Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE TENTH

  The knock at the door was suffocated by thick wood.

  Kveldulf opened his eyes long enough to stare at the darkness. It was probably some servant with chores to do. "Come back later."

  "Some greeting." The voice sighed. "You come to my house and I boil you a nice pot o' hot tea, I do. But, when I come a-visiting what do I get? Some greeting?"

  "Helg?"

  "Yes, it is Helg. Who else would have Helg's voice? Except maybe a magpie? Magpies can mimic voices quite well, but why would a magpie come a-visiting? I s'ppose there might be a reason. Do you know many magpies? "

  "The door is unbarred. Come in."

  A wide flush of light spread over the room as Helg opened the door.

  "Phew. You like it dark and dank. Ever thought of paying someone to rinse out some of those furs of yours? Probably turn the water brown a league downstream. "She put her load on the floor so that it propped the door open. Kveldulf sat up, newly awake, his head filled with tangled shadows. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt like sharkskin left out in the sun. He looked about for water. Finding his jug, he drank clumsily, dribbling water down his chin, then looked at Helg, and winced a little at the light that silhouetted her.

  After giving the room a glance over, Helg settled with a huff and a rustle on top the only stool. "Now," she said, "Tell me, how are things?" She paused then, looking around more carefully. "You are a creepy one. The things you keep about yourself." She nodded at the feather hanging from the wall. "I won't even ask about that. I doubt I'd get anything like an honest answer. Anyway, I hear the Eorl is saved. His sickness is cured. All tidied and dusted. La-de-da, and hoop-de-hooray, and so on." She waved an old vein-streaked hand in a lazy circle. "You'll be off soon, then? Looking farther afield for a cure for your own little curse, I s'ppose?"

  Kvledulf squinted into the general halo of light as he shook his head. He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. "Yes and no. Part of me wants to forget this strange little place, move on, and then... and then my better nature tells me I owe a little more." Thoughts darkened his face. "What seemed a simple plot to murder is ravelling into something more tangled. What do you know of the wild spirits who dwell in the woods?"

  "Ahhh," said Helg knowingly, and her one eye glittered, "Lilia."

  "You know."

  "I can guess. That one has the look of the faer-touched all about her. The same look as poets and lovers and the moonstruck. I have wondered awhile. Have you noticed whether she ever carries about an eating knife... ever goes near horses... or if she uses only silver at the table? I'm tempted to give her a gift, something made of cold iron dipped in water of foxglove, just to see what happens."

  Kveldulf nodded. He leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. He felt as if he had been up all night running madly. But it always felt like this after a full night of dreaming. It was the counterbalance of the dreaming. Sometimes he would end up so tired he wouldn't get out of bed until after midday. Somewhere deep in his head a small demon seemed to be hacking away with a pick. "A ward against the faer folk," he muttered. "The mortal metal. I have a knife of iron for hunting midsummer beings."

  "Iron which bleeds rust, and withers, and ages and dies. That which the old ones could never tame. That which reduces their majesty to illusions."

  "Lilia has been trafficking with a spirit of the woods. I have seen him, a tall regal-seeming thing." He sniffed. "Long fair hair and bright eyes. She called him by a name... Alrhun, I think. Allarun? Aldarun? Do you know him?"

  "Yes," said Helg and she ran her tongue over yellowed teeth. "Alraun, Alraun, Alraun. In the forests hereabouts the wild spirits are mostly a harmless pack of thieves and rascals. The sort of creatures who might scare lonely travellers for laughs or steal cream or turn toadstools into loaves of bread and leave them beside the road for a prank. But, there are a few who are more ambitious, and more dangerous. Alraun? What a preposterous name. He dubbed himself that, I wager. Folk call him the Alder King." She snuffed and smiled a thin, hollow smile. "And I s'ppose he is as much a king of the elbgasts and wood-geists and wichtlein as their kind ever will tolerate, to tell true... and yet he's as cruel and petty and nasty as any of them." She glared at Kveldulf and for a moment an angry memory fought across her face, "Here, let me tell you a tale about so-called Alraun. The so-called all-wise. Once, long ago there was a young midwife. She lived not far from here. She was very beautiful, and much-loved and had not only a great deal of business but several suitors." Helg discretely drew a pouch from her belt, and began packing a pipe the oily, aromatic leaves. A smell like over-cooked cheese and sweat filled the room. Kveldulf considered asking if he could have a puff of the stuff, but decided that his head wasn't quite up to it. "You see, her mother had been a midwife of some fame and had taught to her daughter those charms and simples that are needed to ensure easy childbirth." She looked about and scowled at Kveldulf. "Not even a tray of charcoal in here, is there? Couldn't go a fetch a cresset from the hall could you? So as I can have a small puff of the pipe?"

