“He gave up his turn,” Poco said. “To help his friend Elaine. And he hasn’t taken any dra’aj since.”
“I can’t.” Nik took another deep breath. He couldn’t seem to get enough air. “I can’t take someone else’s place.”
“It’s okay, there isn’t anyone else close enough to be in danger.”
Nik shook his head. “That isn’t the point.”
“It is, man it is. Yves organized it. Him and the next two in line, they shared the last donor. So this one’s not spoken for, this one’s yours.”
“Nikos Polihronidis, son of Andreas and Christina, is this how you accept aid? You wish for us to help you, but you will not help yourself?” Hawk’s voice was rich, warm. Nik tried to concentrate on it.
“I knew what I was doing.” They’d get it, or they wouldn’t. “I knew what I was doing when I gave mine to Elaine. I’ll be okay in a little while. I’ve lived through this before.”
“But we need you now, not in a little while.”
“What difference does it make?” Nik couldn’t be sure that he’d spoken aloud. If they’d only leave him be for a minute, he’d be okay. Why couldn’t they leave him?
“Nik, look at me.” His head was heavy, but there was something in the jewel-like tone of Hawk’s voice that made him look up. He saw Nighthawk again. Everything had been dim, colorless, leached of meaning, but that strange, unearthly beauty made everything live again.
“Holy crap.”
Nik smiled. That was Poco’s voice.
“Come on, man. Come with me. Carl, I’m taking Nik in to see Mrs. Lopez. You stay here.”
Nik felt himself being tugged to his left.
“Go, you must go now.”
He looked back as Poco led him away. He was seeing Nighthawk’s dra’aj. So much of it, so beautiful. For a moment, as they turned the corner into the hallway, he thought it wasn’t the Rider he saw in the lobby, but a silvery dragon, glowing brighter than the sunlight coming in the windows.
Nik concentrated on breathing, in and out, in and out, as he let Poco lead him down the corridor to Mrs. Lopez’s room. When they entered, he could see her dra’aj floating in the air around her like particles of colored light almost too small for the eye to register. Not as bright as the dragon he’d just seen, but “Lots more colors,” he said.
Poco led him up to the dying woman, and Nik took her hand in his. “Hello, Sylvia,” he said.
“Is this it?”
His head felt like lead as he nodded.
“About friggin’ time.” The twinkle left Sylvia’s eyes and joined the dra’aj in the air and it swept through him, the feeling suddenly hot as if a million bees stung him at once and then cold. For a moment Nik felt as though he would vomit, and then the nausea passed and he straightened from the bedside. He turned to find Poco regarding him with hard eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
Poco looked down and licked trembling lips. “Just make sure I don’t have to do it again. Don’t be so stupid next time.” He turned away, and Nik let him get a little ahead before following him out of the room.
We didn’t just find shoes at the hostel upstream, we found horses. Cloud Horses to be exact, asleep in their stalls and perfectly still, dreaming of the time someone would come for them and they could Ride. They were all the same color, a soft dappled gray, so I could tell where their name came from. Their white manes were long and curling, and they seemed rather delicately boned for horses.
“They are perhaps a little larger than you are accustomed to, in the Shadowlands,” Wolf said.
“I’m not used to any horses.” I stretched out my hand, but stopped short of actually touching the horse nearest me. “I’ve never seen a real horse. I mean, live, right in front of me.” I was babbling a bit; I have to admit I was nervous at the idea of climbing on top of one of these. Their backs looked an awfully long way from the ground.
We had gone into the hostel first, where Wolf had almost immediately found a clothes press. It looked no larger than the armoire that I’d had in my bedroom in Madrid, but he kept pulling clothing out of it until the dresses and cloaks and shoes started to pile up on the floor. Finally, he’d pulled out a pair of breeches not unlike his own, but in a soft brown. They were followed by a long-sleeved, cowl-necked top in some light knit, a golden yellow, and a jacket with a nipped waist of some tougher dark brown material. Short boots matched the jacket, and I was set.
