The Shadow Within (32 page)
Wait
. She sat up, almost surprised that she could, trying to hear past the blood rushing in her ears and the rasp of her own breathing.
There
. A faint, high wail, like the wind keening through the towers up the pass. Except there was no wind tonight. Shoving the elk skin aside, she stood and strode to the window, where she unbarred the shutters and pushed them outward with a creak, a brief, alarming sense of déja` vu stirring within her. Beyond the wallwalk outside, the steep, barren slope descended like a swell of ice to the forest’s dark edge. Snow-covered peaks ran northwestward to her right, gleaming feebly beneath a sky as black as a hole to the underworld.
It was singing. Long high notes in a minor key, following a patternless melody. And this, too, felt familiar. It grated across her senses like steel across slate, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. From the wallwalk came the scritch of footsteps as the guard patrolled his circuit. He met his fellow halfway to the corner tower and they halted briefly in quiet conversation.
The song grew louder, promising comfort, relief, and a sense of belonging, even as it filled her with aversion. A tingling started over her heart, spread across chest and shoulders, and ran down her spine and the backs of her arms. Perhaps she should close the shutters and go back to bed.
She stayed, caught by the tantalizing hope that somehow all her sad, lonely days would soon end, and her life would be changed forever. The music grew louder, but the guards paid no heed. Out over endless forest, something flickered, vanished, then flickered again, and a skein of crimson light undulated across the horizon, pale at first, but growing steadily brighter. Another joined it, then another. Crimson, violet, azure, each wove among the others with serpentine grace. Her breath caught. The eerie music played over her like icy wings, and the tingling at her breast became a tiny fire.
Below her, one of the men said, “There’s those lights again. Remember I was tellin’ you?”
“Aye. They’re winter lights, like I said.”
“Never seen winter lights like that before. And not this early in the season, either.”
The mystical serpents drew nearer, vast veils of color billowing overhead.
She stared enrapt, floating on tone and light, on long plaintive purples, discordant
trills of scarlet, and low vibrating blues. They filled her mind, her heart,
her vision, drawing away the weight and wetness of her flesh, until she became
as dry and light as a puffball, ascending into the empty hole of sky to dance among
them—
And still that fire burned upon her breast, illumining scenes from the lower, harder reality through which she now seemed to be walking, even as she floated among the colors in the sky. The door of her chamber swung open before her, revealing the shadow-swathed corridor beyond. Narrow stairs gave way to the dimly lit interior of the Great Room, scattered with the humps of sleeping servants, which gave way in turn to the cold silent space of the inner yard, and then the outer, with its pale clumps of weed and dead bramble. And finally, here was the old north gate looming before her, closed and recently fitted with brackets and a heavy bar, now in place.
She reached for that bar and suddenly a man blocked her way, his scarred face and tender eyes as inexplicably familiar as the rest of this. For a moment he looked like Cooper, though Coop’s face was not scarred. Then, as in the way of dreams, he shifted into Abramm, whose face was not scarred, either. The man was neither of them, and yet, in some strange way, as close to her as both. Reality shifted—
And she floated in the sky again, the veils of color swirling about her, welcoming
her into their embrace as she watched a young woman robed in white far
below, standing in the Holding’s dark and lonely outer yard before the north gate
and a man whose body blazed with a hideous white light. Pale curls tumbled to
the woman’s hips, and phosphorescent mist enfolded her. Why did she just stand
there? Why didn’t she push around the blazing figure to lift the bar and open the
gate? And—no! Now a second man with short gray hair and a salt-and-pepper
goatee burst from the keep, clad only in jerkin and britches, his chest afire with
the same ugly white light that shone on the figure blocking her way.
“Hurry!” she yelled at the woman. “If you don’t get through that gate, they’ll
catch you and take it all away!”
Again she stood on the ground, facing the gate and the scar-faced man who’d stopped her. From this vantage, only his eyes flashed with the hideous light—a light she hated. And loved. He’d stopped her when she had sought to flee this prison before, she recalled—an evil being who would deny her all the warmth and comfort and companionship the Others wished to give her.
