The Iron Wyrm Affair

And no doubt the exact branch of her Discipline had been a shock to the man.

An iron gate in the low wall surrounding the house was not locked, and Mikal gingerly pushed it open enough to slip through. Eli followed Emma, and gravel crunched underfoot as the circular drive trembled under the pressure of the fog. The gardens were indistinct shadows; the front door atop three worn steps was a monstrosity of steel- bound oak. It was there, before the steps, that Emma’s heart thumped twice and turned to cold lead inside her chest.

For the left-hand door was open very slightly.

He was expecting her.

“Mikal?”

“Yes.” He was in his accustomed place behind her right shoulder, and her flesh chilled.

For he had broken Devon’s neck, keeping the head intact so she could question the man’s shade, but robbing the body below it of the shade’s control. As if he had anticipated she would wish to speak to the dead sorcerer, and provided the safest means to do so.

Which was … interesting.

“He is mine. You will confine yourself to the Shields.”

“Yes, Prima.” As if he did not care.

We shall have a long conversation later, Mikal. But for now … “Eli.”

“Yes, Prima?”

“Very carefully, open the left-hand door further. Very carefully.”

There was little need for care, for the heavy oak and iron swung easily and silently. The darkness inside was absolute. The defences shimmering to Sight did not spark or tighten. Emma delicately tweezed them aside, tasting the unphysical traces of the personality behind them.

There was no need; she would recognise his work anywhere. It seemed yet another lifetime ago she had been learning the subtle twists, his habit of disdain, the serpentine shifts of his considerable intellect.

It had perhaps never occurred to him what he had been teaching her with every moment she spent in his presence. The lessons were many and varied. Dutifully, she applied one of them now.

Do not spring a trap until you know exactly its manner and measure, dear Emma. Slightly sarcastic, with the bitter edge; she could almost hear him. But when you know, do it swiftly. So it knows it has been sprung.

Chin high, she gathered her skirts and strode through the door.

For a moment the darkness stretched, a rippling sheet of black, but the spell was so laughably simple she broke it without even needing Word or charm, simply a flexing of her will. Of course, there could have been a more fiendish and complex spell behind it – but she did not think so.

And she was correct. The foyer was narrow but very high, the grand steps at its back managing to be the most utterly abhorrent piece of internal architecture she’d seen in easily six months. It was as if Grayson actively pursued the ugliest thing possible.

Where would he be? Parlour or bedroom? “Mikal?”

“They do not seek to be quiet,” her Shield murmured. He pointed to the side. “There.”

Parlour, then. Which meant a number of uncomfortable things.

“No servants to take one’s wrap, even,” she commented. “Dreadfully rude.”

The parlour door’s porcelain handle clicked. A slice of ruddy light widened as the flimsy door – painted with overblown cherubs, in a style that had not been fashionable even when it was attempted ten years ago – swung silently open.

Cheap theatrics, my dear. But she continued on, briskly, the two Shields trailing her. Her skirts rustled; there was no need for silence. She stepped over the threshold and on to a hideous but expensive carpet, patterned with blotchy things she supposed were an attempt at flowers.

The furniture was chunky and graceless, but again, very expensive. Someone had the habit of antimacassars and doilies, hand-wrought from the look of them, just the sort of meaningless thrift she would expect from whatever lumpen thing Grayson could induce to marry him. All Grayson’s taste and judgement had gone into playing politics, and he was a keen and subtle opponent there.

But now, all his keenness and subtlety was splashed in a sticky red stinking tide across the terrible carpet. The brassy odour of death filled the stifling parlour, and from the least objectionable leather chair by the fireplace, licked by the glow and the furious heat given forth by a merry blaze, Llewellyn Gwynnfud chuckled. His long pale hair was pulled back, and for a dead man, he looked remarkably pleased with himself.

“Punctual to the last, dear Emma.” The erstwhile dead Prime lifted a small cut-crystal wine glass of red fluid, and Mikal’s sudden tension told her there were other Shields in this room. Hidden, of course, and she wondered if they knew of the fate of Llew’s last crop of Collegia-trained protectors.

Grayson’s twisted, eviscerated body was flung over a brown horsehair sopha, the tangle of his guts steaming. Now, as she spared it a longer glance, she wondered if the Prime had killed his Shields himself.

And if Mehitabel the Black had helped.

“A simulacrum,” she replied. “And a fantastic one too, well beyond your power. Did you and your sleeping master truly expect the strike at Bedlam to kill me?”

A swiftly smoothed flash of annoyance crossed his face. Long nose, fleshy lips, his blue eyes a trifle too close together … well, he was handsome, Emma allowed, but only until one knew him.

Only until one saw the rot underneath.

“I have no master, my dear. One or two of our partners expected you to meet your doom before now, but they don’t know you as I do.” He twirled the small glass, the viscous fluid in its crystalline bowl making a soft sliding sound under the roar of the fire.

“Oh, you have a master. Not Mehitabel – she couldn’t craft a simulacrum that fine, being of the Black Line.” She tapped a finger to her lips, not missing Llewellyn’s eyelids lowering a fraction. It was as close to a flinch as he would allow himself, facing her on this carefully set stage. “But no worries, I will settle accounts with your master soon enough. I have decided to deal with you first.”

That produced a snarl, a flash of white teeth. “I’m flattered.”

“Not at all. You are, after all, the smaller problem.”

Sparks crackled, the breathless tension heightening a fraction. The fire was large, yes – but it was not large enough to produce such heat. There was the matter of the fluid in the glass, and the shadows clustering on the walls, any of which might hide a Shield or two. Or half a dozen. The eviscerated body of the Lord Chancellor was worrisome too, and the rest of Grayson’s house ticking and groaning as nightfall settled and yellow fog began to press upon it in earnest was not quite as it should be. The sounds were too sharp, too weighty.

In short, Llewellyn Gwynnfud had prepared this for a reason. Emma took a half-step to her left, away from the ruin of Grayson’s body. “The Chancellor did not expect this,” she observed, as Eli and Mikal moved with her – Mikal soundless and Eli’s boots creaking just a fraction.

Llewellyn didn’t twitch. Instead, he lifted the cordial glass and stared into its swirl. “You found another Shield. Who did this one kill?”

Indirectly reminding her of Crawford, to see if he could unsettle her. Of course. “Not nearly as many as you have, I would fancy. Your former Shields, all dead and gutsplit in an alley.” She indicated Grayson’s indecently splayed body with a sudden sharp movement, and was gratified to see Llewellyn flinch. “Just like him. You’re exhibiting a pattern, Lord Sellwyth.” Her hand dropped. “That’s right. Sellwyth. Dinas Emrys is part of your family’s holdings, isn’t it?” A long pause. “I’ve always wanted to visit it. Perhaps now’s the time.”

For in the lore of the Age of Flame, the ancient citadel of Dinas Emrys was tangled with the Pax Draegonir. It was where simulacra of the wyrms would meet in conclave, in the presence of their sleeping progenitor, the Third Wyrm, the one from who all the wyrmlings now were descended.

The first two Great Wyrms were either dead or sleeping so deeply they might as well be – or so sorcerers hoped. But Vortigern lay just under the surface of the Isle, and his might was such that even Britannia might not quell him.

The other Prime had gone very still. He made a slight tsk tsk noise. “You are so quick, dear Emma. Listen for a few moments.”