Mama was there too, squat and stalwart, those tiny Hog eyes piercing right through me even though they were mere dabs of paint.
Gertriss, in her canvas, stood half-concealed behind the trunk of a bloodoak. Only half of her face showed, and that was dappled with shadow.
And Scatter, and all the rest, each portrait the work of a master.
Only Buttercup and I were missing.
“Thank you,” I said aloud. I realized I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out in a long loud sigh. “For bringing us to safety, I mean.”
There was no reply.
Buttercup came prancing up. She grabbed my hand and dragged me to the fountain before leaping barefoot within it and splashing merrily about. The fish turned from discussing me and began to play some intricate game of chase with Buttercup instead.
I waited for a long time before speaking again. I wandered through the easels, taking them in, hoping with all my soul that the people portrayed were indeed safe and only out of sight.
Buttercup squealed and splashed, and for the first time I heard her speak. Her words were foreign, but the fish knew them, and responded in kind as their game went on.
“The people up there want to take her, and use her,” I said. “They think they can either free you, or free you of certain of your belongings. I myself have no such intentions.”
“I know what they want.” The voice came from nowhere, and everywhere. It was female, and when it spoke, Buttercup shrieked and danced and put her hands toward the sky. The fish whirled and vanished in a sudden spray of silver water and fine golden scales.
“Then you know the kind of danger she’s in,” I said. “That we’re all in, as long as we keep her from them.”
“I know.” Buttercup fell silent, listening, though I could hear nothing.
“Are you dead?” I asked, after a while.
The voice laughed. “I had all but forgotten this world. Oh, sometimes I dreamed of it, I suppose. They were pleasant dreams.”
I thought of the paintings.
“They were indeed.”
Buttercup giggled and whispered, as though sharing secrets with a trusted friend.
“Is it true, that she could free you from this place?”
“It is true. It is also true that I have long been free. So many worlds, Finder. I had no idea there were so many, when they first laid me here. I’ve learned…so much.”
Buttercup pointed at me, and continued to whisper.
“She’ll never be safe. Not as long as people believe she is the way to you.”
I heard a noise, as of far-off thunder. Buttercup looked to the sky and grew troubled.
“Your friend the dark sorcerer is outmatched,” said the voice. “She will fall. Tell me, Finder-would you show mercy to the one you name Corpsemaster? Or shall I let her perish?”
I glanced toward the portrait of Evis. I sighed.
“Can you bring the Corpsemaster here?”
“Are you willing to assume responsibility for her actions?”
“To a point. I mean yes. I owe her one, your, um, Excellency. Please. Spare him. Her. Whomever.”
There was a shifting in the air, and suddenly Milton Werewilk stood before me.
“I should have known,” I said. What better way to keep an eye on House Werewilk than to have a body living there. “Welcome to the afterlife, Corpsemaster. Please don’t loose any spells just yet.”
Milton blinked. He was covered in soot. His expression was one of sudden and intense confusion.
“We’re in the tomb of the alarkin,” I said. “She generously opened a door before the House blew apart. I brought us here. We exist at her mercy. Please don’t provoke her wrath.”
Give it to Hisvin. She only blinked once.
“Remarkable. I salute you, Finder. And I thank our host for her hospitality.”
Something glittery and gold fell out of the air above Buttercup, and she clapped her hands with glee and caught it as it fell.
It was a cloak, woven of something so fine it was difficult to focus on. Buttercup wrapped it around her shoulders and splashed about, calling for the fish, who one by one began to reappear by poking their heads above water and whistling to her before darting away, lightning-quick.
Milton looked quickly across the paintings arrayed behind us. “Are those…?”
“Essences,” said the alarkin. “Soon to be restored.”
Milton nodded. “Well. We’re at your mercy, Esteemed One,” he said. “Might I inquire as to your plans for us?”
“Plans?” The alarkin seemed bemused. “I have no plans for you, sorcerer. Other than to return you to your proper place, once the worst of the fires are out.”
The Corpsemaster lifted an eyebrow.
“I think what my sorcerous companion is trying to ask is this,” I said. “Do you mean to go stomping about the Regency, re-establishing a reign of terror, crushing all and sundry beneath your mighty heels?”
Hisvin nearly choked.
The voice laughed.
“Ten thousand years ago, perhaps. But now? Let me show you a thing.”
We moved.
Only for an instant. But the alarkin and the Corpsemaster and I, we went somewhere. We became-other people. For the briefest of instants, I led another life, one so alien and strange I cannot even begin to describe it.
And then again. We moved. The world changed.
And again, and again, each wonder brighter and stranger and more delicious than the last.
And then we were back by a sunlit marble fountain where the breeze smelled of honeysuckles and the sun shone down untroubled and bright.
“What care I for your world, sorcerer? What need have I of lordship over it?”
The Corpsemaster had no answer. Nor did I.
Buttercup dived into my arms, dripping and giggling, her cloak of starlight and spider silk wrapped around her.
“I had forgotten her, her kind,” said the alarkin. “I free her now. She is in your care now, Finder. Do not displease me by failing in this.”
And the alarkin spoke a strange word, and Buttercup laughed and hugged me.
“Pardon me, but the ones above?” asked the Corpsemaster. I’d never heard sincere, polite deference from one of her rank before, but I was careful to hide my grin. “I found myself overwhelmed. Without my defenses, they will still seek to loot your resting place.”
The voice seemed to ponder this. The chattering of the golden fish took on a decidedly worried tone.
An ornate stone table appeared before Milton and I. Upon it was a plain wooden wand.
“Dissuade them” said the alarkin. “Protect my creatures. This should suffice.”
Hisvin reached out and took up the wand.
He closed his eyes. I assume he was engaging in some form of sorcerous exploration of the wand.
When he opened them, he was smiling.
“I believe it shall indeed suffice,” he said. Then he looked at me, winked, and when he spoke again, his voice was that of a woman.
“You have my gratitude, Finder,” she said. “I shall never forget. Upon that, you may always rest assured.”
And then he-she-bowed to me, turned and bowed to the fountain, and vanished.
I gaped. The alarkin laughed, and Buttercup giggled with her.
“We have a few moments,” said the alarkin. “I will return you to your time and place when the conflict above is resolved. Please, sit.”
A chair appeared behind me. It was an exact replica of the chair I keep behind my desk. When I sat, it even squeaked as that one did, and the seat was warm. I surmised Three Leg Cat was even now glaring angrily about my office wondering where his resting place had gone.
“Thank you.” Buttercup curled up in my lap. I briefly considered asking for Darla to be freed from her canvas, but decided not to press my luck.
“Your dreams,” I said. “They’ve been quite an inspiration.”
I felt something smile, way up in the sky.
“I am pleased that is so. Perhaps this will atone for my previous acts of-how did you phrase it, Finder? Stomping about in a reign of terror, crushing kingdoms under my heels?”