More Than Mortal (18 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
Renquist was most surprised by what he didn’t find on this first unsupervised excursion through the modern Priory. As far as he could tell, no armadillos had made their home in the great rambling pile. With its extensions and additions, its dozens of rooms, and assorted styles and periods of architecture, Ravenkeep should have provided the perfect habitat. According to nosferatu superstition, the absence of armadillos did not bode well for either a location or its inhabitants. Ever since the small, ancient animals had been brought to Europe from the Americans and displayed their inexplicable propensity for seeking out the undead and taking up abode with them, their presence had been judged a sign of security and good fortune by his kind. The excuse could, of course, be made that armadillos were hardly indigenous to the countryside of southern England, but it was hardly an argument that held up for Renquist. Neither the island of Manhattan nor the Los Angles basin had a natural armadillo population, but the little creatures peered from the corners and wainscots of his Residences in both locations and provided a powerful comfort. He had even known nosferatu households that, when the armadillos failed to find them, had actually imported pairs of the species. The most charitably optimistic explanation was that Columbine and her companions were too self-absorbed to observe such irrational niceties of tradition, but Renquist knew he would be a fool not to take into
consideration that maybe the armadillos sensed something about the Priory that he didn’t.
consideration that maybe the armadillos sensed something about the Priory that he didn’t.
In one of the corridors that served the building like an organic circulatory system, he stopped by a partially open door. The medium-size room that lay beyond was so austere and harmonious it could only be Marieko’s private retreat. He was tempted to step inside, but that seemed well beyond the bounds of good manners. He knew he would hate such an invasion of privacy to be inflicted on him. When in doubt, he always used his own feelings to gauge what might be appropriate behavior, his own customized version of “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” He didn’t, however, feel the need to forgo peering in from outside. Craning slightly, he saw screens, backlit walls, a lacquered table, a koto, a decoratively raked sandbox, a large aquarium, which was home to an emerald frog, and a rush mat of the kind used for
sinshu.
All this conformed to the opinions Renquist had formed already, but then his eye fell on an object on the lacquered table. It was a silver mask, identical to the one Marieko had just been wearing in the dream. He was too far away to see if the teardrop was sculpted beneath the mask’s right eye, but he would have wagered it was. The mask raised a number of questions: Had Marieko simply used the object as a piece of top dressing on her creation, or did the thing have a greater significance? Was it perhaps a talisman, an object of power bridging the gap between fantasy and reality?
sinshu.
All this conformed to the opinions Renquist had formed already, but then his eye fell on an object on the lacquered table. It was a silver mask, identical to the one Marieko had just been wearing in the dream. He was too far away to see if the teardrop was sculpted beneath the mask’s right eye, but he would have wagered it was. The mask raised a number of questions: Had Marieko simply used the object as a piece of top dressing on her creation, or did the thing have a greater significance? Was it perhaps a talisman, an object of power bridging the gap between fantasy and reality?
Renquist was pondering this when Destry appeared. “Good evening, Victor.”
“Good evening, Ms. Maitland.”
“Please, not so formal. You have to call me Destry. I told you that last night.”
“Good evening, Destry.”
Destry’s greeting was as cordial as one might expect from hostess to guest, and good manners dictated she make no scan of his thoughts, but he didn’t doubt she
was wondering what he might have learned in the parts of the house he’d briefly inspected.
was wondering what he might have learned in the parts of the house he’d briefly inspected.
“We enter Marieko’s private domain somewhat at our peril.”
“I would never think of entering.”
“But a look through the open door was different?”
“I surrendered to the temptation.”
Destry laughed. “If one has to surrender to anything, it might as well be temptation.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
Destry treated Renquist to a questioning, sidelong stare. “I understand you did some rather spectacular dreaming with Marieko through the day that’s just gone. She tells us you were something of a hero.”
So they all knew about it. No secrets between sisters? Not on this level, apparently. He made blandly self-depreciating gestures. “It’s easy to be a hero in the dreamstate.” He hesitated. “Actually, I was wondering where Marieko was now. I was under the impression we were to visit this excavation.”
Renquist was being somewhat disingenuous by asking the question. He was well aware Marieko was still with Columbine in her boudoir, and Destry must have known that he would have located their auras as soon as he’d emerged from his room, if not before. It was a simple, silly deception hardly intended to deceive. More a matter of nosferatu gentility and the pretense that their world was not a shadow place of whispered secrets, intrigue, and counterplot—when it almost always was.
Destry’s aura became deliberately vague. “I think she’s otherwise occupied right now. I never really know what Marieko gets up to with all her studies, meditations, and disciplines. She’s by far the most active of the three of us, no question about that.”
