Dark Dreams (31 page)

Imoshen closed her eyes and stood absolutely still. Tulkhan’s hands tingled. A prickling sensation ran up his arms.

Shocked, he released her, stepping back. ‘So you don’t need the plate?’

‘Focus. The Aayel said it was all a matter of discipline and focus. I dread...’ Imoshen grimaced in concentration. ‘They are not in the palace buildings. It is very hard, people are running everywhere. There is so much tension.

‘Search the grounds.’

‘I am.’

Merkah returned with the plate, but Tulkhan waved her away. ‘Go, and keep out.’

‘I find no bright points of life, only...’ Imoshen’s knees buckled and she staggered. Tulkhan caught her. In that instant a wave of nausea swept over him. Roiling dark emotions blotted his vision.

Imoshen moaned. ‘Heated fever dreams. The taste of death on my tongue.’

Tulkhan cursed. She was delirious. He should call for the maid and have Imoshen put to bed.

‘Now I understand the visions,’ Imoshen whispered. ‘I thought them feverish nightmares, but it was Cariah trying to reach me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tulkhan demanded.

Imoshen shook her head and pushed past him.

He watched her unsteady passage across the room. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I must face this.’

He strode after her, sweeping her off her feet, blanket and all. ‘You can barely walk.’

For once she did not resist him. ‘The place I sense lies beyond the lake. You can’t carry me that far.’

‘We’ll ride.’

By the time they had entered the stables they were accompanied by half the court, including Fairban and his two younger daughters.

‘Saddle my horse,’ Tulkhan called to a stableboy, ignoring all demands for an explanation. He stepped up into the saddle and held out his arm to Imoshen. She clasped his forearm, put a bare foot on his boot and he hauled her up into his arms.

Her face was starkly pale. Her eyes glittered strangely. Even with the blanket between them, he could feel the overflow of her T’En gifts, rolling off her skin like heat radiating from a blacksmith’s forge. It made his heart race. And though he knew it probably damned his soul for all eternity, he liked the sensation.

Imoshen guided them out beyond the ornamental gardens to the lake and the woods. Tulkhan skirted the water. It was only a matter of days since the performance, but he didn’t trust the ice to take a galloping horse laden with two people. He could hear horses and shouts behind him as the others followed.

‘That way.’ Eyes closed, Imoshen guided them unerringly through the winter-bare trees.

They slowed to pick their way over the treacherous ground, hollows hidden by deep drifts.

‘Which way now?’ Tulkhan asked. The others had caught up with them and were floundering through the thick snow.

She flinched. ‘You have to ask?’

Then he saw a dark patch already half buried by the lightly falling snow.

Imoshen twisted from his arms and slid to the ground. Barefoot, she staggered through the drifts. He threw his leg over the saddle. When he caught up with her she was on her knees before the figures.

They could have been entwined in a lovers’ embrace. Snow dusted their heads and clothes. Cariah lay in Jacolm’s arms, her face swollen and distorted.

Tulkhan could see Jacolm had strangled her, then cradled her body while he cut his wrists right up to the elbow. His blood soaked them both, a great black stain.

‘Poor Jacolm,’ Tulkhan whispered. ‘He could not live with the dishonour. He loved her –’

‘Love?’ Imoshen sprang to her feet, flinging the blanket aside. She wore nothing but a thin shift and her hair was loose. Already a crown of powder-fine snow clung to her head, her lashes.

‘Love?’ Imoshen repeated. ‘Love does not kill what it cannot have!’

Lord Fairban leapt down from his mount with a keening cry of pain. His sobbing daughters waded through the snow to his side, trying to restrain him.

‘Cariah...’ he moaned, beside himself with grief.

Tulkhan looked over their heads to a contingent of his men awaiting his orders. They would have to bring the bodies in and prepare them for burial. Which church would claim precedence, or would it be each to their own?

It was a nightmare.

‘You...’ Lord Fairban turned on Tulkhan. ‘You could have stopped this. Cariah had already refused them. It did not have to come to this!’

‘The moment she refused them it led to this. Don’t you understand? Jacolm could not face the disgrace. No Ghebite could!’ Tulkhan felt his voice vibrate with anger. Why couldn’t these people see? As much as he loathed the pointless loss of life, he understood it.