  Kveldulf nodded and did so.

  "Now, where was I? "Ah yes, the midwife. This happened very long ago, and I've half-forgotten what she even looked like, so you'll excuse me if I fumble for details. So. Now. Let me see. It happened that one night, late after dusk, there is an urgent knocking at her door and who should be there but a dark stranger? And in those days strangers hereabouts were rare and dangerous." She smiled. "I suppose they still are, I dare say. This stranger was odd looking, with an ivory delicacy to his face. His eyes seemed to glimmer as if he had gazed too long at the stars and caught a little of their light in his pupils. He was dressed well enough, almost lordly, and after she says good evening to him, the stranger says, "My wife is with child. She is in the throes of labour. The midwives of my folk tell me she must die for the babe to live. They will cut her open. I have heard of your skills and I ask you to tend to her. I promise you a sack of gold, should you save both babe and mother. Gold and silver if you save only the babe. Silver if you save only the mother."

  Now you may think this seemed odd, and the midwife ought to have been suspicious, but she was young and naïve. She agreed to go with him." Helg spat out a wraith of smoke. "As soon as she had her bags in hand and her cloak tied about her neck, he led her to a great black horse that was waiting in her yard. It was frightening thing, pawing the ground and rolling its eyes and snorting. But he bade her to mount it behind him. And so she did. And what a ride it was. Like riding all the way to the castle of Old Night and Chaos, through the dark forests, leaping rivers and bounding up hills and galloping through blinding mists. Until at last they came to a small hut woven together from living willows. Shaken, the midwife clambered down and followed her employer into this small house. It held nothing but a strange bed, a great flat stone piled with moss and straw on which there was a woman. She was thin and pale and pretty. But still it was clear to the midwife that the young woman was as mortal as the father was not. In the shadows lurked three crones with unnatural bright eyes. Each of them eagerly fingering a flint knife. That sight made the midwife shudder. So without a second thought she set about her work. In time, with effort--and a little magic--the babe was born, and though the mother was feverish and had lost blood, both babe and mother lived. The old hags skulked off, grumbling to themselves."

  "As soon as the babe had gasped his first breath, the father came out of the shadows, where he had been fretfully watching the whole affair. He gave the midwife a small vial of ointment and told her to rub it in the babe's eyes. She didn't think it wise, but he demanded this odd ministering, over and over," Helg shrugged, "so in the end thinking it both harmless and silly she did as he wanted. But, some of the salve was left on her fingers. And she was tired and worn out. It's strange to think how a small and unconscious gesture can lead to things. A cough. A twitch. A rubbing of a finger across the eyes when tired." Helg looked at her pipe, twisting it between finger and thumb. "Once the mother and babe were settled and res
ting, the father offered to take the midwife home. The ride back was as wild as before. Once home, happy and with the promised payment resting by her hearth the midwife slept a deep, welcome sleep."

  "It was some weeks later that the midwife was about her business when she spied the peculiar stranger again. She was in the village market. The stranger in his finery was going from stall to stall, picking up this, taking that, secreting away a bauble or an apple, and all the villagers apparently none the wiser. She called out to him and he, with a curious look in his eyes, came striding towards her. "You've no right to take what you've not paid for,” she scolded him. Oh, she was so bold! So righteous! So stupid! He just smiled and asked, as sweet as rich brown honey, "Tell me, midwife, which eye do you see me with?" She wondered at that, but closed one eye and then the other. Much to her shock she found that the stranger was invisible when looked at with one eye, yet visible with the other. "This eye," She said, and as quick as a ferret he leapt at her, and with a flint knife he gouged out the offending eye. She felt the wet blood cake her face even as she heard his ghostly laughter, peal upon peal of it, vanish away down the road."

  Stiffly, awkwardly Helg stretched her legs out and breathed a deep sigh. The pipe, leaking thin, curling wisps of smoke, lay now forgotten in her lap.

