Page 48 of Chained Knight

Huh. Oddly, she couldn’t imagine dying like that, even if it might be relatively quick and painless. Her brain simply refused, maybe because too much terror had soaked into the grey matter already. “How far away is it? The Mere.”

“A short walk.” His head tilted slightly. “I sense it would please my lady to accomplish this task sooner rather than later.”

No time like the presenthad been one of Mom’s favorite sayings, along withlook on the bright side, not to mentionJesus and gin. “I don’t want them to see me fail.” She probably shouldn’t have been so honest, but there was no help for it now.

“Ah.” He offered his hand once more, the same cupped palm and steady look. “I will tell you something as we walk, then. Come, my lady Ariadne. Let us better understand each other.”

26

TOOK, AND KEPT

The others were indeed asleep,most of Jazarl’s men draped on stone as if it were comfortable, Hannixe wrapped in her cloak and Keners’s arms, Leshe sitting propped against a pillar, head tipped back and fingers loose in her velvet-clad lap. Sarle was stretched out next to the Cupbearer, his hat pulled low and his hands clasped on his chest as if snoozing after a heavy lunch. Only the Grey Lady stirred as they passed, the chained man’s boots deadly quiet and Ari’s slippers hardly less so.

Stepping off the pale marble took a great deal of courage, but her companion’s gauntlet was reassuringly warm and he turned, slightly, as if to steady her down a stair. She could remember Mike doing the same thing while exiting a restaurant one rainy autumn night, and a swift piercing pain went through her heart. The Cup dangled in her free hand, brushing her skirt.

Swollen, poisonous vegetation cringed away from the chained man, puffs of acrid smoke rising and flattening, glowing fungi shriveling. He moved carefully, one slow step at a time, and was silent until the pavilion had receded a good distance, glimmering dreamily through heavy undergrowth. Even theCarcanet’s pale gleam was lost in thick gloom, and finally the chained man spoke again, soft and reflective, as if to himself.

“I was hunting.” His slow, even tread was easy to keep up with, and somehow he avoided rocks and fallen debris that might trip a night-blind companion. “That day, I rode in pursuit of something which could kill me.”

What an opener. But this was a road trip after all, Ari figured, and it was easier to approach certain subjects sideways, especially if you were busy looking ahead and didn’t have to make eye contact with a fellow passenger. “Why?”

A short, disbelieving sound—after a moment, Ari realized he’d laughed, though not the bitter little bark he’d used in the cobbled bailey. This time the amusement was softer, yet just as deeply pained.

“Worlds were conquered, power assured. What else was left?” He guided her around a clump of orange-berried bushes, their branches shriveling as the edge of his personal space approached. “My coursing led across a field of flowers, and mortals fled before me—all save one. Perhaps she meant to protect the other girls; it was their custom to gather the blooms upon certain days, for good luck in marriage. Or perhaps she was simply too afraid to move.” He inhaled sharply, as if he’d stepped on something unpleasant, but the steady forward motion did not cease. “Even when my mount reared she stood still, gazing at me, her arms full of white cups and petals.”

The image was vivid—chained man on giant black equine, a girl on a plain of bright flowers, a blue sky with pale, scudding clouds. If Wyeth had ever painted fantasy illustrations, he might have captured the tableau.

“Perhaps I was angry at being balked,” the chained man continued, aiming them between two massive spike-festooned trees. A dip between the black-barked columns held some approximation of a path, probably the kind of false trail commonto any wooded area. You could get turned around easily in thick forest like this, thinking you were on track until nature’s impersonal cruelty caught up. “Or perhaps I knew, though I would not admit… It was a moment’s work to take her up. I put you upon my saddle, and we were in Underdark before you could draw breath to scream—not that you did. You were still clutching the flowers when I drew rein, very near where the Keep is now.”

Her. I get it, he’s talking about her. “She was a… a mortal?” The word felt funny in Ari’s mouth.

“Indeed.” A short silence, while he turned again to steady her; a slight slope ran downward between thornbushes, their spikes glistening with tarry resin. “I took you, and I kept you. Wonders and amusements I have made in apology, and companions brought or awakened to ease your loneliness. I judged it safer for none to guess the truth and it did not matter in any wise, for what is mine belongs to you. The faithless accursed laid his filthy hands upon you because he thought to steal what you never asked for. What wasforcedupon you.”

Oh boy.So the Moon lady really had been a figurehead, and the palace coup hadn’t gone entirely as the Bright King planned. “But why did everything… They said everyone died, and the mortal doors closed and everything?” Ari’s fingers tightened on the Cup’s stem, satiny wood solidly, oddly reassuring.

“’Twas not your passing but my grief which struck them down, my kindness. I set aside my sword, for what use was it then? And I let the traitor’s Golden fetter me, as I did not care to resist with my lady gone; the Underdark has festered and turned to blight in your absence. It mattered less than naught, and yet…”

This is absolutely nuts. What would he do if Ari dug in her heels right now? She’d been half believing some crazy bullshit about being a reincarnated fairy queen, but in the end she was just shoddy imitation.

It hurt. At least she hadn’t thrown herself at him, that would have been truly embarrassing. But they were heading for this Mere, she was going to fail a crucial test, and then what?

Landslide? Jail cell? Hospital bed? Rip van Winkle in some unimaginable mortal future, longing for a return to Tir nan Og’s alien foliage, breathless violence, heartbreaking beauty?

“You doubt what you are,” he continued, measured and implacable. “No matter. I learned something in those fetters, my lady Ariadne. I am not the worst of hunters, and I thought only one single prey had ever escaped my riding. Yet I did not fail that day upon the heath; I claimed what I had sought. Chained and grieving I yet lived, therefore you would return at least once, no matter how long the journey. So I waited.”

The trees thinned, drawing away. Moonlight fell through a gap; a clearing was coming up.

What the hell?Trying to parse this while navigating a poisoned forest in the dead of night could give a girl a migraine. “I thought you said you were hunting?—”

“What else can you be?” The chained man halted, and his free hand came up, indicating the vista. Fluid rippled, the sound of wavelets on a smooth shore. Ari peered around his armored bulk. Her scalp crawled, individual hairs attempting to rise. The sensation slid down her back, her arms, spilled over her legs, and no magical drink could dispel it. Neither could the warm pulsing of the Carcanet, gathering fallen silvery moonlight and returning it with a vengeance. “Behold, the Blood Mere.”

27

A GAME WE PLAYED

Not quite largeenough to be a lake but certainly far too big for a pond, the Mere’s surface rippled uneasily. The bright white stainless moon had just crested a shadow-line of bulging, misshapen trees on the far shore and its reflection turned sanguine; the fluid was red.

It wasn’t water. A distinct copper-laden smell reached Ari on the soft, playful breeze, and she almost choked. It filled her head like a nosebleed, heavy and trickling; she might have tried to stumble backward, turn and run, if not for her fingers trapped in the chained man’s gauntlet.

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