Андреа Хёст - The Pyramids of London

Aunt Arianne was coming down the slope, herded by a particularly large green and tan amasen, and with a much smaller creamy-pale one wrapped around her throat like a too-tight scarf. When she reached the bottom all but that small one slid away, and as they moved the air seemed to pulse. All the moths sprang into the air, and beat chaotically upward, taking most of the light away.

“Watch,” Dem Makepeace said, again leaning to address Griff, though Eluned’s eyes had not yet adjusted enough to see Griff’s reaction. He did not move, at least, and his breathing remained steady, but under starlight alone, Eluned could only make out broad shadows. The shape of Dem Makepeace as he straightened. The outline of Aunt Arianne as she knelt to Eluned’s right. Antlers.

The Horned King could be man or hart, and at first Eluned could not decide which of these followed Aunt Arianne down from beneath the Oak, was only certain of the antlers, wide and many-pointed. Two silver torcs hung glimmering from the tines, swaying with the motion of the god’s approach. The air shuddered with every step.

The hart form, a stag at the height of his strength. He walked directly up to Eleri, and dropped his great branched head to examine the automaton sitting on the ground in front of her, snorted like a thunderclap, and then was lowering over Eluned, inside her head.

That was the only way to describe it. Cernunnos sorted through her thoughts, her feelings, her self, examining the request to visit his kingdom, shaking aside petty words to lay bare the loss, the fury, the sense of being broken, that had weighed on Eluned ever since Aunt Arianne had told them Mother and Father had died. How a part of her she’d thought central had curled up and vanished, and Hurlstone was so full of all the things she usually loved that it filled her with the belief that the missing part would come back.

The Horned King threw back his heavy head, the twin torcs ringing, and shattered the air with his cry—the stag’s harsh bellow accompanied by a genuine thunderclap out of a clear sky. The sound pounded the ears, so close to a literal blow that Eluned almost didn’t feel a tinier hurt, but she looked down to see the small amasen, a pale rope sliding toward Dem Makepeace. The flesh between Eluned’s left thumb and forefinger throbbed.

When she raised her head, Cernunnos was gone, and they were just a line of people kneeling at the base of a hill topped with a tree, and as in a dream Eluned followed along as Dem Makepeace told them it was time to go, and led them silent along the path, pausing only to prop the automaton on a stone pillar, guarded by the small amasen, before they returned to Forest House.

The warmer air brought Eluned back to herself, and she gasped and looked confusedly at a pale sky candy-striped by dawn. Then Aunt Arianne held her right hand next to Eluned’s left so they could compare matching snake bites. And, as they raised those hands toward the ornate gate Dem Makepeace had closed, glimmering on the ghostly edge of tangibility, discover keys.

Rian was magnificently out of sorts.

She knew it for a nonsensical reaction. For the first time in her life she had been showered with good fortune. She had been given back her youth, and would enjoy the benefits of the Bound without the constraints and uncomfortable intimacy of the role. Physically she felt very good indeed, and she had gained both a home and financial stability. More, it promised to be a life of ease, involving a tiny amount of work and bringing with it privilege and respect. Cernunnos himself had appeared before her and accepted her in the role. On her new desk rested a formal letter of appointment, accompanied by a discreet outline of the terms of her position. And an invitation.

Too many mixed feelings. They served no purpose so Rian set them and the letters aside, taking instead a fresh sheet of paper. All this oddity with Forest House was so much distraction. The important development was that Prytennia’s deadliest spy had gone to Caerlleon to look over the circumstances of two deaths. Meanwhile, her energetic charges, after a day of recovery, were off asking innocuous questions at the nearest automaton workshops. To decide her own course, Rian needed to put her thoughts in order.

The artificial fulgite was key, she was sure of it, but she had to think beyond whoever had given it to Eiliff and Aedric. Unsealing an old bottle of ink, she tested the liquid, found it serviceable, and made herself a list.

1. Commissioned two automaton and provided round fulgite.

2. Helped arrange the commission. Lyn(d)sey.

3. Provided funding in envelopes from Sheerside House.

4. Sabotaged industrial automaton’s safety bindings.

5. Stole/took delivery of special automaton and fulgite.

6. Searched house/removed Commissions Book (when?).

7. Asked Willa to buy items from estate sale?

8. Sent sphinx shabti to Sheerside House. (Hatshepsu???)

9. Targeted by sphinx shabti (for fulgite?). Princess Leodhild?

10. Sent ravens. (Order of the Oak?)

11. Sent bull-bear.

This last entry worried her. As widely-travelled as she was, Rian had never heard of anything like that creature. And if that thing had been after the fulgite, then someone had decided that she or the children had it: a new development since there’d been no approach of that sort since the original search of the Tenning house.

The jangle of bells interrupted, and Rian slid her list beneath the blotter. She was going to have to give serious consideration to day staff, and Dama Chelwith would no doubt have the ideal people, sitting waiting for the request. Rian would then be a person with servants. Another adjustment.

Constantly picturing people as pulsing rivers of blood was perhaps the largest change, and three were waiting on the far side of the door. Expecting another helpful deputation of locals, Rian discovered instead three reasons to be pleased.

“Evelyn! And Lyle! It’s good to see you both again.” Rian smiled at the two men, and the tall blond woman who could be no-one but the person Rian was most interested in speaking to.

“Arianne!” Evelyn began, but then looked past her, eyes widening. “What in the world?”

“Come in and gape,” Rian invited, gesturing with the hat she’d carried down with her. “It’s too distracting isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t at all certain we’d found the right place,” Evelyn said, stepping in and staring at the soaring ceiling and spectacular windows. “This is not what I expected from Makepeace. Inside or out.”

“Technically, I don’t think he’s ever lived here,” Rian said. “But he has the disposition of it.”

“Remarkable,” Lyle said, his stares as much for Rian’s face as the room before he took himself in hand. “Arianne, I’d like you to meet my sister, Lynsey Blair. Lynsey, this is Arianne Seaforth.”

Lynsey, built on Nordic lines, was an inch or so taller than Evelyn, and kept her oat-coloured hair in two thick braids down her back. Her voice was warm, rich with a northern accent as she said: “I’ve been hearing a great deal about you.”

“Welcome to Forest House,” Rian said, and very deliberately held out her hand to clasp the taller woman’s in greeting.

“I can see where the name comes from,” Lynsey said, her grip firm and her dominant emotion a calm curiosity. No hint of recognition or guilt. “Are those real trees on the other side of the glass?”

“Let me show you,” Rian said. “Words are a little inadequate.”

Since the day was sunny, she settled her hat and veil before pulling back the heavy bar, and stayed in the shade of the doorway as her three visitors, exclaiming, walked beneath the trees. Had it been a false lead? Lynsey at first glance seemed a perfectly amiable person, possessing a poised dignity, and…and Rian had a weakness for tall women, and should not let that lead her into ready trust. Her not-entirely-reliable new senses were merely a starting point, and it would be stupid to rush to frank questions.