The Legacy of Lord Regret: Strange Threads: Book 1 (31 page)

Despirrow nodded, and departed quickly lest Forger change his mind.

Even though Yalenna knew that Despirrow could be anywhere in the world, it also felt as if he could be just around any corner.
She glanced at Jandryn, decided there was no need to worry for him, and quickened her pace towards Braston’s quarters.

Maybe Despirrow had come back to finish the job.

She arrived to find the guards Jandryn had mentioned, one of them reaching to open the door. Waiting patiently to be let through
was a healer, carrying what looked like lily water. As for the door itself, it was closed, and there was no way she could
presently budge it.

She bent down to peer through the keyhole. In the room beyond a closed window let in a trickle of unwaning, unwaxing moonlight.
Braston himself was a battered lump in the bed, and there was no one else in there, and no sign of any danger.

She straightened.

Well
.

Despirrow was probably just up to his old tricks, taking out his ire on a poor girl somewhere, and time would return once
he was done.

She decided to seek Rostigan. She had wanted to speak to him anyway and, with her own bed suddenly as hard as rocks, it may
as well be now. Making her way through the castle, she sometimes had to change her path to avoid immovable obstacles. Eventually
she emerged into the square, and crossed it to the barracks. It was after dinner, however, and the dining hall doors were
closed.

Sighing at the inconvenience of it all, Yalenna picked her way around the building. It had been a warm night, so many of the
bedrooms had their windows open. She checked one after the other, observing soldiers in varying states of consciousness or
undress, and more than once felt like a peeking intruder. She hoped Rostigan’s window would be open – if not, he would be
trapped just like Braston. It was a disturbing thought, that she might be the only Warden able to move about – but even if
it were the case, it wouldn’t be for long.

At the fiftieth or sixtieth window, she finally discovered Rostigan’s room. It was wide open, thank the Spell, and he lay
abed with Tarzi next to him. He was sleeping soundly, ignorant of the fact that time had frozen. Perhaps there was no need
to disturb him, she decided.

With nothing better to do, she sat down under the window to wait out the duration of Despirrow’s spell.
Despite the hardness of the ground, she found her own eyes closing, and sleep coming upon her.

Salarkis had been riding a horse when the freeze snapped in around him.

He wasn’t quite sure why he rode one. There was no need, not for a man who could travel anywhere he wished in the blink of
an eye. Perhaps it was
because
of that, because he wanted a taste of the man he had been – a man who had loved galloping through fields with the air whistling
in his ears. Perhaps he hoped that repeating the experience might put him further in touch with his old self.

Unfortunately, it had not proven even remotely satisfying. The horse was skittish, as if it sensed the strangeness of its
rider. Either that, or he was just too heavy. In annoyance he’d kicked the beast onwards, increasingly desirous of speed,
and the frightened horse had done its best. For a moment he’d felt bad – who was he, to torture this creature for the sake
of melancholic recollection?

Then came the freeze. The horse entered the still world with him, for he had been touching it, and stumbled immediately.
Blades of grass
, he would later think, with little amusement.

The beast screamed as grass sank into its hooves. Its front legs buckled and it crashed headlong into the sea of waiting stalks.
They caught it fast like meat slapped on cactus, and made it a corpse in an instant. Salarkis flew from
its back, wondering what had happened as he turned in the air. His first reaction was to blame himself for pushing too hard,
and breaking the creature’s back.

When he landed, he knew differently. Daggers from below crunched into his scales and, where they found joins, slid through
into flesh beneath. Painful as it was, his hard exterior mostly saved him from ruin. There were a few places where agony welled,
but nowhere life-threatening.

He lay as still as he could so as not to make it worse, staring up at the star-prickled sky.

‘By desert and storm and sea, when I find you, Despirrow …’

What to do next? His instinct was to threadwalk, but of course he could not. Maybe if he was careful he could get up and walk
on the grass, but he had no idea how far he was from any road, or bare ground, or rock that he might stand upon. Perhaps it
was best simply to bide his time, as Despirrow went about whatever mischief had caught his fancy.

Trying to ignore his hurts, he settled in to wait.

Mergan had been in a tavern when the freeze had come, at a table to which he had welcomed all and sundry, as he continuously
ordered more food from the kitchens. Now his fellow eaters sat glassy-eyed, the spread before them like a sculpted feast.
Even the steam rising from the blackened pig was hovering endlessly in the air.

