The Wyvern's Spur by Kate Novak; Jeff Grubb

Author:Kate Novak; Jeff Grubb
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Interest
ISBN: 9780140143652
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1990-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

13

Olive's Investigation

Giogi leaped out of bed, burst from his room, and dashed down the dark corridor to the door of the lilac room. Before he got there, the shrieking had stopped. Bursting into a lady's room could prove awkward, but the silence coming from the room seemed even more ominous to Giogi. He flung open the door without knocking.

Cat had lit a fire in the fireplace, but a few glowing embers were all that remained. Dressed only in his nightshirt, Giogi shivered with cold. Moonlight streaming through the windows silhouetted everything in the room. The mage, looking pale and shaken, sat up in her bed.

"Are you all right? What's wrong?" Giogi asked.

"There was someone in here!" Cat gasped. "He tried to smother me with a pillow!"

"Where did he go?"

"Through the wall!" Cat cried, pointing to a spot next to the fireplace. "Like a ghost!" The woman's cool, analytical manner had crumbled. She sounded terror-stricken.

Giogi turned up the wick in the lamp on the dressing table, and lit it with a bit of burning straw from the fireplace. He drew aside a silk wall hanging, but there was nothing behind it but wall. He tapped it. It sounded solid.

"I've never heard of a ghost in this room before," Giogi said. "What did he look like?"

"Like Flattery," Cat said with a sob. "But that's impossible."

"Is it?" Giogi asked, uncertain.

"If Flattery were trying to kill me, he wouldn't leave the job half-finished," Cat insisted. "He wouldn't have needed a pillow, either."

Giogi positioned himself prudently at the foot of Cat's bed. She now wore one of his mother's nightgowns, and though it was a prim flannel thing, it was, after all, only a nightgown. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Cat lowered her head and nodded. Her long, loose hair veiled her face, but from the way her shoulders shook, Giogi could tell she was crying.

Damn propriety! the nobleman thought as he rushed to her side. "It's all right," he insisted, sitting beside her on the bed and wrapping his arms around her. "Everything's going to be fine."

Cat laid her head against Giogi's chest and hugged him close. It was a full minute before her sobbing subsided. Then she sniffed and pulled gently away from his arms. "I'm sorry to be such a coward, but I've cast all the magic I can for the day. I'm helpless until I've slept and studied." Her voice quivered, and Giogi was afraid she would go to pieces again.

"Anyone would be upset by what you've just been through," Giogi replied. He stood up. "I think you should wait here," he said.

"Where are you going?" Cat asked with alarm, grabbing at his arm but stopping herself.

"I'm going to get Thomas and search the house," Giogi said. He lit a second lamp and carried it with him out into the hallway. Halfway down the stairs, he met Thomas hurrying up in the darkness.

"Sir! I thought I heard a scream! Is something wrong?" the servant asked.

"Yes, Thomas," Giogi explained. "Someone attacked Mistress Cat in her room.

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