The temperature in the shifting bubble of the travel spell seemed to plummet twenty degrees, and Jeremy heard an electric crackling sound. At the same time the sword seemed to shrink in on itself, to dwindle, and to lose its luster. Jeremy turned, holding the weapon horizontally in front of him. “How does it look?”
“Like your old sword,” Nul said. “You ruin it?”
“I hope not.” Jeremy slipped it into the scabbard. The fit wasn't perfect, but the sword would ride acceptably well at his belt and would come free easily when he pulled the hilt.
“What language did you speak?” Kelada asked.
“My old tongue. Spells seem to have more power when I use it.”
“It sounds strange.”
“Even to me, now,” Jeremy agreed. “Let's get our stories straight. I'm Sebastian, and somehow I've escaped from the Between—”
“Came through Melodia's mirror,” Nul suggested.
“Yes, or through another mirror. One no one else knew about.”
“Ah! Sebastian had stronghold down on Kyrin Island. Say you came back there.”
“Is there such a place?”
“Yes, certainly,” Kelada put in. “Kyrin is almost due south of the Markelan Peninsula, on the southwest corner of Cronbrach, many hundreds of thousands from here. The island used to be a vassal state of the Markelaners, but the islanders revolted, oh, long ago. They're known to be stubborn and independent.”
“And Sebastian did hide there,” Nul said. “Was from there he would come and visit Melodia.”
“All right. Kyrin Island,” Jeremy said, trying the sound on his tongue. “And I must travel overland because if I used a travel spell—”
“Any magic,” amended Nul.
“Yes, good, any magic at all, I would alert Tremien of my presence back in Thaumia. So I'm using Nul as my guide—”
“Some of vilorgs saw me,” Nul warned.
“Three-eyes or two-eyes?” Kelada asked.
The pika frowned in concentration. “Two-eyes only, I think.”
The thief looked at Jeremy. “We should be safe. I don't believe they have much intelligence of their own.”
“Then Nul is my guide, and you are my prisoner. Now. We have to keep you safe.”
“I'd feel safer with a sword in my hand.”
“Here,” Nul said, offering her the dagger again. “But where you put it?”
Kelada glared at him, turned, and slipped the dagger somewhere in her muddy clothing. Turning back to them, she asked, “Does it show?”
“Everything else does,” grinned Nul, eyeing her clinging shirt.
“It's fine,” Jeremy said. “We have more planning to do.”
And they spent the whole remaining time of their journey in plots, in schemes, in private fears, in expressions of hope.
The throne room was alive with vilorgs. Jeremy, Kelada, and Nul stood in the center of a circle of them, the focus of their bulging eyes. The very air seemed rank with their breath as the creatures’ pouched throats ballooned and pulsed rhythmically.
The Hag herself, swathed in a cloak that once had been white but now was an aged and bitter yellow, her head covered by a hood and her face hidden behind a veil, sat on the throne, which was indeed cast of black iron in the shape of dismembered and piled skeletons. Two skulls grinned from beneath her hands. “Welcome, Sebastian Magister,” she purred in a rusty voice. “You have traveled far?”
Nul, by agreement, had his sword unsheathed and was holding Kelada's right arm tight in his three-fingered grip. Jeremy, his sword still secure in its scabbard, spread his arms wide, displaying his filthy garments. “Far indeed, Mistress of the Meres. All the way from the Between to here.”
The eyes, all that showed of the Hag's face, glittered deep in dark hollows scored by a thousand wrinkles, but bright and sharp. “And so the enemies failed in their attempt to exile you forever?”
“Yes, and I made good my escape at last, though the way was hard. The tales told of the Between are true, Mistress. It is a place of dreams and nightmares, of madnesses we hardly know. I fear that in some ways the Between has changed me.”
“You must tell me about the Between,” the Hag said.
“Yes—but first I should like to cleanse myself, Mistress. Your domain is hard to travel by mundane means.”
“You could have spelled your way to me—or is loss of magic one of the changes you speak of?” The deep eyes glittered like a serpent's, as if the Hag were hungry to devour an unprotected Sebastian.
