The Bone Doll's Twin (53 page)

Ki’s mood didn’t seem to lighten any when Porion and the older boys began telling more tales of the palace ghosts around the hearth that night, elaborating on where the different apparitions were most likely to be found. There were weeping maids and headless lovers at every turn, if all the stories were to be believed, but the most fearsome ghost was that of Mad Agnalain herself.

“Our grandmother wanders these very halls,” Korin said, sitting close beside Tobin as he imparted the tale. “She has a golden crown on her head, and blood runs down from it into her face and over her gown—the blood of all the innocents she sent to the torture chambers and gibbet and crow cages. She has a bloody sword in her hand, and a golden girdle hung with the pricks of all the consorts and lovers she took.”

“How many are there?” asked someone, and it sounded like an old question.

“Hundreds!” everyone chorused.

Judging by the grins being exchanged among the younger boys, Tobin guessed that this was a test to see if the new Companions would show fear. Tobin had been in enough haunted places in his life to know the feel of one; so far he hadn’t sensed anything at all here at the Palace, or even in the royal tombs among the dead.

He stole another glance at Ki, sprawled on the rushes at the edge of the fire-lit circle. He was maintaining a carefully bored expression, but Tobin thought he saw some uneasiness in his friend’s eyes. Perhaps living around Brother for so long hadn’t cured him of his fears, after all.

As the tales went on of floating heads and ghostly hands and unseen lips that blew out lamps in the night, Tobin found he wasn’t feeling all that brave himself. By the time they went back to their huge, shadowy room he was more glad than usual of Ki’s company and for little Baldus on his pallet by their door.

“Have you ever seen a ghost here?” he asked when the other servants had gone away for the night. Molay slept on a pallet outside their door to keep guard.

“Oh, yes! Lots,” the boy said, sounding quite cheerful about it.

Tobin pulled the bed curtains tight, then exchanged a troubled look with Ki. The bed might be large enough for a whole family, but they settled down close enough to touch shoulders all the same.

T
hey were awakened sometime later by ominous scuffling and clacking sounds that came from all directions at once.

“Baldus, what is that?” Tobin called out. Someone had put out all the lamps. He couldn’t see a thing.

The noises grew louder and surrounded the bed. Both boys lurched up onto their knees, back to back.

The unnatural glow of lightstones broke in on them as dead white hands yanked back the bed curtains.

Tobin choked back a cry of alarm. The room was filled with shaggy humped figures that moaned and clacked long white bones together in their hands as they marched around the bed.

The cry quickly turned to a muffled laugh. Even in this light, he recognized Korin and Caliel beneath the black and white paint that covered their faces. They had on long black cloaks and what appeared to be wigs made out of frayed rope. The light came from several lightstones set on long poles that some of the others carried. There were too many for this to be only the Companions; looking more closely, he made out some of the young noble boys and girls who hung about the training grounds. Tobin could smell the wine on them, too. Baldus was crouched on his pallet by the door, both hands pressed over his mouth, but he looked to be shaking with laughter rather than fear.

“Are you ghosts?” Tobin asked, trying hard to keep a straight face.

“We are the ghosts of the Old Palace!” Caliel wailed. “You must prove your worth, New Companion. You and your squire must enter the forbidden chamber and sit on the throne of the mad queen.”

“Very well. Come on, Ki.” Tobin slid out of bed and pulled on his discarded trousers.

Their ghostly escort blindfolded them, then hoisted them up and carried them for what felt like a long way to a cold, quiet place that smelled of rot and the sea.

When Tobin was set on his feet and the blindfold pulled away, he found himself standing beside Ki in a corridor similar to most they’d seen in the Old Palace, except that this one had gone to ruin. The fish pool down its center was empty and choked with dead leaves, and stars showed through holes in the roof overhead. What murals remained on the rain-washed walls were flaking and faded. Before them was a set of doors similar to those at
the front of the Palace, but these were sheathed in gold and sealed with great plugs of lead pounded in around their edges and struck with official-looking imprints.

His captors didn’t look quite so silly in their robes and wigs here.

