The day was darker than usual.
Of course Spiral Castle was dark in general, a moldering maze of creeping shadows even where no shadows should be; where the edges of walls were never quite where you expected them and it was easier, sometimes, to close your eyes and feel your way along.
Only long familiarity with its eccentricities kept her from tripping over uprooted cobblestones or bashing her head into some odd-angled beam…familiarity, and the faint sense that the castle itself, behind the shadows, grudgingly responded to her will. Eilonwy had learnt in early childhood, over many explorations down endless, twisting passageways that never seemed to go where they were supposed to, that stop that thought pointedly in the direction of the nearest wall often resulted in the swift appearance of a familiar corner or archway...and then there you were, at your own chamber door or the kitchen or the great hall, just where it should be after all.
But her will didn't make the place any lighter, so she always carried her bauble with her to keep the shadows at bay with its warm golden glow. Even now, in mid-afternoon in the courtyard, it was lit, fighting the impenetrable gloom blanketing the ancient stones.
Yes, much darker than usual.
There was a tingle in the air, a tense, prickly sensation like the lull before a thunderstorm; it made the hair on her arms stand up and had driven her from the castle's interior. It tasted like Achren's anger, a thing Eilonwy avoided if possible, even when it wasn't directed at her. Ever since that band of nasty half-decayed things had shown up at the gates and infested the castle like a pack of rats, it had been more necessary than ever to tread carefully around Achren, who seemed reluctant to send them away despite her obvious dislike of them. She called them cauldron-born, and had flown into a rage, boxing ears and telling her to mind her own concerns, when Eilonwy had asked whence and why they'd come.
It seemed to Eilonwy they were concern enough; the morning's magic lesson had been interrupted by some commotion involving them. She'd been in the midst of a complicated bit of spellwork, feeling her way through sticky strands of magic like a fly trying to pick its way out of a spider web. As always during lessons, Achren was a dark presence beside her, nudging her mind slowly in the directions the spell demanded - which were not always the directions she desired to go. To resist the queen's instruction, however, was to risk being left alone in a confusing netherworld of strange forces: a place without form or solidity, all ghosting lights and nameless colors, senseless sound and that shrill, metallic taste that filled her mouth whenever she spoke words of power. Whatever beauty there was in it would be swallowed by terror until Achren chose to rescue her, a thing that would not happen until the queen had decided her punishment sufficient. Last time her body had been cold when she was brought back to her senses.
This time, it was a knock at the door and Achren's annoyed, "Enter" that had pulled her roughly back to the natural world. She had blinked, conscious of a faint sense of relief, and shaken the last of the spiderweb feel out of her ears just in time to hear a guard at the chamber door announce that a party of cauldron warriors had returned with two prisoners in tow. Achren had looked even more annoyed, but transformed instantly when the guard produced a scrap of black cloth on which something was embroidered in gold thread. The queen had started up, with a quick, sharp intake of breath, and smacked the spell book shut with a wave of her red-nailed hand.
"That will do for today."
Eilonwy stared at Achren's face; usually marble-white, now flushed in unmistakable agitation, her frost-grey eyes glittering. She knew arguing was unwise when commands were given in the tone she'd just heard, yet the sight of Achren discomfited was unusual enough to pique her curiosity to perilous levels. "Why must we stop? I was doing it right, wasn't I?"
The queen turned dangerous eyes on her so quickly that she clutched a rune book to her chest in an involuntary self-protective gesture, but it was anger rather than fear that tightened her throat.
"Go to your chambers and stay there until supper," Achren had ordered, and swept from the room.
The warning against disobedience hovered just beneath the spoken words and needed no clarification. Eilonwy had retreated, scowling, and managed to occupy herself most of the afternoon with her books. But her chambers were dull; her casement looked upon nothing but treetops and circling ravens, and as the brooding restless spirit of the place pressed upon her she had gathered her spirits and crept out through less-traveled passageways, for once unencumbered by the castle's tricky maneuverings. Even it was preoccupied.
The courtyard was deserted – mercifully; there was nothing worse than rounding a corner and bumping into one of the hulking guards Achren kept around; Eilonwy preferred even the blank, dead stares of the cauldron-born, who could at least be counted on to ignore her entirely. The open leers of the guards, by contrast, made her blood run cold. Even Achren, in an uncharacteristic fit of seeming to care, had once warned her to avoid them all; taught her a few feathery words that briefly diverted the attention and muddled the focus of the mind at which they were directed, long enough to slip around a corner or into a shadow without being noticed. Men, Achren said, were not to be trusted. Ever.
She put no great amount of faith in Achren's declarations, knowing that lies slid between those chisel-edged white teeth just as often as the truth did. On this particular point, however, nothing in her experience had made her inclined to do otherwise than directed.
