Tallow (14 page)

'This way,' said Pillar and began forging a path through the vegetation. Tallow picked up Katina's satchel and scabbard and followed.

They made their way through the wood, the crunching of leaves underfoot disrupting the almost sacred quiet of the area. There was something unnatural about the silence. Tallow tried to focus on where she was going but found her mind drifting towards the dark spaces between the trees. Once more, a sense of being watched returned to plague her. The further into the wood they went, the more the sensation grew: a flickering shadow in the corner of her eye, the impression that someone was waiting just beyond her vision. The cold wind that blew carried with it hollow whispers and soft promises. The hair on the back of Tallow's neck began to rise. She increased her pace.

The trees ended abruptly and standing in the clearing before them was a huge stone; the fog didn't even venture into its space. Rising from an enormous base to thirty feet in the air, it was the shape of a lopsided triangle. Slowing her pace as they approached, Tallow had time to study the rocky mass. It was grooved from top to bottom and covered in human-made patterns that looked at once familiar and exotic – hallowed symbols that spoke of eons of commitment and trust between humans and Estrattore. Tallow stood in its shadow, trying to gather her thoughts. She was having difficulty concentrating, as if one part of her were here, with Pillar and Katina, while the other was elsewhere, searching, roaming.

'The Pledge Stone of Casa di Maggiore,' said Pillar softly, his face awestruck. 'We're here, Katina.'

Katina's eyes fluttered open and she slowly looked around. She nodded and sighed. 'Thank you. Thank you both.' She shuddered. 'Please, put me down here and leave. I will be fine now.' Pillar dropped to one knee and gently placed her at the base of the stone.

'Leave?' Tallow was incredulous. 'But you'll die if we leave you here.'

'No, Tallow. But you
will
kill me if you remain. The Bond Riders won't retrieve me and take me back to the Limen until you're gone. You must go.'

'Katina –' Tallow turned to Pillar for support. They couldn't just leave her! What if no-one came? But the candlemaker simply took the satchel and scabbard out of Tallow's arms and laid them beside Katina.

'We can do nothing now but as she tells us. Who are we to question the ways of the Bond Riders?' Pillar's voice was low, his tone both bitter and tinged with great sadness. Tallow was astonished to see tears in his eyes.

'Katina –' Tallow knelt beside the Bond Rider and wrapped her arms around her. 'Come back to me, please.'

'I will, Tallow. As soon as I'm allowed, I will. Now go.'

Pillar gripped Tallow by the shoulder and with gentle pressure, pulled her to her feet.

Together, without a backward glance, they plunged into the woods.

WE HADN'T GONE VERY FAR
when Pillar stopped in his tracks and darted behind a tree. Peering around the trunk, he indicated for me to do likewise. I joined him, puzzled by his behaviour.

He pressed his lips against my ear. 'I want to go back, make sure Katina's all right, that this Bond Rider comes,' he whispered. 'But we mustn't be seen.'

There was something in Pillar's voice that made me think he wasn't quite telling the truth. But why would Pillar lie? 'You can't ... Katina said we musn't. And what about the traghetto?'

Pillar gave me a crooked smile. 'Don't worry about what Katina said, or Captain Carlosa. For another ducat, he'll wait all day if he has to.' We began, cautiously, to retrace our steps, me somewhat reluctantly. I had grave misgivings. We were betraying Katina's trust. We said we'd leave and here we were sneaking back to spy on her. What if we jeopardised her safety?

There was something about this place that made my head ache and my chest flutter. I couldn't focus my thoughts, there were voices inside my head intent on being heard, but they whispered with such vehemence that their words became mingled and senseless. I wanted to shut them up, tell them to go away; but of course I couldn't. I didn't say anything to Pillar. I didn't want to cause him additional worry.

And so, with great care, we returned to the outskirts of the clearing, watching where we placed our feet, looking all around us. Even so, I was certain that Katina – or worse, someone or something else – would discover us lurking just out of sight behind the first ring of trees.

