Fire Arrow

FIFTEEN

The Man with No Face

The man's warm, caressing voice wrapped around Brie, drawing her closer. But still his face was blurred, shifting.

"I have waited long," he said, and Brie's hand was enveloped in his. She was being propelled toward the lake. Somehow the man with no face had taken control of her limbs, the effect reminding her of the paralysis caused by a morg's touch, except that this was not a cold, spreading numbness but a hot prickle, as if the blood inside her veins were being heated by a flame. Terror caught at her somewhere deep inside, but she could not stop herself from moving forward.

The benevolent voice said, "Here, let us cross to the bell tower."

Even with the stunned, burning feeling in her limbs, Brie faltered. Perhaps the man with no face could walk on the water, but she could not.

He gave an indulgent laugh. "There is a pathway made of stone just under the water. An underwater wall, if you like, an amusing contrivance wrought by the original owner. I will not let you fall."

And indeed, like a master puppeteer, he guided Brie's feet across the stone pathway. The water came up almost to her knees and was so opaque she could not see her boots. The path had been constructed with a devilish ingenuity, twisting and turning in such a way that, on her own, it would have taken half the day for Brie to navigate it.

Finally they stepped up onto the islet, and the man led her to the tower's door. There were carvings above the arch, faces with protruding eyes and tongues thrusting out, and the surface of the door was covered with runes.

The door was slightly ajar, and the man pushed it open, leading her into a round, dim room lit by flickering lanterns. The man pulled the large door shut behind them, then went around Brie to a spiral stairway. Unaccountably, Brie's legs bore her up the stairs behind him. It was a narrow, claustrophobic, unlit space, barely as wide as her shoulders. Once they were out of sight of the entryway, they moved upward in complete darkness.

They climbed silently, the only sounds their breathing and their feet on the gray stone steps. On and on they climbed. Surely we will soon reach the top, Brie thought. But they did not. Instead they came to a landing, which was lit by lanterns that revealed three closed doors. Even here they did not pause, continuing their ascent of the circular stairway. They passed many such landings and many closed doors. It did not seem possible to Brie that the tower could contain so many.

At last the man stopped, on a landing that had only one door. Unlike the others, this door bore a mosaic inlay of gleaming white and gold tiles. Withdrawing a large golden key from a leather pouch at his waist, the man opened the door.

Inside was a sumptuous, beautiful room, gleaming everywhere with gold: gold brocade curtains, elegant enormous tapestries worked with golden thread, luxurious gold velvet rugs, tables and chairs with ornate gilt legs. A soft warm light glowed from dozens of intricately wrought, gold lanterns. A golden table was spread with plates of biscuits and cakes, and carafes of honey-colored wine. ;

"Please," the man with the blurred face said, pulling out a chair, "you must be weary after your long journey."

Brie wanted to protest, but even as she tried to form the words, her legs were moving, bearing her across the room to a gold velvet chair with golden legs.

Before she sat, the man took her bow and quiver. "You will not need these." He placed them on a gilt table near the door.

Again she tried to protest and again she could not.

Returning to the table, the man filled two plates with food, poured two golden goblets of the honey-colored wine, and said with a smiling voice, "Do eat. You will find you can move your arms now." The hot prickly feeling suddenly left Brie's arms, though remained elsewhere. But she did not eat.

"Who are you?" Brie asked.

"First we eat, then we will talk." He drank from his goblet and then began to eat. Brie still could not see his face. "I assure you," he said between bites, "none of the food or drink has been tampered with. The wine is an excellent vintage, from the first pressing of Oldyn grapes, sweetened with the purest clover honey in Dungal. You must try it, Brie."

He had used her name.

"Show me your face," she said.

The man let out a sigh, then replied, "Very well." He took a last bite, set down his golden cutlery, and wiped his mouth with a golden napkin. Then he pushed himself a short distance from the table.

Mesmerized, Brie watched the man's face. The features began to resolve into a definite pattern; it was a well-favored face with a strong chin, a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and eyes as blue as the core of a lasan flame. It was the face of a young god. Memory stirred in Brie. She knew him, but she could not recall...

He smiled. "It is such a pleasure to see you again, Breo-Saight. Breo-Saight—it was a name I gave you, do you remember? I little guessed then I was a prophet, as well as a sorcerer."

***

"Loolk, Brie. Your arrow flew higher than an eagle. It almost set those clouds aflame."

"Was it a good shot?"

"The best yet. I know, I shall give you a new name. To match your prowess. Breo-Saight. Fire arrow."

"Fire arrow..."

"Yes. And one day it shall be known throughout the land. Breo-Saight." A dazzling grin. Her own eager smile in response.

***

"Balor," she said. Her cousin.