Eilonwy sat down on at the bottom of a stone stairway and surveyed the empty courtyard with a sigh. She toyed with the thought of sneaking out of the castle altogether, but the few times she had attempted it had not proven successful. Not that it was difficult to get out – there were several exits, in fact, entirely unbeknownst to Achren – but there was nowhere to go once outside. She knew, from short, supervised excursions hunting for various magical herbs and stones, that the forest stretched endlessly in every direction and there was nothing of note within a day's walk, except one deserted cluster of cottages falling into ruin. The woods themselves were pleasant; the smells of earth and green things growing were rich and alive after the shut-in dampness of the castle, there were all manner of pretty ferny plants and tiny flowers like stars strewn over the dark floor, and all around was the sweet twitter of forest birds. But just now the overcast gloom of the sky did not strike her as a good omen for heading out on her own, even for a harmless stroll through the woods.
She cupped the glowing sphere of her bauble in her hands and then absently flipped it back and forth from right to left, letting it dance over her fingertips in a bit of sleight-of-hand she had invented years ago, a test of manual dexterity in which the orb actually seemed to float in the air while her hands moved fluidly around it. It amused her, and even better, it annoyed Achren, whose gaze upon her bauble had always been indecipherable. Eilonwy couldn't decide whether the queen hated it or desired it, but she had never tried to take it away. It had been the her constant companion for longer than she could remember, and was one of few things in all the castle she could call her own possession.
Which was what prompted her squeak of dismay when her nimble fingers fumbled for the merest fraction of a second; the dancing sphere flirted over the back of her hand, ricocheted off her wrist, and went tumbling over the flagstones. She was up in an instant, pelting after it, muttering words overheard while hanging about the stables, and hissed angrily when it bounced to the foot of a stone wall and disappeared between the bars of a dungeon grate. Breathlessly throwing herself prone upon the ground, she peered into the musty darkness within.
It took a moment, in the transition to the almost-complete darkness within, to make out the interior, and she started when she realized she was staring into the equally startled face of a person roughly her own age.
She had never seen one before. The queen did not like children; there were no page boys or little scullery maids about Spiral Castle, and it was only through books and Achren's sparing explanations that she knew other young people – among much else – existed. She was so pleased to find such an unusual creature under her very feet that she forgot her ire about her bauble and merely blinked in astonishment for a long moment.
It must be a boy, for he was dressed in a loose tow-linen shirt and rough trousers, both much the worse for wear. His long straight hair was dark and disheveled and there were purple hollows around his eyes, which were regarding her with a distrustful, anxious glare under furrowed black brows.
She wondered if she ought to speak to him. You were just as likely to find a great hero as a desperate criminal in Achren's undiscriminating dungeons, but he didn't look much like either. He looked quite ordinary and not the least bit threatening, which was refreshingly unusual.
And there was her bauble, its light extinguished, sitting in the dirty straw at his feet like an egg in a nest. She decided to risk it.
"Please," she began, "my name is Eilonwy and if you don't mind, could you throw my bauble to me?"
He stared, his expression shifting from fear to amazement, as one might stare at someone who had suddenly begun sprouting horns, or turning purple. Suddenly, excruciatingly self-conscious, she obeyed a frantic impulse to explain herself.
"I don't want you to think I'm a baby, playing with a silly bauble, but sometimes there's absolutely nothing else to do around here and it slipped out of my hands. I was tossing it, you see, and-"
He interrupted her impatiently. "Little girl, I don't—"
The title brought her thoughts to an abrupt, indignant halt. He wasn't listening at all. "I am NOT a little girl," she reiterated hotly. "Haven't I just been and finished telling you? Are you slow-witted?"
It was a question Achren had flung at her many times during lessons, popped out before she even thought. A small point of remorse pricked her when his stunned mouth dropped open, and she cast about for a way to soften the blow. "I'm so sorry for you. It's terrible to be dull and stupid."
His jaw dropped further, and she realized this was possibly not the best choice of words either. Unused to being diplomatic, she gave it up for lost and pressed on.
"What's your name? I feel funny not knowing people's names. Wrong-footed, you know, or as if I had three thumbs on one hand. It's so clumsy-"
"I'm Taran of Caer Dallben," he blurted out, rather abruptly, with the air of giving an answer just so she would stop talking. He bit his lip instantly as though he regretted it.
"Oh, that's lovely!" she exclaimed, desperate to say something that would erase that look of terrified confusion from his face. "Really. I'm very glad to meet you." She faltered, unsure; Achren's interactions with strangers rarely involved pleasantries, but Eilonwy thought this seemed the proper response to an introduction. Probably she'd read it in a book somewhere.
He looked doubtful and said nothing else, to her disappointment. Perhaps she could prompt him. "I suppose you're a lord…" His eyes flickered pleased surprise, and she noticed suddenly that they were very green. "Or a warrior or war leader," she went on. His head rose perceptibly, back straightening. "Or a bard. Or a monster. We haven't had any monsters in a long time." She stared at him with new interest, trying to find evidence of any of these things, but there he stood, as plain as pudding.
