Sagaria (69 page)

She slid over the wall like a serpent and landed on the clammy mud on the far side. She lay there motionless for what seemed like forever, willing her heart to beat more quietly and trying not to breathe. If the searchers had seen her she could detect no sign of it. Still keeping low, scuttling half bent over, she put
fifty or a hundred yards between her and the wall as quickly as she could, then threw herself flat.

Cautiously she raised her head and squinted at the roadway. It was difficult to see anything there, difficult even to see the road and its walls, but she was nearly certain the two Shadow Knights, along with their horse and Sagandran, were still ambling along as sluggishly as before.

Good. They had no idea she was here.

Without making any sudden move that could draw attention, she shifted onto her hands and knees, preparing to sprint back in the direction of the barn. Then she hesitated. What was the point of drawing the minions of the Shadow Master to the only refuge she and Sagandran had so far discovered? And, anyway, how was that going to help free him? She remembered the words she’d spoken a thousand years ago or at least it seemed that long: “I want you to promise me something, Sagandran. If it comes to a toss-up between me and the crystal, it’s the crystal you choose to save.” The echo of her own voice haunted her. Fine sentiments. Time to put them into action. Although she wouldn’t willingly sacrifice herself, she would do so as a last resort if it proved to be the only way to rescue the crystal from the Shadow Knights’ hold.

But how could she manage it? She had no weapons. Seductive, falsely promising simpers had worked in Wonderville, but she doubted they’d have any effect here in the wilds of the Shadow World, especially with her clothing in rags and her face a smudge of dirt and grime. Feminine wiles were a matter mainly of the mind, she knew, but they had to have something to build on. All she had in her favour was speed. The Shadow Knights would require time for one of them to get up on horseback and surely, clad in their heavy suits of armor, they must be slower-moving than her if they tried to pursue her on foot? She wondered why the Knights didn’t float silently as they had done back in Wonderville. Maybe they were a different kind of Shadow Knight. Who knew? At least she could hear where her pursuer was.

Speed and her wits. They would have to be her weapons. First, get them in among the alleys and byways of the deserted township. There she’d have a better chance of keeping them constantly confused as to her whereabouts, and she could wait for an opportunity to pounce on them and spirit Sagandran away. That done, the countless hiding places the town must surely hold would make it easier to keep him and herself out of the clutches of the armored men.

So, to the town it was, just as she’d been planning when she set off from the barn. Only now it was incumbent upon her to make herself as obtrusive as possible – her scheme depended on the Shadow Knights seeing her and giving chase.

She drew several long, deep breaths, trying to fuel her muscles and focus her mind. Then she was up on her feet, shouting, dancing and waving her arms.

Perima couldn’t see the Shadow Knights clearly enough to be sure their heads were turned toward her, but she couldn’t imagine otherwise. She was the only moving thing in this barren empty space other than them, and certainly the only shouting, dancing, arm-waving thing.

After she’d stayed there as long as she dared, and a few seconds longer just to prove that she could, she was off, sprinting like a whippet across the flat black earth in the general direction of the town.

She heard a shout behind her.

Success. They’d seen her and were in pursuit.

She vaulted the first wall she came to, hardly noticing the obstruction. The second, a quarter of a mile later, was a little more difficult. By the time she reached the third, she was gasping and her course was weaving a little as she ran. She floundered over the wall, feeling as if she had too many limbs and they were all water-filled balloons. Only the thought that Sagandran possibly wouldn’t be as tired if he was the one running spurred her on. That and the sight of the town’s outlying houses.
Keep this up another couple of hundred yards and you’re there
, she thought, trying to boost her determination. It wasn’t water in her legs any more but lead.

A dreadful thought struck her. The Shadow Knights were pursuing her via the road. They didn’t have walls to negotiate, so were presumably making much better time. Unless Sagandran was impeding their progress in some way. She hoped so. Resourceful lad, that Sagandran. He must be doing his best to slow them down.

There was a wooden fence around the backyard of the first house she came to. She leaned against the fence, attempting to summon up the strength to clamber over it, and instead fell through it as the rotting timber gave way. A splinter shot into her knee and she cried out in agony. Well, what was one extra holler on top of all the others she’d used to lure the Shadow Knights?

Hissing in pain, she pulled out the sharp blade of wood and limped onward as quickly as she could manage.

The back door of the house presented no obstacle. Forcing herself not to think about the spectral beings that might lurk within, Perima charged it with her shoulder and, as with the fence, the wood simply shattered. Not wanting to incur another splinter, she edged through the gap she’d made and found herself in a narrow corridor. If the light had been dim outside in the open, it was practically nonexistent in here. Whoever had last occupied this house had left all sorts of unidentifiable junk lying around in the corridor. Perima first
discovered this through the simple process of falling over it as she did her best to hurry toward the front of the house.