I did find the clothes puzzling at first, until I realized I wasn’t getting any read off them, not even dim flashes of the workers who’d made them. When I asked Wolf about it, he looked puzzled for a minute. His response gave me the shivers. Sort of.
“No one made these. It is the function of the cupboard to provide clothing.”
I decided not to try touching the cupboard.
The request for him to turn around while I was changing got me another puzzled look, but he did it. I put the breeches on first, and pulled my linen dress off with a quick tug. I slipped the long-sleeved top over my head and shook my hair loose—then gripped the side of the cupboard after all, as the world tilted out of balance and back again. Right. Note to self. Don’t shake head.
The shirt formed itself around me as if it had been made for me, almost like a second skin. I couldn’t tell what material it was made out of, but it was light and airy, and warm and comfortable at once. Likewise, the boots pulled on as though they were gloves, with no socks needed. Everything felt as though it had been made right on me, and if it wasn’t for the constant queasiness of my stomach, and the way the world tilted again when I leaned over to pick up the jacket, I would have been enjoying myself.
Now I looked at the Cloud Horses and bit my lip.
“Do we have to ride?” I asked Wolf. “It’s just that, the movement of the horse—I mean, I’ve read that it can be quite unsteady, and I’m not feeling all that hot just standing here.”
“We have no idea how far we have to travel.” Wolf frowned, looking from the horse to me and back again. “And we have no idea what is required of us to find or create a Horn. We must travel as quickly as we can.”
“Can’t you just Move us?” The thought of that horse rocking under me while it trotted or cantered or whatever horses did was already making me queasy. Queasier.
“To my knowledge, I have never been to the Ice Tor,” he said. “No Rider can Move where they have never been themselves—some can Move to a person, or to a piece of their own gra’if, but only those with great skill, or great dra’aj. No, I am afraid we must Ride.” He took the head of the nearest horse between his two hands and breathed into its nostrils.
“Wake, brother,” he said softly. “I have need of you. It is time to Ride.”
What had been an incredibly lifelike statue of a horse slowly, very slowly, came awake. Starting at the muzzle, as if Wolf’s breath had blown life into it, the animal’s color deepened, the small hairs on the coat moved as the skin beneath them tightened, and suddenly the air was warmer, and had the most beautiful smell of cut grass. Wolf had gone on to the next beast in line by this time, and this first one startled me by suddenly turning its head and looking me in the face. I gritted my teeth and managed not to step back.
Like I said, I’d never seen a live horse before, so I had no idea whether they all had this same intelligent, measuring look in their eyes.
“Can you talk?” I asked him. The horse didn’t answer, and I caught Wolf looking at me from around the neck of the horse he was waking. “I guess that was a stupid question,” I said. “But I don’t know how things work around here.”
“Not so stupid.” Wolf came out from behind the other horse with what looked like a saddle made out of cobwebs in his hands. “Walks Under the Moon says that some of them do speak. But,” he shrugged. “It is not always easy to tell which of them these are. She says Lightborn can—could, teach the skill.”
He swung the saddle up onto the back of the horse nearest me and stepped away. Apparently, the saddle
fastened itself, because Wolf certainly didn’t do any of the buckling and tugging on straps and things that I’d seen on television. He put his hand on the horse’s nose and spoke again.
“This is a friend to us, and to the High Prince of the Lands,” he said. Whether the horse spoke or not, Wolf certainly appeared to think he would understand. “I ask you, give her a sure Ride, a soft Ride, and do not let her fall.”
The Cloud Horse nodded, swinging his great bony head up and down, and I almost laughed, it looked so much like someone doing a stupid pet trick on Letterman. The moment the horse turned to look at me, blinking his great dark eyes, all inclination to laugh disappeared.
Wolf showed me how to put my foot in the stirrup, and boosted me up until I was sitting in the saddle. It was unexpectedly comfortable, but I was right, it looked like a long way to the ground. Something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face, because Wolf patted my foot, glancing at me quickly before looking away. Even so, he seemed more relaxed than he had been since visiting me in my bedroom.
