CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THERE WOULD BE no returning to the dig once they left, which meant Will didn’t have much time.

He told the others he was creating a distraction, scooped up a bundle of clothes as a pretext, and let Sloane’s guards follow him, knowing they saw a harmless messenger boy with a parcel for Captain Howell.

The second he was inside Howell’s tent, he strode right up to Howell not bothering with a greeting, put a hand on Howell’s wrist, and pushed inside.

He saw Howell’s eyes widen and he heard him give a cry of surprise, but he didn’t pause until he found himself inside Howell’s body.

Work quickly. Will had less than an hour before he was meant to join the others. He pushed further, using Howell’s S brand as a conduit, casting himself into the web he remembered, following along the now-familiar paths, seeking out the body he had inhabited on Violet’s ship, until, with a gasp, he opened his eyes.

His leg ached; a thicker sense of his body in space; objects in the room at strange angles. He was shorter. He couldn’t see the room properly.

He squinted, took a step, and fell, grabbing for the desk. Half catching its lip, his bad leg screamed its protest. He let out a cry and just hung on to the desk for a moment as his vision cleared. Slowly, he pulled himself up, making no assumptions this time about how to stay upright on his shorter legs.

This wasn’t a ship. It was an office, in the grand style but run-down, dilapidated, in an old building. A heavy oak chair accompanied the desk, a man’s jacket hanging over it. In the hours since Will had last peered through his eyes, the man he was inhabiting had docked and disembarked.

‘Leclerc! Apportez-moi ces papiers!’

Bring the papers? Which papers? He looked down at the desk. He would need to find what was requested if he wasn’t going to blow his cover.

Am I Leclerc? Everything was blurry. He thought at first that his eyes didn’t work. But when he groped around on the desk, his hand closed on glasses. He put them on, hooking them over his ears.

Blinking owlishly at the sudden clarity, he looked back down at the desk.

It was covered in papers. He could hear footsteps in the corridor, approaching. He let go of the desk and swayed, immediately grabbing on to it again. He tried leaning his weight against it surreptitiously, the sort of insouciant posture James might adopt. There was no way to find the right paper. Needing an excuse, he quickly took off his glasses and slipped them into his pocket, then he reached out to pick up a sheaf of paper at random.

He missed, a disorienting sensation: his arms were too short. He had to force himself to reach unnaturally further, clutching the paper just as the door swung open.

The woman James had called Mrs Duval strode inside.

‘Well? Do you have the inventory?’

She was even more imposing close up, with strong, angular features and piercing dark eyes. Surely she could look at him with those eyes and in one glance see he wasn’t Leclerc.

Heart pounding with fear of discovery, Will held out the paper in his hand and pretended to squint even more than he needed to. ‘Is this it? I’ve misplaced my glasses.’

She snatched it from him, glanced at it briefly, then threw it down onto the desk, rifling over the strewn papers and picking up the top one. ‘No. It’s right under your nose.’ His vision was too blurry to see what sort of look she was giving him, but her tone was brisk, as if she was in a hurry. ‘And your glasses are here. In your pocket.’ He felt her pat his pocket rather than saw it. ‘I hope you won’t have this kind of absent-mindedness with the girl.’

‘No—’ He didn’t know what to call her. Mrs Duval? Some other name?

‘Well, brother?’

‘—sister.’

She took the papers and strode out of the room.

He was left staring after her, with his heart pounding.

Inventory, part of his mind was saying. What are they storing here? He ought to look through the papers. But Violet was more important. And there wasn’t time. Back in Umbria, he had less than an hour, and besides that was alone in a room with Howell, his jet-black eyes screaming his identity to anyone who might stumble on him. What would happen if his own uninhabited body was touched, or moved, or taken? Worse, if the others saw his eyes? Sarcean had used Anharion to guard him, viewing scrying as too dangerous. He felt that danger keenly now.

