Udinaas lifted his brows. ‘ That just might work. Good thinking, there .’
Not me, Father. Silchas Ruin .
‘ You begin to fade from my eyes, Rud —’
I grow weary .
‘ Be safe. I lo —’
And then he was gone. Ryadd blinked his eyes clear, stared round at the grim cave walls. ‘A place to hide,’ he whispered. It’s all we ask. It’s what we all would ask, had we the voice. Just leave us alone .
‘She means to kill us,’ Stavi said, with eyes that did not belong to a young girl. ‘Me and Storii. She only wants Absi.’
The dusk was drawing its shroud. Torrent had found some bhederin dung, years old, and they huddled around the flickering flames. He watched the strange flashes of colour coming from the crystal shard Absi was playing with.
‘She won’t,’ he assured the twins. ‘She means to use you to bend your father to her will.’
‘She only needs Absi for that,’ said Storii. ‘She’ll kill one of us first, to get his attention. And then the other, to leave him with only his son. And then our father will kneel before her. He will surrender.’
‘You’re thinking too much – both of you. We’re still a long way from anything happening.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Stavi said. ‘It’s much closer than you think, Torrent.’
To that he had nothing to say. Even my lies fail me . He threw another chip on to the fire. ‘Wrap up now, in each other’s arms – Absi, go to your sisters. This night will be a cold one.’
‘She took us north.’
‘Yes, Stavi.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know – we couldn’t cross that desert.’ He looked around. ‘This might be a Hold, for all I know. I do not recognize the stars – and those jade spears are gone.’
‘A warren,’ said Storii, with some impatience. ‘We already knew that. But still she took us north.’
‘Go to sleep, all of you.’
When the three children settled down, Torrent threw the one fur skin they possessed over them, and then rose to stretch his legs and back. Glancing over at the witch, huddled fifteen paces away, he was reminded of a corpse he’d once found – one of the old women of the village, who’d walked out in the winter cold to find a place to die in solitude. A few of the old ones still did such things, though for most the custom had faded. A withered creature, rising from the spring thaw’s deep snows, kneeling in the fold of a hillside.
Maybe it wasn’t a bad way to die. Alone, freezing until all feeling went away, and then sleep, offering one last, warm sigh. The winds had torn her up, he recalled, and ice shards had broken through her skin from the inside, and the crows had found her eyes, lips and ears. And what was left …
Olar Ethil lifted her head, regarded him across the distance.
Torrent turned away.
‘Do not wander too far,’ she warned behind him. ‘In this warren, it is easy to get lost – and I will not go looking for you.’
Because we’re almost there, aren’t we?
‘If you choose to run away, pup, do not think I will take you back.’
He set out, with no intention of going too far. Don’t leave us, they begged. I won’t. Promise . Ten paces on, he glanced back. ‘Spirits below!’ The camp had vanished – now, nothing but flat tundra, stretching away into the darkness.
Then he caught a glimmer – the fire. I was just looking in the wrong direction . Torrent ran towards it. Halfway there he slowed, and then halted. Too far away – I never walked this far. I barely walked at all!
But he could see a figure seated before the feeble flames. Shivering, Torrent slowly approached. Olar Ethil? Is that you? No .
Not unless you’ve been hiding that red waistcoat .
The man was reaching into one voluminous sleeve, drawing forth silver wine cups, a large decanter, and then a host of candied fruit and baked desserts.
I am dreaming. All of this. I am sleeping close to the children right now, and my moans are heard by none but the hag .
The man looked up. His face was round, softened by years of indolence. A city dweller’s face. He gestured with a plump hand. ‘Quickly, Kruppe gestures – see? There is little time. Come. Sit. Before Kruppe awakens to a miserable and fraught dawn in his beleaguered city. You are the keeper of my daughters?’
‘What? I—’
‘Kruppe would be there, if he could. Pah! It is ever our excuse, and paltry and pathetic it is. But then, Kruppe is famous for his energetic seed – why, it has been known to swim a league upriver to impregnate a baron’s pretty daughter not three months before her scandalous marriage. Well, the marriage proved scandalous six months later, anyway, and how that husband was castigated and, indeed, disowned! Now, if he’d been as adventurous as she would have liked, why, Kruppe’s seed would have come to the door only to find it barred, yes? So, the husband got all that he deserved, or so Judge Kruppe pronounces.’
