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Everything was quiet. The thunder of the storm had disappeared. The slashing rain and spears of lightning were gone. Only Ossdonc’s iron grip on Reiffen’s arm remained to remind him of everything that had happened. His last chance of rescue was gone, snatched away in the single moment Ossdonc had cried out,
“RETURN!”
Once again he found himself standing within a circle of tall stones. Only this time there was no blackened earth or grass beneath his feet. This time he stood firmly on a smooth rock floor. Ossdonc loomed beside him, a dark shadow against the night. Reiffen hardly had time to look around before he was pulled along by the Wizard to a set of steps that led down beneath the floor. He caught a glimpse of a star or two in the night above, and the shadows of what might have been mountains beyond the circle of stones. Then he was dragged down into the deeper darkness. The upper world was left behind.
The walls closed in around them. No light sparked their long descent. If there were any windows along that spiral stair, no stars or moon shone bright enough to reveal them. Terrified, Reiffen struggled not to fall as the Wizard pulled him along, the only sounds the thud of Ossdonc’s great stride and the slap of Reiffen’s smaller steps behind.
Abruptly the stairs came to an end; Reiffen tripped on the unseen floor. His arm was nearly wrenched off as Ossdonc jerked him forward in a new direction. This time there were no stairs and no turns, just a hurried run forward behind the Wizard’s own fast walk. Although Ossdonc’s great bulk blocked most of the high-ceilinged passage, gradually Reiffen began to notice the gray stone of the walls on either side, and found he was trotting along in the wake of the Wizard’s long shadow.
The light increased. Reiffen found himself pulled into the sudden brightness of a large room, where smoking torches burned in brackets on the filthy walls and soldiers stood idly about. The Wizard threw Reiffen across the room toward them, and the soldiers snapped to attention as the boy fell at their feet in a jumble of arms and legs. He quailed at their cruel, hard faces, small reflections of their master’s. Even indoors they wore heavy helms and armor of leather and black iron, and carried short, heavy swords.
Ossdonc’s voice boomed. “Take this one to the dungeons!” Without waiting for any sort of reply he turned and left as suddenly as he had arrived.
Two soldiers seized Reiffen’s arms and dragged him roughly off down a different passage. There was no chance to fight them. And even if he could escape, where would he go? They pulled him along to another room filled with guards, and from there descended many levels into the dungeons. The boy lost all track of the twists and turns and branching corridors they followed. By the time they tossed him into a dark cell and slammed the heavy door behind him, all he knew of where he had been taken was that it was somewhere deep beneath the world.
The key rattled in the lock. Footsteps receded down the hall. Reiffen lay in the darkness, terrified of what what might be done to him next. He knew that no one who had ever been taken to Ussene had ever come out again. Or, if they had, that they came out completely different from whom they had been when they went in. Where else could he possibly be, but Ussene?
He cried. His tears wet his cheeks and the grime on the ground beneath him. When he stopped it was only because he lacked the strength to keep on. Exhausted, he lay on the floor, his wet face sticking to the cold and dirty stone. Knowing his crying would do him no good, he did his best to swallow his fear. But it remained, nonetheless, a tight little knot that gripped his stomach.
He wiped his nose with his sleeve and, to keep from crying again, explored the cell around him.
It wasn’t large. He felt no furniture, just a pair of iron manacles hanging from the back wall, and a wooden door in the front. His fingers traced a thin crack at the bottom of the door, but not a glimmer of light shone in from that direction. His lip began to tremble and he bit the inside to keep from crying again. No other sound disturbed the darkness. After a while he surprised himself and fell asleep, fatigue finally overwhelming his terror. He slept for a long time on his side on the cold stone floor, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped round his knees.
He was dreaming of his mother and the blue lake shimmering beneath the Manor when he was startled awake by the sound of the key turning once more in the lock. Quickly he sat up and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his filthy fingers. The door opened and an arm with a torch was thrust inside.
“Come on out, you,” said a harsh voice. “No hangin’ back, there. You’re wanted Upstairs quick.”
Cautiously Reiffen went to the door. It was small and he had to bend to pass through it. Ossdonc could never have fit. A rough hand grabbed his shoulder while he was still in the doorway and dragged him out into the torchlight. He shielded his eyes against the glare.
