Heart of Gold (44 page)

W
HEN
A
UBREY REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS, HE WAS TIED TO A
chair.
I deserve it
, he thought and he cursed himself for
preparing magically, but ignoring the possibility of a
simple blow to the back of the head.

He was still in the same room. In front of him were the
curtains and the high-backed chairs. To either side were
boxes of a number of sizes, two tin troughs and three or four
large books. A trunk lay open, revealing bottles of reagents.

'I am glad you are awake.'

Aubrey had never expected to hear Farentino, the Soul
Stealer, again. Incredulous, he jerked his head around but
couldn't swivel far enough.

'Very clever,' he said, his heart hammering. 'Stand
behind me and I can't see you. Keep talking and I'll be
bound to panic. In a few minutes I'll break down and
be putty in your hands.'

'Make your japes while you can. You will soon be free.'

'Free? Excellent. These ropes are chafing. I'm sure I'm
getting a rash on my wrists.'

'Free from this earthly existence, this dull travail where
we plod day after day until we dwindle, diminished, and
are gone.'

'Ah. That sort of freedom.' Aubrey gave up on the
ropes. Farentino may have had a depressing view of
human existence, but he was a dab hand at knots.
Aubrey's stomach flipped over and back again. He
realised that his best chance lay in their being discovered,
so drawing out the conversation was his best tactic.
'I don't think you should kill me.'

'You will not be killed.'

'Don't you want to know why you shouldn't kill me?
If you'd been going to kill me, that is?'

'You will join the others who have been freed. Your
soul will be separated from your body and will survive,
untouched and unchanging, in an existence beyond the
grubby mundanity of this so-called life.'

Aubrey stiffened at Farentino's mention of souls
surviving apart from the body, but before he could
respond, the photographer stepped into view. He
glowered, bending, hands behind his back, so he could
look his captive in the face.

Aubrey recognised the bristling black eyebrows, the
full black beard, but most of all he remembered the
fanatic's eyes. 'Not wanting to be too personal,' he said.
'But you're meant to be dead.'

The Soul Stealer wore a long black coat and a rounded
black hat with a wide brim. 'I cannot die. Not before I
complete my mission – a mission you seem keen to
thwart.'

'Tell me about your mission.'
Keep talking, Farentino.
Someone will wonder where I am. And when you ramble on, do
mention the soul and body thing again. Details this time.

'It is a duty, given to me.' Farentino stretched out a
long arm and dragged a chair close. He sat on it and
placed his hands on his knees. He stared at Aubrey.

'Given to you? By God?'

Farentino shook his head and his whole body swayed.
'I do not presume to know the mind of God.'

'But someone must have given this mission to you.'

'If the Almighty has deigned to communicate his will
to me, who am I to refuse?'

Aubrey thought it wise not to point out the way
Farentino had contradicted himself. He had a feeling that
consistency wasn't the Soul Stealer's strong point.
'Indeed. After all, he spared you for your work. An
ordinary person would have been killed by that plunge.'

'I was taken into the bosom of the waters and borne
to safety.' Farentino looked away, distracted. 'I cannot die.
I have a destiny to fulfil.'

He stood and walked to the curtains. With a grunt, he
drew them back.

Lying on the floor in a haphazard jumble were a dozen
bodies, men and women. All of them were wearing
evening finery. Propped up in one corner, Aubrey saw
Sir Percy Derringford in his bright-red regimental
uniform. All of them had the staring, vacant eyes of the
dispossessed. Aubrey clenched his fists with horror and
frustration.

Farentino walked among them, studying them with a
chilling mixture of tenderness and detachment. 'I've
realised that I must work more swiftly. Why labour
with the masses when I can save the souls of the most
important members of society? If I can liberate the
leaders, then surely the rest will follow.' He nodded, as
if reassuring himself that this had been a good idea.

Aubrey seethed and felt sick in the pit of this stomach.
Gallia had been brought back from the precipice by the
return of the Heart of Gold, but this madman's actions
could throw everything into chaos again.

'How did you get into the embassy?' Aubrey asked.

Farentino started, as if he'd forgotten Aubrey were
there. 'Sir Percy. I contacted him and offered a portrait
session to mark the occasion of the ball. He even set me
up in this room.'

Farentino went to one side, and was obscured from
Aubrey's view by the bunching of the drapes. He came
back with a large, ominous camera.

'Ah, Farentino,' Aubrey said. 'You've obviously done
some fascinating work. I'd really like to discuss it with
you.'

The Soul Stealer glanced at Aubrey but didn't reply.
He placed the camera on the floor and then went back
behind the drapes, returning this time with a heavy
tripod.

'All your own devising, is it?' Aubrey said. 'Or did you
have some help?'

Farentino busied himself with assembling the contraption.
'In the beginning, I had help from one of your
countrymen. A great man.'

'An Albionite?'

'He said he was no longer welcome in Albion. He had
great knowledge of magic.'

'Tall man, was he?' Dreadful suspicion prodded at
Aubrey. 'Dark hair, eyes?'

Farentino straightened. 'Do you know him? He
claimed he'd been Sorcerer Royal in your country, but
I didn't believe him.'

Tremaine
. Aubrey shook his head. Assisting someone
like Farentino and then setting him loose was a typical
Tremaine tactic, a backup to a major plan. Layer upon
layer, Tremaine's scheming was like an onion.

Aubrey frowned. Combined with what von Stralick
had revealed, this was important information. Tremaine
was actively pursuing his aim of a continental war, with
his usual strategy of working on many fronts at once.
Aubrey had to get free and share this with the authorities.
And to stop Farentino from turning me into a mindless
husk
, he thought.
Mustn't forget that.

