The Sea of Time (26 page)

PRINCE NEAR LINGERED ON, and now the princess’ twin cousins were ailing as well.

“They say that patches of their hair are falling out down to the skull, likewise odd chunks of flesh off of their bones,” Rowan remarked, washing down a chunk of bread and cheese with a gulp from a flask of watered wine. “It sounds almost like the result of a soul injury—you know, like a Bashtiri shadow assassin.”

Kencyr believed that the soul cast the shadow rather than the body. So did the Bashtiri guild, with lethal effect.

“King Krothen says he saw a man with the shadow of a wolf,” said Rose. “A white wolf, at that, with a white shadow.”

“That’s just it: if a wolf is somehow involved, you’d expect blood and broken bones, not a wasting illness.”

“Are you saying that the king is wrong?”

“Not necessarily, just that this isn’t anything straightforward.”

That, thought Tori, was an understatement. He tried to remember if Kruin’s shadow had been intact. Yes. In memory’s eye, he saw the king plunge to meet it on the chalcedony floor. The Prophet had claimed that he was dying of natural causes but might gain immortality if his male heirs were sacrificed. The Gnasher, plainly, was the assassin, but no Dream-weaver. The Master’s consort had reaped souls. What was this man with the shadow of a wolf doing and why, now that Kruin was dead? Around and around Tori’s mind went. No wonder he hadn’t been able to sleep. Besides asking questions, his little command had taken to patrolling Kothifir after dark. Tonight, rather than spend another sleepless night, Tori had joined Rowan and Rose Iron-thorn on this second-story balcony overlooking the central plaza.

Laughter and music floated down from the brightly lit uppermost chamber of the Rose Tower. Krothen held a jolly court, to which entertainers and artists swarmed from all corners of Rathillien. No one ever seemed to sleep. Tori wondered if the new king just didn’t want to be alone. The sense lingered that, although crowned, Kroaky hadn’t yet found his feet. It was rumored that he had tried to bless a caravan of spoils from the Wastes and had failed. Merchants throughout the city had been heard to curse his name when their precious wares crumbled into dust.

Kruin, alive
. . . but how could that be?

“Look,” said Rowan.

A figure had descended the stair and was lurching across the moon-washed plaza, preceded by a canine shadow.

“Is that a dog?” asked Rose.

“No.” Tori leaned forward, listening intently. “It’s singing . . . I think.”

What he heard sounded more like a modulated howl, but there were words mixed up in the cacophony, and some of them rhymed.

Rose stiffened. A child had emerged from the shadows below and was approaching the raucous singer. Before Tori or Rowan could stop her, she had swung to the ground and was racing forward to tackle the latter, who went down with a startled yelp.

Tori sprinted to the rescue. “Rose, stop! I know this fellow. He clowns for the king.”

“I do not!” howled the Kendar’s prey, curled up in a furry puddle on the pavement, tail tight between his legs. “I’m a court poet!
Hic.
”

The child regarded him solemnly. “Is the puppy sick?”

“No, dear,” said Rose. “The puppy is drunk. Why did you attack my daughter?”

“Attack her? I didn’t even
see
her!”

Tori regarded the girl. She was only five or six, as far as he could tell, crowned with a helmet of dark red hair. Even in the moonlight, her eyes were a startling shade of green, her gaze solemn and unflinching. “What are you doing in the city at night?” he asked her. “The lift cages don’t even run after midnight.”

“I climbed.” She handed Rose a packet. “You forgot your dinner.”

“Oh, Brier. How often do I have to tell you not to follow me?”

Tori nudged the crumpled figure with a toe. “You can get up now. Sorry about that.”

“‘Sorry.’ Who apologizes to a poor wolver so far from home?”

“Ah.” Now Tori understood the other’s shadow as it untangled four lanky legs while its owner rose on two shaggy, shaky ones. Other than fur and a disheveled garland of flowers, he was quite naked. “That never occurred to me. Do all wolvers cast the shadow of a wolf?”

“It depends on the phase of the moon.”

“Which tonight is full.” On the chance, Tori had to ask: “Do you know a wolver called the Gnasher?”

“Oh, him. Steer clear . . .
hic
. . . that’s my advice. I’m from the Grimly Holt, but he’s from the Deep Weald. ’Nother kind of beastie altogether. What?”

He looked up, perplexed, at three intent faces.

“When did you last see him?”

“Why, tonight. He’s up there, entertaining the king. Juggles lights, doesn’t he? Shining Glory, they call him. He’s performed for all the best families.”

“Damn,” said Tori. “Rose, stay with your daughter. Rowan, come on.”

“Don’t you want to hear one of my poems?” the wolver Grimly cried after them. “Oh, never mind.”

Tori and Rowan pounded up the stairs of the Rose Tower. Both were breathless by the time they reached the chamber door where a guard tried to stop them, apparently taking them for performers.

“Here, now, what’s your act?”

“We save the king’s life . . . I hope.”

The crowd within had drawn back to the edges of the room to give Shining Glory room. Tori edged between courtiers with Rowan on his heels. Lights flashed ahead, a rotating circle of spheres flying now low, now high.

“Oh! Ah . . .” murmured the onlookers, except for those that turned to glare as the intruders elbowed past.

The performer was a tall, white-haired man with piercing blue eyes, clad in creamy leathers. Soft explosions of light burst from his hands as he increased the number of spheres that he juggled. In their glow he cast no shadow at all, unlike the spectators whose shades whirled against the rose walls as the balls of light circulated. Kroaky sat on the dais in magnificent sky blue robes, entranced, his shadow swaying behind him.

Each ball of light encapsulated the form of a wolf caught at a different moment. Together, they blurred into a leaping figure.

