A Star Shall Fall Part 30

A gleam came into Abd ar-Ras.h.i.+d's dark eyes. He shared a little bit of Dr. Andrews's flaw, Galen thought, the willingness to love an idea for its own beauty, without concern for its consequences. "A moving laboratory, for the volatile principle. Yes, it would do well."

Very well indeed-if they weren't speaking of Lune's death. "Starting upriver, where the waters are cleaner, and floating down. If it's her connection to the Onyx Hall he wants, then the-the extraction extraction will happen in the City. Beneath the moon, I suppose." Galen swallowed down bile. will happen in the City. Beneath the moon, I suppose." Galen swallowed down bile.

Peregrin said, "a.s.suming all this speculation is correct. We have nothing but logic to support it."

Gertrude had convinced Irrith to lie down again, or perhaps simple exhaustion had done it for her. The brownie said, "Might be we have a way to tell. I don't know how far it goes, but-the Thames is connected to the Onyx Hall, and so are the Prince and Queen. If she's on the river, he might be able to tell. Once she's close enough, anyway."

The Onyx Hall. A quiet presence in the back of Galen's mind, grown familiar enough that he rarely thought of it. Could he use it to find the Queen?

He could certainly try. "In the meanwhile," Galen said, "we a.s.sume nothing. Sir Peregrin, I'll tell the Lord Treasurer to provide whatever's needed. Search this city from one end to the other. If Lune is anywhere within London, find her-before tonight."

"I'd bring you with me, but you need to rest."

Irrith shook her head-or at least rolled it on her pillow, the best she could do. "Not even if I could, Galen. Carline almost tricked me once into telling her where the London Stone lay. I'm happier not knowing where it is now." So long as there were vipers like Aspell in the Hall, she wanted to know nothing that could betray it.

He squeezed her limp hand. Even that light pressure forced her bones together-as it had always done, no doubt, but now she was aware of it, as she was aware of the fragility of her entire body. Irrith felt as if she'd been pounded, head to toe, with an iron club, and one more blow could break her. "I'm sorry," he said.

She wasn't sure either of them knew what precisely he was apologizing for. An unaccustomed p.r.i.c.kling stung her eyes. "Galen-I think Podder was in that cellar. He didn't run away."

It barely touched him; his fear and rage for Lune left little room for anything else. But Galen nodded. Then, when neither of them could think of anything further to say, he turned to go.

When he was halfway to the door, his wife came into the room.

Delphia Northwood-no, Delphia St. Clair St. Clair-gasped at the sight of her new husband. Irrith had no idea what Galen had been up to while she lay unconscious in Newgate, but his s.h.i.+rt was filthy, the back of his coat was slashed to ribbons, and his face was beginning to bruise beneath the blood. Small wonder the woman was horrified. "What in Heaven's-"

He held up his left hand, seemed to notice the bandage on it, and replaced it with his right. "Delphia, I'm sorry; I don't have time to explain. I have to find Lune. Something terrible has happened, and I... I need to be Prince right now."

Irrith watched the words settle over Delphia St. Clair. Did the woman see the difference in Galen, beneath the blood and the bandages? I need to be Prince right now. I need to be Prince right now. He He was was the Prince, maybe for the first time ever. Not merely standing at Lune's side, fulfilling his duties as required, but making decisions, giving orders. The change showed in his posture, the set of his jaw. The challenge had come-the crisis, not just the creeping threat of the comet-and he had stepped up to meet it. the Prince, maybe for the first time ever. Not merely standing at Lune's side, fulfilling his duties as required, but making decisions, giving orders. The change showed in his posture, the set of his jaw. The challenge had come-the crisis, not just the creeping threat of the comet-and he had stepped up to meet it.

As a Prince of the Stone should.

Delphia let him go, with only a brief touch of her hand on his shoulder. Then she stood, eyes cast down, in silence, and Irrith would have wagered all her remaining bread that the woman thought she was alone in the room.

But Gertrude would come back in a moment with mead for Irrith, and then it would be embarra.s.sing to admit she'd listened to that exchange without saying anything. I could pretend to be asleep. I could pretend to be asleep.

Instead she cleared her throat, and watched Delphia try to jump out of her skin. "It won't end, you know," Irrith said. "This fight, yes-one way or another, it will be over tonight. But it will always be true that Galen has to be Prince. He'll always be running off, and leaving you behind." Not just for Lune's sake, but for the entire Onyx Court.

The mortal woman came forward one slow step at a time, hands clasped over her skirts. She studied Irrith with curious eyes, and a hint of compa.s.sion. But only a hint; the rest was steel.

"I am not left behind," Delphia St. Clair said. "I'm a lady of the bedchamber to the Queen. I'll make my own place here in this court, and when my husband goes to do his duty, I will not resent him for it."

