not look comfortable.
Most of them wore strings of garlic around their necks. Apparently they thought it warded off disease. Only Klosterheim carried
pistols. They were armed with swords, lances, shields and bows, while the Deep City’s denizens had plenty of guns. Any uprising
would be hard to control.

Eventually I applied the bad lessons I’d learned from Kushy and his friends. Feeling rather guilty, I easily pinched a loaf
and a pie from a distracted baker in the market. Ravenously I ate them in a quiet doorway. I think anyone as hungry as I would
have done the same. But I was very glad my mum hadn’t been there to see me! I wondered if I should try to find Mrs. House
again. She had foreseen some sort of future for me, and she had
mentioned the boy. Then I reminded myself that the best thing to do was to go into the Shallow City and try to find out what
had happened to Lord Renyard or Herr Lobkowitz, so I took one of the spiraling alleys, intermittently hiding and walking slowly,
getting closer to the wide basalt boulevards.

By midnight I had reached the black marble avenue which ran roughly from east to west with a huge Greek palace in the middle,
at the top of which burned a massive single light, illuminating much of the city around it. From a new perspective I was looking
at the Sebastocrater’s monolithic home.

I had better sense than to walk out into the open, but I kept that great dark dome, glinting with lacquer, gold and silver,
in constant sight. Using trees and buildings for cover, I avoided patrols and got much closer to the palace, which was surrounded
by black walls lit at intervals by blazing braziers, their flames flowing and guttering in the night air. Overhead the ancient
ochers, yellows, browns and deep greens of the Autumn Stars looked down on me.

I heard a sound behind me and smelled something familiar. I retreated into the shadows. Turning, I saw, to my astonishment,
that same black panther I had first encountered beneath Ingleton common. I guessed she meant me no immediate harm, because
she narrowed her eyes in what, for a domestic cat, would have been a smile. The panther’s whiskers twitched, and a heavy rattling
sound came from her throat—something which could have been a purr. Her friendly posturing was somewhat at odds with the beautiful
ivory saber fangs which grew from the top of her mouth. She lay down in front of me. Somehow
I knew she wanted me to climb onto her back so that she could help me escape.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “I have to get to the palace to see if I can find Lord Renyard.”

The cat’s purr became a noise of inquiry. Then she stood up and waited expectantly for a moment. I shook my head again. Then,
since I would not ride, looking back at me from time to time, she began to lead me through the darkness, closer to the palace.
Thinking she might know a secret way in, I followed her until we stood in dense shrubbery beside the great obsidian wall.
It was apparently unclimbable, however, and I could see no other way in. Again the panther lay down, clearly indicating that
she wanted me to jump on her back, and this time I did what she demanded, wrapping my arms around her powerful neck just in
time, before she made a terrific spring. Air rushed through my hair, and I felt suddenly exhilarated as her incredible muscles
moved under me. We landed on a broad lawn. A short distance away I could just make out a fountain playing near a summerhouse
built like a miniature Greek temple. Not far from the fountain I saw the stiff outlines of about a dozen men, probably guards.
The panther loped across the lawn towards the summerhouse. Another leap and we jumped out of the night, into brilliant day!

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw them. Inside the bright summerhouse stood not only Lord Renyard but Herr
Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental. I think I was only slightly less astonished to see them than they were to see me. I tumbled
off the back of the panther and ran to embrace Lord Renyard, who looked delighted and troubled at the same time. I turned
to stroke the head of the big black cat, but she had gone. In her place stood a woman
who was my grandmother’s exact twin, though much younger. She was an ivory-haired, pale-skinned albino with unusually brilliant
crimson eyes.

“You’re a hardheaded child,” she said. She was dressed in a red jerkin and black tight-fitting trousers. There were leather
boots on her feet, and on her back was a quiver of arrows. In her left hand was an unstrung bow. “What made you go off like
that?”

“Grandma?” I stammered in astonishment.

“Well, in a manner of speaking.”

“Are you related to Monsieur Zodiac?”

“I am.”

“You—the panther—how?”

“We have a special rapport,” she said with a slight smile. “I’m sorry about the mystery, but we knew no other way to find
you.”

