Текст книги "Fortress of Ice"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

He wondered how Paisi fared tonight: he would be well along to the river crossing by now, and he hoped Paisi was toasting his feet by a good fireside, with no constraints of fasting or praying in the merchants’ company. He had thought a great deal about Paisi, and how he could join him, during his hours of hiding in the drafty heights. He had been so chilled and hungry he had thought he would never be warm or fed again.

But the king forgave him. No one even seemed that angry. And the queen…

He visited the candle while the water heated. He smelled its green scent but did not touch it: it had a tingling about it, a magical feeling that whispered of forces, kindly forces, he thought… but forces, all the same, and a power that was neither Gran’s nor yet his own mother’s, and he was sure that if it were lit, the fire would loose those things around him. He was grateful to the queen, but he dared not be ready to loose a force he didn’t wholly know and let it have its way in his room. Gran and his mother alike had made him cautious in such regards, and Gran’s sort of witchcraft had gone amiss this morning, whether it was his fault or the Quinalt’s. He was not ready to try another pass at it.

Besides, the scent reminded him of home and weakened him, which was a spell unto itself; and had a power in its very nature. He felt it. And the queen was Ninévrisë Syrillas, of the old blood, the Sihhë blood, from long ago, like his mother’s Gift, though light and not dark. And Gran had warned him, had she not?

Ye respect the queen, young lad, ye respect that great lady. The Sight is in her, no question, like in her da, him under the hill in Amefel, an’ don’t ye e’er doubt it.

He gave a little shiver, as if a draft had touched him.

Or a door had opened.

It had. His heart jumped, as he found Efanor standing in his front room, Prince Efanor, accompanied by a priest in black robes.

“Your Highness,” Otter murmured, and achieved a small bow, trying to gather his wits in the process. And to the priest, respectfully, with another bow: “Sir.”

“Well, Otter,” Efanor said quietly. “You certainly had a cold, dusty day.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Perhaps the king or the Prince might have disapproved of Aewyn’s visiting here, after his misdeeds—or perhaps Efanor’s forgiveness would not come as easily as his father had led him to believe. Perhaps they had come to punish him, after all.

“Sending your man away was one thing,” Efanor said, “and whether that was wisely done or not remains to be known; but pretending otherwise, Otter, and deceiving your father and attempting matters which ought not to be undertaken here—by such small gaps in judgment other forces find their way where they ought not, getting into places where otherwise they cannot come. Have you any least notion what we tell you?”

“That I was a fool, Your Highness.” Efanor was the most scholarly Quinalt of anyone he had met, except the priests, and while much that Efanor said racketed through his hearing and never stuck at all, he had the one matter clear, that there was fault, and it was his, and that what he had done was dangerous in ways beyond his understanding.

“Well, well,” Efanor said, “you were that. And it was a boy’s fault, not to be repeated. Loneliness at holidays brings dark thoughts, which we simply shall not allow. The true story will go abroad, that illness in your gran’s house detained you this morning—that is the truth, is it not?”

It was, when he looked at it that way, a certain version of the truth. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Well, and hereafter you will not be alone. Brother Trassin will attend your needs, whatever they be, until your man finds his way back again, as I trust he will. Will he not?”

“He will, Your Highness.” He was distracted, casting an apprehensive glance at the man in priestly black. This was a dour-faced and solemn man, his hands tucked up into his sleeves: Quinalt, very surely Quinalt—though a monk, by the title, and not quite a priest.

Still a spy, Paisi would say. A sneak and a spy set here to catch a boy doing what he ought not, and what word of protest would priests believe if this man reported mischief of any kind?

“Come.” Efanor walked into Otter’s bedroom, and to the white-frosted window. There, having beckoned him near, Efanor set a hand on his shoulder and looked straight into his eyes at close range. “This man is a servant of the Patriarch, and will search and spy to prove there is no harm. You understand me. Have you anything you ought not to have in these rooms?”

“Gran’s amulet.” He pressed his hand against his chest, where, since this morning, it rested beneath his clothes.

“Give it to me, for the while.”

He was reluctant, but dared not refuse. He reached into his collar and drew it out, warm from his body, warm with Gran’s protection. Burning cold flowed toward him from the window the while, chill enough to sting.

