«This is the spot,» Orpheus said. «They seem to have been waiting for you.»
Rhianon closed her eyes and imagined the couple in their elegant black robes. What would she say to them if she saw them here on the road, waiting for her for some unknown reason? And wouldnt the horses have bucked at the sight of the mysterious strangers? Considering that they were already used to Orpheus, it was unlikely. But Rhianon herself could not get used to the fact that the world around her was becoming unusual. It was no longer the world she knew. It was a whole universe, hidden from human eyes, in which anything was possible.
Rhianon looked at the star in her hand. Neither end of it was so stretched out anymore as to be different from the others. So they really did come. There was nothing around, no palace, no chateau or rotunda, not even a shabby shack. And still the girl got out of the carriage. It was as if the bridge was waiting for her. And she went in its direction, leaving Orpheus to soothe the disgruntled snoring horses.
«Your Highness,» a voice came unexpectedly, and before she had even set foot on the bridge, she saw the very young man from the masquerade in front of her. The dainty black clothes matched his platinum curls. This time he wore no mask and was visibly pale. More pale than a dead man. And at the same time his voice was pleasant and his manners courteous.
He was not blocking her way to the bridge, but he seemed to be the one deciding whether or not she could set foot in that territory.
«No! No!» She noticed another dwarf nimbly gesticulating on the other side of the bridge. He was darting in one place, waving his arms as if he wanted to block the way for them both. «Shes not allowed in here. She belongs to him, not us. Wake up, Clive, hell burn us all if you let her in here.»
The young man reacted in no way to the dwarfs obsessive cries. He stared at Rhianon, and though his face was expressionless, she sensed that he was on her side.
«I have it,» she held out the glittering star to him without knowing why.
«I know,» his bloodless lips parted in a faint smile. «And there are special rules today. You keep your pass. Come along.»
He held out his hand, which Rhianon touched reluctantly. Her skin was white as if it had been dusted with flour or chalk.
«Headless!» The dwarf muttered angrily before she ducked into the shadows.
Maybe she thought he meant it twice, but she didnt. Rhianon tried to see the dwarfs red hat in the darkness, but she could not. The darkness seemed to swallow him up. Orpheus, on the other hand, was not a step behind her now. He stayed close to her train as it slid across the bridge. He stayed just beside her train as it slid across the bridge. She and the young man in black seemed deliberately oblivious to each other.
«I have a right to be here, because I am your personal spirit, and here it is like a shadow,» Orpheus laughing eyes informed her triumphantly, but he himself was trying to keep quiet now. He really did stick close to her as an inaudible and invisible shadow. Except that, unlike the shadow, he was too bright. His red hair and motley attire would have stood out sharply even in a fairground, let alone here.
Rhianon stopped wondering where they were going. She had barely set foot on the bridge when the outlines of towers and bastions appeared in the distance on the other side of it. She could see the silhouette of a somber building, with its beautifully curved parapets and almost tracery of interlocking pediments, colonnades, and covered galleries. It was not even a building, but an entire city. It was an empty city. The dead silence ahead made her uneasy. Could it be that all those towers and bastions, even the basement below them, were completely empty. Or so it seemed. The sheer length of the building ahead made her wary, not to mention the fact that there must have been an immense space beneath the floor. She noticed staircases swiftly descending at times, wide and narrow, grand and spiral, half-covered by some dark living creeper, or simply hanging in the dark space without any visible support. She blinked quickly to get rid of the feeling that it was all a dream. Everything here was dark: the passageways, the carvings on the doors, the ampel plants that seemed to move on their own. Candles flickered on and off in sconces or large floor chandeliers, adding to the sense of blackness. At any rate, they only brought out black objects from the gloom. Rhianon only couldnt tell what materials were used here. What was it, black wood, black stone to upholster the few pieces of furniture?
«Its easy to get used to,» she heard Orpheus insistent voice in her head. «The fiery letters, which appear and disappear on their own when you ask questions, are best seen against such a background.»
Rhianon squinted at him. Of course, his lips werent moving, and he wasnt saying anything out loud, but the words were coming out.
