My steps faltered; my hand flew to my mouth. A glance in any direction revealed horror in a thousand variations. From the left an ocean of blood rose up in a towering wave, threatening to engulf my three companions.
Kellea hesitated, shielding her eyes with one arm; Paulo flung his arms around her, ducking his head into her shoulder.
“Look straight ahead!” shouted Bareil, urging them onward with his small hands. “Nothing will harm you.”
A cobra with the girth of a tree towered over me, spreading its hood, its hiss like a finger of ice caressing my spine. Shuddering, fighting my urge to retreat, I dragged my eyes from the vileness to either side and fixed them in front of me.
A smooth band of white light stretched before us into the gloom, and as if his arms had reached out and enfolded me, I felt the embrace of Karon’s protection. The wave of blood fell short. The spiked tongue did not reach so far as my face. When a blood-chilling scream pierced the tumult, and a shrike with a wingspan wider than my arms sailed toward us through the tempest, its hooked beak ready to tear the flesh from our bones, the scream was quickly muted, and no horror touched us.
The journey seemed to take an eternity. But eventually, ragged and breathless, Bareil, Kellea, Paulo, and I stepped through another fiery veil into a circular chamber of white and rose tiles. The ceiling was lost in a soft white brilliance high over our heads. So familiar… yet I was enormously confused. I would swear that we were standing in the Chamber of the Gate in the ancient mountain stronghold where Karon had fought the Zhid and my brother had died. Why did we remain in the human world after traversing the Bridge?
I whirled about in panic, only Bareil’s silencing gesture preventing my cry. Karon was nowhere in sight.
In the far wall, a thick wooden door clicked shut softly. The Dulcé tiptoed across the empty chamber and pulled open the door. Distant running footsteps echoed in the passage.
“He’s gone after them,” whispered Bareil, motioning us to hurry. “We must stay together and keep close if we can do so without being seen.”
The passage emptied, not onto the gallery overlooking the cavern city of the lost stronghold, but into a network of increasingly wider passageways-smooth stone walls, veined with vibrant yellows and blues, softly lit by no source that we could see. Our direction was always up, though we traversed no steps, and I felt no ache in my legs to tell me that the slope was anything but illusion.
Before very long, I heard no footsteps but our own. Bareil sighed and drew us into a sheltered alcove. “Vasrin Creator,” he said, panting, “never has my heart pounded so. But we’ve lost them in spite of it. Can you lead us?” he asked Kellea.
The girl shook her head in disgust. “You’d do better to ask Paulo. I’ve lost all sense of the boy since we stepped past the fire. There’s… too much here. It’s as if someone dropped a bag over my head and stuffed it with noise.”
“Well, we can either return to the Chamber of the Gate or proceed to a hiding place where D’Natheil and I have agreed to meet if ever we are separated.”
No. No. No. “No retreat,” I said, forcing my voice low, but firm. “Not until Gerick is safe.” Dread weighed in my belly like an anvil.
“I agree,” said Kellea. “And I prefer a place that has more than one usable exit.”
The Dulcé nodded. “Very well. Then you must do exactly as I say. All right?” Though he wrinkled his face seriously at Paulo, a smile danced in his almond-shaped eyes. “This place may seem strange.”
The boy shrugged and pulled down his hat. “I’ve been about. Seen lots of things lately nobody’d believe.”
“We’ll not be remarked if we seem sure of ourselves and don’t gawk.” The Dulcé led our ragged group through passageways and deserted kitchens and dusty storerooms to an iron gate. Past the gate was a dimly lit, cloistered courtyard, the sheltered walkways lined by a double row of slender columns. A few trees grew in garden beds, thick-branched evergreens with long needles, but of no variety I recognized. Their light dusting of snow sparkled in the glow of white lanterns mounted on the cloister walls.
I grabbed the Dulcé‘s arm. “Before we go further, Bareil. Tell us. Where are we?” I needed to hear him say it before I could believe.
“Have you not guessed, my lady?” He smiled. “We’ve come to Gondai. You walk in Avonar.”
CHAPTER 17
Gerick
I guess I have been scared my whole life. When I was little, I was scared of the dark, and Lucy always left me a candle or stayed with me until I went to sleep. And I was scared that when I grew up to be a soldier, I’d end up with only one arm or one leg or with my eye cut out like the men that came back from the war. But Papa told me that if I worked hard at sword training then I’d never have to be crippled like that. So I decided to train harder than anyone, though I knew I would never be as good as he was. Everyone said he was the best in the world.
Of course, I didn’t really know what being scared was until the night Lucy caught me making the lead soldiers march around Papa’s library. It was terrific fun, and I wondered why Papa hadn’t shown me how to do it earlier that evening when he’d finally said I was old enough to play with them. The idea of it came to me when I was in bed. I couldn’t sleep for wanting to try it, so I crept downstairs after Lucy had turned down the lamp and gone to bed. Mama and Papa had guests, so nobody would bother me in the library. Well, Lucy must’ve come back to the nursery to check on me that night. She ran down to the library- she was always good at guessing what I was thinking-and she saw what I was up to.
I never saw anyone so afraid. I thought she would be pleased like she was when I learned how to turn a somersault, or how to ride my horse without falling off, or how to write my name without getting ink all over. But on that night, if someone had given her a voice, she would have screamed every bit of it away again. She backed up against the door, looking like she wanted to run away, but instead she waved her arms and shook her head and pointed to the soldiers.
“But Lucy, it’s all right. Honest. Just tonight Papa told me I could use them,” I said, showing her how I could make the silver king climb over my leg.
But she wouldn’t hear anything or even move until I let them all drop down still. Then she ran over and held me tight until I thought I was going to be squashed. She was crying and rocking me like I was a baby even though I was five years old.
I didn’t like her to cry. Mostly Lucy and I had the best time. She knew lots of fun things to do, and of course because she was mute, she couldn’t yell or whine like Mama. Even if she thought I’d done something bad, she’d just show me again how to do it right and give me her “disappointed” look. I had never made her cry before. I told her over and over that I was sorry that I was out of my bed, but I just wasn’t sleepy and thought it wouldn’t hurt to play with the soldiers a while, since Papa did say I was old enough.
She acted like she didn’t even hear what I said, like she was thinking of something else altogether, something that she didn’t like at all, and she made me put the soldiers away and go back to the nursery with her. We sat by the nursery fire, and with her mixed-up way of signs and making faces and drawing pictures, Lucy told me that if anyone ever, ever saw me do anything like what I did with the soldiers, they would kill me. Even Papa.