Irrith managed a weak smile. She did did like this woman, who commanded admiration instead of pity. "Well said. If you really do mean it, then I suggest you go above, where your words won't hurt us... and pray you still have a queen to serve tomorrow." like this woman, who commanded admiration instead of pity. "Well said. If you really do mean it, then I suggest you go above, where your words won't hurt us... and pray you still have a queen to serve tomorrow."

In a tiny alcove well concealed in the Onyx Hall, Galen stood with both hands upraised, clutching the rough surface of the London Stone.

It looked like nothing: a rounded stub of a crude pillar, protruding from the ceiling above, its tip deeply grooved by the abuse of centuries. Its significance to London above was half-forgotten, even as the Stone itself was half worn away.

But in the shadowy reflection that was the Onyx Hall, there was no place of greater significance. This was the axis, the point where the two worlds fused into one, and Galen could touch his entire realm with his mind.

The Hall, fraying and fading in scattered patches. The wall, fragmented more with every pa.s.sing year. The hill of St. Paul's Cathedral in the west; the hill of the Tower in the east. The Walbrook, running buried beneath the City, from the north down to the greater waters of the Thames in the south.

The Thames.

This was where Galen directed his thoughts, striving outward, seeking the Hall's other half. He devoted some attention to the waters downriver, and more to the ground of the streets above, in case Lune should be there; but the greater part of his being he sent upriver, past the Fleet, past the Strand, past Westminster, stretching himself farther and farther as he went, desperately grasping for any tremor that might indicate the presence of the Queen.

He held the image of her before him like a beacon, s.h.i.+ning silver and pure. The moon queen, as Dr. Andrews had said. A G.o.ddess beyond his reach, but perhaps this once he could serve her as she deserved, saving her from those who would cut that glory out of her flesh and feed it to the fire.

Before she could be saved, she must be found.

Farther. And farther. And farther, farther, his spirit strained to the breaking point. his spirit strained to the breaking point.

There.

The River Thames, London: March 17, 1759 The barge approached Westminster just after midnight, floating silently on the black waters of the Thames. Even the watermen who managed the craft worked without sound, going about their tasks like automata, their minds fogged by their faerie pa.s.sengers. They took only as much notice of those pa.s.sengers as was needed to avoid tripping over them, and no notice at all of the canvas-roofed cabin in the center of the deck, where a cool light unlike any lamp's flame shone.

The fae were silent, too, until the thrumpin Orlegg elbowed his neighbor and pointed at a shadow on the water up ahead. "Glamour. Big one, on Westminster Bridge."

All the faerie company, save those inside the cabin, squinted through the darkness to pierce the effect. The first one to succeed snorted. "Swopped the arches half a step, all the way across. Seems they don't mind risking their Queen drowning."

Orlegg growled. "They know we're coming."

The Sanists moved quickly. One charmed the watermen, persuading them to steer the barge straight for what appeared to be a solid stone pier. Another cracked the door to the cabin and whispered to those inside. Orlegg mustered the rest in preparation for battle.

The loyalists would not give up their wounded Queen without a fight-and so the Sanists would give them one.

All along the Strand, the wide road leading from Westminster to the City, folk waited in shadows. The Lord Treasurer had all but emptied his domain, armoring fae for the long night of readiness. A company had concealed itself in the alcoves of Westminster Bridge, hoping to catch the barge in its deceptive glamour, so they could swarm down on it from above; so far all they had caught were two little scullers, ferrying gentlemen home from their late-night pleasures.

But if fae rode upon the barge, that trap would do little good. And so the rest of the Onyx Hall's fighting force, all those loyal to the Queen, strung themselves along the Strand, waiting to converge upon their target.

As soon as they found it.

Segraine's blade hissed from its scabbard and swung before Irrith could even leap back. The point came to rest just against the side of her neck. "Blood and Bone-Irrith! What in Mab's name are you doing here?"

The sprite pushed the sword away with two careful fingers. "Rescuing the Queen."

"Over my dead body-or your own, more like. You can barely stand."

"But I can can stand," Irrith pointed out, and began loading her pistol. Elfshot only; the iron in her pocket, she was saving for the Dragon. "Unless you want to waste time dragging me back to the Hall, I'm here to stay." stand," Irrith pointed out, and began loading her pistol. Elfshot only; the iron in her pocket, she was saving for the Dragon. "Unless you want to waste time dragging me back to the Hall, I'm here to stay."

The lady knight ground her teeth. "Irrith, we can do this without you-"

"It's my fault, all right? I'm the one who told Aspell what Andrews was doing, and if it weren't for me-"

She never got a chance to say how things might have been different. Bonecruncher clapped one taloned hand over her mouth. "If it weren't for you, we might have a chance of avoiding the constables," the barguest hissed in her ear. "Leave or be quiet, but if you go on shouting like that, I'll drown you in the Thames myself."