  "They found her screaming alone and all bloodied. After that, there was less work for the midwife. The town gossips said she had gone mad and plucked out her own eye. There were no suitors for the disfigured woman with her gaping eye-socket. But, that wasn't the worst of it. The stupid young woman had been suspicious of the stranger when he asked which was her seeing eye and so she lied to him." Helg shrank in her shawl, bit her lip and looked down at her knees. "Stupid, stupid girl. He took her other eye, the eye that saw only what mortals were meant to see. She was left with the charmed eye, the one that the faer ointment got caught in. From then on, she could see all things invisible and the deeper meaning of secrets and the hidden things that are in shadows and fires and the flight of birds. In fact, she could see nothing else." Helg stared at him. "All the time. All the damned time."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Enh..." Helg's screwed her face into a bewildering pattern of trenches and lines. Her one eye was wet. "Times heals all wounds... so to speak... so they say. The midwife has gone on to a different life, I dare say, and when you get to her age, regrets do nothing but make you miserable. So you just get on with things."

  "And the stranger was Alraun?"

  Helg nodded. Gingerly lifting her pipe, she took one careless breath of the smoke, briefly firing the ashes in the cup into a volcanic light.

  "Who was the young woman? The one who gave birth to the child?"

  "Don't know." She drew out the words, "Don't know. Some mortal lass stolen from her family. A travelling gypsy who took the Alder King's fancy. Just guesses in the dark. He will have long forgotten that one by now. Such a fickle, fickle creature."

  "Forgotten," said Kveldulf, "or put aside."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Have you met Snoro's river woman?"

  "The nixies?" She frowned in thought. "Now and again. They've been in the valley a long time. Long before Snoro came to our little eorldom, if I recall. In the old tales they're suicides who drown'd 'emselves--just poor lost souls. Why? In winter they are quiet and don't hardly step from their grotto."

  "Lost souls," said Kveldulf. "But not suicides."

  "What do you mean? You're worryin' me, huntsman."

  "I met Snoro in the woods and he told me a thing or two." He thought back to the conversation and the night. It seemed to Kveldulf that there was something else worming under the surface. Something he'd forgotten. He suddenly realised that he'd been quiet for a good minute or longer. Helg was staring curiously. He shrugged. "Snoro claims the river woman are mortal girls tortured and changed by Alraun. And there are bones in the woods too. Very old and decayed, but human. One still wore a rotten dress. It seems to me that Lilia is in peril."

  "You surprise me." Helg laughed. It was a frail old noise but had a twist of hard iron in it. "You act grim and nasty, but you're not really are you? Goin' to put an end to Alraun's ways, eh? Goin' to stop him taking 'nother one away to the wild woods? I s'ppose you must have one hell of a nasty life, if you're always actin' like a mooncalf hero, chasing off after every stupid quest you find, I s'pose, I s'pose."

  "It's a living."

  She snorted. "Good luck. Still, if you do get an opportunity to stick it to Alraun... hrumm... I'm not saying that I wouldn't be interested in having a piece of that..." The pipe was dead now and Helg hid it away in her stained purse.

  "What about the child? Alraun's child."

  Helg pursed her lips and huffed out a noncommittal noise. "The babe grew into a boy, a lad, a young faer man. But I haven't seen him about in years. He wandered off on his own roads long ago. The faer lords are like roosters. They can tolerate another rooster only so long, even their own spawn." She was distant for a moment. Thoughtful. "But, here now, I'm forgetting why I came. I've been thinking about your problem. One method I forgot about is to try throwing a piece of iron over a hare or wolf that is a man who has changed his skin, then the naked man will appear. They call that 'making blank' the witched. The pelt bursts crosswise at its forehead and the mortal steps from the wound, nude as a baby. So it is said."

  He stared at her for a moment with dark, distant eyes.

  "I guess if I hunt her down, anything's worth a try."

  "Her? Ah yes, your lady wolf. The one who is following you." Helg smiled as if she was enjoying a private joke at his expense. "I hope one day you will learn to master yourself, Kveldulf."

  "I am already my own master."

  She shrugged. "Shall we go and find something to eat then, master-of-thyself? I had only two eggs and a crust of bread this morning. Oh, and a nip of herb brandy, but that doesn't count, doesn't at all."

  "I'm not often hungry in the mornings. Perhaps just some wine or a mug of ale for me." A pain twisted his skull. "Or even just some water with a bit of chicken boiled in it."

  "Not hungry in the mornings? I wonder why ever that could be? Humph. But let us find out what fine fare the Toren Vaunt can offer us."

