The Pearls (18 page)

Lea twisted to look up at him. “What is it you fear so, Commander?” she asked softly.

Surprised, he met her eyes for a moment. The moon glow shimmered in their depths, and he felt again that swift, stabbing pain from the light inside her. He wanted to look away, but somehow she held his gaze.

“Can you tell me?” she asked. “
Will
you tell me?”

Frowning, he flicked her chin with the tip of his gloved finger, making her flinch. “Don't meddle with what you cannot understand.”

“I understand more than you think. And I see—I see…” Her voice grew noticeably shaky before she allowed her sentence to trail off. “Oh, who are you, to take me away like this?”

“My name is nothing.”

“That's not true. But I didn't ask for your name. I asked who you
are
.”

He was too tired for cryptic conversations. He reached down and squeezed her pale, slender hand hard enough to make her wince. He could have snapped her delicate bones, and he made sure she knew it.

When he released her, she made a muffled little sound, averting her face, and he suspected she was crying again.

“Time for you to be silent,” he said harshly.

“You don't have to hurt me when you make a request.”

“I give orders, not requests. And pain will teach you obedience.”

“Will it? A crueler man than you tried to teach me such lessons long ago, only he did not succeed. Nor will you. I think the inflicting of pain makes you feel as cruel and wicked as you're pretending to be. But why do you try so hard to be what you are not?”

Opening his mouth, he breathed shadow magic over her. She turned pale as snow and slumped over as though he'd struck her physically. A quick grab kept her from tumbling to the ground, and as he drew her against him, her head lolled over his arm, hair hanging in a sheet of gold.

Alarmed, he drew off his glove and touched her throat to see if he'd killed her. Ah, her pulse fluttered against his fingertips, strong enough. In relief, he took his hand away, yet he could not resist one surreptitious stroke of his palm across her hair. It was as soft as he'd imagined.

“Little fool,” he growled, his anger still hot inside him. “Don't tempt me. Don't spark my temper, for no matter what you think, you are safe from everyone but me.”

The night seemed cold and endless. Finally they made their way to the summit of the next hill and took cover under the sheltering trees. The men burrowed like wild dogs into piles of leaves, curling their backs against rocks, fallen logs, or any protective ground they could find. Most of them fell asleep with their rations still in their hands. Yawning sentries took their positions with reluctance.

Fomo was waiting when Shadrael dismounted with the unconscious Lea in his arms, and let a man lead his horse away to be unsaddled. If the centruin noticed that the girl was now wrapped in Shadrael's cloak, he said nothing about it.

“One scout found a cave of sorts,” Fomo rasped, rubbing one bleary eye with his fist as he spoke. “More an overhang of rock, but it's sheltered enough to allow a fire.”

“Good. She's far too cold,” Shadrael said.

As he turned in the direction Fomo pointed, the girl's dangling foot brushed the centruin's arm. Fomo flinched like he'd been branded and hurried ahead of Shadrael to lead the way.

Shadrael found the overhang less sheltering than was needed for the girl's comfort, but it would have to do. His body ached, and once pine boughs had been cut and piled up for him to lay the girl on, he was glad to loosen the buckles of his breastplate and sink down on the cold ground with his back against rock.

Fomo and a helper bustled around, bringing Shadrael food and water, kindling a small fire that soon popped and crackled in welcome warmth. “Should be you in that bed, not the likes of her,” Fomo muttered.

Shadrael unrolled a blanket and tossed it over the girl before wrapping himself in another one. Its thin wool provided scant protection against the numbing cold, but he made no demand for an extra one. Army issue was one blanket per soldier, two per officer. He would rob no man of that small comfort. Faure knew they had little else.

Weary to the depths of his bones, Shadrael leaned his head back yet doubted that sleep would come. He was too tired for it, too keyed up by the presence of the girl, and too troubled by what lay ahead. Unwilling to be mesmerized by the flames, he watched instead clouds reaching long, wraithlike fingers for the moon, veiling its bright radiance. The star Kelili was fading as well.

