What hit me then was that I would have to tell Blackbird. I couldn’t leave her to find out from someone else. Kareesh and Gramawl had taken her in when she was helpless and alone. Blackbird had told me once that Kareesh had initiated her in the ways of power, teaching her how to wield the magic she’d inherited. She had grown up with Gramawl and Kareesh when no one else would shelter her. It was going to be hard to explain what I’d found.
I turned away from the nest of cushions and went back to the stairway, descending the steps to the tunnel in torchlight and remembering how Kareesh had granted me the sight of a future where my daughter and I could survive. It had been her gift to me, and following that path had kept both Alex and me alive long enough to begin to learn the ways of the Feyre, and try to find a place in their society. I wondered whether her intention all along had been to ensure that Blackbird was not left entirely alone after she’d gone.
I reached the bottom of the steps and turned to retrace my steps. As I did, the light of my torch flickered, as if the batteries were giving out. I tapped it, trying to improve the contact.
As my tapping faded into the dark, something enormous cannoned into me, sweeping me off my feet and ramming me into the arc of the ceiling. I dangled there, held by a huge paw, pressed against the tiles, winded and coughing, the wrench having pulled the newly healed skin at my side. A sound rumbled through me, echoing off the tiles and making my guts reverberate.
“Gramawl,” I coughed, “it’s me, Niall. Remember me? Rabbit?” Looking down from where I was pressed against the roof, I could see the light from where the torch had fallen, outlining the huge shadow in the dark and revealing only two huge golden eyes staring malevolently up at me. “Gramawl, you’re crushing me…” He was pressing me so hard against the roof, I couldn’t breathe. I coughed weakly, trying to summon the thought of power. I needed to do something. My hand flailed out, trying to work out where my sword was. As it did, Gramawl vanished from under me and I fell flat onto the floor like a sack of wet sand.
“Oof!” I sprawled on the floor, winded and aware that I should be rolling to me feet ready for the next attack, but my body was still weak and I had no fight left in me. My bones felt like jelly, and my face was numb on one side from the impact. I raised myself up onto my elbows, trying to focus. The torch was a few feet away, pointing down the tunnel, illuminating the exit, if only I could get to my feet and make a run for it.
Ha! The way I felt at that moment, I might as well have wished to fly.
I pulled myself forward on my forearms, edging towards where the torch lay. My sword was in the light, just beyond it. As the torch came almost into reach, I felt my ankle snag and I began sliding backwards away from the torch. As I did, a pair of boots walked into my limited view and stopped.
She stood in the torchlight where she could be seen and spoke. “OK, Gramawl, how do you want to do this?”
“Amber,” I said. “Kareesh has gone. Don’t hurt him.”
“Don’t hurt him? Have you seen yourself?”
“We don’t need any more violence. It won’t help anyone — least of all Kareesh.”
“No, wait,” she grinned. “Your plan was to lull him into a false sense of security and then… what? Tickle him to death?”
“Gramawl?” I gasped. “I need to talk to you. This isn’t helping. It won’t bring her back.”
The air filled with shivering subsonics which bypassed my ears and made my teeth ache. I took a breath. If he was going to kill me he could have done it already. There was clearly something wrong, and I had to find out what. “Gramawl, I need to know what happened.”
My leg was released and I collapsed back onto the cold floor. Rolling over, I could see a pair of pale golden orbs watching me from beyond the light.
“Amber?”
“I’m here,” she said from behind me.
“Would you wait for me upstairs?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I need Gramawl to understand that I haven’t come to hurt anyone. I came to see Kareesh, but she’s not here. I want to know what happened, but he’s not going to tell me while you’re standing there with a sword.”
“And what do I tell Blackbird if he tears your arms and legs off?” she asked.
I watched the eye watching me. “He’s not going to hurt me,” I said, “but if by some chance he does, you can tell her that she should ask Gramawl for an explanation. He can explain it to her himself.”
“You’re sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked.
“No, but I don’t know how to do anything else. I’ll join you upstairs in a few minutes.”
The torch skittered across the tiles to where I was kneeling. My hands closed around it and pulled it near, setting it on end on the floor so it shone up the tiled wall, illuminating without dazzling. The golden orbs flicked to the light and back to me. “Can we talk?” I asked.
The sound reverberating through the tunnels faded to a low hum.
“Is Kareesh…?” I let the question hang. The figure in the dark blinked and then edged further into the torch-lit area where I could see him more clearly. I was struck again by the silence of his movement. I could not guess his mood from his face, but from his posture I would say miserable, angry; frustrated. He shook his head slowly, an obvious no.
“She’s not dead?” I asked. He shook his head again.
“That’s good news isn’t it? Where is she then?” He shrugged his massive shoulders, opening his gnarled hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“You don’t know? She can’t have gone far. Where could she…?” His paw slammed into the floor, making the entire passage reverberate with the impact. “OK, OK. I’m sorry. I was only trying to help. I guess you’ve already looked for her and didn’t find her.”
He nodded slowly. I watched his face, noting how his nose twitched. “You’re very good at finding people, aren’t you?” I said, hazarding a guess. He nodded again. “But you didn’t find her, so…” I suddenly understood the problem, “she didn’t want to be found. She’s hidden herself from you. But why?”
Gramawl let out a long, mournful sound. It echoed down the passages, and faded slowly from the tunnels. It was the sound of loss and heartache.
“She must have used magic to hide herself,” I said, speaking out loud, “but she’s not left these tunnels in years, Blackbird told me that. When did she last go outside?” I asked him.
Gramawl shook his head and his fingers flickered in complex sign language.
“I’m sorry Gramawl, I never learned to sign. Blackbird knows, but she never taught me.”
He clenched his fists in frustration and tried again. Pointing to the stairs, he made a sign like someone walking with his fingers.
“Kareesh is leaving? Has left?” I suggested.
He nodded, then made a sign holding his hands together under his cheek and tilting his head, closing his eyes to indicate sleep.
“She’s sleeping somewhere?” I guessed.
He waved his hand to indicate not, but then mimed waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping…
“A day?” I suggested.
He nodded enthusiastically, then motioned that he meant bigger.
“A week?” I asked. He did it again. “A month? A year?” With this last he clapped his hand together. “A year.” I said.
He held up his paw, counting along his fingers. He counted five, then closed his hand and raised one finger on the other hand. “Six years?” I asked. Then he did it again, only this time he raised two fingers.
He was counting, but in base six instead of base ten. As soon as he realised I’d got it he held up all his fingers.
“That’s…” I struggled with the calculation, “Thirty-five years?”
He nodded, and then flashed his open hands at me, time after time.
“That’s… no wait, that’s too many. That’s hundreds.”