Suddenly, Blood pricked up his ears. He stood up and stared at the heavy curtain that concealed the boot room.
The door creaked and swung open, and Asla was instantly back on her feet, too. “Ulric?”
A stubbled face pushed past the curtain. Erek, her father. Blood lay down again.
“I was fed up with staring at the roof at home,” he said. He rubbed his chilled red hands together, stepped into the parlor, and hung his threadbare fur coat from a hook by the fireplace. “Would you have a bowl of soup for an old man?” With a sigh, he slumped onto a chair at the table, then stared unwaveringly in Yilvina’s direction. “Nothing warms old bones as much as the sight of a pretty girl. You still haven’t told me if you’ve got a beau waiting for you back home. Now, I know I’m not the prettiest man in the village anymore, but I’ve got a brace of experience under my belt.” He grinned mischievously. “Believe me, that makes up for a lot.”
“Father!” Asla set a bowl of millet gruel on the table in front of him. Deep down, she liked it when he baited the aloof elf woman shamelessly the way he did, but it was not something she could decently tolerate under her own roof. “What would Mother say if she could hear you now?”
Erek cupped his red hands around the soup bowl. “Your mother liked it when I got up to my tricks.” He nodded in Yilvina’s direction. “And I do believe my pretty girlfriend down there likes it, too. She’s not once protested, at least.”
Nor did she now, and a feeling of shame suddenly overcame Asla. The queen and her bodyguard might not be the kind of guests she would wish to have, but the laws of hospitality applied to them as they did to anybody else. It was unforgivable for her father to pester strangers who had come in search of sanctuary beneath her roof.
“That will do, Erek.” She spoke softly but insistently. “Leave her in peace, or you’ll force me to show you the door.”
Her father looked up in surprise. Had he thought he was doing her a favor, perhaps? She should have said something to him before today.
Outside, the horses whinnied. Before the first snows had come, they had managed to erect no more than a shoddy stable to the rear of the longhouse. What had Alfadas been thinking? She was not prepared for getting four enormous horses through the winter. She had had to buy food for them from all over the village. And why? Only once had she harnessed them to the large wagon and gone out for a short ride, and for that hour of fun, she was paying every day with extra work. If only that good-for-nothing were here, she thought. Then I’d send him out to the stable in the storm. Her eyes grew moist. If only he were here . . .
Blood jumped to his feet again. Snarling, he was staring now at the back wall of the house. The horses whinnied again. A thunderclap—no, it sounded as if one of the horses had kicked the stable wall with its heavy hooves. What was going on out there? Asla reached for her cape.
Kadlin pushed the curtain over her bed aside. Icy air poured into the parlor. Blood began to bark as if he’d gone mad and jerked desperately at the rope that tied him.
“Mama . . .” The little girl began to cry. Her face was red with cold. Had she scratched another hole in the moss and loam they used to fill the gaps between the heavy beams of the longhouse? Asla leaned down and picked her daughter up. She was as cold as if she’d been standing out in the snowstorm in her nightgown. Asla’s breath fogged in front of her as she lifted Kadlin from her bed.
Despite Blood’s barking, she heard a sudden hiss.
Yilvina had both swords drawn. “Stand back, human!”
Now Halgard began to whimper softly in her bed. Erek went to the ancient little girl and picked her up in his arms.
With the tip of one of her swords, Yilvina pushed the curtain over Kadlin’s bed all the way back. The fabric crunched a little: the woolen fabric was covered with frost on the inside. Her sleeping niche was empty.
“What’s going on?” Asla rubbed Kadlin’s hands to warm them. The girl’s lips were dark from the cold. She carried Kadlin to the fire pit, where the logs glowed a deep, dark red.
Yilvina looked around warily, her drawn swords ready in her hands. She turned slowly on the spot. What was she waiting for? There was no one there. The only way in or out of the house led through the small boot room.