Up they took him, back through the long maze of corridors and passages, past other guards, not all of them human, in rooms where coal and twisted bits of wood burned in metal braziers. At last they came to a part of the fortress that seemed less forbidding, where the halls and corridors were much larger than they were in the dungeons below. Large enough, Reiffen supposed, for the Three to pass comfortably through them. He felt small as his guards prodded him along beneath the high ceilings, thick candles sputtering in brackets along the walls. Here he also saw people other than soldiers for the first time. Most of them kept their eyes to the floor and never even tried to look at him. Guessing they were slaves, he wondered how long they had been in that place, and whether his fate would be the same as theirs.
They arrived at a long hall where the light came not from candles, but from lamps that seemed crude imitations of Dwarven skill. The lights were set atop heavy iron sconces and bore no resemblance to Nolo’s delicate, gleaming jewels; these gems were too large for the dim light that flickered from them. Weak shadows followed the soldiers as they pushed the boy forward to a pair of huge iron doors standing closed at the far end. Even Ossdonc would look small before them.
The doors opened. The guards stepped back. Reiffen moved forward without being told. Behind him the portal closed silently. Trembling, he fought back the urge to turn and throw himself against the exit. He had no desire to appear as frightened as he felt. All the same, when he advanced past the circle of tall columns into the chamber beyond, his heart nearly leapt from his chest and his legs all but betrayed him.
He found himself in a great, circular hall, larger than any he had ever imagined. The dome of it arched high above, lost in the gloom, and the far side was also indistinct. In the middle, on a dais raised three tall steps from the floor, were the Three.
Although he had seen only Ossdonc before, and that in the midst of tempest and tunneled darkness, still he was able to recognize each of the Wizards. Usseis, the chief among them, was plainly the one seated on the throne. He was tall, the same as his brother, but much less massive. Where Ossdonc gave an impression of enormous vitality and strength of body, the sight of Usseis was more subtle. From the simple silver crown atop his head, to the long white robes that covered him, he appeared the very picture of the wise old king. His throne was a stone bench, tall and heavy to suit his size, but completely unadorned. He sat with one hand folded in his lap, leaning on the other. But, when Reiffen came closer, he saw that Usseis’ eyes were black as the heart of the darkest storm, without any white. Currents coiled, unseen but felt, within them, just as a thunderstorm can be felt in the stillness before it arrives.
Behind him stood Ossdonc, his hands folded atop his great sword. He remained all in black, but his clothes were changed from what he had worn before, a short tunic over leggings this time, with ruffles at his throat. And at the foot of the dais, in gray robes that were otherwise the same as Usseis’, sat Fornoch with his staff laid out on the step beside him.
They were the Three: the White; the Black; and the Gray. Reiffen stopped and faced them at the foot of the dais. His heart shivered as he did so, but the powers laid down deep within the very rock of that chamber left him no other path.
He did not set foot on even the lowest step. Fornoch sat on that step. Above him Usseis bent forward, a thin, smile on his lips. Now that he was close enough to see their faces Reiffen could see that they were, indeed, brothers. They all shared the same black eyes, eyes that projected great power and strength, while at the same time masking the thoughts that lay within. They were not human eyes. They could not be read in the way that a man’s or woman’s might be read. Not that it mattered. Reiffen saw at once that the desires of the Three were always plain upon their faces, and varied little. Power and greed and cruel amusement flickered between them, with small room for any other feeling.
Reiffen trembled before them. At first his mouth was dry, his imagination shuffling back and forth between the thought that he was about to be blasted to a cinder, or his heart torn horribly from his chest. For a long while he stood like that, beneath their piercing gaze.
Then Usseis settled back upon his bench and spoke. “Welcome, Reiffen,” he said. His voice was less horrible than Ossdonc’s, which crashed and boomed with the power of wind and mountains. Usseis’ voice was calmer, the oil poured over rougher waters. And it was smooth, like oil, as well; and penetrating. It washed over Reiffen, spreading slowly across him, leaving no part of him untouched.
“Welcome,” Usseis repeated. He raised his hand as if offering the room around him to his guest. “Welcome to Ussene. Is it not formidable? Are we not, the Three?”
Behind him Ossdonc rolled his head back and laughed so loudly that the echoes he sent racing round the room seemed almost to come alive. But Fornoch said nothing.
The laughter faded. Usseis placed his hands beside him on the bench and leaned forward. “You should be honored,” he said, and again Reiffen felt the words roll down him, coating him thickly. “It is not often that all of the Three come together to greet a guest. Our affairs are pressing, and can only be neglected for the most compelling of reasons. Your presence, therefore, is very compelling.” He smiled again, a smile Reiffen could not help but feel would be most at home at beheadings, or vivisection.
“Come,” Usseis said, “there is no need for you to be afraid. Had we wanted you for other purposes, you would not be with us now. My brother was perhaps a little brusque in his treatment of you upon your arrival, but that is his way. Let me ease your mind.”
