and the one who had contradicted him said, “We have done as you ordered.”
Liars. He knew they were all liars. He had to find out for himself. He went over to the flue and sniffed. Then he smiled. At last they had done something right. There was flesh burning down below. Two different men brought a new tub of water in, and it was hot enough this time.
But later he saw the culprits working in another part of the palace. He had been tricked. Someone had thrown a heap of old skins into the furnace, and that was what he had smelled.
The most frustrating thing about the whole affair was that when he found out, and complained to his father, the old fool refused to execute Konduwaine and Tiboth.
That was how they had always treated him when he was small. As he grew older, things hardly improved.
No one understood him. No one. He often dreamed of being underground in a dark place, where all he could hear was water dripping. In his dream he tried to move, but his limbs were like stone. He had the distinct impression that not only was it dark, but that he was blind, lime in his dream did not pass the way it did in waking life. He could lie there for days and days, buried and unmoving, and he would return to the world to find that only a few hours had passed.
Once he told Hadel the Rat about it and got back some gibberish about disbalanced vapors in his stomach. “Must be something you ate,” he’d said. “Here, put this powdered herb in your drinks for a while.” But Kaemen wasn’t that stupid. He threw the poison away secretly. Later he cursed himself for being exactly that stupid. He should have saved it and fed it to Hadel first, then the nurses, then Tharanodeth.
And there were times when he knew he was not dreaming, when a lady stood by his bed. She was absolutely black, more like a bottomless hole shaped like a bent old crone than a living creature, and she would lean over him, sink her fingers like blades of ice into his brain, and he would hear her voice inside his head.
“When you are lord, everything will be as you want it to be,” she said, and that was comforting, but she went on to add, “I will be with you.”
Sometimes she said things so terrifying he nearly went mad with the horror of them, and his inability to confide in anyone added to the burden. Afterwards his head would always hurt, and he could never tell anyone why, and he knew that the idiots around him were secretly laughing at his pain, even if they didn’t understand it.
Finally there were those rare intervals, impossible as they might have seemed to him in retrospect, during which he had known calm. The black hag did not always whisper inside his head. Sometimes she went away entirely. Perhaps she was asleep. Then he was free for a little while. It was then that he looked at the people around them and noticed how they smiled without malice, and he saw other children playing among themselves. He envied them. They had mothers who cared for them. His was always so distant, so rarely seen, always followed by a train of gaudily-dressed ladies fluttering fans in front of their faces. He could hardly remember what she looked like when he was older. On top of all her other offenses, she had proceeded to die when he was six.
In these strange moments of weakness he wanted more than anything else to have a real friend. He would wander about the palace crying, asking everyone he met, “Will you be my friend? Truly my friend?’
Of course they would smile and say, “But Little Lord, we are your friends. Everyone loves you.”
Later the black hag would tell him how they all hated him, and he saw she was right. The pains, the dreams would come again. The frigid hands would dip into his skull and pull his spirit out, then carry him away into a midnight land of empty houses and crumbling castles, where bestial, grotesque things crawled and tittered among the ruins. He would open his mouth to scream and darkness would come pouring out, spreading like thick oil until it smothered the whole world.
Only then would there be complete quiet. Only then could he rest
And because no one understood him, because he was alone with no one to turn to, because he hated those around him so bitterly, there could be no defense against that darkness, and, as the years went by, he gave himself over to it absolutely.
CHAPTER 4
The First Vision
“Amaedig, what is it?”
“Someone is coming. A man in a red cape.”
She peered through the crack between the shutters, then opened them an inch for a better view. It was midwinter, the rainy season, and the air was chill and wet at midday, sky slate grey. Both Amaedig and Ginna were fifteen this year, and they had been living in this drafty apartment overlooking one of the countless courtyards of the palace—it seemed every room overlooked a courtyard—for three years.
He joined her at the window.
“It’s one of The Guardian’s messengers.”
“Master, shall I go and greet him?”
He looked at her, disappointed.
You forgot again.”
“Oh—yes.”
“As long as no one can hear us, you don’t have to go through that silly ‘master’ business. You know perfectly well that you are my friend, and I only asked for you as my servant so we could be together when I was moved here.”
“Sorry. It gets to be a habit. And you’re of a higher caste, and maybe The Guardian’s half-brother, or so they say—”
His disappointed look became a glare, somewhere between anger and a show of hurt. One of his greatest fears was that he would come to a high station, and be dragged away from those few people who had been kind to him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and even as she did her right hand went halfway into the gesture of Repentance—thumb and little finger up, turned sideways and back straight—before she caught herself.
“The truth of the matter is,” he said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t want to be related to this Guardian in particular—”
There was a thunderous knock on the door. Amaedig ran from the window and raised the latch.
The messenger stood in the doorway, holding a polished disc of stone in his hand. He would not give it to Amaedig, but when Ginna approached, he surrendered it immediately.
The boy turned the thing over in his own hand and stared at it blankly, then looked up at the messenger, puzzled.
“It’s an invitation, you little idiot!” the man snorted. “You are invited to The Holy Guardian’s banquet in the great hall this evening, an hour after sundown. It is a great honor. Be grateful.”
“Tell The Guardian I am indeed grateful and honored,” said Ginna slowly.
The messenger turned on his heel in a smart military manner and left, even before Ginna could think to make the sign of Blessing Received. He made it to the fellow’s back as he vanished down the winding stairs outside the apartment
In truth he considered himself commanded, and he was afraid. Yet there was some thrill to it He felt anticipation. All the lords and ladies of the court would be there. He did not know any of them, and from what stories he had heard of plots, counter-plots, purges, and intrigues, he didn’t want to get to know them, but