“My power is as great as ever. But surely you know why I must not yet use it. Tremien, old spider that he is, senses the least trembling of the web of magic. None of the enemy yet know that I have returned. I think it best for me—and for you, and for another I could name—that the secret remain a secret yet awhile longer.”
The Hag did indeed seem tired. She thrust her body back in the throne with two hands that, braced on the skulls of the armrests, themselves seemed little more than skeletal bones, and for some moments she regarded him, her thin breast rising and falling with her breathing. “True. You may be right.” To one of the vilorgs the Hag said, “Take Sebastian Magister to one of the human rooms, and see that he has hot water and fresh garments. Throw the female into the deepest pit we have, and keep a guard over the trap.”
“Hold,” Jeremy said. “I captured the woman as you see her, covered over with filth. I think I should be glad of a chance to find what is under the mud.” When the Hag merely looked at him, Jeremy tried a lascivious and leering grin. “I have been alone in the Between for a long time, Mistress, and my journey here was long and lonely, too.”
“She cannot be trusted.”
“Mistress, the day has not yet come when Sebastian Magister is no match for a girl.”
Kelada spat at him, and Nul wrenched her arm. “Not nice!” the pika snarled as Kelada feigned a cry of pain.
“Very well, very well,” said the Hag, impatience in her voice. “But I will have guards in the corridor, Sebastian—just in case your magic or your ... strength should fail you. And the guards will put you in a room without a window.”
Jeremy bowed. Again the Hag spat orders at the guards, and this time three of them, one on either side and one following behind Nul, marched them down the west corridor. All Jeremy saw was stone, dark gray, square-worked, each stone fitting its neighbors so closely that even a thin blade would not find a lodgement between them. Here, unlike the corridor Kelada had described, were tall, pointed windows, though too narrow for an escape by any but perhaps Nul, and through the windows Jeremy caught glimpses of a garden of sorts, half hidden in the persistent fog, a green square lush with huge, leprous leaves and a few fleshy-looking flowers, but all was overgrown and ruinous. He could make no judgment of the time, other than the impression that afternoon was probably at least half done. The guards opened a door on the right and saw Jeremy and Kelada inside. Jeremy turned in the doorway to Nul. “Stay and help keep watch,” he ordered.
“Yes, Master,” Nul said, overacting enough to make Jeremy grimace at him.
Jeremy closed the door behind him. “Now, slut,” he said loudly, “as soon as we have the means, we will see what lies under the crusted dung.”
Kelada quickly scanned the room. “You pig! Would that my blade had tasted your blood!” She took a quick look behind the wall hangings. “Your death would be delight beyond my dreams!”
“Do people really talk that way here?” Jeremy hissed to her in a quick whisper.
She frowned at him. “My body you may take, but my spirit you cannot touch, dog!”
God in heaven, Jeremy thought.
The room was a cube perhaps twenty feet on an edge. The hangings here, though ancient, were in one piece: one showed an armed party in pitched battle with a rearing dragon, and the other, through layers of dirt, depicted a harvest scene with reapers and wagons loaded with sheaf. A hanging iron circle held ten oil lamps, though only seven of them burned. The stone floor was bare of carpeti
ng or cover, and the room's only furnishings were a simple, narrow cot with no pillow or blankets, two chairs, and in the center of the room an enormous wooden tub at least six feet across with walls coming to Jeremy's waist. He looked in and saw the tub was half full of water, and that the water was not too dirty.
“I think it's all right,” Kelada said. “There's nothing here to be the Hag's eyes or ears.”
“Good. ‘My body you may take ...'?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “That's the way all the princesses talk in the stories!”
“Never mind. What now?”
“They're supposed to bring us hot water and clothes, remember?”
“All right, then. We wait.”
