While Lorine worked on starting a fire, Karigan hunted for writing materials. On a table, she found Arhys’ lesson books and a sheaf of plain paper where the girl had practiced her figures and handwriting. Karigan took the paper and a graphite stick, cleverly encased in a cylinder of wood, to the sofa. Just as Lorine got a blaze going, the guards returned with a tray for Karigan. Lorine gave a good accounting of herself trying to convince them to free Karigan of the manacles, but they refused. Mirriam, however, would have been proud of Lorine’s tenacity.
They’d brought Karigan chicken soup and tea, and she thought sadly of poor Luke who’d so often had soup brought to her while she was under the influence of morphia. It was tepid and not so easy to spoon into her mouth with her wrists bound, but it was tasty. When she scraped the bottom of the bowl, she asked Lorine, “Do you like to play games?”
“What?”
“See here,” Karigan replied, and she wrote on the paper: Pretend we are playing a game. “Bridge and Rabbit,” she said aloud. “Do you know that one?” It had been a common children’s game in Karigan’s time.
“Yes,” Lorine said, still obviously perplexed. “Arhys and I play it sometimes.”
“Oh, good,” Karigan said. She wrote: We are all in danger. They will want to know more about Arhys.
Lorine took the graphite. Why?
“Bridge,” Karigan said, as if they were really playing the game. She decided that Lorine was better off not knowing that Arhys was the last heir of the old realm. Because they are evil and cruel, she wrote, and Arhys was the professor’s favorite. You need to tell me about the palace, what is where, schedules, anything you can think of. Remember, we are playing the game.
“Rabbit,” Lorine said faintly. She proceeded to draw a map of what she knew of the palace. It was only a small part of the main palace building, which was not surprising. Her movements were relegated to whatever Arhys was involved in from day to day. There were classrooms, the play yard, and little else but the corridors. Fountains were located at major junctions in corridors. Lorine marked the “grotto fountain,” the “horse fountain,” and the “fountain with the trout in it.” Also, she noted the dragon fountain Karigan had seen.
“Rabbit,” Karigan said, and so they went back and forth asking and answering questions. The next thing I’m going to ask will sound very strange, Karigan wrote. First, though, you should know my name is not Kari Goodgrave. In as few words as possible, Karigan tried to explain who she was, when and where she was from, and what help she needed from Lorine. “Bridge,” she said before handing the paper and graphite back to Lorine.
The paper trembled in Lorine’s hand. How do I know you’re not just as mad as Professor Josston said?
“Faith,” Karigan replied aloud. Then she wrote, The professor believed me, and so does Mr. Harlowe. Mr. Harlowe’s life depends on your help.
Lorine nodded.
Good, Karigan thought. Lorine would do this for Cade.
“Rabbit,” Karigan said. “I win.” Then she crumpled the papers they had used and threw them into the dwindling fire.
The two stood and gazed at one another for several seconds before Lorine, sounding like a not-so-good actor in a play, stiffly asked, “Are you ready to retire for the night, Miss Goodgrave?”
Karigan, who was anything but, replied, “Yes.”
Lorine nodded and set about dousing their lamps one by one until there were only the tongues of flame in the fireplace casting illumination into the room. She then flicked her hand in a gesture that seemed to ask Karigan if she was ready.
Karigan nodded, and faded out. Lorine gasped and wavered on her feet. Karigan had told her what to expect, but as usual, actually seeing it was a different story. If nothing else, Lorine probably now believed that Karigan was who she claimed to be.
Lorine steadied herself, then veiled her face and collected Karigan’s supper tray. She opened the door to the corridor, Karigan creeping behind her, holding her breath.
“Here, gentlemen,” Lorine told the guards. “Thank you for arranging to bring Miss Goodgrave her supper.”
As one of the guards reached for the tray, she dropped it. Crockery smashed and metal clattered, and Karigan used the moment to slip out, tucking her manacles to her belly to muffle any clinking of chains. She hastened down the corridor, glancing over her shoulder to see Lorine and the guards on their knees picking up pieces of broken crockery.
