The Wizard of London (44 page)

She
considered sending the new one, and rejected the idea, picking instead a
scraggly little boy who had been very reliable in the past. While not precisely
fearless, he was certainly not as fearful as some of them.

With
that particular task completed, she sat back in her crystal chair. There was no
reason to leave the workroom just now, and every reason to stay. Not the least
of which was that the temperature here was that of a brisk late-autumn day,
with frost on the ground, and the temperature of her parlor, indeed, of the
rest of the townhouse, was considerably higher.

Ah.
Now you understand
.

That
voice again. She looked up from contemplating her hands and saw that the
surface of the entire table was frozen over, creating a mirror an inch thick,
in which she could only see a pair of enormous ice-blue eyes, blue as the light
in the heart of a glacier. The eyes stared at her in amusement.

Now
you understand. I wish to hold this place for myself and my kind. I wish to
bring winter forever to this island of yours
.

That
actually startled her, because she had never guessed
that
at all.

“Why?”
she asked it, as visions of a frozen London came and went in her extra mirror.
The visions actually did not look particularly unpleasant, actually. The Thames
was frozen solid and being used by a few hardy souls as a highway. Snow drifted
up against most buildings as high as the second story, then froze hard, so that
people had to either tunnel their way out or come and go through the windows.

There
were remarkably few people about. Now that might have been because it was so
difficult to get around in the Arctic landscape, but Cordelia didn’t
think that was the case. No… not when so few chimneys were smoking…
not when there was no sign that any one was coming or going at the Houses of
Parliament.

It
certainly looked as if London had been abandoned—

And
then an image of Hyde Park, and someone driving through it in a sleigh, a
sleigh drawn not by horses, but in the Finnish fashion, by reindeer. Clever
that; horses were ill-suited for running on snow and ice. A closer
look—it was David Alderscroft in the back, being driven by a servant
muffled to the eyes in furs. But something told Cordelia that it was
her
living in that body, not the original owner.

Better
and better.

When
I hold this island through you, you will need no longer fear discovery. You can
collect your own circle of Elemental Masters to serve us. You will be the
King—or Queen, if you so choose to revert to a female body—in all
but name. Eventually, as the years pass, you
will
become the monarch.
Have we a bargain
?

“There
is always a price,” she said aloud. “What is it?”

Your
heart will be mine
.

She
was startled for a moment. Surely the creature did not mean—

You
will never again feel passion of any sort. That will be mine. No pleasure. No
anger. No love, nor hate, nor grief, nor joy
.

For
a moment she was incredulous. This was all? “What,” she asked
mockingly. “Are you not going to require my soul?”

It
only laughed.
Your heart will do
.

“Done,”
she said, without hesitation. “We will rule the boreal kingdom of Britain
together.”

It laughed.
So
let it be written
, it said, in the ancient words of sealing.
So let it
be done
.

CORDELIA realized
within an hour of her arrival that her original plan was not going to work.
David had brought his valet with him, and the man slept in a room attached to
David’s own. That was a complication she had not foreseen, although she
had brought her own maid with her. She had intended to drug the girl to avoid
an unnecessary expenditure of magic energies, which would be at a premium in
the height of summer. There was no way that she would be able to also drug
David’s man. And even if she could—

Her
room lay in the other wing of the place. To return her dead body to her room,
she—in David’s body—would have to carry a lifeless corpse
from one end of the building to the other.

Not
feasible.

As
she smiled and occasionally murmured pleasantries over tea, her mind was abuzz
with activity. There had to be a way to make this work!

David
seemed rather surprised to see her when he joined the party for dinner, but a
serene smile seemed to reassure him, and he nodded to her from his place nearer
the head of the table than herself. She acknowledged the nod, then went back to
her conversation with an elderly duke. It was surprisingly interesting,
actually; the man had spent his active years as the ambassador to the Court of
the King of Sweden, and she was able to ask him a great many questions about
life in extremely frigid climes. He, in his turn seemed pleased and surprised
that she had an interest in such things.

After
dinner, some of the ladies of the party took a turn in the gardens, which had
been illuminated for the purposes with Chinese lanterns and torches. She took
the opportunity to view the grounds, which, she had been told, had been
specially designed to be particularly attractive at night. There were many
sorts of night-blooming plants here, and paths that were broad, with turf as
smooth and soft as a carpet. There were tall hedges that divided the garden
into a series of roofless rooms, and as she strolled with three other ladies,
it began to dawn on her that she had found the perfect place for her plot.

She
could slip out into the garden under the cover of the darkness. Then she could
call
him
here, to some secluded spot. She could plant the suggestion
in his mind via one of her little ghostly servants that he was too warm to
sleep, and was coming out into the garden to have a solitary turn and perhaps a
smoke. No one would ever see them meet. If anyone saw him or spoke to him, it
was unlikely that anyone would connect David Alderscroft with the lifeless body
of his mentor, who would be found the next day.

In
fact, she would make it appear that she had gone out for a similar stroll, had
sat down to rest, and simply—died.

The
hardest part would be subduing him without drugs, for obviously she was not
going to be able to slip any such thing into him in a strange household. She
would have to call upon other powers.

There
were spells to bring sleep, and while they were wildly expensive in terms of
the power needed, it wasn’t as if she was going to require that power
later. Or, if she did, her ally could probably supply it.

Unless…

She
smiled. Of course.