  "Yes. I should get up anyway. There're a few people I'd like a quiet word with before the day is out."

  Helg thrummed her agreement. "I'm sure you do. But will they be wanting a word with you?"

  -oOo-

  The day had crept through a number of hours when Helg left and Kveldulf and Kveldulf was able to make his way to the Rosa's chambers. He knocked, then stood and waited, tapping time with his foot. He was about to give up and look for Rosa elsewhere when the door finally opened a slit. Through the shadowy light a weak female voice whispered, "She's sound asleep."

  "Asleep?" Kveldulf had to check himself. "It's late to be asleep. Or early to go to bed."

  "She's been up all night fretting about her father, she has."

  "The Lady Rosa asked that I call upon her. Does she often sleep so late?"

  The woman was a long time silent before answering. When she spoke, her voice sounded irritated. "She must have changed her mind. Who are we to question the indulgences of the high born, anyways?" A pockmarked face with a brow tattered by an untidy fringe of curls emerged from the dim light.

  Kveldulf was about to apologise and ask when would be a better hour to return when he noticed a faint scent of enchantment. Drifting on the air, as subtle as the scent of rain or cobwebs. It was not the gossamer, elfin magic that he noticed in the woods, but a darker, earthier sorcery. It was something akin to Helg's magic, but bloodier and older. It reminded him of Snoro.

  "Yes?" The chambermaid was brisk. She stuck her face a little farther out so that the light in the hall scoured shadows into her pocks. "Well?"

  "Hm? Um. Sorry. Just thinking about something else. When will the Lady Rosa be receiving guests?"

  "Not tonight, I'll wager, she's right tired, she is. Maybe tomorrow morning." She then sp
oke abruptly. "Who can say?"

  "Yes. Who can say. Thank you." He threw a slight nod to the maid, before walking off. He didn't go far. As soon as he heard the door creak shut and the lock snap, Kveldulf stopped and looked over his shoulder. Then he looked around the hallway. He tried two doors before he found one that was unbarred. It was little more than a cupboard, a tiny room for storing pales, blankets, soapwort and mops, but it would do. Kveldulf left the door open a fraction and waited.

  There was a fly buzzing lazily around his ears. Kveldulf wasn't sure where it had come from. He swatted at it without any real determination. Time passed. The fly went away. A few people walked up or down the hall. Kveldulf was beginning to feel tired. A bit foolish. Maybe he had been mistaken? His left leg was cramping up.

  And then Rosa's door creaked open. Kveldulf snapped awake. It was the same maid Kveldulf had spoken with. She looked up and down the hall before stepping out of Lady Rosa's room and shutting the door. Although the halls were bright, she carried a lit candle. She started limping in his direction. Kveldulf held his breath as he watched her pass.

  He waited. When the scuffle-thump-scuffle receded to only a faint sound, Kveldulf edged out of his cupboard. He stretched, cursed the smallness of the space, and then he skulked after her, always a good distance behind. He tracked her by sound and smell alone. The magic was subtle, but just noticeable. To anyone else it would have been the smell of rain on hot clay, or thistle flowers or an Autumn evening. A memory. A recollection. Barely noticed, and then disregarded and forgotten.

  He followed the woman though the fortress and then down a dusty servant's stairwell. They were the sort of spiralling steps that are so impossibly tight and steep that descending them felt more like sliding into the gut of a stone worm than descending plain ordinary stairs. Kveldulf held a firm grip on the hand-rope that was threaded through iron eyelets on the wall. The constant step-scuffle-step of the chambermaid echoed up from below. She was moving slowly. The descent was giving her obvious difficulty.

  The stairs passed several doors that presumably would open into cellars and storerooms, before ending at a tunnel that burrowed into solid bedrock. Kveldulf peered around a corner; the woman's candle threw weird shadows and amber splashes against the walls here. He thought about how the flame looked like a ghost drifting in gloom.

  The candle vanished into one of the squat doors that lined the way, there was a sound a little like a well-crank turning, and the light disappeared completely. Kveldulf was left suddenly groping around in the darkness.

  He felt his way along until he found the doorway. He could smell the woodlouse, mice droppings and mildew. The air was cold. Kveldulf waved his arms out in front of his face and felt nothing.

