The High House (39 page)

They slipped along the gallery, passing between the rows of paraphernalia, hidden from the sight of those on the floors beneath, staying low to escape detection from any on their own level. When nearly halfway, approaching voices sent them scampering behind the ragged rows of boxes. From their concealment, while they crouched in silence, they saw, above the cartons, the hats of two anarchists bobbing by, and heard their voices passing out of the gallery, engrossed in a conversation on “placing the pylons.”

They continued making their way between the trunks and cases, and despite the fear of discovery, a joy overtook Carter, a sense that he was indeed the Master of Evenmere, outmaneuvering his enemies as if it were only a game played in the yard among the privet. He became aware of the dirt and oils upon the floorboards, the dust motes drifting down between the barrels, the wood grain on the boxes, the paint on the trunks. And he smiled, even as he chastised himself for smiling in this precarious place. Yet, in the brief moment before the gravity of his position overtook him once more, he would not have traded this adventure for all the warm, safe hearths in the world.

A soft click, not twenty feet away, tore his smugness from him. Something was moving among the cartons to their right. The companions drifted deeper among the debris, back into the shadows. A soft tuneless whistling told them that whoever had come was not seeking them, yet he was approaching. They dropped to hands and knees, and scuttled silently behind a large wardrobe.

Footfalls and the whistling came nearer. Carter drew a short knife and steeled himself to attack, hoping to disable his enemy without arousing the others.

The whistling stopped. Just to the left of the wardrobe, inches from their position, a pair of hands reached down and picked up a gray box. “Here it is,” the anarchist muttered to himself. Carter could have turned the wardrobe corner and stood face to-face with the man, but the whistling resumed and the anarchist returned the way he had come, leaving the brothers’ hearts pounding in their throats.

They waited several long minutes, half expecting the man to sound an alarm, but as the gallery lapsed into silence, they found their courage, and worked their way onward.

Finally, they came to the end of the gallery and made their way back to the railing, where lay a wide stair leading downward. They would have to descend without being seen, and it was all a gamble. Drawing his Tawny Mantle over him, Carter crawled the last few feet to the top of the stair, and raised his head enough to peer down.

The way was vacant though voices wafted from the floors below. He signaled Duskin, who hurried up, and together they started down the steps.

And just at that moment, footfalls approached from below.

They flung themselves back to the landing on their stomachs and crawled hastily to a hiding place. But the footsteps seemed to halt at the bottom of the stairs.

A voice called, “We need everyone! Rally everyone! I have assignments.”

Carter and Duskin slipped deeper into the debris as several anarchists came from behind them in answer to the call. Within moments there was a general murmuring of voices, and it became apparent that a score or more were gathered on the floor below.

A plan came to Carter at once. “We can reach our destination one of two ways,” he whispered. “Come, back the direction we came.”

They retreated beside the gallery banister, hoping that “everyone” was indeed gathered at the bottom of the stair. What had taken an hour to cross before took mere seconds. They peered cautiously down the back stair, found it deserted, and hurried down.

Upon reaching the doors leading to the left and right, Carter hesitated only an instant before choosing the left-hand way. Even as he did, an anarchist stepped through it.

Carter reacted without thought, striking the man a solid blow in the face. Before he could do more than reel in surprise, Duskin caught him in the forehead with the butt of his revolver, sending him sprawling.

They dragged him out of the foyer into the room beyond. Carter wished to bind him, but there was no time, so they left him heaped behind a fainting couch. They hurried through a sitting room, but did not go onto the gallery on that floor, for a spiral staircase took them two flights down. They crept through an empty hall and from the concealment of the doorway, looked out upon a corridor, leading to the right and left, and across it, in the midst of a wide burgundy-carpeted room, a black stair leading down.

Carter shuddered. It was as he remembered—the stairs to the Room of Horrors. Five men stood at its threshold, carrying rifles.

“I have to get there,” he whispered to Duskin. “But how? At best, we might get three of them before they took cover, and we can’t cross that room against Winchesters.”

Duskin looked about. “See the door on the other side of the room? I’d guess this corridor leads around to it.”

