out. It stood guard before a door. She wondered where the door led and pressed her ear against it, discerning nothing. Then she hurried after Griezell.
In time they came to a second door, small and arched. With the toad's yellow eyes upon her, Marguerite lifted the stiff tatch and put her shoulder against the wood. Reluctantly, it gave way, opening into another passage. This soon led to yet another door, which opened onto another stair in the labyrinth, leading down still farther. Before she descended, Marguerite mentally counted the landmarks they had passed. She hoped no one had heard her progress. It dawned on her that a danger lay in wandering too far, where no one could hear her cries if she were injured and in need of help. Still, she went down. .
She felt as if she were descending into the depths of the Abyss itself. From the distance came the sound of water, churning and lapping: the Styx, perhaps, she wondered. The air grew more stale. It seemed to push and pull at her body in long, pestilent drafts, as if the castle were slowly breathing.
At last the stair ended, intersecting a passage with rough-hewn walls that extended both left and right. Marguerite lifted her candle in each direction. The passage was short, ending with an ironbound door at either end. GriezeHbub was nowhere in sight. She paused, listening for the toad's familiar hiss, the gruesome rasp. Nothing. Griezell had vanished.
Marguerite considered turning back, then laughed at herself. It was not as if the toad were a comforting companion or a capable bodyguard. What difference did it make if Griezell had gone? No doubt the creature was seeking a meal. And here in the depths, Marguerite could seek something else-something that would offer clues to Donskoy's history, or to that of his dead wife: the castle crypts.
She turned right and ventured through the first door. The chamber beyond smelled of copper and mildew.
She lifted her candle, startling a rat, which squealed and fled to the shelter of a dark corner. The trappings of a torture chamber sprang into being around her. To Marguerite's relief, they seemed in disuse. She recalled her vision of Donskoy's associates after the banquet. If torture had been their final bout of 'entertainment,' it had not occurred here. A large, broken cage dangled from the ceiling in one corner. Immediately below it lay a blackened fire pit, bare of coals. An empty rack stretched nearby. Rusty chains and broken shackles hung from the walls; below them, the floor was dark. In the far corner she spied a stout wooden table. An assortment of implements rested upon it-pocked blades, rusty pliers, bent picks. Among them were two metal collars, each with screws for tightening. Sharp spikes lined the inner surface of the bands. Without thinking, Marguerite put a hand to her throat to protect it.
Beyond the table lay another door. Marguerite approached it cautiously, then pulled hard. It refused to open. Something cold seeped into the bottom of her slipper, and she looked down, discovering a dark ooze bleeding across the threshold. Hastily she piucked up her skirt and stepped away. The muck could be anything-and she had no desire to see it more clearly. She left the torture chamber and went down the hall, past the stairs and through the age-darkened door at the opposite end.
In this room, the walls presented an orderly patchwork of marble panels stacked one atop the other. In the center rose a series of rectangular biers, upon which knights and ladies, carved from stone, lay sleeping. Marguerite had found the crypt.
She held out her candle and let its flickering light illuminate the panels of the tombs. Names slid past in the darkness: Serboinu, Petelengro, Lafuente …. with dates from centuries long past. In the corner was the tiny stone tomb of an infant. The cover lay on the floor, smashed into a hundred pieces, the small cavity that it had once covered now empty of anything save spiders and dust.
Marguerite moved slowly down the wall, shining her candle upon the name of each occupant. There were many similar surnames, though her husband's was not among them. This did not surprise her greatly; Lord Donskoy had acquired the keep, and his ancestors rested elsewhere. Still, she hoped to come across at least one that bore his surname, one that would list the given name of his first wife-no one in the castle spoke it in Marguerite's hearing, as though merely saying it were enough to earn the lord's wrath. Perhaps, if she were fortunate, the crypt might even have an epitaph that suggested the nature of the woman's tragic death.
Marguerite was nearing the end of the wall when the crypt of 'Lord Vtadimir Vatrashki' caught her eye.
