The doors of the central keep stood open at the top of a flight of dank stone steps, inviting the Prince and his two young guards, Berin and Nali, to step inside. Kivik paused on the last stair, trying to remember if these massive doors, riddled with wormholes and scarred by wind and rain, had been open or closed the first time he saw them—trying, with no more success, to convince himself that it did not mean anything either way.
He turned back to take a final look at the world outside. Above the eastern walls, a waxing moon sailed high in a sky of clear, cloudless blue, but the westering sun, turned dim and milky behind a sheer veil of falling snow, made it appear there were two moons in the heavens tonight: one silvery white, one palest gold.
Ought I, he wondered, take this for an omen? Little serpents of fear ran down his spine. In all the old tales that ever he heard, the moon was far from friendly to men, being envious, changeable, and above all mischievous—then what could a double moon mean but a doubly unlucky influence?
A damp wind circling the courtyard caused the guards’ torches to flare and throw off sparks. Nali cleared his throat; Berin made a nervous gesture, rattling his sword inside its sheath. Realizing that his own hesitation was making them anxious, Kivik advanced on the doors.
He felt a momentary disorientation crossing the threshold, a head-spinning impression of sound and color, a blaze of light and heat, but it all passed so quickly into shadows and silence he thought he had imagined it. Then he was in a dim, confined space, breathing dust and darkness, until his men came in with their lights, the shadows fled, and a chamber he had believed no larger than a cupboard changed into a guardroom of more than ordinary size. Ancient weapons clad in rags of cobweb hung in ordered ranks along one wall. Across the room, a barred metal gate like an iron jaw had rusted in place halfway between floor and ceiling.
Motioning the two boys to follow after him, he headed toward the gate, his progress across the room stirring up wraiths of dust that lingered on the air a moment or two longer than seemed quite natural. Something crunched underfoot; when he looked down to see what it was, his stomach twisted into a hard knot. One boot rested on a disarticulated hand still clutching a weapon gone green with corrosion. When he lifted his foot, the tiny finger bones crumbled away to a fine, ashy powder.
He gritted his teeth and continued on. A few more determined strides took him under the gate and into a hall so vast its farther limits disappeared into darkness. By torchlight, it was just possible to make out the nearer walls to right and left, where soaring arches led on to other spaces—large or small he could not tell, though his mind conjured up further immensities.
After a brief hesitation, he chose an opening at random and led the way across the hall, through the arch, and into a chamber less lofty and imposing but still of considerable size. Three long tables spanned the length of the room, covered in a filmy lacework of cobwebs. A dull glint of tarnished metal under the spiders’ weavings, a reflection off a clouded gemstone, these bore witness the tables had been richly laid with silver chargers and jeweled cups, but either the guests had never arrived or had fled the revels early: at the head of each table sat a mummified figure in filthy, decaying silks; the other chairs and benches were empty.
A flicker of movement drew Kivik’s attention up to the ceiling, where a swarm of busy spiders translucent as glass went scurrying away from the light as fast as their brittle-looking legs could carry them. They had spread their woven nets from beam to beam, and hundreds of tiny lizards, no bigger than his smallest finger, were trapped in the meshes.
He realized that his palms were sweating, despite the dry chill. “This room is by far too large and drafty. Let us look for more intimate quarters.”
From the banquet hall, they passed into a maze of corridors and interconnected chambers. In one, vines and thorny roses had crept in through a window, filling up most of the space, creating an impenetrable barrier. In another, a white fox started up from a bed of rotting tapestries, where it had been napping nose to tail. Those who had lived in these rooms obviously had a taste for the grotesque: statues half man and half beast stared out at them from deep niches, watching their progress from chamber to chamber; door handles mimicked the heads of imps, apes, gargoyles, and hobgoblins.
