"Well?" said Ardeth, with an undernote of growing urgency.
Kindrie took a deep breath. Relax, he told himself. Torisen can't hate you any more than he already does. He rested the tips of his long sensitive fingers on the Highlord's eyelids.
A blurred image began to form in his mind: black hills, a sullen sky veined with green lightning. Wind blew, carrying a faint, sweet smell, as if of something long dead. Weeds rattled. Something dark loomed over him. More lightning, briefly illuminating the windowless facade of an enormous house. An archway opened into the dark interior.
Was this a soul-metaphor, or something else? Kindrie had never used one like it before, and somehow it didn't feel right for the Highlord either. Then too, everything was so indistinct. He had probably wandered into the hinterlands of Torisen's nightmare. Damn. Dreams were tricky things, far less stable than some metaphor under the healer's control. Standing on the threshold peering in, Kindrie was haunted by the feeling that this bleak, blasted dwelling had no roots even in Torisen's dream consciousness. It was as if they both had simply stumbled on this nightmare place, here, in the dark of the Highlord's sleep.
Kindrie hesitated. It could be dangerous to meddle at all with something like this. On the other hand, how much worse could things get? More lightning, and a small shadow slipped past him into the house. Well, that settled it. He followed.
Inside, dim corridors, cavernous rooms, decay. Whenever Kindrie tried to focus on anything, it immediately blurred almost out of recognition. It wasn't just his poor dream-vision this time either: he felt subtly out of phase with all his surroundings, as if he didn't quite share the same plane of reality with them. Ancestors be praised that he could still see the child's shadow, however faintly . . . and now he had something else to guide him as well. It registered on his half-trained senses as both a smell and a taste, sharp and metallic. So there was poison here after all. He sensed it faintly all around him, but the farther in he got, the stronger his impression of it became, until he felt as if he were sucking on a copper coin crusted with verdigris. Down interminable corridors, across a great hall lined with what looked like the blur of many faces, up a stair.
An indistinct figure sat on the steps above him on what appeared to be a knot of writhing shadows. It held something white. He had a strong sense that, like the house, it had another existence elsewhere. Everything here, in fact, seemed to be only the shadow of some other reality cast on Torisen's sleeping mind —but if so, that shadow was killing him, for here was the poison's primary source.
Now, what on earth could he do about it?
Kindrie crouched before the ghostlike figure. He didn't think it could see him at all. He could see that it was raising that white object, very, very slowly. Dark hair, gray eyes with a silver sheen—it might almost have been Torisen himself seen through a heavy mist, but with some indefinable difference. The white object was almost at its throat now. The eyes closed. On impulse, Kindrie reached out and touched the shadowy lids . . .
. . . and again saw a mental image of the House. This time it was a true soul-metaphor, but not Torisen's. Kindrie's next move should have been to repair whatever damage this architectural soul image had sustained, but he could barely focus on it because of the shifting levels of dream and reality that separated him from it.
Kindrie felt panic rise in him. Ardeth had been wrong to insist that he try this. He wasn't qualified, and despite the slower temporal flow on this level, time was running out. He could feel it. Torisen would die unless he did something quickly, but what? There was the trick he had used to draw the poison out of Ardeth's wine, but that technique was intended only for use on inanimate objects with neither life nor sanity to lose. No matter. He simply couldn't think of anything else.
But it didn't work quite as Kindrie had intended. When he extended his power to exclude the venom from its victim's blood, the venom resisted. When he tried even harder, it struck back. Too late, Kindrie realized he was dealing with a parasitic poison whose active principle was psychic rather than physical; it took a dim view of being forcibly evicted just when it was getting comfortable. But it would move if necessary, especially when another host so conveniently offered itself.
Kindrie felt the venom surge into him through his fingertips. Too late to raise any barriers. Too late even to draw his hands away. Numbness spread up his arms. He should have been thinking of a way to counteract this latest disaster, but all that ran through his mind like some idiot's chant was
Never say things can't get worse
Never say things can't get worse . . .
Then he saw that the serpentine shadows upon which the other sat had reared up to twine themselves about his arms. Kindrie didn't like snakes. These, however, he could barely see and could not feel at all, at first. Then the numbness began to recede, leaving in its wake sharp, stinging pain. His arms felt as if they had been stuck full of needles. In fact, the snakes had sunk their fangs into them. Just as he came to this not altogether welcome conclusion, the shadowy forms uncoiled themselves and tumbled back to the floor. Kindrie sprang backward. His arms were covered with punctures just beginning to bleed, but the venom was gone. The snakes had sucked it all up. The coppery taste in his mouth faded. By God, he had drawn the poison to a reachable level, and they had gotten rid of it entirely.
But now everything was beginning to fade. Of course. With the venom gone, Torisen was beginning to wake up, and here Kindrie was, still fathoms deep in the other's mind.
Never say things can't get worse
Never say . . .
He could see through the steps underfoot. Somewhere, the real stairs were probably still solid enough; this was only their dream image, and the dream was dissolving. The house began to open up beneath him, walls and ceilings fading like mist in the sun. Beside him was the child's shadow. It darted down the stairs and back, down and back. He could almost feel small, phantom hands tugging at him.
