The Golden (25 page)

Beheim sprinted
away, arms pumping, intent on finding a side passage, wanting to turn
a corner on the entire experience; but there proved to be no side
passages. The corridor appeared to extend into infinity, an infinite
ranking of torches angled from iron mounts and glistening, dark gray
stone brocaded by crusts of moss. He kept running until a stitch came
in his side. When he at long last paused, leaning against the wall,
his labored breath breaching the silence, he looked back down the
corridor and saw a white figure—tiny at that distance—standing
in or near the place from which he had fled. He could feel the
chaotic pressure of that same mental discord that had affected him
when he sighted the white horizon line announcing the Patriarch’s
imminence. His legs were shaking, his lungs on fire. He knew he could
not run much farther. Resentment boiled up in him, and he cried out,
“What do you want of me? I’m doing as you asked!”

The Patriarch
gave no sign of having heard.

Beheim staggered
off a few steps. “What do you want of me?” he cried
again, and this time he received a response, though not of the sort
he had hoped to elicit.

The corridor
seemed to tip downward—it was as if he were staring into a well
of perspective, a dwindling array of fiery red tears and gray slabs
of stone in whose penultimate depth hung the figure of the Patriarch,
more a white emblem than a living thing. A feeling of vertigo
assaulted Beheim. He clutched at the damp stones and shut his eyes.

After a while,
cautiously, he opened them.

He would have
liked to scream, to release the fearful pressure that was building in
his chest; but the sight before him seemed to possess its own
crushing gravity, a force that cut short his breath and made any
outcry impossible. The Patriarch’s face filled his field of
vision—he looked to be a giant peeking into the end of a tunnel
a few feet from where Beheim stood flattened against the wall. It was
a face with a surprisingly delicate bone structure, reminiscent of a
bat, of a weasel, of every kind of vermin: nose reduced to a bump
with slits; a lipless mouth from which protruded fangs the size of
tusks; pulpy white skin laced with blue veins, their patterns having
the intricacy of tattoos; the eyes were disproportionately large,
with notched pupils centering irises whose murky substance appeared
to be swirling, always in flux, picked out here and there by
phosphorescent lights that bloomed and faded with the inconstancy of
foxfire.

The mouth
opened, revealing a complement of needled, bloodstained teeth; a gush
of carrion breath followed.

Beheim soiled
himself. He sank to the floor, his strength gone, turned his eyes to
the wall, and waited for the end.

But the end did
not come.

Instead he heard
a cultured masculine voice say, “Come, my child. Sit and talk
with me awhile.”

Chapter
Nineteen

T
he man who had spoken was slender and young, several years younger,
it appeared, than Beheim, with a wide Byronic face framed by dark
curls; he wore a billowy shirt of white silk and loose gray trousers,
and on the fourth finger of his right hand was a massive gold signet
ring. He was occupying a wrought-iron chair at the center of a
moonlit courtyard, enclosed by crenellated walls of three stories in
height—they must, Beheim realized, be at the very top of the
castle—and ringed by potted ferns and flowering plants; it was
paved with a mosaic of flagstones and divided into nooks by an
arrangement of vine-tangled trellises. The moon was almost directly
overhead, cutting a sharp slice of shadow across the westernmost
quarter of the courtyard, where a short stairway led up into a room
with shuttered windows. With a foppish gesture, the man indicated a
second wrought-iron chair, flanked by a table of like design, and
again urged Beheim to sit.

Though he was
still afraid, knowing the man was only a more presentable incarnation
of the ghoulish creature in the corridor, he wanted to believe that
some accommodation had been reached, some test passed, and that
things would now proceed at a rational pace and measure. Supporting
this hope was the fact that his fouled clothes were missing, and in
their stead he was now wearing a shirt and trousers identical to
those worn by the Patriarch. He came to his feet and walked
unsteadily to the chair. The Patriarch’s smile was charming,
guileless; he seemed to be beaming his approval of Beheim’s
every action.