Crouching low behind a wide trunk, we had an uninterrupted view of the pledge stone. Katina lay where Pillar had left her, one hand atop her satchel and scabbard, the other draped across her chest. It was only because I could see her fingers rising and falling that I knew she was still alive.

Moments after we were settled, I heard a slight noise. It was so quiet, it might have been the sound of my own breathing echoing in my ears, but I had other sounds reverberating there. Perhaps that was why I heard it. A slight hush, like an intake of breath, and there he was.

A Bond Rider.

Tall, he wore thigh-high boots out of which climbed tight breeches. A dark shirt and jacket were mostly covered by a long leather overcoat that from its cracks and creases appeared to have adorned many lifetimes. His head was covered by a large black hat of a style I'd never seen, and I could see a brown ponytail swinging between his shoulder blades. He strode into the clearing, looking neither right nor left. He had eyes only for Katina.

Kneeling beside her, they exchanged a few, brief words, before he collected her in his arms and, with surprising ease, rose to his feet. At that moment, he turned and faced us. I was sure we'd been discovered. His piercing blue eyes combed the woods. Pressed against the tree trunk, I physically withdrew and, just as I had the day the soldiers stormed the workshop, willed myself invisible. His gaze lingered on our hiding place for a few long seconds, but then he turned his attention elsewhere. We were safe!

I slowly released my breath and glanced at Pillar. His face was pale and his mouth agape. I gave him a reassuring smile. But Pillar didn't notice me; he had other intentions. Before I could stop him, he darted from our hiding place.

'Santo?' he cried and ran into the clearing.

'Pillar! No!' I hissed and lunged, trying to grab hold of him. But it was too late.

The Bond Rider swung around and, taking one look at Pillar, bolted into the woods with Katina firmly in his arms. Pillar ran after them, shouting and pleading.

I left our hiding place, shaken and confused. Pillar had known that Bond Rider. He'd called him by his father's name. But why had Pillar jeopardised Katina's survival, a woman he cared for, by revealing himself?

Unable to make sense of what I'd just witnessed and hoping Pillar would return soon, I made my way to where Katina's satchel and scabbard had been left behind. I would care for them until such time as she came to collect them from me.

I bent to pick them up but, as I did, my hair brushed against the edges of the pledge stone. I became aware of an acute whispering. The noises were all around me, faint but pressing. I wasn't so much frightened as disturbed. I couldn't work out where they were coming from.

With a shrug, I tried to ignore them and instead picked up Katina's scabbard from where it rested against the rock. As I did, I stumbled and my hand came in contact with the pledge stone.

A cacophony of noise engulfed my body. I staggered with its force, dropping the scabbard and collapsing against the rock. As my back hit the stone, I was enveloped in wave after wave of sound. It was so intense it kept me upright, glued to the rock face. Rage, fear, grief and a sense of anticipation warred within me. The voices, so unclear before, now spoke with a clarity that chilled my very soul.

Free us! Find us! Help us! You must release us. Make us whole, complete. Let us live!

Pain such as I'd never known before gripped me. Pain and an unbearable aching – an aching that arises from having a part of one's very soul torn away. For just a few fleeting moments, I understood the haunted expression that never left Katina's eyes – her sense of incompleteness; the division that eternally marked her as different, as beyond human. I also understood her unswerving loyalty to her Bond.

It wasn't because of me or what she believed in that she continued to serve and nurture me; it was because of what she'd left behind in the pledge stone.

Herself.

Burdened with a weight that no human should carry – a thousand tormented half-souls – I pried myself away from the stone, from the voices who clamoured to be heard. But as my fingers touched the surface they sank into it. I tried to pull them away, but it was as though the stone had metamorphosed into something else – something animate and hungry.

I cried out and heaved myself away, drawing on all my strength, tapping into a part of me that was only just starting to become aware. The voices in the stone shouted at me, threatening me, warning me. Their voices joined my guttural cries, until I staggered away, separate again.

