Cobweb Empire (33 page)

It was
gone
.

In place of the deep slow-churning waters
with their silvery reflection on the surface, there was absolutely
nothing—empty space beyond the bank.

Catrine, who had been cringing, lowered her
hands from her eyes and gasped.

“The river!” she said. “Holy Lord!”

Nathan frowned, then holding the lantern
walked up to the edge of the bank and looked down.

He saw that the bank fell away into a ravine
only about eight feet deep, and there was a rocky floor below,
perfectly flat and dry. The entirety of the riverbed was fashioned
in a similar manner, a reasonably flat floor that could easily be
walked across, and then on the other end the bank rose up again and
tapered against the walls of the cavern. There sat the boat in the
same place they could see it—all he had to do was march across the
bottom of the riverbed and climb up a few rocks to get to it.

“What is it, Nathan?” Amaryllis asked,
without approaching. “What’s down there? A precipice?”

“No, my dear,” he drawled, and started to
climb down in easy leaps. “There is nothing but a few rocks on the
floor, and I believe I have our solution.” His voice resounded in
louder echoes, now that there was no water in the cavern and more
empty space, as he quickly made his way across the hundred feet of
riverbed. “Just keep shining those candles, and do not let any of
them go out! Not until I tell you to!”

Within minutes, Lord Woult had reached the
opposite shore, clambered up easily and stood next to the wooden
boat. He looked inside, examined it for defect, and then pulled it
a few feet, dragging it so see if it was at least superficially
free of breaches to be seaworthy.

“Now,” he said loudly, and his voice echoed
across the expanse of the cavern. “Blow out all your candles!” And
in the same moment he blew out the lantern held in his hands.

The girls all complied, and the moment the
light faded to the level of dim twilight of the single lantern in
the wall sconce, the sound returned, and with it the silvery
river—it was flowing as though nothing had happened, in the same
channels where it was before.

“What manner of magical river is this?”
whispered Catrine.

They watched Nathan pull the boat and attach
the oars, then splash it into the silvery waters. He climbed inside
with a minor grunt of satisfaction, then gripped the oars and
started rowing with powerful easy pulls against the slight force of
the current.

In a few breaths he had crossed the river
and was climbing on the bank on their side, then pulled up the boat
after himself. His hands were slightly wet and he examined them
after releasing the oars and said, “No, nothing is damaged, I see.
No caustic burn, no poison leaching my flesh off the bones. I
touched the river and I am still decidedly myself. No behemoth
either, you will be glad to note, Amaryllis, dearest.”

“The girls were staring at the river in
wonder. Those of the remaining potential Cobweb Brides who had not
scampered off, stood timidly, whispering amongst themselves.

“I think I know why they say a lord has to
be the one to operate the boat,” Catrine said. “Who else would have
the insolence to break the rules?”

“There is a difference between insolence and
a gentleman’s proper education,” said Nathan.

“Or, a lady’s,” added Amaryllis coolly. “I
would have done the same thing.”

“Yes! For one must always cultivate
skepticism against abysmal superstition and other common idiocy,”
Lord Woult continued. “Natural philosophy, my dear! Nature and
reason, observation and experimentation can explain everything in
this our Age of Enlightenment.”

“Yes, well,” said Amaryllis. “Except for the
disappearing river. And the cessation of death. And—”

“All right, by Jove! If I cannot have my
vanity and fashion, give me at least my moment of scholarly
triumph, will you now?”

“Since we are experimenting,” Amaryllis
said, “the next step would be to attempt removing all sources of
light. I suggest someone go over to that lamp on the wall and snuff
it out.”

“A solid notion!” Nathan stepped up to the
riverbank, crouched down, and placed his hand into the running
current.

Regata nodded, and then ran to the wall and
stood up on her tiptoes to remove the reservoir of lit oil in the
lantern. She brought it to her face and blew on the flame but it
was too large to be extinguished with a mere breath. So then she
spat on her fingertips then quickly pinched the wick.

The lantern smoked and then the cavern was
plunged into absolute darkness . . . and again came
the silence born of receding waters.