“Good lad.” Efanor pressed something else into his hand, another warm object, on a chain. “Whatever gift comes in love is potent,” Efanor said, “against all manner of ills. Keep this close tonight and tomorrow, wear it openly, do well, and by Festival end, this man will be gone from your premises with a good report for the Patriarch himself—a costly favor I ask you, understand; a penance for you, one that will pay for your indiscretion.” Again the intimate touch of Efanor’s hand, but a calming one, a peaceful one on his shoulder.

It was a Quinalt sigil in his hand. It had no liveliness such as Gran’s coins had. But he obediently slipped the chain over his head and let it rest in plain sight, while his heart thumped away in fear.

“Good, good,” Efanor said. “There’s good sense there. Endure the brother. A necessary matter.”

“Yes, sir,” he whispered, and Efanor went away.

“Why is there an empty bedwarmer in the fireplace?” Brother Trassin asked.

It had boiled dry. “I would like a bath, sir,” he said. “Will you arrange one?”

Trassin frowned but went and did that. Water arrived, hot water and cold, and he did bathe, letting Brother Trassin see the Quinalt sigil, but he did not want the brother in the little bath while he was bathing. He wrapped in towels, dried his hair with them, and hung things neatly. The clothes—he hardly knew what to do with. He hung them up, too, in the bath, and dressed in his most ordinary clothing.

“I need my clothes cleaned, sir,” he said to Brother Trassin, and Brother Trassin, instead of taking them himself, went and called servants to do that, standing by in great disapproval until the dirty clothes and the towels disappeared.

“Were other clothes to come?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Trassin said, paying him no m’lord and no courtesy. He simply stood in the room, arms in his sleeves, the Quinalt sigil prominent on his breast, and that was that.

Brother Trassin stayed, no fount of conversation or pleasantry, and while he sat in his bedroom pretending to read, Brother Trassin pretended to clean the place again, opening all the cupboards and drawers and looking into everything in the process. Brother Trassin spoke never a voluntary word to him, except to give him certain long, long looks, as if he expected him to turn into a rat or a snake on the spot.

In those moments he felt very uncomfortable. Efanor had given him the other sigil he was wearing, a reminder that the Prince himself had contrived this and set a protection on him, perhaps for his father’s sake, or Aewyn’s.

Trassin continued his cleaning in the room where he sat. The queen’s candle drew another such look from Brother Trassin, and a sniff. The man went his way then into the bath, into more nooks and crannies.

Otter went on pretending to read until the light failed in the window, and Brother Trassin fed the fire in the other room until that light was brighter.

“We may break our fast now,” the lay brother pronounced, the only thing he had said, all day. “Shall I send down to the kitchens?”

“Do,” he said, as he would have said to Paisi—though Paisi would have gone down himself, and so far as he knew, there was no one for Brother Trassin to send. But he remembered with great relief that he himself had somewhere to go. “For yourself only, sir. I’m bidden to the Prince’s table tonight.”

“Then I shall conduct you there,” the monk said, and did just that—not lingering with Prince Aewyn’s staff when they arrived. Trassin departed farther down the hall, on his way to the kitchens, or to report to someone, Otter had no notion which. He was greatly relieved to find himself on the other side of the doors, in Aewyn’s receiving room, which smelled of a savory meal laid out.

“Ha! Just in time!” Aewyn called out, arriving in the other doorway, and came and flung an arm about him. “On time and hungry, are we?”

He took it for a reprimand and found nothing to say. He was in a glum humor. But Aewyn shook him in a friendly way and drew him toward the laden table—feast, as the long day had been famine—and poured a cup of watered wine. “Here, for a thirst as great as mine! I waited for you faithfully.”

“You needn’t have done that.”

“Of course I needn’t, I needn’t anything, but I wanted to. How is the spy?”

The wine caught in his throat.

“Brother Trassin?”

“He’s clearly the Patriarch’s spy,” Aewyn said, “the nasty old man.”

Otter looked left and right, to see which of the servants was in earshot. “Don’t say so.”

“Oh, nonsense. Uncle knows exactly what he is, and His Holiness sent him over here after the rumor reached him. Papa doesn’t like the fellow. He was mytutor for six whole weeks before Uncle found out he was the Patriarch’s man, taking notes. He was the most boring tutor ever anyway. All catechism. He loves to read lists. Probably he’s making one, in your rooms.”

It was not encouraging to hear. “Lists of what?”

“Oh, horrid charms and things. Which you don’t have.”

“No. Your uncle took it.”

“ Youruncle, too. His Grace is not partial to Brother Trassin, I do assure you. Far from it. If he can get him in trouble, he’ll be ever so happy. Cheer up. Have some pie. It’s a wonderful meat pie.”

