Part 9-3
"The problem I have always found with the use of virginal sacrifices to maintain one's youth – quite apart from your bratty eldest whining about you looking like you could be his younger sister when you overshoot – is that humans are rather lacking in blood and one needs an inconvenient number of them to fill the average bath. I must find a new source, because my experimentation with non-human blood sources has revealed that there are undesirable side effects. I will need to remember that dragon blood transforms me into a terrifying and beautiful draconic hybrid and save a virgin dragon for emergencies. I also wish I'd started with the dragon, rather than the cow."
– Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)
"You mean we're sport to demons?" Lady Madgalene hissed, as Louise pulled her by her hand towards the university. The blue sky overhead was warm and gentle and not at all appropriate for the fell deeds which were about to happen.
The overlady considered the point. "More akin to a theatrical performance," she said. "Of course, they have their own theatres where they break into the dreams of mortals and use them for their entertainment, but… yes, I would say they consider Halkeginia all one great form of entertainment."
Magdalene's eyes narrowed. "The swine," she hissed. "So they've just been using us! And not in the way demons are meant to use you! At the very least they could have the common decency for it to be some kind of grand scheme! Some kind of ploy to ultimately overthrow righteousness or something of that ilk! Not something for… for low-class demons to read about in news journals and-"
"Shh," Louise whispered, pressing her back against a wall. She leaned around the corner. There were guards by the gates to the university. She pursed her lips. "Do you know a way into the university?" she asked. "One that won't be guarded?"
Lady Magdalene gave an arch smile. "I went here," she said. "I was a proper young student, I will have you know."
"Yes?" Louise said dubiously. "Does that mean something?"
"That means I know plenty of ways to get in and out after curfew," the older woman said smugly. "Let me think." She frowned. "How do you feel about heights?"
"Heights? I… I don't mind them," Louise said warily.
"Good. There's a building with a garret on Queen Marienne's Way which backs up against the library. You can jump from the roof there to the library roof."
"Well, when I said I didn't mind them…" Louise began.
The clock ticked in the rather-desolate room filled with ruined party preparations. Cattlelya and Henrietta sat, each pouring over books.
Henrietta cleared her throat.
"Bless you," Cattleya said generously.
"… thank you. So. Um. I see that Louise Françoise appears to be getting on well with your mutual some-kind-of-cousin."
"Oh, indeed," Cattleya said, nodding. She frowned, pink hair falling in front of her face as she leaned forwards. "That worries me a little bit. Magdalene is rather mean. That she's getting along so well with little Louise might mean Louise has gained a few centi-Eleanores of mean in the meantime. Hee. Mean time."
Cattleya giggled, and looked inordinately proud of herself for making a joke, and Henrietta didn't have it in her to say anything about that. "Possibly," she instead said diplomatically. "But still! There has to be a way of getting her out safely before sunset!"
"If there was one, I'm all ears," Cattleya said earnestly. "Apart from the bits of me which aren't ears. So really it's that my ears are all ears, which is a trifle tautological."
There was a hesitant knock at the door. Henrietta frowned. The number of people in the tower who would knock politely at a door was slim indeed. Gnarl was known to do it occasionally, but mostly he just sidled in or – as was frequently the case – turned out to have been here all along, usually standing right behind you. And Cattleya was here with her, Jessica was still off breaking things, so…
… oh, what the heck. She was feeling too worried about Louise and generally stressed to play these kind of mind games. "Yes?" she asked.
A young man let himself in. A… a rather handsome young man, Henrietta considered abstractly. In fact, so handsome that when she stared at his face her eyes began to water as she thought of her poor-deceased love and…
Henrietta worked her jaw. "Jessica?" she tried, pulling a fresh handkerchief out of her pocket and blowing her nose. "Why are you… uh, taking on a male form?"
"Not my choice, Henri," Jessica said miserably.
"Um? Excuse me?" Henrietta said, dabbing at her eyes.
"Oh!" Cattleya said brightly. "Are you a wereman? But wait… it's not full moon…"
Jessica slumped down on a chair, running her hands through her sinfully long hair which looked incredibly attractive on a man. "Close, but no cigar." She took a deep breath, let it out, and then took a fresh one. "Okay. Let me put it to you this way. I'm a girl. I was born a girl. But, um… puberty is a thing for incubi and succubae too. Before we get to… uh, about eleven-twelve-thirteen, there really isn't much difference between boys and girls. You know, like human kids. Well, we're slightly less Evil than them, but apart from that, yeah."
Cattleya's eyes widened. "Oh Founder!" she exclaimed. "I never even thought about that! How adorable little demons must be! With their itty bitty horns and teeny weeny hoovsies and… are their fingernails just as tiny and cute? Or maybe claws? Are they cute claws?" Cattleya paused, probably for breath so she could continue talking. "I am quite sure that they're cute claws."
Jessica ignored her. "Then puberty hits like a kick to the face. Literally in some cases, because some of us lose our second set of teeth and get our meat teeth. Not me, luckily. Teething was bad enough once already. But… well. I basically had my human female bits trying to grow into an adult woman, and my demon bits going 'you are the incarnation of masculinity' and the human side just… uh. Got mostly overwhelmed." She sniffed. "Okay, it just got totally overwhelmed."
Henrietta coughed, averting her eyes to try to stop herself from crying. It wasn't working. Jessica was radiating an aura of what the demons called pawpst'ar eyedol which seemed to creep in through her nose and her incredibly attractive voice that made her think of her dead prince. "So, uh, you're really… um… like this. In every way? All over? In… uh, every way?"
"Take my word for it," Jessica said darkly. "None of us want a demonstration."
"I certainly don't!" Cattleya exclaimed indignantly. "Poor Jessica! You're much better how you normally look. This look does not suit you! At all!"
Jessica managed a watery smile at Cattleya. "Thank you," she said. "So, anyway, normally I take potions which keep my body human and female, but… well. When I really let out the demon side, deliberately or not, the potions just get overwhelmed because… uh, my demon side is sort of the crown prince and second only to Dad in power. So the demonic power just, like, totally swamps me and when I de-demonise, I'm like this."
Henrietta considered saying something like 'I know how you feel', but decided that would be incredibly stupid because she had no idea whatsoever what it felt to have that happen. "There, there," she said supportively instead. "So… uh, are… are you stuck like this?"
"Oh, abyss no. It'll just take a week or so for the potions to build up again in my system," Jessica said darkly. "I hate it! I… I get a lot of people telling me I'm… I'm more attractive like this. It… it hurts. This… this isn't me! It's just my… my stupid demonic side forcing my body to look different. I look in the mirror and this isn't me! You know?"
"I can't imagine, but it must be dreadful," Henrietta said reassuringly.
"I know all about not recognising the person you see in the mirror," Cattleya said simply. "Because there's no one in the mirror at all." She took a deep breath. "Um… I can give you a reassuring hug if you promise you won't catch on fire."
Jessica slumped down. "I can't do that," she said, with a sigh. "I'm… too emotionally fragile right now. If I start getting angry I'll go and buff out. Or tearful. Tearful too. Demon hormones are even worse than human ones."
"Demon horn moans?" asked Henrietta, a slightly disgusted expression on her face. "I don't think I want to know what those are. I'm sorry – I had no idea."
"No shit," Jessica muttered. "It's not like I go shouting it from the deepest dungeons. It's one of the pluses to hanging around you lot. Everyone down below knows incubae and succubae have if problems like this if we have enough human in us. Fuck my mother and her shitty parenting and the fact she left me like this and then walked out."
Henrietta coughed, and dabbed at her eyes again before wringing out her handkerchief again. "So, returning to the previous topic…"
"That was?" Jessica asked. "I was… um, sort of crying in my bedroom. Oh, and rampaging around as a giant male demon. There… um, is some fire damage. Fuck my temper."
"We were trying to find a way to rescue Louise!" Cattleya said brightly. "Before nightfall, that is. Once the sun goes down, I'll be there in a snap!" To demonstrate that, she tried to snap her fingers. She failed, but it was a valiant effort.
Jessica shrugged. "Isn't that Gnarl's job? Why don't you ask him?"
"I can't find him," Henrietta said darkly, steepling her fingers. "So. Jessica…"
"No. Uh no. No. No!" Jessica crossed her arms over her broad, manly chest. "No! I'm not going out of the house looking like this! And… and you can't make me!" She smouldered, both literally and allegorically.