There were a few terrified squeals.

And then Nathan’s calm voice echoed. “Yes,
just as I thought, no water once again. My hand is submerged but
suddenly feels no liquid. This river is a marvel. It seems to
dislike the darkness as much as it does excessive light.”

In the next second a small flame bloomed
again as Nathan re-lit his own lantern. With it, the river came
back into being, with its soft sound and running waters.

“What a clever river you are,” he said,
addressing the swirling currents. “I wonder who fashioned you, what
deity’s caprice? A river that lives only in twilight!”

“So, dearest Nathan,” Amaryllis said,
looking out over the cavern’s expanse. “Shall we brave the current
and see where it takes us?”

“The trick to traveling this river would be
to keep the twilight alive . . .” he mused.

“In that case, we take a single lantern in
the boat with us and keep it lit.” Amaryllis turned and looked
directly at him with a challenge and a smile.

“Oh, Lordy, Lord!” Faeline said. “What if it
goes out in the middle of the river, and everything goes dark?
Won’t we and the boat plunge goodness knows how far down to our
deaths?”

“Very likely,” said Nathan, looking back at
Amaryllis with a smile of his own. “All the more reason not to let
the lantern go out!” he added cheerfully.

“I dunno . . .” Catrine
muttered, “sounds awful risky to me!”

“It sounds delightful!” Amaryllis exclaimed.
“Oh, I was so deathly bored! And now, Heaven knows, I find a reason
to live, at least for the next half hour. . . .
Let’s go! This very moment!”

“Your wish is my command, sweet Amaryllis!”
spoke the gentleman, adding: “Everyone, on board!”

Chapter
16

T
he day advanced
into soft evening as the black knight and Percy rode along the
snowed-over road past Duarden, steadily moving south.

There were more travelers on this portion of
the road with them, pedestrian and wagon traffic in both
directions, and the pristine thickness of snow was soon mashed and
beaten down into brown slush, which made each pace slippery and
dangerous.

Percy was unusually quiet. Resting sideways
against the now familiar solidity of the knight’s ebony
breastplate, encircled by his metal-clad arms, she gazed ahead of
her, hardly bothering to turn at the various sounds around them on
the road—carts creaking, the squeaky turning of badly oiled wheels,
the crunch and squish of crudely-booted peasant feet.

Beltain was mostly silent also, fixed in his
imposing posture, and lightly guiding Jack’s reins.

A number of times, companies of fast riders
passed them in the opposite direction, holding banners aloft. Among
them were liveried Imperial Heralds, racing swiftly north and away
from the Silver Court, bearing news and Proclamations into the
depths of the Realm and the Kingdom of Lethe. At other times, the
Heralds were Ducal, wearing the colors of the Duke Vitalio Goraque
and not the Emperor, and they rode in the same direction as Beltain
and Percy, south and into the Court.

“Make way!”

“Stand aside!”

The outcries came so often and had grown so
familiar, that it made good sense to keep to the side of the road
rather than get plowed over and splattered by slush from their
horses’ hooves—though, the latter was unavoidable.

It was also fortunate that Lord Beltain
Chidair wore his long black cloak to cover himself instead of the
ice-blue Chidair surcoat that he’d removed and folded away in the
travel bag. To sport Chidair colors at this point deep in Goraque
territory would have been imprudent.

The closer they approached the heart of the
Imperial Realm, the more traffic there was, and the thoroughfare
eventually widened. Gone were the unrelenting snow-plain and
fields, and instead wooden settlements revealed themselves on all
sides of the road, alongside orchards and roadhouses and smithies.
In the twilight of the coming evening, torches and lanterns came to
life and burned orange-gold against the darkening sky. Vendors with
supper stalls were common, and the noise and smell of bread, onion,
charred sausage, and burning wood smoke rose up from many chimneys.
It was as though they were moving through a center of a sparse but
sprawling town.

