The Hall of Nightmares was a place where Spiritshadows could enter your dreams and change them into nightmares. It was the place where Chosen who transgressed the Empress's laws were punished. For Milla, who had the Icecarls' loathing of free shadows, it would be absolutely terrifying.
Tal gasped as a Spiritshadow suddenly wound itself around him, securing his arms and legs, then extending a thin tentacle across his eyes. It felt something like his own shadowguard, but not entirely, like putting on a familiar shirt that was unexpectedly damp. It was also strong enough to completely bind him, and he could see nothing through its shadow-flesh blindfold.
Only then did he think about what was going to happen to him. Milla was going to the Hall of Nightmares, but he was being taken to the Pit.
Tal had never even heard of the Pit.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Milla had been blinded and knocked out by the blast from the guard's Sunstone. Only her face mask and armor had saved her from being burned, and they were both charred, the amber lenses of the mask partly melted and the Selski hide black and peeling.
The guards had quickly stripped the armor and mask off and tied her wrists and ankles. Shrouding her in a tablecloth taken from Ebbitt's hoard, they rushed her away, taking the least-traveled corridors to the Hall of Nightmares.
Even so, people saw them, and many Chosen would later remark on the four disheveled, bruised, and bleeding guards and the body they carried between them. But all thought they were simply disposing of an Underfolk who had run amok, which was unusual, but not unheard of.
They did not see Milla's alien white-blond hair, or the strange clothing she wore. The Merwin sword was also wrapped, and could have been any makeshift weapon. One Chosen amused his friends by describing the stupid Underfolk who had gone mad with a table leg.
The guards were unlucky in one shortcut they chose. The Middle Garden was a large, open chamber of high-vaulted ceilings, restful tree ferns, reflective pools lined with small Sunstones, and crystal fountains that grew of their own accord and then collapsed to grow again.
It was unusual for more than four moody Chosen to be there. But that particular day, Brightstar Parl of the Blue was re-creating to forty-seven of his closest friends the Achievement of Poetry that had won him the Violet Ray of Attainment.
Parl was reciting his poem and writing all three hundred and eighty words of it in letters of acrobatic blue light when the guards came running through, completely putting him off. He faltered in midstanza, and the blue-light letters crashed into one another, producing a rather disgusting, lumpy cloud of greenish-brown that hung over the audience.
The onlookers took a moment to realize what had happened. As they did, they turned their Sunstones on the guards, flashing Red Rays of Dissatisfaction, to show their displeasure at the insult to Parl's work of genius.
While the Chosen would do no more than this, their Spiritshadows reflected their masters' true feelings, looming up from the floor to make aggressive gestures at the guards.
The guards did not stop to offer Blue Rays of Respectful Apology. The audience was left to mutter and complain, while Parl collapsed sobbing, adding his tears to one of the Sunstone-filled pools.
Once clear of the Middle Garden, there were no more obstacles only single Chosen who rapidly got out of their way. The Hall of Nightmares was located on the eastern side of the Castle, in an area of many empty rooms and chambers. Chosen did not go there, unless it was against their will. Most would only reluctantly admit that the Hall of Nightmares even existed.
Unlike most doors in the Castle, which were marked with the color of the Order and a family sign or official notice, the great gate to the Hall of Nightmares was completely white. It was securely shut, with a single Sunstone where the keyhole would normally be.
The guards lowered Milla's unconscious body to the floor, then one touched his Sunstone bracelet to the stone in the door. Violet light flashed, and the gate slowly groaned open. There was nothing but darkness beyond.
"One for you, Fashnek!" shouted a guard nervously. They made no attempt to pass through the gate.
Footsteps sounded in the hall beyond, and the guards moved back.
Slow footsteps, as if the walker found moving difficult or struggled with a great weight.
The guards shuffled even farther back as the yet-unseen Fashnek emerged into the light and the reason for their fear became obvious.
Fashnek was a tall, very thin man with long black hair tied back behind his head. His most distinctive feature should have been his broad nose, with its widely flared nostrils, as if he smelled his way through life.
But when he stepped out into the light, all eyes were drawn to the left side of his body, because most of it was missing. Something had chewed on him from hip to shoulder, and his left arm was not human.
The missing flesh had been replaced by shadow.
Night-dark pincers flexed at the end of his new left arm. It, too, was made of shadow, and jointed in three places.
Even worse than the shadow filling in missing flesh, the rest of the Spiritshadow was joined to Fashnek like a bonded twin. It had filled Fashnek's missing body where it could, but was unable to significantly alter its own shape.
It had an insectoid form, with six multijointed limbs, a bulbous body, and a head with a long mouth like the neck of a bottle. The end of this hideous mouth was completely ringed with tiny curved teeth, disturbingly like a grossly enlarged leech. To keep Fashnek's appearance as human as it could, the Spiritshadow clung to his side and back, hiding as much as possible behind him.
Kept alive in such an appalling way, Fashnek was repulsive to other Chosen. He could never be welcomed to any Attainment, entertainment, or event. He could never be seen at the Empress's court, or in the Assembly.
But he had found his place in the Hall of Nightmares.
And now the others feared him. Reaching down with human hand and shadow-flesh pincer, he gripped the tablecloth and slowly pulled Milla's unconscious body into the Hall.
As Milla's heels passed the gate, it slowly ground shut. The guards, who had watched in silence, didn't move until a loud click pronounced the doors locked once more.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Milla regained consciousness, instantly appraising her situation as she had been trained to do. This was not easy, since she was in total darkness. But she could still hear and smell. So she lay where she was, reaching out with senses made sharper without sight, while she went over what had happened.
She remembered Tal shouting at her to run. Then she had wounded one of the enemy in the arm. She wasn't sure what happened after that.
Clearly she had been captured. But she was not tied up, as she would have been by an enemy Icecarl clan. The Chosen might have other ways to restrain her.
Moving slowly and surreptitiously, Milla touched the floor. It was some sort of smooth, cool material, not stone or bone. The only things she could compare it to were the crystal ladder in the heating tunnels or the pyramid of Imrir.
Milla extended her arms, feeling with her fingertips. The floor started to curve up not very far out. It took Milla only a few seconds to work out that she was contained inside a globe. A crystal globe.
It was large enough for her to sit up, but she couldn't stand. And despite the absence of holes, fresh air somehow got in.
The situation appeared even worse than the plight of the legendary Ulla Strong-Arm, who had been swallowed by an ancient, broken-jawed Selski and had to cut her way free from its stomach. She had supposedly never eaten Selski meat again after that.
Crouching, Milla sniffed the air once more. As she thought, there was the hint of fresh air and the faintest draft. The globe must have tiny holes. She could smell dust, too, and at least one person. Sweat hung rank in the air. "So you have woken, Underfolk," said a voice in the darkness.
Milla moved to face the voice, calmly and slowly, as befitted a Shield Maiden. She had already begun the Rovk
ir-breathing, the steady intake and exhalation of breath that helped keep her fear under control.
A Shield Maiden should fear, for fear is human, she recited mentally.
But a Shield Maiden must not show fear, nor let it rule her.
"I am not an Underfolk," she said aloud. "I am an Icecarl. Free me from this cage, and I will fight you."
"An Icecarl?" asked the voice. "You have an imagination. That is rare in Underfolk."