Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-101 Read online

  She stared him down until he stepped aside. When she went on down the road, so did he, with his Companion clopping behind like a common horse.

  She wished they would go away—but she was glad they were there. If nothing else, and if they survived, they were witnesses. They could tell the world what Darkwall’s Lady was.

  It was strange to be walking roads that Merris had only known on maps, and to see the country come alive around her. For a while she walked, then she rode because the Companion insisted—saying through the Herald that she was flagging and the day was not getting any younger, and she had to have some strength left when she came to her destination. On that broad back she rode through a wilderness of trees, over stony streams and across sudden outcroppings of rock and scree.

  She had chosen Astera’s shrine because it was closer to Darkwall than Forbidden Keep, but it was still a long way. They were most of three days on the road, in rain and sun, camping by moonlight and starlight. Coryn had a useful Gift after all: he could start a fire out of anything, though when she challenged him to do it with a cup of rainwater, he responded with a flat stare. He had a sense of humor, but it had limits.

  Late on the third day after Merris slipped out of the shrine, they came around a curve in the road—which by then was little more than a goat track—and looked down on a valley she had never seen before in her life. And yet she knew it as if she had grown up there.

  Its walls were steep and wooded. A river ran through the bottom, deep and wide enough for traders’ boats. Villages clustered along it. High above it on a black rock sat the Keep, crouching like a raven over a rich store of carrion.

  Merris had expected to find the valley sinister. She could apply that word to the Keep, but the rest was beautiful. The fields cut from the woods and the hillsides were rich with ripening crops. Vineyards clung to the slopes higher up, thickly clustered with grapes.

  Darkwall wine was famous hereabouts. It was a dark vintage, strong and sweet. It was wonderful in winter, heated with spices, or diluted and chilled with spring water in the summer.

  The memory was so vivid that Merris could taste it. She swallowed and made her eyes lift past the vineyards to the Keep.

  It was black, built of the same stone as the rock it stood on. A round tower stood at each corner. The flag that flew from it was black, with the blood-red outline of a raven flying on it.

  The Companion moved without her riders’ asking, picking her way down the steep track. On the road she had found a mud-wallow, then a patch of brown dust to roll in until she was covered from ears to tail. She was still white, but she had managed to dull the brilliance of her coat.

  It was a long way down to the river. The track brought them into the village at the foot of the crag, in among a cluster of houses. Fishing nets hung on walls, and boats were drawn up in alleyways and along the riverbank.

  There were people out and about. They looked much like the villagers of Forgotten Keep, or like Coryn for that matter. The strangers attracted glances, mildly curious but neither greatly interested nor hostile. There must be enough trade on the river, and enough traders coming through, that unfamiliar faces were not unheard of.

  Merris had meant to find either an inn where questions could be answered in travelers’ tales, or a temple where the priests might be welcoming to strangers. But there was no inn. One or two places looked like taverns, but they had a peculiarly deserted look. And there was no temple.

  Every village that Merris knew had a temple, if not two or more. There was none here. “So where do travelers rest?” she wondered aloud. “And where does anyone worship?”

  “On their boats, I suppose,” Coryn said, “or they go elsewhere.” He frowned. “It is odd. Maybe there’s a market town downstream?”

  “I don’t know of any,” said Merris. “This is the chief town that answers to the Keep. Look, there’s the marketplace.” She pointed with her chin to an open space visible down the alley.

  “Except there’s no market,” Coryn pointed out.

  “It’s not market day, then,” Merris said, but her voice lacked conviction. “I could swear the books talk about the market. And there should be an inn—the Raven’s Nest.”

  “I gather we’re not encouraged to spend the night here,” Coryn said.

  He touched his heels to Selena’s sides. She went forward obligingly, playing the role of ordinary horse with perceptible relish. Merris thought she overdid the floppy ears and plodding step, but these fishermen were unlikely to know the difference.

  Their lack of curiosity was beginning to bother her. No inn, no market, no temple—did traders really stop here? Or did they unload their cargo and get out as fast as they could? There were no other horses in the streets, not even a donkey, and no dogs or cats. Selena was the only fourfooted creature that Merris could see.

  “No birds either,” Coryn said under his breath. “Does the air feel dead to you?”

  Merris started to ask him what he meant, but she changed her mind. She suspected she knew.

  The sun was bright and the breeze was warm, with a smell of water and fish and baking bread, all very pleasant. And yet it felt hollow—false. As if it were a painted backdrop, concealing . . . what? A fane of monsters?

  She almost laughed. Her imagination was running away with her. There were fish in the river: she saw one leap well out toward the middle, a silver flash. And yes, there were birds. Black wings circled overhead: a pair of ravens, flying high above the Keep.

  She had to get up there. If there was nowhere to stay in town, travelers must be expected to stay in the Keep. She slipped down off the Companion’s back, too quick for Coryn to stop her.

  In a town with narrow alleys and people coming and going at inconvenient intervals, a man on a horse, or a creature like one, was at a distinct disadvantage. Merris gambled that the Herald would not leave his Companion. It seemed she was right.

