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Chapter 11
Into Shadows

Perimal Darkling: 14th-21st of Winter

JAME ENTERED the shadows of Karkinaroth warily. At first, though, that was all they seemed to be, just an obscurity lying over the rich features of the palace, dulling the crimson carpet, turning the purple and gold hangings gray. The light spheres burned more and more dimly. Between them, the details of the palace seemed to fade, or rather almost to melt. New depths opened up in the shadows, reaching back to distant walls. Between the circles of light, the coldness of the floor struck through Jame's thin boots. Here was pavement that had never known the touch of a carpet. Now the light spheres were only faint glows bobbing in midair. A few hints of the palace's architecture hung ghostlike about them, but that was all. Karkinaroth had disappeared.

But where was she now?

Jame went on, shivering slightly in this colder air. Outside windowless Karkinaroth there had been the warm, southern land of Karkinor. What lay beyond these walls . . . and what was that smell? It surrounded her now, vaguely sweet, vaguely rotten, like the fetid perfume of decay. The very walls seemed to exude it. How frighteningly familiar it was, and how dull of her not to recognize it.

A doorway opened between the phantom light of two spheres. Jame almost went past it, thinking it was some strange tapestry woven of shadows, but a breath of air came out of it. She entered. Her memory told her that if she had continued down the hallway in Karkinaroth and turned at this door, she would have found herself in the palace's main ballroom. This too was a room, but an even more enormous one. Jame walked out into it. Her soft boots made no sound on the dark, green-shot floor, woke no echoes in the impossibly high vault of its ceiling. Around its walls hung rank upon rank of memorial banners. In a normal Kencyr hall, these traditionally were tapestry portraits of the Highborn dead, woven of threads taken from the clothes in which each man or woman had died. Usually, the faces were calm and the hands held low and open, crossed at the wrists in benediction. But the faces on these banners grimaced hideously. Their hands clutched tattered clothing. Dark stains as if of dried blood streaked the walls beneath.

Jame looked about with growing horror. Surely this was the big picture-lined hall that her mother had described to her all those years ago; but the pictures were portraits of the dead, and they all looked so starved because . . . because the souls had been eaten out of them. But how could she know that? Then, too, there were so many of them. Too many? Why in Perimal's name should she think that? She had never actually been in this hall before—or had she?

At the far end of the hall was a huge fireplace, the trunks of several trees piled in it. Fur rugs covered the cold hearth. More complete rugs with snarling masks, were nailed to the wall above. They were all pelts of Arrin-ken.

Her mother hadn't told her that, but she had remembered it in the dream that had first awakened her in Karkinaroth. Surely, she knew more about this place than any story could have told her. She had stood here before in her dreams, in the flesh. This was the great hall of the Master's House, where her father's cruelty had driven her so many years ago, where she had spent her forgotten childhood. She was in Perimal Darkling.

Jame turned to bolt, but the door by which she had entered was gone. She was trapped.

Jame stood in the middle of that vast hall under the eyes of the dead and began to shake. Far too many memories were pressing against that wall in her mind. If they all broke through at once, if suddenly she remembered everything . . .

No, she told herself. Keep control. Let through only what will help. You've bumbled through most of your life in stark, staring ignorance. Don't stop now. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. All right. Now stop shaking and go find your friends.

. . . and the sword and the ring and the Book and the Prince . . .

Trinity, was everyone and everything lost but her, or was she the most lost of them all? Don't answer that. Just go.

Jame went—across the hall, through an archway, into the depths of the House. As the Talisman, she had learned how to move like a shadow among shadows, and so she did now, every sense alert, every nerve taut. Everything was so big, so empty. High-vaulted passageways, broad stone stairs spiraling up or down, more corridors, more halls. Everywhere, cold stone and colder shadows. But where was everyone?

Dead, said a familiar voice as if in her ear. They're all dead.

"Marc?" She spun about, Nothing. No one. It must have been her imagination. Forget it.

Now, where might a prisoner be held? Not one of the archways she had passed so far had even been hung with a door. A cold, thin wind breathed unhindered through the twisting ways. Something kept Jame from calling. The place seemed deserted, but who (or what) might hear?

Jame went on. There was a sort of horrible fascination about this, as if at any minute her forgotten past might spring at her from some dark corner. A terrified, outcast child had come to this place and emerged the person she was now. Someone had taught her the meaning of honor; someone had taught her how to reap souls. Thanks to those lost years, she was a paradox, a creature of both light and darkness.

