A Strange and Ancient Name (26 page)

“It’s me,” whispered Alliar, “we’re here,” and pulled. After that first terrified moment, she realized the being wasn’t trying to drag her through solid stone; they’d reached a window at last. But even though a stone had crumbled away here, too—Matilde had a wild mental image of Baron Thibault giving a procrastinating wave of the hand when faced with needed repair—what remained was barely wider than the standard arrow-slit.

I’ll never fit. They’ll find me hanging here in the morning.

But then Alliar whispered, “Exhale.”

She did, flattening herself as much as possible. The being pulled, and Matilde was abruptly tumbling through and down in a heap onto a stone floor, elbows and one knee scraped, hair dripping and chemise bunched up in most unseemly fashion about her thighs. Hastily pushing the sodden cloth back down about her legs (feeling it outlining her body so closely she wondered why she bothered), Matilde blinked about at darkness. “Where . . . ?”

“A guardroom, I think,” Alliar murmured. “Yes. There’s the guards’ torch, burned out. And there are the guards, sound asleep!”

“But . . . so heavily,” Matilde breathed, scrambling to her feet and staring as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. “Almost as though . . .”

“As though they were bespelled?” Alliar sighed. “Forgive me. You were right earlier and I was wrong. There’s definitely the
feel
of enchanted sleep about these men.”

“I know . . .”

“So now! Sense it, do you?”

“No, I only meant . . .” Matilde hastily dropped her voice to a whisper. “We shouldn’t talk so loudly!”

“You don’t have to worry; nothing short of time will unravel that spell. And,” the being added thoughtfully, “I wonder if perhaps it lies about everyone else in the castle, too.”

Matilde shivered, flinging her wet hair over her shoulder, wincing as the cold weight of it slapped against her back. “That would explain why no one at all was on guard.”

“It has to be Serein’s doing. Serein’s spell, to ensure no human would disturb him.” Neither of them wanted to say why he wouldn’t want to be disturbed, but the being’s eyes glinted with cold anger. “It’s true that he never could wield such Power before. But then, he never could switch bodies before, either.” Alliar grinned, a fierce flash of teeth in the darkness. “We should thank him. By being so human-wary and eliminating all the guards, our dear little Serein has made our task so much the easier.”

Easier. All they had to do was find Hauberin before the sleep-spell wore off or they shattered it, rescue him, and escape out through a castle full of enemies, one of whom was a renegade Faerie sorcerer.

Is that all?
Matilde wondered wryly.
Why, after all we’ve done so far, it seems almost
too
easy!

Not, dear lord understand, that she was complaining.

###

How long had he been huddling here, arm and mind aflame? All the stories said iron-poisoning was an agonizing but quick death, and he had seen the drac’s death as proof, and yet, perversely, despite the endless pain, his body seemed to be refusing to leave that pain behind. He ached for water, and for the simple chance to just lie down. But the last remnants of pride kept him from begging. And the rope looped about his wrists kept him tethered to the iron ring set into the wall, so that the best he could do was sprawl like this, leaning his feverish head and body against the dank, wondrously cool stone of the wall, and wish whoever was babbling on and on would stop.

“Hauberin! Damn you, you can’t die! Hauberin, answer me!”

Serein. The prince peered through the fever-haze at the anxious, furious human face and Faerie-aura and managed a faint, rusty laugh. “Too bad, cousin. You don’t . . . get my body after all. Have to . . . have to stay a human.”

Serein was raging at him, warning, “Don’t you mock me!” Hauberin sagged against the wall, letting the surging of blood in his ears drown out his cousin’s fury. But he was still conscious enough to be dimly aware that underneath the bluster, Serein was terrified. And with the sudden brittle clarity of fever, Hauberin knew why, and cut across his cousin’s words with: “You’re trapped, aren’t you? It wasn’t
you
made the transfer from body to body.” He saw Serein start, eyes widening, and continued, hearing the words tumble out beyond his control, fascinated at what they were saying as though they weren’t his. “It was someone, something else that pulled your spirit across realms. Ha, yes, something else. Maybe not even something of Faerie.”

“No, that’s ridiculous—”

“But now, your ally, whatever, whoever, your ally has betrayed you. Betrayed the traitor. Abandoned you. Left you here caught in your helpless little human self.”

“No!”

“You
can’t
get out of that body, can you? It dies, you die, for good this time.”

