Authors: James Alan Gardner
At that moment, something filmy and white streamed down from the sky.
It was a creamy tube of light, glinting with colors like the Aurora Borealis. Green. Gold. Purple. As it shimmered in the darkness, I could see the stars behind: the tube was like glowing milky smoke. It stretched so high it disappeared into the blackness as if it soared beyond our planet's atmosphere—but that was just as terrifying as if the thing were simply a ghost. A ghost could only go, "Boo!" Mysteries from outer space could cause
real
trouble.
I couldn't help thinking of Opal's story. A Spark Lord. A Lucifer. An Explorer from the galaxy at large.
The upper body of the tube flapped and fluttered like a banner in a stiff wind, but the bottom seemed rooted in place. Though the trees blocked our view, I knew the spectral tube had attached itself to Death Hotel. I could imagine it like a phantom lamprey, mouth spread and locked onto the building's ugly dome; or perhaps the tube was a pipeline that fed ethereally into the sealed-up interior, and even as we watched, it was pumping down a horde of aliens. Or spirits. Or worse.
"Oh look," said Pelinor, pointing at the tube. "Isn't that pretty." Pause. "What is it?"
Nobody answered. The horses stopped one by one, either reined in by their riders or halting of their own accord as they saw the tube twinkling in the sky. The thing fluttered in silence—the whole world had hushed, as if even the horses were holding their breaths. Then, without a whisper, the ghostly tube snapped free of the mausoleum like a broken kite string, and in the blink of an eye it slithered up into the night.
Deep dark quiet. Then, beneath me, Ibn gave a snort that filled the cool air with horse steam. The other horses snorted too, perhaps trying to decide if they should worry or just shrug off what they'd seen. In front of me, Myoko cleared her throat... but before she could speak, an ear-shattering
I had an instant to register that the noise came from the hotel: like a cannon being fired. Then there was no more time for thinking, as Ibn went wild with fear. He reared up whinnying, nearly bashing into Annah's mare, who was doing exactly the same thing. For several seconds, we were swept up in six-horse chaos, the animals trying to bolt, the humans trying not to get tossed off. My leg was slammed hard between Ibn and some other horse, but I couldn't tell whose—it was dark and confusing, voices yelling, "Whoa!" and "Easy!", horses neighing, Ibn lurching in panic as I tried to hang on.
Somehow Ibn got himself turned around and started galloping back toward Simka, his eyes bulging white. I had no choice but to let him run: if I tried to rein him in, he might rear and throw me off. The pounding of hooves behind me suggested the others were in the same situation, letting their horses run until the first burst of terror burned itself out.
Thirty seconds after he'd bolted, Ibn slowed a notch. He still had gallop left in him; but as I pulled lightly on the reins, he didn't resist completely. He didn't stop either: it took another half minute before he let himself be cajoled to a panting halt. Annah cantered past me, still working to slow her mount—she was always very tentative on horseback, just as in life. The other four, however, had got their animals under control; when I turned to look, they were stopped on the road behind me, bending over their mounts and murmuring, "It's all right, it's all right, it's all right."
The Caryatid was closest, only a few paces away. When she noticed me looking at her, she asked in a harsh whisper, "What the blazing hell was that?"
"How should I know?" Down the road, a cloud of dust or smoke drifted above the treetops: the remnants of whatever made that deafening bang. I couldn't see any light shining on the cloud from ground level; with luck, that meant the explosion hadn't started a fire in the surrounding forest.
The Caryatid was still staring at me, her face paler than usual in the glow of her shoulder-flame. "So," she whispered, "do we investigate the boom?"
"Of course we do!" That came from Impervia, riding up to join us. Her face was set in a grim smile, trying not to show too much enthusiasm. As always, she longed to charge straight into trouble, but did her best to hide it.
"We shouldn't get distracted," I said, knowing I sounded like a rationalizing coward. "Our first priority is Sebastian; is there a good reason to waste time on something that has nothing to do with him?"
Impervia made a scoffing noise. "It's got to be part of the same business, Phil. When was the last time we had mysterious deaths or strange things appearing from the sky? Never! And now they're all happening the same night. Everything's connected, and we have to find out how."