“I thought it was a matter of some urgency that I take a preliminary look at whatever’s at Morton Downs.”
“All business, Victor?”
“I believe that’s why I’m here.”
“Marieko seems to think that it would be best not to go to the dig until later. Maybe around midnight. That way we minimize running into Dr. Campion and any of his people who might be working late.”
“I see.”
“Now you’re wondering what you’re going to do in the meantime.”
“I’m sure I can find some way to occupy myself.”
“Why don’t you come and ride with me?”
“Ride?”
“As in horse.”
The suggestion took Renquist completely by surprise. Destry watched his confusion with an amused smile. “I thought you were a horseman, Victor?”
“I haven’t been on a horse in many years, but there was, of course, a time—”
“This is what I heard. How you led your own regiment of night cavalry.”
“It was only a troop of boyars.”
“So? I can promise you a horse worthy of your experience.”
Renquist held his aura firmly in check. He didn’t want Destry to be aware of either his disbelief or excitement. A horse worthy of his experience? Did she really intend to let him ride the huge, black brute he had seen in the stables the night before? He slowly nodded. “Yes, why not? I’d be delighted to ride with you.”
As they walked to the stables, Renquist reflected on his being passed around among the three females in succession. First he bedded and dreamed with Marieko; now he was going riding with Destry. Would he next be handed over to Columbine? And what would she want to do with him? Or maybe the truth was that she’d taken her turn already. Had it been her turn last night in the drawing room, when her desire had been to gut him like a hog in the slaughterhouse? He was also aware that the potential for a very dangerous game was contained in this arrangement, and he refused to believe the three females
didn’t appreciate the risks they were running. Among the nosferatu, three females and a lone male had always been an incendiary recipe. It was the combination Bram Stoker had accidentally imagined in the Carpathian castle in his unfortunate novel: three females serving a single lord, a deadly mixture of jealously, inequality, and gender oppression that invariably spelled trouble. The history of Renquist’s kind was littered with spectacularly abusive masters on one hand, and on the other, troikas who had risen up and slain their lords. Some had also suffered hideous penalties for their efforts, and in the twentieth century, it had generally come to be accepted as an arrangement to be avoided. Many, though, were yet still drawn to it, and Renquist couldn’t believe that at least some shadow of history and perverse temptation would fail to fall over this enterprise.
didn’t appreciate the risks they were running. Among the nosferatu, three females and a lone male had always been an incendiary recipe. It was the combination Bram Stoker had accidentally imagined in the Carpathian castle in his unfortunate novel: three females serving a single lord, a deadly mixture of jealously, inequality, and gender oppression that invariably spelled trouble. The history of Renquist’s kind was littered with spectacularly abusive masters on one hand, and on the other, troikas who had risen up and slain their lords. Some had also suffered hideous penalties for their efforts, and in the twentieth century, it had generally come to be accepted as an arrangement to be avoided. Many, though, were yet still drawn to it, and Renquist couldn’t believe that at least some shadow of history and perverse temptation would fail to fall over this enterprise.
As they approached the stables, Destry shouted commandingly for the thrall Bolingbroke, and the human swiftly appeared as if he’d already been waiting for her in the darkness.
“Saddle Dormandu and the gelding.”
Bolingbroke grovelled. “Yes, mistress.”
As he straightened up, Destry flicked the thrall with her crop. “And hurry, damn you.”
Only a sharp intake of breath and a brief, back-curled cringe indicated how painful even a touch of the whip might be when delivered with undead strength. As the man shuffled off, Renquist used the cover of Destry’s irritation fleetingly to probe the man’s mind. As he expected, he found nothing of any significance. In fact, the man’s mind contained very little at all except a turgidly hopeless morass the color of stagnant pond water. Destry glanced at Renquist as though expecting to see a kindred spirit for whom human retainers represented tiresome burden. “Thralls can be such a pain. After you’ve had them for a while, they become so damned slow, and everything but the simplest routine task has to be explained in the most painstaking detail. After a while,
even beating them doesn’t do much to sharpen them up.”
even beating them doesn’t do much to sharpen them up.”
Renquist nodded, at the same time hoping they treated their horses better than they treated their humans. “I tend to let mine retain a good deal of their native intelligence.”
“But then they’re always mooning around wondering when you’re going to make them immortal.”
“The occasional crumb of hope can go a long way.”
“I suppose it’s true what they say about humans.”
“It depends which particular saying you had in mind.”
Destry laughed. “Can’t live with them but can’t live without them.”
