He couldn’t scream because something boneless slithered down his throat and stopped his breathing. Very soon, his heart gave up the battle.
The thing decided to dispose of Jenger. Better if nothing were found. It oozed its way down the few stairs to the tower door, through the outside door, and into the dusk, dragging the carcass behind it. From downwind came the calls of a wolf pack.
Moving swiftly, the thing towed Jenger’s body away among the trees, some little distance from the tower. It found a cliff, a straight drop onto a little plateau, a difficult climb for a man, not too difficult for a wolf, a badger, for tiny scavengers, for vultures, crows, mice. The thing paused to chop the legs and arms into pieces with its strong beak, to crush the skull into shards with a rock held firmly in its tentacles, to rip the rib cage, spine, and pelvis into fragments and then let the remnants fall. The thing stayed where it was for a long moment, as though thinking, before emitting a cloud of fragrance or stink or mere aroma, depending upon what might attract the sensors downwind, four legged, two legged, no legged at all. The cloud dissipated, moving away on the wind toward the place where wolves had howled.
The thing returned to the tower. There was quite a bit of blood on the floor, door frame, and door itself, some on the wall, the steps, the tower floor. The stone cistern at the side of the room was fed by a rainspout from the roof. It had rained recently. The cistern was full. The bucket sitting inside the cell was dipped and sloshed across the cell floor, dipped and sloshed across the cell wall, emptied repeatedly over the thing itself, then over the steps, the floor of the tower, the doorstep leading outside, sloshed again and again until all the blood was washed away. The thing retreated. Went away.
In the dawn sky, wings high above located the tower and plunged toward it. Wings became fur. The fisher found Xulai sitting in the room at the top of the stairs, her arms on the table, her head on her arms, so deeply asleep she could not be wakened. A nearby plate held crumbs of bread, a bit of cheese. The cupboard the food had come from stood open in the corner. A half-empty bottle of cider stood beside an empty mug. The fisher left her and slithered through a quick reconnoiter of the entire tower and the area around it. Xulai upstairs, one horse in the stable, and several cages of pigeons in the tower were the only living things around. Fisher became winged again. From the sky he could see the man and the horse who had traveled all night to get here. Fisher, winged, cried out and dropped once more, landing on the man’s shoulder.
When Abasio arrived, Xulai was still as Fisher had found her. Abasio put his arms around her and pulled her close. She was shivering but still deeply asleep. She had not been injured. There was a blanket on the bed. He looked at it, considered some of the things Precious Wind had recently told him, and rejected using it for anything at all. Instead, he fetched the blanket he had brought with him. He wrapped her in it. He opened the door to the other room widely, its mirrored back banging against the wall. He opened all the cages so the birds who homed here could feed and the birds who homed elsewhere could fly away, propping the outside door open so it couldn’t close on them. The biggest cage bore the hunched shape of a perched vulture’s wings. Vulture Tower. One cage had the house sign on it, obviously the Old Dark House. Those were the two new signs Xulai had seen at the abbey. He left the room, shutting the door behind him without seeing or being seen by the mirror on its other side.
Blue was waiting with the other horse. Abasio would not stay a moment longer than necessary, for Xulai’s captor might have summoned others or might himself return. There might have been another horse. He might merely have gone a short distance away by foot. They left the tower and went back the way they had come, Xulai cradled in Abasio’s arms on Jenger’s horse, Blue following, almost sleepwalking. They had to circle widely not to be seen by the abbey watchmen on the walls, but by late evening, Abasio had hidden all of them in or near the wagon, where a small, virtually smokeless fire in the little clay stove made it warm and comfortable. There was room between the wagon and the back wall of the old, wrecked house for the two horses to stand or lie at ease. Abasio had spread straw in the space, and the little stove warmed this temporary stable as well.
He looked Xulai over carefully while she slept, his touch seeming to be of no concern to her. She was not injured anywhere except for a chafing of her wrists from the shackles he had seen in the cell, shackles still closed, locked. She was
