Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

“How many are there?” asked someone, and it sounded like an old question.

“Hundreds!” everyone chorused.

Judging by the grins being exchanged among the younger boys, Tobin guessed that this was a test to see if the new Companions would show fear. Tobin had been in enough haunted places in his life to know the feel of one; so far he hadn’t sensed anything at all here at the Palace, or even in the royal tombs among the dead.

He stole another glance at Ki, sprawled on the rushes at the edge of the fire-lit circle. He was maintaining a carefully bored expression, but Tobin thought he saw some uneasiness in his friend’s eyes. Perhaps living around Brother for so long hadn’t cured him of his fears, after all.

As the tales went on of floating heads and ghostly hands and unseen lips that blew out lamps in the night, Tobin found he wasn’t feeling all that brave himself. By the time they went back to their huge, shadowy room he was more glad than usual of Ki’s company and for little Baldus on his pallet by their door.

“Have you ever seen a ghost here?” he asked when the other servants had gone away for the night. Molay slept on a pallet outside their door to keep guard.

“Oh, yes! Lots,” the boy said, sounding quite cheerful about it.

Tobin pulled the bed curtains tight, then exchanged a troubled look with Ki. The bed might be large enough for a whole family, but they settled down close enough to touch shoulders all the same.

They were awakened sometime later by ominous scuffling and clacking sounds that came from all directions at once.

“Baldus, what is that?” Tobin called out. Someone had put out all the lamps. He couldn’t see a thing.

The noises grew louder and surrounded the bed. Both boys lurched up onto their knees, back to back.

The unnatural glow of lightstones broke in on them as dead white hands yanked back the bed curtains.

Tobin choked back a cry of alarm. The room was filled with shaggy humped figures that moaned and clacked long white bones together in their hands as they marched around the bed.

The cry quickly turned to a muffled laugh. Even in this light, he recognized Korin and Caliel beneath the black and white paint that covered their faces. They had on long black cloaks and what appeared to be wigs made out of frayed rope. The light came from several lightstones set on long poles that some of the others carried. There were too many for this to be only the Companions; looking more closely, he made out some of the young noble boys and girls who hung about the training grounds. Tobin could smell the wine on them, too. Baldus was crouched on his pallet by the door, both hands pressed over his mouth, but he looked to be shaking with laughter rather than fear.

“Are you ghosts?” Tobin asked, trying hard to keep a straight face.

“We are the ghosts of the Old Palace!” Caliel wailed. “You must prove your worth, New Companion. You and your squire must enter the forbidden chamber and sit on the throne of the mad queen.”

“Very well. Come on, Ki.” Tobin slid out of bed and pulled on his discarded trousers.

Their ghostly escort blindfolded them, then hoisted them up and carried them for what felt like a long way to a cold, quiet place that smelled of rot and the sea.

When Tobin was set on his feet and the blindfold pulled away, he found himself standing beside Ki in a corridor similar to most they’d seen in the Old Palace, except that this one had gone to ruin. The fish pool down its center was empty and choked with dead leaves, and stars showed through holes in the roof overhead. What murals remained on the rain-washed walls were flaking and faded. Before them was a set of doors similar to those at the front of the Palace, but these were sheathed in gold and sealed with great plugs of lead pounded in around their edges and struck with official-looking imprints.

His captors didn’t look quite so silly in their robes and wigs here.

“This is the old throne room, the forbidden chamber,” Korin intoned. “Here Mad Agnalain had a hundred traitors executed in a single day and sat drinking their blood. Here she took a dozen consorts, then sent them to their dooms. On this very throne she commanded that five hundred crow cages be set up on the high road, from here to Ylani, and that every cage be filled. She still walks these halls, and she still sits upon that throne.” He raised a white hand and pointed at Tobin. “Here, in the sight of these witnesses, you and your squire must join her. You must enter this chamber and sit in the mad queen’s lap or you are not one with us, and no warriors!”

Their escort dragged them through a side door and into a long room where a narrow window stood open. From here, they had to crawl onto a wide ledge high above the gardens and climb into the audience chamber beyond through a broken shutter.

It was a simple enough matter to get into the chamber, but once in, it was as if they’d dropped into a black void. They could see nothing at first, and the echo of every whisper and shuffling step seemed to be swallowed up in endless space around them.

Tobin could hear the others on the ledge outside and knew they were being listened to. Someone tossed in one of the glowing stones, a tiny one that cast light no more than a few feet around. Still, it was better than nothing.

“Tobin, son of Rhius!” a woman’s voice whispered from the darkness.

Tobin jumped as Ki clamped a hand around his wrist.

“Did you hear that?” Ki whispered.

“Yes.”

“Do you think it’s her? Queen Agnalain?”

“I don’t know.” He tried to sense what he felt when Brother was around, but the place just felt drafty and deserted.

“Come on, they’re just playing tricks on us. If there really was a ghost who’d kill us, they wouldn’t send us in, would they?”

“You don’t think so?” muttered Ki, but he followed when Tobin handed him the lightstone and strode off into the darkness.

At first it felt like stepping off a cliff, but with the light-stone behind him and the starlight that filtered in around the shuttered windows to his right, Tobin soon made out the rows of pillars that marched away into the darkness on either side of the long chamber.

This had been Queen Ghërilain’s audience chamber, her throne room. He paused, visualizing the one at the New Palace. The throne there had been at the end farthest from the doors. The doors here should be to his right, so the throne would be to his far left.

“Prince Tobin!” the ghostly voice called. It was coming from his right instead.

He stopped again, recalling the toy palace his father had made for him. It had been a simple box with a roof that lifted off, but inside had been the queen’s throne room. This room. And the throne had been in the middle, not at the end, with the golden tablet of the Oracle beside it. Squinting, he could just make out a dark shape to his right that could be a dais. Suddenly he wanted very much to see that throne, and touch that golden tablet for himself. Even if there was a ghost there, she was his kin.

He turned and bumped into Ki, who jumped and grabbed for him again. “What is it? Did you see something?”

Tobin felt for his friend’s shoulder; sure enough, Ki was shivering.

Putting his mouth close to Ki’s ear, he whispered, “There aren’t any ghosts here. Korin and the others were just trying to scare us with their stories tonight so we’d be worked up for this. I mean, look what they had on! Who knows better than I do what a real ghost looks like?”

Ki grinned, and for a fleeting moment Tobin considered turning Brother loose here to show the others what a real spirit was capable of. Instead, he raised his voice for the benefit of those listening behind them and said, “Come on, Ki, the throne is just over here. Let’s go visit my grandmother.”