They didn't have to wait for long. The door opened—no one knocked—and a succession of vilorgs filed in, the first twenty or so carrying two buckets each of steaming water. They dumped these into the great vat until Jeremy, his arm plunged in, told them the water was warm enough. Another vilorg had towels and soap, which, after looking vaguely around, it put on one of the chairs, and yet another left two sets of tangled clothing on the bed. The froglike creatures filed out, and from the open door Nul gave them a quick look. Then the door closed, leaving them alone again.
Jeremy sorted through the clothes. “I guess this is mine,” he said, holding up a large gray tunic made of coarse homespun cloth and a pair of trousers that looked for all the world like jogging pants. Kelada's outfit was the same but smaller. No underwear was provided. “You go first,” Jeremy said. “I'll turn my back.”
“Why?”
“Well, I—look, just go ahead.”
Jeremy turned away and heard the wet slaps of Kelada's clothes against the stone floor as she undressed. Then there was a splash as she settled into the tub, and more splashes as she began to wash. “Soap,” she said happily.
The soap was an irregular cake that felt gritty and smelled like lard. Jeremy backed toward the tub, holding the soap out. “Here, take it.”
“Well, give it to me! Oh, turn around so you can see what you're doing.”
Jeremy did turn. Kelada was submerged up to her shoulders, the rest of her body a pink blur under the water. She held her dripping arm up out of the bath. “Here.”
Jeremy gave her the soap and retreated so that he could only see her head. She scrubbed herself in businesslike fashion, washing her hair with the soap first, then turning her attention to her face, arms, and legs. “Come do my back,” she said.
He scrubbed her shoulders and back until they were shining pink. “There,” he said. “You rinse, I'll get the towel.”
He again turned his back as she stepped from the tub. He heard her rummaging behind him. “All right. Ready.” When he turned, she was standing barefoot and damp-haired, dressed in the rough gray outfit. She was thinner than ever, but to Jeremy she looked healthy, with the old, wiry toughness still showing in her stance and her movements. “Your turn,” she said. “And I'm going to look.”
Kelada pronounced him fit for company after she had scrubbed his back almost hard enough to take the skin off. He put on the clothing furnished by the Hag—Kelada, as she promised, watched him, grinning the whole time—then toweled his hair and beard again—they still held drops of water. “How about the mail shirt?” he asked. The rings were clotted with grime.
“Rinse it,” she suggested. He did, shook as much of the water out as he could, and donned it. Then, using the cleanest part of his old tunic he could find, he wiped the mud from his belt and scabbard and put them on. The boots were hopeless, filthy and soaked. He would go barefoot. “Got your dagger?” he asked.
“I have it,” Kelada said grimly. “Why wouldn't you look at me?”
“Because I don't want to be distracted.”
“I distract you? With a face like mine?”
“Kelada, there's nothing wrong with your face. You look in the mirror and see ugliness where no one else does.”
She shook her head. “No. I know what I look like.”
“Damn it,” he sighed. “If we ever get out of here, I promise I'll—I'll create a magic potion that will make you beautiful.”
She blinked at him. “You could do that?”
“Sure I could. You saw what I did with the sword.”
Kelada's eyes went wide. “But transforming living human flesh is high magic. Only a mage could do such a thing. Even the Hag cannot alter her appearance to make herself less ugly.”
“I can do it. But save that for later. Right now I have to get close to that mirror.”
“All right. It's down the northern corridor from the throne room, as I said, in the only room that opens from it. It is in the center of the room, facing the eastern wall. It's almost the same as the one Sebastian created in the Between: as tall as you are, oval, in a wooden frame that stands alone on the floor.”
“Let's see if we can get there,” Jeremy said.
He opened the door. Nul stood with his back against the opposite wall, two vilorgs against the wall on either side of the door. “Servant,” Jeremy said, “do you wish a bath?”
“I can live without one, master.”
“Still—” Turning to a vilorg, Jeremy said, “See that my servant has hot water and towels.”
The creature goggled stupidly at him. Nul said, “Forget it. Only Hag can give them direct orders. They understand nothing else.”
“Oh. Well, come inside.”
Nul pushed off from the wall and waddled through the door. He grinned at Kelada. “You looking better,” he said. “Still human, but improved.”