“Damn you, Hauberin, I’ll—”

“What? Kill me?” The prince laughed, then broke off with a choked cry as he jarred his wounded arm, sending new fire blazing through him. For a time Hauberin could do nothing but wait, teeth clenched, until at last the pain had ebbed to a more endurable level and he could gasp out, “I’m already dead, Serein. Body just hasn’t gotten the message yet . . .”

The prince sank wearily back against the wall, eyes closed, ignoring his cousin’s frantic noise, feeling the rising fever-flames sweeping him further and further from lucidity, welcoming them. Soon it wouldn’t matter what Serein said.

Soon nothing at all would matter.

###

Alliar hesitated, lips tight in distaste.
Phaugh,
these humans were like animals, flopping down to sleep here in the Great Hall wherever they could crowd in then-pallets. The air was equally crowded with the none-too clean smells of them. The being glanced about the dark Hall, plotting the best path—stepping on someone certainly
would
break the sleep-spell—and listening with every sense for any trace of Hauberin . . .

Ae, was
that
Hauberin’s aura, that poor, distorted, fever-bright thing? Horrified, Alliar started forward, Matilde stepping hesitantly after, only to stop short at the head of a downward-leading flight of stairs.

“The cellars?” Alliar wondered softly, unsure of human architecture.

“Or the dungeons,” Matilde murmured. “If Hauberin is down there—”

“He is.” The being stared at arcane flames, faintly blue, crossing and recrossing the stairway. “Serein has set Wards.”

“Spells to keep everyone out? You . . . can’t get through them?”

“I don’t know.” For all that Alliar shivered with impatience, there was nothing to do but relax as best as possible, clear the senses, study the Wards on all their levels,
feeling
their form, the Power behind them . . . The being straightened in triumph. “I have it! They were set for flesh-and-blood reality—
not
for such as I.” Alliar glanced at the woman. “I’m sorry. I can’t take you with me. But I’ll be back as swiftly as I can. With Hauberin!”

###

Hidden in shadow, golden skin darkened almost to black, Alliar stood in helpless silence at the head of the stairs, just out of sight of the human woman, shaking under the sudden assault of panic.
How can I go down
there?
Ae, how?

Swimming the moat had been simple by comparison; the water had been foul, lifeless, an alien thing to a spirit, the virtue choked from it by human misuse, human neglect, but at least it had encouraged swift action. This cellar, this . . . tomb had been gouged from the living earth, then walled off from it, from all life, from even the hint of sky and free, open air . . . Ah, the harsh cold stone, cruel as Ysilar’s prison . . .

But there at the far end of the vast chamber, where the darkness should be at its deepest, torches flickered where none should be. Hauberin was down there. And Serein. And, with Serein, who knew what torment?

Ah, winds,
winds!

Teeth and fists clenched, the being forced a trembling body step by step down the stairway to the bottom. Alliar took a deep, steadying breath, then hurried forward, keeping to shadow, refusing to think of the cold stone weight pressing in on all sides, refusing to think of—the being stopped dead, barely holding back a gasp. There, slumped against a wall, wrists bound to an iron ring (by rope, winds be praised, only by rope), lay Hauberin, limp as a child’s broken doll, tangled hair fallen forward over his face. Over him crouched a form . . .

Serein. Serein in his stolen human body, shouting at the prince, shaking him without effect. With a soft, frantic oath, the man snatched something from his belt and slapped at Hauberin’s arm with it. The prince jerked upright at the brief contact, crying out in hoarse anguish, struggling for an instant against his bonds, then going limp once more. Alliar smelled the faintest stench of burning—Iron! Serein had struck Hauberin with an iron knife!

The being lunged. The startled Serein had no time to do more than yell in pain as a golden hand closed so savagely about his wrist that bones cracked. The knife fell from lifeless fingers, and Alliar hurled it aside with all the fury of the wind, then backhanded Serein with such force the man crumpled.

Glancing about, Alliar grinned sharply at the sight of iron manacles hanging from a second ring. Iron wouldn’t burn the man’s human shell, but it would certainly hold him. Quickly the being fastened the chains about Serein’s wrists, then turned to the prince.

“Hauberin . . . ? Can you hear me?”

The knife blade had blistered a small patch on the prince’s forearm, Alliar could see that clearly. But if that was the worst of it, well, Hauberin had survived an iron burn before this, and this one wasn’t so terrible a wound . . .

