House of Shadows(107)

The Kalchesene drew a breath, bracing himself visibly to refuse any demand Ankennes might make. Ankennes, though he didn’t move, seemed to gather himself—Whatever he meant to do when the foreigner refused him again, he was ready to do it—

Behind the mage’s back, Nemienne shook her head sharply at the Kalchesene. She held out her hands and waved at him urgently: Go on, go on!

Neither the foreigner nor Leilis exclaimed, But what do you mean? and so at least Ankennes did not turn and see Nemienne’s insistent gestures. The foreigner seemed uncertain. It dawned on Nemienne at last that whatever signs they made in Kalches to mean go on were different from the crossed-wrist palm-down gesture of Lonne. Her heart sank. But then Leilis leaned forward and spoke quickly to the young foreigner, and he arched an eyebrow of his own and said slowly, to Ankennes, “And you will free me if I do this?”

“I will swear to it. I do swear to it. This is the only task I demand of you.”

“Well,” said the foreigner, and glanced at Leilis and then back at the mage and past him to Nemienne. He turned his gaze last toward Prince Tepres.

The prince, too, had seen Nemienne signal the foreign sorcerer. He gave Karah an indecisive glance, bending his head down to listen as she whispered to him. She put the kitten into his arms, and he lifted it absently to his shoulder. Then, as the foreigner turned toward him, his face stilled into an arrogant mask. He said nothing.

The Kalchesene sorcerer lifted the bone flute to his lips and began to play.

The flute had a soft, breathy tone, not quite pure. It was a sound that reminded Nemienne of the moist chill of mountain mist, of the bitter taste of wood ash, of the way the air smelled before a storm. The melody the bardic sorcerer played first rose up as a prisoned bird, freed, might fling itself skyward; then, as though the bird had struck the limits of a chain, it fell back again, descending with dizzying swoops through strange minor keys. The melody swirled around the cavern, and then seemed somehow to fade—absorbed, somehow, into the darkness under the mountain—the darkness that, underlying Ankennes’s brilliant light, was somehow still there. On the far side of the black pool, the Dragon of Lonne slept, impervious to the human folk who played out their small dramas in its cavern.

The light dimmed. Not the light of the circles that trapped Prince Tepres and Karah on the one hand and the foreigner and Leilis on the other. Those stayed bright. But the rest of the light in the caverns faltered. The waiting darkness crept forward on all sides, while the music of the flute spun a fine pathway through the dark. It was a path meant for the prince. It held his name and his heart. Within his circle, the prince’s expression passed from hard-held arrogance to openhearted wonder. He took a step along that path, and another.

Karah clung to the prince’s hand. For a moment, the prince hesitated, held by that grip. He half turned, looking back toward Karah, but the bone flute called, beckoning, seductive. Prince Tepres turned again toward the pathway it showed him, trying absently to shake Karah loose. But she would not let go, and the prince, even enspelled, wouldn’t use violence to make her.

Beside Nemienne, Mage Ankennes exclaimed impatiently and made a sharp gesture. The circle of light suddenly contracted, exactly as it had previously expanded to include Karah. This time it excluded her, slicing between her and Prince Tepres, cutting through the dark where their hands were joined.

Both Prince Tepres and Karah cried out as the circle divided them, convulsing as the light burned through their bones. Their hands sprang apart. Karah took two stumbling steps backward.

The Kalchesene sorcerer hesitated in his playing, but the melody he had drawn from the eternal darkness somehow lingered. And Prince Tepres, no longer held by Karah’s grip, followed it. He passed through the magecrafted circle as though it was not there. But of course, Nemienne realized, he was not really moving forward—he was moving sort of sideways to the rest of them, at a slant to the familiar world. Even as she understood this, the prince blurred.

Karah gave a little cry of distress and alarm, and for a moment Prince Tepres wavered in their sight, looking back over his shoulder, held by the sheer force of her will even though their hands were no longer joined.

“Play!” snapped Mage Ankennes. “Or I will turn all her bones to fire, and we shall see if she can hold him then!”

“Oh, you can’t! You can’t!” Nemienne cried, but Ankennes disregarded her, and she knew he would do it.

The sorcerer stared at Ankennes, his expression remote. Then he lifted the bone flute back to his mouth, and as the disturbing melody slid through the caverns again, the prince turned away from Karah and faded from sight. Leilis bit her lip and looked urgently at Nemienne.