The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [77]
“You are collaborating with the Druid, aren’t you?” Madam Vega asked. “You need not answer. What the Druid’s man told us reveals that much. Did you really suppose we would allow you to come in and take what we have schemed and killed to gain? I suppose the old man promised to help you take Obernewtyn for yourself, if only to rid himself of us? As if he has the power for anything but skulking in the wilderness.”
“The Council does not allow a defective to inherit, but it will allow a bastard son to do so,” said Rushton.
My heart leapt at hearing him speak. I regretted that I had not tried to farseek Louis before I had entered the stone hillock, for I had clearly arrived before him. I decided to go back outside to wait for the others, but Madam Vega’s next words froze me in my tracks.
“There is no proof that you are Michael Seraphim’s illegitimate son,” she said in an amused tone. “Your mother could easily have lied.”
“There are my father’s letters to her, and my appearance,” Rushton said. “When my mother sent me here, she thought my father still lived. She thought he would see himself in my face, and so she gave me no letter or token to show the man she sent me to find. Nor did she tell me that he was my father.”
“Too bad Michael Seraphim was dead before you arrived,” Madam Vega sneered.
I had listened to what they were saying with growing amazement. That Rushton was Michael Seraphim’s illegitimate son would explain much, but would he really ally himself with Henry Druid in order to make a claim for Obernewtyn?
“I will enjoy killing you,” Madam Vega said softly when Rushton made no response. “As long as you were ignorant of your true status, it amused me to let you live. Even to indulge you. But you have proven troublesome and ungrateful. Now, there are a few questions I want answered.”
“I will tell you nothing,” Rushton grated.
There was the sound of a sharp blow.
“Have some respect,” Ariel said silkily.
Creeping around a bank of machines, I saw Madam Vega, Ariel, and what looked to be the tip of Rushton’s boot. He was lying on a metal tray before an immense machine, and my heart seized at the sight. This must be the Zebkrahn machine, I realized.
I was just summoning up a probe to reach out to Rushton when a voice spoke behind me, soft with menace.
“How obliging of you to come to us,” murmured Alexi. Then something heavy crashed into the base of my skull, and a wave of blackness filled my mind.
Alexi and Madam Vega were talking when I woke. I was lying down and bound hand, foot, and throat. I kept my eyes closed and listened.
“Why did you have to hit her so hard?” the woman complained. “You could have killed her!”
“She will not die,” Alexi said dismissively.
“What about him, then?” Ariel said. “He fainted, and you said he wouldn’t. Now we’ll have to wait till he wakes to finish questioning him.”
“I’m not interested in him any longer,” Alexi said coldly. “We have the girl.”
“Nevertheless, I want to know how they are connected,” said Madam Vega. “Rushton accepted pain rather than revealing the whereabouts of this girl, and it is obvious now that he did help her to escape.”
“We will ask the girl,” Alexi said after a thoughtful pause. “She will respond swiftly enough after we threaten him, if they are allies.”
“He’ll talk if we use her as a lever,” Ariel said eagerly. “You should have seen his face when we came to that mess the wolves had made in the courtyard. At first, we thought it was her that had been torn apart. Rushton seemed to go mad. That’s why I had to shoot him.”
“I’m not interested in this,” Alexi snapped. “I want that map.”
“We will have it soon,” Madam Vega said soothingly. “The girl will locate it for us. And what power we will have over the Council once we have Beforetime weaponmachines. They will refuse us nothing. And if they displease us, we will give them a demonstration.”
I felt a caress on my face and opened my eyes.
“Awake …,” purred Alexi, his face close to mine, his eyes dark. I shuddered as far away from him as my bindings would allow, and he laughed wildly