Dawn would come late, he realized, for more clouds were massing on the horizon, no doubt ready to drop rain, snow, or sleet. A dozen plagues on the girl, he thought, for traveling this late in the year.

For the first time today, he allowed himself to relax and feel satisfaction. All he had to do now was deliver his hostage alive and collect his reward. But of course it wasn't that simple.

Turning his head, he watched Lea sleep while the firelight glinted on her hair and cast flickering shadows across her face. Her lashes lay curled on her cheeks, and he saw that she was younger than he'd first supposed.

No, he thought grimly, it wasn't that simple at all.

Picking up his left glove, he shook out the pearls he'd kept, pearls made by her tears. Cupping them in his hand a moment while the firelight turned them golden, he grimaced and flung them out into the snow.

W
hispered
chanting surrounded Hervan, sending strange little prickly sensations through him. He knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with the others, uneasy about what he was doing yet consoling himself by keeping silent while his companions spoke forbidden words of the old rite. Thus did they weave a spell back and forth, until its pattern eventually began to glimmer faintly in their midst. He found himself shivering. The snow under his knees was damp and very cold. He wished he had stayed in his tent, wished he'd accepted disaster and let his family's fortunes sink with his own. Instead, here he was, participating in a ritual that—if discovered—could bring him under charges of treasonous spellcraft, with penalties of death, all to save Light Bringer's sister.

There was an irony in that somewhere, he thought, biting his lip to keep his teeth from chattering. Still, if he did manage to rescue the girl, she would regard him as her hero. Her indifference thus far to his good looks, lineage, and captaincy had piqued him considerably, for, sister to the emperor or not, she was not that lofty and he not so low in estate. Had she been in love with someone else, he could have understood better his failure to attract her. Still, all of that would change soon, for she would be grateful for his rescue.

Brother-in-law to the emperor,
Hervan fantasized sleepily while the chanting continued.
Uncle to the emperor to come
.

He envisioned himself wealthy beyond imagining. Never again would he have to worry about gambling debts and wine merchants' bills. He would give his parents a new villa and sneer freely at his sister's pompous husband. And every day when he strode in from hunting, Lea would be waiting for him, dressed in shades of blue to match her magnificent eyes, and offering her sweet kisses in welcome.

“Sssst!”

The warning came from Taime, on his left. Snapping from his dream, Hervan blinked at the apparitions forming slowly atop the glowing spell lines. At first he thought himself dreaming. He blinked hard, but the spectral figures of three short, wizened men did not fade. They cringed and writhed, wringing their hands all the while. Never were they still, and their faces contorted as though in agony.

“Speak to us, shades of Falenthis,” Rozer said sternly.

“Plague!” one of the ghosts wailed in a thin, barely discernible voice. “Come not among us, for the mark is on our doors. Flee while you can!”

“We care nothing about your plague,” Rozer said.

“Shadows gather around us. We are doomed, doomed!” sobbed another.

“Leave your troubles. We have questions for you. Important questions,” Rozer said.

“Mael's eye has seen us, and we perish,” moaned the third.

Shifting impatiently, Rozer raised his hand. “Be still, shades of Falenthis, and listen. Blood was shed on this ground today.”

“Much blood,” agreed the ghosts. “Blood of men. Ashes of shadow. Dust and ruin lie over us.”

Hervan frowned at all this, impatient with the ghosts' lack of cooperation. Intending to interrupt with demands of his own, he started to his feet, but Sergeant Taime gripped his sleeve in warning, and Hervan remained still.

“The men who came here today,” Rozer said to the ghosts. “Killers. Lovers of shadow. Where are they now?”

“Where?” a ghost echoed plainitively.

“Where?”

“Where?”

“Show us where they are. We command you. We are of the world corporeal, with authority over you. Speak!”

One of the ghosts sank back into the ground. The second one followed him. But just as Hervan thought they were all going to vanish, the third turned and pointed across the valley with one wavering, translucent hand.

“Open the paths of death to us that we may follow them,” Rozer said. “So do we command.”

