‘You know them?’
‘Ghost hunters know much.’
Which wasn’t an answer, but Aubrey let it go. ‘You don’t think it’s a problem?’
Fromm spat on the ground again. ‘Could be. Can’t you feel it?’
Aubrey glanced at him. Fromm looked back placidly. Aubrey shrugged, closed his eyes, and extended his magical awareness.
It struck him like a gravel flung in a gale, a sharp, painful spattering of loose magic. He winced, but concentrated on making sense of the sensation.
It was wild, unshaped by a restraining spell. It roared like an out-of-control fire in a forest. Assaulted by a jumble of sensation, Aubrey reeled. He heard harsh, bitter tastes, while he smelled blinding white light that rippled and shifted. He bit down on roughness like sandpaper in his mouth and nearly gagged.
He opened his eyes. Caroline and George were both frowning at him. ‘It’s in the basement. And it’s growing. We have to stop it.’
Aubrey had felt something like it before, and that knowledge gave him no pleasure. Some aspects of the magic’s wildness were like the raw flame of power that Dr Tremaine had built in tunnels under Trinovant in his effort to destroy the city. This magic, however, was even more unformed. It was as if a brew of noxious chemicals had seeped into a swamp, combining to create something hideous. The soul fragmentation was its work of the moment, but who knew what it could give rise to if it was allowed to grow?
‘I have to go down there,’ Aubrey said. ‘Dr Tremaine has left spell residue to fester and it’s getting stronger.’
‘Merikanto was trying to stifle it with our usual methods,’ Madame Zelinka said. ‘He was afraid, because it was stronger and stranger than anything we’d ever encountered before, but he tried anyway. We had no magic suppressors,’ she added and her eyes were accusatory.
‘I’ve had some experience with its likes,’ Aubrey said, remembering the spell he’d used to quell Dr Tremaine’s wild magic in the tunnels underneath Trinovant.
‘And you think you can do something about it?’ Madame Zelinka said.
‘I can try.’
‘Good.’ She studied him carefully, her dark eyes intent on his face. ‘I’m glad you’re not a weapons merchant after all.’
‘Ah?’
‘I deal with them because I must. They all have had their hearts removed and replaced with stones.’
‘Oh.’ Aubrey blinked, and took a deep breath. Madame Zelinka’s concentrated attention was forceful, to say the least. ‘What’s the best way down to the basement?’
Caroline took his arm. ‘Is this a good idea?’ She let his arm drop and looked abashed. ‘I mean, couldn’t you wait for help?’
Madame Zelinka shook her head. ‘I have no-one else to call on, not in Holmland.’
Aubrey was heartened by Caroline’s concern. He tried to tell himself that it was the simple feeling that she would have for anyone about to risk his life, but another part of him couldn’t help but see something else in it. ‘It’s getting worse. Something needs to be done now.’
‘And you think you’re the one to do it,’ she said.
‘I tend to, I know. Sometimes I’m right.’
‘And that’s the extraordinary thing,’ Caroline said. She turned away. ‘Very well. I’ll leave you to it and go and help George and Hugo.’
‘What?’ Had she called him extraordinary? ‘What are they up to?’
‘They’re helping Fromm. He’s on the trail of the ghost.’
Twenty-four
The basement was on the eastern side of the house where the floor had given way, leaving it open to the sky. Aubrey crept gingerly around the gap, looking down, and he could see the remains of stone walls and pillars. He counted three arched openings that dived into the blackness beyond and he studied them grimly.
The others were busy with Fromm and Madame Zelinka. He felt a pang, for he did appreciate having George’s steadiness with him in a tricky situation. And, all things said and done, he would rather be with Caroline than not.
Even though he hadn’t truly extended his magical awareness, he could feel the power pouring from below. It pulsed irregularly, raw and chaotic, and it set his teeth on edge. The fate of poor Merikanto was testimony to its power; Aubrey didn’t want to put Caroline and George in such danger.
He, on the other hand, was feeling prepared. The Beccaria Cage was a wonderful asset in any soul-risking situation. After a shaky start, it had proved its worth. Since he’d freed it from Dr Tremaine’s influence, he’d suffered none of his accustomed debilitation from his disrupted soul. He’d had no episodes requiring expenditure of will and effort to keep his soul united with his body, efforts that, in the past, had left him sapped of energy.
It was what he’d been striving for ever since his stupid experiment with death magic. Whole, united, much as people were meant to be – and feeling strong enough to risk it against rogue magic that was capable of shattering souls into fragments.
Foolhardy? Reckless? Imprudent? He shook his head and spied a stairway leading downward. He approached it with care.
He knew he had to test himself. He couldn’t sit at home, avoiding all danger. He had to know his capabilities, for he had plans. His future depended on knowing how much he could achieve and how far he could extend himself.
The stairs hadn’t been damaged by the fire. Cracked by falling beams, they were treacherous but not impossible. Aubrey started down, leaning into the buffets of magic coming from the depths.
He heard someone above, calling his name, but he needed to concentrate in the swirls of magic. He ignored it and pressed on.
The basement was a wasteland, the place where most of the house ended up after the fire. The debris would take an army to clear, but Aubrey thought he could see a way through. Keeping close to the wall, he squeezed between fallen beams and splintered, charred flooring, moving with delicate care over broken furniture, window frames, and – most painfully for Aubrey – the scorched, ruined corpses of hundreds of books. Aubrey hated to see books mistreated, and the loss of whatever library Dr Tremaine had assembled hurt him deeply.
He tested each footfall before committing, never resting his weight against anything other than the stone wall, and ignoring the way his heart hammered as he approached the arched openings.
Then the wooden floor gave way beneath him.
Aubrey flung out his arms, clutching for a handhold, but found nothing. He fell, and did his best to twist and protect his head. Before he could utter a sound he struck the floor shoulder first, and he went tumbling, skinning the heel of his hands on rough stone.
For a moment, half-stunned, he sprawled there, doing his best to remember how to breathe while raw, wild magic rolled over him like storm-driven breakers.
He flinched, grunting as the jumbled, chaotic confusion of magic pounded him. It was like being pelted with wads of clay – as long as the clay was imbued with colours (reds, browns and something that was a nauseating off-white) and smells (a dizzying mash of industrial smells and the sickening, cloying smell of boiling sugar mixed up with faint hints of things barely smelled – glass, stone, snow).
He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of the shifting mess of magic, but the rawness played havoc with his magical senses. It grated on him, and he immediately had a headache the size of a football.
Grimly, Aubrey sifted through this torrent of sensation, looking for its origin. He wasn’t surprised when he found, at the core of it, a trace of tightly constructed magic that could only be the work of Dr Tremaine.
He grunted as a shift in the welter of magic made him dizzy for a moment, then he concentrated on examining the remnants of Tremaine’s spellcraft.
Clearly, it was an experimental spell gone wrong, and was probably what had brought the house down. Aubrey probed a little more, tasting the elements of the spell, and was sure that the spell had something to do with the making of golems.