Thief Of Light Part 32

"What the . . . f.u.c.k are you doing?" gasped a male voice, one she hadn't heard before.

That had to be . . . who? Her brain spun. Oh . . . the younger man.

The a.s.sa.s.sin's arm around Prue tightened until her ribs creaked. "We'll take this one instead." A pause for breath. "Not going back empty-handed."

Prue struggled. Was this what lungspasm was like? A sticky, mind-sucking fog that stole the will and the wits and the strength? In a sudden upwelling of terror, she flailed and twisted like a fish on the hook.

The dark rose over her in a crushing tide and took her under.A towel lay on the water stairs, but there was no sign of Prue.

"Here." Erik set the boy down, scooped up the towel and wrapped him up from head to heels. "Get out of those wet clothes before you catch your death."

"Wot? 'Ere?" Florien looked so scandalized, Erik chuckled.

"Your lips are blue," he said. "Don't want anything to freeze and drop off."

The boy cast him a suspicious glance, but he peeked under the towel when he thought Erik wasn't looking.

Odd, she must have gone in. Or she'd been called away. A thread of uneasiness wormed through his gut.

"Erik." The note in the boy's voice was so strange, Erik was at his side in a single stride. "Look." A skinny little finger pointed. It trembled.

A black, low-heeled slipper lay on its side near the side of the path.

Just the one.

33.

The world turned inside out, Erik's only anchor the icy little paw that crept into his and clutched.

Shaking, he bent down and picked up the slipper. Dirt from Walker's garden beds had been kicked over the path; deep footprints indented the soil behind a purplemist tree and a touchme bush whimpered, high and soft, its broken branches drooping.

Marring a silvery flower was a streak of red, already drying to a rusty brown.

Erik's lungs squeezed to the point of pain. Not now, not now. With a whoop, he gulped in air. A vicious breeze sprang up out of nowhere, swirling around them, raising goose b.u.mps on Florien's skin and chilling Erik to the bone. The touchme bush thrashed and moaned with the force of its pa.s.sage.

Grabbing the boy, Erik lifted the slight body high in his arms and took off for the Main Pavilion at a dead run, the wind at his back.Her dreams were strange, peopled with looming, distorted figures, all of them fish-belly pale. Moaning, Prue rolled over in bed, but the covers were so tight they held her down. Frustrated, she lashed out an arm and straps bit painfully into her wrists.

Her eyes flew open. Seated opposite in a high-backed chair was a neat middle-aged woman all in white. Her blue gray eyes were bright with interest. "Welcome back," she said. "How do you feel?"

Prue ran her tongue over her teeth. Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak. "R-revolting."

When she looked down, nausea rose in a horrible greasy wave, roiling in her stomach. Sister save her, she sat in a large chair made of some kind of smooth gray substance she hadn't seen before. Both her ankles and her wrists were restrained with wide leather straps, wound about with black and silver wires. Her head pounded and a place on her neck throbbed. Already the muscles in her back were protesting. How long had she been there?

Where was Erik?

Most horrifying of all, she was naked beneath some kind of soft linen garment done up with ties down each side. Her body was completely accessible-and she was helpless. "Get me out of here," she choked. "Please."

The woman smiled. "All in good time." Rising, she moved out of Prue's line of sight and returned with a cup and a straw. "Here, it's water." She held the straw to Prue's lips, waiting patiently while Prue decided whether to drink. In the end, she drained the cup and the woman set it aside.

Without warning, she leaned down to lift first Prue's left eyelid with her thumb, then the right. "Aargh!" Prue's instinctive flinch was brought up short by the back of the chair. Her spine crawled.

"Hmm," murmured the other woman, peering from a distance of inches. There was gray in the part of her soft brown hair. Producing a small oval shape from her pocket, she pa.s.sed it over Prue's forehead, pausing at her temples. "No activity." She straightened, her lips curving in a small smile. "Excellent. The dampers in the restraints are working as they should. You're safe enough, for the short term at least."

Prue's jaw sagged, but the woman continued without pause, as if she were talking to herself. "I should give you a shot of something," she said, her brow creasing, "but I'm not sure what that idiot woman used." She tapped a fretful finger against her lower lip. "I can't have rogue variables affecting my data. We'll have to wait."

So many questions jostled in Prue's brain they got tangled on her tongue. "W-who are you?" she managed. "What woman? What are you talking about?"

Through the ache in her head, she fumbled for the memories. Two men with a-a laundry basket laundry basket? G.o.ds, it must have been for her. No wait, they'd asked for Erik. It was for him, his body body. And they'd taken her instead. s.h.i.t, she was going to vomit! Desperately, she sucked in one breath after the other, until the urge subsided. That hesitant contralto, the feel of the body behind her, its solid curves, full of flesh, nothing like a man's.

