Scholar of Decay by Tanya Huff Read Free Book Online Page B

sister. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
    “No reason.” Jacqueline took a long, slow swallow of coffee and studied Louise over the gilded rim of the cup. While she hadn’t yet been to bed, it was obvious that her twin had just risen. “Your fits of pique usually last longer.”
    Greedily heaping her plate with an assortment of food, Louise shrugged. “I found a diversion.”
    “How nice. Will he be joining us for … breakfast?”
    Louise swept a critical gaze over the full platters, a laden fork halfway to her mouth. “I don’t think that’s necessary. There’s plenty here now.”

    The burly servant carrying the body out of the west wing heard the twins’ shared laughter and suppressed a shudder. As bad as it could be at the Chateau when they fought, it was worse still when they got along.

    The house, or what remained of it, was on the east shore of Souris Island. Only the third story, gray-green lichens flaking off its blackened stonework, showed over the almost leafless branches of the thorn trees. Aurek scanned the empty windows and picked a careful path toward the door through what had once been an attractive courtyard, years of dead and decaying leaves squelching under his feet.
    Braided rope straps cut painfully into his shoulders as his oilskin pack snagged on a six-inch thorn. Muttering under his breath, he reached back and snapped it off the tree.
    There was power here. It lay like an oily film over the house and grounds. He could all but taste it in the air.
    The remains of the door hung from a single, twisted hinge. He checked that the floor beyond the threshold was solid and stepped onto it without pausing to inspect it for arcane protections. The level of power he could sense deep in the abandoned building was far too slight to be a threat. The danger was greater that the house might collapse around him.
    The entryway held only a staircase that rose in a graceful spiral to the second story. Although it remained essentially in one piece, the stairs had long since rotted past safety. Fortunately, the artifact he searched for was below, not above. Eyes narrowed, senses extended, Aurek moved through the ruins of a formal dining room and out the narrow door the servants had once used to bring food from the kitchens. Stairs to the lower levels would be at the rear of the house.
    Webs hung like tattered shrouds from every corner, and he was increasingly conscious of being watched. Breathing shallowly, for every step stirred up noxious clouds of dust and mold, he made his way cautiously to the kitchens.
    Spiders, he thought, ducking under the first intact web he’d seen. Large ones. A floorboard cracked under his heel, and he flung his weight forward barely in time to prevent breaking through. Fully confident of his ability to deal with anything he might meet, he still had no desire to find himself buried under a ton or two of rubble.
    Vines growing over kitchen windows long empty of glass filled the room with flickering shadow.
    Something skirted the outer edge of his vision.
    Shrugging off his pack, Aurek pulled out a small enclosed lantern and quickly lit it. Insects scurried in the walls all around him, above him, below him—it was impossible to tell where the sounds originated. Holding the lantern over his head, he slowly turned in place. The shadows rearranged themselves but didn’t entirely flee.
    In the far corner, he found what he was looking for: a flight of stairs, leading down.
    The desiccated body of a rat hung wrapped in spider silk in the exact center of the doorway. Its condition seemed to indicate it hadn’t been hanging there for very long.
    Aurek studied the situation for a moment, then picked a piece of dry and insect-eaten kindling from a half-empty box by the rusted stove and lit one end in his lantern. When the flames caught, licking hungrily toward his hand, he torched the web.
    Almost instantly, a sheet of flame filled the doorway and, just as quickly, it was over. The body of the