The Laws of Magic 6: Hour of Need (34 page)

D
ESPITE
A
UBREY’S OBJECTIONS
, C
AROLINE INSISTED
on organising the order of their advance. She ticked off his objections one by one until he even tried ‘I’m in command’, fully knowing how feeble it sounded.

She smiled tolerantly. ‘And a fine commander you are, too. Now, I’ll lead off. George, you take the rear.’

Aubrey contented himself with staying very close behind Caroline as they swarmed along the festoons of cables that were strung along the barrel-vaulted ceiling. He found time, in between rehearsing an extremely localised heat spell and a dazzling light spell, to admire her litheness as she made the awkward hand-over-hand grappling look like flying. He knew it may have been improper or poorly timed or inappropriate, heading as they were to a confrontation that could mean the end of everything, but it was hard not to notice some things.

More than once, his Symons rifle was nearly his undoing. It slipped from side to side, unbalancing him and once dangling directly underneath him. His shoulders were in constant motion, and his rifle strap worked its way around his body in the most incommoding way. Finally, he worked out that it sat best if he thrust his head through the strap, crossing it over his chest. It was more secure, but it also meant that he’d be unable to access the rifle quickly.

They followed the main bunching of cables that ran along the centre of the ceiling. Lesser cables and wires joined from either side of the hall, gradually making the ceiling look as if a fishing net were suspended there.

As they pulled themselves forward, Aubrey’s fingers began to tingle, as if he were receiving a low-level electrical shock. He looked back to see that Sophie was frowning and he guessed she was feeling the same.

The end of the hall gradually resolved itself from what had appeared a misty distance. At first, Aubrey doubted his eyes but, when they came to within a stone’s throw, he gave up and accepted that they were, indeed, facing the entrance to a classical temple.

At the end of the Collection of Curiosities, giant pillars stood on either side of a gap. They supported what Aubrey thought was an arch, but he realised it was essentially a continuation of the barrel-vaulted ceiling they’d been following.

Caroline led off and they floated ahead, then they clustered together, hanging, using their closeness to cope with the scale of what they were entering.

The arch opened onto an immense circular area surmounted by a dome that was dizzying in its circumference and its height. Numbed by the profound majesty of the place, Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised to see clouds forming in the faraway loftiness. More giant pillars marched around the perimeter, reinforcing the impression of a classical temple – but one inflated many, many times. Right in the centre of the floor was a round window a few yards across, admitting light from the world below. A spicy hint drifted through the air, reminding Aubrey of incense. At first he’d thought it silent inside the dome, but when he listened more carefully, at the edge of perception was a faint, constant hum.

Aubrey didn’t need any confirmation of Dr Tremaine’s powers, but this unlikely edifice inside a magically conjured battleship was evidence of his mastery of magic. The dome was a feat that would be impossible without prodigious magic. No natural material – stone, metal, timber – could support its own weight over such an expanse, a hundred yards across. As well, its diameter was easily larger than the beam width of the
Sylvia
, a casual twisting of the Law of Dimensionality – but to what end?

After the initial, overwhelming impact, Aubrey was puzzled by the gaudiness of the whole thing. It was loud, bombastic, vainglorious. Dr Tremaine enjoyed theatricality, but the magnitude of this display was unlike him.

Aubrey had never thought that the ex-Sorcerer Royal was prey to the overweening pride that affected so many of those who achieved power, even though his power was far beyond the measuring of most mortals. His ambitions, although extraordinary, were entirely self-centred. Extending his life was an entirely natural decision, making the most of an excellent state of affairs where he was who he was. Power, riches, control were only important in that they enabled Dr Tremaine to be Dr Tremaine forever. No need for godhood or anything like that. Tremaine Eternal was all that anyone could wish, after all.

Which is why this display upset Aubrey. It was too grand. Who was he showing off for? When he had nearly succeeded in destroying Albion from beneath, his base of operations had been a noisy, clanking monstrosity of pipes and cables: ultimate functionality. Here, though, was a statement of pride that Aubrey would have thought Dr Tremaine completely indifferent to.

