ONE

OUBLIETTE

Gloam chattered near constantly as he led Aster past fallow fields and pastures carpeted in flowers like feathery purple wands, deep orange starbursts, tiny white bells clustered on tall stalks. Occasionally they encountered what looked like statues, carrying packs of firewood, shepherd’s crooks, or frozen in the act of walking. Gloam spoke chiefly of philosophy, which she found boring and useless and soon stopped paying attention to him.

He stopped for a moment when they broke from the fields and forest and stood on a hilltop overlooking a broad, open valley with a river snaking through the heart of it. On one side of the water lay a small village. Across and beyond it, a fortress.

The fortress was a massive block of stone, taller than it was wide with conical towers projecting from either side off its top; it made Aster think of some large, catlike monster crouched on a hill, with its ears up. From the center of the wall facing her, a waterfall plunged hundreds of feet into the river. The stone, probably white or light grey, appeared bloody in the perpetual sunset. The whole view was framed by the sliver of sun and bright evening star on her left horizon and the crescent moon frozen on her right.

“Quite a sight, eh?” Gloam said.

“Yes,” Aster agreed.

“The proportions, they say, are based on an ancient geometry, consonant to certain properties of the fundament,” he began, rapidly becoming even less intelligible and engaging. Again, she stopped paying attention as best she could.

The town was small and neat, and to all appearances almost deserted. The few people she saw were young and mostly male. The handful of girls she noticed all looked to be below the age of nine. The figures of stone adults were everywhere; some had been pushed over, others hung with garlands of woven flowers. A few had been painted, perhaps to make them look more lifelike, but the affect was—in her eyes—macabre.

“Where are the girls?” she asked Gloam as innocently as possible. “I don’t see any.”

“Ah ha,” he said. “You noticed what? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

But his face lost its cheerful aspect, and he was quiet for the rest of the ride.

A drawbridge spanned the narrows of the river, and beyond that an enormous arch divided the waterfall near its base, so the torrent parted above their heads and cascaded on either side of them. Beyond the arch lay a gate, which opened as they approached. The gatehouse guards watched them enter with diffidence; giving lackluster responses to Gloam’s apparently enthusiastic greetings and well-wishing. They took his horse and began unsaddling it.

Beyond the gatehouse lay a rather impressive garden, made all the more interesting by the small river flowing through it, which welled from an enormous fountain in a pond near the other end of the yard. Ornate footbridges crossed the water in three places before it poured into an outlet, presumably to join the river below. Red and gold swans swam about the fountain, and tall white cranes stalked in the shallows. The trees—chestnut, maple, weeping willow, oak, ash, and many others—all were cloaked in various shades of yellow and orange.

From her new vantage she saw that there were four of the horn-shaped towers, one at each corner of the largely hollow keep.

Gloam led her into one of those towers. Up close they were gigantic, like small skyscrapers. The lowest floor of the one they entered was one vast room. A long black carpet formed a path across a floor of polished red marble, ending in front of a throne. Carved of some dark wood, its back curled up like the trunk and branches of a tree with spreading limbs and its legs resembled roots. Blue-white gems winked like stars on a clear night from where they were embedded in the branches.

On the throne sat her father, his red hair flowing down his shoulders, clean and brushed, from beneath a golden crown which bristled with little spikes pointing skyward. His robe was bright yellow figured with black and red sunbursts, bordered in dark red on the hem and wide cuffs. His feet were clad in black leather buskins.

One either side of the throne stood four boys in armor.

“Dad!” she said, starting forward.

Two boys from each side moved quickly to block her way.

“Let me go!” she shouted. “Dad, tell them to let me go.”

But then she realized, from the blank look in his eye that he didn’t recognize her. Of course he didn’t. It was the same look she had gotten used to for eight years. His last memory of her was when she had been nine, not seventeen.

“It’s me, Dad,” she said. “Aster.”

Her father took a deep breath and let it out. On the good side of things, he looked to be sober; he had spent most of the last four years drunk.

“And what is your name, daughter?” he asked.

“Aster,” she replied. “Aster Kostyena.”

He smiled, but she knew that smile, and understood it did not mean he was even remotely happy.

“You are the second young woman making that claim,” he said. “That last one was a fraud, and when I catch her, she will pay dearly for her deception.”

“Right,” Aster said. “That was Dusk. She must have tried to convince you she was me . . .” she trailed off.

