Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [41]
The glass Chris looked into, or out of, shattered across into dozens of tiny identical reflections. A hundred images of Quences turned to face the intruder in his room. The figure, wrapped in a black robe, plunged a twin-bladed dagger into the old man's chest. Quences, spluttering blood, grasped at the robe and pul ed it aside. The assassin was an elderly man, not tal , but with long white hair. 'You,' mouthed Quences in disbelief He fell sideways on to the furry mound on the table.
Chris woke with a start.
The mushrooms were sliding, snail-like, around his boots. They had oozed out of a crack in the pen wall caused by his weight.
Perhaps it was the mushrooms that were whispering.
He heard something clattering down the stairs and ducked for cover behind a group of large and dead spiny plants.
Moments later, the giant, angular figure of a Drudge appeared, carrying a dish in front of it. It bent like a leaning tree to pick up the errant fungi and toss them back into the pen. Then it moved on again, across the conservatory and out through an arch at the far side.
Chris wondered if he should jump out in front of it, just to see if he was still invisible, but the servant was gone before he could make an idiot of himself.
He slipped out from behind the dead plants and peered along the passage after the Drudge. Its distant silhouette halted by a bulbous cylindrical object. It seemed to empty the contents of its dish into the top of the object.
Through the low barrage of whispering, Chris heard a voice. It was shouting angrily.
'You call this food! How much longer are you keeping me here, eh? Let me out! Let me out of here!'
The Drudge ignored the abuse and, to Chris's relief, glided off in another direction.
Chris ventured warily along the passage. As he approached the object, he saw a rotund stove with a chimney pipe that went up to the ceiling. On its surface were the flaky remains of idyl ic pastoral scenes that must have been painted in happier times. On top of it sat a rusty kettle.
Chris could hear something moving inside the stove. It was muttering to itself. It must suddenly have become aware of his presence, because it went quiet.
He went nearer. There was a little gasp from inside the stove. In the gloom, Chris saw an eye and a mouth at the grating on the stove's front. They looked human enough, not that that was always a sure sign.
'Hello,' Chris whispered. He tried to think of something to say but could only manage, 'Are you all right in there?'
'Who are you?' hissed the mouth. It sounded scared.
'Umm, Chris Cwej,' said Chris. 'Who are you?'
The voice tried to compose itself. It belonged to a young man embarrassed by the circumstances in which he found himself.
55
'Perhaps you'd oblige me by letting me out of this contraption,' he said, but he couldn't disguise a nervous quaver.
'My name is Glospin by the way.'
The Drudge waited in a shadowy alcove. It could have reached down and touched the intruder, he passed so close to it.
It did not recognize the features with which the intruder was furnished. He was not one of the remaining Cousins, not unless one of them had regenerated without leave. It would catch his likeness in the next looking glass that he passed.
As he approached the glass in the next passage, the stranger bent low and pulled his hat over his face.
The Drudge felt a certain apprehension from the furniture along the intruder's route. A degree of twitchiness that was unseemly in the chattels of the House. Unlike the messy, fleshy inhabitants, no item of furniture would ever scratch itself.
The Drudge abandoned its routine patrol and moved off in pursuit.
The figure suddenly stopped in his tracks. He seemed surprised at the stream that emerged from a crack in the wall and flowed down the sloping passage towards the atrium of the north annexe. He followed its path until it disappeared under the iron gate where the annexe had been sealed off. He stretched up to examine the tamper-lock that had been attached