fur was soothing. She was so oblivious that she didn’t even notice the silvery haze that swirled above her.
«Wasn’t it time to go back to the tower, to visit the spirits?»
She wasn’t the least bit surprised by the voice that broke through her reverie.
«I don’t want to travel anymore,» she protested.
«How easily you give up.»
«I don’t give up, I just compromise. Besides, I need some rest.»
She hoped he’d understand her forceful tone and not be so obtrusive, but the spirit kept up.
«You do want someone to comfort you, don’t you?»
«But it is not with you.»
«And I am offering you the company of others. It is from the beginning. Remember?»
She wondered. Indeed, why did he keep calling her to them? He had only appeared to take her to a place he couldn’t enter himself.
«What do you want?» She asked directly, as if he would answer honestly.
«I want to serve you because you are the most beautiful girl in the world.»
«I don’t believe you.»
«If you don’t believe you’re the prettiest,» he pretended not to understand her, «then take the mirror and see for yourself. It won’t deceive you. It has no more reason to lie than I do.»
Rhianon looked involuntarily at the cracked mirror. She did not care to look in it, so she only shook her head in disapproval.
«Leave me alone.»
«Leave you alone when you’re about to cry.
Rhianon put her fingers to her cheeks. Really soon tears would run down them, salty and searing like turpentine. They might burn her skin if she didn’t handle them. If Orpheus were here he would make her laugh.
She rose and sat up in bed. The gleaming smoke still hovered above her.
«You can’t replace the company of those I like,» she said with a touch of reproach.»
«But I can be useful to you,» he moved closer, almost to her. «I really can.»
«You don’t know what I want.»
«So tell me.»
She just laughed.
«How you try to simplify things, and they are so complicated.»
«I know, but it will get easier if you believe me.»
She didn’t believe him, and she didn’t want to, but there was no one else around. Even the harpy, who had been on her heels the whole time, had disappeared this time. Rhianon sat staring at the smoke billowing over the floor. It gleamed so beautifully, but it was cold. If it had been material, it would surely have felt as prickly to the touch as golden sand.
She stared at it long enough, and then she suddenly really wanted to go to the tower. Could he have instilled that in her? Or maybe she had a need for companionship. The five spirits were always courting her. Sometimes it was even pleasant to be with them. Now that she was alone, she needed to unwind. Let Madael tear up the world below if he so desired, and here in the sinister underworld she could discover her own corner of pleasure and sorcery. She was drawn to the spirits as strongly as if they were standing beside her and calling to her.
«All right,» she stood up, brushed her fingers through her tangled locks, and then moved toward the exit, trying not to watch the emeralds in the bears’ eyes flash and fade behind her. It was as if they were signaling her to stay. Otherwise something terrible would happen, her emerald gleam warned her, but she paid no attention. It was just a few minutes and she was already in the tower with the spirits. This time it was unaccustomedly quiet around her, no laughter, no jokes, no promises. Each spirit sat in its own niche, gleaming in the darkness with multicolored sparks that surrounded each vague figure. Rhianon stopped in the center. She had to turn her head to look at each in turn. The tense silence made her tired.
«Well?» She glanced at the spirit whose fuzzy silhouette had ruby sparks danced across it. «Is there anything else you want to offer me?»
«Not much,» the orange spirit replied.
«Is it a new country? Or is it a place of interest?»
Several of the ghostly voices nodded in agreement. Rhianon sensed a slight movement in the air, as if she thought she heard a breeze inside the tower.
«Look!» A hand of smoke and gold flecks deftly wrapped around her wrist and forced her to place her fingers against the partition above the alcove. «What do you see? What do you feel?»
The smoke was no longer enveloping her, and Rhianon kept running her fingers along the wall. She could feel the cold stones, but she could see nothing. There wasn’t even a spider’s web that had insects with human limbs crawling all over it. Elsewhere in the castle there was such a web, it stretched in golden lace around the corners or the ceiling and looked quite beautiful, but the strange parasites stuck in it could frighten anyone. Here, on the other hand, there was no slime, no mud, no spider nets, not a crack in the stones, but they seemed damp for some reason. Rhianon did not immediately manage to fumble for something that looked like a bas-relief.
«Is it a symbol or a coat of arms?» She frowned, tracing a fancy monogram with her finger. She could see well into the darkness, but she couldn’t make it out clearly. She had to study it by touch. It was quite elaborate, covered in delicate curls, and the carving was deeply embedded in the wall. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it at once.
«What is it?» Rhianon asked, but the spirits were stubbornly silent. Did they want her to guess for herself? Rhianon shook her head. They were so stubborn. They could have easily explained it to her, but they didn’t hurry. Maybe it was the oppressive silence that was causing her to have strange visions. She heard screams, the way only children can scream, shrill and hoarse, as if their cervical vertebrae had been broken, and she saw blood. Someone was twisting the head of a black hen and dipping a dagger in its blood to carve a magic wand out of the alder tree with it. Someone is summoning spirits. She recognized Hildegard’s hands carving something whimsical out of wood. And then it was the turn of incomparably ancient visions. People dancing in a ring lined with demons, Madael’s servants dragging blocks and laying them in a circle, and then watching from above as sacrifices were offered on the altars. It was human sacrifices.
Rhianon swallowed hard. They want to flatter their lord with these sacrifices. Stonehenge, as it would later be called, the place where he first appeared in the midst of the ritual, simply emerged from a halo of fire, her warrior-lover, fresh from battle, bloodied sword in hand and helmetless. Even those who had conjured and offered sacrifices to him on the altars, seeing him without his helmet, went blind. But she herself, instead of going blind with the appearance of Madael in her life, on the contrary, began to see well in the dark. Maybe it’s because fire is her element. She herself is made of fire. And a fallen angel in fire cannot be a stranger to her. Still, Rhianon was scared. Those rituals were terrible. They meant nothing to Madael, he took the pain of others for granted, because he thought that no one would ever go through the same pain
