The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,19

and broad lakes would hold like quicksilver the shining echo of the light.

He felt a hand touch his wrist, warm and very strong; opening his eyes in the choke of cigar smoke, he saw that Poincelles had leaned near him, vulpine face as close to his as a lover’s.

He whispered, “I can help you get home.”

Rhion had been expecting those words, waiting for them—waiting for them, in fact, for several weeks. And he had almost been certain that it would be Poincelles to say them. Still he felt the jolt of adrenaline in his veins, and the pounding of his heart nearly stifled him.

And the words having been said, he must, he knew, go very carefully now. He kept his face impassive, but his fingers were shaking as he moved his arm away from Poincelles’ grip and turned his beer mug a judicious ninety degrees on the grimed and splintery table. Though he neither liked nor trusted the Frenchman, he needed the help of another wizard and needed it desperately.

“You never have trusted them, have you?” the French occultist went on in his deep, beautiful voice. “Captain von Rath, and Baldur, and Gall.”

“Well,” Rhion admitted, “I must admit I was a little put off when I found out about the enemies of the Reich who were used for the drug experiments.”

Poincelles blinked, for one second actually looking surprised that this was what had bothered him. Then he quickly molded his features into an expression of disgust and anger. “Oh—oh, yes!” He waved his cigar, trailing a ribbon of blue smoke. “I was horrified, as well, completely shocked—a ghastly business. I was furious when I heard, for of course I wasn’t told about any of it until it was too late.” He smiled slyly and added, “They don’t exactly trust me, these Nazis.”

“Now, how could anyone distrust a man of such obvious virtue and probity?” Rhion made his blue eyes wide behind his glasses, and Poincelles grinned like a wolf with his stained teeth.

“Clever.” He smiled, and pinched Rhion’s cheek. “I like a clever boy.” He cast a quick glance across the room at Horst, presently conversing crotch to crotch with the blond barmaid. Like most Storm Troopers, Horst didn’t impress Rhion as being terribly bright, but it didn’t pay to take chances. Lowering his voice, Poincelles went on, “They don’t trust me, but they needed my help in the rituals that went into the making of the Dark Well. They needed my power. I know von Rath has told you that, with the offensive on, none of us can be risked just now to create a Dark Well so that you can locate your home again—if he intends to send you home at all, ever. Myself, I doubt it.”

He laid his hand again on Rhion’s wrist, the cigar smoldering between two fingers, and his dark eyes gleamed beneath the shelved hollows of his brows. “My memory for matters of ritual is excellent. I can help you create another Dark Well.”

Rhion looked away, understanding now the nature of the proposition—understanding that with those words, Poincelles had in fact announced that he had no intention of helping him get home. Disappointment settled like a swallow of cold mercury in his chest as he realized the man was not to be trusted, not to be turned to for help.

He said nothing.

“For a price,” Poincelles went on.

Over by the bar there were fresh howls of laughter. A Waffen SS lieutenant in the gray uniform of the Kegenwald labor camp was pitching pfennigs for an old derelict, a whiskery drunk who made his living selling papers and picking up trash, to crawl for. As the old man groped on hands and knees for the coins, the other Troopers would kick them farther and farther out of his reach, like children tormenting a crippled dog. Horst whooped “Here’s a drink for free!” and poured his whiskey over the old man’s head; old Johann sat up, grinning with a terrible combination of terror and fogged pleasure, with hope that this would be the worst that would happen, and lapped at the liquid running down his hair.

The barmaid Sara, who had returned with Poincelles’ drink, bumped Rhion’s shoulder playfully with her hip. “No sense of humor, Professor?”

His mouth quirked dryly. “I guess not.”

She looked down at him and some of the brittle quality eased from her face. “Kurt will see they don’t hurt him, you know,” she said in a quieter voice, and nodded at the impassive barman.