Cobweb Empire (15 page)

In the middle, where the cobwebs were
thickest, and she had to tear through them with her fingers, in
order to take even a step, was the bed of marble, like an altar to
some ancient god of silk and bleak shadows.

Upon the sepulchral slab lay a woman clad in
pure white. Whiter than white she was, even underneath the cobwebs.
And only her skin retained a hue of distant sunset, and her hair
had once been the color of pure harvest gold, only a few shades
lighter than the auburn ruddy gold of the Sovereign.

Rumanar Avalais approached the altar and
stood looking down upon the maiden in white. Unlike the others, she
did not attempt to touch or caress this one lying before her.
Instead, she only looked intently, with a strange occluded gaze of
profound grave thought.

And then she leaned over her, drawing very
close but never touching. After a pause of immeasurable moments,
the Sovereign’s lips, succulent as gilded plums, with their finely
outlined edges, moved silently in incantation, or possibly,
prayer.

The nature of the light here, in the middle
of the chamber, was different somehow. It was darker, and the glow
of the lamps along the walls could not penetrate the gossamer
filter enough to seep through the endless veils of cobwebs. The
young woman, in all her whiteness, seemed to be also in a place of
darkest shadow. And only her face with its still lovely features
and dilated eyes that revealed the same sky-blue color as that of
the Sovereign, had a strange spotlight illumination upon it, coming
from directly overhead.

The maiden’s liquid eyes reflected pinpoints
of starlight—indeed, what appeared to be rainbow dots of
illumination—and if one were to look up in the direction of her
eternally striving gaze, the mystery of the colored stars would
have been revealed.

High overhead, right above her
cobweb-smothered face, was a skylight. It was made of what appeared
to be tinted clear glass, and then—if one looked closely enough—the
glass resolved itself into sharp sapphire facets.

Directly overhead, fixed into the chamber
ceiling, was the base of the Sapphire Throne.

Chapter
8

T
hey ate a cheerful
supper around Grial’s large kitchen table, a hearty meal of spicy
fried potatoes and soft, spreadable blue-veined triple-crème cheese
atop chunks of freshly baked crusty bread—all of it being food and
grain that had been harvested or set to ripen before the Event of
death’s stopping, and thus, edible. But first Grial had fussed
around the kitchen and hearth for half an hour, with the girls
trailing, peeling old tubers, onions, and rummaging through spice
racks, and pouring cinnamon-brewed apple cider into tankards for
the seated men.

“Normally I’d make all you gentlemen lend a
hand here,” Grial said. “But I am afraid you’re like elephants, big
and lovable and clumsy as you please—and the ears all floppy in
some cases, too—and you would stomp all over my well-organized
cooking area. Therefore, do take advantage of the idle time and sit
around and drink this cider! Sorry, I have no stronger stuff to
offer, but the ale house is closed for the night.”

The soldiers grinned at their hostess,
speaking among themselves in relaxed voices, and Riquar smoothed
his bushy beard in a self-conscious manner. Beltain, meanwhile,
thanked her and took a tankard for himself, and the men-at-arms
followed his lead.

Vlau took his own drink last, carefully
watching, from the corner of his eye, the Infanta who was sat
primly on a small chair that had been brought in from the parlor
specifically for her and placed in the corner, away from the table.
Her winter cloak had been removed indoors, and underneath she wore
the plain grey servant’s dress. Her ash hair lay limp around her
shoulders, her thin arms at her sides, hands folded in her lap. The
chair had been placed at an angle so that she could look straight
ahead and observe the entire kitchen, while still being out of the
way.

Knowing that the men were watching them, the
girls put on aprons and bustled. Lizabette eagerly attempted to do
everything herself, and ordered Marie and Niosta around, or else
corrected their performance, while Grial occasionally threw them
bemused glances as she stirred the hissing skillet over the
flames.

Percy quietly peeled endless batches of
potatoes, standing before a wooden counter with her back turned to
everyone, and glanced around but occasionally, only to catch the
look of Beltain’s slate-blue eyes upon her. Was it simply an
infernal coincidence? Yet when she turned away, did she also
continue to feel the almost tangible pressure of his gaze upon her
back?