The Wizard raised his hand and held it palm forward toward the boy. At once Reiffen’s heart ceased its trembling. His tongue no longer stuck dryly to the roof of his mouth.
“You see,” said Usseis, “we are your friends. Great injustice has been done to you by other, lesser folk. We have brought you here to help you.”
Ossdonc chuckled, almost to himself this time, the noise was so much less than it had been before. “Just think,” he said, his voice breaking loudly across the room. “I might have been your great uncle. The Queen Loellin was your mother’s aunt, you know.”
“Queen Loellin would have thrown herself into the sea had she known she was married to you,” answered Reiffen hotly. Then he tensed and almost took a step backward as he realized he had insulted a Wizard.
But Ossdonc boomed his laugh again, and Usseis also smiled. Reiffen found himself wondering if the words he had spoken had been his own. Only Fornoch continued silent at his seat at the side of the dais.
“Do not worry, young friend,” said Usseis, his eyes glinting. “You speak your own mind. My arts may have loosened your tongue somewhat in easing your heart. But I have done nothing to your mind...yet.”
Usseis glanced at Fornoch as he spoke. Fornoch met his gaze, but still remained only an observer.
“Why did you bring me here?” Reiffen blurted out. He was still astonished that he could ask such a question, despite Usseis’ explanation. And, though he did not quite know why, he knew there was something wrong in bandying words with a Wizard.
Usseis extended his arms wide in virtuousness. “Have I not already told you? It is as I said. My brothers and I wish to help you. We are here in answer to your desire.”
“My desire?” Reiffen’s brow knit in confusion.
“Yes. Your desire.”
The White Wizard folded his hands and held them beneath his chin, his black eyes still intent on the boy. “I know that you have always pretended, while in Valing, that you have no wish to be king. But you may shed that pretense here. We are your friends. Here you may speak freely about what lies truly in your heart. Here you may allow yourself the comfort of your dreams. And we, as true friends should, will help you.”
“You’re not my friends,” said Reiffen stubbornly. “My friends are back in Valing, mourning my death.”
“Ah. There you are wrong.” The Wizard smiled from one corner of his mouth, as he might had he just removed the color from a butterfly’s wings. “Your friends are actively planning to rescue you. They meet in council even as we speak, and show only their foolishness as they try to plot some way in which I might be forced to return you. But they have never been your friends. Have they ever helped you in your heart’s desire? I think not. They spend their time trying to persuade you to do what they want, not what you want. What sort of friends are those?”
Usseis smiled sadly. “The bear especially,” he continued, “will never help you. Always has he been against those who wish to better themselves. His counsel will ever be for his own benefit. For all his friendliness he would just as soon you humans sank back into your hovels in the woods and left his animal friends alone.”
“Redburr isn’t like that at all.” Reiffen raised his face and looked the Wizard in the eye, but found that a dangerous thing to do. Blinking, he drew himself back from the sudden plunge into darkness he had been about to take, and remembered, on the back of his tongue, the foul burning of the potion Mindrell had fed him on Nokken Rock.
“Redburr isn’t like that,” he repeated. But now he was almost mumbling, and his eyes fell to the gray stone at his feet. “He would have rescued me if he could.”
“Would he?” The Wizard’s heavy gray brows arched above his fearsome eyes. “Then why did he try to rescue you in the guise of a bird? Surely, had his real intent been to save you, he would have attacked my brother in his strongest aspect. He knows that he is not nearly strong enough to fight Ossdonc, so he arrived in the shape of a bird, not a bear, that he might make his escape more easily.”
“You’re just saying that to frighten me.” Reiffen was not about to allow the Wizard to trick him into thinking badly of his friends. But, all the same, the question of why things were done one way and not another was now planted in his mind, no matter how much he ignored it.
Usseis shrugged, and the dangerous glittering in his eye subsided. “As you wish,” he said. “But you will only have yourself to blame when you learn the truth. You could be king of all the lands from Firron to the Blue Mountains with my assistance. King in your own right. Or,” and Usseis smiled cruelly at the thought, “you could simply be the instrument through which my brothers and I exact our revenge.”
“I’d still be your instrument either way,” said Reiffen. “You’re not really giving me a choice at all.”
“I assure you, boy. I am.” The black eyes bored more deeply into him than before, and Reiffen found himself forced to look down at the floor like a disobedient child.
“Return him to the dungeons!” suggested Ossdonc loudly from his place behind his brother. “On one of the lower levels this time. That will make him know his own mind!”