Suddenly the sound of music caught her attention. In one of the opened doors she noticed a harpsichord. And it seemed to be playing by itself. She would have thought it was the wind pressing the keys, but of course there was no wind. Why would there be any wind in such a confined space?
Rhianon imagined a girl in a gorgeous black dress sitting on a pedestal in front of the harpsichord and playing it. And beside her, of course, would be her gentleman, also dressed in black, correcting the sheets of music on the easel. For a moment she thought she saw those two, the same couple from the masquerade, but of course they were no longer masked, and the faces under them were as pale, bloodless, and expressionless as those of her companion. Is that how everyone here becomes? Does the power gained through magic drain all the joy of life from them? Is this the price of knowledge? They say one must sell ones soul to gain the key to forbidden knowledge. And what happens then, will what you buy be worth its price, or do forbidden sciences merely open a gateway to darkness. Rhianon felt out of place here. She didnt like the darkness around her and the rustles that echoed within it.
«It wont always be like this, youll get used to it,» Clive didnt whisper the words to her, but they seemed to sound to her alone, while his fingers gripped her hand harder and harder. He didnt seem to want to let her go, but he already knew that she would soon want to leave.
She remembered the execution and the way the blade cut through a defenseless neck. The magical pendant was powerless to preserve flesh from the fatal blow. Maybe, by stepping in here, she was setting herself up for the same blow. There is a difference between physical strength and the evil energy hidden within these walls. The second is even worse, because it is more insidious and much stronger. Rhianon felt the crushing emptiness with every cell of her body. Maybe Orpheus had been right when hed told her that a stroke of the blade was merely liberating. Here, on the contrary, she felt as if she were shackled. The darkness seemed to try to take her captive and never let her out again. Rhianon struggled to breathe in the stinking air and felt a flame build up in her chest. In a second shed breathe out a trickle of fire into the darkness. She didnt want to burn her companion, but the flame was bursting out. She couldnt hold back any longer.
«Calm,» he turned around just as the air next to her heated up, «theres nothing to defend yourself against, you can live here in peace for centuries without even noticing that theyve passed, because nothing disturbs the silence.
«And so you can live here quietly side by side with the living and the dead?» She asked without knowing why. «And not even know that someone who died a long time ago is now keeping you company?»
«Calm,» he turned around just as the air next to her heated up, «theres nothing to defend yourself against, you can live here in peace for centuries without even noticing that theyve passed, because nothing disturbs the silence.
«And so you can live here quietly side by side with the living and the dead?» She asked without knowing why. «And not even know that someone who died a long time ago is now keeping you company?»
«Yes,» he admitted simply and unashamedly. «It would be one grandiose crypt if it were not for magic, it equals all of us, both the living and the dead, or rather there is neither one nor the other, neither life nor death has no meaning here, because the soul is the same after death, and it hungers for magical knowledge no less than the living. Here we all die and are born to darkness. And some die before that.»
She tried to wrest her hand from his.
«I remember the execution,» she whispered.
Clive stopped abruptly, and looked at her differently, not with the long, hard stare shed received the first time, but with a look of dismay. His unexpressive eyes twisted for a moment, his lips twitched slightly, as if he wanted to say something and couldnt. Rhianon looked closely at him, and for a moment thought she had a glimpse into his soul.
«Youd better leave us,» Orpheus looked as if he were about to come between her and her escort. «You see, she doesnt need a guide. She can learn a great deal more about this place herself than she can in your presence.»
Rhianon was frightened that a furious altercation was about to break out between her two companions. Orpheus looked angry and disheveled, as if hed just had a fight with a bunch of rivals and was ready to get into more. There was a palpable power coming from Clive. But unlike the talkative Orpheus, he was still restrained and wise. Apparently, death adds to wisdom. Rhianon had no doubt that he had survived it, and now saw the world very differently than they did. At any rate, instead of the expected quarrel, only a slight nod of the head followed. Clive let it be known that he accepted the remark and was ready to step into the shadows temporarily.
«You shouldnt be here,» Orpheus clutched at her shoulders as soon as Clive left them, pulling at the lush flounces of the fabric. His ethereal touch was suddenly very tangible. He hurried to lead her somewhere forward through the dark galleries, and seemed ready even to rip her off the ground and carry her in his arms. «You will die here,» he whispered, «and so will I.»
