‘No!’ Lindal ordered, putting a huge hand on his shoulder. ‘Nevets, we do not need you here. Go back!’
The terrible shuddering quietened and ceased.
Shoulders heaving, Amarantz crouched toad-like, watching them. ‘What joy it would have been to have sent you the way of the poor little bride, Doom!’ she croaked. ‘And your friends, those ugly freaks of nature, with you. But, ah well, this feeble body is nearly worn out as it is. I will see you another time, Doom, in another place.’
She pressed her clenched fist to her mouth.
‘Stop her!’ Sharn exclaimed urgently.
Instantly understanding, Doom leaped forward.
But it was too late. The poisoned cake was already in the old woman’s throat, and she was swallowing it whole.
‘Soon we will be everywhere!’ she hissed. ‘Very soon …’
Her face changed, her eyes rolled back. With a terrible shriek she clutched at her stomach and fell sideways, her feet kicking, her head beating horribly against the stones.
As Doom, Lindal and Steven stood frozen with horror, Sharn ran to her. She could not help it. For whatever hideous force possessed the old woman, this was Amarantz, the friend of her youth. She could not let her die horribly, alone.
She took the jerking body in her arms and held it tightly. For a long moment there was no change. Then suddenly the eyes returned to normal. They stared at Sharn vacantly for a single moment, then seemed to focus.
‘I am here, Amarantz,’ Sharn whispered.
The eyes grew puzzled. The cracked lips opened. ‘Sharn?’ Amarantz murmured. ‘Oh, Sharn, I had a terrible dream. Such a terrible dream.’
Sharn nodded, stroking the wet forehead, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘I dreamed that the Grey Guards came to the pottery, and we were all taken,’ sighed the old woman. ‘And I—’ Her eyes suddenly widened, filling with terror.
‘Do not fear any more, Amarantz,’ said Sharn quickly. ‘The dream has ended now. Ended.’
‘Yes.’ The faded eyes grew peaceful once more. The lips curved in a half smile. And then the breathing stopped. For Amarantz, the nightmare had truly ended at last.
‘What was that she said of “the poor little bride”?’ asked Doom urgently.
‘She thought she had poisoned Marilen. But she was wrong,’ said Sharn.
She laid the old woman’s head gently down and brushed the wisps of grey hair from the bloodstained cheek. Then she thought … she thought she saw something moving in the hair that trailed on the ground. Tears were blurring her eyes. She rubbed them, looked again, then jerked back with a scream of horror.
A long grey worm with a scarlet head was crawling from Amarantz’s ear. It slithered out onto the floor in a trail of slime and writhed there, its tail lashing in fury.
14 - Leap of Faith
His face twisted in disgust, Doom strode forward and stamped on the evil thing, grinding it into the stones.
‘What was it?’ screeched Lindal.
‘A new piece of Shadow Lord devilry,’ Doom muttered. ‘Amarantz was taken to the Shadowlands, it seems. And at some time—perhaps not long ago—that vile thing was put into her brain, and she was sent back.’
He looked down at Amarantz’s crumpled body.
‘At least we now understand what has been happening here,’ he said. ‘Why we are plagued by assassins and spies—all of them once good people.’
There was a short, fearful silence. One thought was in all their minds.
‘There could be thousands of them,’ said Lindal roughly, putting the thought into words at last.
‘No.’ Doom’s brow was furrowed in thought. ‘The words were, “Soon we will be everywhere”. For some reason, the real invasion has not yet begun.’
‘I think—I think that is because the process is not yet perfect.’ Sharn was controlling the trembling in her voice with difficulty. ‘It still causes … damage.’
As her companions stared, puzzled, she took a deep, shuddering breath.
‘Do you not see?’ she said. ‘Amarantz said she had been deafened by a beating, but that was a lie. At the last, when she was herself again, when the worm had begun leaving her because it knew her time was ending, she could hear me clearly. The worm had been blocking her hearing, as well as controlling her mind.’
‘Yes!’ Doom’s eyes blazed. ‘And this explains many things. The babbling woman with the knife. The old guard who could not walk—’
‘And—of course!—the man Pieter, who put the scorpion in Lief’s bed chamber, was tormented by agonising headaches,’ Sharn exclaimed. ‘He was another—imperfect experiment.’ Suddenly the horror was too much for her. She covered her eyes.
‘The Shadow Lord is no doubt working to correct the fault in his process,’ muttered Lindal. ‘And when he is satisfied …’
‘Ah, you are as gloomy as Nevets, girl!’ growled Steven. ‘Are you trying to make us lose all hope? I suspect you have a worm in your own painted skull.’
‘My only headache is you, Steven!’ Lindal retorted. ‘I am simply being realistic. The Shadow Lord—’
She broke off as the kitchen door swung open.
Marilen walked in, her head high, colour burning in her cheeks. Her defiant eyes widened as she saw Doom, two huge strangers, and the body of Amarantz on the floor, but she did not hesitate. Ignoring everyone else, she spoke directly to Sharn.
‘Please do not blame the guards because I am here. They had no orders to stop me. You all relied on my obedience for that. Well, I am tired of being obedient!’
‘Marilen …’ Sharn began, astonished. But Marilen had not finished.
‘I came to tell you that, whatever you might think, I am certain that Ranesh is guilty of no wrong,’ she said clearly. ‘Also, that I am determined to stay here, whatever the future may hold. But I will no longer cringe upstairs in hiding and in ignorance of what is going on in the palace.’
Lindal snorted with laughter. ‘Is this “the poor little bride”?’ she whispered piercingly to Steven. ‘She has grown a few muscles, it seems.’
Marilen’s colour brightened even further but she tossed her head and turned to Doom. ‘No blame will attach to you, or to Lief, if anything happens to me,’ she said. ‘This is my decision, and mine alone.’
‘The decision is not yours to make, Marilen,’ Doom said grimly. ‘It is not only your father who fears for your safety.’
Marilen met his eyes without flinching. ‘The decision is mine, Doom,’ she said. ‘I will be a prisoner no longer, and that is final!’ She glanced at Steven and Lindal, then looked back to Doom and lifted her chin. ‘Discuss it with my father, if you wish,’ she added, with an unmistakable air of triumph. ‘He and Zeean are coming to Del.’
Sharn gave a muffled gasp. Steven and Lindal looked at her curiously,
‘The letter came this morning,’ Marilen said. ‘I should have read it at once, but—’ Again she glanced at Steven and Lindal. ‘But something happened which drove it from my mind. Zeean and Father will be here in a day or two.’
‘Well,’ said Doom, his face unreadable. ‘I am glad that I have returned in time to greet them.’
‘Doom, why have you returned?’ cried Sharn, suddenly recollecting.
‘Lief and Barda are no longer in the Hills,’ said Doom. ‘They have followed Jasmine into the caverns under the earth.’
Sharn stared at him, joy and fear mingling on her face. ‘Jinks was lying?’ she gasped.
‘Of course!’ said Marilen quietly. ‘Did I not tell you?’
‘My mother’s bees brought us the tale,’ Steven put in. ‘The story took time to spread to them, but it began, I gather, with vine-weaver birds in the Hills. I could not make head nor tail of it, for I had heard that Lief was in Tora. So I came to find out and, lo and behold, met Doom and Lindal on the road.’