Miya accompanied him, and the glow of the candle flame flickered over chairs against the wall, side tables covered with dwarven bric-a-brac, and suits of armor. It was easy to imagine furtive movement in the heavy shadows, but Tol saw nothing tangible.
“Sister’s imagining things!” Miya announced through a yawn. She stomped by Tol, handing him the candle as she passed. “G’night!”
The room the sisters shared was at right angles from the master bedchamber at the end of the hall. Miya vanished inside.
Kiya struggled along with her bandaged knee. She didn’t ask for help and wouldn’t have accepted it if offered. Many years out of her forest home, she still adhered to the code of a Dom-shu warrior: if you can breathe, stand; if you can see, walk; if you can move, fight.
“There was something here,” she insisted quietly.
“I believe you,” he told her.
Though the deadly attacks that had dogged their journey seemed to have ended with the storm at Thorngoth, Tol had no doubt they could resume at any time.
Once Kiya was in her room, Tol walked the length of the corridor twice, probing along the walls, peering into every corner. Aside from dust and a single desiccated mouse, he found nothing.
His own room was chilly, which was odd. Although summer was giving way to autumn, the day had been quite warm.
Shedding his outer garments, Tol hung his sword belt on the bedpost and crawled under the bedclothes. He settled into the mattress, which smelled of horsehair and pine shavings, and tried not to dwell on thoughts of Valaran, just a short gallop away in the palace. At last he surrendered to sleep.
The air in the room grew colder still. Tol burrowed more deeply under the covers for warmth, but did not wake.
The chill inspired dreams of childhood. As the youngest child, his place was farthest from the hearth, the coldest spot in the house. Some nights he couldn’t sleep because his ears ached, or his feet were numb from the cold. His mother had taught him to place a small slab of fieldstone close to the fire before supper. At bedtime, he slipped the hot stone under his patchwork quilt. During one particularly frigid night, when the icy wind howled outside his family’s small hut, he lay on his side, hugging the stone to his chest. Rolling over in his sleep, he’d ended with the slab on top of him.
It was wonderfully warm beneath the stone, but the weight on his chest had made breathing difficult. The stone was too heavy. He might have slumbered on into death had not his father seen his face turning blue and wakened him.
Tension drained from Tol’s tired limbs. He was warmer now. The heat was wonderful. If only he could draw breath…
No longer a naive child, Tol jerked awake, his warrior’s sense telling him something was amiss. He wasn’t dreaming: he really couldn’t breathe. Something heavy and thick clung to his face, shutting out air. He tried to raise his hands, thinking to pull away the bedclothes, but his arms were locked to his sides. His legs too were held down by a heavy weight.
Ghostly flashes of light flickered across his vision as he struggled to take in air. He was suffocating! He needed air-now!
Twisting side to side, Tol managed to get his right shoulder up. He put all his strength behind moving one arm, and managed to jerk it awkwardly against the restraint. The smothering wall yielded just a bit.
Tol arched his back, clearing more breathing space, and twisted over onto his face. The darkness around him was close and hot. He wormed his hands out to either side but could find no edge to the terrific weight pressing him more and more strongly into the soft mattress.
The mattress!
Maddened by a growing sense of doom, he used his teeth to rend the sheet beneath him, then attacked the mattress cover itself. By the grace of Corij the ticking was old and tore readily under his frenzied assault. Inside, the stuffing of horsehair and wood shavings was crumbling from age. As he worked his way through, the crushing barrier on top of him clung to his back, pressing him deeper into the torn mattress.
Clawing his way through several spans of stuffing, he at last reach the slatted bottom of the bed. Blood roared in his ears. Sweat-or was it blood?-dripped from his elbows and fingertips. He slammed his fist into the pine slats again and again until they broke apart. With a thump, he fell through to the dusty floor.
Cool air swirled around him, and he inhaled greedily. His head cleared after a dozen breaths.
He crawled to the far side of the bed and peered out. His room was dark and silent. He groped until he felt his scabbard. Freeing it from the bedpost, he pulled it to himself. It was difficult to draw the saber while lying on his belly, but he managed.
Feeling better able to meet whatever might come, Tol rolled out from under the bed and sprang to his feet, blade held ready.
There was no stealthy, pillow-wielding assassin. The room was empty, but the door was open and the great carpet from the corridor outside was draped across the bed. Woven from three layers of wool and jute, the huge carpet was very heavy, easily capable of suffocating a sleeping man. Who had put it over him?
Tol circled around the end of the bed, intending to rouse the house to search for an intruder. As he passed the foot of the bed, the carpet suddenly shifted, rolling up and tripping him. He stumbled forward, and great folds of wine-colored wool flung themselves over him. The carpet was moving like a living thing!
He thrust his saber at it. The carpet undulated, rolling him over and over, trying to smother him in its folds. With both hands on his sword hilt, he impaled the wild rug. It flapped and shivered, hut he sawed at the tough weave, rending a considerable hole.
The carpet bunched itself beneath him, rose up, and hurled him off. He flew through the air and hit the far wall with a crash. His sword remained buried in the carpet.
Shaking off the impact, Tol got to his knees in time to see the enormous rug dragging more of its bulk through the door. It filled his room, the intricate pattern of gold circles and squares looming higher and higher. Why wasn’t the nullstone affecting the ensorcelled rug?
Tol brushed a hand over the hip of his smallclothes. With wide-eyed alarm, he felt more carefully. The Irda artifact was not in its pocket.
He turned the material over with frantic fingers. The threads had pulled loose, making a hole in the pocket. The nullstone had dropped out, somewhere.
Fear sizzled through Tol. Several hundredweight of living, murderous carpet might have seemed ridiculous had not the thing’s lethal intent been so clear.
He climbed over upturned furniture and made his way toward the window. The drop was straight to the street below. If it came to it, he would jump and risk a broken leg over being suffocated by an enchanted rug.
The sound of splintering wood drew his eyes to the door. So much carpet was trying to force its way in that the doorframe had cracked. The carpet wrapped its folds around the bedposts, snapping the polished wood like twigs.
Voices from the hall heralded the arrival of the Dom-shu sisters.
“Get back!” Tol cried. “The carpet’s been hexed! It’s alive!”
Miya drew too near and the rug slapped her in the chest, throwing her to the bare stone floor of the corridor. She bounced up, nose bleeding, eyes wide.
Kiya, still slowed by her injury, ordered her sister to fetch Egrin. As Miya raced away, Kiya sized up the situation.
Tol was perched on a side table, clinging to a sconce as the carpet coiled beneath him like a monstrous snake. Another few folds of height and it would rise up and crush him against the wall.
Kiya disappeared briefly then returned with a poleaxe from one of the displays in the hall. Not bothering to chop at the rug, she used the sharp tip to spike several of its folds to the floor. The rug strained against the impediment but was prevented from reaching Tol.