Legends of the Riftwar (99 page)

Elaine pretended to sleep; suppressing all thought, she waited. Eventually one of her enemies came forward to test her and Elaine grabbed it.

She squeezed it and it howled, yanking her this way and that as it tried to flee. Finally it came to some sort of barrier and began to drag itself through. Elaine held on, trying to drag it back so that she could get a better grip on it. But this one was stronger than the first had been and persisted in its struggles. Finally it dragged her right up to the barrier, leaving very little of itself in her imaginary hands.

It was like being pressed against something hot and hard, yet she could feel herself slipping through and gripped the thing in her hands tighter. If she lost her grip she didn't know where she might find herself, but she didn't want to be in worse case than she already was so she held on for dear life.

Suddenly she could see! Elaine was so startled that she released the thing she'd been clinging to. It was daylight, but there were candles all around her bed. Then she felt herself rising, light as dandelion fluff and with no more control; she struggled to stop her ascent and succeeded only in turning over so that she could see below her.

Elaine found herself staring at her own body lying on the bed.
Am I dead?
she wondered. She had heard tales of people floating over their bodies, seeing mourners or visions of their homes before being taken to Lims-Kragma's Hall of the Dead. Such tales were told by those whom the healing priests had recalled the instant before their transition from life to death.

Then she saw her chest rise, ever so slowly: but she was breathing! She examined herself closely. She didn't look at all well.
Am I dying?
She panicked and tried to bring herself closer to her body, waving her arms as though swimming, then realized that she had no physical arms. She had no body around her! The shock of that realization caused an instinctive reaching out, as if trying to grip her own physical being with her spiritual hands. Suddenly, she was back inside her body, back with the pain and the long, slow silence. Her tormentors were gone:
she could feel that she was alone again. Then, suddenly, like a candle being snuffed out, awareness was gone.

 

When awareness returned she understood; the ‘dreams' as she had thought of them were her mind leaving her body, while the waking stages had been her mind being trapped within. She must learn to control this ability, to set her mind free, she decided.

How long it took she did not know but with much concentration, Elaine found that she could leave her body behind and float from room to room, going through walls and floors as though they were made of water.

The manse was dirty and nearly deserted. The few people she found were the kind of mercenary scum that even her father wouldn't have hired, yet many wore the garb of the household guard.

Her enemies still lingered, but they never came near her any more. Sometimes she seethed at the thought of what they had done to her and hunted for them. At other times she was almost grateful to them, for they had shown her the way out of the darkness and the pain. Mostly she wanted to see them, to find out what they were. Then she'd decide what to do about them. Were they supernatural beings? Or ghosts? Or agents of some other power?

Where is my baby?
she wondered suddenly. Then was amazed that the thought hadn't occurred to her before. How could she forget her only child? Her little boy. She must find him.

But it was too late, she could feel herself being pulled back. Elaine didn't even fight any more, she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it. At least she didn't have to be there all the time. Before she was sucked back into her ailing body, she saw that the candles had burned down quite a bit.

 

When next she woke she heard the voices of children! A girl's voice echoed in the distance, calling to her. At once Elaine found herself in the corridor and for the first time in a long time sensed the presence of those horrors who had abused her so. She called out,
This way!
Round the corner of the hallway came a small group of children, two girls and two boys. They looked exhausted as well as frightened.

Hovering over them, Elaine saw her enemies for the first time. They looked like tendrils of black smoke, writhing and twining in and out of a central blackness, and they projected fear and an icy cold.

This way,
she called again, pointing toward the door of her chambers. Over and over she shouted to them. At last one of the girls seemed to understand, leading them to her door. They piled into her room and slammed the door shut behind them.

Elaine swept toward the black cloud furiously, snatching at one of its tendrils. It pulled back, retreating slightly, keeping just close enough to tease. Rather than waste her energy, Elaine went back to her room and hovered protectively over the children, pleased by their presence, delighted by the littlest one; he was perhaps seven or eight years of age, and despite being very frightened, he carried himself well.