After Lizabette had made yet another
annoyingly instructional pronouncement, Niosta took up the large
platter with the round head of perfectly aged, soft-ripened cheese
fresh out of the larder, and said loudly to her: “Here, would you
like to cut?”

“Of course!” Lizabette immediately took the
long knife from the wood cutting board with its readied slices of
bread, and she grabbed the cheese platter from Niosta. “Here is how
it’s done properly when you serve soft cheeses: it is best to first
soak the knife blade in cold water, then dry it with an actual
fluffy towel, which is to say this is not a particularly fluffy
towel but it will have to do, then—” And she started to demonstrate
the technique.

Marie and Niosta stared at each other, then
Niosta rubbed the back of her hand against her freckled nose and
pronounced dramatically, “Look, everyone, Lizabette just cut the
cheese!” And they burst into hard giggles while some of the
soldiers joined them.

“Why, that is the most
childish
and
horrid thing to say—” Lizabette put down the knife and whirled
around, with a stormy expression and a dropped jaw, at which point
Grial said, “Now, hold it right there, dearie! I want to cut the
cheese myself! Here, you work the skillet, while I cut enough
cheese to make this kitchen into a cheesy paradise! This is fine
aromatic stuff, and I dare say, no matter how much you and I cut,
we cannot cut enough!”

The meal was eventually all prepared and far
more quickly consumed. When everyone finally sat down, the table
was a tight squeeze, and Percy ate seated cozily between Niosta and
Grial, everyone elbowing each other. Conversation was minimal, and
petered out altogether after a little bit of uncomfortable and
fearful speculation on the nature of the “world fading around them,
and how no one precisely knew what it was that it
meant
or
what was actually going on.” Soon it had gotten to be dark outside,
for they could see the indigo twilight through the small kitchen
window.

“If you must know, the world fades in
particular around
this
exact time,” Grial said, pointing
with her finger to the window. “It is the end of twilight, just
when true evening comes. . . . That’s when most
people report things going missing, such as streets and houses, and
occasionally, spouses.”

Everyone grew a little quiet, a little more
serious. They listened to the small sounds outside, the evening
wind. It was as if they were all waiting for something to disappear
around them.

Moments passed.

“Why twilight?” asked Marie.

“Are you not aware that twilight takes
things?” Lizabette said in a superior tone, looking down over her
nose at the younger girl. “You’ve seen it happen at Death’s Keep!
Why, we’ve all seen it, the fading shadows.”

“That’s absolutely right, duckie.” Grial
nodded. “Shadows fade both in the light and in darkness. To be
precise, they escape from one and run into the other. And now that
the world is
broken
, they apparently also take things along
with them as they go. And twilight is the high time of shadows; it
itself is one whole big
Shadow
, if you must.”

“What strange, dark times we live
in . . .” Beltain mused.

“True indeed, Your Lordship. But if you ask
me,
every
time seems strange and dark,” Grial said, “when
you are living smack in the middle of it. It’s only much later,
afterwards, once you’ve lived long enough to look back, that you
can start to see both the bright colors and the dark spots
properly—and sometimes, you even see polka dots and clubs and
diamonds and even hearts—and yes, a very common thing, you do get
to see these pesky little string floaters in your eye! In any case,
age is nothing more than the acquisition of Temporal Perspective!
Oh, and rheumatism too, I must add.”

A couple of the older soldiers nodded at
that.

Afterwards, when the teakettle boiled and
everyone held either a large mug or a petite china cup of the hot
soothing brew back in the parlor, Grial took Percy aside
quietly.

“Tell me, child,” said the frizzy-haired
woman with her dark, dark eyes. “What is it that you must do? I
know you’ve met Death and certain things happened—no, don’t ask me
how I know. But oh, all right, if you must, rumors are faster than
the wind, and everyone in the Letheburg marketplace is talking
about a young woman from Oarclaven whose grandmother has been
granted the ultimate release of true death. Supposedly, this young
woman also freed a dying pig, and possibly a coop of chickens—or is
it a herd of water buffalo, and a partridge in a pear tree? And so,
what I want to know is, what comes next for you?”

