The Black King (Book 7)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He knew they were in Jahn. He had felt across his Link for Coulter, and found him close. That was good. The quicker he acted, the better.

  Wisdom seemed impatient to go. He finished eating long before Matt had. While Matt finished and carefully repacked the knapsack, Wisdom crouched beside him, rocking on the balls of his feet and watching as if each movement slowed them down.

  Then Matt stood, slung the sack over his shoulder, and Wisdom grinned. He took the lightstick and headed down a corridor filled with more cobwebs than the passage they had slept in.

  During the night Wisdom had somehow cleaned himself up. His braids were fresh. No strands of hair stood out from them. He managed to scrub his face and he had gotten the dirt off his clothes.

  Matt was the one feeling grimy and nervous. He didn’t know exactly what they were going to do and that unsettled him. The Words said nothing about the range of the dolls, and it had no advice on whether or not a person had to be in the same room. Matt was going to have to err on the side of caution. He would make sure he was in the same place as the Black Queen when he tried to catch Rugad’s soul in the doll.

  The corridor twisted and turned. He couldn’t see that far ahead so each corner was a surprise. He had a sense that they were heading north, but he really couldn’t tell. Wisdom wasn’t saying. He was just walking, head up, as if he knew where he was going.

  Suddenly the corridor opened up. They were in a newer section. The stone was clean and the floor was covered with only one layer of dust. There were no cobwebs. Someone came down here regularly.

  Wisdom held out a hand, blocking Matt’s entry. Matt waited, his heart pounding. Wisdom looked both ways like he was going to cross a particularly busy street, then ventured into the wider corridor. He put a finger to his mouth and beckoned Matt forward.

  The corridor turned slightly and then opened even wider. As Matt walked past, he started. There were iron bars on his left side. Beyond them were cells. They looked old, but they had fresh straw in them. They had been used, and recently.

  He shuddered.

  Wisdom came to a fork in the corridor and took the left. It was dirtier than the right. He went to the end of it. There seemed to be no place to go. He pushed on a stone and it creaked open.

  The sound echoed in the confined space. Wisdom gave Matt a nervous glance. If someone heard, then they would have to find a place to hide. He didn’t want to end up in one of those cells.

  The stone had opened a door barely big enough for Matt to walk through upright. Wisdom signaled for another lightstick. Matt made it and handed it to him.

  This corridor was narrow and filled with dirt and cobwebs. It was so filthy that Matt could barely see where they were going. Clearly no one had used this place in a long time.

  He wondered how Wisdom had known about it and then he remembered: Wisdom had once been Rugad’s assistant. When Rugad had first taken over the palace years ago, Wisdom had been assigned to finding out everything about it. Apparently, he had traced all these passages then and no one had been here since.

  Wisdom took a few steps, then pulled Matt forward. This corridor forked too, and to the right was an extremely narrow passage. Stone stairs disappeared into the darkness. Matt had the sense that those stairs were part of another staircase, separated from them by the thick wall. It was almost as if someone had planned this passageway when this section of the palace was built.

  They started up the stairs. Wisdom went first, knocking down most of the stringy cobwebs as he went. Dust swirled around the lightsticks. Matt and Wisdom climbed for a long time, and the farther up they went, the narrower the passage got. At the three hundredth step, Matt found himself pressed between the walls, sometimes struggling to get his knapsack through the opening. He grunted once and Wisdom glared at him. Apparently they were in an area where they could be overheard.

  Matt had lost count by the time they reached the top step. It opened onto a small platform. Two different corridors branched off. Both corridors seemed to end about a hundred feet away.

  Wisdom signed, Prepare your dolls.

  Matt crouched in the small, dirty space and opened his knapsack. He removed the first doll, his hands shaking.

  The Words instructed that he remove the doll’s head and put two drops of the Roca’s blood inside to attract a free soul. He removed the head and cradled it on his legs so that it wouldn’t clang against the stone floor. Then he removed one of the vials of blood. He put the two drops in and then added just a little more in case he needed extra help.