And Master Gerridon, what of him? Before his fall, the long retreat from Perimal Darkling had been bitter, but at least endurable for it had been done with honor. After, even the descendents of those who had fled his evil felt tainted by it. And that evil still existed . . . didn't it? Marc had seen at least three score of the Master's folk three years ago when they had swept down on East Kenshold from the smoking ruins of her own old home, still looking for her and the Book. In fact, Marc had even seen Gerridon himself, sitting his black horse on a hilltop, watching East Kenshold's sack.

His face would have been in shadows, Jame thought, and his upright form shrouded in a patchwork cloak of stolen souls. One gauntleted hand, the right, would have gripped the reins while the other, mere emptiness in a silver glove, rested on the stallion's ebony neck.

That left hand when it was still flesh and blood, reaching out to her between the red ribbons of a curtained bed. . . . "So you've lost a father, child," a soft voice said. "I will be another one to you and much, much more." The hand closed on her wrist. In a blind panic, she slashed at it again and again until . . .

No. Jame leaned against a wall, shaking. She wouldn't remember that. She wouldn't.

But what if the only way to find Marc and Jorin was to open her mind fully to the past? She might once have known where prisoners were held. Did she dare take the risk? And why was she so sure that it was a risk? Something here was already tugging at her. She didn't feel as frightened as she had at first, or as repulsed. Even that pervasive smell of decay was losing its disagreeable tang. Once this place had been home. Once she had been accepted here as, perhaps, she never would be anywhere else. But it could never be home again.

Remember that, she told herself with sudden anger. And remember what terrible things have happened here. Remember where you are.

Prisoners . . . something about a cage without bars, but what had that been, and where? Perhaps something farther along would give her a hint. She pushed herself away from the wall and went on, deeper into the House.

All her senses, all her thoughts began to lose their edges. She drifted, feeling half asleep, dimly wishing after a time that she could sleep or at least find something to drink. Her mouth felt full of dust. How long had she been walking anyway? It felt like days. She began to have a vague feeling that the rooms through which she wandered weren't entirely unoccupied after all. Dim light and shadow became silent figures standing ghostlike in this corner or that. Their empty eyes followed her. Perhaps to them she was the ghost.

The wind blew in her face. She had been following it for some time without realizing it, but now its strength and the curious smell borne on it half roused her. She was facing an archway, its upper curve shaped like a mouth. Once it had been walled up. Now massive blocks lay tumbled about it like broken teeth, and the wind blew through them. The smell was . . . unearthly. Something dead, something alive, many things in between. . . . The light in the room beyond was strange too, a sort of shifting green. Jame stepped between the blocks, through the archway. The light came from a window, the first she had seen in this place. The window was barred. Vines curtained it with leaves and white flowers, shaped like bloodless, pouting lips, with glimpses between them of a sickly yellow sky.

Barred windows, unearthly landscapes . . . this was like that step-back room in the Anarchies.

Jame hugged herself, shivering. Old songs claimed that the Master's House stretched back down the Chain of Creation from threshold world to world. Until Gerridon's fall, the Kencyrath had even used the House itself as an escape route during their long retreat, sealing off each section, each world, behind them when they could no longer hold it. Nothing could have shattered those seals from the far side. Nothing had. It had taken a Kencyr's treachery to break down the barriers between the worlds, to open the farthest, long-abandoned rooms of the House where shadows crawled and changers were made.

This was clearly not a good place to be. Jame backed toward the archway.

From the window came a low sigh, as if from many throats. Something white shot past Jame's face, trailing green. The vine wrapped itself around her neck. Another caught her arm, and another and another. They jerked her a step back toward the window. She clawed at those around her neck, but they only tightened. The white flower lips sighed in her ear, nuzzled against her throat. They began to turn pink, then red. Blood thundered in her ears. Vaguely, she felt the iron bars press against her back, felt the strength go out of her legs.

Then someone was beside her. A knife flashed—it was all white, hilt and blade, she noted in a dazed way—and the red lips fell away with a whispered shriek. Leaves rained down, already withered. She was on the floor now, and someone was bending over her: a man with a face as emaciated as any on the death banners in the Master's hall.

Shouts. The man jumped up and darted away, deeper into the House.

"Terribend, you fool, wait! You three guards, after him!"

Retreating footsteps, running.

Someone else bent over her now. Fair hair, a young face, silver-gray eyes . . .

