The Dark Remains (28 page)

The shadow moved, raising long, gangling arms above the small blot of its head.

For the first time he could remember, Beltan slowed his pace, then came to a halt. Gray grass whispered around him, stroking his bare shins, and a great drowsiness fell over him.
Lie down
, the grass seemed to whisper.
Let us grow over you, and in you, and we shall be you, and you us. Come, lie down
.

His knees grew weak; he could feel them buckle.

The shadow gestured again; the motion seemed more urgent now. Then a queer thought struck Beltan, and his legs went rigid. Perhaps it was
his
shadow beckoning him. After all, he had yet to glimpse it in this land. But that didn’t seem right. The shadow was hunched and crooked, its arms too long for its body, its head too small. Beltan looked down; his own body was lean, tall, and straight. He looked up again.

The shadow was gone.

A muted sensation of dread filled him. Since he had been in this place, Beltan had run in only one direction. Now, with great effort, he turned from his path and ran in the direction of the shadow.

It was impossible to tell if he was going the right way. Everything looked the same. Was he too far to the left? He considered turning, then thought better of it. Right—it was to the right he needed to go.

Had he altered in his course three steps sooner, he would never have found the door. Instead, as he turned, his left hand grazed against something hard and solid. He halted, then reached a hand out, searching through gray air, until at last his fingers found it: smooth, dense.

The door was the exact color of the air. Even right upon the thing, it was difficult to see against the grayness all around. He only knew it was a door by touch: frame, hinges, latch. It stood alone on the empty plain.

Beltan gripped the latch, then paused. What lay beyond the door? What if it was only the same colorless
landscape on the other side? But the shadow was there no longer. It had to have passed through the door.

Still he hesitated. Was this not the place he belonged? He did not remember how he knew, only that he did. He had murdered his own father through deceit, stabbing him when his back was turned. What could there possibly be beyond the door for one such as he?

But there
was
something. He couldn’t remember what it was, although it seemed there was a face, a voice, a name. A man. Yes, there was a man beyond the door, his eyes as gray as this land, but not empty, and not cold. The man was searching—searching for him.

Beltan let out a wordless cry. The sound rose as it issued forth from him, a great, bullish bellow, until it was like a wind that roared across the Gray Land. The grass bent down; the air trembled. He tore open the door, then flung himself through.

At first Beltan thought he was still in the Gray Land. For a while he drifted; perhaps he had fallen down in the grass and was even then fading away. But the light around him was tinged scarlet, not gray, and there was sound: a rhythmic
whir
, as of the beating of great wings. Then shadows appeared against the light, and he knew he was no longer in Sindanan, but somewhere else.

Only after a time did he realize that the echoing sound he heard was a voice. One of the shadows was speaking.

“… at this, Doctor. There’s a three hundred percent increase in both the Alpha and Theta ranges compared to yesterday. And he’s demonstrating significant rapid eye movement. He’s entered a dream state.”

The man’s voice was oddly harsh, and the words it spoke were strange and guttural. Beltan felt he shouldn’t have been able to understand the words, except somehow he did.

The shadows shifted, and another voice answered, a woman’s, speaking the same hard, unlovely words as the first. “I’m not entirely surprised. Our tests have shown the effects of the alternate blood serum on the neurological system as well as the gross tissue level. And human physiology is not so very different than that of chimpanzees. He had entered a lighter coma stage as it was. I expected he would begin to wake up once the treatment was administered.”

“Then do you think we should speak in front of him, Doctor? What if he can hear us?”

Laughter. A pretty sound, unlike the language. “Oh, he can hear us all right. He’s close now, very close. But he won’t be able to understand a word we’re speaking. Which is unfortunate, as we so very much wish to talk with him.”

“But the linguists will work with him. I’ve heard they already have a vocabulary of over three hundred words.”

“Well, soon it will be much more than that.”

The voices ceased then, and the shadows drifted away, leaving only the ruddy light. Beltan began to drift again, then jerked himself back.

