Eighteen
Suspended in an easy darkness, Vivian took care to remain perfectly still. If she moved—so much as the blink of an eye, the twitch of a finger—she would wake, and this above all things was to be avoided. A spark deep in her brain sputtered about danger and responsibility, but she held it at bay. In this state of semiconsciousness, she could believe that she was in her own bed, that when she opened her eyes she would see a familiar world—two square feet of kitchen counter, the stainless sink, the bookcase holding beloved and well-worn volumes, the spider plant hanging by the window, the computer whirring its predictable colored screen saver, the dream catcher hanging intact over the door.
Her old world, her old life.
A finger twitched despite her best effort and with that one tiny movement full sensation came crashing in. Red-hot spikes of pain drove into both shoulders. Her head pulsed with every beat of her heart. A line of fire traced itself down her back. Worse even than the pain was the sensation that she was spinning out of control without gravity or direction. She heard a muffled, murmuring sound, as of voices in the distance, and opened her eyes to see who was talking.
Swallowing back a wave of nausea, she squinted against too-bright light. The first thing she saw was Poe, standing at attention, his black eyes fixed unwavering on her. He had the determined look of a penguin who has been standing still for quite some time and can continue to do so indefinitely.
“Still here, I see.” Her throat felt like sandpaper, her voice too loud in her own ears.
She lifted a hand to her throat. The pendant was there. So she was somewhere in Between—Surmise, most likely. That’s where the scarred man who was and was not Zee had been taking her.
Keeping her breaths shallow so as to move as little as possible, feeling the cold sweat slick on her forehead, she lay perfectly still, listening.
No sign of anyone about, but still she heard the sound of distant voices. Without moving her head, she shifted her eyes from side to side to take stock of the place where she found herself.
She was lying on a four-poster bed at the center of a round chamber. The walls were stone, hung with hand-woven tapestries. Heavy wooden chairs, piled with silken cushions in shades of indigo and scarlet, were set about the room in groups of twos and threes. Overhead arched a high ceiling, painted in a style reminiscent of Michelangelo. It took a moment, sick and dizzy as she was, to recognize that this artist’s winged creatures were not angels and demons but vividly depicted long-necked beasts. She forced herself up onto her elbows to see better.
The room spun faster and then went dark. When next she opened her eyes, a woman stood beside the bed, a cool hand on her forehead.
“Easy, child.”
A sweet face, thin and deeply lined. Gray hair plaited into a long, thick braid. “I’ve fed your bird. He had a long soak in the bath and then insisted in perching there on your feet and staring you awake. I told him you needed more time to rest, but he doesn’t listen well.”
Words still felt far away, and Vivian didn’t answer.
The woman walked away, then returned with a little wooden cart on wheels. Arrayed neatly on a clean cloth was some sort of green paste in an earthenware bowl, bandages, scissors, a basin of water.
“Who are you?”
“I am Nonette, and I am a healer. You must rest—I thought you dead.”
“My head hurts.”
“I’m sure. I’ll give you a tea for that and the nausea in a minute. It was the dragon poison I thought had done for you. I’ve never seen anybody survive that. The Warlord insisted that I try.”
The Warlord. He had come back for her when she fell, had carried her to safety at risk of his own life. Had arranged for a healer. To what purpose? Surely not because he valued her as a woman; he’d made that clear enough. Duncan had said something about sacrifices.
The healer’s capable hands removed bloody bandages from both of Vivian’s shoulders and applied a green paste that cooled the fiery pain on contact.
“Pierced both shoulders with his claws. I can’t imagine why he didn’t just carry you away. Hurts, I imagine, but they’re healing at an unusual rate.”
“The dragon?”
“I’d forgotten—you’re not from here. The dragons have poison spurs on their talons. Once they pierce your flesh, you die. Well, most people die. You seem to have some sort of immunity. Now—I’m going to help you to sit up, and then you’re going to drink the tea I’ve made for you. That will ease the headache and the nausea. Ready?”
It wasn’t what she’d tried to ask. She wanted to know what had happened to the dragons, the one that Duncan had wounded, the one that attacked her. It would wait. She bit her lip and endured as the healer pulled her upright. Pain sparked through her body—the scrape down her back, the muscles of thighs and arms, but this was nothing to the pounding and commotion in her head. The whispering of distant voices went on, and she grew increasingly worried that they were a product of her own deranged mind.
