So stricken was Mara that she could not have spoken even if she willed it. Her hand fluttered at her hip where her saber would have hung had she been anywhere but on the castle grounds. She possessed no weapon, and she was certain it would have had little effect anyway.
The shadow creature stepped closer to her light. She made out flinty, impassive eyes; skin the shade of a corpse’s.
“We seek,” it repeated, “the Galadheon. You will tell us.”
The lamp slipped from Mara’s fingers and smashed to the floor, spreading oil across the old, wooden boards. Fire whooshed up between them, and the wraith brought up its arms to protect its face.
Laren gazed up at the clear sky. The Hunter’s Belt was migrating into the eastern horizon, and as the nights grew longer and the days shorter, it would reign dominant over the summer stars. The moon was brilliant, but did not diminish the brightness of the stars.
“Gods please help me through this,” she prayed, as she did every night.
Only after the castle grounds settled for the night did Laren dare step outside her quarters. She had learned that in the quiescence of night, her ability assailed her less, as though all the mental activity of others during the day somehow contributed to her problem.
By day she lay in bed, a pillow wrapped around her head to stifle the voice of her ability. It did not work of course. Only sleep brought her some measure of peace, though sometimes she could hear her ability intrude even on her dreams.
It commented on anything and everything, including her own thoughts and emotions. Slowly, she knew, it would push her to the brink when she just couldn’t stand the assault anymore. What she would do when that happened, she wasn’t sure.
Overlying everything was the guilt, the guilt that she had abandoned her Riders, leaving the entire operation in Mara’s hands.
True.
Whenever her feelings of guilt welled up, her ability unswervingly told her “true” like a finger of condemnation.
False.
A quiet cry of hopelessness escaped her lips and she continued prowling the grounds, trying to blank her mind.
The grounds near Rider barracks were quiet and the darkness held the weight of a cloak. A few tiny lights twinkled about the castle, but the grounds were soaked in shadow, only the moon outlining rooflines and walls.
The bell down in the city clanged out the hour, and she broke out in a sudden cold sweat. A sensation of terror overrode all other feelings of guilt and hopelessness. The source of the terror emanated from Rider barracks.
She ran toward barracks, though she desperately wanted to run in the opposite direction. The building was a shadow within shadow.
She ran toward what could be her very grave, and what compelled her forward in the face of such fear, she never knew. Did her fear for her Riders overcome her own sense of safety? Was it some inner strength? Or had she already been driven into madness?
A figure emerged from the shadow of the building. Loathing washed over her.
The figure crept toward her, paused, and crept closer.
Laren wanted to run, but she was held in place, as if ice had formed over her skin and solidified.
“We seek,” the wraith said, “the Galadheon.”
Lady Estora Coutre walked dim corridors, the lamps at low burn for the night. Her cousin would not be pleased if he ever learned she wandered the corridors unescorted at so late an hour, but she could not sleep, her heart filled with unease. Unease about the ultimatum her cousin planned to present to the king, from her father. She sensed she was but a game piece on an Intrigue board that others moved in some desired direction for their own benefit; powerless to move in her own direction. Her future was not her own.
She supposed her relationship with F’ryan Coblebay had been a secret retaliation against those who used her in their plots. A secret retaliation, yes, but one in which she held power—not over F’ryan certainly, for he had been as unpredictable as the winds, and not over her own emotions—but in the secret itself.
The castle corridors went for miles if one followed them through all their various wings, and up and down the various floors. She passed servants’ quarters, her shawl pulled up to cover her hair and shadow her face so none would take special note of her. The quarters were subdued, though some folk were about: a cook with flour smudged on his cheek retiring for the night, a laundress who set down her burden of dirty linens and rubbed her sore back.
She avoided the administrative wing, its corridors dark, cold, and cheerless. Even during the day, those older corridors did not invite her in. They stirred within her a sense of age and ghostly presence, and things best left undisturbed.
She walked past guards and old suits of armor and tapestries telling stories few remembered. She mounted the curving stairs to an upper level and bypassed the rooms of sleeping courtiers and officials from other lands. More guards, more tapestries, more armor.
The west wing belonged to the monarch and his Weapons. This, too, she avoided, with statuelike Weapons standing guard, and the decor taking on a more regal demeanor. Portraits of past monarchs lined the walls, she knew. She had been down the corridor once before, for an awkward meeting arranged by her cousin with King Zachary. That had been long ago. Over a year.
He was showing me off as a merchant would his wares.
The thought did not make her angry. Much she had accepted in life as part of her position as the heir of Clan Coutre. Her father had always treated her this way, as an object of admiration and future alliances. A ware to be sold.
Her mother had taught her grace and composure. She had learned, though not consciously taught by her mother, a certain aloofness, as well. A detachment.
She turned away from the west wing, though it was possible one day she would have to live there among all the portraits of Sacoridia’s monarchs, and with the present king. Zachary was a good man, and this she kept telling herself.
And she kept asking, F’ryan, why did you have to leave me? But the dead could not answer.