“That is one possibility,” agreed Usseis. “The lamentations of his fellows might affect him greatly. I had so wanted to show him every courtesy, though.”
“Then do so.”
For the first time Fornoch spoke. His voice was different from both his brothers’, a whisper from behind. But it was a strong whisper, without timidity, and could be heard at any distance. Almost it sounded to Reiffen like a voice within his head, a calm and reasonable voice suggesting always what was the calm and reasonable thing to do. But it was not a kind voice and was, in its way, every bit as cruel as the voices of its brothers.
“Show him every courtesy,” said Fornoch. “Allow him the freedom of Ussene.” He looked upon Reiffen as if the boy were a book or a map or a goose quill pen. “He cannot escape. There is no worry there. After a month he will see the practicality of what we offer. And the impracticality of any other course of action he might devise. Now, however, he is too full of the deep waters and fierce independence of Valing to appreciate the nature of our gifts. A little time will purge him of his past.”
Ossdonc scowled as Fornoch spoke and, once his brother was finished, spat out his disagreement. “Bah!” he exclaimed. “As usual, Fornoch, your words are those of an old woman. Your intrigues have failed before and will fail again. I say throw the boy into one of our deepest holes and allow some of our pets to play with him for a while. Either way, we’ll have what we want when we bring him out again.” He slapped his hand against his belt to reinforce the rightness of his approach.
Usseis kept his gaze fixed upon Reiffen, who felt his fear begin to rise again beneath the Wizard’s eye.
“And what do you think?” asked the White Wizard of the boy when the Black had finished speaking. “Whose suggestion shall I follow? Which of the two alternatives would you prefer?”
Even though Reiffen was still looking carefully down at the cold stone floor, he felt the black eyes of the Wizard boring two small holes into the top of his head.
“N-neither,” he said, swallowing hard before his mouth dried up completely again. His earlier bravado had passed. He was just a boy once more. “I-I just want to go home,” he said.
Ossdonc roared. “See, Usseis! He begins to break already! Throw him in with the other prey! By tomorrow he will do whatever we say!”
Usseis leaned back upon his stone bench. “No. I will give him another chance. We will try Fornoch’s plan. Let the boy see for himself what our friendship means. If he should still persist in his foolishness we can always pursue the other course. But, boy—” Usseis narrowed his eyes and Reiffen found himself forced to look upon the Wizard’s face against his will; “—think well of what we may choose to do should you make us force you. If you are king in your own right then you will have some say in who will die and who will not in the world to follow. But if you are no more than a puppet, we shall have no reason to do other than as we see fit.”
With a wave of his hand the Wizard dismissed him. And Reiffen, without even noticing what he was doing until after he had already done it, turned and left the room.
He found himself standing in the outer hall, beyond the monstrous doors. A single soldier led him away through the upper levels of the fortress to a small room at the end of a long, empty passage. A low bed was the only furnishing. Smudges of dark soot smeared the bare rock walls. A rough wool blanket lay wadded at one end of the filthy mattress. It seemed he was still a prisoner, for all Fornoch’s offer of courtesy.
Reiffen was glad he was still a prisoner. Had the Three spoiled him with comfort and gifts from the start he would have been far more nervous. Even so, he sat on the hard bed for a long time, his chin cradled sorrowfully in his hands, and almost wished that Usseis had buried him in the deepest of his dungeons. At least then he would have been spared the torment of brooding in an empty cell about the horrors yet to come.
To keep from doing just that, he decided to test what the Wizard had said about allowing him the freedom of the fortress. Cautiously he reached for the door latch, half-suspecting some sort of trap. But the handle didn’t turn into a biting serpent, or burn the flesh from his hand. The door opened easily. Across the passage stood a second door similar to his own. It took a while for Reiffen to summon the courage to open it; he realized it might be hard to wander freely about a place where all sorts of terrors might lurk behind every closed door. But, when he finally did open it, he found only another small cell like his own on the other side. Nervously he glanced up at the ceiling, half-expecting some bony imp or grinning gremlin to drop upon him from above. But there was only the same dirty rock as the walls.
He went back out into the corridor. A single candle sputtered between the doors. It occurred to him he might prefer being eaten by some horrible creature in the darkness, rather than cowering in his cell. At least then the waiting would be over. So he set off down the corridor to explore, his heart in his mouth as he wandered through the Wizards’ fortress alone.