“This is the old throne room, the forbidden chamber,” Korin intoned. “Here Mad Agnalain had a hundred traitors executed in a single day and sat drinking their blood. Here she took a dozen consorts, then sent them to their dooms. On this very throne she commanded that five hundred crow cages be set up on the high road, from here to Ylani, and that every cage be filled. She still walks these halls, and she still sits upon that throne.” He raised a white hand and pointed at Tobin. “Here, in the sight of these witnesses, you and your squire must join her. You must enter this chamber and sit in the mad queen’s lap or you are not one with us, and no warriors!”

Their escort dragged them through a side door and into a long room where a narrow window stood open. From here, they had to crawl onto a wide ledge high above the gardens and climb into the audience chamber beyond through a broken shutter.

It was a simple enough matter to get into the chamber, but once in, it was as if they’d dropped into a black void. They could see nothing at first, and the echo of every whisper and shuffling step seemed to be swallowed up in endless space around them.

Tobin could hear the others on the ledge outside and knew they were being listened to. Someone tossed in one of the glowing stones, a tiny one that cast light no more than a few feet around. Still, it was better than nothing.

“Tobin, son of Rhius!” a woman’s voice whispered from the darkness.

Tobin jumped as Ki clamped a hand around his wrist.

“Did you hear that?” Ki whispered.

“Yes.”

“Do you think it’s her? Queen Agnalain?”

“I don’t know.” He tried to sense what he felt when Brother was around, but the place just felt drafty and deserted.

“Come on, they’re just playing tricks on us. If there really was a ghost who’d kill us, they wouldn’t send us in, would they?”

“You don’t think so?” muttered Ki, but he followed when Tobin handed him the lightstone and strode off into the darkness.

At first it felt like stepping off a cliff, but with the light-stone behind him and the starlight that filtered in around the shuttered windows to his right, Tobin soon made out the rows of pillars that marched away into the darkness on either side of the long chamber.

This had been Queen Ghërilain’s audience chamber, her throne room. He paused, visualizing the one at the New Palace. The throne there had been at the end farthest from the doors. The doors here should be to his right, so the throne would be to his far left.

“Prince Tobin!” the ghostly voice called. It was coming from his right instead.

He stopped again, recalling the toy palace his father had made for him. It had been a simple box with a roof that lifted off, but inside had been the queen’s throne room. This room. And the throne had been in the middle, not at the end, with the golden tablet of the Oracle beside it. Squinting, he could just make out a dark shape to his right that could be a dais. Suddenly he wanted very much to see that throne, and touch that golden tablet for himself. Even if there was a ghost there, she was his kin.

He turned and bumped into Ki, who jumped and grabbed for him again. “What is it? Did you see something?”

Tobin felt for his friend’s shoulder; sure enough, Ki was shivering.

Putting his mouth close to Ki’s ear, he whispered, “There aren’t any ghosts here. Korin and the others were
just trying to scare us with their stories tonight so we’d be worked up for this. I mean, look what they had on! Who knows better than I do what a real ghost looks like?”

Ki grinned, and for a fleeting moment Tobin considered turning Brother loose here to show the others what a real spirit was capable of. Instead, he raised his voice for the benefit of those listening behind them and said, “Come on, Ki, the throne is just over here. Let’s go visit my grandmother.”

Their footsteps echoed bravely in the unseen vaulting overhead, disturbing some creatures that ruffled the night air with their soft wings. Perhaps it was the spirits of the dead, but if so, they kept their distance.

Just as he’d guessed, the throne stood on a broad platform in the middle of the chamber. It was approached by two stairs and was shrouded in some dark covering.

“We have to sit on the throne,” Ki reminded him. “After you, Your Highness.”

Tobin acknowledged Ki’s mocking bow with a salute Nari would not have approved of and climbed the steps to the throne. As he bent to draw aside the cloth that shrouded it, the dark stuff gathered itself together into a white-faced figure that leaped at him, brandishing a sword and shrieking, “Traitor, traitor, execute him!”

More startled than frightened, Tobin would have tumbled backward down the stairs if Ki hadn’t been there to catch him and push him upright again. Both of them recognized that voice, distorted as it was.

It was Aliya.