“Oh, Grial, I wish I was certain,” Percy
whispered. “But the only thing I know is, I can
feel
it,
feel the death-shadow that belongs to the Cobweb Bride. And it is
pulling me south. At first I thought it might be here, in
Letheburg, but it is not. It is somewhere out there, much
farther. . . .”

“Then, so be it.” Grial squeezed Percy’s
hand with her large warm one. “You will keep traveling onward,
along whatever road that comes before you, together with the poor
dead princess and the rest of them. But first—tomorrow morning I am
going to drive you over to the Palace of Lethe, where another
grandmother urgently needs your help.”

I
n the morning,
Grial was true to her word. As soon as everyone had woken up all
around the very cozy house—a small house that somehow managed to
have enough rooms on the inside to fit every single soldier and
girl and provide a comfortable spot to sleep, either on a cot or a
sofa that had seemingly materialized out of nowhere—they had a
quick breakfast and got ready to depart.

Since the black knight had thought it
prudent to take the Infanta to the Winter Palace of Lethe in the
first place, he was in perfect agreement with Grial’s plan. Lord
Beltain Chidair expected to acquire additional special protection
for his Imperial charge from the Crown Prince himself—royal
reinforcements in the form of added guards, a closed carriage and
change of horses, and anything else that might serve them for the
rest of the journey to the Silver Court.

In the pale blue dawn light and chill air,
with vapor curling on their breath, Grial hitched up Betsy to the
familiar cart. And this time she herself got up in the driver’s
seat while Percy and the girls rode as passengers, with Vlau and
the Infanta in the very back. The knight and his men made up the
rear and advance guard, and together they navigated the meandering
narrow streets of the city.

“Turn right! No, left, Your Lordship!” Grial
cried out periodically to the men riding before them. “Turn on
Baker Street! Ah, no, blast it, Baker Street had flown the coop the
other day, I forgot! All right, forget Baker Street, turn onto
Alhambra, then Royal Way, and follow it straight to the
Palace!”

In half an hour, they finally emerged from
the small streets onto the large Royal Way—lined by rows of
brass-decorated street lanterns, still sputtering with fading
golden glow and burning the last of their oil in these early
hours—which opened up into Lethe Square that surrounded the Winter
Palace of Lethe.

It was still early morning, heavily
overcast, even though no new snow had fallen overnight. The dome of
sky sat in a tumult of silver and slate with thick storm clouds,
directly over the Palace, so that it seemed that Heaven itself was
pushing down upon the world below with its infinite grey cotton
layers.

Their group moved past the snow-covered
slippery cobblestones of the square and approached the filigree
metal gates, guarded on both sides.

The black knight identified himself as Lord
Chidair, and within moments they entered past the gates into a long
driveway approach to the front of the Winter Palace. Here, helpful
grooms and footmen were at hand, and while the Chidair men-at-arms
and the girls were led into suitable servant quarters to wait,
Beltain offered the Infanta his arm in a courtly gesture. Vlau
followed immediately behind with a strange fiercely guarded look on
his face, and they crossed the splendid doorway of the corridor to
the Royal quarters. Surprisingly, Grial came right behind them. And
seeing Percy linger in the small parlor with the other subdued and
gawking girls, Grial motioned her with one hand to come along.

It was thus that Percy hastily came after,
walking with her head lowered, genuinely afraid to take a needless
step upon the exotic carpets and the polished shining floors, and
even more terrified at the inconceivable splendor at eye-level and
overhead—rich velvet and brocade curtains hanging over windows of
remarkable clear glass, tasseled fabrics embroidered with gold and
silver thread into delicate patterns, grand portraits on the walls
in immense ornate frames covered in gold leaf, chandeliers hung
with crystals that were no doubt shattered stars, exquisite painted
ceilings, cornices and elaborate crown moldings, and everywhere
servants in such fine livery that it was a hundred times fancier
than anything she’d seen in her home village even on parade
days. . . .