a vestige remained. He was no longer Menedrion and the dream was no longer his.
He puffed out his cheeks in self-mockery, and shook his head. It would seem that dreams had the power to irritate and torment as well as frighten, he decided.
And he let it go. If the dream had meant anything then it would reveal itself in due course. If not, then why waste time fretting about it?
He finished fastening his tunic and walked over to the heavy curtains that covered almost half the length of one wall. They were decorated with scenes from the mythology of the founding of Serenstad and were not really to either his or his wife's taste. But they were thick and he was grateful for the warmth they kept in the room during the city's cold winters.
Indeed, as he stepped through the curtains into the wide windowed alcove beyond, the difference in temperature was immediately noticeable and he closed them behind himself quickly to prevent the room becoming chilled.
The alcove overlooked a courtyard lit by a great many bright torches. Despite their smoking efforts, however, they seemed only to emphasize the yellow opacity of the fog and the far side of the courtyard was barely visible.
Arwain leaned forward against a stout timber mullion and took in the sight. Then he looked up above the choked brightness for some indication that this was only some shallow emanation of nature, but neither stars nor moon were to be seen; the fog would be as deep as it was wide. It was as if it wanted to smother the city forever.
Strange thoughts, he mused. Born out of strange dreams, doubtless.
His breath clouded the glass and he reached up idly to wipe it clear. As he did so, a movement caught his eye in the courtyard below; it was a figure.
All Arwain's musings and concerns evaporated immediately and he stepped behind the mullion so that he could observe without himself being seen. It was an unnecessary action in such light but it was an inevitable one for anyone who lived in the palace and it was done before he even thought about it.
Peering intently through the yellow gloom he made out not one, but three figures. They were walking rapidly across the courtyard, but they were not guards, and there was a stealthiness in their behaviour. And at least one of them appeared to be armed.
Arwain's brow furrowed. Something was wrong. There was no curfew, but no one wandered the palace grounds so late without ensuring that one of the guards was with him. He did not wait to see anything further, but stepped back through the curtains and, snatching up his sword and dagger, slipped quietly from the bedroom.
Leaving his personal quarters, he ran silently along a short, dimly lit corridor, then down a wide, curving stairway that brought him to the spacious entrance hall which opened on to the courtyard.
'Be quiet,’ he hissed as he saw the two door guards moving forward to intercept and challenge him.
As ordered, the men remained silent, but their pikes came down ready to destroy the unexpected arrival well before he came within a sword's length if need arose. Only when Arwain moved into the light did they raise them again.
He acknowledged them with a nod but, without pausing, pushed open a nearby door. Of the four men inside the room, two were half dozing in their chairs, and two were sitting at a table playing a board game.
Standing in the doorway, Arwain made no preamble as they began rising hastily to their feet. ‘There are three men in the courtyard, at least one of them armed,’ he said with an unflustered urgency. ‘Two of you stay at this door. Sterne…’ He met the gaze of one of the men at the table, and raised a significant finger. ‘Guard my rooms.’ Then, with a glance at the others, ‘The rest of you follow me.'
He added no injunctions to haste but simply turned and strode across the entrance hall towards the outer door. One of the duty guards opened it for him and, without even breaking step, Arwain stepped out into the torchlit fog.
Sterne, the officer in charge of the guard, allocated the duties with a few silent gestures as he left the room and then ran softly towards the staircase. The others were less ordered in their departure, but Arwain had barely gone ten paces through the gloom before they were running alongside him, pulling on helmets and fastening straps and buckles.
At a corner, Arwain hesitated, momentarily confused by the fog.
'This way,’ he said, almost to himself. And then he was running, with the three guards following anxiously. Briefly, Arwain cast a glance up towards the window of his bedroom. Whatever was happening, it was moving away from him this time, but it reassured him to know that Sterne would be quietly guarding Yanys.
It occurred to him for a moment that perhaps he was being foolish. Perhaps the figures he had seen were no more than lingering figments of his strange dreaming? But he dismissed the thought. He had been awake, and the figures had been real, and armed. And just as they were not apparently moving against him in his isolated wing of the palace, so they were moving into the main body of the palace, and that might bode anything.
Reaching the far side of the courtyard, Arwain peered into the glowing fog for some sign of the three figures, his head craning forward anxiously as though, like a hound, he might catch some elusive scent. But nothing was to be seen.
'Sir.’ One of the guards took his arm. He was pointing towards a small door at the bottom of a short flight of stone steps. It was an entrance to part of the palace's labyrinthine cellars and it should have been bolted from the inside. Now it stood ajar.
Arwain nodded towards a nearby torch rack and then ran down the steps. They were damp and treacherous due to the fog and he slipped as he reached the bottom. Reaching out to recover his balance, he bumped into the door and it swung wide open, striking the wall with an echoing thud.
He cursed to himself. Little chance of a discreet pursuit if they're still nearby, he thought. But no sounds of alarm or sudden haste reached him and, taking a torch from one of the guards, he stepped inside. The guards followed.
The door opened into a cavernous cellar with a low vaulted ceiling supported on rows of squat, square columns. Each was scrolled about with ornate carved patterns and capped with a wide flaring stone, from which peered carvings of strange, watching faces, all of them different.
A vanguard of the fog had preceded them into the cellar, as if searching for its natural home, and a faint yellow haze hovered like a miasma among the barrels and kegs, and anonymous piles of materials too precious to be discarded but for which no other place could be found. Through it the flickering torches cut great swathes of dancing black shadow, bringing the stillness abruptly alive.
Arwain's gaze, however, was drawn almost immediately to the damp footprints which moved down one of the wider aisles. He set off in the same direction.
'Should we sound the alarm, sir?’ one of the guards asked. Arwain shook his head. ‘No. Their coming down here shows that they know the palace and that they're on some ill errand. If we sound the alarm it'll be easier for them to move around in the confusion. We must find them quickly.’ And, his actions following his words, he began to run.
The damp footprints soon disappeared, but not before they had clearly confirmed which aisle their creators had taken and, for a while, the four men ran on as silently as they could past the host of carved, watching faces.
Arwain hesitated as they passed under an arch at the end of the long chamber to find themselves at a junction of four aisles. The head of some kind of demon had been carved on the keystone of the arch and in the torchlight its gaping mouth seemed to laugh silently and malevolently at Arwain's doubt.
'Hood the torches, and be quiet,’ one of the guards whispered urgently.
Blackness and silence closed round the group, then, as the dull glow of the hooded torches began to appear, ‘There.'
Arwain felt rather than saw the pointing arm come past him to draw his gaze to a faint light in the distance.
'Quietly,’ he whispered, fearing that one of the guards might suddenly shout out a challenge. ‘They don't seem to have heard us. Unhood one of the torches a little so that we can see where we're walking.'
Cautiously he drew his sword and started forward, keeping the light ahead only in the side of his vision so that he could still see the floor faintly in front of him.
As he drew nearer he felt his heart begin to pound. So far, the heat of the chase had protected him from
