House of Blades (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (12 page)

It squirmed toward him.

Simon leaped out of the pool and ran from the room so fast he barely had time to scoop up his clothes with one hand. He pushed the marble door shut and looked around for a lock. Nothing. He ran out of the room, through the hallway, and didn't stop until he was back in the room with the scrolls, mirrors, and soft furniture. The entry hall, where he and Kai had first entered through the Gate. Nothing had tried to kill him in here last time.

This door did have a lock, so Simon took advantage of it. What was that? Why were there demons in the bathtub? Did Kai know about them? Of course he did, he lived here. Then why were they there? Was it a trap? Were they Kai's pets? Maybe he shouldn't have killed them.

No, that was a stupid thought. Even if it was just a misunderstanding and they had belonged to Kai, Simon had done the man a favor by killing those things. And they weren't the only monsters in the pool; whatever that snake-thing had been, he was glad he hadn't gotten a chance to see it any closer.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Shaking, tan skin a shade too pale, covered in rivulets of water and dozens of quickly healing cuts. And also completely naked. He lifted the bundle of clothes in his hand, and for a moment he didn't recognize them.

His outfit had been laundered, pressed, and carefully folded. The shirt and pants were still a plain brown, but they seemed a completely different color now that all the grime had been washed out. The whole outfit smelled of soap and flowers. Someone had even sewn up the rips and tears in his shirt.

Who had done it? And when? Had someone else been in the bathtub? Maybe in this house, clothes magically cleaned and folded themselves. He wouldn’t be surprised if they came to life and tried to strangle him.

A shadow flickered in one of the mirrors on the wall, and Simon jerked his head up. Nothing. The mirrors showed an undisturbed room. He glanced all around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

A shiver ran over his skin. All the stories he had ever heard about ghosts lurking in old abandoned houses came back to him in full force.

Well, if he was trapped in a haunted house, he might as well be dressed for it. He slipped into his pants, then pulled the shirt over his head. Through the rough fabric, he saw another dark shape flitting through the room. He pulled his shirt down to see it more clearly, but once again nothing.

Maybe, just maybe, he might need to get out of this house.

At that thought, the cold links of a chain pressed against his throat, jerking him backwards.

He barely managed to get a hand between his neck and the chain to allow him enough space to breathe. Someone was pressed up against his back, holding a loop of chain around his neck like a noose.

Simon kicked backwards and pushed his attacker against the wall. It felt like a man—the impact was soft, as if the man was wearing five shirts—but the attacker made no noise. The mirror on the other wall showed a man shrouded in black clothing, hooded, his face totally lost in shadows. He clung to Simon, strangling him with a chain painted black.

Simon’s throat felt like it was about to crumple like a bent reed, his vision had begun to blur, and he couldn’t get enough leverage to actually hurt the man in black. He needed a weapon, or he was about to die.

His sword. Where had he left his sword?

It had been in his hand when he came with Kai through the Gate, and after that...it hadn’t been in the bath with him, had it? If not, the sword must still be in this room.
 

He shot his eyes from mirror to mirror, trying to keep his goal in mind and not give in to panic. The sword had to be around there somewhere. It had no sheath, so it would gleam...there, in the corner of the mirror in the far side, he saw a silver shine on top of one of the tables. The sword he had taken from the dead slave rested on a half-open scroll on a wooden table against the far wall.

Now he had to reach it.

He struggled around for a moment, pulling with both hands and all his weight against the chain. It loosened for a moment as the man of shadows adjusted his balance, and Simon was able to plant one foot against the wall. He pushed, and the two of them stumbled towards the table and the sword. Any other living being would have made some kind of noise, but the man in black remained absolutely silent.

The side of Simon’s head smacked against the heavy table leg. Pain bloomed in his skull, and he lost his grip on the chain. It tightened, burning his neck and cutting off his air almost completely.

The world was going gray around him, but he reached for what he thought was the top of the table and fumbled blindly on top of it. Only when something sliced into his fingertips did he realize he had found his sword.

