Dragging a fine copper wire behind it.
Horrified, Aubrey jerked his head back as another insect hummed past his eyes. It curved around and he was dismayed to see that it, too, was trailing a fine copper wire.
Another crashed into a steel cable near Aubrey's hand. He stared at it, but couldn't make out where the insect ended and the wire began. The insect was an extension of the wire or the wire was an extension of the insect.
And it doesn't matter! he thought frantically. He tried to assemble the beginnings of a spell – any spell – but the copper insects had found him. They bombarded him, scores of them, stinging his back and legs with bruising force.
The gap in the structure beckoned. Perhaps if he reached it . . .
The hail of insects kept on, wave after angry wave, battering at him with brutal, senseless ferocity. Aubrey put his head down and crawled.
Then a wire snaked around his ankle.
He pulled loose, but another snagged at his wrist. Desperately, he jerked his head around to find that the insects were crawling over his legs, scuttling along pipes, looping their trailing wires around his body and limbs.
Aubrey thrashed, trying to free himself from the insistence of the wire, not caring if his struggles took him to the edge of the lattice. Revulsion seized him as he realised that this is what must have happened to Maggie and his skin shrank from the evil attention of the creatures.
This gave him renewed energy. He threw himself from side to side, ignoring the bright pain that came when he struck elbows and knees on pipes and chains. He cracked his head with enough force to make his teeth snap together. Stars jumped in front of his eyes, but he couldn't throw off loop after loop of copper wire that kept coming. He tucked in his chin, fearing he'd be strangled.
While he struggled he heard a steady stream of oaths and shouts from George, who seemed to be trying to keep the insects off by power of voice. Aubrey was appalled to hear his friend's shouts growing angrier and angrier, until they became wordless, strangled growling.
At the same time, he heard more pistol shots from nearby. When he rolled to avoid a squad of manic insects descending on his throat, he saw Caroline springing across the framework like a gymnast. One-handed, she swung on an upright and blasted three quick shots that seemed to have some effect on the swarm of insects gathering around her. Even in his difficulties, Aubrey had time to be astonished at her marksmanship, but he groaned to see the pistol plucked from her hand and a blanket of copper wire swirling around her.
Then he had troubles enough of his own. The insects descended like the Furies. He tried to raise a hand to protect his face but found that his left arm was pinned by his side. His right arm had been trapped diagonally across his body. His legs were wrapped together. Unable to move an inch, he snapped his jaws, trying to bite at the insects as they scuttled across his face.
Finally, he was immobilised. He couldn't even attempt a spell – the wires criss-crossed his face, making clear speech impossible.
With the sort of calm deliberation that comes after horror has become too much, he wondered when they would start to penetrate his skin.
A painful clanking sound echoed through the pipes Aubrey was lying on, as if a giant gear had just slipped a cog. It rattled his teeth. Then it was a series of chuffing, pounding thumps, one after the other, like giant footsteps.
Steam washed over Aubrey and he gagged at the hot, oily smell.
A voice cut through the cloud. 'Ah, Fitzwilliam and friends. Just in time.'
Aubrey threw off the heavy hand of dread and decided that bravado was all he had left. He strained until he had some slack in the wires over his jaw. 'Give up, Tremaine,' he slurred. 'It's all over.'
Dr Tremaine loomed into view, stepping off a platform that hadn't been there a moment ago. He was dressed in a green jacket that was so dark it was almost black and he carried a familiar cane. He crouched and studied Aubrey's copper-wrapped face.
'Fitzwilliam, you overrate your comedic talents.' Tremaine plucked at one of the copper wires. It snapped against Aubrey's cheek, but he'd steeled himself. He didn't want to give Tremaine the pleasure of seeing him flinch. 'Now, let's descend to the anastomosis.'
Aubrey couldn't help himself. 'Anastomosis?' he asked mushily.
For once, Dr Tremaine showed irritation. 'Juncture. Nexus. Chiasma. Confluence.' He snorted. 'Never mind. You'll see. It might be the last thing you'll see, but you'll see.'
He clicked his fingers. A copper insect appeared. It hurried backward and forward, tightening copper wire over Aubrey's face until he was well and truly speechless.
Twenty-three
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GAP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE invigorated framework was a circular walkway. It ran around the edge of a pit, some twenty feet or so across.
It was the pit that held Aubrey's appalled attention. From it grew the leaping, mounting pillar of magical fire – cold fire, raw magic on the verge of being shaped into something terrible. This was the focus, the origin of the waves of magic that were rolling through the latticework. Erratically, it sloughed off magical power that Aubrey felt as if it were handfuls of hail.
From his vantage point, Aubrey could see the pipes, wires, chains and beams funnelling into the flame. They weren't consumed; they were channelling the awesome power of the flame outward, radiating through the latticework. They tightened, clanking or trembling as the magic pulsed.
And then? Aubrey thought and dread seized his innards in an icy grip.
Stalking along the walkway, attention on the magical flame, ignoring his captives, was Dr Tremaine.
Aubrey, Caroline and George were each enmeshed in copper webs, pinned against upright pipes. Aubrey could move his head only fractions of an inch, but it was enough to see his friends. In the flickering light, he could make out the strain in their faces as they struggled with their bonds. To make his situation worse, the conduits running behind Aubrey's shoulderblades throbbed and pulsed with malignant regularity, jarring his teeth and shaking his vision.
Aubrey had been in better positions. In fact, he decided that every other part of his life was rather better than where he found himself right now.
Dr Tremaine's angry pacing took him along the walkway directly in front of Aubrey and his friends, only a few yards away. He looked deep in thought, but reserved, as if this was an ordinary magical laboratory and he a comfortable don. He occasionally paused and contemplated the magnificence of the pillar of cold flame, rubbing his chin and frowning before uttering sharp, coarse spells. After each, the pillar of flame would change – growing, twisting, writhing in an agony of growth – and Aubrey would feel magic sleeting from it in indiscriminate bursts of power. The latticework around them groaned and shook like the rigging of a ship in a storm.
He managed to make a noise – a hurtful grunt – and Dr Tremaine glanced at him. 'Don't worry. Your time will come very, very soon.'