Shards of Time (30 page)

Weak and in considerable pain, he still relished the chill breeze and smell of new growth as he staggered around to the front entrance where uniformed guards were standing around a brazier in front of the stairs leading up to the huge carved doors. They saw him and came running to his aid. Supporting him with their arms around his waist, two of them helped him to the brazier.

“It’s Baron Alec!” the sergeant in charge exclaimed. “Where have you been, my lord? Your companions are frantic.”

“I don’t know,” Alec gasped, shaking with hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. “Where’s Seregil?”

“Tonil, Sera, fetch Baron Seregil and the others,” the sergeant ordered. Taking off his cloak, he wrapped it around Alec and helped him sit down on the steps. Someone offered him a waterskin and he drank deeply. It was cool, sweet, and
real. A few moments later the great doors swung open again and Seregil dashed down the steps to where Alec sat shivering in the borrowed cloak.

“By the Light, Alec, where have you been?” he asked breathlessly, sitting beside him and brushing loose strands of hair back from Alec’s face to look him over.

“I don’t know,” Alec told him. “I need food, and a drysian. There were dogs—”

Seregil pulled the cloak and coat away and swore as he saw the blood-soaked bandages around Alec’s arms and hand. Then he was shouting orders and Micum was there, too, bundling another cloak around him.

“Can you ride?” Seregil asked, coming back into focus.

“I think so—Yes.”

Seregil and Micum helped him up onto Windrunner’s back. Alec slumped there like a sack of grain, clinging to the saddlebow as best he could, arms and hand throbbing with pain. Mounted on Cynril, Seregil took Windrunner’s reins in hand and led the way back to the encampment.

It was a bit of a blur after that until Seregil and Micum helped him off his horse and into a tent where a warm fire was burning in a brazier. They laid him on a bed, and sometime later a drysian was bending over him, murmuring apologies as she cut away the makeshift bandages.

“How bad?” Seregil asked, leaning anxiously over her shoulder.

“Some nasty punctures, but not much tearing,” she replied. “The muscles appear to be not too badly damaged.” She held a cup to Alec’s lips and he drank, recognizing the taste of willow bark and poppy juice. Blessed numbness flowed through him as she set about washing and dressing the wounds.

“He disappeared in a dead-end corridor and showed up hours later outside the palace,” Seregil explained as Thero joined them by Alec’s cot. The drysian’s potion had done its work. Alec was deeply asleep.

Thero passed a hand over Alec’s brow, then shrugged. “I sense no sign of magic on him.”

“How is that possible?” asked Micum.

“I’m telling you, he was there, and then he just—wasn’t!” said Seregil.

Thero ran a hand over his short beard and sighed. “I have no idea how it could have happened. I suppose he can tell us when he wakes up.”

“First Mika is attacked; now this. Not a very auspicious start,” said Micum.

“No. Did you see or hear anything else of interest last night, Seregil?”

“Aside from Alec vanishing? No, but plenty of ghost stories from the guards who’ve been stationed there for weeks. There’s definitely something strange going on up here.”

Thero shook his head. “I don’t understand why I don’t feel any magic on him. It does appear that someone translocated him, but there’s no residual imprint of the one who cast the spell.”

“That’s not a common spell. I didn’t think anyone outside Nysander’s lineage could do it, especially necromancers.”

“I’ve never found any evidence that says they can in any of my research. It seems more likely a necromancer would have used a dra’gorgos to capture him, yet I feel nothing of that, either, and my charm should have protected him. I fear this is something else entirely. I need to meditate on this for a while.”

Seregil rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Mystery upon mystery. We’ve certainly got our work cut out for us.”

Alec woke in pain but thankfully in a warm bed. He could feel warm stones tucked in around him, under a pile of blankets. Looking up, he realized he was in a tent. Daylight showed through a gap in the tent flap. Hadn’t it been dark just a moment ago? Memories flooded back as he pushed back the blankets and found both arms and his hand expertly bandaged in blood-spotted linen that smelled of honey salve.

