Grateful because I’m supposed to be mad, and they are willing to overlook such an embarrassing deficiency? Karigan wanted to snap that she had better use for her time, but she held her tongue and said, instead, “I am very tired.” At least it was true. How could she have slept after Cloudy’s visit?
“But several of them have eligible sons, and from Preferred families!”
So she could become breeding stock. “I am not interested.”
Mirriam sputtered in astonishment, and before she could say another word, Karigan was out the door and striding across the yard.
• • •
Later, at supper, the professor glanced at her more than once. Karigan felt she must exude restless energy. Raven had certainly picked up on it earlier, circling in his stall and digging at his bedding. Now she pushed legumes about her plate. Had Mirriam reported her agitated behavior to the professor? Perhaps he’d put it down to her concern for Lhean.
She had sat still long enough, after seeing Raven, to study the city maps in the professor’s library and to select a route for her midnight excursion. No streets or developments appeared to venture near the vicinity of where she remembered the Heroes Portal to lie. The area still seemed to be rural, which no doubt helped maintain the secret of the tombs. This would be her first time heading out into the city—the city and beyond—on her own. The fact she had confronted many frightening situations as a Green Rider, not least of all becoming lost in Blackveil Forest, did not make her any less nervous about sneaking out into hostile territory in the deep of night. Alone. Yes, that was what this future was—hostile territory.
She had considered taking someone into her confidence and asking him to accompany her. Luke? Cade? But she immediately dismissed the idea. This was her business and no one else’s, and it was her duty to keep the existence of the Heroes Portal a secret.
When Karigan excused herself before she finished supper, the professor asked, “Are you not feeling well, my dear?”
“I’m fine, Uncle, just a little tired.”
She returned to her room, and Lorine helped her change into her nightgown early. When left on her own, Karigan took out the mirror shard from its hiding place, along with the note from Captain Mapstone. She stared long and hard at the words and handwriting, confirming for herself once again that this was, in fact, real and not a hoax. It had to be. She had to believe. Even if it was a trap of some kind, she could not ignore the summons. She had to go.
She gazed at the mirror shard, but it produced no vision for her.
When the bell struck ten hour, she swung her legs out of bed and crept to the door. She had to be especially careful—this was an earlier hour than when she usually slipped out to meet the professor to go to the old mill, and there was always the chance someone in the household was awake, notably the professor himself. However, as she made her way, she encountered no one. Light might glow in the crack beneath a bedroom door, but no one emerged.
Once she let herself out the back door, she knew the stable would be the next challenge, for Luke and the stable boys had rooms there. She worked up a few excuses in case she was caught. I’m sorry, Luke, I couldn’t sleep and wanted to see Raven. Or, I’m sorry Luke, but it seemed like a good night for a ride . . . Right. Very convincing.
When she entered the stable with the light of a very dim taper to guide her, Raven whickered sleepily at her.
“Shhh,” she admonished him.
She let herself into the tackroom and the wardrobe where her Tam Ryder garb awaited her. She changed quickly, stuffing her braid into the cap. She froze when she thought she heard a door groan open, expecting Luke to come at any moment and demand what she was about. She strained to listen, but heard nothing more than the movements of horses and the settling noises of the building itself. Still, she crept out of the tackroom, looking around carefully. When she saw no one, she went to Raven to groom and tack him. She had groomed him earlier in the day and now only had to brush a light layer of dust off his coat. He was fully awake now and nuzzled her for treats.
“Not now, silly,” she whispered, and she set the saddle on his back.
Karigan prayed her luck held. It was one thing if she was caught by Luke, but as she led Raven out of the stable, she knew it would be quite another if she were spotted by an Inspector. She’d brought the bonewood with her but did not think it would be much of a defense against a gun or mechanical.
She led Raven down the drive and mounted. He pranced and tossed his head, full of high spirits. The silver of his tack jingled, and to Karigan it sounded like an alarm ringing in the quiet of night.
