Seven Sorcerers (37 page)

The fact that such a terrible act had been committed by the Fabulous was enough to make him go cold all over. The guilt belonged, not just to Ava Vispilio who had thrown Strood to the wolves, or to the Seven who had cast the Deathweave, let him drink it and then failed to stop Vispilio, but to the whole of the Fabulous for the carelessness with which they treated the Quick. The carelessness that had made the whole thing possible.

He closed his eyes and winced. Because didn’t that include him too? All the kids over all the years, just to carry on the fear so that bogeymen could go on living, could become so steeped in dread that they would be among the last of the Fabulous to die.

In the darkness of the cupboard, scrunched up in the duster box, Skerridge experienced something that felt horribly like remorse.

He was drowning in the knowledge that Ninevah Redstone had every reason to hate and despise him. The entire Quick species had every reason to hate and despise him too, but somehow the fact that Nin did was the bit that hurt the most. After a while he reached for something to blow his nose on. His groping hand came back with the knobbly thing that had been sticking into his shoulder all night. He stared blankly at the pink ruck-sack,
then wiped his nose on it anyway.

While Skerridge sat huddled up amid the dusters, clutching Ninevah Redstone’s backpack and feeling sorry for himself, Skerridge’s brain got on with the process of thinking. He was pretty sure that any time soon Ninevah Redstone would be making a break for it. The only escape route that wouldn’t get her caught or killed was Seraphine’s Secret Way, which he was also pretty sure meant the tunnel in the down-house graveyard. But something wasn’t right.

Most likely, the Secret Way was an old escape route, built into the house right at the start for its owner to use if there was ever any trouble. And that meant there had to be a door of some kind, because what escape route wouldn’t have a way to cut off pursuers?

And
that
meant there had to be a key. Only thing was, what had happened to it?

Skerridge blinked as an idea thundered into his brain. He brightened up, blew his nose again and hurried out of the dusters box, heading through the servants’ dining room to the next door along, the one marked ‘Here be Tygers’.

He had better move fast. Somehow he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that time was running out.

In Mr Strood’s study the lamps popped on, filling the room with morning. Curled up by the bookcases, Nin awoke with a start. Remembering the night before, a
wave of panic swept over her that she hadn’t been able to reach Jonas and help him. She felt tears spring into her eyes and rubbed them away firmly. He would have survived the night somehow, she was sure of it.

Stiffly, she clambered to her feet and crept quietly to the door. Outside she could hear feet pattering up and down as the servants took Mr Strood his breakfast and got things ready for the day ahead. She would have to wait a little longer.

The book she had been reading when the lamps went out was still lying open on Mr Strood’s desk. Reluctantly Nin moved towards it, not wanting to know any more but still drawn to the end of the story. The words caught her eyes and she found herself reading anyway, horrified but unable to stop.

The ballad, flipping between poetry and prose, went on to describe the Final Gathering. Towards the end, Strood’s writing became so frenzied it was barely legible and Nin struggled to make sense of it. When she finally understood that she was reading a description of what it felt like to be torn apart for hours before the Seven finally gave up trying to see if he could be killed, she stopped and covered her face with her hands.

Which was when an Eyes trotted round the desk, took a long look at her and then trundled off, unnoticed.

Having finished his early breakfast, Mr Strood was eager to get on. Following the capture of the spider yesterday
afternoon, he had put a batch of Mafig’s Fusion on to brew and now it was ready and waiting to be used.

Mafig’s Fusion was the most important part of the mortal distillation process. Until Mafig, nobody had been able to distil a living being without several weeks, even months, of hard work. To distil a living being you had to crush its spirit completely and then drain out its essence. Even the darkest of sorcerers found it heavy going. But Gan Mafig worked out a way to distil a living being in a matter of hours by injecting it with a Fusion designed to plunge the victim deep into the heart of its worst nightmares, many times concentrated, until its spirit collapsed from the sheer weight of terror. This Fusion was the discovery that made him famous. Gan Mafig wanted to be thought brilliant, he hadn’t meant to be evil and having invented the mortal distillation process he used it only once, just to make sure it worked.

The process itself was simple. Take a living being. Seal it into a confined space so that the essence didn’t evaporate. Drip Fusion into one arm. Watch the victim scream a lot. Collect the essence with a collection funnel and drain it into a suitable container. Throw away the leftovers.

