Trinovant? But Tremaine needs to be near a battlefront for the Ritual of the Way!
Aubrey felt as if he’d been standing on carefully constructed scaffolding made from his observations, speculations and deductions about Dr Tremaine and as he was about to reach out to grasp the final, clear understanding of the rogue sorcerer’s plans the scaffolding dissolved beneath him.
Why is he abandoning everything?
Aubrey glanced at Caroline to find that she was staring with horror at the back of Professor Mansfield’s head.
He looked down and nearly cried out. In a shaved patch, just above where her neck swelled out into the skull proper, was a socket.
The ghastly thing was an inch or so in diameter and had the appearance of hard, white ceramic. Scar tissue surrounded it, reddened and weeping in places, and Aubrey shuddered at the thought of the operation needed to insert such an abomination.
Professor Mansfield pushed away from Aubrey. Before he could ask what had happened to her, she chided herself. ‘No, no, no! I promised Kurt I wouldn’t cry. Not a tear, not at all.’
Aubrey took Professor Mansfield’s shoulders, but at that moment he saw the bearded doctor hovering behind her. He pointed at his watch then at his leg in an awkward pantomime. Aubrey looked down and saw fresh blood on the sheet.
‘They said I might lose my leg,’ Professor Mansfield said softly.
‘Don’t worry.’ The words came automatically to Aubrey’s lips. ‘You’ll have the best of care.’
She grimaced, then gripped his arm again, hard. ‘I won’t, but it doesn’t matter. Kurt risked his life to save us from that madman. He made a much larger sacrifice when we crashed, and I’m not going to dishonour his memory.’
‘But how is Dr Tremaine going to attack Trinovant?’
‘He has the Rashid Stone,’ she said and Aubrey wondered at her state of mind, skating about like that. How badly shaken had she been by her experiences, let alone the crash?
‘It’s important?’
‘Listen!’ She glared at him and her fingers dug into his arm. ‘He’s collected magical artefacts from all over to enhance his magic, including the Rashid Stone. He’s gathered magicians and savants from all over -’ She broke off and coughed, her face contorting with pain. ‘He’s harvested their knowledge and harnessed their magical talent.’
‘He wired you together.’ Aubrey remembered the booths under Dr Tremaine’s clifftop estate. Revulsion made the words stick in his throat. ‘He treated you like a row of batteries.’
A flutter of a smile. ‘You were always quick, Aubrey. As you should be with such parents.’
Aubrey did his best to be reassuring, but he found it difficult as he tried to fit this new data into his thinking. ‘He did this to you and the others to achieve his goal.’
‘You know what that is?’
‘I do.’ The Ritual of the Way. A blood sacrifice and then immortality for his sister and himself.
A thousand thoughts were rampaging in Aubrey’s mind, calling for attention, insisting that he bring them all together to form a coherent, comprehensive theory. One of these thoughts rose above all the others and thumped the inside of his skull until he turned to it.
Dr Tremaine wouldn’t abandon his preparations unless he had something more suited to his ends. ‘He could have something better than the Ritual of the Way,’ he said softly. The horror of anything that would surpass a magical rite needing the blood of thousands struck him like a blow. Only with an effort did he prevent himself from folding in the middle and falling to the floor.
‘Aubrey.’ Professor Mansfield brought her face close to his. She was shivering. ‘Whatever he’s doing, he must be stopped. He’s going now!’
61
TheDoctor, Having Seen That Professor Mansfield had collapsed, bustled in and, with the assistance of a horde of nurses, whisked the trolley through the wooden doors.
‘She’ll get the care she needs,’ Caroline said. She took Aubrey by the arm and shepherded him out of the preparation area, which had exploded into action as soon as the impasse with Professor Mansfield had been resolved. Screens were dragged aside, trolleys and equipment rushed to bedsides, bandaged soldiers in wheelchairs hurried away.
Aubrey was deep in thought as they hurried back to the chateau. Through adroit nudging and steering, Caroline kept him from colliding with apple trees, water pumps and the many hurrying service people who had turned the estate into a headquarters. She even had to stop his progress with an outflung arm to prevent his running into a maintenance crew that was rushing to one of the new Gannet model ornithopters that had just landed in the large flat area to the west of the chateau.
General Apsley would need to be informed, Aubrey decided, plucking a single decision from the furore in his mind. News of this development needed to get to the Directorate immediately, so Trinovant could prepare for Dr Tremaine’s assault. Not knowing the exact nature of the attack was going to make things difficult, but this warning would give a chance to ready the forces.
Aubrey was jerked out of his planning by the abrupt thumping of thirteen-pounder guns. He looked east, shading his eyes, looking past the line of poles that brought the telegraph line to the chateau. ‘Anti-aircraft artillery?’
Caroline pointed. ‘On the edge of the estate, near the road, the other side of the avenue of trees.’
Before Aubrey could make out the emplacements, he was stunned in two vastly different ways. With astonishment, he saw the target for the anti-aircraft guns while simultaneously feeling as if someone had implanted a hook below his sternum and yanked it skywards.
‘Aubrey!’ Caroline cried as he doubled over, then staggered a few steps. Around them, soldiers began running and shouting, which was never a good thing in Aubrey’s experience. The sudden appearance of helmets did little to reassure him, and the looming presence on the horizon fully justified such preparations.
A skyfleet was steaming towards them.
62
Masses of ominous dark-grey thunderheads were heaped up, towering toward the heavens. Advancing from the middle of this storm was a horribly familiar line of cloud-forged warcraft led by a massive battleship – a dreadnought large enough to make other dreadnoughts think about doing some quiet dreading.
The sun vanished. Lightning flickered above the thunderheads and the day was suddenly cold. As the storm surged toward them, wind sprang up, whipped at tent flaps and sent leaves scurrying across the ground.
The anti-aircraft guns continued their determined barrage, firing faster and faster as the skyfleet steamed closer. The shells burst all about the cloud ships but did nothing to stop their progress.
Dr Tremaine was up there. The jolt Aubrey had felt was a tug on the link he shared with the rogue sorcerer. It was a whiplash moment, then it was gone, but in that instant he had Dr Tremaine’s location as surely as if the sorcerer were standing on top of a lighthouse with a flag on his head.
Caroline was quick. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Dr Tremaine? Is that how he’s going to attack Trinovant?’
Aubrey went to agree, then another option presented itself with enough force to make him wince. He looked at the chateau, then he looked at the approaching skyfleet, then he looked at the chateau again. Was Dr Tremaine the master of multiple strategies? Of course he was. ‘Yes. Probably. Maybe.’
Caroline followed his gaze. ‘You think he knows Bertie is here.’
‘Why not create some mayhem along the way to Trinovant? The disarray it would create would be useful, just in case his Trinovant mission fails.’
The wind picked up. Aubrey had to shield his eyes from dust. Sergeants strode about, shouting, bringing order to the chaos the skyfleet had caused. A large black dog ran about, barking at the soldiers, the flapping tents, the whipping wireless aerials on top of the chateau, and the flailing trees. On the other side of the chateau, horses whinnied and stamped.