“Keep breathing; it will pass,” Nonette said.
In a moment the pain eased to a tolerable level, although the voices continued. Nonette propped her up with pillows and handed her a cup of something hot and steaming.
“There are things you will want to ask,” the woman said. “Drink. Ask. I will answer as I’m able.”
Vivian sipped at the tea. It was both fragrant and bitter, laced with sweetness. Her stomach settled nearly at once. She thought she might ask about the voices, took another look at the sweet, sincere face, and changed her mind.
“Are the others all right? The Warlord, and Barson, and Duncan?”
Nonette turned her back and busied herself folding bandages. “The dragon attacked only you.”
“What will happen now? To Duncan?” And to me.
“That will be up to the Queen. She’s returned, they say. One hundred years gone, and as young as the day she took the throne. You will meet her, and she will decree your future.”
“What is she like?”
Again, the healer avoided her eyes, turned her face away as she answered. “I have never seen her, child—I’m old, but not that old. There are legends—you will see them woven into the tapestries if you care to look.”
“Tell me.” She desperately needed information. The panic was held somewhat at bay by the pain, by the illusion of safety offered by this room. But the calm wouldn’t last, and she knew it.
The woman tidied up all of her implements and wheeled the little cart off into a corner. “I must go. I will leave the salve for you here—you can dress those wounds again, if they pain you.”
“Why can’t you answer my question?”
“I’m a busy woman, my dear, I have others to attend to.” Nonette paused with her hand on the door. “There are some herbs in a pouch in the bath chamber—sprinkle those in the water when you bathe, and it will ease your other hurts.”
With that, she left Vivian in an empty room, staring at a closed door, with nothing for company but the voices in her head and a silent but omnipresent penguin. The voices were getting louder; she caught herself listening for words.
A dull ache began again at the base of her skull.
A robe hung neatly over a chair nearby. Pushing back the covers, Vivian swung her legs over the edge of the bed. There was no part of her that didn’t ache or burn or hurt. She took a few shaky breaths, waiting for the dizziness to pass again, shivering in the chill of a room that would never be warm despite the sunlight flooding in through a bank of windows that lined the outer half of the curved chamber.
Her head was still spinning when a knock startled her. Poe hopped off the bed and waddled over to stand in front of the door. He hissed and fluffed up his feathers. Again the knock—imperative, insistent. Vivian dragged her battered body to the chair that held the gown, each step sending a spike of pain into her shoulders and down her back.
The dressing gown was flimsy, silken, and she wished for something more substantial. At least the smooth fabric felt soothing on her wounds, but it wasn’t much for either warmth or modesty. The knocking had begun to sound like someone was about to burst through the door. Feeling half-dressed and half-conscious, knowing for certain that open doors allowed in the improbable and the unknown, Vivian lifted the latch.
Two guards flanked the door, clad in chain mail, hands resting on their sword hilts in a way that meant business. A girl, no more than sixteen, with a cascade of fiery hair and a simple, floor-length gown, stood well back, eyes wide and watchful.
The knocker was the center of attention. Male, well built and tall, with a face designed for big-screen fame and eyes the color of jade. Thick dark hair fell loose just to his shoulders, which were covered by a cape woven in scarlet and gold. Scarlet hose ending in pointy-toed shoes emerged from green velvet breeches, fastened at the knee with golden buckles. A scabbard encrusted with gems hung from a belt at his waist.
Poe hissed.
Vivian blinked. “Jared—what the hell are you doing here?”
“My Lady, you mistake me—I am called Gareth, Chancellor of Castle Surmise. I have been sent by Her Majesty to welcome you.” His eyes swept over her from head to toe, lingering along the way. She crossed her arms over her breasts and then cursed herself for doing it, as a knowing smile curved his lips.
“We would speak more comfortably in your chambers, I think.”
He took a step forward.
“I’ve got a headache,” she managed. “Maybe you could come back later—”
“I fear that is impossible.”
