First Rider's Call (28 page)

“Is everything all right?” Karigan asked.

Dakrias absently set her bundle of reports aside on a table. “It’s been—” Suddenly he cocked his head, listening.

Karigan discerned a grating, scuffing sound, as of something very heavy being shifted.

“N-no! Not again!” Dakrias tore off toward the back of the room, his robes fluttering behind him. “No!” he shouted from somewhere behind shelving. “Not that crate of—!”

There was a great crashing sound and Dakrias emitted a strangled cry.

Alarmed, Karigan dashed after him, pausing to peer down aisles of shelving to find him. She soon located him in the far back, standing amid flurrying papers. Next to him, files spilled out of a smashed wooden crate.

“What happened?” she asked. “How did that crate fall?”

“Didn’t fall,” he said with a quaver in his voice. “It was pushed.”

“Pushed? By who?” There wasn’t anyone else here.

“Not
who,
” Dakrias said,
“what.”

“What.” He nodded emphatically. “The apparitions—something has stirred them up.”

“Something has . . .” Karigan trailed off in disbelief. “You’ve seen them?”

“Not exactly, but this—” He gestured at the smashed crate. “It’s been happening over the past few days. I—” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Karigan suddenly had the amusing notion of dozens of mischievous ghosts leering down at them from atop the shelving and laughing at their little joke. Dakrias was genuinely upset, however, and she couldn’t offer him any other explanation as to how large crates kept falling from the shelves of their own volition. Considering her own past record with ghosts, she should be the last person to doubt him.

“Maybe you ought to take a break from here, get away for a while.”

Dakrias sighed mournfully. “I’ve got to clean this up, or Spurlock will kill me. It’ll take years to refile this mess.”

It was curious, Karigan thought, that as much as the apparitions were driving Dakrias to breaking point, he was more rattled by fear of his superior. She offered to help him, but he waved her off.

“You’d be in my way,” he said. “I know where everything goes.”

Since he refused her help, Karigan could only wish him luck and leave, adding his haunted records room to her growing list of strange occurrences.

Thunder rumbled, muffled by thick castle walls, as she stepped out into the corridor. She hadn’t gone far when she thought she heard the stirring of notes, like a horn being sounded in the distance. She paused and listened, and recognized the notes of the Rider call. Her brooch blossomed with warmth and hoofbeats pulsed in her blood.

“Hunh—?”

The call compelled her forward step by step, until she reached the entrance to the abandoned corridor.

Galadheon . . .
It was a whisper close to her ear.

Standing in the entrance to the abandoned corridor was a figure in green. It was not quite . . . substantial. Its features swam in her eyes.

“Who are you?”

The figure threw back its head in silent laughter, and darted into the abandoned corridor. Karigan followed, halting just inside the dark passage.

Another figure in green stood there, where the light melted away to the dark, peering down the corridor. She was not as much of an apparition, but was more solid, her details discernible. She carried a bundle of papers, her arm in a sling. The Rider had brown hair and an intimately familiar stance and body shape.

Karigan G’ladheon looked upon herself.

But she did not have even a moment to wonder about it. The corridor reeled. The other Karigan smeared in her vision and a glow of light appeared far down the corridor. Funny, she hadn’t seen it last time she was here.
Then.

Hoofbeats thundered within her and she charged down the corridor after the light, leaving behind wet footprints and a trail of raindrops on the dusty floor.

 

It felt like she pursued the tiny bobbing light through a passage of the ages rather than through a corridor of stone. Her footsteps fell muted on the floor. No matter how fast she ran, the light stayed out of reach. She thought she ought to return the way she came, but the hoofbeats drove her on; the light drew her.

Then the light whisked out of existence. Karigan halted as complete darkness settled over the corridor. It was eerily quiet except for her own breaths.

What became of the mote of light? What had the call drawn her into?

The light of the main corridor had vanished far behind her. Should she feel her way back? She had to admit, with some acerbity, that running down an abandoned corridor without a lamp hadn’t been the brightest move she’d ever made. She reached out and felt for the wall. The stone was cold beneath her hand, but it was real, and it would help her find her way.