He soon discovered that Ussene was a very empty place. The stone hallways echoed with his footsteps, and the candles on the walls were few and far between. He groped his way between the islands of dirty light, wishing he had brought along the candle from his room. Few turns interrupted the long passages that led back and forth and up and down without ever seeming to go anywhere. Each corridor looked the same: long stone lanes with thick candles sometimes flickering at the intersections and the corners. He was soon lost, but he hardly thought the Wizards had brought him all this way just so he could die of thirst in some forgotten corner of their fortress.
Eventually he came to a broad set of stairs guarded by several soldiers. They challenged him sharply the moment they saw him and, when he didn’t know the password, roughly carted him off down a different corridor to what appeared to be a barracks. There he was brought up before the very same officer who had escorted him to his new cell. He was a short man, fat and strong. At his feet a small slave was busy polishing his boots with a blackened rag.
“Couldn’t stay in your cell, could you?” the officer sneered. He stood up and kicked the slave into a corner. “No, you have to take Him at His word and go exploring.” With a curt wave, the officer dismissed the soldiers who had brought Reiffen to him.
The boy said nothing. A nasty light appeared in the officer’s eye.
“Too good to talk to me, are you?” he said.
Without warning he cuffed Reiffen across the face, knocking him backwards to the floor. Then he put his hands on his hips and stood over the fallen boy. “They may have decided to let you run loose around the place, but no one said anything about giving yourself airs. When They’re not around, I’m the boss here, and you’d better not forget it. Now get out of here. The password of the day is ‘Darkness’ the next time someone asks you. And if you forget it I’ll be happy to give you a real thrashing the next time they bring you back.”
Reiffen rubbed his cheek. He was angry and embarrassed that the man had knocked him down so easily. As he backed out of the room he told himself next time he wouldn’t be caught off guard.
Still fuming, he walked off without a thought for where he was going and promptly got lost again. At the next intersection, he came to a passage that went both left and right, but neither way looked any different from any of the others he had explored that day. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to go back to the guardroom, so he went left, for no other reason at all.
He came to a set of stairs. A thin flicker of light in the distance showed the steps ascending into the gloom. Perhaps this was the stair that led back to the place where Ossdonc had first brought him, where he had last seen a glimpse of the sky. Candles high on the wall lit the way as he climbed, still few and far between. But there was always some small flicker ahead, no matter how dark his current footing, so he kept on. The thought occurred to him that, had the stair been leading him down instead of up, he might not have been so eager to continue. But, in going upward, there was at least the chance he might come out into a place where he could see the sun.
The stair ended and he found himself in another square room with smoky walls and an exit on the far side. An empty brazier stood in the middle of the room, but it had been so long unused there were no ashes in it at all. Reiffen crossed the room and kept on, determined to make some sense of the long, empty passages around him.
The new corridor lined straight on through long troughs of gloom. He quickened his pace, all the while careful to make sure that nothing would catch him unaware. Then he came to a spot where there was no further light ahead to guide him. He crept forward slowly, hoping the glare of the lamp behind was hindering his view ahead. His shadow stretched out across the dusty floor, merging finally into the darkness. He wanted very much to go on, though he was also well aware that the darker crooks and crannies of Ussene were probably just the places best left unexplored.
He peered forward into the gloom one last time. Just as he was about to turn back, he thought he felt something different in the air. Was there some sound at the edge of his hearing? Was something moving in the darkness? A light touch brushed his cheek and he started quickly in alarm, until he realized he had felt the air moving past him in the passage. What was more, there was a different odor on the breeze. Slightly wet and cool, and almost clean, and thoroughly lacking the smoky thickness of the air he had been breathing since he first arrived. It was almost the smell of outside.
He moved cautiously forward, one hand touching the wall so as not to lose his bearings. He looked behind him every few steps as well, to make sure he could still see the last candle. But all the same, he moved steadily forward toward the source of the sweet breeze.
Sooner than he had expected, the wall beneath his hand fell away. The hall had opened into a larger room. The draft felt fresher now: it ebbed and flowed across his face. For a moment he stood in the dark entrance and tilted his head this way and that to see if he could learn anything more from the air.
It was while he was standing motionless in the doorway that the darkness began to take some pattern before him. There seemed to be a square ahead that was different in its darkness from the rest. There was no hint of light, but there was a difference of texture. Black velvet is different from black canvas, and that was the difference here. And, more than that, the breeze seemed to be coming straight from the different spot as well.
He took a few more steps forward. Soon he realized he was looking at a tall window open to the night. A few more strides and he was standing at the sill. The window began at his shoulders and extended well above his head, a window for tall Wizards. He gripped the edge in both hands and leaned forward on tiptoe to take his first breath of fresh air since coming to Ussene.