But there was worse. The prince’s sleeve was torn above the elbow, and the stains darkening it were surely blood. Hauberin’s face, as he looked weakly up at the being, was flushed, his eyes glazed with pain and fever. “Li . . . ?”

“Yes, I—I’m here.”

“The fire . . . Li, we must put out the fire . . . castle will burn . . .”

“Oh, my friend, no.” Alliar knelt by Hauberin’s side, tearing at the ropes holding him. “There’s no fire here.”

“Yes . . . feel it . . . fire . . .”

As the last strands parted, the prince slumped helplessly forward into the being’s arms, and Alliar winced. Flesh-and-blood folk were always amazingly warm to the touch, but this terrible fever-heat was so much greater than normal warmth—“Hauberin! What did he do to you?”

At first Alliar thought the prince too far gone into fever to answer. But then Hauberin murmured in the weariest of whispers, “Not he. Arrow.” And then, though the being prayed to all the Powers not to hear the word, “Iron.”

“No. Ah, no, no, no.”

For what felt an eternity, Alliar could find no way to move, to do anything but hold the prince with arms that seemed to have lost all their strength and sit staring into space, heart and mind empty, save for the one bitter thought that kept repeating itself:
Iron-poisoning, iron-death . . .

“No, ah, no . . .”

But Hauberin still breathed. And damned if he was going to die in this dark prison! Despairing, Alliar stood, gathering Hauberin up, trying not to jar the prince’s wounds, and began climbing the stairway. Something clinked underfoot—the knife, Serein’s iron knife. Alliar hissed, about to kick the cursed thing away, when a frantic voice called out: “Wait!” It was Serein, wild-eyed, struggling against his chains. “You—Alliar! You c-can’t leave me here!”

“Can’t I?”

“Damn you—”

“No,
traitor. Damn
you.”

Alliar turned away, but Serein screamed, “No,
please!
You don’t understand, the Wards are still set, and I can’t lower them, not while I’m chained. No one will come down here, no one
can
come down here, n-not while I live. This body is strong, it might last for days before—Alliar, no, please, you can’t just leave me like this! Hauberin would never do it, Hauberin would never be so cruel!”

Alliar glanced down at the feverish, dying prince. “I’m not Hauberin.”

“Oh, Powers, wait . . .”

Serein, traitor, murderer, could not be allowed to live. But such anguish quivered in that moan that the being turned back involuntarily. Serein, all defiance gone, huddled in piteous terror in the flickering light of torches that would soon burn out. And memory stabbed at Alliar’s mind:
Ysilar’s prison, and the slow, slow torment of merciless stone all around, lifeless stone and lifeless darkness forever . . .

“Winds.”

Carefully the being put Hauberin’s limp body down and picked up the knife. And, in one quick, accurate, deadly movement, hurled it.

###

“Alliar!”

Nearly at the top of the stair, the being froze, astonished. A slim white ghost-form stood outlined against the darkness: Matilde in her simple chemise. “Matilde! How did you—”

“The—the Wards, are gone, I . . . uh . . . I felt them fall, and—Oh . . .” Her bare feet made no sound as she hurried down to Alliar’s side. The woman touched a gentle hand to Hauberin’s cheek. “So hot! What—”

“He was wounded.” Alliar forced out the words painfully. “With iron.”

Horror flashed in Matilde’s eyes. “But—but he’s alive, surely there’s hope that—we have to get him out of here!”

A sudden surge of noise from above told Alliar that not only the Wards had fallen with Serein’s death; the sleep-spell had shattered, too. And Thibault and his men were going to come rushing down in the next moment, trapping them.

“No, I can’t!” the being cried out in pain. “I won’t let him die here!” Arms tightly about Hauberin, Alliar told Matilde shortly, “Hold my arm. Hold fast! Don’t let go no matter what you see or hear!” She wasn’t one to waste time with questions; she gripped with almost inhuman force. Eyes shut, concentrating fiercely, the being hunted for the Spell of Return Hauberin had taught when they were first setting out on this misguided journey (ae, how long ago that seemed!), then called out the Words. For one endless, terrifying moment, nothing seemed to happen. Quivering with panic, the being knew it wasn’t going to work, the proper Power was never going to build, they were going to be trapped here in darkness forever . . .