The Shadow Within (51 page)
Gillard. The Table of Lords. The Mataio and their accusation. My own revelation
of the truth
.
Abramm’s stomach tied itself instantly into a knot. “If I go back without the corpse no one will believe a word I say. Not about the morwhol nor the corridor nor anything. And they already blame me for all of it.”
“If you leave now, they’ll say you’ve run away. And if I may say so, sir, I have to wonder if they wouldn’t be right.”
Abramm stared at him, stricken.
“The Table won’t wait. If you don’t go back there now and face them, your enemies will defeat you.”
“But if that thing is killing my people—”
“Your concern is noble. But as I said, I believe it’s a distraction.”
“You think Rhiad used the beast to lure me up here just so I wouldn’t admit what I am? He’s the one who accused me in the first place!”
“Not Rhiad—he’s only wrapped up in his desire to ruin you. But the thing that lives in that amulet on his throat? That one knows exactly what it’s doing.”
“Rhu’ema, you mean. But they’ve been trying to expose my secret, too. Now you’re saying they want to hide it?”
“Abramm, you stand on the verge of publicly proclaiming the truth of who you really are. A proclamation that will profoundly impact us all. The rhu’ema know this.” He paused. “You don’t know if this beast is even alive, or if it is, where it’s gone. Eidon does. But he’s chosen not to give you that information, and without it there’s little you can do. Which tells me you must dismiss it for now and turn your mind to the more important task.”
“Go back to Springerlan and tell the lords I wear a shield.”
“Yes, sir.”
__________
As soon as Ulgar disappeared into the column of green light, Carissa lunged for the orb, plucked it off the floor, then pressed herself back against the wall, clutching the talisman and her torn tunic to her breast, fighting back the desire to laugh hysterically.
She could hardly believe Rennalf had caught her, only to let her go . . . until the emotion waned and she realized she’d only received a reprieve. With the door locked and Rennalf’s henchman outside, she wasn’t going anywhere. And the fact of his imminent return precluded the possibility of her inducing her guards to open the door.
Sagging against the wall, she contemplated the faint shaft of light across the room from her. Ulgar had said the waymaker was growing tired, that the corridor wasn’t working as well as it might. But he’d also said reinforcements were coming, which meant she didn’t have a lot of time. If only there was some way to turn it off—
She opened her hand around the orb she’d been clutching and looked down at it. Its white glare had dimmed considerably. In Jarnek, she’d overheard talk that her possession of this very orb had been what enabled her to shove Rhiad into the corridor he had opened in that cistern, triggering its destruction. Perhaps it would do the same with this corridor.
Except I have no
one to shove through this time. Only myself
. Which defeated the purpose. Throwing the orb into the column of light might do the job . . . but then again it might not, leaving her trapped here without even that protection. Still, the thing had flared strongly when Rennalf had tried to pull her through earlier, so maybe just bringing it near enough would trigger something. . . .
Interlacing the broken chain around and through her fingers, she stood and faced the column, aware again of its buzz grating against her skin and teeth and ears. New uncertainties gave her pause. What if she were pulled in and sent on to Balmark? Would she even go to Balmark? What if the whole thing just exploded as it had in Esurh?
She stood there chewing her lip and rolling the orb between thumb and forefinger. Whoever Rennalf sent back for her, he’d bring a soporific, something that worked faster than mead. Then he’d take her through, and shortly Rennalf would apply himself to the matter of siring an heir. Swallowing hard, she decided the quick death of an explosion—even lifelong madness—would be better than that.
With another gulp she clenched her fists and approached the column. It was like forcing her way through a swarm of invisible bees. The buzzing beat against her skin and sucked the air from her lungs. The orb’s heat flared against the backs of her clenched fingers, but she kept going, gratified to see the green column flicker—
Suddenly she found herself facing a crowd of people she did not know. People of exquisite beauty, with kind faces and intelligent eyes, people who offered by some wordless communication a haven of safety and belonging the likes of which she had yearned for all her life. But the moment she started forward again, the orb flared hotly. She’d have to drop it to go on. Uncertainty returned. Why did it seem the people had no faces? They were smiling. Their eyes were warm and kindly. How was it she could not tell one from another, could not tell if they were male or female? How was it they kept reminding her of thin ice on Balmark Pond?
