“Come along. No one outside the castle is supposed to see us. That’s why we came the long way around.” Merryt held open the gate and waved his three-fingered hand for me to pass.
I took one last look at the bleak wilderness. He was out there waiting, the one in black and silver, the horror I had felt in my dreams, ready to devour what light remained in this dark place and in the world I had near forgotten. Merryt gave me a push, and I stumbled into the castle.
CHAPTER 22
Merryt stuck me in a holding room of some kind—a plain, tall-ceilinged, forbidding place that appeared unnervingly like a prison cell. He warned me not to move or speak unless I was told. As in the other place—the warren where Merryt had shown me the room he called his hideaway—the walls gave off a faint light of their own, enough to find one’s way from place to place, but scarcely enough to read by if one had possessed the luxury of books. I stood shivering, hunched over, wondering dully if it was possible that I was in the midst of some grotesque nightmare. After pinching and prodding both flesh and mind in an attempt to rouse myself, I came to the sad conclusion that I was already awake.
“How have you come here?” A deep voice, as strong and cold and hard as if it, too, had been shaped from the ice, rang out clearly, making me jump halfway out of my nasty skin.
Wits. I needed to get some wits about me. This Denas was someone powerful enough to alter the course of Rudai judgment with a simple word of “disinterest,” someone who could send me back to Ham-fist with a twitch of his finger. It had been so long since I’d needed wits. From my thick head I dragged the words I had saved. “I was invited,” I said at last, my whole being clenched in prayer that I guessed rightly about a place where plotting and intrigue seemed the business of existence.
“Invited by whom?”
Your secrets are your only coin in this realm
. “He did not give me his name.”
There was a long pause. No matter how I squinted and stared I could see no one in the room with me—neither a being of flesh nor one of glimmering light—yet I could feel his formidable presence. “You carried no weapons when you were taken. Where are they?” And he was sounding neither friendly nor interested.
“I brought none.” Words crowded to my tongue, begging to be heard—babbling entreaties, promises to tell whatever I could remember. What if I said too much or too little and was cast into the pits again? I clamped my trembling hands under my arms.
“You would have me believe that a Warden, the slayer of the Naghidda, has come into this realm undefended? Do our enemies yield when they yet hold mastery of our prison?” I had no idea what he meant.
I closed my eyes and searched for words in the battered pulp that was my head, trying to recapture the reasoning that now eluded me. My hoarded words sounded absurd as I stood naked before a demon lord. And I had to be careful. My own surrender was one thing, yet somewhere Wardens were still fighting, Wardens who had not forgotten what they were about. I could not jeopardize them.
You don’t want to appear threatening
. Merryt’s advice was probably worth heeding. But I had sworn to myself through months of horror that I would not lie to those who might question me, or grovel before them in shame. I’d had enough of lies.
So, dolt of a Warden, remember what it was you wanted to say.
“I no longer speak for the Aife and her Wardens,” I said at last, spending what little coin I possessed. “I have been cast out of my own land because I believe our long-held enmity is wrong. I have come here not in surrender, but to seek refuge and truth.” With what dignity I could muster, I sank to one knee, straightening my back and keeping my head unbowed. “I ask for sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary!” He was indeed surprised. “And if I refuse?”
I scraped together the last of my words. “An honorable enemy would send me back to my home unscathed to face the reckoning of my own people.” I longed to go home. If I just knew where it was and why I had been thrown out of it.
A mistake. The darkness gathered in that room like a summer thunderstorm fills the sky. “You dare think to instruct me—”
But a silvery thread of a woman’s laughter cut off the questioner’s mounting anger. A magical, beckoning sound, like the clearest bells in Druya’s temple. My eyes flicked upward and to the sides, but I saw no one. Never had I heard such bright music in laughter. The shadows shrank into the corners of the room at the sound of it.
I waited several moments for more questions or a verdict. But empty silence soon gave me to understand that the observers were no longer present . . . if they had ever been. Wearily I sat back onto the cold uneven floor, propping my arms on my knees and resting my head on them. My hands shook—quite on their own, as if they belonged to some other body.
