CHAPTER FOUR

REWN ALUTH

THE PASSA GEWAY BECAME STAIRS, carved in the living rock. Aspar counted steps as they went.

After counting thirty, he heard voices rising from below. Winna heard them, too, and her grip tightened on his hand. He glanced at her, reflexively, and realized he could just make out her face.

Winna noticed the faint illumination, too. “It must be a way out!” she whispered hopefully as the silvery light grew brighter.

“Shh.” Aspar looked up and saw the source of the light, moving languidly down the stairs. His hand went to his dirk, but then stopped.

“Witchlight,” he said.

It was a pale sphere of luminescent vapor the size of a man's fist moving toward them.

“Is it dangerous?”

“No.”

Winna reached to touch it, and her fingers passed into the glow.

“Saints!”

“Later,” Aspar said. “Come on.”

Thirty more steps brought them to the top of the curving stairs. For an instant the only sound was Winna's breathless gasp of wonderment and the distant plinking of water.

A thousand witchlights drifted among spires and columns of glassy stone, touching flashes of color here and there but only hinting at the vastness of the cavern that stretched out before them. Just beyond their feet, the ledge on which they stood dropped down to a vast obsidian mirror.

“It's beautiful,” Winna breathed. “Is that … water? An underground lake?”

“Yah.” Aspar had little time for wonder. He was peering into the gloom. If this ledge didn't go anywhere, he would make a stand and try to kill their pursuers one at a time as they came up the stairs. He might be able to do it, even if they had swords.

Odds were he couldn't.

But the ledge continued on and even widened to their left.

“This way,” he said, tugging her hand.

Several of the witchlights began following them. He remembered how that had delighted him as a child, how he had named them as if they were pets. Now, however, he wished they would go away; clustered around, they would reveal Winna and him to their enemies.

Of course, that worked both ways. Their pursuers would soon acquire an entourage of helpful lights, too.

The path took them down, switchbacking along the cliffside. Aspar reckoned they descended ten yards before they came to a quay a few feet above the dark waters. There they had some good fortune, for two narrow boats were tied there. They got into one, and Aspar hulled the other with his ax.

As they rowed across the still water, Aspar noticed a clump of witchlights above, where the stairs debauched into the cavern. But the fickle illumination offered him only the occasional flitting silhouette. He couldn't tell how many they were.

Soon they were lost to sight, and there was only the water and a clean, wet, mineral smell.

“I never even dreamed of a place like this,” Winna whispered. “How wonderful it is.”

“I thought so, too, when I was little. But it closes in on you, after a while. The dark. Even among the Sefry not all can live with it. It's why they go out and brave the sun.”

“Where are they? The Halafolk?”

“I don't know. I thought to see them by now.”

Winna smiled. “You look funny, with those little lights following you around. Younger, like a boy.”

He didn't have anything to say to that, so he just grunted. Then her face changed. “What's that?” she asked, pointing behind him.

He turned to see what she meant. A large, shadowy something loomed up out of the lake. An island, he figured, for the lake had seemed much larger from above.

“I'm guessing this is where we'll find the Halafolk,” he murmured.

What they found was a city of the dead.

The houses were narrow and tall, almost whimsically so, making tight corridors of the streets that were beveled into the floor of the cave. The buildings themselves were built of carefully fitted stone, with high-pitched slate roofs designed to shed the constant dripping from above. On some, little fingers of stone had sprouted, growing toward the unseen ceiling of the cavern. Aspar had been told once that it was by this that the oldest dwellings could be known; stone did not grow quickly.

The houses were all quite empty. Aspar's and Winna's footsteps clattered like the echoes of a small army.

“Sir Symen said that all of the Sefry were leaving the forest, even the Halafolk,” Aspar mused. “I didn't believe him. Why should they?”

“To leave all of this, they must have good reason.”

“It's unimaginable,” he murmured. He pointed to a shingle that hung above the door of one house. Silver inlaid in slate depicted a six-fingered hand, three of the fingers with little candle flames. “That's the standard of the house Sern. No one from that clan has gone aboveground for five generations, or so they say. Some of these houses I don't even know.”

“Should we search the buildings?”

“Why? What we need is to find a way out.”

“Do you think the greffyn is still here?”

“I don't know what to think. Let's keep going this way; I want to find the town center.”

