“Harker!” I cried, and ran to the edge to watch him fall. He must have brushed the edge of the sack, for it tumbled after, spilling its contents: books, with bindings open and pages fluttering like birds, followed the man into darkness.
Unobstructed now, the light from the woman pierced the gloom and poured over me. I looked up and gasped: her eyes had fixed on mine. Eyes black, and empty.
“There you are.” She smiled. It ruined her beauty. “There you are.” And then her smile yawned open and more open until, terrible and grotesque, it widened larger than the crevasse and just as brutally deep. And I was dragged up from the earth and sucked into this frenzy of nothingness.
It was still dark. There was still time before dawn. I was on the boulder by the path, shivering and sweating both at once. Slowly I pushed myself up from the stone, bringing one of the sleeping shrews with me. She let me rest my cheek against her soft fur, and I sat there for a time, hugging my knees into my chest, laying my head on my folded arms with the little shrew tucked in between. Her tiny heart was purring rapidly, mirroring my own panicked beat.
That smile. I’d seen it before, when I touched Ruber Minwl’s severed hand. That horrible gash of mouth opening from malevolent sneer to ghastly void, swallowing me whole. What had old Harker said before?
Drown in madness.…
If dreams were foretelling my destiny, which end would it be? Slain by sword or pulled into oblivion?
I could not dwell on such thoughts or I’d be trapped by them. I gently moved the little shrew from my chest, picked up my pack and cloak, and began to walk.
Hours went by in a blur. The path wound along the side of the far pastures; grass for a half league or two, across a rolling landscape. Dawn came, bringing the sun over the grass, coaxing forth its sweet scent. My feet tripped across the dirt, swiftness without joy—but at least I was quick. It was buoyant and beautiful to the east and south; Dark Wood hung heavy along the west. North was the unknown. I concentrated on the sunshine polishing my right cheek, and the path dividing the green and the blackness.
Well before the noon hour, I reached the Niler marshes. Itwas the end of my knowledge of the route, but I plowed right through the trail of muck and scythed reeds, fiercely determined. I would finish this task. I would finish it and not care beyond anything except returning home.
Somewhere I knew I was being silly. Troths were more real, more threat, and yet I was scared of dreams. A young man to kill me. A lady who would swallow me whole. Or even what the seer said:
You will cry for mercy
.
“I am a ninny, Quin,” I muttered aloud as if he were still there. And yet …
The thing that gnawed through rational thought was what I had not admitted to Raif, to Quin, not even to myself: I’d read old Harker’s energy. He’d not told a false tale.
Like some grim joke at that acknowledgment, I was suddenly thrown to my knees—a shock from the earth shaking beneath me. There, in the middle of the Niler marshes, with its already weak ground and soggy hillocks, the earth was rocking and bumping, heaving me up and tossing me back—bounced like a child on a blanket. I screamed out loud, thinking of Harker falling into the darkness, fearing the mud would tear open and drop me too, or the dark lady would reach from beneath and swallow me down. And so I wrenched myself up from the squelching muck and ran. Even as I stumbled, fell, and regained my footing, even as the earth calmed and straightened and behaved as if I’d merely imagined its shudder, I ran, not stopping. Never mind the Troths. I was like those gaping villagers of Dann, spooked by things that might not be real.
I broke through the end of the marshes in a rush, thudded across the harder ground, and stopped, gasping for breath. Before me spread the broad scape of the Cullan foothills and the northern border of Dark Wood, with the sun’s rays
Unobstructed now, the light from the woman pierced the gloom and poured over me. I looked up and gasped: her eyes had fixed on mine. Eyes black, and empty.
“There you are.” She smiled. It ruined her beauty. “There you are.” And then her smile yawned open and more open until, terrible and grotesque, it widened larger than the crevasse and just as brutally deep. And I was dragged up from the earth and sucked into this frenzy of nothingness.
It was still dark. There was still time before dawn. I was on the boulder by the path, shivering and sweating both at once. Slowly I pushed myself up from the stone, bringing one of the sleeping shrews with me. She let me rest my cheek against her soft fur, and I sat there for a time, hugging my knees into my chest, laying my head on my folded arms with the little shrew tucked in between. Her tiny heart was purring rapidly, mirroring my own panicked beat.
That smile. I’d seen it before, when I touched Ruber Minwl’s severed hand. That horrible gash of mouth opening from malevolent sneer to ghastly void, swallowing me whole. What had old Harker said before?
Drown in madness.…
If dreams were foretelling my destiny, which end would it be? Slain by sword or pulled into oblivion?
I could not dwell on such thoughts or I’d be trapped by them. I gently moved the little shrew from my chest, picked up my pack and cloak, and began to walk.
Hours went by in a blur. The path wound along the side of the far pastures; grass for a half league or two, across a rolling landscape. Dawn came, bringing the sun over the grass, coaxing forth its sweet scent. My feet tripped across the dirt, swiftness without joy—but at least I was quick. It was buoyant and beautiful to the east and south; Dark Wood hung heavy along the west. North was the unknown. I concentrated on the sunshine polishing my right cheek, and the path dividing the green and the blackness.
Well before the noon hour, I reached the Niler marshes. Itwas the end of my knowledge of the route, but I plowed right through the trail of muck and scythed reeds, fiercely determined. I would finish this task. I would finish it and not care beyond anything except returning home.
Somewhere I knew I was being silly. Troths were more real, more threat, and yet I was scared of dreams. A young man to kill me. A lady who would swallow me whole. Or even what the seer said:
You will cry for mercy
.
“I am a ninny, Quin,” I muttered aloud as if he were still there. And yet …
The thing that gnawed through rational thought was what I had not admitted to Raif, to Quin, not even to myself: I’d read old Harker’s energy. He’d not told a false tale.
Like some grim joke at that acknowledgment, I was suddenly thrown to my knees—a shock from the earth shaking beneath me. There, in the middle of the Niler marshes, with its already weak ground and soggy hillocks, the earth was rocking and bumping, heaving me up and tossing me back—bounced like a child on a blanket. I screamed out loud, thinking of Harker falling into the darkness, fearing the mud would tear open and drop me too, or the dark lady would reach from beneath and swallow me down. And so I wrenched myself up from the squelching muck and ran. Even as I stumbled, fell, and regained my footing, even as the earth calmed and straightened and behaved as if I’d merely imagined its shudder, I ran, not stopping. Never mind the Troths. I was like those gaping villagers of Dann, spooked by things that might not be real.
I broke through the end of the marshes in a rush, thudded across the harder ground, and stopped, gasping for breath. Before me spread the broad scape of the Cullan foothills and the northern border of Dark Wood, with the sun’s rays
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