A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1) (22 page)

‘Greetings!’ A clear, female voice hailed him from a distance. ‘Stay there. I’ll help you.’ He looked ahead and saw that the street opened into a square filled with shining fountains, and there was a lady on horseback at the street’s end…

Estarinel strained his misty eyes. There was something very strange about her colouring. Thick waves of blue-green hair, like hanks of sea-coloured silk, flowed over her shoulders, caught here and there with a jewel-threaded braid: agate, jade, amethyst. She rode side-saddle on a sea-blue horse with golden mane and tail, caparisoned in an ornamental saddle and bridle. Her riding habit was a full dress of blue silken material that shimmered as she moved, deepening to purple on the skirt, tight-waisted with wide sleeves that ended above slender beringed hands. The low cut of the bodice displayed her statuesque shoulders; her face was exquisite, proud-lipped with aquiline nose and large, luminous, turquoise eyes, and with a transparent pallor as if it were carved from white, green-touched onyx. She seemed at once statuesque, like a figure of marble, yet translucent.

Although Estarinel was confused, his impression of the woman, as she rode towards him, registered sharply. His head was spinning as she reached him where he was leaning weakly against a curved metal wall. She reined in the blue-green horse and bent down towards him. A rich perfume of honeysuckle and musk clung to her. She spoke, but there was a rushing sound in his ears and he could not hear what she said. As from a great distance, he heard his own voice saying, ridiculously, ‘I’m all right, really,’ as greyness flooded over his eyes and into his mind.

#

His second wakening was as pleasant as the first had been unwelcome. There was a soft, cool bed beneath him, with sheets of pale gold and a gorgeous animal skin of green and black fur thrown across it. The bed had four tall posts, gold-leafed and hung with rich tapestry fabric. This fabric was lovely, rich and silken… until it came into focus and he saw that the pattern was a repeating scene of gory battle.

Estarinel found he had been bathed and his wounds dressed. He was in some kind of loose night-robe, but he saw a new set of clothes laid out for him. He propped himself up on his elbows to look about the room. His whole body still ached, but not unbearably; he felt fresh and clean.

The room was semicircular, the curved metal wall opposite set with three oval windows of plain glass. The marble floor was strewn with animal skins of various strange hues: crimson and charcoal; blue, green and black. Estarinel was unused to such luxury and felt uneasy. Still, he sank back onto the pillows, taking the opportunity to collect his thoughts. His gaze came to rest on a low, mirror-topped table.

He went through all their adventures since leaving the House of Rede. Up to the battle with the nemen he could remember everything clearly; after that the memories grew vague. Talking to Medrian behind the rocks; hypnotising Skord, seeing his previous life in a vision as clearly as if he had experienced it himself. Then nothing. Like a candle extinguished.

An undefined passage of time, dreams and darkness swirling together; crawling half-dead through a city of gold; a beautiful, statuesque woman with sea-green hair. Then, waking in a luxurious room, feeling almost normal again but utterly confused.

A door opened to the left of the bed and there was the woman again, now entering with a tray of food. She glided to the bedside and set the tray on his lap, the silk of her dress rustling slightly as she did so. She paused and looked at him, a smile lighting her radiant pale face. ‘I brought you something to eat,’ she said.

He sat up, embarrassed. ‘Er – I have you to thank for nursing me?’

‘Yes – myself and my servants. I’m afraid you were dragged to the city without dignity by the nemen. I’m sorry. They’re not gentle folk. They probably drugged you as well.’ She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you feel any better?’

‘Yes, thank you, my lady.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Estarinel.’

‘I am Arlenmia. You must be from Forluin, or Maerna?’

‘Forluin, my lady.’

‘Ah yes.’ Her voice was soft, clear and refined, and she spoke the language common to Forluin and most of Tearn with no trace of an accent. Her strange colouring, however, was surely not of that Earth. She had a naturally regal bearing which accentuated the sculptural quality of her beauty. Yet there was a slight languidness in her movements, only the faintest hint, as if she were slightly drunk.

‘Lady Arlenmia… I had two companions with me who must also have been taken by the nemen. Are they here?’

