Demon Rider, page 30
Any faster and their march would have been a run.
Oreste scowled after them until the great door shut with a crash that echoed in waves around and around the crypt. When it had faded into silence, he raised his left hand to his mouth. “Rigomage per nominem tuum … “ He turned around to his right. “ … igne et tempestate impero … “ He turned to his left. “ … fiat lux.” And again to his left. At once the blocks of the barrel-vaulted ceiling began to glow with the pale gentle lavender light that Toby remembered from the vision, growing rapidly brighter until the entire crypt was clearly illuminated and he had to screw up his eyes until they could adjust to the glare.
The hexer was taking a risk, surely, in letting his victim hear the name of one of his demons? Did that mean that Toby would not live to repeat it to anyone, or just that Oreste knew he did not understand Latin? Oh, if only Hamish were there! He would have been able to tell the conjuration controlling the demon from the command it had been given. But if he were there he would undoubtedly be chained to the wall, too, and hence unable to perform the actions that were required by the ritual.
Oreste minced around the end of the table and peered up at his captive with a plump smile. “I am, of course, Karl Fischart, Baron Oreste of Utrecht, currently his Universal Majesty’s viceroy for Aragon.” He bowed.
“I am Longdirk.”
“Yes. I knew that already, actually. You are even bigger than I expected. You don’t look as frightened as you should be.”
“I’m quite stupid. I expect you will educate me.”
The baron stared at him for a moment and then uttered a childish titter. He turned to lay his cane on the table. “No, you are not stupid, Tobias. You are the wiliest and most resourceful opponent I have ever encountered. Oh, I suppose a few others like the late and unlamented Lady Valda have held me at bay for longer, but she had infinitely greater resources than you. You had only your native wits and an astonishing resilience. I truly regret that our long contest must end so tragically for you.” He opened the chest on the table. “I have long dreamed of conscripting you as an ally—with gramarye, of course. I would not insult you by suggesting you would ever aid me voluntarily, but any man can be hexed into cooperation. Alas, that will not be possible.”
So one outcome had been eliminated, and if it had been the worst that Toby had feared, that probably just showed how limited his imagination was.
The baron began removing objects from the chest and setting them on the table: a silver chalice, a dagger, two candlesticks. “Ah, excuse me! I tend to forget that your remarkable calm stems from courage and not stupidity. I give you my solemn assurance that you are not going to suffer the fate that the odious Vespianaso is planning for you.”
Toby licked dry lips. “That is welcome news, Excellency. Will I be pleased when I hear the alternative?”
“No, but it is better. Truly, Tobias, I would spare you if I could, but I have my orders. This is a mercy is it not?” The baron paused in his business and peered across the table with his tiny eyes.
“If you gave me the choice I would take that, yes.”
Nodding as if reassured, the hexer continued his preparations, laying out glass vials, a parchment scroll, a mortar and pestle … the casket of carved ivory. “You have nothing more to fear except a few minutes’ suspense while I get ready, and the trivial indignity of having some arcane sigils drawn on your chest.”
Dignity? What need had a man tied to a slimy stone wall with his hose settled down around his hips to worry about dignity? And yet he was trying very hard not to jangle his chains as cold and fear made him shiver. Twenty-one was young to die. He had hoped to live twice that long. Some men even reached fifty, although that was rare.
“I shall not be sorry to cheat the Inquisition.”
“Ach!” said the baron. “I disapprove of the Inquisition, I really do. I find their practices obscene. I am not an evil man by nature, you know. I never wanted to be anything more than a humble scholar. All the vast knowledge of gramarye and conjuration I gathered I never used for any wicked purposes. I had a European reputation as a man of lore and wanted only to be honored for that.” But this soft-spoken, pudgy gentleman was the monster who had sacked Zaragoza, an ogre with a reputation for savagery second only to that of the Fiend himself. “Alas, I was susceptible to flattery, and when the youngest son of the king of England begged me to take him on as a student, I accepted. What an unhappy day that turned out to be!”
