The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [9]
In a few heartbeats he began to calm down. The stone hadn’t been hot enough to burn his skin from such a brief contact; it had been mostly the surprise. He ventured back and touched the sill again. It was still very warm.
He felt the near wall, but it was as cool as the evening air.
He glanced around uneasily. What was going on? Had he unwittingly triggered some ancient Sefry shinecraft? Were volcanic vapors rising through the mountain? Curious, he continued along the wall toward the next window, then the next. There wasn’t anything unusual there, but when he came to the stone stair that descended farther into the mountain, he found the banister unusually warm, too.
He went back to the eastern window, knelt, and touched the floor. There it was, a warm spot. And a little more than a kingsyard farther there was another—a trail of them, leading to the steps…
His scalp was tingling now.
What had come through here? What had walked past him as he slept?
Now he wished he hadn’t wanted to be alone and had allowed some of the Aitivar to accompany him.
Whatever it was, it had ignored him when he was at his most vulnerable. Surely it wouldn’t hurt him now.
He strained his saint-blessed senses. He didn’t hear anything, but there was a faint scent a little like burning pine, but with a musky, animal component, too.
He looked back out the window, examining the drop that stayed sheer for two hundred kingsyards. Whatever had come, it must have flown.
He glanced back at the stair, and then he remembered. Zemlé was down there where whatever it was had gone. Maybe it had left him alone because he was asleep, but if she was awake…
He suddenly heard dogs barking—Zemlé’s hounds—and everything went pale.
He wasn’t a fighter by nature, but he wished he had thought to carry a weapon: a knife, at the very least.
Swearing that from now on he would do so, he grabbed his lantern and started down the stairs.
The dogs suddenly stopped barking.
The aerie wasn’t the only chamber in the Khelan. The whole thing was rather like a small castle or mansion or, perhaps more aptly, a wizard’s tower. Fifty-seven steps brought him to the next chamber, which he and Zemlé had dubbed the Warlock’s Bedroom. It was carved in a high vault, and although there were no windows as such, numerous long shafts brought light in from different directions, depending on the time of day, offering not only illumination but also a rough sort of clock.
The scent was stronger on the stairway, cloying in his nostrils, and when he burst into the chamber, he had the start of a good panic. Zemlé’s three great beasts were at the far end of the room, facing the hall where the stair continued down. They weren’t making a sound, but the hair on their necks was up.
“Zemlé!”
He could see her on the bed, one bare leg thrown out from beneath the quilt. She wasn’t moving, and she didn’t respond to his shout. He raced to her side.
“Zemlé,” he repeated, shaking her.
Her lids fluttered open. “Stephen?” Then her brows dropped. “Stephen, what’s wrong?”
Gasping for breath, he sat on the bed.
Zemlé sat up, reaching for his arm. “What?”
“Nothing, I—I think something came through here. I was afraid it might have hurt you. Didn’t you hear the dogs?”
“They started up,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. “They do that. This place spooks them.” Then her vision seemed to clear. “Something?”
“I’ve no idea. I fell asleep, upstairs—”
“Nose in your book.”
He stopped. “You came up?”
“I guessed. If you’d gone to sleep on purpose, I rather think you would have come down here with me.” She shrugged. “Or do I flatter myself?”
“Ah, no, you don’t.”
“But go on.”
“The, umm, the window ledge was hot.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Hot?”
“I mean really hot. Burning, almost. And the banister of the stairs and the floor, in places, as if something really blistering walked through.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve no idea. But what with all of the greffyns and utins and waurms and generally ancient nasties I’ve seen lately,