by Garth Nix
Tal stared at the shadow. It was trying to tell him something. It had taken a shape he didn't recognize. Something human.
Then it hit him. The shadowguard had assumed the shape of Milla's shadow. It was saying that since she had some of his blood, it could help her. All Tal had to do was tell it to.
"Shadowguard, shadowguard," he blurted out. "Staunch Milla's wounds-"
Before he could finish, the shadowguard flowed over Milla. Most of it stuck to her ribs, but dark tendrils rippled down to her legs and out along her left arm. Wherever it touched, the bleeding stopped.
Tal pulled Milla's furs together over both girl and shadowguard. He retrieved the pack and lantern. It took him a moment to work out how to open it up again, then he sat it down next to Milla. The shadowguard would need all the light it could get.
Even once the bleeding stopped, Tal wasn't sure if Milla would survive. Now that he had a chance to think, he wasn't even sure he wanted her to. She had probably saved his life, but now he had the pack and the lantern. He might be better off heading straight for the Castle. He certainly didn't want to be bothered with trying to get her a Sunstone as well.
It wasn't as if she was family or a friend or anything.
What would his parents say, Tal suddenly thought. What would his father do if he was out here? Or his mother, if she were well?
They wouldn't leave her. Only someone like Shadowmaster Sushin would, and Tal did not want to be like him.
He sighed and opened the pack. First he got out a sleeping fur, which he carefully tucked around the unconscious girl, tilting her up to get it between her back and the ice. Then he set up the oil burner and began to heat some Selski broth. He supposed Milla would need something hot when she came to.
"What's happening to me?" he asked the dead carcass of the Merwin as the broth bubbled. "I am Tal Graile-Rerem of the Chosen. I'm not supposed to be sitting in the middle of nowhere looking after a… a mad Icecarl girl. I should be back home, with a new Sunstone, getting ready for the Day of Ascension."
The dead Merwin did not answer. But someone else did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
"And where exactly is your home?" said a voice out in the darkness, beyond the diminishing glow of the Merwin's horn. A woman's voice that sounded rather like the Crone of the Far-Raiders.
Tal jumped and scrabbled madly for Milla's knife. By the time he found it and held it out, the speaker was already at his side. She had a spear at his throat.
She was not alone.
A ring of Icecarls stood around Tal, Milla, and the dead Merwin. There were at least twelve of them and they all had spears leveled, as if Tal was as dangerous as the creature Milla had killed.
He had not heard them approach. They might as well have blown in on the wind or sprouted up from the ice.
They wore different-colored furs than the
Far-Raiders, and their masks were decorated with wavy lines that glowed like the Kalakoi on the Selski. Clearly they were from a different clan. He hoped killing the Merwin didn't count as thieving on their hunting lands. Then again, Milla had tried to kill him just for being there…
"I am a Chosen of the Castle," he said slowly. "But I am on a quest with Milla there, of the Far-Raiders. I am bound to the Clan and to the ship. Look!"
He held up his wrist and peeled his gauntlet back to show the marks on his wrist.
"You have no shadow," said the woman who had spoken. "Where is it?"
"Helping Milla," Tal said anxiously. Now he knew what Icecarls were really like, he didn't want to give them an excuse to kill him. "The Merwin hurt her. My shadow has just stopped the bleeding, that's all."
The woman looked down at Milla and pulled the fur aside. She still kept her spear pointed at Tal.
"Tell me how you came here from your Castle, and how you met the Far-Raiders," the woman commanded.
Tal told her, the words practically falling out of his mouth. This lot of Icecarls was even scarier than
Milla. The ones standing around hadn't moved at all. They just stood there, with their sharp spears glinting.
As Tal told his story, he surreptitiously looked at the Icecarls. Not only were their furs and masks different from the Far-Raiders', he noticed they were all wearing exactly the same clothes, not at all like the Icecarls he'd met before. He had almost gotten up to the part about the Merwin when he suddenly realized who they must be. They had to be Shield Maidens, the sisterhood that Milla wanted to join. They were like completely grown-up Millas, which was a really frightening thought.
He finished the story. The first woman stood in silence, towering above him. She started to raise her spear and Tal gulped. Surely he couldn't have come this far only to be stabbed to death because a mad Shield Maiden didn't believe his story!
"Breg, Libbe, Umen see to the girl," said the woman. "You. Tal. You will come with us."
"Where?" asked Tal. "And… is it all right for me to ask who you are?"
