Prisoner of the Iron Tower

by Sarah Ash

  He recognized with a sinking feeling the golden hair and blue eyes of Celestine de Maunoir. At the same time, the young man’s grip on his arm tightened.

  “What do you want with me?” he demanded—and heard, to his shame, a quiver of fear in his voice.

  “Just to take a ride in this coach together,” she said. “It’s a lovely day for a ride, isn’t it?”

  “I will not be taken anywhere against my own will—” began Linnaius.

  “Please don’t make a fuss,” said the young man in tones of quiet menace, “or we will be obliged to compel you by other, less pleasant means.”

  “At least let me bring a few possessions—” If only he could reach his rooms, there were powders and potions there he could use to defend himself against his abductors.

  As if in reply, he felt the young man press the muzzle of a pistol against his neck. “Into the coach,” he whispered. “Now.”

  Astasia and Andrei stood side by side on the quay at Haeven. The skies had turned dark and stormclouds were racing across the Straits. Astasia shivered and pulled her cloak closer about her.

  “You don’t think anyone has recognized me?” she asked Andrei anxiously. She was certain that her escape would be discovered and the Imperial Household Cavalry dispatched to bring her back. Every moment that passed on Tielen soil made her more apprehensive.

  “Let’s wait for them on board,” Andrei said, squeezing her hand. “I can’t think what has detained them. They said they’d be here so that we could sail on the evening tide.”

  “Look!” squeaked Nadezhda, pointing out to sea. She seemed to have lost her voice. “What is that?”

  “Oh dear God,” Astasia said faintly. “It’s coming straight for us.”

  Speeding over the waves came what seemed at first a waterspout—a wild, dark spiral of cloud, wind, and water. Yet as Astasia stared, she thought she detected a shimmer of blue within the fast-moving cloud. Were those eyes? And were those great wings of shadow, powerfully beating?

  “It’s a Drakhaoul,” she said in a hoarse whisper. But surely it was not Gavril Nagarian she sensed bearing down on them; how could it be? Hadn’t he been locked away for life in the prison at Arnskammar?

  And just as she was certain it was making straight for her, it veered away from the port and headed inland, following the path of the river.

  She glanced at Andrei and saw that he had been utterly transfixed by the sight, one hand clutched to his head. His eyes rolled, unfocused.

  “Andrei? Andrei, what is it?” She gripped hold of his arm, afraid he was going to fall into a fit. “Nadezhda, do we have any brandy?”

  Nadezhda shook her head, speechless.

  Andrei slowly began to form words. But they seemed like gibberish, or some foreign tongue she had never encountered before. And each word made her skin crawl, though she had no idea why.

  “Khezef,” he said. “Belberith. Araziel. Nilaihah. Adramelech!” Then he turned to her and said in urgent tones, “They are coming. Get on board the ship, Tasia, quick.”

  “I won’t go without you,” she said, still holding on to him, not knowing who “they” were, only that she had never seen him so possessed before.

  With a cry, he pulled free of her grip and went stumbling off along the quay toward the long jetty that stretched out into the open sea.

  Gavril flew onward until he saw the great park and the pale stone buildings of Swanholm. The first time he had flown here to rescue Elysia there had been no time to hide his Drakhaoul form. But today he could not risk causing so great a disturbance. He dipped down into a grove of trees and began to walk through the grounds toward the palace. It looked as if there had been a celebration here, for men were at work in the park dismantling marquees and servants were sweeping and cleaning. With any luck, no one would even stop to ask who he was; he could always pretend he was helping load one of the great carts that had come rolling up to be piled with tent posts and bales of canvas.

  “Drakhaoul.”

  His heart racing, he turned and saw a little girl staring up at him with eyes as blue as the sea that washed Ty Nagar’s shores.

  “H-how do you know?” he stammered.

  “I am the Drakhaoul’s child,” she said. “I sensed you were coming.”

  “Then help me, Drakhaoul’s child.” He was desperate now; he didn’t know who she was, but he sensed she would not refuse. “I’m looking for the Magus.”