It was, crusty brown and full of gravy. They sat down at table and everything seemed redeemed. Wiser, older heads had patched all the harm, and peace would prevail, if only he could do the things he should do in the morning and pass the next few days without fault.

“And when Festival ends,” Aewyn said, “after all this is over and the to-do is done, then we shall have our hunting trip, even if your man stays on for festival in Amefel. We shall have my guards, my servants, so there’s no fuss at all about your man being away. We can hunt rabbits.” Aewyn popped a sweet into his mouth. “I can cook. Papa taught me how to cook on a campfire. I can at least do simple things. And we can bring most everything we need. Lots of blankets. It’s quite cold out there.”

The lodge seemed a sort of unachievable dream after this scrape. Otter could hardly believe the king would let them go off together to the country with no authority to keep them out of mischief. He kept his opinion to himself, however. If Aewyn was happy imagining the lodge and its wonders, and them turned out free to do as they pleased, then he was happy to agree.

And increasingly, he had no desire to go off somewhere until Paisi could send him news of Gran—good news. It must surely be good news, he told himself. Enough bad had happened, and now, this evening, and with a full stomach, his fortunes seemed to have changed.

vi

THE JUNIORMOST OF AEWYN’S GUARD WALKED OTTER DOWN THE LONG HALL TO his own rooms when Aewyn went to bed, and he was glad of the company. By that time the hall was on its fewest lights, and the shadows were deep and cold. He let himself in, saw his own fire banked for the night, and started violently when he heard a cough from the little side room, on his right hand, that room Paisi had never used.

Brother Trassin declined to stir forth, and he declined to summon him, only padded quietly past the fire and into his own chill and lonely bedroom to undress himself.

Paisi would have had a last log on the fire, would have warmed the bedclothes, would have shared his own warmth against the bitter chill, but he was satisfied enough to have Brother Trassin abed and invisible and by no means in the same bed with him.

The woodpile was greatly diminished. Paisi would have brought more wood up, with his own hands, without Otter’s ever suggesting it.

This priest hadn’t.

And clothes had, indeed, arrived; he saw that when he hung up the ones he was wearing. They were dark blue—nothing to provoke anyone. He had never seen queen’s servants come at all: if they had, he had been absent at dinner. But likely, he thought, Prince Efanor’s arrangements had replaced the queen’s with more specific orders and new plans.

And the windows in the main room and here had the curtains drawn. He never liked the curtains drawn. He went and tugged and pulled at the heavy draperies to open them wide.

In the tall window, in its very center, there was a Quinalt sigil hung, a pewter talisman as large as his head. He went out to the main room, confronted those drawn draperies and hauled them back, each one, while the sounds of snoring came from the little room beside the foyer. In each, there was a similar circlet, with the Quinalt symbol.

It was a ward of sorts, he supposed. He hardly liked it. The place already had wards. The sigils aimed at witchcraft, at Gran’s dreams, or his mother’s mischief, or his own wondering, he supposed. They might as well have been bars on his windows.

The same sigil, on a chain about his neck suddenly seemed part of the same design, but remembering what Prince Efanor had said about it being given in love, he feared to cast it off or, more rash, still, to bid Brother Trassin take those emblems down and leave his draperies alone.

He lit a candle and went back into the icy bedchamber. And by that light he found the queen’s candle and the evergreen gone from the mantel of the unused fireplace.

Dares he? he asked himself, indignation rising. Dares he throw away her gift?

Clearly the man dared whatever the Quinalt pleased.

He set the candle on the mantel, shivering with all this walking about. By that flickering light, he flung himself between icy sheets, gathered himself up in a shivering knot, and tried to warm a spot, breath hissing between his teeth.

He could not trust this man to wake him in the morning. If he understood Prince Efanor’s warning, and Aewyn’s, the man would like nothing better than to find him in the wrong. He couldn’t trust the man for anything. He lay awake long, long, watching out the window, where the night sky made the Quinaltine roof look like the back of some great hulking beast, a predator lying in wait for foolish boys, and the Quinalt sigil hanging like a wakeful eye between.

Frost patterns had formed about the edges of the panes. He saw them in the candlelight, saw the evidence that the bitter cold he felt was no illusion. He thought of Paisi, afield on this bitter night, and hoped he was warmer than this and in better company.