"Prince Odalian?"

He smiled. "Close enough. You had gotten yourself into a mess, hadn't you? Some things never seem to change. Let's see." He tilted her chin one way, then the other. "Not much damage, luckily, although you've probably lost a fair amount of blood. Can you stand?"

She tried and lurched into his arms. "Damn."

"Never mind." He picked her up. She was surprised at such strength in one so slight.

"Size isn't everything," he said, just as if she had spoken. "Neither is strength. But then you should know that. Hang on."

He carried her through the archway back into the gray halls. From his swift, sure stride, it was clear that he knew exactly where he was going.

"Prince, what did you call that man?"

He went on a few paces without answering. Then, "Bender is one of his names. It will do."

She could have sworn that Odalian had called the fugitive Terribend, but that was the name of Tirandy's brother, the one who had disappeared from song and history at the time of the Fall. Bender? That sounded familiar too, but she couldn't quite place it. If only her head would stop spinning . . .

The Prince put her down on a bed. She looked around in amazement at the apartment's rich furnishings. Had he taken her back into the palace, or was this some oasis among the House's bleak rooms? She guessed the latter. White wine splashed into a crystal cup. Odalian stood for a moment by the fire, frowning at the glass. Then he brought it over to the bed and thrust it almost roughly into Jame's hands.

"Here."

She drank thirstily, noting without really paying attention that it had the same unfamiliar after taste as the wine she had drunk earlier, only this time the tang was much sharper. Her head swam alarmingly.

"Wine on an empty stomach," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking the cup from her. "I don't suppose you remembered to pack any provisions for this mad expedition of yours. No, of course not. You never did take a sensible interest in food."

She stared at him. The way he spoke, the way he moved, both were so very familiar and yet surely she had never met the Prince before. She had only known what he looked like because of Lyra's clumsy portrait, and that had barely suggested anything beyond his general coloration. Wait a minute . . .

"Odalian's eyes are brown," she said, drawing herself back in the bed away from him. "Yours are gray, like mine. Who are you?"

Those steady gray eyes regarded her as if through a mask that was Odalian's face. "You don't remember me. Good. But you've probably at least guessed what I am."

She nodded, her throat suddenly dry despite the wine. "You're another changer. What have you done to the Prince?"

"I?" He gave a sudden harsh laugh. "Personally, very little. I came to see him the night he sent his message to the Kencyr High Council asking for help. He thought I was Torisen. We can approximate virtually any form, you know, until the shadows get too much of a grip on us, as they have on Keral, whose acquaintance I believe you renewed in the Ebonbane. At any rate, I told the Prince that I had decided to confirm him as a full ally of the Kencyrath before our forces met. He was pleased, especially when I offered to seal myself first to the pact by blood rites. Once I had tasted his blood willingly given, I was able to take his form."

"But not exactly."

"No, not quite. The eyes have always given me trouble. It takes many rebirths in the farthest rooms of the House to make one . . . er . . . malleable enough to get all the details correct, even with the full blood rites."

"But too many rebirths result in something like Keral, who can no longer hold any true shape," said Jame, trying to sound defiant. "It seems to me that you changers have a pretty limited usefulness."

"Oh, yes. Our prime only lasts a millennium or so, by Rathillien standards. Good endures, I'm told. Well, perhaps. But I know from experience that evil eventually decays, as my lord Gerridon is beginning to learn. But we were discussing Prince Odalian. He was understandably surprised to find himself face to face with even a flawed copy of himself, and even more amazed when a moment later he was taken in charge by three of his own suborned guards. Then I opened the barriers between Karkinaroth and the Master's House, and they took him into the farthest rooms. There they left him, chained."

Jame shuddered. "My God, what a vicious thing to do!"

"Yes, wasn't it? But my lord Gerridon insisted. 'So the little prince wants to be a Kencyr—like you. Very well. Grant him his wish.' So I did. My lord has . . . strange whims sometimes."

Jame stared at him, struck by his tone. "Why, you hate this, don't you? You loathe what you've done. But why do it at all? Why is it so important that you take the Prince's place?"

"Poor Jamie. No one ever explains anything to you, do they? If Gerridon had the last time, you might not have panicked, and he would still have both hands. I won't make that mistake. You see, there's been a revolt among the changers. Some of them have taken over the Waster Horde and are leading it against the Kencyrath. Others of their number have tried several times now to kill both you and your brother: you, because of the blow your death would deal to the Master; your brother, because at present he alone seems to be holding the Kencyrath together. If the rebel changers should finally succeed in eliminating him, before or even during the final battle, the Horde will surely defeat the Host."

