He shuddered. To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To a man with a pistol, every problem looks like a target. He understood, then, as he stood there with hostile parties descending on him, the allure of the firearm – and the way it often made things worse instead of better.
‘I’m armed,’ he said, making sure his hands were up above his head. ‘Make sure you take it. Left side, under my pullover.’
Better off without that temptation. Of course, it made the hostiles even more suspicious, and this only increased at the number of weapons they found on Caroline. George coughed up a few, and Aubrey was surprised to see that Sophie had nearly as many as Caroline, including a lethallooking stiletto.
Wrists bound, he was roped to the others. They were urged through the woods away from the factory, deeper into the countryside, along what turned into a small ravine before becoming a stream that cut well into the landscape. In the defile, it was eye-bafflingly black, but a few steps was all it took before Aubrey’s hair stood up on the back of his head.
‘Do not step in the water,’ came the hushed order.
Aubrey searched, but couldn’t see a thing, let alone water – but he could feel the heavy presence of malignant magic. It made his skin crawl with shapeless, unformed dread.
‘It’s too dark,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t see.’
A jerk on the rope stopped them short, with someone (Sophie?) colliding with his back. He was anxious about her, so he did his best to project steady, calm authority. Caroline and George were somewhat accustomed to danger and to plans taking unexpected turnings, but Sophie couldn’t have anticipated this. Although she was made from stern stuff, being waylaid by ominous strangers and dragged through mad magic couldn’t have been part of her outlook.
A small light the size of a bee appeared just ahead of them. Aubrey nearly whistled in admiration before he caught himself. He hadn’t felt a thing, and yet one of the nearby strangers – he could now see their shadowy shapes surrounding them – had summoned it to help their way. Deft, skilled magic.
The muck at the bottom of the gully gleamed in the soft beelight, but it gleamed with the unhealthiness that Aubrey associated with the eyes of cave-dwelling fish. It didn’t flow, either, at least not in the regular manner of water. It heaved and shivered, as though it couldn’t quite make up its mind if it were solid or fluid, but knew that it had to keep moving down the gradient. It stank, needless to say, but it was the rolling waves of magic that came off it that turned Aubrey’s stomach.
He turned to see that it was indeed Sophie directly behind him. Her eyes were wide, but she nodded gamely at him. He indicated the water with a nod and then a shake of his head, but he was sure that no-one in their right mind would step into that stuff if they had a choice.
The farmhouse they came to was only a mile or so from the factory, which loomed on top of what Aubrey saw now was a slight ridge and smoked and steamed away, sailing above its surrounds like an ocean liner ploughing through a sea of forest. He thought it looked ominous, and it brought to mind Dr Tremaine’s showy, threatening skyfleet.
He couldn’t contemplate this for long, however, as he was dragged through the doorway of the farmhouse.
He’d been expecting an abandoned ruin, such was the way his mind was working after the experiences of the night, so he was surprised to see it furnished with simple but comfortable fittings. They’d come in through the kitchen, which was warm thanks to the large iron stove taking up most of one wall. A round wooden table was surrounded by chairs. Cooking implements and utensils hung from racks suspended from the ceiling. It looked so much like an ordinary farm kitchen that Aubrey was automatically suspicious.
Then a well-concealed trapdoor in the floor banged back and Aubrey sighed. Basements. It’s always basements.
He rarely had good experiences underground. He recalled the incidents with the hydraulic railway (nearly drowned in a flood), the Bank of Albion vault (nearly killed by Dr Tremaine) and the buried Roman shrine (nearly crushed by malevolent magic). No, if he ever built a house, it wouldn’t have a basement. He’d build it on rock. Better still, it would be a tree house, totally detached from the ground.
This basement, at least, was dry. They were ordered to sit, bound, on the stone floor while the strangers dispersed, still mysterious, still silent apart from the one that Aubrey assumed was the leader. At least he was the one who spoke.
‘It is lucky we found you,’ he growled, his hands on his hips.
Aubrey looked around at the stone walls. ‘It depends on what you mean by luck.’
‘Yes?
‘Well, if you mean the sort of luck where strangers abduct you while you’re going about your business, then I suppose we’ve hit the jackpot. If you mean the sort of luck that actually has a good outcome, then I must beg to disagree.’
‘Enough,’ came another, rather familiar, voice. ‘It is him. I was not sure at first, but such nonsense shows it is him.’
One of the strangers unwound the scarf from her face. The white-blonde hair and large eyes were enough to make Aubrey stare – and to think they weren’t going to die. ‘Madame Zelinka. It’s good to see you.’
Twenty-three
All in all, Aubrey judged, it was much better falling in with Madame Zelinka’s Enlightened Ones than a patrol of Holmlanders. At least, that’s what he hoped, and he tried to remember if he’d offended or otherwise made an enemy out of her.
Aubrey, George and Caroline had encountered Madame Zelinka in Fisherberg. Her secretive order had been attempting to cope with malignant magical residue left behind after one of Dr Tremaine’s experiments. This was the ancient responsibility of the Order of Enlightened Ones, neutralising the accidental by-blows of magic before they festered and produced their own horrors. After Aubrey had managed to counteract a particularly nasty outbreak – one that had killed an Enlightened One – Madame Zelinka had disappeared abruptly.
His fears that he’d transgressed in some way were dispelled when, after a few awkward minutes, she shook her head. ‘Unbind them. They are harmless, but I want to know what they are doing here, interfering with our work.’
Aubrey saw Caroline bristle at being described at harmless, but she caught his look and subsided. ‘Much appreciated.’ He rubbed his wrists and stood. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’
Madame Zelinka smiled a little at that. A touch frosty, but definitely on the way to a thaw. ‘We will have tea. Katya.’
One of the Enlightened Ones detached herself from the silent onlookers and disappeared into the further reaches of the basement. Madame Zelinka gestured at the long table that took up much of the space in the basement and Aubrey sensed a shifting in the tension in the air. When they were sitting down, it wasn’t frosty any more. Not quite warm, but it was approaching mild.
While mugs were distributed, the other Enlightened Ones shed coats and scarves. Aubrey introduced Sophie to Madame Zelinka, but he was careful to scan the range of faces that were intent on him and his companions.
The even dozen of Enlightened Ones were of all sorts, a multiplicity of nationalities that Aubrey had only seen hints of at great academic seminars or symposia. Madame Zelinka came from somewhere east of the Continent, one of the shifting regions in dispute with Muscovia. The silent man on her left had the aquiline features and shockingly white hair that announced his origins were north of Muscovia, in Zeme, the land of lakes and forests. In the others, he saw men and women from the far Orient, from either side of the African continent, from the islands of the Great Ocean, and from the heights of the Andean mountains. These last spoke a clipped language that intrigued Aubrey and he wished he could listen to it more carefully. It was accompanied by much hand-waving and he assumed it was designed to facilitate communication between those not sharing a common language.