“Please . . .” Percy said suddenly. “Your Grace must let us go.”
The Duke of Plaimes watched her, narrowing his eyes, thinking.
“What exactly are you, girl?” he said softly. I have heard the term ‘Death’s Champion’ used by men I usually consider fools. So, what is it, really?”
“I’ve been to Death’s Keep,” Percy admitted, knowing somehow it was not a bad thing to speak the truth now, before this man. “And there I have been given this ability and a purpose. Now I seek the Cobweb Bride, for I have the means to know where she is and to recognize her. I must bring her back to Death, in order to stop all this—this broken world.”
“Ah, yes, we live in a broken world indeed . . . now, especially. So, where is she, this Cobweb Bride who is the cause of all our earthly despair?”
“There!” And Percy pointed in the direction of the open gates.
The Duke raised one brow in surprise. “What, in Morphaea?”
Percy shrugged. “She is south of here, is all I know. I feel her.”
“You mean, like a bloodhound?” And the Duke’s serious face momentarily eased into a smile. “Can you sense her with your nose, you’re telling me?”
Beltain intervened. “That’s about as much as I understand it too,” he said. “She can somehow feel the dead, sniff out each individual death shadow, if you will.”
“You know,” the Duke mused, “this ability of yours can come in very handy.” He folded his arms, lingered, then ran one hand through the back of his stylishly trimmed dark hair.
Beltain and Percy both regarded him with the beginnings of worry.
“In fact,” Duke Andre Eldon said, “I will be heading in the exact same direction as you . . . so I think having your miracle girl along for the ride will be an excellent thing indeed. And no, fear not, I will not hold you back on your quest. In fact, I condone this mission of yours with all my reason, and will support you—discreetly—in any way I can. However, let us ride together, at least as far as the common direction takes us.”
Beltain nodded with some relief. “Yes, that will work out well.”
“Indeed it shall!” The Duke brightened again, and once more slapped Beltain’s armored thigh, making the metal plates ring at the minor impact. “It’s settled then, we ride! My way, incidentally, lies all the way to the Balmue border, which right now is a sorry mess. There’s been fighting, since before dawn, if not earlier, we have learned—possibly through the night. According to the latest reports, they are barely holding the lines. And so, I do believe your presence—both of yours, the girl and your own damn self and your force of arms—will be a boon. What’s your name, by the way, girl?”
“Percy Ayren, Your Grace.”
“Well met, Percy Ayren! Now, both of you give me a few moments to prepare my horse. I thought I’d be riding with only a single man-at-arms to have at my back—since, by my own orders, no more men can be spared from the citadel’s Imperial defenses—and instead I get the blessed unholy likes of you, Chidair! Hah! Fortune has smiled on me!”
And the Duke went off in a hurry to make himself ready for the journey.
As soon as the Duke of Plaimes joined them, armored and astride a blood bay charger, they rode through the southern gates of the Silver Court and into the Kingdom of Morphaea.
Percy gazed before them in relentless wonder, for until last night she had never stepped foot outside the Kingdom of Lethe, and the Silver Court was such a world unto itself that it had not really sunk in that she was away from her native land—not until now.
Ahead of them was a snow-covered plain. Nothing too drastically different from the basic landscape of Lethe. That is, until she cast her eyes upon the distant horizon.
There, among the white pallor, was a faint shadow of green and earth-brown, as the distant and verdant rolling hills of Morphaea revealed themselves through the haze of morning mist.
Eventually, winter would come to an end. Morphaea was a land of temperate transition, from a mixed weather clime on the northern tip near the Silver Court—where they were now—to the southern border with the Domain Kingdom of Balmue where began endless summer. At the lower bottom end of Morphaea was the capital city Duorma, just a little away from the foreign border.
However, that warm portion of the Kingdom was many, many leagues away. First, they had to ride through snow along a familiar winding road that looked very much like Lethe.
“So, tell me,” Lord Beltain Chidair said to the Duke, “what is really going on in the Imperial Realm? What is this sudden great war that comes to us?”