Just inside the arch, Caroline leaned back against the curved inner surface of the dome, just above the pediment, and pointed. He narrowed his eyes, blinked, and peered again.

Each pillar stood on a large block of white marble. On top of many of these blocks, before the fluted lines of the pillar began, was a lifelike human statue.

‘Caryatids,’ Caroline said softly.

Aubrey nodded, but he wondered at how tall the caryatids were, the size of the dome making it difficult to gain a real sense of perspective.

The air of careful precision created by the silent space was only ruined by countless cracks in the surface of the floor, spidery fractures that spread in all directions, marring its surface right from the raised walkway just inside the circle of pillars to the very edge of the central pool of light. Aubrey shaded his eyes, blocking off the central shaft of light, and the cracks sparkled in a way that was startlingly familiar.

‘Silver?’ Sophie murmured.

Aubrey thought so. The floor wasn’t cracked. It was covered with a silver tracery that was almost vegetative, as if it had grown across the floor and overrun it in its abundance.

Sophie tapped him on the shoulder, then extended her arm. He followed her gesture and saw how the festooned cables entered the dome and left the black sheathing behind. Shining silver, they spread all over its sides like a tenacious jungle creeper, achieving the same encompassing effect as on the floor. The silver tracery crept down the sides of the pillars that didn’t have caryatids, joining the floor and the ceilings and making the whole place a mesh of exquisitely conducting silver.

This was more silver than could be provided for by melting down a few silver platters – this was the output of entire silver mines. Aubrey knew that Holmland, once upon a time, had silver mines in the south, near Augsbruck, but they had run dry two centuries ago. Most of its silver these days came from across the sea, from the Andean countries, but Holmland had no access to them. Thanks to the Albion navy, Holmland shipments from this part of the world – including the guano Holmland had needed before inventing the synthetic ammonia process – had been blockaded.

Dr Tremaine must have had access to another source of silver.

Aubrey almost reeled backward as a half-remembered sliver of information slapped into his brain, as if it had been extended for miles on a very large elastic band and had just snapped back.

His mother. Caroline. The near disaster of the arctic voyage. The assassination attempt near St Ivan’s in the far north of Muscovia, which had been almost certainly the work of Holmlanders. St Ivan’s was the last stopping-off point for polar expeditions – but also the site of undeveloped lead and silver mines.

When the attempt on his mother’s life had occurred, it had perplexed him. Why were Holmland agents positioned in that area? On the off chance that Lady Rose, wife of the Albion PM, would show up there sooner or later, given her penchant for Arctic seabirds? Did that mean that Holmland also had some lonely agents – ones who had offended someone higher up – perched on whatever that island was called in the middle of the great ocean, the one with all the iguanas and giant tortoises and finches with interchangeable beaks that proved that finches were very adaptable and would have taken over the world if not for being trapped on the very same island that these forlorn agents spent most of their time regretting that they’d ever heard of?

Or were the agents in St Ivan’s on another mission, one so secret that any possibility of a whisper making its way back to Albion must be dealt with immediately by assassination? Commandeering a silver mine or two, for instance?

Dr Tremaine’s plans ran very deep and were laid a long time ago. He was like a chess master, one who saw dozens of moves ahead while playing a score of simultaneous games, blindfolded, with a secret rule book only he knew about.

Aubrey shivered and then started, a combination of physical reactions not to be recommended, like sneezing and yawning at the same time. He had a horrible thought that perhaps their very presence was part of one of Dr Tremaine’s plans. Perhaps they were being manipulated to appear at this very time and this very place for reasons which would only become apparent when Dr Tremaine had them trapped and their life was ebbing away.

Aubrey shook his head. He couldn’t afford to think like that. If he did, giving up was the only sensible thing to do, since Dr Tremaine knew everything, controlled everything. That would be intolerable. Aubrey Fitzwilliam wasn’t one to give up. He wasn’t about to let Dr Tremaine have his way. He was tired of the great manipulator turning the whole world into a machine designed to bring about full and utter realisation of his plans.

No. Like the Gallian peasants who’d found another interesting use for a sturdy wooden shoe, Aubrey was about to throw something into Dr Tremaine’s works.

