Black dawn (15 page)

What she really wanted at that moment was to dash out and
confront
Sylvia. Grab her and shake her until she coughed up some answers.

But she'd already tried that once-and it had got
ten her thrown into slavery. She gritted her teeth
and edged closer to the entrance crack. It was dan
gerous and she knew it, but she wanted to see
Sylvia.

When she did, it was another shock. Sylvia always wore slinky tops and fashionable jeans, but
the outfit she had on now was completely medieval.
More, she looked comfortable in it, as if these
strange clothes were natural to her-and flattering.

She was wearing a sea-green tunic that had long
sleeves and fell to the ground. Over that was an
other tunic, a shade paler, this one sleeveless and
tied with a belt embroidered in green and silver. Her hair was loose in a fine shimmering mass, and
she had a falcon on her wrist.

A real falcon.
With a little leather hood on its
head and leather ties with bells on its feet.
Maggie stared at it, fascinated despite
herself
.

That whole fragile act Sylvia puts on, she
thought. But you have to be
strong
to hold up a big bird like that.

"Oh, we don't have to rush back just yet," Sylvia was saying, moving closer to
Delos
. "Now that I'm
here, we could go a little farther. This looks like a
nice path; we could explore it."

Cady, Maggie thought. If they go to the end of
the path, they'll see her.
Sylvia
will see her.

She had just decided to jump out of the cave
when
Delos
spoke.

"I'm tired," he said in his flat, cold way. "We're
going back now."

"Oh, you're tired," Sylvia said, and her smile was
almost sly. "You see. I told you not to use your
powers so much.

"Yes,"
Delos
said,
even
more
shortly. "I
remember."

Before he could say anything else, Sylvia went on. "I forgot to mention, a funny thing happened.
A guy named Gavin dropped in on the hunting
party a little while ago."

Gavin.

Maggie's stomach plummeted.

He got away. And he saw everything.

And he must have moved
fast,
she thought ab
sently.
To hook around and get to a hunting party
on the other side of this ledge-in time for Sylvia
to come find
Delos
.

"You probably don
I know him," Sylvia was say
ing. "But I do. He's the slave trader I use to get
girls from Outside. He's normally pretty good, but
today he was all upset. He said a group of slaves
got loose on the mountain, and somehow his part
ner
Bern
got killed."

You
. . .
witch,
Maggie thought. She couldn't
think of a swear word strong enough.

Sylvia knew. There was no doubt about it. If
Gavin was her flunky, and if he'd told her that
Bern
was dead, he must have told her the rest. That
Bern
had been killed by Prince Delos himself, fried with
blue fire, and that there were two slave girls in
front of
Delos
at the time.

She knew all along, Maggie thought, and she was
just trying to trap
Delos
. But why isn't she afraid
of him? He's the prince, after all. His father's dead;
he's in charge. So how come she
dares
to set up
her little traps?

"We were all concerned," Sylvia was going on,
tilting her silvery head to one side. "All the
nobles,
and especially your great-grandfather. Loose slaves
can mean trouble"

"How sweet of you to worry,"
Delos
said. From
what Maggie could see of his face, it was expres
sionless and his voice was dry and level. "But you
shouldn't have. I used the fire for practice-on the
other slave trader.
Also on two slaves.
They interrupted me when I wanted quiet."

Maggie sat in helpless admiration.

He did it. He outsmarted her. Now there's noth
ing she can say. And there's no way to prove that
he didn't kill us. Gavin ran; he couldn't have seen
anything after that.

He saved us.
Delos
saved Cady and me
both
again
.

"I see." Sylvia bowed her head, looking sweet and
placating, if not quite convinced. "Well, of course
you had every right to do that. So the slaves are
dead."

"Yes. And since they were only slaves, why are
we standing here
talking
about them? Is there something about them I don't know?"

"No, no. Of course not," Sylvia said quickly. "You're right; we've wasted enough time. Let's go back."

In her mind, Maggie heard Gavin's voice.
"It's not like they were ordinary slaves. If we don't deliver
that maiden we're dead."

So she's
lying
again, Maggie thought. What a sur
prise. But who's the maiden? And why's she so
important?

For that matter, she thought, who's this
great
grandfather
of
Delos
's? When Sylvia mentioned
him it sounded almost like a threat. But if he's a
great-grandfather he's got to be ancient. How are
Sylvia and some old geezer teamed up?

It was an interesting question, but there was no time to think about it now. Sylvia and Delos were
turning away from the cave, Sylvia murmuring
about having to take a look at
Delos
's arm when they got back. In another moment they'd passed
out of Maggie's line of sight and she heard the
crunching noise of feet on slate.

Maggie waited until the last footstep faded, then she held her breath and waited for a count of
thirty. It was all she could stand. She ducked
through the entrance crack and stood in the open
air.

It was fully dark now. She was very nearly blind.
But
she
could sense the vast emptiness of the valley
in front of her, and the solidity of the mountain at her back.

And she should have felt relieved, to be outside
and not caught-but instead she felt strangely sti
fled. It took her a moment to realize why.

There was no sound at all. No footsteps, no
voices, and no animals, either.
And that was what
felt eerie.
It might be too cold at night for mosqui
toes and gnats and flies, but there should have been
some
animal
life to be heard.
Birds heading into
the trees to rest, bats
heading
out.
Deer feeding.
Bucks charging around-it was autumn, after all.

There was nothing. Maggie had the unnerving
feeling that she was alone in a strange lifeless
world swathed in cotton, cut off from everything
real.

Don't stick around and think about it, she told
herself sternly. Find Cady. Now!

Gritting her teeth, she thrust the water bag into
her jacket and started back. By keeping close to the
mountains bulk on her left and feeling ahead with her foot before each step, she could find her way in the dark.

When she reached the ledge, her stomach tight
ened in dismay.

Terrific.
Going down in pitch darkness-there's going to be no way to see the footholds. Oh, well, I'll feel for them. The worst that can happen is I fall a hundred feet straight down.

"Cady," she whispered. She was afraid to talk too
loudly; the hunting party might be anywhere and
sound could carry surprisingly well on a moun
tain slope.

"Cady? Are you okay?"

Her heart thumped slowly five times before she heard something below. Not a voice, just a stirring,
like cloth on rock, and then a sigh.

Relief flooded through Maggie in a wave that was
almost painful. Cady hadn't died or been
abducted
.
because
Maggie had left her. "Stay there," she whis
pered as loudly as she dared. "I'm coming down.
I've brought water."