  “Follow me.” It was a command. She started out, making for an inner courtyard and only now did he see from her limp that she was badly crippled.

  She pointed to an archway. “Up there. But he’s gone. You won’t find him.”

  “Princess Karila, where are you? Are you outside without your cloak?”

  “I’m here, Marta!” she called.

  “Princess Karila?” Gavril echoed. Eugene’s daughter? And yet she had called herself Drakhaoul’s child.

  “Come back for me,” she said, reaching up to touch his hand, yet he knew it was not to him that she spoke.

  “When the time is right, then I will come for you,” he heard Khezef answer.

  A woman in a dark blue dress appeared in the courtyard; Gavril shrank back into the archway as she led the princess away, scolding her for forgetting her cloak.

  He had wasted enough time. He went up the stairs and saw the door to the Magus’s rooms was ajar. Someone had been here before him.

  Pushing open the door, he checked inside. The place had been ransacked; books lay everywhere. He went in, treading on broken-backed spines, torn pages, broken glass.

  And then he saw the inner door half-open. A woman was lying on the bed, her golden hair glinting in the sunlight that filtered in through the window.

  “Kiukiu?” he said, astonished.

  She lay as though dead, her eyes staring into the distance with an expression of horror and disbelief. Beside her lay her gusly.

  He put out a shaking hand to touch her face and found it was still warm. He checked for a pulse in her limp wrist and felt the faintest beat beneath the skin.

  “So they made you work for them,” he murmured, “and now you’re lost in the Ways Beyond . . . and I have no idea how to get you back.” He touched the soft tendrils of her hair and saw that there were many threads of white among the gold. She was aging. If her spirit did not return to her body soon . . .

  He lifted her, cradling her head and shoulders against him, noticing how heavy they felt.

  “Come back, Kiukiu,” he murmured, kissing her. “Come back to me.”

  When she still did not stir at the sound of his voice or the touch of his lips, he carried her out of the Magus’s rooms and on, up the stairs, making for the door to the roof.

  It would be a long flight back to Azhkendir, and a hard one, with her in his arms. But there was only one person he knew who had the skills and the experience to bring her back.

  Malusha dozed fitfully in front of the embers of the fire.

  “Grandma . . . Grandma, help me. . . .” She hears Kiukiu calling to her from very far away, her voice faint and desperate.

  “Kiukiu? Where are you, child?” she calls back. “Just give me a sign, a hint, and I’ll find you!”

  Dust blows in her face, dry and stinging. She raises her hands to cover her eyes. All she can see is an endless, dreary landscape, stretching on to forever—a place of lost hope, lost dreams, of despair.

  “No, not here! Anywhere but here—”

  An insistent tapping at the window woke her.

  “Kiukiu?” she cried out. “Is that you?”

  There was no reply. She wrapped her shawl around her and went to open the shutters, peering into the night.

  Lady Iceflower was hunched on the sill, her snowy feathers gleaming in the darkness.

  “My lady, why can’t you use the hole in the roof like the others?”

  The owl sidled along the sill and gave her a little nip.

  “So there’s still no sign of my girl?”

&nb
sp; The owl hopped inside and allowed Malusha to stroke her sleek head feathers. Malusha sighed and pulled the shutters to.

  “She’s been gone too long with that cursed wind-mage. I warned her, Iceflower, but would she listen to me? No, her head’s too full of that Nagarian boy, and no good will come of it.” Malusha shuffled over to the dying fire and began to rake it, tossing on handfuls of pine needles to revive the flames.

  “Was the hunting good, my lady?”

  Lady Iceflower gave a few convulsive coughs and spat out a bony pellet onto the cottage floor. Malusha inspected it. “Mice, again? Well, it keeps them out of my stores. . . .” She put water to heat and settled back in her chair. “I can’t sleep, my lady, for worrying about her.” The owl jumped up and perched beside her companionably.

  And then Malusha sat up, listening intently. It felt as if a shadow had passed over the cottage, jarring her nerves, stirring up dark memories. Iceflower gave a cry of alarm and flapped her white wings.

  “d’you feel that, my lady? That’s a Drakhaoul. And winging low overhead.”