She shifted her shawl on her shoulders, head bowed, as she walked away from the west wing. The core of the castle was like a great rectangle, with the gardens at its center, and various wings added on over time, making it a labyrinthine puzzle to the uninitiated. There were places where one had to follow corridors to an upper level in order to get to a lower level. Only the gardens hinted at the castle’s original configuration.
She turned a corner and headed for the south wing. She paused in mid-stride, her skirts brushing her ankles. Coming from the opposite direction, tailed by a Weapon and an elderly terrier, was King Zachary. His hands were clasped behind his back and his gaze to the floor as though he was in deep thought. He did not wear his fillet, the symbol of his power.
Estora thought he might pass without even noticing her, but when he approached, he looked right up at her. His eyes registered recognition and surprise. She curtsied.
“My lord.”
“My lady,” he said, with a half bow. The Weapon insinuated herself against the wall, as still as one of the suits of armor. The dog sat beside his master’s feet, panting. “You are about rather late this evening.”
“As are you, Excellency.”
He smiled, chagrined, almost shy. “I suppose I am. To tell the truth, I’ve had a little difficulty sleeping. I thought perhaps a stroll would unknot my thoughts.”
“As did I.” They exchanged fleeting smiles.
The king stroked his beard, his expression suddenly distant and a little troubled, as though he strove within himself to decide something. Finally he said, “Perhaps we could stroll together.”
Estora could decline, but it was like putting off the inevitable. Both he and she had avoided one another for long enough. If her father’s plan should succeed, she decided she might as well get to know the king a little better before they must be forced into intimate circumstances.
“Of course, my lord.”
Out of courtesy he turned to walk in the direction sh
e had been heading. She stepped alongside him and they set off with the terrier waddling behind them, his tail wagging gamely. The Weapon fell in behind as well.
Weapons swore an oath of discretion along with the other oaths that bound them to the king’s service. Still, she couldn’t imagine the Weapons not wanting to gossip now and then, and here she was presenting a perfect opportunity. She glanced over her shoulder, but the woman who followed remained expressionless, watchful, and seemingly disinterested in the concept of King Zachary and Lady Estora walking together.
An awkward silence settled upon them. Estora’s mother had been instructive about such moments as well.
“Tell me,” Estora said, to draw Zachary out, “what do you hear of Hillander Province these days?”
It was as though a mask crumbled away from his face at the mention of his home. His delight and grateful expression told her she had asked the right question. Your function, she remembered her mother saying, is to put the man at ease. To do this, you must ask him questions that he can answer readily, and happily.
The king stroked his beard and his eyes grew distant. “I expect the fisherfolk are hauling flatfish in by the bas ketfulls. The folk there lead the quiet lives they always have.”
Estora could tell he wished to be among them. Had things turned out differently, he would be there now as lord-governor of Hillander Province, not in the castle of Sacor City as the reigning monarch. But things turned out the way they turned out, and a steward oversaw the workings of Zachary’s province until he had a child of an age to look after it. Estora blushed at the prospect that the child could very well be one of her own.
As he spoke on about the sea breezes against his face, and climbing the rounded mounts that rose from the sea, it was as though he had been transported there, and she with him, his descriptions were so vivid. She realized Hillander was not so different from Coutre.
“I, for one, have always liked the occasional raw, foggy day,” he said. “It is an excuse to stay by the fire and read a book, or to attend to some other quiet task.”
“Yes, I am of that mind, too,” she said.
As he went on, Estora noted they were making at least their fourth round of this particular set of corridors, but King Zachary did not appear to notice or care. The terrier followed merrily behind, tongue lolling. The Weapon maintained her discreet, silent distance.
King Zachary paused and chuckled. “Listen to me. I sound like a homesick schoolboy.”
“You sound like someone who loves his home very much,” she said.
“I thank you in any case for listening to all of that. My mind has been so tied up with other matters of late.”
He must, Estora thought, think of the situation in D’I-vary Province.
She found some pleasure in that he had spoken so of his home to her. She wondered if he would tell more of what troubled him. You will one day marry a man of rank and influence, her mother once told her, a leader of others. He will need someone who he can talk to. You must learn to listen, and to listen earnestly. And Estora had watched her mother do just that over the years, ever-so-gently guiding her father into conversation and revealing exactly what weighed on his soul.
The king did not speak further of what troubled him, and she chose not to follow her mother’s advice or pry. After all, she did not know him as a wife knew a husband, at least not yet, and she dared not attempt such a role.
For all her father’s wishes, Estora wondered if the king would accede to the proposal of marriage. He had held off this long, and though an alliance with Coutre Province made all the political sense in the world, he was also known for being unpredictable.
It strengthened her suspicion that someone else had caught the king’s fancy—no, not the rumors going around about a mistress in Hillander, but someone closer by, or at least close enough to retain his interest. It was either a well guarded secret affair, or totally unrequited. Otherwise, court gossip would have revealed the source of his interest long ago.
The notion intrigued her, and though she was an excellent observer, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly who it was that had captured his heart.