Lord Fairban launched himself at Tulkhan’s throat. The General caught the old man’s clawed hands, turning them aside. Deranged by grief, Lord Fairban fought with manic fury, while Tulkhan fought only to keep him at arm’s length. Even in his prime, the smaller man would never had been a match for Tulkhan.

Lord Fairban’s daughters and servants surged forward to restrain the old man. The Ghebites barrelled into the melee, pushing people down into the snow and drawing their weapons. Tulkhan bellowed instructions, ordering them to sheathe their swords, but his voice was drowned by the screams. Soon blood would be shed and the precarious peace shattered.

Frantically Tulkhan searched the crowd for Imoshen’s fair head, fearing she would be struck down and accidentally killed, or left lying unconscious in the snow. In her feverish state the chill would be enough to kill her.

He thrust people aside, vaguely aware that Lord Fairban was being dragged away by three Ghebites. In the midst of the wrestling bodies Tulkhan saw Imoshen. She was a solitary figure kneeling before the corpses.

As he darted forward to comfort her, a woman collided with him. The force of the impact sent him to his knees and he barely saved them both from falling under the hooves of a frantic horse.

Imoshen stared at the dead lovers, seeing minute details. Unbidden, she relived the moments before their deaths. At first Cariah had argued, but Jacolm would not acknowledge her right to choose, then Imoshen experienced Cariah’s terror when she realised he meant to kill her and relived her friend’s battle for life and her defeat. She sensed Cariah’s shade raging impotently, unable to leave the site of her murder.

At the same time, Imoshen felt the Ghebite commander’s utter despair. He had killed his best friend and sword-brother, only to be publicly humiliated by the woman he adored. Even as he strangled her, he told her he loved her. But, dishonoured, he had no choice. Jacolm’s shade had departed with his acceptance of death.

Imoshen’s heart swelled with ferocious pity. Despair settled upon her like a great stone. Her grief was not only for those present, it was for all her people and for Tulkhan’s men too. This terrible lesson must never be forgotten.

In her heightened state, Imoshen could feel everyone fighting behind her, a seething mass of True-people. Their anger, fuelled by loss, rose like a great tide of torment, threatening to engulf her. The force of their swirling passions almost overpowered her. Channelling it, she used the well of strong emotions to empower her T’En gifts.

As Imoshen stroked Cariah’s sixth finger, she watched the young woman’s features settle into a peaceful pose, all trace of violent death eradicated. Now Cariah lay in Jacolm’s arms as if embraced. Dusted with snow, they were an island of stillness in a sea of emotion.

Cariah’s impatient soul ate into Imoshen’s awareness, demanding justice, demanding acknowledgment. The words for the dead spilled from Imoshen’s desperate lips. This time she would not be bluffed by the Parakletos. She would bind them to her will. Anger filled her throat so that the words choked before they were born. It did not matter – the words had only to form in her mind and the Parakletos came. Eagerly.

This time she had no fear, she was an instrument channelling the rage of those present. Emotion impossible to contain consumed her. Her heart was stone. Stone was immortal, a timeless memorial, and the Parakletos were her stonemasons. Their purpose appeased Cariah’s tortured shade, and with appeasement came acceptance.

Their task completed, the Parakletos returned to death’s shadow with Cariah’s shade.

Tulkhan felt a great pressure inside his head, a roaring which drowned all noise, then something snapped and he staggered, dizzy with relief. Around him grappling bodies parted, some dropping to their knees. One woman stood staring blankly.

Thrusting through disoriented people, he strode to Imoshen’s side. At his touch she fell sideways into a snowdrift, still as a corpse. Horrified, he dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms. Her skin was cold, her lips blue. Had he lost her and his unborn son? ‘Imoshen...’

Remorse seared him. Desperate, he lifted her in his arms and carried her towards the horses.

Strange. A few moments ago everyone had been intent on wreaking vengeance, now they stood stunned as if their desperate emotions had turned to smoke.

He handed Imoshen’s unconscious form to Piers and climbed into the saddle. ‘Pass her up.’

Tulkhan focused on taking her weight, arranging her comfortably across his thighs and wrapping her in the blanket someone had retrieved. He shouldn’t have asked this of her. He nodded to Piers. ‘Bring the bodies in and have them prepared for burial.’

‘No!’ Cariah’s youngest sister cried. ‘It cannot be!’