“As is entertaining you just now.” She lifted her chin, braced her legs to compensate for the weakness in her knees, and blocked the door as well as she could with her body. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the shaking that she couldn’t get under control.
She must not, could not, be alone with him.
He bent his head and brushed her forehead with his lips. She shuddered at the touch; Jared’s familiar kiss delivered by a stranger. Desperately she jerked her mind back from that abyss. She must not, must not, think of Jared and what he had done in dream.
“Perhaps you are right,” he was saying. “There is not time now for pleasure. Later, then.”
Enduring the feel of his breath on her face, his body so close to hers, was a slow torture. Anger coruscated through the fear. Her fingers tingled with the urge to slap his self-satisfied face. She forced herself to stand quiet, not looking at him, every muscle flooded with adrenaline and ready to fight or run.
A clattering sound drew her eyes toward the corridor, curving to the right at a gentle downward slant. A wheeled contraption appeared, on which a bewildering array of gowns hung suspended from a wooden rod.
“Ah, here comes your wardrobe,” Gareth said.
“My what?”
“There is a feast tonight, in honor of the return of the Queen. You will need appropriate clothing.”
The wardrobe arrived at her door, propelled by a boy who looked to be no more than ten, who had to peer around the rack of clothing to see anything as he certainly couldn’t see over.
“A feast? I—look, Jared—Gareth—maybe you didn’t hear, but I’ve been clawed by a dragon, I think I’ve got a concussion, and the last thing I want to do is play dress-up and go to some feast—”
“The Queen commands your appearance. Prince Landon himself will escort you. He will come for you at seven.”
“Pardon me—Your Lordship—but I can’t see how the Queen would care whether I attend.”
“Oh, she is most interested, I assure you. As am I.” She shivered as his gaze pointedly lowered to her breasts, and she pulled her arms tighter around her body.
He snapped his fingers. “Esme, come.”
The redhead stepped forward and curtsied, first to Gareth, then to Vivian. “Esme will help you dress. Step aside and let the page enter.”
Vivian glanced from Esme to Gareth, and then to the wheeled wardrobe, loaded with gowns. This was not a battle she was going to win. Wordless, she stepped away from the door. The boy rolled the wardrobe cart into the room, Esme right on his heels.
Gareth reached for her hand, and she let him take it rather than create a scene. He turned it over and kissed the palm, his lips lingering. When he released her, the back of his hand grazed the silken fabric over her breast. Not an accident. Deliberately, watching his face as she did so, Vivian wiped her hand on the robe.
An insolent smile rewarded her act of defiance. “We will continue this—conversation—later, My Lady.” He bowed and strode off down the corridor. The guards remained in place, stationed one on each side of the door.
Vivian watched him go with a sigh of relief. Maybe she’d think of something before he came back. If she was a prisoner here, she was certainly being treated with a high level of regard. Turning back into the chamber she saw Esme selecting gowns from the rack, laying them out on a satin-covered bench.
The boy stared, hands behind his back, legs spread wide. “Are you a princess?”
“No, I am not.”
“Can I touch your bird?”
“That’s up to him.”
He took a tentative step toward Poe, holding out his hand. Poe stared, unblinking, a statue of a penguin, and the child lost his nerve. “Can I go, My Lady?”
“Of course.”
Esme nodded her agreement. “Leave the rack. You can fetch it later.”
The page walked gravely through the door, but as she was closing it behind him Vivian heard his feet break into a run and half-smiled. Boys. Dress them up as much as you like; some things stay the same.
When she turned back, Esme was draping a selection of gowns over the backs of chairs to show them off, caressing a frill here, smoothing a bit of lace there.
“Don’t bother with all that,” Vivian said. “I’m not going.” Her body was one weary, quivering mass of pain, and playing dress-up wasn’t an activity she enjoyed at the best of times. Besides, according to her grandfather’s note, she could also expect to find Jehenna here somewhere. The very idea of this meeting turned her cold with dread. How, in all the worlds, was she supposed to fight a woman who had defeated her grandfather? At the very least she needed time to heal before she sought out such a battle.
Esme gasped, clutching a gown trimmed in peacock feathers to her breast. “But I’ve been instructed to help you dress, My Lady. It’s expected that you attend. You must. While you are selecting your gown, I will prepare your bath.”