He smiled at her. "I enjoyed the year I spent at Dun Slieve. Your father was an adequate teacher for what I required at the time. Of course I was only just discovering the potential in me for other things."

"We never heard from you after you left," Brie heard herself say, her voice childlike.

"Ah, it could not be helped. I came here first, to Dungal. I knew I was ready for instruction of a different kind, to kindle the draoicht in me. I had always heard that Dungal was rich in such people, but as it turned out, none was powerful enough, except the mad ones like Yldir. And they would not help me. So I went to Scath."

"Medb," Brie said softly.

"Indeed. A tactical choice, and a fruitful one as it turned out. But enough. Shall we return to our meal? You haven't yet tried the wine."

Brie's mind whirled.

This man Balor, her cousin, acted as if he had brought her here. And yet she thought the arrow, and Sago, had guided her path. Without thinking, she glanced at the quiver.

His eyes followed her glance. "Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten." Brie's stomach tightened. Again Balor laid down his golden fork. He crossed to Brie's quiver and peered inside. Wrinkling his forehead, he put his hand inside, riffling through the arrows.

Balor made a sound of annoyance. "Where is the arrow?"

Brie kept her voice level. "Arrow?"

"The fire arrow. That I sent the incompetent fool Bricriu to retrieve. I understood you bore it with you."

Brie was silent.

Balor turned the quiver over, dumping its contents onto a gold brocade couch. Brie stared at the dozen or so arrows. They all looked alike. None bore the markings of story bands nor the fletching of goldenhawk feathers.

Balor frowned, then shook his head. He gazed at Brie. She kept her face still, expressionless.

"I wonder what you could have done with it," Balor intoned softly. "Left it with your traveling companion, perhaps. Or hidden it. Ah well, it is immaterial. You do not have it here. And you will not be departing this tower, not at least without me.

"Now, since it is clear you do not intend to break bread with me, we must move on. I have an invasion to prepare and there is more I would have you know of me." He spoke the word invasion as another would have said "evening banquet," Brie thought.

"My eyes," his voice commanded. And, though afraid, Brie gazed straight into those blue-flame eyes, and as she watched, one of them, the right one, drained of all color. The blue-flame dissolved and was gone. The eyeball was completely white.

Casually Balor drew out a dark green eye-patch and affixed it over his right, colorless eye.

An eye-patch ... Brie's mind twitched. But Balor's voice called her back.

"You see me now as I am. The gabha call me Gealacan, or White-eye. It was an unfortunate legacy of my apprenticeship with Medb. I was tending a concoction, an experimental brew Medb had prepared using a flake from the cailceadon. She left the room for several moments and I, believing it would accelerate my education—correctly as it turned out—scooped up a fingerful and put it in my mouth. Unfortunately a drop splashed into my eye, with the result you see now. I also lost a part of my finger." He held up his index finger to illustrate his words; it was indeed cut off at the first joint. "And my tongue was damaged as well, though Medb was kind enough to repair that. My eye she left as it was. Partly as punishment, and partly, I believe, to make us more alike. Or perhaps you are unaware of the paleness of Medb's eyes? She thinks them exceedingly handsome and was quite pleased with my matching eye.

"At any rate Medb's brew did wonders for my draoicht, much more than she knows even now. After all, she lost the cailceadon, but I shall always have a part of it inside me. And to lose a bit of color from one's eye, well, that's hardly an intolerable price to pay."

Brie stared at the eye-patch. The dark green was wrong somehow. It should have been black.

"Ah, you have guessed. I promise this, shall be the last of my revelations. I apologize for the melodrama. Had there been time, I would have parceled them out more slowly."

Brie knew before he had finished. Like clay pressed into place by artful human hands, his blurred features resolved into a new face—a coarse, brutish Scathian face wearing a black eye-patch.

"Not my own, of course," Balor said. "But useful for the occasion."

Brie let out a thin cry, pain coiling in her chest like a serpent. It was the face of the third murderer, the last of the three men she had sought.

It had been Balor who, from his horse, had directed the others as they murdered her father.

In an instant she was back in the Ramhar Forest. She could smell her father's blood, could almost feel it wet on her skin, though she watched him die from a distance.

The man with the eye-patch, the face she had memorized and sought for so long—it had been a false face after all.

Rage filmed her vision. She strained against the invisible bonds on her limbs.

"You are angry. I understand," Balor said. "It will pass, in time. And would you indeed kill your own cousin, Breo-Saight? I think not. Killing is not in your nature, though I have been impressed with your skill of late,"

Brie flinched. It was as if he sought to own her by their shared darkness. "Why did you kill him?" she whispered.

"It was Medb's directive, to kill off Eirren's heroes, the prime of its manhood. It was a sound plan as far as it went; indeed I have done much the same here in Dungal—sending the moths for Yldir, a stonefish for your Sago—but I like to think I have improved on the design. Sow fear and hunger through a land with killing fish and dry winds and the strength to resist will be removed."