He hoped Aewyn was right, that Brother Trassin was in no good grace with the king. He truly hoped so. Efanor himself both scared him and comforted him—he was almost sure of his goodwill, but had not quite warmed to him—Efanor being a very quiet, very thoughtful man.

He was glad at least the day had ended with his father knowing the truth, and Efanor trying to patch things, and Her Majesty on his side. That was a miracle in itself, a sign of things going much, much better in the world.

He shut his eyes on that thought. He held them shut, though the thought began to tatter and flow away from him.

He saw Gran’s cottage, looking so forlorn in its little enclosure, so deep in snow.

But it seemed that as he came closer and closer, he saw that the shutters were hanging askew, and that half the thatch was missing, charred timbers in the opening.

His heart beat faster and faster.

“Paisi,” he called out. “Paisi, something’s wrong! It’s all burned, can you see it?”

The house all fell in cinders, no more than a heap of stones and smoking ash.

“Paisi!” He cried. “Oh, Gran!”

“Boy,” someone said somberly, and he waked with a hand on his shoulder, a harsh and demanding hand, and a face lit from below by a candle. “ Boy!”

It was Brother Trassin shaking him awake, his face all harsh lines and frowns, Brother Trassin, who kept shaking him needlessly now, and ordering him to pray for the sins that troubled his sleep.

“Good gods deliver us,” he said all in a rush, “gods save us.” It was only what Gran would say when he’d been particularly bad or when she was startled. Gods save us from fools, was the rest of what Gran would add next, but he held that back, with Trassin standing above him. He recovered his arm from the brother, rubbing the sore spot the man’s hard fingers had made. “It was only a dream, sir.”

“You were chanting. You were calling out names in a trance.”

“I was asleep. I dreamed. I called for my brother and my gran, sir, just that. It was only a dream. That was all.”

“Mind how you dream, then,” the brother said, “and what you invoke.” With that Trassin walked away from him, taking away the candlelight, which leapt and flared and found strange edges to illumine as it left. It found edges of the clothespress, on which foxes were carved. It sparked off dark windows as the brother set the candle down in the other room and began to draw the draperies across the windows.

“Leave those, if you please, sir. I like the sky.”

The brother left the curtain half-drawn, contriving to make even obedience disapproving, and turned, picking up the candle that gave his countenance the look of something carved and baleful. “The night is full of harm,” the brother said. “It’s nothing wholesome to look at. No wonder you dream.”

“Good night, sir,” Otter said, wishing the man would just go away. He was shivering, his bare shoulders exposed to the air, and he was embarrassed about the prayer he would not have tried to make if he had not been startled into it, and most of all he was worried about Gran and Paisi, in the dream he had had.

He drew the blanket up about his shoulders and sat there trying to keep warm until the man took the light away.

vii

HIS HOLINESS’ SPY’S INSPECTION TURNED UP ONLY HER MAJESTY’S CANDLE for a sin,” Efanor informed Cefwyn, in the dim light before the dawn, before the procession downstairs. “I informed His Holiness whose gift it was, and we agreed there will by no means be any mention made of it in any record. The boy had nightmares. How not? I suggested that record, too, be expunged. Clearly the boy is distraught at his companion’s leaving. Thatwill be recorded.”

Cefwyn regarded his brother sidelong and hung a dagger from his belt, discreetly on the side his cloak covered, while Idrys stood in shadowy silence, armed and waiting.

“So his indisposition and his innocence will both be in the record?”

“I have the Patriarch’s firm word on it.”

“Bad business, still, this messing with magic,” Idrys said unbidden. “And no surety yet the boy won’t bolt to Amefel, or spill another bowl of oiled water in his lap, if his bad dreams go on.”

“He’s done very well,” Efanor said smoothly.

“For an Aswydd,” Idrys said.

“Hush, Crow, damn you!”

Idrys inspected the back of his hand, on which a scar healed. “It is worth a thought, my lord king. The boy has arrived at a certain age, capable of passing on the Aswydd blood, never mind its own claims to royalty. As to what that blood does contain—did you not bid me ask about his mother’s sorcery?”

“His wizard-work failed, you’ll note.”

“All the same, who knows? He’s of an age. I’d not have his choice of bed-mates influenced from the Zeide tower.”

That was worth a cold, direct stare at Master Crow.

Efanor spoke, from the other side. “I talked with the boy that day,” Efanor said. “He quite deceived me. He must have just come back from horse-thievery when I spied him, the cat straight from the cream, and not a trace on him. He has cold-blooded cunning. He has invention. He has a strong will. But he is not a thief, not a coward, and not, so far as I may judge, a sorcerer, nor even a wizard, considering the outcome of his efforts. Perhaps you should teach him the martial life.”