“I know they expect it. I don’t care.”
“My Lady!” Esme’s face was tight with anxiety. Her hands clenched in the fabric of the gown. “You are tired, My Lady, and sore, I’m sure. I heard about the dragon. That must have been terrifying. It’s a miracle that you survived. Lord Zee is frightening all by himself; he’s so harsh and has all those scars. I don’t see how you survived both him and a dragon all at once. I’ll run a bath for you, shall I? You’ll feel ever so much better, and then we’ll see about the feast when you’ve had a nice long soak.”
“That is his name, then? Zee?”
Esme lowered her voice. “They call him Warlord, but they do say Zee is the name he was born with. I’m sorry, My Lady, you are weary and I am nattering. I’ll go draw the bath at once.” She released the gown with a little start and began smoothing the feathers. “Oh, no, I’ve gone and crumpled it. I’m ever so sorry—” Her voice sounded on the verge of tears.
“Never mind,” Vivian said. “I wouldn’t wear that gown in any case.”
Esme drew a quavering breath. “As you say, My Lady. But it would be lovely on you. I could have it fixed—”
Vivian tried to picture herself in turquoise silk with peacock feathers and failed utterly. “A bath would be lovely.”
“Yes, My Lady. At once.” The girl bustled across the room and drew aside a tapestry hung on a rod with silver rings. Behind it was a bath chamber, complete with a toilet and a large round tub. At the sound of running water Poe looked up, then waddled straight for the bath.
Esme flapped at him with a towel, brow creased in fear, but bravely standing her ground. “My Lady, the water must be clean—”
Poe stopped, cocked his head to one side. He waddled one step forward; the girl took one step back. Vivian laughed. It felt good, normal, and some of the tension went out of her. “He won’t hurt you,” she said. “Penguins are aquatic. Of course he wants in there. In fact, he’s already had a bath earlier. I suspect he thinks you’re running that for him.”
Poe stopped his advance and turned his head to look at Vivian. She shook her head at him. “It’s my turn.” He waddled away to the edge of the door, as though he’d understood, and took up a position there, watching.
The bath chamber, like the room, was round, with a stone floor and a marble tub. Tiles, hand painted in vibrant, primary colors, covered the wall. Esme, with a watchful eye on Poe, leaned over the tub, stirring the water with her hand. “I’ve put the herbs in that were sitting here—they smell nice,” she said, straightening up and pushing back a lock of hair. “All ready for you.”
“I hadn’t expected—”
“What, My Lady?”
“Running water.”
“They don’t have that in your world? I don’t think I should like to live there, then.” Esme gestured at another fixture next to the tub. “If you need to, um, relieve yourself—”
“We do actually have those,” Vivian said. Why there shouldn’t be plumbing here, she didn’t know. This was Surmise. There might be any manner of oddities that had found their way in; anything from a dream would be fair game. Like a penguin, for example.
Esme held out her hand. “Give me the robe, My Lady, and I’ll help you into the tub.”
Vivian had no intention, in any reality, of standing naked under the eyes of a stranger and a penguin. “I don’t need any help. Maybe you could wait in the other room—”
“My instructions, My Lady, are to help you bathe.”
“Look—no offense, but I know how to wash myself. And my name is Vivian. Enough with the My Lady, all right?”
Esme’s brow rumpled. “I know not how these matters are where you come from, My Lady, but it is not so simple. There are rituals to be observed.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s a freaking dinner. Not a wedding or a sacrifice or something.” She said these words lightly, but feared the sacrifice as a genuine possibility.
Esme’s lips set in a stubborn line. “A feast. And I’m to help you, My Lady. The Chancellor said.”
“Nobody will ever know. Let’s not, and say we did.”
“I’ll be whipped, I’ll be cast out, I’ll be given over to the dragons…” Esme fell on her knees, hands clasped, tears dripping down her cheeks. “My Lady, Vivian, please…”
“Oh, hell. Do you know what histrionic means?” But the girl’s fear seemed genuine, and Vivian couldn’t deny that not only were there dragons here, they were revered and protected and it was highly possible that unruly servants might be fed to them. With a vast and gusty sigh, she unfastened the robe and handed it over, refusing offers of assistance climbing into the tub. The herbs stung a little as she lowered herself into the steaming hot water, and then settled into a gentle tingling that was comforting and invigorating all at once.
