Down the long stair, and the descent did not stop. Another long stair opened itself like a mouth below the Chronicler, and he was dragged down farther still, out of the light, out of the heat, into the close, stifling dark of the Citadel’s dungeons. They flung him unchained into a cell, and he heard the slam of iron on stone. Footsteps retreated. He was alone in the dark.
He lay for he couldn’t guess how long, unable to move, uncertain of his own limbs. Above him was a stone grate. He reached up, just able to grasp it and, with a grunt, hauled himself up. He could see nothing. All was pitch-black. So he let go and stood in silence, unable to think. It was too dark to think. It was too dark to feel.
And then there was light.
It was faint, reflecting on the ceiling above. The Chronicler looked up at it like a lost sailor looking to the pole star. A gentle voice spoke in a language he understood, though it was not his.
“Who are you?”
He ground his teeth, then shrugged. “I am the castle chronicler of Gaheris.”
A quiet moment, not quite silent. Then: “I am Dame Imraldera, Knight of the Farthest Shore. Are you Etanun’s heir?”
“Supposedly,” he replied. “According to some.”
“You don’t believe you are?”
“It’s hard to believe much of anything in this place, isn’t it?”
The light—perhaps from the starflower Mouse had mentioned in her tale—faded a little. Then Imraldera said, “It’s as well that what you believe cannot affect the truth.”
The Chronicler cursed and closed his eyes to avoid seeing that light. “If I survive this,” he said, more to himself than to the prisoner, “I swear I will find Leta and retract everything I ever said about truth and belief!”
“Who is Leta?” asked Dame Imraldera.
He could not answer. He told himself that he was not weeping, for no one could weep in this place. It was far too dreadful an end to merit tears.
After a silence that lasted forever, the prisoner across the way whispered, “Perhaps I should not have trusted Etanun after all.”
6
I SET UPON THE HOUSES OF LIGHTS AGAIN, picking them out as they shone at night and pouring flame down on them from above. So the gleam of Asha was extinguished across that world, and the voices of Lumé and Hymlumé were stilled.
Once more Etanun found me. Upon the Green of Corrilond we fought, and our battle extended for miles, decimating the land. I tore him with my claws, burned him with my fire, but Halisa protected him from death, and he dealt me many blows.
At last the sword found its way home and once more plunged into my breast. “Die, cursed devil!” Etanun cried. “And this time, stay dead!”
“But don’t you know?” I replied with my last breaths. “I am a queen. I will return.”
And with that, I took my original form. I was once more the woman he had known, suspended on the end of his weapon. I saw his eyes widen, his mouth open. I thought his lips formed the words, “Dear queen!”
But I was probably mistaken in that.
Darkness clouded out my fire. Once more I died.
“Lights Above us!” Alistair stared at the old man. “Aren’t you the kitchen man? The pot scourer?”
The scrubber touched his thin forelock respectfully. “My lord,” he said.
A snarl sliced the air. “You’re behind this, aren’t you? Traitor! Murderer! ”
Alistair ducked his head as, much to his surprise, Eanrin flew over him, leaping like a cat, though still wearing his man’s form, at the scrubber’s throat. For an instant, Alistair believed Eanrin would break the old man in two.
But the scrubber, his scrawny limbs moving so quickly that Alistair almost missed the action, turned, caught Eanrin by the arm and the back of the neck, and twisted him so that he was down on his knees and unable to move, though he spat and snarled and kicked. He even tried to take cat form, but the old man kept his grip on his scruff and pressed all his weight into Eanrin’s body.
“Steady now, kitty cat,” said the scrubber. “No use hissing at me like that.”
Eanrin, a man once more, knelt panting in the dirt, his red clothes dusted over and his immortal face smeared and dirty. But he calmed his struggles and only spat again, “Murderer!”
“Call me more names, why don’t you?” the scrubber said mildly. “Call me all the names you like. But shall we have done with the physical violence, at least for the moment? It unbalances the humors.”
Eanrin’s voice dropped into indecipherable mutters, and Alistair took the opportunity to scramble to his feet. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did you follow us? How did you escape Gaheris? Have you word from the castle?”
The scrubber looked up at Alistair, his face so wrinkled that its expression was impossible to determine. “Stop asking questions for the moment, my boy,” he said. “Wait. Wait a little.”