“Who’s there?” he called out again. He was answered by what sounded like someone biting into a raw hunk of bloody flesh.
His numb hands frantically dug into his pants pocket for his leather water skin full of white powder “Who is out there?” His heart was jumping in his chest as he yanked the water skin free. The pouch had kept the powder dry and he poured some into the palm of his hand. The hissing grew louder, filling the darkness around him. He set a pinch of powder between his fingers and snapped. White light flared.
And the stark visage of a pale woman flashed before him.
She shrieked. Her own shock was evident in the blinding light, evident in her gaping, startled eyes. Her screeching mouth was a cavernous row of sharp white teeth.
Then utter darkness was thrown like a thick black cloak over them both. Rotted angels of the underworld, what in the bloody fuck was that?
Panicked beyond measure, Lindholf scooted away from the ghost, his soaked clothing sloshing, cold stone floor tearing at his bare elbows and cold, numb hands. He bumped into something lying on the stone floor behind him. He reached back instinctively to shove it aside. It was a hunk of wood. A torch. His fingers curled around it and he lifted it like a club, preparing to strike at the thing in the darkness.
He listened for movement. What in the name of the Blessed Mother Mia had he seen? He could hear nothing. Still he waited, shivering uncontrollably, eventually setting the torch on his lap. He blew into his hands to warm them. After he could feel his fingers again, he pulled the water skin from his pocket and poured more powder from the water skin into his hand. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the dry pitch of the torch, then snapped his fingers. The torch flared to life, illuminating his surroundings in a soft orange glow.
The first thing he saw was a pallid woman shrinking from the light. She was not more than ten feet away, naked, slithering away on her stomach and elbows, a long, scaly fish tail swiping rhythmically against the cold, watery floor behind her. Mermaid! She stopped at the edge of the water, rose up on her two humanlike arms, and stared with a wide, direct gaze. Two round eyes focused intently on him. There was about her face a luminous, cruel splendor. Bright silvery hair cascaded down her back. Lindholf could not look away from her ashen beauty.
With a flick of her tail, there was a sweet perfume in the air and her eyes softened. She beckoned him with a tilt of her pale head. Lindholf was instantly transfixed by the musty aroma and seductive slither of her every naked movement. Spellbound by the swelling tide of excitement filling his heart, he let himself relax, scarcely daring to breathe lest he disturb the serenity of the moment.
He stood and approached the mermaid cautiously, torch aloft. The fire’s light flickered off her watery skin and drew him forward. But she slunk back, eyes unsure now, a low hissing coming from deep in her throat. Both of her webbed and clawed hands now pressed against the floor again, tense. She drew in a breath with a sharp hiss and inched toward the rushing river, fear in her eyes.
It was then that Lindholf noticed the two dark swords lying on the stone floor just in front of her. They were Hawkwood’s twin swords with spiked hilt-guards—the blades Leif had gifted Glade, the blades Tala had tossed into the river. The mermaid fetched them from the black waters. As she fetched me!
Lindholf’s gaze circled the rough-hewn cavern, sizing up his surroundings at a glance; two torches on the floor behind him, a raging river to the left that disappeared under another solid wall of rock, several tunnels branching off into the darkness on his right, and a naked mermaid directly in front of him.
He met her round gaze and grasped the hilt of the black dagger at his belt, more for comfort than out of any belief that the short blade would be of any use. But the gesture was enough. The mermaid’s thin purple lips curled back and she hissed again, lower lips constricting inward, revealing a fan of jutting white fangs and a forked tongue flicking out gray and long. Then she slipped into the water and disappeared under the rock wall and was gone.
Lindholf let out a long breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in. It took him a moment to gather himself. After shaking his weary mind free of the mermaid’s spell, he stepped forward and picked up the swords one at a time, placing each gently through his belt, one on each side of his hip.
With torch in hand, he strode cautiously toward the nearest tunnel, moving away from the cold, damp air of the river, clothing still adrip. The corridor led around a bend that eventually widened out and continued on straight and slightly upward.
