Behind her, Gregor’s voice rang out. “You cannot run from me, girl.”
Dark below take you if I cannot, she thought, and kept going.
A hand seized the back of her collar and hauled her around.
Loren screamed, drawing her dagger in an instant. She slashed. But the man who had grabbed her stepped back, easily dodging the blow.
It was not Gregor. It was the man in black. He gave her a sardonic smile from beneath oddly glowing eyes.
“Sky above girl, control yourself. I am not here to kill you, so do not give me a reason to. Come.”
He took her arm and hurried her along. Now she recognized where they were: the palace of Danfon. Loren knew these halls well enough by now. But he did not take her where she feared to go: the hallway, and the dining room, and the secret passage leading back to Gregor. Instead he led her to the broad front hall, and then through the wide main doors to the courtyard outside.
The sun was high in the sky, and for a moment its light blinded Loren. When she could see again, she realized the man in black was leading her north. Soon she saw a small building ahead, and the man made right for it.
The treasury, she thought. This is where the map showed it would be. But where are the guards?
There were none at the front door, which opened easily under the man’s hand. He led her inside. The torchlight struck her eyes, reflecting off gold, and for a moment it was as blinding as the sun had been. Senlin had not lied about the size of their hoard; before her, Loren saw more wealth than she had imagined could exist in all the world.
It struck her dumb for a moment, and she barely noticed as the man in black headed to the back of the room. But at last she followed him there. A large tapestry hung on the wall. Loren did not recognize the scene it depicted, but a man stood with hands raised to the sky. Storm clouds seemed to flow from his fingers, and they rained lightning and thunder down upon the foes who stood before him. With a start, she realized that it was the same man as the statue in the square, where she had spoken against Wojin before the crowd. His pose in the tapestry was almost the same as the statue’s.
The man in black pulled the tapestry aside. Behind it was a blank stone wall.
Loren froze. “What …?” she said.
The man grinned at her. “My job is to know the secret ways no one else knows about.”
He knelt and stuck a finger into the wall. For a moment Loren thought he must be an alchemist. But then she saw that there was a little nook there, cleverly hidden unless one looked for it carefully. The man’s fingers disappeared inside, and then he pulled something. Loren heard a click, and two stones in the wall swung open. It revealed a passageway large enough to crawl through.
“In, girl,” said the man. “They are coming.”
“Who?” said Loren. But a sound answered her. She heard the door to the treasury burst open. Turning, she saw Kal rush in, Mystics at his heels. They saw her and screamed a battle cry as they charged.
Loren fell to hands and knees and crawled into the hole. But the man with the scars did not follow her. Instead, he swung the door shut behind her. Loren crawled on, listening. She expected to hear screams as the man died, the way Niya had inside the palace. But there was nothing—only the sound of men pounding uselessly on the stone outside.
The passageway went on for what seemed like forever. First it went down, and then it twisted left and right, and eventually it climbed again. Loren felt the walls as she went, but there was no way to turn left or right. And after a time, the passage ended.
She felt the wall with her hands. There was no knob, no lever. No way to get out. She began to panic. Loren did not fear tight spaces the way Annis did, but she was still trapped in the walls of the palace, and she had no idea how to get out.
Slowly, she drew three deep breaths. Then she remembered how the man had opened the passageway in the first place. Loren fumbled, trying and failing to keep her fingers steady.
At the top right corner of the wall before her, she found a chink in the stone. Her fingers sank inside, and she felt a lever. She pulled.
The wall swung open. Loren crawled through, and she was back in the palace again.
Quickly she rose to her feet and ran on. A moment before, she had known the layout of the palace, but now she was lost again, as though she had never been there before. So she kept running, guessing which way to turn every time she came to an intersection. Loren had grown up running through the forest, and her endurance had not lessened during all the long leagues she had traveled across Underrealm. But even still, eventually her legs and lungs began to burn. She was trapped here. She would never leave the palace. She—
Loren turned the corner and found herself before the dining hall. There it was, empty and clear. Beside her was the small iron door that led to the secret passageway.