  He didn't want to do it. It was uncomfortable. Sometimes painful. But he didn't see any other way. Closing his eyes, Kveldulf steadied his breathing and reached out with his dreaming thoughts. Doing this while awake was taxing, but he could manage it for a while. He touched the air around him, prodding and teasing, looking here and hunted there. For a moment he thought that it had been too long. Years had passed since he'd last attempted to bring up the dream while awake. And then he found it: the gap between the worlds. The place that hung between the waking world and the dreaming. He let himself slip into it.

  To see through the dream's eyes while in a trance was disorientating. The first time he had done this was an accident, years and years ago. Once at the threshold, the trick was to relax just right way... so that... then you were there...

  In the dream.

  Everything was cast in shades of red and ochre and brown.

  It looked like a disused servant's room. Kveldulf moved away from his body, now slumped uncomfortably against a wet wall. He could smell his own meat. It stank. The room perhaps once belonged to some cellarkeep, charwoman or ratcatcher. It was now just a ruin of rotten furniture and cobwebs. The woman was nowhere to be seen, but between the far wall and the floor there stirred a faint waft of air.

  Kveldulf listened. The dream had good ears. It could hear a mouse in the walls. The halting limp was a resounding stride now, and she was moving away rapidly. He could smell iron and oil; there were hinges buried in the wall of stone.

  It was a dizzying, bile-raising feeling to open his eyes and wrench his consciousness back into his living, breathing body. Sharp ice crawled up Kveldulf's back, and he had to rest on his knees while blood rushed into and then away from his skull.

  Finally, he roused himself, and moved forward in the dark, towards the hidden door.

  Fumbling in this pitch blindness, he was aware of the thing, following him, unseen but present. It was all too easy to forget it was there most days, but when he used the trance he became suddenly, alertly and painfully aware that the dream was always with him. It was never more than a few paces away while he groped in the darkness.

  Hands ran over the false wall, working fingertips between the stones, probing the grooves and cracks, and there... his fingers traced back to something smooth and metal. He pulled at the little flange. Nothing. Then he pushed and heard a sharp click. The wall shifted on well oiled wheels, but still made a series of too-loud clanking sounds. He felt a gust of colder, staler air as a massive door of stone opened.

  Kveldulf advanced a step. The walls here dripped with sorcery. Kveldulf felt the back of his neck crawl. Taking another step, trying to make out some detail in the dark, he drew his silver knife.

  The chamber ran deep into the bedrock and as it became both narrow and uneven, Kveldulf had trouble feeling his way along. Twice the ceiling unexpectedly dropped low, bruising Kveldulf's head each time. It was a cramped, hurried, winding tunnel, cut in haste and not for ease of use. As he walked, Kveldulf caught a new sound, a reverberating strain that rolled and lilted and swayed in the darkness. A voice as chanting in a weird and wild tongue.

  Soon the air began to grow warmer, then stuffy and sickly with a thin wreath of smoke that stank of juniper and pine resin. All of a sudden there was light. Kveldulf had to stop and squint his eyes, blinking into the firelight glow. One outcrop of stone still stood between him and what must be a great bonfire. On the wall of the tunnel opposite, Kveldulf could see a flare of dancing orange light and shadows. He realised that one shadow among them was being cast by a something solid, a body--only there was no shapeless cloak or dress to it. The shadow was naked and lithe. It swayed as the voice ululated.

  Kveldulf crept around the jut of stone. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his knife. Steeling himself, not knowing what to fully expect, he crouched, tensed and leapt, rounding the corner at a run. The room was ablaze with blinding light. A huge bonfire roared in the centre of the room. Most of the smoke was bleeding out through a hole in the ceiling, but a lot of the sooty cloud still clung to the innards of the chamber. The woman was standing between the fire and Kveldulf. She was black and willowy, silhouetted by the flames. She turned to face Kveldulf immediately, her hair flagging around her shoulders For a moment he could have sworn that her eyes glowed with the same heat and ferocity as the fire behind.

  "Let go your sorceries," said Kveldulf. "I warn you just once."

  She paused. All her detail was hidden by the contrast of light and shadow. Kveldulf found it difficult to tell what she might be thinking or if she in fact wore any expression at all.

  He could smell it when the magic fell away from her, as the sorcery slid from her body, uncoiling and turning to nothing.

  "Robe yourself."

  She crouched down and reached for the heap of wool and linen. But as she rose, skirt draping in front of her, a black shadow before a fire before a blacker darkness behind, her other hand flicked out at Kveldulf. The swirl of magic that danced from her fingertips came too sudden for him to dodge. A charmed wind caught up soot and ashes and twisted them into a spear.