She landed in something cold and squishy. It felt like a heap of offal discarded by a butcher. Somehow keeping her stomach from rising in her throat, she squelched through the unseen morass. At least the stuff, whatever it was, didn’t smell.

She trod on something harder than the rest and there was a sound like someone farting in a bathtub.

So much for this place not smelling too bad,
she thought ruefully
. At least Sagandran’s not around to start making any of his off-color jokes he thinks I don’t understand. Actually, I’d prefer it if he were around. I could live with the second-rate double entendres.

The front window of the house was just a grayish glimmer in the darkness. Pawing at it, she discovered that the glass was filthy with a sticky, gluish scum. She wiped some away with her sleeve as best she could, but her efforts made little difference. The daylight outside seemed to have grown even grayer. She could see enough of the street, though, to tell that it was apparently as deserted as the streets had been last night.

Finding the front door took her several minutes, minutes she cursed as wasted ones. This time, she didn’t dare simply crash her way through. If the Shadow Knights were within earshot they’d come running toward the noise.

I bet it’s locked. That’d be just my luck
. It wasn’t, but as she edged it open warily, its hinges made a fearful cacophony of squeaks and wails. She stood perfectly still, the door half-open, her hand on the knob. Nothing. No sound other than the beginnings, once more, of the wind.

Perima slipped outside, looking hastily to either side, half-expecting to see one of those tall, helmeted figures come lurching round the corner. With a little more confidence, she stepped away from the house toward the middle of the street. Which would be the best way to run? Her first priority was to locate the Shadow Knights. Every bit as important was her second priority: not to be seen by them while doing so. Just then, one of those tall, helmeted figures came lurching round the corner.

Drat! I should have stayed where I was a few moments longer. Maybe he’ll think I’m merely an inhabitant of the town? Some fat hope.

No time to think. Just run. She fled in the opposite direction to the Shadow Knight. The brief reprieve from running when she’d been in the house proved to have done her little good. Almost at once, a stitch started chewing at her side. The pain in her knee intensified, stabbing at her every time she put her weight on that leg, making her hobble. She had a terrible fear that the leg would suddenly give way beneath her.

The Shadow Knight had seen her. He let out a wordless bellow, and then she heard his chain-mail shoes tromping heavily on the packed clay of the street. She hazarded a glance back over her shoulder. He wasn’t catching her up, but she wasn’t leaving him behind either. They seemed to be perfectly matched for speed.

If only that blasted splinter hadn’t shot into my leg.

The street came to a T-junction. Marvel of marvels, there was an open door facing her. Without pausing for reflection she plunged straight across the intervening roadway and into what proved to be the front parlor of another house. Chairs and a table were dim, hulking beasts waiting in the darkness to attack her.

Perima could clearly hear the Shadow Knight’s pursuing footsteps through the door she’d left open behind her. Surely there must be another door at the back of this room, if she could just find it.

Yes. There it was. A vertical slit of pale gray marked its edge. She threw the rear door open wide, then retreated swiftly back into the parlor, flopping down behind a long dark mound she reckoned must be a sofa.

Somehow, Perima stilled her breathing. Her throat felt as if someone had lined it with sharp teeth. The same someone, or possibly a hideous crony, was trying meanwhile to force her temples further and further apart. Her knee gave a bleat of wild pain, just to make sure that it wasn’t being forgotten. If she could only remain undetected while the Shadow Knight crashed on through to the back of the house.

Her pursuer’s weighty footsteps slowed at the door. She could hear the labored straining of his breath.
Good. He’s as winded as I am.
Peeking through the narrow space under the sofa, she could see his metal-shod feet as his form filled the doorway, making the light in the room even duskier than before. He didn’t move from there, but just took a couple of deep, whooping, painful-sounding gasps of air.

Then he spoke. “Perima, dear girl. Are you in here?”

CHAPTER 5

U
NEXPECTED
E
NCOUNTERS

he contents of Snowmane’s saddle bags were called hard tack – rations designed for durability and nutritional value rather than their gourmet qualities. Nonetheless, they were far superior to anything Perima and Sagandran had expected to be eating, so the dried fruits and meats and hard unleavened bread tasted delicious. There were skins of water to wash it down with, though Sir Tombin advised them to drink sparingly. He had no idea where they’d next find a source of potable water, and thought it best to conserve what they had. He himself ate no more than a bite or two before mounting the stallion and setting off for what he described as “a most essential piece of reconnaissance, don’t you know?”

