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At last, however, Karanissa waved a farewell to three people and led Sarai down a passageway into a lush bedchamber, where she drew aside a drapery to reveal a truly bizarre tapestry.
The image was absolutely perfect and incredibly detailed; it showed a path leading from a stone mound across a narrow rope bridge to a castle out of someone's nightmares, a fortress of gray and black stone encrusted with turrets and gargoyles, much of it covered with carven faces-most of them leering monstrosities, while the few that appeared human were screaming in terror. Even the front wall of the nearest section was a face, the entry way a yawning, fanged mouth, two windows above serving as eyes.
This structure stood against a blank background of red and purple shading into one another in vague, cloudlike patterns, and the reddish highlights on the castle made it plain that these colors were part of the picture, intended to represent a sky unlike anything in the World.
"You better hold my hand," Karanissa said.
"Oh, you don't… We aren't going there…" Sarai said, trying to back away.
The witch grabbed her by the hand and yanked, pulling them both forward into the tapestry. Lady Sarai screamed and fell to her knees.
She landed on the rough stone of that pathway; on either side was empty, bottomless void, purple shot through with crimson.
"Welcome to my home," Karanissa said, smiling. Then she led the way across the little bit of bare stone, over the rope bridge, through the fanged entryway and the open door within, into the castle.
Lady Sarai followed wordlessly, staring at her strange surroundings, as Karanissa explained, "Deny-that's Derithon the Mage-made this place, hundreds of years ago, and brought me here. Then he got himself killed when his other castle, out in the World, crashed, and I was stranded until Tobas found the tapestry and came in here and found the way out, through the tapestry that took us to the fallen castle. Except Telurinon traded with him, to get the tapestry to the dead area-he wanted to send Tabaea there, or else the Seething Death after it killed her. So now we've got another tapestry, one that will bring us out in one of the towers in Grandgate." She paused for breath.
Sarai didn't say anything; she was too busy looking around at the forbidding, torch-lit corridor, with its gargoyles peering down from the ceiling comers.
Karanissa led the way up a broad spiral staircase, saying, "I suppose we'll have to move now, take the other tapestry out of Dwomor to Ethshar-it's just not practical, having our front door and our back door so far apart. The walk down the mountains was bad enough, even with the flying carpet; having to cross a hundred leagues of ocean is just impossible."
They emerged in an arched passageway; Karanissa lifted a torch from a nearby bracket and led the way down a side passage.
"I don't know if Alorria is going to like that much," Karanissa said, as they turned a corner. "And I'm pretty such that her father, King Derneth, isn't going to like it at all. He likes having Tobas as his court wizard, and he likes having his daughter nearby. Alorria's never lived anywhere but Dwomor Keep-well, and here, of course." She waved at the castle walls.
Sarai shivered slightly; this place made her very nervous. There was something utterly u
It didn't seem to bother the witch at all; she prattled on cheerfully as she led the way through a maze of chambers and passages until at last they arrived at a door, several stories up from the entrance. "We need to go through together," she warned Sarai, as she opened the door.
Cautiously, Sarai stepped into the room beyond, and looked around. Karanissa stepped in behind her and reached up to set her torch in an empty bracket.
The room was small and simple-no gargoyles or black iron here, just plain gray walls, on one of which hung a tapestry. There were no other furnishings.
"Maybe we should move this downstairs, nearer the entrance," Karanissa said, considering the tapestry carefully. "That would save time when we're just passing through like this."
Sarai gazed at the hanging, too, but with relief, rather than consideration. The room it depicted was so utterly normal and ordinary! A simple room, with off-white walls, an iron-bound wooden door, and one of the standard-issue wooden tables the Ethsharitic city guard used. "Come on," she said. This time, she was the one who grabbed and pulled, and an instant later she and Karanissa stepped out in Ethshar.
The light was brighter here and the color of normal daylight, rather than the orange of a torch or that weird reddish purple; Lady Sarai blinked and looked around.
The tapestry was gone; from this side it simply wasn't there. Instead she saw the other half of a nondescript and unused little room, with a single narrow window providing illumination.
"North light," Karanissa remarked. "It's steadier, doesn't change much over time, so it doesn't matter where the sun is, or whether it's cloudy." She frowned. "I'll wager the tapestry doesn't work at night, though; I hadn't thought of that before, and that could be inconvenient." She stared for a moment, then turned back to the door. "Oh, well," she said, "there isn't much we can do about it now." She lifted the latch and opened the door.
Before she could get a glimpse of what lay beyond, Lady Sarai heard the thump of a chair's front legs hitting the stone floor and a soldier getting hurriedly to his feet, kilt rustling and sword belt rattling. She followed Karanissa through the door into a wide hall, where various military equipment was strewn about or leaning against walls and pillars. Hazy sunlight poured in through skylights; voices and footsteps were audible in the distance. Close at hand stood a soldier and a chair; the soldier saluted, hand on his chest, and a
"Tikri?" Sarai was astonished and delighted; she hadn't seen Tikri since the day Tabaea first marched on the palace, when he had gone off to defend the overlord. She had feared he was dead, or at best driven into exile, yet here he was, apparently back at work.
"Yes, my lady," Deran answered. "This way."
Sarai and Karanissa followed him across the room, toward a stairway leading down. "Where are we?" Sarai asked.
"Officers' training area, my lady," Deran answered. "Top floor of the North Barracks, in Grandgate."
"So the city guard is back here? Everything's back to normal?"
Deran kept walking, but hesitated before answering, "Not everything, my lady. The guard's back, all right-Lord Torrut saw to that as soon as he heard that Tabaea had given up her claim to be empress-but I wouldn't say everything's back to normal. The overlord is still aboard his ship down in Seagate- there's something wrong with the palace, something to do with the Wizards' Guild. Nobody goes in there without the Guild's permission. And Lord Kalthon…"He broke off.
"What about my father?" Sarai demanded. "They say he's dying, my lady," Deran reluctantly admitted. "The sea journey was bad for him; they say he has a sixnight at most, even with that witch Theas tending him. But the overlord won't appoint a replacement, and we need a Minister of Justice right now, to sort out the mess. Lord Torrut's doing what he can, but… well, I wouldn't say everything's normal." He stopped in front of a door and knocked.
The door opened, and Captain Tikri glared out angrily. When he saw Sarai, though, the anger evaporated; he smiled.
"Lady Sarai!" he said. "You're back!" Belatedly, he added, "and you, Karanissa!"