"Okay I think we understand your position it's a very good position just don't catch on fire please please please," Cattleya said quickly, backing away to hide behind an armchair.
Henrietta sighed. "Well. That's what it comes down to, then," she said, squaring her jaw.
"I know," Cattleya said miserably, to sympathetic noises from Jessica. "We… we just can't help her. And I feel dreadful and it's all the fault of this wretched curse-"
"And my fucking stupid biology, too," Jessica added.
"… quite so."
They got glared at by the princess. "What? Heck no!" Henrietta said, pulling herself to her feet. The expression on her face resembled that of her great-grandfather when he cleansed the Black Monastery of Vrees of its infernal cultists, enacting holy and righteous justice on them. It also resembled the expression of her one of her great-aunts as she murdered the aforementioned great-grandfather. "I am not going to sit here like a useless trophy princess waiting for nightfall."
Imperiously, she pointed at Jessica.
"You! Stop blubbering! Chin up! Bring me the armour we were trying out! Cattleya! Make the portal enchantment work and prepare me an honour guard! Or perhaps a dishonour guard! I care not! I'm going to the armoury! Louise Françoise must have some suitable wand or staff I can use!" Henrietta put her hands on her hips and glowered. "I am getting her back. There may be blood. It won't be mine."
Once Louise had got over the bit where they'd swung out of a garret window, clambered onto the roof, and then leapt between two buildings which had been built close together, it wasn't so bad.
Of course, the jump itself had been so utterly horrible that she took quite a while to get over it. Sitting on the roof under the clear blue sky, Louise hugged and knees and tried to stop hyperventilating as she sat on the warm slate of the roof.
"Mraa," said Pallas happily, licking her cheek.
"Well, I'm glad you're entertained by the events of today, my lady," Louise said to the cat with only a modicum of bitterness.
Pallas started purring next to her ear, doing a good impersonation of a saw.
Going to university clearly made you mean, insane, evil and/or crazy, she thought to herself. Case one, Eleanore. Case two, the Madame de Montespan. Case three, Lady Magdalene. She'd need to watch out for that when she went. Because of course she was going. She was a proper young lady and it wasn't like she was stupid and… and well, given her magic was maybe a little bit made of raw Evil, she probably needed a field of study which didn't involve the magical domination of Halkeginia.
Louise carefully suppressed the panic attack she sometimes got when she remembered she might have failed out of the Academy of Magic due to being possibly a bit legally dead. There were extenuating circumstances. She had to work out what to do with her life apart from being an overlady. Because she wasn't doing this long term. Oh, no. She… she was just getting it out of her system now.
"Well, we're now on the roof of the Bosque Library," Magdalene said. From her expression, she was having the most fun she'd had in a long time. The look of almost childish glee was very nearly overcoming her normal aura of decadent sinister femininity. "So if we scale the chapel, we can get across the roof and then… what is that smell?"
"Shh," Louise whispered, ears perking up as her breath slowed down. She felt better now that she had something to distract herself from jumping over buildings. She could hear voices from down below. And also smell minion. These two things might not have been related, come to think of it. She snuck up to the edge of the roof, and listened to the conversation of the soldiers in the courtyard.
"Just remember, chaps," a woman said, "your orders are quite clear. Eleanore de la Vallière stole the Malevolene Fragment, and it is your orders to sweep this location until it is found!"
Louise narrowed her eyes. The civilian giving orders to the solider was familiar. It was… what was her name? The disgusting, lewd, vapid, terrible, horrible, unrighteous woman who had wanted to do horrible things with Louise when she'd temporarily taken her captive. She must have transferred from working for the Comte de Mott to working for the Madame de Montespan after Louise killed him.
Well, there was no way Louise was letting her find out she was here. She might take it as encouragement.
"Right you are, milady," said the lieutenant leading the squad. "Uh… what's a Malevolene Fragment?"
The woman put her hands on her hips. "It's a blue-grey crystal," she said. "Honestly! Blue-grey crystal, sharp, radiates raw Evil…"
"Blue-grey doesn't sound very Evil," one of the soldiers said sceptically. "That sounds like a Good crystal to me. Like, you'd think that an Evil crystal would be black."
"Or red!" another soldier chipped in.
"Yeah. Or red. Or maybe black but when light shines on it there's sort of an evil red glow from the inside what makes you think of the fires of the Abyss."
The woman gritted her teeth. "That's not the Malevolene Fragment. That's just hubnerite you're describing. They have some of that in the geology department. No, go search out the Malevolene Fragment and return it safely. That's the orders from the Regency Council." And with that said, she walked off.
There was a silence.
"Pretty sure a black stone with red glints in it is made of Evil," one of the soldiers said.
"Yeah. Prob'ly should make sure that those geologist mages aren't doing Evil things there. After all, you know what they say about people who dig too deep."
"… that they let out giant demons of smoke and flame?"
"Exactly. What're we gonna do, boss?"
"We will follow our orders. And our orders are to search for the Malevolene Fragment, which is blue and grey," the lieutenant said, after some thought. "Men! Move out! We can search the geology department for it, and at the same time arrest everyone who's doing things with Evil black crystals which glow red. That's just common sense." Down below, the men in the brown buff jackets marched off, heading to the other side of the campus.
The wind picked up, ruffling Louise's hood. "They're not too bright," she said quietly. Oh! That had been the woman's name! Rebecca de Ghent! She… wasn't at all surprised she hadn't been able to recall it. It probably didn't matter anyway.
"You can say that again," Magdalene agreed. "Eleanore de la Vallière is an annoyingly self-righteous prig who likes to say that just because she's Good doesn't mean she has to be nice. I don't doubt that she might have stolen a fragment of an Evil crystal, but this wouldn't be the first time Evil artefacts have been taken from the university and wound up mysteriously destroyed. I'm sure it's her fault."
Louise paled. Oh dear. Destroying a fragment of the tower heart would be bad. Very, very bad. And not the kind of bad that was good for her. The kind of bad which was bad for her. And Eleanore had been the one who had accidentally let out the Bloody Duke because she'd wanted to be a hero and that had led to Cattleya having her blood drained out and becoming an undead monstrosity – in the best possible way, of course.
Um. And if Eleanore knew that the Overlady of the North was maybe looking for such things because of rumours or something. Um. Louise tapped her forefingers together. Oops. Oopsy daisy.
Well. She'd just have to try especially hard to steal the fragment of the tower heart, and make sure everyone knew she'd done it and cunningly pinned the blame on Eleanore de la Vallière. Everyone expected Evil to try to discredit Good. And the infernal press loved to crow about such victories and publicise them. But if you publicised a trick like that, surely Good would find out about it. And then they'd know that it wasn't Eleanore who had stolen it, it was the evil and wicked Overlady of the North. Right?
Louise smiled quietly to herself. Yes. Of course she was right.
"Seriously, that smell is just dreadful," Magdalene said out loud, breaking Louise's reverie. "And you're laughing to yourself. Can we hurry up?"
"I'm not laughing to myself," Louise said reflexively. "Well, only a little. I was laughing at how stupid the guards are."
"They are quite stupid."
"As for the smell… Igni, show yourself," Louise said sternly, sitting back down on the summer-warmed slate.
A red horned head poked out of the chimney pot. "It are amazing how you is knowing that I are here," Igni said, climbing out. "I are thinking I are as sneaky as a green when I are hiding in there to get warm. But the fire no are hot enough!"
"Good heavens," Magdalene said, trying to simultaneously lean in closer while also backing away. "A purebred minion. I haven't seen one of those in a decade."
Louise blinked. "I'm sorry?" she said. "Where? What?"
"Oh, back when I was as school, during the holidays," Magdalene said. A flight of ravens landed on the roof around her, cawing. "I was sixteen at the time. Me, Marizan, Eleanore and Jean-Jacques went to rescue Cardinal Richelieu's nephew – quite the little disgusting lecherous and self-indulgent man – from an evil Gallian conspirator. He had a bunch of those little red-skinned monsters running around. I was young and naïve back then, so of course I drowned them."
Igni shook his head sadly. "Water are far too killy against reds," he said plaintively. "It are very unfair."
