Quelgrum nodded in apparent acquiescence, but he felt his suspicions confirmed. She wants us to stay here, he thought, I'll bet the only reason she doesn't attack us is because her power was somehow tied up with Lizaveta. I don't know what she and the Score intend for us, but it must involve the Baron.
"I must discuss this with Baron Grimm first,” he said, his stern tone brooking no argument.
Kellen's lower lip trembled for just a few heartbeats. “I will see what I can do, my lord,” she said at last, the very image of the dutiful penitent. “Will you please wait here?"
"Of course,” the General said. “Where else would we go?"
The nun rushed off, and the soldier looked at the women tending to the corpse and the floor. They moved like clumsy machines, their faces as expressionless as stone. Quelgrum believed that they had no idea of Lizaveta's true personality or acts, but he did not believe that the Score had exchanged the dowdy mantle of slavery for the glowing cloak of enlightenment.
The General said to the other men, “It's a trick, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. They'll give us a series of delays, problems and reasons why we should stay just a little longer, just a few days more… until they spring whatever trap they have in mind."
"Why don't we just walk out then, General?” Erik asked. “There aren't so many of them here, and I don't think they could stop us. Anjar looked all right; I bet they'll sell us what we need."
"I won't go without Baron Grimm,” Quelgrum replied. “We're without weapons, food, transport or money. The good merchants of Anjar won't just give us what we need, and I reckon we'd starve on the road; this isn't exactly a good hunting ground. On the other hand, perhaps Baron Grimm can magic us out of here."
****
Grimm turned towards Drex, staring into her large, beautiful eyes. “I want to find Thribble,” he said. “I hate to think of him imprisoned."
"Later, my love.” Drex leaned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him with an adoring expression. “I've missed you so much. Can't it wait? I'm sure he's happy where he is."
The young Questor felt his heart pounding, wanting to release his long-pent emotions more than anything… almost anything. He had expected a Drexelica enslaved by weeks of torture, ready to tear out his heart with her bare hands, and he had found, instead, a willing, compliant lover who craved his touch.
It's too good, he thought. This isn't the dreamy, drunken infatuation I felt for Madeleine, back in High Lodge. It's not the hungry lust for blood I felt at Yoren… but it still feels false. What in Perdition is wrong here?
He looked down again into Drex's pleading face, but he began to feel revulsion rather than love. This woman did not merely want to be with him; she wanted to possess him.
I don't know her, he thought, with a cold rush of realisation. It looks like Drex, it sounds like her, and it smells like her; but it's not her.
"I'm sorry, Drex,” he said. “I won't be able to sleep while Thribble remains in a cage. Can't we get him out before we… do anything else?"
"Is saving your little demon more important than spending time with me?” Drex demanded. “I thought you loved me."
She licked her lips and waggled her hips in a flirty gyration, looking less like Drex than ever. Without thinking, Grimm accessed his Mage Sight, but, as soon as he did so, he chided himself as a fool. In place of a normal, variegated field of colours, he saw only the impenetrable, immaculate white aura of a witch, as he should have expected.
He wanted Drex, his Drex, more than anything in the world, but this young woman seemed a mere caricature of the girl he loved.
She's been through a nightmare, he thought. I'd have to be a fool to think it wouldn't have changed her, but I just don't recognise her.
"Can't we do both?” he pleaded, trying to buy time. “Thribble's my friend. Come on, Drex, it wouldn't take long to release him."
"I'm beginning to think you don't-"
She cut off her words at the appearance of a woman Grimm recognised as Sister Kellen, one of the Anointed Score; one of the nuns who had abused him.
While Kellen was still at the end of the long corridor, Drex turned to him and said, “This won't take long,” she said, proffering another dazzling smile. “Excuse me for a moment."
She looks like her feet are on fire, Grimm thought, as the image of his beloved hurried to meet the nun. What's so urgent?
He thought for a moment that Kellen stumbled when Drex approached her, but he realised it was an aborted curtsey. Even his sensitive ears could not make out the two women's conversation, but there was no mistaking the older nun's deferent pose and Drexelica's domineering attitude.
He heard but a few disjointed phrases: “No, absolutely not… “; “…he insists…"; “Must I repeat… some excuse… succumbed to the disease. Get…” However, there was no mistaking the authoritarian tone of Drex's voice.
Grimm saw her flick a nervous glance at him, and he made a show of looking at his feet, at the ceiling and into the cell, as if unconcerned. Nonetheless, his suspicions strengthened; somehow, the spirit of Lizaveta must have entered Drex's body.
She couldn't beat me through torture, or through the false emotions she flung at me, so she's trying to use my love for Drex now. I'll bet that after a night in bed with me, she reckons I'll be eating out of her hand.
He felt a moment of cold horror at the thought of having kissed the Prioress, when he thought he had kissed Drex, but he determined that he would go no further than that, regardless of her blandishments. As he inspected his nails, he saw an approaching shadow, and he looked up to see her returning down the corridor, alone.
"Is everything all right, Drex?” he asked innocently. “Was Sister Kellen giving you any trouble?"
"No trouble at all, Grimm,” she said, smiling. “She wanted to apologise for treating me so badly. Since the Prioress’ spell ended with her death, Kellen has lived in shame, and she only wanted to expiate it. I was a little angry with her at first, but I forgave her.
"Now; where were we? I believe we were discussing a little night-time entertainment."
Her tone was intense, almost desperate, and Grimm nodded.
She's lost her powers, he thought. This Priory was Lizaveta's source of energy, her main sphere of influence, and she's trying to re-establish the link from within an unfamiliar body. She wants to gain control over me first, and she thinks sex is the best way to do it. Lizaveta told me so many times that this would be where it would end: with me loving her, desiring her…
His heart began to pound. Is my Drex still in there? Has Lizaveta, somehow, thrown out her spirit?
If she's killed Drex, then so much the worse for her! Whatever my true worth, I am a Guild Questor of the Seventh Rank, and I will honour my destiny! Who is Lizaveta to oppose me?
"What do you want?” he demanded, his voice as cold and hard as a flint. “Shall we dance here?"
"If you want,” the image of Drex said. “I'd prefer somewhere more private, but-"
"Shall we perform in front of Sister Judan? Perhaps you'd prefer it in the Main Hall?"
"What is the matter with you, Grimm?” she cried. “I just wanted-"
"You wanted my soul, Lizaveta!” Grimm felt the hot blood pounding in his head and his chest. “You wanted to take possession of more than my body; don't bother to deny it. I hate you, and I will destroy you!"
Almost in a trance, he raised his right hand and spat out the nonsense phrase, “Ap'shgat'oye'madas!"
A green stream of sheer hatred exploded from his hand, hammering the stone roof over his head, showering the corridor with tiny, pale motes. A red-glowing, wagon-sized hole in the ceiling showed the hall above, with the confused faces of several frightened nuns peering through it.