No, you can’t go back to the Gray Land. By Vathris, don’t be such a piteous weakling, Beltan of Calavan. She said you’re close. Close to what? To waking? But you are awake. So open your bloody eyes already
.…

The effort the act required was staggering, more agonizing than any battle he had ever fought. With a moist, parting sound, his eyelids rolled open. Crimson light bled to white.

At first he could see nothing, and he wondered if he was blind. Then he realized he was staring upward into
some kind of lamp. It was terribly bright, its light far more intense than any torch or oil lamp he had ever seen before. It was more like the magical lights he had sometimes witnessed Melia conjure, although this light was stabbing and harsh, with none of the shimmering beauty of enchantment.

He turned his head slightly—this act again a brutal war only barely won—and the light dimmed, receding to the corner of his vision. Gradually, his smarting eyes adjusted, and he found he could see.

Beltan lay in a white room. Walls, floor, ceiling: Everything was white. It was difficult to look at. Every surface was strange to him: sharp, smooth, and too bright for his eyes. He was forced to squint, and a feeling of nausea came over him. Everything was too square, too regular. It made him feel trapped.

He
was
trapped. Beltan tried to sit upright, but he could not. It was more than mere weakness. Something held him down, pressing him to the odd, angled bed in which he lay. He craned his neck, shut his eyes against a wave of dizziness, then opened them again.

He was naked, that much had been real. The bed beneath him was made of steel, and he was strapped to it with lengths of a shiny cloth he did not recognize. Either he was very weak, or the cloth was far stronger than it looked. Or perhaps both. His body was thin, his ribs showing plainly, the ends of his bones jutting beneath his skin. He looked like an old man.

Tubes sprang forth from the flesh of his arms like worms. The tubes were clear like glass, but obviously flexible in nature, so they could not be glass after all. The tubes coiled above him, leading to bladders that hung from a steel rack, and which contained various liquids, most clear, but one pale green, like emeralds in water.

He studied the bladders and thought he understood. The liquids dripped down the tubes and flowed into his
veins. This was unlike the tube they had placed in his phallus, which was obviously intended to collect his piss. Beltan was not one to necessarily assume magic in things he did not understand, but it was hard not to wonder if he wasn’t being held by some kind of wizard.

Being tied down to the steel bed made him think of dead knights he had helped to carry off countless battlefields, strapped to their shields. But he wasn’t dead—although it seemed to him he should be. He glanced down at his left side. Shouldn’t there have been a wound there?

A spasm passed through him, the memory of pain. Yes, he was beginning to remember. He had been in Spardis, in the baths, seeking to waylay Dakarreth. Only the Necromancer had been too powerful for him, had forced him down and dug impossibly strong fingers into his side, opening his old wound. Blood had poured forth like warm water on the tiles.

However, the wound was gone now; Beltan searched with his eyes, but he saw only a pale scar snaking across his skin. He felt a cool tingling dance across his flesh.

He wasn’t entirely certain, but he thought he must have awakened again in the baths, but Dakarreth had no longer been there. Instead there had been others bending over him, only it was hard to remember who they were. One had leaned toward him. Beltan remembered laughing, then lifting his head up to press his lips against the other’s.…

I just wanted to tell you that I’m not sorry after all
.

I don’t understand, Beltan. Not sorry for what?

For this
.

He drew in a sharp breath. Travis. Travis Wilder had been there, and so had Lady Grace and the others. But where were they now? He had to find them, to tell them he was all right.

And what will you say to Travis when you face him
,
Beltan? He has not heard the call of the bull—he told you as much. The only reason you kissed him was because you thought you were dying, and you thought you would never have to explain the deed to him. Now here you are, alive. Even when you’re dead you’re a thick-skulled dimwit, Beltan of Calavan
.

He would have to worry about finding a way to beg Travis’s forgiveness for his misdeed later. Right now he had to try to understand where he was and what was happening to him. He could yet end up dead.

A grunting noise reached Beltan’s ears, rising above the sourceless
whir
that droned on the air. The sound came again, along with a metallic rattling. With effort, he turned his head to the right.