‘What now?’ Piers muttered.

‘See for yourself.’ The girl stepped back, pointing to the bodies.

The other sister moved forward, accompanied by curious servants. There was silence as they inspected the bodies. One of the servants called on the T’En for protection.

‘Frozen like stone,’ Cariah’s sister marvelled.

‘What curse is this?’ Piers asked uneasily.

‘We can’t move my lady Cariah. She has turned to stone,’ the servant reported, close to panic.

‘Impossible!’

‘Frozen, that’s all,’ Piers said, going to inspect the bodies. He cursed in shock.

Their startled comments washed over Tulkhan. As the others sought to satisfy their curiosity, a strange certainty settled around his heart. Imoshen’s flesh had been as cold as stone when he touched her and as smooth as marble.

He urged his horse forward. The others fell back.

Silently Tulkhan looked down at the bodies, trapped forever in stone’s cold embrace. Even the dusting of snow had been transformed. A knife turned in Tulkhan’s stomach. Imoshen had ensured Cariah and Jacolm would be a permanent reminder of his failure to understand.

‘White marble,’ he whispered, recognising the stone.

Someone cursed. Cariah’s youngest sister declared it a miracle. Lord Fairban muttered something in High T’En.

Everyone fell silent, turning to Tulkhan. The General’s arms tightened around Imoshen’s unconscious form and his mount shifted uneasily, sensing the crowd’s animosity and fear. Tulkhan watched them draw away, uniting against the unknown. Even the Keld averted their faces, lifting their left hands to their eyes then upwards, deflecting the evil so that it passed over them.

His own men stared at him, their faces filled with such awe and dread that Tulkhan sensed if he hadn’t been holding Imoshen they might have leapt on her and torn her apart. Years of command told him he had to seize the moment.

He gestured to the stone lovers. ‘They will be a permanent reminder to us all. They paid the price for our failure to understand each other. Let there be no more lives lost so pointlessly.’

Then he rode away as if he did not expect a knife in his back. Yet he knew that only years of Ghebite discipline on the battlefield and the nobles’ natural awe of the T’En restrained the crowd from turning on him and Imoshen like a pack of wolves.

Chapter Thirteen

T
ULKAN’S HANDS SHOOK
as he gripped the reins. What had Imoshen been thinking? A familiar suspicion crossed his mind. More than once he had wondered whether the T’En gifts were more of a reflex than a learned skill.

He glanced down at her still face. Her pallor was worse than usual, but it was the blueness of her lips that made his heart falter. This time she had over-reached herself. He could only hope warmth and gentle massage would help her emerge from this frozen state.

The outbuildings of the royal palace lay just ahead. Stableboys and servants ran forward to hold the General’s horse as he dropped to the ground with Imoshen in his arms. His knees protested.

Around him people clamoured for news. He gave the servants only a brief explanation as he entered the palace.

Striding down the long gallery with Imoshen in his arms, Tulkhan called for the fire to be built up in their chambers and the bed heated. He ordered a warm bath drawn immediately. Somehow, he had to bring the colour back to Imoshen’s cheeks.

He kicked the bedchamber door open and placed her gently on the bed. The maid appeared at his side, her wide eyes fixed on Imoshen’s unconscious form with a mixture of awe and horror.

‘Is she dying?’ Merkah whispered.

‘No, merely exhausted,’ he said, hoping it was true. ‘Leave us.’

When she was gone, he placed his cheek against Imoshen’s mouth, trying to detect her breath. He felt nothing. Desperate, he tore open her thin shift and laid his face on her pale breast. For an agonising moment he heard nothing, then he felt a slow single beat and nothing more. What had happened to her out there in the snow?

A servant entered to tell Tulkhan the bath was ready. He would let no one else care for Imoshen. He stripped her single garment and lowered her limp form into the warm water. Though it did bring a little colour to her flesh, it did not wake her.

Before the water could cool, he carried her to the bed and tucked her between blankets which held warmed stones. Then he took her hands in his and waited.

By dusk that evening he had not left Imoshen’s side and she had not stirred. If anything, she seemed even less responsive. The heat of the room made him sweat, but Imoshen’s skin was like porcelain, cool and lifeless.

The Ghebite bone-setter who had trained at Wharrd’s side had already been and gone. His skill was in the art of sewing up wounds. This was no True-man injury.