I don"t know what it was or what it wanted from me, but I certainly wasn"t going to be fooled by a child"s cry and go running to save the innocent infant, like some idiotic knight in a fairy tale. There aren"t any children here, there haven"t been for two hundred years. At least, not any live ones.
I carefully unfastened my crossbow and loaded a fire bolt instead of one of the ordinary ones. It looked just like a battle bolt, except for the red notches on its tip that helped distinguish it from its nonmagical brothers. It was a serious weapon that could easily topple a knight clad in full armor.
A few moments pa.s.sed, during which my heart sank and became entangled in my guts, then the terrible crying stopped as suddenly as it had started. A second"s silence ... And then I heard quiet chuckling. Malicious laughter. The way a child can laugh when it"s torturing a cat and knows that it will never be punished by the grown-ups. The hair on my head began stirring and my back was suddenly streaming with cold sweat. For almost the first time in my life I wanted to yell out at the top of my voice in sheer animal terror. Nothing had ever frightened me so badly before.
It was time to clear out of there, and quickly-that laugh didn"t make me feel like having a polite, relaxed conversation with its mysterious owner. I no longer had any doubt that this unknown creature had set out to hunt poor Harold. Otherwise how could it have turned up two blocks away from where I"d first heard it?
When I heard the chuckling coming from the ground floor of the house, I abandoned all doubt and hesitation. I hurtled up the steps onto the porch of the judge"s house, pushed open the door, and plunged into the ancient darkness, on the way dragging out of my pocket a disposable magical trinket that gave out a dim light. I could see just well enough to avoid running into the nearest wall or the furniture and to find the old door, warped with age, that led into the inner chambers. There wasn"t even enough time to take out one of the bright magical light sources that I had bought from good old Honchel. I could already hear the laughter in the street, beside the porch.
Anyone else in my place would have fired at this unknown mysterious jolly weeper, but I"m more careful than that-it"s the way For trained me. What if I didn"t kill the weird beast, but only ended up making it even more furious?
I kicked open a door of I"ilya willow, which everyone knows is impervious to the ravages of time, and burst into a dark hall with its walls lost in pitch-darkness. Almost stumbling over the broken furniture lying scattered about in disorder, I dashed on, and the sound of my steps could probably be heard a league away.
Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a skeleton stretched out on the floor in rotted clothes. Another door-and the next hall. And another. And another. I dashed through the abandoned rooms, diluting the darkness with the light radiating from my magic trinket. The blood was pounding in my temples. There were cold icicles of fear stuck in my stomach, refusing to melt. I prayed to Sagot that I wouldn"t stumble and break my leg.
Walls flitting past with huge shadows on them, a flickering sequence of light and darkness, a pale circle of trembling light. Another door loomed up ahead. I opened it, pulled the glove off my left hand and flung it into the darkness, then went dashing back in the opposite direction. I turned left, avoiding a table by a miracle, and slipped into a barely visible cubbyhole for servants. I slammed the door and pressed my back against the wall, trying to restrain my frantic breathing, and hid the magical light inside my jacket so that its radiance wouldn"t seep under the door and betray my presence. The world was plunged into darkness and I merged completely into the wall, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.
Centuries pa.s.sed before my ears heard the quiet steps. They sounded most of all like the light steps of a child walking barefoot. As they approached, my finger tightened on the trigger of my crossbow. The steps halted in front of the door. And again I heard the quiet laugh of delight that sent shivers running across my skin. Had I really been found?
It cost me an immense effort not to run for it, but to freeze in the same way as a frightened hare freezes in a moment of danger, hoping that the predator won"t notice him in the snow. The door swung open sharply, almost flattening me against the wall, but I didn"t move a single muscle, just prayed silently to all the G.o.ds of Siala.
The jolly weeper froze in the doorway. I could hear snuffling. The creature seemed to be trying to locate me by smell. Another chuckle sent frosty tremors running through my stomach. The creature didn"t go away, realizing that I was somewhere nearby, but it didn"t come into the little room, because the other door, through which I had thrown my glove, was open, and it was quite likely that I could be there, waiting for the moment to run.
