The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(132)

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the drug's befuddlement.

"D? itorro, pahi saca." It was Sandy's voice, but Mal knew it was Erishen speaking. The dream herb will not be enough.

"Silence, demon!"

A snap of flesh on flesh.

"I told you not to touch him," Mal said.

Blaise came round to the other side of the pillar.

"I am the son of a duke," he purred. "I do not take orders from commoners."

Blaise glanced at his father, and nodded. He produced a small bottle from his pocket and uncorked it, then seized Mal's chin with his free hand and forced his head back. His eyes were glittering shards of amethyst and topaz, filling Mal's vision.

"Thou hast the devil," Blaise recited from the gospels. "Who goeth about to kill thee?"

He dug his fingers into the corners of Mal's jaw, forcing his mouth open, and tipped the bottle so that a little of the liquid poured between Mal's lips. Mal tried to spit it out, but Blaise pressed his jaw shut again, tilting his head back as far as it would go until he had no choice but to swallow or breathe the stuff in. The bitterness of the potion left his mouth dry as paper, but at least it didn't burn like the healing tincture.

The iron hand released him, and he sagged forwards, barely able to hear Sandy's cries of protest over the roaring in his ears. The walls of the cellar spun about him, as if he were blind drunk. He sucked in a deep breath, desperate to clear his head.

Blaise stood in front of him once more, holding a dagger, if such it could be called. The blade was a sliver of obsidian, its edge so sharp as to be translucent. Blaise held it motionless a few inches from Mal's heart.

"If you're going to kill me," Mal rasped, "for Christ's sake get on with it."

"Not until it's time."

"Time for what?"

But Blaise was gone.

Rain sluiced down the windows of the long gallery at Rushdale Hall. The house was empty but for the two boys, its many chambers cold and silently watchful. They were playing a favourite game, standing face to face, hands raised and fingertips touching. The aim was to mimic the other's movements so closely as to be a perfect mirror image.

Sandy withdrew his left hand and Mal pulled back his right, a fraction of a second too slowly. Sandy smiled in triumph, and Mal remembered just in time to do the same. He fixed Sandy's eyes with his own, watching for any sign of his twin's next move. Something told him there was more at stake here than bragging rights. A trickle of sweat ran down his back.

"Which of you is real?" a distant voice taunted them. "And which only the reflection in the mirror?"

Mal tried to take control of the game, but Sandy was too quick for him, had always been too quick. Sandy was real, and Mal only the counterfeit, the shadow, his brother's needs always taking precedence over his own.

"You are nothing without him," the voice went on. "A cipher, a nobody, dispossessed and friendless."

No. He dared not even speak aloud lest he lose the game, but he knew the voice could hear his thoughts. I have friends. Ned and Hendricks and…

"Kiiren? I think not. He is using you. He only wants to find Erishen."

"We are both Erishen," Sandy said, his voice loud in Mal's ears.

Too late, Mal opened his mouth to echo the words.

"Yes, you are both Erishen," the voice whispered in Mal's ear. "In this crucible of dreams I shall distil your two souls into one body, remake you as you were."

"No," they said in unison.

"You have no choice. When the night-blade severs Erishen's spirit from your body, you must join with your brother once more. Or take your chances in the dark."

As one the twins turned their heads. Jathekkil was circling them, a trail of light following him like a serpent's tail, wrapping them about. Mal looked down at himself: his ethereal body glowed a deep molten yellow, whilst Sandy was a brilliant violet, almost too bright to look at. Beyond the circle of light, coal-black shapes lurked in the corner of his vision. Whenever he turned his head, they slid away behind him. Not because they were afraid to be seen, but because they were toying with him, daring him to look and be sent mad by the sight.

Something else tugged at Mal's attention, something more important than the dark lurkers. A faint current like the undertow of a river, an eddy circling a void that begged to be filled. And he could fill it, start again, free of this body and the responsibilities that went with it.

"No!" Jathekkil screamed. "That one is mine. You shall not have him."

Mal focused all his attention on the current, seeing it swirl towards that tiny void. An unborn child, not far away. Richmond Palace. Princess Juliana in her confinement. Now he knew why the duke wanted to die here.

"Kill me," he told Jathekkil, "and I will end your scheme today. Traitor."



CHAPTER XXXV

"What have you done?" Coby said in horror, staring at the corpse at the foot of the loft ladder.

"It was an accident, all right?" Ned muttered.

"Is…?" She glanced up at the loft in horror. "You didn't kill the girl, did you?"

"Of course I didn't. What do you take me for?" Ned followed her gaze. "Put the fear of God into her, maybe, but she's safe and sound up there. What were you thinking anyway, arranging trysts with wenches?"