standing on the floor and not dangling darkness only knew where.
I don’t know if it was magic or some other kind of secret, but it was as if the walls, the floor, and the ceiling didn’t exist anymore. I had the impression that I was somewhere up in the night sky.
There were stars twinkling all around me. Thousands and thousands of bright stars. An enchanting fairy-tale spectacle. The stars were on the walls, on the floor, and on the ceiling, and the pale circle of a moon was shining steadily in the center of the hall. The purple moon by the name of Selena. And if Selena was here, then the Rainbow Horn couldn’t be far away.
As I walked toward the moon, my heart was pounding hollowly. I’d almost done it! Done what I didn’t believe I could do until today!
The pure, deep, melancholy call spread out across the stars. Somewhere up there above me, the wind was blowing in Grok’s grave, and the Rainbow Horn was echoing its eternal call.
The sound sent shivers running up and down my spine. It was calling. The melancholy song of the wind and the Horn cut me to the quick.
But I never reached Selena. A blinding bolt of lightning struck the floor under my feet and I jumped aside and squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to recover my vision after the bright flash.
There was a smell of thunder and magic in the air.
When I was able to see again, I saw Lafresa in the starry sky on the other side of Selena. She wasn’t trying to attack me again, just waiting until I recovered my wits.
Even now she could have been at a ball somewhere, and not in the heart of the Palaces of Bone. At least, the young woman didn’t look at all like someone who had spent two whole weeks in the catacombs. Her traveling clothes were perfectly clean and not even crumpled, she still had the silver earrings in the form of spiders and a broad-bladed dagger on her belt. Lady Iena hadn’t changed at all since the first time I’d seen her at Balistan Pargaid’s reception.
Average height, light brown hair gathered into a short ponytail, with the purple light of the moon playing on her broad cheekbones. Her blue eyes were no longer thoughtful, but wary, she was watching every gesture I made, every movement. There was a small crimson sphere glittering on her open palm. I knew what it was, and it cost me a great effort to tear my eyes away from it and look Lafresa in the eyes again.
“Lady Iena.”
“I’m glad to see you remember me, thief.”
Her plump lips twisted into a wry smile. The woman’s voice was in sharp contrast with her appearance. It was tired, very tired.
“You are planning to live to a ripe old age, I suppose,” she asked out of the blue.
“I was certainly thinking of it.”
“Then I advise you to move away from Selena and not get in my way, otherwise I shall have to stop you.”
“I thought your Master had told you not to touch me.”
“If you don’t get under my feet. You don’t want to end up feeding the worms, do you?”
“But the Messenger gave me some hope of being immortal.”
I was just playing for time.
“All who belong to the houses are immortal. Except, that is, in the houses themselves. This hall is an antechamber to the House of Pain and you and I are both mortal here. So step aside, thief!”
“As you say, Lady Iena.”
I’d heard everything I needed to hear, so I started slowly moving toward the wall. I’m not stupid enough to fight with one of the most powerful sorceresses alive.
She watched every movement I made. And I prayed to Sagot that everything would work out and Lady Iena wasn’t planning to fling a ball of crimson fire at me against the wishes of the Master.
Lafresa waited until I had my back against the wall, and only then started moving toward Selena. She still seemed to be wary of the Dancer in the Shadows. (That’s just me flattering myself.) Just before she reached the purple moon she hesitated for a moment, and then she stepped onto Selena. Lady Iena was immediately enfolded in a gentle velvety glow. And then, surrounded by the light of the moon, she began slowly rising off the floor toward the stars.
She laughed; her exultant, sincere, childish laughter wound around the stars, and they replied to Lafresa as they swirled around the violet radiance in a merry dance. I must admit it was all very beautiful.
Lady Iena had completely forgotten about me, but I didn’t move from the spot. I watched her rise up to the stars and waited. Of course, I would have liked to say that she laughed in my face in farewell or said something like “Now the Rainbow Horn is mine!”—but nothing of the kind happened.
The stars and the column of light growing straight up out of Selena carried Lady Iena to the Rainbow Horn, which was calling to her:
Then what I was waiting for happened.
Selena’s color turned from purple to black and her light died. The stars dancing with Lafresa flashed into crimson streaks and started falling from the sky, leaving sparkling trails behind them, but not one reached the floor, they all melted away in the air. With no light to support her, the Master’s servant fell, without making a sound, into the very center of the moon.
A fall from a height of darkness only knows how many yards is always fatal, and in this case it was fatal in a double sense. Death in one of the Great Houses is final even for those who used to be immortal and have been reborn in the House of Love.
Lafresa herself had told me where we were and, remembering Sagot’s warning not to stand on Selena, I felt no compunction about letting her try out one of the traps of the Palaces of Bone. The gods be praised, everything had gone well. The gold piece paid for the old beggar’s advice had been well spent. If that scrounger who answered to the name of Sagot hadn’t warned me not to step on Selena, there was no telling how things would have ended.
I watched as a dark patch of blood spread out under the body that was twisted and broken by the fall. Until the very last moment I still hadn’t believed that I could outwit the woman who had once been called Lia.
I looked up at the ceiling, trying to spot where the Horn was lying but, of course, I couldn’t see anything. It was too high.
While I was vainly gazing upward, Lafresa’s body started slowly sinking into Selena, as if it wasn’t a firm floor, but some kind of sticky slime or mud. A few seconds later Lady Iena, who had caused our group so much trouble, disappeared forever into the dark moon, and a moment after that Selena turned purple again, and thousands of stars and constellations sprang to life in the “sky.” It was just as if nothing had happened.
Something glinted brightly in the center of Selena. I screwed up my eyes, trying to make out what it was, but unfortunately I couldn’t. After Lady Iena’s death I didn’t feel too keen to approach that dangerous spot, but on the reasonable assumption that I wasn’t in any danger until I actually stood on the magical moon, I walked right up to it—and there was the Key lying in the middle. Either the magic of the dwarves and the Kronk-a-Mor were inimical to the magic used to create this hall, or I was simply lucky, but the artifact was there, I could simply reach out and take it. At least now Egrassa wouldn’t wring my neck for losing the elfin relic. I hung the Key round my neck, since Lafresa hadn’t taken it off the chain.
It was time to be going. There had to be another way up. At least, that was what Sagot had said, and he had advised me to use my legs. I just had to find the path.
I strode across the starry sky, looking for a stairway leading upward.
“I hear you, I hear you,” I muttered, walking along the wall.
I couldn’t really call