Blood had stopped barking. The fur on his neck stood on end, and his ears were alert. His tail, however, was turned firmly between his hind legs. Suddenly, the coals in the fire grew darker. Something white pushed up through the pieces of blackened wood. For a moment, Asla thought it was just thick smoke—then she saw the beast’s head. Blood howled and tore at his lead.
Asla backed away from the fire pit with Kadlin. A wolfish head as big as a horse’s skull rose from the coals. Pale light swirled around it. Its teeth were like daggers. The emerging monster grew larger and larger, and as it rose, the matte glow of the coals faded and died. The room darkened, and an icy chill spread.
Yilvina was on it like a striking falcon. She whirled around the ghostly form, her blades blurring to streaks of sparkling light. They sliced through the beast again and again, but it showed not the slightest reaction.
The ghostly jaws snapped at her, and she dodged, somersaulting backward. She landed close beside Blood, and with a slash, she cut the rope that held the hound in place.
Snarling, Blood stalked toward the apparition. His steps were stiff as he fought against his own fear.
The beast had now lifted itself completely clear of the fire. It stood as high as a horse but was scrawny and gaunt, as if wasted away. Asla snatched the heavy wooden ladle from the table. Even with that meager weapon, she felt a little better, although she had seen for herself how useless Yilvina’s swords had been. The elf had retreated to the bed where her queen was sleeping.
A low sound made Asla turn. With the stump of an arm, Ole pushed back the curtain covering his bed. His face was eerily pale, and his eyes gleamed with fever. “The elk cow!” He tried to sit up, groaning. He flailed the stumps of his arms, as if feeling for something beside him. “Take the godswhip. Drive it away!” His last words were a shrill scream as he searched frantically for the whip. He could not see the thongs that still lay beside the fire pit, where Gundar had recovered the stolen sacrifices to the ironbeards, cutting them out of the braided leather. There was no godswhip anymore.
The creature turned toward Ole. It drew back its lips, making it look as if it wore a hungry smile. With surprising speed, it was at Ole’s bedside. Its head darted downward into his breast.
Asla heard a low sound, like the rustling of parchment. For a moment, she thought she saw something golden. Blood had stopped in his tracks.
Asla signaled to Erek to follow her. Cautiously, she crept toward the boot room. Her father had understood. He held one hand over Halgard’s mouth to stop the blind young girl from blurting anything aloud.
The creature turned, lightning fast. Blood leaped at it but simply glided through the spectral form. The ghost-wolf moved swiftly, blocking their only exit.
Yilvina attacked again, but again her blades cut uselessly through the body of the beast.
A voice forced its way into Asla’s thoughts. It spoke sluggishly, the words as heavy and slow as dripping wax. “I seek the light. It shines especially brightly there in your belly. Stand still. It does not hurt.”
Asla wanted to raise the ladle in defense, but it was as if she was paralyzed. Kadlin began to cry again and pressed close to her mother.
The ghost-wolf slowly advanced. Blood moved between it and Asla. With a casual thrust of its jaws, the creature snapped at the dog. Blood recoiled but could not escape; he let out a yowl and collapsed.
The creature’s breath was so cold that Asla heard her hair crackle. The ghost-wolf was only one step away.
INTO THE DEPTHS
We cannot let you pass.”
Ollowain took a step back and eyed the three sentries with disdain. The two men and the woman wore only light linen armor. They radiated the self-assurance of capable fighters.
&
nbsp; “You know who I am?” he asked.
“The son of the prince,” the woman replied.
“The commander of all troops in Phylangan,” the swordmaster barked. “You are to report to the Snow Harbor, where you will be assigned something more useful than guarding a stairway in the belly of a mountain.”
“Forgive me, swordmaster, but we belong to the personal bodyguard of your father, Landoran. We answer to him alone.”
Ollowain clapped his hands. Hoofbeats and barely audible footsteps sounded from higher up the spiral stairway. Orimedes and several of his centaur fighters appeared on the broad landing. “This is the prince of Windland,” Ollowain said flatly. “I call upon him to witness the fact that, in a fortress making preparations for a siege, you have refused my direct order.” The footsteps on the stairs could now be heard more clearly.