The grains of sand fell slowly in the hourgla.s.s of time. I had time enough to curse my stupid idea of hiding in the house. I ought to have run along the street-perhaps then I might have managed to get away. But now I felt like a goblin locked in the orcs" maze.
Eventually I heard another quiet chuckle and a second later the receding patter of little bare feet. Taking my orientation from the receding sound, I drew the following picture in my mind: the creature had gone through the hall, entered the next room, and stopped ... Another triumphant chuckle-evidently it had found my glove-and hasty steps moving away until they were swallowed up by the silence.
I slowly slid down the wall onto the floor. There was no way I could stay where I was-the appalling creature could come back at any moment. Should I go back to the Street of Men or take the risk of going on through the darkness and out into the street on the opposite side?
I had been in buildings with similar floor plans a couple of times, so I could easily find my bearings. I had just skipped into the servants" wing, and if I went straight on and then turned left after two doors, I would come out into the rear half of the ground floor of the house. There ought to be a door into the kitchen there, and getting out of the kitchen into the Street of the Sleepy Cat would be only quick work. I took the magical trinket out again and set off through the dark house, expecting to hear that familiar laugh at any moment.
Stepping over a fallen cupboard with broken panes of gla.s.s, I pushed open the door that I needed, went through, and closed it behind me. The dim light picked out a table and a purple vase by Nizin masters, with a bouquet of dried-out flowers: the petals had fallen off long ago and covered the top of the table in a thin brown layer. A chair with a carved back stylized to look like a cobweb-it had to be the work of dwarves, although they don"t much like working with wood. A small set of shelves with rows of dusty books.
I must have entered the steward"s office. He himself was lying there on the floor, facedown. An old skeleton draped with cobwebs and covered with dust. I cautiously moved closer and leaned down over him. The bones of the legs were crushed or, rather, gnawed apart, as if someone had tried to reach the marrow.
Gkhols?
"It doesn"t look like it. The tooth marks are wrong. And there"s a slight trace of magic, too."
I shook my head in amazement. What trace? What tooth marks? What was I talking about? It was as if someone else had thought it and p.r.o.nounced the words out loud. Someone very familiar with the habits of these creatures. Someone who knew about magic. For instance, the person I had recently been in the dream that had engulfed me.
The archmagician Valder.
Sagot, what nonsense is this? My head is my head, and there can"t be any dead magician"s words inside it!
I hastily moved away from the dead man and looked out of the window.
I swore. There was no end to the strange things that happened in the Forbidden Territory.
Outside it was a winter"s night. The roofs of the houses and the road were covered with snow. In some places quite large snowdrifts had built up.
More insane ravings? Ten minutes ago it was summer outside, but now it was genuine winter! Two little boys ran along the street with joyful cries, almost knocking over a fat man in old-fashioned clothes, wrapped up warmly in a fur coat. How many people there were out there! There were lights blazing in the houses opposite, and the buildings themselves looked brand-new.
"The last evening," the familiar voice of Archmagician Valder whispered inside my head. "I died that night."
I jumped in surprise and went flying out of the room, almost breaking down the door on the way.
A table in the middle of the room. A vase with a dried bunch of twigs that had once been flowers, pictures, books, a chair, a skeleton on the floor. A window. Winter. I was back in the room with a view of the winter street.
What kind of nonsense was this?
I walked through the strange door again, and this time I didn"t close it behind me.
A table, a vase, flowers, a dead man, a window, winter.
I glanced back into the room where I had just been.
A table, a vase, flowers, books, a skeleton with gnawed, shredded bones, and white snow falling slowly in the street outside. A closed circle.
I was caught.
I tried repeating the pa.s.sage to and fro through the door about another twenty times, but with unfailing regularity, I found myself back in the very same room. Wouldn"t it be amusing if the jolly weeper found its way in here after me? I couldn"t hide from it for very long in here.
"Dashing through the same room, reflected a thousand times in reality." Again that quiet, weary voice.
"Who are you?" I whispered in fright, listening closely to what was inside me and already guessing what the answer would be.
"I don"t know ..." I heard after a while. "I am I. And I am alive, thanks to you. But not all of me, only a part of my consciousness."