Esme hovered, making clucking noises. Poe came over and stood at her feet, peering down into the water as though looking for something. Fish, maybe.
Vivian tried to ignore them, letting her stiff muscles relax into the soothing warmth. There were bruises on her arms, her breasts. Oval shaped, like fingers. It made her feel sick to look at them, remembering Jared and the dream, so she resolutely took in her surroundings instead. The bathroom tiles didn’t make her feel any better. Long-necked winged creatures—dragons, no matter which way you looked at them—depicted in jeweled tones. Women in white drapery. Women in white drapery chained to rocks. Dragons eyeing women in white drapery chained to rocks. Dragons and bloodstained, empty white drapery lying on the ground beside rocks.
Closing her eyes to shut it all out, Vivian saw instead the dream memory of her own dismembered hand in a pile of autumn leaves, smelled the overpowering scent of dragon, felt the beating of the great wings.
Felt her own wings, spread wide to catch the updraft of wind, soaring ever higher, the earth below a brightly colored patchwork of field and town and river…
Alarmed, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath of the here and now, letting the scent of the herbs fill her head, driving away the smell of the dragon, and with it the fear.
Esme’s voice floated through the room like a vapor of steam. “My Lady? Please sit up. You must be washed.”
Vivian didn’t answer. The herbs seemed to be drawing the pain out of her shoulders; she imagined that if she could look behind her she would see swirls of black poison being sucked from her flesh and washed away.
The voice was insistent. “My Lady, the time is short.”
“All right, all right.” Vivian sat up, feeling exposed and embarrassed as Esme’s competent hands picked up a sponge and began to wash her back, easing around the long gash. “Tell me about the dragons,” she said. Partly because she needed to know, partly for distraction from the pain.
Esme’s hands faltered, stopped, then began moving again. “What did you wish to know?”
“I’m curious. Everything here is dragons—painted on the ceiling, woven into the tapestries. And they fly around attacking people, and the man who defended me got in trouble for it.”
“I don’t understand your question, My Lady.”
“They’re frightening, marauding, evil, and yet—”
Again the sponge faltered, and Vivian heard a sharp intake of breath. “Do not say such things, My Lady, I beg you. The dragons are—sacred.”
“That’s what Duncan said. How are they sacred?”
“It is best, My Lady, not to speak of these things. Lie back—we need to wash your hair.”
Again the wall of silence, first from the healer, now from the maid. The fear took on a three-dimensional quality, filling up the room.
Esme began pouring water through her hair, and Vivian brought her mind back to the business at hand, calmed her breath with an effort of will. Esme washed and rinsed her hair three times with three different solutions. The final herbal cycle clogged her sinuses with a perfume that set her coughing and made it difficult to breathe. Rebellious, she ducked her head under the water and rinsed out as much of the scent as she could, enough to allow her to breathe freely at least, and refused to allow any further ministrations.
“That’s it,” she declared, climbing out of the tub. “We’re done.” Testing her muscles, she realized that she could move more freely. The herbs had done their work.
Poe, with a sidelong glance at her, climbed into the tub with a splash of his flippers. “You’ll be sorry,” Vivian told him. “You’ll stink for a year and a day. No other penguin will speak to you.”
A moment later, still damp and shivering in the thin robe, she confronted a rainbow of velvet and satin gowns, all low cut and tight waisted, all beribboned and befrilled. She tried on one after another, finally flinging the last aside and turning her mounting frustration on the hovering Esme.
“They’re impossible.”
“What do you mean, My Lady? They look beautiful to me.” Envious hands smoothed the wispy blue silk trimmed with peacock feathers, obviously her favorite.
Vivian looked at her reflection in the oval mirror, taller than she was, framed in dark polished wood, carved with images of the inevitable dragons.
“Why don’t you wear it, then?” Vivian snapped. The girl flinched at her tone, and she was immediately contrite. “Look—too much cleavage, and it shows the scars on my shoulders. Plus it’s so tight I can’t breathe—”
“But it’s the fashion, My Lady. And…” She stopped, looked down at her hands.