The short path emptied him into a magnificent round chamber with a cross-shaped altar in the center. The walls of the room were ablaze with inset crystal jewels that sparkled like stars floating in the night. Carved columns draped in spiderwebs supported the jewel-encrusted walls. Streams of liquid silver seemed to be seeping from cracks in the columns. The ceiling was a black hole rising into a smoky nothingness above. Shadowy stone coffins lined the base of the circular room. Most had crumbled open, revealing skeletons and bones moldering in the sullen, moist air. It was a dreadful place, filled with a somberness that seemed to press in on the guttering torchlight.
Lindholf proceeded warily into the stiff coldness of the vaulted room, eyes fixed on the stone altar at its center. It was about waist high and capped with a cross-shaped altar stone similar to the one Sterling Prentiss had been chained to in the secret ways.
A chamber that holds an altar with great treasure, Tala had said.
Lindholf drew Hawkwood’s twin swords from his belt and placed them on the floor before the altar. Holding the torch aloft, he put his shoulder to the capstone of the altar and pushed. The stone slab moved aside surprisingly easily, then tipped to the floor. He thrust the torch over the altar and looked down within, not really sure what to expect.
Leaning against the smooth inner wall of the altar was a large white battle shield.
He laid the torch on the rim of the altar, reached down into the altar with his free hand, and hefted the shield up and out by its white leather strap. It seemed to weigh nothing. It was not metal or wood but seemed hewn of the most startling, exquisite solid piece of pale bone he had ever seen. The shield was adorned with a pearl-colored cross inlay that stretched from side to side and top to bottom. The cross inlay was even more snowy white than the shield itself and seemed to be formed of some shimmering waves, like the most exquisite Riven Rock marble. Lindholf shuddered as the strange pearly plane of the shield’s cross danced with brilliant color in the wavering torchlight. The sparkling gemstones and silver liquid streams embedded in the surrounding walls glimmered like a billion stars off the entirety of the shield’s surface.
Lindholf knew what it was he held. Ethic Shroud! He had snuck through the secret ways of Amadon Castle enough to hear about a great many things he shouldn’t have. He’d discovered secrets of his own, heard those conversations not meant for his ears. Both Hawkwood and Roguemoore had spoken of the scrolls Squireck Van Hester had stolen from the archives, and how those scrolls had revealed great treasure hidden under Amadon. He knew of the treasure they had named Ethic Shroud!
Lindholf’s eyes were wide in wonder. The shield was the grandest thing he had ever seen. And a remarkable sensation washed over him. It felt as if this magnificent object was familiar to him, as if he’d discovered it before, and discovering it again now was in some way his destiny, holding it again his duty. It seemed that tendrils of silvery-white smoke drifted up from between his fingers. He took a step back, but the vision was gone. Still, he felt a deep-rooted connection to the shield, a sense of great achievement in finding it. That it was featherlight in his hands only added to his resolve. It belongs to me! It always has. . . .
Then some twinkling thing in the bottom of the altar caught his eye—a crystal-like stone atop a black swatch of silk.
Lindholf leaned the shield against the outside of the altar and reached a trembling hand down inside the altar again. He pulled the silk and bright gemstone from the bottom of the altar, c
areful to keep the stone nestled within the cloth. Some latent instinct buried in the far corners of his mind told him not to touch the stone directly, told him to keep it swaddled within its silky home. It fit, perfect and weightless, in his palm. It was oval and unblemished, as if fashioned from the bright polished ivory of a walrus tusk, then overlaid with shimmering starlight. Flickering and alive in the torchlight, it stole his breath.
An angel stone! He stared at the gemstone for some time, then eventually folded it within the swatch of silk and tucked it into the deep inner pocket of his sopping-wet tunic.
He looked at the shield. Is this my destiny? It was as if the scene had played out before in familiar images hiding at the edges of his dreams.
Knowing he could not carry both of Hawkwood’s swords and the torch and the glorious white shield back into the river, he had a choice to make. He grabbed both of Hawkwood’s swords from the floor and carefully placed them both down into the altar stone. He then covered the altar with the capstone, entombing the blades forever.
