Evete pushed past two bowmen and a scared-looking Larion apprentice. ‘Don’t do it, Gaorg,’ she whispered.
‘Get her out of here!’ Harbach shouted, and the archers wrestled Lessek Belsac’s lover towards the stairwell.
‘Gaorg!’ she cried.
Harbach ushered them into the stairwell, then slammed the chamber door. He leaned over the spell table with an air of complacent corruption.
Lessek’s brother hadn’t moved; the portal still lay crumpled at his feet.
‘Get started,’ Harbach said, examining a cracked fingernail, ‘and secure your place in Eldarni history. You’ve been in his shadow too long, my friend.’
Gaorg Belsac woke from his reverie. ‘Very well,’ he said.
SCHONBRUNN PALACE, VIENNA
October, 1870
Saben Wald, valet to the Falkan prince Tenner Wynne of Orindale, the renowned doctor, stepped into the massive rectangular clearing as the sun coloured the gardens. To the north, a palace big enough to rival Riverend glowed yellow and ivory in the early light. Dry leaves blew about Saben’s feet and tumbled across the now-empty flower beds. To the south, an unexpected hill jutted abruptly from the gardens. A switchback path carved into its side led to a collection of marble columns, arches and ghostly white statues of horses, raptors and powerful-looking men, gods maybe. The artisans who shaped them must have been amongst the most talented in this foreign world; Saben marvelled at the idea that such beauty could be left outside, exposed to wind and weather.
‘What is this place?’ he muttered to himself, a wary hand on his dagger.
A doorway opened in a low building adjacent to the palace; a group of men emerged. Dressed as they were, smoking, and carrying shovels, picks and wooden buckets, they had to be groundsmen. They were certainly not the estate’s landlords – at this aven, anyone that wealthy would be still abed.
Saben backed beneath the trees. He hadn’t been seen.
‘What is it?’ Regona Carvic asked, worried. She had been a scullery maid in Riverend Palace; now she carried Prince Danmark’s child, Rona’s heir and Eldarn’s future monarch, and she would not put the baby in harm’s way by being too stubborn to listen to those trying to help her. The sepia-skinned servant peeked into the clearing, watched the men disappear inside the palace gates and then glanced at the hilltop and the elaborate fountains and stonework of the now sunlit marble edifice.
‘I don’t know,’ Saben said, worried, ‘but we can’t stay here.’
‘That palace,’ Regona started, ‘perhaps if we-’
‘No,’ he cut her off. ‘We have to find somewhere safe to hide while we learn more about where we are.’
‘It’s cold, nothing like Estrad.’
‘This isn’t Rona,’ he said, urging her gently backwards, deeper beneath the foliage. ‘That palace, those carvings, even the way the flower beds are laid out: none of this is Eldarni.’
Before this, Regona had never travelled further than Rona’s South Coast; she would have to take Saben’s assessment on faith.
Saben’s head felt like it was cracking open. They should have sent a soldier, he thought again. He didn’t belong here. That man, the horseman – he had to be a Larion sorcerer – he was the one who had sent them away. Riverend was burning and he and Regona had watched as the mysterious man waved to Prince Danmark… and then Danmark had stood up straight, looked around for a moment – which was curious, because Saben had heard rumours the young prince was blind – and then leaped to his death. It had to have been the work of a Larion magician. And that tapestry – as soon as Saben had unrolled it he knew they were not on their way to Randel, and they would not be staying with the merchant Weslox Thervan.
The horseman had told him Tenner’s plans had been jeopardised by an enemy named Nerak. Saben had never heard of Nerak, but the horseman appeared to know everything: where they were going, with whom they were supposed to hide, even how they had planned to get away.
Do not touch me, the stranger had said. Why not? What was it about that man? He didn’t show his face, and he told them only what he had apparently decided was absolutely necessary. So why did they comply? Saben shuddered: what if he were the enemy, this Nerak? The horseman said Nerak was inside Riverend Palace, destroying everything, murdering everyone, Prince Tenner included. They had a narrow window of opportunity to use the tapestry hidden in the abandoned farmhouse. But if the rider knew so much about what was happening in Estrad and why Nerak was bringing death to Riverend, why had he sent them here alone?
Stories had spread through Estrad like a prairie fire: the Larion Senate had fallen, and the senators were all dead – but was that all but one? Or was the horseman someone else entirely?
Do not touch me.
Had he really been there?
Saben tried to recall if the dark rider had physically touched anything, and had concluded the answer was no: not the dilapidated fence, nor the leather strap holding the door closed, nor even the tapestry tucked inside the empty fireplace.
Take her hand, and step onto it, that was all he had said, and they had obeyed him – and now where were they? He wondered what had happened to the tapestry; it hadn’t come with them. How were they expected to get back?
‘Where can we hide?’ Regona’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘We haven’t seen a village yet, just these grounds, that palace, and that
… whatever it is there on the hill.’
Something screamed in the brush behind them and Regona shrieked.
Saben felt his heart thud. He had to fight the urge to bolt across the clearing, pound on the palace gates and beg for protection.
‘What was that?’ Regona whispered.
‘Some kind of animal,’ Saben said, ‘maybe a wild bird or a monkey.’
A roar, throaty and unmistakable, split the morning. It was answered by another scream, and then a trumpet.
‘Wild cats? Grettans? Elephants?’ Regona was shaking. ‘Isn’t it too cold for elephants here?’
‘We can’t wait around to find out,’ Saben said, taking her hand. ‘Come on. We’ll sneak along the edge of the gardens and see if we can get around that hill. Anything as large as that palace is bound to have a village nearby.’ He looked at her. The young woman was beautiful; he wasn’t surprised Tenner had chosen her to carry Eldarn’s heir. He would fight, and die if necessary, to protect her and her baby – but would he be up to the task? They hadn’t taken three steps in this world and already he’d carelessly ventured into the open, almost being seen, and roused the breakfast interests of a grettan, or whatever the beast was. Why hadn’t he brought a broadsword, or a bow, or a rapier, even?
‘Come with me,’ he said again. ‘We’ll go east, away from whatever’s making those noises.’
‘No.’ Regona’s face had changed and she looked strangely determined. ‘Not east, that’s not the way.’
‘You heard what’s back there; you can’t possibly want to-’
No!’ Her voice rose.
‘Where then?’ he asked, trying not to lose his temper. ‘Which way do we go?’
Ringing the gardens were watchlights, lanterns that burned without sign of wood or thatch for fuel. Each was housed in a glass container and perched on a thin metal pole. Light fell in radiant waves down on the fallow flower gardens, and as it mingled with the morning sun it was lost.
‘Regona,’ he asked again, most gently this time, ‘where would you have us go?’
Without speaking, she raised one hand and pointed west, through the palace grounds and past whatever creatures lurked in the remaining shadows.
‘That way? Past the grettans and whatever was screaming at us?’ Saben held her hand loosely. ‘Why that way?’
‘I don’t know how, but I know that’s the way: west.’
‘All right. We’ll find a place to hide for now and scout out the area once we’re away from here.’
‘It will be that direction tomorrow, and for many days, Twinmoons maybe,’ she said.