If the Inquisition heard that confession, it would burn him at the stake, or try to, at least—Oreste and Vespianaso must be very uneasy partners. There had been a friar snooping around earlier, who might still be there, lurking behind pillars, spying on what the viceroy was up to with a convicted incarnate. Toby could not recall seeing him leave and saw no reason to mention him.
“A bright lad, he was, young Nevil.” Oreste fussed cheerfully with his vials and potions. “Now I need a lock of your hair, dear boy.” He picked up the dagger and came around the table, smiling his scarlet lips.
Suspecting trickery, Toby stiffened as the blade approached, but he lost nothing more than a twist of hair. Oreste took it back to add to the concoction in the goblet.
“He was a dreamer, though. I doubt if he would have held the throne of England very long. Everyone noticed the change when Rhym took him over.”
“Was it you who killed his brothers and his father?”
The baron emptied a couple of vials into the chalice. “Goodness, no! That was darling Valda. With more than a little help from Nevil himself, I dare say.” He uncorked a bottle and added something that looked like fresh blood. Why so much preparation just to kill a helpless man?
Silence became oppressive very quickly. “Were you there when he and Valda tried to conjure Rhym?”
“Fortunately, I was not.” Oreste chuckled. “It might have taken me instead! Now, where did I put the … ah! There is one thing I have been meaning to ask you, Tobias. I have tracked you very closely for years, so I know almost everything you have done and everywhere you have been.” He had begun grinding something in the mortar, which left him free to look up and smile across at his victim. “The one matter that still puzzles me is just what happened at Mezquiriz.”
No! He would not tell that.
The baron tut-tutted. “Come, my boy! You are about to die. I am doing you a favor. Surely you can humor an old man’s curiosity, hmm?” He had only to speak a word to one of his demons and Toby would babble out the whole story in terrible detail. “It is little enough to ask.”
It was very little to ask, but it took a real effort to answer. “The hob went berserk.”
“Yes, yes! But why? You had eluded me at the border. You were not in danger, and there was no great spirit there to provoke it. So what ignited the hob?”
Toby turned his face away. “I lay with a woman.”
“Ah!” The pestle stopped for a moment. “I never thought of that. Yes, I can see what might happen. I wondered if it had been your first attempt to control the hob.”
“I can’t control the hob. I was told that it would take me over and control me.”
The baron began grinding away again. “That is certainly the more likely outcome. The two of you must be very intertwined by now—but you know that, because you refused the exorcism. And the girl? She died? This is sad.”
He seemed quite sincere. Why was he keeping up this meaningless chitchat at all? Just to comfort his victim and keep him from brooding on his imminent end? But he was a sadistic, murdering monster. He probably knew how Toby’s hips ached already, how his hands had gone numb. One thing was certain—he would not be revealing so many secrets if there was any chance of the prisoner living to repeat them to anyone.
He emptied the contents of the mortar into the chalice and then consulted the scroll, moving his lips in silence.
A condemned man could try a last request, even if there was very little hope of its being granted. “Excellency? It does seem unfair that my friend Hamish should be put to death just for being my friend, when a skilled adept such as yourself is allowed to prosper unmolested.”
“Hmm?” Oreste looked up and smiled so broadly that his eyes disappeared altogether. “Ja! It does indeed! But life is rarely just, my boy—even you have lived long enough to learn that! The Inquisition is well aware of my reputation, but there is nothing they can do about me. You don’t catch lions in mousetraps. And lions have to tolerate mice. We live and let live, the Black Friars and I—with a few exceptions, that is—so don’t worry about Master Campbell. He knows the truth about Rhym, and we don’t want him blurting that out on the rack, now do we? I expect he will catch a fever in his cell and die quite soon. In fact, you have my word on it. Well, I am just about ready, I think. Sorry to have taken so long.”
“And what happens now?” Toby asked, mouth suddenly dry.