  Kveldulf raised a hand to cover his face and staggered back as his eyes stung under the cloud of grit, and his mouth and nose filled with ash. There was a scream from the
woman, though Kveldulf couldn't tell why. Barely able to draw breath, he wildly attacked the air, slashing at nothing, and cursing as a quick, pattering sound of footsteps edged around him and then diminished down the hall. He thought for a moment to trance himself and go after her in a dream-made body, but the pain was too much for him to be able to concentrate. Almost as soon as she was gone, the soot and ash in the room began to settle. The sorcery had not been skilfully woven, it wasn't able to keep itself alive after its maker was out of the space. It squirmed and died on the air too quickly for Kveldulf to understand in his mind what the spell had been meant to do beside blind him, if anything.

  When Kveldulf was finally able to wipe and blink away most of the soot from his face and watering eyes, he stumbled after the woman, down the rough-cut hall and to the black chamber beyond--a pause--the air was a hush--the woman was gone. He swore.

  Turning back, he retracted his way to the ashen room, eyes still painful. He looked it over, turning over some ritual objects, picking up tools of the art and discarding them. There was nothing here he could use unfortunately. It would have been too much of a stroke of luck for him to be able to refill his own charmer's kit. The fire guttered while he searched, and now smouldered rather than blazed; she must have been feeding it with sorcery rather than wood. That was lazy and dangerous. Or maybe just arrogant. Whoever had taught this woman her tricks had not bothered to teach her the perils. The witch-fire could easily have leapt the distance to her flesh and set her on fire too.

  He continued to search. Under the thin blanket of soot he found several uneven shapes. Kicking the ash off them, he found a broad, short dagger; a noose stained black with old blood; a crude piece of parchment with a skull drawn on it and words in a language Kveldulf didn't recognise scribbled around the periphery of the dead face.

  Clearing his throat, he spat away some of the taste of charcoal and soot. So it was a death sorcery. And this witch who was weaving a clumsy, hasty death spell had just minutes ago been in the chambers of her Ladyship Rosa.

  What did that mean?

  Something else in the room gnawed at him too. There was too much disturbance in the ash. He squinted and studied the ground. There were footprints, his, the witches, but also one other set. Something very large with massive paws had entered the room after him, leapt at the woman, then abruptly vanished. Was that the cause of the scream then? Wondering, he looked at the pawprints for a while. When his eyes began to hurt from the strain and the grit he decided he had to go.

  Once he was out in the hall, he discovered that the witch had left no footprints at all--more magic it seemed. Kveldulf, meanwhile, tramped a long train of sooty prints through the halls and corridors of the Toren. Having stopped at a barrel of water, his face was now wet and chill, streaked with runnels of grit, but cleaner. He could at least keep his eyes open without feeling the dust swim around his eyeballs. He arrived at the door of Rosa's chamber and began immediately hammering his fist into the wood. He got no response after eight knocks. On the ninth a pale, round face with clear worried eyes peered around a corner down the hallway. He didn't recognise her. Some other chambermaid.

  Kveldulf was feeling rather tired of chambermaids.

  "Good sir?" said the maid, though it didn't seem that she thought he was either good or a sir.

  His reply was a snarl. "Yes?"

  She opened her mouth to say something, then bobbed her head and turned and vanished. Kveldulf resumed pounding at the door.

  Some minutes later an echo of purposeful footsteps appeared and began moving steadily closer.

  "Dear Queen of Brightness. What are you doing?"

  The maid had returned, trailing meekly behind a larger, square-shouldered woman. Kveldulf took a moment to recognise Ermengarde. Also accompanying her was a pinch-faced, sneering-lipped man who was presumably a chamberlain, given his clothes and grotesquely heavy chain of keys.

  "I am knocking on the door of Lady Rosa."

  "Yes," said Ermengarde folding her arms, and staring with a practised air of disbelief and acumen. "That is plainly obvious. But why are you knocking on the door of Lady Rosa? And for that matter why are you covered in cobwebs and filth from head to toe?"

  "I have been attacked by an assassin. Not an hour ago the same assassin came out of this room." Kveldulf slammed his fist into the door. The whole thing shook in its arch. "Do you have a key? Otherwise I'm going for an axe."

