So he sat in the dark at the angle of the roof, with his heart thumping and his side hurting. The birds could fly away from danger. If they stayed and settled, surely it was safe. The loft was a safe place, there was nothing to fearand they were settling again. Lightning showed him rafters and huddled, feathery lumps, the blink of an astonished pigeon eye and the gray sheen of wings.
Thunder bumped, more distantly than a moment ago. The stifling feeling, like the sound, now was gone. His heart began to settle. His breathing, so harsh he could hardly hear the rain, quieted so that he was aware of the patter of rain on the slates just above his head, then the drip of a leak into straw, and the quiet rustling of wings, the pigeons jostling each other for dry perches.
A door shut, downstairs, echoing.
Then the stairs creaked, not the dreadful groaning and bellowing of before, but a sound almost as dreadfuclass="underline" the noise of Mauryl walking, the measured tap of Maurylʼs staff coming closer, step-tap, step-tap, step-tap.
Dim light showed in the seam above the door: Mauryl carrying a candle, Tristen thought on a shaky breath, as he listened to that tapping and the creaking of the steps. The door opened, admitting a glare of light, and the wind fluttered the candle in Maurylʼs hand, sending a fearsomely large shadow up among the rafters above his head.
Tristen clenched his arms about himself and wedged himself tightly into the corner, seeing that shadow, seeing that light. Mauryl was in the loft, now. His shadow filled the rafters and the pigeons made a second flutter of shadowy wings, a second disarrangement, a sudden, mass consideration of flight.
But he had no way out.
Tristen.
Maurylʼs voice was still angry, and Tristen held his breath. Thunder complained faint and far. Slowly Maurylʼs self appeared out of the play of shadows among the rafters, the candle he carried making his face strange and hostile, his shadow looming up among the rafters, disturbing the pigeons and setting them to darting frantically among the beams. The commotion of shadows tangled overhead and made something dreadful.
Tristen, come out of there. I know youʼre there. I see you.
He wanted to answer. He wanted the breath and the wit to explain he hadnʼt meant to be a fool, but the stifling closeness was back: he had as well have no arms or legs he was all one thing, and that thing was fear.
Tristen?
I He found one breath, only one. I heard
Nevernever run from me. Never, do you understand? No matter what you heard. No matter what you fear. Never, ever run into the dark. Mauryl came closer, looming over him with a blaze of light, an anger that held him powerless. Come. Get up. Get up, now. Back to your bed.
Bed was at least a warmer, safer place than sitting wedged into a nook Mauryl had very clearly found, and if sending him to bed was all Mauryl meant to do, then he had rather be there, right now, and not here. He made a tentative move to get up.
Mauryl set his staff near to let him lean on it, too he was too heavy for Mauryl to lift. He rose to his feet while Mauryl scowled at him; and he obeyed when, his face all candle-glow and frightening shadows, Mauryl sent him toward the stairs and followed after. His knees were shaking under him, so that he relied first on the wall and then on the rail to steady him as he went down the steps.
The measured tap of Maurylʼs staff and Maurylʼs boots followed him down the creaking steps. As Mauryl overtook him, the light made their shadows a single hulking shape on the stone and the boards, and flung it wide onto the rafters of the inner hall, across the great gulf of the interior, a constant rippling and shifting of them among the timbers that supported all the keep. The faces, the hundreds of faces in the stone walls, above and below, seemed struck with terror as the light traveled over their gaping mouths and staring eyes and then, the light passing to the other side, some seemed to shut those eyes, or grimace in anger.
Go on, Mauryl said grimly when they reached the balcony of Maurylʼs room, and Tristen took the next stairs. Beyond the outward rail, Maurylʼs light drowned in the dark and failed, and Tristen kept descending as Maurylʼs step-tap, step-tap, pursued him down and around and onto his own balcony.
It pursued him likewise toward his own open and abandoned door, as the light in Maurylʼs hand chased the dark ahead of him, and in sudden dread of the dark in his own room, he let Maurylʼs light overtake him.
The candle blew out, he said.
To bed, Mauryl said with the same unforgiving grimness, and Tristen got in under the cold bedclothes, shivering, glad when Mauryl, leaning his staff against the door, used his candle to light the remaining candle at his bedside, the watch-candle having burned down to a guttered stub.
I didnʼt mean to make you angry, Tristen said. I heard the noise. Iʼm sorry.
Mauryl picked up the cup from beside the candle and wiped the inside with his finger, frowning, not seeming so angry, now. Tristen waited, wondering if Mauryl would go away, or scold him, or what. The bedclothes were cold against his skin. He hoped for a more kindly judgment, at least a fairer one, by the look on Maurylʼs face.
My fault, Mauryl said. My fault, not yours. Mauryl tugged the quilts up over his bare shoulder. So, Tristen thought, Mauryl had forgiven him for whatever he had done by leaving his room. He wished he understood. Words that came to him with such strange clarity but the danger tonight, and why Mauryl was angry it seemed never the important things that came easily and quickly, only the trivial ones.
Then Mauryl sat down on the side of his bed, leaned a hand on the quilts the other side of his knee, the way Mauryl had sometimes talked to him at bedtime, a recollection of comfortable times, of his first days with Mauryl. You put us both in danger, Mauryl said, and patted his knee so that the sting of the words was diminished. It was foolish of you to run. You startled me. Next timenext time, stay where you are. I know the dangers. Iʼve set defenses around us. You attracted attention, most surely, dangerous attention as dangerous as opening a door.
Canʼt it get in the holes? he asked. The pigeons do.
Itʼs not a pigeon. It canʼt, no. It has to be a door or a window.
Why?
Mauryl shrugged. The candlelight seemed friendlier now. It glowed on Maurylʼs silver hair and gave a warmer flush to his skin. It must. Thereʼs a magic to doors and windows. When the foundations of a place are laid down, they become a Line on the earth. And doors and windows are appointed for comings and goings, but no place else. Masons know such things. So do Spirits.
They were Words, tasting, the one, of stone and secrets, but the other
He gave a shiver, knowing then, that it was a spirit they feared. Other Words poured in Dead, and Ghost, and Haunt.
He thought, Mauryl fears this spirit. Thatʼs why we latch the doors and windows. It wants in.
Why? he asked. Why does it want to come in?
To do us harm.
Why?
Itʼs a wicked thing. A cruel thing. One day it will have you to fear, boy, but for now it fears me. Go to sleep. Go to sleep now. There will be no more noises.
What were they? Was it the Shadows?
Nothing to concern you. Nothing you need know. Go to sleep, I say. Iʼll leave the candle. Mauryl stood up, reached toward his face and brushed his eyelids shut with his fingertips. Sleep.
He couldnʼt open them. They were too heavy. He heard Mauryl leave, heard the door shut and heard the tap of Maurylʼs staff against the door.
After that was the drip of the rain off the eaves, the soft groanings of the timbers of the keep as Mauryl climbed the stairs and walked the floor above.