“You know where you have to go, girl.”
The voice made her spin. There was the man in black again. He leaned on the wall, his arms folded, his lips twisted in a smirk. But there, too, was Niya. She stood with hands at her sides, and her eyes were sad as they beheld Loren.
“It is the only way,” said Niya, her voice soft.
“Darkness take you both,” said Loren. “I am here for Damaris. Gregor is nothing, and he can stay in that room and rot for all I care.”
Loren leaped into the dining hall. Niya cried out and reached for her. Even the man in black tried to seize her. But she slapped their hands away and ran. No one else moved to stop her. She reached the other end and flew through the open door. There, just a span away, was the open gate that led into the city. She was almost there. She was almost free.
An arrow pierced her chest.
Loren stumbled and fell. Her mind whirled back to Yewamba. She had been shot there, too. She remembered the shaft protruding from her chest, the fletching soft under her fingers.
No, not the fletching. Now the arrowhead was in front. It had slid straight through her ribs. A drop of her blood fell from its tip as she watched. She had been shot from behind.
Loren managed to roll on her back as she sank to the ground. She looked up. There was the balcony. The one where Gregor always waited. In his hands was a massive longbow of yew, at least as long as Loren was tall. He wore an evil smile as he looked down at her.
All ways lead to Gregor.
She understood now. She understood. She could not escape Gregor. No matter what she did.
The dream released her.
Loren woke in the night, shivering and shaking. The terror of her dreams had begun to lessen, but this was different. This time the dream had not ended with Gregor moving towards her, looming in the darkness. This time he had killed her. She thought she had been clever to avoid him, but it all ended the same. She could not escape her fate.
Except that it was only a dream.
Annis lay peacefully on the other side of the bed. Loren shook her, and the girl’s eyes snapped open. She sat up at once, drawing up the blanket. It was unnecessary—she and Loren both slept mostly clothed, for the girl was terribly modest.
“Loren?” she whispered. “What is it?”
“I have had a dream,” she said. “Two, in fact, and I forgot to tell you of the other one. Let us fetch the others.”
They went to the room that Chet and Gem shared. Uzo was on watch when they emerged, but if he thought it strange to see them awake, he made no remark. He only nodded as they passed, and then leaned back in his chair by the door of the common room. Together, Annis and Loren woke Chet and Gem, and they gave the boys a moment to collect themselves. Then the girls sat at the foot of the bed while the boys sat up against the headboard, and Loren told them all that she had seen.
When they had finished, Gem sat frowning. “I … I do not understand,” he said lamely.
“Nor do I,” said Loren. “It seems my visions are not meant to be understood.”
“Except when they are,” said Chet quietly. “Why, then, do we bother ourselves with them?”
&n
bsp; Loren looked at him sharply. “Would you rather I did not tell you? If I had warned you of the dreams I had in Ammon, we might not have gone to Yewamba.”
Chet shook his head. “I would rather we ignored them entirely—and that means you as well. You cannot still think there is nothing odd about this, Loren. Whatever brought these visions on—whether it is the Elves, as we first guessed, or something else entirely—it is using you, not helping you. For weeks you saw nothing, and now you have had three visions in only a few days.”
“Even if I am a tool in the hand of some greater power, I am being used to achieve the ends I wish to accomplish,” said Loren. “Whatever brought the dreams is helping me, whether or not that is the intention.”
“Oh?” said Chet. “What exactly has it helped you accomplish?”
Loren spread her hands. “We seek Damaris. The dreams have helped us find her.”
“You seek to capture Damaris, not pursue her. And the dreams only show you just enough to keep you always nipping at her heels.”
“That is better than losing her entirely.”
“You can say that now, because you do not know the end of this road.”