I sat there for perhaps an hour, too tired to sleep, too spent to think or plan or be afraid anymore. I sought emptiness. Not as shelter from pain this time, but for its own sake. I drew it over me like a woolen mantle, warmth and softness against the bitterness of existence. Then somewhere in the depths of emptiness there came a whisper, pricking my mind like a bee sting on tender flesh.
Do you yet live, Warden?
Every cell of my body came awake. What marvel was this?
I clutched those whispered words like a starving man hoards newfound crumbs of bread, wanting to caress them, to savor them, wanting to laugh aloud, yet terrified at drawing any attention that might take them from me. And if I consumed them with too much haste or too little care, they would be gone, and I would not be able to bear it.
Hesitantly I probed my innermost depths, the place where melydda lived, the place that had been cold and dead for all the months I had languished in the pits of the Gastai. I found something there . . . and like the thready pulse of a dying man, the power wavered and fought for life beneath my hand. I coaxed and prodded tenderly, carefully, until I felt it strengthen just enough to push back the shadows of my mind and give me voice.
I live. Whoever calls . . . I live. Help me.
From a distance so far I could not fathom it, I felt a hand reach out in eager astonishment . . .
“Come on, then. You’ve not sat here and died on me?” The broad face of weathered bronze was no more than a handspan from my own. The Ezzarian was shaking my shoulder so hard my teeth clattered in rhythm with my hands. “I’m to take you to meet Denas and his guests.”
“Denas . . .” The weight of waking disappointment came near crushing me. I tried the slightest touch of melydda, but found nothing. It wasn’t real. I must have fallen asleep.
“You’ve done well, it seems. Got them interested at least. You’re an experienced player, then?” Before I could summon words from beyond despair, Merryt put a thick finger over my mouth and escorted me from the waiting room. “Never mind. Time enough for talking when your position is settled.”
Exhausted, hungry, confused with injury, cold, and searing disappointment, I scarcely noted where he took me. A brief journey through a windy courtyard, innumerable turnings through long, gloomy passages, and we arrived at a modest room that was draped in heavy curtains. The bed was a long mat or cushion piled with billowing coverings, and red cushions were scattered on a rug of white fur that softened the stone floor. In one corner was a small gray block with nine candles sitting beside it, their glow a bright smudge in the darkness—an Ezzarian mourning stone. A tall doorway opened onto some larger space, but it was too dim to see anything beyond it. If I could only be permitted to fall onto that glorious rug and sleep, I thought, I could want nothing better. That was only until my escort spoke to someone at his door and came back with a huge bowl of steaming water, setting it on the bare floor beside the rug.
“Go on,” he said, nodding toward the water, clearly annoyed. “Be quick about it. We’ve no time to dawdle. Everything’s changed, and not one of the cursed demons has bothered to tell me what’s going on.”
I knelt beside the bowl and dipped my trembling hands into it, surprised to find the water cold, despite the steam. But it was clean and fresh, and I scooped the precious liquid and splashed it on my face. A fresh gash on my forehead stung with it, but I groaned in animal pleasure and did it again.
“You’ll have to learn to make it hot or cold for yourself. They can make the appearance, but there’s never any certainty as to the feel of it.”
I could not speak. Just as well, because I didn’t understand him in the least. Perhaps there would be time for understanding. For the moment I reveled in the water and the bit of cloth he gave me to scrub with.
“You’ve got a quarter of an hour. No more. Doesn’t do to keep a Nevai waiting. They have more ways to twist a mind than an Ezzarian has prayers.” Merryt grunted like a wild pig as the water turned black. “A pox on the mad creatures! I’ve never seen a body so cursed filthy. Nor such a variety of villainy.” With no attempt at politeness, he inspected my lifetime’s harvest of scars. “You are quite a rugged fellow, it appears. To have survived so long in the pits, and so many injuries of longer history. And this”—he touched the left side of my face with his three-fingered left hand—“it may be you have as little use for the humankind as I. I do so wish we had time to talk. There’s a tale here somewhere, and I don’t like being left out of it.” He disappeared into the next room. “I’ll be right back.”