It was raining outside. That was why the slight breeze in the passage had smelled damp. Raindrops fell refreshingly against the top of his head. He leaned as far out the window as he could, to feel as much of the delicious night as he might.
He found himself looking down from a high cliff into a narrow valley. The stone dropped almost sheer below. At the bottom, very far away, he saw the flickering of tiny lights. Some lay at the bottom of his own cliff, while others seemed to lie on the other side of the chasm. At last he had found a gate back to the outside world. Not one he might use to escape perhaps, but one he might use all the same to gain a glimpse of the world from which he had been taken. Somewhere out there under the same night sky were his mother and his friends.
He pulled his head and shoulders back within the frame and ran his fingers through his damp hair. Afterward he stood for a long time watching the darkness and the shadow of the rain. He wondered how long he would have to wait to see the dawn, and supposed it would be too much to ask for the window to be facing east. But little matter. For the moment he was happy just to lean against the massive stone sill and breathe in the cool wet of the night. Even in the heart of his fortress Usseis could not spoil the sweetness of a spring rain.
“Please, sir,” said a voice from the dark behind him, “it is wonderful to look out on the world, isn’t it?”
Reiffen whirled around, but it was still far too dark to see a thing. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in fright as he pressed closely to the wall beneath the window.
“Don’t be scared, kind sir,” said the voice, which sounded much more fearful than Reiffen. And sad as well, as if its fear was not that Reiffen would hurt it, but rather that its approach might be spurned. “Molio won’t hurt you.”
“Who—who are you?” stammered Reiffen, his back still braced against the wall.
“Only Molio.”
“Who?”
“Molio. I saw the captain knock you down. He is very strong, like all the soldiers.” There was a shudder in Molio’s voice, as if he was remembering the strength of the soldiers firsthand.
Reiffen recalled the little slave who had been blacking the captain’s boots when he was brought back to the guardroom. “Is the captain the one who gave me the password?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. He’s the one,” said Molio eagerly. “He’s the one who gave you the slaves’ password.”
“Slaves’ password?” Reiffen relaxed a little now that he knew who was behind the voice. Surely the little bootblack couldn’t hurt him.
“Oh, yes. He would never give you the Masters’ password. That’s why Molio knew you were one of us. That, and when he hit you.”
“Why did you follow me here?” The thought came to Reiffen that perhaps the little man was a spy.
A moment passed before Molio answered him, which only increased the boy’s suspicions. Then the little man said, in a low, lonely voice, “Molio thought maybe...maybe you would be his friend.”
“You weren’t sent to spy on me? To tell them everything I do?”
“Oh, no, sir! Molio is too unimportant for spying!” The little man’s voice quivered with fear. “Only the quickest and strongest can be spies! Molio is only a slave, fit for cleaning and candles only.” The voice in the darkness dropped to a whimper. “Molio wanted only to help.”
“Help me?” asked Reiffen in a bitter voice. “How can you help me?”
“Oh, Molio can show you many things, sir. Molio knows all the ways of the fortress, sir.”
“Can you show me how to escape?”
“Escape?” squeaked the little man. “Please, sir, don’t even say such a thing. There is no escape from the fortress. Many things are not allowed here. We shouldn’t even be here!”
“No?”
“No! They come here sometimes. And They get very angry when someone is where they’re not supposed to be.”
Reiffen didn’t need to ask who ‘They’ were. And, since he had no wish to see Them again any time soon, he was more than happy to allow the little man to lead him away. They hurried back down the hallway that had led up to the room with the window, Molio in front. As they approached the last light the little man came slowly into view. Reiffen found himself wondering at the fellow’s strange appearance: his pointed little head; his tiny ears; and his arms and legs seeming too small for his round little body. His face was mousy and thin, with a sad little moustache and dark eyes that seemed to have little white. Reiffen had heard rumors about the sorts of things that Usseis did in his laboratories, and wondered if Molio, and the rest of the people he had seen so far in Ussene, were the end result.
Their return along the passage and the stair was much shorter than Reiffen remembered. Apparently he hadn’t ascended as far as he had thought. At one point Molio stopped beneath one of the flickering candles and, producing a long taper from somewhere among the folds of his ragged clothing, lit the end at the candle’s small flame. Then he marched on down the stair with the flame shielded behind his hand. At the darkest spot between that light and the next he stopped again. Reaching once more into some hidden pocket of his cloak, he produced a short, thick candle similar to the others Reiffen had seen throughout the fortress.
“What are you doing?” asked the boy. “I thought we were in a hurry to get away.”
