“Old Dark Man is dead.”
“No.” Hiccup hiccup. “Not dead. I make sure not dead.”
The hiccup sound was almost laughter. In that instant, she heard a sound above and behind her, on the steps. She turned and saw Bear poised there, his face twisted in hatred, a sword in his hand. A half scream came from her throat, cut off by a shout from the machine.
“In corner, quick! I protect, quick!”
Without thinking she darted into the cubicle behind the pillar, bumping the shelves so that their contents rattled, rolled, fell. Her precious things! She grabbed for her possessions as the machine moved. It couldn’t move, but it did move! It thrust itself across the opening, completely blocking it, preventing Bear from coming near her. She had walls all around her, three of stone, one of metal. She heard Bear shout, heard other voices. Tingawan voices! Men’s voices! A grating sound came from the device blocking the cubicle, a creaking, as of old, unoiled hinges.
She knelt to pick up her precious things, brushing aside the fallen capsule, crushing it beneath her knee as she moved to retrieve the lock of her father’s hair. She choked down hysterical laughter. With Jenger spread all over the Dragdown Swamps, all over the heights, she certainly didn’t need that anymore. Strange to see him spread on her map like that, everywhere, a cloud of him! She actually chuckled. A cloud of shit instead of her neat little cloud of . . . death. She turned to her father’s linen shift, brushing it off, folding it carefully. The little portrait, so handsome, so wonderful. She set it carefully on the shelf, the shift and the lock of her father’s hair beside it. Where was his ring? Where? She fell to her knees once more, searching the corners.
Continuous sounds came from beyond the barrier, in the cellar, cries of pain, feet running up the stairs in panicky haste, yells of fear, rage, pain! There were people out there. Bear hadn’t been alone. After a long time, silence fell, absolute. Not a whisper, not a creak, not even the little hum of the watcher. Only a silence that stretched, stretched, went on and on for a long time. The watcher had shoved its huge bulk tight across the cubicle, like a metal wall. Only a thin slit at the top let in the light, the air. No one could get in to hurt her. Of course, she could not get out, but it would let her out when it was safe, she was sure of that. The Old Dark Man had said it would protect. The mechanism itself had said that. She sat down on the floor, leaning her forehead on her knees, moving in discomfort. The ring. Falyrion’s ducal ring. She was sitting on it.
Carefully she wiped the dust from it, replaced it upon its cushion, put it in place upon its shelf. She was astonished at how exhausted she felt. Well, of course, she and the archers had not really slept in three days.
More time went by. Her father, Falyrion, had always said, “Sleep when you can. Eat when you can. You may not be able to do either later on.” She had found this to be true. She took her father’s shift, pillowed her head on it, leaned back against the wall. She could smell his scent, still, after all these years.
Later, new sounds wakened her, the heavy footfalls of someone coming down the stairs and moving about. The watching machine creaked, turned slightly, but remained against the cubicle. She dozed again until the sound of the machine woke her as it rolled away.
She gathered her precious things and clutched them to her breast, struggling to get up and out of the cubby. She was stiff. She hurt. Her stomach hurt. She peered into the gloom. The room was almost unlighted. She could see one body on the steps. Not Bear. Someone else. No sounds, and then a voice she knew.
“Alicia, my dear.”
She turned. She knew that voice. She did not want to hear that voice!
He was there, leaning slightly on the huge machine. It had opened to disclose a place inside it, a kind of cocoon, a padded, man-shaped cocoon, like a coffin . . .
“It seems I had picked a good time to be wakened,” said the Old Dark Man. “Just in time to save my dear daughter.”
She glared at him, lifted her hands. She held Falyrion’s things, her father’s things, in her hands. “I’m not!” she screamed. “I’m not your daughter. I told you! I’m Falyrion’s daughter. He was my father, not you, not you.”
The enormous head turned; the huge jaw dropped enough that the thin lips of that wide, wide mouth could curve into a parody of a smile, like a horizontal slit in a melon, empty, mirthless, horrible. He did not laugh. She had never heard him laugh. His brows were like a cliff, his nose a promontory. He was monumental, ashy gray, old as time. His voice was the sound of rusty hinges, creaking doors, lids of rotten coffins.
“Falyrion? Is that what your elder sister told you?”
“I have no elder sister!”
“Mirami!”
“My mother!”
“Oh, well, yes, both your mother and your elder sister. Both my daughter and your mother. You are the tenth or eleventh generation of creatures I have made to serve me and bear the next one in line. My first daughter was your great-great-great-how-many-greats-grandmother, and my next daughter from her was one great less, and so on until your mother, and from her, you, my daughter, will bear me my next daughter, who will be my first daughter’s so-many-greats-I-have-not-recently-counted-them-granddaughter, and on, and on, and on . . .” He made a noise: “Heh, heh, heh.”
Was it meant as a laugh? “I don’t want you for a father,” she screamed, beyond herself, outside herself with rage. “I want him. I want him. She killed him. Your daughter, she killed him. So now she’s dead. I killed her. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t