  A man’s voice cried outside, “Malusha! Let us in, for God’s sake!”

  Malusha picked up a walking stick from beside the fire and went to open the door. In the gloom of a starless night, she saw a glimmer of bright eyes, daemon-blue.

  “You keep your distance, Gavril Nagarian.”

  “I’ve brought Kiukiu,” he gasped. “But she sorely needs your help.”

  “Kiukiu?” Malusha hastily muttered the words to break the protection spell around the cottage and Gavril staggered inside, carrying her granddaughter.

  “Put her down on the settle,” Malusha commanded, “and stand back.”

  He collapsed to his hands and knees, heaving in great breaths of air, and she realized he was little threat to her right now.

  “And what have they done to you, my poor girl?” she crooned, kneeling beside Kiukiu and running her fingertips down her cheek. “Look at these grey hairs. You’re aging; your life force is slipping away. Where are you? And why can’t you get back?”

  “She was in the Magus’s rooms,” said Gavril Nagarian, still wheezing. He looked as if he’d been in a fight. “Her gusly was there, but it was too heavy to bring.”

  He’d risked much to bring Kiukiu home, she allowed grudgingly. He deserved a cup of her medicinal herbal tea, if nothing more. The water was boiling; Malusha put a generous pinch of her special tea in a bowl and some healing herbs in another. “I’m going to look for her.” She poured on hot water, inhaling the fragrant narcotic fumes as the dream-herbs began to infuse. “You drink this when it’s cooled a little,” she said to Gavril. “It’ll ease your wounds and your weariness.”

  He took the bowl from her, nodding his thanks.

  “No good ever comes of troubling the dead for their secrets; what’s buried should stay buried. If we hadn’t agreed to disturb Serzhei—” She stopped, hearing again Kiukiu’s voice calling to her from far, far away. She saw the dust storms blowing across the bleak plain. “That’s it! Eugene wasn’t satisfied with what he learned and he wanted more. They always want more. And if she’s trapped in the Realm of Shadows . . .”

  This would call for the most perilous of the shaman’s arts.

  “Lady Iceflower,” she said in commanding tones. “I’ll need your help. If we don’t move fast, she’ll be trapped there forever.”

  Kiukiu crouched, whimpering in the shade of a grey dune of sand and ash, her hands over her head. She no longer had any idea where she was. And then she thought she saw a speck of white in the gloom. She looked up, wondering if she were hallucinating.

  A snow-white owl was flitting through the winds and clouds of dust.

  Iceflower? And then she cried the name aloud, “Iceflower!”

  At first she feared the owl had not heard her above the roar of the winds. She frantically waved her arms, jumping up and down in the blowing dust.

  And then a familiar voice said, “Didn’t I warn you not to come to this place?”

  Lady Iceflower alighted on her outstretched arm and stared at her with golden eyes. But the voice that spoke to her was Malusha’s.

  “Grandma?” said Kiukiu tearfully. “How did you know to find me here?”

  “I heard you crying out for help. Lucky my lady here was able to assist me. Hurry now; we have to get you back to the way you came in. You’ve been out of your body too long. You’re beginning to fade.”

  The owl flapped off into the gloom, Kiukiu trailing wearily after.

  “Keep up!” cried Malusha, her voice sharp as Lady Iceflower’s cry.

  “But it’s so far, and I’m so tired, Grandma . . .”

  Iceflower fluttered down and nipped Kiukiu sharply.

  “That’s to keep you awake, child! And don’t give in to despair. Once you give in to despair here, you’re lost to me forever. Think of something. Keep your mind active. What was the last thing you remember seeing?”

  Kiukiu tried to think as she trudged onward.

  Daemon-glimmer of blue-and-gold eyes in the darkness . . .

  “Gavril,” she said softly. “I called out to him, but he couldn’t hear me.”

  “I told you that boy was nothing but trouble.”

  “But he was here, I saw him,” protested Kiukiu.

  “That’s it, child, keep remembering,” urged Malusha in Iceflower’s shrill owl-voice. “The more you remember, the closer we come . . .”