“You will not fall,” he said. “I have asked the Cloud Horse not to allow it.”
“That’s all it takes?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “It is part of their dra’aj,” he said, as if that explained everything. As I suppose it did.
There was only one road running past the hostel, a kind of wide grassy lane, and we took the direction away from the Quartz Ring. I could see the standing stones off in the distance, farther away than I remembered them.
“Have they moved?” I turned my head to watch them, then cursed as the world spun. I grabbed the pommel of the saddle [a black stone from the edge of some bottomless crevasse, I almost had the name, the something Abyss; the saddle had definitely been made] for security.
Wolf turned all the way around to look behind us. “The Rings always look like that from the outside. It would only take us a few minutes to Ride there, and, of course, no time at all to Move there.”
“And is it always the middle of the night inside a Ring?” I remembered the stars, and the bright sunshine when we stepped outside.
“Whenever I have been in one, yes.”
I nodded, trying to take stock. Apparent distances meant nothing. Apparent time of day likewise. Alejandro hadn’t told me much about the Lands, I realized. When he’d first rescued me, my own world was new enough to capture all my interest. Of course, he’d never expected me to be here, and I already knew how people tended not to explain things they took for granted, not even realizing that they’d be strange for a visitor. I’d have to pick up what I could on my own. Luckily, that was easy for me.
“So where to now?” I asked.
Wolf stopped dead in the grassy road. “To the Moor of Ravens, of course. Is this not the way?”
I was glad that my horse had stopped by himself. I stared at Wolf, my eyebrows as high as they could go. “You think I know the way?”
“But it was you who set the trail.” Wolf wasn’t angry—yet, but I could tell from the sudden hardness in his voice that he wasn’t far away from it.
I held up a hand, palm toward him. “Wait just a second. I know that the Moor of Ravens and the Sea of, Ma’arban, was it? I know that these places have something to do with the Horn, or at least with Ice Tor, but that’s all I know. I mean, I couldn’t even swear to it that they’re places. The names could be metaphors.”
“Oh, Chimera, give me patience.” Wolf covered his eyes with his palms. I sat quietly, with my teeth clenched, until he could compose himself. I had an inkling of what he was feeling. Here I thought he knew the way, and he thought I did.
“I’ll need to touch you again,” I reminded him. “See if there’s any more information, any details you don’t know you have.” I rested my hand on the pommel again [Eyebright had made the saddle, from the horse’s own hair, and had chosen the pommel stone with his cooperation; the horse’s name was an unpronounceable sound I could hear clearly in my head], secretly thankful that there were no reins for me to worry about.
“I know the horse’s name,” I said. Wolf didn’t respond, but at least he was now looking at me. “I can’t say it, but I can hear it in my head, when I touch this.” I indicated the pommel. “I can tell you about the Rider who made it, his name was Eyebright. He brought the stone from someplace where there was an abyss.”
“The Shaghana’ak Abyss, I know of it.”
“Right. Well, that’s not the only thing you know. You know the way to Ice Tor, you just don’t know you know it.”
I really shouldn’t have been surprised when he shook his head at me. “And this means?”
“Give me your hand,” I said.
Chapter Eighteen
HANDS ON HIPS, Wolf looked along the empty shelves set up against the stone walls of the tower, and frowned.
“What is it?” Valory leaned against the frame of the open doorway, breathing shallowly through her mouth, with her palm against her stomach.
“You are supposed to be resting,” Wolf said. They had ridden perhaps half a day since she had touched him and learned what direction to take. Valory had become so sleepy after taking more of her medicine that he’d decided to stop when they sighted this traveler’s tower. Her condition had worried him, for all that she’d waved off his concern. He’d gone so far, once he had her settled in a bed, as to look at the package of Gravol medicine, as if it might tell him something. He could recognize some of the letters as things he’d seen before, and that some of the other symbols were numbers, but he had not been able to make out what information was being given.
“You look worried,” she said to him now.
