by David Wise
"The hundredth window," Clarisse whispered, her pulse quickening.
Fascinated, she stood and began moving slowly through the room, keeping the ruby spark of light on her hand, tracing the beam to its source. It led her to the far side of the chamber. Here the wall was covered by a faded tapestry, its images so murky with time and neglect that Clarisse could not make them out. The edges of a small, moth-eaten hole in the tapestry glowed as if on fire. Holding her breath, hardly daring to let her- self hope, Clarisse reached out a trembling hand to lift the tapestry.
Suddenly a voice rang out from far below.
"Clarisse!"
She froze. Footsteps sounded on the stairway.
"Clarisse, where have you gone?"
Gareff! Swiftly, Clarisse let the tapestry fall back. She whirled and sped from the room, brushing the cobwebs from her hair. She dared not keep Lord Harrowing waiting. He might ask what she had been doing, and she would have no choice but to tell him. And she did not want to tell him. The game was hers, a private thing. Smoothing her gown, she dashed down the stairs to greet her husband.
She found him standing before a window in the parlor, handsome despite his gray hair and mustaches, elegant in his old-fashioned frock coat and breeches. He gazed outside through rain-spattered glass.
She knelt beside him and clasped his hand, as was expected of a wife. "Welcome home, my lord," she murmured softly.
"Ah, there you are, Clarisse. "He stroked her dark hair with the same absent fondness he always displayed when petting his favorite hounds. She tried to suppress a shiver, and did her best not to recoil from his touch. Then he turned his gaze back out the window as the storm that had threatened all afternoon finally loosed its fury over Evenore.
It was only then that a queer thought occurred to Clarisse. If it was raining outside, from where had come the crimson ray of sunlight in the attic room?
Clarisse reined the gray stallion to a halt at the top of the heather-blanketed ridge. The beast tossed its head and snorted, its hot breath casting faint ghosts on the damp air. Countless droplets of mist, glistening like tiny pearls, beaded the woolen cloak she had thrown over her riding gown. The somber landscape marched below her in endless, dun-colored waves, broken only here and there by a hedge of dark thorn or a crumbling stone wall.
Crimson blossomed in her pale cheeks as she dared to laugh. She knew she was a fool to have spurred her mount so swiftly. Riding sidesaddle was precarious enough, and the irregular ground made it absolutely treacherous. Yet that was a great part of the excitement. Sometimes there was a part of her that secretly, almost darkly, hoped she would have a horrible accident. She knew that a throw from the back of a horse and a hard landing on cold ground could snap the bones of her neck like dry kindling. It would be a terrible price for freedom, but one she was not entirely certain she would be unwilling to pay.
Of late, the airs she took about the countryside were all that gave Clarisse a sense that she was alive. Even her game had given her no comfort these past weeks. After that day she had discovered the strange beam of sunlight in the attic storage room, it was nearly a fortnight before Gareff's mysterious business once more took him away, and she was able to resume her search. To her dismay, she had found the storage room door locked. Somehow, Gareff must have learned of her private amusement. No doubt the hateful Ranya had told him.
Whatever the cause, Clarisse knew it was best that she forget her window-counting game. True, she had learned where Gareff kept a skeleton key that worked all the locks in the manor — she had spied Ranya stealing it once to open the wine cellar and snitch a bottle — but Clarisse did not dare use it. In his wrath, a lord might rightly punish his wife for such a disobedience. Of course, Clarisse thought with disgust, a lady had no such recourse should her husband betray her.
The gray stallion gave a snort, pawing the damp ground with a hoof in agitation. Startled, Clarisse looked up to see a man approaching. By his ragged clothes and the bundle of firewood slung over his back, she took him to be a villager. He doffed his cap when he reached her and smiled, baring a handful of yellowed teeth.
"Milady is a brave one, yes?"
Clarisse frowned. The villager's thick country brogue was difficult to fathom.
"I wouldn't know what you mean," she answered coolly.
"Aye, don't you, milady?" The man winked with one bulbous, palsied eye. "Lord Harrowing is gone wandering. And so has milady, yes?"
