The Death Of The Necromancer - The Death Of The Necromancer Part 23
Library

The Death Of The Necromancer Part 23

Nicholas's jaw hardened. "It also means the plan for Montesq is over."

Madeline stared at him, startled. "I'd forgotten it. With everything ... I can't believe I forgot about it."

She shook her head, disturbed. "But we can't just let that go. Perhaps-"

It was Nicholas's turn to look away. That it all still meant something to Madeline was a relief but he wouldn't show it. "We can't continue with the plan. Ronsarde would know and that would destroy the whole point of it."

Madeline paced the cold tile floor, coming up with several objections which she started to voice and then reconsidered. Finally she stopped, hands on hips, and said, "So that's it. We're letting Montesq get away with it?"

Not necessarily, Nicholas thought. He would have to kill Montesq himself. It lacked the elegance of allowing the state to execute the Count for a crime he hadn't committed, but it would be accomplishing the same end, even if Nicholas himself didn't survive it. He said, "For all practical purposes."

Madeline did him the courtesy of looking worried instead of skeptical. She said, "Donatien would kill Ronsarde."

Nicholas pushed away from the counter. "You're the one who gets lost in your roles, my dear.

Besides, Donatien isn't in charge anymore, I am."

"That's supposed to reassure me?"

Nicholas had no answer for that so he pretended not to hear her and went down the hall to stand in the open doorway of the salon. The lamps had been lit and Crack had gotten a fire started in the hearth, dissipating the cold dampness and making the room almost livable.

The dust covers had been pulled away from the broad divan and Doctor Halle was trying to tend to Ronsarde, who was fending him off with acerbic comments about physicians who thought their services indispensable; Halle deflected the sarcasm with the air of long practice and continued treating the Inspector's injuries. Reynard was leaning against the mantel, watching them. Nicholas waited until Halle had finished and was repacking the contents of his medical bag, then caught Reynard's eye. "I'd like a word alone with the Inspector, please."

"Of course," Reynard said easily, gesturing for Doctor Halle to proceed him out. Halle went but his face was guarded; Reynard was worried too, though only someone who knew him well would have been able to discern it. Nicholas smiled bleakly to himself. So Reynard was uneasy about what attitude Nicholas would take to their new allies as well.

The only person who didn't appear uneasy was Ronsarde himself, who was smiling expectantly at him as Nicholas closed the door behind Reynard and Halle.

Ronsarde was still pale and had a swollen eye and a darkening bruise on his jaw, but with the wound in his forehead stitched and the dried blood cleaned away, he looked considerably better. He said, "You were saying?"

Nicholas hesitated, but couldn't for the life of him think what Ronsarde meant. "Excuse me?""About the sorcerer who is so intimately involved in this affair. We are still pooling our resources?"

Ronsarde was continuing the conversation begun when they had first taken refuge in the prison, as if all the intervening struggles hadn't taken place, or had meant nothing. Well, perhaps they hadn't.

Nicholas said, "I was saying that it is very possible he believes himself to be Constant Macob. But you already knew that."

Ronsarde shook his head. "Young man-"

Nicholas fought a flash of annoyance and lost. "You know my name, sir, don't pretend otherwise."

This was no time for masquerades.

"Valiarde, then." But the Inspector said nothing for a moment, only watched Nicholas thoughtfully. "I had heard you meant to become a physician," he said finally.

"Events conspired against me." Nicholas moved to the window, lifting the musty damask curtain just enough to give him a view of the street. "I recognized you that night at Gabrill House, though I don't think you recognized me."

"No, I did not," Ronsarde admitted. "I thought your voice familiar, but it had been too long since we last spoke."

"Since the trial, you mean." Ten years, eight months, fourteen days. Nicholas performed the calculation automatically. "You must have recognized the sphere."

"Yes, that I knew only too well. I would have come to you eventually, if you had not come to me, so to speak." Ronsarde hesitated, then said, "Count Rive Montesq has had such a run of poor luck since that time, hasn't he?"

Nicholas dropped the curtain and turned slowly to face the older man, leaning back to sit on the windowsill and folding his arms. Ronsarde's expression was merely curious, that was all. Nicholas smiled and said, "Has he really?"

"Oh, yes. He has had several large losses of funds and property in the last few years. Not enough to bankrupt him, of course, but enough to seriously inconvenience. And then there have been the losses among his staff. One of his chief financiers, a solicitor, and two personal servants, all vanished without a trace."

"How terrible," Nicholas commented. He was glad at least that Ronsarde didn't know everything; Montesq had suffered more losses than that. "But then perhaps it's simply a visitation by Fate."