She took one of his hands between her own slender ones. ‘You must have many such questions. Don’t worry. I will try to help you. Now, will you please rest and not be anxious? You are more in need of healing and sleep than you realise. If you require anything, ring this bell and a maid will attend to you. I wish to make you feel welcome in my house.’ She smiled, rose gracefully and left, leaving a warm exhalation of perfume behind her.

Estarinel lay back on the pillows, bemused. He tried to imagine what impression she would have given, had he not had the gravest reasons for suspecting that Arlenmia was She. A warm, charming and gentle woman who had given the best of care to an injured stranger as a matter of course. His instinct to give people the benefit of the doubt had not yet been eroded. Yet she had evaded his question about Medrian and Ashurek. In truth, there was really no doubt about where he must be.

The knowledge of how external powers had manipulated them chilled him. The Worm had, it seemed, sucked them from the care of the H’tebhmellians and spat them into Skord’s lap to be delivered to some unknown and uncontrollable fate. Yet they had escaped the White Plane when the Serpent might have let them die there… so were the forces opposing M’gulfn, the supposed ‘good’ powers, manipulating them also?

He had a brief vision of two figures, one light grey, one dark grey, tossing a ball one to the other with blank-eyed impassiveness. He and his companions truly had no allies, no friends; they were nothing, just instruments in a great design.

He sighed. He was too tired to think, so he stopped trying, and ate the good food Arlenmia had brought. It was the first time he had eaten for days.

Then he rose from the bed and began to dress. Arlenmia was right; he had been more badly injured than he realised. Once out of the comfortable bed he felt stiffness and pain in all his limbs as well as the particular discomfort of each of his injuries. His back and head ached and he felt so exhausted and weak that he knew resuming the Quest would be impossible for several days at least.

The clothes were odd and ornate; breeches and a padded jacket of dull purple silk, embroidered with gold. There was also a lavish, matching robe of the sort that Skord wore. Estarinel did not touch it. He looked at the mirror-topped table and a pallid, battle-scarred face stared back, framed by a tangle of black hair. For a moment be thought he saw a glass ceiling reflected in the mirror, but he looked up and it was only plain gold metal like the walls. He shook off the illusion, and the feeling that there had been another face, the ghost of a face, superimposed on his own in the mirror.

He looked out of each of the windows and found that his room was in the second storey of a tower, part of a house with walls of polished gold. The first window overlooked a private courtyard with an ornamental pool and fountain in the center. He noticed there were no plants there, nothing except water, marble and metal. The other windows gave panoramic views over the weird city; that certainly had been no fevered dream. The towers of silver and gold dazzled in the burning sunlight while the huge jewels set into each one glittered with breathtaking colour. He could see no end to the city and could not guess at its size, or what lay beyond it. The brightness of it pained his eyes.

He sat on the bed. He did not like to leave the room and wander about the house without permission; indeed, he was really in no fit state to do anything but lie down. He was pondering what to do when the maid entered.

She was an attractive woman of middle years, wearing a long dress of purple trimmed with white. Her brown hair was braided and contained by a net of blue jewels.

‘My lady has sent me to see if you require anything, sir.’ She spoke pleasantly, with no air of servility. ‘My name is Gulla.’

‘Yes, you could show me to the rooms of my companions, if you would be so kind, Gulla,’ he said, watching her face.

Her pleasant expression did not change. ‘My lady has given me instructions that you may go anywhere you wish in Her house and city. She requests also that you join Her for dinner when you feel well enough.’

‘You don’t know where my companions are?’

‘These are my lady’s instructions, sir,’ Gulla responded, a slight lift to her voice implying surprise that he assumed she knew anything other than what the Lady Arlenmia told her. ‘I will call you for dinner.’

‘Thank you,’ Estarinel sighed, giving up. The maid nodded and left. He had noticed the familiar reverence for the word ‘She’ – although not the usual bitterness – in her speech.

He felt a growing sense of insecurity. The hideous stories he had heard and the woman he had met did not tally. Yet he remembered Skord’s words, ‘She was kind to me.’ The thought of Skord made him shudder. What had happened at the end of the hypnotism – why could he not remember?