Clarisse's slender eyebrows knit in a scowl. "Lord Harrowing's affairs are his concern," she said sternly. "As my own affairs are mine."
The villager hopped a step backward, his peculiar eyes bulging in alarm. "Aye, milady, just as you say. Begging your pardon and not meaning to presume. It's just. . "The man clutched nervously at his threadbare cap. "It's just that it isn't safe for you to be out riding by your own, what with the shadows and all."
"Shadows?" Curious, Clarisse leaned forward in her saddle.
"Aye, shadows. "He lowered his voice to a coarse whisper. "The kind as sneak up on a foolish man who sets out for home too late to make it afore sundown, and then he never makes it at all. I heard old Madam Senda say a goblyn lord conjured them, and her being Vistana and all, I suppose I'd tend to listen."
Clarisse shivered and drew her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. "It's just a story," she said flatly. But she felt a strange tingling of excitement in her chest all the same.
The haggard man pulled his cap back over his head and hefted his load of firewood. "As milady wishes," he said. "I'm certain she'll be troubled not by man or shadow this day. "He nodded his head in farewell. But as the villager turned away, Clarisse saw a strange look in his eyes. It was a fearful look, and one of pity.
Finding the dwindling afternoon light suddenly menacing, Clarisse spurred her mount and rode in the direction of Evenore.
She returned to find Gareff pacing before the fireplace in the library. Three black mastiffs lay sprawled asleep by the hearth. He spun around at the rustling of her silk gown.
"Clarisse!" He set down a glass of wine and strode toward her, his snow-white eyebrows bristling. "Where have you been? "
"Why, out riding," she said breathlessly, taking off her mist-damp cloak.
Lord Harrowing shook his head. "I should have known. "He sighed deeply and took her by the shoulders. "Clarisse," he said sternly, as if speaking to a child. "You must promise me that you will not go riding out on the moor any longer."
"By why?" Her heart fluttered in her chest. "Is it because. . "Her voice trailed off. Is it because of the goblyn lord? she had almost said. But she didn't dare. Gareff would laugh at such foolishness.
"Please, Clarisse. You must promise me."
For a giddy moment she almost considered defying him. Without her sojourns across the moor, she had nothing. But the fierceness of his blue eyes seemed to bore into her. Finally she cast her face downward. "Of course, my lord."
Gareff lifted her chin with a finger and smiled at her. Then he leaned down and roughly kissed her forehead. "Corne," he said briskly. "Let us see what Ranya has set out for our supper."
Clarisse swallowed the bitter taste of bile in her throat and followed after him as the shadows gathered outside the library's windows.
The days that followed seemed as dreary to Clarisse as the ancient air that filled Evenore's chambers. She tried to content herself with matters about the house, but to little avail. A day of trying to tame the manor's garden left her hands burning with nettle stings, and she quickly gave up that pursuit. Nor, she found, did she have the patience for embroidery or sewing or other domestic pursuits. It helped matters little that Lord Harrowing was away more than ever, at times leaving in the middle of the night and not returning for days on end. When he did return, he seemed haggard and distracted, hardly noticing Clarisse except to kiss her cheek fondly now and again.
Finally, one chill autumn day, Clarisse sat down to pen a letter to her father. Gareff was off on one of his mysterious journeys again, an
d Ranya had walked to the village that morning to visit an aunt taken ill.
The storm-swept sky outside the library's windows was dark and angry, and Clarisse was forced to light a candle to work by, though it was only midafternoon. In smooth, delicate script, she wrote of how lonely the country was, and how dark the manor, and how desolate she felt so far from the city. But when she lay down her quill, she knew she could not post the letter. Her feelings meant nothing to her father. He had bought his nobility with her, and he had obviously found the price more than fair.
Slowly, she stood and carried the parchment to the fireplace and placed it carefully in the flames. She watched as its edges darkened and then caught fire. The letter blackened and curled in on itself like a dying spider. Then it was gone.
