Gaby’s hands came up as though she were holding something to her. Her pose was a mirror of Gabrielle’s.
“Gaby, can you feel it?”
“Yes. It’s velvet. It smells like cinnamon. Angus Powrie says they’ve grabbed Caster Roundcap.”
“What?”
The talk-box screen went to static. Gaby jolted. She looked down at her empty arms. Her face twisted and she bowed her head. Doc realized she was trying not to cry.
He knelt before her. “Gabriela, I’m sorry. You’re awake now, aren’t you?”
Harris, looking tentative, moved behind her sofa and went to work massaging her shoulders.
“I’m awake. I’m fine. It’s so stupid,” she said. She wouldn’t look up at him; her hair hung before her eyes. “It’s not real. The horse. The room. But it’s like remembering something I used to love, something I’ve forgotten about for years and years . . . ”
“Why did you say that about Angus Powrie?”
She finally looked up at him. Her expression was an odd mix of hurt and defiance. “I heard it. I felt the doll. I could see you through this mirror. I heard this babble of voices, like the cocktail party from hell, and I got this headache. It’s still with me.” She rubbed her temple. “And then in the middle of it was this voice, this smooth, nasty voice. It said something like, ‘Angus Powrie has reported in. He’s acquired Caster Roundcap. We’ll call to you if we have anything more . . . ’ And then I lost it.”
“Because I shouted.” He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry. We did well. Next time I’ll try to keep myself under control. For now, you ought to get some rest.”
“No, thanks. Noriko is going to give me my first piloting lesson.” She reached up and patted one of Harris’ hands. “Thanks, Harris. I think I’m all right.” She stood, not looking at either one of them, and went forward.
Doc asked, “Does she ever follow anyone’s advice?”
“Sure. When it happens to match what she plans to do anyway.” Harris’ gesture took in the talk-box set. “Was that good?”
“I think so. But it seemed to be a tremendous strain on her. I don’t like that.”
“Where do I know the name Caster Roundcap?”
“I called to him about you.”
“Oh, yeah. The expert on the grim world.”
“And now it seems I’ve dragged him into danger.” He sighed. “Obviously the Valks have reached Cretanis already. But we land in less than a bell. Maybe we can get to Caster before anything worse happens to him.”
“Can you call ahead and tell the police, the guard, to be on the lookout?”
Doc shook his head. “I could, but then they would be on the lookout for me, as well. I have a longstanding disagreement with Maeve the Tenth that makes it impractical for me to announce my arrival.”
“Great. I’m helping a guy that everybody in the world either works for or wants to kill.”
Doc nodded. “That about sums it up.”
The Frog Prince, Noriko and Doc once more at the controls, made a sweet, smooth landing at the Suliston airstrip. The strip had its lights on, but those beacons winked to darkness almost as soon as the plane taxied to a halt inside the designated hangar.
Over his shoulder, Doc called, “Do you have the papers?”
Jean-Pierre’s voice floated faintly back up to him. “Right here.” Doc heard the man clinking coins through his hands. He smiled.
As he and Noriko went through their shutdown checklist, he felt a sudden stir of cold air as exterior hatches were opened. Moments later, he saw Jean-Pierre walk into view before the plane and approach the arriving officials. Jean-Pierre moved among them, talking comfortably, gesturing proudly at the plane, dropping coins into hands with slippery ease.
In just a few beats he was back, sauntering into the cockpit. “They’re our very good friends,” he said, “and anxious not to annoy our employer with irrelevant questions or paperwork. As long as the coin holds out, of course.”
“Of course,” Doc said. “Who’s our employer?”
“Why, that famous construction magnate, Joseph of Neckerdam.” Jean-Pierre gestured like a man stating a fact of nature. “He’s biggest, he’s boss.”
“Stands to reason. Now go out and arrange to have us refueled and served. Hire Joseph a lorry or a car. And ask about any Valkyries landing.”
“Perfection is never enough for you, Doc.”
The road was a one-lane blacktop situated between towering ranks of trees—the biggest, most gnarled oaks Harris had ever seen. They leaned across the road and stretched limbs down as though waiting to swat unwary motorists off the road. There were no streetlights, no reflective signs on dangerous turns, no stripes down the middle to indicate lanes. In the car they’d hired—a huge convertible roadster, the personal property of one of the airfield owners—Jean-Pierre roared ahead with a singular indifference to the fate of the vehicle or its passengers.
Harris clutched his jacket tight around him; it was inadequate in the cold air whipping across them. “First thing we get back,” he shouted, “I invent the seatbelt.”
“Seat restraints aren’t new,” Doc shouted back. “They’re just not necessary.” He had Duncan Blackletter’s tracer in his hand; its screen cast a green glow on his features. He frowned at it.
“Ask Jean-Pierre to drive smack into one of those big trees, then try to tell me that again.”
Doc waved his objections away. “Shut off your screen device, would you? You too, Gaby. They’re interfering with this.”
“Sure.”
Doc raised his voice even louder so Jean-Pierre, Noriko and Alastair, in the front seat, and Joseph in the rumble seat could also hear him. “Adennum is a village. I don’t think we need worry too much with it. Near it is an ancient site of worship, the Adennum Complex. It has a great hill, circle stones, standing stones, radiating lines and paths; it covers a lot of ground. It’s sacred to the goddess Sull, Lady of the Dark World, Bringer of Death and Knowledge, and it’s very old.”
Gaby tried futilely to keep the wind from whipping her hair into a nightmarish tangle. “You think Duncan Blackletter will be at the complex.”
“Yes. The village is just a village. The complex is a place of power.”
“What does he want there?”
“We’ll find out. We’ll look at the site. If he hasn’t arrived yet, we’ll set up for him. A couple of us will go on to Beldon, the capital, and see whether we can find out anything about Caster Roundcap or the Valkyries.
“But if they’re here now . . . we move against them.” He looked back at the tracer. “I get a signal. There are men of the grim world within a few destads.”
The village of Adennum was still at this hour of the night. Harris saw only glimpses of the houses as they roared along the village’s winding streets, but he marveled at the strange architecture. The homes looked like small, round hills built of irregular stone. No two were alike in size or contours, but all doors opened to the east. Soft light emerged through the second-story shuttered windows. Harris thought that someone had erected tall, thin white columns all over the village, but realized he was looking at enormous beeches lining the roadways. Then the car was past the town and into the forest again.
After another mile, the trees fell away to the left and the travelers could look out over a large plain. Harris could see the silhouettes of standing stones, lone sentinels set up at intervals in a straight line. He saw small circles of stones laid into the earth.