As the dismal summer faded and autumn fell over Ebora, Hestillion kept largely to the sprawling confines of Ygseril’s palace. What she had told Lord Moureni about the wolves was true; they were normal wolves, not worm-touched creatures half mad with the taint of the Wild, and they didn’t seem interested in her bony flesh, but that could well change as the colder months drew in. Whoever was left outside the palace would have to deal with that as they saw fit.
It was a cold, grey morning, chilly enough for her to see her breath before her even as she walked the corridors of the palace. It was just a cold snap – the true brutality of winter was a way off yet – but it was a reminder that she would need to start stockpiling firewood, and bring the warmer gowns out of storage. This morning, though, she had set aside for other concerns. She paused outside the Hall of Roots, needlessly glancing over her shoulder in case there was anyone there to observe her. The doors were as stiff and heavy as they had ever been, and she had to lean her entire body weight on them to squeeze her narrow frame through the gap. Inside, the echoing hall was a forest of shadowed shapes, ghostly in the muted light from the glass roof. A hundred years ago, when he was still alive, Hestillion’s uncle, Nourem, had become convinced that the plains people on the other side of the mountain were planning to band together to sack Ebora. He had been a sharp man in his day, but years of watching his people die and the early stages of the crimson flux had pushed him towards some teetering, paranoid edge. He had ordered all their valuables to be stored in the Hall of Roots, reasoning that it was the most defensible space in the entire city. Their artworks, their paintings, their sculptures and finest furniture had been brought into the hall and covered with sheets, and then allowed to moulder here in silence. Hestillion remembered watching the room fill up with their ancient treasures, and how the men and women moving the objects did not look at Ygseril, not even once. To them, the god was no longer there. It was just another piece of their lost history, gathering dust under the sky.
Hestillion wove her way between the shrouded statues of Eboran war-beasts and the towering blood-vial cabinets, heading towards the giant ghost in the centre of the room. Ygseril was a looming grey presence, his branches spread over her head like a cloud. Just as she had when she was a child, she climbed out onto the thick roots, feeling the solid cold press of their rippled bark through her slippers. It was so hard to get warm in this place. She promised herself a roaring fire when she was back in her suite.
‘Hello, old man.’ She sat down where the trunk met the roots, resting her back against the chilly bark. From here, Ygseril filled the whole world. ‘Another quiet day.’
Silence hung in the Hall of Roots, an invisible shroud that Hestillion could almost imagine brushing against her skin – clammy and clinging, like death. Music was something else they had lost in the gradual collapse of Ebora. When was the last time she had listened to a song sung by someone else, or the playing of instruments? Ebora had once been full of men and women who were exceptionally skilled musicians and composers, having dedicated centuries of their lives to learning their craft. Once, Ygseril’s palace had echoed continually with music. Her brother had dedicated most of his years to swordplay and then to the more secretive disciplines practised in the House of the Long Night. He was very good at it, he never tired of telling her, and by all reports, he was right. Hestillion herself had never been drawn to music, instead studying painting and embroidery, but her greatest passion had been for dream-walking. Tormalin had always said that she was the finest dream-walker Ebora had produced, that she could hide herself within a dream as well as a grasshopper within a glade. Hestillion smiled bitterly to herself. Perhaps he had been right; it hardly mattered now.
Thinking of the dream-walking, she ran her hands over the cold bark underneath her. Once again, she looked around to make sure she was alone. Aldasair had not been in here in years, but that didn’t mean he might not suddenly decide to make the trip – his mind was slowly spooling into chaos, after all.
Bowing her head, Hestillion closed her eyes, feeling her mind sink into the shadowy netherdarkness. It closed around her, as comforting to Hestillion as being held by a dear parent. She looked around. Darkness, almost entirely. There was a faint light that pulsed softly, which she knew to be Lord Moureni. Sleeping now, edging closer and closer to the point where he simply wouldn’t wake up. She felt a brief stab of curiosity about the old Lord’s dreams, wondering if he would be reliving past glories on the battlefield, but the possibility that he dreamed of misery, illness and a slow death was too great. She had no wish to share that with him. Another dreaming mind nearby was brighter. She was half surprised that Aldasair was still asleep when the sun had been up for hours, but then what else was there to do in this place now, but sleep? His dreaming mind was bright, a torch in the darkness. Allowing herself to feel briefly reassured by its presence, she turned her own mind away. In the netherdarkness, Ygseril was a great grey blot, a shadow in the dreamspace.
‘Ygseril. Are you there?’
There was no change in the grey shadow, no light to indicate a dreaming mind, not even a flicker. Just as it had been for hundreds of years.
‘I still believe you are there, somehow. You sleep more deeply than any of us, that is all.’
Moving towards the shadow until it was all around her, Hestillion pushed her consciousness deep into the surrounding gloom, feeling for the resistance that would normally come before she entered a dream. It was like walking in the thickest fog. Once, when she and Tormalin had been small, they had gone exploring the ornamental forest that curled around the northern wall of the palace. It was an exquisitely beautiful place; every tree, every small hill, every plant and streamlet had been placed according to a design by Ebora’s foremost gardener. In the summer months it was an island of greenery, thick with blossom and the scent of flowers, but they had gone walking in midwinter, and a swirling fog had grown up between the tree trunks. The white mist had made her think of forgetfulness, and as the trees and the plants vanished behind it, she had been filled with a terrible sense of loss. She had looked at her brother, and had seen the same misery on his face. Once, she and Tormalin had often shared the same feelings. That was a long time ago.
This was fog on a much grander scale. The shadow that was Ygseril was all around her, and although she searched with every fibre of her dreamself, there was nothing.