Clarisse stood, sighing. She paced despondently before the fire for a time. Then, almost without thinking, she moved to a bookcase on the far wall. She counted five shelves up from the floor and then ran her finger along the gilded spines of the tomes. She pulled a small volume bound in green leather from the shelf and undid the brass hasp. Inside, the pages of the book had been cleverly hollowed out into a small recess. Nestled within was an iron key.
Gareff's skeleton key.
Clarisse did not allow herself a moment to pause and consider what she was doing. Suddenly she was burning to know what lay behind the tapestry in the attic. She grasped the key and returned the book to the shelf. Swiftly she ascended the stairway, glancing back over her shoulder. She had to be careful. Ranya might return at any time.
Moments later found her breathless before the attic storage room. Hand trembling, she fit the key into the door's lock. It turned easily. She slipped within and pressed the portal quietly shut. A flash of crimson light caught her eye. There — she had not imagined it. The ray of sunlight danced across the bodice of her gown as she approached the tapestry. Swiftly she pushed aside the threadbare weaving.
It was a keyhole.
She could see no doorway, but there in the middle of the stone wall was a lock. It was from this that the ray of light emanated. A thought struck her.
"It can't be. . "she whispered to the silent air.
She lifted the skeleton key and brought it to the keyhole. It slipped easily within. She held her breath for several heartbeats, then turned the key. There was a faint click. With a gust of stale air, a section of the wall swung inward. She blinked against the flood of crimson light that poured forth. Hesitating only for a moment, she stepped inside.
Clarisse had found the hundredth window.
It dominated the entire far wall of the small room, a chaotic mosaic of jagged, colored shards that made her dizzy to gaze upon. Sunlight streamed through the nightmarish stained-glass window, tainted by the colored glass, and only dimly did Clarisse remember that, when last she looked, the sky outside had been dark and brooding, concealing the sun. The writhing patterns of the window dazed her. Then her gaze locked upon an image in the center of the window. It was a man.
Slowly she approached, fascinated. He seemed a noble, clad in a coat of black velvet and golden breeches. A red ribbon held back his long, raven-dark hair. The portrait was exquisitely done, tiny fragments of glass rendering his grave, handsome features in perfect detail. She supposed it was only a trick of the light, but there was a fire in his eyes of smoked glass. It was almost as if he were gazing at her. . gazing at her with passion. She shook her head. It was a look she had never seen in Gareff's eyes.
"Who can this have been?" Clarisse mused aloud. "He seems so. . so melancholy."
"Indeed, my lady," a rich, masculine voice spoke behind her," he has good cause to be."
Clasping a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream, Clarisse spun around. There was no one else in the room. All she saw were the patterns of light thrown upon the far wall by the stained-glass window.
"Who's there?" she called out, trying to keep the fear from her voice. "Where are you? "
"Why, I stand here before you. . Clarisse."
Impossibly, Clarisse watched the patterns of colored sunlight on the wall swirl and move. Suddenly she realized what she was seeing. It was the man. The light coming through the stained-glass window cast an image of him upon the wall. And that image was moving. Even as she watched, the ghostly man on the wall bowed to her. He straightened then, and smiled. Clarisse felt her heart racing — from fear, yes, but something else quickened her blood as well. A strangely disconnected thought passed through her mind. She had never before seen a man so handsome.
"Who. . who are you?" she managed to speak. She took a step toward the wall. "How is it that you know my name? "
"I am Domenic," the glowing image of the man answered. His smile deepened. "And I know much about you, Clarisse. I have waited so long for you to find me here. But I knew that one day you would come, that one day you would free me from this prison in which I am wrongfully bound."
Clarisse shook her head. This was maddening. Yet she felt a powerful, dizzying excitement as well. "How can this be?" She gazed to the window, and then to the image of the man on the opposite wall. "Your portrait in the glass does not move, but your image upon the wall does."
Domenic spread his hands. "Glass is brittle, Clarisse. It does not flow. But sunlight. . "He laughed, a sound like horns. "Ah, sunlight flows like water."
His laughter seemed to catch her, buoy her, and set her adrift. She found herself laughing as well, for the first time she could remember since coming to Evenore.