"Igni, where have you been?" Louise asked. Flexing her shoulders, she idly stroked her gauntlet. It was warm. She could feel that the shard of the tower heart was close.
"Well, overlady," the red said, "I like to say that it not my fault that you not where I are when we run from angry guards. It just thing that happen. And I certainly not abandon you."
"Of course not," Louise said irritably. "You don't have the brains to be treacherous. Or cowardly. That would require more intellectual capacity than you possess." Igni stared at her blankly, from her overuse of long words. Louise sighed. "Continue."
"Well," Igni said, spreading his hands wide, "first I loot a ham 'cause I are hungry, and then I climb a wall and then I hear marzipan talking to her prisoner what you are very interested in," he said, tapping his squashed nose in what he probably thought was cunning. The sad thing is, it was – by minion standards at least. "I hear that she want the bit of the tower heart. And also that her house is full of lots of lootable stuff. Also, stuff that burns well. So I want to set it on fire and then loot it."
"Oh, no," Magdalene said automatically. "Pillaging should be done before burning."
"Nah. Fire are stopping other minions from getting to the shinies first," Igni disagreed. "And then I get up here and I feel a lot of Evil in the bog which I think are the tower heart 'cause it feel like the tower heart and then I get bored and then I go look for the chimney where I can nap 'cause I are cold and tired and then-"
"Wait, wait," Louise said, who felt he was sort of missing the important bit. "Where did you say you felt that evil presence?"
"In the bog that are in the place where there are many sweaty men and lots of alchemy happening! I show you where I feel it," Igni said, bouncing up and down with the enthusiasm of a minion helping their overlady.
The path took them over several more roofs, and onto a sulphurous-smelling building. The structure was fire blackened and built rather more cheaply than the more glorious and traditional buildings on the campus. Strange-coloured smoke escaped from the chimneys.
Magdalene frowned, running her hand through her glorious mass of dark hair. "This is the Internal Alchemy department's building," she said. "That's where the shut-in sort of alchemist goes. Most of them are men, and they're absolutely obsessed with finding immortality. Goodness knows what they'd use their immortality on, given most of them are disfigured from their experimentation and couldn't talk to a normal person if they were paid to. We're talking about the sort of people who cut off their own arms to replace them with golem arms."
Louise frowned. "But golems require a constant supply of earthstones to keep working. And they're clumsy."
"I know! It's a stupid wasteful use of magic!"
"Ah. So we're dealing with idiots," Louise said.
"Yes! We are! Idiots with no sense of personal hygiene! You know there's a latrine up there which was set up to extract saltpetre, but which has been blocked since before I started as an undergraduate? They literally don't seem to notice the smell!"
Louise looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at Louise. Inevitability dawned.
"Oh dear," Louise sighed.
"Quite."
And indeed, when they let themselves down into the building, Louise could feel the kitten-like warmth of the force of Evil coming from the latrine marked 'DO NOT USE'. Pallas did not like this building and hid herself in Louise's hood.
"Don't worry," Louise told her. "We'll be gone soon."
"Prrrth!" the cat protested, burrowing her head down Louise's front to try to escape the smell.
Louise had to agree. "What kind of mind would hide the fragment of a Tower Heart in a blocked off toilet?" Louise exclaimed, horrified.
"A cruel vindictive, horrifically evil mind," Magdalene said holding her nose. "That's just… that's just… oh Founder! I just inhaled! I can taste it! What kind of monster would hide it here?"
In her easy-to-escape cell, Eleanore de la Vallière got a sudden temptation to smirk and didn't know why.
"No, it's not that," Louise said. "What kind of idiot would hide something from an overlord – or overlady – in a toilet?" She sighed. "Maggat?" she said, and then shook her head. "I mean, Igni."
"Yes, overlady?" the minion asked.
"You don't mind the smell, do you?"
"What smell?" the red said.
"Precisely. Igni, recover it from in there, or I'll cook you alive with lightning if you fail."
The red saluted sloppily, which was about the best he could manage. The fact that he was holding a fireball when he saluted was fairly normal for a red. "Yes! For the overlady!"
"Well, that's easy," Louise said smugly. "That's why people usually hide things in… you know, vaults with giant metal doors and traps and…"
She paused. Oh dear. Oh dear. If – as Montespan had alleged – Eleanore had stolen something which sounded somewhat like a tower heart fragment, she might have been the one who put it here. And speaking as the person who was the reason that Eleanore started booby-trapping her room to stop people getting in after a few incidents with paint and 'borrowing' her things, Louise was quite aware of her elder sister's skill with snares. They usually started with buckets of fast-drying cement above the door and moved up to magical traps of terrifying ingenuity. And hiding something in a toilet so the person who found it would be very smug about how they were too clever for the person who hid it was a very Eleanore thing to do. Just before something nasty went off. It was exactly what her sister would do. Or the Bloody Duke. Or… well, honestly, it was probably a de la Vallière trait in general.
She looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at her with a horrified expression which suggested a very similar chain of thought had just passed through her mind.
Neither of them wasted any breath saying things like 'run for it' or 'oh no!'. They just ran for it. And that was just as well, because they managed to get behind a solid wall just before the fireball-holding Igni opened the door.
Neatly, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan opened the door to her office and just as carefully closed it behind it. Her collection of pure white cats came to flock around them, and she gently petted each of them in turn. One seemed to be missing. She sighed. She hoped one of the curious little things hadn't got lost. Then with extreme care she recovered the little blonde rag doll from her desk that resembled Eleanore de la Vallière, and placed it on the floor.
Smiling, she crushed it under her heel.
"I hate you," she told the doll. "I hate you so very, very much. You smug, arrogant bitch. You're going to pay. Oh yes. They'll have you done as a witch and then you'll burn. And I'll laugh! Laugh! You and the rest of your wretched family! Why can't anyone else see! Why can't they see that your bad blood has won out! Everyone else thinks you're just funny! They feel mean because they laugh at you being mean, but they still laugh! They always laugh!"
The rather crushed rag doll didn't say anything.
One kitten pounced on the doll and savagely bit and clawed at it. Françoise laughed and laughed and laughed, high and shrill. Tears ran from her eyes. "Good girl, Nysa! Kill her! Kill her!"
The cat grew bored with the game and wandered off. The Madame de Montespan seemed to collect herself, and coughed, blotting her eyes on a handkerchief. She raised her hands of her flaming cheeks. "Oh my," she told the doll. "And here you are, getting me all worked up. You'll pay for that. Oh yes. You'll pay. I'll make sure of it."
Then carefully she dusted down the doll, and put it back in its cupboard, locking the door behind it. With uttermost poise she sat down at her desk, and poured herself a light sherry. Swirling the dark red liquid around, she thought of her next move. She controlled most of the city, true, and she had already prepared this with individuals who were going to benefit from people who she arrested. The next few days would be critical. She had to keep things under control. Make sure there was a 'smooth transition'. An 'orderly handover'. As long as most of the academics saw no difference in their day to day life, they wouldn't care.
She paused, and tilted her head. An excellent idea. Pulling out a quill, she placed it on top of paper and tapped it with her wand. The quill stood on end.
"A memo to myself," she told it, each word being written down as she said it. "Consider permitting the proctors of the university to open the wine cellars for the next week, to celebrate… oh, find some festival to give thanks for. If those sots are too inebriated to protest, everything will go much more smoothly. End memo."
But maybe that might not be enough. Perhaps she needed a little more help. Help that she had already… purchased, yes. Purchased.
She took a breath. And another one. Stepping through to a side room and shooing out the curious cats, she approached her little personal votive shrine. It was a small shrine. It resembled a Brimiric personal shrine in almost every way. Every way, in fact, but one.
There were no holy symbols within. No markers which would indicate who it was devoted to. No icons of any god, benevolent or malign. It was an unused shrine, a shrine she never prayed to.
Quite deliberately, the Madame de Montespan turned her back on the shrine and started reading a book on natural philosophy and the skeletal structures of dragonkind.
After ten or so minutes of hushed reading, there came a voice. It was meticulous and precise, and echoed strangely in the small, comfortably furnished study. "Do you call upon my presence? Do you wish for me to answer your prayers?"
"Of course not," the woman said quietly. "I invoke no divinity. I call on no spirits. There are no gods and I am not their prophet. Begone."