By the time I made one swipe at everything and used his knife to hack off my mat of filthy hair, I felt one small step back to human. Meanwhile Merryt returned with brown breeches and a long white shirt of nubby linen, black hose, and boots. Best of all was a thick cloak of black wool.
“Can’t have you come naked before Denas this time. He has guests. An interesting story you gave him—sanctuary. I’m fain to see how it plays . . .” He paused very briefly, as if to see if I would explain a little more. But I was fumbling with buttons and laces—no easy matter with hands that would not stop shaking and eyes that could scarcely focus in the gray light—and I wasn’t even sure I could remember what I’d been thinking when I spoke of sanctuary. Once I had released the hoarded words, my mind had fallen into a jumble. Everything was so confusing. Merryt shrugged and went on. “. . . but Ezzarians are never at their best unclothed. Sorry I’ve got no extra human togs to put you in. I won’t wear the demons’ pretty rags myself. Only human-wrought. Just in case I find a portal to take me home—wouldn’t want the demon rags to vanish and leave me naked, now would I? But you’ll have to do with these. It’s best to make a good appearance no matter what deviltry they’re up to. Now, I’ve got you this far alive, might as well keep you that way long enough to see how it suits you here.”
I had only time enough to wrestle the boots onto my scabbed feet, when Merryt hurried me out of the room and back into the gray maze of Denas’s castle. Our route was little more than a blur. Merryt moved quickly despite his limp, and it was difficult to keep up. Something inside my lower back was torn, making movement impossibly painful, and I was so hungry I could have eaten the boots. Occasionally I saw flickering lights and felt the passing of demons; I even glimpsed a few humanlike bodies in rooms that we passed. Eventually we descended a broad circular stair into a lavishly vaulted atrium. The gray-and-white patterned floor tiles left me dizzy, as they were almost translucent, and I could scarcely see the tops of the twisting columns that supported the vault. Tucked into every nook of the circular space were ice sculptures, huge, translucent carvings of birds and beasts; fountains, I realized as we passed them, their sheets and whorls of water frozen in place. In only one, a very small one placed in the exact center of the atrium, did the water actually flow. Its faint trickle sounded something mournful amidst the echoing clatter of our boots.
“Here we are, then.” The Ezzarian paused for a moment before tall doors, carved with a jumble of flowers and vines. He reached for the gleaming handle that was cast in the form of a snake, but before he could open the door, I plucked at his sleeve.
“Thank you,” I said. “Will you tell me who you are?”
“A survivor, as I told you. If you get through the next few hours, perhaps we’ll have occasion to get acquainted. More likely not. Denas dislikes humans something dreadful. It may be you’re too porridge-headed to bother with.”
This room was much larger than the last, with soaring walls of blue-white ice that reflected the flames of a thousand candles. But for all the fire in the room, there was no warmth and precious little light, so that I could only make out the furnishings closest to the double doors. That was plenty to consider. It looked as though they had stuffed enough rugs, cushions, chairs, tables, statuary, and brass in that room to furnish two Derzhi palaces. You could scarcely walk three paces without having to dodge a marble-topped table, a rearing bronze horse, or a needle-work-covered footstool. Elaborate candelabra hung from the high ceilings, and somewhere deeper in the room, silver lamps were set upon tall poles, casting weak pools of light upon vats of ice-carved roses. As everywhere I had been, the colors were pale and dull—as if the artist who painted the world had spilled a vat of gray paint upon his palette, spoiling all the colors so that none were true.
“Ah, Merryt. I want you to play draughts with me tonight.” A small, puffy-faced man walked out of the gloom. At least he appeared as a man, with a body one could view from any direction, until I caught the demon shimmer riffling around the edges of his human form. He was short and balding, dressed in an odd suit of gold brocade—tight breeches and a sleeveless coat that fell to his ankles. He seemed to have forgotten his shirt, and he wore only one boot. Certainly not Denas. The voice was not at all right. “And this is the impertinent newcomer.” He put his hands on his hips and stared rudely.
I kept my mouth shut.
Merryt gave a slight bow. “I would enjoy a game, Seffyd, but first I must deliver this one to Denas.”