"Perhaps." Ronsarde shrugged, then winced as if the motion pained him. "If I didn't know that the solicitor was a blackmailer of the worse stripe, who had ruined a number of individuals and provoked the suicide of at least one victim, that the financier was his ally in that enterprise, and that the two servants had second careers as thugs and extortionists, I might have been moved to do something about it. But somehow I never quite found the time."

And am I expected to thank you for that? Nicholas thought. He looked away. This cat and mouse game was not particularly to his liking, even though they both seemed to be taking the role of the cat.

"Why were you watching Doctor Octave that night?"

Ronsarde accepted the change in subject gracefully. "Several weeks ago a lady came to me for my assistance in a matter concerning Doctor Octave. Her mother was paying him to hold circles for her and produce various deceased relatives on command. As you might expect, the family was quite wealthy. I began to investigate the good doctor, but could prove nothing definite. He was very careful." Ronsarde stared into the middle distance, a rueful anger in his expression. "I realize now he was warned against me by this sorcerer whose necromantic activities he evidently supports. Sorcery gives the criminal an unfair advantage.""There are ways to even the balance," Nicholas said, his voice dry.

Ronsarde's quick smile flickered and the good humor returned to his eyes. "I imagine you are quite familiar with them. But to continue, I managed to help the lady convince her mother to leave the dead in peace, but I still pursued Octave. I discovered that Lady Everset would be hosting a circle and that in all probability it would be held in her garden. This was the first opportunity I had had to observe a circle at close range, when Octave had no knowledge that I would be present."

"That's why I was there, too," Nicholas said, without thinking, and then grimaced and reminded himself not to say too much. All these years of caution and concealment and here he was talking to Ronsarde as if he were as close a colleague as Madeline or Reynard. Being hunted by mad sorcerers and ghouls had obviously unhinged him. "You didn't realize he was connected with the disappearances."

It was Ronsarde's turn to look uncomfortable. He tugged the blanket more closely around him with a short angry jerk. "No, I did not," he said. "Halle had examined the three bodies that had been recovered at various times from the river and he drew my attention to the lichen. It is a variety that flourishes in the presence of magic. That, and the style of the injuries made before death caused me to believe someone was imprisoning these individuals and killing them in the course of necromantic magics. I noted the similarities to the murders of Constant Macob, committed two centuries ago."

Nicholas frowned in annoyance. He hadn't noted it, not until the scene in the cellar of Valent House, when it had become obvious. The Executions of Rogere, the book Doctor Uberque had lent him, had been even more illuminating. One of the methods Macob had used to lure his victims was to poison them with an herbal mixture that caused symptoms anywhere from mild confusion all the way to unreasoning terror. How he had gotten his victims to ingest it was a mystery to the writer of the account, though Nicholas wondered if the stuff might be so potent it could be absorbed through the skin. It explained the confusion and odd behavior of Jeal Meule, as described by the penny sheet The Review of the Day, and why her neighbors had been unable to convince her to go home before her second disappearance. She must have escaped her captor at some point but the poison had clouded her mind and kept her helpless, until he had been able to collect her again. Nicholas asked Ronsarde, "Why did it suggest Macob so readily?"

"Macob's crimes and his trial were well documented for the time and give much vital information regarding the mind of a man bent on mutilation and mass murder. I'd read the history of it before, but I found it especially useful three years ago in the case of the Viscount of March-Bannot, who was-"

"Cutting people's heads off and throwing them in the river. Yes, I vaguely recall it."

"Octave and his associates made the mistake of disposing of one body under the bridge at Alter Point and not into the river itself. The presence of the lichen marked it as part of the same case and not one of the many other unfortunates who are found dead every day in Vienne. Mud adhering to the pants legs indicated the edge of Riverside where it bordered on the Gabardin."

"Yes, I found Valent House as well."

"Before I did." Ronsarde smiled faintly. "Octave was frequently seen near the place, by a person who is at times my informant, who recognized the good doctor after he had been described to him." His expression turned pensive. "After the circle at Gabrill House I knew someone else had Octave under observation. When I discovered Valent House two days ago it also became apparent that someone else had discovered it first. The signs that my quarry had left in haste and that his lair had been thoroughly searched were unmistakable. I wasn't certain if I had a second opponent, but I knew that Octave did."

Nicholas didn't comment. It had been so very close. Ronsarde had been one step behind him, at the most. He said, "Surely you weren't arrested for breaking into Valent House."

"Oh, no," Ronsarde said, gesturing dismissively. "I was arrested for breaking into Mondollot House."Yes, exactly. Nicholas kept his elation in check; there were still too many questions unanswered.