A faint chuckle echoed from the air, and all the hair on the back of her neck rose on end. She shuddered, unable to help herself, at the cool malevolence creeping off the empty shrine. "Excellent. You are doing well, little one. Hold up your end of our bargain, and I shall hold up mine. The de la Vallières shall be destroyed, just as you wished. They will come to you so that you may crush them. And should you find them too problematic for you, I have given you a gift that will give you the power you need. Do not be afraid to use it."
The presence departed, and Françoise Athénaïs shuddered faintly in revulsion, one hand going to the necklace she wore. It was a great sacrifice she was making in the name of Tristain, but a worthy one. The loathsome taint of this most wicked family would be eradicated and they would be brought down in the eyes of everyone.
And Eleanore would get to look up at her through her cell bars just before they had her burned at the stake, and she'd know it was all her fault. Because it was. All her fault for everything. Apart from the bits which were the fault of her disgusting, deceitful father for trying to steal her Jean Jacques from her, but those bits were still Eleanore's fault. Yes. Her fault for talking to Jean-Jaques at school and drawing his attention to the possibility of a marriage with the de la Vallière family.
Of course, he was far too pure to be… be tainted by their evil ways, but the very idea that there might have been one of his seed growing within one of them made her get rather annoyed and… and…
Oh my. She was getting rather red in the face. She laughed to herself. How silly. Because none of them were going to marry her beloved ever and he loved only her! Only her! Only her! Of course!
And then she heard the explosion.
"Ow," Louise said. She thumped the side of her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. It didn't work. All that happened was that now her head hurt as well as her ears ringing. She was apparently lying on the floor. Unsteadily, she picked herself up.
"I beg your pardon," Lady Magdalene said loudly. She was leaning against the wall, shaking her head from side to side.
"I said 'Ow'!"
"What!"
"Mraa!" said the disconcerted cat who had wormed down the front of Louise's robe. Pallas leapt out, and lay down on the floor, paws over her ears and tail lashing unhappily.
Louise realised that she had apparently developed partial immunity to deafness from explosions. It was probably a side effect of all the blorting which happened when she tried to make minions. Or maybe it was a pre-existing trait from… well, the way her magic tended to make things explode before she'd started using Evil magic. Holding into the wall, she poked her head around the corner.
The wall was missing. And the floor. And the bits of the building she could see were on fire.
"Oops," Louise said.
"What are the problem, overlady?" Igni said from directly behind her.
Louise did not scream. She did not yelp. She just went very stiff and turned on the grinning, blackened red who was holding a fragment of blue-grey crystal. His hat was missing.
"Igni," Louise said flatly.
"Yes, overlady?"
"Why are you not blown apart into lots of itty bitty chunks?"
Igni gave a minionly shrug. "It are only a big boom," he said dismissively. "I are a red minion. We no is even single dying to fire. And I is guessing that my fireball are setting off the gas from the bog. It go boom and make all the spells explode at once." He grinned widely. "I is wanting to do that again!" he said happily. "I is thinking this foul-air explosive are a great leap forwards for boominess! And I catch bit of tower heart with my hat! My hat explode but it worthy sacrifice for the overlady. Indeed, that are the job of a minion!" He tapped on or around his forelocks. "I think my skull are fractured," he added, "but that'll be fine when Scyl takes a look at it."
Louise felt faint. Igni had used the word 'indeed'. And was generally being abnormally verbose. "… do you think being hit in the head with a bit of the tower heart made you smarter?" she asked weakly.
Igni frowned. "I would say that it are possible," he said. "I no are feeling smarter, but I are certainly feeling more cunning."
… yes. That was certainly a display of vocabulary of the kind unseen in minions who weren't called Gnarl or Maxy. Or those black ones who were made with raw Evil and then blorted shortly afterwards.
Huh.
"Igni," Louise ordered, taking the fragment of the tower heart from him. "Don't blort."
"I are going to try my best," Igni said, massaging his fractured skull. "This are hurting quite a bit."
"Does it feel like a blorting kind of hurt?"
"I are not sure. I have never blorted before."
She supposed that would have to do. "Well, my lady," she said to Magdalene. "It has been lovely meeting you. I do believe that I will be attending the next meeting of the book club. And with that said and done, I think you'll need to chase me, probably firing spells at me." She paused. "Please miss."
Magdalene narrowed her eyes. "I see," she said. "Yes. Thank you for being so considerate of my position here."
Louise shook her hand. "I enjoyed today and would like to look towards considering you to be a friend. Therefore, feel free to tell other people that through vile trickery I took you captive and held a knife to your throat, with the help of my endless hordes of cunning green skinned minions."
"I may well take you up on that," Magdalene agreed with a smile. She wiped soot from her sweaty face. "Well, I'll give you a two minute head start, and then I'll scream. The stairs down the end of the hall should lead you out, and then head east. You should be able to get out once you cross the canal bridge." She paused. "And I realise now that we are in the alchemy building and it's on fire. I think we all need to flee." The sound of crackling below them emphasised her point.
Louise let the gauntlet absorb the fragment of the tower heart. "Come on, Igni," she said, determination in her voice. "Time to run."
The cloudless afternoon sky was only slightly marred by the large pillar of black smoke from the burning Department of Internal Alchemy. Louise de la Vallière was studiously ignoring the fact that she had left parts of another city on fire.
It wasn't like it was a habit with her, anyway. She'd only burned some of the town where she'd fought the Comte de Mott. And set off a large bomb in the palace to cover her tracks. And accidentally set a pirate fleet she'd been trying to capture on fire. Which hadn't even been her! That had been her minions! That didn't count!
Anyway, she had more important things to think about, like the fact that she was running away from Amstreldamme and something had set the guards all aflutter. Possibly a case of arson. Possibly something else. No one could really say.
Back pressed against a church wall, Louise waited for the guard patrol to rush by, feet clattering against the ancient paving stones of the city. She'd deliberately sought out a church. Like many old Brimiric churches, its graveyard was built outside the city wall for fear of ravenous Dead and necromancers, and that meant that there was a little gate in the walls for the convenience of the priests.
She counted in her head waiting for them to go, and risked poking her head around. They had moved on. "Pallas," she said quietly to the cat currently perched on her shoulder. "Scout ahead."
The cat stared at her in incomprehension.
"Scout ahead. Come on."
"Mraaa?"
"… oh yes. Cats aren't helpful. Igni," she said quietly, gesturing towards the small portcullis that had been her destination.
Scampering up, the minion tested the door. "It are locked," he reported.
Louise had expected that, and so promptly burned through the lock with magical acid.
"It no are locked anymore," Igni continued insightfully.
"Mraa," contributed Pallas.
The overlady exited the city, heading through the exterior graveyard. She made sure to keep low and behind the ornamental decorations and tomb stones so she wasn't seen from the walls. The lines of aspens and willows broke up the serried ranks of stones shaped like a sword sunk into the ground, and occasional larger mausoleums provided a place for her to hide behind when she caught her breath.
All in all, she felt she was doing this very professionally. As a result, Louise felt incredibly cheated and hard done by when she ran into an invisible barrier and fell over backwards.
"Ow!"
"Mraaaaaaaa!"
Carefully, Louise picked herself to her feet. Reaching out, she felt that it was as smooth as glass. She couldn't push through the invisible barrier. No, that wasn't quite right. Pushing her left hand forwards, her gauntlet seemed to sink into the magic wall like she was pushing her hand into tar. It was slow, but it could move through.
… the rest of her couldn't, though, she thought as she hastily pulled it out. Louise didn't need the mental images of what might happen to her arm if she pushed the gauntlet through and the barrier touched flesh.
"Well, well, well – as the peasant who just couldn't stay out of the water said," said a crisp voice. "I seem to have caught an annoying little wasp." Louise could recognise the Madame de Montespan's voice. She couldn't hear any soldiers with her, but she was an earth mage and that meant the might have golems. "No, please, keep on trying to smash through my barrier. I'm sure you'll have more success than any of the other traitors who have tried to flee the city."
Louise said nothing, her shoulders shaking with rage. Quietly she whispered a few words of power to herself, the evil magic coalescing around her hand as lightning.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" the other woman asked.