“Would you
care for some refreshment?” he asked as Beheim settled himself.
“A glass of wine, perhaps. Or something stronger, if you wish?
Ordinarily I would have the necessities to hand, but I was not
prepared for your visit. Always best to come announced. That
way”—with an avuncular wink, he reached out and patted
Beheim on the knee—“there’ll be no surprises.”

Beheim had an
apprehension of the madness dammed up behind this pleasant façade.
He gave an involuntary shudder. The fanciful iron pattern of the
chair bottom seemed to be branding him with cold arabesques.

“I’d
welcome some whiskey,” he said.

“Whiskey
it shall be!” The Patriarch called for a decanter to be brought
at once.

He stretched out
his legs, folded his hands on his stomach. “You’ve done
well, my boy. Better than I’ve any right to expect. You’ve
displayed uncommon courage and a modicum of cleverness. With luck,
we’ll have put an end to this tiresome business by tomorrow
evening.”

“I hope as
much, my lord,” Beheim said, trying to present an image of firm
competency. “But there is no guarantee of success. The trap is
a simple one, and obvious. Too obvious, perhaps, to catch a subtle
creature like our murderer.”

“Why
subtle?” the Patriarch asked, leaning forward in his chair; his
voice grew strident. “What subtlety is there in butchery of the
sort he has committed? True, your cousins do have their subtleties,
but they are moved chiefly by fear, by every manner of irrational
concern. The simplicity of the trap is not necessarily a liability.
The simple logic that informs it will make it a great temptation.
Perhaps the murderer will think I have forgotten something,
overlooked something. And as for its obviousness, well, subtle
creatures will often see in the obvious the most convoluted of
possibilities. I’m quite certain you will find a rabbit in your
snare tomorrow.” He tapped his brow. “I have a feeling
for these things.” He glanced toward the stairs. “Ah!
Here’s your whiskey.”

The woman in
white was descending the stairs, bearing a tray upon which rested a
decanter and a glass of cut crystal. As she moved out from the
shadows Beheim saw that though her body had remained voluptuous and
smooth-skinned, her face had decayed, the tendons coming unstrung,
the flesh in tatters, the lips eroded, so that rotted gums and gray
teeth and a portion of the skull were all laid bare. Her eyes were
awful vacancies and leaked a viscous fluid. It was all Beheim could
do to keep from leaping away when she offered him the glass.

“You may
leave the decanter, Christina,” the Patriarch said, and she set
the tray down upon the table next to Beheim. Her breath was a liquid
sibilance, and as she leaned close, he heard a faint creaking and
imagined this to be the sound made by some fleshy construct stripping
away from the bone.

He gulped down
two fingers of whiskey, drawing strength from its fire, and poured
himself another.

“Such a
pretty thing,” the Patriarch said as Christina returned to the
shuttered room. “Under ordinary circumstances, anyway.”
He lifted his voice. “Not pretty at all now, are you, my dear?”

Christina did
not seem to hear.

“She’s
incredibly vain,” the Patriarch went on. “We’ll
just have to hope this teaches her a lesson.”

“For what
reason is she being punished?” Beheim asked.

The Patriarch
gave him an arch look. “For invading my privacy, of course.
And, as a consequence, risking your life.”

“Risking
my life,” said Beheim musingly, wondering how to put his next
question without eliciting an enraged response.

“That’s
right. I might have killed you.”

“But”—Beheim
hesitated—“you knew who I was, did you not?”

“Ah!”
The Patriarch waggled a forefinger in the air, as if to mark a moment
of revelation. “Of course! You’re puzzled as to why I
would hunt you, knowing that you were performing a service on my
behalf. Well, that’s an easy enough question to answer.”
Once again he leaned forward, but on this occasion he did not seem at
all avuncular. “There are rules,” he said in a sepulchral
tone. “Rules that must not be broken.” He nodded, as if
he had just imparted a great wisdom. “Rules that demand
obedience. There can be no excuse to justify their violation.”

“I see,”
said Beheim.

“No,
child.” The Patriarch leaned back and crossed his legs. “You
do not see. Not yet. And perhaps you never will. It is not given to
everyone to see these things.”