The baron came around the table carrying the candlesticks. He placed them on the floor near Toby’s feet, not looking at him. “I am going to exorcize the hob. But at the same time, I will exorcize you also.” He peered up at the prisoner’s face, perhaps hoping to see some appropriate signs of terror. “Ingenious, isn’t it?” Chuckling, the hexer minced back to the table. “You and the hob go into the amethyst, and the soul of Nevil goes into you. When Vespianaso puts his thugs to work, they will be tormenting the wrong man!”
“So it will be Nevil who gets tortured?”
“My master finds the idea amusing.”
Toby clenched his teeth and said nothing.
Oreste shrugged. “It was Rhym’s idea, not mine. Nevil is a danger, so Nevil must die. This we all know. Of course I shall hex him so that he cannot reveal the great secret he alone knows, the name to conjure Rhym. He may scream all he wants that he is the rightful king of England and not Toby Longdirk, but the tormentors will not believe him. He will have to scream at them in Latin, as he knows no Spanish tongues. Rhym finds this prospect entertaining.”
“What happens to me?”
The baron picked up the carved ivory casket and stroked it lovingly. “You become immortal. You and the hob will be one. Together you will make a wonderful demon.”
“Don’t you torture spirits to make them into demons?”
The baron shrugged regretfully. “This is true. But the worst part of torture is not the pain, dear boy, it is seeing yourself being ruined, joint by joint, muscle by muscle. It is knowing that life will never be as good again, and that you cannot grow back missing eyes or charred flesh. That doesn’t apply to an immortal. A little suffering and you will learn to serve me.” He laid the casket down and stared at Toby appraisingly. “Don’t worry about the gramarye failing, as Valda’s failed. I borrowed a couple of convicts from the city jail to practice on. I sent them home in each other’s bodies, quite successfully.”
“You promised I would not suffer!”
“A trivial untruth. I was being kind.”
“It will be my body they are disassembling. I should prefer to remain and die with it.”
“You have no option.” Oreste opened the ivory casket and took out the leather locket. “It is the penalty of your own success, Tobias. Had I managed to catch you myself, then I would have spared you … spared your life, that is, not your will. You would have been useful as a man, too. But what you achieved at Tortosa was so extraordinary that you frightened the Black Friars out of their robes. From Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, the Inquisition was screaming for your carcass. When I saw that there was no way I could keep them away from you, I reported the problem to his Majesty, and he thought up this procedure. It is certainly ingenious.”
“If the Inquisition finds out about the substitution, then Nevil will live!” Argument was useless, of course, but he could not submit to such an abomination without protest.
“The Inquisition will not find out. The inquisitors will dismiss Nevil’s complaints as more evidence of his demon’s cunning. Even if I told Father Vespianaso myself, he would not stop now. They are always so convinced that they are right that they accept their own conclusions as infallible evidence. So Nevil goes into you and you go into the —”
The stone he was holding was a smooth black pebble, nothing like an amethyst. He looked up at Toby, but Toby could only stare. What? Who?
“How did you do that?” the baron screamed.
“Do what, your Excellency?” There could be small pleasures, even in a torture chamber.
“Diaz swore he saw the amethyst and put it in this casket! No power could have touched it in there, not even Montserrat itself. You! The hob?”
“I didn’t! I don’t control the hob. Montserrat had it warded last night, and you have it warded now, don’t you?” Absurdly, Toby was suddenly more frightened than he had been by anything that had happened yet. Oreste was far more dangerous than the Inquisition. Oreste could make him suffer forever.
“I will have the truth, Longdirk!” The baron bared his teeth in fury.
Or in fear? He had obtained the soul of Nevil at last and then lost it again, and Rhym the Fiend was going to be very, very mad about that.
“I will have the truth!” He raised his left hand to his mouth and turned in his dance. “Rigomage per nominem tuum igne et tempestate impero semper veritatem Tobias dicat. Now, Longdirk, tell me how you switched those stones!”
“I didn’t.”
“Did the hob? Can you control it, talk to it?”
Perhaps if he claimed … Before he could think of a likely lie, the truth spilled from his mouth. “I don’t know if the hob did it. I can’t control it. Only at Tortosa it seemed to follow my gestures. I talk to it, but I have never seen evidence that it hears me.”