The overlady whirled and let lightning fly. Thunder boomed. And the energy earthed itself harmlessly on the glowing shield around her foe.
"You should have done your research, you vile villain," Françoise Athenais said, her face emotionless from behind the haze of her layered protection. "Everyone knows I am rather good with my wards."
– Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)
…
"You mean we're sport to demons?" Lady Madgalene hissed, as Louise pulled her by her hand towards the university. The blue sky overhead was warm and gentle and not at all appropriate for the fell deeds which were about to happen.
The overlady considered the point. "More akin to a theatrical performance," she said. "Of course, they have their own theatres where they break into the dreams of mortals and use them for their entertainment, but… yes, I would say they consider Halkeginia all one great form of entertainment."
Magdalene's eyes narrowed. "The swine," she hissed. "So they've just been using us! And not in the way demons are meant to use you! At the very least they could have the common decency for it to be some kind of grand scheme! Some kind of ploy to ultimately overthrow righteousness or something of that ilk! Not something for… for low-class demons to read about in news journals and-"
"Shh," Louise whispered, pressing her back against a wall. She leaned around the corner. There were guards by the gates to the university. She pursed her lips. "Do you know a way into the university?" she asked. "One that won't be guarded?"
Lady Magdalene gave an arch smile. "I went here," she said. "I was a proper young student, I will have you know."
"Yes?" Louise said dubiously. "Does that mean something?"
"That means I know plenty of ways to get in and out after curfew," the older woman said smugly. "Let me think." She frowned. "How do you feel about heights?"
"Heights? I… I don't mind them," Louise said warily.
"Good. There's a building with a garret on Queen Marienne's Way which backs up against the library. You can jump from the roof there to the library roof."
"Well, when I said I didn't mind them…" Louise began.
…
The clock ticked in the rather-desolate room filled with ruined party preparations. Cattlelya and Henrietta sat, each pouring over books.
Henrietta cleared her throat.
"Bless you," Cattleya said generously.
"… thank you. So. Um. I see that Louise Françoise appears to be getting on well with your mutual some-kind-of-cousin."
"Oh, indeed," Cattleya said, nodding. She frowned, pink hair falling in front of her face as she leaned forwards. "That worries me a little bit. Magdalene is rather mean. That she's getting along so well with little Louise might mean Louise has gained a few centi-Eleanores of mean in the meantime. Hee. Mean time."
Cattleya giggled, and looked inordinately proud of herself for making a joke, and Henrietta didn't have it in her to say anything about that. "Possibly," she instead said diplomatically. "But still! There has to be a way of getting her out safely before sunset!"
"If there was one, I'm all ears," Cattleya said earnestly. "Apart from the bits of me which aren't ears. So really it's that my ears are all ears, which is a trifle tautological."
There was a hesitant knock at the door. Henrietta frowned. The number of people in the tower who would knock politely at a door was slim indeed. Gnarl was known to do it occasionally, but mostly he just sidled in or – as was frequently the case – turned out to have been here all along, usually standing right behind you. And Cattleya was here with her, Jessica was still off breaking things, so…
… oh, what the heck. She was feeling too worried about Louise and generally stressed to play these kind of mind games. "Yes?" she asked.
A young man let himself in. A… a rather handsome young man, Henrietta considered abstractly. In fact, so handsome that when she stared at his face her eyes began to water as she thought of her poor-deceased love and…
Henrietta worked her jaw. "Jessica?" she tried, pulling a fresh handkerchief out of her pocket and blowing her nose. "Why are you… uh, taking on a male form?"
"Not my choice, Henri," Jessica said miserably.
"Um? Excuse me?" Henrietta said, dabbing at her eyes.
"Oh!" Cattleya said brightly. "Are you a wereman? But wait… it's not full moon…"
Jessica slumped down on a chair, running her hands through her sinfully long hair which looked incredibly attractive on a man. "Close, but no cigar." She took a deep breath, let it out, and then took a fresh one. "Okay. Let me put it to you this way. I'm a girl. I was born a girl. But, um… puberty is a thing for incubi and succubae too. Before we get to… uh, about eleven-twelve-thirteen, there really isn't much difference between boys and girls. You know, like human kids. Well, we're slightly less Evil than them, but apart from that, yeah."
Cattleya's eyes widened. "Oh Founder!" she exclaimed. "I never even thought about that! How adorable little demons must be! With their itty bitty horns and teeny weeny hoovsies and… are their fingernails just as tiny and cute? Or maybe claws? Are they cute claws?" Cattleya paused, probably for breath so she could continue talking. "I am quite sure that they're cute claws."
Jessica ignored her. "Then puberty hits like a kick to the face. Literally in some cases, because some of us lose our second set of teeth and get our meat teeth. Not me, luckily. Teething was bad enough once already. But… well. I basically had my human female bits trying to grow into an adult woman, and my demon bits going 'you are the incarnation of masculinity' and the human side just… uh. Got mostly overwhelmed." She sniffed. "Okay, it just got totally overwhelmed."
Henrietta coughed, averting her eyes to try to stop herself from crying. It wasn't working. Jessica was radiating an aura of what the demons called pawpst'ar eyedol which seemed to creep in through her nose and her incredibly attractive voice that made her think of her dead prince. "So, uh, you're really… um… like this. In every way? All over? In… uh, every way?"
"Take my word for it," Jessica said darkly. "None of us want a demonstration."
"I certainly don't!" Cattleya exclaimed indignantly. "Poor Jessica! You're much better how you normally look. This look does not suit you! At all!"
Jessica managed a watery smile at Cattleya. "Thank you," she said. "So, anyway, normally I take potions which keep my body human and female, but… well. When I really let out the demon side, deliberately or not, the potions just get overwhelmed because… uh, my demon side is sort of the crown prince and second only to Dad in power. So the demonic power just, like, totally swamps me and when I de-demonise, I'm like this."
Henrietta considered saying something like 'I know how you feel', but decided that would be incredibly stupid because she had no idea whatsoever what it felt to have that happen. "There, there," she said supportively instead. "So… uh, are… are you stuck like this?"
"Oh, abyss no. It'll just take a week or so for the potions to build up again in my system," Jessica said darkly. "I hate it! I… I get a lot of people telling me I'm… I'm more attractive like this. It… it hurts. This… this isn't me! It's just my… my stupid demonic side forcing my body to look different. I look in the mirror and this isn't me! You know?"
"I can't imagine, but it must be dreadful," Henrietta said reassuringly.
"I know all about not recognising the person you see in the mirror," Cattleya said simply. "Because there's no one in the mirror at all." She took a deep breath. "Um… I can give you a reassuring hug if you promise you won't catch on fire."
Jessica slumped down. "I can't do that," she said, with a sigh. "I'm… too emotionally fragile right now. If I start getting angry I'll go and buff out. Or tearful. Tearful too. Demon hormones are even worse than human ones."
"Demon horn moans?" asked Henrietta, a slightly disgusted expression on her face. "I don't think I want to know what those are. I'm sorry – I had no idea."
"No shit," Jessica muttered. "It's not like I go shouting it from the deepest dungeons. It's one of the pluses to hanging around you lot. Everyone down below knows incubae and succubae have if problems like this if we have enough human in us. Fuck my mother and her shitty parenting and the fact she left me like this and then walked out."
Henrietta coughed, and dabbed at her eyes again before wringing out her handkerchief again. "So, returning to the previous topic…"
"That was?" Jessica asked. "I was… um, sort of crying in my bedroom. Oh, and rampaging around as a giant male demon. There… um, is some fire damage. Fuck my temper."
"We were trying to find a way to rescue Louise!" Cattleya said brightly. "Before nightfall, that is. Once the sun goes down, I'll be there in a snap!" To demonstrate that, she tried to snap her fingers. She failed, but it was a valiant effort.
Jessica shrugged. "Isn't that Gnarl's job? Why don't you ask him?"
"I can't find him," Henrietta said darkly, steepling her fingers. "So. Jessica…"
"No. Uh no. No. No!" Jessica crossed her arms over her broad, manly chest. "No! I'm not going out of the house looking like this! And… and you can't make me!" She smouldered, both literally and allegorically.
"Okay I think we understand your position it's a very good position just don't catch on fire please please please," Cattleya said quickly, backing away to hide behind an armchair.