He pulled the weapon off the table and, holding it by the blade in a bleeding hand, thrust the point backwards into the shoulder of the man in black. The attacker flinched and his chain slackened, letting Simon grab the hilt in his other hand and twist around, plunging the sword all the way through the other man’s chest.

The man in black shuddered and dropped the chain, falling limp to the ground. Simon’s breath wheezed, and his throat felt ruined. Now that he wasn’t fighting, his hand burned. It was bleeding so much. He knew that should be alarming, but he couldn’t muster up the courage to go back into the bathtub and heal.

The black robes deflated, as though no one had been inside them all along. Simon stared. The inside of the hood began to glow a soft blue-white, the color of moonlight. A ball of that wispy light gathered inside the empty hood and froze for just a second, the dark outfit hanging from the floating ball of light as if from a peg. Then the light swept off, squeezing under the door, dragging the black clothes with it.

“What?” Simon said. He couldn’t think of anything better to say, so he said it again. “What? Sweet Maker, what is happening to me?”

Two more dark shapes, identical to the first, appeared from nowhere and closed on Simon. He jumped to his feet, clutching his sword in a hand increasingly slick with blood. Making no sound, the two men brandished black chains.

Simon turned and ran. It seemed the right thing to do.

In the hallway he shouted for Kai, but no one answered. The men in black pursued him, seeming to stroll but steadily eating into his lead. He turned to one of the doors on the side of the hallway, one with a large circle, and tried to open it. Locked. He continued to run, into the room with the gold-edged stone doorway. He hadn’t paid much attention to them before, but there were other doors in the walls of this room; he picked one, made of pale wood with a pair of crossed axes carved into its surface, and levered it open.

He had enough time to glimpse a bright room filled with racks of bladed weapons: spears collected in a barrel, swords mounted on the walls, daggers in baskets. Opening the door triggered an odd sound: a soft
snick,
like a pair of scissors cutting through a cloth.

Simon stepped back on instinct, and something whizzed through the air in front of his eyes. A dart buried itself in the wall opposite the door.

Traps. The doors were trapped.

Simon was too scared to weep, but everything was so hopeless he was torn between tears and bitter laughter. He tried the next door, which was trimmed in silver and pressed with the image of a standing knight. It opened onto a dark staircase.

He waited for a moment to see if anything came flying out at him. Nothing did, but he heard a sound like jangling chains at the bottom of the stairs. A hollow wind whispered up from the darkness.

“I wouldn’t travel down that stair just yet,” Kai said from the hallway. “That door’s not quite meant for you.”

Simon shut the door and leaned against it, relief draining strength from his muscles. His arms shook, and his sword dropped from bleeding fingers.

“This house is trying to kill me,” he said. “It’s trying to kill me.”

“And failing, so far. That’s a good sign.” Kai walked into the room, Azura in one hand and a gentle almost-smile on his face. His blade was so long it came close to scraping the far wall. The white-haired swordsman let the sword shimmer and evaporate, leaving Simon to wonder why he had it out in the first place. That was a minor concern, though, compared to what was really on Simon’s mind.

“Why is this happening?” Simon asked.

“We should get that hand taken care of.”

Simon clenched his bloody fist. “I asked you
why
.”

“You wanted me to teach you what I know. This is how I learned.”

Kai gestured around him, at the house in general. “Valinhall tests you. It attacks you. Sometimes it tries to kill you. It teaches you to be on your guard at all times, awake and asleep, and to always keep a weapon close.”

“Do you ever get to rest?”

“You learn to sleep with one eye open. After a few years here, you’ll react to danger even if you’re fast asleep in the heart of an enemy Territory. Assuming you live that long, of course.”

“That sounds great. Really. But I told you before, I don’t have a few years. I don’t even have one year. I might be able to spare a few weeks, but after that—”

“After that?” Kai cut in. “You, a single amateur swordsman, run off to challenge an Overlord of Damasca?”

Simon clutched his bleeding hand to his chest. He didn’t respond. There wasn’t much he could say.

“Don’t worry, little mouse. I told you, didn’t I? Time is on our side. How long has it been, do you think, since you entered this house?”

