Bloodforged (44 page)

‘Padurowski? Truly?’

‘But someone said Padurowski was dead.’

‘No, he’s back.’

‘Where has he been? No one could find him, not even the chekist.’

‘The hospital, I heard. Under the care of the Daughters of Salyak.’

‘Probably had a case of the nerves. I know I would, if I had to perform before the duke.’

Ulrika exchanged a look with Stefan as the surmises continued. They had thought the maestro kidnapped or killed by the cultists. Had he escaped their grasp? Had he been hiding instead? Or recovering from wounds?

‘Does this mean Valtarin wasn’t kidnapped either?’ murmured Stefan.

Ulrika shrugged, but then a thought came to her. The blind singer – was there hope for her too?

They reached the gilded doors at last and Evgena stepped forwards boldly. Ulrika feared they would be asked for an invitation, but after a dazzling smile and a show of cleavage from the boyarina, the usher bowed them through without a word – poleaxed by Lahmia’s most powerful magic.

Once inside, Evgena led them immediately upstairs to a private box – not her own, for she feared it might be watched, but that of a courtier she knew was sick and would not be attending – and sat in one of the luxurious seats.

‘Be silent,’ she said. ‘I must look for them.’

She closed her eyes and folded her hands in her lap. Galiana sat beside her and did the same. Ulrika left them to it. Her own witch sight was so poor it wasn’t worth her time to try. Instead, she stepped with Stefan to the rail, and looked out at the interior of the Opera House through the eyeholes of her mask.

Below, the lesser attendees made a crazy quilt of colour as they took their seats in the stalls, while their betters laughed and talked amongst themselves in the three tiers of private boxes that rose above them, supported by gilded columns decorated with sculptures of grotesque gargoyles with the bodies of violins, horns and drums, all playing instruments made of human bones.

The stage at the front of the theatre was hidden by enormous tasselled curtains of burgundy, emblazoned with the crest of Praag as well as the coats of arms of the duke and other patrons. The elaborate proscenium continued the motif of music, madness and death, portraying the siege of Praag with sculpted daemons climbing up the columns to the left of the stage, and the brave defenders of the city climbing up those to the right. They met at last in a titanic battle that came to a climax high above centre stage where Magnus the Pious swung a golden hammer at the head of Asavar Kul as skull-faced minstrels looked on, lutes and harps in their hands.

As Ulrika was taking in all these details, a flood of applause started in the stalls, then spread up into the boxes. She looked around. The people below were standing and turning to look up at the central box at the back of the theatre, and all the people in the private boxes were doing the same.

Ulrika followed their gaze and saw the slim, elegant figure of her cousin Enrik, the Duke of Praag, entering his box and stepping forwards to acknowledge their acclamation. He was dressed head to toe in brilliant white, from his fur cap to his ermine half-cape, to his doublet and breeches which glittered with a frost of diamonds, to his cavalry boots, which had quite obviously never been anywhere near a horse.

He saluted the room and bowed graciously, then motioned to his guests, a glittering assemblage of generals, ministers, priests and ice witches, to take their seats. When they had done so, he took his own, a silver throne, crowned with the head of a pure-white snow bear, the pelt and paws of which hung down over the arms of the chair. Ulrika smiled to herself. Some called her cousin mad, but he had ruled admirably during the recent siege, and always knew how to put on a good show.

A moment later, Evgena opened her eyes. ‘They hide themselves well,’ she said, sighing. ‘As they would have to, with so many priests and witches in attendance. If I was not certain they were here, I might never have found them. As it is, I can only surmise their presence indirectly.’

‘How so?’ asked Ulrika.

‘There is an area somewhere behind or below the stage,’ she said, ‘that deflects my gaze almost without me knowing it is being deflected. When I try to look there, I find myself thinking I have already done so, and pass it by.’ She laughed. ‘Had I only looked once, I would never have given it a second thought. But since I was determined to find something, I finally noticed the compulsion to look away. It is very sophisticated magic, and very powerful. I hope we are enough to best it.’

She stood, and turned to Galiana, who stood as well. ‘Stay here, sister, and watch the audience. There may be cultists among them. Watch the winds and be ready to act if anyone begins to gather them.’

Galiana curtseyed. ‘Yes, sister.’

Evgena started to the door, beckoning to Ulrika and Stefan. ‘Come. Let us find these daemon-lovers. I am prepared now. This time it will be I who strikes first.’

Evgena again used the mighty magics of eyelashes and smile and cleavage to draw away the guard who watched the door that led backstage so Ulrika and Stefan could slip in behind him. The boyarina joined them a moment later, smirking.

‘I have sent him for the watch,’ she said, ‘saying I saw Boyarina Evgena Boradin, who is under suspicion of witchcraft, sneaking into her private box.’

Ulrika smiled as they hurried up a dimly lit stair. The boyarina seemed to have warmed to her work, now that she had begun it. It was proof of something Ulrika had learned many many battles ago, that anticipation is a hundred times worse than action.

The steps ended at the wings of the stage, and they looked around. A rickety stair rose into the cavernous darkness above the stage, and nearby, stagehands stood at a line of tied-off ropes and pulleys, waiting. In the centre, behind the closed curtain, musicians in simple black surcoats sat in rings of seats around a podium and tuned their instruments while a stage manager with an open ledger in one hand eyed them anxiously.

‘Ready now, gentlemen?’ he asked. ‘It is time. It is time.’