She stood buffeted by the invisible bees, unable to hear the voices of those before her for their buzzing. Then orb’s heat seared against her knuckles, the buzzing crescendoed, and as if it were only a painting on a wall, the crowd flattened and tore open before her, revealing an endless black hole and a distant pale figure flying toward her.
Horrified, she was already flinging herself back when he was upon her, looming over her as a white wind came up behind him, seeming to ignite the very air as it bowled her over, sweeping her along until she slammed into a wall, buffeted there for an instant by a terrible screaming gale— Then it was gone. She lay in utter darkness on her side, pressed into the corner made by wall and floor, the broken chain of her necklet still laced through her fingers, the Terstan orb lying hard and warm beneath her palm.
The etherworld corridor’s annoying buzz was gone, along with its light. Outside the hall guards banged on the door. “My lord? Everythin’ all right?”
The latch rattled.
Beside her something snuffled and whined. She heard a grunting rasp, a rustle of clothing, and knew that someone had definitely come through the corridor before it was destroyed.
It worked!
The thought gave her a thrill of satisfaction, and the comfort of knowing that at least she wouldn’t be back in Balmark anytime soon. Even if she did get beaten for destroying her husband’s precious Dark Way.
She heard the man groan and sensed his movement, her hand tightening reflexively about the orb and bringing it to her chest as the strange doglike whining continued. Then a rasping croon broke the silence. “Are you all right, my pet? Is my little one all right?”
Silence followed, then a whine and snuffle, and the voice spoke again. “See? He didn’t get us after all. The master saved you.” Another whine. “I don’t know. Probably somewhere in the Highlands. But we will find him again, and by then you will be much stronger.”
He’s not one of Rennalf’s!
she thought, a wondrous joy flooding her.
Outside the latch rattled again as both guards called more urgently. “M’ lord! Are ye all right?”
The voice beside her croaked an affirmative, then told them to open the door. There was a pause. The men explained they had no key. Her companion told them to hack it down. She thought they’d laugh, or question, but after only a few moments the ring of axes on wood echoed around her and shortly the door swung outward. An arc of ruddy torchlight swept into the room and over the man who had just come through the Dark Way—clearly not one of Rennalf’s. The left half of his face had been seared into an inhuman mask, the scalp above it puckered and hairless, attached to a right half that appeared completely normal.
The guards took one look at him and erupted into protest. “Here, sir! Who’re ye?! Where’s Lord Rennalf?”
The wretch barked at them to be silent and back away, and they obeyed with eerie docility. A prickle crept up Carissa’s spine as she realized he was using the power of Command. Not unexpected for a warlock. Which he must be, to have come through the malfunctioning corridor.
But you have no business
here,
she thought at him.
So hurry up and walk away
. Rennalf’s guards would surely follow him as soon as they were able, leaving her free to slip away unnoticed. He stepped out of view into the hallway and she waited, listening intently, imagining him striding away, down the stair and into the Great Room. Soon the guards would follow. So focused was she on this scenario that she nearly cried aloud when the rasping voice sounded again, still outside the opening. “If you want to find him again, my pet, we must go.”
He pulled the door back farther, and for the first time Carissa saw the small doglike thing that must have come through the Shadow path with him. It stood in the midst of the room, staring at her like a spaniel on point. But it was no dog.
It reminded her of a small stoop-shouldered old man, its forequarters too large for its slender, almost withered hindquarters. A dark ruff bristled at its shoulders and head, framing front-set green eyes and a short snout filled with small, sharp teeth. A tab of hair tufted its lower jaw, and the dark bristle continued down its front legs, ending just above wide, long-toed . . . paws? The green eyes were fixed upon her, their stare kindling a new and nameless dread in her heart. This thing knew her somehow and meant her ill. The longer she lay locked in its gaze, the more certain she became of that, images of death and blood and unspeakable savagery leaking into her mind. Her own death. Elayne’s. Cooper’s. Her brother’s . . .
Fear rolled through her in waves, shortening her breath, speeding her pulse, tightening the muscles in her belly. Slowly she sat up, seeking to gain some advantage over it. And failing.
“What is it now?” came the rasping voice. The scarred man stepped into the doorway, bringing a torch from one of the hall sconces. The sudden brightness forced Carissa to look away even as the man hissed with surprise. “YOU!” he croaked.
She blinked up at him, shielding her eyes from his light, surprised in her turn and now alarmed.
He knows me? How?Was I wrong about Rennalf sending
him? Is he one of those waymakers they were talking about?