  Carefully, he set the vial down, and put the head back on the doll. He replaced the doll in the knapsack. He followed the same procedure with the other doll.

  When he was finished, he put the vial back inside. Then he nodded to Wisdom.

  All right, Wisdom signed. Here’s what we will do.

  He paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t figure out how to communicate this next part to Matt. Then Wisdom closed his eyes and shook his head. He sighed, opened his eyes, and bit his upper lip. “These,” he whispered, “are listening booths.”

  Matt started. He hadn’t heard Wisdom speak, not even since their experiment. It was like hearing a cat talk. But Wisdom wasn’t paying attention to Matt’s reaction. Instead, he was looking over his shoulder at the dead-end corridors.

  “They haven’t been used for a long time.” Wisdom spoke Islander with a strong Nye accent. He almost seemed like a different person when he spoke. It wasn’t because of the Charm. He didn’t seem to be using it. It was just that when Matt imagined Wisdom’s voice, this wasn’t the way he had thought of it.

  “I will wait in this one, and you will wait in that one. There is a secret door in each. When we hear voices, we’ll use the secret doors. You’ll let me go first. Rugad will recognize me. And he will talk to me. That’s when you come out.”

  “I think it would be best to touch him with the doll,” Matt said.

  “If that’s so,” Wisdom whispered, “then you must sneak up behind him. That may not be easy. Just remember that your mission is to get him. Everything else is secondary.”

  Matt nodded. Wisdom spoke like the soldier he had been.

  “I think you should take only one doll,” Wisdom whispered.

  “What if it doesn’t work the first time?” Matt asked.

  “Then use your magick to pull the other to you.”

  Matt nodded.

  Wisdom stared at him for a moment, as if he were going to say more. Instead he squeezed Matt’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said.

  THIRTY

  THE ACTIVITY around the Tashka was frenetic. Lyndred hadn’t realized it took this much work to prepare for a voyage. Gift had sent the Nyeians to get provisions, and they would return in large groups, carrying bags and boxes and barrels to be stowed in the hold. The Domestics were getting supplies from some of the Fey areas of Jahn. They didn’t arrive with as many boxes or bags, but they carried other items that didn’t seem to match—jars, seeds, scraps of wool.

  Lyndred was sitting on deck, her feet up. She felt useless. She had offered to help a dozen times and no one had taken her up on it. Her father had brought some chairs on deck, and some of that special lemon drink that Skya favored. It was a Pitakan drink that was both sour and sweet. The Domestics approved of it because they said it prevented scurvy. Lyndred was developing a taste for it as well.

  Gift was below, talking with Skya. They’d been having serious discussions for the last two days. At one point, Lyndred had heard Gift yell at Skya—something about family and honor and love. Her own father had gone gray and started to talk as loudly as he could, as if he were embarrassed to hear other people’s arguments. Lyndred wasn’t. She wanted to hear it all and had been unable to.

  A movement at the end of the ramp caught her eye. Two Islanders, short blond men, stopped and waited for two others. One of the Islanders wore a hooded cloak and was taller than the rest. They conversed for a moment, and then they started up the ramp. They were walking ver
y slowly.

  She stood. No one else seemed to notice. The Nyeians were busy with their duties. Her father was looking the other way.

  “Daddy,” she said. “Look.”

  He turned and his eyes widened. “I’ll get Gift,” he said, and rose swiftly, disappearing below deck before she could stop him.

  The Islanders were almost up the ramp now. She didn’t think they should come on deck. She went toward the small gate and guarded it, as the Nyeian had done that night she had first arrived.

  The Islanders were coming up two by two, the tall one in the back. One of the men up front was not much older than she was. The other had a thin face for an Islander and sharp blue eyes. His blond hair curled and he wore a sword around his neck.

  He was one of the handsomest Islanders she had ever seen, and he looked vaguely familiar. And then she realized where she had seen him before.

  In her Vision. He was the blond man from her Vision. The one who would give her a child that would break her heart.