“He scarcely knows the sword,” Idrys said. “He can hardly manage his own reins or stay ahorse. So I hear. The lad’s employment in the army is questionable.”

“So he’s no soldier. You’re in no danger, Crow. Don’t fear him so.”

“Scion of a line you outlawed, my lord king, root and branch, living and dead…”

“And I rescinded the decree for Crissand, aye, for him and for Otter.”

“Elfwyn,” Efanor said. Otter’s proper name.

“It was His Majesty’s notion to declare that name to the people yesterday,” Idrys said. “And he spilled oil on that notion, right handily. Did he not?”

“Damn it, Crow, is there no mischief elsewhere in the kingdom you can attend? Must you lurk about and annoy me?”

“The boy had no reason to avoid that name being proclaimed,” Efanor said.

“We know who would,” Idrys said.

“Her prison is secure,” Efanor said, “or nothing is.”

“Precisely,” Idrys said.

“Idrys has a man riding in that direction,” Cefwyn said to Efanor, “and will advise Crissand to take all precautions.”

“Well and good for that,” Efanor said. “But if there should be anything amiss with the grandmother… Write to Lord Tristen, brother. I strongly urge it.”

“Get that weasel of a lay brother out of the boy’s rooms. His Holiness has seen enough, heard enough, imagined enough. The spy is a feckless fool, and the boy is already upset. Withdraw all appearance of guards.”

“To catch whom?” Idrys asked. “The boy, or the Holy Father?”

“Hush, damn you, Crow! Why,” he asked Efanor, “do I tolerate this quarrelsome man?”

“Which one?” Efanor asked, smooth as milk. “The Lord Commander, or the Holy Father?”

Idrys opened the door for them, performing the office of a servant in this meeting without servants, with only Idrys’ men outside, and at least one of their number, by Idrys’ word, well launched on a snowy mission to Amefel.

“Come,” Cefwyn said. There was worry enough, all considering. Ninévrisë would be waiting for him, with the baby, who was not a patient child, particularly when waked and dressed before sunrise. Aewyn would be fretting in the hall, or off looking for his half brother, to be sure, this morning, that Otter showed up for services.

He by no means liked the advice he had had from Efanor and from Idrys.

But if there were anything untoward in Amefel, Efanor was right: Tristen would know it.

Would you not, old friend? he asked the amulet he wore. Would you not know if that vile woman had breached the wards?

You promised us to watch over us. I’ve tried not to do foolish things.

I’ve kept my word to you. That was never foolish, no matter what Crow and my brother think.

viii

READY, READY, THOUGH OTTER WAS ALMOST LATE, AND BROTHER TRASSIN STILL fussed with his cloak pin and wanted to teach him the morning prayers.

“Please you, sir, I mean to learn, only His Majesty is waiting. I have to go downstairs. Gods bless us.” He perceived it mollified the man when he said that, and he said it twice, breaking away. “Gods bless us, the Five bless us…”

It was the start of the prayer at least. The Five bless us at sunrise and sunset, in sunshine and rain…

And shall they bless us in snow, his rebel wits wanted to ask, and his terrors conjured worse than that. And shall they, in fire? Save us from fire. Gods save Gran from the fire. Oh, Paisi, go, hurry as fast as you can…

He escaped Trassin’s attentions and hurried as fast as he could keep his footing on the polished floor, out the door and down the hall, past the doors from which the few other residents would already have departed, onto the grand stairs, with a quick grip on the balustrade, his feet skipping ever so fast.

He heard a gathering below. He was not too late. He saw the glitter of gold, a red cloak—Aewyn’s. He himself wore his new dark blue coat, his good black boots, restored by the servants. Brother Trassin had insisted on helping him wash and dress, and, it turned out, had wanted to pray over him at every stage, while he tugged his shirt on and fastened his laces himself.

The blue cloak, accidentally pinned through his doublet, was crooked. He seized it in one hand and tried to straighten it as he reached Aewyn and the family, and Their Majesties. He bowed fervently, and intended to move toward the side of the hall, to keep from any conspicuous notice while he repinned the cloak.

“Here you are, on time, and you look grand,” Aewyn declared, and turned to his father. “Doesn’t he?”

“Perfectly fine,” His Majesty said, laying a hand on Otter’s shoulder, “and just in time. Move us out, if you please, Lord Marshal. Move us on, here, and let us get this under way.”

