Halfway down the stairs, dwarfed by their massive size, they could see-once Sinistrad had drawn their attention to her-a woman. She stood frozen, staring at her child. Bane kept very near Sinistrad, the boy’s small hand clinging tightly to the wizard’s. The woman put her hand to a locket she wore at her throat and clasped her fingers round it. With her other, she leaned heavily against the balustrades. She had not stopped on the stair to make a grand entrance, to draw all eyes to her. She had stopped, Hugh saw, because she could go no farther.
Hugh had wondered, briefly, what kind of woman Bane’s mother was. What kind of woman would participate in a baby-switching. He had thought he knew, and would not have been surprised to see someone as treacherous and ambitious as the father. Now, seeing her, he realized she was not a perpetrator but a victim.
“My dear, have you taken root?” Sinistrad appeared displeased. “Why don’t you speak? Our guests-“
The woman was going to fall, and without pausing to think, Hugh ran up the stairs and caught the slumping body in his arms.
“So that’s mother,” said Bane.
“Yes, my son,” remarked Sinistrad. “Gentlemen, my wife, Iridal.” He waved a negligent hand at her motionless body. “I must apologize for her. She is weak, very weak. And now, sirs, if you will follow me, I will show you to your quarters. I am certain you will want to rest after your fatiguing journey.”
“What about her-your wife?” Hugh demanded. He smelled the fragrance of crushed and faded lavender.
“Take her to her room,” said Sinistrad, glancing at her without interest. “It’s at the top of the stairs, along the balcony, second door to the left.”
“Should I call a servant to care for her?”
“We have no servants. I find them … disruptive. She must care for herself. As must you all, I’m afraid.”
Without looking to see if their guests were following, Sinistrad and Bane turned to the right and walked through a door that appeared, seemingly by the wizard’s command, in a blank wall. The others did not immediately go after him-Haplo was idly looking around, Alfred was apparently torn between following his prince and attending to the poor woman in Hugh’s arms, Limbeck looked with frightened round eyes at the door that had materialized out of solid rock and kept rubbing his ears, perhaps longing for a whoosh, zuzt, wham to break the oppressive silence.
“I suggest you follow me, gentlemen. You will never find your way alone. There are but few fixed rooms in this castle. The rest come and go as we need them. I deplore waste, you see.”
The others, somewhat startled by this pronouncement, made their way through the door, Limbeck holding back until Alfred gently propelled him forward. Hugh wondered where the dog was, then, looking down, saw the animal at his feet.
“Get along!” Hugh snapped, shoving at the dog with a boot.
The animal dodged him neatly and remained standing on the stair, watching him with interest, head cocked to one side, ears erect.
The woman in Hugh’s arms stirred faintly and moaned. No other assistance from his companions being forthcoming, the assassin turned and carried the woman up the stairs. The climb to the balcony above was long, but the burden he bore was light, far too light.
He carried her to her room, finding it without difficulty by the half-open door and the faint smell of the same sweet fragrance that clung to her. Inside was a sitting room, beyond that a dressing room, and beyond that her bedchamber. Passing through the various rooms, Hugh was surprised to see that they were almost devoid of furnishings, there were few decorations, and those that were visible were covered with dust. The atmosphere of these inner, private chambers was chill and barren. Far different from the warm luxury of the entry hall.
Hugh laid Iridal gently upon a bed covered with sheets of finest linen trimmed with lace. He drew a silken coverlet over her thin body and then stood gazing at her.
She was younger than he had first guessed on seeing her. Her hair was white but thick and as finely spun as gossamer. The face in repose was sweet, delicately molded, and unlined. Her skin was pale, so dreadfully pale.
Before Hugh could catch the dog, it slipped past and gave the woman’s hand-hanging down beside the bed-a swipe with its tongue. Iridal stirred and woke. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at Hugh, and fear contorted her features.
“Go now!” she whispered. “You must go!”