“Nor do you,” said Loren. “Nor does anyone. It is just as likely as anything else that the dreams are leading us to the end we seek.”
Chet dropped his gaze. “I think you are being drawn along on that hope. For our road has led us to several ends already, and we sought none of them.”
Loren fell silent, for of course she had no answer to that. Gem and Annis looked uncomfortably at each other.
“Yet … yet it all must mean something,” said Loren. “To ignore the dreams would be to give up. There must be a meaning within them. Or why would I continue to see the same thing, over and over again?”
“Mayhap the answer is not in what is the same, but what is different,” said Gem slowly. “Things change from dream to dream. Might we look for clues there?”
“That still seems too plain,” said Annis. “Never since we came to Danfon has Loren seen the mountains, as she did in Sidwan. Yet the mountains are not a very good clue.”
“And I see Niya almost every time, no matter what I do,” said Loren. “Yet she is dead. Or rather, Auntie is.”
Chet’s expression grew dark, and he turned away.
“One thing might be helpful, at least,” said Annis. “You saw a secret entrance to the treasury. If it is there, that would help our plans immeasurably.”
“If it is,” said Loren. “But if it is not? We might be trapped, thinking there is a means of escape when none exists.”
Annis sighed. “I suppose you are right. We cannot know what will help us until we are there, and then it may already be too late.”
“I fear Duris will betray us,” said Chet quietly. “What if she does? What if Damaris learns—or has already learned—about her meeting with us? What if Damaris knows about our way into and out of the city, as your dream suggests?”
“Then all our plans are for nothing,” said Loren. She tugged at her hair. “But if that is the case, we should leave Danfon at once and never return. Our cause is hopeless.”
Chet looked up eagerly, his eyes shining in the light of the room’s lamp. “Would you do that?” he said.
Loren wondered the same thing. She had pledged herself to the High King. She had sworn to fulfill the duty assigned to her, and she had vowed to capture Damaris. Yet if their plans were doomed … if she was doomed … could she knowingly walk into death? She could not help the High King as a corpse. Mayhap it was wiser to retreat now, to return to Kal with her tail between her legs and seek his instruction.
Her grip tightened on her dagger. If she did that, Kal might punish her. But then? He would use her again, just as he had aimed to from the beginning. He would devise a plan, and he would issue orders. What would Loren do, then, if her dreams showed her that those orders would lead to her death as well? Would she run from them? Was that to be the rest of her life, fleeing one dark premonition after another?
Before she could give voice to the thought, Gem spoke up. “I … I would not leave,” he said. “Not if it were my choice. I will follow you to whatever end, Loren. But I do not want to live the rest of my life in fear. We know your dreams have shown you lies. I think we should use your dreams when we can—but I think we must ignore them when they tell us to do the wrong thing. And fleeing this city—leaving Damaris to work her evil in Dorsea—I think that that would be the wrong thing.”
Loren nodded slowly. “I think you are right. I do not know why these visions have come to me, and I do not even understand them more than half the time. But I cannot—I will not let them turn my life to one of fear. I am a servant of the High King. I am not one of her soldiers, but I am like one. I follow her orders and carry out her will. Every soldier marches to battle knowing that they may die. We could die now, tonight, betrayed by one of Yushan’s servants. That is not enough to make me flee from Danfon. Neither are my visions. I will stay.”
“And I,” said Gem.
“And I,” said Annis.
“I will stay with you, then,” said Chet softly. She met his gaze. Until he said the words, she had not realized how much she feared it—that this would be the moment. This would be when he chose to leave her. And in fact, she could see the sadness in his eyes, see his own fear. He had been hopeful, for a moment. He had let himself believe that Loren might actually abandon her duty, might leave Dorsea to its fate. She could see it in him now. He was disappointed, even crestfallen.
Yet he would stay.
Her dreams were no visions of the future. She did not know what they were, but they were not that.
