Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

It must have been Count d'Hiver and the man he was talking to who had done this thing to her; so she decided once again, as she had a dozen times before. But it made no sense. Why would the count, the representative of the Privy Seal and thus of the Queen, abduct Cecily Perrine? Why would he abduct anyone, for that matter? What did he want with her? Why had no one come to her cell— except the man in black — since she had been there?

The man in black! Four times since she had awakened from her drugged sleep to find herself in this featureless stone cell, the man in black had entered. He had given no warning; suddenly she had heard the bolts being thrown back and the door had opened. The cell had been bathed in a bright light — how bright she could not tell, since in her darkness a candle would have seemed the sun — and a man dressed all in tight-fitting black garments, even to a black hood and black mask, had stepped in.

She had, at first, tried speaking to him, reasoning with him, pleading with him, screaming at him; but to no avail. Four times he had put down bowls of rancid-smelling gruel and cups of water. Three times he had turned and left, wordlessly, gesturelessly. The fourth time he had reached out a hand and touched her on the arm; briefly, probingly, experimentally. And this had been the most horrible thing of all. He had not touched her as a man touches a woman, not even the gloating, possessive touch of a captor for his captive. This was immeasurably worse. There had not been even the humanity of lust in that touch. He had touched her as a farmer might probe a prize pig, to test the firmness of its skin, to feel its muscles, and how well fatted it was.

She could not tell how long she had been held a prisoner. She had been fed four times, but at what intervals? She had eaten but little of the gruel, and was still not hungry; but this was no indication. She felt wretched and afraid and alone, and such feelings would keep her from hunger for weeks, not merely days.

Cecily shrank back into the corner: there was that sound now, the snick-snick-snick of three bolts being thrown. The narrow wooden door was pulled open, and light flooded into the tiny cell. The tall man in black had once again come to visit. This time he brought no gruel. This time he took her by the arm and propelled her, as though she were a rag doll, out into the narrow stone corridor beyond the door. She resisted an impulse to cry out, feeling obscurely that it would give him satisfaction, and maintained a passive silence as he pushed her ahead of him down the corridor. He did not appear to notice her silence, any more than he had heeded her crying and pleading on his previous visits.

Cecily tried to prepare herself for whatever might happen. Her mind was in a turmoil, and she realized that she had no idea what to prepare herself for. This was so far outside her experience as to be a succession of unbelievable happenings, one long nightmare from which she was unable to wake.

The light, which had seemed so blinding from within the black cell, proved to come from a row of gas-mantle fixtures set high in the corridor wall. From the way that the pipe ran along the outside of the wall, right below the ceiling, it was evident that the stone corridor and its row of cells had been constructed long before the coming of gaslight. She was captive in the ancient cellar of some great house, the house of a man important enough to plan on keeping captives in his own basement, back in the days when influential noblemen might expect to have a few captives of their own. And now the present owner of the house was using his inherited cellar for purposes that nineteenth-century authorities would frown on, if only they knew. That was a fact to be filed away. Probably useless, but a fact nonetheless. Collecting and sorting facts kept her mind busy and active, and that in itself was helpful.

The man in black paused at the end of the corridor to unlock a thick wooden door, and then to lock it behind him. Just habit? Or were there other prisoners in that hellish black dungeon?

After three more locked doors and a twisting iron staircase, they came at last to a room, a well-appointed study, the floor deeply carpeted and the walls lined with bookcases filled with leather-bound books. For all its fine appointments, there was something strange about the room, and it took Cecily a minute to figure out what it was: there were no windows.

Behind an ancient, ornately carved oak table in the middle of the room, perched on a chair that would have served as a throne in many lesser kingdoms, was a small man clad in a black velvet lounging suit, his face concealed behind a great harlequin mask. Cecily thought it looked suspiciously like the Count d'Hiver — the size and build were about right — but she couldn't be sure.

The man in black brought Cecily to the front of the table, facing the harlequin, and released her. The harlequin stared intently at her, his blue eyes peering through the mask's eye slits, and said nothing.

Cecily felt a mixture of strong emotions all trying to surface at once; fear, astonishment, hatred, and rage boiled inside of her, causing her heart to thump loudly in her chest, her face to flush, her hands to feel alternately hot and cold. She wanted to cry, to scream, to beg, to hit out with all of her might at the man in black, to throw herself across the desk and throttle the smug harlequin. And so she did nothing. She felt that the harlequin was waiting for her to speak, perhaps to beg, to entreat, to demand; and so, mustering all the self-control she had available in her weary, frightened body, she remained mute.

"Welcome!" the harlequin said at last, in a deep voice. (Artificially deep? The voice of d'Hiver, lowered for effect or disguise? She couldn't be sure.) "Do you know why you are here?"

"What?" The single syllable was drawn out of Cecily involuntarily, so shocked was she by the question. "Listen, you," she said, putting her hands flat on the table in front of her and leaning aggressively forward toward the masked man. "I've been kidnapped, drugged, locked up in a black, dank cell, fed some kind of repulsive gruel, ministered to by this ape behind me, and you want to know if I know why I'm here! I'm here against my will, obviously at your behest, and you shall suffer for this. You can't expect to get away with a thing like this in the middle of London in 1887, as though you were some sort of feudal lord. My friends are looking for me, and you will live to regret this. Don't think they won't find me!"

The man in black grabbed her by the hair and lifted her straight up and back away from the table, actually raising her off the floor with one hand. The suddenness of the act, the shock and surprise, and the almost unbearable pain made her scream and brought tears to her eyes. She grabbed for his hand just as he released her hair, causing her to fall heavily to the floor. "Stand!" he commanded— the first word he had spoken in her presence.

Cecily struggled to her feet, tears stinging her eyes. "You bastards!" she screamed across the desk. "If Benjamin were here—"

"You are here as an acolyte, a supplicant, a slave," the harlequin said, precisely as though nothing had just happened, as though she had remained respectfully silent. "There was some discussion at first about what you might know, or not know; but it was realized that it does not matter. What will grow in you, what will become of paramount importance, is your own knowledge of your condition. And that will change from day to day, from moment to moment."

She gaped at him. "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "Do you know what you're doing — what you've done? You must be insane!"

"I am the Master Incarnate," the harlequin continued, ignoring her outburst. "In the course of time, you will come to know other masters. You are to be removed from here, and taken to the place of your service. You will learn what it means to be a slave."