Kelada returned his grin. “Thanks, pika. And thanks for bringing help. Even if the rescue put me right back in the trap again.”
One of the vilorgs had left a bucket nearly full of hot water. Nul made use of that and a spare towel. He had no clean clothing, but he had not taken a serious spill and was in somewhat better shape than Jeremy had been. He got the worst of the filth off himself and then rubbed his head with a towel until his short fur bristled all over his head, giving him the appearance of an alarmed cat. “Better,” he growled at last.
“Then let's go see the Hag,” Jeremy said. “Take Kelada prisoner again, and be ready for anything.”
The guards flapped along behind them as they went back down the corridor. This time they found the Hag alone in the throne room, propped in her throne, her eyes brooding and distant. “You look refreshed, Sebastian Magister,” she said. “Now tell me of your journeys.”
“There is not much to tell. I came back into the world weeks ago, in a secret place I have on Kyrin, away to the south. Then I came by boat to Markelan; by nights I journeyed on foot north along the Korthon River, through Vertova and to the eastern edge of the Arkhedden Forest. From there I passed northward again along the Dinsfaer Hills until I entered the Meres from the east, knowing that to be the fastest way by foot to your castle.”
“And you did not stray east of the Arkhedden? Say, to the Whitehorn regions?”
“And risk coming within Mage Tremien's ken? That would have been folly indeed.”
The Hag's eyes flashed. “And yet one of my messengers felt something very like your presence. At the very edge of Tremien's domain he was stripped of his protection and struck dumb and blind by some force of magic.”
Jeremy recalled the shadow-rider. “If he traveled that close to Whitehorn, I am not surprised,” Jeremy said. “As to my presence, no doubt what you sensed was a mirror of my making, a very powerful magic, as you know, and partaking somewhat of my essence. Tremien had discovered it and was taking it to Whitehorn.”
“There are more than the two, then?” the Hag asked.
“Certainly.”
“Then you lied to me!”
“And have you been always truthful with me, Mistress? I doubt it! We all seek to protect ourselves. Yes, there were more than two mirrors: one I kept in secret on Kyrin, and one I had—in another place, for reasons of my own. But I say ‘were': Tremien, curse him, has destroyed one of my
works.”
The Hag leaned back. “Yes. I felt it, through my mirror, back in the dark days of winter. A pain that seemed to rend through me as well, and one from which I was long weeks recovering.”
“But as long as yours, and one other, remains whole, you are safe enough.”
“True.” The Hag's voice held a bitter note of sarcasm. “It is strange, is it not, that the one thing that has brought me increased power also shows me this?” She reached to her face and moved the veil aside. Jeremy took a deep breath, for the Hag was indeed spectacularly ugly: her cheeks jutting cliffs over sunken chaps, her mouth lipless, a deeply seamed horizontal gash showing malformed, brown teeth, her nose a gaping hole between her eyes. “That is your curse, I suspect, Sebastian. Others have always amused themselves at my expense. But your gift has brought power, and things are happening that you have not dreamed of.”
“What things?”
The Hag rose from her throne. “The girl will be safe under his guard?”
“Very safe, Mistress. And if she were not, do your wards not hold strong as ever?”
“They do. Come, Sebastian Magister. I will show you a wonder.” With a dry rustle the white-clad witch stepped down from the throne. The vilorgs made way for her.
Jeremy's heart pounded a little faster in his chest, for she led him into the north corridor. Involuntarily he fingered the hilt of his sword. The corridor, an arched and gloomy passage, led into a windowless room. In the center, shrouded under a frayed blanket, was the muffled oval shape of the mirror. The Hag swept the blanket aside.
Jeremy, behind her, was startled despite himself, for in the mirror he indeed was Sebastian, beard and all. The Hag studied him for a moment. “You cannot draw that in here,” she said.
His grip on the sword hilt tightened, but he could not budge the blade in its scabbard. “Wards?” he guessed.
Moon Dreams (The Jeremy Moon Trilogy Book 1) Page 23