Cold is this Bed which I Do yet Looe, For 'tis not as Cold as the Ones Above.
She furrowed her brow and moved on.
The next crypt read, 'Valeska Donskoy. Home Forever.' Marguerite's flesh went chill. In such a dank and dark place, the epitaph read more like a pronouncement of punishment than a lament of grief or love, and she found herself wondering how carefully Donskoy had considered the words before having them struck onto his wife's tomb. There was nothing else, not even the customary dates of birth and death, as though anyone laying eyes on the crypt was expected to know the particulars of Valeska's life.
Marguerite stood before the sepulcher for many moments, holding her candle close to the cover, as though she might learn more of her predecessor by simply staring at the name. After a time, the darkness of the tomb began to close in around her, a crushing presence-and she realized that the vault was not as silent as it should have been.
As in the torture chamber she had visited earlier, this room had another door in the back wall. From behind this barrier, so muffled and soft that Marguerite could not even hear it if she breathed too loudly, came a gentle purl of water. Curious as to the cause of the sound, she went to the door and pulled it open.
The space beyond seemed a part of the land itself, a cavern with rough walls of basalt. Only the smooth stone steps leading down from the door had been carved by man. Below, a small black stream snaked lazily across the floor, its surface slowly churning at each broad turn. Marguerite descended. From somewhere Far above came a soft wind, moaning down from a deep recess in the jagged ceiling. She remembered the pit that Ekhart had warned her about inside the castle's main entrance, and his warning about the demise of «impatient» invaders. Perhaps this was the bottom.
Marguerite reached the foot of the stairs and followed a path of sloping stone along the edge of the dark water. The stream seemed to end at the wall ahead, though she could tell by the swirling currents that it simply sank beneath the rock and continued to flow. She turned to retrace her steps, and saw a shape floating toward her, bobbing in the water. A log, perhaps. She held forth the light.
Then she screamed.
It was a woman's body, lying face down in the water. Marguerite regained her composure, letting a faint hiss escape her lips. She stepped closer to observe the corpse. Stop quivering, she admonished herself. The dead can cause no harm. Unbidden, her vampiric suitor from Azalin's kargat came to mind, and she added aloud, 'Those who are truly dead, at any rate.'
The corpse's long black hair swirled around her head like a nest of shining eels, The dark strands contrasted starkly with the woman's thin white blouse, which clung to her swarthy flesh in shreds, held in place by a tight purple corset. The cadaver's arms, cloaked in billowing sleeves, were spread wide like the wings of an angel. A delicate web of chains and coins defined her narrow waist, from which red and green silks swirled about her like scarves. The livid feet were bare, the ankles circled in gold.
A Vistana, thought Marguerite. But how did her body get here?
She looked again at the stream's slow currents. Of course. This was an underground river, or at least its branch. The gypsy must have begun her journey upstream. Perhaps she had even come from another land, eventually drifting to this natural tomb. How ironic that the nomad's final journey had occurred after death.
Marguerite thought briefly about what she could do. Alert someone, and let them know of her own wanderings? Certainly not. Attend to the body alone? Equally distasteful. And even if she had the fortitude to drag a corpse out of the water and bury it herself, the Vistani had their own customs. A «proper» funeral meant something else to them entirely.
The water gurgled, and the body slowly began to roll over. Marguerite watched with lurid fascination. It must be the release of internal gases, she thought. She had read of that once. Still, she took a few steps back.
When the gypsy's body rolled onto its back, Marguerite's mouth dropped open. She had steeled herself for the worst-a bloated face, a bobbing eye loosely tethered to its socket, a long, pale worm wriggling free of an orifice. After all, death held no vanity. But the Vistana remained beautiful, extraordinarily preserved. Indeed, she looked as though she were sleeping upon a black, watery bed. The corpse's soft bosom rose and fell with the swells of water, and her lips seemed full and ripe. The eyes began to move slowly beneath the woman's long-lashed lids, like a dreamer's, Marguerite pressed forward with her candle. It must be a trick of the light. Without warning, the