… The sound of chanting greeted the sun in the chill morning. It was the song of black-robed monks descending on the village, driving away the other carrion birds:
each new child’s birth, we die in our hearts, truth black, we are shown, death always returns,
With … with … with …
Hugh and other boys trudged behind, shivering in their thin clothing, their bare feet stumbling numbly over frozen ground. They had come to look forward to the warmth of the terrible fires that would soon be burning in this village.
There were no living people to be seen; only the dead, lying in the streets where their relatives had tossed the plague-infested bodies, then gone into hiding against the coming of the Kir. At a few doors, however, stood baskets of food or perhaps-more precious-jugs of water, the village’s payment for services rendered.
The monks were accustomed to this. They went about their grim business, gathering the bodies, hauling them to the large open area where the orphans they sheltered were already heaping up charcrystal. Other boys, Hugh among them, ran down the street gathering up the thank-offerings that would be carried back to the monastery. Coming to one doorway, he heard a sound and paused in the act of lifting a loaf of bread from a basket. He looked inside.
“Mother,” said a little boy, starting to approach a woman lying on the bed. “I’m hungry. Why don’t you get out of bed? It’s time for our breakfast.”
“I can’t get up this morning, dear.” The mother’s voice, though gentle, apparently sounded strange and unfamiliar to the child, because it frightened him. “No, my sweet darling. Don’t come near me. I forbid it.” She drew a breath and Hugh could hear it wheeze in her lungs. Her face was already as white as those of the corpses lying in the street, but he saw that once she had been pretty. “Let me look at you, Mikal. You will be good while … while I’m sick. Do you promise? Promise me,” she said weakly.
“Yes, mother, I promise.”
“Go now!” the woman said in a low voice. Her hands clenched the blankets. “You must go. Go … fetch me some water.”
The child turned and ran toward Hugh, who was standing in the doorway. Hugh saw the woman’s body jerk in agony, then go rigid, then limp. The eyes stared up at the ceiling.
“I must get water, water for mother,” the child said, looking up at Hugh. His back was turned; he had not seen.
“I’ll help carry it,” said Hugh. “You hold this.” He handed the boy the bread. Might as well get the child accustomed to his new life.
Taking the little boy by the hand, Hugh led him away from the house. In the child’s arms was the loaf of bread, baked by a woman just as she was probably beginning to feel the first symptoms of the disease that would shortly claim her. Behind him, Hugh could still hear the soft echo of the mother’s command, sending her child away so that he would not see her die.
“Go now!”
Water. Hugh lifted a carafe and poured a glass. Iridal did not glance at it, but kept her gaze fixed on him.
“You!” Her voice was low and soft. “You are … one of them … with my son?”
Hugh nodded. The woman rose, half-sitting in bed, propped up on her arm. Her face was pale, there was a fever in her lustrous eyes. “Go!” she repeated, speaking in a low, trembling voice. “You’re in terrible danger! Leave this house! Now!”
Her eyes. Hugh was mesmerized by her eyes. They were large and deeply set, the irises every color of the rainbow-a glistening spectrum surrounding the black pupils that shifted and changed as the light struck them.
“Do you hear me?” she demanded.
Hugh hadn’t rea
lly. Something about danger.
“Here, drink this,” he said, thrusting the glass toward her.
Angrily she knocked it aside. The goblet crashed to the floor, water running over the stone tiles. “Do you think I want your deaths, too, on my hands?”
“Tell me the danger, then. Why must we leave?”
But the woman sank back on the pillows and would not answer him. Drawing near, he saw that she was shivering with fear.
“What danger?”
He bent down to pick up the pieces of broken glass, looking at her as he worked.
The woman shook her head frenziedly. Her eyes darted about the room. “No. I’ve said enough, perhaps too much! He has eyes everywhere, his ears are always listening!” The fingers of her hands curled and closed in on the palms.
It had been a long time since Hugh had felt another’s pain. It had been a long time since he’d felt his own. From somewhere buried deep inside him, memories and feelings that had been lying dead came to life, stretched out bony hands, and dug their nails into his soul. His hand jerked; a glass shard drove into his palm.
