Lord of Snow and Shadows (35 page)

“Isn’t that what it was?”

“Maybe that’s how it started. But then we found we had so much in common. Her early life was hard, a constant struggle against poverty, a merchant father who drank his family into debt and the workhouse. There’s a resilience about her. . . .”

“And she is also remarkably beautiful.”

A whirling gust of wind rattled the turfs on the roof and made the fire splutter.

“It’s started to snow again,” said Jaromir, piling more pinecones on the fire. Gavril sensed that he was unwilling to discuss his feelings for Lilias.

A sudden, insistent tapping began on the shutter. Jaromir tensed, his sound hand closing around the stout mountaineer’s staff he kept beside the fire.

“What can that be?” Gavril said uneasily.

Jaromir moved silently to the shutter, peering cautiously through a crack to see what was outside. “Well, well . . .” he said under his breath, reaching up to unlatch the shutter, letting in a blast of cold air. “Look what the storm’s blown us.”

On the sill perched a large snow owl, ragged and weather-beaten, its white feathers bedraggled.

“Snowcloud?” Gavril said in disbelief. He forced himself up off the pallet and went across to the owl. Now he could see that one of the owl’s legs was crooked, as though it had been broken and had mended a little awry.

“Is it you, Snowcloud?” Gavril murmured, remembering the forest clearing—and Kiukiu, eyes ablaze with anger, trying to protect the owl from Oleg’s club. “Have you come to find me?”

“You recognize this creature?”

“I rescued him from a trap.”

And still the owl lingered on the sill, staring at him with unblinking golden eyes.

“You, a Nagarian, rescuing an Arkhel’s Owl?” Jaromir asked drily.

“The name I grew up with is Andar,” Gavril said brusquely. “Not Nagarian.”

With a screech, Snowcloud suddenly launched himself off the sill and flew straight at Gavril, knocking him off balance.

Gavril flung up his sound arm to protect his face.

Snowcloud came at him again in a flurry of white feathers, strong wingbeats beating against his head, forcing him down onto his knees. Furious screeches of anger tore from the owl’s throat.

“Snowcloud!” Gavril cried. “Don’t you remember me? I saved your life!”

Hooked claws locked into his sound shoulder as Snowcloud gripped hold and began to peck at his head with an iron-sharp beak.

Anger and pain seared through Gavril, and he felt the sudden warning flare of the Drakhaoul awakening deep inside him.

“Get—him—off me!” he shouted, rolling onto the floor of the hut. White feathers flew about the hut like blizzarding snow.

Jaromir seized the mountaineer’s staff and struck at the frenzied owl. It dropped to the floor of the hut and went limp, great wings splaying out like a white feather cloak, carelessly flung down.

“Thank you.” Gavril pulled himself to his feet, leaning on the table with his sound hand.

“I fear I may have killed your owl.” Jaromir knelt down beside the owl and reached out his hand to touch it.

Snowcloud’s limp body twitched, spasmed violently. Jaromir gave a hoarse cry and fell flat on his back, as if some invisible force had knocked him over.

The owl lay still again.

“What happened?” Gavril asked uncertainly. “Jaromir!”

Jaromir groaned and a convulsive shudder, violent as an epileptic fit, shook his whole body.

“Jaro. Are you all right?”

The fit ceased.

Jaromir sat up. His eyes blazed golden in the dimness of the hut.

“At last,”
he said. But his lips hardly moved—and the voice that issued from his throat was harsh and unnatural.

Gavril took a step back.

“Who are you?” he said in a whisper.

“I know you. You are Volkh’s son,”
Jaromir said in the unnatural voice.
“I should have had you killed at birth
.
”
The golden eyes gleamed, cruel and predatory.

“Jaromir?” Gavril cast around for a weapon, any weapon with which to defend himself.

“I am Stavyor. Stavyor Arkhel. Come back from the dead to send you to hell, Drakhaon’s child.”

CHAPTER 29

“It’s no good, Lady Iceflower.” Kiukiu sank down on a boulder. Her lungs ached, her head spun. And it had begun to snow again. She could go no farther without a rest.

Lady Iceflower fluttered down onto a nearby boulder and made chattering noises of impatience.

“It’s all right for you, you can fly.”

Kiukiu had been trudging up this winding, treacherous mountain path all morning. Iceflower had seemed so certain they were on Snowcloud’s trail that she had been flapping around Kiukiu’s head, hooting excitedly.

