The man frightened her more than the king.
When she opened her eyes, he was gone. Only Mara stood there in the doorway, peering at her, then glancing down the corridor with a bemused expression on her face.
FOOTPRINTS
“Put this book on the top shelf.” “This book” was Lint’s Wordage, a compilation of famous quotations. Karigan gazed at the thick tome with dismay, but gamely reached for it with both hands.
“No,” Captain Mapstone said, not even looking up from her papers, “use only your right hand.”
Karigan obeyed. If this was what it took to prove to the captain her arm was sound, so be it. Immediately the weight of the book pulled on tender joints and muscles. Swallowing back a curse, she walked across the room to the captain’s bookshelves. She raised the book, her arm quivering, while what felt like daggers twisted in her elbow joint. She couldn’t seem to lift the book any higher than her waist. She just hadn’t the strength.
Still she tried, gritting her teeth against the pain. A rivulet of perspiration glided down the side of her face and tears overflowed the edges of her eyes.
Captain Mapstone left her papers and crossed over to Karigan. Gently she removed the volume from her shaking hand. Karigan sobbed with relief, and slipped her strained arm back into its despicable sling.
“When you can shelve this book,” the captain told her, “I’ll take you off light duty. With Master Destarion’s approval, of course.”
Karigan glared at the offending book.
“In the meantime, I’ve some documents for you to carry over to administration.”
Karigan tucked the documents under her arm—her good arm—and set off from officers quarters across the castle grounds.
The welt and bruise had nearly faded from her temple, and Destarion’s cold treatments were working wonders on her elbow. But not enough. She couldn’t even help much at the stable because too much of what was needed to be done required lifting and carrying.
Karigan found light duty all too reminiscent of what her father had her doing before she gave in to the Rider call: going over inventories, ordering supplies, assisting Mara with scheduling, running errands . . .
The irony of the situation was not lost on her.
She glanced at the sky. The change in weather she’d been expecting had held off. The day was bright and lovely.
The records room was located in the bottom level of the administration wing. Karigan didn’t know the area well, for she usually had little reason to venture there. It was usually the Chief Rider who handled administrative duties. The corridors were mazelike, a regular warren. The rough rock-work and the low, arched ceilings indicated she had entered an older part of the castle.
She strode along, worrying about when she’d be able to ride again. Was there some way she could convince Captain Mapstone that her arm didn’t have to be perfect to ride? How would she ever get her arm in shape to lift that bloody book?
Caught up in her concerns, she rounded a corner and kept striding until, with surprise, she found herself in the dark.
An abandoned corridor. The castle had been added on to over the centuries. Originally it had been more of a fortress keep rather than the large, sprawling structure it now was, but as the castle population shrank in peace-time, inhabitants moved into newer, more spacious sections, abandoning the old corridors.
Karigan had been in some of these deserted corridors once before. The Weapon, Fastion, was her guide. The Weapons, he said, were the only ones who really knew their way through the old sections.
She sighed at the memory of walking through abandoned corridors in the dance of a single candleflame; of a sense of timelessness. It had been a frightening experience and she had no desire to blunder down those dark, ancient passageways again.
She turned around to head back, but a figure hovered on the edge of her vision in the dusky space where light spilled into the dark. Her brooch stirred.
She perceived a swirl of green cloth as the figure swept by her, retreating down the corridor into complete darkness. The ring of boots on stone sounded strange, as though separated from her by the distance of time.
“Wait!”
Wait, wait, wait . . .
Her cry carried into the dark, down countless unknown corridors where, perhaps, no living voice had been heard for a very long time. The footsteps faded out and there was no response. Though she did not like the thought of sending her voice into that darkness again, she tried anyway.
“Hello?”
Hello? Hello? Hello?
And then in answer, only silence.
Who would go running down a pitch black corridor? A ghost?
She swallowed, not really wanting to know, for she had dealt with ghosts before and hoped herself free of them. She hastened from the dark corridor with a shiver, but when she stepped blinking into the lit corridor, she paused. It all could have been her imagination.
Cursing her own curiosity, she stuffed her papers into her sling and grabbed a lamp from a nearby alcove. Shadows leaped when she returned to the abandoned corridor. Light glinted dully off an old suit of plate armor some distance away.
She examined the floor. A layer of dust coated the flagstones—not too thickly, as the air currents that flowed through the active sections of the castle must find their way here—but it was thick enough to pick out distinct footprints. Her own set went a short distance, ser pentined by the tiny footprints of mice. A second set, much like her own, clear and new in the lamplight, ran off into the dark. And there was something more. Karigan knelt, and setting the lamp aside, touched the floor. Splotches of water.