“Settle down,” she murmured.
Raven whickered.
She leaned down on his neck and whispered to his twitching ear, “Tonight you are a Green Rider horse, and we are on an important mission. Understand?”
He quieted.
Good, Karigan thought, and she squeezed him forward.
He promptly started prancing again, behaving like the energetic young stallion he was, his neck handsomely curved. She sighed, made another short prayer, and they were out on the street. She looked carefully this way and that. A clammy mist hung in the air, turning the glow of streetlamps hazy, droplets turning into sparks and embers as they passed through the light. A little fog would be helpful. If only she had her brooch and her special ability worked. She could disappear and none would note her passage.
She held Raven in, peering down streets at every intersection. There were a few others out—street sweepers, cabs rumbling by at a trot, amorphous shapes in the mist. She followed the route Luke had taken when they’d gone to the Scangly Mounds that one day. When she looked over her shoulder toward the Old City, the light of Silk’s worksite at the summit boiled and wavered in the thick air. It would be her beacon and help her keep her bearings as she sought the foundation of the small mount—where the Old City, her Sacor City, had been—and searched for the Heroes Portal.
As she continued on her cautious way, Raven’s hooves clopping all too loudly on the street, she wondered if, instead of stealth, they should actually move along as if she had business to attend to. The cabs certainly did, as well as other carriages she saw out and about. She paused, thinking it over, and in the silence heard the mechanical click-clack of an Enforcer tapping its way down the street on its spindly, metallic legs, accompanied by the footsteps of an Inspector. Karigan backed Raven into an alley and peered around its entrance. A sickly glow hovered around the mechanical, its looking-glass eye rotating on the orb of its body. The Inspector swung a club at his side. The mechanical made a sharp bleep and turned down a side street.
Relief settled over Karigan, but Raven mouthed the bit, so she decided they would trot through the city and try to leave it behind as fast as possible, come what may. She was tired of caution, and the message Cloudy had brought made her decide that the time of waiting and inaction was over. They set out at a ground-eating trot.
In the center of town there was a little more traffic, and she felt less conspicuous. She slowed Raven to a jog to accommodate others on the street, even passing another Inspector and his mechanical patrolling shop fronts. The Inspector didn’t even glance her way, more interested in the window displays. Once away from the town center, they picked up their pace again along Canal Street, past silent mills with darkened windows. Fog wisped along the surface of the canal’s black water. Soon they clattered across the bridge that spanned the canal, then the second that crossed the river, and she urged Raven to a canter through the poor neighborhoods on the other side.
• • •
They did not slow down till they were far away from streetlamps and habitation. Karigan circled Raven around more than once to ensure they were not being followed. A couple of times, she could have sworn she heard something behind her, maybe a hoofbeat that was not Raven’s or the clacking of a rock, but even with her senses sharply attuned, she found no evi
dence of pursuit.
They proceeded more slowly now, the density of the dark and the fog challenging her night vision as they traveled the road that bypassed the Scangly Mounds. Eventually they would have to leave the road and rein in toward the base of the Old City’s mount, but she was unsure of the terrain, and it was difficult to reconcile the lines of a map with the actual landscape, especially submerged in a night fog. She paused Raven at a lightly trodden track that veered off the road to their right. She thought that this was the one that led to the Scangly Mounds. If this was the correct turning, she must travel farther along it. But how far? After they’d gone some distance, she halted Raven again and sat, indecisive. The summit of the mount she’d seen, ablaze with the lights of Silk’s excavation, had vanished from view due to tree growth and the shape of the mount itself. Not that she could make out even basic shapes; the wafting mist made everything indistinct. Though she stood still, the world streamed around her in vaporous currents.
Even had it been clear and sunny, she was not sure she’d be able to find the Heroes Portal. She had been there but once, led by a Weapon and the king, and it was well hidden. It was possible to pass very close by and never know it. She worried that her hesitation would make her late for whatever was supposed to transpire at midnight, but she worried more about becoming lost and not finding it at all.