“I am so sorry,” Lorine told the guards.
How Karigan was going to get back in, she did not know. Perhaps she would not need to, but it was probably too much to hope for. Tonight she was scouting. If opportunities for more than simple scouting presented themselves, she would pursue them.
The corridors, as she hoped, were dimmed for night time, and very quiet. Still, she kept as close to the shadows as she could, concealing herself behind columns if she saw anyone coming her way. In the low light, her fading was good. In the shadows, it was better.
This outing of hers reminded her of the times she had tried to sneak around the professor’s house, but back then she hadn’t her ability to aid her. The brilliant white marble and gold fixtures of the palace were gray in her vision. It was muddier than normal, which she attributed to the tainted etherea. She hoped she could endure any pain and sickness it caused her.
She retraced her steps to the dragon fountain, the water still burbling away as it had earlier. However, instead of taking the corridor that led to Lhean’s cell, she went down the one to the immediate left of the fountain, the one the ghost of Yates had indicated would lead to the prison of forgotten days.
Karigan did not hesitate. This side passage was even less illuminated. The corridor was lined with doors. How would she know which one led to the prison of forgotten days?
In her gray vision, she discerned the figure of a man some distance ahead of her. He opened one of the doors and disappeared into a room. Karigan hurried down the corridor, halting when she arrived at the door. Actually, it was a pair of doors with columns to either side and frosted windows with “Imperial Museum” etched into them. She almost laughed despite herself. What else could a museum be but a prison of forgotten days?
Would identifying the scything moon prove as simple? There was only one way to find out. One of the doors stood ajar, and she slipped into the museum. It, too, was dimly lit. Perhaps the man who had come in ahead of her was Dr. Silk, who preferred darkness. The low light was good for her ability, but might Dr. Silk still be able to see her “aura” even if she was faded out? She could overpower him, she was sure, if she had to, but she needed him. He was her connection to Cade.
The exhibits in the hall made strange lumps and forms in the half-light. It glinted off display cases, metallic objects, and glass eyes. A statue of Amberhill in luminescent marble stood near the entrance. It was closer to life-sized than the others she had seen. She wove her way past cases of arrowheads and daggers, of baskets and pots, while dead creatures watched her progress from their mounts.
One such creature stood near the rear of the room, part moose, part human, a p’ehdrose. This one was female and had to be the mate of Ghallos, the taxidermied specimen she’d seen at Dr. Silk’s dinner party. Her name had been Edessa. Like Ghallos, the human part of her flesh had been poorly preserved. It was leathery and puckered. A length of cloth draped across her front looked like it was just thrown there to protect the modesty of visitors by concealing her breasts.
Karigan did not linger, but passed into another exhibit hall, this one with a lofty ceiling and an aviary type of cage through which Dr. Silk was peering. She hid behind a case of pinned insects and watched.
“Did you get fed tonight, my pretty little jewels?” he asked.
It was too dark to see, but the unmistakable whir of hummingbird wings told Karigan what the aviary held. She frowned.
“Indeed, we fed them tonight, Dr. Silk,” said a
new man, striding toward the aviary from even deeper in the museum. “A nice fat hog.”
“Excellent. I see that Ghallos isn’t back on exhibit yet.”
“We’ve been going over him, sir,” the man replied, “ensuring all is well after his long journey. We’re putting him back in place tonight.”
“That is acceptable. I have come to do some research in the library.”
“Very good, sir. If there’s anything you need, we’ll be here working on Ghallos. Just let us know.”
Wonderful, Karigan thought. More people to watch out for.
Dr. Silk and the museum workman parted, walking in opposite directions. Dr. Silk went to a door just beyond the aviary and unlocked it. Inside he turned on the light. Karigan moved carefully, just beyond the light that spilled across the floor. Within the library she espied shelves and shelves of books. She wondered if this library contained, as the professor’s had, the ragged, abused, and nearly destroyed tomes from her own time and farther into the past.