Once the capstone was firmly set, the ground seemed to quake under his feet. Lindholf took an apprehensive step back from the altar and snatched up the shield by its leather strap, holding the torch out over the altar. It seemed to be sinking slowly into the floor, with the low rumble of rock grinding against rock. That, or my mind is playing tricks on me!
Lindholf scurried from the circular room, passing through the tunnel swiftly, emerging back into the chamber with the rushing river short of breath. He sighed with relief when he saw that the mermaid had not returned.
He dropped the torch onto the wet floor where it flickered and hissed. Bolstered by his success thus far, he held no reservations about continuing on. He’d found what he’d come for, great treasure, and perhaps, when Tala realized what he’d accomplished, things could be different between them.
Suddenly the thought of telling anyone about the shield and stone sent a tremor of fear through his entire body. Why should Tala ever know what I have done?
I can have my own secrets.
With that thought, he heaved a long, deep breath and then lowered himself into the current again, clutching the strap of the shield tightly in hand. The torrent of rushing water snatched him quickly from the ledge and sucked him down under the second wall, the shield almost like a sail before him, dragging him along.
Within a moment he was out from under the rock and brilliant light engulfed him.
His eyes flew open underwater, and he could see the flickering sunlit surface of Memory Bay just twenty feet above. He kicked for the surface, the shield so light it almost seemed to float of its own accord, pulling him to the surface with its buoyancy.
He floated to the light, to freedom.
Suddenly two sinewy webbed hands wrapped around his legs, jerking him roughly down, dragging him toward the dark of the sea bottom. Mermaid! He nearly lost his grip on the shield’s leather strap as he spun about, swinging it at the mermaid in wild defense. The shield plowed through water, missing her by more than a foot. She was clutching at him from below, clawlike hands a mad thrash, pulling him farther down.
The mermaid seized the shield. Lindholf’s free arm beat against her madly as she tried to jerk it away. He thrashed and punched, wrenching the shield from her spindly grasp, then kicked for the surface again, pain lancing through his heaving lungs.
Suddenly the mermaid’s ghostly pale maw was inches from his face, a rippling row of gills fluttering open and closed along her slender neck, serrated sharp teeth gnashing out. He whipped his head to the side and her splayed neck tore into the side of his face, coarse gills scraping against his own tender skin. Her scaled tail coiled around his left leg, slithery and slick.
He kicked frantically as visions suddenly spun through his head, swirling and disjointed: feylike creatures rising up like angels from the slave quarry at Riven Rock, a knight with dark tattoos under his eyes falling from the roof of a tall tower, Jondralyn Bronachell, two hollow eye sockets, a fierce red-haired warrior woman in black armor and a long white sword, its hilt the shape of a crescent moon. . . .
Coherency returned. The mermaid lashed at him again with long fangs that were shockingly sharp and white. They flashed an inch from his eyes. Lindholf mustered what strength he had and pushed her forcefully away. Her webbed hand clawed across his right forearm, tearing away a chunk of shirt, raking four thin trails of blood across his arm.
He rammed the shield out hard, striking her in the face. And she was gone, snaking down into the dark depths of the bay.
Lindholf kicked his way to the surface, shield secure in his hand, lungs burning. When he broke the skin of the water, he gulped for air. Precious air!
He was floating, daylight twinkling joyously off the surface of Memory Bay, gulls screeching. Amadon Castle rose high above. The swells and waves rose and fell where he floundered. The swells broke against the jagged gray rocks behind him like thunder.
Bobbing in the breakers, sputtering and choking, he managed to twist around in the water and kick toward the craggy shore, angry waves soon dashing both him and the white shield against the rough cliff side. He worked his way around a great protruding rock and overhang into a small inlet of pebbles and sand stuck between two jagged crags of towering boulders. There was a small, canvas-covered dinghy beached in the shallows, tied to a rickety old quay of wood.
As Lindholf waded ashore, exhaustion enveloped him and he folded to the soft ground, leaning against the side of the wooden boat. He examined his injured arm. Four long scratches, none too deep, leastwise nothing that would need stitches. But they were ragged and torn enough to hurt. He felt for the angel stone in the inner pocket of his tunic, comforted when his fingers curled around its small, hard shape.