“Swordmaster!” The elf woman balled her right hand to a fist and stretched her fingers. Then she laid her hand on the pommel of her sword. “You cannot reprimand us for following orders. We are at the command of your father, no one else.”
Ollowain turned to the centaur prince. “For me, refusing an order from the military commander of Phylangan is mutiny. Would you be so kind as to inform these three of the resolutions passed by the war council? They seem to be having some difficulty understanding me.”
Orimedes eyed the three elves contemptuously. “If you ask me, you’ve wasted too many words on them already. You should make short work of them, like with the mutineers on the Woodmer. I will back you before the war council, if such details should even warrant discussion.”
A troop of ten kobolds with heavy windlass crossbows arrived at the landing. They arranged themselves in two rows on the lower steps. The stocks of their heavy bows scraped on the gray stone. The steel windlasses creaked as the kobolds wound back the limbs of their weapons.
The woman, who had so far led the guards’ side of the debate, licked her lips nervously. “You cannot simply—”
“Oh, he can,” Orimedes interrupted her. “And it won’t be the first time.”
The kobolds loaded bolts onto their crossbows. A few of them looked doubtfully toward Ollowain. This game could not go on much longer.
“What lies at the end of this stairway?” Ollowain asked icily.
The guards looked uneasily from one to another. Finally, one of the men replied. “The Hall of Fire. We are not to let anyone down there. Those are Landoran’s orders.”
It was oppressively hot on the landing. The stairs led down through solid rock, into the heart of the mountain. Ollowain felt a single droplet of sweat form on his brow and wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I’ll offer you this: you let me pass, and I will see this Hall of Fire with my own eyes and decide for myself if it is important enough to warrant occupying the time of experienced soldiers who are otherwise needed for the outer defenses. Until I return, you are merely under arrest. My escort will guard you.” He turned to the kobolds and snapped, “Bolts back in the quivers!”
With obvious relief, the crossbow-carrying kobolds obeyed. The sentries exhaled with relief as well. “You would not have ordered them to shoot, would you?” the elf woman asked.
“Why not?” Ollowain raised one eyebrow. Once, he’d spent weeks practicing the expression until he was happy that he could use it to convey everything from patronizing surprise to barely controlled anger. “Do you think the Normirga—the race for whom I count as next to nothing—are so dear to me that I would abstain from spilling their blood if the discipline of this fortress required it?”
The elf woman did not flinch from his gaze. She seemed to be waiting for a smile to take the harshness out of his words. With every passing heartbeat, she grew more uneasy.
“Clear the way!” Ollowain ordered.
The two men obeyed.
“What is the name of the oldest of your clan?” Ollowain growled at the woman.
“Senwyn.”
“Senwyn from the clan of Farangel?”
“Yes. He is—”
“I know who he is, girl. He fought under my command at the Shalyn Falah in the last troll war. An exemplary warrior. I never had to explain to him that, in war, obedience is the father of victory.”
The elf woman lowered her eyes and let him pass.
Ollowain’s temper shifted between anger and disappointment as he descended the stairs. It was not the first time that he had commanded an army faced with a hopeless battle. But any final chance of victory, small as it may be, would vanish if intrigues were spun behind his back, and he could not rely on the unconditional trust of every defender. But what else could he expect from his father? Distrust and disappointments only, for apart from the blood they shared, nothing bound them.
Ollowain had learned a great deal about the fortress from Phylangan’s kobolds. He pieced together the answers to many apparently harmless questions as he might the tiles of a mosaic. Seen together, they formed a terrifying picture. Almost two-thirds of the fortress’s battle-capable inhabitants had disappeared, although they did not seem to have abandoned the mountain. Moreover, many kobolds had been ordered to attend to some mysterious duty deep in the belly of the mountain. So far, none had returned to talk about it.
The deeper the swordmaster went, the hotter it became. The air was heavy with the odor of hot stone. It was a dry heat, very different from the warmth of the Skyhall, which was insufferably humid.