"You"re inside my head!" I shouted.
"Don"t be afraid, I"ll go as soon as you leave this place cursed by magic. Allow me to live. Just for a little ... ," the voice implored, and for a moment I hesitated, but then immediately felt scared.
"No! Get out of my head!"
"You know me. You were me when all this happened. You must know that I won"t do you any harm. On the contrary, I will help you."
I couldn"t give a d.a.m.n for his help. He had installed himself in my head without my permission! What I wanted was to sc.r.a.pe the voice of that accursed archmagician out of my ears altogether.
"I will help you to get out of here and complete your job." He spoke in a low voice; I had to listen closely to make out the words.
"You were me, and I became you. You knew my life, and now I know yours. All your concerns, all your goals. We are one whole."
"We are not one whole!" I angrily kicked the dead man"s skull and it went rolling across to the wall. "This is my body."
"Let it be so." Valder had no intention of arguing. "Simply allow me to fall asleep when all this is over, and I will help you to get out of here."
"Fall asleep? What do you mean, fall asleep? Inside my head?"
"Yes ... I want peace. I have waited for you too long. To fulfill my promise."
"Waited? A promise? To whom?"
No reply.
"No, a thousand times no, may a h"san"kor devour me! This is my head, only mine. Get out of it!"
"Very well," Valder replied after a long silence. "I"ll help you in any case, and then go away. You have wandered into a time mirror. Go out through the window. Just jump and do not think about anything."
Should I do as he said and end up in the winter world? What would I do if I suddenly found myself two hundred years in the past? Would I be able to get back, or would I have to spend the rest of my life in a place that was completely strange to me?
The archmagician said nothing, and basically there was nothing else I could do except follow his advice and climb out of that accursed room through that equally accursed window. Time was pa.s.sing imperceptibly-another two or three hours and dawn would begin. I had to get out of that lousy place before the first rays of sunlight broke over the line of the horizon.
I walked up to the broken window and looked outside. A light, frosty breeze chilled my face. What was that the archmagician had said? a.s.suming, of course, that he had said it, and it wasn"t my insane imagination.
"Just jump and do not think about anything."
Easily said! Take a run up and leap, like a circus tiger jumping through a hoop of fire. Only here, instead of flames, there were sharp shards of broken gla.s.s round the frame. But then it wouldn"t be the first time. I had left several rich men"s houses in the same way after visiting them.
I put the magical trinket away-there was more than enough moonlight. After a moment"s thought I picked up the vase and flung it out into the street. It spun through the air and disappeared, without hitting the ground.
"May the demon of the abyss gnaw on my liver!" I exclaimed, and spat, then took a run and jumped into the unknown.
A glimpse of the room, a white roadway, the moon slowly drifting across the sky, snowflakes falling. I landed on my feet, couldn"t keep my balance and started falling sideways, so I rolled over across my right shoulder.
The illusion disappeared. It evaporated, borne away by the wind of time. No snow, no new houses with windows lit in bright invitation, no people hurrying about their business. Just the dead Street of the Sleepy Cat. Dead houses with dead windows. And summer. So I was where I needed to be.
Valder had showed me the right way out after all. Overcome by curiosity, I looked round at the judge"s house. I went back and looked in through the window at the room where I had just been. A table, flower stems thrown out of a vase, a skeleton. A door. And beyond it a dark, narrow corridor, leading off somewhere into the gloomy interior of the dark building.
"I"m getting away from here!" I muttered, swinging the crossbow behind my shoulder.
The Street of the Sleepy Cat was no different from the Street of Men. The same desolation, the same thousands of imaginary eyes observing me from the ragged wounds of the windows. Except that here the street was a bit narrower and darker, and the buildings were poorer.
I was making rapid progress, but that didn"t prevent me from sticking to the shadows and the semidarkness, as well as listening cautiously to the silence of the night and the dreary song of the wind. Once or twice it brought me the sound of a child"s cry, distorted by distance, but it was so far away that I tried not to take any notice.
There was a huge gaping hole in one of the houses on my right, and I hastily crossed over to the other side of the street-there was no point in tempting fate. After all, I knew what kind of ugly creature could be lurking in there on this fine night.