"Did you kill Cuillean, too?"

Balor laughed. It was a delighted, amused laugh, as though the idea was a lovely one and he wished he had thought of it. "No indeed. It is not my place to spread gossip, but it is said that, in my absence, someone answering Cuillean's description is a frequent and much-favored visitor at Medb's fortress in Scath.

"I see it does not surprise you. Of course, you saw him there in the forest, watching. Just as you yourself watched."

He had known she was there. Hatred coursed through Brie's veins like a swollen river overflowing its banks. She wanted to kill Balor, wanted to see him lying dead on his gold velvet rug, blood flowing down his face, like her father....

"Now"—Balor's rich voice broke into her thoughts—"time grows short. And I have a rendezvous with a sea serpent." He smiled to himself, a silken, golden smile.

Brie stared ahead, unseeing.

"Sadly, I cannot take you north with me to marshal my forces. But though I may be gone long, rest assured you shall not lack for food and drink. And when I am done, I shall return for you." He rose, coming up behind her.

Balor put his hand on Brie's neck. She fought back the nausea rising in her throat. Deftly he unclasped the bioran holding her braids in place, then he deliberately, slowly, ran his fingers up her scalp and through her hair, unweaving the plaits. His fingers were like talons.

"My pretty cousin," he said softly. "We shall rule it all, together." His words caressed, beckoned. "This little land, Eirren, and, one day, Scath..."

Abruptly he released her and moved to the door. Picking up her bow and quiver, Balor smiled at Brie. "I shall find a safe place for these before I depart."

Then he was gone. She could hear him lock the door from the outside.

Brie's body snapped and sagged. The hot prickling palsy that had trapped her limbs was gone. Rising from the velvet-and-gold chair, she ran to the door. She twisted the handle, pulling hard. The door didn't move. She strained and tugged, kicked the unrelenting surface, even tried forcing her fingers into the infinitesimal space between door and wall.

Breathing hard, Brie leaned her back against the door and gazed around the room. Then she searched its periphery, lifting tapestries, looking behind gilt-framed paintings. There were no windows and no other doors. She found her bioran on a small gilt table and refastened her hair, her hands shaking slightly.

One thing she discovered in her search was an ornate cupboard that was apparently the source of the food and drink Balor had promised to provide. Inside were stacks of brisgeinlike bars, as well as dried fruit and biscuits. There were three large, long-necked carafes of clear water, and another with honey-colored wine. The cupboard's contents would not sustain a person more than several weeks; Balor must have a way to replenish it, Brie thought.

She had no illusions that she could best Balor when he returned for her, either by outright resistance or by trickery. His power was too immense.

She crossed again to the door and leaned down to examine the keyhole. During the early days of her quest to find her father's killers, before she met up with Collun and Talisen, Brie had encountered a wide assortment of fellow wanderers. One of the more interesting had been a thief named Jinn. At the lodging house of a prosperous smuggler, Jinn had taught Brie the finer points of picking a lock.

She would need something long and pointed. Brie's gaze fell on a golden lantern. It had a thin handle. Straightened, the handle could make an excellent lock pick. Aided by a golden fork from the table, Brie pried the handle out of the lantern. Then she took up a heavy, shimmering bookend and hammered the handle into a straight line.

Crossing to the door, Brie stuck the point into the lock and wiggled it into the mechanism. Unfortunately the lock bore no resemblance to the one on which the thief had taught her. But finally, just when she was on the verge of giving up, she gave a last frustrated jiggle and turn, and there was a click. The door silently swung open.

"Thank you, Jinn," she breathed.

But Brie couldn't help thinking it had been too easy. And indeed, when she finally stood before the great arched doorway at the bottom of the bell tower, she knew why. There was no way through this door.

She had gone over every inch of the unyielding stone surface. There was no lock. And though she was hardly an expert in such matters, she felt sure it had been sealed by sorcery.

Brie sank to her knees. The great stone cylinder in which she was trapped pressed down on her. For a moment she felt lost, withered by despair. Bleakly she gazed up at the flickering lanterns. She wondered if, like the food in the golden room, the oil in them would be replenished until Balor returned for her. Or perhaps he would not return for her and this bell tower was to be her tomb. And perhaps indeed that would be a better thing; Brie thought of Balor's talon-hand on the nape of her neck.

She put her hands to the sides of her head. "I must find a way out," she murmured.

Windows. She remembered seeing them from the outside, just a few, arranged randomly along the length of the tower. And there were golden tapestries that could be fashioned into a rope of sorts, to climb down. She would search the rooms, one by one, until she found a window.

