the floor. Rising, she examined the bookcase and discovered a
hidden latch and hinges. Impulsive by nature, she took a lit
lamp from a table, and holding it aloft, stepped into the
benighted passage.
The walls were of cedar, and their fragrance filled the air.
She stood at the top of a stair leading down into darkness.
Without hesitation, she descended the wooden steps, which
creaked beneath her weight. She, who had traveled so many
such passages, did not think of danger or entrapment, but went
like a hound enthralled in the hunt, her eyes shining with the
prospect of adventure.
The stair quickly ended, opening onto a passageway
blocked at one end by a wall. She glanced back only once at
the rectangle of light from the library before proceeding down
the hall. The passage took several turns, and intersected
another hallway with a large plumbing pipe running along the
ceiling. She hesitated, uncertain which direction to go, before
choosing the left.
After journeying another hundred yards and encountering
two more intersections, she decided to turn back. Such a
labyrinth should be reported to the officials; if they did not
already know of it, it represented a weakness in the palace
defenses.
Walking back, she was surprised to discover that the
original intersection was much closer than she remembered.
Having a keen sense of distances, she took the turn to the right
with slight perplexity. It seemed incorrect. Had there been four
intersections instead of three? She shook her head, certain
there were not. Nonetheless, she backtracked to the last
junction and looked to the right.
The continuation of the plumbing pipe in that direction
told her she had not come that way, so she must have been
correct the first time. She undertook her previous course again,
but with the nagging feeling she was traveling wrong. Yet
when the passage took several turns, as it had done on the way
there, she grew more assured.
As she continued, she became aware of a slight sloping of
the hallway, taking her gradually deeper. Odd she hadn’t
noticed it before. She bit her lower lip and hurried along.
When a half-hour passed without her reaching the stair, she
halted. Still, thinking she must have miscalculated the time
spent, she went twenty minutes more before admitting she had
missed the way.
There was nothing to do for it but turn around. She passed
once more through the series of turnings, but when she
reached a straight way again, she found the floor sloping
again, as if she were traveling the same direction as before.
Worse, her sense of direction, which was quite good, told her
she was doing so.
Two hours later, lost in Evenmere in a manner she had
never been before, she paused, remembering Carter’s stories of
traveling through the dream dimension. Was she in a dream?
Did she only think she had awakened in the little library? She
shuffled her feet. Everything felt quite real, but it was said the
land of slumber was not as an ordinary dream.
If she were dreaming, or even if she weren’t, was she
being directed somewhere? If so, by whom and for what
purpose?
“The only way to find out,” she whispered, as she used to
whisper to herself during her imprisonment, “is to go and see.”
As if in answer, the glow of a single gas-jet rose fifty yards
down the corridor. She blew out her own light to save its oil
and set out with purpose.
Three days later, hungry, foot-sore, her only sustenance
water found in underground taps, she came to a blank wall lit
by another lamp. In her stupor, she nearly walked right into it,
then stood dumbly staring, as if trying to decide from whence
it came.
Rousing herself from her lethargy, she pulled a lever on the
wall. A panel rolled back. She stepped into the library in the
Inner Chambers.
A figure, sitting in a chair among the stacks, glanced up
and gave a gasp. It was Sarah.
“Lizbeth, where in all of Evenmere did you come from?”
“Is it real, or is it a dream?” Lizbeth asked, stumbling into
her sister’s arms.
When Carter awoke in the drawing room, he found the fire
stoked and Jonathan sitting in a chair, eyes half-closed as if
having never slept. Lord Anderson did not disturb the
minstrel’s contemplations, but lay looking from behind his
eyelashes at the wall covered with paintings and portraits,
thinking he might manage another hour’s slumber before they
had to leave. He soon gave this up, however. Hope’s warning
had left him too anxious to sleep.
The travelers set off after breakfast. Throughout the
morning they toiled up the Heights, over scarlet stairs and
along sloping corridors lined with amber tiles. Around noon
they reached level ground and a pair of double doors manned
by a gray-haired gentleman in a gray kilt, with an enormous
black felt cap descending down his back like a shawl. A dove
was painted on his forehead; an emerald hung at his throat.
“Welcome to Loft, good sirs,” he said, in a clipped accent.
“Please state the nature of your business and your intended
length of stay.”
“I am Carter Anderson, Master of Evenmere, and this is
the bard, Storyteller. We intend to pass beyond Loft into
Shadow Valley.”
The man raised his eyebrows. “It seems the stuff of
legends has appeared at my door. Very nice, but not very
scientific. Do you have a real reason for entering Loft?”