The island wasn't wide, but it was long. They crossed parks planted with pale fernlike trees and black rushes. Spidery bridges took them over canals where slender black gondolas still were moored, waiting for passengers that would never come.

In time they reached a broad plaza, and the largest building they had yet seen. It resembled a castle—or a parody of a castle, built for elegance rather than utility, with its spires of glassy stone and translucent domes glowing with natural luminescence.

“The palace?”

“It's where their prince would live and where their councils meet. If anyone is still here, that's where they'll be.”

“If anyone is still here, do we really want to find them?”

Aspar nodded grimly. “Yah. We have to find out what has happened here.”

“What about the men following us? Won't they come here, just as we did?”

“Yah.” He considered for a moment. “Werlic, that's a good point. We'll stay in one of these other buildings by the square, and watch. With luck, there will be too few of them to search every building in town.”

“Good. I'm tired. I'd like to rest.”

Aspar chose an unremarkable four-story house with a good view of the plaza. The door was unlocked. Nine witch-lights followed them in and up the spiral stair. They didn't stop until they reached the top floor.

It was a narrow bedroom the width of the house faced in moon-colored chalcedony, with a low sleeping couch and a larger, canopied bed. Crystal knobs on the bedposts glowed a faint white, so that even without the witchlights, there would be some illumination. Besides the staircase, a single arched doorway led to a small balcony facing away from the plaza. The view there was mostly darkness, of course, but in witch-light Aspar could just make out another four-story structure just across the way, and another balcony, a bit lower than the one on which he stood.

Back in the room, he dragged the couch over to a broad window that overlooked the plaza. He drew the heavy shades until only a crack remained to peer through. It wouldn't do for someone to notice that this upper story was illuminated.

“Keep watch here,” he said. “I'll see if I can find something to eat.”

“Don't be gone long.”

“I won't.”

The pantry was below street level, carved into the stone foundation of the island.

Most of the bread had gone to mold, which was just as well, but he found some salted fish, venison, wild boar, a wheel of yellow cheese, and several racks of wine.

He cut a hunk of cheese and a slab of the ham and tucked two bottles of wine under his arm. Then he returned to the top floor.

“Is it safe to eat?” Winna asked. “They warn against breaking bread with the Halafolk.”

Aspar chuckled. “The cheese is from someplace in Holtmarh. The wine is from the Midenlands, and the meat was poached from the King's Forest. The only food they actually grow down here is hrew, a sort of nut that lives in the water. They make bread out of it. It tastes bad, but it's safe enough. If the lake has fish, they eat that, too.” He nodded at the window. “Anything?”

“No. But I may have missed them.” She looked up at As-par, a very young expression on her face. “I'm not afraid,” she said.

“You're a brave girl.”

“No, I mean it. I ought to be afraid. I was, earlier, at the pool. I was even when I told you I was coming with you. Now—it's all gone out of me.”

“It'll come back,” Aspar said. “Take my word for it.”

“I never thought of you as someone who could be afraid. As long as I can remember, you've always been there, As-par. When I was a little girl, you would just appear, from out of the forest, like some ancient hero from the legends.” She looked away.

“What you must think of me,” she said.

Aspar poured her a mazer of wine, then one for himself. It was thick, a little bitter. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was.

“I've been afraid,” he said.

“I know that, now,” she replied.

He moved to the window, so he could see out. The square below was still and quiet. Winna stayed where she was, almost within touching distance.

“Where do you think they went? The Halafolk?”

Aspar shrugged. “The mountains, maybe. Across the eastern sea, for all I know.” He took another drink. The wine was starting a small fire in his belly. “I was too rough last night,” he murmured. “I didn't mean to grumble.”

Her gaze fastened on his. “Well. You do know how to apologize,” she said. “I would never have guessed that either, and no one will believe me if I speak of it.”

“I'm not good at this,” Aspar grunted.

“No, you're not. But I forgive you.”

He took another drink of wine, and was searching for something to say, when Winna suddenly gasped.

“What's that?” Suddenly she was against him, gripping him, eyes wide.

“What? Do you hear something?”

Her face was inches from his, and smiling. “You really aren't good at this.”

“That's not what I meant, Winna, I—” She felt good, in his arms, and he suddenly realized how long it had been since he touched anyone. Except for the kiss from a few weeks ago. The kiss.

He never decided to do it. He knew he didn't. But suddenly his face was against hers, his lips greedy on hers, and he felt stupid and awkward, like a boy with his first woman.

