Chapter Eighteen
Over the years Becca had learned not to permit herself to startle suddenly. Not only would such movement set her sister to nattering about fidgety invalids but it would also, depending on circumstance, serve to spill the tea, or tear the roots or leaf of a growing thing, or distort the pattern of thread-count or lead to any number of unhandy outcomes. Treasures to guard . . . well! Of late, her isolation and social invisibility had oft been her greatest treasure.
And so she rode with that will-not-to-startle foremost in her thoughts, then, feeling a slight reprieve from the oppression about her, she mindfully wrapped that will about her like an over-large shawl, covering herself, and her saddlebags with the precious journals, seeds, and herb kit, over Rosamunde's back and croup, and mentally sealed it with the strongest brooch she could imagine, with a pin almost as long as a dagger.
Sensible or not, the sealing of that imaginary shawl settled her and drew a backward, arched-eyebrow glance from the not-quite imperturbable gentleman who led them into ruin. His expression was that of surprise, perhaps, or merely distraction.
The bend in the road was much further than she had supposed. The air grew heavy; breathless. Rosamunde's paces felt mis-paced until Becca realized that the steps were solid—but the sounds were odd.
Altimere's lead took them to the right of a sudden branch in the trail. She looked down from her perch, past Rosamunde's shoulder, hearing the step, then seeing the hoof strike.
Well, she thought with relief, it's only that the sound precedes the footfall.
Looking ahead, and listening intently in the dead air, she learned that the same was true for Altimere's mount: first the sound of hoof against gravel, then the placement of the hoof. How odd.
For a time, she simply rode, watching the hoof strike belatedly, unaware of anything else, her head heavy and her limbs languorous.
Just before she slipped into sleep, she did start, for Altimere now led them into the distinct bowl of a valley, surrounded by sere, mounded hills. Surely, they had not come far enough for such a change in the terrain! Unless . . . had she fallen asleep, in truth?
Directly before them, terrible above the humpbacked hills, the flickering balefire filled the sky with an iridescent fog belying the depth of the darkness growing at the edge of the trail.
Her good hand as light as possible on the reins, Becca reached with her weak left hand for Rosamunde's withers at the saddle-edge. Hah! Altimere rode courtly, did he? No blanket here, between saddle and withers, but all dependence placed on the leather panels. True, she was used to country ways, where oft a horse might be expected to sweat.
Motion in front of her . . .
A man's figure limned in darkling light, astride a flickering shadow of a horse, waved at her, his long fingers drifting like snowflakes in the turgid air. Heart in her mouth, Becca caught, looked about her, and gasped. In her inattention, she had nearly allowed Rosamunde to veer onto a thin track to the left, which spiraled away, ghostly, toward the terrible hills with their crown of black light. Carefully, she eased her mount back to the proper trail, and sighed.
The left-ward track beckoned with flickering fingers, teasing her side vision. Surely, Becca thought, that way was shorter? Perhaps she might—
But no, she reminded herself sternly; she would not take her own path. She had agreed to this trip, and to the terms. This was a dangerous and tricksy land, as she now knew for herself. She would not allow it to lead her astray. She would follow . . . she would follow . . . Yes. She would follow.
Do not lose sight of them, my brave! she thought to her filly.
She moved the reins, a gentle motion being sufficient, the lightest tap of heel . . .
Rosamunde was willing to close ranks with the lead horse, though it seemed that horse was ignoring her existence. The sounds of hooves on gravel echoed all about them, as if there were a dozen or more horses to be caught, and if Altimere approved or even noticed her new attention he gave no sign.
Even at this distance, following was not easy. Not only was Rosamunde's sudden tendency to bear left and go off the track a concern, but Becca found the lack of color in the world disheartening. Worse, there was an annoyance she couldn't lay her thoughts on around a plague of aches and pains, as if all the wounds and injuries of her life were complaining at once. . . .
Rosamunde shied from a rock, and then another, both large enough to cast them down if misstepped, rocks Becca should have seen as she looked between her mount's ears, over her star, at the slow moving gravel they transited.
Becca could scarcely see the tail of the horse they followed, the colorlessness absorbing light as if they rode in the midst of a hundred rainstorms.
She felt, in truth, as if she were beaten down by those rainstorms, and the minor aches came upon her at once and in full force: her crippled arm screamed from shoulder to pinkie, each muscle declaring itself afire, and she nearly swooned as the memories of bug bites, stubbed toes, and sisterly pinches took . . .
There! Ahead was the darkling stallion! She mustn't lose sight! She would not die here, alone and in pain. She would not be lost!
And yet it seemed that she was lost. Fog enveloped her, rain beat her, and she could scarcely see the ears of the . . . of the . . . horse . . .
There was no light, no color, no sound. She tried to speak, but the fog forced its way down her throat, muffling her voice.
There! An image in the fog: A man, his hair golden and his eyes steady; a quiet smile on his pale lips . . .
Altimere!
His name! She grasped, hurled it out into the fog on the wings of her thought. Altimere! Altimere was why she was here! Altimere was the connection she had with this place! Altimere was ahead leading her through this terrible land!
Sound was all around her like a thunder and wind rolled into one, like the sound of a splintering thill combined with her own screams, or the angry buzz of . . .
She must flee! There was no safety, up here so high, so exposed. She wanted to leap down from this absurd perch and rush to safety, to—
No! If she fled now all was lost. . . .
Her hand, tucked hard between leather and . . . hair. Horsehair, warm and living. Horse . . . her horse was with her . . . brave horse had a name, must have a name, as she must. Altimere was not her name, the horse was not Altimere . . .