  Ermengarde considered this a moment. She held out her hand, palm up. "Hefort. The key please."

  The chamberlain fumbled with his jangling ring and unfastened one iron key, then handed it to Ermengarde. "Step back. I shall look in on the Lady Rosa myself. Then, assuming my niece is alright we shall talk, you and I. Hefort, you will say nothing of this to anyone until I tell you otherwise." She glanced at the chambermaid. "You too Stefi, not a word. Understand?"

  They both nodded.

  Ermengarde bustled forward, cracked the door only enough for her to enter the room, and then shut it soundly behind her. Kveldulf was left standing in an uncomfortable silence outside. Hefort cleared his throat once, and tried a reluctant smile. Stefi just stood very still chewing on her lower lip, staring at the door.

  When Ermengarde appeared she was frowning but in a thoughtful way. She didn't seem either panicked or upset. "Herfort, stand guard here. I am going to fetch the apothecary. I was hard pressed to rouse Lady Rosa. She seems dizzy or faint or drunk to me. Once I was able to wake her and make her understand the question she told me that no one came or went from her room all day. You, huntsman, walk with me. You too, Stefi." They began in a direction that would take them to the apothecary's rooms. "Tell me about this assassin."

  "I don't know her name, station or rank. She was dressed as a chambermaid, but that may not mean anything except that she knows that people hardly ever glance twice at servants. She had a pocked face and walked with a limp, or at least does when around people. The moment she was sure she was alone, her limp was gone."

  "And what evidence do you have to accuse her?"

  "There is a chamber in the underhalls of the fortress. I can show you it. Within, you will find the tools of warlockry that are needed to work a death spell on a person. You have only my word that I surprised her in the midst of the ritual. After all, it could be that any number of persons in this accursed place are working dark magic in your cellars." He glared at her. "I am beginning to wonder."

  Although Stefi had gone quite pale, Ermengarde was calm and stern. "And you think you could recognise this woman?"

  "I can."

  "We've dozens of chambermaids in the Toren. And many of them go about their chores like mice in the walls. Unseen. Unnoticed. You're quite right. No one ever sees a servant. But pockmarks and a limp? That sounds like Merta. Wouldn't you say, Stefi?"

  "Margit, m'lady."

  "Where is Merta now? In the kitchens I think. Yes, I am quite sure of it."

  "Yes, m'lady. Scrubbing the stoves, m'lady. Though, it's Margit."

  "Did I ask for your interjection, Stefi?"

  "No, m'lady."

  "But it is Magirt you say?"

  "Yes, m'lady."

  "Fine. Run and fetch the apothecary. The huntsman and I shall proceed to the kitchens."

  With a dutiful, if harried, curtsy, Stefi scurried off through a door to the left. Ermengarde led Kveldulf through a different archway, down two flights of narrow stairs and then into the steaming, mildew-rank air of the kitchens. Blistering air churned out of stoves and fire-pots. The kitchen was a riot of tables piled with food in various states of preparation. Stockpots steamed and from the next room drifted the teasing smell of baking bread. The chief cook, overseeing the making of pastries on one table and cabbage mash on another, looked up with an unpleasant smile and trotted over. "What brings Madame Ermengarde to our little kitchen? Unexpected guests? A special request for the noble table?"

  "No. Is Merta here."

  "Margit," said Kveldulf.

  "Margit," repeated
Ermengarde. "Sorry. Too many names."

  The cook shrugged. The fat about his face swung about in loose folds as he did. "Over there." He gestured.

  "And she has been here scrubbing for how long?"

  "Well, let me see? Two hours, I would say, at the least. And before that she was mopping the floors and plucking hens."

  Ermengarde turned to Kveldulf. "Well?" she asked.

  "It can't be the same woman if she has been here under the eye of the cook."

  "Still," said Ermengarde, "best take a look at her face and be sure."

  Half buried headfirst in the innards of a huge, cold iron stove-front the young woman almost as sooty as Kveldulf was scrubbing furiously. Ermengarde stood over her as she said, "Margit. Come out from there and present yourself.

  The maid scrambled out backwards and stood up. "M'lady?" she stuttered. "I haven't done nothing wrong. Honest, if there's trouble about I've nothing to do with it."

  "Hold your tongue and be still," then, to Kveldulf, "Well?"

