8
Further down the corridor I began to catch a faint aroma that brought back unpleasant memories of Deep Maleen: sausages. We came to open double doors on the left. Beyond was a huge kitchen with a line of ovens set in brick, three stoves, spits for turning meat, and sinks big enough to bathe in. This was where the food was prepared for the crowds that came on game days. The oven doors were open, the stove-burners dark, and there was nothing turning on the spits, but the ghostly aroma of sausages lingered. I’ll never eat another one as long as I live, I thought. Maybe not steak, either.
Four gray men cringed against the far wall. They were wearing baggy pants and blouses similar to the ones Pursey had worn, but none of them were Pursey. At the sight of us, one of these unfortunates raised his apron and covered what remained of his face. The others only stared, their half-erased features showing varying degrees of dismay and fright. I went in, shrugging off Leah’s attempt to pull me on down the passage. One by one the members of the kitchen crew fell to their knees and raised their palms to their foreheads.
“Nah, nah, stand up,” I said, and was a little dismayed by the alacrity with which they obeyed. “I mean you no harm, but where is Pursey? Percival? I know he was one of you.”
They looked at each other, then at me, then at my dog, then at Iota hulking beside me… and of course they shied glances at the princess, who had come once more to the castle she’d called home. Finally the one who had covered his face dropped his apron and stepped forward. He was trembling. I’ll spare you his slurred speech. He was understandable enough.
“The night soldiers came for him and took him in their grip. He shook, and then he swooned. They carried him away. I think he may be dead, great sir, for their touch kills.”
That I knew, but it didn’t always kill, or I would have been dead weeks ago. “Where did they take him?”
They shook their heads, but I had a good idea, and if the Lord High wanted to interrogate Pursey—Percival—he might still be alive.
Leah, meanwhile, had seen something. She bolted across the room to the big food-preparation island in the center. On it was a sheaf of papers tied with string and a quill pen, its feathers dark with grease and the nib dark with ink. She grabbed both, then made that impatient twirling gesture that said we had to go. She was right, of course, but she would have to put up with a little side-trip to the apartment I had already visited. I owed Percival. We all did. And I owed Kellin, the Lord High, as well.
I owed him a payback, and as we all know, payback’s a bitch.
9
Not far past the kitchen, the corridor ended at a tall door crisscrossed with formidable iron bands. On it was a sign in letters three feet high. Looked at dead-on, I could read the words NO ENTRY. When I turned my head to glimpse it from the peripheral vision Cla had sadly lacked, the words became a tangle of runic symbols… which, I’m sure, my cohorts could read perfectly well.
Leah pointed at me. I approached the door and spoke the magic words. Bolts crashed back on the far side and the door creaked ajar.
“Should have tried that in Maleen,” Eris said. “You could have saved us a lot of grief.”
I could have said I’d never thought of it, which was true, but that wasn’t all of it. “I wasn’t the prince then. I was still…”
“Still what?” Jaya asked.
Still changing, I thought. Deep Maleen was my cocoon.
I was saved having to finish. Leah beckoned with one hand and pulled at what remained of my shirt with the other. She was right, of course. We had an apocalypse to stop.
The hallway beyond the door was much wider and hung with tapestries depicting everything from fancy-dress royal weddings and balls to hunting scenes and landscapes of mountains and lakes. An especially memorable one showed a sailing ship caught in the protruding claws of some giant subsurface crustacean. We walked at least half a mile before coming to double doors ten feet high. On one was a banner showing an old man dressed in a neck-to-toe red robe. On his head was the crown I’d seen on Flight Killer’s head—there was no mistaking it. On the other door was a much younger woman, also wearing a crown on her blond curls.
“King Jan and Queen Cova,” Jaya said. Her voice was soft and awestruck. “My mother had a pillow with their faces on it. We weren’t allowed to touch it, let alone lay our heads on it.”
There was no need for me to speak Leah’s name here; the doors opened inward at her touch. We stepped onto a wide balcony. The room below had a feeling of vastness, but it was hard to tell for sure because it was very dark. Leah sidled to her left, slipping into the shadows until she was almost gone. I heard a faint squeaking noise, followed by the smell of gas and a low hissing from the darkness above and around us. Then, first by ones, then twos and threes, gas-jets bloomed. There had to be over a hundred, ringing an enormous room. More lit up in a huge, many-spoked chandelier. I know you’re reading a lot of huge and great and enormous. Better get used to it, because everything was… at least until we got to the claustrophobe’s nightmare I will tell of soon.