Ollowain encountered no more sentries, nor did any corridors open onto the spiral stairway. At regular intervals he found semicircular landings with stone benches to rest on. On the landings, beautiful frescoes depicted mountain landscapes and expanses of fair-weather clouds. Some of the pictures were so perfectly done that, with a fleeting glance, an observer might think they were looking out onto a valley through an opening in the rock. The pictures helped you forget that you were deep underground.
Large barinstones set in the walls lit the stairs in a soft blue-white light, like sunlight on a hazy morning. In several places, Ollowain heard the rush of water inside the walls. He recalled the stories told by Gondoran, the holde who had led them through the cisterns of Vahan Calyd. The Normirga, far in the past, had created a magical pump there, like a stone heart, and it kept the water beneath the city in constant motion. Here, apparently, a similar miracle-machine was at work, hidden inside the walls.
The stairs finally came to an end in a huge cavern. Red columns, their irregular surfaces reminiscent of bark, rose to capitals from which curving supports spread like branches and ended finally in a crown of golden leaves. The hall was a forest of stone and gold. From where he emerged, the swordmaster could see no walls marking the limits of the artificial forest. Somewhere ahead, he heard the echo of shuffling footsteps. He tried to follow the sound, but every few seconds, it seemed to come from a different direction.
Unsteady red light flickered between the columns, and hot fog drifted through the stone forest. The swordmaster came to a marble fountain, where streams of boiling water sprayed from stylized golden flowers. Ollowain’s clothes were soaked in sweat and clung to his skin.
He moved past the fountain quickly. Now, in the distance, he saw a group of white-robed elves. Exhausted, heads down, they moved through the forest like apparitions. Not one of them noticed Ollowain.
He stepped behind a column and stayed out of sight until the elves were gone. Then he set off in the direction from which they had come. Soon, he found himself surrounded by clouds of hot steam. All around him hissed fountains. The vapors burned his face, and the heat grew even more unbearable. Finally, he came to a wall; he followed it until he reached a high arched doorway framed with ornamental golden flowers.
Passing through the doorway, he found himself on a terrace that looked out over a cavern perhaps two hundred paces across. The walls and ceiling were natural black basalt devoid of any decoration. Only the floor of the cave had been smoothed. Tiles of red stone had been set into the basalt and formed a pattern of swirling flames dancing around
a large golden disk situated in the center of the floor. On the disk crouched a white-robed figure with raven-black hair. She held both hands pressed to the golden disk and had her head lowered, and although Ollowain could not see her face, his heart told him that he had found Lyndwyn.
Other elves were on their knees all around the sorceress—there must have been well over a hundred. All wore white, as Lyndwyn did. They had positioned themselves on the red tiles, especially where the tongues of flame overlapped. With their hands pressed to the stone and their heads down, they seemed to be in a state of deep meditation. Ollowain sensed the enormous magical powers at work in there. There was a tension in the air that he knew from a brewing thunderstorm, before the first lightning flashed.
Close to the floor, the air became a glassy blur that danced in the heat. Kobolds hurried among the kneeling elves, dabbing at their faces with wet sponges.
Wide benches were set into the cave walls on all sides. On the benches, here and there, sat elves ready to take the place of exhausted sorcerers. They refreshed themselves with fruit and drinks brought by the kobolds in ice-cooled carafes.
Ollowain’s mouth was as dry as dust. Why had the Normirga built a cavern dominated by such an unnatural heat? What was going on down here?
Suddenly, one of the elves below tipped his head back. His mouth opened wide as if to scream, but no sound escaped his lips. A pale flame shot from his throat, and he seemed to gleam from the inside, like a red lantern. The fiery glow grew brighter and brighter. Flames now rose from his eyes as well. The elf collapsed. His white robe caught fire, and fine flakes of ash rose with the hot air to the ceiling of the cave. Then the ghastly spectacle was over. Nothing remained of the elf but ash swirling in the air.
No one in the cavern seemed to take any particular notice of the incident. The elves on their knees had not so much as turned their heads in the dying man’s direction.
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