Raven stamped and pranced, interrupting her thoughts. When she finally got him to settle, she realized they were no longer alone on the road.
Meow, said Cloudy the cat. He sat with his tail wrapped around his feet right in front of them.
Karigan had never been so glad to see a cat.
FOLLOWING THE CAT
Raven lowered his head to snuffle Cloudy. A puff of air from his nostrils ruffled the cat’s whiskers. Cloudy tapped Raven’s nose. The stallion jerked his head up and snorted, leaving both horse and cat disgruntled.
“Right,” Karigan said. “Now that you’ve introduced yourselves, what’s next?”
Cloudy flicked his tail, rose, and strutted off with an air of righteous disdain for all horsekind. He veered off the road to their left and into some brush. Remembering the last time that she, accompanied by several Weapons, had needed to find a way into the tombs, they’d been led to a secret entrance by Ghost Kitty. Karigan reined Raven after Cloudy. It was utterly ridiculous to even consider following a cat, but what else was she supposed to do?
Maybe, she thought with some perversity, it wasn’t the gods who controlled the universe, but cats. Cats who toyed with humans as a puppeteer would a marionette. Ghost Kitty had always manipulated her into feeding him treats and giving him the greater part of her bed.
Raven plodded into the brush after Cloudy.
I am following a cat. One part of Karigan wanted to laugh, and another part of her was resigned to the absurdity. Who was she to judge what was utterly ridiculous after all she’d seen and done and experienced?
Cloudy continued into a thatch of woods and thick undergrowth with his tail erect and crooked at the tip. Branches Karigan could not see almost knocked her off Raven’s back, so she dismounted. Cloudy hurried back and rubbed against her legs, then forged onward. She hoped he was not leading her to his favorite mouse hole. She tried to console herself with the fact that the night she and the Weapons had been so desperate to enter the tombs, Ghost Kitty led them true.
The woods only deepened the gloom, and Karigan tripped over rocks and depressions in the earth. Fortunately Cloudy’s light coloring made him visible. Occasionally, he paused with a glance back to see if she was still there. She pushed away wet tree limbs and pulled strands of spider webs off her face, wondering how far they had to go. And was this the easiest way for a horse and human to go, or just a path convenient for a cat? With Raven plowing through the woods, snapping branches as he plodded behind her, they certainly were not making a quiet approach. Anyone who might be waiting for her—friend or enemy—would hear her coming.
Karigan felt like she trudged after Cloudy forever. Would she be late? Would someone be there to meet them? She amused herself by imagining a whole glaring of cats awaiting her, led by one Supreme Cat. Such notions took the edge off her nerves. It was better than worrying about walking into a trap.
So immersed was she in her fancies of a feline greeting committee, that it took her several moments to realize the going was easier—less brush, fewer branches grabbing at her. Raven’s hooves clopped solidly on stone and the ground grew more even underfoot. Karigan’s hopes lifted—there had been the remnant of a granite-paved path leading to the Heroes Portal. If she were able to see the trees that towered overhead, would she find herself passing beneath a grove of hemlocks?
She strained her eyes looking for another sign of where she was and almost missed it. The obelisk had toppled over and broken in two at some point, and only a little of its pale stone shone in the dark. It appeared it was being claimed by the earth, swallowed by moss and leaves and pine needles. They were close now.
She picked up her pace behind Cloudy, her excitement rising, though she also tried to remain alert for trouble. Cloudy jumped up onto a rock and sat to groom himself. No, this was no simple rock. Karigan paused to glide her hand across it. This was a slab of granite shaped by the hands and tools of people. It was pocked by age and covered with forest debris and thick, sodden moss, but it had once been polished smooth. It was a coffin rest. That meant the portal was straight ahead. Not far.
