House of Shadows(75)

“Um…” Nemienne did not know how to answer her sister. Instead, she drew Karah around, never letting go of her hand, and tugged her after the cat. The kitten dashed after them, making little forays out into the dark but always circling back to the girls. Several times Nemienne nearly tripped on it, until Karah finally picked the little creature up and put it back on her shoulder. Then it hid itself in her hair, peering out with eyes that reflected the green light like emeralds.

“Where did you get the kitten?” Nemienne asked at last, because that was a question that might actually have an answer.

“Oh, she was a gift,” answered Karah, and blushed—actually blushed, visible even in the strange light, which made Nemienne laugh. Karah laughed, too, a warm chuckle that invited her sister to share her delight not only in the gift but also in the fact of the giving.

“You’re already receiving gifts! And from whom? Is he wonderful?” Nemienne asked, teasing.

“He might be. Maybe he is,” Karah said, laughing again, seeming both happy and embarrassed. But then she at once turned the subject: “And your cat? Where did you get her? I think Moonglow is special, I mean really special, not just special to me. But your cat must be special, too, don’t you think? She certainly seems to know where she’s going.”

“Oh, she’s not mine,” Nemienne said, and started to say that Enkea belonged to Mage Ankennes. But then she was not sure this was exactly true, either, and so she said instead, “She always does seem to know where she’s going—and she always seems to think I should follow her, usually into uncomfortable places!”

“As long as she leads us out again,” Karah said, glancing around once more at the surrounding darkness that pressed in on all sides.

Somehow Nemienne didn’t think this was the right time to explain that the last time Enkea had led her into the dark, the cat had not in fact led her back out.

Trails of green light rippled behind them where they had passed, brightest near at hand and trailing out to invisibility about twenty steps behind them. “That’s so strange,” Karah said, glancing back, and echoed Nemienne’s own thought: “That light of yours looks like undersea plants stirred by the current. But a current through, I don’t know, darkness instead of water. Where are we, exactly?”

Nemienne began to say that she didn’t know, but what came out was, “I think, beneath the mountain. Kerre Maraddras, I think.” She paused, hearing this answer echo away into the dark. Hearing the truth of it. She said, exploring that truth, “I’ve been here before—there’s a way into this place from Mage Ankennes’s house. At least one way. But this time I only woke up and I was here. I think I came here this time because you were here. But however did you come to be here, Karah?”

Her sister answered slowly, “I was asleep, too, I think. I think, in my dreams, there was piping.”

“Piping!” Nemienne almost thought she might have heard pipe music, too, just as she had woken into the darkness here, but she was no longer sure.

“Yes. I followed the music. I didn’t walk through darkness, not then. It seemed I walked through a marvelous place, but I can’t remember anything of that place now. Or maybe it only seemed that the piping was leading me somewhere marvelous… Then you caught my hands and I… woke up.” She glanced around doubtfully, probably wondering whether she was truly awake after all.

Nemienne had no doubt of that. Not anymore. She only wished she knew exactly what it meant, to be inside the mountain. And she wished she knew how to get out again. She had a sudden, vivid idea that she might perhaps walk with her sister, through the dark, forever. How long would it be, if they could not find their way out, before they left their bones here, surrounded by stone, to whiten in the dark where no one would ever see them?

The sound of dripping water had become much louder, and the sound had gained a reverberant echo that was somehow disturbing. They were going toward it, Nemienne realized, and for no reason that she understood, she felt a jolt of terror at the thought. She stopped in her tracks.

Karah, still holding Nemienne’s hand, perforce drew to a halt as well. “Nemienne?” Karah asked, not frightened herself. Or not yet.

Nemienne, unable to explain her own fear, stood wordless.

Ahead of them, Enkea turned and gazed back over her shoulder at them, her green eyes glowing like small lamps. Karah’s smoke-and-silver kitten slipped out from Karah’s hair again and jumped down to the stone. This time the kitten didn’t dash about and play but stepped solemnly forward to join the older cat. She looked like a puff of silver steam next to the nearly invisible Enkea, but her eyes were the same glittering emerald, and her air of not-quite-patient waiting was the same as well.