The Shadow at the Gate (38 page)

“Down or left?” said Lena urgently.

The last doorway brought them to a staircase sweeping down into a vast hall. A blue velvet carpet flowed down the steps onto a marble floor. Pillars reached up and up, curving in to meet each other in an interlacement of stone weaving around glass skylights. The sickle moon and her accompanying train of stars shone down. Jute took a deep breath. It was almost as good as being outside. Left, high along the wall of the hall, ran a gallery.

“Down,” said Jute.

They tumbled down the steps. The marble floor was impossibly smooth, and Lena skidded on it until she tripped into a tumble of hysterical giggling.

“Hurry!” said Jute. Above them, the staircase creaked.

“Sorry,” she said. He hauled her to her feet. Her hands trembled in his.

“What’s all this?”

They turned. A man stood there, hands on hips. He was dressed in servant’s livery, in the blue and black colors of the regency of Hearne.

“Beggars sneaking about the castle! I warrant your dirty hands have been doing a bit of thieving, eh? Well, let’s have you off to the Guard for a whipping. Come on now!”

But it would have taken someone quicker than a servant to catch those two, especially a paunchy footman who wasn’t accustomed to anything more strenuous than chasing the chambermaids in his spare time. Besides, when they had turned, the two children had seen what was coming down the staircase. They fluttered away from the man’s hands like birds and were gone.

“Here now!” called the footman. He broke into a run but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to muss up his hair, especially as that new maid from Vomaro had started working in the east wing. Shadows, but she was a delectable piece.

Something cold touched his shoulder.

“Here now,” he said again, aggrieved at such a liberty. He turned.

Behind them, the children heard a scream that choked off into silence.

“Jute! What was that thing on the stairs?”

“Something real bad. Something worse’n the Juggler on his worst of worse days.”

It was then they heard music. They ran down a long corridor, dimly lit and lined with paintings of stern-looking men who all seemed to be frowning at them as they ran by. The music grew louder—the sounds of violins, cellos, flutes, and the curious sliding whistle that is thought much of in the north for its melancholy tones. Jute knew nothing about instruments, but he thought the music sounded nice. With it, there was also the sound of voices. Many voices.

“People!” said Lena, alarmed.

“I’d rather have people than the thing back there! Besides, maybe it’ll stop to eat one or two an’ waste some time.”

“Eat?” squeaked Lena.

The corridor opened abruptly into another corridor, wider and lighter than the previous one and filled with servants hurrying about with platters and pitchers and crystal goblets and vases of flowers. Other than getting a few startled glances, the two children were ignored. The servants were going in one of two directions. Either they exited the corridor by the door at the far end, or they were entering the corridor by the same door, at which point they would then vanish through any one of numerous other doors further down the corridor.

“C’mon,” said Jute.

They positioned themselves behind a trio of servants hurrying toward the door at the far end of the corridor. Each one of the three servants bore aloft platters steaming with wonderful fragrances.

“Um,” said Lena. “I could do with a bit of supper.”

“Shush.”

The door was obviously a special door, for it was two doors rather than one. Each had a large silver handle, and each was attended by a white-gloved footman who pulled them open and swung them shut as the occasion demanded. Standing to one side was a fat man with splendid moustaches curling out and up toward his eyebrows. It seemed to be his job to inspect each dish exiting through the doors.

The first of the trio of the servants halted in front of the moustached man and offered his platter for inspection.

“Sweet apples stuffed with cheese, cinnamon—”

“And walnuts,” said the first servant.

“Impertinence,” said the moustached man, glaring at him. “I was saving the walnuts for last. You may go. Next! Ahh—one of my favorites—baby eels seethed in wild onions and the juice of gently crushed persimmons—”

“Yuck,” said Lena.

“Shush.”

“—certain to delight the jaded taste buds of even our most bored noble, eh?”

“Er,” said the second servant.

“Very good. You may go.”

The double doors swung open and the second servant disappeared through them.

“And what have we here?” boomed the mustached man.

The third servant held out his platter.

 
“What have we here?” boomed the mustached man again, his gaze falling on Jute and Lena. While three servants were more than sufficient to hide behind, one servant was inadequate. The fat man’s moustaches quivered in outrage.

“Tiny mutton cutlets,” said the third servant. “Baked in a lovely mint sauce, accompanied by baby potatoes, fried golden and—”

“This won’t do!” The mustached man produced a bell from his pocket. He rang it vigorously.

“It won’t?” said the third servant, pained on behalf of the mutton and still oblivious to the two children behind him.

At that moment, the situation was taken out of the hands of the mustached man and whatever result his bell was designed to produce. Far away, at the other end of the corridor, a scream rang out. Someone shouted and there came a terrific clattering crash as a platter of crystal goblets was dropped on the floor. The mustached man looked up and his jaw dropped. The bell dropped as well from his slack fingers. The two footmen looked up. Their faces whitened.

“Run!” said Jute.

He grabbed hold of Lena’s hand. The third servant yelped in outrage as Jute shoved him aside. The mutton went flying and the potatoes followed—one by one—like little falling stars. Jute slammed into one of the doors and they darted through.

For a second, Jute thought they had somehow stepped into the night sky. Into a sky full of stars above and below and on every side, all wheeling in stately grace to the strains of strings and winds. They stood on a floor like polished black glass. It stretched away from them through a vast airy space bounded by columns rising out of the floor toward an unseen ceiling. Clusters of tiny lamps hung high overhead like constellations. These were the only sources of light in the place. They reflected off the floor’s expanse and the black curves of the columns. Their light caught in the jewels of the assemblage, glinting in minute gleams of sapphire, emerald, ruby, amethyst, and the white, wintry wink of diamond, for a great throng of people was there, some dancing, some strolling about on the edge of the dance, others standing in conversation by the walls. And the lamps and their myriad reflections twinkled like the stars of the night.