  Involuntarily she clasped her hands over her chest. Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked behind her for someone, anyone, who could help her.

  She was alone on this section of the ship.

  “Excuse me,” the Islander—her Islander—said in heavily accented Fey. “We’re looking for Gift.”

  She turned back to him. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to tell him to go away. But she couldn’t speak at all.

  “He’s not expecting us, but he will see us,” said the blond man in the back row. “My name is Coulter. I—”

  “Coulter?” She felt overwhelmed. She hadn’t expected to see her blond man and Coulter, too. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “No.” She wasn’t thinking straight. She had never seen a Vision come to life before. The man didn’t seem to notice her. Men always noticed her. What was wrong with him?

  Coulter was looking at her with something like alarm. “Why did you say I shouldn’t be here?”

  She didn’t want to answer him. “I—um, you’ll have to wait. My father went for Gift.”

  The Islander in the hood hadn’t moved. Even though it was sunny, Lyndred couldn’t see that Islander’s face. It made her think of the Assassin, which made her even more nervous than she already was.

  “He’s coming, Lynnie.” Her father had come up behind her. He put an arm behind her back and she leaned into it.

  “Who sent you?” Her father asked the Islanders.

  “We came on our own behalf,” Coulter said. “We—”

  And then he stopped and looked past them. Lyndred turned too. Gift was walking toward them. His eyes widened when he saw them and he shouted, “Coulter!”

  There was joy in his voice. Lyndred had never heard him sound joyful before.

  “Let them in!” Gift shouted. “Let them in!”

  Lyndred pulled the gate open. Coulter hurried past the other two, and Gift hugged him. They were laughing and pounding on each other’s backs. The two Islanders who had been up front eased past Lyndred onto the deck, but the fourth Islander made his way slowly, almost as if he were injured.

  Once he was inside, Lyndred closed the gate behind them. Gift and Coulter were still laughing and talking together, unable to complete sentences in their happiness to see each other. Then Gift reached out a hand and said, “Con! I barely recognized you. You don’t look like a boy any more.”

  “I wasn’t a boy then,” Lyndred’s Islander said as he went to Gift. He started to take the hand, but Gift pulled him close. He looked happy and relieved at the same time.

  Finally he freed himself from both men and walked toward the tall Islander. Lyndred moved out of their way.

  “Sebastian!” Gift said as he approached. “I’ve missed you.”

  Lyndred looked with interest at the hooded person. She had assumed she was looking at an Islander because the others were Islanders. She had never seen the famous Golem. She found she was actually curious about him.

  Gift raised his hands and pushed back the hood. It fell back to reveal a face very similar to Gift’s, only carved of stone. Lyndred had expected the resemblance, so she didn’t look at the face too closely, focusing instead on the realistic-seeming hair and the grayness of the skin.

  “What is this?” he asked, turning toward Coulter.

  Lyndred continued to look at the Golem. She realized then while the features were like Gift’s, they were a female version.

  “She’s not a what,” Coulter said.

  The other two Islanders hadn’t moved. They were watching the exchange carefully.

  “I’m a who,” the Golem said.

  Lyndred swallowed. The Golem spoke with Arianna’s voice.

  “Ari?” Gift ran his fingers along her cheek. “Arianna?”

  The Golem nodded.

  The happiness that had filled Gift’s features were gone. He grabbed Coulter by the chin and examined his eyes, then did the same with Con and the other Islander, looking for Doppelgängers, wondering if he had been tricked.

  Apparently Gift was satisfied with what he saw because he let them go. “All right,” he said softly. “Someone tell me what this is all about.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE SKIN WAS FAMILIAR—smooth stone, shaped like his own. The eyes were familiar too—gray instead of blue, the gray of a stormy sea. But the features were Arianna’s except there was no birthmark on the chin. Gift didn’t know what that meant. He wasn’t sure what anything meant any more.

  “Tell me,” he said again.

  “Perhaps we should speak in private.” Coulter was looking at Lyndred and Bridge.