And perhaps she might even find her bow and quiver. She suddenly remembered the arrows lying on the gold brocade—all alike. Where was the fire arrow? It had been in her quiver when she left the campsite.

Brie ran up the circular stairway, arriving out of breath at the first landing. She approached the nearest of the three doors, then hesitated, an unreasoning fear taking hold of her.

Trying to subdue the dread, she slowly turned the handle, opened the door, and looked in. It was dark inside. Brie returned to the landing and took a lantern off the wall. Holding it in front of her, she entered the room. It appeared to be empty, barren. The walls were of stone, dripping with moisture. She spied a window. But as she started toward it, something beneath her feet made a cracking, splintering sound. She looked down to see that the stone floor was covered with bones.

For a moment she froze, then resolutely made her way across the grisly carpet. As she approached the window she saw that it was heavily barred with iron. She tugged on one of the bars; it was unmoving, set deeply into the stone.

She made her way back to the door, spying rusty iron chains and manacles trailing from the walls. Shutting the door behind her, she had the fleeting thought that, except for luxurious trappings, there was little difference between this room and her golden prison cell.

Brie opened the second door on the landing, expecting it to be another dungeon. Instead she found a lush greenhouse with large, abundant green plants. The floor was covered with a thick layer of moss, and Brie crossed the spongy surface to the vine-choked wall. The air was rich and damp, and she started to sweat. She became aware of a musty, rotting smell. It reminded her of the stench of the cro-olachan vine, the blood-drinking plant she and Collun had once come across in their travels. She peered at the vines closely. They did not appear to be cro-olachan, but she took great care as she poked and pushed through them to see if there was a window. There was none.

And so Brie went through the rooms of the bell tower, one by one, each one stranger and ranker than the last. There was a room crawling with insects—black, brown, green, yellow, and orange. They covered the floor and walls, a moving buzzing mass. To look for a window, Brie had to brush them off the walls, her hand covered with her tunic. They glanced off her face and body, some flying frantically around her head.

Then she came to a room with honey dripping off its walls; and a room furred with spiderwebs, with one enormous spider hanging up in a corner. It seemed to see her when she opened the door and immediately scurried along the wall toward her. She slammed the door shut. The floor of one room was covered with small dead birds that she had to wade through, their little lifeless talons scratching against the stone floor. There was a room of shadow and fog, and a room lit by hundreds of ever-burning candles.

One room Brie could not enter, so oppressive was the evil that pulsed from inside. Strange whispering sounds emanated from within the room's yellow darkness. She was able to cast only the briefest of glances, then she pulled the door shut with a shaking hand. It felt as though the door resisted, as though someone on the other side pulled against her. Sweat stood out on her brow as she ran up the circular stairway to the next landing and the next door.

In the end she found only four windows, each one barred with thick bands of unmoving iron. They were shuttered on the outside as well, so she had been unable to see out.

She returned to the landing of the golden room. At first she had thought the circular stairway ended there, but then she noticed a narrow slit through which she found another stairway, this one a spiral also, but even narrower. She had to ascend sideways, holding the lantern over her head.

After a short time her head and shoulders emerged into a chill, open space. The belfry, she realized, staring up at a massive brooding bell that hung fifty feet above her. The bell was black—a hard dull black—its surface pitted and scored with antiquity. The belfry was wholly still, not a breath of air stirred in the oppressive space, yet there was a soughing, gibbering malevolence, like a living thing, that beat at Brie's skin and eardrums. It came from the bell, with its wide gaping mouth and the clapper hanging mute inside, a great evil teardrop.

Gazing up at the walls above, where the lantern light cast eerie shadows, Brie could see where there had once been louver openings to let out the sound of the bell tolling, but they had been mortared shut. A metal ladder rose along the stone wall to the top of the bell stock, and a thick length of hemp hung alongside the ladder. The thought of that hulking bell actually ringing filled Brie with an unreasoning terror.

More than anything she wanted to get away from the belfry, but, setting the lantern down on the top step of the stairwell, Brie inched over to the bottom of the ladder. She wasn't sure how sturdy the floor of the belfry was; it was roughly constructed of wood planking and loose stone. She hoisted herself onto the ladder. The noise that was no noise grew stronger; her eardrums ached and her skin felt as though things were crawling on it. She climbed the rungs, the metal cold on her hands. When she reached a place where the openings had been mortared, she scratched at the surface with her fingernails. But it; was as solid as the rock beside it; no bits of soft debris were loosened by her scratching.

Quickly Brie descended the ladder, grabbed the lantern, and slithered down the narrow stairwell as fast as she could. She walked into the golden room and sank down on gold velvet carpeting, rubbing her arms and face until the crawling feeling left her skin.

Brie bowed her head, closing her eyes. She had searched the bell tower from its foundation to the evil top of it. There was no way out.