She sensed her enemy lurking in the corridor, but it did not attempt to enter. It was only then that she saw the warding on her walls, traceries of light, of command, of this-shall-not-change. Perhaps someone had heard her pleas for aid after all.

As she listened to the children talk she found that they were desperate to escape. It saddened her that they found her as terrifying as the entity in the corridor, but she supposed she couldn't blame them.
If only I could help the poor little things
. Elaine peered into the corridor; the thing snickered at her and she withdrew.

As she looked around her room she sensed an older warding and sought it out. She went through the wall and rediscovered
the hidden passageway there. Her husband had shown it to her the day he installed her in these rooms. ‘They go all through the manse,' he'd said.

She saw the youngest boy staring at that wall, and something in his eyes told her he was on the verge of understanding. She spoke to the girl who had led the others to her rooms, telling her about the passageway, telling her the key was in the sculpture on the wall. Soon she could see that she was listening. She got up and went to the carving, testing all the little projections until she found the right one.
Oh, bright child!
she thought.

Then she was out of time again, being drawn back to her body. She might never find out how this ended and was frustrated indeed. She wished she could wake up for good.

 

When she next awoke, Elaine wondered about the children, especially the girl who seemed to hear her. As she pictured her she suddenly found herself beside her. This had happened before, but she had no control over it. She would think of some person or place and find herself there, but only within the confines of the manse. She'd never yet been able to even enter the rose garden. But she did have access to everywhere and everyone inside the house. Except for Bernarr. When she thought of him she found herself in the presence of a much older man. An uncle or cousin, she'd assumed, since she knew his father was deceased.

She didn't really mind that he never came here any more; she hadn't loved him and she didn't miss him. But she did want to see her baby and her little one must surely be with the Baron. She sighed and the candle one of the boys was holding flickered.

‘Be careful!' the oldest girl almost cried, her voice sounding very loud in the passage.

The younger girl, the one who sometimes could hear Elaine, whimpered, but was bravely holding back her tears.

Elaine's heart melted for her. They were all covered with streaks of dust and looked exhausted and the food-sack tied to the older girl's belt looked sadly empty.
Poor little things
, she thought. They needed a refuge, but
her rooms
wouldn't do. She frightened them, and the old man who looked like Bernarr slept there.

‘'S'not my fault! There's draughts,' the boy holding the candle said, his youthful anger at being blamed for something he didn't do overriding caution and the need for quiet.

The others said nothing but watched the stub of the candle anxiously. It was plain they were afraid of being left in the dark.

Elaine remembered a place they could hide that should do very well. Bernarr had brought her there just after she'd arrived. ‘It is warded so that when you wish to be private no one will bother you here.' He'd smiled proudly. ‘It shall be your own sanctuary.' She'd felt no need at all for such a place, but he'd been so proud of his gift that she'd smiled and leaned up to kiss his cheek, a kiss he'd claimed with his lips.

‘Come with me,' she whispered to the girl who seemed to hear her. ‘I know a place where you'll be safe.'

 

Neesa stood up, looking down the dark passageway. Her crying stopped and she smiled.

‘What is it?' Mandy hissed; her eyes glittered in the candlelight as she tried to look in every direction at once.

‘Let's go this way,' Neesa said like someone in a dream. ‘It's the right way.' She walked off.

Kay and Mandy looked at one another, but Rip pushed himself to his feet and started after Neesa. ‘C'mon,' he said impatiently.

Mandy got up and followed. ‘You coming?' she threw over her shoulder at Kay.

Rip was moving carefully so as not to put out the candle, their only source of light. ‘Wait!' he said to Neesa and his breath blew it out.

Mandy gasped and Kay cried out in fear.

‘Don't make noise!' Rip admonished. ‘I'm in front of you. Hold hands! We've got to stay together.'

