Page 44 of Chained Knight

Now Ari was wondering just who had lived in the abandoned village—and they talked like there had been more than one hamlet, too. What kind of infrastructure did this place have? Did the queen make decisions about sewage, real estate zoning, property taxes? Were there foreign affairs? Other heads of state? Ministers and spies?

Nobody mentioned neighboring countries.

“The Golden were indeed pursuing her,” Jazarl weighed in. “But we have seen none of the rotting filth save the one detachment upon the Road.”

“Passing back and forth, as if to net a fine catch.” Naithor nodded, but he was pale under his tan and very deliberately did not look at the chained man.

Who stood near Ari, staring past the equines. Though his expression hadn’t changed, set and closed, an invisible roil of fury spread from him. The chains hanging from his arms moved uneasily; the ones wrapping his legs and torso gave sinuous twitches. Even Hannixe regarded him nervously, and glanced at Ari as if she should know what to do.

Was there a universe in which she wouldn’t be called on to soothe angry men? It didn’t seem possible.

“Well, he hasn’t caught us yet.” She tried to make her tone pragmatic, calming, and inoffensive all at once, but probably only succeeded in sounding nervous. “And once we reach thisMere, we’re safe, right?” It came out ascorrect, perhaps not with the shade of meaning she wanted.

The chained man looked down at her, and the deep staticky unsound of rage drained away all at once. “You are already safe, my lady.”

Am I?It was a dizzying change, anger vanishing as if it had never existed. Was he just good at hiding it? Mike had been, at first; she now studied this man, who was far more dangerous than her husband had ever been.

Ex-husband. Any way you sliced it the divorce was final, and if she was dumped back in her own mortal world at least she’d never have to deal with him again. A small mercy, but also an utter relief. Even the guilt of pulling the trigger was eclipsed by that consolation. Which probably just showed what an awful person she was, but at the moment Ari didn’t care as much as she should.

She realized she was staring up at the chained man, that dark feverish gaze locked with her own.

Behind his screen of indifference and the sense of barely controlled, murderous power, something else lurked. It peered at her, cocking its sleek dark head, and the pale smear at the bottom of each pupil-well was her own face, reflected in tiny, astonishing detail. For a moment nothing else existed, Ariadne and this nameless man stranded in a blank wilderness.

“Of course,” he said softly, as if she had spoken. “Do you doubt it?”

What?“No,” Ari heard herself reply, hoping it was what he wanted to hear. “Not really.”

“Good.” The barest hint of a smile touched his mouth, there and gone in a moment like lightning.

The rest of the world rushed back, a wheel of color and sensation, and she was abruptly aware of standing in the middle of a group, Jazarl’s men looking away with faultless politeness,Hannixe studying Ari’s profile anxiously and Keners watching the grey-haired woman, a leather canteen dangling from his left hand.

“We shall reach the Poisonwood soon,” the chained man continued, turning to gaze at the dark line in the distance. “Stay close, and use the greatest of care.”

24

POISONWOOD, CUPBEARER

There wereno analogues to these trees in Ari’s experience. Most looked vaguely succulent, their fleshy bark deadly, leprous pale; spines tipped with reddish ichor festooned the taller while the shorter bore crazycrack-quilted channels full of nasty resinous flow. Many were weighed down with clusters of maroon foliage—some like maples, others fernlike, still others deeply notched in parallel like oak leaves. There were tall black evergreens, their swollen needles dropping with tiny uglyplopswhen the breeze rose, and gnarled shrubs with bright, violently orange or jaundiced berries peeping through yellow-spotted leaves. Fungal growths clustered among and on fallen logs, giving off a faint eerie luminescence even during daylight, and spiny clumps of sword-shaped stuff like nightmarish aloe vera curled its blackened tips, sending up little puffs of steam wherever red sunlight striped its hide.

“All very poisonous.” Hannixe was clearly thrilled. “Though some few may be used in small amounts for certain cures. There is nothing so vile but that it cannot serve the Moon, my lady, and… oh, look, see there, those very white waxen berries? Theyare calledbeautiful stars, and very poisonous though a syrup made with them andsagradahlleaves may induce rest without pain for those most grievously wounded?—”

“Soft, my lady.” Amusement lit Keners’s sharp face. “I do not think our queen wishes to know every venom in the wood.”

Ari was just glad she hadn’t woken up here. Anaryin-filled clearing was probably the best place she could have landed, a piece of luck she didn’t deserve but was grateful for nonetheless.

“But ’tis so interesting.” The Grey Lady glanced anxiously at Ari. “Forgive me, my lady. Relief makes me giddy.”

“I like the study of plants.” Ari meant to say ‘botany’, but their term was longer. The invisible translator had barely any lag now, and she had the strange sensation of almostthinkingin that rolling, fluidly accented tongue.

If she’d majored in linguistics, would she have met Mike in that Renaissance to Modern Art class he’d admitted to taking because he thought it was an easy pass? Would she have married him, or someone else? Mom always said thinking about what might have been could drive a person insane, so it was best not to.

The chained man said a door would open for this queen of theirs, but clearly their opponent could make a few as well. What if any random mortal could stumble through one of the Bright King’s entrances, and the resistance simply nominated the first person to show up as some kind of royalty? Historically that sort of thing ended with a sacrifice, didn’t it? But that didn’t explain the dreams.

Nothingreally explained the dreams. Or, more precisely, nothing Ari was willing to contemplate at the moment.

Hannixe pointed out a few more plants after that, but lapsed into silence as afternoon wore on. An acrid edge of rot and nastiness rose from the Poisonwood’s floor along with thin noisome steam and curls of outright smoke. The vegetationcringed away from the chained man’s mount, leaving a wide blackened track for the rest of them to troop along.

Ari belatedly realized the scorched area was slowly recovering behind them. Swollen-headed fungal things released bursts of greenish spores, branches uncurling, the blackened bits dropping with heavy, nasty wet sounds as fresh growth swelled to take its place. The rushing, creaking sound of repair was very much like that of the forest near the Keep except for an unpleasant sliding edge, like bloated wet fingers rubbing together.

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