"I am Arla, Shield Mother," replied the woman. "We are Shield Maidens, currently serving the Mother Crone of the Mountain of Light."
"The Mountain of Light?" asked Tal eagerly.
That was what the Far-Raiders' Crone had called the mountain the Castle was built upon. "Are we near to it?"
"Three sleeps," replied Arla. "You will soon see it in the sky."
"I'm going home!" exclaimed Tal. He jumped up, but stopped as several Shield Maidens thrust their spears out at him.
"You are a prisoner. We will take you to our Crone for judgment," Arla explained. "It is forbidden to climb the Mountain of Light, and I am not sure you have told the truth. If you or your shadow try to escape, or do magic, you will be killed. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Tal. He felt very tired all of a sudden. Every time it seemed he might get back to the Castle without further difficulties, something happened.
"We have a sleigh," said Arla. "You can ride on it with your Clan-bond, Milla."
Tal remembered very little of the journey to the Shield Maidens' headquarters in the foothills of the Mountain of Light. Their sleigh was much bigger than Milla's, drawn by twelve Wreska. But it was built for cargo, and so was slower and uncomfortable. Tal and Milla were wedged between Selski-skin sacks containing something that smelled absolutely putrid.
Milla had only brief moments of consciousness and said little that made any sense. Tal wasn't entirely sure he spent much of the journey conscious, either. He slept or half slept most of the way, his dreams and recent events merging. He was stalked by Sharrakor, who became a one-eyed Merwin. He climbed a mast and found his father and Ebbitt perched there, drinking sweetwater.
Again and again, he dreamed of his fall from the Red Tower and of Sunstones. Sunstones falling all around him, just out of reach.
One thing he did remember and was sure was not a dream. That was his first sight of what the Icecarls called the Mountain of Light.
Woken by a strange chanting, he had looked over the side of the sleigh to see all the Shield Maidens lined up facing one direction, chanting something softly together. He had followed their gaze and had seen it.
The Castle. Far, far off, and high up but like a flower of light in the sky, a flower of a thousand brilliant petals. It seemed to hang there, the mountain invisible in the darkness beneath.
Home, thought Tal.
Home.
Now he could see it, he knew he would return. The Shield Mother's Crone would see that he spoke the truth, like the one on the ship. She would let him continue his quest. She had to.
He looked down at Milla, who was lying still amid the sacks. His shadowguard had been replaced by bandages and poultices made with herbs and creams Tal didn't know.
Her hand was lying outside the furs, the three cuts on her wrist clearly visible. Tal looked at his own wrist, the healing scars quite bright in the green light of the moth-lamps.
Then he looked at her shadow. Somehow it didn't seem quite the same as the Underfolk's natural shadows. The Icecarls wer
e different, Tal had decided. They weren't Chosen, but they certainly weren't servants.
"I will bring you to the Castle," Tal said. He bent down and touched his wrist to Milla's. "And we will both get Sunstones."
The next thing Tal knew, Milla's hand was at his throat, and she was staring at him wild-eyed and feverish. Despite her weakness, he only just managed to wrench her hand free and stagger to the other side of the sleigh.
"Why won't it die?" she asked. She shook her head from side to side, then collapsed back onto the furs.
"We're on our way to the Castle," croaked Tal, massaging his neck. He wished he hadn't said anything, because he already wanted to change his mind about taking Milla.
He could not believe how far he'd come, and how far he had to go. Despite battle-crazy Icecarls, hostile Spiritshadows, gigantic Merwin, and the freezing cold, he had somehow made it through these unknown lands. Could he possibly be the same boy who'd lived all his days in the Castle - all his days not knowing what existed outside?
No, he was not the same. He would never be the same again.
Of course, after he convinced the Crone to let them go, they would still have to climb the mountain. Then there was the question of how to get into the Castle itself. Having never left it at least not on the ground - Tal had no idea how it was done.
All he knew was that somehow he would do it.
Tal was going home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in Canberra, Australia. His novel
Sabriel won the Aurealis Award for Excellence in Australia Science Fiction, and his novel
Shade's Children was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an ABA Pick of the Lists. He is also the author of
The Ragwitch and the forthcoming
Lirael.
He currently lives in Sydney, Australia.
Tal returns to the Castle with Milla… and finds danger in THE SEVENTH TOWER Book Two - CASTLE
Milla had been blinded and knocked out by the blast from the guard's Sunstone. Only her face mask and armor had saved her from being burned, and they were both charred, the amber lenses of the mask partly melted and the Selski hide black and peeling.