The assembly began to move. The queen carried the baby in her arms, and Aewyn walked beside his father. Otter lagged back, finally securing the pin, hoping just to follow as quietly as possible, losing himself among the Guard and the officials who thronged the hall. Aewyn, however, turned half-about, caught his sleeve, and drew him forward without a word.

A gust fluttered all the candles and blew out half of them as the great doors opened on the dark outside. Staffs began to turn, unrolling banners that took increasing flight on that wind. Torches outside showed a world of falling white, and perilous steps, where Prince Efanor lent his hand to help Ninévrisë and the baby.

The way led along the center of the paved courtyard to those gates that were rarely open, tall iron gates with spikes along the top. Torches went before them onto the street, a war of fire and banners as the gusts battered both flame and cloth.

From there the way led beside the tall windows and high walls of the Quinaltine, and around to the broad, high steps where a throng of people had gathered. These steps were sanded, and easier than they looked. Having braced himself at the sight of them, Otter let go a wider breath and walked up with ease in among the columns of the porch, and, beside Aewyn and the king and queen, into the echoing dark beyond the great doors.

A shiver took him there. It was warmer inside, but only tolerable. The massive candles, posed at intervals, relieved only the dark immediately about their flames, cast light on the lower portions of towering marble pillars, while the space above and behind was lost in dark. Shadowy crowds of richly dressed people stood on either hand, having reached their seats before them. The end of the aisle was ablaze with light, a diffusion of a hundred pale candles of every size, like looking at the sunny world from the heart of some horrid, chill dark. The soul wanted to fly toward that safety, but the speed of the procession was set, and they proceeded at the same pace as on the steps. A choir sang, a mournful echo roused out of the spaces above the pillars; and priests swung censers, sending up clouds of incense that began to veil the light.

Otter wanted to sneeze. He wanted to very badly, and choked it back into an embarrassed hiccup as they reached their benches and filed in. His eyes watered.

The king sat. Everyone sat down, with a rattle and bump of the benches throughout the great sanctuary. Aewyn sat on the side nearest his mother, Efanor came next, and Otter sat at the end of the row. He watched as a bearded old man all in white and gold stood up in front of all the candles and the altar and lifted his hands. He began to talk about sin and dark, then the coming of the sun.

That last was comforting. Otter supposed this was the Holy Father himself, and found he had a persuasive, calming voice: he even agreed with what he heard, thus far; but then a pair of priests accompanied an even older man into the place of the first, and that old man began to chant in a reedy voice about sun and shadow, and the willfulness of Men, and the sins of the age.

It was not so pleasant as the other voice, and the reasoning eluded him, but Otter listened attentively, and stood when everyone stood and sat when everyone sat, and tried not to fidget as Aewyn did—Aewyn swung his feet, and his father had to put a hand on his knee and stop him. Aewyn heaved a heavy sigh, then, and meanwhile the old man had directed more incense be waved about.

Otter pinched a sneeze up his nose, and tried not to blink. Tears from the smoke shattered the candlelight. A baby began to fret, somewhere in the assembly, and other babies took it up, including the Princess, who let out a protesting wail.

Otter dared blink, finally, thinking the tears dry enough, and the light cleared into discrete, though blurry, points. There was a darkness between those points, and while the old man chanted, that dark in front of the front row, under the railing, seemed to move strangely, like spilled ink. The shadow began to run along the rail that separated the choir and the other priests from the assembly. It flowed down from there like black water, and ran down the baluster at the corner, spreading across the floor right by the table where the candles sat. Otter leaned forward a little and watched in horrid fascination.

Gran could do things like that, making sparks march in a line on a straw, or making a puddle of water go silver, reflecting the light. But this trick with shadow felt quite threatening to him, like a rip in the world that swallowed in the light, and if it was a trick, Otter wished the priests would stop doing that, and they would just preach and be done soon.

But there was more singing, and more incense waved about, until at last the old man, with all the shadow now swirling about his feet, talked about sin and the wickedness of their forebears, about the world being divided into the gods’ own and the others, and those trafficking in shadows, who were damned.

Maybe, Otter thought, it was a message, and now the shadow would disappear, driven away by the old man’s power. Maybe they were all supposed to understand it as a trick and an illustration. But the shadow was lapping and leaping about the hem of the old man’s robe, and he seemed not to notice it at all. He waded through it when he turned to the altar and poured a bowl of oil.