“Okay by me,” said Sagandran lazily. “Just so long as you leave Snowmane’s saddle bags behind.”

The others had returned to the barn to find Sagandran suffering from a bad case of cabin fever, compounded by worry about Perima being at risk. There had been nothing, absolutely nothing to do except agonize over whether or not he should have let her go into town. She’d finally arrived back limping, with sticky blood already scabbing around the wound on her knee. She told him in a few hurried words how she’d found the rest of the companions (or, perhaps more accurately, they’d found her), and that they’d sent her ahead to the barn in case the sight of them approaching confused Sagandran as much as it had her.

The reunion had been a joyous one, and there had been introductions to perform. Sagandran had bowed low as Flip solemnly introduced him to Memo, who had puffed out his chest in recognition of the important occasion, even though it had been obvious he hadn’t known why it was important. Then Memo had acted as translator while Sagandran and Cheireanna exchanged rudimentary greetings. Sagandran thought the sound of her speech in Tamshadi was beautiful, its cadences and sibilants almost musical. He’d noticed Perima giving Cheireanna and himself sidelong looks as he’d loudly appreciated this, and made a mental
note to be a bit warier in future. But the two girls had soon become the best of friends, Cheireanna using a poultice of lethal-looking grasses gathered from near the barn to treat Perima’s injured knee. Soon Perima was walking around normally again, stamping her foot repeatedly on the barn’s hard floor to reassure herself incredulously that the pain had almost completely disappeared.

But the greatest marvel for Sagandran was the companions’ account of the town, and of the people in it.

“It’s weird,” Perima told him. “When I first got there, the streets and houses were empty, just as they were last night. But as soon as Sir Tombin carried me back to Samzing and Flip and the others, I could see that the town – it’s called the City of Fear, according to Cheireanna, by the way – was really filled with hundreds of people.” She drew a breath and her eyes focused on somewhere far beyond the barn. “They’re pretty creepy people, mind you, all kind of skulking and cowed, and pretending not to see us, while at the same time they were watching everything we did out of the corners of their eyes. I think they’d had all the vitality beaten out of them, and now they’re just waiting for the next blow to fall, for the next dreadful thing the Shadow Master’s going to inflict on them. But they’re still people, you know, Sagandran?”

“And you could see them?” he said. He wasn’t sure how much he could believe her. Well, he did believe her, of course. Perima wouldn’t lie to him, except for a tease, but Sagandran wasn’t certain he believed that he was believing her.

“Yeah. It took me while to figure it out. It wasn’t the presence of Sir Tombin or the others that was making me able to see the folk in the town. It was that peasant girl, Cheireanna. I think it had something to do with the way Arkanamon’s sort of hammered the spirit out of the people of the Shadow World. Most of them hardly have any soul left. Cheireanna has, of course. You know how she and her friends were living on the outskirts of things here, raiding when they could. She’d not let Arkanamon and his minions drain the spirit out of her. She was still rebelling. Plus, she knows there are people living in the town, so she can see them and touch them, talk to them, and all the rest. When we’re with her, we can do the same. Her knowledge is strong enough that it” – Perima twisted a length of hair between her fingers as she sought the right word – “infects us. Something like that. Last night in that crummy tavern they were talking about, they actually managed to have a fight with some watchmen, even kill them, and all because Cheireanna was there. If she hadn’t been, the people in the tavern would have been like ghosts to our friends, insubstantial wraiths who were there, but not really.”

Sagandran wrinkled his brow, trying to understand. “So what you’re saying is that here in the Shadow World, it’s not so much people’s bodies we see as their
souls. That’s a bit hard to grasp.”

“Yes, it would be in Sagaria, and in the Earthworld as well, I have no doubt,” she added airily. “But we’re not in either of those worlds any longer, Sagandran. We’re in the Shadow World, remember?” She waved a hand in front of his eyes as if reminding a particularly obtuse child of something obvious. “The rules are different. In some ways, you could say they’re a bit better.”

“Better?” he exclaimed. “Oh, come on.”

“Sagandran, what’s the most important part of a person?”

Flummoxed, he looked around for assistance. Flip and Samzing were watching him with bright eyes. Neither seemed disposed to intervene.

“Well,” he mumbled, “it’s
themselves
, I guess. Who they are.”