He hooked his glasses back on, then looked around and saw a thick chain of keys hanging by the door. His first piece of luck: he recognised immediately the key to the Steward manacles. He’d used that key to unlock those manacles himself. It was the confirmation he needed: Violet was here, and this was the way to free her. The only trouble was, he didn’t know where Violet was being held.

Well, he would find out.

The door was six steps from the desk. He drew in a breath, let go of the desk, and made himself take a step. His eyes were fixed on the keys. Trying to reach them required far greater skill and concentration than walking around in his own body. Six steps, and he was clutching the wall again. Too slow. He couldn’t help Violet like this, arriving at her cell in three days with the speed of a tortoise. He had to speed up.

He saw the shiny black cane in the stand by the door. Reaching for it, he felt his stomach flip. The S on his wrist – visible as his sleeve pulled back along his arm – was alive. It was hot and red, activated, almost pulsing. He pushed his sleeve down over it quickly, and took the cane.

Then he took the keys, and hung them ostentatiously from his belt, where they dangled, very noticeably.

Walking was still a tricky business, even with the cane, and he found himself with his palm on the corridor wall quite frequently. Searching for Violet would draw attention, but his difficulty controlling Leclerc’s body made it a hundred times worse. So instead of limping suspiciously this way and that about the house, he followed his nose to the kitchen.

It was a big kitchen with a huge hearth and meat turning on a spit over a fire. In the centre was a long wooden table scattered with flour and bowls. There was a cook in a stained apron, and two kitchen hands, one of whom looked up in surprise to see him as she kneaded dough with floury arms.

‘What can I do for you, Monsieur Leclerc?’ she said in French.

Right. He was in France. His own French, learned from a drunk Jean Lastier on the docks, was not superb. He blinked at the question, realising that if Leclerc was named Leclerc, likely he was French too.

Apporter? Apportez? He said, praying his verb conjugations were correct, ‘Take lunch to the prisoner.’

That won him a look, flipping the dough over. ‘She just ate,’ said the kitchen hand, ‘not a quarter of an hour ago.’

He drew himself up to his full height and tried to make himself seem as French as possible.

‘Lions eat a great deal, madame,’ he said.

The dough stopped flipping. There was some quick muttering he didn’t understand, along with the words, ‘Two lunches!’ But the kitchen hand wiped her floury hands on her apron, and turned to face him. ‘Very well.’

Casting his eye around the kitchen, Will said, ‘Bread rolls, hard cheese, meats. Put some water in a flask. And give her that—’ Oh God, what was it called? ‘Piece of cloth. Blanket. Napkin.’

The kitchen hand’s eyebrows went up into her hair, but she got to work gathering the repast. While her back was turned, he saw a knife on the counter, a slim blade with a sharp point. He took it quickly and slid it into his belt, where it stuck out very obviously next to the keys, making sure that both the handle and a section of the blade protruded visibly.

‘After you,’ he said to the kitchen hand when she was ready with the tray, hearing the mutter behind him, ‘I told you he was skimming food.’

‘And drink too,’ came the second mutter.

She led him down the corridor, making two turns before she reached a door with stairs leading downward, as though into a supply cellar. Descending the stairs was a minor nightmare, and he leaned heavily on the wall, making a show of his limp to hide his lack of balance when his legs didn’t end where he expected.

‘You can put the tray down outside the door,’ he said.

She didn’t. She just stood and stared at him. ‘Don’t you think you’ve harassed that girl enough?’

He had to push down his reaction to that, the burst of protectiveness and anger. He couldn’t ask this kitchen hand, What do you mean? What has he done to her? He had to stay calm. What would Leclerc say?

‘Are you here to work or talk?’ said Will.

That had been a favourite saying of Jean Lastier when dockmen around him complained. He didn’t think Lastier’s other favourite saying, la vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin, would be useful.

She put the tray down, an angry clatter.

He found himself alone at the base of the stairs, staring at a locked door, with his heartbeat accelerating. He fished out the keys that he’d clipped to his belt. The door lock was new-looking, so he tried the newest-looking key. It slid in smoothly. Violet. Violet was on the other side of that door. He made sure to quickly return the keys to hang again noticeably from his belt, and then the door swung open.