“Molio still must do his job,” said the little man.
With a practiced eye and a little jump he tossed the candle up into the darkness. The taper gave off just enough light for Reiffen to see the candle had landed atop a small ledge high on the wall. Molio raised his long lighter and, applying it to the wick, soon had a fresh light going. The little man was more than just a bootblack.
Had it not been for Molio, Reiffen might never have learned to find his way around Ussene. He would have been left to sort things out by repeatedly running into the guard, who eventually would have knocked most of his teeth out of his mouth for the trouble he gave them. But Molio taught him the ways around the guard posts, and showed him the few spots in the fortress that were of any interest. All the boy had to do was follow his guide around on his regular routes with his bag of stubby candles and his long taper. For that, as it turned out, was Molio’s main job in Ussene. Blacking boots was only a sideline, initially thought up by the soldiers to add to his torment, but now one of the little man’s few pleasures, since he was actually good at it.
Reiffen never went with Molio, however, when it was his time to go to the guardroom. Instead Reiffen would generally go to the places that most interested him, which also happened to be the same ones that most scared Molio. Like the Front Window which, once he discovered it was rarely used by the Three, Reiffen visited at least once every day. There might not be any lake in view, or so much as a single blade of grass growing on the barren cliffs. But at least there were mountains, harsher than even the High Bavadars, but mountains all the same, and blue sky, with stars at night when it wasn’t raining.
But even more than the room with the window, Reiffen liked to go to the Library. The first time he found the place, Molio had tried desperately to stop him. “Fornoch’s place! It is forbidden!” he had cried, while struggling to hold back the larger Reiffen by the arm. But Molio was as weak as he looked and sounded, and had finally let go when he realized he was in danger of being dragged down the hall to Fornoch’s place himself. Reiffen, who had gone a long time since seeing the Wizards, was not quite as frightened of running into them as he had been that first night by the Window. In fact, he feared Fornoch the least of the Three. Fornoch was the one who had suggested Reiffen be given the freedom of the fortress, and a chance to change his mind. Had Molio warned him away from Ossdonc’s place he would have instantly obeyed. But, for a glimpse of Fornoch’s, he was willing to take a chance.
So he left Molio moaning behind him and continued on down the corridor. The passage ended in a door, another door that was twice as large as normal in order to accommodate Wizards. Reiffen hesitated before trying the knob: though he had grown bolder in his days of roaming the fortress, still this was the apartment of a Wizard. Even if no doorknobs had yet bitten him, and he had yet to fall into any pits teeming with snakes or poisoned stakes, he had no desire at all to burst in on even the weakest Wizard.
The knob turned easily in his hand. He cracked the door slightly and put his eye to the opening. Books were what he saw. Shelves and shelves of books. Huge, enormous books like layered chests; and tiny books that could not possibly hold more than a letter a page. Books lying open on tables and books stacked on the floor in uneven piles. Dusty books and books so new they had never been opened. And, here and there among the books, an amulet, or a wand, or the skeleton of a toad.
Reiffen wanted very much to enter that room. He didn’t care how many Wizards might be waiting inside for him. Just a minute in that library would be worth anything Usseis might think to do to him. So much to see and learn! His forehead bumped against the jamb as he tried to get his eye as close to the crack as possible. Holding his breath, he listened for anyone who might be within. It was like waiting for the start of a feast, or for morning to come after the first snowy night on the Neck. Time slowed while he struggled to keep himself from entering. More than once he told himself the room wasn’t safe, that it was exactly the sort of place that Wizards would visit often. If he went in he would be caught. And, if he were caught, then terrible things would happen.
But he also reminded himself that Usseis had said he was to have the freedom of Ussene. If they really wanted him not to go somewhere, they should have told him.
The door opened easily once he made up his mind. There was no squeaking, not even a creaking from the hinges. The whole beautiful room opened up to view. He stood silently for a moment in the doorway, taking it all in. Then he crossed the threshold into a world completely different from the rest of the barren fortress.
Cautiously he peered at the first book he saw. A medium-sized volume with dark leather binding and silver scrollwork along the spine, the title was inscribed in silver letters: The Dictionary of Names. Reiffen stopped himself just in time from dragging his finger along the open edge of the cover. Reluctantly he left the book untouched, feeling he had already risked enough in coming through the door.
He went around the room, reading the titles of the books on the tables. Most of them he didn’t understand. Not all were about magic. Of the few he could understand there were some simple atlases and histories. One he even recognized as a history of Banking he had often read with his mother.