Ragged clouds
were passing in front of the moon, causing a rush of thin shadows
across the flagstones, and Beheim had an impression of the
instability of the place, of the unstable mind that had conceived it.
It could all be whisked away in an instant, he thought. The chairs,
the moonlight, the nodding ferns. It was a veil, a seeming. Even if
real, it was nothing that was capable of resisting the power of the
man before him, a man to whom the centuries were years. Fascinating,
to think of all he had seen and done. But Beheim did not covet the
Patriarch’s experience or his power, nor did he desire to
understand it. He wanted to be away from Castle Banat, away from
everything associated with it, and he decided to hold his tongue,
hoping that his silence would speed the end of the interview.

“You
know,” said the Patriarch, shifting in his chair, “I’m
not quite clear why this is so important to us. This business of the
Golden. Naturally there’s the matter of an impropriety. A gross
impropriety at that. We really can’t permit such goings-on. But
there’s more to it than that. Something of greater consequence
involved. I just can’t seem to put my finger on it.” He
studied his left hand, as if considering the inadequacy of his five
fingers; then he glanced up brightly. “So perhaps in this
instance I have obeyed the dictates of reason, for I firmly believe
that your participation in all this is the key to resolving some
deeper question. Not merely your participation. Something allied with
it, something . . .” He made a frustrated noise.
“I can almost grasp it. Almost! Ah, well. It’s obvious
that I need you. I’ll have to be satisfied with knowing that, I
suppose. How odd to need anyone, especially one so callow.”

Beheim said
nothing, and a strained smile came to the Patriarch’s lips.

“I wonder
if Agenor truly understands your part in this,” he said. “I
think not. He does not have the command of the situation that he
believes. It’s all so interwoven. Roland. Felipe and Dolores.
The Valeas. Alexandra.” He let out a wry chuckle. “Alexandra!
Now there, there’s a piece of work for you!” He looked to
Beheim for a reaction, but Beheim maintained a stubborn silence.

A single frown
line marred the smooth expanse of the Patriarch’s brow. It was
the perfect emblem of his mood, the line an artist might have chosen
to express stern displeasure.

“Well
now,” he said with impatience. “How shall I reward you
for this invaluable service? A treasure, perhaps. Secrets. Something
substantial is called for. What shall it be?”

The dark air
above his head had begun to stir, becoming rife with furtive glints,
a physical symptom, Beheim thought, of his internal struggle between
reason and mad desire. He did not think he could risk annoying the
Patriarch further, and yet he did not want to ask for a reward,
fearful that he might ask for too much or too little, and that this
might increase his agitation. At last he said, “I am happy to
serve you, my lord. In truth, I can hope for no reward greater than
to earn your continued solicitude. However, I wonder if we might
discuss something that has been a matter of concern to me, and may, I
believe, have a bearing on my investigation.”

This appeared to
please the Patriarch. His frown vanished, he settled back in the
chair and told Beheim to proceed.

“Earlier
in your chamber,” Beheim said, “we had a brief exchange
regarding this matter, and though I understand it is not something
that has commanded your interest to any great degree, I believe
nevertheless that it merits your attention at this moment in time.”

The Patriarch’s
sigh was one of patience sorely tried. “You intend to bore me
again, do you not, with talk of the East?”

“I hope I
will succeed in—”

“I have
said all I will on the subject.”

Beheim let a few
seconds pass before responding. “You have placed me in an
awkward position, my lord. I do not wish to offend, but I would not
be serving you well if I did not press this matter. I feel, and I
have felt from the beginning, that the murder and the possibility of
a migration were somehow related. You yourself have stated that there
is more to the investigation than my solution of the crime, that you
sense some deeper question may be involved. I submit that this
question of migration may be the very thing you have sensed.”

“And what
if it is?” said the Patriarch.

Confused by
this, Beheim said, “I assume that if such is the case, you
would want to study the materials available, to—”

“There is
nothing to study. Either some of my children will go into the East,
or else they will not. I leave that for them to decide. Rendering
decisions of this sort will enable them to develop toward a higher
plane, and perhaps someday they will be capable of deciding more
significant issues. Issues such as those I must decide. Issues”—he
raised his voice, preventing Beheim from breaking in—“that
have nothing to do with anything you would understand!”