25

The falcon was worried that she might never find the girl. She missed her. And she could feel that the girl was in trouble.

The mountain was a strange echoing place with many narrow tunnels and lines of weirdly straight tree trunks with neither branches nor leaves. The falcon liked all the colors, and as she searched for the girl, she had fun practicing her flying by racing in and out between the tree trunks.

Now she was speeding through an echoey cave full of the musky smell of earthbound beasts. She glimpsed something huge moving in the dark. Then she was out again and there was another line of tree trunks, so she did some more in-and-out flying.

She nearly crashed into a giant shimmery cobweb—swerved, and bashed her wingtip against something hard that rattled alarmingly.

Frightened, the falcon perched on a ledge. She didn’t like this place anymore. There was no earth and no Wind, and that giant cobweb had nearly gotten her.

To her surprise, she found herself missing the lion cub. The cub was grumpy and had an irritating habit of sneaking up when you were trying to roost, but you always knew what she was feeling. The falcon found that oddly comforting.

Bobbing her head to sharpen her sight, she set off again. More narrow tunnels, more leafless tree trunks; but this time, she did no in-and-out flying. Sparrows scattered before her and lizards darted into cracks. Although she was hungry, the falcon ignored them all.

Where was the girl?

It was getting late.

Pirra sat on her bed, gazing at the fire. Hylas thought she must be thinking about the Mystery, and all the other things that daughters of High Priestesses think about, which Lykonian goatherds can’t possibly understand.

She was flushed from the wine, and looked handsomer than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was a shadowy river down her back, and her dark eyes reminded him of the painted women in the Great Court: just as highborn and just as inaccessible.

It was a long time since he’d thought about the difference between them, but now it became a chasm.

She’d dressed in a rush, which made it worse, because she was so used to it all. Her tunic was fine scarlet wool patterned with blue lilies made of tiny glittering stones that she called beads. At her waist, with casual grace, she’d knotted a belt of gold lizard skin with two silver tassels hanging down. When she moved, he caught a heady scent of jasmine.

What an idiot he’d been. He’d actually imagined that she could live with him and Issi and Havoc on Mount Lykas. Idiot. You can’t take a girl like this to live on a mountain.

“D’you want more wine?” she said suddenly.

“No,” he replied.

She gave him a look that he didn’t understand. Then she rose and spread the red rug carefully over her bed, and looked at him again.

She’s trying to put me at my ease, he thought savagely. Because I’m an ex-slave with scars on my knees from crawling down mines, and part of my earlobe cut off to remove the mark of the Outsider.

He got to his feet, overturning his cup with a clatter. “We should get some sleep,” he growled.

“Right,” said Pirra.

“I’ll sleep in the passage.”

She touched her scar. “Right,” she said again. “But you don’t need to. I mean”—her flush deepened—“there’s a bed in the next room.”

He snorted. “I’ve never slept in a bed in my life and I’m not going to now.”

She drew a breath. “I’ll fetch you more sheepskins.”

He’d never slept in those either, but he wasn’t going to tell her, so he watched her bring an armful of the cleanest fleeces he’d ever seen, along with a small soft pad. “What’s that?” he said.

“It’s a pillow. It’s—for your head.”

“Oh.” Yet another thing he’d never heard of.

“Sleep well,” she mumbled. Her eyes were glittering, as if she was going to cry, and suddenly he wondered if he’d got it all wrong. He made to speak, but she let down the door-hanging between them.

“You too,” he muttered.

Silence on the other side. He pictured her standing there. Then he heard the whisper of her bare feet crossing the floor and the creak of her bed.

Still with the nagging sense that he’d made a mistake, he kicked the sheepskins along the passage. They were incredibly soft and smelled faintly of jasmine; curling up in them was like having his own little cloud. He’d scarcely closed his eyes when sleep reached up and dragged him under.

He dreamed he was standing beneath the Mountain of the Earthshaker, craning his neck at the peak. It turned into a huge bull and came thundering after him. Now he was in the House of the Goddess, running down endless passages, trying to find Pirra. He ran out into the Great Court and there she was, but to his horror, she’d become one of the painted women on the walls, and she was laughing at him. What are you doing here, Outsider?

He woke with a start. He was hot and tangled in sheepskins. He could still hear Pirra’s mocking laughter from the dream.

He hated Kunisu. He hated feeling these unnaturally smooth stones beneath him instead of earth, and these painted walls that shut him off from wind and sky.

He sat up. It was no good, he was never going to sleep.

Pirra lay curled in her scarlet rug, her face buried in her pillow in a storm of dark hair. She didn’t stir when he lit a rushlight from the brazier. He would climb to that place where you could see out—the East Balcony?—and make sure there were still no Crows. At least that was something he could do.

By night, the House of the Goddess was alive with the secret rustlings of wild creatures. He found the stairs easily enough, and left his rushlight in an empty brazier before stepping onto the balcony. If anyone was out there, he didn’t want them seeing his light.

To his relief, the woods along the river were dark: no red sparks of torches or campfires. He caught the tang of pine, and made out a tree not far from where he stood. He wished he was out in the forest.

The stairs seemed longer on the way back, and he heard a mysterious rhythmic clicking, some way off. At the bottom, he blundered into a silk hanging. That hadn’t been there on the way out, he must’ve taken a wrong turn. In the mountains, he hardly ever got lost, but in here, everything looked the same.

That clicking was louder. He came to a shadowy hall where a massive loom leaned against the wall. Along its lower edge hung a row of clay weights, clicking against each other.

His scalp tightened. There was no draft that could’ve set them moving. Who—or what—had passed this way?

He swung his rushlight to and fro—and a painted face glared at him from the wall.

The Goddess wore a skirt of overlapping blue waves and a tight red open-breasted bodice. Her white features and fierce dark stare reminded him of Pirra’s mother, the High Priestess.

He thought of the ghosts on the Ridge of the Dead. Did they come down by night and walk the silent halls of Kunisu?

Was Yassassara here now?

He ran.

More stairs, more passages. He burst through a doorway into the Great Court. Wherever he turned, painted crowds mocked him silently. Which way, Outsider?

He chose a door at random and was relieved to recognize the paintings in the passage. There was that buck with the fly on its ear, and the dormouse on the barley spike; a few more paces and he’d reach the stone bull half emerging from the wall—

The bull was gone.

In disbelief, Hylas passed his hands over the smooth cold stone where it had been. This was the place, he was sure of it.

With a prickle of fear, he remembered Pirra telling him how when she was little, she used to believe that it came alive at night . . .

In the passage ahead, he heard the scrape of hooves, and loud snorting animal breath.

His rushlight shrank to a dim glow.

Just before it blinked out, he saw a vast horned shadow on the wall.