  “I don’t know how it will matter,” Gift said. “They’ve already seen this. They’ll have questions. We may as well answer them.”

  “Well, I’m not fond of speaking before strangers.” The creature before him—a golem, he was sure of it—sounded like Arianna. “Who are these people?”

  “My cousin Lyndred and my uncle Bridge,” Gift said.

  “I don’t understand how they fit in,” the Golem said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bridge said. “We’ll leave, Gift, if you want us to.”

  Lyndred was chewing on her lower lip. She had come farther than Gift expected. Two days ago, she would have yelled at her father for offering to take them away. Now she seemed to understand the need to leave. If there was a need. They already saw the creature, heard Gift call her Arianna. They probably had heard of the connection with Coulter while they were in the palace.

  “Stay,” Gift said. “You’re privy to almost everything else.”

  Almost everything. Unless they overheard some of his fighting with Skya, they didn’t know she was pregnant. He wanted to keep that to himself. He didn’t want Skya to become a target.

  He glanced around the deck. It was clear. The Nyeiana who had been working above were on the starboard side. They wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation.

  “Now tell me.”

  “I’m your sister,” the Golem said.

  “If you’re Arianna, who did I see in the palace?”

  “Rugad.” Coulter had come to the Golem’s side and put his arm around her.

  “Don’t do this,” Gift said. “Rugad’s been dead for fifteen years. I saw his body.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Bridge stiffen at the mention of Rugad. Lyndred was just looking confused.

  Coulter took a deep breath. “Remember, when Rugad crossed your Link into your mind?”

  “And you threw him out and closed all my Links,” Gift said.

  “Well, he did the same to Ari, remember? Only she fought him for hours and it took a lot more effort to get him out.”

  “I remember.” Gift had been in the Roca’s Cave when his father had brought Arianna in, unconscious and nearly dead. Coulter had saved her that day, just like he had saved Gift when Rugad had invaded his mind.

  “After everyone left her mind, Arianna found an infant. Sh
e thought it was Sebastian—remember, we thought he might have died the first time he shattered—so she cradled it and took it inside herself.”

  “It was Rugad?” Gift looked at the Golem. She was watching him with wide gray eyes, as if trying to read his mood.

  “The infant,” Coulter said, “had all of Rugad’s memories and his personality up to that moment.”

  “It was only a month or so before he died,” the Golem said.

  “And six months ago, when that black light crossed the Isle, it awakened the growing Rugad inside Arianna’s mind.”

  Gift started. When he had touched the Throne.

  “If it had happened ten years later,” the Golem said, “like it was planned, he would have taken me over and no one would have ever known.”

  “As it was,” Coulter said, “she was able to fight him. I helped.”

  “We almost had him,” the Golem said.

  “And then he trapped Arianna and me inside one of my Links, and shut her out of her own body. We decided to escape at that point, and try again later. That’s what we’re doing here.”

  “How did you escape?” Gift asked.

  “She stayed inside my mind for a while,” Coulter said. “And then, with Sebastian’s help, we built a golem.”

  Gift leaned against the railing of the ship. So that was what his mother meant when she had said that Arianna had been taken over by darkness. Why his mother hadn’t been certain if he had been touched by the same darkness. If Rugad had left something in Gift’s brain, then perhaps seeing Arianna would have triggered it.

  He had even mentioned it to the false Arianna and she had said he would be all right. Apparently, Coulter had gotten Rugad out of Gift’s brain quickly enough.

  “I’ve heard of this,” Bridge said. “Not in this case, but in our family.”

  Everyone turned to him. Gift looked up slowly. He felt as if he were underwater. Part of his mind was reviewing everything he knew, everything he had Seen, everything he had heard.

  “Rugark, Rugad’s grandfather, had a golem,” Bridge said. “It was rumored that when Rugark died, he put all of his knowledge into that golem so the golem could rule instead of Rugark’s son. The golem disappeared when Rugad came of age. Apparently Rugark believed his son unworthy of the Black Throne and had taken precautions to save the Empire.”