"I'm none of those," the boy said, a trace of humor in his voice.
She frowned, puzzled. "What else is there?" He had to be something important. Achren never bothered imprisoning people who weren't; ordinary folks who offended her were done away with quickly so as not to waste resources.
"I am an assistant pig-keeper," he murmured, looking anxious again.
"How fascinating." She knew what pigs were. They figured prominently in several of her books, and were creatures of some status, or else merely delicious. "You're the first we've ever had. Unless-" she paused, recalling something. "Unless that poor fellow in the other dungeon is one, too."
The boy's eyes widened; he gasped, tense, and seemed actually to rise a few inches; he must be standing on his toes. "Tell me of him! Is he alive?"
"I don't know." She had not checked on the dungeon's other inhabitant since yesterday morning, when she'd peered into the cell on the other side of the courtyard after hearing a low groan within. "I peeked through the grating, but I couldn't tell. He didn't move at all, but I should imagine he's alive. Otherwise Achren would have fed him to the ravens." She spoke coolly, suspecting the other prisoner to be but another of Achren's lackeys fallen from favor, and rather resenting the boy's obvious interest when he still had not made a move to respond to her request. "Now, please, if you don't mind. It's right at your feet."
He looked down at the golden ball in the straw as though he'd forgotten it was there. "Oh. I can't pick it up. My hands are tied."
"Oh!" She felt foolish for not noticing that his arms were twisted behind his back awkwardly. Why would you tie someone's hands when they were going to be in a cell anyway? Achren must have been distracted with something else when she had thrown Taran of Caer Dallben into her dungeons. "Well, that would account for it. I suppose I shall have to come in and get it."
The expression he turned on her was maddeningly condescending. "You can't come in and get it. Can't you see I'm locked up?"
She bristled. Next he would be "little-girling" her again. "Of course I do. What would be the point of having someone in a dungeon if they weren't locked up? Really, Taran of Caer Dallben, you surprise me with some of your remarks. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but is Assistant Pig-Keeper the kind of work that calls for a great deal of intelligence?" There. Let him see how it felt to be condescended to.
The boy's dark brows knit together in consternation; she saw him take a quick decisive breath to retort and braced herself, with no little satisfaction, for a good row.
But it was not to be. Out of nowhere, a jerk at her long hair and a painful grip at her wrist wrenched her up from the ground; she shrieked in surprise before she was muffled in the midst of the swirling chaos of crimson velvet sleeves and air-crackling anger. Pinned against Achren's solid frame, the tangled strands of her own fiery hair twisted around her face and neck, she struck out blindly against the all-too-familiar sound of a leather strap whistling through the air, the loud crack of its contact on the back of one thinly-clad thigh. It stung like a hundred wasps, knocking her breath away on an animal noise of pain.
Achren wasn't particular about where stripes fell; she got them in wherever she could wrangle and jockeyed for a better grip at every opportunity. Eilonwy felt her shift her balance before the next blow and instinctively threw her full weight in the same direction. There was a scuffle, a whirling moment of sky and ground exchanging places. Achren's arm wound up in front of her face and she sank her teeth into it. The queen made a sound somewhere between a scream and a snarl as she jerked free, and delivered a blow to the side of her face that made her ears ring.
While she was yet too stunned to struggle, Achren grabbed her wrist, and in a whirl of velvet skirts and long silver braids yanked her toward a nearby doorway.
"You will obey me, by the gods," she thundered, "or you will suffer for it." She swept down a corridor and down several sets of staircases, half-dragging the girl behind her. Eilonwy, struggling for the look of the thing, carefully observed the route and was not surprised when they came to the end of a hallway and Achren threw open a heavy wooden door to reveal one of the cramped, filthy cells of the dungeon. Pleasant satisfaction tickled her throat, but it wouldn't do to show it. She jerked her arm free.
"Since you are so fond of the prisoners' company, you may share their quarters for an evening," Achren sneered, pushing her toward the open doorway. "Perhaps the dungeon will teach you better contentment with your own rooms." The queen's face had resumed its customary haughty severity; a beautiful face, sculpted smooth like marble, with high arched brows, sharp cheekbones and full mouth, but Eilonwy could not remember ever admiring it.
"I hope not," she snapped. Flinging Achren's hands from her shoulders and marching of her own volition into the cell, she turned to grab the edge of the heavy door. "If it keeps me out of your company I shall be glad of it." Tingling with rage, she slammed the door shut behind her, half-expecting Achren to come storming in for more lashing. But the woman appeared to be less belligerent than usual, or at least, preoccupied. There was a harrumph from the other side of the wood, the clang of the iron bolt, and then…silence.