I hit the opposite wall as the water sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the floor. I turned and saw, or half saw, the faint haze of an almost colorless cloud breaking from a bubble in the water.
“Gas!”
We ran.
We ran out and up, back the way we had come. With each step I fought my dread of the tightening of my lungs, a dry, sickening drowning feeling. I stumbled and fell more than once. I held my breath until I could go no farther and had to gasp the thin cavern air, terrified of sensing some scent or flavor that would mean death. I was at Renthrette’s heels all the way, heedlessly bashing my knees against the stone until we burst from the caverns into the afternoon light. I’ve never run so hard or so fast in my life.
We threw ourselves into the dust and drank the air, wheezing and laughing at our escape. She sort of half embraced me in her joy, and I hung on until her desire to break away became unavoidable.
“Just some kind of gas,” she said, amazed.
But there was no “just” about it. I thought of those doubled-up corpses inside; we had survived where the raiders hadn’t. They weren’t invulnerable. They weren’t unbeatable. We
We readied the wagon and made for Adsine, pushing the horses as hard as we dared in the heat. Renthrette was as matey now as she had ever been, and I tried to think of a way to capitalize on her good humor. It wasn’t that she was never civil to me, but actual pleasantness tended to be the kind of thing you record in a ledger, like a lunar eclipse or the birth of a two-headed cow.
“It was a good thing you saw that gas,” she said with a disarming smile as we rolled into the afternoon.
“I heard it first, gurgling down there like the witch’s cauldron in a children’s story.”
“I don’t really know any stories,” she answered. “Once our waiting woman-”
“Hold it! You had servants?”
“A couple,” she replied.
“Tough life,” I muttered.
“One of them was my old wet nurse,” she explained, ignoring me. “She was once caught telling us stories and was replaced. My father said that such fantasies were corrupting nonsense.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I sighed. “For a while back in Cresdon I was held personally responsible for the collapse of morality and religion all over the region. I wish I had been. Maybe you saw some of my plays,” I ventured hopefully.
“I’ve never been in a theatre,” she said.
“Never? You’re joking! Never?”
“Did I miss something?”
“Theatre is where the world makes sense!” I exclaimed. “It’s where we admit the roles we play daily, where we confess our love of intelligence and evil. It’s where. You aren’t listening, are you?”
“What?” she said suddenly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Will. I was trying to remember Nurse’s story.”
“Don’t worry, I’m used to it.”
“It was something about a girl, and a dragon who was so lonely that he wept constantly-”
“And his tears flowed down the mountains and threatened to drown the village,” I said hurriedly. “Yes, I know it. But it was a boy, not a girl.”
“In mine it was a girl,” she said.
“Whatever.”
She paused for a long, thoughtful moment and then, with what I took to be courage, looked at me and said, “I don’t remember how it ended. The story, I mean.”
It was a request, of sorts.
“Well, as you’d expect, I suppose,” I said. “The little girl has to save the village, so she goes up into the mountains and petitions the dragon to stop crying. At first the dragon is angry and he weeps tears of rage so that the waters rise to the windowsills of the houses below and the villagers have to go upstairs. Then the little girl tells him about her family and how they are in danger, and the dragon cries tears of sadness so that the waters rise to the door lintels and the villagers have to climb onto their roofs. Then the little girl, realizing that the dragon is merely lonely, offers to befriend it, and the tears stop. The waters subside and they all live happily ever after. The end. Not much of a story really.”
“I like it,” she said without taking her eyes from the road ahead.
“I suppose it has a certain charm,” I confessed, watching her.
She was staring ahead so as not to show me her face but I caught her rubbing her eyes before she turned and smiled at me. “Thank you,” she said.
In three hours Adsine lay below us, its keep on the hill by the river. To the east were the stables, which were Shale’s last economic asset. Then there were woods, and the Wardsfall, which snaked gradually south and east to Greycoast. As soon as we got there I would have to go back to playing ambassador and soldier to the count and his entourage. Part of me would much rather stay on the wagon with Renthrette. I could do without the raider corpses and running through dark tunnels with gas clouds at our heels, but the trip had been pleasant in some ways. I wasn’t sure what it was about her I liked, if “liked” was the word, and she sometimes got right on my nerves, but.
There isn’t an easy end to that sentence, is there?
Renthrette smiled and I guessed she sensed my mixed feelings about reaching Adsine. As the sun sank, red and clear, we crossed the bridge and gave our names to the guard at the gate of the keep.
For a brief, unreadable moment, Renthrette slipped her arm about me and squeezed me to her side. I jumped slightly, taken by surprise. She smiled, and murmured, “Cheer up, Will.”
I gave her a blank look and waited for the punch line. Then the guard returned and, as he led the horses by the bridle, she released me. The moment, Whatever it had been, evaporated.
SCENE XLIX Adsine Again
I got my old room back. There was my bath and my bed as before, and I found myself wondering what had happened to the dreams of wealth and glory I had contemplated on my first night here. Renthrette was next door. Chancellor Dathel, still in his black robes of office, left us with instructions to join the count for dinner in an hour. Everything was as it had been, the downstairs bustling with bored infantry and cavalrymen with nothing to do but exercise, tend their equally bored horses in the courtyard stables, and flirt with the maids. It was reassuring to know that their castle duties gave most of them solid alibis for the major raider attacks. It made me feel safer.
I had a bath, dressed slowly, and wandered round the second floor. Over by the south wall I came upon a tiny library, not much larger than my bedroom. To keep my mind off Renthrette I browsed some collections of old plays, many of which I already knew. It struck me that I hadn’t seen a single theatre in any of the three lands. It was a shame; these people could use one. I pulled out a volume of local folktales and flicked through it for ten minutes or so, wondering if I could learn more about the spectral army from two and half centuries ago, while trying to convince myself that dinner would be an improvement on last time.
It wasn’t. If anything, it was worse. The continued activities of the raiders were having telling effects on Shale. Even Arlest, as he told us apologetically, could not afford to pay what his neighbor countries were demanding for basic foodstuffs. The count was, as before, subdued and strained, wearing a plain robe belted with rope and a simple copper circlet on his head. Renthrette smiled at him encouragingly, but he looked sad and tired. Something in his wife’s eyes suggested a concern for his health. He was getting slimmer all the time, as if he was an image of the land he governed.
Renthrette related our escape in the caverns and his eyes filled with concern, so that I nearly told her to drop
