"And what happens now?" Toby asked, mouth suddenly dry.
The baron came around the table carrying the candlesticks. He placed them on the floor near Toby's feet, not looking at him. "I am going to exorcize the hob. But at the same time, I will exorcize you also." He peered up at the prisoner's face, perhaps hoping to see some appropriate signs of terror. "Ingenious, isn't it?" Chuckling, the hexer minced back to the table. "You and the hob go into the amethyst, and the soul of Nevil goes into you. When Vespianaso puts his thugs to work, they will be tormenting the wrong man!"
"So it will be Nevil who gets tortured?"
"My master finds the idea amusing."
Toby clenched his teeth and said nothing.
Oreste shrugged. "It was Rhym's idea, not mine. Nevil is a danger, so Nevil must die. This we all know. Of course I shall hex him so that he cannot reveal the great secret he alone knows, the name to conjure Rhym. He may scream all he wants that he is the rightful king of England and not Toby Longdirk, but the tormentors will not believe him. He will have to scream at them in Latin, as he knows no Spanish tongues. Rhym finds this prospect entertaining."
"What happens to me?"
The baron picked up the carved ivory casket and stroked it lovingly. "You become immortal. You and the hob will be one. Together you will make a wonderful demon."
"Don't you torture spirits to make them into demons?"
The baron shrugged regretfully. "This is true. But the worst part of torture is not the pain, dear boy, it is seeing yourself being ruined, joint by joint, muscle by muscle. It is knowing that life will never be as good again, and that you cannot grow back missing eyes or charred flesh. That doesn't apply to an immortal. A little suffering and you will learn to serve me." He laid the casket down and stared at Toby appraisingly. "Don't worry about the gramarye failing, as Valda's failed. I borrowed a couple of convicts from the city jail to practice on. I sent them home in each other's bodies, quite successfully."
"You promised I would not suffer!"
"A trivial untruth. I was being kind."
"It will be my body they are disassembling. I should prefer to remain and die with it."
"You have no option." Oreste opened the ivory casket and took out the leather locket. "It is the penalty of your own success, Tobias. Had I managed to catch you myself, then I would have spared you... spared your life, that is, not your will. You would have been useful as a man, too. But what you achieved at Tortosa was so extraordinary that you frightened the Black Friars out of their robes. From Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, the Inquisition was screaming for your carcass. When I saw that there was no way I could keep them away from you, I reported the problem to his Majesty, and he thought up this procedure. It is certainly ingenious."
"If the Inquisition finds out about the substitution, then Nevil will live!" Argument was useless, of course, but he could not submit to such an abomination without protest.
"The Inquisition will not find out. The inquisitors will dismiss Nevil's complaints as more evidence of his demon's cunning. Even if I told Father Vespianaso myself, he would not stop now. They are always so convinced that they are right that they accept their own conclusions as infallible evidence. So Nevil goes into you and you go into the—"
The stone he was holding was a smooth black pebble, nothing like an amethyst. He looked up at Toby, but Toby could only stare. What? Who?
"How did you do that?" the baron screamed.
"Do what, your Excellency?" There could be small pleasures, even in a torture chamber.
"Diaz swore he saw the amethyst and put it in this casket! No power could have touched it in there, not even Montserrat itself. You! The hob?"
"I didn't! I don't control the hob. Montserrat had it warded last night, and you have it warded now, don't you?" Absurdly, Toby was suddenly more frightened than he had been by anything that had happened yet. Oreste was far more dangerous than the Inquisition. Oreste could make him suffer forever.
"I will have the truth, Longdirk!" The baron bared his teeth in fury.
Or in fear? He had obtained the soul of Nevil at last and then lost it again, and Rhym the Fiend was going to be very, very mad about that.
"I will have the truth!" He raised his left hand to his mouth and turned in his dance. "Rigomage per nominem tuum igne et tempestate impero semper veritatem Tobias dicat. Now, Longdirk, tell me how you switched those stones!"
"I didn't."
"Did the hob? Can you control it, talk to it?"
Perhaps if he claimed... Before he could think of a likely lie, the truth spilled from his mouth. "I don't know if the hob did it. I can't control it. Only at Tortosa it seemed to follow my gestures. I talk to it, but I have never seen evidence that it hears me."
A friar stepped out from behind the closest pillar and spun around in a swirl of black robe, saying very rapidly: "Rigomage per nominem tuum igne et tempestate impero Orestes dormet." He took two quick steps to catch the falling baron, then lowered him gently to the floor, where he lay still and snored peacefully.
CHAPTER THREE
It had happened so fast that Toby just hung in his chains and gaped. He had apparently been saved from the baron and was now back in the power of the Inquisition, which was a very questionable improvement.
Or perhaps not, because the newcomer's all-black habit was that of a Benedictine monk, not a Dominican friar.
Certainly not, for then he straightened up and threw back his cowl, revealing not a tonsure but a mop of auburn locks. "Campeador?"
Spirits! "You are a most welcome sight, senor!"
Hopefully he was. Their last meeting had involved Toby's hurling him ignominiously into the mud. Apparently that was not going to be mentioned, for he twirled up the points of his mustache and grinned smugly.
"There is always a sense of satisfaction in lifting a siege." The don stepped over the prostrate baron and peered up at the prisoner's manacles. "You don't have the keys to those rusty things, do you?"
"You could use the demon. My Latin is equally rusty."
"Ah! Of course!" He went through the ritual again, this time commanding, "Tobias liberetur!"
The locks on Toby's wrists and ankles sprang open. He flopped down on the straw to catch his breath. Things were moving very speedily. "Thank you!" He chafed his hands, wincing as they began to throb.
"Thank Rigomagus, not me," the don said cheerily. " 'By fire and storm?' It must be a very minor demon to have such a terse conjuration, don't you think? An odd-job demon? Fortunate, that! If the invocation had been longer and I'd got it wrong, we might have been in serious trouble." He chuckled, being understandably very pleased with himself.
"How did you get here?"
"Just walked in. Oh, from Montserrat, you mean? Well, when I learned what had happened, Francisco and I marched into the basilica and told the tutelary that its decision had been wrong and its actions were unacceptable. It agreed at once and begged us to come and rescue you. When we get back you will be granted sanctuary. It sends its apologies."
Alas! For a few dazzling moments Toby had seen rainbows of hope in the clouds, but obviously the spirit had done nothing to untangle the caballero's wits. His story was all moonshine and dragon turds, because one thing a major tutelary would never do was reverse itself like that, and Montserrat had flatly told Toby it was infallible. He was not even out of the frying pan, let alone the fire, and the addle headed don had jumped right in beside him—a moving gesture, but a suicidal one.