“The reasons are as I stated,” Carter said. “I realize Loft is
not part of the White Circle—”
“Nor ever shall be,” the man replied. “This poppycock
about the Master controlling the mechanisms that run the
universe! Sheer nonsense. As bad as the anarchists. The
problem is the initial hypothesis, that the house was originally
built by anyone. How droll! How unimaginative.”
“And was it not?” Carter asked.
“Current theory demonstrates that Evenmere arose from
cross-circular magnetic vortices—patterns created from
sequenced non-patterns.”
Jonathan glanced around the hall. “To me, a doorknob
looks like someone made it.”
“Only because we are within the environment where a
doorknob is recognized as a doorknob. You see, because we
are within the house, it seems wholly natural to us, as if it were
planned, but actually it is a chaotic event—a happenstance
occurrence. Thus, anything done by the Master or anyone else
in Evenmere could not possibly affect the physical universe
outside the house. The mathematical equations show it quite
clearly.”
“You seem over-qualified to be a doorman,” Carter said.
“Actually, I am a professor at the Loftian Physical
Sciences Institute. However, in Loft, we subscribe to the belief
that all are truly equal, and for one month of the year
every
citizen toils at a task of which he is unfamiliar.”
“I think you make a passable gatekeeper,” Jonathan said,
“but what of the man who took your place?”
“He is a cabinet-maker by profession. I must admit his
lectures concerning the nature of the universe are weighted
toward the shaping of wood and the chemical properties of
certain glues, yet this too can be invaluable to the student and
proves the importance of educational variety.”
“Although this is vastly instructional, we need to press
on,” Carter said. “May we pass?”
“As soon as you state your true reason for entering Loft
and the length of your stay. I have a form to fill out.”
“We are bakers wishing to see the Great Kitchens of Loft,”
Carter replied. “We should be here less than a week.”
“Is that the truth?” the man asked.
“As surely as you are a doorkeeper.”
The professor furrowed his brow, but scribbled the
information down on a piece of paper and unlocked the double
doors.
“You know,” the professor said, as if reluctant to see them
depart, “we live in exciting times. At the rate scientific thought
is progressing, within the next twenty years we should reach a
full understanding of the entire cosmos.”
“I can scarcely wait,” Carter said.
As the professor shut the door behind him, Jonathan said,
“Aristotle of Chalcidice said the same thing.”
“You knew Aristotle?”
“He found his way into the house one day. He had some
good ideas, but was humbled in a debate with Usandra of
Querny, a woman with a honey tongue and brilliant mind.
Some good came of it. He studied under her for two years and
was less prideful when he took her teachings back to Greece.”
The companions traveled that day through pleasant
corridors paneled in golden oak and blue floral carpet. Like
High Gable, much of Loft lay in the upper reaches of the
house, above a maze of twisting passages named the Lower
Bogs. In summer, the Loftians opened the hall transoms and
outside windows, allowing cool breezes to waft through the
corridors. Its people were easygoing and unsuspicious.
Travelers filled the passages, and for a time the companions
fell in with a boisterous troupe of musicians journeying to a
concert at Geist Hall, who sang and played flutes and stringed
bayayals as they went. Being still in the mountains, Carter and
Storyteller passed over sky bridges connecting portions of the
house, paneled corridors with great oval windows looking
miles down on deep valleys with cottages scattered along their
slopes and goats and sheep roaming the mountainsides.
The Loftians were enormously fond of every kind of
headgear, and besides the cowl worn by the doorman, adorned
themselves with spiraling caps, towering turbans, splayed pith-
helmets, and drooping wide-brimmed hats that hid the
wearers’ faces, so they looked like strolling frowns. The hats
were dyed brilliant colors, and it was like walking through a
fair. Golden paneling shone beneath the light of chandeliers;
the sweet outdoor scent filled the halls. Loft seemed a place
where people could sit and read and think and talk and concoct
whatever ridiculous thoughts they wished, and believe them
unopposed all their lives. It was, in short, leaning toward
decadence, and rumors had reached the Inner Chambers that
its treasuries were destitute.
Despite the urgency of his mission, Carter, having seldom
been this far east, took some pleasure in the journey. Before
learning of the Poetry men, it had been his original plan to
bring Jason and Sarah to an inn beside the Sidereal Sea, where
water spouts formed in rainbow hues.
Four days they traveled through Loft. From the day
Jossing was attacked, Carter had not been near an entrance to
the attic, but toward evening they approached one, and he
informed Jonathan he would take the opportunity to see if
Jormungand could tell him Professor Shoemate’s location.
“Dare you trust that old dragon?” Storyteller asked.