“C’mon,” said Jute.

He took her hand in his and they hurried across the floor. Couples swept around them, revolving in circles that spiraled in and spiraled out on the rise and fall of the music. Silk whispered across the glassy floor. Faces spun by, smiling, grave, laughing, intent—dappled with light and shadow and the flash of eyes. No one spared the two children a glance. They crept through the throng, around those dancing, past groups of nobles in tight clusters of discourse, tiptoeing by the servants who floated everywhere on silent feet with their platters and pitchers and their hushed utterances: “Would you care for more wine, milord? May I take that, milady?”

Jute quickened his pace, dragging Lena along with him. His ears hurt, dreading, yet aching to hear the uproar that was sure to erupt behind them at any moment. Something tickled uneasily inside his mind. The back of his neck stiffened.

Don’t look!

The hawk’s voice exploded into his mind. There was a desperate urgency in the words.

But he had to turn. He had to. Someone was staring at him. Jute could feel the force of the gaze. He stopped, felt Lena’s hand pull at him, and turned. Several lengths away, a couple danced under a chandelier. The lamps gilded the lady’s neck with light, but her head was tilted away and Jute could not see her face. But her partner was taller and his face was in the light. The light seemed to love him. It burnished his hair into a radiance of gold and it gathered in his green eyes until they looked more like emeralds than simple flesh and blood.

The man stared at Jute. His face was expressionless, but something flickered in those emerald eyes. Something hungry. Jute could not look away. A strange weariness gripped him. Perhaps it’s best to just stop running, he thought to himself. Can’t run forever. Dimly, he heard the voice of the hawk in his mind, but he could not understand the words. The hawk called again. It was only a harsh, ugly sound. The sound of a bird, angry and raw with fear. He felt Lena tug frantically on his hand.

“Jute!”

That was when the screaming began.

The music faltered to a halt. The stars wandering in their courses froze, stunned into immobility as people halted in mid-step, in the middle of words, in the middle of their dancing, their smiling, their laughter. And then there was a great horrified rush of movement as people turned to run. They floundered, panicked and gasping. The light of the lamps high overhead stayed with them, caught in the spray of amethysts in a baroness’s hair, shining in the diamonds on the fingers of a lord, glittering and gleaming on a thousand thousand jewels that fled away in any direction that they could. The stars abandoned their proscribed paths as has never been done before by the stars of the true night, though some have said such a thing will happen at the end of time.

“Jute!”

Lena yanked so hard on his hand that he almost lost his balance, but he could not look away. The emerald eyes held him fast. Not once had the man bothered to glance back at the disturbance. But the woman who had been dancing with him turned, her gaze on the other end of the hall. She was not overly tall, but tall enough so her profile came between Jute and the man. The emerald eyes were gone, obscured for a second by the woman. Jute had a momentary glimpse of her face, of black hair piled up in a glossy sheaf on her head and the slender line of her neck. Jute blinked, released. His head ached horribly.

“Jute! C’mon!”

Lena’s voice was shrill with panic. He turned to run but it was too late.

He had an impression of darkness, of something blurring down toward him like a wave of shadow. It blotted out the shining lights overhead and then he was drowning in darkness. Stone crushed him with its cold weight. He could not breathe.

“Stop!”

The angry shout came from somewhere on his right. A woman’s voice. She yelled again, the second time louder as if she was approaching. The darkness pressing down around him shuddered at the sound of her voice. It constricted violently, crushing him like a huge fist. He could not move or think or see. Everything was black. He felt stone under his skin, choking his throat, shoving against his eyes until something had to give, something had to burst.

“Stop!”

The shout came a third time. The sound slammed into the stone around him. It hit so hard that Jute felt his body stagger backwards, helpless in the grip of the awful thing that held him. The ground trembled. Abruptly, he was released. He fell to his knees and choked on air.

Jute looked up. Standing next to him was a woman. The woman. The woman who had been dancing with the man with emerald eyes. He saw now that she was young, surely only several years older than himself. She was dressed in a simple gown of brown material that gathered and glowed with the lamplight. Harthian silk, Jute thought tiredly to himself, worth more than a gold piece to the yard. Her fists were jammed on her hips and her chin was up.

The hall was silent. All Jute could hear was the ragged wheeze of his own lungs. He could not see Lena. The great assembly of lords and ladies stood like statues, all crowded far back in fear. A vast open space lay all around Jute and the woman. But they were not entirely alone. Darkness crouched in front of the woman. The darkness was immense, yet formless, without shape or any definable edge. It seemed to blur into the floor on either side. Stone could be seen in it, veiled with shadow, as if that was its heart. The thing did not move.

“Come,” said the woman. The anger was bright in her voice. “Come. Let us end this now.”

There was some sort of compulsion in her words, for the darkness quivered and then, with a groan of protest as if it already knew its demise, surged forward. It towered up, gaining form. Shadow coalesced into massive legs and arms. A face of stone erupted from the darkness with blunt features and a gaping mouth. Jute cried out, for surely there was no escape from the creature. Surely there was only the darkness.

Aye
, said a familiar voice inside his head.

Aye, there is only the Dark. It comes for every man. It is their right and fitting end. As it is yours. Now.

The woman, despite the horror bearing down on her, whirled around as if she had heard the voice as well. Her gray eyes glittered with fury. She snapped her fingers and the voice vanished from Jute’s thoughts. And then she turned away. Her hands stabbed in the air—once, twice—and the thing reaching for her staggered and fell back. Her fingers flicked a third time. With a sigh, the creature collapsed. A cloud of dust and shadow billowed out and dissipated in the air until nothing was left.