A friar stepped out from behind the closest pillar and spun around in a swirl of black robe, saying very rapidly: “Rigomage per nominem tuum igne et tempestate impero Orestes dormet.” He took two quick steps to catch the falling baron, then lowered him gently to the floor, where he lay still and snored peacefully.
3
It had happened so fast that Toby just hung in his chains and gaped. He had apparently been saved from the baron and was now back in the power of the Inquisition, which was a very questionable improvement.
Or perhaps not, because the newcomer’s all-black habit was that of a Benedictine monk, not a Dominican friar.
Certainly not, for then he straightened up and threw back his cowl, revealing not a tonsure but a mop of auburn locks. “Campeador?”
Spirits! “You are a most welcome sight, senor!”
Hopefully he was. Their last meeting had involved Toby’s hurling him ignominiously into the mud. Apparently that was not going to be mentioned, for he twirled up the points of his mustache and grinned smugly.
“There is always a sense of satisfaction in lifting a siege.” The don stepped over the prostrate baron and peered up at the prisoner’s manacles. “You don’t have the keys to those rusty things, do you?”
“You could use the demon. My Latin is equally rusty.”
“Ah! Of course!” He went through the ritual again, this time commanding, “Tobias liberetur!”
The locks on Toby’s wrists and ankles sprang open. He flopped down on the straw to catch his breath. Things were moving very speedily. “Thank you!” He chafed his hands, wincing as they began to throb.
“Thank Rigomagus, not me,” the don said cheerily. “‘By fire and storm’? It must be a very minor demon to have such a terse conjuration, don’t you think? An odd-job demon? Fortunate, that! If the invocation had been longer and I’d got it wrong, we might have been in serious trouble.” He chuckled, being understandably very pleased with himself.
“How did you get here?”
“Just walked in. Oh, from Montserrat, you mean? Well, when I learned what had happened, Francisco and I marched into the basilica and told the tutelary that its decision had been wrong and its actions were unacceptable. It agreed at once and begged us to come and rescue you. When we get back you will be granted sanctuary. It sends its apologies.”
Alas! For a few dazzling moments Toby had seen rainbows of hope in the clouds, but obviously the spirit had done nothing to untangle the caballero’s wits. His story was all moonshine and dragon turds, because one thing a major tutelary would never do was reverse itself like that, and Montserrat had flatly told Toby it was infallible. He was not even out of the frying pan, let alone the fire, and the addle headed don had jumped right in beside him—a moving gesture, but a suicidal one.
“Apologies? It sells me to the Inquisition and then says it’s sorry? How very touching!” Without rising from the straw, Toby reached for his shirt and doublet. Apologies, indeed!
“My attitude entirely, Campeador!” The don turned away to scowl at the paraphernalia on the table. “But it made amends by providing this absurd garment and another one like it for you, which I brought. They are spelled to distract attention—I just walked in here and no one saw me.”
Poor deluded fool! No one questioned clerics at the best of times, and besides, Toby had seen him, even if he had mistaken him for a Dominican friar, which was easy enough to do. Getting in and getting out would be unlikely twins, for it was not hard to imagine Captain Diaz’s reaction should two Benedictines emerge from the crypt and try to walk past the guard without explaining how they had come to be in there in the first place.
“And of course it offered us horses and some food to eat on the —”
“Us? No! You didn’t involve Doña Francisca in this?”
The don spun around, blue eyes glaring madness. “What name do you profane, varlet?” He reached inside his robe, and very obviously he had a sword in there—not his great broadsword but still a lethal weapon.
Toby was on the floor, half dressed, totally vulnerable. “I meant to say … “ He was hexed and could not lie. “I should have said ‘Senor Francisco,’ of course, senor!”
“It sounded as if you named my sainted mother—a lady of paramount nobility and such immaculate reputation that, were you to speak but one idle word of her, I should be forced to cut out your tongue.”