The hand—her hand!—between soft coat and hard edge of the saddle—and the name Rosamunde bloomed in her mind, reflecting back to her Lady Becca I know you, colored with determination—a determination to push through, to arrive at the other side, each with a would-be master behind them, neither with any other place that would accept them, except what might be forward, away from—
Hold your seat came into her mind, and she knew not if she thought it or the horse, but she tucked her hand hard, touching saddle and horse, concentrating her thought on a place where there was clean water, flowers, grass, light, someplace where they could rest, and she might draw on the slim store of balm and herb that rode, suddenly recalled, in her saddlebag, to leach the agony out of her arm, and soothe away the clamorous small pains.
Ahead of them only a small eldritch glow outlined a horse's hooves; a greyer patch in the gloom showed where Altimere moved, bent against rain that did not fall and wind that did not blow. The cold swirled with the heat; she was sodden with sweat, as her hands and feet froze.
It was dark. Even the hateful flickering of unlight ceased.
Becca leaned forward, one hand gripping the reins, the other gripping the edge of the saddle, her eyes straining until she saw blue flashes, and crimson. Until she saw—
The star.
Yes.
The star on Rosamunde's forehead, beneath the darker forelock, that star was more visible now. The wretched arm ached with the strain of holding on with the hand she still had tucked 'neath the saddle—when had she managed that?—that throbbing in her good arm where her sister always pinched her was no longer a piercing reminder, and the tears—had she been crying the while?—were slowing.
Sounds. Hooves against earth, the creak of leather. And ahead there was a definite horse and a definite rider and even enough of a track to be called a trail.
Rosamunde puffed and snorted, wishing to run now, not from fear but toward the places promised ahead. There was scent on the air, and it was clean scent, no matter that the plants suddenly visible here mirrored those she had seen at the start—they were plants, growing things, and there, just ahead, a blade of sunlight crossed the track!
Becca dared look behind her, at a sheet of fog rising from the ground into the heavens, stitched with flares and shimmers of hideous light.
There came the sound of hooves on gravel, the unexpected flit of some tiny, urgent bird . . .
Before them, the dark horse slowed. The rider turned, his face filled with honest dread.
The dread gave way to some other expression Becca could not name . . .
He nodded, did Altimere, as Rosamunde drew aside.
"That meadow ahead," he said without preamble, "is entirely outside the reach of the keleigh. We will rest there; water the horses, and partake of a small meal to recruit our strength."
Exhausted, shivering with the remnants of pain and fright, Becca hardly knew what to say to these curt commonplaces.
Rosamunde snorted though, and Becca looked into Altimere's face.
"You sir," she said, striving to sound as matter-of-fact as he, "will wish to dust your coat."
He looked down at himself, his chest, his waist, his legs—all wrapped in the slenderest ropes of their poisonous metal. If he craned to the right or left, he could also view the destruction of his arms, likewise bound in chain and secured to staples set in the cold stone wall.
His flesh was corroded, the wounds seeping, but if they had hoped to undo him with agony, they had miscalculated. The pain had long since exceeded his capacity to feel it.
He did long for death, yes—as an end to confinement, and the continual assault of their terrible auras. When the one called Michael stepped into the room bearing a poison-metal knife, his first impulse was one of relief.
Fool.
Michael's aura was a strong sky-blue, with lightning flashes of orange. Passionate, purposeful and seductive. He held the knife like it was an old friend, and smiled at Meri gently.
"Give us the secret of creating gold from leaves."
"I cannot," Meri said, as he had many times before.
Michael sighed, and moved, the knife flashing at the edge of Meri's eye. It was only when the blood fogged his vision that he realized—
"Hack me to bits, and still I cannot tell you," he said tiredly.
Michael nodded sympathetically.
"I told Lord Wing that you'd say the same as you'd done. He said to give you another chance, and this was it, but, hey—you're a regular fella. A hunter, like me. So I'm going to ask once more, nice, see? Tell the man what he wants to know, or worse than you've had done will happen. You don't think that's possible, maybe. Take it on trust that there's worse, and think about it."
The knife flashed again, slashing his cheek. Meri said nothing.
Michael sighed, shaking his head, and walked over to yank open the door.
They had been kinder to Faldana than they had to him. That was what he thought at first. They had taken her Ranger leathers, as they had taken his, and given her a plain white robe. Her wrists were bound with common rope and her flesh was whole. She walked as one in pain, however, and the subtle mauves of her aura showed flarings of a sickly yellowish green.
"Meri!" Her broad face lightened with joy—then horror, as she took in his situation.
"Oh, my love—"
"Silence!" Lord Wing strode through the door, swinging his arm out in casual cruelty, striking her across the face.
The auras filling the room flared into one lightning bolt of crimson, abruptly dissipated as Michael's elbow went into his gut.
"It ain't the worst he can do," the man snarled.
"Correct." Lord Wing stood before Meri, his hands fisted on his hips.
"Michael?"
"He won't talk, your lordship. I didn't figure he would."
Lord Wing nodded. "The time has come for strong measures, then."
"I cannot tell you what you want to know," Meri said, struggling with the mangled notes of the man's tongue. "If you are not as we are, you cannot do what we are able to do."
"Yes, yes. You've said so, over and over. You're a brave man, and your ability to withstand pain is both prodigious and admirable. However, I must have the information, and time has become short. Therefore, I am forced to resort to . . . less savory means. Michael."
Michael stepped forward, grabbed the robe at the shoulders and tore it from Faldana's body. He put her on the stone floor, not ungently, fastened her bound wrists over her head and each leg wide. After making certain that the bonds were secure, he rose and stepped back against the wall.
"Very well." Lord Wing pulled an object out of the pocket of his coat. Meri stared. In form, it was not unlike a male member.
Except that it was cast from poison-metal.
"Remember," he said, holding the thing so close that Meri felt the dire essence burn his cheek, "that you can stop this at any time."