rippled like the surface of a pool. It shifted, darkened into a likeness of a woman sitting at a shoreline, lashed by punishing wind and threatened by low clouds. The woman raised her head and Kiska saw Agayla such as she had never known her: exhausted, haggard, her face drawn and pale, her hair wind-whipped and soaked. Agayla looked up, confused then alarmed. ‘Not here, child,’ she said, hoarse, distracted.
Kiska lunged forward. ‘Agayla!’ But the image rippled away and instead Corinn re-emerged. The look she gave Kiska made her feel as if she’d sprouted wings. The filigree of tattooing at her brow seemed to pulse.
‘What in the name of the Elder Ones do you think you’re doing?’
Kiska stammered, ‘I thought I saw someone. Someone I know. She’s in trouble. I have to go to her!’
Corinn muttered, gestured curtly. All hints of her earlier mischievous smiles had gone. ‘I don’t sense a thing. Stay with me. This is no place for games.’
Stung, Kiska opened her mouth to explain, but the woman started off without waiting. Kiska hurried after, struggling to stay close.
‘We must leave before our goal,’ Corinn said over her shoulder. ‘Something blocks the way — do you see it?’
Kiska’s vision went no further than the image of herself just beyond Corinn. It was as if she walked towards herself, though each step brought her no closer. ‘I don’t see anything different from before,’ Kiska said. But Corinn didn’t reply. She had disappeared.
A cry died on Kiska’s lips as the reflective silver of the Warren dulled and thickened to an opaque fog. Her training closed her mouth to still any betraying shout, for she recognized where she now stood. It was her third visit to Shadow Realm.
She stood upon a flat plain of dust and wind-scoured dirt. A sky of pallid lead arched overhead. From a great distance rose a low drawn-out moan, the wind or a hound.
In front of her towered a rock outcropping such as she had never seen before. It resembled a jumbled pile of enormous crystalline blades, black and smudged like frozen smoke. She thought of the stones Agayla possessed in her shop, the clusters of quartz and salt crystals. Smoke-quartz! That’s what it reminded her of! And it was changing. While she watched, individual blades altered, rotated, disappeared or changed translucence. The entire structure seemed undefined and shifting. She could not even be certain of its size. It was beautiful, seeming to speak to her, and she felt that it must hold the solutions to every mystery she had ever wondered about, all the answers to any questions regarding Agayla. All she had to do was enter and she would know how Agayla fared this very moment. Even where Tayschrenn was right now. Any question at all. The fate of her father. Who would be her lover. Kiska took a step towards it.
Something blocked her way. A hand as hard as stone pushed her back. ‘It doesn’t do to stare quite so closely,’ said a breathless voice.
It was the being from the bridge, Edgewalker. Dazed, Kiska blinked, rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. What had happened? Hadn’t something…? She could have sworn something odd had occurred. She shrugged but kept her face averted from the crystal outcropping.
Beyond, the sands gave way to bare mounded granite which descended to a lake of smooth water that reflected the dull sky like a mirror. An immense wall of ice reared on the opposite shore; the glacier that earlier had been nothing more than a distant line on the horizon. Now the ice stretched like a vast plain. Lights played over it such as she had seen in the southern night skies: rainbow banners and curtains that flickered, dancing.
Had she moved, or had the ice? ‘This is Shadow,’ she told the being. It inclined its desiccated head in agreement. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’
‘Yet you do seem most persistent.’
She studied the empty dark sockets where its eyes should have been; had that been a joke? ‘And you can send me back again?’
‘You may say that is my duty.’
‘Before you do — what is it? That thing?’ Kiska gestured to the quartz-like heap of crystals.
‘That is Shadow House. The heart of Shadow, so to speak.’
‘Really? That?’ But it’s-’
‘Alive. Quite so. And very dangerous.’
‘Dangerous? But what of — of those who would claim it?’
It shrugged its thin shoulders. ‘Occupants of the throne come and go.’ It raised a clawed hand to point to the glacier across the lake of melt-water. ‘But that. That is the true danger.’
‘What is it?’
‘It is alien to this realm. It reminds me of the Jaghut, but profoundly alien from them. They, at least, were not so different from you. It is said that long ago the Jaghut inadvertently allowed it into this world when they wrought their ice-magic too strongly’
‘But there is a madman, a murderer, who may be taking the throne. Won’t you do something? He doesn’t belong here either!’
The creature did not turn away from the glacial cliff. ‘True. But this is the more deadly threat. I must remain ready should this break through and reach the House.’
‘Break through?’
‘It is being resisted. But that could change at any moment. Those facing it weaken even as we speak.’
Kiska fairly wailed: ‘But what of Kell — the throne?’
‘I am sorry. That is a minor concern given everything at stake this Conjunction.’
Kiska believed she could hear the dried flesh at its neck creak as the head turned to her. ‘Yes. In the larger picture. I am sorry. Now, you must go.’
‘But wait! I have so many questions. I-’
Opalescent grey closed about Kiska obscuring her vision as surely as smoke. From close by came cries, screams, the clash of arms. She heard a woman shout something — her name?
She hunched, ready for combat, a hand groping at the billowing curtains. ‘Corinn?’
‘Here.’
Kiska spun, could discern nothing but fog. Was she back in Malaz? But where? She circled, peering uselessly.
‘Corinn?’ she whispered, louder. Carefully, she drew the curved fighting knife.
Had that been Corinn? What kind of game was this? ‘Where are you? Show yourself!’
‘Right behind you,’ came a taunt at Kiska’s ear.
She swung: empty vapour churned and curled. Kiska bit down on her panic, clenching her hands so tightly her nails bit into her palms.
Again, the scuff of leather on stone. Behind her now, closer. Not waiting for another mocking whisper Kiska launched herself, arms outstretched. Coarse woven cloth brushed her right hand. She clutched at it, pulling it close.
The cloth was loosely woven, dyed grey. A cultist.
A cold blade bit at Kiska’s shoulder as the assassin’s sleeve brushed her neck. Recognizing the thrust and her opponent’s stance, she reacted automatically. She clinched the arm, smashed her elbow into her assailant’s throat, then thrust at the chest. Her opponent tumbled to the ground.
Kiska threw herself upon the body, clamped a hand over the mouth. She listened. Satisfied they were alone, or at least giving up trying to detect another’s presence, she lowered her face. It was a young woman. Perhaps her blow had broken the spell of disguise, or the fall had done it, but in any case the woman’s face was bared and the hood lay flat upon the cobbled street. A few small bubbles rose and fell on the woman’s lips as she struggled to breathe. Her hair and complexion were light, the cheekbones high and thin — refined. Talian perhaps, rich-looking.