The pain angered him.
“What do I do with this mess?”
Iridal made a weak gesture with her hand, and the broken glass he was holding in his hands vanished, as if it had never been.
“I’m sorry you hurt yourself,” she said in a dull, lifeless voice. “But that is what you must expect if you insist on staying.”
Averting his face from her, he turned to stare out the window. Far beneath them, its silvery skin visible through the shifting mists, the dragon had curled its huge body about the castle and lay there murmuring to itself over and over of its hatred for the wizard.
“We can’t leave,” Hugh said. “That dragon’s out there, guarding-“
“There are ways to avoid the quicksilver if you truly want to leave.”
Hugh was silent, reluctant to tell her the truth, afraid of what he might hear in return. But he had to know. “I can’t leave. I’m enthralled-your son has me under enchantment.”
Iridal stirred fitfully, glanced up at him with pitying eyes.
“The enchantment works only because you want it to work. Your will feeds it. You could have broken it long ago, if you truly wanted. So the wizard Trian discovered. You care about the boy, you see. And caring is an invisible prison. I know … I know!”
The dog, which had stretched out, nose on paws, upon the floor at Hugh’s feet, suddenly sat bolt upright and stared around fiercely.
Iridal gasped. “He’s coming! Quickly, leave me now. You have been here too long.”
Hugh, his face dark and foreboding, did not move.
“Oh, please leave me!” Iridal pleaded, stretching out her hands. “For my sake! I am the one who will be punished!”
The dog was already on its feet and heading for the outer chambers. Hugh, with a final glance back at the stricken woman, thought it best to do as she said-for now, at least. Until he could mull over what she had told him. Going out, he met Sinistrad in the door to the sitting room.
“Your wife is resting.” Hugh forestalled any question.
“Thank you. I am certain you made her very comfortable.” Sinistrad’s lashless eyes flicked over Hugh’s muscular arms and body; a knowing smile touched his thin lips.
Hugh flushed in anger. He started to push past the wizard, but Sinistrad moved slightly to block his way.
“You are hurt,” said the mysteriarch. Reaching out, he took hold of Hugh’s hand and turned it, palm-up, to the light.
“It’s nothing. A broken glass, that’s all.”
“Tsk, tsk. I cannot have my guests injured! Allow me.” Sinistrad laid fingers, thin and quivering like the legs of a spider, on Hugh’s palm over the wound. Closing his eyes, the mysteriarch concentrated. The jagged cut closed. The pain-of the wound-eased.
Smiling, Sinistrad opened his eyes and looked intently into Hugh’s.
“We’re not your guests,” said the Hand. “We’re your prisoners.”
“That, my dear sir,” replied the mysteriarch, “is entirely up to you.”
One of the few rooms of the castle to remain constantly in the castle was the wizard’s study. Its location, in relation to other rooms in the dwelling, shifted constantly, depending upon Sinistrad’s moods and needs. This day, it was in the upper part of the castle, the curtains drawn to catch the last light of Solarus before the Lords of Night snuffed day’s candle.
Spread out on the wizard’s large desk were the drawings his son had done of the great Kicksey-Winsey. Some were diagrams of parts of the huge machine that Bane, personally, had seen. Others had been created with Limbeck’s help and provided illustrations of the parts of the Kicksey-Winsey that operated on the rest of the isle of Drevlin. The drawings were quite good and remarkably accurate. Sinistrad had instructed the boy on how to use magic to enhance his work. Picturing the image in his mind, Bane had only to connect that image with the motion of his hand to translate what he saw onto paper.
The wizard was studying the diagrams intently when a muffled bark caused him to raise his head.
“What is that dog doing in here?”
“He likes me,” said Bane, throwing his arms around the dog’s neck and hugging him. The two had been roughhousing on the floor, which tussle had occasioned the bark. “He always follows me around. He likes me better than he does Haplo, don’t you, boy?”
The dog grinned, its tail thumping the floor.