Grimly, he realised that anything could have happened in the last few days. Perhaps Medrian and Ashurek were dead. Certainly, if they were not here, he stood little chance of finding them.

He decided that his only course was to be exceedingly careful with Arlenmia, to give away as little as possible while trying to discover who or what she really was. Friendly innocence was a good beginning; and a perfectly natural one, as it was his character anyway.

It was a daunting thought to realise that Arlenmia was now his only hope of continuing the Quest.

Her house formed a square about the courtyard, with a tall, round tower at each corner. Estarinel sat at the edge of the pond and scanned the gold metallic building closely. There was no sign of activity; only the gentle music of the fountain disturbed the silence. He felt too weak to walk far, and soon returned to his room in one of the towers, gained by a twisting staircase. There he lay down on the bed, wondering what had become of their horses. His sword and shield had gone too; no doubt the nemen had taken them. But he had also lost the lodestone from Hrannekh Ol, and he could not see how the nemen could have known what it was, or been interested in it.

He fell into a heavy, comfortable sleep without realising. When he eventually awoke, the long red rays of the setting sun were piercing the windows. A moment later Gulla entered, the same innocuous smile on her face.

‘My Lady asks if you are well enough to join Her for dinner in half an hour’s time, sir.’ Estarinel assented, desperately curious to meet the Lady Arlenmia again. The maid added that a nurse would be sent to him to attend to his wounds.

The nurse, an old, harsh-faced, unspeaking woman, rebandaged the weal on his back, applied herbal creams to his many other cuts and bruises, and left. Yet more clothes had been brought for him: blue breeches and a tunic made from fine linen and embroidered with strange designs in dark blue; a silvery loose-sleeved shirt.

He changed, and the maid came to take him down to another part of the house, by way of many staircases and tapestry-lined corridors. He was shown into a long, large hall with the light of many candles dancing in pools of golden light on the walls. The walls were hung with mirrors and tapestries. Animal-skin rugs, striped with black, purple, and lilac, carpeted the marble floor. A long mirror-topped table occupied the hall’s centre, lined with high-backed, ornate chairs.

On one of these sat the Lady Arlenmia, statuesque and beautiful in an elaborate dress of deep-green silk, with sleeves that fell in long folds from her marble shoulders. Even in the dim, gold-touched atmosphere of the hall, her exquisite and un-human colouring looked cold.

Seeing Estarinel, she smiled and rose to greet him, a slender hand outstretched. He took it and bowed courteously.

‘Do sit down,’ she said in her clear, low voice. She sat at the head of the table, Estarinel at her right hand. ‘Now,’ she went on, ‘I am so pleased that you feel well enough to join me. With a few days’ rest, you will soon be fit again.’ Her large, liquid blue-green eyes regarded him intently. He felt colour rise in his face. ‘I want you to feel at ease in my home, as if it were your own. I have an extensive library, art galleries and music rooms which you may visit whenever you wish.’

‘All of these are within this building?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘What of the other buildings in the city? Are they all unoccupied?’

‘Yes.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I and my servants have the whole city to ourselves. You may walk about wherever you will, as soon as you feel strong enough. It is a wondrous place, and walking is the surest way to regain your health.’

Did this mean that he was not a prisoner? He longed to ask how long she had lived in the city, why she was here, who she was… but the discovery of such information would have to be a subtle and guarded process. He asked a neutral question about the library.

‘Yes, it is my own collection – as are the paintings, the musical instruments, and everything else in this house. I love things of beauty!’ She continued, talking of art and books with an affection that obviously went deeper than the pleasure of acquisition. He let her lead the conversation, trying to judge which subjects he might approach and which he might not. It was hard to tell. She was so warm and open towards him it seemed he could talk to her about anything.

The pleasant-natured Gulla and another servant, a dark-haired, unsmiling youth, waited at table. The dinner was good: small rainbow-scaled fish with artichokes; new-baked bread, butter and cheese; fresh fruit and a dry, pale yellow wine. Arlenmia herself seemed to eat very little.

