Shards of Time (51 page)

“I guess so,” Mika replied. He didn’t like lying to his friend.

“What’s it like in Rhíminee, living with the wizards?”

Mika described what it was like, leaving home and living in Thero’s tower, but soon realized that Vhadä had gone to sleep while he was talking.

So he lay in bed, counting his breaths, counting Vhadä’s,
counting stars outside the window, until he finally fell into a restless doze.

Something cold fell on his cheek and he started awake. A woman was leaning over him, and her wet, tangled hair was dripping on him. The night lamp was still burning and he could see she had sea snails for eyes. Little crabs hung from her hair. It was the woman Alec had seen! He wanted to pull the covers over his head, but he couldn’t move, he was so scared. She raised her hand and pointed toward the window then whispered words he didn’t understand. She looked down at him with her seashell eyes, then pointed to the window again, then disappeared. Mika raised a trembling hand to his cheek and felt the wetness there. This wasn’t a dream.

He waited for a while to make sure she wasn’t coming back, then stole to the window and looked out. From here he could see the round pond and the road. Was there something she wanted him to see?

After some internal debate, curiosity got the best of him. He pulled on his breeches and slipped out of the bedroom. It was dark in the corridor except for a few night lamps. He looked up and down it for some sign of the ghost, but she was nowhere to be seen. He went downstairs and out to the pond.

The moon and stars were bright as gems out here in the country. Little peeper frogs, deep-voiced bullfrogs, and sawing crickets filled the air with their songs. Every once in a while he heard the plop of a frog jumping into the water, or the flop of a fish, or the flitter of a bat overhead. Out in the darkness a fox made the sound like a woman screaming that had scared him at the camp until Micum explained what it was. Now he just pictured the fox, wishing it was close enough for him to see it and what it looked like when it made that strange sound.

Mika had never been outside all alone in the country before. He sat by the water’s edge, hugging his knees and feeling the grass under his bare toes.

A bullfrog croaked right in front of him and he started, surprised. The frog splashed away, sprinkling his toes with water. When he looked up again, there was someone standing
in the road, clearly visible to Mika. It was the mute ghost boy he’d met by the river. Happy and relieved to see him, Mika waved. The boy waved back. No, he was waving for Mika to come over. Mika had no reason to be afraid of him, so he walked down to the road to see what he wanted.

“I know you’re a ghost, but I don’t mind,” Mika told him. He wasn’t sure if the boy ghost understood him, though. He tried to take Mika’s hand, but his fingers went through Mika’s like a faint breeze. In the other plane they’d played and wrestled, but here he really was a ghost. Mika still wasn’t scared, though, just a little disappointed. It would make it harder to play.

“Come see the pond and the frogs,” he said, but the boy shook his head and pointed up the road, toward Menosi.

“I can’t go with you tonight,” Mika explained. “Master Thero wants me to stay here, and besides it’s too far.”

The boy looked impatient, and pointed again.

“Who are you talking to, Mika?”

Startled again, Mika turned to find Vhadä at the edge of the pond in his nightshirt. When Mika turned to introduce the mute boy, he was gone.

He walked back to join his alive friend. “You didn’t see the ghost?”

“She’s never out here,” Vhadä replied.

“No, not the ghost lady in the house. My friend I met—” It occurred to Mika that the planes and ghosts at Menosi were really a secret. So once again, he had to lie. “I saw a ghost boy by the road just now but he’s disappeared.”

“You were talking like you knew him.”

“Well, yes. I met him when we were at the camp. I found him by the river.”

“And you can talk to him? Does he answer you?”

“He can’t talk.”

“But he came all the way down here to find you? I guess you must be friends.” Vhadä sounded a little jealous.

“Do you ever see the drowned lady ghost?” Mika asked, more anxious to change the subject than curious.

“Sometimes. I saw her one night in the kitchen after everyone
had gone to bed. She’s scary looking but she didn’t hurt me. Is your friend scary?”

“No, he’s nice. But he’s gone now.”

“Oh,” said Vhadä, clearly disappointed. “Hey, since we’re out here do you want to see a big owl?”

“Yes!”

They walked to an oak tree in a field behind the house and saw two white owls as big as Seregil’s cat sitting on a branch, with huge eyes like shiny gold coins. Vhadä taught Mika how to hoot so that they would answer, and Mika taught Vhadä the polite, reverent way to speak to an owl, hand on heart. Vhadä liked that, and Mika was surprised to learn that the boy knew almost nothing about Illior, even that the owl was Illior’s bird.

They went back to bed after that and Mika tried to go to sleep, but it was a long time coming.

“You’re looking peaked, Mika,” Sabriel said when he and Vhadä came into the kitchen in search of breakfast. “Come sit by the fire and I’ll warm some milk and honey for you.”

“I’m all right,” Mika replied, not wanting to be babied.

“Well, come and have some oatcakes and milk, then, and I won’t take no for an answer. I have some boiled eggs, too.”

“I like those!” said Vhadä.

She fixed plates for the two of them and watched fondly as they ate. Mika could tell she still thought he might be sick. The truth was, he didn’t feel just right. He was worried.

R
HAZAT
’
S
rage had been short-lived. The following morning she’d released Klia from her chamber and invited her down to breakfast. Nothing more was said of strange visitors, and by that Klia knew that the dyrmagnos would most likely keep a closer eye on her.

For the next two days Klia went to the cave by a different way and waited there for as long as she dared, but there’d been no sign of Alec. Even though he hadn’t been able to get her out, talking with him, knowing the others were at work on their side to figure out a way to save her, gave her the strength and hope to go on. Even so, she kept a fine edge on the gorget blade. She would wait as long as she could, but every day she grew thinner, and tired more easily.