Urchins ran about, their yells and breath
rising in the chill air. Interspersed with the vivacious children
were human shapes grown remarkably still, seated in pitiful lumps
along the hedges or aimlessly moving along the road in the telltale
manner of the dead. Upon occasion, some passerby stopped and
divested the indifferent dead of their clothing, leaving their cold
pale limbs exposed to the elements. Percy watched from the corner
of her eye as three older boys surrounded a gaunt old man with a
frosted beard and crystalline sheen of snow on his face, and
stripped his jacket, britches and belt, leaving him in threadbare
woolens. They guffawed and ran off with his belongings, and the
dead man watched them helplessly with fixed marbles of eyes,
turning his head slightly in their wake.

“For shame!” cried an old woman draped in a
thick shawl, gesticulating at the young robbers. She paused
momentarily before the seated dead man to offer him words of
kindness, even though he seemed not to hear her, then shook her
head, crossed herself, and was again on her way.

In the near distance before them rose walls
of darkness, punctuated, up in the lofty heights, with moving and
stationary lights signaling the upper edges of battlements. During
day, the walls would have gleamed silver-white with mortar-bound
granite, their angular elegant bulwarks jutting out in regular
intervals along the perimeter. But at night, the defensive walls of
the citadel that was the Silver Court were shapeless black giants,
with only necklaces of distant lights to mark edges and
openings.

“Behold—we have arrived at the Silver
Court,” the knight remarked. “The Kingdom of Lethe ends at these
walls. And just beyond these great outer walls lies the greatest
jewel of the Realm.”

Percy, groggy from the sway and movement of
the horse underneath them, nodded wearily. Her face, in the
flickering torchlight all around them, appeared leached of color.
Her round cheeks were paler than usual, despite the regular chill
of frost that had reddened the tip of her nose and chapped her
lips.

Beltain looked down at her, and saw her
drooping eyelids and lethargy.

“I’ll find an inn for us, so we can stop for
the night.” And he added: “Now that we are here, can you sense if
the
thing
you seek is here, or nearby?”

He was referring to the Cobweb Bride—the one
distinct death-shadow that Percy was following, on her quest on
behalf of Death.

Percy turned her face toward
him . . . then looked partly away.

She appeared abstracted, trained inward with
an unfocused gaze. After a few moments she shook her head
negatively. “No, it is not here.
She
is not here. She is
further that way—south.” And she pointed at the walls of the Silver
Court and beyond, toward the Kingdom of Morphaea.

Beltain sighed.

“Well then, we still need to rest overnight,
so we are going inside.”

“Must you not, in any case, seek audience
with the Emperor to give him news of his daughter?”

“No. . . . Her Imperial
Highness had instructed me not to bother. I am solely intended to
accompany you.”

“Oh. . . .” Percy nodded
again.

They rode to the massive metal and oak
gates, pausing with other traffic to be allowed to pass and enter
the grounds of the citadel. It was chaos of men and beasts and
wheeled wagons. At the gates they had to wait for a troop of
infantrymen in formation, and then watch the pikemen on the march
followed by their arquebusier rear columns.

Finally they moved past the gates and
entered the citadel.

Percy opened her tired eyes in slow growing
wonder, for it was akin to discovering a single blooming rose amid
a wall of ivy. Beyond the crude outer walls, the inside of the
citadel was an artful marvel—an intricate series of structures of
mathematical symmetry, illuminated on the inside by glittering
light, each structure a delicate core around a disembodied source
of illumination—or so it seemed, through laceworks of glass
windows. Domes and columns, arches and friezes—these were not mere
palatial buildings but temples to beauty. At night lines were sharp
and silhouettes prominent; streets went on, broken by perfect right
angles, creating parallel lines of perspective upon rounds of
winter gardens and fountains that were snowed over. Fresh fallen
powder dusted the domes and cornices of marble, while icicles
decorated ironworks and each upright streetlight wore a cap of
snow.

Somewhere in the center of this clockwork
jewel, lay the Imperial Palace. If Percy trained her gaze in the
distance, she could just make out the sharp spires of the
cathedrals and the dome roof of the Basilica Dei Coello,
illuminated from the ground up and fading
overhead . . . dissolving into the blue twilight sky
cast in the shadows of early evening.