He strained, hoping he could stick out a leg and tip
over the camera, damaging it somehow, but he was tied
fast to the chair.

Farentino applied himself to seating the camera on the
tripod. 'I have made some improvements on my
methods,' he said. 'The flash powder.' He gestured to the
box by his feet. 'I've enhanced it, magically. The process
of capturing your soul will be less painful than formerly.'

'Less painful? Are you saying that as well as being an
abomination, this process has been painful as well?'

Farentino didn't look up. He shrugged as he screwed a
locking bracket into place. 'What is pain when an existence
of unsullied purity is the result? It is a momentary
thing to be passed through to achieve the greater good
on the other side.'

'Farentino, I was wondering: did you ask all these people
whether they wanted to have their souls taken away?'

Farentino straightened. He blinked, puzzled. 'Ask
them? Why? How could they begin to understand what
I was offering them? I am giving them a great gift, even
though their lives are paltry and insignificant.'

Mad as a loon
, Aubrey thought.

Farentino measured his flash powder onto his hod.

Aubrey took a desperate stab in the dark. 'It's death
magic, isn't it, Farentino? That's what you've built into
your photographic process.'

Farentino's hand jerked. Flash powder spilt onto the
floor. 'Death magic?'

'You've done well, blending magic and chemical
processes. How do you sever the golden cord that keeps
body and soul together without the soul disappearing
into the true death?'

'You know something of death magic?'

'Enough to know how dangerous it is. How did you
protect your soul when you were messing about with it?'

'I . . .' As if in a dream, Farentino fumbled under his
coat. He pulled out a small, glass photographic plate.
'My soul. It's here, safe. I trapped it there before I did
anything. It hurt a little, but what is life but pain?'

Farentino stared at his soul plate, his expression one of
desolation. 'I have little time left, which is why I must
save as many souls as I can.'

This sounded more positive. 'You have little time left?'

Farentino held up the plate. 'My soul. It's fading. When
it disappears from the plate, I am gone.'

An impractical process, and an imperfect one.
Aubrey sighed. He'd hoped to learn something from
Farentino's approach, something he could use to
shore up his condition, but he now saw it was futile.
It's a dead end
, he thought.
And I hope I live to share that
pun with Bertie.

Farentino thrust the soul plate into a pocket. 'Enough.
I will liberate your soul, then I will move on to the others
in this place. One by one, I will capture the most important
guests. Then, a group portrait of those remaining. It
will be a triumph.'

Farentino stooped, took a measure of flash powder
from the open box and shovelled it onto his metal shelf.

Aubrey saw his opportunity. Farentino hadn't closed
the box of flash powder.
Sloppy
, he thought.
It's attention
to detail that trips us up in the end.

He called to mind the light spell he'd rehearsed. It was
all he had at hand, and he called on his talent for
improvisation. Light was a near cousin to heat. The light
spell included a tamping element, limiting the heat
produced, which was usually a desirable thing. Aubrey,
however, inverted that variable, increasing the heat
produced.

He snapped out the spell, casting its location at the box
next to Farentino's feet.

Just as it flared, Aubrey tipped his chair backward,
hoping that the seat would offer some protection. He
heard the thump of an explosion and, even though he
closed his eyes, the burst of white light went right
through his lids. Heat scorched his exposed skin and he
felt the tell-tale tingle of magic. He smelled the reek
of flash powder and the sharper, more ominous smell of
burning cloth and timber.

He opened his eyes to find the room full of dense
white smoke. Small flames licked at wallpaper, while
pieces of smoking drapery drifted through the air. He lay
there, stunned.
Flat on my back, tied to a chair
, he thought,
hacking each breath from a throat that felt as if it was
packed full of soot.
Not exactly a hero's death.

To his left, he heard a splintering noise.

'Aubrey!'

'George! Over here!'

George blundered through the smoke, squinting and
flapping wildly. 'The room's on fire.' He applied himself
to the ropes. 'I'll get you free.'

'Don't worry about that.' Aubrey coughed. 'Drag the
whole damn chair out of here!'

The last thing Aubrey saw as George hauled the chair
out of the burning room was, right where Farentino had
been standing, a small pool of melted glass and brass right
next to a pile of ash.

C
OMMOTION, UPROAR AND CONFUSION
. D
AZED AND SINGED,
Aubrey was happy to sit back and choose which word
described the situation that was going on around him.
Someone had given him a glass of mineral water and he
sipped at it, enjoying the soothing effect it had on his
throat. From outside the door of the parlour, he could
hear shouting, fire bells and running footsteps while the
faint strains of the orchestra still drifted up from the
ballroom. It was all very dramatic.

Sitting opposite him on a brown leather couch were
his mother and Caroline, neither of whom seemed
happy. George fussed about, moving from window to
window and reporting the goings on.

The door opened and Sir Darius slipped in. He looked
unperturbed. 'The fire is out,' he said. 'Little damage,
really. The house staff were able to extinguish it before
the fire brigade arrived.'

'The ball?'

'It goes on. I think most of those present weren't even
aware of the fire. And certainly not about the dispossessed
ones lying about up there.' He made a face. 'Horrible.'

'We can restore their souls.' Aubrey sat up straight. 'We
use the glass plates and the magically enhanced flash
powder to reverse the process. Set off the flash powder,
hold the plate between the flash and the dispossessed one
and project their soul back to their body. With an
enhanced reflector.' He gnawed a lip, remembering the
fate of Monsieur Bernard. 'I'll need to sort through
Farentino's notes, though, to perfect the process. I want
to find the composition of the flash powder, and work
out the spell he used to add to it.'