The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,91
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.” He turned abruptly and dove into the closet, where Leibnitz’ kicking feet were just vanishing through an inconspicuous square hole in the ceiling. Below, he could hear the voices of the guards as they emerged from the cellar to search the house.
“For Chrissakes...” Sara began, and he caught her waist, lifted her toward her father’s reaching hands.
“Get me up there!” He shut the closet door behind him and reached up. Leibnitz caught one of his wrists in both big bony hands, and after a second, Sara caught the other. In the low, cramped space between the ceiling and the rafters of this wing, a dead lift wasn’t easy, but they managed to get his shoulders up to the level of the rafters on which they crouched; after a certain amount of puffing and kicking, he pulled himself through the hole and fitted the neat plank trap over it behind him.
“Well, you sure put your foot in it now.” Sara switched off her flashlight, leaving them in pitchy dark. “Old Pauli has no proof who was potchkeying around in there.”
“No.” Bent nearly double, he edged around behind Sara where she sat balanced on one rafter and stretched himself out on the one beyond. The crawlspace rose to a peak of about four and a half feet above either of the lodge’s two wings—only in the center block was there a half-story for attic rooms. Away in the darkness he could see—and smell—the nests of the rodents that lived there, and catch a glimpse of their angry eyes. Sorry about violating your Lebensraum, he thought wryly. Into every life a little Anschluss must fall.
“There’s no reason for him to guess it was you,” Sara went on. “Personally, I’d love to see that momzer Poincelles sashay in here an hour from now and try to explain where he’d been.”
Rhion shook his head, though Sara saw nothing of the gesture in the dark. “No,” he