He had performed for an emperor.
But he had failed Southlands.
Lionheart knelt in the dark street, so bleak and wretched after the beauty of the Aromatic Palace. He ground his teeth and clenched his fists and wished for all he was worth that the Dragon had swallowed him alive years ago.
4
THE NETHERWORLD
BEANA WAITED BY THE GATE. She rarely circled the grounds anymore. What was the use? The Dragon had sealed them off thoroughly.
“How long?” she whispered. “How long will you leave her to him?”
The silver song drifted across the distance: I have not abandoned her. Or you.
“It is so hard, this waiting!” The goat bleated and stamped her hooves. “Interminable!”
Trust me.
“I do,” said Beana, bowing her head. “But his poisons thicken every day.”
In the western wing of the Eldest’s House was a long gallery in which all the kings and queens of Southlands were depicted in paint and preserved in gilded frames. Some of the depictions were nothing but fanciful notions. The Panther Master, for instance, who’d been Eldest of Southlands in the time of the Wolf Lord. His portrait depicted him in robes of office that had not been officially accepted until several hundred years after his lifetime. Despite the fierce expression and the dramatic sweep of his arm, his face was one of those dull, everyman faces that could be anybody and nobody simultaneously.
Rose Red rather liked this portrait at the beginning of the gallery. She lifted the silver lantern, allowing its light to illuminate the work as the strange half-light could not. The artist had painted, beneath those rich and unhistorical robes, many wounds scarring the Panther Master’s body. Vicious wounds he had received in another’s place. Rose Red saw the delicate red lines that were almost unnoticeable beneath the gold and saffron cloths and the enormous panther fibula on his shoulder. But when the lantern light shone upon those scars, one could not help but see them. The Panther Master was a kind man, Rose Red thought, though the artist had painted him with a warrior’s face. He was a good Eldest.
Suddenly, though she knew it must be a trick of the half-light, the Panther Master’s painted gaze shifted and he looked directly down at her.
Rose Red gasped, hiding her exposed hand behind her back, and hurried on her way.
She proceeded down the gallery. For the moment, the House held sway, and she caught glimpses only now and then of the Netherworld into which it was slipping. In that world, she walked once more in a narrow tunnel, so narrow that it was difficult to breathe. Better to stay as much in the House as possible.
The eyes of the ancestors stared down from their frames upon the little chambermaid. She could feel their gazes following her, could swear that when she glanced at them she saw the eyes actually moving. She refused to look.
“Why are you coming for me?”
Rose Red stopped. Slowly, she lifted the Asha Lantern so that its beam might carry farther.
Down at the end of the gallery, she glimpsed through the gloom a person standing. Her skirts blended into the shadows, as did her long hair tumbling down from its usual pile of curls, its striking red melted away into twilight hues as though the color had never been. But when the lantern light fell upon her, her eyes were brilliantly blue in her white face, even from across the gallery.
“M’lady!” Rose Red gasped and started to run toward her. The moment she set her foot down, however, the gallery vanished, and she was once more in the tunnel, which constricted around her. She gasped, barely able to breathe. The more she pushed, the tighter the tunnel grew. So she held quite still and felt the stones, like muscles, relaxing. She could draw breath again, and her eyes sought the end of the tunnel.
It was a gallery once more. Daylily still stood there, her face as motionless as those in the portraits facing each other across the long gallery.
“You should let me die, goat girl,” said the Lady of Middlecrescent. “I would if I were you.”
Rose Red dared not take another step. “I’m goin’ to find you, m’lady. I swear it! Don’t give up and don’t believe anythin’ the Dragon tells you.”
“If you should succeed,” said Daylily, “you will one day wish you had not.” Her mouth was hidden in shadows. Only her eyes were visible, as though peering through the slit of a veil.
“I promised Lionheart I’d care for his family. That means you too, m’lady.” Rose Red set her jaw and, without thinking, held up her hand. The ungloved one.
Daylily closed her eyes and turned away. Only her black silhouette remained, just visible against the half-light.
“Wait!” Rose Red called.
“You should let me die, goat girl.” Daylily’s voice faded. “You should let me die. . . .”