The sound of weeping stopped her. Someone else was back here with her, and not far away. The bearer of the light?

The empty corridors carried the weeping to her from several directions, but it appeared to originate from deeper within the abandoned corridors—opposite the direction she wished to go. She hesitated, wanting to return to the light and sanity, but what if the person who wept was hurt or sick?

With a sigh of exasperation, she felt her way down the corridor in the direction of the weeping, deeper into darkness. A couple times her hand fell upon musty, tattered tapestries, which crumbled beneath her fingers.

The weeping grew louder, then faded. The corridors twisted the weeping into moans of a thousand tortured souls. Sometimes, it sounded like the whimper of a child.

She did not know how long she went on like this, groping in the dark, for there was no way to measure time in this fathomless place. She couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.

She wondered if enough time had passed for anyone to miss her, and if they’d come looking for her. Captain Mapstone would not be amused by this latest escapade of hers. Probably she’d be assigned extra training sessions with Drent as punishment.

Her hand fell into nothingness where the wall intersected with another corridor. The air changed subtly upon her face, and some distance away, a tiny light flickered. It pierced her eyes after so long in the dark.

The weeping grew increasingly louder, but no longer distorted by echoing corridors. As she approached, the light did not retreat as it had before. She discovered it was a sputtering candle on the floor, the flame on the verge of drowning in its own melted wax. Beside it sat a young boy, maybe seven or eight, with his knees drawn up to his chest. The light fluttered against his tear streaked face. His breeches were ripped at the knees and dirty.

“What’s wrong?” Karigan asked, but he didn’t respond or even look up at her.

She knelt beside him. “What’s wrong?” When he still didn’t answer, she placed her hand on his shoulder. It passed through him. She jerked her hand away and drew a sharp breath.

Was he the ghost, or she?

She patted herself. Solid and warm. Her greatcoat was still damp from the rain, but it had taken on a silvery green cast. She felt real enough. Perhaps ghosts felt real to themselves, too.

No, I’m alive.
Was the boy?

The candleflame sputtered out and after a moment’s afterglow, everything plunged into pitch black. The boy whimpered and sobbed harder.

Poor boy,
Karigan thought.
He’s stuck here and I can’t help him. I’m as stuck in the dark as he is.

Even as she finished the thought, another light appeared at the end of the corridor and approached steadily. It was a bright burning lamp that wrapped its bearer in a golden sphere. A Green Rider.

Karigan smiled in relief. Leave it to a Rider to come to the rescue. But as the Rider drew closer, she did not immediately recognize her. There was a strong familiarity, but . . .

I thought I knew everyone . . .
Karigan started to run through names in her head, but then the Rider spoke.

“My prince?”

The boy sniffed and looked up.

The Rider knelt beside him, carefully setting the lamp on the floor, and hugged him fiercely. Her expression was one of intense relief.

“I was so worried! Joss is tearing himself apart and your grandmother is beside herself. Thank the gods I found you.” Now she grew stern. “I thought I warned you not to wander around back here. These old passages are like a maze and it might have been days before we found you. What possessed you?”

The boy sobbed against the Rider’s shoulder. She caressed his light, almost blond hair. “Am—Am—” He hiccuped. “Amilton.”

The name sent a shockwave through Karigan.

“Amilton?” Anger suffused the young woman’s face, but her tone remained gentle. “Has he been bothering you again?”

“Y-yes.”

Amilton was dead. How could he—? Then with startling clarity, Karigan realized who the young Rider was: Captain Mapstone.

Red hair, bound back in a characteristic braid, shimmered in the lamplight. A young Captain Mapstone of many years ago, maybe Karigan’s own age or close to it. There was no gray sweep at her temple, no creases about her eyes, and most startling of all, no brown scar marring her neck. Her features looked more ready to smile and held a sense of lightness absent in the Captain Mapstone Karigan knew.

If this was Captain Mapstone of many years ago, then the young prince could only be—

“Zachary,” the Rider said, “you musn’t let your brother bully you. Or, at least, don’t let him know you’ve been bullied.”