Their clothes came off, piece by piece, and fingers and lips traced the freshly exposed skin. Part of him sounded a little alarm; they had enemies outside.

Too much of him didn't care.

When they came together, and her ankles locked behind his knees, for a long, unblinking moment he looked into her eyes. What he saw there amazed him. She looked back, and laid her hand on his cheek.

Much later, as they lay tangled and sated, he stroked the skin over her ribs and wondered if he could believe what he was feeling.

He sat up to look out the window.

“Is the Sefry army out there yet?” Winna asked languidly.

“They might have marched around the square ten times, and I wouldn't know,” he replied.

“I suppose that wasn't so smart just now.”

He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “May have been the smartest thing I've done in years.”

She chuckled and kissed him. “That was good. Now, don't say another word about it. You're sure to find some way to spoil it if you keep talking, and I want to be happy for a while.”

“Very well.” He looked back out the window.

“But talk about something, or I'll fall asleep.”

“That's not a bad idea. I can keep watch.”

“No, not yet. Who do you think they are? The men following us.”

“From what you said, they were dressed like Sefry.”

“Yah. I remembered something else. One of them had an eye patch.”

“What?” He took her by the shoulders.

“Aspar! That hurts!”

“An eye patch! Which eye?”

“I don't know. Aspar, what's wrong with you? You know him?”

He dropped his hands away. “Maybe. I don't know.”

“Saints! Aspar, your face—” She stopped. “This has to do with her, doesn't it?”

“Winna, I need to think.”

“Think, then.” He could hear the hurt in her voice, even through his anger.

“See?” he told her. “No matter what, I'll find a way to spoil it.”

She got up and went over to the bed, wrapped herself in one of the sheets.

“I understand if you don't want to talk about her,” she said. “But this man. He tried to kill me, Aspar.”

“Come here,” he said.

She hesitated a moment, then came into his arms.

“Her name was Qerla, my wife,” he said softly. “She was of the Nere clan. We met—well, never mind. We were young, and we thought it didn't matter.”

“What didn't matter?”

“That Human and Sefry can't make children together. That her clan would disown her, withdraw their protection. That we would be alone, just the two of us.”

“It sounds romantic.”

“It was, for a while. After that it was just hard. Harder on her than on me. I never really had a clan, just old mother Jesp. Qerla was the first person I ever really—who was ever mine, in any sense.”

“You loved her.”

“I loved her.”

“And the man with the eye patch. He's the one who—” She stopped.

“He killed her,” Aspar confirmed. “If it's the same man. He was an outlaw Sefry, a man named Fend. He was setting a trap for me, but he caught them instead.”

“Them? I thought—”

“An old Sefry lover of hers, a Jasper clan man. A poet. Fend found them in bed and killed them there. And then I found him.” He pursed his lips. “He put a sword through my belly, and I put a dirk in his eye. We both fell, and when I came around he was gone.”

“She betrayed you.”

“I think I must have betrayed her first, somehow,” Aspar said.

“I doubt that,” she whispered. “I doubt it much. Everyone gets weak. She got weak. It doesn't mean she didn't love you.” When he didn't say anything, she took his hand. “You really think the man I saw was Fend?”

“I thought he was dead. But who knows? Maybe.”

In his heart, there was no doubt. If his father's gods existed, this was just the sort of thing that would amuse them.

They didn't talk, for a while, and Winna drowsed against him. Looking at her face, he felt briefly guilty. She was so young! When Qerla had been alive, Winna hadn't even been born.

The guilt passed. In all of the important ways, Winna was older than he was.

One day she might realize that she had no interest in a scarred old holter. Until then he would just count himself lucky, and let it go at that.

And get her through this alive.

And kill Fend, if it was Fend. He couldn't imagine what the outlaw might have to do with Briar Kings and greffyns. But he would find out, and he would kill him, this time.

He was near drowsing himself when he heard the clatter of hooves on stone. He peered out the window and saw clumps of witchlights moving across the square. He jerked his head back in—for he had witchlights around his own head, of course. He thought he'd done it in time.

“Horses,” he whispered. “They've found another way in.”

“Maybe it's not the same bunch that tried to kill me.”

“Maybe,” he said dubiously.

From below he heard the high, shrill call of a horn, and the witchlights suddenly drifted out of the window, as if answering the call.

“Get dressed,” he told Winna. “Fast.”