"You wanted to look at a small sealed room in one of the subcellars. If you got that far, you found it empty, but there were signs it had not been unoccupied for long."

"Yes." Ronsarde was watching him as intently as if Nicholas were a suspect he was questioning. "In actuality the chamber belongs to Ventarin House, destroyed years ago when Ducal Court Street was cut through. I realized Octave had an interest in the Ventarins during the first circle I watched. The family whose deceased relatives he was currently interfering with had been a distant connection of the Ventarins, virtually the only people left in the city of any relation to them whatsoever. Octave questioned their dead on the old Ventarm Great House's location and its cellars. I believed at the time that he was only after hidden family plate or other trinkets. It wasn't until I made the connection with Macob that the facts took on a more sinister tone."

"Yes, two centuries ago Gabard Ventarin was King Rogere's Court Sorcerer and presided at Constant Macob's execution," Nicholas said. "Do you know what was there, in the large box that was removed from the chamber?"

"I have no idea," Ronsarde admitted. He shook his head after a moment. "We could draw the conclusion that this sorcerer, who seems to believe himself a reincarnation of the Necromancer Macob, had some reason to believe there were relics of his idol stored in the chamber and wished to retrieve them."

"We could draw that conclusion," Nicholas said reluctantly, "but we might also wonder why relics of a famous criminal were buried deep inside a sealed room beneath a powerful sorcerer's home, and not on display somewhere."

"It isn't encouraging," Ronsarde agreed. "Whatever it was, Ventarin seems to have felt that it needed to be concealed and guarded. And we must assume our sorcerer opponent has had it since. . . ."

"Four days ago," Nicholas supplied.

Ronsarde gazed curiously at him. "How did you discover the chamber?"

"It was how I and my associates became embroiled in all this," Nicholas said, evasively. "Through an entirely coincidental. . . occurrence." He was not going to tell Ronsarde he and Octave had both decided to rob Mondollot House on the same night. "Octave believed I had been to the room before him and removed something. Oddly enough, I hadn't. The room was empty when I entered it. Octave wanted to question the late Duke of Mondollot, I assume to ascertain if he discovered the room before his death and removed some part of the contents, but the Duchess refused to cooperate with him." Nicholas hesitated. "Why did you break into Mondollot House? Wouldn't the Duchess have given you access if you had asked?" After she hid anything linking her to Bisran trading concerns, of course.

"Possibly. After discovering Valent House I realized how very dangerous my opponents were and also, how very influential their friends." Ronsarde's expression was grimly amused. "It was intimated to me by my superiors, and I use the term lightly, that I just de-emphasize my investigation. To avoid panic, you see."

"Ah," Nicholas breathed. De-emphasize an investigation of multiple abductions and murders, to avoid panic. Yes, that sounds like the Vienne Prefecture. "Which brings us to Count Rive Montesq."

"Yes, he has been shown to have a pernicious influence on Lord Albier, who is currently acting head of the Prefecture." Ronsarde's gaze sharpened. "I am not surprised you knew that."

Careful, Nicholas reminded himself. Very, very careful. "My interest in Montesq is entirely academic," he said lightly.

"Of course. But all this aside, we must find this sorcerer, and to find him, we must question Octave."

Ronsarde let out his breath in annoyance. "Unfortunately, when I was arrested, I lost track of hiswhereabouts."

Nicholas smiled. "Fortunately, I haven't."

Nicholas pushed open the kitchen door to find the others all gathered there, most of them standing and staring at the floor as if they were attending a particularly dreary wake. "Are you all just standing about in here?" he demanded. "What's wrong with you?"

"Everything all right?" Reynard asked, with an uncharacteristic air of caution.

"Of course." Nicholas ran a hand through his hair impatiently. "Madeline, we need to consult you on makeup and clothing for disguises, and Crack, you'll need to fetch Devis, and Reynard-"

"We?" Halle interrupted, his expression cautious.

"Yes, we. What are you all staring at?" Before anyone could formulate an answer, Ronsarde pushed open the door behind Nicholas. He was leaning heavily on the wall, an expression of grim determination on his features. "I see no reason why I cannot accompany you," the Inspector said, almost peevishly.

"Disguised as what?" Nicholas asked him. "A cripple selling matches?"

"That would be ideal."

"Until you have to run away!"

"I could sit in the coach," Ronsarde persisted.

"What would be the point of that?" Nicholas asked, exasperated. It was like dealing with a less sensible version of Madeline.

"He's right," Halle said, coming forward to take Ronsarde's arm and urge him back down the hall toward the salon. "You need rest if you're to be of any help. You can't go running about the city. . . ."

