A Dance in Blood Velvet (58 page)

He went after them, moving in front of Rasmila to make her stop. “What has happened to you?” he said, staring into the glow of Rasmila’s face.

“Let them pass,” said Fyodor, moving behind them. “I could tear out your throat. Nothing would please me more.”

Ignoring him, Karl said, “Answer me! Who are you, what do you want with Violette?” Rasmila looked solemnly at him with no hostility in her face, only the unreadable compliance he’d seen there before.

Simon spoke. “Without a consort, Kristian was incomplete. That’s why you were able to destroy him. We will not make that mistake again.”

“I thought you’d be glad of Kristian’s death.” Karl said calmly, ignoring his fiery thirst. “Do you mean to make Lancelyn into another Kristian?” Simon - who’d once seemed to be a friend - only smiled and shook his head. “Why won’t you answer my questions?”

“Why should we?” said Fyodor.

“Enough,” said Lancelyn, stepping between them to usher Karl aside. Karl stared at him, goaded by his audacity. Scenting the blood-heat that flowed from him...

It was clear to Karl that he must kill Lancelyn. Confounded by weakness and thirst, he couldn’t unravel the situation. But to destroy Lancelyn, rather than see him exalted as a worse tyrant than Kristian... that was essential.

Karl moved towards Lancelyn. He no longer saw him as human, full of enthusiasm and learning; he saw him only as prey. A sweet sac of nectar. Karl closed in...

Lancelyn began to chant.

The words made no sense, yet they stopped Karl dead. Ice-waves broke over him, nauseating weakness pulled him down. The words were only names.
Thomas New-come. Tom Thomas’s son. Mary the Spinster...

Names from the Ledger of Death. Even the names of the dead had power.

Karl half-fell against a chair. His thirst became grinding pain. Lancelyn’s jovial face peered down and Karl saw that his lips were not moving; the names vibrated inside his head. Although the scent of blood was agonising, Karl could not touch him.

“I know it’s hard to admit defeat, sir, but sometimes one must,” said the magus. “Benedict may be unable to control you, but I can. I’m sorry, but I’m giving you over to my friends now. We have a use for you. Best of luck, old man.”

Two faces, one silver and one golden, rose over him, moon and sun. Karl felt their cool hands take hold of him, felt fangs tearing and sucking at his throat. Paralysed, he could not fight. Simon and Fyodor bore him out of the room, down twisting corridors into a cave.

They threw him into darkness, and he landed painfully on dank earth. A circle of brown gloom above... and Karl found himself at the bottom of a deep black pit, too weak to climb the sides or even to move.

Then came waves of fear, terror he hadn’t felt since being human.
I will never die,
he thought.
I’ll lie here with the agony growing ever worse... and I’ll never know why.

If this is punishment for killing you, Kristian, I hope you are happy now in hell
.

* * *

Benedict drove as fast as the old Morris and the cart-rutted lanes would allow. He had to stop twice to let the famished Andreas hunt, which further delayed them. They had just reached the valley mouth near Grey Crags when the engine finally overheated and died.

In the dreamy blueness of pre-dawn, Ben and Andreas left the car where it was and began to climb the valley on foot. A ragged path ran beside a stream, hills reared into heavy cloud; he remembered this wilderness so vividly from his childhood that it brought a cargo of mixed emotions.

Ben saw the mansion poised on the hill: part cathedral, part fortress. “Well, there’s the house,” said Benedict. “We couldn’t have motored much closer, anyway. There’s only a footpath.”

They crossed a wooden bridge over the stream and climbed a steep path, winding between boulders, to the front door. The house loomed over them; light glimmered from stained-glass windows, high above. Two stone lions, weather-worn yet menacing, guarded the iron-studded doors.

“Where is everyone?” said Ben. “I thought they’d be here by now. Perhaps they’re hiding behind the house?”

“No,” Andreas murmured. “They aren’t here.”

Too soon to start panicking, Ben decided. “I can’t believe Lancelyn’s here,” he breathed. “I can’t believe his cheek! What the devil has he said to Father?”

“Perhaps he cut short the argument by murdering the old man,” said Andreas.

Ben looked at his handsome, blood-flushed face, and shivered. “Don’t. Come on, let’s go closer to the walls before we’re spotted.”

Andreas went with him reluctantly, staring up at the pointed windows. “I don’t want to go inside.”

