Marguerite ripped the reins free of the twisted branch and scrambled onto the back of her mare like a frantic monkey, then assaulted its sides with her heels. The horse jerked its head and kicked savagely, attempting to throw off the demoness that clung to it. But Marguerite stuck fast, so the mare gave in to her demand and sprang down the boulder-strewn road. When the horse stumbled on a jutting stone, Marguerite realized her feet were sti!I flailing. She reached forward and patted the mare's neck, murmuring nervous apologies and reassurances. Lightning took the rein and chose her own pace down the rest of the steep slope.
Over the crest behind them, the hounds continued to bellow. Marguerite could hear their masters shout-;ngr catling the dogs together in some semblance of order. In her mind's eye, she saw Donskoy scanning the ridge with his coid leaden gaze, saw him questioning his associates as to what or who they had seen. She imagined a gray pall spreading over his face as he came to realize it had been his own wife, supposedly snug in her plush prison at the keep, spying on them in the darkness, observing all that had occurred. And what would he do then? she wondered. What would her punishment be? For in Donskoy's domain, she had learned, the punishments could be harsh indeed. If Zosia had convinced him she was with child, she might escape his wrath. But only until he knew the truth, only until he realized he had been tricked. Then his anger would flare twice as hot as before.
If only the potion had worked, she thought It might work yet-she could sense it-but she was running out of time. Assuming, of course, she had not run out already.
Over the crest, the hounds bayed. They were eager for the hunt, but she could hear the shouts of their masters, commanding them to wait until everyone was assembled and the wagon was loaded. Marguerite thought of the black crate and its cargo. She wondered if this was the way a barren wife might find herself set aside: clubbed into senselessness, stripped bare of ail possessions and securely crated, then carted away to Jacqueline Montarri's manor, or delivered to another fiendish collector, ferried to some obscure pit of torment in a long black box.
The road began to level; she had cleared the steepest part of the ridge. She whipped the reins hard over Lightning's neck and spurred the horse into a gallop. The mare could smell her rider's terror; like a sickness it spread through the beast's flared nostrils and into her lungs, then through her blood to her quivering flanks. For the first time the name rang true; Lightning opened her gait into a thundering gallop, stretching her knobby white legs as if the hounds of hell were on her tail. The horse could not long maintain its speed, but Marguerite clung to Lightning's neck, her hands tangled in the coarse white mane, whispering hoarsely for the mare to go faster still, oblivious to all common sense.
Soon the fork lay ahead. Lightning slowed, then began to veer left toward the keep-the most familiar path. Marguerite dragged hard on the bit, struggling to steer the horse to the right. The castle was the only sanctuary she knew, yet it was the last place she wanted to go. To her relief, the mare curved right and sped into the darkness, along the road that had brought Marguerite from Darkon. From home. Some part of her knew this home no longer existed as she remembered it, but she shoved that thought aside. Neither reason nor logic could catch hold among her tumbling, panicked thoughts. She was heading home to Darkon. And if not to Darkon, then away. Anywhere but back to Donskoy's keep.
Clouds of mist drifted across the wagon track like huge, rolling ghosts. She rode into their midst. One of the clouds struck her like an icy wave breaking upon the shore, leaving her shivering and wet Marguerite heard a scream and realized it was the horse, neighing in protest-or fear. She slowed the pace, but continued on. The clouds multiplied and huddled closer, growing large; soon they loomed all around like great white, buffeting wings. Lightning stopped in her tracks.
Marguerite clucked her tongue and gently squeezed her mount's flanks with her thighs. The horse reared, and Marguerite slid back onto its rump, fully out of the saddle. Her hands gripped the stiff pommel in desperation until the horse dropped back onto its forelegs. Through some miracle she remained seated. She dragged herself back into place and fumbled for the reins, then felt for the stirrups with her clumsy, flailing feet. When she had recovered, the white fog surrounded them completely, blotting out the landscape, concealing the road beneath Lightning's hooves. The horse's white knees seemed to melt directly into the mist. Marguerite became aware that a quiet had settled over the wood. She heard only her own breath, mingled with the heavy breathing of the horse, echoing strangely, The mare's sides heaved under her legs tike a bellows.