‘I have had your personal belongings sent to your room. There was a sword, a little white stone, a shield, and a knife. Your cloak is intact, but I’m afraid the rest of your clothes were too badly torn to be saved.’ She toyed with her crystal wine goblet.

‘Thank you very much, my lady. It’s very kind of you to have taken such care of me.’

‘It is nothing. I am pleased to have you as my guest. Tell me, how did you come to be the nemen’s prisoner?’

‘They were – we came upon them north of Beldaega-Hal. There was a battle. Er – I was knocked out. There were a lot of confusing impressions but I really don’t remember anything until I found myself crawling down the street.’

He was trying to be evasive without actually lying. He was afraid she was going to ask him questions – perhaps only friendly ones – and he dared reveal almost nothing.

‘You say there were two others with you? Estarinel, they may have been killed, you realise. I shall try to find them for you. I can send servants out to the nemen; they fear me–’ she smiled a little sadly – ‘and will do my bidding. Who were your companions?'

‘There was a young woman, dark-haired, and another – a warrior.’

She looked thoughtful. ‘Wherever you were journeying, this is an unfortunate delay for you. If I gave you a horse and weapons, would you continue on your own – if your companions weren’t found?’

‘Yes, I would, my lady.’

‘I thought so.’ She laughed softly. ‘Is this journey very important to you?’

‘Yes.’ He pretended to be absorbed in his goblet of pale wine. ‘This is a wonderful meal.’

‘Ah, changing the subject! I’m so sorry – if you don’t wish to speak of your journey, I won’t pry. I only mean to help you.’

He half-smiled. ‘Please don't think me rude. But I’d rather say nothing than lie, my lady.’

‘I understand.’ She went on sipping her glass of wine. She gazed across to a large glass globe with a map of the world engraved on it, an exquisitely-made object. The pupils of her beautiful deep-lidded eyes dilated widely.

When they had finished the meal, she said to him, ‘Come and sit with me by the fire.’ She led him to a fireplace, set into one long wall. Two gold chairs with tapestry seats stood there, one on either side of the hearth. The fire flickered with gold, blue and green flames yet no heat emanated from it.

‘It is too hot for a real fire at present, but I like the glow that a fire gives – don’t you?’ She stooped gracefully and passed a hand through the flames. She laughed. ‘See! It’s an illusion. The flames are cold. More wine?’

Estarinel accepted. He felt relaxed and at ease; perhaps it was the wine’s influence, but inwardly this made him more consciously careful not even to hint at their Quest.

‘Tell me about your life in Forluin. They say it is such a quiet, pretty place.’

‘Yes – yes, it was – is,’ he stammered, thrown by her question.

‘Forluin, Maerna, Ohn; lands of the ten thousand years’ peace, they are called. Nothing blights their sweet fields, and the Blue Plane is only a whisper away, so they say.’

‘Do they?’ Estarinel was shocked at this turn in the conversation. He stared broodingly into the fire. Arlenmia leaned back in her chair, a touch of languor in the movement; a languor not caused by the wine, for she had hardly drunk a whole glassful.

‘Estarinel,’ she began softly, ‘I heard there was an attack on Forluin some months ago. A flying worm came from the north, did it not?’

‘Yes,’ he replied miserably, both relieved and amazed that she knew.

‘Did it take any of your loved ones?’

‘Yes, many friends, and left people sick and starving.’

‘Might the Worm have come again since you left?’

‘It might have done. Or once might have been enough. I have no news of Forluin.’ The old horror and misery reawoke in him.

‘Oh, it is sad that it had to be that way, but Forluin is so isolated,’ she murmured.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, staring at her and trying desperately to retain a facade of innocuous politeness.

‘I mean,’ she said gently, her eyes shining so brightly that they might have been full of tears, ‘that I am sorry about what happened in your country, sorry that it is so far away from the help that Tearn, for example, might have given.’

‘No one could have helped,’ he whispered, believing in her sympathy but wishing she would change the subject.

There was a long silence and he stared at the fire from which no warmth came. Then she said, ‘If you wish… there is a way you can see what is happening in Forluin.’

