She strode along, worrying about when she’d be able to ride again. Was there some way she could convince Captain Mapstone that her arm didn’t have to be perfect to ride? How would she ever get her arm in shape to lift that bloody book?
Caught up in her concerns, she rounded a corner and kept striding until, with surprise, she found herself in the dark.
An abandoned corridor. The castle had been added on to over the centuries. Originally it had been more of a fortress keep rather than the large, sprawling structure it now was, but as the castle population shrank in peace-time, inhabitants moved into newer, more spacious sections, abandoning the old corridors.
Karigan had been in some of these deserted corridors once before. The Weapon, Fastion, was her guide. The Weapons, he said, were the only ones who really knew their way through the old sections.
She sighed at the memory of walking through abandoned corridors in the dance of a single candleflame; of a sense of timelessness. It had been a frightening experience and she had no desire to blunder down those dark, ancient passageways again.
She turned around to head back, but a figure hovered on the edge of her vision in the dusky space where light spilled into the dark. Her brooch stirred.
She perceived a swirl of green cloth as the figure swept by her, retreating down the corridor into complete darkness. The ring of boots on stone sounded strange, as though separated from her by the distance of time.
“Wait!”
Wait, wait, wait . . .
Her cry carried into the dark, down countless unknown corridors where, perhaps, no living voice had been heard for a very long time. The footsteps faded out and there was no response. Though she did not like the thought of sending her voice into that darkness again, she tried anyway.
“Hello?”
Hello? Hello? Hello?
And then in answer, only silence.
Who would go running down a pitch black corridor? A ghost?
She swallowed, not really wanting to know, for she had dealt with ghosts before and hoped herself free of them. She hastened from the dark corridor with a shiver, but when she stepped blinking into the lit corridor, she paused. It all could have been her imagination.
Cursing her own curiosity, she stuffed her papers into her sling and grabbed a lamp from a nearby alcove. Shadows leaped when she returned to the abandoned corridor. Light glinted dully off an old suit of plate armor some distance away.
She examined the floor. A layer of dust coated the flagstones—not too thickly, as the air currents that flowed through the active sections of the castle must find their way here—but it was thick enough to pick out distinct footprints. Her own set went a short distance, ser pentined by the tiny footprints of mice. A second set, much like her own, clear and new in the lamplight, ran off into the dark. And there was something more. Karigan knelt, and setting the lamp aside, touched the floor. Splotches of water.
A wet apparition?
Who had run by her? Why hadn’t they acknowledged her?
Then, even as she gazed at the footprints, dust filled them in, erasing their existence. The drops of water evaporated. All this though nothing shifted or swirled, her own footsteps remaining unchanged and clear.
Heart pounding, she grabbed the lamp and exited the corridor, the dark rolling in behind her retreating lamplight.
Imagination. I imagined it all.
But a prickle of premonition on the back of her neck warred with that simple explanation.
The records room was a vaulted chamber of tables and shelves overflowing with books and scrolls and crates of paper. Lamps had trouble illuminating the vast space and shone like small, insignificant orbs. With no windows but arrow slits along one wall, it might as well have been night. A decorative frieze was lost to the shadows, and the torsos of carved figures soaring toward the ceiling were severed in half by light and dark.
A clerk sat at a writing desk. He was so absorbed in his penmanship he hadn’t heard Karigan enter.
“Excuse me,” she said.
The clerk squawked and bounced up from his stool, knocking it over, which in turn pushed over a pile of books on the table behind him. The cascading books toppled a barrel of rolled maps. He squawked again when he saw that the ink of his pen had splattered across his papers. Hastily he grabbed a container of sand to sprinkle on the wet blotches, but the container’s lid fell off, and the entire contents of the container poured out into a little mound on his papers.
The clerk could only stare at the mess.
He was so expressively mortified that Karigan nearly laughed, but knowing it wouldn’t be appreciated, she swallowed it back. She stepped forward and the little man jumped again, eyes wide through his thick specs, and his hand over his heart.
“I’m sorry,” Karigan said, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I thought you were a . . .” But he just trailed off, shaking his head and muttering.
Feeling somewhat responsible for the mess, Karigan set aside Captain Mapstone’s papers on a nearby table and said, “Let me help you.” She set to work righting the map barrel, and re-stacking the books.
The clerk watched her for a moment, then shook himself and tended to his sand-covered papers.
“You don’t get many visitors here, do you?” Karigan said.
“Very few.”
She wasn’t surprised she had startled him, if he wasn’t accustomed to people walking in very often. He’d also been concentrating on his work and was probably unaware of his surroundings. Still, it didn’t account for the way he now darted his gaze about, as though he expected someone to leap out of the shadows at any moment.
Considering the dark ambiance of the place, and what appeared to be a solitary job, it would be easy for one’s imagination to run wild. The ancient surroundings, the life a building could take on of its own—the moans of the structure, its wheezings and exhalations as air currents shifted, the flickering shadows . . .
Yes, all fodder for the imagination.
Had her own imagination been similarly triggered when she stood in the abandoned corridor?