Their voices continued, raised in argument, and Nicholas rubbed his hands together, his mind already on the task ahead. "I need to make a list. We're going to need Cusard for this, too." As he left the kitchen he heard Reynard's ironic comment, "Oh, good, now there's two of them."

After setting some of the wheels in motion and sending Crack for Cusard, Nicholas found the others gathered in the salon, looking at the sphere which was set atop a pillow on a small table. It looked like nothing more than an odd sort of curio or ornament. Nicholas leaned in the doorway and folded his arms.

"How does it work?" Halle asked, touching the metal with cautious curiosity.

Madeline looked over at Nicholas, who shifted a little uncomfortably, and said, "We don't know."

"You don't know?" Ronsarde echoed.

"Edouard left no instructions," Nicholas explained reluctantly. "None of the intact spheres ever reacted to anything at all, until this one transformed one of the gargoyles back into stone when it attacked Madeline. It was pure chance she had it with her at all. There are two others, but one appears to be dead and the other didn't react to the gargoyles."

"You did nothing to cause this one to act?" Ronsarde asked, with a hard stare at Madeline. "You felt nothing?"

"I did nothing," Madeline replied, faintly exasperated. "I felt quite a number of things-fear, anger, the desire to shriek with hysteria. I've felt those emotions before and never had magic spontaneously erupt."

She shook her head impatiently. "I have a small talent for witchery which I've never tried seriously to cultivate, but I've helped my grandmother with spells and I know what working one feels like. That thing acted all on its own account.""Madeline's grandmother is a witch of some repute," Nicholas said, smiling slightly at the understatement. "She's agreed to attempt to help us with our difficulties and will be arriving soon from Lodun." We hope, he added to himself.

"Is there no sorcerer currently in town whose opinion we could seek?" Ronsarde persisted. He added wryly, "There are some attached to the Prefecture but I can no longer command their assistance.

In fact they would be more likely to turn me in to the nearest constable at once."

Halle grunted agreement and Nicholas speculated that Ronsarde had made his opinions on sorcery known in no uncertain terms to the practitioners who worked for the Prefecture. "There is a sorcerer whose advice I would like to have. He was the one who helped Edouard construct this sphere," Nicholas admitted. "But he's badly ill, in a sort of paralysis."

"Arisilde Damal?" Ronsarde asked, brows lifting.

Nicholas nodded warily. He had forgotten how much Ronsarde had learned about Edouard's work during the Crown investigation and the trial.

"It was the opinion of many that he had left the country," Ronsarde said thoughtfully. "I was asked several times by persons at Lodun to locate him, but was always unsuccessful."

"That isn't surprising. If Arisilde didn't want to be found, it would be impossible to locate him even if you were standing in the same room."

"An unfortunate tendency of sorcerers," Ronsarde agreed., "He is ill?"

"Yes." Nicholas hesitated. "We thought at first it might have been caused by our opponent-it occurred at a rather inopportune moment."

Reynard snorted at the choice of words.

"But it's more likely the result of poor health and an opium addiction," Nicholas finished.

Halle cleared his throat. "Has he been attended? I could examine him. . . ."

Nicholas shook his head. "He's being seen by a Doctor Brile, who has already brought in other physicians to consult with. I don't think there's anything anyone can do."

There was a moment of silence, then Halle said quietly, "I know Doctor Brile. He's a very accomplished physician and your friend is in good hands."

Nicholas realized he had everyone's attention and that he must have betrayed more than he meant to.

He said, "But the point is there is no other sorcerer I will risk taking the sphere to." He looked down at the apparently innocuous device. "It's too unpredictable."

Fontainon House itself was unbreachable, at least without Arisilde's help, and there was simply no possibility of any of their group receiving last-minute invitations. Taking Octave at his hotel would have been the best solution, but they had little time to make arrangements and after a brief scouting mission Madeline reported that the prospects were not ideal. Octave seemed to realize his danger. He spent all his time either locked in his room or in one of the lounges surrounded by dozens of people.

The next best opportunity would have been late at night after the circle, when Octave was relaxed with his success and the other participants would be on the way home and the worse for the large quantities of wine and brandy consumed before and after the festivities. But for some reason he was not quite willing to articulate, even to himself, Nicholas felt it better not to allow Octave to perform the circle at all.

Madeline had questioned this in her usual fashion, during the long afternoon when Nicholas had beentrying to work out details and make contact with the more far-flung elements of his organization. "Why should you care what happens to the woman, just because she's a relative of the Queen? I thought you said once that Ile-Rien could go hang."

"It can still go hang for all I care," Nicholas had replied with some acerbity. "It might be just another one of Octave's confidence schemes, but if it isn't, I don't want to give this fool who thinks he's Macob another victory."