But the third ghost faded from sight, his tormented face disappearing last of all.

The glowing lines of the spell flickered and vanished. Beside Hervan, Taime exhaled heavily, letting his body slump. Despite the cold, the sergeant was perspiring, and the others seemed equally exhausted, subdued, dark silhouettes against the snow. Stars glittered overhead, as hard and bright as diamonds. Hervan waited, his annoyance growing.

“Is that all?” he finally asked. “I thought you could command them, Rozer.”

The lieutenant lifted his head and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “We've got a direction.”

“Have we?”

They all stared at him.

“Yes, northeast,” Rozer said. “You saw the ghost point that way.”

“Did he point, or wave us farewell? To my mind, he was useless.”

Anger twisted Rozer's weary face. “Did you expect a chorus of shades reciting precise directions? Sir.”

His insolence frayed Hervan's temper. “I expected the Hidden Ways to open.”

The men exchanged glances.

“We
tried
, Captain,” Taime said. “We—”

“The ghost pointed northeast,” Rozer said stubbornly. “It's not everything we hoped for, but it's a start.”

Fuming, Hervan stared at the distant dark mass of hills. Was he now to roust the sleeping camp and set out on a wild-goose chase with no more information than this? Having steeled himself to commit an act of tremendous courage by entering whatever might be left of the shadow world, he found himself deflated, disappointed, and feeling rather foolish. The Talon Cadre was no fierce, secret society, he thought. It was nothing but a group of charlatans, pretending powers they did not have.

“We can set out now,” Rozer said. “Perhaps catch them.”

“Are you mad?” Hervan scowled at him. “Catch them
where
? Northeast, perhaps, if you insist. But how far away?”

The bite in his voice silenced the lieutenant.

“Your orders, sir?” Taime asked.

Hervan's frustration intensified. How in Gault's name did he know what orders to give? Suddenly all he wanted was his bed and a fire.

“Captain, look!” Aszondal said suddenly, pointing.

Hervan swung around in that direction and saw a pair of translucent, wavering faces peering at them from atop a broken wall. No bodies were attached to the faces, and before he could react those tormented countenances faded from sight.

“And there!”

Turning, Hervan saw more ghosts flitting about the ruins, passing from shadow into moonlight, fading and appearing. Some writhed and flailed their arms. Others calmly performed mundane tasks. None of the ghosts seemed to be aware of the others, or of the living men staring at them.

Icy chills prickled down Hervan's spine. “What in Gault's name…have we called forth all of them?”

“Surely not,” Rozer said, but his voice sounded shaken. “This can have nothing to do with us. Perhaps the shades always walk this valley at night.”

A sensation between his shoulder blades, the certainty that someone was watching him made Hervan turn around. That's when he saw a distant, upright figure draped in black robes, a figure that did not waver or fade. It looked as solid as life.

“What is that?” Aszondal whispered.

Dry-mouthed, Hervan swallowed and kept staring in near panic, unable to look away. A traveler? he wondered. A stranger? Someone spying on them from camp? If it should be a witness to what they'd done…

“It's coming this way,” Taime whispered.

And so it was, although Hervan didn't see it move. Yet it was closer, surging toward them like a puppet dangling from a string. Its face was veiled in black.
Shadow,
Hervan thought. His heart thudded faster, and only the sudden weakness in his legs kept him from running.

Another figure, garbed in tatters of once-fine garments, long hair flowing in a wind not of this world, appeared between the men and the approaching figure in black as though to hold them apart. Recognizing the shade of Lady Fyngie, Hervan wanted to avert his gaze, yet found himself frozen. Her heart-shaped face, always so merry in life, now contorted in sorrow. Her eyes were huge pools of shock.

When she beckoned to the men, Rozer shoved Hervan forward. “She wants you, Captain.”

He wasn't sure about that. His heart seemed to have found its way into his throat, choking him. Telling himself to be stalwart in front of the others, he drew a shallow breath and forced himself to walk toward Fyngie's ghost.