"It was her, wasn't it? The a.s.sa.s.sin?"

As if she hadn't spoken, the other woman hitched up her white trousers and sank back into her chair, her legs decorously crossed at the ankle. "I," she said, with the air of someone making an announcement, "am the Technomage Primus of Sybaris."

Prue shook her head to clear it, but that only increased the woolly sensations so she gave up. "Who?"

The woman stiffened. "The Technomage Primus of Sybaris," she said, articulating every word as if to the mentally deficient.

"Primus?" Prue forced herself to concentrate. "That means first, doesn't it?"

"Yes, and it is also the correct form of address. Well done." The Technomage smiled, smoothing a fingertip over the numeral one embroidered on the collar of her shirt.

Prue stared. "What are you doing here? Let me go!" She writhed against the straps, which shifted not at all.

"Stop that, you'll damage yourself." The other woman stood beside her, cool fingers on Prue's wrist. "Tell me, how much do you remember?"

"Two men from the laundry. Except they weren't." She wrinkled her forehead. "A knife. They had a funny little dog. A cloth over my face, couldn't breathe . . ." Her throat closed.

"Ah, so that's how she administered it." The Technomage bent over her desk to scribble a note on a sheet of gray filmy stuff with a stylus. Transplas Transplas. Prue had seen it when she'd paid The Garden's plumbing bills at the Technomage Tower. "Hmm, primitive, but effective nonetheless. I'm afraid I don't know the woman's name or anything about her." An elegant shrug. "We have many subordinates."

"We?"

The Technomage frowned down at the transplas on the desk, fiddling with her stylus. "I have a . . . partner," she said finally. "Nasake is taking him a message." She sighed, moving behind Prue's chair. A series of clicks ensued, followed by a barely audible humming noise. "There. It shouldn't take long to warm up."

Prue strove to turn her head, but the back of the chair was too high, her bonds too tight. "What won't?"

The other woman crossed the floor to a long bench, her heels tapping on the flagged floor. The room looked like a bas.e.m.e.nt, the walls supported by brick arches, the ceiling beamed. "Hmm?" She spoke over her shoulder, meanwhile donning a pair of white gloves made of some thin, flexible fabric. "The reservoir machine."

Prue forced the panic down, clamping a lid over the bubbling screams. G.o.dsdammit, what was going on? "I don't know what that is."

"Of course, you don't." Turning, the Scientist leaned back against the bench, gloved hands folded over her stomach. "Let me explain." Her eyes shone, her expression animated.

"Strictly speaking," she said, "it's a conduit attached to a reservoir. There's also a three-tier filtration system." She shook her head with a rueful twinkle. "I had the most extraordinary trouble with the design for the metabolic mesh until it occurred to me that . . ."

Prue heard about one word in ten, enough to retain the general gist. The Technomage Primus had a penchant for convoluted paragraphs and long words, but she did like to repeat herself.

Prue began to wonder . . . Seizing her chance, she inserted her question when the other woman paused for breath. "Where are your staff, the other Technomages?"

Two beats of silence and the Primus said stiffly, "This project is utterly secret."

"I see." Prue arranged her face in an expression of sympathy. "So you haven't seen much of the Caracole? What a pity. It's a beautiful city."

The Technomage turned away, blinking rapidly. "I've been working."

"Hardly seems fair," murmured Prue. "When does your, ah, partner return?"

The other woman began a.s.sembling objects on a tray, her motions clipped and angry. "Soon." She carried it over to the desk. "I need something to show him." Her voice trembled, then firmed. "Your Magick, in the first instance."

Prue was so surprised she laughed. "Don't be silly," she said. "I've got about as much Magick as you have."

The Technomage Primus sent her a thin smile. "As much as I will will have in a few moments. In my reservoir." have in a few moments. In my reservoir."

Prue blinked. "You're serious."

"Absolutely." Carefully, she lifted a gray wire from the tray. Attached to the end of it was a small, circular pad. "I let the fire witch slip through my fingers. I won't make the same mistake with you."

"Witch?" The word emerged as a croak. "I'm not a witch."

"Yes, you are." The Technomage pressed the pad to the side of Prue's neck, where it stuck. It felt cold, and a little greasy. "An air witch. The metabolic comparisons between air and fire should be fascinating." A second patch went in the hollow of her throat.

"Will it hurt?" Prue cursed herself for the quaver in her voice, for asking in the first place, but she had to know.