She skittered forward when the workman opened a door of his own and more light poured out, almost merging across the exhibit hall with light from the library. She continued to the back of the chamber and passed beneath an elaborate arch into another vast space. She stepped aside at the entryway and paused to lean across the wall and rest. Dare she drop her fading? She was exhausted, and her head pounded. She needed to rest, or she wouldn’t make it back to Lorine’s rooms. She sank to the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and dropped the fading.
The head pain and nausea were not nearly as bad as the last time she had tried, maybe because there was so much more etherea in the palace proper. Still, it was bad enough. She kept her eyes closed willing the discomfort to pass, but keeping her ears alert for the tiniest noise that would indicate someone was coming her way. All she heard, however, were the distant sounds and voices of the workmen.
When the worst of her head pain eased, she opened her eyes, and her sight was no longer occluded by the graying of her ability. When her eyes once again adjusted to the dark, she realized she’d found the scything moon.
THE SCYTHING MOON
The obsidian floor glimmered like black ice beneath the glass ceiling of the exhibit hall, which was more like an observatory open to the night sky. Karigan ran her hand across the smooth floor beside her. It was not layered with dust, not like the last time she had set foot on it.
Four winged figures carved of stone stood upon pedestals, with wings spread as though ready to fly. They were arranged, Karigan was certain, to designate the four cardinal directions, and even though she could not see their faces well in the dark, she knew they were Eletian, for she had stood among them before.
She rose and walked across not just a floor, but across a universe of stars and worlds, a celestial map embedded into the obsidian with quartz and flaring silver. There were subtle tints of blues and greens and rose in the quartz, and spider-fine lines showing the paths of heavenly bodies. Characters in luminous Eletian script rippled at intervals along the lines. When she reached the very center of the room, she stood upon a full moon of quartz, and arrayed around it were smaller representations of the moon in its various phases. They shone with a subtle gleam, picking up the barest glint of starlight through the glass ceiling. She had stood here before, in another time. No, this was not Castle Argenthyne in the heart of Blackveil Forest, but somehow the floor and statues had been removed from the chamber of the moondial in Castle Argenthyne and meticulously reassembled, here in the emperor’s palace in Gossham.
Karigan knelt before the phases of the moon. She had called these structures “moondials” because they were like sundials, where a shadow pointed to the time of day. Only with Eletian moondials, it was more. A properly aligned shadow cast by moonlight could take one to a “piece of time,” a time preserved at a particular phase of the moon. Karigan had experienced this power in Blackveil, first outside the ruined village of Telavalieth, then in Castle Argenthyne. At the castle, the legendary queen, Laurelyn, had preserved a piece of time preceding the invasion of Mornhavon the Black. For a thousand years it protected those of her people who “slept” in a grove of vast trees in retreat from the burden of eternal life. Karigan, using her ability not only to fade, but also to cross thresholds between the layers of the world, had led the Sleepers from Laurelyn’s refuge to the safety of Eletia’s distant past.
As she stood on the full moon, the gentle light of the quartz glowing about her ankles, she reflected that Captain Mapstone’s riddle had been correct, that she would find the scything moon held captive in the prison of forgotten days. Not only that, but she was sure this would be her way home. Why else had she been sent that message from almost two centuries ago, other than to guide her home?
Problem was, which of the crescent moons of the moondial was the correct “scything moon?” One of them had to preserve a piece of time from her own timeline. She refused to believe otherwise. Could she cross thresholds without Laurelyn’s help? Or without the light of her moonstone?
One thing at a time, she thought. She’d have to bring Lhean here for he would know more, know if using the moondial was even possible.
Chattering voices and a screeching sound made her freeze, then tip-toe to the arched entry. Gazing out into the hall of the hummingbirds, light flowed across the floor from an open door revealing several men attempting to push an enormous something across the hall.
