Silent Hall (27 page)

His eye, his eye! The pain was so sudden and so great that Narky was unable to fathom it. The voice that screamed so horribly must be his, he thought, as his hands shot to cover his wound. His vision blurred and then ceased entirely as his eyelids shut against the pain.

“You said you wouldn't harm us if we won!” roared Hunter. “You said we'd be safe for eleven days!”

The captain's boots crunched as she turned on her heel and went to climb back onto her horse. “My hand slipped,” she said mildly, and remounted her steed while Narky's left eye bled into his hands.

H
aving determined
that the remaining islanders possessed no magic, the fairies finally released them from their nets and let Phaedra help Narky with his slashed eye. They took Hunter's sword and armor, and Narky's spear, and threw them back toward the ruins like garbage. For once, even Hunter didn't seem to care about his gear: all he and Phaedra cared about right now was Narky.

There was little to be done at this point, besides keeping pressure on the wound and hoping it wouldn't get infected. For the sake of having done
something
, they tore off one of Narky's sleeves and wrapped it around his head.

“Will we have to burn it?” Narky asked, babbling a little in his fear. “We have to, don't we? If we wait, it'll be just like with Bandu's wolf… oh Gods, can't I ever leave what I've done behind?”

“I don't know if we have to,” Phaedra told him. “I remember the Atellan friars said to keep wounds clean, but did they say we had to burn every wound? And anyway, I don't have anything to burn it with.”

“We do,” said Raider Two. He was blacker than night now, blacker than any skin ought to be. His eyes and teeth stood out like pearls among coals. He snapped his fingers, and a poker materialized out of the air. Its end was glowing red.

Narky held Phaedra's hand tightly. “I don't want to die here,” he said.

“I don't want to do the wrong thing,” she answered. “I don't even know if this is necessary.”

“Do it,” he commanded her, though he looked terrified. “If I get infected here… do it.”

She nodded, and took the poker from the grinning elf. Narky lay down, and Hunter held his arms out of the way. They were both trembling. Phaedra carefully framed Narky's eye with one hand, and touched the poker to the wound.

Narky did not scream long. By the time she was done, he had long fainted. She nearly fainted, herself. That sizzling, crackling sound, and the smell… she hoped she would one day forget all of this, though she knew that was not even remotely possible. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to die.

She threw the poker aside, and Hunter retied the sleeve-bandage around Narky's head.

“Can we carry him on one of your horses?” he asked.

The fairy captain shook her head. “We will drag him behind,” she offered meanly.

“No,” said Hunter. “I'll carry him if I have to.”

He struggled for a moment to lift the unconscious Narky over his shoulder, but he was soon steady on his feet once more. Thankfully, the fairies did not force the humans back into their nets after this. Instead, they released their nets into the air, where they shimmered briefly in the sun before disappearing.

“Make no attempt to escape,” the captain warned the children, “or we will catch you and skin you and roast you all for tonight's feast.”

The children stood there, trembling. They were so young – none older than six, Phaedra thought. The fairies led them eastward, toward the horrible glare of the rising sun. Phaedra tried to reassure the children as they marched through woods and fen and shallow streams, but the children did not talk to her. They were all continental, and they feared the islanders' black skin. Perhaps now that the fairies had darkened, they thought the islanders were related to them.

The fairies' skin surprised her. She could hardly believe that these beings had been given a name that only fit them for a few hours each day. It felt silly to even think of them as fairies at this point. She would have to devise a more appropriate name for them. Changelings, perhaps.

After nearly half an hour, Narky woke up and asked for water. Hunter was relieved to set him down – it was a marvel that he had managed to carry Narky this far. The elves threw Narky a waterskin, which he promptly failed to catch. He sighed and picked it up off the ground.

If the children had been wary of Phaedra, they were terrified of Narky. The one-eyed black man loomed like a monster in their eyes, and they all did their best to avoid walking beside him. Narky didn't seem to mind. He slogged after the fairies without a word, head bowed, and did not even look at the children.

