Heart of Gold

'How did you get into the embassy?' Aubrey asked.

Farentino started, as if he'd forgotten Aubrey were there. 'Sir Percy. I contacted him and offered a portrait session to mark the occasion of the ball. He even set me up in this room.'

Farentino went to one side, and was obscured from Aubrey's view by the bunching of the drapes. He came back with a large, ominous camera.

'Ah, Farentino,' Aubrey said. 'You've obviously done some fascinating work. I'd really like to discuss it with you.'

The Soul Stealer glanced at Aubrey but didn't reply. He placed the camera on the floor and then went back behind the drapes, returning this time with a heavy tripod.

'All your own devising, is it?' Aubrey said. 'Or did you have some help?'

Farentino busied himself with assembling the contraption. 'In the beginning, I had help from one of your countrymen. A great man.'

'An Albionite?'

'He said he was no longer welcome in Albion. He had great knowledge of magic.'

'Tall man, was he?' Dreadful suspicion prodded at Aubrey. 'Dark hair, eyes?'

Farentino straightened. 'Do you know him? He claimed he'd been Sorcerer Royal in your country, but I didn't believe him.'

Tremaine. Aubrey shook his head. Assisting someone like Farentino and then setting him loose was a typical Tremaine tactic, a backup to a major plan. Layer upon layer, Tremaine's scheming was like an onion.

Aubrey frowned. Combined with what von Stralick had revealed, this was important information. Tremaine was actively pursuing his aim of a continental war, with his usual strategy of working on many fronts at once. Aubrey had to get free and share this with the authorities. And to stop Farentino from turning me into a mindless husk, he thought. Mustn't forget that.

He strained, hoping he could stick out a leg and tip over the camera, damaging it somehow, but he was tied fast to the chair.

Farentino applied himself to seating the camera on the tripod. 'I have made some improvements on my methods,' he said. 'The flash powder.' He gestured to the box by his feet. 'I've enhanced it, magically. The process of capturing your soul will be less painful than formerly.'

'Less painful? Are you saying that as well as being an abomination, this process has been painful as well?'

Farentino didn't look up. He shrugged as he screwed a locking bracket into place. 'What is pain when an existence of unsullied purity is the result? It is a momentary thing to be passed through to achieve the greater good on the other side.'

'Farentino, I was wondering: did you ask all these people whether they wanted to have their souls taken away?'

Farentino straightened. He blinked, puzzled. 'Ask them? Why? How could they begin to understand what I was offering them? I am giving them a great gift, even though their lives are paltry and insignificant.'

Mad as a loon, Aubrey thought.

Farentino measured his flash powder onto his hod.

Aubrey took a desperate stab in the dark. 'It's death magic, isn't it, Farentino? That's what you've built into your photographic process.'

Farentino's hand jerked. Flash powder spilt onto the floor. 'Death magic?'

'You've done well, blending magic and chemical processes. How do you sever the golden cord that keeps body and soul together without the soul disappearing into the true death?'

'You know something of death magic?'

'Enough to know how dangerous it is. How did you protect your soul when you were messing about with it?'

'I . . .' As if in a dream, Farentino fumbled under his coat. He pulled out a small, glass photographic plate. 'My soul. It's here, safe. I trapped it there before I did anything. It hurt a little, but what is life but pain?'

Farentino stared at his soul plate, his expression one of desolation. 'I have little time left, which is why I must save as many souls as I can.'

This sounded more positive. 'You have little time left?'

Farentino held up the plate. 'My soul. It's fading. When it disappears from the plate, I am gone.'

An impractical process, and an imperfect one. Aubrey sighed. He'd hoped to learn something from Farentino's approach, something he could use to shore up his condition, but he now saw it was futile. It's a dead end, he thought. And I hope I live to share that pun with Bertie.

Farentino thrust the soul plate into a pocket. 'Enough. I will liberate your soul, then I will move on to the others in this place. One by one, I will capture the most important guests. Then, a group portrait of those remaining. It will be a triumph.'

Farentino stooped, took a measure of flash powder from the open box and shovelled it onto his metal shelf.

Aubrey saw his opportunity. Farentino hadn't closed the box of flash powder. Sloppy, he thought. It's attention to detail that trips us up in the end.

He called to mind the light spell he'd rehearsed. It was all he had at hand, and he called on his talent for improvisation. Light was a near cousin to heat. The light spell included a tamping element, limiting the heat produced, which was usually a desirable thing. Aubrey, however, inverted that variable, increasing the heat produced.

He snapped out the spell, casting its location at the box next to Farentino's feet.

Just as it flared, Aubrey tipped his chair backward, hoping that the seat would offer some protection. He heard the thump of an explosion and, even though he closed his eyes, the burst of white light went right through his lids. Heat scorched his exposed skin and he felt the tell-tale tingle of magic. He smelled the reek of flash powder and the sharper, more ominous smell of burning cloth and timber.

He opened his eyes to find the room full of dense white smoke. Small flames licked at wallpaper, while pieces of smoking drapery drifted through the air. He lay there, stunned. Flat on my back, tied to a chair, he thought, hacking each breath from a throat that felt as if it was packed full of soot. Not exactly a hero's death.

To his left, he heard a splintering noise.

'Aubrey!'

'George! Over here!'

George blundered through the smoke, squinting and flapping wildly. 'The room's on fire.' He applied himself to the ropes. 'I'll get you free.'

'Don't worry about that.' Aubrey coughed. 'Drag the whole damn chair out of here!'

The last thing Aubrey saw as George hauled the chair out of the burning room was, right where Farentino had been standing, a small pool of melted glass and brass right next to a pile of ash.

COMMOTION, UPROAR AND CONFUSION. DAZED AND SINGED, Aubrey was happy to sit back and choose which word described the situation that was going on around him. Someone had given him a glass of mineral water and he sipped at it, enjoying the soothing effect it had on his throat. From outside the door of the parlour, he could hear shouting, fire bells and running footsteps while the faint strains of the orchestra still drifted up from the ballroom. It was all very dramatic.