Other rooms dazzled the eye with treasure, spilling out of open coffers, scattered across the floors, heaped up in glittering piles: a fortune in gemstones and fine enamels; watery pearls the size of hen’s eggs; jars and phials and pitchers of marvelous design spilling a dust of jewels and precious metals—all of them tumbled together, broken, or otherwise spoiled. Gold, silver, and platinum had been mingled and fused with baser materials. Chalices, brooches, diadems, shields of beaten metal were pitted, stained, and corroded, eaten away by rust and verdigris, discolored by salts. Banners and hangings of unparalled richness had grown shabby and faded with age.
Yet along with the treasure there was a charnel house of bones. A skull on a bedpost glared at them with eyeholes sealed by cobwebs; mice squeaked from a nest inside a hollow rib cage. A skeleton like old ivory sprawled on the floor, one arm reaching for a diamond necklace; another, suspended by the neck from a silver chain, swung back and forth in a faint draft.
But these were not—they could not be—the bones of the witch-lords, who had lived and died here a thousand years ago. There were abundant stories of ill-fated attempts to take and hold the fortress in practically every century since the witches met their mysterious end. Kivik’s own uncles-and-cousins-many-times-removed had not been immune to the lure of riches here, and they had—in their greed, or their desire for adventure—led many a simpler man to his death in the process.
In whose dust are we leaving our footprints? he wondered. And he felt a little prickle of guilt for choosing such young boys to accompany him when older, more seasoned men had offered to come instead. In his stubborn refusal to bring any man who might speak his own mind—who might ask inconvenient questions and undermine his resolve—had he not, perhaps, done these boys an injustice?
Nali could not be much more than sixteen; redheaded Berin looked even younger. Farmers’ or tradesmen’s sons he reckoned them, not bred up as he had been for battle and the slaughter of men. In less perilous times no one would have expected them to take up arms. As it was, they had already seen and done things no sixteen-year-old boy should ever have to face. He had been thoughtless to include them in the exploration of what was little better than a tomb.
“Do not touch anything,” he said out loud. “Take nothing away with you. The treasure here is cursed.” The boys nodded wordlessly.
A barrel-vaulted passage like a long gullet brought them abruptly into an enormous kitchen. After so much ruined grandeur elsewhere, the homely squalor of the place came as a shock. Marble had given way to damp stone flags. An unwholesome moisture dripped from walls of unfinished stone. Fireplaces capable of consuming whole trees were black with soot, and spits the size of wagon axles red with rust. The room looked as though it had been subjected to a whirlwind: shards of broken crockery lay on the floor, mixed in with the bones of men and animals.
“It’s the ogre’s kitchen—the old hag’s larder,” Berin said in a hoarse whisper. Nali’s face had turned a sickly white, as though all the blood had drained away.
Kivik wanted to say something reassuring, but the words stuck in his throat. His eyes moved uneasily from a rack of monstrous forks, ladles, and choppers to the immense iron ovens, gaping open like hungry mouths, then on to a stew pot large enough to cook an entire ox, hooves, horns, and all. And he had to admit to himself, if not to the boys, that it was precisely the setting for the more gruesome sort of nursery tale: the place where evil crones cooked up ghastly messes and four-and-twenty children were baked in a pie.
“The cooks here must have been drunkards or slatterns,” he said sternly. It was a feeble effort, but the best that he could do.
Next to the kitchen they discovered a small, windowless room behind an iron grating, which might have been used only for storage but looked suspiciously like a cage. After that, a little more exploration of pantries and sculleries was more than sufficient. They were not sorry to leave those regions behind.
Ascending and descending what seemed like a hundred winding white staircases, Kivik had the occasional giddy sensation of time running backward or standing still. Once, he glimpsed the owl-eyed moon through a high, round window; only minutes later he entered a room where rows of long casements flooded every corner with brilliant sunlight. Corridors branched, ran together, or turned back on themselves, spiralling inward; sometimes they ended at blank stone walls. By now he was most thoroughly lost, could not possibly have retraced his steps back to the courtyard if he tried.
