The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [93]
However, the wound was gone now; Beltan searched with his eyes, but he saw only a pale scar snaking across his skin. He felt a cool tingling dance across his flesh.
He wasn’t entirely certain, but he thought he must have awakened again in the baths, but Dakarreth had no longer been there. Instead there had been others bending over him, only it was hard to remember who they were. One had leaned toward him. Beltan remembered laughing, then lifting his head up to press his lips against the other’s.…
I just wanted to tell you that I’m not sorry after all.
I don’t understand, Beltan. Not sorry for what?
For this.
He drew in a sharp breath. Travis. Travis Wilder had been there, and so had Lady Grace and the others. But where were they now? He had to find them, to tell them he was all right.
And what will you say to Travis when you face him, Beltan? He has not heard the call of the bull—he told you as much. The only reason you kissed him was because you thought you were dying, and you thought you would never have to explain the deed to him. Now here you are, alive. Even when you’re dead you’re a thick-skulled dimwit, Beltan of Calavan.
He would have to worry about finding a way to beg Travis’s forgiveness for his misdeed later. Right now he had to try to understand where he was and what was happening to him. He could yet end up dead.
A grunting noise reached Beltan’s ears, rising above the sourceless whir that droned on the air. The sound came again, along with a metallic rattling. With effort, he turned his head to the right.
It took his numb mind a long moment to understand what he was looking at. Bright metal wires wove back and forth over the frame of a large box raised several feet off the floor. Only when he saw the shadow moving inside did he understand it was a cage.
The thing inside crept to the edge and slipped long, dark, wrinkled fingers through the holes in the wire. The creature was large—nearly as large as a man. It was shaped like a man as well, but oddly distorted. The creature was short-legged and barrel-chested; its head was small and its face jutting. Black, wispy hair covered the creature’s naked body.
Sour dread spilled into Beltan’s empty stomach. Was the thing in the cage a feydrim? In some ways it reminded him of the gray, twisted beasts he had fought off at the Rune Gate last Midwinter’s Eve. But the feydrim had been fanged and feral, monsters created by the foul magic of the Pale King. Instead, this creature gazed at him with brown eyes that seemed somehow sad and even knowing.
The creature in the cage spread its long, gangly arms. Beltan sucked in a sharp breath. Yes, he knew that gesture. It was the same one the shadow had made to him in the Gray Land, the shadow that had led him to the door. It was a gesture of welcome.
The animal watched Beltan, waiting. What did it want of him? It was difficult because of his immobility, but Beltan managed to nod toward the creature.
“Hello,” he said, almost surprised he was able to make a sound, although it was as rasping as the call of a vulture.
The thing stood up in the cage. There were two slots at the top, places where food could be dropped into the cage. The animal threaded its curled hands through the slots and stretched its long arms outward. The undersides had been shaved of hair. It was easy to see the white, convoluted scars traveling up and down the creature’s arms.
It seemed the thing was trying to tell him something, as it had in the dream. But what? Then he looked down at his own body and saw the scars left by a score of different wounds he had received in his years as a knight.
He looked back up into sorrowful, intelligent eyes. So manlike this thing, but not a man. And not a monster, either. He remembered the strange words the voices had spoken above him, thinking him asleep.
Our tests have shown the effects … not so very different than that of chimpanzees.…
Beltan studied the scars on the creature’s outstretched arms. Some of the