  As she spoke, the clouds of dust and sand began to die down, like veils of mist slowly melting in the morning sun. The winds abated a little. A shadowed archway could be seen beyond the blowing dust.

  “Go on, Kiukiu, you’re nearly there,” cried Malusha, flapping on like a pale ghost toward the Gate.

  “I’m nearly there,” Kiukiu repeated. Her strength was failing. Each shuffling step took so much energy . . . “Must I go alone?”

  “We cannot come with you, child; we must go back the way we came.”

  “Take care, Grandma. Make it back home safely. And thank you. Thank you for rescuing me—”

  “Go, Kiukirilya!” cried Malusha. Iceflower gave her a nudge toward the Gate.

  Kiukiu stumbled forward and plunged into the shadows beneath the Gate.

  Eugene had been thinking like a Drakhaon, and now, as he approached his palace, he began to think like a man again. If he swooped down on Swanholm in full magnificent Drakhaon form, he would terrify and alienate his whole court. His own men would fire on him, thinking the palace was under attack.

  No; he must reappear as a man. He had told Gustave he was going hunting; well, now he had returned. And when Gustave asked, “Was the hunting good?” he would reply, “Magnificent! The best day I’ve had in years.”

  There was a grove of birch trees within the deer park, which would afford shade and cover. Eugene circled lower and lower, sending a herd of startled roe deer galloping for cover.

  He landed in a cloud of dust and stones. For a moment he lay motionless, at full length in the rough grass, arms widespread, as though still flying. Then, his head singing with the rush of the wind, he pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet.

  His clothes were in tatters. He had lost his shoes. He wasn’t sure how he would explain this to any courtiers he encountered on the way back to the palace.

  He set off, barefooted, across the park. He kept looking down at his hand, at the healed skin—and then touching his face and scalp, feeling the smoothness again and again, just to make sure it was not a dream. There was a strange tint of green coloring his fingernails, so that in the sunlight they glinted like emeralds.

  As he walked on, he began to become aware of how weary he felt. And thirsty. Suddenly he felt as if his throat and mouth were filled with burning cinders. The need to find refreshment drove him stumbling onward.

  “Water.” He whispered the word aloud.

  Then he spotted the Dievona Fountain on the edge of the park. Deer often drank there, but right now he didn’t care if he shared
a water trough with his horses in the stables. He had to have water to quench this burning thirst.

  He plunged his head and shoulders into the wide basin of the fountain, gulping down great mouthfuls, not caring that it was dirtied by birds and animals. Above him, Dievona the Huntress gazed proudly down on his palace below.

  Dripping wet, he rose from the fountain and set out down the path that led from the trees toward the formal gardens, but still the thirst burned on. He stopped, leaning against a fluted ornamental pillar, gripped suddenly by violent pains in his stomach.

  I shouldn’t have drunk from the fountain. . . .

  Yet if the water was bad, surely it was too soon for it to take effect?

  He straightened up and kept walking. It must be hunger. He could not remember the last time he had eaten. At the ball supper, probably.

  Everywhere in the gardens, the last traces of the ball were being cleaned up. The marquees were gone. The ruts and holes in his lawns had not, but somehow it all seemed very unimportant now.

  “Imperial highness?” A servant gasped out his name, bowing low as he passed by. Gardeners dropped their rakes and brooms to stare; maidservants gave little shocked cries.

  Was he in such a state? He lurched on, aware that the gravel was grazing his bare feet and the griping pain in his stomach was growing worse. Could he make the shelter of the palace before he disgraced himself?

  He staggered up the wide steps toward the terrace where he had stood with Karila and Astasia to watch the fireworks. Maids were busy in the dining hall; when they saw him, they scattered.

  What is wrong? Do I really look so terrifying?

  And then he came face-to-face with his reflection in one of the full-length gilt-framed mirrors.

  A daemon with long locks of green and gold-streaked hair stared back at him through strangely striated, slanted malachite eyes.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, horrified. “What have you done to me, Belberith?”

  “You have used much of my power,” whispered Beleberith, “and the more you use, the more you will resemble me.”