“Very well,” whispered Loren. “Thank you. And now we must all go back to sleep, for tomorrow we rob a king.”
THEY ROSE EARLY THE NEXT morning, and they left Yushan’s manor before the sun had come up. Loren brought all her party along, save for Annis. Kerri came with them as before, a guide through the streets. Loren had come to feel grateful for the girl’s presence. Danfon was still a strange city to her, and it felt reassuring to have someone along to whom the place was so familiar. And though the words they had had together were relatively few, Loren had come to greatly value Kerri’s counsel. She almost wished the girl were coming with them into the palace, but that was far beyond her area of expertise.
Soon the walls loomed above them. One six paces in height bordered the outer courtyards. It was a magnificent structure, and could likely hold well against even a determined attack by enemy forces. But the wall was built of rough white stone, and Loren knew she and her friends could scale it easily.
The problem was that the streets around them were too crowded. No guards were on patrol, but five warriors scaling the palace wall would surely draw attention from passersby. Loren already felt a bit conspicuous out in public. She wore her black cloak to hide her new, distinctive clothing, but the cloak itself was beautifully made, and she thought she caught one or two sidelong glances from people walking past.
Once they had walked the perimeter, they ducked into a nearby alley. “We should wait a bit,” said Kerri. “Soon most people will have arrived at their destinations—the marketplaces and other shops. There will be fewer curious eyes around then, and we should be able to find a moment when no one is around to see us.”
“I agree,” said Loren. “Chet, would you fetch us some water and bread? We may be waiting here a while.”
Chet took some silver pennies and headed for the nearest inn. The rest of them settled down to wait. Gem sat on the ground against the wall, silent with his own thoughts. Shiun and Uzo took up position at either end of the alley, watching for any signs of danger. Two barrels sat side by side. Loren hopped up on one, and Kerri took the other.
For a moment, Kerri looked down the alley in the direction Chet had gone. “I have been meaning to ask—where did you all come from?”
Loren blinked at her. “I am from Selvan,” she said. “Most of us are. Annis is … well, I s
uppose she is from the High King’s Seat, though her family’s home is in Feldemar.”
Kerri shook her head at once. “No, I mean … how did you meet, is closer to the question. I know little enough about you all, but you are a forester, and Annis is a merchant child. Chet is … did I hear he was a hunter? And I do not know what to make of Gem. How did such a varied party come to join you?”
Loren chuckled. “That is a tale indeed. More than one, actually, and we do not have the time to tell them all now. Chet and I have known each other all our lives. I met Annis shortly after I left the woods where I was raised, and I met Gem a little while after that, in the city of Cabrus.”
“Why did you and Chet leave the forest?”
“I …” Loren smiled and shook her head. “He did not leave with me. I left, and he left some months later. He went looking for me, in fact, and happened upon me in the city of Northwood.” Her expression fell as she remembered it, and she went silent.
“Tales reached us of what happened at Northwood,” said Kerri softly. “But I had not heard you played any part in that.”
“Only by accident,” said Loren. “The Shades—the ones who destroyed it—they were looking for me. And I lingered there too long, for I … I had lost someone, and I had also learned something … unpleasant. I spent too many days wandering the Birchwood, with Chet trying to lure me out of my sadness.”
“You say he went there to look for you?” said Kerri. “Why?”
A small smile dusted Loren’s lips. “Because he loved me. In truth, he had loved me for a long while before that. And after I left the forest, he was drawn out to find me again.”
Kerri’s eyes widened. “Oh, I … oh. I am sorry. I did not realize.”
Loren’s smile vanished. “You would have had little reason to. Things have not been well between us since … well, since before we came to Dorsea. Many things have happened to us in our travels together, and some were worse than others.”
To Loren’s surprise, Kerri looked down at her hands in a quiet fury. “That seems to be a common thread that wends its way through all of Underrealm in these days. It is why I grow frustrated that I cannot help.”
Yerrin: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 6) Page 20
