It didn’t take long to bundle up Bel and leave, ordering the guards back to their posts as he strode down the stairs. If they were any good at all, they’d already be questioning whether or not they’d made a mistake. He’d blustered his way through with pure intimidation and might not have long. He couldn’t believe he had his child in his arms again; it made him heady …then anxious, for he held a gift he hadn’t yet won until he got clear, got away. Got back home to the wood. To Mirrow.
On the way down, Corlas encountered few people. A couple of times upon passing someone he tried to nod cordially, but felt gazes on his back. He held Bel closer, trying to enfold him from sight. Reaching the base of the Tower, he strode away into the gardens. Not far away was a disused shed in which he’d hidden a horse and supplies. As the shed came into view, Corlas sidestepped behind a tree and his heart sank. The horse was outside the shed and soldiers were standing around it. Maybe they’d heard it neighing. Of all the cursed luck.
Doubling back and moving wide of the shed, he headed towards the east gate. The portcullis was open and, as a taskmaster, he had no problem simply walking through, though the baby in his arms drew a few looks. He took the path down the hill, wondering how he would deal with the crippling blow of losing his horse. As soon as he was out of sight of the gate, he moved off the path and started to run. If he could make it to a farm or village, he could steal a horse.
Over grassy foothills he went, until he spotted a wood that might hide his passage. It lay just beyond one of the faintly glowing ward stones that ringed the Halls. As he drew closer, he scanned the tree line, and something made him come up short. He’d learned to trust his instincts and something about the trees seemed not quite right. Branches and leaves rustled in the breeze, moonlight chasing over shapes as the canopy shifted. What had it been? He leaned on the ward stone, catching his breath. Just as he decided it had only been his imagination, errant moonlight stole over a branch that had hitherto been shadowed. For a second he saw red feathers and glinting blood-drop eyes. The bird cocked its head, seeming to realise it was visible, and the moonlight moved on.
Corlas stared hard at the darkness. Had it been Iassia? These lands were full of coloured birds, and why would Iassia sit watching him from the shadows? Why would any bird, for that matter?
From the trees came a fluttering and the bird broke free. ‘Corlas!’ he called. It was Iassia. ‘I’ve been waiting, to help you escape!’ The bird landed on the ground before him, just beyond the invisible threshold of the ward stone. ‘Come!’ he urged anxiously. ‘We must be swift if we’re to evade your pursuers!’
‘Why were you watching us from the trees?’ said Corlas. ‘It seemed you didn’t wish to be seen.’
‘What?’ exclaimed the bird in surprise. ‘No! I was waiting for you.’
Still Corlas could not help but feel that Iassia had only flown out of the trees because he’d been seen. Why did he feel that? The bird’s behaviour was suspicious, but this was his friend, wasn’t it?
‘I didn’t think you were going to meet me,’ Corlas said. ‘It has been months since we parted ways.’
Iassia hopped about impatiently. ‘We must hurry, Corlas!’ he twittered. ‘There are pursuers not far behind. All can be explained, but let us be away from here first.’
As Corlas watched the bird hop and twitter, he noticed something peculiar. It moved about frantically, yet it did not approach him. His eyes flicked to the ward stone between them – one link in an invisible chain keeping out the shadow. As his gaze moved from the stone back to Iassia, he found that the bird was staring at him silently.
‘Why don’t you fly up onto my shoulder here,’ Corlas said, ‘and say hello to my son?’
Iassia did not move.
‘Shadow,’ breathed Corlas.
Iassia chirped softly in amusement.
‘But you …you helped me.’
‘My enemy’s enemy,’ said the bird, ‘is my friend.’ He cocked his head. ‘You haven’t any allies in the Halls, Corlas. Come with me and we’ll escape together. The Shadowdreamer doesn’t care what happens to the boy, as long as Kainordas cannot set him against us. You can return to Whisperwood and hide, away from the light’s clutches. Come, let us away!’
Corlas’s brow darkened. ‘Do you suppose that I still trust your words, little bird?’
Iassia fluffed his feathers in anger. Moments passed with neither moving. Then Iassia spoke with a menace in his voice that Corlas had not heard before. ‘So be it then. You think you are no longer of the light, but it is they whom you choose. And you can thank your Arkus that I cannot invoke my bargain through this barrier …but if you stray, Corlas. If you stray …’
The bird took off, a silent dart back to the trees. Corlas gazed after it, a lump of ice in his stomach. It seemed the shadow still hunted his boy, and he’d almost delivered Bel into their hands. What ‘favour’ would the bird have invoked from him? Deliver his son to Battu? Kill him right here? It could have been anything. And now he was trapped in the Open Halls.
He looked at the boy and the boy looked back, smiling and aware. He did not seem like a normal baby, that was true. Could he really be the child of power? Everyone seemed so bent on possessing him. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of the Halls, perhaps Bel would indeed have been taken to Fenvarrow. Confused as his allegiances were, Corlas wouldn’t have wished that. Perhaps he did still prefer his homeland, despite everything. The lesser evil.
He lost track of time standing there on the cusp of the wards, wondering what to do. His boy chuckled cheerfully as Corlas stroked his head. Everything else seemed to fade away, and tears pricked the back of his eyes. They were together, that was the most important thing.
‘Taskmaster Corlas.’
The voice made him start. Fahren had come, though no others were with him. They were alone in the moonlit countryside, facing each other.
‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ Fahren said angrily. ‘Why have you stolen this boy from my chamber?’
‘Stolen?’ Corlas laughed bitterly. ‘That is a very bold word for the likes of you, child-taker.’
Fahren’s anger flickered, to be replaced by confusion …and, finally, realisation. ‘By Arkus!’ he murmured. ‘You’re Bel’s father.’
‘I have not decided,’ said Corlas darkly, ‘if that is to be his name.’
Fahren looked out into the night. ‘Where were you taking him?’
‘Home.’
‘Yet I’ve observed you standing here for some time, Taskmaster. What has delayed you?’
Corlas tried to speak about the bird, but the words would not form in his mouth. That part of the contract held fast, it seemed. Instead he said, ‘I grew worried for his safety beyond the wards. I did not believe until tonight that he might really be the child of the prophecy. But now …’
His heart sank as he realised he truly did believe it. What kind of life would that make for his son?
‘Corlas,’ said Fahren softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘I think you and I should go back into the Halls and have a long talk.’
Twelve
A Name in the Ice
Heron shuffled out of the throne room into the corridor, the hem of her tatty grey skirt dragging behind her. Papery pale and pockmarked skin stretched over her creaking bones, and her flesh sagged in wrinkled bags. Her long grey hair ran in a ponytail down to the small of her back, when she wasn’t clutching it to her chest and running her fingers through it. She was old now, very tired, and sometimes she went up to the higher balconies encircling the bulbous head of Skygrip to think about stepping off. She never had the courage, and there was always the possibility she’d be caught by a Graka patrol before she hit the bottom. Battu would not have been pleased.
All she’d wanted was to retire into a dark hole and drink herself to death. Instead the Shadowdreamer had forced her back to service. Now all she drank was what she could pilfer from the kitchens. The Golgoleth Ghost at the front entrance wouldn’t let her leave the castle, and all other exits were guarded too. In her younger days escape would have been easier. Now she couldn’t even escape sobriety.