He waited for what felt like hours, though without day’s passing such measurements had no meaning. He had long ago finished
the hunk of meat he’d had in his hand when time had stopped, and grew increasingly impatient for his next serve.

In the meantime, he had the opportunity to scrutinise his guests. Plainsfolk, for the most part, for he was in the Plains
Kingdom. One lass in particular had caught his eye, and he had been charming her in between mouthfuls, maybe. She had laughed
a couple of times at his wit, the warmest sound he’d ever heard. She had also looked at him rather oddly once or twice, and
he had tried to force the madness back under his brow, so it did not shine so bright in his eyes. He wondered if, after a
good feed and a few wines, she might develop a moment or two’s affection for a generous old man. He was not so bad-looking,
was he, for his age?
Certainly not for my age!
he thought, and chuckled. The couple of days spent roaming and eating since escaping internment had certainly done him wonders.
Though his hair, he supposed, remained rather wild – perhaps he should have it tended to.

But I can’t do anything until you release me, damned Despirrow
.

He rose with nowhere to go. The tavern door was closed, the windows open but barred, and even the chimney was clogged up with
smoke. There was no way to leave what had briefly been paradise.

By the Spell, do not leave me trapped here for too long! I could not abide another prison
.

Already his mind was beginning to tick treacherously, bringing him information he did not want.

Eleven people in the room … sixty mugs behind the bar … how many beams of wood in the floor?

Was he still there? Did he still lie on the tomb floor, having dreamed himself a brief escape, only to put himself in another
cell?

He rubbed aggressively at his eyes.

‘Wind and fire,’ he shouted, ‘I don’t care how many damn mugs!’

Yalenna awoke with a stiff neck, to the sound of someone at the window. She looked up and saw Rostigan’s face framed by the
fall of his dark hair.

‘Yalenna?’

She rubbed her neck. ‘Mmf.’

‘How long have you been there?’

She glanced around. It was still night. She felt rested, and would not have been surprised to discover she’d been asleep for
hours.

A quick poke at a pebble on the ground showed that time was still stopped.

‘I don’t know.’

He clambered out and dropped down beside her.

‘What is he up to now?’

‘I don’t want to guess. Some poor woman still suffers for his attention, somewhere? Or this is his strange way of punishing
us – flaunting the fact that he’s still out there, making us float in a suspended world for as long as he deems.’

Rostigan frowned. ‘How’s Braston?’

‘Locked in his room. He was blacked out when I last saw him, and probably still.’

‘You don’t think Despirrow might be here – sneaking about, trying to discover a way to have his revenge?’

‘It crossed my mind. Maybe we should have a look around?’

‘May as well.’

They rose and set off to search. During a long sweep of the castle and its grounds, they saw nothing move, heard no sound.
Eventually they emerged onto the castle roof, to look up at the sky. The fixed stars did not even give the impression of twinkling.
They were just dots.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Yalenna said. ‘There has never been a freeze this long. What’s he playing at?’

‘It can’t be good.’

The ghosts of hours must have become days at some point, but it was hard to be exact in the eternal night. The best method
Despirrow had to keep track of his progress was noting the settlements he passed. He moved through one now, a grey place with
lanterns that made it seem more jolly
that it actually was, built in the same uniform manner of so many places close to Tallahow.

Close to Tallahow – that was depressing.

Despirrow tried to recall the names of these places, to see a map in his mind’s eye –
come on man, you have looked on Aorn so many times, so many maps on castle walls, and taverns, and tapestries
– and though he felt the knowledge was there, it flitted out of grasp. If only he’d brought an actual map … but even a small
thaw in the long freeze, all the time necessary to pick up a map from a table, would be long enough for the distant door to
open, and let Braston out of his cell.

A map and a horse, that would be ideal … but no, a horse would need to eat, drink and rest, unlike him. Of course he felt
hungry, but he knew he would not starve. He was thirsty too, but he’d had practice at that, for he was always thirsty. Sleep
was but an unnecessary comfort. As he kept on, his body went through cycles of wearying and recovering, and the recovering
part was actually quite pleasant. If ever he became truly tired, he could always lie down in the middle of the road for a
bit. He had to stay on the road, for the grasslands were deadly, and the woods a maze.

If only he had realised he would be making this journey before fleeing all the way to Tallahow. Saphura was so much closer
to Althala.