The kitchen portal brought Alec out in the hills above Zikara. Camouflaged well in his drab clothing, he worked his way down, finally coming across a dirt road. He followed this until he reached a side path, which took him up to a grotesque mockery of the oracle’s precinct. The grove was dead, and beyond it a black altar held a stinking mess of rotting birds and offal; the entrance was through the mouth of a hideous stone head. Alec half expected the jaws to snap shut on him as he ducked inside. Inside was the tunnel Klia had told him of. It ran back into the hillside and was lined with unlit torches. Taking one down, he tried to light it with flint and steel, but after considerable effort and muttering under his breath, he gave up. There was no choice but to go into the
darkness. He took off his shoes and padded forward in silence. By the time he’d left the reach of daylight behind, however, he could see a soft glow framed by the end of the tunnel and guessed it was about fifty feet in length. It ran fairly straight. He crept forward cautiously to the mouth of the cave. It was empty except for the unpleasant drawings on the wall. Directly across from the tunnels the black opal glowed in its golden setting, an almost perfect match to the one Seregil had had made.

He went back up the tunnel and looked for a place to watch for Klia without being seen. He found a depression in the rocky hillside overlooking the site where he could lie down and settled in to wait.

Lying still like this he didn’t get hungry quite as fast as he did when he was hiking around, but he’d still eaten twice before he saw Klia coming up the trail. He waited until she’d reached the entrance, making sure no one was following her, then whistled to catch her attention. She looked around quickly, then gave him a relieved grin as he scrambled and slid down to join her.

“She may be watching.” She waved him into the shelter of the tunnel but pulled back from his touch. “Don’t. She smelled you on me last time.”

“Of course. Klia, we’ve figured out a way to free you.”

“Thank Sakor and Illior! How?”

“Well, you’re going to open the seal.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. It’s the only way.”

“I won’t do it! What is my life compared with the risk of letting her back into the world? We have no idea what she’s capable of. I don’t believe she’s shown me more than a particle of her power.”

“We’re ready, Klia. We’ve killed a dyrmagnos before. All we need is for you to open the seal.”

“Alec, it’s insane!”

“That’s what Thero said, until we convinced him that it’s the best thing to do.”

“No, I—”

Alec took Thero’s sealed letter from his tunic and handed
it to her. “He said you should read this before you make up your mind.”

Klia broke the familiar wax seal and turned away to read it in the light from the mouth of the tunnel.

My beautiful, beloved Klia, I have no doubt that you have refused to do as we ask. Please reconsider. If we do not destroy Rhazat now, there will always be the chance that the Great Seals will be broken again, when there is no one there to stop her from ravaging the island and the lands beyond. I believe she is weaker than she once was, after being imprisoned and without a food source for so long. We have the magic and the means to destroy her and we must. But more than that, I cannot bear to take your life and the life of our child by leaving you there and setting the seal. If you refuse to help us, then know that I will be dead a moment after Alec brings word of your answer. I do not mean that as a threat, my love, but tell you so you will know the truth. I cannot, will not live without you, though our spirits are forever apart, just as Khazireen and Nhandi are separated. He has mourned her for a thousand years and I suppose I will join him there. There is a role in this for you, Klia. You must help us. I know you have the means to do so. Rhazat must be with you when you do break the seal. You must, if you can, snatch away the false skin—Nhandi’s, we believe—that she wears and whatever power that it lends her. And you are armed. Beyond that, you must trust us and the Four. The fate of future generations lies in your hands. I do not have the words to encompass my love for you, except to say that my heart beats with the same rhythm for you as yours does for me, and I know your love for me is boundless. Please, my love, do as I ask. With all my heart I implore you. Thero

Klia read it over twice, feeling every impassioned word strike at her heart and her resolve. She rubbed her eyes and turned back to Alec. “Do you really think we can destroy her?”

“Yes, but not without you.”

She pressed a hand to her brow, torn between hope and resolution.

“Every Mourning Night, I watch you and the rest of your family make a sacred vow to protect Skala any way you can,” Alec said softly. “That’s what’s being asked of you now. We have to end her.”

“I need time …”

“We don’t have time.” He pointed at the cave. “The others are there in the darkness on the other side, waiting for you to do the one thing none of the rest of us can do. You have to bring her here and break the seal.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be working from this side. Another reason for you to hurry. I’ve only got so much food and I have to be strong enough to pull a bow. Once the seal is broken, magic should work here.”

“So you believe she wears Nhandi’s skin as a disguise?”

“Yes. Perhaps it even lends her some kind of power.”

“That explains what I saw when I looked at her reflection and when I stabbed her.”

“You stabbed her and she didn’t kill you?”

“She won’t kill me as long as there’s any chance that I’ll do as she asks.” Klia kept the new scars on her hand and side to herself. “So, I’ll get her here as soon as I can.”

Alec let out a pent-up breath. “You’ll do it?”

“Yes. Keep yourself safe until I return.”

“Eat first, before you go back.”

Klia shook her head. “She can smell that, too. Besides, you’ll need every mouthful. Illior’s Luck to you, Alec.”

“Sakor’s Flame to you.”

Klia nodded and strode away up the tunnel. Skirting the town, she walked up the riverbank for a while, then turned and let herself fall to the ground as if in a faint.

And then she waited.

Rhazat descended the hidden stair that led from her chamber to the tower cellars to see to her remaining prisoners. There were only two now; she’d made them last as long as she could, like a child hoarding sweets, but she could feel
herself beginning to fade. It was time to send out her hunters, and for that she’d have to fortify herself. It took food to get food. If noble Klia refused to comply for much longer, she would make a meal of her, too, before the precious life force left the woman’s body. Then she’d continue to bide her time; if a royal princess disappeared, others would surely come, or the hold of the seal would continue to weaken. As long as there were people on the island, she would not starve.