“If we were back down in the forest, you’d be mobbed,” Kiukiu told her sternly. “Daring to show your owl face in daylight, indeed!”

The owl twisted her head right around and gave her a defiant stare.

Kiukiu turned her back on her and gazed out at the dreary landscape, half-gauzed in a thin veil of falling, sleety snow. She had never ventured up into the mountains before. Indeed, she had never been farther than the Nagarian estates in her whole life until Lilias had turned her out. Up here in the mountains, she sensed the desolation of the snow-crusted wilderness as if the taint of the Drakhaon’s poison breath still lingered in the air, dulling her spirit, diminishing her will to go on.

And if Snowcloud’s trail led her to Jaromir Arkhel, what would she say to him? “Hello, I’m Malkh’s daughter. Yes, that’s right, Malkh who betrayed your father. Malkh who broke under torture and blabbed all the battle plans to Lord Volkh . . .”

Such thoughts seemed unworthy, a betrayal of her father’s memory.

She reached into her woven bag and took a swig from the precious flask of cloudberry brandy Malusha had given her. The sharp, sweet taste refreshed her a little. She stood up, hefting the gusly in its rough-woven cloth bag onto her back again.

“Must keep going,” she said, more to herself than to Iceflower. After all, this journey was nothing but a matter of physical endurance. She was sturdy, strong, and she could tramp on for hours. The real test of her courage would come when they tracked down Snowcloud.

No. Must put that out of mind. Deal with Lord Stavyor when I find him. One problem at a time.

Iceflower launched herself off her rock and floated out above the valley on ghost-feather wings.

Kiukiu gazed upward at the low clouds—and the shadow of the mountain peaks that loomed behind—and tramped off after her, up the stony, slippery path.

The gusly weighed heavily now, the straps cutting into her shoulder. From time to time, if Kiukiu put a foot wrong or slithered on loose scree, the strings gave a metallic shudder, as if offended at this rough treatment. And in spite of the intense cold, her face felt as if it glowed with the effort of toiling on upward.

This search was taking far longer than she had planned. It was well past noon now, she judged, and soon it would be getting dark. Where would she find shelter on this bleak mountainside? She should have come better prepared.

Hope I’ve left Harim enough fodder.
She had left the pony in a sheltered gully, with his blanket tucked over his shaggy coat to keep out the worst of the night’s wintercold.

Her back ached from carrying the gusly. She was going slower and slower now. She knew she must stop soon, if only to put down her load and stretch the stiffness out of her spine. She was well-used to hard work and heavy burdens; she’d carried enough heaped coal scuttles, flour sacks, and buckets of water in her time at Kastel Drakhaon. But she’d never been obliged to carry one uphill in the freezing cold for mile after endless mile.

She swung the gusly bag off her shoulder and lowered it onto the snow-covered path. Fresh snow—on compressed snow. No prints. What was she expecting? She gave a little snort.

Who would be stupid enough but me to come all the way up here on a fool’s errand into nowhere?

Iceflower suddenly swooped down and alighted on her shoulder. Kiukiu staggered and righted herself.

“Don’t startle me like that!” she cried. Her own voice echoed back to her, brittle with the chill resonance of ice.

Iceflower gave her a resentful little nip—not sharp enough to draw blood, but sharp enough to hurt.

“Ow! And don’t peck me.”

Iceflower nipped her again, no less sharply.

“What
is
it?”

Iceflower flew up into the air, spiraling round above her head.

“You’ve traced Snowcloud?” Kiukiu forgot all about titles in her excitement. “Up here? Where? Show me.”

Iceflower flapped off into the fast-gathering gloom.

“Wait!” cried Kiukiu. She bent down and heaved the gusly bag back up onto her shoulders. “And this’d better not be a false alarm,” she muttered, setting off after the owl.

There it stood, a little mountain hut constructed of tarred wood and stone, its low turfed eaves almost reaching down to the ground. A thin trail of woodsmoke wisped upward into the dusk from the chimney. It was the first sign of human habitation she had seen for days.

Kiukiu watched Iceflower swoop silently across the snowfield and alight on the roof.

“Here?” Kiukiu called softly to the owl. “Are you sure?” The owl did not budge.

