“Are you an apparition then?” he asked in strongly accented common tongue, his voice rich and resonant.
Karigan glanced down at herself. Because she was using her ability to cross thresholds, she was also faded out, but the sunshine of the glade prevented her from completely disappearing, leaving her appearance ghostlike. The fading usually dulled her vision, but everything here was vibrant.
“No,” she told him. “I am not an apparition.”
The Eletian stood, his hand dripping. He did not shake the water off, perhaps because it would have been painful to do so. His hand was blackened with the fingertips desiccated to the bone so that they resembled claws. She had never seen such a disfigurement on any Eletian—not that she’d met that many. The man himself was tall and radiated brightness.
“Did your captain send you? Speak quickly. There are arrows trained on you, apparition or no.”
Karigan glanced around the grove, but saw no one else. That did not mean the Eletian archers were not there.
“Laurelyn sent me,” Karigan replied.
“Laurelyn! But she was overcome. I do not believe you.”
The Sleepers were jammed behind her and obscured by the mist of the arch, so she walked off the bridge, the Sleepers materializing into the sunshine and following her into the glade.
“She wishes a safe haven for these people,” Karigan said. “If they stay in Blackveil—Argenthyne—they will be changed, and not for the better. Laurelyn protected them for as long as she could. Until I came to bring them to Eletia.”
As the man took them in, his expression transformed from distrust to joy. “For how long did she protect them?”
“About a thousand years, I’d guess.” His question made Karigan wonder when she was herself.
“It sounds a strange story,” he replied. He took a few steps closer to Karigan, glancing at the Sleepers. They began to disperse on their own, instinctively seeking out the grand trees of the grove. “You’ve the fading of Lil Ambriodhe.”
“I wear her brooch,” Karigan replied. Had this Eletian once known the First Rider?
He glanced at the Sleepers vanishing into grove trees to resume their rest. Karigan felt her own strong impulse drawing her back to the bridge. If she released her ability, it would not pull on her. She could stay.
“I am grateful you have brought these Sleepers to us through unknown dangers,” the Eletian said. “Will you not sit with me and tell me your story? About Argenthyne and Laurelyn? We’ve been so grieved.”
“I—” The brooch pulled harder on her. She stumbled backward.
“We could tend your wounds.”
Karigan thought of Yates and the others back in Blackveil and she was overcome with a sense of foreboding. “N-no, I can’t stay.”
He drew nearer still. There was great age and great weariness in his eyes. They were the blue of snow shadows and reflected ages past. Karigan almost lost herself in them.
His gaze grew unfocussed, far away. “Before you depart, I must warn you to be cautious of the mirror man.” His voice carried the weight of prophecy. “He is a trickster who will try to ensnare you for his own amusement. Beware the choices that lie ahead, and choose wisely. You have traveled great distances for one so young. Your wits and skills have served you well so far. They will aid you in the trials ahead.”
Karigan backed toward the bridge, stepped on it, and immediately the glade in Eletia began to grow more distant. The pull to return to Blackveil increased, and even the immense attraction of staying in the sunshine of Eletia and the presence of the remarkable man could not anchor her.
The man, she realized, who could only be Graelalea’s father, King Santanara, the one who had defeated Mornhavon the Black at the very end of the Long War. He’d become a Sleeper himself sometime after the war, leaving his son, Prince Jametari, to lead Eletia.
The heady sensation of meeting King Santanara made her shiver even as she hastened across the bridge back into the white world.
CHOOSING MASKS
When Karigan limped off the bridge into the white world, an opaque mist shrouded the island.
“Uh-oh,” she said. In her past experiences with the white world, the mists were usually preludes to visions she’d rather not see.
She had no choice but to wait until the mist cleared before proceeding across the island to the moonbeam bridge—she could barely see her hand in front of her and she did not want to accidentally step into the chasm.
When the mist tumbled away, she looked in dismay upon what it revealed. Arrayed before her was a masquerade ball in full swing, strains of music echoing ominously from the depths of the chasm. The colorful finery and masks of the dancers were in stark contrast to the dullness of the white world.
This is not fair, Karigan thought. Haven’t I been through enough? She knew, however, fairness had nothing to do with it.
Making matters worse, on the opposite side of the island there wasn’t only the one bridge, but a dozen that, to her eye, looked identical.
“I have no time for puzzles,” she muttered, still feeling the tug on her brooch. She decided she would ignore the masquerade and she started to limp across the island.
“Rider Sir Karigan G’ladheon!” cried out a masked herald that sounded just like Neff, and who also appeared just the way he had the night of the king’s masquerade ball. He most definitely was not Neff, however. Just a vision provided by the strange environs of the white world. The announcement was met with scattered applause, and ladies and gentlemen curtsied and bowed to Karigan.