She decided she liked King Zachary very much if he was the sort of man who chose not to marry immediately out of political expediency, and despite the consequences, chose to listen to his heart. Estora decided she envied whoever that other woman was, and wondered if the king himself realized his heart was stolen.
She smiled.
Just then, dimly, faintly, the bell down in Sacor City struck out the hour.
Mara’s pounding heart stoked the fire within her and pressed it outward. She wore fire like her own skin, and its burning brought joy amid her fear. She delved deep inside for that vast, untouched reservoir of power, and drew it forth.
She molded a ball of flame in her hands. It pulsed like a heart bloated with blood. It pulsed in sync with her own heart.
She threw the ball of fire. It exploded on the wraith’s chest. To Mara’s dismay, the wraith absorbed the fire into itself, extinguishing it. The fire within her dampened, a great cold seeping through her veins.
The wraith drew his sword. The blade gleamed a sickly green.
“We have taken from those such as you before.” The wraith’s voice slithered through every crack and fissure of the old wooden building. “See it.”
The blade glimmered with images. It had taken many lives. It had been forged with the screaming souls of thousands; thousands who fled from their villages before the dark ones and their minions, only to be struck down, innocents and warriors alike.
One was singled out from thousands, a man—a Green Rider in ancient garb—his fire bled from him by wraiths who placed their hands on him. The Rider screamed.
Mara’s scream echoed his. Her brooch cried out in an agonized wail within her. Memory.
Only the fire blazing between them kept the wraith from advancing on her. It crackled as it fingered Karigan’s bed. The straw mattress exploded into flame.
Mara perspired not from her own inner fire, but from the heat of the ordinary fire. Her limbs had gone cold.
“We have taken many such as you.” The wraith’s voice was not boastful or angry. It was dead, toneless.
Mara backed away from the fire trying to recall her own inner fire. Moonstone crystals blazed on the table beside her.
“We seek,” the wraith said, “the Galadheon.”
Ancient enemy. The thought came unbidden to Mara. These creatures had destroyed too many lives. Not just lives, but souls. Anger heated her blood once again.
She coughed on the suffocating smoke that filled Karigan’s room.
“You will tell us,” the wraith said.
The flare of the moonstone crystals gave Mara hope. She scooped them into her hand. In her other hand, the one with the missing fingers, a new ball of fire formed. She flung it not at the wraith, but behind it.
White-gold flame splashed against the doorframe. The fire fed hungrily on the old wood. She threw a second orb through the doorway into the corridor beyond, cutting off the wraith’s escape. She might not be able to harm it directly with her powers, but the fire that burned around it appeared to be another thing. She heard its hiss above the hiss of flame.
The wraith tried to advance, but was stopped by the fire between them. It turned this way and that, seeking escape, its cloak swirling.
Mara threw more orbs of fire at the walls. It consumed Karigan’s books; sped across the rafters. The old barracks building groaned as though mortally wounded.
The wraith stuck its hands through flame reaching for Mara. In one last desperate measure, she flung the moonstone crystals at it. They cascaded through the flame, glittering and beautiful, a shower of light and color. Then they vanished behind the veil of flame.
The wraith wailed; a wail like the shrieking of a thousand souls. It was echoed by another outside.
The wraith’s hands withdrew into flame and burned.
Mara choked on smoke so dense she could no
longer make out her surroundings. She smelled burning hair, burning flesh, and realized it was her own. Her inner fire could not protect her from the outer.
The fire surrounded her, but behind her she knew was the window that looked out over the pasture; the view Karigan so favored.
The wraith crept closer. “We seek the Galadheon.”
Laren stood stricken, unable to react. Icy cold. A spell? She tried to shout for help, but where once her voice was strong and sure, it now failed her.
She smelled smoke, and tore her eyes from the wraith. An orange glow flooded the pasture side of barracks.
Fire!
A howl sounded from within. The dark one stopped its advance and threw its head back and loosed a scream in answer. Laren scrunched her eyes closed and covered her ears, trying to block the sound.
When the cry died, she opened her eyes. The wraith was gone.
Flames poked through the roof of barracks, smoke pouring out black and thick.
She had stood frozen in place with her fear of the wraith, but now she shook it off—barracks was burning.
Glass smashed on the pasture side of the building. Laren ran toward the sound and found a figure on the ground, trying to get up, and falling back down. It was on fire.
Laren tore off her cloak as she ran to aid the—it was a woman. A Green Rider? Karigan?
A Rider, yes, Laren saw. Mara, not Karigan.
Mara crawled atop glass shards that shimmered in a golden, fractured reflection of the fire. The Rider was on fire, and it was spreading.
Laren threw her cloak on Mara to smother the flames.
A Weapon appeared, running down the corridor. He spoke rapidly with the woman presently guarding the king.
“What is it?” the king asked.
At once the Weapons started hustling him down the corridor. “Trouble on the castle grounds, sire.”
“Come, Lady Estora,” the first Weapon commanded.
Another Weapon appeared from nowhere, as they were apt to do, and shepherded Estora down the corridor after King Zachary.
First Rider's Call Page 35