  Kveldulf stepped closer. He could see that the young woman was trembling. Her eyes were darting about, looking from him to Ermengarde and back again. Her face, her hair, her voice were the perfect match for the witch, but the smell was wrong. She didn't have the slightest trace of sorcery about her, and after working such witchery she should be stinking of spells. But not just that. It was also her basic smell too, her sweat and the dirt ground into her smock. It was all wrong.

  "Have you a sister?" asked Kveldulf.

  "Two, sir. Both married away and living in Wenderholme."

  "Wenderholme?"

  Ermengarde hummed to herself. "Two days ride to the north. I take it that this is not who we are looking for?"

  Kveldulf shook his head. His next words were barely above a whisper. "Though the resemblance is uncanny."

  Margit was wringing the end of her apron. "M'lady? Am I in trouble for somewhat?"

  It was Kveldulf who answered. "No."

  "Return to your duties, Merta."

  "Margit," said Margit, small as a mouse.

  They were well out of the kitchens before another word passed between them.

  "I've never heard of that one causing any trouble. I'd be shocked if she had anything to do with grim arts and murder."

  Kveldulf did not answer. This was troubling. Whoever... whatever... Kveldulf had followed into the depths of the under-caves had been wearing an illusion. But would she, or he, or it, be careless enough to wear the same disguise again? Probably not. Probably the thing was walking about now disguised as someone entirely different.

  Ermengarde poked at Kveldulf with her voice. "You mentioned sisters? There may be a cousin or other relation in the Toren. I will pass along some quiet words and have my chief-chambermaids keep an eye out for anything strange. Can you direct me to this chamber in the underhalls?"

  "Yes."

  "Now would be best." When Ermengarde spoke again it was with an almost casual air. "Who really hired you? Not Sigurd. That man is in many ways pleasant and charming, but he is not very bright. He wouldn't concoct a plan before crossing the room to piss."

  "Madame?"

  "Please. Do not take me for a fool. I have many flaws. I am stubborn and harsh, sometimes cold and often ill tempered, but I am certainly not a fool. You don't hunt deer or swine do you. Who hired you?"

  "You must be mistaken."

  "Must I? Well, have it your way then. But, I should thank you in future not to go stirring up fear and rumours. If you've suspicions, come to me first. We might have resolved this far more quietly. Now tongues will be wagging before dusk. No matter what Hefort said, the man is a terrible gossip, worse that a washerwife with three heads and five tongues." She looked at him with an unfriendly, professional eye. "What will you do now?"

  "Wait. Bide my time. The assassin will show herself again."

  "Good luck."

  Kveldulf walked by himself for a while in the gloomy halls. Grit and ash still stung the inside corners of his eyes where the tear ducts were trying to wash themselves out. He found his way back to his room, thinking of a bowl or water, or possibly even a few minutes in the icy stream below the castle.

  He walked inside, looked about for a bowl and had a terrible streak of pain tear down his back. Claws, cold and hairy grappled his face. There was a snickering laughter in the air as his head was pounded into the stone. Kveldulf bucked, kicked and threw the thing off his back. He got up and drew both his iron dagger and his silver, not knowing what to expect.

  The thing that was clinging to the wall looked like a nightmarish child, eyes of narrow moonlight, teeth of sharpened flint, its ears ran up to a point and its body was scraggly and elfin. It launched itself at Kveldulf again, shrieking.

  Kveldulf dropped his silver knife and caught the faer creature by the throat. They struggling and screamed and spat. The creature pressed close, and with a voice of storms and hail on water said, "King Alraun, bids you leave his realm. Now. Forever. Every day you dally another of us will come for you. And we shall be worse and worse, nightmare piled upon nightmare."

  Kveldulf said nothing. He managed to free his right hand from the creature's grip, and thrust the dagger, twisting the iron blade into the faer-thing. It screamed. Silver blood poured out and evaporated into a choking mist. Suddenly Kveldulf was holding nothing but air. It was dead.

  At that moment the door swung open.

  It was Ermengarde. There were three or four frightened faces behind her.

  Kveldulf was alone in the room, covered in his own blood, fog wreathing his feet, his skin torn and scratched. He had a dagger in each hand, and, no doubt, a manic look on his face too. He took a moment to catch his breath.

  He stood up and squared his shoulders as he put away his knifes.

  "I'm going for a wash in the stream." He picked up a rag to use as a towel, stepped around the speechless Ermengarde and servants. "And then after that I'm going to have a long chat with someone."

  He was halfway down the corridor before they started whispering.