Gloved fingers brushed her hair aside, almost gently, and attached a pad to her temple. "Not much," said the other woman, frowning in concentration.

And Prue knew she'd lied. "Please," she whispered, despising herself. "I'm not a witch. I don't even believe in-"

A latch clicked and the Scientist's head jerked up, her eyes going wide. The air grew chill, and a huge dark shadow slid over the ceiling, the wall.

"Nasake was excited but a trifle confused," said a sibilant, s.e.xless voice. "What do we have here?"

The sound of it slithered down Prue's spine like a fistful of slime. She trembled.

The Technomage gripped her gloved hands together. "Your a.s.sa.s.sin fumbled the kill, but she's redeemed herself. Look what she brought us. This is the air witch herself." A pause. "Are you pleased?"

"Ah. I'll tell you in a moment." A cloaked figure glided into view, its outline strangely distorted, both filmy and impenetrable. Prue had the sense that its boundaries shrank and expanded at will.

Oh G.o.ds, if it touched her, she'd throw up. What could have been a sleeve reached toward her and Prue pressed herself back into the chair, every joint locked with terror.

"Shaitan!" With a hiss, the figure jerked away, the hood of the cloak turning toward the Technomage. Did it even have eyes? "There's a barrier I can feel from here." A short pause. "Her shields are naive, but quite excellent."

Shields?

Prue wet her lips. "W-who are you? What What are you?" are you?"

Like a portal opening to the depths of h.e.l.l, the dark stain swelled and grew against the wall. The toneless voice boomed off the walls of the chamber. "I am the Necromancer." It lowered to a hiss. "I am Death!"

Somewhere in the back of Prue's mind, a small voice snorted, "Overdoing it." But the Technomage Primus was cowering in a corner and she couldn't hang on to the thought.

"Hold still, my dear." The Necromancer chuckled. He flowed toward her. "All I need is a c.h.i.n.k. Aargh! Aargh!"

The dark shape recoiled, and for a second, Prue thought she glimpsed the swish of an embroidered sleeve, deep in the shadows.

"b.i.t.c.h! By Shaitan, you'll pay for that!" The Necromancer's featureless head turned toward the Technomage. "Turn up the dampers, you fool!"

Obediently, the other woman flipped a lever, fiddled with a dial.

The Necromancer hissed his satisfaction.

Prue followed his gaze to where the wires wrapped around her leather cuffs sparkled with pretty lights. She didn't feel any different, but the Necromancer no longer hesitated, swooping over her like a foul cloud.

"Now where was I? Ah, there . . . slowly now."

Prue slammed her eyes shut, but it was no use. A sliver of ice slid down her spine, wrapped itself around her heart and invaded her lungs. "Ah," said that whispery voice.

"Hurts."

"Of course. Let me see . . ."

Sly, ghostly fingers probed her most private emotions, tweaking with malicious glee, stroking over her soul with a leisurely intimacy that was tantamount to rape.

"G.o.ds, no," she gasped. "No!" She heaved in the chair, fighting the straps, fighting the invader.

After an age, the Necromancer withdrew and Prue sagged, whimpering. He regarded the Technomage. "You have failed," he said, completely without inflection. "This is no witch."

"T-told you," said Prue, shuddering all the way to her bones.

"Sorry." The Technomage lifted a shaking hand to her lips. "N-not my fault. The a.s.sa.s.sin-"

The Necromancer rode over her. "This one is something else. Find out what it is." His attention swung back to Prue. "Where is the air witch?"

"Listen to me." Prue tried to hold the burning gaze lurking within the hood and failed. "I don't know anything about Magick or witches. Nothing, I swear it."

"Nonsense!" The Necromancer loomed over her. "The stink of air Magick is all over you, you and the-" He broke off, his substance condensing.

"The singer," whispered the Technomage. "It's him, has to be."

The silence was so profound, Prue thought she could hear the lapping of the water in the ca.n.a.l, the creak of the enormous Leaf beneath the foundations of the building. Erik? Erik?

"Yess!" The Necromancer's boundaries blurred, expanding as if he'd gorged himself on something ripe and swollen. She caught a gut-churning whiff of old blood, thick and clotted. "By Shaitan, it's perfect!"

"What is?" whispered Prue, struggling to comprehend. If the situation had been different, she would have been helpless with laughter. Erik and Magick?

The Necromancer continued as if she hadn't spoken. "You, my dear," he said, his focus all on her, "you are the honeyed bait that will bring me everything, not only the power, but the flesh to house it. You are the fated instrument of my destiny. Who'd have thought?" A soundless chuckle. "A plain little thing like you."