found his first ally.
God knows I need all the help I can get.
And the thought of leaving her like this, twisted and distorted, was more than he could stomach. But before he’d managed to identify the first dark incant tainting her etheretic aura the other Gerald shushed Monk’s sister with a sharp word and started to slow the car.
“All right, Professor,” he said, so abominably cheerful. “We’re here. And we’ve just enough time to spare to have ourselves a nice little stroll around.”
“Stroll around?” he said, lifting his eyelids. Ha, I was right. This is the parade ground. “In public? Don’t you want to keep me under wraps? I mean, aren’t I going to be a bit difficult to explain?”
Looking over his shoulder, the other Gerald smiled the blood-chilling smile that rendered him a perfect stranger. “That won’t be a problem. I’ve had the area closed. Come along!”
So Melissande really hadn’t been exaggerating. This Gerald had the power to arrange the city’s workings to suit himself. Even incomplete, the picture was getting worse and worse. Beneath his plain cotton shirt and his drab brown suit his skin was sticky with sweat. He had to wait for his counterpart to unhex his door and open it.
“Just one more thing, Professor,” the other Gerald said, out of the car now and leaning down, his hand on the rear passenger door’s handle, his body blocking escape. Deep in his eyes, the crimson flames flickered. “You’ll notice that as a courtesy I’ve not restrained you. No shadbolt. No booby-traps. Not even a little docilianti to keep you at my heels. I’m going to assume you appreciate that gesture. I’m going to assume you’ll not disrespect my hospitality or betray my trust by trying anything stupid-say, like running away.”
Keep him sweet, keep him sweet… “Of course not, Gerald.”
“Good,” said his counterpart. “Because I wasn’t joking. I will make Melissande pay for your mistakes. And if those mistakes are big enough, well, I’ll kick your ass too. And you might as well know now, Professor, so there aren’t any misunderstandings. Compared to me? Lional of New Ottosland was a slobbering sentimentalist.”
A bolt of the darkest, purest fear he’d ever felt shafted through him. “This is crazy,” he whispered. “Gerald, what happened to you? What went wrong? We weren’t brought up to be cruel, or-or despotic. Our parents are- were-lovely people. And we were-we were good. I can’t believe that even Grummen’s Lexicon and those other grimoires could’ve changed you this much.”
The other Gerald laughed. “Don’t be an idiot. You think I stopped there? Uffitzi’s paltry library was only the beginning.”
“Oh,” he said blankly. “Well. That probably explains it.” He swallowed. “So… we’re talking the entire Internationally Proscribed Index?”
“And one or two collections that slipped through the cracks,” said his counterpart. “Let’s just say I’m the most well-rounded wizard you’re ever likely to meet. And that I can deal with you as easily as swatting a fly.”
He nodded, bacon and fried egg churning in his guts. “It’s all right. I believe you.” Except-if that’s the case, then why do you need me? Whatever you’re planning, Gerald, why don’t you just get on with it? “And like I said, I won’t try anything. I promise.”
“ Excellent, ” said the other Gerald, and stepped back from the car. “But you know-just in case you’re trying to pull a swifty? If you’re thinking you might, I don’t know, bide your time and try something foolish when my guard’s down? There are one or two things I really need you to see.”
Which means I really don’t want to see them, doesn’t it?
But he had no choice. All he could do was play along until he had a chance to come up with some kind of plan.
Because there’s still the Monk in this world. I have to believe that Melissande’s right and he’s not let himself be corrupted too. And my Monk, he’s a bloody genius. He’ll work out what’s happened and he’ll find a way to get me home. Bibbie-my Bibbie-she’ll help him. And Sir Alec. The whole Department. All the janitors-even Mr. Dalby. I’m not alone. It just feels that way.
Steeling himself, he clambered out of the posh car-and nearly fell on his ass.
“Bloody hell!”
What had been an open air civic gathering place was now a forbiddingly-walled enclosure, the red brick barriers standing some fifteen feet high. Enormous wrought-iron gates guarded a locked entrance, and frozen over the gates in a nightmare greeting-or warning His counterpart sighed. “Magnificent, isn’t she? Quite the souvenir if I do say so myself.”
She was the dragon he-they-had made for Lional. Even in the glum, cloud-filtered light the creature’s crimson and emerald scales flashed brilliant. Suspended in mid-air, wings spread wide, lower jaw unhinged to display its full array of fearsome, poison-slicked teeth, tail poised to lash, taloned feet outstretched, the dragon reared above the wrought-iron gates so lifelike, so terrifying “God,” he said, turning. “It’s dead, isn’t it? Tell me it’s dead!”
Bibbie giggled. “You big baby. Of course it’s dead.”
“Dead and thaumaturgically preserved,” added the other Gerald. “For posterity. Because she really is bloody beautiful, isn’t she?”
The last thing he wanted to do was agree, but he had no choice. Indeed the dragon was-had always been- beautiful. He nodded. “Yes.”
The other Gerald sighed. “Such a shame I had to replace two of the teeth with thaumaturgical fakes.”
“They got broken?”
“Sort of.”
Oh. Well. All moral considerations aside it was a shame, really. Like a magnet the dragon drew his horrified, fascinated gaze. Cautiously he stretched out his potentia. The strength of the incants surrounding the creature did knock him back a step, but he managed to keep his balance and stay on his feet.
Beneath the complex network of preservation and immobilization hexes he could feel decaying remnants of the Tantigliani sympathetico… and mingled with that, a lingering memory of Lional.
He felt his belly turn over as bile flooded his mouth.
The other Gerald laughed. “You know what they say, Professor. Look, but don’t touch.”
He pulled back his potentia, shaking, and waited for the churning nausea to subside. “It’s very impressive.”
“Isn’t it?” said his counterpart, smugly pleased. “What did you do with your dragon, Professor? No-wait-don’t tell me. You buried her. Right?”
He nodded, his gaze still riveted to the horribly magnificent beast overhead. “Of course. Thanks to the sympathetico, Lional and that thing were inextricably bound. To bury him without the dragon would’ve been like burying him without an arm, or a leg.”
“Or a head,” said the other Gerald. “But then, since my Lional’s not buried either it isn’t something I need to worry about.”
“Not that you needed to worry at all,” added Bibbie. “I mean, he was a rotter and he deserved what he got.”
Gerald felt a cold shiver skitter over his skin. “And what did he get? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“All in good time, Professor,” said the other Gerald briskly. “Let’s get cracking, shall we? I’ve a lot planned for today.”
With a snap of his fingers he unhexed the lethally hexed wrought-iron gates, which silently swung open to admit them. Gerald hung back, letting his counterpart and Bibbie lead the way. Once they were just comfortably far enough ahead he followed and, trying not to appear eagerly curious, looked around the enclosed parade ground. It seemed they were alone. He couldn’t see anyone else. But there was a scattered collection of large, opaque domes. They looked like enormous upended, smoked-glass soup bowls. Most peculiar. But he didn’t dare poke at them to learn exactly what they were. Everything in here was hexed, he could feel the incants skittering against his skin. Poke too hard, or at the wrong thing, and he might set off a thaumaturgical booby-trap.
The wrought-iron gates clanged shut behind them, their hexes reigniting as metal kissed metal. He felt that, too, a deep shudder in his potentia. The air reeked of coercive magics, a sour tang aftertaste with every breath he took. So unlike his own city of Ott was it that he found it hard to believe they’d ever been the same place.
Like me and this Gerald. We have no common ground.
So how he was supposed to reach him, get him to turn back from his dark, destructive path, he had no idea.
