Nobody sat on the dais. On its benches, a pile of gray hands filled each place where a person might have been.
“It doesn’t smell like the dead,” Erik said. He spoke quietly, as if addressing a scholarly point or a detail of tactics. Toinette saw the pallor around his lips and knew his tone for armor. She also realized that he was right, though she’d been trying to avoid noticing any smells. “Only cold and slimy, like the rest of this place.”
“Small mercies, yes?”
“Aye.”
They both drew their swords before proceeding. The room was large enough, and though they’d not yet had anything physical attack them, Toinette watched the dead for any sign of movement as she and Erik walked slowly past their ranks.
None of them were missing hands.
The piles on the dais held all sorts. As Toinette passed it, she saw rings, gold and gems shining oddly in the uncanny light, and broken fingernails with dirt crusted underneath. A man’s hairy knuckles lay next to the smooth white hand of a lady or a youth. She briefly glimpsed a much smaller hand and was glad it was buried too deep for her to see it clearly.
She saw no blood on any of them, nor smelled it in the room. Even old, that smell tended to linger. “Whatisthis place?” she whispered.
Expecting no answer, she started at Erik’s voice. “I’m no’ certain itisa place, truly. Not with a history of its own. Even a dead place would have more life to it. This feels like a picture brought to life, or a child’s castle of snow.”
“Some child,” said Toinette, looking back over her shoulder at the row upon row of blanks where faces should have been, and the wisps of hair falling around them.
“Aye. But look you, did you see a door to the kitchen where we came in? Or tapers on the wall? Or a rood screen in the church?” He gestured downward. “No rushes underfoot either. What’s making this only imitates the surface of things, or only wants enough to twist.”
“Then those”—she looked back again, taking in hands and men both—“never were people?”
“I couldna’ say for certain. I’d not go up and grab one to find out. But I doubt there’ve ever been so many bodies on the island.”
“I’m not sure if these are good tidings or bad.”
“No more am I.”
Therewasa door behind the dais. Unlike the others they’d passed through, it looked like rough, heavy wood, as would have been fitting for any castle. The handle was still black and spiked, though, and the door opened too easily. The wood it appeared to be should have been heavier.
Toinette took a last glance behind her to be sure none of the dead were pursuing, then stepped through.
* * *
They emerged onto a ship.
Erik groaned and shut his eyes. “Are we—”
“At sea,” Toinette said, sounding as disoriented as he felt. “And it’s raining.”
Both were making themselves obvious. Erik closed his mouth against the rain, for what good that would do: he doubted it was water, and having it hit his skin could be bad enough. The swaying beneath him was considerably more pronounced than it had been on theHawk, save for the storm.
They were alone again. At any rate, when Erik opened his eyes, he could see no other figures. The darkness around them could have hidden a great deal.
Toinette was standing with her hands on her hips, sword lowered at her side as she looked up at the white sail rippling in the wind. “Imitation, yes? Nothing real?”
“So I’m thinking,” said Erik, although the rain felt cold and wet enough. “Or not made to use.”
“What can—” Toinette stopped and shook her wet head. “Sorry. If you knew, you’d have said.” She gave the ship a careful look, then said, “This is an old vessel. Small castles fore”—she indicated the wooden plank beneath them, then pointed across the ship—“and aft. And no sealed deck. Meaning no door that makes sense.”
Indeed, looking downward Erik saw only flat wood, with no trace of a door. “Then what shall we do?”
“Go where it’s least sensible,” Toinette said and pointed upward.
Near the top of the mast, almost completely hidden by the rain and the flapping sail, eerie light made a faint square outline.
Erik winced. “I could try to fly in this,” he said, thinking of his injured wing, but Toinette shook her head.