The man seemed to grimace—or maybe smile—and his rough voice tried to wheedle, “I’m hurt you don’t recognize me, Carissa. After all the time we spent in Esurh? All the times I saved you?”
She stared at him, bewildered, struggling to see past the scars and the scalp and the opposing half head of gray hair to something familiar. His words whirled through her mind like pieces of a carpenter’s puzzle that refused to go together.
Esurh? Saved me? Was he some ship hand? Some minor servant I
didn’t notice?
And then it hit her: “Danarin!” Or so was the name by which she’d known him all those months he’d used her to get himself close to Abramm. His real name, she’d learned at the last, was Rhiad, right-hand man to High Father Saeral, sent to kidnap her brother and bring him back to the Mataian leader for possession. The same Rhiad she’d shoved through that first etherworld corridor, come back to her now in the destruction of the second, like some sort of bizarre cursing.
He smiled at her. “You do remember. Good.” And then to the beast as it slowly sank into a crouch at his feet: “Here, now! None of that!”
The creature’s head swiveled from her up to Rhiad with a growling bleat. “No,” Rhiad said again, stepping past it to seize Carissa by the arm and haul her upright. “I have another use for her. One you’ll like much better. She’s very important to him, you know.”
The beast’s green eyes returned to Carissa, the tip of its long tail flicking back and forth. She shuddered, having no idea what Rhiad was talking about, and not wishing to. She just wanted to get away from him, wanted to push him off her and flee. But somehow she knew the little beast, small as it was, would not allow that. Even if she could escape Rhiad’s verbal powers of coercion. Thus when he pressed her forward with his hard, pinching grip, she went unresisting, out the door, past the startled but immobile guards and down the stair to the empty kitchen to pilfer the supplies left by Rennalf’s men. From there they went to the stable, where he made her saddle Heron and mount, then bound her hands with a leather cord, which he tied to a metal ring on the saddle’s hump. He took for himself Cooper’s horse, Arrow, who snorted and kicked and sidled away, until the strange little beast came round and caught the animal’s gaze with his green eyes. Then the horse stood still and trembling while Rhiad loaded him up, climbed aboard, and invited his pet to ride in his lap. It made the six-foot standing leap as if it were nothing. Finally, covering the beast with his cloak and taking up Heron’s knotted reins, Rhiad led them into the rainy afternoon and down to the main road. There he turned toward Aely and Old Woman’s Well and the junction to Springerlan, and there Carissa dropped the first of her rings.
Upon his return to Springerlan, Abramm lingered in the stable, brushing Warbanner down as was his habit. The grooms had protested the first time he’d elected to do it, but by now had grown accustomed to his eccentricities and left him alone as he required. Today they left him alone even more than he required, having cleared the building shortly after he’d tied Banner outside his great, straw-filled box stall and begun to brush.
Now, except for Trap standing quietly on guard some distance off, he was alone, enwrapped in the comfortable silence of horses snorting and thumping and rustling in their straw. Outside, normal activity still bustled, but no riders entered this wing of the stable, and no groom or stableboy dared intrude upon its sanctity. Even when the last light of day faded and the lanterns were brought, they were hung surreptitiously only at the ends of the aisle. No one came in with one to light the middle.
Because they wished to honor his desire for privacy? Or because they were afraid of him? More likely the latter, for there was much to fear in the cloud of suspicion and heresy now boiling around Abramm.
He didn’t know why he was down here dragging his feet. Hadn’t he decided his course back at Graymeer’s? He would confess at last all of who he was and trust Eidon to deliver him from what seemed certain disaster. But the closer he’d gotten to Springerlan, the greater had grown the burden of his fear, and the more tenuous his resolve. True, it seemed his use of the Light to destroy the corridor had also killed all the spawn that lived in Graymeer’s and evaporated the mist to boot. But he’d already heard that the Mataio was claiming that for its own victory—the brotherhood had been conducting round-the-clock worship vigils since the ball last night—and Abramm had no proof of his work in it. And without the morwhol, no one had reason to believe he was not what all his enemies were saying: the cause of last night’s disaster at Graymeer’s and the deaths—already exaggerated fivefold from the truth—wrought by the monster. He was a Terstan heretic in league with the Shadow, a madman who had the audacity to claim he had actually been the White Pretender, a purveyor of evil and destruction who must be removed.