I hang back with Fabithe and Oriana while Luthan examines the rock face in front of her. From most angles, the pattern carved into it gives the impression of random cracks. It’s only when approaching from a particular direction that the design springs into view: a tower with a pentacle at its crest. A mage’s sign.
We’ve found the way in.
Situated in a bend of the river, the Castle Retreat is protected on three sides by water. But its fourth face is built against a high rocky outcrop, the far side of which is where we are now. We got here last night, after another day spent clambering over the dangerous paths of the Duskmire. After I nearly died crossing the river whilst trying to keep Toralé out of my head. Then it took Luthan half of this morning to find what she was looking for, hunting through a hundred crevices and faults in the stony landscape …
We’re in time. But only just.
Luthan pricks her finger, then lets a drop of blood fall on the rock. She murmurs a single word, which is taken up and echoed until the air is full of it. I don’t understand it, but it seems to hum with an undertone of danger. Just as it reaches unbearable intensity, the carving flares into radiance. I squeeze my eyes shut – and when I open them again, a narrow chasm has appeared in front of us. My heart thuds in my chest; my stomach twists. She’s done it.
“Is it safe?” Luthan asks. She’s looking at me. They all are.
That isn’t fair. I can’t –
But in my mind, Toralé screams.
“Of course it isn’t safe,” I say. “But Ifor isn’t here – and that’s what matters, right?”
“You saw that?”
“Yes.” I’ve been trying all morning to force a connection between us, the way I did for Luthan and Toralé before. I don’t want to be inside his head, but I can’t deny it would be useful. Yet for some reason, I’ve found it incredibly hard to do. The most I’ve achieved is a brief flicker – but it should be enough. I saw him talking to one of his men, preparing to set off on the next stage of their journey from Citadel to Retreat. “He still isn’t due to show up until tomorrow.”
“Then you’re sure – ”
“As sure as I can be.” Irritably, I push the hair out of my eyes. “Look. This is what we came here for. And I’m going in, whether the rest of you come with me or not.”
“You know we will,” Oriana says softly. “We promised.”
I try for a smile, but I can’t manage much of one. I’m wound too tight.
“I’ll go first.” Fabithe strides past me to peer into the cave. “Better have someone in the lead who knows something about navigation.”
An aggressive note colours his voice, but I hear what he isn’t saying. Fear, mostly. Not for himself; he’s afraid he won’t be able to protect us. And, of course, he’s angry at himself for feeling that way.
“Go ahead,” I tell him. “We’ll follow you.”
The passage is high and narrow, little more than a fissure in the rock, leaving no room for anything more companionable than single file. Ten paces in, the path veers downwards, plunging into darkness; Fabithe stops to light his moon-lantern, revealing an uneven stone staircase descending into the earth. I follow him down the steps, one hand on the wall for reassurance as the light seeping in from the entrance begins to fade. This is it. The final journey. Not long now until –
Toralé lies on his side, concentrating on breathing. In and out. In and out. Every in hurts. Every out hurts more. But if he focuses on it intently enough, he can almost forget the fact that this respite is only temporary. He can almost forget that Tarrith is only letting him rest now so that it will be all the worse when the persuasion starts again.
Call it what it is, he spat at Tarrith, last time or the time before. Call it torture.
Torture is when you have no choice but to suffer, Tarrith replied calmly. This choice is your own.
I will not give up my will to you.
Then I will have to keep trying to persuade you. The mordathe shrugged. See? Your choice.
Sometimes, in calm moments like this, Toralé discovers a last desperate flicker of the person he used to be, and tries to work out how to defeat Tarrith. After all, he’s about to be executed, and he’s already being persuaded; it isn’t as though anything remains to punish him with. Yet mordathi are almost indestructible. They each draw on the blood of six different victims, to whom they can pass on any wounds – up to and including death. Cut them, and they do not bleed. Hack their limbs off, and the pieces join back together like a macabre joke while somewhere, in a quiet room down one of the endless corridors of the Castle Retreat, another man dies in agony. Toralé knows all that. He has seen it happen, a demonstration of the consequences of disobedience.
It takes seven killing blows to defeat a mordathe, one for each of his victims and the last for him. Toralé can’t destroy Tarrith without destroying himself. And as for Lord Ifor … he has six bound links of his own, and many of those are mordathi themselves. So no matter how he circles around it, in these periods of waiting before the torture begins again, Toralé can never think of any way to defeat them. Most of the time, he doesn’t even have the strength to try. In his heart, he knows he has only one aim left: execution. If he can reach his scheduled death before he becomes so weak as to succumb to Tarrith’s wishes, he will die content.