Anger flared through her detachment. “Why do you hold me here!? Why do you hate me? Why won’t you leave me alone and let me pass!”
“I do not hold you here, Carissa, daughter of Lissandra. Nor do I hate you. But I will let you go, if that is truly your wish.”
“Yes! Get out of her life,” the voices whispered around the part of Carissa that
drifted in the sky. “Let her pass! Free her to have what she has longed for all these
years.” While to the woman at the gate, they said, “You must tell him these things
yourself. Say the words, and you’ll never see him again.”
Yet no sound came from the tiny woman far below. She simply stood there,
facing the bright figure, its hideous light reflecting off the tear tracks on her face. Behind her, the tall man with the goatee finally reached the outer yard and started
toward her, a small, dark-haired woman now hurrying in his wake.
“Go!” the voices shrieked. “Do you want to belong to something? Do you want
to be loved by someone? Then tell him to get out of your way and go through the
gate! NOW!”
But still Carissa stood, staring at the scar-faced man and weeping at her inability to speak the words that would grant her the freedom she craved.
And suddenly here was Cooper pulling her into his warm, strong arms and hugging her to his chest like a rag doll, though she could hardly feel him at all . . .
as she floated high above and watched the lights withdraw into the
distance from which they’d come. Their weird song faded until all that remained
was silence and a shifting mist suspended between the forest and the eternal darkness
overhead
.
Abruptly she was back, returned to all the weight and wet of flesh chilled by a coldness such as she had never known, even though Cooper was holding her tightly, praying for Eidon to bring her back to them.
The scar-faced man’s voice whispered in her heart,
“Go to your brother,
Carissa. He has what you desire, and he will need what you can give. I will make
a way for you.”
“Fire and Torment, lass!” Cooper muttered over her head. “You’re like ice!”
“We’ve got to get her inside to the fire.” That was Elayne.
Cooper was picking her up now, carrying her in his strong arms back up the yard toward the inner gate. Halfway to the keep, she found her voice. “Coop?”
“What is it, lass?”
“I’m ready to go south now.”
Five nights after the episode at Graymeer’s, Trap pressed a spot on the paneling in the back of the royal bedchamber and a portion of wall swung silently inward. A musty stairway descended from there, so narrow its cold brick walls brushed Abramm’s shoulders as he followed his liegeman downward. Behind him, he left the partially sewn suit that was still not correctly fitted, the ever-changing guest list, the endless and picayune protocols, the dance steps, the unending meetings with peers, advisors, supplicants, hopeful young ladies, and his own servants. He could not believe all the fuss—and all the time consumed—for something that was little more than entertainment. One would think he was in the midst of planning some massive campaign on which the fate of the realm depended, and he’d been hard pressed not to express his irritation with it all.
Now as they descended, with the light from Trap’s kelistar casting weird, jerking shadows around them, he felt like a boy again, hiding from his tutor. Trap led him to a locked room furnished with chest, cot, and chair beside a full-length mirror. They left it twenty minutes later, transformed from Kiriathan nobles to Southdock ruffians of Esurhite extraction. Stained and worn woolens hid beneath heavy full-length cloaks. His skin already deeply tanned from his weeks at sea, Abramm had only to blacken his beard with charcoal and pull a black curly wig over head. The wig, tied into the standard knot of an Esurhite warrior, was further secured by a floppy, wide-brimmed hat.
“Just don’t let anyone get a good look at your eyes,”
Trap had warned. Though he’d appended the disclaimer that even then it was unlikely they’d guess the truth.
“No one will be looking for the king of Kiriath under all that!”
“And certainly not in the company of one as rascally looking as you,”
Abramm had retorted, for Trap’s disguise included a bushy black beard that Abramm thought looked obviously fake. Trap maintained it wouldn’t matter where they were going.
If he was no more at ease with this endeavor than he’d been when Abramm first suggested it, at least he was resigned. And confident that he’d prepared, as much as it was possible to prepare, for the dangers that might meet them in the lawless warrens into which they ventured.