Cloudy leaped down and led her on. After some time, Karigan felt, more than saw, the space closing in on them, that they were coming to a wall of rock. Sound changed as they neared, the thud of Raven’s hooves rebounding. The mineral scent of wet stone grew heavy in the air. Water trickled nearby from some height above to the forest floor. Cloudy stepped off the path and jumped onto a fallen log and sat, waiting expectantly. Karigan strained her eyes, peered into the dark, and yes, there was the tall, pale finger of stone, the second obelisk, that marked the entrance to the tombs.
Had she missed the appointed time? Would someone come out to see her, or would she have to knock on the portal? Not that anyone would hear her if she did. She thought she remembered how the door was opened that long ago night—there was a glyph of Westrion on its center. One only had to press it . . .
She took a step forward thinking to do just that. She did not feel like standing there forever in the dark, waiting for something to happen. She was about to take a second step when a low voice issued out of the dark: “Do not move.”
She froze, throttling down a scream at the sharp edge of steel suddenly touching her throat. She swallowed slowly, carefully. A trap after all! She had not even seen or heard anyone draw the sword, and now she dared not see who wielded it for fear he would cut her throat.
“Name yourself,” said a second male voice behind her.
Karigan had not been around guns very much, but she easily identified the particular click of the hammer being drawn back. She could feel the man boring his sight into her.
Beside her, Raven moved his head about, snuffling the scents of the two men. Were there more? He flattened his ears back and whinnied. She gripped the reins tightly.
“Your name,” the man with the gun demanded.
Karigan knew she could be giving away everything, but if these were in fact the people she was supposed to meet and not a pair of villains who’d drawn her here for nefarious purposes, withholding her real name could mean her death.
“I will not ask again,” the gunman said.
Karigan opened her mouth to answer, but Raven lunged, knocked the sword away from her throat, and lashed out with his rear hooves. Someone cursed. Karigan whirled, the bonewood extended to fighting length. She stood in a defensive posture, the entrance to the tombs somewhere behind her.
People moved about the woods farther down the trail. It sounded like a brawl had erupted, fists thudding on flesh, branches cracking, grunts of pain an
d muted shouts. What in the hells? Raven snorted beside her and dug at the ground.
Even as the fight continued, Karigan sensed someone angling toward her from the side. She turned to face him but saw little.
“Put the staff down. It is of no use against a gun.” When she paused, he added, “I will surely blow a hole through your head if you do not comply.”
She believed it. His voice was imbued with layers of threat. Slowly she laid the bonewood on the ground and raised her hands palms outward to show they were empty. Obviously he could see her better than she him.
“Now your name. Your name and that of your accomplice.”
Accomplice? “But—”
“Name.”
Karigan swallowed hard. Well, if she was going to give her name, she might as well do it right. “I am Rider Sir Karigan G’ladheon of His Majesty’s Messenger Service.” She’d have bowed, but she feared any sudden movement on her part would cause the man to pull the trigger.
He paused, most likely digesting her name and title. “Who did you bring with you? Name your accomplice.”
“I have no accomplice, unless you mean my horse.”
“You were followed,” he accused.
“I was? But I—”
“We’ve subdued him,” someone called out, this time a female voice.
The sound of the fight was replaced by that of several approaching footsteps.
“Light,” someone said.
Lanterns flared to life, and Karigan averted her face, shielding her eyes. After all that time in the dark it was like falling into the sun.
“Is it her?” someone asked.
“Hard to tell.”
Karigan blinked, willing her eyes to adjust.
“Watch the horse,” another said. “He kicked me.”
Karigan squinted at Raven who tensed up at her side again, then she turned her gaze on those who stood arrayed before her. The light was aimed into her face so it was not easy to see past the glare. She guessed there were a half a dozen of them, and they were dressed darkly, probably in black. The cut of their clothes—their uniforms—was very familiar. So was the way they held themselves: Weapons.
Mirror Sight Page 40
