Karigan sat frozen, holding the reins tightly, feeling as if someone clenched her in a steely grip. The Horse’s neck was lathered with sweat, his eyes rolling wildly. Only her tight hold prevented him from bolting.
The cold rain soaked through to Karigan’s skin and the clamminess of it made her shiver. The sodden greatcoat weighed her down and made movement an effort.
The man raised a brow and Karigan imagined the great gaping socket beneath the eyepatch widening. “My governor is most displeased by this. Someone has abused his trust, and all his plans will go to ruin if he doesn’t learn the name of the traitor.”
Karigan remained still.
“I see.” He pulled what looked like a live snake from beneath his cloak. It was a coiled whip. “Since you do not volunteer the information, I shall have to persuade you.”
Karigan panted, and loosened her hold on the reins. Whatever had held her back now eased its grip on her. The whip unraveled in the man’s hands, and he cracked it expertly.
“I will have you know that the hands that wield this tool of persuasion are well-practiced. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I am Immerez. Captain Immerez.”
Karigan had never heard of him, though a true Green Rider might know him by reputation. Her knuckles turned white around the brooch. She swallowed hard. If only she could snap her fingers and turn invisible! The brooch pulsated with sudden heat beneath her hand.
Captain Immerez stiffened, the whip going limp in his hand and his one eye wide open. “Where . . .?” He bent close again, his eye darting about. “Where are you?”
Karigan’s mouth dropped open. Had he gone suddenly and inexplicably blind? Yet he seemed to see clearly. He just couldn’t see her. She looked at . . .no, looked through her arm. It was there like a faint shadow, but definitely transparent. She jabbed her arm with a finger. It was solid enough. . . .
Whatever rendered her invisible had affected her vision as well. The deep greens of soaked moss and pines became shades of gray. Immerez’s scarlet tunic darkened to a shadowy maroon. Shapes grew indistinct as if a thick cloud obscured her sight.
Immerez’s eye still searched for her. He unsheathed his sword, undoubtedly attempting to test by touch.
The shackles of indecision and fear fell away. The Horse needed no prompting as she gave him his head.They bounded down the stream, and she let instinct guide him, the grayness in her eyes lacking enough contrast or depth to distinguish rocks from water.
Once they nearly fell headlong, and Karigan was thrown onto The Horse’s neck. He almost fell to his knees, then scrambled for his footing, slid through mud, and picked up the pace again. They careened around boulders and between trees in a breakneck dash that would have mortified her riding instructor. All the while, Captain Immerez’s high-strung stallion splashed behind them.
An eternity passed before they reached the road. Karigan could only guess how the struggle downstream had taxed The Horse, yet he flew into a flat-out gallop when they reached level ground.
Thursgad and Sarge, at least the two men whom she guessed were Thursgad and Sarge, appeared ahead, riding their own horses at a slow jog. Should she turn back? The whip whizzed past her ear. Immerez was just strides behind. But she was invisible. How could he . . . ? She blew past the two men ahead and got an impression of their amazed expressions.
“The horse!” they shouted.
Though she was invisible, The Horse was not. As she rode around a bend, she wished for him to be invisible, too. The Horse vanished from the pursuers’ sight, leaving behind only the echo of pounding hooves.
Karigan rode on, feeling as if she were submerged beneath some gray sea, with water pressing in all around. She felt as if she fought the tide; her lungs ached for air. In the grayness, a gloom clung to her which she felt she would never be free of, as if she would drown in it. She was so exhausted. Exhausted and wrung out with despair in the never ending gray, gray world.
Then color shimmered like a newly created thing. A path opened up on the side of the road, painted with rusty red pine needles and vibrant green hemlock, pine, and spruce trees. Tiny white bunchberry flowers grew in patches along the path. The sun broke through the clouds, and though it appeared just a lighter shade of gray elsewhere in the woods, along the path it showered through the trees in brilliant beams of gold.
Karigan reined The Horse along the path and slumped on his neck. She could see right through his chestnut hide to the forest floor. He halted, and she slid off his back onto a moist patch of sphagnum moss. She was too exhausted to even remove the sodden greatcoat.
As she drifted into sleep, she wished to be whole again—not transparent like some living ghost.
GRAY ONE
The rising sun was hidden behind the height of the great wall. One could look up and up, and even higher, but never really see the top. It was magic, of course. Where the real granite stopped, a magical shield continued in a seamless illusion of a towering wall. The D’Yers had designed the wall to seemingly surpass the sky and reach for the very heavens. There were flying things the Sacoridians and the League had wanted to keep on the other side.
The Gray One’s original crack had spread its spidery fracture lines into the surrounding seams of mortar, weakening a section of wall about the size of a doorway. This went far beyond his expectations—that the cracks would grow more than a few inches. He was closer to breaking through than he could have hoped for.
Time. Time had made the spells brittle and the mortar vulnerable. Without the touch of a mage to maintain the wall, it had weakened. Even now silvery runes shimmered on the granite blocks around the fractures. The runes were ancient Sacoridian and Kmaernian characters. They were runes of alarm; they warned of the fissures, of the weakening of the wall. They revealed unraveling spell songs, and rhythms that had been corrupted.