Authors: T. A. Barron
“Too bad.” She released an extended yawn. “Definitely too bad.”
“Let’s get on with your part,” I said grimly. “How are you going to get us to the castle?”
“You wouldn’t mind a slight delay, would you?” she asked. “I am feeling quite tired at the moment.”
“Delay!”
“Yes.” She yawned again. “Just until tomorrow sometime.”
“No! You promised!”
“That’s dishonestly!”
She scrutinized us for a moment. “Well, all right. I suppose I can get you there today. But you should be ashamed for denying a poor old woman her much needed rest.” Her bald head wrinkled in thought. “The only question is how to do it.”
She patted the top of her head, her dark eyes roaming around the room. “Ah, that’s it. Wings. You will need wings. Perhaps even a pair you are accustomed to.”
My heart leaped, as I wondered whether she might be referring to the legendary wings that Cairpré had told me about. Was Domnu about to restore to me what all Fincayrans had lost long ago? I flexed my shoulders in anticipation.
Her feet slapped across the floor to the doorway. She opened the heavy door, reached into the darkness, and pulled out a compact iron cage. It contained a small, tattered hawk. A merlin.
“Trouble!”
I rushed at the cage. The bird flapped and whistled enthusiastically, ripping at the iron bars with his talons.
“Let him out,” I pleaded, my fingers stroking the warm feathers through the bars.
“Careful,” warned Domnu. “He is feisty, this one. A real fighter. Small in body, large in spirit. He could rip you to shreds if he chose.”
“Not me he won’t.”
She shrugged. “If you insist.”
She tapped the cage lightly and it instantly disappeared. Trouble found himself falling, but caught himself just before he hit the floor. With two flaps and a whistle, he landed on the top of my staff, before hopping down to my left shoulder. With his feathered neck, he nuzzled my ear. Then he turned to Domnu and raked the air angrily with his talons.
“How did you find him?” I asked.
She scratched the wart on her forehead. “He found me, though I have no idea how. He looked, well, rather feeble when he arrived. Like someone had tried to make him into mincemeat. How the little wretch could fly at all is a miracle. I fixed him up a bit, hoping I might be able to teach him to play dice. But the ungrateful savage refused to cooperate.”
At this, Trouble whistled sharply and clawed the air again.
“Yes, yes, I threw him in the cage against his will. But it was for his own good.”
Trouble whistled another reprimand.
“And for my own protection! When I told him I had no interest in finding his friend, he flew at me. Tried to attack me! I could have turned him into a worm right then and there, but I decided to keep him around in case his manners improved. At any rate, he should prove useful to us now.”
Puzzled, Trouble and I cocked our heads in unison.
“I should warn you,” Domnu continued, “that while I can get you to the castle, I cannot get you
into
the castle. That much you will have to do on your own. Not to mention getting out again.”
She peeked inside the pocket holding the Galator. “Since I will not be seeing you again, allow me to thank you for giving me this.”
I sighed, but the familiar weight on my shoulder tempered my sadness. I indicated the bird. “And thank you for giving me this.”
Domnu slid toward us. As Trouble eyed her warily, she placed her hands on both my head and Shim’s. With the same look of concentration she had shown when shrinking the chess pieces, she started muttering.
All at once, I felt myself growing smaller. Beyond Shim’s shriek, I heard Domnu calling some sort of instructions to Trouble. In a flash, the hawk was no longer riding on my shoulder. Instead, it was I who was riding on Trouble’s feathery shoulder, flying high above the Dark Hills.
34:
F
LIGHT
Flying through the darkness, I wrapped my arms tightly around Trouble’s neck. By the angle of the bird’s back, I could tell that we were steadily gaining altitude. In one hand I held my staff, now almost as small as myself. I wondered where Shim might be at this moment, hoping that he was at least safe.
Chilled air flowed over us, so strongly that my sightless eyes began to water, sending thin streams of tears across my cheeks and over my ears. Neck feathers quivered with every gust, brushing against my face and hands. Being no larger than Trouble’s own head, I realized that the hawk’s feathers were much more than the soft, fluffy plumage they had once seemed. Each quill combined the flexibility of a branch with the sturdiness of a bone.