The cables spreading into the domed temple left them with nothing to drag themselves by, but Aubrey wasn’t concerned. He gently pushed himself off and drifted, like a soap bubble, up and along the inner surface of the dome. When he came close to the silver webbing, he carefully bumped himself away and continued to rise, higher and higher, toward the central shaft of light.

Caroline, Sophie and George followed his course.

As Aubrey came closer to the very top of the dome he slowed his progress by placing a palm on the silver webbing, then he grimaced as he felt the magic trickling through it, a bizarre sensation like numbers hurrying along his skin.

Peering down hundreds of feet, Aubrey found that he was looking through the window in the floor to Trinovant far below. It was almost as if he were standing above a pool of water and seeing the rocky floor beneath the water. The roads and buildings of Newbourne rolled past, then the wool stores and carpet factories of Shoreham Road.

Caroline came close and whispered into his ear. ‘Sophie is hurting.’

Sophie was waiting, but she had shied away from the central shaft of light. She doubled over and clutched at her head. George was at her side, and shot Aubrey an imploring look.

Aubrey motioned. His friends gathered and they put their heads together. ‘The magic is affecting you, Sophie. I think you’ll be less uncomfortable once we get down.’

She nodded miserably. ‘I didn’t know it would be like this.’

‘I’ll let us down slowly. As we go, let’s separate and spread ourselves around the dome. I’ll move to twelve o’clock.’ Momentary puzzlement, then nods all around. ‘Caroline, take six o’clock, George nine o’clock, Sophie three o’clock. He’s nearby, so let’s see if we can flush him out.’

Aubrey spoke the cancellation spell quietly and he felt the flip-flop in his stomach that announced that his buoyancy had changed. Instead of being lighter than air he was now very slightly heavier. He kept that state constant while they each worked their way, palms against the meshwork, to their positions around the perimeter of the dome. When they reached the pediment level, Aubrey accelerated their rate of descent, until his friends and he were descending at something like walking pace.

Aubrey kept his back to the pillar and worked to drag his rifle from his shoulders. If Dr Tremaine presented himself, he wanted to be ready.

His feet told him that they’d reached the base of the pillar and he held the rifle at the ready. George landed, arms spread, knees bent, alert. Sophie waved. Aubrey couldn’t see Caroline, as the central shaft of light blocked his view in that direction.

He flexed his knees and cast the spell that returned their last remaining weight to them. He grimaced as his joints creaked, adjusting to their load-bearing responsibilities again. He swallowed hard and he tracked across the monumental space with his rifle, his finger on the trigger, ready to fire as soon as he saw the man who had created this improbable place.

George, to his right, crouched, one hand on the marble in front of him. Aubrey did the same as he watched for movement. Dr Tremaine was nearby, but he couldn’t tell in what direction, or how far away he was. The magic all around him was playing havoc with his perceptions.

Aubrey went to climb down from the base of the pillar but froze, mid-clamber, when he glanced over his shoulder.

The bottom of the pillar wasn’t a caryatid, it was a clear tube. Ten feet of crystal separated the pillar from its base, and inside this tube was a gaunt, haunted-looking man dressed in tweeds. Enclosing his head was one of the cages from Dr Tremaine’s stronghold. A long silver tendril snaked up from the top of the helmet and vanished up into the middle of the pillar.

Professor Bromhead. The erstwhile Trismegistus chair of magic at Greythorn University. One of Dr Tremaine’s captives.

Wildly, Aubrey looked around Dr Tremaine’s creation. Many of the pillars had a similar figure at the base.

Without a thought as to who could be watching, solely responding to the plight of the dead-eyed magical theoretician, Aubrey scrambled until he was face to face with the unfortunate Bromhead. He spread his hands on the crystal that separated them. It was tough, not giving at all, even when he hammered on it with a fist and then the butt of his rifle, sending booming echoes around the stillness.

The only sign that Professor Bromhead was alive was the slight movement of his throat. His knees were bent, his shoulders hunched, his chin drooping almost to his chest. He didn’t react to Aubrey’s fearsome pounding.