“Which we might as well call their souls,” said Perima. “That’s what I’m talking about. Their essences. The outsides of people, well, you know, that’s just the packaging. If you only look at people’s outsides then it’s like … oh, I don’t know, like you’re being given a gift and all you’re interested in is the wrapping. It’s what’s in the box that’s important, not the box itself, not the wrapping paper. That’s why I was saying that the rules of the Shadow World are, in some ways, an improvement on the ones in the Earthworld and Sagaria, because when you look at people it’s the gift you see, not the box. The tragedy is that here in the Shadow World, for most of the people stuck here, the box is empty. Arkanamon’s stolen the gift and left just the wrapping.”

Sagandran gave her a sly smile. “I quite like some people’s packaging.”

She treated the remark with the haughty contempt it deserved. “If I were evil you’d still like me, I suppose?”

Embarrassed, he found his tongue knotting. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. If you were evil, you wouldn’t be you. You wouldn’t be Perima.”

“That’s what I’m saying. The important bit of me, of you, of any of us, isn’t the outside, the wrapping. Although I’ve always been rather pleased, in my typically modest way, about the exquisite aesthetic taste with which I have been wrapped.” She dimpled prettily with affected coyness. Then her face became serious again as she prodded a finger hard into her own chest. “But the real Perima is in here somewhere.” Turning her hand rapidly, she then prodded him before he had time to jerk out of the way. “And the real Sagandran is in here. You know that’s true.”

He supposed he ought to feel complimented. “Ow,” was what he said.

“Look at Flip,” she said.

Sagandran did so. Flip seemed to be much as normal.

“Do you think Flip is a small person?”

“Well …”

How could he answer this without causing his little friend to go into paroxysms of fury or, even worse, into sulks and paranoid depression? Then Sagandran saw the answer. The truth.

“No, of course he’s not. He’s a being the same size as you or me, maybe even bigger. It’s just that he comes in a small package.”  

“You’re beginning to get the hang of this,” she commented wryly.  

“So I can see you, Sir Tombin, Samzing, Flip, whoever, because of the strength of our souls?”  

Perima pushed a length of hair back behind her ear that had slowly uncurled from the tangle it had become. “And the Shadow Knights too. Good or evil, it’s not the nature of the soul, it’s the amount of it there is present in the person. Those peasants we saw by the roadside yesterday. You remember them? The ones Deicher sneered at? They still had some of their vitality left. Arkanamon hadn’t managed to drive it all out of them, but he’d robbed them of most of it. That was why looking at them was so odd, so unsettling. Remember?”  

Sagandran did. The wood gatherers had seemed a bit fuzzy around the edges when he’d tried to gaze at them directly, as if they weren’t completely real.  

“How is it we weren’t constantly bumping into the townsfolk last night? If they were invisible to us, well, we should have been tripping over them in all directions. Were they scurrying out of our way the whole time? They could see us even if we couldn’t see them.”  

Perima sighed. “I already said, Sagandran. Do pay a bit more attention, there’s a good boy. It’s not that we can’t see the people who’ve been robbed of their souls,” she continued. “It’s that we can’t sense them at all. We can walk right through them; we probably did hundreds of times last night.”  

She paused as if the words had suddenly been stolen from her lips and shuddered. So did Sagandran. Walking right through people wasn’t especially pleasant to think about. It was as if those people had invaded him – invaded him completely.  

“But,” said Perima after a long moment, “Cheireanna knows they’re there. She can sense them, and because she can, we can.”  

Sagandran had the sudden urge to see if Cheireanna would walk back into the City of Fear with him so he could see this for himself, see the busy streets, see the people. He shook his head. It was a silly idea. He could instantly think of a dozen things that could go wrong with such an expedition. Best to put it out of his mind.  

“It’s going to take me a while to get used to this idea,” he said slowly.  

“Well, don’t let it take you too long,” said Perima tartly. She cupped a hand to her ear. “Listen. There’s somebody coming.”

The somebody in question, Memo reported a moment later, was Sir Tombin, returning astride Snowmane. The two small companions, Memo and Flip, had been deputed to stand watch around the barn. Sir Tombin had reasoned that being so tiny, they were unlikely to be noticed from a distance by anyone approaching. Flip had rapidly become bored with the exercise, and had persuaded the memorizer that one guard at a time was all that was needed. For his part, Memo was perfectly happy with the new arrangement; it bolstered his sense of his own importance.

Having tethered Snowmane to a broken timber, Sir Tombin came into the barn looking both excited and apprehensive. He’d thrown off his Shadow Knight helmet at last. It was good to see that familiar broad green face again, Sagandran thought.

“I rode more or less at random to begin with,” explained Sir Tombin, sitting down with a crash, “and I finally came across another roadway. This one winds away from here toward the mountains. Obviously, I followed it to see where it might go. It coiled around the flank of one of the foothills, and suddenly before me I saw a huge gorge with a castle at its head.”