"But wouldn't that please the Master?"

"In itself, yes, but then the rebels plan to use the Wasters to take over all of Rathillien to serve as a base against their former master. That prospect does not please my lord at all. He intends to pit his two enemies—the Kencyrath and the rebel changers— against each other. Whoever loses, Gerridon wins. But at the moment he's far angrier at the renegades than at the Highlord, so I have been ordered to sacrifice every man in the Prince's army if necessary to support the Host against the Horde."

"B-but the real prince would have done that, too."

"Oh yes, but consider the aftermath. If by some miracle the Host actually wins, there Prince Odalian is, ready to claim subject ally status. Torisen is a fair man. He won't refuse after all those Karkinorans have died fighting by his side. And when I have tasted his blood, why, I can replace him. Then, through me, Gerridon of Knorth will again be Highlord of the Kencyrath."

She recoiled from him. "And when you and your precious Master have accomplished all this, what happens to Tori? Will you chain him up in the shadows, too?"

"No. My lord may wish it, but I would never do such a thing to one of my lady's children. Of course," he went on thoughtfully, "if these were the full ally rites in which both sides drink, my blood would probably kill him on the spot, just as it would have Odalian if he had drunk first. Considering that changers' blood is corrosive enough to eat through tempered steel, it would be an excruciating way to die. The only worse fate I can think of would be that of a changer tricked into the rites with a Shanir blood-binder. The contest between the two bloods in his system would probably tear the changer to pieces, but I have no idea if even that would kill him.

"But as for your brother, I promise: no chains in the dark, no death agonies. You see, all parts of a changer are virulent to some degree. My saliva in Torisen's palm cuts will give me at least enough control over him to make his assassination relatively easy. He will die quickly, painlessly, probably within an hour of the rites. My word of honor on it."

"Honor!" She almost spat the word back at him. "Do you still have any?"

A stillness came into that stolen face. The eyes took on a silver, inhuman sheen. Jame drew back, suddenly reminded that she was in very close quarters with something very dangerous. Then the changer rose and backed stiffly away until the shadows of a corner obscured his face.

"Honor," he repeated, in a voice clearly not the Prince's. "Define it."

Jame was shaken. This was all so familiar, but her head was spinning worse now than ever, and she couldn't quite grasp the memory. "W-we've discussed this before, haven't we?"

"Many times. But you were a child then. Perhaps, since then, you've learned something."

Jame found herself stammering something about always keeping one's word, standing by friends, protecting the weak. . . . It all sounded perfectly idiotic blurted out like that, but she couldn't seem to focus her thoughts.

"Honor," said the changer again in his dark corner. "I used to be as sure as you that I knew what it was. One kept one's word. One obeyed one's lord. But then my lord ordered me to do what was dishonorable. I decided the shame was his alone and did as he commanded. I was wrong. But that was my choice, and I must stand by it. That is my honor now, for as long as I live. May I die soon."

"B-but that's 'Honor's Paradox'!" Jame stammered. "Tirandys, Senethari . . . c-can you die?"

"Fire will kill me, if it kindles my blood." He gave a self-mocking laugh. "We changers scorned death, and now each one of us is his own pyre, waiting for the first spark. I have often thought about that." He went over to the fireplace, bent, and picked up a glowing ember in his bare hand. "I could hold this until it eats through the skin—"

"Don't!"

"No." He tossed the ember back into the flames. "Not yet, while I still have a role to play, and not here. If I ever do fall, let it be far from this foul house. If only there were someplace so far away that my lady Jamethiel would not be sent to bring me back; but she will be, even if I should fall at the worlds' end. My lord Gerridon can't allow any of his loyal changers the luxury of death. He has too few of us left."

"Too few . . . is everyone else dead or . . . or has the House always been this empty?"

"For you, very nearly. You have always been confined to the House's decayed present. The rest of us whom the Master favors can move through layers of its fallen past, not that that does us much good. Nothing ever changes. We tried to teach you the trick, but you were too young."

"Yes, yes . . ." Oh, if her head would only stop spinning. . . . "I almost remember. B-but all those death banners . . . Tirandys, what's been happening here? Why did the changers revolt?"