Phaedra wondered at his secrets. In answering the elf captain's riddle, he had admitted that justice would mean his death. Why would it? Was it for the same crime that he had committed against Ravennis, the one that had nearly killed him already? Or was Narky's past so sinister that his repentance to Ravennis would not suffice?

It worried her. She was starting to like Narky. Yes, he could be rude in conversation, but at least his eyes never glazed over when Phaedra spoke. What if he was secretly a rapist, or a murderer? She had always thought of him as a private person, but now she had to admit that he was altogether secretive. The boy never spoke of his life before the boat. He had never told them what sin had sent Ravennis' messengers after him, and he had called Psander a blackmailer. With what was she blackmailing him?

She couldn't ask him. There was so much she couldn't ask. Her mind was bursting with questions – for Narky, for Bandu, for the fairies – but she couldn't ask any of them. Narky was silent and brooding, and Bandu and Criton had vanished into the forest. Phaedra was too afraid to ask the fairies anything, after what they had done to Narky.

After a second hour of walking, the children began to stumble and lag behind. They were just too small; their little legs had to move twice as quickly as the islanders' in order to keep up. The fairies grinned down at them maliciously, as if relishing the punishment they were about to inflict. Some of the children began to cry. In response, Hunter picked up a sobbing little boy and sat him upon his shoulders. That ended the sobs for a time, but it hardly made the journey easier: soon all the children wanted rides on Hunter's back.

Luckily, the fairies did not force them to go a full third hour without rest. Phaedra couldn't have made it that far, with her uneven gait. As it was, pain radiated from her hips up through her back and all the way to her neck. She was surprised she hadn't collapsed yet. But now, after maybe a half hour of Hunter switching between different children on his shoulders, they were all allowed to sit and rest their legs over a meal of water and an unfamiliar green fruit. The fruit had a thick spongy peel, and the inside came apart in large sections. The fruits were barely sweeter than lemons, and at first the children refused to eat them. They relented when they saw Raider Two reach for his sickle.

Since encountering Hunter's generosity, the children were beginning to look at Phaedra differently as well. She was no longer suspect in their eyes, but a potential friend and benefactor. But they still avoided Narky, who only scowled when he saw them.

“How far is it?” one of the girls asked their captors.

“Ten thousand steps,” said the elf captain.

“Twelve thousand shuffles,” said the one called Raider Four.

“At our pace,” said the angelic Raider Eleven, “only 'til noon.”

Phaedra thought Raider Eleven must be even more beautiful in the daytime than she had been at night. Her flawless black skin contrasted strikingly with her silver clothes, and gave her an appearance that was more divine than human. She looked like a cruel goddess.

The green fruit could hardly be called filling, but soon the travelers were once more on the move. At first their pace nearly matched the one with which they had set out, but soon the many little legs began to give in, and the children started looking even at Phaedra's shoulders as potential resting places. Phaedra was forced to refuse their pleas: her ankle bothered her already, and her limp was having an impact on her hips and back as well. She wished the islanders' horses had passed through the Gateway with them.

Her heart sank when she realized how much had been left behind with the horses. The tents, their blankets, their food. Flints and torches. Even if the fairies let them go, how would they ever survive in the wilderness?

The sun was high in the sky when the captain let them rest once more, in a shady grove between hills. “Rest and prepare yourselves,” she said. “We shall arrive within the hour, and then the real games will begin.”

Hunter lowered a girl called Delika from his shoulders, and they all sat down heavily on the moss. Delika was the most gregarious of the girls – it was she who had asked the fairies how much further they had to go. The children's personalities were starting to emerge through their masks of fear, so that Phaedra was beginning to get to know them. The other girls were Tella, whose twin was Tellos, Adla, Temena and Caldra. Tella was a shy one, too shy even to ask Hunter for a ride. She gazed up at him with awe and envy as the others took their turns, but still she said nothing. She and her brother were olive-skinned like the Atunaeans or the Parakese, and her hair was straight and long.

Temena and Adla turned out to be sisters, though it was hard to tell which was the elder. They couldn't have been more than a year apart. They were the shortest of the girls, and the skinniest. Phaedra doubted they had ever been well fed.