You big dummy, run, run!
He ran. Down the steps, across the great hall, into the labyrinth corridors. The shadow cut through dissolving walls now, and he followed, almost seeing the slight Kendar child who ran ahead of him. The dead know so much, and they never tire. Kindrie was very tired. He had never been strong in anything but his half-controlled healing powers, and now even they were too spent to help him. His breath burned in his chest. Sweat half blinded him. He couldn't see the child's shadow now at all, but a small hand gripped his, urging him on. A dark opening ahead. The front door. He pitched through it headfirst . . . . . . onto the floor of the tent.
Someone was holding him. Strong, steady hands. Burr, probably. Voices ran together around him.
". . . all right!"
"Trinity, look at his arms."
"Tori, my boy, wake up, wake up . . ."
That last was Ardeth. Kindrie tried to focus on the cot and saw the old lord bending over Torisen. The Highlord's eyes flickered open.
"Dreams," he said indistinctly. "Everyone has them." Then, more clearly, "Adric, you look awful. Get some rest." His voice faded again, and his eyes closed. He began to breathe with the deep, slow respiration of dwar sleep. Ardeth pulled the blanket up and sat back with a weary sigh.
"Lord, is he all right?" Burr asked anxiously.
"Yes, now."
"Good," said Kindrie, and fainted.
* * *
JAME WOKE on the stair, dazed. Overhead was naked sky seen through charred roof-beams. Sullen clouds scudded across it. Lightning flashed in the belly of one, tingeing it with sulphurous green. Thunder snarled. Of course, Jame thought numbly. The last time she had been here, years ago, she had left the place in flames, hence no roof. But what was she doing here now? She groped for the memory and caught scraps of it. God's teeth and toenails, what a nightmare. Why, she had been about to . . . to . . .
The white knife was still in her hand, numbing her fingers. She dropped it with a gasp. The snakes dodged the falling blade and hissed at it as it vibrated on the step beside her, it
s point wedged in a crack. Sweet Trinity.
More of the poison nightmare came back to her, and then, with a rush, all of it—but it had been no dream. What in Perimal's name had happened? She should be dead or dying now with these wretched snakes lapping up her blood. Instead, here she was, not only alive but apparently healthy. And the Master?
At the head of the stairs was the doorway, its post and lintel scorched. Two or three singed ribbons fluttered from it. They might have been red as tradition decreed, but in this light they looked black. And beyond? She rose and climbed warily. Another lightning flash, and she saw the room. Its far wall still stood —tall broken windows looking out into darkness—but both the roof and the floor were gone except for the stub of a ledge just beyond the door and a few scorched beams groping out over the void.
Footprints disturbed the ashes on the ledge. Someone had stood just beyond the ribbons, waiting. Gerridon. It had to be. Nothing new ever happens in the past, Jame remembered, staring at those prints. He had come forward in time to get at her, whatever her poisoned senses had told her. If she had crossed the threshold this time, with her mind and motives as confused by the drug as they had been, she would indeed have been lost. Instead, she had chosen the knife; and suddenly, miraculously, been cured. For a moment, she was almost tempted to think that the second aspect of her despised god—Argentiel, That-Which-Preserves—had finally deigned to show his hand, but that hardly seemed likely. In her experience, the best one could hope for from the Three-Faced God was to be left alone.
At least Perimal Darkling in the form of Gerridon had also left her. As lightning flickered again, she saw faint ashy traces of his footsteps going down the stair from the door, fading away before they came to the step where she had sat. Thwarted, he had gone back into the fabric of the House, into the blighted past, which was preferable to its desolate present. Tirandys had said that he still had a few souls left to gnaw on, probably including Bender's. How long before he ran out, before hunger drove him either to try for her again or to accept the tainted gifts that would cost him his remaining humanity? She had no idea. Gerridon had made his pact with darkness and was living to learn its price. He had bred her to serve his need, but found that while he could tempt, only she could damn herself. Very well. That was the game, and those were the rules. They would see who won in the end.
But in the meantime, Gerridon had made his next move by withdrawing. How should she respond to that? Follow? Trinity, no, not even if she could. She had no idea what Shanir powers he still possessed, and no desire to find out. Retreat to Karkinaroth? Fine, if she could find the way and if it hadn't tumbled down yet. Graykin and Marc should already have left to warn her brother about the changer Tirandys, taking Kin-Slayer, Lyra, and Jorin with them. The ring and the Book Bound in Pale Leather were still here in Perimal Darkling. She hated to abandon either, but had no idea where to look for them—or did she? For the ring, no, but the Book . . .
Jame snatched up the knife and ran down the steps. The stairway spiraled down through a series of chambers, all once part of the Master's living quarters. She had barely noticed any of them on the way up. Here, however, was one that she remembered well from former days. She entered.
Shelves stretched up almost out of sight on all sides and wandered off into the murky distance. Books lined them, some charred, some half-devoured with luminous mildew, all crumbling. The smell made Jame sneeze.