Carter consulted the maps within him. “It does.”

“I’ll slip around to that side and draw them off. When I do, you rush the stair.”

“They’ll kill you!”

Duskin grinned. “They won’t. I’m a fast runner and handy with a revolver. Anyway, you said you wouldn’t let me enter the Room of Horrors. I’ll return to Glis and bring an army to fetch you out.”

Despair wrenched at Carter’s heart, despair of leaving his brother to the anarchists, despair of going alone to the room. But he put on a fierce grin. “That’s all there is for it, then. Good luck.”

“Godspeed.” The two clasped hands, a lingering grip, and then Duskin was gone down the passage. And Carter suddenly knew he loved his brother very much.

An anxious eternity passed before he saw Duskin step into the room from the other side. He put on a good act, as if he were surprised to see the guards; they shouted and raised their rifles as he downed one with his revolver, then dodged back behind the doorway as a barrage of bullets whizzed past the place where he had stood.

Of the four remaining sentries, three immediately gave chase, leaving a single man to guard the stair. This one crossed to the door, to see how his fellows fared.

Carter saw his chance, and scurried across the room, revolver drawn, aimed at the anarchist’s back. Still, the man did not turn to see him. Shots and the shrieks of men roared out in the hall; Carter prayed Duskin had not been hit.

He reached the stair and bounded down it, his boots squeaking as he rounded the railing. As he descended, he looked back over his shoulder to see the head of the guard rising above the top of the steps. He fired without aiming, and the fellow went down, clutching the left side of his face.

He plunged wildly down that dark staircase, and it was as if he relived his kidnapping in double time, for the ebony stair, with its carved ghouls and fallen angels, its ghastly green lanterns, its darkness and dolor, sped by him while his fear grew, until he whimpered as he ran.

Sooner than he would have thought possible he stood before the imposing, black marble door. For a moment, paralysis took him.
I am truly a coward
, he thought.
There can no longer be any doubt
. Yet he put his hand upon the knob and turned.

It was locked, but that, at least, did not give him pause. He had seen it destroyed before.

He felt every bit like his father as he drew his jagged sword and shattered the door with a single blow.

The Room Of Horrors

The last sparks of the Lightning Sword withered; the splinters from the sundered door fell away. Beyond lay the room, its revolving darkness heavy with nebulous forms. Sepulchral winds, bitterly cold, moaned across the portal. Carter’s satisfaction at destroying the door faded. With trembling hands, he lit the lantern, holding it aloft as he crossed the threshold. He cried out at the first touch of those shadows, the involuntary whimper of a boy, as the whole weight of malice pressed against him. It paralyzed; it crippled; it consumed him. His courage was gone; he dropped to his knees and could not rise. All the terror, sublimated so many years, returned. He clenched his eyes tight; from his frozen lips issued a half prayer.

Thus he remained for endless moments, wrapped in an annihilating horror, plunged too quickly into utter ruin. And outside his closed lids, not inches from his face, he felt the terrors gathering, the unholy nightmares pressing toward him. He could not run; he could not open his eyes; he could not leave them closed.

There is a fear beyond all fears, and faced with it, a human must confront it or cease altogether. A child, knowing no defense, having no power, might flee endlessly; a man cannot.

For him, reason must either hold or shatter completely.

Behind his closed eyes, Carter’s rationality struggled to reassert itself. A soft voice whispered within him, reminding him he was no longer a lad, but Master of Evenmere. How could he have forgotten? He ceased his muttering; he drew deep breaths. Yet he did not dare open his eyes, not without some weapon to aid him.

The Word of Hope came to his mind, a Word designed to end confusion and despair, its letters burning silver with heat. Using it would diminish his strength, but without it he could not go on. He brought it to his lips, the power surging around him. He spoke it:
Rahmurrim.
The room shook.

He felt no great change, no lessening of the fear; the terrors still murmured around him, proving they were truly real, and no illusion for the Word to dispel, but he found the courage to press forward. With an effort he opened his eyes.

A leering face bobbed before him, ghost-white, hideous, with writhing tentacles growing from it; the lips bright red, the hair green; its fangs glistened.