It took his numb mind a long moment to understand what he was looking at. Bright metal wires wove back and forth over the frame of a large box raised several feet off the floor. Only when he saw the shadow moving inside did he understand it was a cage.

The thing inside crept to the edge and slipped long, dark, wrinkled fingers through the holes in the wire. The creature was large—nearly as large as a man. It was shaped like a man as well, but oddly distorted. The creature was short-legged and barrel-chested; its head was small and its face jutting. Black, wispy hair covered the creature’s naked body.

Sour dread spilled into Beltan’s empty stomach. Was the thing in the cage a
feydrim?
In some ways it reminded him of the gray, twisted beasts he had fought off at the Rune Gate last Midwinter’s Eve. But the
feydrim
had been fanged and feral, monsters created by the foul magic of the Pale King. Instead, this creature gazed at him with brown eyes that seemed somehow sad and even knowing.

The creature in the cage spread its long, gangly arms. Beltan sucked in a sharp breath. Yes, he knew that gesture.
It was the same one the shadow had made to him in the Gray Land, the shadow that had led him to the door. It was a gesture of welcome.

The animal watched Beltan, waiting. What did it want of him? It was difficult because of his immobility, but Beltan managed to nod toward the creature.

“Hello,” he said, almost surprised he was able to make a sound, although it was as rasping as the call of a vulture.

The thing stood up in the cage. There were two slots at the top, places where food could be dropped into the cage. The animal threaded its curled hands through the slots and stretched its long arms outward. The undersides had been shaved of hair. It was easy to see the white, convoluted scars traveling up and down the creature’s arms.

It seemed the thing was trying to tell him something, as it had in the dream. But what? Then he looked down at his own body and saw the scars left by a score of different wounds he had received in his years as a knight.

He looked back up into sorrowful, intelligent eyes. So manlike this thing, but not a man. And not a monster, either. He remembered the strange words the voices had spoken above him, thinking him asleep.

Our tests have shown the effects … not so very different than that of chimpanzees
.…

Beltan studied the scars on the creature’s outstretched arms. Some of the wounds were still fresh, their edges sewn together with black thread. Yes, certainly they had done their experiments on this creature, this
chin-pasi
, as they called it. Beltan struggled against his restraints, but to no effect. Would they be performing experiments on him as well?

The
chin-pasi
drew its arms back into the cage and sat down. It no longer looked at Beltan. Instead it seemed to stare at one of the walls. Beltan followed its gaze.

The wall was covered with paintings of bones.

He frowned, studying the paintings. The bones seemed to glow against their dark backgrounds, and only after a moment did he realize it was one of the bright white lamps, set into the wall, shining through the paintings.

Beltan had seen enough bones in his life to recognize many of the images. In the middle of the wall was a thighbone, then a hipbone, hands, ribs, and a skull. They looked to be the bones of a tall man.

A shiver crept along Beltan’s naked skin. He looked down at his left hand, strapped next to him. The last joint of the littlest finger was crooked, broken and never reset when he was twelve winters old. He looked back up at the glowing image of the skeleton hand. The littlest finger was also crooked, bent at the last joint.

The bones in the paintings were his own bones. But how could one paint a man’s bones, down to the smallest detail, when they were still in his body? He could see faint outlines around the bones, like the hazy ghosts of flesh. Again, he disliked assuming magic was at work, but it was difficult to see how else these images could have been made. Perhaps if Melia were there, she would have been able to explain it to him.

Or not Melia, but Lady Grace
. Except he wasn’t quite certain why he thought this. Only that, for some reason, he felt Grace would understand.

His eyes moved farther along the wall. More bone paintings, glowing like the first, showing hands, skulls, hips. But these bones were shaped differently than his own. One of the skulls was low, its snout protruding, and the hands below it were long and curled. Surely those bones belonged to the
chin-pasi
in the cage. It still stared at the wall. Was the thing clever enough to recognize its own bones as Beltan had?