“Good—good evening, Grandmother!” he managed, as the rest of the supposed ghosts ran over with their lights to join them. He tried to grasp her hand and kiss it, but she snatched it away.

“Oh, he’s no fun at all!” Aliya cried out, stamping her foot in frustration.

“I told you he’d stand fast!” Korin hugged Tobin off his feet. “You owe me ten sesters, Alben. By the Flame, no
blood of mine is a coward. And you, too, Ki, though I saw you shaking when you went in. Don’t worry; you should have seen Garol.” Korin reached out and pulled off the other squire’s wig. “He fell down the stairs and almost dashed his own brains out.”

“I tripped,” Garol grumbled.

“I nearly did, too,” Tobin admitted. “But only because Aliya surprised me. She hides better than she haunts.”

“I suppose you’d know?” she shot back.

“Yes, I do. Korin, may I see the golden tablet?”

The prince cocked his head. “The what?”

“The golden tablet with the Prophecy of Afra on it. It’s here somewhere beside the throne—”

“There’s nothing like that here.” Korin took Tobin’s arm and walked him around the dais. As he’d said, there was no sign of a tablet. “Come on, you two, we’ve got to celebrate your great triumph here tonight.”

Pleased as he was to have passed the test, Tobin was terribly disappointed not to find the tablet. And how could Korin not know of it, growing up here his whole life? Could his father have been mistaken?

As they walked back toward the window, he twisted around for a final look, then pulled free of the prince and exclaimed, “Oh, look! Korin, look!”

There was a ghost here, after all. The carved throne was undraped now and a woman sat upon it. The jostling and noise of the other Companions seemed to fade away around Tobin as he gazed at her. He didn’t recognize her but he knew who she was: one of Those Who Came Before—no longer just a figure in a box, or a name in a tale, or one of Korin’s silly conjurings, either. This was a ghost as real and knowing as his own twin.

She wore a golden crown and armor of ancient design. Staring at him with eyes as dark and unblinking as Brother’s, she rose and unsheathed the sword that hung at her side, then held it out to him like an offering on her open palms.

And there at the foot of the dais stood the golden tablet, as tall as Tobin was himself. It caught the light like a mirror and the lines of lettering on it shimmered and moved as though they were written in fire. He couldn’t read the script but he knew by heart what they said.

He wanted to walk back and speak to the queen, learn her name and touch the sword she held, but he couldn’t move. He looked around to find everyone staring at him, their faces strange and wary behind their paint. When Tobin looked back at the throne again he saw only darkness. There was no throne, no queen, and no tablet. He was too far away to see anything at all.

Then Ki grinned and said, “You fooled them well, my prince. You even had me looking!”

Korin burst out laughing. “By the Four, cousin, you’re a quick one! You’ve turned our own joke back on us.”

“The little trickster!”

Aliya grabbed Tobin and kissed him on the lips. “You terrible child! You even scared me!”

Tobin couldn’t help stealing a last look back toward the throne as they continued on. He wasn’t the only one to do so.

H
is victory celebration took place in the gardens below, with wine and cakes the Companions had stolen from the kitchens.

The old audience chamber was forbidden ground, the seals on its door real, though no one seemed to know quite why. Korin and Caliel had invented the game years ago, and carried it on in defiance of the king and Master Porion.

Korin and his marauders took Tobin and Ki to a sheltered bank under a tangled overhang of rose hedge. Lying on the soft, damp grass, they passed the wineskins and cakes.

“So you weren’t scared a bit?” Alben jeered.

“Were you when you had to go?” Tobin shot back. “He was! Don’t let him tell you any differently,” Aliya scoffed.

Everyone laughed except Alben, who sniffed and flipped his long, black hair over his shoulder, looking offended.

“It’s because you know of ghosts already, isn’t it?” Lynx asked, made bold by the wine. “I don’t mean any offense, Prince Tobin, but we all know the story. They say your twin was stillborn with her eyes open, or under a caul, and turned demon so that your family had to leave the city. They say the ghost followed you all the way to the mountains. Is it true? Do you really have a demon twin?”

Tobin shrugged. “It’s nothing, really. Just a haunting spirit.”

Ki began to sputter, but Tobin nudged his foot and he subsided.