A strange white blob took shape in the air ahead of me. I crept up close and studied it curiously. My way past a well-ruined wooden inn with a fancy sign in the form of a fat cat was blocked by a cloud of semitransparent, silvery white mist.
Round and fluffy, looking like a harmless little sheep, it was hanging right in the middle of the street, with its edges not touching the surrounding houses.
I don"t know why, but I got the distinct feeling that some gigantic, fat spider had abandoned a half-finished web. The edges of the substance swayed and trembled, creating an impression of sluggish life. This mist was nothing at all like the June mist of Avendoom, which was yellow and too thick to see through, but this ...
It was strange, somehow.
I halted about ten yards from this unexpected obstacle, trying to decide what to do next. For had advised me to go across the roofs, but who knew if they would support the weight of a man after all these years? Should I try to slip through? Under the cover of the shadow, pressing close against the wall?
Beyond the silver haze of this strange substance I could see the outline of a human figure. From the height of him, he had to be a giant. His head was level with the roofs of the single-story houses.
As far as I could tell, what I could see up ahead had to be the statue of Sagot.
I had already lifted one foot in order to go over to the wall and slip past the little cloud when I was stopped by that sharp voice ringing out in my head again: "Stop! Don"t move, if you value your life!"
Harold is an obedient lad, and I froze as still as a scarecrow in a village vegetable garden. It was only a few agonized heartbeats later that I realized the archmagician had come back again and it was his voice. I was about to tell Valder exactly what I thought of him, but before I could, he barked: "Quiet! Not a sound! That rabid beast is blind, but there"s nothing wrong with its hearing! Speak in thoughts, I can hear you perfectly well."
"You promised to leave me alone!"
"Then where would you have been? In the jaws of the irilla?"
"I don"t understand."
"That"s what you"re looking at."
I stared hard at the cloud.
"I read about this creature sp.a.w.ned by the Kronk-a-Mor in the ancient tomes when ..."-the voice hesitated-"... when I was still alive. Irillas are blind, they like deserted places."
"How do they hunt?" I asked doubtfully. "A blind hunter-that"s something new."
"I already told you. They have excellent hearing."
"I think it would have grabbed me ages ago, if everything you say is true," I thought.
"Don"t deceive yourself. The irilla heard you two hundred yards away. It"s still waiting for you to approach it."
"It"ll have a long wait. What kind of fool does it take me for? I"ll have to find another way round."
"As soon as you take a step back, it will attack. You have to deceive it."
"I wonder how?" I snorted, keeping my eyes fixed on the calmly quivering clump of mist. "And what do you care if it eats me?"
Valder was silent for a long time. "I have been given life again after a long wait in oblivion. Life, and not a gray nothingness from which it is impossible to move into either the darkness or the light. Although I exist in another"s body, where I am regarded as an uninvited guest, that is still better than nothing. Let me fall asleep, I will not hinder you, and perhaps sometimes I will be able to help. Do not drive me out ..."
"Okay, it"s a deal. You can stay for the time being." I had come to the conclusion that the archmagician"s help could come in useful after all. "But only until I leave the Forbidden Territory. Agreed?"
"Yes! Thank you."
"So how do I deceive this blind beast with big ears?"
"Try to pick up a stone and throw it as far away from yourself as you can. And then run."
Remarkable, a brilliant plan. And I was foolish enough to think I would get really useful advice. Although I supposed I could try it. If I ran fast, I could end up beside the statue of Sagot, and For told me it was absolutely safe there, no evil beast would dare to touch me.
I picked up a small round stone and threw it into the window closest to the mist. The stone flew into the darkness and bounced off the wall, and then the mousetrap snapped shut. The cloud hurtled toward the sudden sound as fast as an arrow fired from an elfin bow and disappeared into the house, and I darted past the dangerous spot as fast as I could run. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that my trick hadn"t been a complete success. The white bundle of mist, looking more like a worm now, was rapidly pouring back out into the street.
And it was clearly intending to play tag with my own humble and frightened personage. I concentrated all my energy into a wild gallop.
"Faster!" Valder advised me, entirely unnecessarily.