“Don’t be too certain of that.” Sinistrad fixed the animal with a piercing gaze. “I don’t trust it. I think we should get rid of it. In ancient times, magi used animals such as this to do their bidding, to go places they could not go and act as spies.”
“But Haplo isn’t a wizard. He’s just a … a human.”
“And one not to be trusted. No man is that quiet and self-assured unless he thinks he has things under his control.” Sinistrad glanced sidelong at his son. “I don’t like this exhibition of weakness I’ve discovered in you, Bane. You begin to remind me of your mother.”
The child removed his arms slowly from around the dog’s neck. Rising to his feet, Bane walked over to stand beside his father.
“We could get rid of Haplo. Then I could keep the dog and you wouldn’t have to be nervous about it.”
“An interesting idea, my son,” answered Sinistrad, preoccupied. “Now, take the beast out of here and run along and play.”
“But, papa, the dog’s not hurting anything. He’ll be quiet if I tell him to. See, he’s just lying here.”
Sinistrad looked down to see the dog looking up. The animal had remarkably intelligent eyes. The mysteriarch frowned.
“I don’t want him in here. He smells. Run along, both of you.” Sinistrad lifted one drawing, held it next to another, and regarded both thoughtfully. “What was it originally designed to do? Something this gigantic, this enormous. What did the Sartan intend? Surely not just a means of gathering water.”
“It produces the water to keep itself going,” said Bane, clambering up on a stool to stand level with his father. “It needs the steam to run the engines to create the electricity that runs the machine. The Sartan probably built this part of the machine” -Bane pointed-“to gather water and send it to the Mid Realm, but it’s obvious that this wasn’t the machine’s central function. You see, I-“
Bane caught his father’s eye. The words died on the boy’s lips. Sinistrad said nothing. Slowly Bane slid down off the stool.
The mysteriarch, without another word, turned back to his perusing of the drawings.
Bane walked to the door. The dog, rising to its feet, followed eagerly after, evidently thinking it was time to play. In the doorway, the boy halted and turned back.
“I know,” he said.
“What?” Sinistrad, irritated, glanced up.
“I know why the Kicksey-Winsey was invented. I know what it was meant to do. I know how it can be made to do it. And I know how we can rule the entire world. I figured i
t out while I was making the drawings.”
Sinistrad stared at the child. There was something of the boy’s mother in the sweet mouth and the features, but it was his own shrewd and calculating eyes that stared fearlessly back at him.
Sinistrad indicated the drawings with a negligent wave of his hand. “Show me.”
Bane, returning to the desk, did so. The dog, forgotten, plopped itself down at the wizard’s feet.
CHAPTER 50
CASTLE SINISTER, HIGH REALM
THE TINKLING OF MANY UNSEEN BELLS CALLED SINISTRAD’S GUESTS TO DINNER. THE castle’s dining room-no doubt having just been created-was windowless, large, dark, and chill. A long oaken table, covered with dust, stood in the center of the bleak chamber. Chairs draped in cloth ranged round it like guardian ghosts. The fireplace was cold and empty. The room had appeared right in front of the guests’ noses, and they gathered within it, most of them ill-at-ease, to await the arrival of their host.
Sauntering over to the table, Haplo ran his finger through an inch of dust and dirt.
“I can hardly wait,” he remarked, “to taste the food.”
Lights flared above them, hitherto unseen candelabrum flamed to brilliant life. The cloth draped over the chairs was whisked away by unseen hands. The dust varnished. The empty table was suddenly laden with food-roast meat, steaming vegetables, fragrant breads. Goblets filled with wine and water appeared. Music played softly from some unseen source.
Limbeck, gaping, tumbled backward and nearly fell into a roaring fire blazing on the hearth. Alfred nearly leapt out of his skin. Hugh could not repress a start, and backed away from the feast, eyeing it suspiciously. Haplo, smiling quietly, took a bua [20] and bit into it. Its crunch could be heard through the silence. He wiped juice from his chin. A pretty good illusion, he thought. Everyone will be fooled until about an hour from now when they’ll begin to wonder why they’re still hungry.
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