“Not sudden at all, but the culmination of oh-so-many things,” replied the slightly older man.
And for the next hour, the Duke of Plaimes spoke of things that made very little sense to Percy, as she listened, while leaning drowsily against Beltain’s chest. There were intricate army movements and details of chain of command, and talk of Kings and generals, and something about the one referred to as the Sovereign—an all-powerful woman who was the supreme ruler of the Domain, and the equivalent of the Realm’s own Emperor. They called her Rumanar Avalais, and the Duke’s voice dipped into a half-conscious whisper every time he mentioned her.
“Who is she, this Sovereign?” Percy suddenly asked. “And why does she want to invade us?”
“A fine question,” retorted the Duke, without being the least bit patronizing—which Percy appreciated. “We have all asked this question for years, as we bade our time and continued to send our skilled agents into our hostile neighbor’s house. And we discovered no easy answer—for indeed, it turns out that despite all our watching and careful investigating, no one truly knows who the Sovereign is, or the full extent of her motives for conquest. And thus, an even better question arises: why now? Why attack the Realm during a time of common crisis? Death’s cessation affects the Domain and the rest of the world as much as it affects us.”
“Maybe,” ventured Percy, “Death’s stopping is somehow related to this—this war.”
“What a smart girl you are, Percy Ayren.” The Duke looked at her with a sharp look of appraisal, and then glanced back at the black knight. “I see now why you have undertaken to look after her, Beltain. She is no mere country wench.”
“I have been instructed to see her through till the end of her quest, and assist in any manner possible,” Beltain replied in an even voice, looking directly ahead at the road, and his expression remained entirely impassive.
So impassive it was, that His Grace the Duke of Plaimes took careful note.
At around noon, as they continued following the road, among occasional cart and pedestrian traffic, there came a strange sense of unrest.
It was nearly impossible to pinpoint, and the only comparison Percy could make was the time at Letheburg when she recognized the heavy sensation of the many dead.
This time the uncanny sensation had a different quality—not a tightly enclosing fist or circular vise, coming to choke her from all directions, but a general loose oppression, approaching like a wide sweeping wave from the south, and behind it an ocean of immense power rising, looming at the edges of the horizon.
“There is something coming. . . .” whispered Percy, straining her face into the oncoming cold wind.
“What is it?” said Beltain.
“What? What can you see?” Duke Andre Eldon asked, with an expression of immediate concern.
“I can tell that the Cobweb Bride is still far beyond, in that direction. But, she is no longer as far away as she was only moments ago. . . .”
The Duke frowned. “I am not sure I understand.”
Percy strained to see, hear, look, into the south. She reached out with all of her being, willing herself to take flight like a hawk into the noonday winter sky. With a tingling at the back of her head, with tiny hairs rising along her skin, she could just about feel it, the sense of aerial lift, the soaring.
She imagined what was before her. Death, through its infinite shadow manifestations, was present
all throughout the fabric of the mortal world, permeating it. By seeing death’s many locus points of entity-shadows, like dots on a map, she could see the geography of the land itself. Yet in that boundless panorama of her inner vision, the many leagues of the world spreading out before her had suddenly lost cohesion, became malleable—rising like bubbles on the surface of a boiling liquid, then popping out of existence. As a result, the surface area of the entire land became abbreviated, then came together at the newly formed seams, only now it was shorter. . . . In each spot the land was pulled, compressed, then shrunken down upon itself, as though a pocket had been taken out of the fabric of the world.
And putting all the missing land pockets together, it amounted to an area the size of more than half a Kingdom.
Percy comprehended it, and in the same instant she put her hands up to her mouth.
“Percy!” Beltain was speaking to her, his gauntlet lightly shaking her shoulder.