“Are you prisoners here?”

“I am not,” she said. “But my men were also caught. Klosterheim has convinced this city’s prince that they are to be feared
and were responsible for holding you prisoner.”

“But why should he be interested in me?”

“Because of oracular warnings concerning the Graal Staff. With the best motives in the world, he wants to take on the burden
of guarding the Staff. I suppose he doesn’t accept that you’re worthy of the job.”

“I don’t even know what the job is. I don’t even know what the Staff is. But I certainly don’t have it, and neither do I know
where it is.” I wanted to ask her about the blind boy, Onric, but I couldn’t find a way of starting.

“We understand all that, Oonagh, dear.” Herr Lobkowitz stepped forward to kneel down and embrace me. “But Gaynor, the other
man you saw in Ingleton last night, is convinced you are the key to its possession. I
think they might be misguided, but we let ourselves be captured before we could find you and take you home. You’re safe here
for a while. It won’t occur to them to look for you in our prison, I’m sure.”

“How did they capture you?”

“Magic,” said Lieutenant Fromental simply and unequivocally. “Powerful sorcery which defeats all our knowledge of such things.
None of us, save Oona the Dreamthief here, has any such power. We scarcely know how to defend ourselves, let alone attack
it. But you can help us.”

Although it baffled me, I suspected that Oona the Dreamthief was my grandmother but at an earlier time of her life. “Help
you?”
I said. “I can’t even help myself. I still don’t really believe in magic. At least, I didn’t until I met Mrs. House, and
even she could be just another kind of life form.”

“I quite agree with you, dear young lady.” Lieutenant Fromental’s big brow clouded. “But rationalism cannot entirely explain
things I have witnessed in this world they call the Middle Marches. For instance, look outside.” He pointed. It was now daylight
outside, and the figures I had seen on the lawn were in fact about a dozen American Indians in colorfully decorated breechclouts,
leggings and leather shirts. Their heads were shaven, apart from long scalp locks, and their fierce faces were painted. In
their hands were various weapons, including stone tomahawks, lances, bows and shields. They looked as if they had walked off
the set of
The Last of the Mohicans.
Yet each one of them was frozen in midmovement.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“They are my friends,” said Oona. “My clansmen. They came with me to look for you, dear. But since we
arrived I haven’t been able to communicate with them, and they haven’t been able to move. Some spell has been put on them.
All the men are under the power of the Sebastocrater, the Prince of Mirenburg.”

“Am I a prisoner, too?” I asked.

“Probably not—nor the panther. Nor me. That is how we were able to bring you here and explain what has happened. Our friends
came to beg the help of the Sebastocrater. All of us were tricked into entering his grounds and this building. But why he
should league himself with such villains as Paul von Minct and Brother Klosterheim, we cannot think. As I say, either they
have alarmed him with some trumped-up terror or they have promised him something he can’t resist.”

“What could that be?” I asked.

“The Stone, I suspect,” said Herr Lobkowitz. “He showed an uncommon interest in it when we arrived here looking for you. He
asked if we knew where it was. We told him truthfully that as far as we knew, it was lost. He said it and its guardian had
last been heard of in Mirenburg. We know, of course, that it was recently stolen from your grandparents’ London flat. That’s
why they couldn’t meet us, as they had arranged. Do you the Devil’s work, eh? Could the Stone have acquired a new keeper?
It determines its own situation, as we well know.”

I wanted to ask Oona what her relationship was with me. I was sure she was my grandmother. But there were more urgent questions.
“Are they feeding you?” I asked.

“So far we have not been offered food,” said Lieutenant Fromental. He pointed to a big pair of saddlebags lying on a couch.
“But Prince Lobkowitz packed plenty of provisions before we left Ingleton in search of you. You see, only a few hours have
passed in this building
since we arrived. I suspect, like the city, it exists outside the ordinary laws of time and space. Try a sandwich?”

I wanted to ask about Onric, but Prince Lobkowitz spoke first.

He seemed awkward. “We mustn’t alarm”—he looked at me—“mademoiselle.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I know everything here is odd. Well, more than odd. I’m not scared. Especially now I’ve found you
all. There’s this boy—”