She looked around, but the peddler was gone, and only a white snake moved across the stone floor and under the raised bed.
Then she dreamed that the curtain opened and someone looked in. The figure crossed the room to her, looked down at her, and she saw it was Gudrun, her white hand stretched out. One finger touched Jessa’s cheek with a stab of ice.
She woke at once and sat up, heart thudding.
The curtain billowed. In the next room the key was grating in the lock.
She leaped up, ran out of the booth, and flung herself on the closing door. The latch jerked in her hands.
“Thorkil!” she screamed, feeling the door shudder; the wood cut her fingers. Then he was there, pulling with her. “It’s locked.” He gasped. “Too late.”
And she knew he was right. She released the latch and stood there, listening. There was no sound, and yet they both knew he was there, standing just beyond the door.
“Kari?” Jessa said softly.
Nothing moved. There was a small knothole in the door. She could look through; she could see him. But she dared not.
Then they heard him walk away, into silence.
After a while they went and crouched by the hot embers of the fire; Thorkil stirred them up to a brief blaze.
“Tomorrow,” Jessa said firmly, “we’ll find him. We’ll search every room and corner. Everywhere. Brochael needn’t know, either.”
He sat down, easing the tight ring around his arm. “If he’s insane,” he said at last, “he’d be dangerous.”
“Well, at least we’d know. We’ve got to find out.” She glared at him. “Are you coming?”
He ran a sooty hand through his hair and frowned with annoyance. “Of course I am. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”
In the morning they sat at the gaming board, waiting for Brochael to go out into the courtyard. At last, after five minutes, he had not come back. Jessa looked up. “Ready?”
He shrugged. “It’s that or lose.”
They had decided to start right up at the highest part of the tower and work their way down—there was still one staircase that was complete from battlement to floor, although even that had holes. They climbed slowly, their lungs aching with the cold, opening every door, prying into the forgotten crannies of the hall. Everything was the same as before: dark, frozen, echoing.
“The candlelight was from a window this high,” Jessa said at last. “If we really saw it.”
“Not these rooms. No one’s used them for years.” Thorkil sat wearily on the stairs, grinding the frost with his heel. After a while he said, “Perhaps Kari is kept underground. If you think about it, it might be. Brochael has always been so sure we won’t find him.”
She nodded reluctantly. Nowhere had been forbidden to them. Wherever Kari was, they were unlikely to find it by accident.
Thorkil got up. “Come on.”
“Wait!” She turned quickly. “Did you hear that?”
The corridor was a dim tunnel of stone. Dust moved in drafts over the floor. One drop of water dripped from a sill.
“What?” Thorkil muttered.
“A scrape … a screech. I don’t know. Something alive.”
He glanced at her; her lips were pale, her gloved hands clenched in tight fists. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“But I did!” Then her eyes widened.
“Look!” she breathed.
Far down in the dimness, a door was appearing. It was forming itself out of nothing on the damp wall; a tall outline of dark wood, its latch shiny from use. A thin line of sunlight flickered underneath it, as if the room beyond was bright.
Very quietly, side by side, they approached the door. Jessa half expected it to fade away again, to be just a trick of the shadows, but it remained, waiting for them.
She reached out and put her hand on the latch. Something shifted inside; there was a rustle and a step and that peculiar low screech she had heard before. The latch was cold and hard under her fingers. She lifted it and let the door swing wide.
At first she thought she was looking into her dream. The room was flooded with sunlight streaming in through an open window, a window leaded with tiny panes of thick, bubbly glass. On the sill the ice was melting; a raven perched there looking out, until the bang of the door startled it, and it leaped into the blue air with a screech. Someone was sitting near the window, hunched up in a chair, his back to them. A mirror was propped in front of him, and as Jessa glanced in it she saw herself and Thorkil framed in the dark doorway. Then the figure moved; he bent closer to the mirror, his straight silvery hair brushing the bronze. A throb of panic shuddered through her. He had no reflection, nothing! She saw only herself and the glitter of sunlight that filled the room.
Then Kari turned and looked sidelong at them. She drew a sharp breath, heard Thorkil’s stifled mutter.
His face was Gudrun’s. They were identical.
Eleven
What I won from her I have well used.
He uncurled himself quickly and stood up. They saw a thin boy no taller than themselves, his skin pale and his eyes colorless as glass. With two steps he was across the room, staring at Jessa, her hair, her coat, feeling the fur on it with a murmur of delight, touching amulets and luckstones lightly; then fingering the rich red cloth of Thorkil’s jerkin as if he had never seen such color. With a shock Jessa realized that he probably never had. She flicked a glance around the room and back. This was not the terrible creature of the stories. She felt foolish, confused.
Suddenly he stepped back. “Come inside,” he said. “Come and see where I’ve been hiding from you.”
Slowly Jessa stepped forward. Thorkil hung back, near the open door. They were both alert, wary of this strange thin creature, his quick eagerness. Kari seemed not to notice. He caught Jessa’s arm and made her sit on a bench, pouring water for her from a wooden jug, showing her chess pieces he had carved—tiny, intricate things. His king was a perfect copy of Brochael, standing stoutly with folded arms. Despite herself, Jessa laughed.
At once Kari’s mood seemed to change. He drew back. She felt as if all the excitement had suddenly drained out of him; now he was uncertain, nervous.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I took you by surprise. I’m not what you expected.”
“No,” she said, her voice a whisper.
He picked up a knife from the table and fingered it.
Jessa stood up. Behind him she saw suddenly that the long room was hung with chunks of glass threaded on thin ropes; like crystal spiders they twirled and swung, speckling the walls with sunlight. And the walls were drawn all over with strange spirals and whorls, in dim colors. He turned and picked up the mirror. “Come and see,” he said rather sadly. “This is why I had to let you in. Everything has begun.” He held up the polished metal. Jessa saw only herself, her face blank with shock, and Thorkil behind her like a shadow. Kari looked at them.
“Can you see him?” he asked. “The man in the mirror?”
She felt Thorkil tremble. Her own hands shook. When she spoke she hardly recognized her voice. “Yes. We can both see him. Clearly.” She watched her own mouth mumble the lie. Then Thorkil gripped her arm and drew her back.
To their surprise the boy smiled and shook his head. “You think I’m insane,” he said. “I’d forgotten the rumors she puts about.” He caught Jessa’s eye and his face was grave again. “But the man is there. Look, Jessa, both of you. Look hard.”
Sunlight glimmered in the mirror, stabbing her eyes like white pain. The polished surface blurred; she saw a sudden glint, a candle flame in a dark room, ominously dark, hung with rich, heavy cloths. In the middle of the mirror, on a great bed, lay a man richly dressed, his eyes open, his hands clasped rigid on an unsheathed sword. She recognized him at once.