“I actually felt it . . . just now, I felt another portion of the world fade,” she replied. “Like those disappearing streets in Letheburg, like Fioren town. . . . And because it is a portion that lies directly before us, somewhere past that green haze, the distances within it have been shortened. . . . Now that everything is closer, I can feel so many dead approaching our way!—as though swept here by a great divine hand, narrowing the distance in the blink of an eye. A great scattered army, from horizon to horizon! The Cobweb Bride is out there, yes, but first, these endless hordes of the dead will come. Oh, Lord in Heaven! The siege around Letheburg is a small platoon compared to their numbers!”
“An army of the dead?” the Duke mused, his face paling. “No! Impossible! And you say they breached our borders already? So, that is what was meant by a black rose. . . .”
“How close are they?” Beltain did not blink, merely reached back with his right gauntlet, resting it on the pommel of his sword.
“I believe . . . they will be upon us within the hour.”
Chapter 18
Lady Amaryllis Roulle, with the help of Lord Nathan Woult, was the first to step into the boat. It rocked lightly under her delicate step, and with a small cry Amaryllis grabbed Nathan’s outstretched gentlemanly hand for balance.
Such strange, sweet, breathtaking, treacle-sugary terror! To know that the silver-spun black waters underneath her—underneath the floor of faded wood slats of this rickety boat—were nothing but a flimsy bit of illusion born of twilight!
As soon as Amaryllis settled on the narrow middle bench, gathering her fine burgundy skirts about her, Nathan proffered her their precious burning lantern.
“Here, dearest, hold this thing, for it feeds our means of transport and in that sense our entire journey! Now, be careful not too breathe too much upon it, nor let the oil slosh around within the reservoir flask, else we extinguish the light and with it the river. Also, do keep it upright and raised just so, else the light will not properly reach the waters—”
“Not another word, Nathan, really, I am not a half-wit. I am quite aware of the magnitude of this lantern and all its philosophical implications. Now, please hurry and board, before we lose any more time and, Heaven forbid, someone comes to check on the prisoners!”
With His Lordship’s continued gentlemanly assistance, the remaining girls climbed on board. First came Regata, slim and careful, and she took a seat in the front, closer to the bow. Then, little blond and fair Faeline came on, and she clambered lightly to sit behind Regata. Sybil was next, and she lingered in uncertainty, unwilling to take even a few extra steps deeper than necessary into this questionable vessel. At last, very slowly and awkwardly she climbed in behind Amaryllis and sat in the boat’s rear portion at the stern.
Finally, Catrine made a grimace, glaring with distrust at the fey running waters on both sides of the boat that Nathan held with one hand, keeping it momentarily anchored close to shore. And then she muttered a prayer, said a hearty curse, and climbed in, finding a spot next to Sybil and behind Amaryllis.
Lord Nathan Woult was the last one on shore. He threw one look back at the cavernous dungeon chamber where a few of the freed girls wandered, most of them staring with cautious curiosity at the progress of the brave escapees in the boat.
“Ahoy, there!” he said to the girls left behind. “As soon as we float away, I strongly suggest one of you run along immediately and light that lantern on the wall, else there will be no river and many highly unpleasant questions. Besides, you do want light for yourself in this cave, do you not? Just in case there are behemoths—”
“Enough, Nathan!” Amaryllis tugged the filthy remnants of lace at his sleeve, and he went quiet with a light wicked smile on his face. He then took the oars and stepped into the boat, claiming a bench seat in the middle, just in front of Amaryllis, where the rowlocks were attached.
As soon as the boat was released from shore, it started to float gently on the current in the direction of the distant cavernous tunnels at the farthest end of the cave. Nathan fiddled with the oars at the rowlocks, making sure they were held in place as properly as he imagined they ought to be. And in the meantime the boat simply drifted slowly like a swan until it had gone away far enough from shore that their solitary light started to diminish, if viewed from the banks.
“Oh! It’s fading now! The river near here is gone!” a girl’s voice spoke from the shore, her voice carrying in echoes. “It is getting dark too, should I light the lantern on the wall?”
“Not just yet!” Nathan responded from the boat. “Wait till we are completely out of sight. If you light another one too soon, remember, it will be too much illumination! The river will disappear likewise, and we shall plummet down very unpleasantly!” His voice also echoed and reverberated from the growing distance.