“I don’t know. An hour or two?”

“Less than half of one.”

Kai must have noticed Simon’s look of disbelief, because he smiled and said, “That’s time back in our world, of course. Time flows differently in each Territory. A day inside some is two outside; fortunately, Valinhall is the reverse. I will have the time I need to teach you.”

It finally struck Simon what he was asking for. How much of his life had he signed away for this project?

“Oh,” Simon said. “I see.”

Kai’s eyes were still hidden, but his face softened into something resembling sympathy. “Last chance, Simon. I can take you back.”

It would be easier, certainly. But any other Traveler he found to teach him would be the same; it would take years. If he left, it would be better to give up, to leave everything to Alin and the Travelers from Enosh.

“No. I’m ready.” Simon stood as tall as he could and let his firm resolve sound in his voice.

“In that case, let’s begin.” Kai faced Simon squarely, and Simon tensed his body as he prepared to defend himself. “Today,” Kai continued, “we will begin with...lunch.”

At that, Kai turned to one of the doors Simon hadn’t tried. It bore the image of a flowering tree.

“You must be hungry,” Kai said. A breeze flowed through the door, and it smelled sweet and clean. “After you.”

Kai could say what he wanted about the whole Territory being inside one house, but this door opened onto a beautiful meadow. The entire room was carpeted in grass, except for a cool, clear stream that cut the field in two. The sky above was a cloudless blue, the sun shone directly overhead, and Simon could probably fit his entire village just into what he could see of the field. A small herd of what looked like oxen ran in the distance, and there were a few different kinds of bushes scattered through the grass, just a little too regular to seem natural. The field was dominated by an enormous tree, the size of an ancient oak, whose limbs were heavy with a dozen different kinds of brightly colored fruits.
Different
fruits, all on one tree.

“I thought you said we couldn’t go outside the House,” Simon said.

“We’re not outside,” Kai responded. “Technically.” He raised a hand and pointed into the distance, beyond the tree. “What do you see there?”

Simon squinted until he saw something black on the horizon, a rectangular silhouette against the bright blue of the sky. “Is that an outhouse?”

“Not quite. It’s a door, leading deeper into the House. We call this room the garden, and it provides most of our food and water while we stay here.”

“We?” Simon asked. “Where are the other Valinhall Travelers?”

Kai walked past him instead of answering, and Simon saw that he held Azura casually against one shoulder. Why was he bringing his sword with him to eat?

Kai was obviously focused on something at the base of the tree, and when Simon looked closer he saw what seemed to be a man wrapped in straps of leather.

Simon followed Kai, and as they closed the distance he saw that the man was wrapped in mismatched pieces of leather so that not a patch of skin showed. He was criss-crossed with belts, straps, buckles, and scavenged bits of leather armor. His head was covered in a leather cap, his mouth hidden by a half-mask of dark leather. Most bizarre of all, blades jutted out from his leather sleeves, as though he had lost his hands and had swords grafted onto the stumps.

All in all, he was a disturbing sight.
 

Two tiny folds of leather over his face flapped up like eyelids, revealing two gleaming yellow gemstones in the place of his eyes. Actual cut gems, where his eyes should be.

Simon began to suspect that this man wasn’t human.
 

A slit opened across the man’s face, like the mouth of a leather sack. It took Simon a moment to realize the man was yawning.

“Bloody Maker, that was a good sleep. How long has it been since I seen you, eh? Could be years. That’s my time, I suppose, not yours. You spend too much time at the grave, I’d say.”

Kai bowed towards the leather man. “It has been too long, Chaka. I’d like you to meet my student.”

Chaka cast a quick glance in Simon’s direction. Simon felt that he should say something, but nothing appropriate came to mind, so he stayed silent.

“He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” Chaka said. Simon winced; he should have spoken up after all.

“He’s not here to learn conversation skills,” Kai responded.

Chaka snorted, a sound like a leather strap flapping in the wind. “Not from you, right? You lot were all about six hairs short of the bughouse. Speakin’ of that, no one’s taken a student here before. What’s that about?”