He looked up with a start. ‘How?’

‘I can show you. If you will be patient for a few days, until you are stronger.’

‘How can you do this?’

Her beautiful but unnaturally dilated pupils glistened and a slight flush, the colour of jade, came to her cheeks. ‘A gift was given me; to look into reflections and see the truth therein. For mirrors can reflect only the truth; how can they lie when there is no guile within them? Thus, the gift – to turn the mirror’s reflection to the knowledge of one’s own desiring, to see truths past and future, to see into men’s minds, to summon and to dismiss. If something is real, the looking glass potentially holds the image, but it is within oneself that the power lies to draw forth the image, to project it and to manipulate it.’ She stared intensely at him, eyes shining and lips curved with some suppressed joy.

‘Is that how you knew what had happened in my country?’ he asked nervously.

‘Partly. Oh, but don’t look at me like that! Estarinel, I am no witch, and my only wish is to help you.’ She spoke with such ardent sincerity that it was almost impossible to doubt her. Still smiling at him, she turned the conversation to a more innocuous theme with slippery ease. Unsettled and puzzling over her words, he was untalkative at first. But gradually he relaxed again, and the part of him that regarded Arlenmia with a detached and suspicious eye began to blur, becoming susceptible to her charms.

Later, he lay in bed staring at the canopy and wondering about her. Delightful she was; intelligent and beautiful and kind. But he had discovered nothing definite about her, only vague impressions. She knew more of the geography of the world than he, but had spoken of it like an interested visitor from another earth. And he had the idea that she drew her vitality from strange sources, and that she was motivated by a deep-rooted love of something unknown.

Yes, that was it; whoever she was, it was not hatred or vengeance that inspired her, but love. There was a double full moon that night and their light shining on the mirror-topped table in a silver pool distracted him until he had to cover the table with a rug.

#

A glistening drop of blue fluid hung from the end of the needle, just before it entered Ashurek’s arm. He saw the glass phial empty and felt a coolness enter his vein, spreading through his body.

Arlenmia drew the needle out, then leaned forward and cut the leather straps binding his wrists.

‘There,’ she said, ‘the drug will make you feel better.’

Ashurek raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean, safe to be untied?’

‘I told you, the nemen tied you up, not I,’ she answered sweetly. ‘The drug is only to help you to recover from your ordeal, though it may make you feel somewhat – empty.’

He looked up into her luminous turquoise eyes. ‘I detect a veiled threat.’

‘Your imagination, Prince Ashurek. Now, you are free to visit any part of my house and city as it pleases you, and to stay as my guest until you are fully recovered.’ He stood up from the bed, flexing his aching hands, and looked out of a window.

‘What of my companions, Estarinel and Medrian?’

‘Oh, they are here, as you must have guessed.’ She smiled coolly at him. ‘But existing each in a different reflection, as I will it; so you may search the city and look in every mirror, but you will never see them.’

He turned back to her with narrowed, verdant eyes, but she returned the gaze unflinchingly. ‘Your Estarinel is lovely, a total innocent. He has disclosed not one word about you or your mission, thinking he is protecting you. He is a perfect subject for my design. However, I know that you will fight me, and Medrian too – and oh, I wish you would not! What I do is all to the good, in the end.’

The extraordinary sincerity that came into her voice and face surprised Ashurek – but he could now feel her drug working. Whatever else it was meant to do, it was enhancing that awful sick emptiness that the Egg-Stone had left when he disposed of the thing. He felt he could claw his way from the window, swim oceans and burrow into mountains to recover it.

She must know much about him, to be able to practise this subtle torture.

Arlenmia touched his hand with her slender, cool fingers.

‘It was a happy day that brought you here, Ashurek.’ She made her way to the door. ‘I must summon Skord, and reward him.’

‘Have you not seen him since we arrived here?’ the Gorethrian asked, surprised.

‘No; why?’ She paused in the doorway.

‘I thought he would have come straight to you even before the nemen brought us here.’

‘No, he did not. I understand he went back to Beldaega-Hal. Ashurek, your words make me think there’s a reason I should know where he is.’