This was where someone (Bender?) had taught her in secret how to read the runes, both common and Master. Knowledge is power. Gerridon would not have approved if he had known. This was also where she had first encountered the Book Bound in Pale Leather, and here she had fled in search of it while the flames from the brazier she had accidently upset spread through the upper chambers. The Book had helped her to escape by ripping a hole through to the next threshold world. As far as Jame could remember, she had had to jump out the window to take advantage of that dimensional portal, or perhaps she had simply fallen through it. The latter seemed more in character. Also, she was pretty sure that she had landed on her head.
One more turn, and there was the window through which she had tumbled, still broken. Black hills rolled away beyond it under a lightning veined sky. Before it on a table, as she had half expected, lay something pale. It was the Book. Ganth's ring lay on it, and beneath the table in a dark huddle was her knapsack.
Kin-Slayer had been left in the armory where it had been reforged. What better place to put the Book Bound in Pale Leather than back in the library? Jame thought she saw Tirandys' hand in this. The Master had undoubtedly told him to secure both objects, and after doing so, the changer had simply put each where it belonged. Who found them first, Gerridon or Jame, was another matter. The fact that the ring and knapsack were here too made her suspect that Tirandys had also wanted her to have them back if she survived to come looking for them. At any rate, they were in her hands now, and Gerridon was out of luck again.
So, of all the various lost items she had come in search of here, that left only the Prince. Poor Odalian, chained in the back rooms of the House among all the horrors of the Kencyrath's fallen past.
She knelt and began to rummage determinedly through her knapsack. Oh, good. Here were all her surviving Tastigon clothes, the Peshtar boots, and even the imu medallion. At least she wouldn't arrive back on Rathillien dressed like something out of a traveling show. She let the serpent-skin cloak slip to the floor, then hesitated. It wasn't often that she thought of mirrors, but for a moment she did wish she could see herself. This shadow dancer's costume made her feel so . . . so . . . no, forget it. That belonged to another life. She hastily stripped it off and picked up the familiar street fighter's d'hen.
Dally's d'hen. Jame stood there for a moment looking at the jacket, remembering the dead friend who had given it to her. He had been in love with the Kencyr glamour too, perhaps fatally so.
She put on the coat, then her pants and boots, fumbling a bit because her right hand was still rather numb. Odd that the knife should have had such an effect, especially since she didn't remember gripping it all that tightly. Jame disliked knives in general and this one more than most, but at least it was a weapon. She slipped it into her boot sheath. Now, twist her hair up under her cap, pack up the Book, put on the ring with a glove over it to keep it in place, pocket the medallion and . . . where was that blasted cloak? Halfway out the door, bent on a slithery escape. Jame caught it and put it on again, with some distaste, over the pack. Reduced to a set of matched snakes for company. Oh well. At least they were alive, and she felt in need of companionship where she was bound now.
Perhaps it was because she hadn't been able to save Dally; perhaps, because the shadows still drew her more than she cared to admit; but Jame found she had no intention of leaving this place without Odalian.
The trip back through the House to where Tirandys had found her seemed both long and short. Back in Rathillien, who knew how many days had passed by now? Perhaps her brother's fate had long since been decided. Perhaps Rathillien itself had fallen into the dark of the moon—some twelve nights distant when she had gone into the shadows of Karkinaroth—and had never emerged from it again. The Kencyrath's millennia-long battle might have been lost while she stumbled on here in ignorance. She certainly felt ignorant. The more she learned about herself, about the nature of things in general, the less she seemed to know. "Honor," Tirandys had said. "I used to be as sure as you that I knew what it was." Now Jame wondered if, in fact, she had ever known. The concept was too big, too abstract, like "good" and "evil." Perhaps all one could do was stumble on in ignorance, in shadows, making one decision at a time in the best faith one could manage, hoping for the best.
Jame certainly hoped for the best now. Before her was the archway shaped like a mouth, and beyond, the shifting green light. She took a deep breath and crossed the threshold, keeping a wary eye on the window. The vines outside rustled, and the pale, lip-shaped flowers kissed the bars, but when she edged into the room, the se
rpent heads rose with a hiss, and the flowers retreated, pouting. Jame went on.
Since her goal was the farthest rooms down the Chain of Creation, she tried to follow the outer wall of the House. It wouldn't do to wander off and lose herself in any of the threshold worlds that the House spanned. But the outer wall hardly ran straight and was frequently windowless. She could often only tell that she was making progress by the changing character of the rooms through which she passed.
Then too, the changes were often subtle. Jame realized this when she came across one of the three Karkinoran guards Tirandys had sent in after Bender. The man had apparently gotten this far back and then made the mistake of sitting down to rest. He seemed oddly sunken into the chair. It was, in fact, consuming him. He watched Jame edge past with glazed eyes in which no humanity remained.
Then came a series of moss-mottled floors, treacherous under foot. The paving stones here felt not only slippery but unstable, as if they might suddenly tip like blocks in an ice floe.
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