Mute, Irrith met Segraine's eyes. The knight clenched her teeth, but nodded. Bonecruncher dropped his hand, Irrith loaded her second pistol, and they waited for the barge to come.

In the black waters of the Thames, more shadows moved.

The fae of the river, nymphs and asrai and draca, found less and less joy in the city these past years. Their land-dwelling kindred could retreat from the filth of London into the Onyx Hall, but living in Queenhithe's subterranean mirror was like living in a pond. Out here in the river, they had to contend with all the refuse of the mortals, and waters that grew fouler every year.

Tonight, however, they swam without complaint. They flooded out the Queenhithe entrance and formed a line across the river, sweeping upstream in search of the barge. There were other craft upon the Thames, of course. The larger s.h.i.+ps, however, were confined downriver by the ancient stones of the London Bridge, and at this hour of the night, only a few small wherries plied the surface. Their search was-should have been-easy.

But they were not the only shadows in the water.

There was no warning. Just a claw, snaking out of nowhere to s.n.a.t.c.h an asrai and drag her down. Underwater, she could not scream; she vanished without a sound.

A draca was the next target, and he dodged not quite rapidly enough. Blood bloomed in the murk, and then he saw his enemy.

Blacktooth Meg cared little for the politics of the Onyx Hall. All she knew was rage. The poisoned Fleet, long choked with garbage and offal, corpses and s.h.i.+t, had turned the foul river hag even fouler, until all she wanted to do was rend and destroy. Valentin Aspell offered her a chance to do so. She merely had to venture out of her waters into the Thames, and prevent the fae there from swimming upstream.

Battle churned in the darkness below, invisible to those above. Even the water-dwelling fae could scarcely see their enemy before she closed with them. But one nymph broke free, driving herself upstream with frantic speed, desperate to carry out her sworn task.

She didn't have to go far. Under cover of darkness and charms, the barge had come nearly to the mouth of the Fleet, and the boundary of the Onyx Hall.

Hands made clumsy with panic tore at the box tied to her waist. Then the lid was open, and the will-o'-the-wisp sprang out, erupting from the water into the air above, marking the target for those who waited to attack.

The sky was too dangerous for large forces on any night other than All Hallows' Eve. But birds attracted no notice, especially against the dark background of the clouds. Their sharp eyes picked out the flare of light on the river below, and they screamed a warning through the air.

A lone horseman came galloping through the sky, downriver from Westminster Bridge. The tatterfoal stretched his legs to their fullest, angling downward to seek out the barge, and his rider Sir Cerenel dropped the reins to ready the weapon he held.

Not all of the jotun ice had gone into the spear for the Dragon. Leaning sideways out of the saddle, the elf-knight hurled a shard into the river below.

It struck the water and sank halfway in. No farther: by then the river had frozen around it, ice crystalling outward in all directions, even down to the soft mud of the bed, trapping the barge just short of the mouth of the Fleet.

And forming a bridge from one bank to the other, a road for the rescuers to ride.

Galen had positioned himself in the timber yard off Dorset Street, scant yards from the open bank of the Fleet. Sir Peregrin let him do it because the Captain believed they would catch the barge much farther upriver. But Galen thought, when he saw the ice race across the surface of the Thames, that some dismal part of himself had always believed it would come to this, the last, desperate chance to save Lune.

He heard the clatter of hooves and feet approaching down Temple Street, the company that had waited in the King's Bench Walk, but he could not wait for them, not even half a moment. Spurring the brag he rode, Galen charged out onto the ice.

The surface was treacherous beyond belief, crazed from the unnatural speed of its freezing, but slick all the same. His mount screamed and went down twenty feet from the barge, sending Galen flying across the ice, out of control. But it also saved the Prince; when a goblin leapt over the gunwale, sword in hand, the attacker's feet went out from under him, too.

A bullet chipped the ice near Galen's head. Someone on the barge was more clever. The Prince half-crawled, half-slid into the shelter of the vessel's wooden side, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the sword the goblin had dropped. The creature tried to run at him, but by then the rest of Galen's company was there; Sir Adenant rode him down.

Behind them came Segraine's company, marked by the flaming eyes of Bonecruncher. And Irrith, corpse-pale as if she might collapse, but lifting her pistol to fire at a Sanist.

Galen gritted his teeth and rose, clawing his way over the barge's edge. Gunfire still cracked around him, but they couldn't afford to lose a second, lest Andrews decide he'd come close enough to his goal. The Prince came aboard to find himself facing a blank-eyed waterman. A blade flas.h.i.+ng out from behind the man told him a fae was using the mortal as cover. But the strike was made half-blind, and Galen dodged it easily, shoving the waterman backward. There-the cabin- There-the cabin- Cool light radiated upward as someone dragged free the canvas that served in place of a roof. Heart in his mouth, Galen looked upward.