Henrietta sighed. "Well. That's what it comes down to, then," she said, squaring her jaw.
"I know," Cattleya said miserably, to sympathetic noises from Jessica. "We… we just can't help her. And I feel dreadful and it's all the fault of this wretched curse-"
"And my fucking stupid biology, too," Jessica added.
"… quite so."
They got glared at by the princess. "What? Heck no!" Henrietta said, pulling herself to her feet. The expression on her face resembled that of her great-grandfather when he cleansed the Black Monastery of Vrees of its infernal cultists, enacting holy and righteous justice on them. It also resembled the expression of her one of her great-aunts as she murdered the aforementioned great-grandfather. "I am not going to sit here like a useless trophy princess waiting for nightfall."
Imperiously, she pointed at Jessica.
"You! Stop blubbering! Chin up! Bring me the armour we were trying out! Cattleya! Make the portal enchantment work and prepare me an honour guard! Or perhaps a dishonour guard! I care not! I'm going to the armoury! Louise Françoise must have some suitable wand or staff I can use!" Henrietta put her hands on her hips and glowered. "I am getting her back. There may be blood. It won't be mine."
…
Once Louise had got over the bit where they'd swung out of a garret window, clambered onto the roof, and then leapt between two buildings which had been built close together, it wasn't so bad.
Of course, the jump itself had been so utterly horrible that she took quite a while to get over it. Sitting on the roof under the clear blue sky, Louise hugged and knees and tried to stop hyperventilating as she sat on the warm slate of the roof.
"Mraa," said Pallas happily, licking her cheek.
"Well, I'm glad you're entertained by the events of today, my lady," Louise said to the cat with only a modicum of bitterness.
Pallas started purring next to her ear, doing a good impersonation of a saw.
Going to university clearly made you mean, insane, evil and/or crazy, she thought to herself. Case one, Eleanore. Case two, the Madame de Montespan. Case three, Lady Magdalene. She'd need to watch out for that when she went. Because of course she was going. She was a proper young lady and it wasn't like she was stupid and… and well, given her magic was maybe a little bit made of raw Evil, she probably needed a field of study which didn't involve the magical domination of Halkeginia.
Louise carefully suppressed the panic attack she sometimes got when she remembered she might have failed out of the Academy of Magic due to being possibly a bit legally dead. There were extenuating circumstances. She had to work out what to do with her life apart from being an overlady. Because she wasn't doing this long term. Oh, no. She… she was just getting it out of her system now.
"Well, we're now on the roof of the Bosque Library," Magdalene said. From her expression, she was having the most fun she'd had in a long time. The look of almost childish glee was very nearly overcoming her normal aura of decadent sinister femininity. "So if we scale the chapel, we can get across the roof and then… what is that smell?"
"Shh," Louise whispered, ears perking up as her breath slowed down. She felt better now that she had something to distract herself from jumping over buildings. She could hear voices from down below. And also smell minion. These two things might not have been related, come to think of it. She snuck up to the edge of the roof, and listened to the conversation of the soldiers in the courtyard.
"Just remember, chaps," a woman said, "your orders are quite clear. Eleanore de la Vallière stole the Malevolene Fragment, and it is your orders to sweep this location until it is found!"
Louise narrowed her eyes. The civilian giving orders to the solider was familiar. It was… what was her name? The disgusting, lewd, vapid, terrible, horrible, unrighteous woman who had wanted to do horrible things with Louise when she'd temporarily taken her captive. She must have transferred from working for the Comte de Mott to working for the Madame de Montespan after Louise killed him.
Well, there was no way Louise was letting her find out she was here. She might take it as encouragement.
"Right you are, milady," said the lieutenant leading the squad. "Uh… what's a Malevolene Fragment?"
The woman put her hands on her hips. "It's a blue-grey crystal," she said. "Honestly! Blue-grey crystal, sharp, radiates raw Evil…"
"Blue-grey doesn't sound very Evil," one of the soldiers said sceptically. "That sounds like a Good crystal to me. Like, you'd think that an Evil crystal would be black."
"Or red!" another soldier chipped in.
"Yeah. Or red. Or maybe black but when light shines on it there's sort of an evil red glow from the inside what makes you think of the fires of the Abyss."
The woman gritted her teeth. "That's not the Malevolene Fragment. That's just hubnerite you're describing. They have some of that in the geology department. No, go search out the Malevolene Fragment and return it safely. That's the orders from the Regency Council." And with that said, she walked off.
There was a silence.
"Pretty sure a black stone with red glints in it is made of Evil," one of the soldiers said.
"Yeah. Prob'ly should make sure that those geologist mages aren't doing Evil things there. After all, you know what they say about people who dig too deep."
"… that they let out giant demons of smoke and flame?"
"Exactly. What're we gonna do, boss?"
"We will follow our orders. And our orders are to search for the Malevolene Fragment, which is blue and grey," the lieutenant said, after some thought. "Men! Move out! We can search the geology department for it, and at the same time arrest everyone who's doing things with Evil black crystals which glow red. That's just common sense." Down below, the men in the brown buff jackets marched off, heading to the other side of the campus.
The wind picked up, ruffling Louise's hood. "They're not too bright," she said quietly. Oh! That had been the woman's name! Rebecca de Ghent! She… wasn't at all surprised she hadn't been able to recall it. It probably didn't matter anyway.
"You can say that again," Magdalene agreed. "Eleanore de la Vallière is an annoyingly self-righteous prig who likes to say that just because she's Good doesn't mean she has to be nice. I don't doubt that she might have stolen a fragment of an Evil crystal, but this wouldn't be the first time Evil artefacts have been taken from the university and wound up mysteriously destroyed. I'm sure it's her fault."
Louise paled. Oh dear. Destroying a fragment of the tower heart would be bad. Very, very bad. And not the kind of bad that was good for her. The kind of bad which was bad for her. And Eleanore had been the one who had accidentally let out the Bloody Duke because she'd wanted to be a hero and that had led to Cattleya having her blood drained out and becoming an undead monstrosity – in the best possible way, of course.
Um. And if Eleanore knew that the Overlady of the North was maybe looking for such things because of rumours or something. Um. Louise tapped her forefingers together. Oops. Oopsy daisy.
Well. She'd just have to try especially hard to steal the fragment of the tower heart, and make sure everyone knew she'd done it and cunningly pinned the blame on Eleanore de la Vallière. Everyone expected Evil to try to discredit Good. And the infernal press loved to crow about such victories and publicise them. But if you publicised a trick like that, surely Good would find out about it. And then they'd know that it wasn't Eleanore who had stolen it, it was the evil and wicked Overlady of the North. Right?
Louise smiled quietly to herself. Yes. Of course she was right.
"Seriously, that smell is just dreadful," Magdalene said out loud, breaking Louise's reverie. "And you're laughing to yourself. Can we hurry up?"
"I'm not laughing to myself," Louise said reflexively. "Well, only a little. I was laughing at how stupid the guards are."
"They are quite stupid."
"As for the smell… Igni, show yourself," Louise said sternly, sitting back down on the summer-warmed slate.
A red horned head poked out of the chimney pot. "It are amazing how you is knowing that I are here," Igni said, climbing out. "I are thinking I are as sneaky as a green when I are hiding in there to get warm. But the fire no are hot enough!"
"Good heavens," Magdalene said, trying to simultaneously lean in closer while also backing away. "A purebred minion. I haven't seen one of those in a decade."
Louise blinked. "I'm sorry?" she said. "Where? What?"
"Oh, back when I was as school, during the holidays," Magdalene said. A flight of ravens landed on the roof around her, cawing. "I was sixteen at the time. Me, Marizan, Eleanore and Jean-Jacques went to rescue Cardinal Richelieu's nephew – quite the little disgusting lecherous and self-indulgent man – from an evil Gallian conspirator. He had a bunch of those little red-skinned monsters running around. I was young and naïve back then, so of course I drowned them."
Igni shook his head sadly. "Water are far too killy against reds," he said plaintively. "It are very unfair."
"Igni, where have you been?" Louise asked. Flexing her shoulders, she idly stroked her gauntlet. It was warm. She could feel that the shard of the tower heart was close.
"Well, overlady," the red said, "I like to say that it not my fault that you not where I are when we run from angry guards. It just thing that happen. And I certainly not abandon you."