  Her back felt cold without Coryn and Selena to watch it. She clamped down the urge to run back to them. This was too dangerous to share with anyone else.

  She was beginning to think she had miscalculated. There was nothing to put her finger on, but what she felt here was the wrong kind of wrongness. People were too quiet—too complaisant.

  There were no children. No young adults, either. Everyone was older than she was—but not very much older. There were no old people, either. No white heads or wrinkled faces. Everyone seemed to be between the ages of twenty and fifty.

  Young people could be in school, except there was no temple for them to be educated in. Old people should be sunning themselves in doorways or manning stalls in the market.

  She hesitated at the bottom of the ascent to the Keep. It was supposed to be hers, but it felt completely alien.

  Coryn was gaining on her. The Companion was faster than Merris had thought, and more agile at sidestepping people and obstacles. Merris bit her lip and started up the slope.

  Part of the way was straight ascent, and part was a series of steps carved in the rock. There were no guards at the gate above, but Merris did not make the mistake of thinking it was not watched. What at first she took for carved ravens perched on the summit of the arch moved suddenly.

  One spread its wings. The other let out a single sharp caw.

  It seemed she had rung the bell. With clammy hands and thudding heart, she passed through the open gate.

  The Keep was deserted. The passages were empty and the rooms untenanted. Cobwebs barred windows and flung sticky barriers across doorways.

  Merris searched from dungeon to tower with growing desperation. The only inhabitants were ravens roosting on the battlements. From the thickness of dust in the rooms, no human being had lived there for years.

  She dropped in a heap on the top of the tower. The wind blew cool on her sweating face, even while the sun shone strong enough to burn. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Coryn squatted on his haunches next to her. She squinted, but he seemed real. He was out of breath,
as if he had been running to catch her.

  “How can it be empty?” she asked him. “There is a Lady, or someone who claims to be. She visits me every year. She sends my father gold and soldiers. I’ve had nurses and tutors. They’ve taught me all about this place, the staff, the servants, and who or what belongs in every room. How can it be deserted?”

  “The Lady must have another residence,” Coryn said. “A manor, maybe.”

  “Then why don’t I know about it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. Then he went still, as if straining to hear something faint and far away.

  “After the sun goes down,” he said, “Selena says, look below.”

  Merris frowned. “What? What does she mean?”

  “Look below, she says. That’s all.”

  “There are dungeons below,” said Merris. “Caves, really. Part of the river flows through them.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll look,” he said. “We can rest while the daylight lasts. There’s no food here and I don’t trust the water, but I brought provisions.”

  He held up the rucksack he had brought from Forgotten Keep. It was bulging. “Bread from the bakery in town,” he said, “and the water we brought from the spring at last night’s camp, and a few odds and ends. We’ll be comfortable while we wait.”

  Merris was not hungry, but she was thirsty. She sipped from one of the water bottles while Coryn ate half a still-warm, crusty loaf with cheese melted inside.

  It smelled so good that Merris was tempted after all. She managed a few bites. They helped more than she would have expected. She felt stronger.

  When they had both had enough to eat and drink, Coryn said, “I saw beds below. Maybe we should get some proper rest.”

  Merris shook her head. “I need the sun,” she said. “You go, if you’re too tired.”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”

  “But your Companion—”

  “She’s down below,” he said. “She’ll be safe.”

  “As long as it’s daylight,” Merris said, and shivered. He looked as pale as she felt.

  They propped themselves against the parapet, side by side but not touching. Merris tilted her head back and let the sun bathe her face. Her eyelids drooped shut.

  “Merris.”

  She started awake. Coryn was bending over her. In the confusion of sudden waking, she wondered why he had been bathing in blood.

  Before horror could consume her, she realized that it was not blood; it was sunset light. Coryn was his honest self, with rumpled hair and travel-stained clothes.

  He was much more awake than she was. “I’ve been exploring. I found torches,” he said.

  She nodded. There were no words in her. She took one of the torches, leaving him with the other two.

  The sun was sinking fast. She did not need Coryn’s encouragement to follow him out of the open air into the dusty stillness of the Keep.

  The shadows were thick there. Once or twice as they worked their way down from the tower, Merris thought she saw someone, or something, flitting around a corner. It must be a trick of the light.

  No matter how often she told herself she had a right to be here, she felt more like an invader the farther down she went. She would have loved to run out the gate and away and never come back, but neither she nor Coryn paused there. They kept on going toward the entrance her maps had shown her, down below the gate in an empty and echoing hall.

  Coryn lit the torches in that hall, laying a finger and a hard stare on each until it burst into flame. The light put the dark to flight but made the shadows somehow stronger. In its flicker, they seemed more like living shapes than ever.

  Merris had to lead, since she knew the way. Coryn walked close behind her. He was a solid presence compared to the shadows that crowded thicker as they descended the narrow stair.

  There was a cold smell in that place, like old stone and deep water. The air that breathed upward made the small hairs stand up on Merris’ body.