A second long stairway dead-ended in a small stone chamber where Trap extinguished the orblight and they stood in silence, listening for any sounds that might betray a furtive follower. After a few moments, Abramm heard the rustle of his companion’s clothing, then a faint clank and muffled rattle. Moments later a breath of air washed across his face and stirred the edges of his robe as the heavy stone door swung outward. In utter darkness they stepped through the opening, waiting again to be sure they were alone before closing the door.
The ground sloped steeply away from them now, and they descended through the barely visible support stilts of the building overhead, emerging onto a muddy track on the fringes of Portside. Moments later they strode among the bustle of men unloading one of the many newly arrived vessels lined up along the waterfront and from there made their way to the Avenue of the Keep and beyond into the maze of twisting stairways, narrow doglegged passages, and dank, muck-bottomed drainage tunnels that was Southdock. The air grew chill and so strong with the kraggin’s stench it was hard to breathe. Shreds of mist floated eerily around them, reflecting the feeble illumination of the occasional lantern or lighted second-story window. Communal fires started up in squares and alley ends by the homeless only added to its netherworld feel. The place literally crawled with staffid, scuttling into the street litter alongside the rats and slinking cats, while feyna rustled in the eaves overhead, peering down with tiny, coal-like eyes.
It seemed to Abramm that they walked forever—Trap was likely taking a circuitous route to lose any followers—but finally they reached a square on the riverbank, tucked at the foot of the dark, looming bulk of Bunman Bridge, first of the nine spanning the river. Lights winked along its top edge, curving in a line across the starlit sky, while beneath it, the first of its three supporting arches swept up in dark silhouette against the river’s gray gleam. A group of raggedy men and women congregated about a central fire pit, talking quietly, but Trap ignored them, skirting the gathering to head for a ramshackle threestory boardinghouse on the far side, and then around back to its rundown stable. Two men armed with rapiers stood guard, one of them nodding a greeting to Trap as he and Abramm entered.
Inside, a narrow aisle led past the loft ladder and several stalls into a highceilinged room smelling of straw and grain and horse. Orblights clustered near the ceiling, illumining a clutter of crates and barrels and about ten roughly dressed attendees, most of them men. Others were coming in behind them as Abramm and his liegeman found seats on bales of straw stacked at the back.
Trap leaned close and spoke quietly in the Tahg, “The nobles usually gather up in the loft, where it’s darker and folk leave them alone. I thought it best not to draw undue attention, but if you’d be more comfortable—”
“This is fine,” Abramm said, studying their surroundings with interest. Trap kept his expression neutral and said no more. Not long after they had settled, a black-haired, thick-bodied man in a green woolen jerkin and dark trousers approached and introduced himself. “Seth Tarker. I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before.” His beard, Abramm noted, was nearly as bushy and wild as Trap’s fake one.
“I’m called Anahdi,” Trap said, his Kiriathan suddenly heavier with the Tahg lilt than Abramm had ever heard it. “I’ve been coming for about a week.”
“Anahdi, huh? What kind of name is that?”
“Esurhite.”
The man’s brows drew slightly downward. “We don’t get many Esurhites here.”
“The name is Esurhite, but I’m actually Kiriathan. I was night-shipped as a boy.”
“Ahh.” Tarker’s gaze drifted to Abramm, and Trap took his cue.
“This is my friend Alaric, and no, that is
not
an Esurhite name. His mother was Kiriathan.”
“And her night-shipped, too, then?” Tarker guessed.
“Aye.”
He nodded. “So you’ve just come in then, on one of the new ships.”
“We did,” Abramm said, increasing the Tahg lilt in his own speech. Trap glanced at him blandly, but Abramm read the warning in his eyes.
Too late. Tarker was already on the trail. “Wouldn’t have been
Wanderer,
would it?”
“Aye. It was,” Abramm admitted. Trap was now focused on the folk surrounding them, clearly displeased. In their turn, the other attendees had broken off their own conversations to listen with sudden interest.
“You were there?” Tarker said. “You saw what happened?”
“We were there,” Abramm allowed. And it seemed now that every eye in the room was upon him.