“What are you talking about?” Benedict looked at his watch. “Where the hell are the others? I thought they’d be here hours ago.”

“They should have been. Something’s wrong.”

“Always the optimist, aren’t you?” Ben leaned on a lion-statue. He looked at the heavy door knocker, a lion’s head with a ring in its mouth. Andreas went to the door and pressed his ear to the oak panelling.

“Well?” Ben whispered.

“Some of them
are
here,” Andreas said quietly, startled and worried. “Inside.”

“What?”

“Karl’s presence is very faint. There are four others, but I can’t identify their auras. And one human. Katerina... I can’t sense her, I don’t know who is there.”

“Only four? Where are the others?” Ben’s confidence sank into frustration. The plan had gone wrong already. “Can you hear anything?”

“Only voices, too far away to distinguish... I don’t want to go in, Benedict.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an evil energy inside that’s stronger than us. Can’t you feel it? I’m not such an idiot as to walk into a trap. What if our friends are in Lancelyn’s power?”

“In that case,” Ben said, “we should save them, shouldn’t we?” He tried the door, found it locked. “Too much to hope we could just walk in.”

“We could break a window,” said Andreas.

“You’re joking! Those windows are priceless!”

“Oh, the windows are more important than Karl’s life, are they?”

“This is wasting time,” said Ben. “Let’s do the obvious.”

He strode to the top doorstep, grasped the lion’s-head knocker, and pounded three times.

A slow minute passed before the door split and one half creaked ponderously open. Two weird, shining faces peered out, making Ben start violently. Shaking himself, he realised they were costume heads on the shoulders of two tall, robed figures.

One was that of a lion; a mask wrought in polished gold with a mane of rustling foil, like a sunburst. The other was a silver bull with curved horns like crescent moons. The lion was robed in yellow, the bull in white.

The lion spoke, its voice muffled behind the mask. “Welcome, Benedict.”

“Will you take me to Lancelyn?”

“That is our intention.”

As Ben moved forward, Andreas seized his arm and pulled him back, wild with fear. “Come away! Don’t go in!”

“I must. You can stay here.” He crossed the threshold, seeing a flight of stone stairs curving up in the gloomy interior. Home, after all these years!

Andreas followed, frantic. Ben turned to see the silver bull thrusting Andreas back with gloved hands. “Your presence is not required.”

Andreas staggered backwards, his face aghast in the narrowing gap. Then the door slammed shut, and Ben was alone with his bizarre welcoming party.

The darkness made him near-blind at first. He felt them removing his coat and jacket, then pulling a heavy cotton garment over his head. It felt like a ritual robe of the Order; he smelled incense in its folds.

“What are you doing?”

“Lancelyn wants you suitably attired,” said the lion. Ben knew that neutral, ageless voice...

“Just take me to him, will you?”

The bull laughed softly. He recognised the laugh, the heavy accent. “It is not so easy.”

“Fyodor?” Ben said accusingly. “Simon? What the hell’s going on? You’re meant to be on my side!”

Without responding, the lion-mask spoke. “Your right to see Lancelyn must be earned. He has sent us to test you.”

“Get out of my way. Where is he?” Seeing a faint grey glow from the first-floor landing, where the living rooms were, Ben strode towards the stairs. Lion and bull seized him. He struggled violently, to no effect. Their fingers were delicate, yet hard and strong as handcuffs.

Recollecting himself, he began to exert his will over them. “You forget, I am your master. There is a chain around your necks -”

“No longer,” said Simon. “You forget that you set us free.”

“Let me go!” he cried. “This is bloody ridiculous!”

“No, Benedict,” said Fyodor, a cruel smile in his voice. “This is bloody serious.”

They led him between them, not upstairs, but through the doorway that led to the kitchens and storerooms.

“You traitors. How did he get his hands on you? Or were you with him from the start? Answer me, damn it!”

They were mute. A door shut, enclosing them in blackness. He felt Simon leave him, heard a heavy creak. Another door opening, a sudden chill breeze... Then they led him forward again.

“Mind your footing,” Simon said helpfully. “There are steps down.”

The warning came too late. He trod on thin air, pitched forward, found strong hands bearing him up until his groping feet found the tread. Then, in the after-shock, a wave of fear wrenched his guts.