Shouting in terror, Carter swung at it with all his strength, a blow that overbalanced him, sending him onto his side as the monstrous head bobbed backward, avoiding the sword. He leapt to his feet, facing the creature, and in the midst of his panic, an odd realization occurred. As a child he remembered dreaming of such a nightmare, a thing too horrible to gaze upon. But in his dream he had dared to look a second time, and what had at first seemed terrible, had appeared no more than a clown’s face. So it was with this, for he suddenly saw that it was but a childhood apprehension, a face pressed against the windowpane, no more than a caricature. And this, he knew, the Word of Hope had shown him, so that, there, in the Room of Horrors, he did what he had never thought to do. Before the dead face, he laughed.

The monster vanished at once; the room became deathly still; the evil withdrew, perplexed.

The first time, he had not had a lantern, now he held it high. The floor was dirty; boxes and staring doll faces lay scattered, common things.

He began his search for the Master Keys. The room was vast, its walls invisible in the dark, yet he moved unerringly forward, as if he
felt
the pull of the keys, sensing their presence now that they were so near. This did not surprise him; he was their master as well.

Just at the edge of sight flitted ghostly forms, shrouded figures with skeletal hands and empty eye sockets. They crowded innumerable beyond his circle of light, but drew no closer, perhaps fearing his sword, if such can fear. And though these, too, were the phantoms of childhood, he felt his pulse pounding at his throat.

For perhaps twenty minutes he continued, and the ghosts were joined by monsters and devils of every kind, yet his fright lessened as he perceived they would not approach him, though they moaned and cried with hideous voices. Through their clamor a single, soft groan caught his hearing, a pleading note different from the rest, and he turned toward its source.

Amidst heaps of garbage, its legs chained to the floor, lay a human form, bedraggled, hair matted, the once-fine garments shredded rags. As the circle of light touched it, it looked up with feral eyes. Carter gasped; it was Murmur.

“Carter!” she cried, her voice broken, ancient. “Are you real, or another come to torment me?”

“No, lady. It is I.” But he did not approach her. “Did the Bobby do this?”

Her eyes glistened with hatred. “Him! He promised everything, but when Duskin betrayed us, he cast me here. Called me ‘of no further use,’ I, the lady of the manor, friend to the lord of every kingdom in the High House! How could he be so blind? I am the most important woman in Evenmere. Help me, Carter! I’ve seen horrible monsters, demons with my own face, all accusing. They all accuse me. I can’t stand the accusations anymore.” She burst into tears.

Moved by compassion, Carter drew near. “Dear Carter,” she muttered. “Sweet Carter. You were always a good boy.”

He drew his sword and struck the chain, which shattered with a thunderous crash. As he bent to help her rise she raked his cheek with her sharp fingernails, barely missing his eye, sending blood rilling down his jaw. She hissed like a snake and, crouching, backed away, her pleading glance turned to malice, her eyes wild.

“Stand back! Stay away!” she cried. “I know what you want. Revenge or nothing! With me gone you think you’ll become Master. But you won’t take it away from me. Duskin will rule, and I beside him. All the great house.”

“And did I ever seek your harm?” he cried.

“Because you could not!” she sneered, triumphant. “We had you sent away before you could. And you never should have returned! Why did you?”

Carter’s whole being trembled, as if he had suddenly fallen into a great void. His voice shook. “You … knew I would take the keys. You were working with the Bobby even then.” He gripped his Lightning Sword tighter. “You didn’t just leave the gate open for him. You planned it all.”

She became suddenly frightened. “Now, Carter, it wasn’t like that at all. Your father—”

He exploded with rage. “It wasn’t petty jealousy! Planned! Contrived to exile a child!” Nearly blind with anger, he lifted his sword.

She fell at his feet, weeping, cowering like a dog. “Then slay me. I deserve it! I never had what I desired. The house was never mine. I should have been a queen. But your father would not! He had the power and he refused to use it! Slay me and I will die in ruins.”

The rage ran through him, turning to pity and disgust. “No,” he said, lowering his sword. “My father would not. Nor will I. Follow me and I will lead you from this place.”