Domenic's laughter faded. "Now, Clarisse, will you release me?" he asked intently. "There is a way."
She shook her head. Why was it so hard to think? The crimson light seemed to fill her mind. "I. . I don't know."
He appeared to reach a hand toward her, though his image was confined to the flat plane of the wall. "Set me free, Clarisse, and I will set you free as well. I can take you away from this — from this lonely manor, this bleak countryside. "Her heart skipped a beat. "And yes, Clarisse, away from him. I'll take you back to Il Aluk, if you wish it, and each night we will dance in a different ballroom, until we have made them all our own."
She took a step nearer the glowing wall. "But how. .how did you come to be imprisoned so? "
"It was a wicked man, Clarisse. "He shook his head sadly. "A man of evil, and a wizard. I dared to stand against him, and he bound me in the glass with a spell. But do not fear. When you free me, I will deal with him." Domenic's smoldering eyes bored into her. "Go to the window, Clarisse."
Before she even thought of whether to do as he asked, she found herself standing once more before the hundredth window.
"Look through the glass, Clarisse. Tell me, what do you see?"
Clarisse leaned forward and peered through the colored shards. She expected to see the village huddling meagerly at the foot of the tor below, or the endless, rolling moor. She saw neither.
It was a sea of monsters.
She felt a scream claw at her chest, but her throat, constricted by horror, strangled it. A thin sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.
She should look away. She knew she should look away. But somehow she could not. The creatures beyond the glass held her morbidly in thrall. She could see no land, if indeed the beasts stood upon such, for the throng of creatures blotted it out entirely. They were shaped like people, but people from a nightmare, for their skin was a sickly green, and their bloated heads far too big for their twisted bodies. Those closest to the window turned as if they could see Clarisse, glaring at her with mindless, hungry eyes as hot as coals, baring fangs as sharp as shattered glass. Some were clad in rags that might once have been clothes, and here and there Clarisse saw the glint of a silver ring or a gold necklace. It was enough to make her wonder if these things had once been. . human.
"What. . what are they?" she finally managed to whisper.
"You needn't fear them, Clarisse," Domenic answered from behind. "Every great lord must have servants. These are mine. "His voice seemed to coil around her like a soft cloak. "Now,
Clarisse. Reach up to the window. Take my hand."
She shook her head. "But how?" Fear made her entire body tremble. Or was it desire?
"Just reach into the window, Clarisse," Domenic urged gently. "Take my hand. Do it, Clarisse — if you love me."
She could resist no longer. The fear in her breast melted into a powerful, heady warmth. Domenic was so handsome, so compelling. . so utterly unlike Gareff.
She reached toward the window. Her fingers brushed strangely slick glass. Then suddenly her hand closed about warm, living flesh. She backed away, not loosening her grip, and as though he was surfacing from deep, murky water, Domenic stepped from the glass, a living man.
"Ah, my Clarisse!" he cried. "At last, I am free!" He swept her into his strong, encircling arms and kissed her passionately. His burning eyes seemed to light a fire in her. She clung to him fiercely, kissing him back again, and again.
Domenic whirled her about, and a faint, disconnected fragment of Clarisse's mind noticed that they were no longer in the attic chamber, but in the ballroom downstairs. Yet too much had happened for this small thing to disturb her. Domenic waved his hand, and suddenly a quartet of musicians played upon the dais, clad in coats of the finest red velvet. The musicians began a lovely, lilting waltz, and Domenic spun her about the ballroom in a sweeping, dizzying dance.
"We shall dance together forever, Clarisse," he said joyously. "Forever!" For a terrible moment, his smile was the mirror image of her father's.
"What have I done?" Clarisse whispered, but her words were snatched away by the sweet strains of music. She gripped Domenic tighter as they danced, spinning about the ballroom until she forgot herself in a sweet, burning dream.
"Clarisse!"
The cry shattered the air of the ballroom. Domenic halted the dance abruptly, and Clarisse's momentum spun her breathlessly away. She looked up to see Gareff in the doorway, his blue eyes blazing. He threw down his rain-soaked riding cape and strode into the hall.