The guards had quickly stripped the armor and mask off and tied her wrists and ankles. Shrouding her in a tablecloth taken from Ebbitt's hoard, they rushed her away, taking the least-traveled corridors to the Hall of Nightmares.
Even so, people saw them, and many Chosen would later remark on the four disheveled, bruised, and bleeding guards and the body they carried between them. But all thought they were simply disposing of an Underfolk that had run amok, which was unusual, but not unheard of.
They did not see Milla's alien white-blond hair, or the strange clothing she wore. The Merwin sword was also wrapped, and could have been any makeshift weapon. One Chosen amused his friends by describing the stupid Underfolk who had gone mad with a table leg.
The guards were unlucky in one shortcut they chose. The Middle Garden was a large, open chamber of high vaulted ceilings, restful tree ferns, reflective pools lined with small Sunstones, and crystal fountains that grew of their own accord and then collapsed to grow again.
It was unusual for more than four moody Chosen to be there. But that particular day, Brightstar Parl of the Blue was recreating for forty-seven of his closest friends the Achievement of Poetry that had won him the Violet Ray of Attainment.
Parl was reciting his poem and writing all three hundred and eighty words of it in letters of acrobatic blue light when the guards came running through, completely putting him off. He faltered in midstanza, and the blue-light letters crashed into one another, producing a rather disgusting, lumpy cloud of greenish-brown that hung over the audience in a threatening manner.
The onlookers took a moment to realize what had happened. As they did, they turned their Sunstones on the guards, flashing Red Rays of Dissatisfaction, to show their displeasure at the insult to Parl's work of genius.
While the Chosen would do no more than this, their Spiritshadows reflected their masters' true feelings, looming up from the floor to make aggressive gestures at the guards.
The guards did not stop to offer Blue Rays of Respectful Apology. The audience was left to mutter and complain, while Parl collapsed sobbing, adding his tears to one of the Sunstone-filled pools.
Once clear of the Middle Garden, there were no more obstacles only single Chosen who rapidly got out of their way. The Hall of Nightmares was located on the eastern side of the Castle, in an area of many empty rooms and chambers. Chosen did not go there, unless it was against their will. Most would only reluctantly admit that the Hall of Nightmares even existed.
Unlike most doors in the Castle, which were marked with the color of the order and a family sign or official notice, the great gate to the Hall of Nightmares was completely white. It was securely shut, with a single Sunstone where the keyhole would normally be.
The guards lowered Milla's unconscious body to the floor, then one touched his Sunstone bracelet to the stone in the door. Violet light flashed, and the gate slowly groaned open. There was nothing but darkness beyond.
"One for you, Fashnek!" shouted a guard nervously. They made no attempt to pass through the gate.
Footsteps sounded in the hall beyond, and the guards moved back.
Slow footsteps, as if the walker found moving difficult or struggled with a great weight.
The guards shuffled even farther back as the yet-unseen Fashnek emerged into the light and the reason for their fear became obvious.
Fashnek was a tall, stooped man with long black hair tied back behind his head. His most distinctive feature should have been his beaked nose, with its widely flared nostrils, as if he smelled his way through life.
But when he stepped out into the light, all eyes were drawn to the left side of his body, because most of it was missing. Something had chewed on him from hip to shoulder, and he had no human left arm.
The missing flesh had been replaced by shadow. Night-dark pincers flexed at the end of his new left arm. It, too, was made of shadow, and jointed in three places.
Even worse than the shadow filling in missing flesh, the rest of the Spiritshadow was joined to Fashnek like a bonded twin. It had filled Fashnek's missing body where it could, but was unable to significantly alter its own shape.
It had an insectoid form, with six multijointed limbs, a bulbous body, and a head with a long mouth like the neck of a bottle. The end of the mouth was completely ringed with tiny, curved teeth, disturbingly like a grossly enlarged leech. To keep Fashnek's appearance as human as it could, the Spiritshadow clung to his side and back, hiding as much as possible behind him.
Kept alive in such an appalling way, Fashnek was repulsive to other Chosen. He could never be welcomed to any Attainment, entertainment, or event. He could never be seen at the Empress's court, or in the Assembly.
But he had found his place in the Hall of Nightmares.
And now the others feared him.
Reaching down with human hand and shadow-flesh pincer, he took a grip on the tablecloth and slowly pulled Milla's unconscious body into the Hall.
As Milla's heels passed the gate, it slowly ground shut. The guards, who had watched in silence, didn't move until an audible click pronounced the doors locked once more.
