Cobweb Empire (38 page)

It was the effect of having the river pour
into a great round basin of a shallow lake.

They gazed ahead, and as the boat moved
closer to that final shore, with nowhere else to float, they
noticed that the bank before them was smooth, polished, granite
rock, or maybe alabaster.

The boat arrived, and then gently bumped the
rock of the shore’s edge. There was no place to anchor it, and
indeed there was no need. So clear, so silver-shadowed was the
river here at the edges, that when they looked down over the boat’s
sides, they could see the transparent bottom through the still
water, hewn like a stone bowl, curving up to rise toward them at
the very lip of the shoreline.

And now that here they were, at the end of
the river, they looked beyond at the shore and saw that it was the
beginning of a great shadowed hall—not a natural cavern but an
artificial structure—and it was formed of perfectly dull grey
stone. Instead of walls, there were endless evenly spaced columns
and arches, monumental and gothic, and they were lined in rows all
the way to the distant horizon where they simply ended in a haze of
remote darkness.

“Where in Heaven’s name are we?” Nathan
stood up in the boat, then balanced his way to the front at the bow
past the seated girls, and leaped onto shore.

One by one the occupants of the boat
followed him, stepping carefully on the dull granite floor. When
everyone was out, Nathan pulled up the boat and dragged it a few
feet unto the bank, even though there was no danger of it floating
off anywhere. He placed the long oars inside, and then stood up and
stretched, stiff from sitting for so long.

“Curious—there appears to be no end to this
hall,” Amaryllis remarked, looking about them.

“Oh, look!” Regata pointed up at the
ceiling, and when they all glanced up, there appeared to be a night
sky above, littered with pinpoints of stars. But it was so
dreamlike, so unreal, that it truly made no sense.

“There’s stars, but I don’t think we’re
outside,” said Faeline. “It’s not at all cold!”

“Indeed,” Nathan flexed his fingers. “I no
longer see my breath, and the air has grown so still, with not even
a gust of wind. We are definitely indoors, likely in the bowels of
the earth.”

“So quiet here . . .” Sybil
stood holding the lantern. “Where are we?”

“Do you notice, Nathan, that there is a very
peculiar general illumination here, coming from everywhere? I don’t
think we require this lamp.” And Amaryllis took the lantern from
Sybil and quickly snuffed the wick out with her fingers.

The light winked out and the lamp smoked,
but surprisingly there was no sudden onset of darkness. The hall
remained the same, grey and shadowed and distinctly visible in the
vicinity. Only when they strained to look far into the distance did
the shadows seem to come together into a thick vaporous haze.
Everything was smooth and soft, with no sharp edges, as though seen
through an ethereal gauze veil.

“Behold, a soft landscape rendered in
sfumato!
I have seen its like on cathedral altarpieces and
usually renderings of the afterlife and angelic visitations.”
Nathan spoke in appreciation, while pacing around the shore.

Amaryllis threw one glance behind them at
the softly lapping river. How was it that the waters flowed in,
entered this round pool basin, and then had nowhere else to
go . . . and yet did not flood and rise above the
banks? There was no visible outlet underneath, no precipice to
plunge downward and into the underworld. Everything here was
transparent, and the bottom of the basin was smooth pale stone.

“I think we ought to go forward into this
hall,” said Faeline. “There has got to be a way outside, somewhere
up ahead.”

“Agreed,” said Lord Woult, shaking off his
unkempt clothing and running a hand through his tousled hair and
growth of beard. “Nowhere but forward lies our way—it is surely
destiny. So then, dearest Amaryllis, shall we?”

“By all means.” And Lady Amaryllis simply
started walking.

T
hey paced for
about fifty feet forward, moving past a dozen arches and columns,
and then, as some of them looked back, they were presented with a
physical impossibility.

Behind them, the river was gone. Not simply
the supernatural water born of twilight, but the basin that held
it!

Gone too were the cavernous entrance at the
shore before the hall began, the round basin with the smooth
granite shoreline, the boat they had left behind, and the distant
stone tunnel that had brought them floating here.

In their stead, the same hall with its
arches and columns stretched unto infinity behind them. Indeed,
they were now in the middle of a hall with no walls, no end, and no
beginning.