When he finished examining the books on the tables, he started to look at those on the library shelves, but was soon distracted by all the other things gathered there besides books. A delicate spider web stretched across an ornate wooden frame, as if it were a work of art on exhibition, a fat black spider as big as the end of his thumb sitting in the middle of the web. A spyglass that seemed to have been carved from a long piece of hollow bone lay on its side on a pair of ivory holders. A strange round contraption with numbers inscribed around the edge and a pair of levers pointing at the numbers, ticked like half a cricket.
The shelves covered all four walls of the room. There were no windows: the only opening was the door through which Reiffen had entered. Soft light glowed from an unseen ceiling. Except for the tables, the tops of which were level with Reiffen’s chest, there was no other furniture in the room. All of the strange objects were set on the shelves, and none of them were very large. As he came to each, he had to fight the urge to pick it up.
With one he could barely restrain himself. It was the last thing he encountered on his tour around the room. A small green stone, no larger than a pigeon’s egg, lay on a shelf close to the door, under a small bowl of glass.
At first he almost missed it. The stone was dark green, almost black, and seemed no more interesting than a pretty pebble you might find in a shallow stream. He was going to ignore it, but, as he passed it by, the color of the stone seemed to lighten. Intrigued, he returned for a second look. The stone grew lighter once more as he came close to it. Other than the spider, which had seemed to lift its head and study him even as he studied it, the green stone was the only thing in the room that seemed to do anything. Everything else just lay about, mysterious and silent.
Reiffen tried different things with the stone. He waved his hand in front of it, but the stone remained the same. Only when he moved his whole body close did the color change, and then it was not so much the color changing as it was that the heart of the stone grew brighter. It was not like a Dwarven lamp, where a clear gem would cast its radiance all around a room. The green stone was dark, and its light just enough to gleam within its depths and lighten the blackness of its outer shell. It lent no color to the clear glass bowl around it. And, when Reiffen remained close to the stone, he found that the light began to pulse, faster than his breathing.
With a shock he realized the stone had joined the rhythm of his heartbeat. He jerked back from it as if stung; at once the stone darkened back to greenish black. Cautiously he reached out with his hand once more; but, again, there was no reaction from the stone.
He was both fascinated and repelled. He had never heard of such a thing. All the other objects in the room were things he recognized; things that, if not common in the human world, were at least familiar to it. Except that round, ticking contraption. But never had he heard of a piece of stone that seemed to be alive. He wished he could show it to Nolo. Nolo knew everything there was to know about stone.
Reiffen pushed at the upside-down bowl with his finger. It moved easily across the shelf, but he pulled back before he had moved the bowl more than a finger’s breadth. Did he really want to touch the stone? He was close enough to it again that it began to beat regularly once more in time with his heart. Its pulsing made him more aware of his own heart thumping against his chest with excitement. There was so much to learn! If only Usseis didn’t want to use him to further the Wizards’ plans. What he wouldn’t give to learn the green stone’s purpose! And to read every book in the room as well.
There was a small noise at the door. Reiffen glanced up in alarm. The green stone pulsed very quickly and much brighter than before as it sensed his sudden fear. But it was only Molio, peering around the bottom of the door. His mustache drooped even more than usual.
“Please, sir,” he whispered. “Can we go home?”
The moment was broken for Reiffen. He stepped away from the stone and it stopped its beating at once. Secretly he was glad it had become a plain old rock again. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want Molio to notice it. Reiffen just knew that the thought of the little man touching the stone made him angry. Just as he had been angry when Avender had first come to live with him in the Tear.
He stepped forward to cut off any view Molio might have of the stone. “Okay,” he said quickly. “We can go.”
The little man put his finger to his lips, parting his moustache in the middle. “Don’t let Him hear you,” he whispered. “He knows everything that happens in His room.” He hurried off down the passage still talking, once he made certain that Reiffen had closed the door tightly behind them. “Not even soldiers go there,” he said. “Molio isn’t the only one scared of His place. Oh, no. No one likes to go there. No one at all.”
“You weren’t so scared that you couldn’t come get me,” said Reiffen. He gave the little man a curious look.
“You are Molio’s friend. Molio should never have shown you His place. He’ll know who showed you, then Molio gets in trouble too. It is bad to be a slave, but there is worse.”
The little man shook his head, but would say nothing more about what might be worse than being a slave. Reiffen thought he knew, though. There was a certain level in the fortress below which Molio refused to take him. There he might find all the things that were worse than being a slave. But nothing Reiffen could think of could persuade the little man to take him there. If he wanted to learn what was in that part of the fortress he would have to go alone.