Ghallos, she realized.
They appeared to be stuck.
“I am telling you, this axel is broken,” one of the men said. It led to an argument about the wheeled platform and the p’ehdrose not moving at all.
Uh oh, Karigan thought. She was going to be trapped here for a while. There was a chance she could get by the men while faded out, but she decided to wait, weighing in on the side of caution. If this went on very long, however, she would not reach Lhean this night.
While the workmen bickered, she decided to explore the moondial room further, for there were display cases to look in. It was difficult to make out details in the dark, but there was just enough ambient light to pick out weapons—some Eletian arrows, an ax, knives, and a saber. Though she could not see it well, she was certain the saber was her own, returned to its display case after its showing in Mill City. She glanced back at the ax. Could it be Lynx’s throwing ax? Had Dr. Silk acquired all the gear she and her companions had left behind in Castle Argenthyne?
There were other items in the case, bulky artifacts that might have been their packs, and smaller items, their contents. It felt strange that people could spend time gazing at her personal items, such as her comb and brush. But how many visitors actually came to this museum? Surely none from outside the palace. She had a feeling that Dr. Silk had created this place more for his personal gratification than as a museum where people could come to appreciate the past.
In a separate display case, the contents appeared to draw starlight to themselves, and Karigan knew immediately they were moonstones. Hundreds of them filling the entire case. Dr. Silk had said earlier that they’d acquired moonstones in war from Eletian captives. She thought about all the lives those moonstones represented. Amberhill may have defeated them in battle, but any survivors must have perished from the loss of etherea and what had become of the lands with the use of machines. Lhean had said even the air was poison.
When she finished trying to view the contents of the display cases, she checked on the workers in the main exhibit hall, but it appeared they had not progressed far in their repairs of Ghallos’ cart, so she returned to her sitting spot and settled in to wait.
The use of her ability combined with the trials of the day left her exhausted, and she dozed. She dreamed—at least she thought she dreamed—that a ghostly Yates sat beside her on the floor. Translucent and silent as always, he revealed to her another drawing. It was a sketch of the room she now sat in. Only, in the sketch, Laurelyn stood in the m
iddle of the room on the full moon. Yates had captured her ephemeral beauty well, which could not have been at all easy, especially with only ink scratchings and no paint to bring her to life in color.
When Karigan had last seen Laurelyn, after having led the Sleepers to Eletia, the queen of Argenthyne had bade her farewell; after protecting her Sleepers for a thousand years, she had expended her life’s energies and passed on to wherever Eletians passed on. It had been a bittersweet parting knowing that such a legend would never again be present in Karigan’s world. And yet, here was this sketch of Laurelyn made by a mortal’s ghost—all of which, she decided, was a dream.
When the sketch came to life, the scratchy lines wiggling and moving, Karigan knew it was, most certainly, a dream.
In the drawing, the winged statues rotated and the shading shifted, as though a new source of light had been introduced from above, like the moonlight in the chamber of the moondial in Castle Argenthyne. Laurelyn strode forward, the ink moving with and around her, holding her form together. She halted, and Karigan heard Laurelyn’s voice in her mind: I leave a final gift for Kariny’s daughter, the ice-glazed moon. Then in her arms she cradled a crescent moon, a scything moon.
After that, it was all gone, the drawing, the presence of Yates, and when she blinked her eyes open, she realized she’d been asleep and was now lying on her side on the cool floor. The sky above the glass ceiling was beginning to lighten with gray tones. Five hells, she thought.
They were heading toward dawn. She had to get moving before the palace woke up. She put the peculiar dream/not-dream to the back of her mind and climbed to her feet. Peering through the arched entrance, she found the main hall, though light still filtered out from the room of the workmen.
She took a deep breath, faded out, and left behind the Eletian moondial. As she passed through the main hall by the aviary of the hummingbirds, she noted a bar of light beneath the closed door of the library. Dr. Silk must still be working on his research.
Mirror Sight Page 67