“Oh, Lordy, Lord!” cried Catrine.

“Stop!” Nathan stopped walking and stood
very still, looking behind them with a furrowing of his brow and
utter disbelief.

“We couldn’t have gone all that
far . . .” whispered Sybil. “How did we get
here?”

“I dare say, we must be either in hell or in
purgatory, at the very least,” Amaryllis pronounced in a cool voice
that had in it just a remote tinge of disturbance. “So, where is
your devil, Nathan? I expect he is up ahead, waiting for us.”

“Oh, no! No!” Both Catrine and Faeline
whimpered. Regata put one hand up to her mouth, while Sybil just
stood motionless.

“Maybe this is indeed the Underworld,”
Nathan reasoned. “Or maybe—since we are so far north, and the
infernal river has likely taken us into a deep wilderness somewhere
underneath the forests—could it be we have arrived at Death’s own
realm? His so-called Keep?”

“An interesting notion, my
boy. . . .” Amaryllis breathed deeply, tasting the
air in her lungs, bland and flavorless, with neither scent nor
temperature. “It truly is so
dead
here. And yet, it is also
very peaceful. . . . Somehow I do not sense infernal
flames, or foul pitch smoke, or cries of pitiful charred sinners
receiving eternal punishments on the ends of pitchforks. Do
you?”

“No, not at all. Not even a tiny little
scream to properly set the atmosphere.”

“So, then. If this is Death’s own palace and
domain, let us go forth and seek the Skeleton himself. Heaven
knows, what if I am the Cobweb Bride? Or possibly, one of these
girls is the Cobweb Bride? Wouldn’t it be a wonder?”

Nathan turned to stare at her with a very
intense gaze of his dark eyes. “Honestly, Amaryllis, do you still
aspire
to be that doomed creature? I thought we’d gone on an
adventure, not a funeral march!”

“I think it’s stopped being merely an
adventure as soon as we were detained by the mad Duke and Ignacia
turned out to be a treacherous harridan. Now, I rather think it a
quest on our part. If one of us is the Cobweb Bride, then, my dear,
we might have it in our power to save the entire mortal world.”

“And that would be indeed commendable,”
Nathan said. “Only, why must it be
us?
All I ever wanted was
to have my well-done roast! A bit of steak, that’s all! Nothing too
outlandish, is it? Must I be a hero in order to eat beef?”

Amaryllis smiled, turning her exquisite yet
weary and dirt-stained face to him, and gazed at Nathan with a
countenance full of faerie mischief. “Let us find out!”

And then the lady cried out in a loud
petulant voice: “Lord Death! If you can hear me, make yourself
known!”

There was a pause. The ringing echoes of her
voice rebounded lightly in the immense hall, and then softly faded
into nothing.

Perfect silence.

And then, a masculine voice sounded, remote
and disembodied, coming from every direction in the hall, even from
the starlit ceiling and the granite floor. . . .

“
Come to me.”

And then, came rushing wind.

Chapter
19

T
he vanguard of the
dead army came upon them softly.

Beltain, with Percy in the saddle before
him, and next to him the Duke of Plaimes, had been making their way
along the main road leading past occasional settlements and mostly
cropland blanketed by snow. As they were further removed from the
Silver Court, traffic became somewhat sparse in their direction,
with only an occasional peasant cart clattering south, while many
more were headed north toward the Silver Court. Bundled pedestrians
on foot—usually entire households, by the looks of their large
packs of belongings—moved past them rapidly, giving the two great
knights and their warhorses a wide berth. More than a few swift
carriages flew by, carrying frightened Morphaea aristocrat families
toward the relative safety of the Silver Court’s massive walls.

News of the war was spreading like a
flame.

At one point, the noise of clanging metal
came up ahead, and the length of the road about a mile in the
distance shone bright with bristling long steel in the sun. Pikemen
were coming in columns, followed by arquebusiers and musketeers,
all infantry ranks moving at a running trot march, and judging by
their tan and teal uniform coats and their banners they were
soldiers of Morphaea.

As soon as the Duke of Plaimes noted their
approach, he spurred his stallion forward and rode toward them,
then raised his gauntlet in a greeting.