All along, he had been expecting a close, musty atmosphere, but if anything the air smelled fresher the farther they ventured into the building. No, not precisely fresh, but a light, pleasing fragrance floated on the air, not flowery but sweet. It was most like an herb-infused honey wine that Sigvith, his stepmother, and his little half sisters brewed in their stillroom, he decided, and yet not exactly the same. It reassured him with its homeliness, but there was something about it that disturbed him, too. Sometimes he thought he heard a faint, sweet music, troubling to the ear, though he could never tell from which direction it came or identify the instruments.
If I were to fall under a spell, he told himself, it might happen just this way. That he was already deep in enchantment never occurred to him.
An anteroom cluttered with broken furniture led into a large bedchamber, one that showed signs of occupation within the last century. There was a four-poster bed not much worm-eaten, with hangings not much decayed. When, out of curiosity, he drew back the velvet coverlet, a cloud of dust motes rose and spun in the torchlight, igniting like a thousand tiny suns. The mattress underneath had been reduced to an unpleasant mass of mildewed rags and feathers, but once he restored the worn velvet covering to its former position it seemed the most comfortable resting place he was likely to find.
He made a swift decision. “I vowed to sleep within these walls to prove that it was safe,” he said, doffing his cloak. He had seen nothing more threatening than old bones—yet there were night terrors that attacked a man sleeping, and those he must test as well.
The guards set to work immediately to make the room more habitable: stopping up holes in the shutters with scraps of cloth they found on the floor, gathering up broken sticks of furniture in the antechamber and piling them on the hearth. When Nali thrust his torch into the stacked wood, a cheerful blaze sprang up, altering the whole aspect of the room.
With a little assistance, Kivik began to remove his plate and mail armor. Unthinkingly, he removed the wooden charm as well. Then, in his shirt, leather breeches, and hose, he stretched out on the velvet coverlet. Berin stationed himself at the foot of the bed, Nali by the door. Thanks to the fire, the room was already comfortably warm; in truth, it had become so in a surprisingly short time.
He had wondered whether sleep would really be possible, but already a delicious drowsiness was stealing over him, and he could scarcely focus his eyes on the ragged bed-curtains. There were pictures worked in faded embroidery, so dim he could hardly make them out. Maidens were turning into owls—or perhaps they were owl-headed witches wandering in a midnight wood—and there were roses, hundreds of perfumed roses like the ones that had invaded some of the rooms, only these had teeth. He was still trying to work out what it all meant when sleep overcame him.
He woke, or thought he did, some hours later, to find the room wonderfully changed. Instead of wood, a pile of jewels was burning on the hearth, bathing the room in light of the intensest colors. Where things had been shabby and dusty before, all was clean and orderly. It was a moment before he realized, with a jolt, that Berin and Nali were missing.
He knew his own people too well to imagine they had deserted him willingly. But what could have happened to them? He knew himself a light sleeper, knew he could never have slept through any kind of struggle.
Climbing out of bed, he buckled on his sword belt, wrapped himself up in his cloak, and went off in search of his guards. The antechamber and corridor outside were illuminated by a soft glow, as from dozens of wax candles. In the way of dreams, none of this seemed strange; instead he found it oddly reassuring. All around him there were moving shadows, though the light was steady and seemed to come from all directions at once.
Farther down the passageway, he caught just a glimpse of someone disappearing into a cross corridor. He hurried to catch up, and once he rounded the corner he had a clear view of her, drifting (there was no other word for it) along the passage far ahead of him. Yet, though he lengthened his stride and quickened his pace, though she appeared to move no faster, he could not overtake her, or even narrow the distance between them.
After an immeasurable time of fruitless pursuit, she led him back to the banquet hall. Like the bedchamber, this room was wonderfully altered. Webs, spiders, and lizards had all been cleared away, and a great host had gathered there, as if in expectation of some high festivity. The pale-skinned, violet-eyed witch-folk were only a small part of that varied throng. There were werewolves and Varjolükka; bogwalkers and frost giants; the Folk of the Sea and of the Higher Air; things winged, horned, and hooved. And every one of them—man, woman, and beast—was splendidly robed and jeweled for the feast. Wherever Kivik looked, rings of topaz, opal, and garnet glowed on taloned hands; a string of amber beads encircled a hairy neck; diamonds like tiny stars glittered in luxuriant locks of mermaid green.