Gradually, the motions of the body bearing me became my own. With every upstroke of the powerful wings, I inhaled. With every downstroke, I exhaled. I could feel Trouble’s shoulder and back muscles tense before each beat, then spring into action with startling strength.
As we flew, I listened with all my concentration to hear whatever I could in the blackness. I felt surprised to realize how little sound the beating wings themselves made. Only a quiet
whooph
of air accompanied every downstroke, the barest creak of shoulder bones every upstroke.
For the first time in my life, I tasted the freedom of flight. The surrounding darkness only enhanced my sensation of soaring without limits, without boundaries. Wind in my face, I caught at least a hint of the sublime experience that the people of Fincayra had once known, then lost—an experience that I recalled not in my mind, but in my bones.
The wind shifted, and I heard a faint whimpering coming from below the talons. I realized that Trouble was also carrying another passenger, just as on a different day the hawk might carry a field mouse. And I knew that Shim, now littler than little, must be just as distraught as a mouse about to be eaten.
I tried to stretch my second sight to the limit and beyond. To push back the darkness that seemed to thicken as we progressed. Yet I felt the limits of my vision more than its gifts. The castle’s Shroud poured over the Dark Hills. It enveloped them just as it did the three of us. For we were flying into the land, as Rhia had once put it,
where the night never ends.
With effort, I sensed some of the contours of the hills rising below. No trees dotted this terrain, no rivers creased its slopes. At one point I felt the land fall away into a steep but narrow canyon, and I heard the faint cry of what might have been an eagle. To the north, a dense group of flaming torches mingled with the raspy shouts of goblins. And to the south, eerie lights flickered that chilled me deeper than the wind.
On the slopes above the canyon, I detected a few clusters of buildings, which once had been villages. A strange, uncertain yearning arose in me. Might I, as a young child, have lived in one of those villages? If I could somehow view this land in the light, would it bring back at least a little of my lost memory? But the villages below were as dark and silent as my own childhood. No fires burned in any hearths; no voices lifted in any squares.
I doubted that any laborers like Honn still toiled away in this terrain, as their ancestors had for centuries before the rise of Stangmar and the onset of never-ending darkness. It was even less likely that any gardeners could have survived in such a place. For the land of T’eilean and Garlatha at least still clung to twilight, while the lands below existed in permanent eclipse.
The darkness deepened, pressing against us like a heavy blanket. I felt Trouble’s rapid heartbeat, pulsing through the veins of the bird’s neck. At the same time, the beating of the wings slowed down just a notch, as if the darkness inhibited flight in the same way that it inhibited vision.
The merlin leveled off. More and more, his wings faltered, sometimes not completing a stroke, other times missing a stroke entirely. As the cold winds gusted, he weaved unsteadily. His head cocked to one side and then the other. He seemed confused, trying to see what could not be seen. He struggled to stay on course.
I clutched my feathered steed. If Trouble was having such difficulty seeing, how could he possibly guide us safely into the ever-spinning castle? Perhaps that was the point of Domnu’s final warning, that getting near the castle would be less difficult than getting inside it.
With a slap of fear, I realized that our only hope now lay in my own second sight. I, whose own eyes were blind, must somehow see for the hawk! Although my second sight had always grown weaker as the light around me faded, I could not let that happen this time. Perhaps second sight did not require light after all. Perhaps I could see despite the dark. I summoned all of my energy. I must try to pierce the darkness.
Minutes passed. I could sense nothing different. And why should I? I had never before been able to see at night, even when my eyes functioned. What made me think I could change that now?
Yet I continued to try. To probe with my mind’s eye. To see beyond the grays, beyond the shadows. To fill in the swaths of darkness, just as Rhia showed me how to fill in the empty places between the stars.
Meanwhile, Trouble’s flight grew more erratic and uneven. His wings labored as the fierce winds buffeted us. The bird hesitated, changed direction, hesitated again.
So very gradually that I myself did not at first notice the shift, I began to sense wispy images through the thickening darkness. A curve in a ridge. A depression that might once have been a lake. A twisting road. An uneven line that could only be a wall of stone.