Instead
of relying on her ghosts, she could tell him simply that she had uncovered some
magical threat to him out here, and had come to warn and aid him. Obviously,
they could not meet within the walls of a stranger’s home for this; she
would have him come to the garden and join her for spell-work. Once he had
submitted to her as the mentor, she could do whatever she wanted with him.

Simple.
As the best plans always were.

He
would not even worry at first as the breath of the Ice Wurms wreathed him
about. He was used to it, after all. And by the time he realized that this was
not the usual cold spell-work, it would be too late. He had snubbed the normal
Fire Elementals for so long that they would never come to his aid if he called
them—and the Ice Elementals answered to her.

She
smiled, and began to stroll the gardens looking in earnest for the most
secluded spot. Not tonight, of course. But soon, soon.

There
was nothing like seeing a plan finally come to fruition. And the fruit, when
she plucked it, would be sweet indeed.

At
last she found what she judged to be perfect. Far enough from the buildings
that it might as well be invisible, with tall hedges on two sides, and a
secluded bench. There were no lanterns or fairy lights in this part of the
garden either, but the bench was overarched by a trellis of night-blooming
jasmine, which made it just the spot for a lady to sit and enjoy the evening.

In
fact, she tried it out for a moment, and was satisfied.

Do
not be too satisfied
.

The
cold voice in her mind was accompanied by the bite of frost from a spot on the
path just in front of her. There was a column of mist there, faintly glowing,
and a suggestion of eyes at the top of it.

You
are in enemy territory, and they will stop you if you are not prepared
.

“What
enemy?” she demanded sharply.

If
you are wise, you will find a way to accomplish this on your own ground
.

“Not
in any timely fashion,” she replied, in tones as cold as the mist.
“The longer I delay, the likelier it is that Alderscroft will manage to
drift away from me. He grows independent, and this is making me uneasy. And
there is no way to accomplish this thing either in his home or mine without
scandal.”

If
a column of mist could shrug, this thing did.
Then you will need my help
,
the ice creature said.
We will begin with your child ghosts. Summon them
now
.

She
was about to protest that this was not a simple thing, when a chill of warning
made her think better of it. She had thought that she was in control of this
situation. The cold, collected voice in her mind and the power behind it gave
her the first intimation she might have been mistaken.

It
would frighten the children, making them useless for her purposes, but she
didn’t think that was going to matter to the Ice Lord, as she was now
calling him in her mind. “I cannot do this at this moment,” she
said simply. “I must summon them by means of the things I have in my
room.” She never traveled without a needle case, a roll of small felt pockets,
each of which held a small, labeled sample of hair.

Fetch
it and return
, the voice commanded curtly.
Time is of the essence
.

The
tenor of the voice raised the hair on the back of her neck, and she began to
realize that she might have made a very profound error.

It
was, however, too late to correct that error now. The best she could do would
be to ride out the storm that she herself had set in motion.

That
she would survive this storm was not an issue. She knew that she would. The
creature needed her. But she needed now to be on the watch for ways in which
she could turn it to her advantage.

Carefully
avoiding the other ladies, she slipped silently into her room and retrieved
what she needed. As she passed the billiard room, it was clear that the
political discussion was still in full swing, by the haze of tobacco smoke and
the rumble of male voices. And she felt anger at that, anger that the women
were excluded without a single thought—

But
this was not the time nor the place. She slipped back out into the dark gardens
with their softly glowing, colored lanterns, and paused to listen to the female
counterpart to the male conversation. High-pitched, artificially cadenced
nonsense punctuated by the occasional polite titter. That made her angry, too.
The amount that could be accomplished if these women would not allow themselves
to be made into powerless ornaments—

Well,
they were fools, and their men with them. Most of the earth’s population
was as foolish and as useless, fit only to take orders and serve. Serve
Cordelia, of course. The England that she ruled would be structured
accordingly.

But
for now, she must summon her ghosts and see what the creature did with them.
She did not doubt that there was danger to her plans here, even if she could
not see it. The creature had not failed her before, and it clearly had a strong
incentive not only to tell the truth, but to keep her safeguarded.

She
would not, however, make the mistake of expecting that condition to last.

***

The
next morning, she was amused to overhear the gardeners bemoaning the
“patch of blight” that had appeared overnight in a remote part of
the garden. It was not blight, of course, but the direct result of the Ice
Lord’s work with the child ghosts. The gardeners were scrambling to
replace the patch of turf and the plants, to trim back the frost-killed
branches of bushes. The children now stood as arcane sentries, guarding the
house and grounds, not only from immaterial threat, but from anyone with any
sort of power, Elemental or psychical. They might not be able to stop all
intruders, but they could certainly delay and damage even the most powerful,
and they would give a warning.

They
were no longer vague little sketches of children either. The Ice Lord had
transformed them utterly, into feral, fierce creatures exuding menace. It would
take a brave person indeed to dare to go past them, and a powerful one to be
willing to try taking them on. It wasn’t that they were strong
individually—it was that they were now vicious as weasels, and would
swarm anybody who tried to take one on.

After
she had gone back to the manor, and engaged in some pointless gossip with the
other ladies before retiring, she had made a point of enforcing slumber.
Tonight was going to be difficult enough without fatigue. The day had dawned
unseasonably cool and continued that way, which she considered either a good
omen, or an evidence that the Ice Lord was already exerting his power.

She
actually thought it vanishingly unlikely for it to be the latter. The Ice Lord
had made it quite clear that the bulk of the action was to be in her hands.
That he had interfered at all in the case of the ghosts was something he had
done with great reluctance. There was someone or something out there that he
considered to be a great hazard to them and to their enterprise.