Marguerite gently urged the horse forward. Lightning stepped backward instead and began to turn, slowly spinning. Marguerite pulled back on the reins to signal a halt, but it was to no avail; the horse continued to whirl through the white mists like a leaf caught in an eddy, until Marguerite became disoriented, losing all sense of direction. A white dream had ensnared her. Something moaned in the distance, muffled and malevolent. Long white shapes stretched and pulled through the air around her. Something brushed against her face. Marguerite laid herself flat on Lightning's neck, clinging desperately, afraid to lose her on!y anchor to the things she knew. The fog slipped over and around them like liquid-as if it were a milk sea and she and the mount were suspended deep beneath its waves, drowning as they spun helplessly toward the bottom.
And then the fog started to clear. The horse stood rigid, the haze draining away a)3 around, departing with a hushed hissing. The road became visible again, dark and damp below Lightning's hooves. The black feathered walls of Donskoy's forest loomed up on either side. Tendrils of mist swirled through the branches like retreating specters. The horse pawed the dirt nervously, testing for support. Like its rider, the animal sensed that something unnatural had occurred. Marguerite urged her mount forward-hoping that forward was still the direction she desired.
They rounded a bend, and the road slipped out from the forest, By some cruel trick, or an even darker magic of the mists, they now stood miles from the point where Lightning had begun to spin. On either side of the road spread a fetid marsh dotted with blood-red brambles-the same marsh that lay halfway between the keep and the fork. Just a few miles ahead stood Donskoy's castle. And directly behind her, bellowing in the distance, came the hounds. It seemed as if space had folded in on itself, creating a siimy chute that had carried Marguerite and her horse in the opposite direction from that in which they had meant to go.
The mare lurched forward, then stopped and took three steps back. Confused and panicked, Lightning seemed oblivious to any command issued by Marguerite's clenching thighs and urgent hands. A dark shadow, about as tall as a man but much broader, slithered across the road ahead. Lightning reared, almost toppling over backward. The mare's head twisted backward in the air, and for an instant the horse and Marguerite exchanged panicked glances, both with mouths agape, Lightning's single visible eye now wide and rimmed with white. Already half-unseated, Marguerite found herself flying through the air. She landed on a wet cushion of grass in the marsh beside the road. Her mount kicked once, then thundered down the road toward the keep.
Marguerite stood slowly, wincing at the sharp pain in her right shoulder. She was mired to mid-calf. Her thoughts raced, and she struggled to quiet them. Perhaps Donskoy will not be angry, she thought. Perhaps she could still reach the keep before him, and then Yelena and Zosia would help cover for her as they had done before, help make excuses, claim she had never left
'Perhaps the fall has knocked you senseless,' she muttered derisively. On foot, she could never out-race Donskoy and his men. It seemed that two choices lay before her. She could stagger back to the castle, sodden and bedraggled, to face her husband and his associates. The prospect was as humiliating as it was horrific. Or she could flee into the woods-and then what? She couldn't hide forever, and escaping her husband's domain posed a formidable challenge. Lord Donskoy had told her the mists held him captive on his land, and it was now painfully clear that she was a prisoner here as well-how else could she have set out for Darkon only to find herself nearer to the very keep she was fleeing?
The Vistani could master the fog. She had to find Ramus.
Marguerite turned and waded Into the marsh. The hounds might not track her over the water, she reasoned. Later, she could veer into the woods and look for the gypsy. Ramus would help her; he had helped her twice before. Mounds of pale grass dotted the marsh, pushing up from the muck like heads cloaked in long, stringy hair. After struggling through the water for what seemed an eternity, Marguerite climbed onto a mound and leapt from one to the next. It was faster than wading. Now and again the soft ground pitched her back into the mire, but she continued on until she heard the hounds whining on the road behind. She stopped short, then scrambled behind a clump of bare brambles and turned to face her pursuers.
On the far side of the marsh, half-a-dozen lanterns hovered motionless. For a moment, the dogs milled about the edge of the marsh. But then the lanterns began to move onf and Marguerite saw the dark shapes of several riders galloping up the road, back toward the keep.
She veered left, making toward a black wall of pines on the bank of the marsh. Brackish water had seeped