“All right then, Lordship!” spoke another girl on the shore. “Fare well!”
“You too!” cried Catrine from the boat, waving. “Please be prayin’ for us!”
And in another few breaths they had reached the end of the cavern and the opening of a tunnel.
“Oh dear . . .” said Amaryllis. “I just had a very dire thought.”
“You, a dire thought? So, what is it now, Amaryllis, sweet?”
But Amaryllis frowned, clutching the lantern frame with her still hand. “The tunnel is going to narrow, my dear boy. You—clever scholar of nature that you are—you do know the implications of this, for our lamp?”
“What implications?” Nathan spoke, knowing he was not going to like the answer one little bit.
“Why, only that in a smaller enclosed space the light will appear brighter than in the middle of a grand cavern! It will reflect off the nearby walls of the tunnel, and dispel the twilight to a degree that will make our river fade!”
“But it is the same light, is it not?” asked Faeline.
“Sure it is,” Catrine responded. “But a candle at open sea has nuttin’ but open spaces ’round it, so there’s nuttin’ to shine off, an’ so it looks teeny tiny! I know, ’cause my Pa’s been on a sea-boat way down south, after they been out robbin’—beggin’ pardon! But once you stick a candle in a closet, the whole closet goes all bright! I get it!”
“Well, well . . .” Nathan went so still he nearly released his grip on the oars.
“Ladyship,” Sybil said politely. “If the light starts being too much, try putting the palm of your hand around the lamp, maybe?”
“By Leonardo and his nonpareil genius! By his bright Italian soul that even now rests with the angels and no doubt observes our curious plight!” Nathan exclaimed, with an excited glance at Sybil. “Girl, this is a thought invention worthy of Da Vinci himself!”
“In other words, you suggest, my sweet boy,” Amaryllis said, “that I treat the lantern as if it were a mechanical device, or better yet, an instrument of dulcet music, and play it with my fingers to increase or decrease the amount of light?”
“Not I, but this fine girl with very red hair and a marvelous philosophical grasp!”
??
?Well, I am afraid, such a virtuoso shadowbox performance might be too much even for me.” And Amaryllis offered the lantern to Sybil. “It is all yours, my dear. You’ve conceived it, now you must call upon your own technique and bring it to fruition. Quickly now, tell your nimble fingers to start playing!”
And in the next moment they entered the narrow tunnel.
Sybil grabbed the lantern, but then handed it right back to Amaryllis the next second, for their boat sharply dipped, and was sinking downward—while some of the girls let out shrieks, “Less light! Less light!”—and the river started to fade, quite in proportion to how much the stone walls of the tunnel lit up in sudden pallor and iridescence. “I have an even better idea, Ladyship,” she cried, “you hold it, and I will cover it up!”
Amaryllis received the lantern back, and Sybil loosely closed her hands around it, so that the somewhat diminished light streamed between her trembling fingers. It took her just a few heartbeats to get the amount of light necessary to keep the twilight at a sufficient level that it maintained the river.
“Well, that was rather exciting,” Nathan muttered, gripping the oars with white knuckled hands. “Indeed, are you pleased now, Amaryllis? Are things entertaining enough now, or has the ennui returned to plague you?”
“Oh, sweet Mother o’ God an’ the angels . . .” Catrine muttered under her breath. “I just about crapped my guts!”
But the lady had no time to answer, since the walls of the tunnel widened around them, and they were now passing through another cavern-like bubble formation underground, with a lofty fathomless ceiling and endless dripstone rocks rising and falling from the sky in icicles.
Once more the river started to fade, and this time everyone cried, “More light!”
Sybil took her fingers away and the lantern shone its full light upon the wide lake-like expanse of the water around them.
“Another thing occurs to me,” Amaryllis said. “We have no notion where this river goes, or how far. We are merely floating aimlessly along, in hopes of coming upon something, an opening above ground, or any blessed way out. But—what if there are none? What if, indeed, this strange magical river floats downward into the depths of the earth, straight to hell itself?”