At closer range, she seemed to grow until she was larger than he and terrifying. The wind he could not feel stirred her rags and hair as she floated in the air before him. Her pallid face and mournful eyes regarded him with tenderness. He realized she must still know him and his companions. Her death was so recent, so sharp an experience, that perhaps she'd not yet forgotten her former ties.

Grief for her, this pert, pretty maiden, stung him. He was furious on her behalf, at the waste of her life, at the brutal way she'd been slain. He yearned to say something, but what comfort could he offer? “Lady Fyngie,” he began, feeling awkward, “will you help us? Will you show us where to look for Lea—”

Fyngie's ghost waved pale hands in agitation. As yet she did not speak.

The figure in black loomed up beside her, so close that Hervan stumbled back a step before his knees locked. His heart was thunder in his chest. Black-shrouded hands lifted, and he saw that the creature was going to draw away the veil concealing its face.

He gasped for breath, mesmerized despite his terror. He didn't want to see, didn't want to know.

But it was only Rinthella. Her beautiful, dead-white visage stared down at him. With the black hood thrown back, her dark hair escaped to writhe about her pale features. Her eyes held a dark fury that made him quail. She pointed to him with a hand glowing white.

“You have it,” she said.

Her voice was awful to hear, no longer vibrant with laughter, no longer alive. “You have it.”

Some instinct made him reach into his pocket and draw out the opal he'd taken from her dead hand. How pale it shone, as though the moon had somehow been captured inside it and fought to escape. He held it up. “This?”

“The stone of sorrow,” she said. “The stone of despair.”

“I'm sorry I took it,” he told her. “You can have it back.”

But of course he could not touch her. Nor had he any way to move the jewel from his world into hers. Her eyes, fiery and insane, glared into his, and he feared that baleful look would somehow petrify him into rock. Yet no matter how hard he tried he couldn't tear his gaze away.

“Rinthella,” he whispered, “what do you want?”

She pointed at his hand. “The stone of mourning. She warned me what it was, but I did not heed her. Put it back. Put it back!”

“Lady Lea,” he said eagerly. “You mean Lady Lea. Where is she? Which way have they taken her? Show us, Rinthella. Guide us through the world of shadows and help us save her.”

“Put it back.”

“Yes, yes, I shall. I promise. Only tell me where to search for her. Please, Rinthella. Help us.”

As Rinthella turned her head, her dark hair blew toward him. He flinched, but the strands never touched his face.

“Why did you bring us here?” Fyngie asked, startling him. “Why? Why? The valley of sorrow. The valley of death.”

“I'm sorry. But if there's any chance at all to save Lea, help me. Both of you, please.”

“Before dawn, Vineena will join us,” Fyngie said, her voice growing shrill. “Her soul will scream to the heavens. Why did you bring us to the valley of death?”

He shook his head. “I can't help you now. I'm sorry. Guide us to Lea. Please!”

“Vineena is afraid to join us,” Fyngie continued as though he hadn't spoken. Her enormous, shocked eyes stared at Hervan in rebuke. “She suffers. Death comes not easily to her.”

“I'm sorry. But where is Lea?”

“Our blood lies on you, Olivel Hervan. Our blood lies on you!”

“Let me avenge you,” he said earnestly, extending his hand to show her the glowing opal. “I swear on this stone that I'll make the blackguards pay for what they've done. But show me where to go. In Gault's name, guide me to them.”

“Put it back!” Rinthella screamed.

“Avenge us!” Fyngie said.

They circled him, faster and faster, screaming words he couldn't understand until he was nearly deafened. After a few moments, the sound reached a crescendo of noise that became a shrieking gale of wind, a storm blowing him in all directions. Buffeted, half-blinded, his ears ringing, he staggered to keep his balance, throwing his arm across his face in defense.

“Lea!” he shouted.

Fyngie reappeared, her heart-shaped face forming in the wind, her hair streaming wild. “Look to the stone.”

“What?”

“Look to the stone,” she said, and pointed northeast. “It will guide you.”