Clouds still covered most of the sky, but ragged patches had appeared here and there, and one of them revealed the moon.

Only the raw scratch of his throat told him he was screaming. Galen threw himself forward, using the sword as much like a bludgeon as a blade, not caring who he drove through or how. More fae swarmed onto the barge with him, but the Sanists stood ready, and the confines of the deck limited the opposing numbers to something like equality. Then the thrumpin in front of him went down with a howl, and Galen saw Irrith, crouched low with a knife at hamstring height. "Come on!" she shouted, and s.n.a.t.c.hed without success at the handle of the cabin door.

She got out of the way just in time to avoid Galen's rush. He hit the door with the shoulder bruised last fall, and felt the jolt all the way across his body, but the cabin was a flimsy thing. The latch snapped, dropping Galen through into the room beyond.

He knew what he would see even before he regained his feet. Valentin Aspell, leaping in front of Galen with a hiss. Dr. Andrews, looking like Death itself in the cold faerie light.

And Lune, chained by rowan to the table on which she lay, naked and vulnerable to the knife.

The faerie lights dimmed without warning. Aspell flinched involuntarily, one hand flying to s.h.i.+eld his face, as three small, dark spheres struck him and fell to the boards. In that moment Galen leapt; he'd lost his sword somewhere, but he still had his weight, and it was enough to send Aspell cras.h.i.+ng backward in the cramped s.p.a.ce, into Dr. Andrews.

They went down in a heap, all three of them, and the knife clattered loose. Then someone else was there-Peregrin, dragging Aspell free and wrestling him to the boards, snarling curses in his ear.

No one had to do the same to Andrews. The mortal lay gasping, too weak to even cough. Galen crawled off him and stood, glaring down without pity. Only by a supreme effort of will did he keep from stamping on the hand that had held the knife.

But a whimper distracted him from vengeance. Lune twitched weakly against her bonds, until Irrith crawled forward and retrieved the three iron bullets she'd thrown at Aspell, stowing them once more in their hawthorn case. Galen shrugged out of his tattered coat and flung it over the Queen, giving her a measure of decency as he found and pulled free the pins that held her rowan chains.

The barge s.h.i.+fted beneath his feet. Someone had retrieved the jotun ice; the river was beginning to thaw once more. Galen helped Lune to her feet, supporting her out onto the open deck, and gave her reluctantly to Sir Cerenel, whose tatterfoal would carry her to immediate safety. They'd clearly fed her no bread, needing her faerie soul pure, and Galen suspected Andrews had done something more; the Queen's knees were as weak as a newborn child's. But she had the strength to press her lips to Galen's cheek and murmur half-coherent thanks, before she was gone.

He turned back to see Irrith sprawled in the cabin doorway, hawthorn box dangling loosely from her fingers. The sprite turned dulled eyes up to him and said, "We did it."

Galen was too weary to do more than nod. Looking past Irrith to the huddled form of Dr. Andrews, he thought, Yes. We saved Lune. Yes. We saved Lune.

But we've lost the philosopher's stone.

Red Lion Square, Holborn: March 18, 1759 The weak rasp of Dr. Andrews's breathing was the only sound in the room. Outside, the world went on, heedless of the comet in the sky above, and the acts it had inspired. The clouds still held, but imperfectly; the protection they had given these long months was failing at last.

The man in the bed would not live to see it end.

Galen said, "Why did you do it?"

He thought at first that Andrews was coughing. It turned out to be a laugh, bitter as gall. "Why. You stand there, watching me die, and you ask why why."

To save his own life, of course. "For that, you would murder an innocent woman. And not just her, but Savennis, Podder-"

"I tried everything, Mr. St. Clair." Andrews lay limp beneath his sheets, unable even to lift his hands now. "If I could have done it some other way, I would have. But the sands of my hourgla.s.s had nearly run out. When the Lord Keeper came to me, offering his aid..." He had to pause for breath. "The others were tests of my method. I had to be sure it would work. Once I was-then yes. To save myself, and this city, and all of mankind, I would kill. Who would not?"

Galen thought of what Lune had said. That the Dragon would bring perfection through destruction. How many would such a creature truly save?

It didn't matter. "I wouldn't," Galen said. "No moral man would."

Andrews didn't answer. After a few moments of waiting, Galen realized he would not speak again. The Prince stood and watched in silence as the wasted chest rose and fell, until it moved no more.

Then he went downstairs to tell Dr. Andrews's faithful, unquestioning servants that their master was dead at last.

PART SEVEN.

Calcinatio

Spring 1759.