The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(133)

"I was trying to put her out of harm's way," Coby replied. "Come on, we'd better hide this body."

They carried the groom's corpse into one of the empty stalls. She had seen plenty of dead bodies in her short life, but never touched one before. This one was still warm, like a living man. Somehow that didn't make it any better.

When they were done, they hid in another empty stall where they had a good view of the courtyard through the open stable door. Coby told Ned everything she had seen: the empty room, the suspicious writings on the table, the duke and his son going down to the cellar.

"The cellar? What are they doing down there?"

Coby's throat tightened. "Where better to torture someone, if you don't want their screams to be heard?"

A noise overhead alerted them – too late. Ned staggered as a bale of hay dropped on him from a great height, and he blundered into Coby, who fell back into the stall, narrowly avoiding smashing her skull on the back wall. Meg scurried down the ladder and out into the stable yard.

"Help! Help! Murder!"

Cursing, the two of them leapt to their feet, but Suffolk's retainers were already converging on the stable. The porter levelled his crossbow at them.

"Come on out."

Ned flashed Coby an accusatory glance, then stepped forward, hands raised to show he was unarmed. Within moments they were surrounded, Ned's satchel and the bundle of Mal's weapons confiscated, along with both of their belt knives.

"What do we do with them, sir?" the porter asked another man, a sergeant-at-arms judging by his gilded Suffolk badge and heavy but muscular build.

The sergeant examined the confiscated belongings, raising an eyebrow when he unwrapped the silver-hilted rapier.

"Take them to His Grace," he said.

"With respect, Master Goddard," a younger servant put in, "my lord Suffolk asked not to be interrupted in his work."

"Did I ask your opinion, Ivett?"

"No, sir."

Goddard took hold of Ned, and another liveried retainer seized Coby. The porter kept his crossbow at the ready whilst the two captives were marched to the cellar steps. The young manservant Ivett fumbled with the door latch, trying to juggle the unwieldy armful of weapons. At last the door swung open, and the men shoved Coby and Ned down the steps.

"Better bring those along to show His Grace," Goddard told Ivett.

Coby ducked under the lintel, focusing all her attention on not losing her footing. The stone steps down into the cellar were dished from long use and slick with damp. Ahead of them, a warm glow of lanterns beckoned. A peculiar smell hung in the air, a bitter herbal scent overlaying the earthy, dusty odour common to cellars.

"My lord?" Goddard called out.

They emerged into the main body of the cellar and stumbled to a halt. The tableau arranged before them defied explanation. Four men, living and breathing but motionless as statues, as if posed for the painter's art.

"My lord!"

Ivett dropped his burdens and rushed over to the duke, who lay on the floor, his face deathly pale and twisted in fury. The man holding Coby loosened his grip, but she was too appalled by what she saw to think of escape. The smoke rising from the nearby brazier caught in her throat, making her cough. Rainbow trails swirled as she looked about the cellar. The man holding her screamed and let her go, batting the air around him blindly. Coby thought she saw a smoky blackness whirling about his head, a blur of flying shapes like monstrous bats, before the man stumbled away through the shadows towards the cellar steps. She crossed herself and muttered a prayer.

Goddard swore and drew his sword. For a moment Coby thought he was going to cut down the captives, but he began walking slowly towards the duke like a man in a dream. Ivett screamed as the sergeant raised his sword, and tried to shield his fallen master with his own body. Coby looked away as the blade fell again and again, thudding into flesh like a butcher's cleaver.

Pushing past a confused Ned, she ran to the nearest of the two figures bound to the pillar and looked up into his face. Not Master Catlyn, or at least, not her Master Catlyn. This one was gaunt and pale from too many years in a dark cell: Sandy. She went round to the other side of the pillar, and found Mal, stripped to the waist, eyes tight shut and a frown of concentration creasing his dark brow. Blaise Grey, his expression blank, held a glassy night-black blade to Mal's chest. Neither of them seemed aware of her presence.

She shot a glance back at Ned, who smiled grimly and launched himself at Blaise. The blade flew from the taller man's hand, shattering against the bricks. Blaise's eyes snapped open and he fought back, seizing Ned in a stranglehold. Coby snatched up the bundled weapons and drew the rapier, wondering what on earth she was going to do with it.

As Ivett's screams died away, she realised someone was speaking in a language she had never heard before. It was Sandy.

"Icorrowe amayi'a. D? sasayíhami onapama."

A brilliant light flared around him and when Coby's vision cleared, he was gone.

Sandy – or was it Erishen? – flew upwards like a hawk released, into the nacreous grey sky. Jathekkil howled in frustration and threw himself at Mal, but his hands passed through him. The eternal darkness of the dream realm was replaced by the subterranean gloom of the cellar, lantern-light gilding the brickwork. Mal staggered, no longer bound to his brother, and collided with two struggling figures, sending the three of them crashing to the ground.