The room itself was a cellar with arched ceilings. It was older than the house above, with medieval stonework and an uneven cobbled floor. There were a few barrels stacked in the corner that might once have held wine. There was a lamp burning in the sconce by the doorway so that the cellar was not plunged into darkness when the door was closed.

And Violet, in the Steward manacles and on a long chain attached to the far wall, scrabbling up to face him as he entered.

She looked thin, with dirt smudged on her cheek, still wearing the clothes she’d been in during the attack on the Hall. But her eyes were defiant, her glare at him so welcome and familiar that a rush of gladness swept over him.

He wanted to stride across the cellar and throw his arms around her in a tight hug. He wanted to unlock her chains and set her free. He found himself remembering the moment he’d been chained to Simon’s sinking ship, when she had appeared in the hold. For a moment he imagined himself kneeling by her side and unlocking her manacles. You broke my chains once. Remember?

But he couldn’t. He leaned his cane against the door and picked up the tray, no easy feat.

‘Fattening me for the slaughter?’ she said.

‘That’s lambs,’ he said in English, and then wondered with the jolt of one who has missed a step if he was supposed to have a French accent.

‘I’m not going to kill Tom,’ she said, ‘no matter how many more of these training sessions you make me do. And no matter what you say to threaten my friends.’

Her words were a shock. He hid it, smoothing his face. Glaring at him, she didn’t seem to notice any difference in his manner.

‘Your friends are in Umbria,’ he said, putting the tray down on the floor, ‘at Sinclair’s dig near the village of Scheggino. They are too far away for you to warn them, even if you tried.’

He saw her take in the information, her eyes narrowed.

But all she said was, ‘Sinclair’s the one who needs the warning. Will’s going to stop him.’

Her faith in him warmed him, even as it redoubled his feeling of responsibility. I will stop him, he promised her silently.

‘And what are you going to do from inside that cage?’ he made himself say.

He saw her eyes drop to the keys.

Jangling noticeably on his hip, the keys to her manacles hung where he’d clipped them. He stepped towards her as he spoke, pretending not to notice where she was looking. Just Leclerc strolling forward, bringing himself in range of her chain. He’d calculated it carefully.

Even so, he was surprised how fast she moved, knocking him onto his back, then planting a knee in his chest to hold him down while she snatched the keys and undid the manacles, casting them off to the side. That speed and the economy of her strike felt new.

‘I’m going to get out,’ she said, her hand on his throat.

He’d had a woman’s hand around his throat before. He ought to have been terrified. Instead, he felt a helpless loving feeling of knowing Violet wouldn’t hurt him.

‘You won’t get anywhere without a weapon or supplies.’ He kept his expression very blank.

She immediately snatched his belt knife. Using it to cut a strip off his shirt and tie his hands behind his back, she leaped up and quickly bundled the meats, cheese and bread he’d brought, and wrapped it in the cloth with the water flask, slinging it across her chest like a knapsack. Then she stood over him.

‘Where’s the shield?’ she said.

‘What shield?’

‘My shield,’ said Violet.

The Shield of Rassalon? He bit down on his tongue before he said it.

‘I don’t know.’

Violet let out a breath of disbelief. ‘Liar. You’re coming with me.’

‘What?’ said Will, and it came out like a squeak.

‘You heard me.’ The knife was pointed right at his liver. He supposed that was another new technique that she had learned. ‘You’re taking me to the shield.’

‘I don’t know where it is!’ yelped Will.

That won him another poke from what was really a very sharp knife. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Violet, honestly, I’m not,’ said Will, feeling so purely himself at that moment that he was shocked Violet didn’t recognise him. ‘I really think it would be easier for you to escape by yourself, don’t you?’

‘I’m not escaping,’ said Violet. ‘You’re taking me to the shield.’

‘I’m what?’ said Will. ‘But—’

‘Move it!’ said Violet, shoving him forward.