At first, the beauty of the witches delighted him. Never before had he seen such loveliness united with such rare grace of form and movement. Yet gradually he began to feel there was something deadly, something subtly abominable simmering just below the surface, something that made them as unnatural in their own way as the beast-men. The more he gazed, the more he detected hints of an inhuman severity bordering on cruelty, here in the malice of a frigid pair of eyes, there in the scornful twist of an otherwise perfect pair of lips.
Then he began to hear their voices inside his mind—recognized in those voices a faint echo of the sweet, troublous music that had enchanted him before—and it seemed to him then that their faces were not evil, not cruel, but merely sorrowful. We were betrayed, they told him, by the same master who led us on from wickedness to wickedness, and then sacrificed us to his own ambition. Whatever wrong we did, we have repented many long years. You need not fear us. Indeed, we only wish you well.
Yet a little burr of doubt continued to prick at his mind. Can the dead lie? He could think of no reason why not—nor any reason to doubt them either.
Someone was pressing him to drink from a massive goblet rough with unpolished gemstones; he could not see a face, but the hand on the stem was covered in brindled fur. He thought he ought to refuse, he intended to refuse, but his hands seemed to move independently of his head. He raised the cup to his lips and took a sip of the clear, strong wine. The flavor was full and rich—but it left a bitter taste on his tongue.
He woke with a start, lying on his back in the four-poster bed. Raising his head from the velvet coverlet, he found Berin and Nali still standing guard in the exact same places they had been when he first drifted off. How long had he slept? It could not have been very long, or the boys would have changed their positions, if only a little. Yet what a long and strange dream it had seemed to be!
Despite the brevity of his nap—and in spite of the lingering aftertaste of the dream wine in his mouth—he felt wonderfully refreshed. Indeed, he felt warm, safe, comfortable right where he was, all these things for the first time in many weeks. Nevertheless, he rose and armed himself with the help of his guards, then led them back through all the mazes of the many-corridored keep.
Though the plan of the place had puzzled him before, he had no trouble finding his way back to the guardroom and the door to the courtyard. Somehow, the mazes had resolved themselves as he slept.
Outside, it was full daylight, the sun dazzling off new-fallen snow, but the cold struck him forcibly and the wind tore through him in an icy blast. He no longer had any doubts about moving into the keep. It was folly, he told himself—worse, it was madness—for his people to remain outside in their makeshift shelters.
As he moved through the outer wards of the fortress with the news of his safe return running on ahead of him, he met up with Skerry and their cousin Winloki standing with heads close together, as if caught in the midst of some private conversation. He greeted them cordially, amused by nearly identical expressions of relief he saw on their faces at finding him whole and sane after his night’s adventures—after all, he had never been in the slightest danger.
But his amusement faded as he took a longer look at Winloki. Because she had changed; how she had changed! Unlike Skerry, whose gaunt face he had grown accustomed to in stages, seeing him every day, the alteration in her was far more dramatic. There was little left to remind him of the confident, high-spirited girl he had known in Lückenbörg. Her red-gold hair was pinned up in untidy braids; her gown of healer’s grey was threadbare. Dark smudges of exhaustion discolored the skin under her eyes. The long, arduous trek to Tirfang, the privations that she as much as anyone had suffered since, had worn away so much of her beauty that Kivik felt his heart turn over in pity. He promised himself that somehow, someday he would make it up to her.
In the meantime, there was much to be done, and the sooner started the better for everyone. “Tell Thyra and the other healers, you can choose any room in the keep that you like to serve as an infirmary,” he told her. “I want all of our sick and wounded moved inside immediately.”