Destry’s observations on the shortcomings of humanity were interrupted by Bolingbroke’s return. He led two horses, a pretty, high-stepping grey of obvious Arabian heritage and the great black stallion from the Uzbek bloodline. Renquist quickly remembered Destry didn’t know he’d inspected the horse the previous night, and he made his aura register a combination of surprise and delight, along with a touch of awe. Such fakery really didn’t require too much effort and, indeed, hardly qualified as fakery at all. As Dormandu stood in the moonlight, with his red-rimmed eyes, arrogant bearing, and detailed musculature clearly defined beneath his gleaming black coat, the steed was as much an object of wonderment on this second encounter as he had been on the first.
Renquist kept his voice hushed. “Magnificent.”
Destry glowed as if she herself were being paid the compliment. “He’s a beautiful creature.”
“He could have walked out of the stables of Pathan Gash.”
“Dormandu is only one-quarter of the Uzbek blood, unfortunately.”
“He would appear to have inherited most of the genes. I’d heard that a few of the bloodline had survived, but this is the first one I’ve seen since the Great Slaughter.”
“The cossacks of the Red Army preserved some specimens.
A few others went to Argentina where they ran near wild on the pampas. Dormandu came from a clandestine stable near Budapest that had remained a secret all the time the Communists were in power.”
A few others went to Argentina where they ran near wild on the pampas. Dormandu came from a clandestine stable near Budapest that had remained a secret all the time the Communists were in power.”
“You are very fortunate.”
Destry nodded. “I tell myself that each time I ride him.”
“I envy you such a mount.”
“Perhaps … you’d like to try him.”
The offer didn’t come out with much conviction or authenticity, as though the very last thing she wanted was anyone else harnessing the power of the horse. Renquist quickly shook his head. “No. He’s yours. You must ride him. It hardly seems appropriate. The two of you must have bonded.”
“I’m being spontaneously generous, Victor. Magnanimous, even. Take me up on the offer before I change my mind. Can you really turn down the chance to mount a descendant of the great Uzbekians?”
She moved to the horse, patted its head, and stroked its muzzle. “Come here, Victor. Make the acquaintance of Dormandu.”
Renquist stood beside Destry and also petted the beast. He could almost hear the air humming as she locked down her aura not to reveal her true feelings. She hated the idea of Renquist even being near the horse, so why was she making the offer when it caused her such obvious anguish? He glanced at her one last time “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Go ahead.”
Renquist put a foot into the stirrup and swung easily into the English saddle.
The horse reared slightly, and as Renquist calmed him, Destry had to bite back a flash of jealous rage. Since Dormandu had come to Ravenkeep, no one had ridden him but Destry, and she profoundly wished the horse would instantly buck Victor Renquist out of the saddle
and pitch him humiliatingly to the ground, but she knew, as he mounted, he was far too good a horseman for that. He might not have ridden in years, but he had no trouble recalling the absolutely correct touch and feel. Dormandu was skittish at having a stranger in the saddle, but Renquist knew exactly the right measure of composed, unruffled authority that, within a matter of seconds, would have the huge creature trusting him and ready to do his bidding. Destry could see why Columbine made such an issue of Victor. He really was too completely assured of his own perfection. After a thousand years, could he not have the good grace to fuck up now and again? Still secretly seething, she mounted the gelding, dismissed Bolingbroke with a snarl she kept from Victor, and the two of them walked their mounts away from the stables.
and pitch him humiliatingly to the ground, but she knew, as he mounted, he was far too good a horseman for that. He might not have ridden in years, but he had no trouble recalling the absolutely correct touch and feel. Dormandu was skittish at having a stranger in the saddle, but Renquist knew exactly the right measure of composed, unruffled authority that, within a matter of seconds, would have the huge creature trusting him and ready to do his bidding. Destry could see why Columbine made such an issue of Victor. He really was too completely assured of his own perfection. After a thousand years, could he not have the good grace to fuck up now and again? Still secretly seething, she mounted the gelding, dismissed Bolingbroke with a snarl she kept from Victor, and the two of them walked their mounts away from the stables.
The plan was to appear to be riding with Victor but then to tell him to give Dormandu his head and really let the stallion stretch out. The slightly built gelding could never keep up with the huge demon charger, and Destry would quickly fall behind. Once Renquist was out of sight, she could turn and go quickly back to the house, where the troika would formulate their strategies without the risk of being overheard, while he, meanwhile, galloped on, they hoped, completely absorbed in the novel and powerful sensation of riding such an exceptional mount. This part proved another wrench for Destry. That Renquist was riding her pride and joy was bad enough, but to allow him to disappear into the darkness with him would take all her willpower and self-control.
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