With the point of Violet’s knife still quite near his liver, he fumbled his cane into his hand and did his best to climb the stairs. Leclerc’s injuries hid his own unsteadiness in the body – luckily. More luck, Violet seemed to know the way. She strode there confidently, which let him stumble along, hiding his unfamiliarity with the house, and receiving only a few knife pricks for his limping pace.

But when they entered a hall with a huge mantel and crest, he saw the motto and the family name carved beneath the crest, and his entire understanding of where they were going changed. La fin de la misère. Misery’s End.

The name under the crest was Gauthier.

The executioner.

This is Gauthier’s home, Will thought, his mind racing. Where he lived before Sinclair found him. And then, even more unnervingly, This is Gauthier’s family vault. He was staring at a huge, locked vault door. A descendant of Rathorn the Dark King’s executioner, Gauthier had owned the Collar before James had reclaimed it.

What else might lie inside that vault?

Violet had taken his keys out again and was fitting one to the lock. No luck on the first try, but the second key fit. With a clicking and a grinding, an entire portion of the wall swung open, revealing stairs leading down into the dark.

The gloomy vault was crammed with artefacts. Like a room stuffed with a houseful of furniture, there was no wall that wasn’t covered by a piece of ancient masonry or frieze, no surface that wasn’t forested with statues, urns and carvings. To walk in meant to slide your body past tables, statues and columns displaced from their original settings. Then to clamber over gemstones and jewellery, piles of it like a dragon’s hoard. Then he looked closer, and saw—

Sun emblems, Eclipses. Rayless black spheres. This was a collection, an obsession, generations of Gauthiers trying to find any artefact pertaining to the Dark Palace, as if they were trying to find their way back there. As if they were searching for something that lay inside, Will felt the disturbing sense of forces converging on the palace, all of them racing for its prize.

He stopped in the room’s centre, where a giant black axe was mounted like a centrepiece. Beside it hung a black cowl that had to be a reproduction – didn’t it? The axe, Will knew in his bones, was real. It was as real as death; the executioner’s axe, it had a finality that struck cold fear, the kind of dark that snuffed out light. Along its head in the language of the old world were the words from which the family had drawn its motto: den fahor. Misery’s End. It was the name of the axe that had risen and fallen on James’s neck.

As he moved forward, he saw that under Rathorn’s axe there were drawings, careful diagrams, numerical notations, and then to his shock he saw writing in the old language that said:

Undahar

He shifted the top sheaf of paper to reveal a drawing of the Dark Palace.

It crowned a world of utter darkness; a world so cold and rayless that forests were set on fire in a desperate hope for light. And from atop the spires of that darkly jewelled palace, he watched – he remembered watching – the coruscating domes of magic in the distance, the last defences that soon would flicker and go out, assailed by ravenous shadows that did not tire or sleep.

In the shaky script of an aged, feeble hand, were the words in French, None may enter Undahar and live, unless—

The second page was missing. Or was one of the many pages scattering the desk. He reached out to snatch them up, to slip them into his jacket to read later, only to realise, rather foolishly, that he couldn’t. This was not his body, and there was no use concealing the papers in the jacket of a man in Calais.

He needed time, then, to read them here. A sound made him turn.

Violet stood behind him, a familiar metal shield on her arm; Rassalon’s lion eyes gazed out from its surface soulfully. She must have found it among the collected objects.

He had one opportunity for time alone to scan the papers. He had scant minutes left before his friends back in Italy came looking for him. He needed to use that time to learn all he could.

‘Your shield,’ said Will with relief. ‘You can take it and go.’

‘I will, thank you,’ said Violet. And she swung the shield at his head.

Disoriented, he opened his eyes; he was Will, with a sore head. Pushing himself up, he saw that Howell had also been knocked flat. No way to rein-habit the unconscious Leclerc. No time left to find another host without real fear of discovery.

He had to get back to the others. He’d have to make up a story to explain his injured head. But when he lifted his hand to his temple, he realised there was no injury. The pain was a phantom, the bruises left behind in Calais, on someone else’s body.