With implacable efficiency, the ex-Sorcerer Royal went about his business.
And his business chilled Aubrey to the core. With a proficiency that would have impressed Professor Mansfield, Dr Tremaine roamed across dozens of ancient languages, some of which Aubrey knew, some he had knowledge of, and others that were totally alien to him, to create a dense, interwoven series of spells.
Each individual spell was fiendish in its length and complexity, but Tremaine seemed to be unaffected by the Principle of Cost – he didn't flag at all.
In addition, he regularly broke a cardinal rule of spell construction – he used a number of different languages within the same spell.
Under other circumstances, Aubrey would have been fascinated to watch a master at work. This eclectic, individual approach was a virtuoso display. He would have questioned, taken notes, and felt privileged to observe such craft.
Instead, he was trapped with a rapidly increasing feeling of alarm as each of Dr Tremaine's refinements made the pillar of flame grow, clawing upward with greedy fingers that boiled with power.
Dr Tremaine was attempting some sort of animating magic. It was like that which they'd encountered in the Roman shrine, but only in the same way that a kitten resembles a tiger. This was immeasurably more powerful, more complex, more wide-ranging. Apparently he'd had some success already, judging from the copper wire insects and Maggie's appalling condition.
The tower of cold fire was at the heart of Dr Tremaine's conjuring. He stoked it with spells and it grew with baleful splendour. Its power – the power of animation – was channelled outward through the pipes, wires and cables that speared into it.
And where does it go then? Aubrey thought, but he was already beginning to form conclusions – and none of them were joyous.
With a cry of exasperation, the sorcerer cut short his current spell. He whirled. 'You fool! Don't you know you're endangering the whole project by interrupting me!'
Aubrey started, even though he couldn't imagine how he'd interrupted. Flicking his gaze to either side, he could make out that Caroline and George were both still bound – but then he saw that someone was joining them.
A figure squirmed through a small gap between a twisted bundle of rusty chains and a red-painted steam pipe, head and shoulders emerging with much grunting. He was grimy and dishevelled, smeared with grease. His clothes, once fine and expensive, were a mess, and Aubrey saw with bleak satisfaction that he was wearing a red tie with a green suit and the combination clashed horribly.
The intruder's mouth fell open at the sight of the trapped Aubrey, Caroline and George. 'What are they doing here?'
'What does it look like, Rokeby-Taylor? Quantity surveying? Landscape painting?'
'You're not going to embed them?'
'Of course I'm going to embed them. Human consciousness is vital to animating my magnificent creation.' Dr Tremaine heaved a huge, theatrical sigh, then cocked an eyebrow at his captives. 'I really must get a better quality of henchman. But there's not a lot to choose from, these days, when it comes to toadies and traitors.'
Rokeby-Taylor heaved himself out of the latticework, but fell heavily. Picking himself up with awkward solemnity, he tried to straighten his clothes and brush off the mess but only made it worse. He shook his head and wiped his hands on his jacket. 'The tunneller has broken down again,' he said to Dr Tremaine, 'but I've finished the last connector.'
'And placed the vivifying wires?'
'I think so. If the infernal machine worked properly.'
'It's good to see you've done something right,' Dr Tremaine said absently. He flexed his shoulders and considered the cold flame. 'Especially seeing as the last thing you managed without cocking it up was concealing that thunderstorm spell at Count Brandt's little meeting.'
It was Caroline who succeeded in squeezing out a wordless cry of outrage. Aubrey simply felt despair. He'd been right in his first suspicions – Rokeby-Taylor had played a part in that atrocity. Why hadn't he listened to himself?
'I'll have you know,' Rokeby-Taylor said to Aubrey, Caroline and George, trying to regain some dignity, 'that I don't approve of this embedding.'
In his confining mesh, Aubrey sagged until the wire threatened to cut into his skin. He'd had his suspicions, but deep down he'd tried to convince himself it wasn't so. To see Rokeby-Taylor, the epitome of the Albion gentleman, in league with the foremost enemy of the land was a blow.
Dr Tremaine sneered at Rokeby-Taylor. 'You don't approve? I'll show them what you approved of without an instant's hesitation.'
He spat out a short spell. A section of the structure began to extrude itself from the meshwork, pushing out into the central vantage point. Pipes, wires, rails thrust forward, clanking and shunting, telescoping, growing while steam hissed around it. Sparks ran along its length, crackling with glee.
It was a cube, three or four yards on a side, connected by an arm that was composed of beams and pipes intertwined with the bright copper wire Aubrey had come to loathe.
It chuffed and ground its way toward the beckoning Dr Tremaine.
At that moment, in this nightmare world of intersections and junctions, Aubrey himself made a connection. He saw the city as a map, but a map of many levels, extending deep beneath the surface. Dr Tremaine had learned to animate the network that connected the underworld. Pipes, wires, rails, cables, canals all crisscrossing, interlinking and interweaving throughout the substrata of the city and Dr Tremaine was uniting them under his will. The animating power of the cold fire was permeating all Trinovant.
He began to tremble as his imagination supplied details. Dr Tremaine's reach wouldn't be confined to the realms beneath the city. Wires, pipes and drains penetrated every building in the modern city, joining them in an elaborate grid, a web with a malevolent genius at its centre.
Aubrey's heart raced – pointlessly, for he was unable to either fight or flee. He was worried that it would take matters into its own hands, burst from his chest and try to escape.
The cube continued to ratchet forward. The clanking made Aubrey wince; it sounded poorly constructed, metal grating on metal, but it continued its jerky movement with no sign of weakness. Finally, with the sound of clashing gears, it dropped to eye height.
'See?' Dr Tremaine poked at the cube with his cane. 'Mr Rokeby-Taylor was quite happy for poor urchins to be embedded. His righteousness didn't extend that far.' He stroked his chin. 'It's a pity the girl got away. I have no idea how she managed to tear herself free.'
Sickened, Aubrey gazed into the heart of the cube.
Maggie's Crew. A dozen small bodies were implanted in a dense mesh of copper wire. It was as if they were sprouting bizarre copper hair from all over, making it hard to see where the wire ended and their body began.
Even in the extremity of his own situation, Aubrey mourned for them. They didn't deserve what had happened to them. Life's victims, for a brief moment – with Maggie's help – it had looked as if they had hope, but they had ended up as dead as the other lost children on the streets of Albion.
A moan came from his left and he saw that Caroline had closed her eyes, trying to keep the horror away. George, on the other hand, was straining against the copper wire, a snarl coming from his tortured throat.