“There you are,” said Seregil with a yawn, getting up from a cot across the tent. Apparently he’d been sleeping, too.

“What’s the time?”

“Nearly dinnertime. You’ve been asleep since we got you here this morning. How are you feeling?”

Alec winced with pain as he pulled the blankets up again. “I’ve been better. I’m really hungry. And thirsty.”

Seregil stuck his head out of the tent flap, ordered someone to bring food, then returned to the bed with a waterskin and a cup.

Alec drank three cupfuls before his thirst was slaked, but that only left him hungrier.

“Are you up to telling me what happened?”

Alec frowned. “I was running down the corridor with you. I saw a light and thought it was someone with a lantern. The next thing I knew I was out in the country somewhere.”

“Ah, I thought I heard voices,” said Thero, stepping inside to join them, followed by a very worried-looking Micum and a servant with a breakfast tray. She set it on the bed by Alec and he grabbed a hunk of bread and devoured it, then started in on the sausage and cheese.

“What in Bilairy’s name happened to you, Alec?” Micum exclaimed, pulling up a stool next to the bed.

Alec swallowed and started again. “One minute I was in the corridor with Seregil. I saw a light and followed it, thinking he was right behind me. The next thing I knew I was facedown in sheep shit somewhere out in the countryside. There were young shepherds there, but not the ones we met, Thero. They ran away as soon as they saw me, in the direction of some cottages. Someone there set the dogs on me and I had to fight them off.”

“Why didn’t you use the dog charm?” asked Seregil.

“I did, but obviously it didn’t work. Still—” He held up his arms. “If it wasn’t for this, I’d think I’d dreamed it all.”

“So would I,” said Seregil, looking thoughtful.

“I thought I killed the dogs. They had wounds and they looked dead, but they didn’t bleed, though I certainly did.”

“Indeed?” murmured the wizard. “But you didn’t feel any moment of disorientation as you passed from one place to another?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Go on.”

“After that I saw a town in the distance and made my way there, along a river. I tried to wash my hands and drink, but the water wasn’t wet.”

“How do you mean?” asked Thero.

“It looked like water and sounded like water, but when I tried to drink it wasn’t really there. I couldn’t wash my hands, either.” He shrugged. “That’s the only way to explain it.”

“Dogs that don’t bleed. Water that isn’t wet,” mused Seregil.

“And fire that didn’t give off heat, but burned,” Alec told them, and saw Seregil and Thero exchange a glance. “What?” he asked.

Thero shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. What happened next?”

“I made it to the town, which was walled. There were watchmen outside, but once again, as soon as they saw me they couldn’t get away fast enough, shouting something I didn’t understand. It could have been that island language. Once they were gone, someone on the wall threw rocks at me. I ran and then I was back in here in the palace, as suddenly as I had gone.”

Just then Mika peeked around the tent flap. “May I come see Alec?”

“Of course you can,” said Alec, motioning him in.

The boy’s head was freshly bandaged, his left arm splinted in a colorful silk sling. The swelling around his eye had gone down a bit, but the bruises were a nasty purple and green. “Did the man with the cudgel hurt you too, Alec?”

“No, I ran into some unfriendly dogs.”

“I thought you could charm dogs.”

Alec gave him a rueful look. “So did I—Wait! Seregil, look for my lightstone in my coat pocket.”

Seregil rifled through the ruined garment and pulled out the lightstone. It glowed as it always had.

Thero took it and examined it closely. “What?”

“It didn’t work there,” Alec told him.

“And the dog charm didn’t work, either?” Thero rested a forefinger against his lips for a moment, thinking.

“So wherever I was, something affected the magic of the stone and the charm?” asked Alec.

“So it would appear.” Thero handed the stone back to him. “Or someone.”