After studying his surroundings a moment, he knew exactly where he was. The castle’s shabby stone outbuildings, looming against the cliffs of Mount Albion, rose up behind him, windows all tightly shuttered. Amadon Castle itself was shrouded in a sea mist higher above. Lindholf had wandered the castle’s secret ways enough that he knew exactly how to get back inside from here without much effort. One particular tunnel he’d previously explored had emptied him out against the cliff side not far from here.
For all anyone knew, he had left Purgatory shortly after Leif Chaparral. And if anyone challenged him on his whereabouts, he would just stick to that story. If Lord Lott Le Graven’s son said he’d passed by the guards behind Leif, who were the guards to say he hadn’t? That was the one advantage of always being the unnoticed one, the ignored one: nobody remembered seeing you. It had worked to his advantage many times before.
And I dared to go where Tala and Glade dared not. . . .
He felt a sudden measure of pride when he realized that, other than Hawkwood, he was the only soul to have ever escaped the dungeons of Purgatory.
Again bolstered with confidence, Lindholf stood and tore the canvas from the boat. He wrapped the shield inside the canvas, tucked it under his bleeding arm, and began making his way up the steep and rocky trail, eventually finding a footpath more trampled than the rest. The footpath he sought, the trail he knew that would lead him straight to where he desired to go. For he knew exactly where he would hide the shield and stone.
And he knew exactly how and when he would reveal both to Tala.
* * *
The King of Slaves will be swallowed into the maw of great rushing waters with a faith strong enough to know he can and will come out the other side unscathed, baptized in both darkness and fear.
—THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STEFAN WAYLAND
17TH DAY OF THE ETHIC MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
LORD’S POINT, GUL KANA
Standing behind Seita in the Turn Key Inn’s back courtyard, chest pressed into her back, Stefan Wayland instructed the Vallè maiden on how to shoot a bow.
“You don’t have to crush it with your fingers.” He gently moved her thin fin
gers into the correct spot. “When you draw back the string, hold your hand at the corner of your mouth and sight down the shaft. When you release, relax. Let the string just slide from your fingers. Don’t let it snap.”
Seita set her stance as instructed, leaning back into him. Stefan’s heart fluttered. He wondered if she could feel it beating against her. She’s so fragile. He was so taken with her beauty and charms. Even her oddly alluring ears moved him, tapered and pointed so elegantly as they were. She was fair to look upon, smooth of skin, almond-shaped green eyes dazzling like stars, and flowing hair of such a bright white hue it was nearly blinding. He could feel it brushing his cheek now. She wore a bronze-colored tunic of Vallè make over a shimmering white shirt with delicate white lace swirling up the sleeves. Her black pants were made of a fine soft leather. A leather purse was tied to her belt along with a thin sheathed dagger.
When she fired the arrow, it skittered through the grass of the Turn Key Saloon courtyard and kicked up a puff of dirt ten paces in front of the target—a large wooden board tied to a bale of hay, a red circle painted in the center.
Liz Hen Neville let out a bark of laughter. “I knew she couldn’t do it.”
Seita threw the red-haired girl a shy, embarrassed smile.
“It’s her first time,” Dokie scolded. “Give her a break, Liz Hen. You couldn’t do no better.” Liz Hen shrugged and went back to chomping her dinner—sourdough bread and a hunk of greasy chicken leg.
Seita craned her neck, looking over her shoulder at Stefan, doelike eyes blinking under fine brows. “It is my first time.”
“You did good.” Stefan gave her a warm smile. “Watch me this time.” He plucked the bow from her slender grip and stepped to the line, picking several arrows from the barrel, sighting down each before choosing the one he wanted. He took his time aiming, poised with the arrow cocked back by his cheek. He held the position for a moment, then let the string slide softly from his fingers. The arrow flew straight. Its steel tip punched into the center of the target. He snatched up a second arrow, nocked the bow with swift, sure movements, aimed, and fired again. The second arrow hit just below the first.
The Blackest Heart Page 21