Now that it had come to it, Kiukiu felt an overwhelming reluctance to go any further. She was to be tested to the limits of her abilities as a Guslyar, maybe beyond. She was not sure she was good enough to fulfill the task ahead of her. And if she failed . . .

It has to be done. And as there’s no one else to do it but me . . .

Hitching the gusly bag under her arm, she sighed and started out toward the hut.

Iceflower gave a sudden cry of alarm and shot up into the air.

“What is it?” Kiukiu cried.

From inside she could hear voices, men’s voices arguing. Lord Jaromir was evidently not alone.

She hurried forward across the thick snow and pounded on the door with her mittened fists.

“Let me in!”

From within came the smash of breaking crockery. She tugged at the latch and shoved the door open.

A man stood with his back to her; as he heard her come in, he spun around and she saw he gripped a stout stick.

Mad, moon-gold eyes blazed at her from the firelit shadows of the hut.

“Go away.”
The voice that issued from the man’s throat was slurred and hoarse, but Kiukiu knew it for Lord Stavyor’s.

“Oh no,” she whispered. Behind him she saw the white form of Snowcloud lying broken on the floor. “What have you done, my lord?”

“You won’t stop me now.”

But now that her eyes had grown more accustomed to the murky darkness of the hut, she saw another man sprawled on the floor. A flame sprang up in the dying fire, glinting blue in his tumbled hair, and she knew him.

“Lord Gavril!” she cried, tears burning her eyes. She turned on the man with the stick, no longer afraid but angry almost beyond words. “If you’ve killed him—”

“Silence, Guslyar.”
The possessed Jaromir began to move toward Lord Gavril, lurching grotesquely, jerkily, a life-size marionette animated by an unaccustomed hand.
“Let me finish what I have started.”

Hands shaking, she dragged out the gusly from her bag.

There was no time to think clearly. She only knew she had to weave a shroud-web of sounds for the Sending and bind Lord Stavyor’s spirit fast before leading it back toward the Ways Beyond.

As the first sonorous notes reverberated around the hut, she saw the possessed Jaromir grip the stick tightly and lurch toward Lord Gavril again. She wanted to cry out a warning to him, but she knew she must concentrate all her efforts into her Sending Song. She struck a dark shiver of notes and saw the possessed man halt, the raised stick frozen in his hand.

“Stop. I command you to stop!”

Kiukiu forced her voice to resonate with each somber note she plucked from the strings. Each note trembled through her body like a fever.

Jaromir swung round toward her. The golden eyes burned defiantly into hers. Obstinately, she plucked another long filament of notes, matching her voice to the deep, dusky threnody she was spinning. He was fighting her with every ounce of his will. She must pluck the metal strings louder, stronger, she must show she was not afraid. Now each time she touched the strings, the harsh metal bit into her fingers; each note was agony.

“Stop . . .”
The stick dropped from Jaromir’s fingers to the floor. He sagged—and fell to his knees.
“No—Kiukirilya—let me stay with my son—”

Kiukiu felt herself slowly moving toward the dark heart of her Sending Song.

“Come with me, Lord Stavyor.”

Now she hardly felt the pain of the lacerating strings as the notes throbbed louder. The shadows in the hut wavered, merging together into one darkness as the doorway to the Ways Beyond began to open.

“No . . .”
Jaromir’s body suddenly slumped onto the floor as she drew Lord Stavyor’s spirit-wraith out.

“With me, my lord.”
She was strong now; her will was stronger than his. She had bound him—and as the portal opened in front of them, she led him toward it.

There, as she had seen it before, was the path winding away into the infinite beyond. The path glimmered in the darkness. Her song became calm, each note a step farther along the path away from life.

“Take care, child, for he will fight you every step of the way . . .”

She glanced behind her. She was leading, and he was slowly following. The fierce gold of his eyes dimmed as they passed farther away from the shadowdoor. He moved like one walking in a dream, his gaze distant, sad.

She sensed there was no fight left in him, only a quiet resignation.

It was so quiet here. And she was so tired. She longed to rest, to let the calm embrace her, lulling away the hurts and heartbreak of the past months. A soft light, gilded spring sunlight, filtered down through silver-green leaves.

When she looked around again, he had drifted silently away.

And there was something she had to remember to do.

But now it didn’t seem to matter that much. It was so peaceful here, so very, very
peaceful. . . .