‘It's your fault!' Kay snapped.

‘It doesn't matter,' Rip said tiredly, ‘it was going out anyway. Be careful! Right, everybody here?'

‘Yeah,' Kay muttered, fear reducing his voice to a hoarse whisper.

‘Then let's go,' Rip said. ‘Every time Neesa's had this feeling it's led us somewhere safe.'

‘I wouldn't call this safe,' Kay sneered.

‘It's safer than the halls,' Rip reminded him, ‘or the room we were locked in.'

‘We can't get out!' the other boy shouted.

‘Shhh!' Mandy said. ‘We couldn't get out before either. Unless you've got a better idea put a stopper in it, Kay.'

They were silent then, moving carefully in the pitch-darkness. They slipped down corridors so narrow they had to turn sideways and went up and down stairs both narrow and creaky until at last Neesa brought them to a halt.

‘Here,' she said softly.

The others stood still and listened to the sound of her apparently patting the walls. There was a muffled click and they all flinched as a narrow crack let in a blinding light. Then Neesa impulsively pushed open the panel and led them through. She squealed with delight at what she found.

Though everything was covered with dust and the air was stale from long disuse, the room was undeniably cosy, and well lit from a high window.

‘We won't run out of candles here,' Mandy said, smiling.

Everywhere they looked there were candlestands with branches of candles in them. There was a full scuttle of sea-coal as well. Plumply cushioned chairs and sofas abounded and there was a feeling of peace about the place.

‘Now all we need is something to eat,' Kay said. ‘And water. Got any feelings about that?'

Rip raised one eyebrow and was immediately pleased with himself for having done so for the first time. So instead of getting annoyed at the other boy's attitude he thought about the question. ‘Yes,' he decided. He picked up the empty sack and looked at Kay. ‘Want to come?'

For an answer Kay plucked two candles from a stand and lit them from the strikebox. He wasn't about to refuse to do something the younger boy was willing to try.

 

Rip peered out through the hole in the carving.
This is fun!
he thought. His young mind had a problem understanding all the terrors that were around him since he had awakened in this place, but spying on people from a hidden location was something he could finally grasp, and it felt like a game to him.

The secret passages turned out to have a lot of doors and peepholes. The narrow corridors felt a lot safer than the old room had. He shuddered, turned and put his finger to his lips, and then put his eye back to the hole.

He saw a really big room again; but then, most of the rooms were. This one had windows open, and he spared them a longing look. There was a long table set for a meal with fancy metal tableware, not wood and crockery, not even pewter, but real silver. An old-looking man was sitting at the head of the table, talking to two other men who stood with their caps in their hands.

Rip's lips pursed. Those were the men who'd taken him and brought him here. He could tell by their voices. They looked cruel, and scary, too. A third man sat with his back to the hole, silent.

‘Take this,' he said, pushing something across the table at them.

One of the men reached out, then pulled his hand back as if the little thing had burned it. ‘Magic!' he blurted.

‘Of course it's magic, you fool,' the old man said. ‘The needle points at the man you are to take for me.'

The other seated man spoke, his voice smooth and soothing and somehow reminding Rip of the stuff his mother sometimes smeared on burns, or when you got stung by poison-oak or nettles. ‘It's entirely harmless, I assure you,' he said. ‘You need merely follow the needle's point. It may lead you on a long chase–the man in question may be as much as fifty miles away–but it shouldn't be too difficult.'

‘And the pay is good,' the older man snapped. ‘More than for all the others.'

One of the standing men nudged his companion; he picked up the small thing from the table reluctantly and wrapped it in a rag, tucking it into his belt.

‘It's a man this time?' he asked. ‘Not a boy?'

‘He should be just seventeen,' the old man said, turning his head aside. For a moment Rip saw how sad he looked, and felt a little sorry for him. His voice sank, so that the boy could barely follow it. ‘Just seventeen…he should be tall, perhaps fair-haired, perhaps brown.'