There was a general grunt of assent.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ said the stage manager. ‘Then we begin.’ And with a soft whistle and wave of his hands, he trotted towards the far side of the stage.

‘There is nothing here,’ said Evgena, and turned towards a door in the side wall as the stagehands began to haul on the ropes and the curtains began to open. ‘We must go further in.’

Applause spilled through the parting curtains, and then redoubled as a tall, white-maned figure strode towards the podium. Ulrika looked back as the others went through the door. It was Maestro Padurowski, in a long lilac jacket and knee breeches, beaming cheerfully and waving his baton.

At centre stage, he bowed to the audience. ‘My lord duke, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply touched at the outpouring of concern for my safety, but as you see, all is well, and we need dwell on it no further. Tonight is a celebration of our beloved duke and his brave generals, of our divine Tzarina, and of the countless men and women who united to defeat the terrible horde that threatened us this winter past. And so, without further ado, we begin. For Praag! For Kislev!’

And with that, he turned and raised his baton to the orchestra. Ulrika turned and followed the others out into a dim corridor as the musicians thundered into a stirring rendition of ‘Gryphons of the North’.

The music followed them as they wound through a maze of tight corridors and stairways. Doors opened into property rooms and rehearsal rooms, and rooms full of machinery Ulrika did not understand. Stefan pulled aside a curtain to find a closet full of halberds made of wood and papier-mâché. Another was hung with fierce horned helmets made of tin. Evgena opened a door into a high room where scaffolding was set up before a canvas two storeys high and forty paces wide, upon which was an unfinished painting of what looked like an elven garden in far Ulthuan.

Hurrying on with the others, Ulrika passed a descending stair with a door at the bottom that looked as if it went under the stage, but she dismissed it. Nothing would be happening down there.

Five paces on, she stopped. ‘Mistress,’ she whispered, pointing back. ‘That stair. I have the idea we shouldn’t check it.’

Evgena turned on her, frowning. ‘Of course we shouldn’t. Nothing could possibly–’ She paused. ‘Ah. I see.’ She shook her head in admiration. ‘Even knowing, I still missed it.’

‘Well spotted,’ said Stefan.

‘Yes,’ said Evgena, then turned to continue down the hall. ‘Now come, we have other places to check.’

‘Mistress!’

Evgena turned again, her eyes widening. ‘By the Queen!’ She started for the stair, taking measured steps and giving it her full concentration. ‘My thoughts roll off the ward like water off wax.’

Ulrika and Stefan followed her down, and with every step, Ulrika’s mind told her she had already checked behind the door, or that she could sense nothing there, or that she had something more important to do elsewhere. Beside her, Stefan was grinding his teeth, and she knew he must be affected too.

At last they reached the door. Ulrika could still feel no magical energy behind it, and the rousing strains of ‘Praag Ever Rises’ were all she could hear through it, with the exception, strangely, of glass shattering, over and over again.

Evgena stopped, holding up a hand. ‘There are other wards here as well,’ she said.

Ulrika focused her witch sight and at last made out a faint purple sheen shimmering a few feet in front of the door. Evgena drew back her velvet sleeve to reveal the same sort of paper bracelet Raiza had used to pass through the wards that had protected the ceremony in the temple of Salyak. She stepped forwards, murmuring and clenching her fist.

Ulrika watched, preparing to wait for a narrow hole to develop in the ward, but the oily skin boiled away from the bracelet instantly, and much further than it had when Raiza had done the trick. Soon there was a hole in it taller and wider than the narrow stairwell they stood in.

Evgena motioned Ulrika and Stefan forwards, her jaw set. They drew their rapiers and daggers and stepped through the hole to the door. Ulrika turned the latch. It was locked. She twisted harder and it snapped with a muffled crack. She waited, listening for any alarm, but heard nothing over the sounds of the orchestra above.

Pulling her mask down to her neck so she could see better, she opened the door a crack and peered in. The music got louder, as did the strange shattering sound, and through a confusion of beams and pillars and odd contraptions made of gears, pulleys and rope, Ulrika saw men in purple robes kneeling in a half-circle, chanting and throwing things she could not quite make out.

She slid through with Stefan and Evgena behind her and looked around. The understage was a high, dark space, cluttered with ladders and wooden stairways leading up to narrow catwalks. Bits of scenery were stacked against the walls, and big crates, over-stuffed with wooden swords, prop shields, papier-mâché crowns and the banners of long-dead tzars were tucked under stairs that ringed an open area in the centre.

As she inched further in, the scent of freshly shed blood found her nose and she looked down. Two stagehands lay just inside the door, their throats cut. She stepped over them and crept through the forest of wooden pillars with Stefan and Evgena following, until a large rough hole in the stone floor blocked their way. It was freshly dug, and went far down into the moist, dark earth. A pile of picks and shovels lay beside it, as well as a mound of pulled-up flagstones.

‘Up from the sewers,’ murmured Stefan.

Ulrika nodded and edged around the hole.

The open area beyond it was dominated by a large hollow wheel, like the water wheel of a mill, with two men standing inside it. The contraption was attached by ropes to a square platform in the very centre of the space, and upon the platform stood a cultist, cloaked and hooded like all the rest, who held aloft a violin that could only be the Fieromonte.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THE SONG OF THE DAMNED

The scene seemed to Ulrika a strange mockery of that which was occurring on the stage above. The man who held up the violin stood in the same position as Padurowski at his podium, while two score cultists knelt in a half-circle before him like the musicians in their chairs. But while the orchestra played music, the cultists were doing something far stranger and more disturbing.