“He’s juggling his soul,” Tori breathed.

The performer flicked one of the spheres toward a courtier. The man staggered in the splash of light, then recovered himself and applauded with the rest, although shakily. Behind him, his shadow wavered in pieces on the floor.

Another flicked sphere, aimed this time at the young king. Surging free of the crowd, Tori threw himself between it and Krothen. The ball hit him in the chest . . .

 
. . . and he was falling over backward grappling with a big white wolf. The floor slammed into him, tables and benches tumbling out of the way. Around him rose the stark walls of the Haunted Lands’ keep that was his soul-image. Jaws snapped at his face. Blue eyes glared down at him.

“Who stands between the Gnasher and his prey? Argh!”

Tori had grabbed a broken table leg and jammed it behind the other’s back teeth. The wolver twisted its head back and forth, trying to gain a grip on the wood. Nails raked at Tori’s arms and chest. Bracing his feet against the beast’s stomach, he kicked him off.

Footsteps sounded on the floor overhead, pacing, pacing, and the boards groaned. Boy and wolver pup froze, reduced by fear to childhood like two guilty truants.

“Is that . . .”

“Yes. My father.”

The white pup crept backward on his belly. “My father said he would eat me, so I ran.”

“So did I.”

“Will he come down the stairs?”

“Sooner or later.”

“You wait for him, then.” The pup turned and bolted . . .

 
. . . and they were back in the Rose Chamber. The big wolver dropped to all fours, shaking his head. Clothes fell away from gaunt flanks, from white fur marked with shadowy whorls and tangles that resembled the horror-stricken faces of his previous victims, moving as the skin moved beneath them in silent shrieks. Snarling, he leaped toward the door, toward onlookers who scrambled out of his way. Only the hapless guard stood his ground. Jaws snapped and the man fell, his cheek and half of his shadow torn away. Then the Gnasher was gone into the night.

“Blackie?” Rowan bent over him. “Are you all right?”

Tori stared down at the remnants of his jacket, at the gouged and bleeding skin beneath. “Well enough,” he said hoarsely. “The king . . . ?”

“Here, Tori.” Krothen appeared over Rowan’s shoulder, looking dazed. “What happened? All I saw was a blaze of light.”

“That was your shadow assassin, the one responsible for all the wasting illnesses among your kin.”

“What? It was? Then after him!”

The confused, surviving guards scrambled to obey, but the Gnasher had slipped away as his master had before him.

That night, Prince Near died. At Princess Amantine’s insistence and on the basis of the Gnasher’s attack, Kothifir declared war on Urakarn.

IV

TORI EDGED THROUGH the limestone passageway, thrusting a torch before him. The Undercliff dwellers had assured him that this was the way to the preservation chamber, not that any of them had visited it since the king’s temporary entombment there. Nor had he told any of his command that he was coming here, given the uproar they would have raised. If he didn’t return, they would find a note in his quarters.

Firelight sparkled on upthrust stalagmites, on the fangs of stalactites. Water dripped.

“Hello?” he called. With no chance of approaching undetected, some warning seemed due.

Light shone ahead. Tori wedged his torch into a crack and proceeded. He could smell water, and stone, and blood. Beyond a rock formation, the cave opened up, some twenty feet wide and too low for a man to stand upright. One end dipped into a still pool. The other rose to a shelf, on which lay a body. Over it crouched a shining white figure with eyes aglow and a gory muzzle. The blood was fresh. Trickles of it ran down from the ledge to the floor and across that to the pool.

“Well,” said the Gnasher, adjusting his jaw for human speech. “This is unexpected.”

Tori sat on his heels. The low, rocky ceiling and general lack of room to maneuver made him nervous, but there was no helping that. At least he had been right to think that no backup could help him here.

“I have to know,” he said. “Are you finished with King Krothen?”

The other laughed soundlessly through sharp teeth. “And if I’m not?”

“We fight. On the level of the soulscape or hand to hand.” He touched a knife at his side. “It isn’t much, but I must do what I can to ensure my friend’s safety before I march out with the Host to Urakarn.”

“If you march out.”

“If.”

“You puzzle me, lordling. You beard the monster in his den, but cannot face what lies within your own soul.”

“You couldn’t either.”

The wolver licked his lips with a long, red tongue. “I was caught unaware. Another time, a different father . . .
 
But yes, I will leave Kothifir after one last gorge. This city has nothing more to offer me.”

Tori nodded toward the sprawling body. “Is that Kruin? What happened to him?”

“He started screaming and wouldn’t stop. Is that how you found us? No doubt the Undercliffers talked, although none of them had the nerve to investigate.”

The body twitched and whined.

“I want to live, I want . . .”

The Gnasher’s jaw extended to tear again. Wet sounds of carnage echoed off the stone walls and the trickle became a pulsing flood. Tori winced.

The Gnasher grinned over his prey, white fangs dripping red.

“You see how hard it is to kill a god-king,” he said. “Not long now, though.”

Tori forced himself to remain still. His instinct had been right: until Kruin died, Krothen couldn’t truly become king, and after what he had done, no one wanted Kruin back.

Like your own father, eh?

Still, it was hard to watch.

The Gnasher lowered his head again and chewed. Kruin shuddered. Then his head tipped back and fell off the ledge. It rolled almost as far as Tori. For a long moment, he looked into Kruin’s horrified eyes. Then, at last, they glazed.

“There.” The Gnasher wiped his muzzle with a paw and spat. “Immortality is too much for the weak. Kruin wasn’t quite dead when his attendants brought him here, you see. I nursed him with soul-shreds from his heirs, even provided a wooden dummy to take his place on the pyre, but something in his mind broke. Never mind. I now know what I came here to learn.”