“I not only don’t trust him,” Carter said, “I dread facing
him. It’s always dangerous. But he is required to answer any
three questions the Master asks, and I must make the try.”
But when they reached the place where the stair was
supposed to be, it was not there, and when Carter rechecked
his inner maps, it was as though it had never been. Neither did
he sense secret passages anywhere in the vicinity.
“Impossible!” Carter said. “I mentally traced my way here
two nights ago.”
“Perhaps you were mistaken.”
Carter shook his head. “No, this is the spot. Evenmere has
changed, but I sense no chaotic force at work. This wasn’t
caused by the poets.”
There was nothing to do but go on, but later that night,
remembering Mr. Hope’s warning, Carter worried that the lost
passage was some ramification of his pact with Armilus, and
decided to seek the attic through the world of dream. He had
never attempted to do so before. Would Jormungand have
more power over him within the dream dimension? It seemed
unlikely, and yet …
Not a little uneasy, he lay down and spoke the Word Which
Masters Dreams. Immediately he found himself walking down
the passage to the attic. This time, the stair he had sought was
there. He ascended the creaking steps, which ended at a door.
Opening it, he was met by an impenetrable mist. He lit his
lantern, but its light illuminated nothing; even the floorboards
were invisible, as if the attic did not exist in the dream world.
He dared not walk into the fog, lest he lose his way and
perhaps never awaken; so he stood and called Jormungand’s
name. No echoes returned; no answer came. The eerie
loneliness of the place chilled him. When he could bear it no
more, he returned to the waking world, thoughtful and uneasy,
wondering if something had happened to the reptile, some new
danger of which he was unaware.
They departed Loft the next day, past another doorkeeper
who usually worked as a dentist. As he and Jonathan strode
away, Lord Anderson could not help but wonder who was
handling the man’s patients.
The golden hallways of Loft gave way to gray stone. There
were no more windows, and the sparse gas-jets cast long
shadows, leaving the ceilings and corners lost in a gloom astir
with vague movements, as if darker forms brooded within
them. Lord Anderson’s eyes darted from side to side in vain
attempts to catch sight of them; he kept expecting something
to step out of the murk. A shiver ran up the small of his back.
“No need to be anxious,” Jonathan said, the whites of his
eyes scarcely visible in the dimness. “They are only shadows
leaving Shadow Valley. They pass down this corridor, little
patches of darkness tickling the walls as they go out into the
world. There, they will be a child’s shadow dancing on the
lawn, the darting shadow of a bird in flight, or the cool shade
of trees on hot summer days.”
Carter gave an uneasy laugh. “One would think shadows
but an absence of light.”
“That’s right. That’s right. And they are also fragments of
darkness escaping Shadow Valley. It is a wonderful world,
Master Anderson.”
“Frankly, it doesn’t always seem so cheery. I’ve been
thinking darker thoughts. Is it coincidental that the poets
attacked both the Palace of the Decemvirs and the Tower of
Astronomy, the first two destinations of Professor Shoemate’s
quest?”
Jonathan frowned. “I hadn’t considered it. Why would
they do so?”
“Perhaps to obscure her trail and prevent anyone from
following her. If that’s true, we can expect them to appear here
too.”
“Dark thoughts indeed, Master Anderson, but worth
considering. Best we hurry along.”
Within the hour the travelers reached the entrance to
Shadow Valley, an enormous, vaulted door cast in solid onyx.
Members of the White Circle Guard, sent by Marshall Inkling,
kept a wary vigil. Out of the keyhole, shadows slithered one
by one, assuming various shapes as they dropped to the floor
and made their way along the dark corridor. In the gloom they
resembled serpents.
After speaking to the soldiers a moment, Carter drew his
Master Keys. According to Mr. Hope’s research, there were
only two keys to Shadow Valley, one owned by the Master, the
other by the Queen of Shadow Hall. No one else ever went
there, or ever wanted to.
He waited until another shadow slithered out the keyhole
before inserting a gray skeleton key. The mechanism turned
with a loud echoing clang. He withdrew the key and stood
back.
The door slowly creaked open, as if pushed by a strong
wind. Around its edges hordes of shadows streamed out,
scampering happy as rabbits into the halls of Evenmere. As the
door drew wide, the tide of onrushing shades diminished to a
trickle, and the travelers could see deep darkness within, with
dim lights like distant constellations, whose soft glow revealed
high ebony halls of wood and stone set in vast reaches both
above and below the door. Only the pattering of the fleeing
shadows broke the silence.
Evenmere (The Evenmere Chronicles Book 3) Page 26