Mr Strood’s laboratory was large and clinical with its walls, shelves, cabinets and work surfaces all painted white. The floor was covered with small tiles of white porcelain that could be washed if they got covered in, say, blood or anything nasty. The room was not
completely lacking in colour, though. The shelves were lined with jars and bottles, each filled with liquid, powder or objects in a variety of hues. Some of them were vivid greens, blues, reds and yellows. Some were darker purples and crimsons.

There were a lot of glass beakers and test-tubes on the work surface, all sparkling clean, and a strange contraption like a glass cage along one wall. Right now Secretary Scribbins was herding the spider into the contraption, which happened to be Mr Strood’s Mortal Distillation Machine.

Scribbins yelped. The spider didn’t want to go and he was having trouble keeping it from running up the walls in an attempt to escape. Fortunately the net was holding fast and the stunning wand was useful to numb it and stop it scuttling off. Even so, it managed to scratch him with one hook-ended leg.

Once it was in the machine and the glass door was closed, Strood took over and began to hook it up to the system of tubes going in and out of the glass walls. One lot to feed the Fusion into the spider’s helpless body, the other lot running from the collection funnel to a suitable container. This time, rather than simply collecting the essence of the spider in a bottle, he wanted it to drain straight into the boy that would soon become Eyes. So he ordered Scribbins to push the kid’s cage closer to the machine and added an extra run to the collection tubing so that he could stick the collection needle straight into the boy’s arm.

The kid whimpered, but that was all and in no time everything was all set to go.

Strood stood poised, ready to open the valve that would start the Fusion on its deadly path into the core of the creature at his mercy.

Which was when the Eyes sent him a mental image of something that made him turn pale with rage.

fter a while Nin put her hands down from her face and looked back at the page. There was something she wanted to find out, one last thing she didn’t get. She read on quickly. Once they had sent the wolves away and Strood’s body had been allowed to heal fully, the Sorcerers left. Gan Mafig was, according to Strood, cowering in his study. Those who had witnessed the Final Gathering and its terrible consequences had slunk away. Only Strood was left. Strood and something else. Something small and dark, like a marble of inky cloud.

The thing Strood had found clutched in his hand after he’d drunk the potion was …

‘The Maug!’ murmured Nin. ‘Mr Strood’s death!’

What the Deathweave had done was exactly what Strood had written in his ballad. It had separated Strood’s death from Strood’s life. Which was why Mr Strood couldn’t die.

‘I used to keep it in a jar on the mantelpiece until it got too big,’ said a soft voice behind her. Nin spun around.

‘It didn’t
need
to eat, of course. But I gave it flies and wasps and small things and it enjoyed taking the lives so much I gave it more.’ Strood spoke affectionately. ‘Mice and rats first, then cats. And the more it fed, the more it grew.’ He smiled at her. ‘And now I give it children. It will eat any Quick, but it likes the young ones best.’

Strood wandered over to the large chair in the corner and sat down.

‘I … um … was just dusting …’

‘Don’t even bother to try,’ said Strood softly. ‘I know you, Ninevah Redstone.’

Nin shut her eyes. For a moment there, just one moment, she had thought she might get away with it, but it seemed her luck had run out after all.

‘Um,’ Nin croaked nervously to the vast guard who had tucked her under one arm and was carrying her down the corridor, ‘I kind of noticed, we’re going to Mr Strood’s laboratory, aren’t we?’

‘Tha’s it,’ said the guard. ‘Though I dunno why, cos ’e’s already got a kiddie fer the Eyes experiment. Perhaps ’e’s jus’ gonna distil ya. Ours not to reason why, eh? Tha’s what my mate Stanley always says.’ Floyd pushed open a plain white door and marched her up to a cage standing against the wall. In it was a kid.

‘’ere we are then,’ said Floyd as kindly as he could. He held her still with one hand – Nin could no more move than if she had been wrapped in steel – and pulled out a
key with the other.

Inside the cage the kid stopped being a scrunched-up bundle in the corner and uncurled to look at Nin.

Who felt as if her heart had stopped.

When Floyd shoved her in and locked the door again, she didn’t resist at all. Because the kid in the cage was Toby.