Then, in the deep distance, I detected something odd. A vague, throbbing glimmer on a far ridge. It seemed both moving and stationary, both light and dark. I was not even certain that it really existed. Firmly, sinking my arms deep into his feathery neck, I turned Trouble’s head toward the spot. The bird resisted at first, then started to shift the angle of his wings. Slowly, he changed direction.
In time I detected a structure of some kind, mammoth in size. It rose from a high hill like a black ghost of the night. I thought I could see strange rings of light on its sides, and some sort of pinnacles at its top. As foreboding as Domnu’s lair had felt, this structure felt a hundred times worse. Still, pushing firmly on Trouble’s neck, I guided us closer. By now Trouble not only accepted my steering, but also seemed heartened by it. The wings beat with renewed strength.
I reached farther and farther with my second sight. Now I could see the flat hilltop, scattered with stones, where the strange structure sat. Yet even as the land surrounding it became clearer, the structure itself remained blurred. A low, rumbling sound swelled as we approached, a sound like stone grinding against stone.
At once I understood: The structure was slowly turning on its foundation. We had found the Shrouded Castle.
Biting my lip in concentration, I steered the hawk to fly in a circle around the revolving castle. The blurred outlines immediately sharpened. The pinnacles revealed themselves as towers, the rings of light as torches seen through the spinning windows and archways. Every so often, within the torch-lit rooms, I glimpsed soldiers wearing the same pointed helmets as the warrior goblins.
I focused my vision on one lower window where no soldiers seemed to be present. Then I guided Trouble into a dive. We aimed straight at the window. The battlements, the towers, the archways drew near. Suddenly, I realized that we were flying too slow, dropping too far. We were going to hit the wall! Across my mind flashed the terrifying dream I had experienced at sea.
I pulled with all my might, forcing the hawk to veer sharply upward. Shim, clasped in the talons, screamed. We whizzed past the battlements, barely above the stones. In another split second, we would have crashed.
Refocusing, I brought Trouble around again. This time, as we circled the castle, I tried to gauge our relative speeds more closely. Yet I faltered. The truth was, I had no eyes, no real vision. Did I dare try again, guided only by my second sight?
I sucked in my breath, then urged the hawk into another dive. We shot down toward the same open window as before. Wind tore at me, screaming in my ears.
As the window neared, my stomach tightened like a fist. Even the slightest error would send us smashing into the wall. Our speed accelerated. We could not turn back now.
We tore through the window. In the same instant, I saw a stone column straight ahead. Leaning hard, I caused Trouble to swing left. We brushed past the column, slid across the floor, and slammed into a wall somewhere in the bowels of the Shrouded Castle.
35:
T
HE
S
HROUDED
C
ASTLE
When I regained consciousness, the first thing I noticed was how small Trouble had become. The valiant bird sat on top of my chest, poking at me with one wing and then the other. At once I realized the truth. It was I, not the bird, who had changed size. I had grown large again.
Seeing me wake up, the merlin hopped down to the stone floor. He released a low, quiet whistle, much like a sigh of relief.
A similar sound came from the far corner of the bare, shadowy room, beneath a sputtering torch fixed to the wall with a black iron stand. Shim sat up, looked at Trouble, patted himself from hairy head to hairy toes, blinked, and patted himself again.
The little giant turned to me, his nose cradled by a bright smile. “I is gladly to be big and tall again.”
I raised an eyebrow, but kept myself from smirking. “Yes, we are both big again. Domnu must have worked her magic so that it would wear off if we entered the castle.”
Shim scowled. “How kindly of her.”
“I am grateful to her for that much.” I reached to stroke the hawk’s banded wings. “And more.”
Trouble gave a resolute chirp. The yellow rims of his eyes shone in the torchlight. He scratched his talons on the stone floor, telling me that once again he was ready for battle.
Yet the hawk’s feistiness buoyed my spirits for only an instant. I scanned the rough, imposing stones surrounding us. The walls, floor, and ceiling of this room showed no adornment, no craftsmanship whatsoever. The Shrouded Castle had been built not out of love but out of fear. If there had been any love at all during its construction, it was merely the love of cold stone and sturdy defenses. As a result, unless this room was an exception, the castle would hold no beauty, no wonder. But it would in all likelihood outlast the Dark Hills themselves. I felt sure it would outlast me.