Caldra's name and yellow hair identified her as belonging to a mountain village. She was slender and graceful, and her voice was high and light. Before today, Phaedra would have said she was like a little fairy.

Then there were the three boys: Tellos, Rakon, and Breaker. Tellos spoke a good deal more than his sister, enough for Phaedra to detect an Atunaean accent. He was somewhat ill mannered, always pulling at Hunter's shirt and demanding to be next, but he had such an adorable little face that Phaedra found him charming anyway. Rakon was the youngest of the children, and the one who needed rides most frequently. He had very dark hair for such light colored skin, which to Phaedra's mind made him look sickly. Breaker was a fisherman's son who seemed used to spending time without his parents. He was a sweet, quiet boy, which was practically a miracle considering his name. Phaedra wondered what his parents could have been thinking, giving a boy a name like that.

Phaedra spent their brief respite getting to know the children, telling them stories about the islands and their relations to the continental cities, and hoping that they would get over their fear of black skin. Hunter's rides had been priceless in that regard, opening them up to the possibility of trust and friendship. Talking to them gave Phaedra something to do besides worry.

After a few short minutes of rest, the fairies pushed them onward. They crested the hill, and then another, and finally found themselves looking down upon Castle Illweather.

The castle was like no structure Phaedra had ever seen. The stones, if there even were any, were so covered in moss, ivy and tangled vines that not a spot of gray was visible anywhere. The castle seemed to have been built – or, rather, grown – in a pentagonal shape. Where the corner towers should have stood, there were instead five massive trees. Even the lowest branches of these towered above the ground, many of them integrating into its walls and roof. Above the castle hung a single, angry stormcloud that twisted and swirled, but never swept on. Ill weather indeed.

The elves drove them toward the gate – or toward the place where a gate ought to have been. There was no true gate here, only a portcullis of writhing vines. The sight reminded Phaedra of Bandu's caper bushes.

They reached the vines, and the elf captain called for them to halt. When she spoke, it was to the castle itself. “The captain of the Illweather Raiders requests entrance,” she said.

The living gatehouse creaked and groaned horribly, to which the fairies listened with patience.

“We bring with us eleven godserfs,” said the captain. “Three are old.”

Again, the gatehouse creaked and rustled in disapproval.

“That decision is neither yours nor ours to make,” the captain said, apparently in response to the rustling. “We will let the prince decide.”

The gatehouse accepted her words with a reluctant groan, and the vines whipped apart from each other with a great cracking sound. Phaedra shuddered. The gaping passage that lay ahead felt ominously alive. It was not just letting them in, she thought, as they advanced down the passage: it was swallowing them whole.

Inside, the halls of Castle Illweather were dank and smelled of fungus. A blanket of mushrooms on the floor looked very much like blueglows, except that these mushrooms emitted a pale green light and did not
seem
to be growing out of corpses. As the fairies led them through the castle, Phaedra noticed their skin reacting to the darkness by turning a luminescent white again. Interesting.

Deeper and deeper into the castle they went, twisting this way and that between walls of knotted roots and clinging fungus. They did not come across any more elves, but Phaedra sensed them nonetheless, waiting in hungry anticipation, just out of sight. Or perhaps it was the walls that waited.

Hadn't one of the Elkinaran sages claimed that the first world fell apart because of an excess of love and goodness? Too much love and goodness. The thought almost made Phaedra laugh.

What would the fairy prince choose to do with her and the others? Would he have them enslaved? Executed? To what degree were the fairies bound by the rules of Bandu's riddle game? It was supposed to protect the Godserfs for eleven days, but the fairy captain had taken Narky's eye anyway. Obviously the elves could still harm them. What
couldn't
they do? Could they just not kill the humans? What if Narky died of an infection?

Surely, Bandu wouldn't have suggested the riddle game unless it had
some
kind of power over the fairies. Perhaps they would learn more when they came before the prince.

But they never did come before the prince. Instead, the elves brought them to a large windowless room, its only entrance guarded by a gigantic, wicked-looking thorn bush. The bush parted down the middle when they approached, flattening its spiky branches to the sides of the entryway to let them enter. As soon as all the humans were inside, the branches sprang back to block the passage.