Shadowplay

"It was?"

He snorted. "Wasn't it? Didn't our kings rule there, with the Great Moot? Didn't the Golden Shoal come to rest there, at the rock of Egye-Var?"

She had no idea what he was talking about. "Then why did they leave?"

"Should ask T'chayan Redhand, shouldn't you?"

"Who is that?"

His eyes widened. He was not pretending-he was truly astonished. "Don't know T'chayan the Killer? The man who murdered most all my kind in the islands, women and spawn, too, drove our people out of our home and hunted us wherever we went with his dogs and his arrows?"

She blinked, surprised. "Do you mean King Tane the White?" Utta was better read than most of her fellow Vuttlanders, especially because she had gone away, first to the women's remove at Co

"Your people do not remember T'chayan Redhand?" The Skimmer youth shook his head in stu

"What are the two of you going on about?" demanded Merola

Sister Utta shook her head. "I'm sorry," she told Rafe. "Truly, I am. My people have forgotten, I suppose, but that doesn't mean we should have."

He shut his mouth with an almost audible snap and refused to talk any more, or even look at Utta, as though she herself had just returned from the long task of eradicating all memory of the wrongs done to his forebears.

The day was cold and cloudy, with intermittent rain. The fog that lin¬gered in the mainland city seemed weirdly heavy to Utta, like clouds that lay on the ocean instead of hanging in the sky. She could make out a few landmarks jutting through the murk, the market flagpoles and all the tem¬ple spires, but the mists made them seem something else, perhaps the skele¬tal ribs of ancient monsters.

Rafe moved the boat ably through the high waves as they got closer to land; Merola

At last they were through and into the shallows. Rafe grounded the boat on a sandbar. "If you walk up that way, won't get your feet too wet," he said.

"Aren't you coming with us?"

"For one silver urchin? You'll want a bodyguard or a troop of soldiers, and you won't get them for one merely urchin, will you? I said I'd bring you here and take you back. Means I'll sit and wait, not go in 'mongst the Old Ones. Their kind don't like my kind."

Utta helped Merola

"Us?" Rafe laughed. His face changed when he did it, looked both more and less like an ordinary man's. "Because we stayed behind, didn't we?"

Utta did not get to ask any more questions because just at that moment Merola

"Merciful Zoria, look at me!" Merola

"Here, wait," said the young Skimmer, then splashed back to the boat. He returned with the sealskin. "Wrap this around you."

"Thank you," said Merola

"Still not going with you, though." Rafe waded back to the boat.

"Your Grace, I suspected this was not a good idea before. Now I am cer¬tain of it." Sister Utta was trying her best not to peer at the empty houses on either side of the Port Road because they didn't really seem empty: the black holes of their windows seemed something more sinister, the eye sock¬ets of skulls or the mouths of dragon caves. Even here on the outskirts of town, where the houses were low and the winds brisk, the fog still hung in cobwebby tendrils and it was hard to see more than a few dozen paces ahead. "I think we should go back to the castle."

"Do not try to change my mind, Sister. I have come all the way here and I will speak to the fairy folk. They can kill me if they want, but I will at least ask them what became of my son."

But if they kill you, why would they let me go? Utta did not speak this thought aloud, not out of any desire to spare Merola

They walked slowly up a steep road, Merola

Utta had prepared herself for virtually anything, her imagination fueled by the books in the castle library and the tales of her Vuttish grandmother. She was ready for giants, or monsters, or even beautiful, godlike creatures. She was not as well prepared for an ordinary mortal man in a simple, homespun robe.

"Good afternoon to you," he said. Utta thought he must be one of the few who had stayed behind, although it seemed impossible he should have come unhurt and unchanged through the Twilight folk's conquest of the city. She could see now that there was something strange about him, some thing not quite right, and as he approached she found herself shying back.

"No need to fear me." He turned and bowed to Merola

"Released?" said Merola

"I was known for many years by the name of Gil, and had no other. Now I am called Kayyin… again. My story might interest you-in fact, it might interest me, too, if I could remember it all-but for now I am only to be your escort. Please, let me take you to her."

"To whom?" Merola

"To the mistress of this city. You are commanded to come to her."

"Commanded?" Merola

"Oh, yes, Your Grace. She can command anyone-she is greater than any mere queen." He stepped nimbly between them and took each woman by an elbow. "Even the gods must fear her. You see, she is kinswoman to death itself."