Her fingers closed on the awl in her pocket. She had taken it from the shoemaker’s stall just as he had been closing his booth for the night. Just before suppertime the castle yard bustled and echoed in a confusion of men shouting, wagon wheels grinding on the stones, horses clopping toward the stables, women screeching for their children. The shoemaker, dressed all in shiny leather like a cricket, had been eager to get home to his new wife. He wouldn’t look for the awl until morning, and by then, Xulai would have pushed it back through a hole in the shutter. If she ever got back to the castle. If she could find the right stone, one triangular stone among a great many stones that looked more or less triangular.
“Oh where?” she whispered. “Where?”
“Think!” said the voice of the wagon driver, as though from beside her ear. “Think!”
She thought, Stone, and there it was: one that glowed and trembled, almost calling her by name! Xulai inserted the awl at one edge and pried it up. The cavity below held a small wooden box. She thrust it into her pocket, at the same instant hearing voices! People! At least two of them on the path and coming quickly toward the temple.
She replaced the stone and quickly scuffed dirt into the cracks around it, scattered a few pine needles over it, and moved away from the altar. She could not go back the way she had come. She had been told not to leave the path. There was no path! The only shelter was among the shadows she had been so frightened of . . .
The voices came closer. She tried not to breathe, suddenly realizing the awl was not in her hand, not in her pocket. Then, suddenly, an arm was around her, a voice in her ear.
“Shh. Here’s your awl. Slip under my cloak. Be still.”
Abasio! She scrambled against him, burrowing into the darkness of his cloak, letting him cover her like a cloud as he crouched, then lay in the darkness between the trees, among the leaves, ferns before their faces, her body between his side and his cloak, his arm holding her gently there, invisible. She sighed, drawing closer to him, feeling his warmth.
“What was that?” demanded a high, imperious voice.
“Some beastie.” This was a deeper voice, smooth and oily, like the slosh of pig slop in the bucket. “That’s what woods are full of, lovely lady. Lots of little beastie creatures hunting their dinner.”
Xulai felt a dark-sleeved arm cover her face, felt Abasio’s head close beside hers, his slitted eyes peering at the newcomers from a face he had painted dark with mud. Something moved on her hand. She opened one eye to see two tiny black eyes, a wriggly nose, two fragile ears like new leaves, a striped back beneath a curved tail: a chipmunklet, scarcely bigger than her thumb. It sat on the edge of her sleeve and peered intently at the noisy intruders beyond the temple.
“So, where is this night wanderer?” the high voice queried, a voice of ice and knives and shattered glass. “Where is she, Jenger?”
The man answered soothingly, “Duchess, lovely one, I think your informant is mistaken. There’s no reason for children to come out here at night. Orphaned children wander during wars or famines, of course, but there’s no war or famine at Woldsgard. As we have been told”—he chuckled, a thick, glutinous sound that was not really one of amusement—“Justinian, Duke of Wold, houses and cares for his people well. There are none without a roof over their heads and a hearth to warm themselves by.”
The woman sneered. “So the duke is a fool, wasting his substance on nobodies. Well, he should be more careful about the people he puts beneath his roof! One of them is mine, and she tells me she has seen a child come out of the castle at night and enter the woods.”
“How old is this roaming child supposed to be?”
“I don’t know,” the woman answered angrily. “That’s what I’d like to find out. My spy looks down from a great height. She says it’s a child, could be any age at all. Perhaps a ward or by-blow of the duke’s?”
“And you care about this for some reason?”
“My own reason, Jenger. If she’s only a toddler, I care little. She’d be a pawn at best. But I would care greatly if she were a game piece held in reserve, someone much older than that.”
Xulai trembled, the words echoing in her ears. Much older than that . . . I would care greatly. The couple approached, climbing the stairs to the altar.
“How strange,” said the man. “Look at the patterns carved here . . .”
As he spoke, the altar stones began to glow, faintly, like coals kept from a long-spent fire.
The woman growled, “Dolt! Fool! Pull your eyes away and keep them so. This is a shrine of Varga-Grag, hag goddess of all earthly desolations. You have no business being here, looking at it.” She gave a croaking rasp of barely suppressed laughter. “For that matter, considering my allegiances, neither have I. Neither my mother, the queen, nor I would be welcome.”
The man laughed, unembarrassed. Neither of the intruders seemed to notice how the glow from the stones brightened as they turned away and walked around the altar to stand behind it, staring directly toward Xulai. “Your pardon, ma’am. Our being in this particular place is the result of following a path, but . . . this is where all paths end.”
Xulai almost stopped breathing. She could feel the speaker, feel his presence oozing toward her as he peered into the darkness. The chipmunk had crept beneath her curled hand and was looking out between her fingers at the man, a dark silhouette against the bloody glow from the temple stones, brighter now. Xulai’s companion closed his arm about her, only a bit, just enough to reassure her. Something hard lay along his side, and she realized he wore a sword. He was