“I know what your costumes symbolise,” he breathed, counting steps as they descended. “The lion represents the sun, the bull is the moon; symbolising the study of nature as the path to high wisdom. This is an initiation, isn’t it?”

“Yes. An initiation for the adept,” the lion replied.

Forty-three steps, then an uneven, rocky surface tilted downhill under his feet. He heard water running, smelled the subterranean clamminess of a cave. A tremor of excitement broke through his fear.
These must be the caves I could never find! Mother told me they were blocked off. Has Lancelyn re-opened them? How, why?
As they moved through darkness, Ben’s mind worked furiously to comprehend what Lancelyn was after.

A scream of metal and a blaze of light made Ben’s nerves explode, unravelling his hard-won calm into a tangle of terror. A hooded silhouette rushed out of the blaze, swinging a scythe at his head.

A scream leapt from his throat before he could stop it. He couldn’t move. The scythe swept over him with a
swoosh
, the blade’s draught ruffling his hair. Then the hooded figure shot backwards and jerked to a halt. As Ben’s eyes adjusted he saw what it was: one of Lancelyn’s damned automata, poised on a rail in a small, natural chamber. He swallowed, trying to slow his shallow breathing.

“The scythe-bearer welcomes the postulant to his initiation,” came Simon’s voice. The lion-mask was suddenly burnished bright by lamplight.

“Very impressive,” Ben said harshly. “I suppose there’s someone behind a curtain pulling wires?” No reply, but he sensed their amusement. Probably Fyodor himself had pulled some hidden lever. “So, Lancelyn insists I prove I’m worthy to speak to him? Incredible. All right, but tell me - is this a grotesque pantomime, or does he mean it?”

“His motives are his own affair,” said Simon, “but you’d be well advised to take him seriously. As a postulant, you have certain choices. Make the wrong one, and you die.”

The weight of the warning sobered him.
Lancelyn would
, he thought.
He would actually kill me. And the vampires I nurtured to protect me have turned against me.

“What if I refuse to go along with this?”

“You have already begun,” said Fyodor, “but you can choose to stop.”

“But that choice will result in my death?” Ben said, his throat dry. “Very well, let’s get on with it.”

“Well chosen,” Fyodor jeered.

“Your way lies through there.” The lion pointed to an aperture in the far wall. An Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole, barely two feet high. “It symbolises the tomb through which the postulant must pass before reaching enlightenment.”

Ben recognised the words from an ancient ritual. “Go and triumph over the terrors of the tomb,” he murmured to himself. The smallness of the opening made his stomach recoil. Setting his jaw, he dropped down on all fours and entered.

It seemed a natural fissure, rough-walled, very narrow. Earthy, damp air filled his throat as he felt his way into the blackness, the robe catching annoyingly under his knees.
Lancelyn may be several steps ahead of me, but he hasn’t won yet. Not while I’m still alive.

Two minutes into the fissure, claustrophobia hit. Sweat drenched him. He was on fire and shivering, his heart drumming madly. His tiny world rotated and he thought,
God, my heart’s giving out! I shall be buried alive.

He crawled faster, scraping his hands and his knees. The roof touched his head; his whole body tingled with sick fear.
Dear Lord, if I’m going to die here, let it be fast...

Now he was squirming on his stomach, breath chattering in and out. An inflow of fresh air reached him. His fear, having reached its peak, began to recede; then it dawned that the tunnel roof had risen, and there was space around him.

Ben’s panic subsided, leaving him shaken and humiliated. He stopped and sat on a rock, drawing deep breaths, chastising himself for allowing intellect to be submerged by primeval reflex.
That won’t happen again,
he told himself.
To die, without scoring a single point against my brother, to die a fool? Not a chance. Death itself does not matter and I refuse to fear it.

Eyes straining against darkness, he felt his way across a rock-bed, edging between slabs and boulders. His fear had subsided to a background tremor, unpleasant but bearable.

Lancelyn, you’re out of your mind,
he thought.
A true initiation should be a test of the mind, not of someone’s ruddy pot-holing abilities
...
If it’s test of courage, though, I’ve hardly passed with flying colours.

His feet found a lip of rock and he dipped his hand into empty space beyond. A chasm, barring his path? On hands and knees, he worked his way along the edge, discovering that it was roughly circular, some twelve feet across. As he completed the circumference, he was startled by an alien substance pricking his knuckles. Something snake-like, tough and bristly yet warmish...