“And?”
“The Chancellor picked them out.”
“He did, did he?” Vivian remembered the scornful eyes and the insolent touch. A flush of anger moved through her, from toes to forehead. Jared or Gareth or whoever, she’d seen that look before; her casual style never measured up to his idealized vision of what she ought to be.
She turned to the rack and sorted through the gowns that remained. “If this is what I have to wear, then I won’t go.”
Esme looked like she’d proposed cutting off her own head with a dull sword. “But—you have to go.”
“Then find me something reasonable to wear.” Seeing that the tears were about to begin again, Vivian sighed and tried to summon up a modicum of patience. “Look, Esme, things may be different in your world, but no man is going to tell me what to wear. If I must go to this feast, can you find me a gown that hasn’t more than three frills and isn’t so goddamned tight in the waist that I can’t breathe?”
“You’ll be out of fashion,” Esme wailed.
“I don’t give a damn about fashion. Bring me sensible shoes while you’re at it. I can’t walk in these things.”
“I’ll try, My Lady. But he won’t like it.” Esme scuttled out the door like a frightened crab. Vivian nearly laughed but quickly sobered at the thought of the girl’s genuine terror.
After the door closed, she used the waiting time to look over the tapestries as the healer had suggested. There was one of a man, a maiden, and a dragon, arranged in a stylized triangle. Above their heads, dragons flew across the sky. The next tapestry depicted a larger version of one of the tiles—a maiden in white chained to a rock, with a predatory dragon ready to strike. A man in a crimson robe with a raised staff stood off to the side.
One tapestry held her attention longer than the others. Another dark-haired woman, this time wearing a sober black gown. A dragon flew overhead, and in what was meant to be the sky, a number of doors stood open, some round, some rectangular, and through them reached things best not seen. A tentacle, a claw, an amorphous mass that looked like swollen, skinless flesh.
A wafting of scent and a bump against her knee signaled the arrival of Poe. He stood beside her, contemplating the picture as though deeply interested, and then waddled over and poked his head around behind it, pecking at the wall. There was a sliding sound, stone on stone, and he vanished.
“Poe!”
Silence. Vivian peered around the tapestry to see Poe standing at the center of a large walk-in closet, his white patches ghostly in the near-dark. When her eyes adjusted, she could make out two garments hung on elaborate hangers. One was a trailing white gown, the other jet black, plain.
Familiar.
Dream memory flooded through her; the voices in her head surged in volume. Vivian let them carry her into the closet. She slid the black gown from its hanger. The fabric was silky, cool to the touch. A moment’s pause, and then she shrugged out of the dressing robe and slipped the gown over her head. It fit so perfectly it might have been tailored for her.
When she stepped back out into the chamber, she thought for an instant that someone else was in the room. It took the space of several breaths to realize she was looking into the mirror.
This mirror self was not familiar, not ordinary Vivian in jeans and T-shirt. Her skin against the black of the dress was ghostly pale, except for the purplish swelling on her left cheek, a mark left by a blow struck in dream. And then, even as she stared, the gray eyes shifted to green and then to gold.
Vivian moved closer to the mirror, turning her head from side to side to change the light, but there was no mistaking. Her eyes were a dark golden amber, flecked with threads of green. Worse, the scars on her shoulders had healed into black circles, surrounded by what looked like an intricate tattoo of overlapping scales in shimmering gold, purple, and green.
The buzzing of voices in her head intensified to a dizzying crescendo.
Experimentally, she rotated her shoulders, one way, and then the other. No more pain. When she brushed over one of the marks with her fingers the skin was smooth and even; no thickening, no scarring.
Standing there, staring at this self that she no longer knew, with the alien room behind her made doubly so by virtue of being a reflection, she felt disconnected and wraithlike, with nothing solid to cling to. She stretched out one hand to the mirror, half-expecting to pass through into something beyond.
Her fingers touched glass. Cool, slightly dusty, and decidedly solid. And looking into it, an ordinary woman with scarred shoulders, a crazy woman with voices in her head.
A woman with golden eyes that once were gray.