The only person in the room was a young man.
He was lolling in a chair, one leg over the carved armrest, and he was wearing a mask. Through its slits his eyes watched, challenging and bright. He neither stood nor spoke.
Rob stared in surprise; then stepped in and glanced around the room. A broken mirror, a candle that had rolled out of its holder. Nothing else.
“Where is she?”
He heard Vetch come in behind him; in the dark chamber the candlelight dazzled. Behind the mask the King’s eyes narrowed against it. “Who?”
“Chloe! What have you done with her?” Rob grabbed him and hauled him upright. They were the same height.
The King’s voice was scornful through the green leaves of the mask. “Maybe I should ask the same of you.”
It was a whisper, raw, oddly familiar.
Rob frowned. “Do I know you?”
The King laughed and sat back down. “Chloe knows me.”
Angry, Rob said, “Is that why you wear a mask, in case she’ll recognize you? If you’ve hurt her, if you’ve touched her…”
“What will you do?” the voice asked, amused. “Come riding to her rescue? The knight and the sorcerer. How heroic! But Chloe won’t like it. Chloe, I’ve found, always likes to do things herself. And she won’t want you, of all people.”
“Why not me?”
The King was grinning. His voice went low, full of mock horror. “Because she despises you, Rob.”
Rob went cold. “Liar!”
Vetch’s hand gripped his shoulder, hard. “Did she lock you in here?” he said to the masked face.
The King laughed, a mocking sound. “She wouldn’t do that, Poet. She and I are friends. I advise you to take her brother back through your Darkhenge and leave us alone, because the truth is Chloe is getting to like the Unworld. Maybe she won’t even want to go home.”
Chloe was halfway up the stairs when the whisper came from behind her. “I thought it was you who was supposed to be locked up.”
She swiveled.
A pretty woman with green swirls on her face stood leaning against the wall. She had blond hair and small pieces of jet and malachite had been threaded through it; they glinted. Chloe liked them. Then she snapped, “Who are you?”
“Now that I admire. Haughty and irritable. You can call me Clare. We’re here to rescue you.”
Chloe scowled. “I’m perfectly capable of doing things by myself.”
“I’m quite sure you are.” Clare looked at her thoughtfully, then glanced up. Voices murmured in the darkness. “They’ve opened the door,” she said quietly.
“Will they hurt him?”
“I don’t think so. Do you want to know who they are?”
“His enemies. He said.” Chloe chewed her lip and looked at the woman and said, “I don’t suppose … we could come to some agreement. Just you and me?”
There was silence. Then, slowly, in the darkness, the woman smiled.
Vetch said, “You know who I am, Winter King?”
“I know. You’re Taliesin, the star-browed, the Cauldron-born. Your songs are dangerous to me, but—”
A gasp from the hall below stopped him. Vetch turned. “Goddess?”
There was no answer; he flicked a glance at Rob, thrust the candlestick into his hand. “Stay here.”
As soon as he had gone, the King sat up and leaned forward, hands together between his knees. “Did you really think I was keeping her here?” he said earnestly. “You know how headstrong she is.”
“You kidnapped her. But she’s escaped, hasn’t she?”
Behind the mask the King’s eyes darkened. Then he reached up and peeled off the mask of green leaves, and Rob’s breath choked with fear, until he saw that under the mask was another, of thin birch bark. “How can you escape from yourself ?” the dark slit of the mouth whispered.
It blew. The candle flames went out.
Instantly Rob felt a crashing shove in his back. He sprawled forward, saw for a second the flicker of delight in the King’s eyes, the candles tumbling and rolling. He tried to gasp, but had no breath; over his head a voice snapped impatiently, “Come on!”
The King gave a great laugh. He leaped past Rob like a dark shadow, grabbed a hand, and was gone.
Rob rolled and staggered up, lurching out into the corridor. “Vetch!” he yelled.
He ran to the stairs, then hurtled down them, tripping headlong at the bottom over a dark heap that lay huddled there.
“Vetch?”
Groping, his fingers found a hand; it was cold. Frantically he searched for a pulse. It was faint and steady, but there was a dark smear too that came off on his fingers. He stared at it, then looked around fearfully.
“Clare?”
No answer. Had she done this? Was this her final revenge, taken at last?
No time to think. He had to get light. Suddenly the darkness of the castle terrified him; he wanted to drag Vetch out into the forest, but would that be right, would that kill him? And how can you die in the Unworld? Does it mean being born somewhere else? Was that why stories never ended? He laughed, a short, hysterical bark, bitten off.
Then he ran upstairs, groped till he had all the candles and thundered back down with them. He felt carefully over the poet’s body.
The crane-skin bag was jammed under Vetch’s weight. It creaked softly as Rob tugged it out, his fingers sliding inside. He felt something cool, and hard as glass. Something furry, that jerked away. An iciness that couldn’t be possible. Tiny cubes that dissolved as he touched them.
Finally, the tinderbox.
He sparked a flame on his third try, and lit the candles.
The flames wavered in the draft from the open gateway; they showed him the empty hall and Vetch. The poet lay awkwardly, one arm flung out, a gash on his head bleeding, but not badly. Now, as if light woke him, his eyelids flickered.
Rob looked around. They needed water.
Reluctantly, he went to the bag again, but hardly had he touched it when Vetch’s cool hand grasped his. “No,” the poet muttered thickly.
“It’s all right, I don’t think you’ve broken anything but there’s a cut on your head—”
“Help me to sit up.”
Propped against the bottom stair, Vetch looked haggard. He took a ragged handkerchief from his pocket and the water bottle from the bag, moistened the rag and wiped blood from his temple. He looked at the smear and his face was set.
“Who pushed you?” Rob said.
“I don’t know.”
“Clare?”
“I don’t know! I called her but there was no answer. Then a hand came out and shoved; I went straight down, slammed my head.” He turned painfully and looked up into the dark. “Chloe’s not here, then?”
Rob rubbed his hands over his face. He sat down and stared into the shadows. “She’s gone. So’s the King. Someone clouted me from behind too. Maybe Clare. Maybe someone else.”
Vetch was watching him intently. “Who was it, Rob?” he said quietly.
Rob shrugged. He wanted to scream, to stand up and switch on a light, to beg for electricity, for the sun to rise. The darkness was beginning to creep inside him, to put out all his old certainties, his beliefs.
“She shouted, ‘Come on,’ to him. She grabbed his hand.”
Vetch didn’t have to ask. But Rob said it anyway, just to make himself believe it, to hear the word. “Chloe. It was Chloe.”
He looked up, his face bleak. “He was telling the truth. He’s not keeping her prisoner. She’s with him. She doesn’t want to be rescued!”
A. ALIM: FIR
“You’ve got to stop them, Father,” she kept saying. “You’ve got to make sure they don’t switch anything off!” She was hysterical almost. And the rest of them, scraggy-looking girls, a few men who hadn’t washed for weeks, by the stink.
Vetch’s tribe.
“What’s it to do with you?” I asked. I was gruff. Katie still hadn’t come. Only John, white as a sheet, in there now holding Chloe’s hand across the bedding, talking, talking about anything.