«You think we have somewhere else to go,» she hissed at him. «Perhaps to my castle, where I would be headless and you could sit guarding my corpse or pestering other people. Youd better go and be a companion for someone wholl really need you.»
He didnt even take offense at her.
«Im already too attached to you.»
«Yeah, I can see that,» she grudgingly looked at the way his thin, too-long fingers wrapped around her shoulders.
«I can hardly keep up with you anymore.»
«Thats what parasites do when they suck on some plant. Vines in the garden or mushrooms at the roots of trees, you, like them, just need to live off someone else. On your own, you are nothing. You are zero. You are an empty space. You become more material the closer you get to me. And you think I havent noticed it yet.»
«Chill out! Otherwise your breath will ignite this gallery.»
His remark was sarcastic, but it was the right one. She tried to hold her breath. The tight corset tightening her breasts worked well for that. The fire that had matured inside her never broke free with a gasp. But Rhianon was still staring into the darkness, afraid that it was about to burst into flames.
«To think that youre so golden and delicate, and youre what Id call a fiery beauty.»
She did not react at all to Orpheus remark. Sometimes even he was right. But that truth was of little use. Nothing could be changed. She was what she was and that was why they had come here now.
«Stop dragging me along,» she snapped at him, «I can find my own way around here.»
«Well, please,» Orpheus obediently took a step back from her. «Choose your direction. Youre the only one who can get where you want to go. After all, you were the one invited here, not me. Move at random and try not to inflame everything in the process. Its so dangerous with you.»
He rubbed his hands as if they were burned. He could hardly have been burned by the contact with her shoulders. Rhianon regarded his gestures condescendingly, as if they were a joke. You would have been a fine clown, she wanted to say, but she listened to herself instead of bickering. She wondered if she should just take a random route and let the magic take her where she needed to go.
Rhianon stared down one of the branches of the wide, dark corridor, and long rows of sconces flashed on either side, as if pointing the right way. It was so reminiscent of the Milky Way. Rhianon involuntarily stared at the flickering lights in the darkness.
And then it suddenly seemed to her that she had missed something. There should have been some other rite or ritual, a test of her abilities, an initiation and a meeting, but there was none. The road before her seemed eerily empty.
«Why does no one greet us?» She asked Orpheus quietly.
«You are different and your story is special,» he shrugged nonchalantly, the ringing of the stirring bells in this space seemed ghostly rather than perky. It was so unaccustomed. Rhianon felt the fire inside her. But an icy wind had blown.
«You are allowed to walk around here alone. The others wouldnt be allowed to do that. And you go wherever you want, though there are so many forbidden paths here.»
«I thought the way here was forbidden in itself.»
«But there are rules, too,» he too stared into the darkness expectantly, as if he could see something she hadnt seen yet. «Lets hope you dont get hurt, my beautiful princess. After all, you are special, and so pretty. If anyone is offended by your presence in their midst, they will be silent, out of respect for the fire within you.»
«Stop your chattering,» she paced ahead of him.
«Im only trying to talk sense,» Orpheus kept her at her side for several paces. Orpheus would not allow her to go more than a few paces away from him, and he would be at her side as if he were bound to her. There was really no getting away from him. But if she could bear to be around him, listening to his endless chatter was becoming unbearable.
«All youre going to do is make my ears hurt,» she hissed, silencing him at least for a few moments. How nice it would be if he only commented on business and kept his own considerations to himself. Shall she tell him to do that? Was he bound to her by so much sorcery as to be compelled to do her every wish? That would have to be checked sometime. For now she was more interested in the aura of the place. Rhianon went wherever it seemed to be calling her.
The train glided smoothly behind her on the marble floor. In the silence ahead some rustling could be heard. There were hundreds of voices. They were talking and whispering, making absurd suggestions and jokes and promises, but they were all part of one big overarching silence. Perhaps she could have singled out any one of these voices just by wishing to listen to it alone, but she didnt want to. She didnt even want to look beneath her feet and notice in the cracks of the floor a multitude of tiny uncertain creatures, like the midget she had seen in the carriage just for a moment. Then he gave her a bow. Did this mean that she had been expected here for a long time.