"I am."
"Then come on." He hauled her to her feet, then pulled her into what must be some sort of narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel. By banging her shoulder on one, she discovered that splintery wooden supports stood at intervals along the way.
The lightless passage shook, the supports groaned, and chunks of dirt rained down. Crashing and pounding sounded through the earth. Evidently the giant had abandoned its efforts to force its hand down the shaft and was tramping around overhead demolishing the rest of the castle. Shamur couldn't guess whether the creature was hoping she and Thamalon would come up elsewhere in the ruin, expressing its pique that they'd eluded it, or deliberately trying to collapse the tunnel.
In any case, she feared that the ceiling might indeed be on the verge of falling. Just ahead of her in the darkness, one of the support timbers gave a sharp crack. Dirt showered down all around her, and then something much, much harder crashed down on top of her head. The sharp, unexpected pain slammed her down on her knees. She felt consciousness guttering out and struggled desperately to hold on, but still, everything slipped away.
Shamur cried out in frustration and fear, and her eyes flew open. Peering about, she saw she was lying in a dilapidated lean-to, likely some hunter or charcoal burner's shelter. A fire smoked and crackled in the center of the floor, and the russet cloak she'd dropped back in the clearing covered her like a blanket. Outside the hut, daylight shone on a tangle of leafless, snow-silvered trees, proof that she was still in the woods.
Wrapped in his own cape with its bloodstained ermine collar, utterly filthy, Thamalon sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, watching her. His long sword lay naked beside him, while her own weapon was nowhere in sight. She supposed she'd lost it when she'd been knocked unconscious.
"You called out," he said, his tone cool, his face impassive. "You're awake."
"Yes," she said, her throat so dry that her voice was a painful rasp. She swallowed. "I was dreaming about our escape. You must have realized I'd gotten hurt, and carried me out of the tunnel."
"Yes."
"How did you know the passage existed?"
"First things first. Do you still want to kill me?"
Her eyes widened in surprise. She sat up, though it made her head throb cruelly. "Ilmater's bonds, of course not! I know now that you didn't poison my grand-niece. That shadow that spoke with Lindrian's voice… I don't understand it, but somehow, when I talked to him, I was actually talking to it. Moreover, the fact that the phantom's master could even conceive of such a ruse implies that he's the one who truly committed the murder."
"Or rather, that he has ties to those who did," Thamalon said, his voice little warmer than before. "He seems too young to have slain anyone thirty years ago. How are you?"
"Sore-especially my head-stiff, cold, grimy, thirsty, and hungry," she said. "But essentially all right."
"I can do a little something about the hunger,'' he said, handing her a bundle of paper, which, when she unfolded it, proved to contain a square of date-nut bread. Trust him not to venture into the woods without a snack tucked into the pigskin pouch on his belt, or a flint, steel, and tinderbox, for that matter.
She took a bite of the pastry. "I still want to hear how you knew about the tunnel," she said through the first mouthful.
His green eyes widened, and she realized that never in their three decades together had he ever seen her gobble a morsel with such unladylike voracity. But of course it was far too late to worry about such things now.
"I've built my share of strongholds over the years," Thamalon said. "Trading outposts and Stormweather Towers itself. I wanted to make them secure, so I undertook a study of fortifications, during which I happened to learn that these old castles Rauthauvyr raised often had a secret tunnel leading out. I didn't know exactly where it would be located, so I had to leave you to guard my back while I went to look for it."
"And since they didn't know it existed, our enemies must think the giant killed us, and our bodies lay buried somewhere in the wreckage of the fort."
"Since they stopped hunting us and went home, it would appear so."
"Good. We should try to figure out who the wizard is." "Not so fast," said Thamalon. "I've had faceless enemies before. This one will keep for a few more minutes. What I want to know now, and without another second of delay, is, who are you? I've thought of one possibility, but it seems preposterous."
Shamur hesitated. She'd guarded the secret for so long it was hard to divulge it even now. Finally she said, "If you're thinking I'm the first Shamur, the robber in the tales and ballads, you're right." "Explain," he said. "All of it."
And so she did, beginning with the bored, hoydenish adolescent she'd been more than eighty years ago, a girl who had started sneaking out of Argent Hall to taste the boisterous life of the streets, and eventually become a thief for the excitement.
Thamalon grimaced. "So that's where Thazienne gets it."
Shamur blinked in surprise. "You know about her thieving?"
"Not everyone manages to deceive me," he said sourly. "The way you two quarrel, I'm surprised you know. But go on with your tale."
"Well, you know that after I was unmasked, I had to flee Selgaunt. Later, I fell in with a band of treasure hunters who were looting ruins south of the Moonsea. We broke into the wrong crypt, a chamber given over to magical devices the like of which I've never encountered before or since, where a guardian spirit appeared to battle us." She could see the entity even as she spoke, a clawed, towering, shadowy thing, quick and savage as a leopard, and as terrible in its way as the masked wizard's elemental.
"Naturally," she continued, "the wizards and priests among us threw spells at the spirit. Somehow, their sorceries brought the devices in the vault to life, and they started shooting bolts of magical energy around. One of them struck an amulet I was wearing. I knew the pendant bore an enchantment, but had never discovered the purpose.
"The pearl in the amulet exploded, and instantly, or so it seemed to me, everything was different. Quiet. The spirit was gone. Much of the ceiling had fallen in, crushing the arcane apparatuses. My comrades lay dead, and looked as if they had been so for many years.
"When I returned to civilization, I found out that in fact, they had. Somehow, fifty years had passed for the rest of the world, but not for me.
"I reckoned that after so much time, it would be safe to return to Selgaunt, at least if I was discreet. You know what I found when I arrived. My family on the brink of ruin, their only hope an alliance by marriage with the House of Uskevren. So when the betrothed girl was murdered, they prevailed on me to impersonate her and wed you in her place."
"How did they talk you into such a travesty?" asked Thamalon.
Shamur shrugged. "After my displacement in time, they were the only people in the world I cared for, or even knew. Moreover, it was uncanny how my grand-niece had looked exactly like me, and even owned my name. I'd never truly believed in fate, but it gave me the strange, fey sense that it was my destiny to take her place."
"Indeed," he said, "and while you were engaged in your philosophical ruminations, did it ever occur to you that you were dealing unjustly if not downright cruelly with me? Tricking me into a union with a stranger I didn't love, and who most certainly didn't care for me."
Shamur felt an unexpected twinge of shame. "To be honest," she said, "no. I didn't consider your rights or your feelings at all. As I said, we Karns were desperate. I suppose I should apologize."
He laughed. "Oh, please do. After all, you've only been causing me hurt for thirty years, culminating in an attempt to kill me. A little show of contrition will make everything right."