  She desperately wanted to stop, turn, run back into the last of the daylight. Every part of her that was wise or prudent was shouting at her to do exactly that. But she had come to find out the truth. She had to know. She could not seal the bargain without some knowledge of what she was agreeing to.

  And if it killed her?

  Then it did. She had been bound to this since before she was born.

  It was a long way down. Her legs were aching and her breath was coming hard, well before she came to the end of the stair. Her torch lit nothing but a tunnel carved out of the black rock, and steps descending below her.

  They must be at least as far down as the river by now, if not even farther. She was stopping more often, and it was taking longer for her legs to stop shaking before she could go on.

  Coryn had not said a word in all that descent. She kept looking back, terrified that he had vanished, or perhaps worse, that his spirit had been taken away and there was nothing left to follow her but an empty shell. Each time, he met her stare with one just as tired and almost as wild.

  Just when she was about to give up, the steps ended. She almost fell down, but Coryn caught her and pulled her back onto her feet. He was breathing hard himself. Even in the ruddy torchlight his face was pallid.

  He rummaged in the pack he was still carrying and pulled out a water bottle. She drank gratefully, then handed it to him so that he could drink, too.

  They were still in a tunnel. The cold, damp smell was stronger. The only way to go was forward, unless they wanted to climb all the way back the way they had come.

  Merris strained to remember the maps she had studied. Her memory was good, but the darkness muffled it. She should be at the level of the underground river, or just above it, but she was not sure which. The tunnel branched—at least, she thought it did. One way wound through a succession of caves to a blind end. The other led to the river.

  First she had to get to the branch. Then she had to remember which direction to take. She raised her torch, though her arm was as tired as the rest of her, and pressed on.

  Right, she thought. No, left.

  The tunnel branched as she had thought. But which way? The wrong one would lose them both in the bowels of the earth.

  She closed her eyes. In the dark behind her eyelids, she tried to picture the map. It had been in a book that Master Thellen gave her to study, tucked away in the back with the dry notes and the endless rambling appendices. She could feel the book in her hands, the worn leather cover and the crumbling pages.

  There it was. She almost lost it, she was so glad to have found it. She struggled to keep it steady, then to focus on the part that she needed.

  Right. She should turn right. She almost turned left out of sheer doubt and panic, but she gritted her teeth and followed her first inclination. The cold smell was stronger in that direction, or so she told herself. It must be the smell of the underground river.

  The passage widened some distance past the turn. Coryn moved up beside her. Her hand reached out and clasped his. His fingers were as clammy as hers, but they warmed with the contact. Hand in hand like children, they went on into the dark.

  The tunnel did not divide again, which gave Merris hope that it was the right way. It twisted and turned like some vast worm’s trail, sometimes doubling back on itself. Their torches began to burn low.

  Merris was beyond exhaustion. One more turn, one more doubling—just one more. Then she would worry about the one after that.

  She walked straight into a wall that should not have been there. Only slowly did she realize it was a door. She pushed. It gave, swinging outward.

  There was the hall she remembered from the map, and there was the dark, oily slide of the river running through it. If the tunnel had been a worm’s track, this had the look and feel of a dragon’s lair.

  All the stone in the Keep and the tunnels had been black, but this hall was golden red: the same color as the stone that Mistress Patrizia had given Merris. Curtains and stre
amers of waxy stone streamed down the sides and pooled in columns on the floor. It almost looked like flesh—even to the veins that ran through it.

  It was calling to Merris. Even the little time that she had worn the stone had been enough. It had marked her—bound her. And, she realized in a kind of despair, it had brought her here.

  Coryn’s fingers tightened on Merris’. His breath hissed.

  Merris willed him not to speak. There was something in the center of the hall. It looked like a depression in the floor, a long, shallow oval, with a statue standing over it.

  The statue moved. Like the crows on the arch of Darkwall Keep’s gate, it was alive. Slowly, in the fading torchlight, it took shape as a tall, narrow figure in a dark cloak.

  The hood slipped back. Darkwall’s Lady looked directly at Merris. She was the same as Merris remembered: gaunt, aging, not beautiful, though her features had a certain stark elegance. Her graying hair was loose, falling on her shoulders.

  She smiled. “Welcome, my child,” she said. Her voice echoed in the cavern, reverberating from wall to wall and back again, over and over.

  Merris gasped and clapped her hands to her ears. Coryn had fallen flat.

  “Your eagerness is charming,” the Lady said. The echoes were fainter now, fading away. Merris dared to lower her hands from her ears.

  The Lady spoke again, this time without echoes at all. “Come here.”

  Merris found she could not resist. She left Coryn lying and walked slowly across the hall. It must be her imagination that the Lady’s cloak was made of dark scales, and the bottom of it wound away in a long tail. It was her shadow, that was all.

  The torch was guttering badly now. Both of Coryn’s had gone out when he fell. That must be why the river looked as if it ran not with water but with blood, and the basin in front of the Lady brimmed over with glistening darkred liquid.

  “There’s no one in the keep,” Merris said. “All your gold and soldiers—where did they come from?”

  “I do have a manor,” said the Lady, “and loyal men in my villages.”