I fell to my knees in the shadow of the stone.

Gasping for breath, I tried to take stock of what had just occurred. Katina had warned me not to touch the pledge stone – made me promise not to.

Now, too late, I knew why.

There were no more Estrattore. Hundreds of years' worth of Riders with their pledges fulfilled remained trapped in the stones, lost to themselves until an Estrattore found them, or they found an Estrattore – just as the half-souls of the Riders had found me. In their torment and anguish, they knew who and what I was and they hungered for me. I was their key, their means to freedom. And they hadn't wanted to let me go.

Then I saw my hands. Trembling, I brought my fingers to my face and studied them in disbelief. I turned to look back at the rock and saw that the dark brown rivulets I'd thought to be the by-product of rain and minerals were actually blood.

Warm, fresh blood. The blood of the Riders imprisoned within. It coated my hands all the way to my wrist, running between my fingers, trickling into my palm and along the back of my hand before dripping onto the dirt. I turned my hands over and over. Great sobs tore at my chest.

I had the blood of these men and women on my hands.

The voices howled and the pain in my head grew so fierce, I clamped my hands to my ears.

'Leave me alone!'

As the blood from the stone met my ears, it seared its way into me, burning my skin, branding me.

I remember crying out before blackness closed over me.

A FAMILIAR SCRATCHING SOUND, QUIET
at first but growing increasingly bolder, emanated from the walls. Zaralina, the Queen of Farrowfare, distracted from her contemplation, turned towards the panelling and frowned.

At first she was going to ignore it, but then she thought better and twisted on the window seat and spoke directly to the spot behind the wood.

'As you well know, I am alone. You may enter.'

With barely a murmur, the panelling slid aside. Shazet entered the queen's private chambers, eschewing the formalities that bound the humans in her service.

Zaralina didn't watch his entrance. She'd turned back to the window.

Shazet drifted towards the queen, silently joining her and gazing over the white vista below. As usual, snow covered everything: the windowsill, the castle turrets, the crenulations and, beyond, the castle gardens and the hills, until everything merged into a palette of milky indifference. Shazet had often noted how melancholy the queen became when the sun didn't shine, as if she pined for warmer climes. At least, that's what her courtiers believed. But the Mortian knew better. She could have chosen anywhere in the known worlds to live, but she chose the ice-scapes of Farrowfare – and with good reason.

The Mortian bent towards the queen, his long spine seemingly folding in half.

'I thought you would like to know,' he murmured, savouring the news that was about to spill from his thick grey lips. 'A pledge stone has been awoken.'

Zaralina spun at the words.

'When?' She gripped the seat, her nails driving holes into the fabric that covered it.

'Earlier today.'

'Which one?' she held her breath.

'Casa di Maggiore.'

'At last.' She let out a sigh. Rising to her feet, she crossed the room and picking up a crystal decanter, poured herself a drink. Her fingers shook slightly with excitement.

She held up her glass to the Mortian in a mock toast and downed it in one gulp, refilling it immediately. She slowly walked back to the window but instead of sitting, stood beside Shazet and sipped the liquor slowly, pretending to watch the games taking place in the courtyard below.

'After all this time,' she finally said. 'And in an area we'd repeatedly searched and when I'd all but convinced myself that the child didn't exist.' A girlish laugh escaped. 'So the legends
are
true; she is real. And what does the silly child do but expose herself.' She smiled. 'They've hidden her well, I'll give them that.' She paused as a thought occurred to her, a single line dividing the creamy perfection of her forehead. 'I wonder if those who created her know what she has done.' She smiled again. 'Well, if they don't, they soon will.'

The Mortian allowed her a few moments of pleasure; after all, as the queen said, she had waited so long. 'What do you wish me to do?'

Zaralina looked at the Mortian in astonishment. 'Find her, of course. Send your minions to track her down. Now that she's touched the pledge stone, it won't be so hard, will it?'

'And then?'