She looked ill, her coloring wan, her eyes like great pools of molten gold, underscored by dark circles. Something told him it would be a mistake to mention this to her. He waved at the shelves instead.
“The weapons are gone,” he said.
Valory came farther into the room and leaned on the corner of a shelf. She made a beckoning motion with the hand that wasn’t on her stomach and Wolf realized she meant him to say more.
“The food containers in the great room are empty as well,” he said. “Everything, baskets, flasks, pots, whatever. In a traveler’s tower they should all be full. And here,” he waved at the shelves again. “There should be swords, daggers, bows, armor, even axes.”
Lips pressed together, Valory took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. “Okay. So what does that mean?”
“It means that we are lucky I took supplies from the hostel. It means it is not as safe here as I had hoped.” He turned toward the door, offering Valory his gra’if-covered wrist as support. “These are places of refuge. They should always have supplies, food, weapons. Whatever is taken, something should come to replace it.”
“Like the clothes in the cupboard?”
“Exactly. Food in the baskets, wine and other beverages in the flasks. That is the purpose of these towers, to provide for any traveler who might pass. Someone has deliberately tampered with the magic here, so that the tower cannot supply anyone else.”
“The Hunt?”
Wolf hesitated, pausing between one step and the next. “No. The Hunt cannot affect this kind of magic. But the followers of the Basilisk Prince can.”
“So they’ve been here? Taken the food and the weapons for their own use?”
“And made sure no others can feed or arm themselves.”
“So do we care? You’re already armed, and you’ve got gra’if.”
“But you have nothing. Not so much as a mail shirt to stop an arrow.”
“Oh.” Her brows drew downward in a vee. “Well, we’ll have to hope it doesn’t come to that.” She drew him back to the room in which he had left her. “I found something, I didn’t know if it was important.”
“You were supposed to be resting,” he repeated, as he followed her.
“I was looking for a window,” she explained. “And I found this. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“You arose from
your sickbed, when it is of the utmost importance that you rest and regain your strength, in order to show me something beautiful?”
Illness had made her so pale that the flush which spread over her face at his words stood out like a stain. Instead of answering, she turned away and lifted her hand, reaching out to touch the wall. Wolf’s eyes followed the movement, and what he had been about to say next faded from his lips.
The walls were covered with lines of onyx and darkmetal, some of them as fine as hairs, some as thick as heavy ropes, with here and there a touch of what looked like gra’if. Some great use of dra’aj had blasted this pattern into the walls.
For a moment Wolf could not think why he was so frightened, and then he knew. He MOVED and Valory—her hand still reaching out—was in his arms, and they were outside of the room. He held her steady as she retched, until she waved him off.
“It is a Signed room,” he said, when she was able to straighten. “I could not take the risk of what might happen if you touched the wall.”
Her breathing steadied, and she turned, moving as if balancing her head with great care. Her pallor had increased, leaving green shadows on her cheeks. “What is it? Couldn’t you have warned me?”
“I did not expect it.” He offered his wrist again to steady her. Or to steady himself; he could not be sure. It felt as though his bowels had turned to ice. “There are Songs about Signed rooms, and even buildings. They are Signed against Movement.” A wrinkle appeared between her brows. Wolf squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. He tapped his forehead with his free hand. “When Signed, these rooms fall from the mind of everyone except the one who Signed them, and others can Move neither in nor out. They are used to enclose Riders as the only prison that would work against their Riding.”
“That’s a prison room?” One hand gripping his gra’if armband, the other braced against the wall, Valory leaned to peer into the Signed room.
“It is likely, though not all of them are. There was a Song that tells of a pair of Riders who entered a Signed room after their wedding, to spend a portion of time completely alone. The Song tells that the Rider who had Signed the room for them was killed in a sudden accident, leaving the lovers trapped forever. The location of the room is long forgotten, but perhaps the lovers love there still.” Wolf heard a certain familiar lilt to his voice, and cleared his throat. Valory’s caramel eyes shone as if with tears.
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