"Of course not," Louise said irritably. "You don't have the brains to be treacherous. Or cowardly. That would require more intellectual capacity than you possess." Igni stared at her blankly, from her overuse of long words. Louise sighed. "Continue."
"Well," Igni said, spreading his hands wide, "first I loot a ham 'cause I are hungry, and then I climb a wall and then I hear marzipan talking to her prisoner what you are very interested in," he said, tapping his squashed nose in what he probably thought was cunning. The sad thing is, it was – by minion standards at least. "I hear that she want the bit of the tower heart. And also that her house is full of lots of lootable stuff. Also, stuff that burns well. So I want to set it on fire and then loot it."
"Oh, no," Magdalene said automatically. "Pillaging should be done before burning."
"Nah. Fire are stopping other minions from getting to the shinies first," Igni disagreed. "And then I get up here and I feel a lot of Evil in the bog which I think are the tower heart 'cause it feel like the tower heart and then I get bored and then I go look for the chimney where I can nap 'cause I are cold and tired and then-"
"Wait, wait," Louise said, who felt he was sort of missing the important bit. "Where did you say you felt that evil presence?"
"In the bog that are in the place where there are many sweaty men and lots of alchemy happening! I show you where I feel it," Igni said, bouncing up and down with the enthusiasm of a minion helping their overlady.
The path took them over several more roofs, and onto a sulphurous-smelling building. The structure was fire blackened and built rather more cheaply than the more glorious and traditional buildings on the campus. Strange-coloured smoke escaped from the chimneys.
Magdalene frowned, running her hand through her glorious mass of dark hair. "This is the Internal Alchemy department's building," she said. "That's where the shut-in sort of alchemist goes. Most of them are men, and they're absolutely obsessed with finding immortality. Goodness knows what they'd use their immortality on, given most of them are disfigured from their experimentation and couldn't talk to a normal person if they were paid to. We're talking about the sort of people who cut off their own arms to replace them with golem arms."
Louise frowned. "But golems require a constant supply of earthstones to keep working. And they're clumsy."
"I know! It's a stupid wasteful use of magic!"
"Ah. So we're dealing with idiots," Louise said.
"Yes! We are! Idiots with no sense of personal hygiene! You know there's a latrine up there which was set up to extract saltpetre, but which has been blocked since before I started as an undergraduate? They literally don't seem to notice the smell!"
Louise looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at Louise. Inevitability dawned.
"Oh dear," Louise sighed.
"Quite."
And indeed, when they let themselves down into the building, Louise could feel the kitten-like warmth of the force of Evil coming from the latrine marked 'DO NOT USE'. Pallas did not like this building and hid herself in Louise's hood.
"Don't worry," Louise told her. "We'll be gone soon."
"Prrrth!" the cat protested, burrowing her head down Louise's front to try to escape the smell.
Louise had to agree. "What kind of mind would hide the fragment of a Tower Heart in a blocked off toilet?" Louise exclaimed, horrified.
"A cruel vindictive, horrifically evil mind," Magdalene said holding her nose. "That's just… that's just… oh Founder! I just inhaled! I can taste it! What kind of monster would hide it here?"
…
In her easy-to-escape cell, Eleanore de la Vallière got a sudden temptation to smirk and didn't know why.
…
"No, it's not that," Louise said. "What kind of idiot would hide something from an overlord – or overlady – in a toilet?" She sighed. "Maggat?" she said, and then shook her head. "I mean, Igni."
"Yes, overlady?" the minion asked.
"You don't mind the smell, do you?"
"What smell?" the red said.
"Precisely. Igni, recover it from in there, or I'll cook you alive with lightning if you fail."
The red saluted sloppily, which was about the best he could manage. The fact that he was holding a fireball when he saluted was fairly normal for a red. "Yes! For the overlady!"
"Well, that's easy," Louise said smugly. "That's why people usually hide things in… you know, vaults with giant metal doors and traps and…"
She paused. Oh dear. Oh dear. If – as Montespan had alleged – Eleanore had stolen something which sounded somewhat like a tower heart fragment, she might have been the one who put it here. And speaking as the person who was the reason that Eleanore started booby-trapping her room to stop people getting in after a few incidents with paint and 'borrowing' her things, Louise was quite aware of her elder sister's skill with snares. They usually started with buckets of fast-drying cement above the door and moved up to magical traps of terrifying ingenuity. And hiding something in a toilet so the person who found it would be very smug about how they were too clever for the person who hid it was a very Eleanore thing to do. Just before something nasty went off. It was exactly what her sister would do. Or the Bloody Duke. Or… well, honestly, it was probably a de la Vallière trait in general.
She looked at Magdalene. Magdalene looked at her with a horrified expression which suggested a very similar chain of thought had just passed through her mind.
Neither of them wasted any breath saying things like 'run for it' or 'oh no!'. They just ran for it. And that was just as well, because they managed to get behind a solid wall just before the fireball-holding Igni opened the door.
…
Neatly, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise of Montespan opened the door to her office and just as carefully closed it behind it. Her collection of pure white cats came to flock around them, and she gently petted each of them in turn. One seemed to be missing. She sighed. She hoped one of the curious little things hadn't got lost. Then with extreme care she recovered the little blonde rag doll from her desk that resembled Eleanore de la Vallière, and placed it on the floor.
Smiling, she crushed it under her heel.
"I hate you," she told the doll. "I hate you so very, very much. You smug, arrogant bitch. You're going to pay. Oh yes. They'll have you done as a witch and then you'll burn. And I'll laugh! Laugh! You and the rest of your wretched family! Why can't anyone else see! Why can't they see that your bad blood has won out! Everyone else thinks you're just funny! They feel mean because they laugh at you being mean, but they still laugh! They always laugh!"
The rather crushed rag doll didn't say anything.
One kitten pounced on the doll and savagely bit and clawed at it. Françoise laughed and laughed and laughed, high and shrill. Tears ran from her eyes. "Good girl, Nysa! Kill her! Kill her!"
The cat grew bored with the game and wandered off. The Madame de Montespan seemed to collect herself, and coughed, blotting her eyes on a handkerchief. She raised her hands of her flaming cheeks. "Oh my," she told the doll. "And here you are, getting me all worked up. You'll pay for that. Oh yes. You'll pay. I'll make sure of it."
Then carefully she dusted down the doll, and put it back in its cupboard, locking the door behind it. With uttermost poise she sat down at her desk, and poured herself a light sherry. Swirling the dark red liquid around, she thought of her next move. She controlled most of the city, true, and she had already prepared this with individuals who were going to benefit from people who she arrested. The next few days would be critical. She had to keep things under control. Make sure there was a 'smooth transition'. An 'orderly handover'. As long as most of the academics saw no difference in their day to day life, they wouldn't care.
She paused, and tilted her head. An excellent idea. Pulling out a quill, she placed it on top of paper and tapped it with her wand. The quill stood on end.
"A memo to myself," she told it, each word being written down as she said it. "Consider permitting the proctors of the university to open the wine cellars for the next week, to celebrate… oh, find some festival to give thanks for. If those sots are too inebriated to protest, everything will go much more smoothly. End memo."
But maybe that might not be enough. Perhaps she needed a little more help. Help that she had already… purchased, yes. Purchased.
She took a breath. And another one. Stepping through to a side room and shooing out the curious cats, she approached her little personal votive shrine. It was a small shrine. It resembled a Brimiric personal shrine in almost every way. Every way, in fact, but one.
There were no holy symbols within. No markers which would indicate who it was devoted to. No icons of any god, benevolent or malign. It was an unused shrine, a shrine she never prayed to.
Quite deliberately, the Madame de Montespan turned her back on the shrine and started reading a book on natural philosophy and the skeletal structures of dragonkind.
After ten or so minutes of hushed reading, there came a voice. It was meticulous and precise, and echoed strangely in the small, comfortably furnished study. "Do you call upon my presence? Do you wish for me to answer your prayers?"
"Of course not," the woman said quietly. "I invoke no divinity. I call on no spirits. There are no gods and I am not their prophet. Begone."
