The Magicians of Night (Sun-Cross Book 2) by Hambly Barbara

Author:Hambly, Barbara [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453216743
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2011-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

“THIS WAY!”

“The door...” Rhion whispered, his mind still cloudy, his numb hands fumbling with the Spiracle as Sara and her father dragged him away into the dark of the cellar. “Cover it back—”

“Screw that! Come on!”

A second’s thought told him she was right. The jackboots of Storm Troopers thundered in the hall above, the locks rattled open... He was a fool not to have realized that von Rath, even in his dreams, would know that magic had entered this world.

They were beyond the shadowy tower of the furnace before the yellow blast of flashlight beams stabbed down into the room, focusing on the open door, the scattered boxes. Leaning heavily on Leibnitz—though he was six inches shorter than the old Kabbalist, Rhion outweighed him by a good forty pounds—he cast a quick glance behind them, and saw von Rath himself, naked beneath a red silk bedgown, among his black-clothed guards, standing in the black door that led to the Well. Then Sara was shoving him ahead of her into the dumbwaiter shaft.

By the time he’d climbed to the old kitchen, Rhion knew there was no hope of escape across the yard. A chaos of shouts and drumming boots was rising like a storm outside, where dark forms raced back and forth in the chilly arclight. As she swung herself across the dumbwaiter counter, Sara whispered hoarsely, “Up the backstairs... fast...”

Neither Rhion nor her father questioned that she had a plan. She had been over the house enough times to know its every trapdoor and closet. Rhion could hear the guards from the watch room searching the cellar in groups of three and four while those in the barracks combed the yard outside. They had a few moments. Flashlight shielded by her palm, Sara led the way up the old servants’ stair, cursing as she banged her shins on the mold-furred bales of worthless currency. They emerged into the old dressing room with its one-way mirror, where Rhion had watched the gypsy girl last night.

“There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling of the cupboard,” Sara panted, pointing to the dark line of doors that had made him so nervous last night. “It leads up to the crawlspace above this wing. You have to go first, Papa... you’re tall, you can pull me up. Rhion, you get your tochis back to your attic and get in your jammies. There’s still time to come down rubbing your eyes and asking what the fuss is about.”

“No,” Rhion said softly. He did not look at her—he stood, instead, with his hand on the wing of the leather armchair, gazing transfixed into the gleaming black rectangle of the one-way glass.

“God damn it, we’ve got no time.” Her hard little hand jerked at his sleeve, and he shook it off. He felt chilled all over, as if out of nowhere he’d felt the whistling descent of a sword blade pass within centimeters of his face, as the implications of what he saw beyond the dark glass sank in.

“Help me up there.

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