“Wait,” she said. “You remember that? You remember her trying to trick you? But that must have happened days ago, weeks, maybe. You usually forget in minutes.”

“She also claimed my memory was impaired,” her father said. “That I could not remember anything for more than half a clock-strike, that in my mind, my daughter was still a little girl.”

He nodded at the boys holding her.

“Let her come forward.”

They released her, and she took a few steps.

“Stop,” he said, when she was very near.

“Try to remember,” she said. “Remember how you carried me, when I was hurt? You got a silver ship, and we sailed across the Hollow Sea. A dragon tried to kill us. I know you remember all of that.”

Their gazes met, and for an instant she thought she saw recognition there, the light of realization dawning.

“Do you know how I knew Dusk was a fraud?” he asked, softly.

“How?” she asked.

“Because I have never had a daughter named Aster,” he said. “I have never had a daughter named anything at all.”

For a moment, she was struck speechless. In the back of her mind, she had known she would have to convince him of who she was. But she was good at that, from years of experience, and because he remembered her as a little girl, and because he loved her. That made him willing to be convinced.

But she saw no love in the look he gave her now, and everything in her gut told her he was telling the truth. This man did not remember her at all, at any age. There was no ladder she could erect to bring him from her childhood to the present.

“It’s the curse,” she said. “It must have gotten worse since you got here.”

“Again, you mimic your predecessor,” her father said. “Before you go on, let me assure you I have never been to the Reign of the Departed, much less lived there for years.”

“No, that’s not true,” she said. “You did. We did. The curse is real.”

“Yes, it’s real,” he said. “And I, like all the others past childhood was caught in it, oblivious. Yet now I am free of it, while the others are not. Fate has chosen me, or perhaps I chose myself somehow. I concede I do not know what Dusk—or you—hope to accomplish with this rather complicated piece of theater. Will you tell me? And who is behind this? She would not explain. Perhaps you shall.”

Aster knew she was crying, now. She made no attempt to hide it.

“I’m just trying to get you back,” she said. “Fix you, restore your memory. I want my dad back. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I love you.”

“She’s really very good,” another voice cut in.

She hadn’t noticed him enter. He was dressed all in black, all the way down to his boots. His hair was black and grey, and longer than the last time she had seen it, when it was cropped very short. Now it had begun to curl, a little. His eyes were glacier blue.

“I know you,” she said. “You tried to kill me.”

“Is my chancellor also your father?” her father asked. “Or an uncle? Or your mother?”

“No,” she said. “This guy chased me and my friends all over the place. Killed a bunch of people. Everybody called him the Sheriff.”

“I, of course, have never met this young woman,” the Sheriff said.

“Naturally not,” her father said. He stood up. “That’s enough of this, for now,” he said.

“I will escort her to the docks,” the Sheriff said. “A ship is leaving soon.”

“No! I want to know who is behind this. Put her in the oubliette and make certain she cannot escape. But do her no harm. Yet. That will come later, and at my hand, if she does not answer me.”

“Sire, word is she is a sorceress.”

Her father nodded. He said a word that obliterated itself even as she heard it. Pain fanned out within her to every extreme of her body, then faded into a sort of fuzziness, as if she was wrapped in layers of invisible gauze.

“The oubliette is made to render sorcery moot,” her father said. “That will keep her quiescent until you reach it.”

“Yes, sire,” the Sheriff said.

Once they were alone, in the corridor, Aster tried to bespell the Sheriff, but whatever her father had done left her unable to recall any of the magic she knew.

“Is it only you who’ve come back or is your whole little gang?” the Sheriff asked.

“You do know me,” Aster said.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “You were the brightest girl in my class. How could I forget? To be honest—and I feel I am now able to be honest, Aster—I was, in the past, somewhat obsessed with you. I told you that eventually you would meet someone who valued you for your true qualities. I just didn’t tell you I was standing right in front of you.”

The voice was still the Sheriff’s, but it somehow didn’t sound like him. The Sheriff had been spare with words, always to the point. He didn’t talk like this.

Brightest girl in his class?

“Mr. Watkins?”

“Do I smell as sweet?” he asked.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A Shakespeare reference—Romeo and Juliet. As impossible as it seemed, it had to be Mr. Watkins, her English teacher from Sowashee High. And according to Veronica, Mr. Watkins hadn’t been exactly what he appeared to be, either.