“He was . . . he was teasing Snowball. More than . . . more than teasing.” He looked ready to burst into tears again.

Captain Mapstone—she would have been
Rider
Mapstone back then—set her mouth into a straight line. “I know Snowball is your favorite, and Amilton knows it too, which is why he chose to tease her. Pyram promises he won’t let Amilton near any of the dogs again.”

“But Pyram’s—he’s just kennel master and Amilton is—”

“A prince? Amilton is a boy. Your grandmother agrees with Pyram, and if Amilton makes trouble, he will have her to answer to. And she’s the queen! His cruelty has cost him the privilege of going anywhere near the dogs.”

Zachary,
little
Zachary, sniffed. “Really?”

Captain Mapstone—Karigan couldn’t think of her as otherwise—nodded. “Really.”

The boy hugged her. “Thanks, Laren!”

A bright smile crossed her face, and it occurred to Karigan she had never seen the captain smile so naturally or easily.

“Now, why don’t we find Joss before his nerves turn his hair gray?”

Zachary screwed up his face. “Why can’t you be my Weapon?”

Captain Mapstone laughed. Again, it was astonishingly natural. “Because I’m a Rider, and the queen needs Riders, too. Joss is nice to you, isn’t he?”

“He’s an old statue.”

Captain Mapstone snorted and tousled Zachary’s hair. “That’s the way Weapons are. That’s how they’re trained to be. Can you see me like that?”

Zachary shook his head. “I want you to stay the way you are.”

“Good. But don’t forget how important Weapons are. Remember they need to keep a distance in order to protect you, and that they are very skilled at their jobs.”

“I’ll ’member,” Zachary said.

“Excellent. Now, my little moonling, let’s go before Joss gets in trouble for losing you again. Besides, don’t you think it’s a little spooky back here?” She looked in Karigan’s direction, but her gaze went right through her.

“I bet there’s lots of ghosts here.” He sounded hopeful.

“I suppose,” Captain Mapstone said, with markedly less enthusiasm than her young ward. They rose and started down the corridor hand in hand, the captain bearing the lamp. “Let me tell you a thing or two about dealing with brothers. I have four big brothers and two little brothers, so I do have some expertise in the area . . .”

Karigan watched after them. Was—was she really viewing something that had occurred in the distant past? Had she really just looked upon younger versions of King Zachary and Captain Mapstone?

I have known him since he was a boy,
the captain had told her. The change time had wrought in them both was stunning. The easy-going young Laren Mapstone was now the captain who wore her cares as a mantle, and the boy who cared so deeply for a dog had grown into a confident man who cared passionately for Sacoridia and its people.

Before the light diminished, she trotted off after them, for she didn’t wish to be stranded alone in the dark, no matter she could not communicate with them. But even as they walked away chatting gaily, a formal procession of Weapons approached. Karigan thought Zachary and Captain Mapstone would collide with the Weapons for they seemed unaware of one another’s approach, but they merged, and the captain and Zachary faded out of existence.

The floor rocked beneath Karigan’s feet. Hoofbeats surged in her mind. No, no, it was the marching feet of the Weapons. She steadied herself against the wall. This, at least, was real and remained constant. An anchor.

The Weapons were almost upon her. One in front wearing a formal black tabard bore a torch and a light blue standard with a seagull emblazoned on it, its wings outstretched in flight. Above the seagull was an embroidered gold crown.

Six Weapons marched briskly behind, their faces grim. They carried a bier laden with a body draped in a gauzy shroud. Upon the body’s chest rested a gold crown embedded with glittering jewels. Torches hissed and roiled as the formation swept past Karigan, leaving behind a haze of oily smoke.

She started to follow them, but another light came from behind, and she paused.

Two men approached. One wore the long, flowing white robes of a high priest of the moon, and carried a lantern. Beside him hobbled a bent old man dressed in the robes of a castellan. He leaned on what appeared to be the very staff of office Sperren used during ceremonial occasions.