Without waiting for an answer, she turned her horse and kicked it into a trot back toward the mausoleum. Her mount, a gray gelding, showed no reluctance to head in that direction; perhaps the stupid beast had already forgotten the bang that made him panic.
The Caryatid gave me a look. "We can't let Impervia go alone, Phil." She tugged lightly on her horse's reins, and started up the road herself.
Sighing, I checked how Annah was doing. She'd got her mare under control and was coming back toward me. "Are you all right?" I asked.
"Fine," she said softly. "You?"
"Fine, fine, fine."
Pelinor and Myoko were fine too—they'd joined Impervia and were riding toward Death Hotel together. Annah's eyes met mine: a look that probably meant something, but in the darkness, I couldn't tell what. "We'd better keep them out of trouble," she murmured.
I nodded. Together we rode forward.
The air near the mausoleum reeked with a chemical stink, something acrid that made the back of my throat feel raspy.
Our horses wouldn't go near it—we tied them to nearby trees and proceeded forward on foot. Needless to say, Pelinor went with cutlass drawn; Impervia kept her fists ready in a guard position, the Caryatid cradled a flame in her hands; Myoko's hair splayed out from her head like a huge black halo.
I would have pulled out my change-purse, but Annah might get the wrong idea.
Thinking of Annah, I turned toward her, intending to deliver some manly speech of reassurance like, "Stay close, I'll protect you." But when I looked around, she was nowhere in sight. Her horse was tethered with the others; I'd helped her dismount. But now...
Something touched my elbow. I consider it a triumph that I didn't squeal like a castrated piglet. Annah stood beside me in the darkness; but she'd put on a hooded black cloak that faded uncannily into the shadows. For a brief moment, I saw the white of her teeth under the hood as she smiled—a smile far more impish than one might expect from a quiet woman. Proud of herself for taking me by surprise. Then the smile vanished and Annah did too. Though I was staring straight at her, I could barely make her out in the silent blackness.
Surprise, surprise: our pretty musicmaster wasn't just a shy wallflower, she could literally fade into the background. I
had
to stop underestimating the woman—she was far far from helpless.
Our group moved wordlessly forward. The ground was muddy, but clear of snow; with the mausoleum and surrounding trees acting as windbreaks, the front lawn had been shielded all winter from the brunt of most blizzards. Whatever shallow snowdrifts may have built up over the past few months, they'd already melted in the spring thaw.
As we drew nearer the building, I could see rubble strewn on the far side. Impervia saw it too; she waved us in that direction and hurried her pace. The chemical smell grew stronger—not enough to choke us, but it made our eyes water. The stink reminded me of explosives my friends had made in Collegium Ismaili's chem lab... but I'd never paid enough attention to tell one incendiary chemical from another just by the after-blast odor.
Poor planning on my part.
When we rounded the building's front corner, we saw what the bang had done. Most of the mausoleum's side wall had blown out in a huge detonation, scattering stone and concrete like grapeshot. The spruce trees ten paces away had great ragged holes ripped through them; needles and branches had been pulverized by flying debris.
Much of that debris came from the cinder blocks bricking up the side entrance... but the blast had been powerful enough to loosen the building's granite as well. The entire edge of the roof was gone, exposing steel I-beams that had trussed up the weight of the dome. Here and there, the steel looked partly melted—the bottom lip of the I-beam sagged in places like softened candle wax.
Amidst the rubble, nothing moved. The mausoleum waited, filled with pitch-black shadow.
Pelinor stared at the hole. "Looks like something smashed its way out," he said in his usual hearty voice. I winced at the sound, piercingly loud in the silent night... but nothing attacked Pelinor or anyone else. If our luck was good, whatever had caused this wreckage was gone: stomped off to parts unknown while we were getting our horses under control.
Impervia moved toward the rupture in the wall, obviously intending to clamber inside. "Wait," said the Caryatid; she raised her arm and tossed her ball of flame through the breach with an overhand lob. Half a second too late, I wondered if there might be combustible gases inside... but the original explosion must have burned off anything capable of igniting. The Caryatid's flame ball landed tamely on the mausoleum's floor, merely lighting what there was to see.