“Formation, halt!” cried the officer in the
front, seeing the Duke approach, and apparently recognizing him
immediately. “Formation, salute your Field Marshal, His Grace, the
Duke of Plaimes!”

And the soldiers came to order, infantry
columns stopping one after another along the road.

“Commander, your report!” said Duke Andre
Eldon. “What is happening? Have I been misinformed, and has the
border been breached?”

“It is indeed so, Your Grace! Regretfully!
We are in retreat from the enemy who is in pursuit!”

“Retreat? By Heaven! On whose orders?”

“By orders of His Majesty King Orphe
Geroard!”

“Tell me what happened,” said the Duke.
“Where were you stationed?”

And the commanding officer told him.
Apparently these troops were not from the Balmue border, but were
part of the city garrison of Duorma, the capital of Morphaea. About
three hours ago, Duorma was attacked from the south by an immense
unspeakable horde of entirely dead men. “Not a living man among
them! All ranks in normal formations, all bearing the various
identifying banners of the Domain elite forces of the Sovereign—the
ones known as the Trovadii!”

“The Trovadii are
dead?
All of them,
you say?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“But—how can that be? An entire army!
Why?
”

“We have cause to believe their condition is
self-inflicted. . . . As for reasons, that we do not
know.”

The Duke listened with a grave face. “So
what has come to pass since the attack? How fares Duorma?”

There was a slight horrible pause as the
officer gathered himself before speaking. “Your Grace, there
is
no Duorma.”

“What does that mean? Was it a complete
rout? How bad are the casualties?”

The commanding officer paused again, looking
down before speaking. “With apologies to Your Grace, but—worse than
a rout. The city was in fact never breached nor overrun. It has
disappeared
.”

“What?”

“We were out in full force, outside the
walls in the pomoerium, readying the line of defense, and the
perimeter. His Majesty was with us also—was about to lead the
charge. We saw the enemy approach on the horizon, and as they came
closer, we realized suddenly that behind us, instead of the city
walls and tall battlements with friendly marksmen and bastions of
cannon artillery at our backs, there was
nothing
. The walls
and bulwarks had disappeared, and so had the entirety of the area
on which Duorma stood, with all that it contained—buildings, men,
and beasts.”

“But—how on earth can that be?”

“No notion, Your Grace. Some of us had
assumed it was sorcery or ungodly magic! Our formations were thrown
into confusion, and while we tried to maintain order with nothing
at our backs, the enemy attacked.”

“What of the King?”

“His Majesty was last seen in the heat of
battle, with a cavalry brigade fighting to protect him. As soon as
the retreat order was given, we have lost track—”

“Dear Heaven. . . .” The Duke
of Plaimes sat upon his charger, plunged in thought, considering
and weighing impossibilities.

Beltain, with Percy, rode up to him and
stopped, observing.

“This is damned unprecedented,” the Duke
turned and muttered to Beltain. “I must think, and quickly!”

The Duke then turned back to the men before
him. “You say the enemy is in pursuit now—how close behind you are
they? How much of their main force?”

“Your Grace,” replied the commander. “If we
continue standing here, they will be upon us within a half hour! As
for how many, we do not know! During the melee there was much
confusion. And as for those of our men who have been slain—in
truth, I may not be able to vouch for them or their continued
loyalty to the Realm. The dead army may have swallowed them and
taken their allegiance—”

“I refuse to believe that!” exclaimed the
Duke, speaking in a manner intended to rally the troops. “They may
no longer be as sharp or as willing—or even able—to follow orders,
but a man’s soul remains the same, no matter what. A loyal soldier
will be loyal for as long as he understands what he is fighting
for. I don’t expect that even death will twist that!”

“God willing, Your Grace is right. What are
your present orders?”

Duke Andre Eldon paused only for a moment.
“My orders are, continue your retreat, and make haste. Go and join
the garrison at Silver Court. Tell them to prepare for siege! And
tell the Emperor that I will return as swiftly as I may, after
ascertaining our present situation. Now, proceed, and Godspeed!”
And he rode to the side of the thoroughfare, with Beltain
following, to allow the formations to pass.