‘You don’t think you’d have found this place if I’d really wanted to keep it quiet?’ Brimstone snorted, ‘I left more clues than a paperchase. I knew you’d be following me.’
‘How did you know?’
Brimstone ignored him. ‘But with luck, anybody following you would miss them.’
‘Why should anybody be following me?’ Chalkhill asked. He’d known Brimstone for a million years, but the creature always made him paranoid. He smelt so dreadfully of sulphur.
‘There’s more at stake here than you could possibly suspect,’ Brimstone said mysteriously. ‘More people involved than Madame Cardui.’
‘How did you know about Madame Cardui?’ Chalkhill gasped, then bit his tongue. If Brimstone didn’t really know, Chalkhill had just confirmed it. Amateur mistake. Naughty, naughty Chalkhill.
‘Oh, all right, I’ll go first,’ Brimstone said impatiently. He gripped the handrail and began to negotiate the steps like an elderly crab. Light spells flared from the walls as he did so.
After a moment, Chalkhill followed, ‘Is this the cellar?’
‘Catacombs,’ Brimstone said over one bony shoulder. ‘Nearly two miles of them, packed together like a maze.’
‘Catacombs?’ Chalkhill echoed. ‘You built catacombs?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Brimstone told him. He stopped abruptly and clung to the balustrade, hissing. After a moment he went on breathlessly. ‘They date back to the Great Persecution. Red priests of the Raddled Faction used to hide their corpses down here so they wouldn’t be eaten. Hid themselves as well, so they wouldn’t be turned into corpses. It’s crude engineering, but very well concealed. The owner of the house doesn’t even know the catacombs are here: I made sure of that when I rented. Not that I thought he would. I only found out about them myself through a rare old manuscript.’ He started down the steps again.
A thought occurred to Chalkhill and he asked, ‘Are you living down here, Silas?’
‘You bet your life I’m living down here,’ Brimstone said. ‘You think I’d let something this important out of my sight for longer than I had to?’
‘Something what important, Silas? What something?’
‘You’ll see.’
Brimstone reached the bottom of the steps and stopped again, breathing heavily. God alone knew how the old fool expected to get back up them again. ‘Are you all right, Silas?’ Chalkhill asked with feigned concern.
‘You must have pissed off Hairstreak,’ Brimstone said. ‘He wants me to murder you.’
The staircase ended in an arched corridor roughhewn out of bedrock. There were niches in the walls every few yards, housing bits of tibias and skulls. It was crude engineering, as Brimstone had said, but effective enough. Chalkhill reckoned they had to be under the river here, yet everything was bone dry. He wondered if he should run back up the steps – the chances of Silas ever catching up with him had to be close to zero. But instead, he asked curiously, ‘Are you going to?’
Brimstone sniffed. ‘Not likely. I can trust you more than I trust him for this little bit of business.’
‘What little bit of business?’ Chalkhill frowned.
‘That’s what I want to show you,’ Brimstone said. He caught his breath at last and started down the corridor. He must have set up light spells here as well, for it lit up as he went. ‘Stick close,’ he called back. ‘This place can be confusing if you’re not used to it.’
Chalkhill hesitated for a fraction of a second, then started after him.
It was, as Brimstone said, confusing. The arched corridor turned quickly into a maze of cramped tunnels, which bulged into smallish chambers from time to time and occasionally opened out into charnel galleries. There were bones and skulls everywhere. The whole place smelled of must.
Now he’d left the stairs behind, Brimstone had regained his old sprightly self and scuttled along without apparent discomfort. ‘Nearly there,’ he called over his shoulder.
They reached a chamber that clearly had been modified in recent years. There was a heavy metal-clad door set into the wall at one end.
Brimstone produced a massive key. ‘Put on your lenses,’ he instructed. He dragged a heavy pair of darkened goggles from his pocket and fitted them carefully around his ears.
Like Brimstone, Chalkhill was a Faerie of the Night. He produced his own dark glasses – rimmed with ormolu worked into an impressively baroque design but hesitated. ‘There’s not much light down here.’
‘Just do it,’ Brimstone said. He inserted the key in the lock and turned it with some difficulty. Then he grabbed the handle and pulled back the massive door.
Chalkhill’s jaw dropped as he stared inside the room.
Thirty-One
Blue hesitated in the doorway. Comma had been such an odious child, sneaky, pompous, sly. She’d loved him, of course – he was her half-brother after all – but she could never bring herself to like him. It almost seemed as if the change had occurred overnight, temperament and looks together. He lost weight, gained height and suddenly he was a good-looking young man, full of new-found courtesy, sensitivity and understanding. The odious child was Comma then. Comma now was… Comma now was…
Comma now was levitating gracefully close to the ceiling of the practice hall. The tight-fitting suit accentuated the sleek muscularity of his body as he swooped and soared in complex, graceful patterns. He would have a devastating effect on girls one of these days. Blue shook her head. Who was she fooling? He already had a devastating effect on girls. There were eight of them in the practice hall, members of the Royal Ballet, and every one was watching him with adoration.
As Blue herself watched, one of the girls took off with expert skill and soared to join him. She had long, dark hair tied in a tight bun and the sort of body that comes with years of training. Her eyes were glazed with concentration as she induced the levitation trance.
Comma reached for her and took her hand. Blue stared, enraptured, as the two floated, light as thistledown, into the dance steps of a classic pas de deux. They moved gently at first, then faster, but always gracefully, parting, soaring, reaching, closing for a brief embrace, then onwards, heavenwards. Blue recognised a movement from Februa’s Heliconius, one of her personal favourites. She wondered briefly if the dancers would end it at the kiss; and when they did, she noted the envious looks on the faces of the other girls.
The dark-haired girl sank slowly back down to the ground, unable to maintain her trance, but Comma stayed easily aloft. Clearly he had a talent that would take him far. Blue stepped into the hall and at once the ballet girls ran to greet her with elaborate, elegant curtsies. Blue returned their smiles, then said softly, ‘Leave us.’ The girls scattered like doves, taking their exits in small, swift steps. Above her head, Comma sank gently towards her.
‘Security?’ Blue asked without preliminary as he landed. She noticed that despite the efforts of the levitation he had scarcely broken a sweat.
In the old days he would have made a fuss, demanded to know at once what her visit was about, accused her of interrupting his practice and Light only knew what else. As it was, the new Comma only smiled and nodded and walked lightly to close the double doors with their self-activating spells. ‘Secure now, Blue,’ he said. ‘Is there a crisis?’ He blinked and added, ‘Other than the ones I know about.’
So many crises. But at least she could trust him now. In fact, she realised suddenly, she could trust him completely. Comma was still young, but he was intelligent and calm, with a surprising, if unobtrusive, grasp of Realm politics. Which was just as well, considering what she was about to ask. She gave him a warm, fond smile. ‘If there is, you’ll have to handle it.’
He frowned slightly but was intelligent enough to understand. ‘You’re leaving the Palace?’
Blue nodded, ‘It’s possible I might be away for quite some time.’
Comma waited, his eyes on her face.