To be precise: absolutely nothing.
One might expect the people who'd slept in the hotel to leave evidence of their stay—the usual litter and trash. If so, either it had been cleaned out before the place was sealed, or it had completely decomposed over the ensuing centuries. The floor showed dirt, nothing more. The walls bore splotches in shades of gray, as if they'd been covered with graffiti that had faded over time... but it might just as easily have been mold or lichen. The Simka region was perpetually damp, especially in comparison to the dryness of my birthplace; if there was anywhere on the planet that mold could survive four hundred years of complete darkness, it was here in Feliss province.
Impervia scrambled over broken stone and into the building. She stopped for a moment, looking ahead into the shadows; then she moved forward, with the little flame ball gliding half a step behind her like a curious dog. I watched as she walked the entire length of the crypt... but there was nothing to see, just the bare stone floor and tiers of shadowy casket-niches in the wall. Impervia checked each niche as she passed, but reported nothing: no caskets, no bones, no lurking horrors. From time to time, she even checked the ceiling; I don't know if she truly expected some monster to be clinging to the roof, but if she did, she was disappointed. Nothing above, below, anywhere.
When Impervia had searched her way to the far end of the tomb, she came back quickly with a sour expression on her face. "Whatever it was, it's gone."
From behind my back, Myoko called, "I think it was a woman."
We turned. Myoko stood a stone's throw away, near the edge of the forest. She pointed down at the mud. "Footprints. A woman's boots. They look fresh."
I started forward, but she held up her hand. "Wait. You might trample the trail." Keeping her eyes on the ground, Myoko walked toward us, obviously following the tracks. She got halfway back when she stopped and peered about; she'd reached a spot where the rubble was fairly thick all the way to the mausoleum. At last, she shrugged and gestured toward the building. "Whoever it was must have stayed on top of the wreckage till she got to this point. Then she stepped into the mud. Her tracks are quite clear."
The rest of us hurried to see. When we looked where Myoko pointed, the footprints were easy to discern in the damp soil... and they definitely came from a woman's boots. Fancy, fashionable boots: the heel was a smallish triangle that dug deep into the earth, quite separate from the rest of the sole. It was the closest you could get to a high heel while staying within the bounds of practicality. Even so, such shoes would be better suited for walking down nice clean sidewalks than slogging through country mud. I glanced at the boots of my female companions; they all had much larger heels, choosing functionality over style.
One reason why I liked them.
The footsteps led away from the mausoleum. Impervia followed the trail a short distance, then turned to the rest of us. "You can see it's a straight line," she said, pointing back toward the building, then moving her finger to trace the path to the trees. "After the explosion, our mystery woman must have climbed out through the hole and headed directly for the forest"
"But how did she get inside the tomb?" Pelinor asked. "Hadn't it been closed for centuries?"
"Sealed solid as long as anyone can remember," I said. "Either the woman was inside all along and that thing in the sky woke her up... or else the thing we saw was a conduit bringing her here from somewhere up above the clouds. It funneled her into the interior, straight through solid granite. Then she used a bomb to blow her way out."
"Phil," the Caryatid murmured, "I don't like either of your possibilities."
"If you can think of another, I'm all ears."
She frowned but said, "You're right. Either the woman was already inside the mausoleum, or she got put there by that tube of smoke. Or was it ectoplasm? Milky, see-through... it could have been ectoplasm." The Caryatid shuddered. "Stupid. Why am I deliberately trying to scare myself?"
Impervia laid her hand on the Caryatid's shoulder. "Fear isn't stupid. Fear keeps you alert. But you can't let it stop you from doing what's right." Impervia looked once more at the bootprints and followed them with her eye to the edge of the woods. "The woman's got only a short headstart. And she's heading for Dover-on-Sea. If we follow her tracks, we might catch her before she gets there."
"Then what?" Myoko asked. "Start a punching match with someone who can blast her way through granite?"
"Only if necessary. We'll start by politely inquiring if this woman knows what's going on." Impervia gave Myoko a stern look. "I'm not completely deranged, you know."