A faint chuckle echoed from the air, and all the hair on the back of her neck rose on end. She shuddered, unable to help herself, at the cool malevolence creeping off the empty shrine. "Excellent. You are doing well, little one. Hold up your end of our bargain, and I shall hold up mine. The de la Vallières shall be destroyed, just as you wished. They will come to you so that you may crush them. And should you find them too problematic for you, I have given you a gift that will give you the power you need. Do not be afraid to use it."
The presence departed, and Françoise Athénaïs shuddered faintly in revulsion, one hand going to the necklace she wore. It was a great sacrifice she was making in the name of Tristain, but a worthy one. The loathsome taint of this most wicked family would be eradicated and they would be brought down in the eyes of everyone.
And Eleanore would get to look up at her through her cell bars just before they had her burned at the stake, and she'd know it was all her fault. Because it was. All her fault for everything. Apart from the bits which were the fault of her disgusting, deceitful father for trying to steal her Jean Jacques from her, but those bits were still Eleanore's fault. Yes. Her fault for talking to Jean-Jaques at school and drawing his attention to the possibility of a marriage with the de la Vallière family.
Of course, he was far too pure to be… be tainted by their evil ways, but the very idea that there might have been one of his seed growing within one of them made her get rather annoyed and… and…
Oh my. She was getting rather red in the face. She laughed to herself. How silly. Because none of them were going to marry her beloved ever and he loved only her! Only her! Only her! Of course!
And then she heard the explosion.
…
"Ow," Louise said. She thumped the side of her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears. It didn't work. All that happened was that now her head hurt as well as her ears ringing. She was apparently lying on the floor. Unsteadily, she picked herself up.
"I beg your pardon," Lady Magdalene said loudly. She was leaning against the wall, shaking her head from side to side.
"I said 'Ow'!"
"What!"
"Mraa!" said the disconcerted cat who had wormed down the front of Louise's robe. Pallas leapt out, and lay down on the floor, paws over her ears and tail lashing unhappily.
Louise realised that she had apparently developed partial immunity to deafness from explosions. It was probably a side effect of all the blorting which happened when she tried to make minions. Or maybe it was a pre-existing trait from… well, the way her magic tended to make things explode before she'd started using Evil magic. Holding into the wall, she poked her head around the corner.
The wall was missing. And the floor. And the bits of the building she could see were on fire.
"Oops," Louise said.
"What are the problem, overlady?" Igni said from directly behind her.
Louise did not scream. She did not yelp. She just went very stiff and turned on the grinning, blackened red who was holding a fragment of blue-grey crystal. His hat was missing.
"Igni," Louise said flatly.
"Yes, overlady?"
"Why are you not blown apart into lots of itty bitty chunks?"
Igni gave a minionly shrug. "It are only a big boom," he said dismissively. "I are a red minion. We no is even single dying to fire. And I is guessing that my fireball are setting off the gas from the bog. It go boom and make all the spells explode at once." He grinned widely. "I is wanting to do that again!" he said happily. "I is thinking this foul-air explosive are a great leap forwards for boominess! And I catch bit of tower heart with my hat! My hat explode but it worthy sacrifice for the overlady. Indeed, that are the job of a minion!" He tapped on or around his forelocks. "I think my skull are fractured," he added, "but that'll be fine when Scyl takes a look at it."
Louise felt faint. Igni had used the word 'indeed'. And was generally being abnormally verbose. "… do you think being hit in the head with a bit of the tower heart made you smarter?" she asked weakly.
Igni frowned. "I would say that it are possible," he said. "I no are feeling smarter, but I are certainly feeling more cunning."
… yes. That was certainly a display of vocabulary of the kind unseen in minions who weren't called Gnarl or Maxy. Or those black ones who were made with raw Evil and then blorted shortly afterwards.
Huh.
"Igni," Louise ordered, taking the fragment of the tower heart from him. "Don't blort."
"I are going to try my best," Igni said, massaging his fractured skull. "This are hurting quite a bit."
"Does it feel like a blorting kind of hurt?"
"I are not sure. I have never blorted before."
She supposed that would have to do. "Well, my lady," she said to Magdalene. "It has been lovely meeting you. I do believe that I will be attending the next meeting of the book club. And with that said and done, I think you'll need to chase me, probably firing spells at me." She paused. "Please miss."
Magdalene narrowed her eyes. "I see," she said. "Yes. Thank you for being so considerate of my position here."
Louise shook her hand. "I enjoyed today and would like to look towards considering you to be a friend. Therefore, feel free to tell other people that through vile trickery I took you captive and held a knife to your throat, with the help of my endless hordes of cunning green skinned minions."
"I may well take you up on that," Magdalene agreed with a smile. She wiped soot from her sweaty face. "Well, I'll give you a two minute head start, and then I'll scream. The stairs down the end of the hall should lead you out, and then head east. You should be able to get out once you cross the canal bridge." She paused. "And I realise now that we are in the alchemy building and it's on fire. I think we all need to flee." The sound of crackling below them emphasised her point.
Louise let the gauntlet absorb the fragment of the tower heart. "Come on, Igni," she said, determination in her voice. "Time to run."
…
The cloudless afternoon sky was only slightly marred by the large pillar of black smoke from the burning Department of Internal Alchemy. Louise de la Vallière was studiously ignoring the fact that she had left parts of another city on fire.
It wasn't like it was a habit with her, anyway. She'd only burned some of the town where she'd fought the Comte de Mott. And set off a large bomb in the palace to cover her tracks. And accidentally set a pirate fleet she'd been trying to capture on fire. Which hadn't even been her! That had been her minions! That didn't count!
Anyway, she had more important things to think about, like the fact that she was running away from Amstreldamme and something had set the guards all aflutter. Possibly a case of arson. Possibly something else. No one could really say.
Back pressed against a church wall, Louise waited for the guard patrol to rush by, feet clattering against the ancient paving stones of the city. She'd deliberately sought out a church. Like many old Brimiric churches, its graveyard was built outside the city wall for fear of ravenous Dead and necromancers, and that meant that there was a little gate in the walls for the convenience of the priests.
She counted in her head waiting for them to go, and risked poking her head around. They had moved on. "Pallas," she said quietly to the cat currently perched on her shoulder. "Scout ahead."
The cat stared at her in incomprehension.
"Scout ahead. Come on."
"Mraaa?"
"… oh yes. Cats aren't helpful. Igni," she said quietly, gesturing towards the small portcullis that had been her destination.
Scampering up, the minion tested the door. "It are locked," he reported.
Louise had expected that, and so promptly burned through the lock with magical acid.
"It no are locked anymore," Igni continued insightfully.
"Mraa," contributed Pallas.
The overlady exited the city, heading through the exterior graveyard. She made sure to keep low and behind the ornamental decorations and tomb stones so she wasn't seen from the walls. The lines of aspens and willows broke up the serried ranks of stones shaped like a sword sunk into the ground, and occasional larger mausoleums provided a place for her to hide behind when she caught her breath.
All in all, she felt she was doing this very professionally. As a result, Louise felt incredibly cheated and hard done by when she ran into an invisible barrier and fell over backwards.
"Ow!"
"Mraaaaaaaa!"
Carefully, Louise picked herself to her feet. Reaching out, she felt that it was as smooth as glass. She couldn't push through the invisible barrier. No, that wasn't quite right. Pushing her left hand forwards, her gauntlet seemed to sink into the magic wall like she was pushing her hand into tar. It was slow, but it could move through.
… the rest of her couldn't, though, she thought as she hastily pulled it out. Louise didn't need the mental images of what might happen to her arm if she pushed the gauntlet through and the barrier touched flesh.
"Well, well, well – as the peasant who just couldn't stay out of the water said," said a crisp voice. "I seem to have caught an annoying little wasp." Louise could recognise the Madame de Montespan's voice. She couldn't hear any soldiers with her, but she was an earth mage and that meant the might have golems. "No, please, keep on trying to smash through my barrier. I'm sure you'll have more success than any of the other traitors who have tried to flee the city."
Louise said nothing, her shoulders shaking with rage. Quietly she whispered a few words of power to herself, the evil magic coalescing around her hand as lightning.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" the other woman asked.
The overlady whirled and let lightning fly. Thunder boomed. And the energy earthed itself harmlessly on the glowing shield around her foe.
"You should have done your research, you vile villain," Françoise Athenais said, her face emotionless from behind the haze of her layered protection. "Everyone knows I am rather good with my wards."
…
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