"Why, quite simply the Master has very nearly devoured all the Highborn souls that the Mistress reaped for him on the night so many of us fell. That puts my lord Gerridon in rather an uncomfortable position. If immortality alone would satisfy him, he could accept the tainted souls which Perimal Darkling offers as gifts—or rather as bait. The shadows wish to enfold my lord, to . . . to possess him. He served them best as Highlord when he betrayed his people and opened up the fallen worlds. Now they would have him serve them as their creature, their voice. It would be only justice for him to lose the humanity which he has bartered away in his followers, but he is far too clever a man to make so great an error—I think. If he wishes to remain both immortal and human, he must have more of his own kind to feed on, or he can turn on the Kendar and changers."

"Y-you still have your soul, Senethari?"

"Yes, however warped. All of us do who willingly took part in the Master's treachery. That was to be our reward. The changers who have rebelled did so because they were afraid that as my lord's hunger grew he would go back on his word and find a way to feed on them, too. As for those whose souls the Dream-Weaver did reap, most have become unfallen sacrifices to buy Gerridon his immortality. My brother Terribend is one. Poor Bender. He weakened for a moment, and his soul was stripped from him. Ever since, he has fought to regain it and to bring Gerridon to ruin; but the Master is stronger than he and keeps his soul hostage. He won't believe that he and I have the same goals. In a sense, the Dream-Weaver herself is another one of Gerridon's victims. She was only his tool and may yet save her compromised honor by choosing to disobey him. I would gladly give what remains of both my honor and soul to see that."

"I-I don't understand," said Jame, through teeth that had begun to rattle together as if from the cold. "The Master has nearly run through his stolen Highborn souls. He needs more. Why can't he go back into the House's past for them or—or have the Mistress reap more for him in the present?"

"He can't go back for more because the past doesn't work that way. We can go through the same motions over and over, but they only really happened once, and nothing can change them, not even our foreknowledge of their consequences. The past is past, even when we move freely in it. As for the Dream-Weaver, she has lived almost entirely in the House's former days since she came back from the Haunted Lands. My poor lady may not have consented to the Master's evil, but it was still too great to leave her unmarked. Now when she comes forward to the present, it can only be as the fell creature she has become, which reaps souls with a touch whether she wants to or not, and she can neither give them back nor pass them on. The Master can only use her to bring home his injured changers, most of whose souls, like Kera's and mine, are so deformed by now that they resist even her touch. Gerridon foresaw long ago that this would eventually happen. When he found that opening the House to its fallen past didn't help, he sent Jamethiel Dream-Weaver across the Barrier to Ganth Gray Lord. You were the child that he wanted. Your brother came as an unwelcome surprise, just as, I gather, you did to Ganth. Twins have too much potential of their own. They don't lend themselves well to other people's schemes. Gerridon found that out when he tried to force you prematurely to become the new Mistress. You hadn't fallen then. You haven't yet . . . quite. Perhaps now, you never will."

His words seemed to break over Jame in waves—swelling, crashing down, receding. She knew she wasn't taking them all in. Only once before had she been drunk, and it hadn't felt anything like this. This felt more like . . . dying?

You fool, do you always drink everything anyone hands you?

She tried to rise and fell, an interminable distance, it seemed. Now she was half on the bed, half in the changer's arms. She looked up at him, astonished.

"Senethari, y-you've poisoned me."

"Yes. With wyrm's venom in the wine. You drank some seven days ago when you first woke in Karkinaroth, and a great deal more just now."

"B-but why?"

"My lord commanded that you be drugged. He wants to take no chances with you this time, you see. It occurred to me, though, that you would be much better off dead, especially since that would end the horror for all of us, too. Oh, not immediately —the Master still has a few souls left to munch on—but soon, unless he's fool enough to take what the shadows offer him. Then too, this is a game that should be played out among my lord Gerridon's own generation, which he betrayed and damned for his own selfish ends. You should never have been brought into it, Jamie. Strictly speaking, you should never even have been born. This is the next best solution. Large doses of wyrm's venom have unpredictable results, however. I don't know if I've killed you or not. You do understand, though, that I've tried to act in your own best interests, don't you?"

She was still staring up at him with wide gray eyes, but all understanding had left them. The lids fluttered and closed. He held her for a long minute, looking down at her face, then carefully picked her up and put her back on the bed.

"If the worst happens, child, if you do survive, at least I've taught you the Senethar by my example and honor by my mistakes." He kissed her lightly on the lips. "Welcome home, Jamie."

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