“I was David Watkins,” he confirmed. “Or, better said, Mr. Watkins was a name I went by for a time, a face, a life. I believed it myself, until you and your father finally set me free. And Veronica, she did her part, too, I suppose. She had good intentions—she tried to kill me, if you can believe it. But I do not die, I merely move on. And this time I did not have to move far. Aster, where is the Kingdom of Silver?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dusk had two of the Kingdoms when she left here, but they were separated. I believe she left one for you, to bring you here. Your father saw you with one, in a carriage, a short time ago. Where did you hide it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aster lied.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can use your father’s orb to find it again. It’s time I relieved him of it anyway—before he gets suspicious. This is another black mark in your ledger, I’m afraid. But don’t worry. The questioning will no doubt hurt—all the more because it will be your dear father torturing you. Ah, the tragedy. For that I’m sorry, but right now I must have your father’s trust. Once he is done with you, I’ll help you escape.”

“Escape? Why?”

“Oh,” he said. “You misunderstand me. I mean to help you escape that body of yours. Then you and I can truly be together, for all time, the way we were destined to be.”

That he meant it was very clear, and it made her almost physically ill.

“You may have changed your face somehow,” she said. “But you’re still insane.”

“‘I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity,’” he said. “That’s William Blake, remember? Junior Lit?”

“Now you’re proving my point,” Aster said.

The oubliette was not a cell, as she had expected, although it was two floors beneath the castle. It was a suite of rooms, furnished with bed and chairs, tables with playing cards and chessboards. Mr. Watkins—or whatever he was, ushered her in.

“Soon,” he said, and closed the door.

She looked around the room, trying to recall where she was and how she had gotten there. She ran her finger over the cards and toyed with the chess pieces.

She felt good. Not happy, but she knew she had once been very worried, and now she wasn’t. The bed was soft, and comfortable, and next to it stood a full-length mirror. It showed her a young woman with reddish-brown hair and peculiar birthmark, like a star, on her forehead.

“Who are you, I wonder?” she murmured.

It took a great deal of willpower to watch Aster step into the oubliette and close the door behind her. He had been first searching and then waiting for her for what seemed like eternity. To have her so near, completely in his power, and be forced to restrain himself was almost intolerable.

But as he shrugged off David Watkins and his mortal limitations, he was beginning to remember what eternity really was, and what it could be. After ages imprisoned in the rough clay vessels that inhabited the Reign of the Departed, he was determined that from here on he would have immortality on his own terms. That meant patience. For the time being, it meant keeping control of Kostye and maintaining his trust. If Aster suddenly vanished now, it might raise suspicions. The curse was strange and fickle, and he didn’t understand everything about it. If some shock or turn of events brought Kostye’s memories of his daughter back, that would be an immense setback.

Besides, he had other girls now, many others who had light to give him. His collection would never be complete without Aster, but for now he could be satisfied by sheer quantity. Quality would come to him in time.

But there was the matter of the Kingdom of Silver. He needed that.

He found Kostye in dream, as he often was, drowsing in his quarters. It was no matter to take the sorcerer’s orb; he would miss it if it was gone for long, but what he meant to do wouldn’t take long. He followed the steps up into the highest room in the tower, carrying the rose-colored sphere in his palm.

Kostye had seen Aster with the Silver Kingdom not long ago—less than a day, he guessed, if days still existed. She must have hidden it or given it to someone else before entering the fortress. That meant it shouldn’t be far.

As he placed the sphere against his eye, he felt the faint tickle down in the bottom of him that was Vilken, the man he had first known as the Sheriff, whose body he now inhabited. There wasn’t much left of the fellow, but what was there was useful. Memories of his former life, for instance, especially the years when he and Kostye had been friends—or at least partners in crime. The many decades before the falling out, and the curse. Before Vilken’s exile in the Reign of the Departed.

And the magic—the Whimsies, the Recondite Utterances, the Names. Those were very useful indeed.

But of himself, the Sheriff had lost almost everything. Not quite enough to be reborn in some other Kingdom, but too much to cause him trouble in this body they shared.

The sphere became his eye, peering into the places where the other Kingdoms were. He saw pyramids under a bright sun, an island bathed in morning light, a cavernous hall of stone.

At last he saw her, the one who possessed the Silver Kingdom. He sighed in delight.

It was the other he had missed. The girl with the golden hair and the white tennis shoes.

Everything was coming together, now, all fortune bending toward him.

It was about time.

With a smile on his face, he began preparing for the journey.