'Watch her. Observe her every little move. I want to know her name, what sort of girl she is, what she does. I want to know who she lives with, what they're like. I want to know how people respond to her and how she's managed to keep herself safe all these years, buried in the backwaters of Serenissima – a city that prides itself on its sophistication and civility and yet a place that brutally kills her kind.

'And,' she turned, staring deeply into the Mortian's cavernous eyes, 'I want you to discover her intentions, gauge how powerful she is. I want to know if she's the threat that the legends tell me she is. Then you will report back to me. Before I do anything, before
we
do anything, I want to know her.'

The Mortian bowed. Zaralina knew it was in mockery of the deference he so despised. She laughed and changed the subject.

'How is the little prince faring?' She sat back on the window seat, folding her legs beneath her voluminous dress. 'Is he ready to meet me yet?'

Shazet rubbed his chin. 'Soon. The Doge's grandson has been our special ... guest ... for a few months now. He seems to accept that he will not see his parents or Serenissima again, but he has occasional bursts of defiance that require me to ... intervene.'

The queen nodded. 'What about the others – his new nursemaid and tutor, how is he responding to them?'

'As you would expect. In accordance with your instructions, they show him no warmth, no interest, no compassion for his plight. He has ceased to plead and cajole and now obeys them in sullen silence, even though his language skills are improving daily.' The Mortian chuckled. 'He has more spirit than I would have believed. He is harder to break than I thought.'

'But he will be broken?'

'Oh yes, my queen. He will. In two, if need be.'

'I would prefer him whole.' Zaralina finished her drink. 'When he is broken,
then
he'll be ready for me – his one and only friend in this cruel, cold world.' She held out her glass.

The Mortian took the glass and placed it back on the table. 'Will that be all?' He turned to leave.

'There is one more thing, Shazet. Tell your creatures they're not to touch the girl. When she comes to me, I want her intact – body and soul. Is that clear?'

'Very.'

She rested the back of her head against the window-pane. The cold penetrated her skull, making it ache. She shut her eyes, enjoying the sensation. 'For if she's interfered with in any way, I'll send you and your lackeys back to the realm I summoned you from.' Zaralina opened her eyes and looked straight at the Mortian. 'Don't ever forget who brought you here, Shazet. Who will give you what you most desire.'

'No, my queen. I will not.'

His eyes flickered over her long, white neck. He could see the blue vein that ran down beside her ear to her breasts throbbing. His gaze lingered and thoughts alien to his race filled his mind. He knew it was because of what she'd done to the Mortians, those Shazet commanded: the gift she had bestowed upon them in gratitude for what they'd done. He shifted uneasily, his ambivalence warring within him. What was it about this almost-human that she had the capacity to arouse him so? It wasn't the red hair, white skin or the luminous golden brown eyes that he knew set many hearts racing – and not just the men's. Perhaps, he thought, taking in her calculating mouth and the hardness behind the eyes, it was the darkness that resided in her soul – a darkness matched only by his own.

Bowing again, he was determined she would not see that he was affected. It wouldn't do to give her more power over him and his people than she already possessed. 'I will remember,' he said. 'And,' he added, 'as soon as I have any information, I will let you know.' He reached over with his impossibly long arms and pressed the mechanism in the panel that released the secret door. With a slight hush and slither of fabric, he disappeared.

The queen watched him leave, a small satisfied smile on her lips. 'So, the Estrattore is found.' She took a deep breath and released it slowly. Her years of preparation had not been in vain. The girl would soon be hers and, when she was, the fate of all Estrattore would lie in her very capable alabaster hands.

Her thoughts turned to the captive boy. What was she to do with him? Now the girl had exposed herself, was there any need for the princeling? Perhaps she should just get rid of the nuisance, spare herself the effort.

Watching her knights engage in a mock battle in the ward below, her thoughts ran swiftly. She could always alter her plans; after all, a puppet Doge sympathetic to her every need and desire would never go astray.

With a laugh, she rose and, ringing the bell on her table, waited impatiently for her servants to enter.