When she placed the last book atop the pile—a dusty volume containing a ten-year-old inventory of castle livestock—she turned to the clerk. He seemed to have the sand situation in hand, but he’d have to copy over the memorandum he’d been writing. The splotches of ink rendered it illegible.
Hoping she wouldn’t spook him again, she said, “I’m sorry you’ll have to start over.”
The clerk sighed and fiddled nervously with his black sleeve guards. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” He then gazed nearsightedly at her. “You’re not Mara.”
“No, I’m Karigan, and I’m helping out Mara and Captain Mapstone. I brought over some documents. And you are?”
“Dakrias Brown, recordskeeper.”
“Tell me, Dakrias, did anyone else come by here shortly before I arrived?”
“No. No one has been here all day, except the chief administrator, and that was hours ago.” He glanced anxiously about. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought I saw someone near here just a few moments ago.”
Dakrias’ gaze turned penetrating. “It happens sometimes.”
“What? You said very few come here and—”
“Yes, I did. I did, indeed. Very few people.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am often here alone,” Dakrias said, “filing records, copying correspondence, that sort of thing. The other clerks call this place the crypt.” He frowned with distaste. “They are all on an upper level, in a more active section of the castle. They have windows. They just don’t understand what it’s like down here for me.”
“Why are you down here away from the rest of administration?”
Dakrias shrugged. “Too much effort to move hundreds of years of census records, and all the birth, marriage, and death registers . . . No one wants to deal with moving it—no one. It’s just easier to leave it be, because they know Dakrias Brown will
take care of it, and they just forget about me. Hmph. They don’t have to be stuck down here.”
His eyes roved about the chamber. “This was once the library, before the castle expanded prior to the Clan Wars.”
A library . . . A dark and gloomy one at that.
As if picking up on her thoughts, Dakrias jabbed his finger toward the ceiling shrouded in shadow. “Used to be domed with glass, but they built right over the top of it.”
Karigan thought she’d like to travel back in time to see how things once were. It was the way of civilization, she supposed, to tear down and rebuild, or to change and expand so the original structure was unrecognizable.
“So, I am here alone,” Dakrias said, “in this miserable place, except for the rats and the occasional visitor like you. And . . .” He trailed off as though not sure he should go on.
“And?” Karigan prompted.
He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Sometimes—sometimes something catches the corner of my eye, as though a person were walking by the door, but when I look, no one is there. Sometimes I hear things, like distant whisperings or far off conversations, yet when I investigate, no one is there. Then, a time or two, I have felt something brush by me, but no one was there.” Dakrias shivered.
So did Karigan.
“Brown!”
They both jumped and squawked. The two had been so drawn into Dakrias’ tale, they hadn’t noticed the entrance of the same unpleasant clerk Karigan had bumped into in the gardens. He strode imperiously over to Dakrias’ writing desk.
“Brown, where is that memorandum I wanted?”
Dakrias swallowed. “I’m—I’m sorry, sir, I—”
The man followed Dakrias’ gaze to the writing desk, saw the mess of splotches, and frowned. His specs flashed in the lamplight when he turned to glower at Dakrias.
“Your copy is abominable. What happened? Did one of your little ghosts come tweak you on your back end?”
“N-no, sir.”
“I’m at fault,” Karigan said, “for disturbing him while he was focused on his work.” The man turned his withering glare on her, but she lifted her chin. She wasn’t afraid of him.
“You again,” he muttered. “What are you doing here?”
“Delivering documents on behalf of my captain.”
She picked them up and passed them to him. He glanced at them dismissively and dropped them on Dakrias’ desk. Karigan saw the flash of a black stain on his palm. Likely his penmanship was less neat than Dakrias’.
“I need that memorandum in three copies,” he told Dakrias, “and I need it now.”
“Yes, sir,” Dakrias said, and the man strode out of the records room.
Karigan waited until she was sure the man was out of hearing range. “Who was that?”
A totally deflated Dakrias replied, “The chief administrator, Weldon Spurlock.”
“Oh.” She had now managed to get on the wrong side of the head of administration, which did not bode well if she was going to be handling more administrative duties. She hoped her elbow mended really fast.
She took her leave of Dakrias so he could get back to work. As she passed the abandoned corridor, she did not dare to pause lest she see another apparition.
As Karigan approached officer quarters, she stopped in her tracks when she saw Mara leading Reita Matts away from Captain Mapstone’s door. Reita had been a Rider for only a few months longer than Karigan, and had proved to be perfect morale support during those early, difficult months.
Now Reita’s face was ashen. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she seemed unaware of her surroundings.
“What—?” Karigan began, but Mara curtly shook her head to forestall questions. She wrapped her arm around Reita’s shoulders, guiding her in the direction of Rider barracks.
Reita must have received some terrible news. Perhaps the captain could tell Karigan more, but when she entered officers quarters, she found the captain slumped over her worktable, head in her hands. A winged horse brooch glittered next to her elbow.