Alec looked up at the wizard. “I can’t help thinking of what Sedge told us about the night Phania disappeared. He said it looked like she was pulled. I didn’t feel that; I just was one place one moment and somewhere else the next. And I got back through this wavery black place in the air.”

“A what?”

Alec searched for words. “It was like looking at dark water rippling, only it was hanging in the air. It touched me while I was trying to figure out what it was and I ended up back here.”

“So you got back on your own,” mused Thero, looking Alec over thoughtfully, as if he had some markings to tell the story. “Give me your hand.”

Alec held it out and Thero clasped it, then shook his head. “I don’t understand. How can there be no trace of magic on you after all that? If you’ll excuse me, I must meditate on this. Will you keep an eye on Mika for me?”

“I could use some company,” Alec said, giving the boy a wink. “I think we left the cards in your tent.”

“I’ll go get them.” Mika ducked out through the tent flap.

“And he can keep an eye on you,” Seregil said, kissing Alec and stroking the hair back from his lover’s brow. “I want to examine that corridor where you disappeared—in daylight.”

“I think I’m up to going,” Alec said, but Seregil placed a gentle hand on his chest when he tried to get up.

“No, talí. Micum and I can handle this. I need you rested and healed.”

Micum rose and settled his sword on his hip. “Don’t worry, Alec. I’ll look after him for you.”

“You have your amulets, don’t you?” asked Alec.

Seregil and Micum both held theirs up.

“Good. Don’t ever take them off.”

“After what we’ve seen and heard?” Micum scoffed. “Just try to get it away from me!”

T
HE
approach to the palace through Menosi looked no different early the next morning than any other time Seregil had seen it, but now he was on guard. Micum was quiet beside him as they walked through the silent streets to the palace.

“How is Baron Alec?” asked one of the young guards as they reached the front door.

“He’s safe back in camp,” Seregil replied, feeling a twinge of unease. Alec was certainly safer there than here, but Seregil was strangely unsettled at being separated though he was in the more dangerous spot.

Retracing their steps last night, Seregil led Micum through a succession of turns, stopping by the royal chamber on the way. There was no sign of supernatural activity in the morning light, no dark figures.

Moving on, they finally came to the long corridor where Alec had disappeared. It was perfectly ordinary looking, but the sight of it sent another uneasy twinge through his belly. As he’d noted the night before, it hadn’t yet been repaired. It was lined on one side by rooms—some with the remains of broken doors hanging on sprung hinges or no doors at all—and on the other with small round windows set high overhead, and dead-ended at a stone wall. Traces of painted plaster still clung to walls here and there, their colors leached by time to faded pastels.

“Where did Alec disappear?” asked Micum.

“It’s hard to say, exactly. It was dark and we couldn’t see how long the corridor was. We’d just reached the turning
here when he took off on his own. And then he was just gone. I checked every room from top to bottom, looking for hidden doors and secret passages. I was still at it when the guard brought word that Alec had turned up out front.” He paused, not liking the memory. “I want another look at the wall at the end. It was as if he ran right through it.”

“Two sets of eyes are better than one.”

The wall was made of large blocks of finished stone fitted together with thin seams of mortar that appeared to have stood the test of time. As Seregil approached it, the uneasy feeling that had been plaguing him grew stronger.

“What’s wrong?” asked Micum.

“I’m not sure.” Seregil reached out and pressed his palms against the wall. “There’s just something …”

Suddenly he was overwhelmed with images: visions of Alec fading away through walls and forests and around corners; mud that caught his feet; locks that bit his fingers …

Gasping, Seregil pressed himself against the cold stone, resting his cheek against it as if he were leaking dreams through his skin. As the visions faded back to wherever they’d come from, he felt Micum’s hand gripping his shoulder.

“Seregil? Seregil, where are you?”

“My dreams,” he whispered. “I think I just remembered what they were. But he came back!” Micum kept a hold on his shoulder as Seregil passed a hand over his eyes, caught between dread and giddy relief.