In a place like this, that’s about as close as it’s possible to get to happiness.
I blink, but nothing has changed: the sound of water dripping from the roof, the play of light on shadow and shimmering stalactite, the next step and the next. We keep walking, silent through mutual accord, as though it’s taking all our collective strength to shake off the creeping sense of unreality that threatens to overtake us. And then there are no more steps. The dull sound of our footfalls opens out into an echo, and the blue light of Fabithe’s lantern radiates into empty darkness. A cavern.
Shadows dance as he sweeps the lantern around, searching for the way forward. Light flashes back at us, and I startle. Someone else is here – but no. It’s only a reflection. A cracked old mirror, discarded against the cavern wall. A shiver of unease runs up my spine … but then the light moves on, casting the mirror back into darkness.
“There!” Fabithe starts out across the floor, and I see it a moment after: another opening in the rock wall on the far side of the cavern. We straggle after him. Yet when he reaches the exit, Luthan’s voice cracks in sudden alarm.
“Fabithe! No!”
Light flares up, bright and intense, like looking straight into the sun. Once again, I’m forced to close my eyes, coloured spots dancing against my eyelids. And when I open them, Fabithe is prone on the floor.
A small sound of protest escapes Oriana’s lips. She stumbles past me to drop to her knees beside him. The fingers of one hand go to the side of his neck; the other rests on his chest.
“He is alive,” she says, in a voice that wobbles only slightly. “Breathing.”
“Of course it would be closed,” Luthan mutters. “Of course it would, after all this time.”
“But I cannot wake him.”
“I should have been more careful.”
Neither of them seems to be aware of the other speaking. It’s hard to make sense of the jumble of information.
“Luthan,” I say sharply. “What’s happened?”
Slowly, she turns her head away from Fabithe to look at me. “A barrier. Designed to seal off this route into the Retreat.”
“Magical?”
“Yes.”
“Can you open it?”
“I don’t know.” She faces the empty passage, clutching her stave in one fist. Once again, she whispers that unfamiliar command with its undertone of danger. A shimmer ripples through the air, building into a translucent weaving of purple and gold that stretches from wall to wall. Luthan begins to murmur to it, as if charming a recalcitrant animal; her voice rises and falls, but gradually becomes more authoritative. Then she makes an abrupt slashing movement with her stave, and an answering rent appears in the light of the barrier. It wavers, beginning to close in on itself, but Luthan snaps another word. The entire barrier ripples and sparks; then golden flames flicker through it, spreading out from the centre to the walls, and it vanishes.
“I think that’s done it,” she says breathlessly. “We should be able to pass through, now.”
“But what about Fabithe?” Oriana asks. She’s still crouched beside him, one hand over his heart. Her hard, anxious gaze is fixed on my face. “You said you saw nothing go wrong.”
“I didn’t. I – you can’t expect me to see everything – ” But she’s already turned away.
“Luthan?” she whispers. “Can you help him?”
“I can try. But really it’s a task for a healer, not a mage.”
Oriana bites her lip. “I do not know what to do.”
“You have the gift,” Luthan says. Her fear and doubt seem to be fading – as if her world was temporarily shaken, but now she can see her way clear to how things need to be once more. “I know you can do it. But if not, I’ll be back soon. We can work it out together.”
“Back?”
“I have to go with Alyssia into the Castle Retreat. To find Toralé.”
Oriana hesitates, then nods. “Of course. I will keep him safe until the two of you get back.”
The moon-lantern has fallen from Fabithe’s hand and rolled a little way across the cavern floor, but it hasn’t stopped working. Luthan rights it, then mutters a word that lights up her stave in a flare of white flame. I check on Toralé, but can’t get a grip on his thoughts; he’s floating in a grey sea of nothingness, his pain a constant simmer. They’ve put him back to sleep. And if Tarrith isn’t with him, this is the perfect time for us to go. Even if it means abandoning Fabithe and Oriana …
The inside of my cheek is sore. I stop biting it and move to Oriana’s side. “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “It is not your fault.”
“We’ll be as quick as we can.”
“Be careful, Alyssia.”
Briefly we grasp each other’s hands. Then Luthan and I step through the space where the magical barrier used to be, and leave her and Fabithe behind.