“Captain?” Karigan said, with growing alarm. “What’s wrong? I just saw Mara and Reita.”
Without looking up, the captain said in a heavy voice, “Reita’s brooch abandoned her. She wasn’t with us for even a whole year and a half, and her brooch abandoned her.”
Reita was no longer a Green Rider. No wonder she had looked to be in a state of shock. She loved the messenger service, and the other Riders were her only family. Not only had she “lost” an occupation she loved, but she’d be unable to be with her “family.”
“It’s the shortest term I’ve ever known a brooch to stay with a Rider.” This from the captain who had spent most of her adult life as a Green Rider. She had seen many Riders come and go during her years of service, but Karigan could tell she was taking this one particularly hard.
“It just seems odd,” the captain said. “The shortest term I have seen is three years. Five is more common, barring a Rider’s death.”
Not just odd, Karigan thought, but wrong.
Aye, wrong, a separate voice seemed to echo her.
She shuddered it away, thinking that Dakrias’ notions about ghostly conversations were getting to her.
“Karigan—” the captain rubbed her face with both hands as though fatigued. “You’re excused for the rest of the day, unless Mara needs some help with Reita.”
Karigan nodded in acknowledgment and turned to leave.
“Just a moment.” The captain reached down beside her and hauled out a large leather pouch. “This is for you, from Arms Master Drent. Careful, it’s heavy.”
Karigan took the strap of the pouch with her left hand and immediately the weight of it dragged down on her. When she set it down, she heard a metallic clinking within. She opened the flap and found inside iron balls of various sizes. Hand weights.
“You will report to Arms Master Drent at nine hour sharp tomorrow morning,” the captain told her. “You are to bring the one pound weight with you.”
Drent? Karigan opened her mouth to protest, but the captain cut her off with a crooked, mirthless smile.
“Penance.”
THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT
In the starlit night, a horse jogged along the road with a perky clip-clop that had its rider humming a new tune to accompany the rhythm. The frogs chorusing in a bog he’d passed by and the chirruping of crickets filled out the harmony of his tune. Music was Herol Caron’s life, and he tried to fill every moment he could with it. His mother claimed that when he was born he came into the world singing.
Herol was on the road because of Estral Andovian. Estral had a manuscript that needed delivering to a Green Rider friend of hers in Sacor City, but no one was available to take it. She was not unaware of the irony of the situation. Herol smiled as he remembered Estral standing in Selium’s library, hands on hips, asking the gods in a tart voice, “Where’s a Green Rider when you need one?” She then looked about as if expecting one to materialize out of the air.
Herol offered to change his plans to carry the manuscript to Sacor City, an offer Estral gladly accepted. He did not mind such diversions, not at all. Minstrels often conveyed messages, letters, and small parcels as they moved about the realm. And he’d be delivering it to the castle grounds. He hoped that while he was there, he might persuade someone to let him play and sing in court, and maybe even for King Zachary himself.
He’d have a better chance, he reflected, if he were a master minstrel rather than a junior journeyman. If he couldn’t play for King Zachary’s court, he was sure the castle servants would enjoy some entertainment, and see to it he was well fed and looked after.
He also knew of some Sacor City inns where he’d likely receive excellent tips.
He clucked at the horse to keep its rhythm, enjoying the jingle of harness that added to the music.
The road he traveled was a curving side road that wound north of the Kingway. There was an out-of-the-way inn that would be more than eager
to show its hospitality to a Selium minstrel. Inns on the main roads were all-too-frequented by minstrels. Those innkeepers were less than delighted by the sight of yet another minstrel, and the food and ale was less free-flowing, the common room less attentive to his talents.
Herol adjusted the lute case he wore strapped across his back, and rode on, enjoying the pleasant summer night. He still had a few miles to go before he reached the inn, and there was nothing between here and there except the music of the night.
He hadn’t traveled much farther when the horse, a reliable old plodder, shied and attempted to bolt. Herol held it in, cursing. The horse must have gotten a good whiff of some predator.
It flattened its ears and tossed its head, scraping at the road with its hoof. Herol peered about to see if he could discern what was disturbing the horse, but even with good night vision, he couldn’t make anything out.
Then Herol realized the sounds of the night had faded to silence—the frogs, the crickets. Nothing stirred in the surrounding woods.
A shadow slithered across the road ahead. No, it was darker than shadow, if that were possible. Cold desperation washed over Herol and a claw of ice wrapped around his heart.
The horse went berserk. It bucked and reared, and wheeled on its haunches. Herol held on for all he was worth, but the girth broke away and he flailed off backward, falling hard on the road and smashing his lute case beneath him. Disharmonious notes twanged from the lute as it broke into pieces.
The crazed horse bucked the saddle and saddlebags right off, and galloped in the direction from which they had come.
Herol tried to roll over onto his hands and knees, but the lute case rendered him helpless like a turtle stuck on its back. The fear that penetrated his heart made it hard to move or think.
He stopped struggling when he realized that terrible something, that deep shadow, stood over him, staring down at him with eyes of flint, its face that of a corpse.
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