Emily Rodda - Ilse Of Illusion

‘Jinks is dead,’ said Sharn abruptly. ‘Lindal is with Doom. There is only one person I must see to settle this.’

Josef gaped after her as she hurried out of the room.

Sharn was panting when she reached the kitchen door.

She stood quite still for a moment, her hand on the knob, trying to calm herself. Then, to her surprise, she heard the muffled voice of Amarantz, and the sound of her own name.

‘Sharn is upstairs, but she will be back at any moment. Wait here for her, I pray you. And try one or two of these, to please me. They are a new recipe. No doubt you are hungry from your journey.’

‘Indeed we are,’ boomed another voice—a voice Sharn knew well. ‘I could eat my old horse, if we did not need him to pull the caravan. Come on, girl!’

There was a loud scraping of chairs.

Sharn threw open the door, taking in the scene in an instant. Two huge figures were sitting at the table. One was Doom’s friend Steven, the strange Plains pedlar who had been such a good and powerful ally in the time of the Shadow Lord. The other—was Lindal!

And taking his place beside them was Doom himself, wearily pulling off his coat. But Sharn had no time, no space in her mind, to wonder why Doom and Lindal had returned, or how Steven had come to be with them. Her gaze was fixed on the platter towards which all three were reaching—a platter heaped with small, golden-brown cakes in silver paper cases.

‘No!’

She sprang forward. As they shouted in shock, her arm crashed down on the table, sweeping the platter away from them. The platter fell to the floor, smashing on the stones, cakes bouncing and rolling away.

Amarantz, her face pale as parchment, fell to her knees, scrabbling to pick them up.

‘Sharn! What is it?’ roared Doom, astounded, almost angry.

Sharn could not answer. She was gasping, dizzy with relief. If she had been a moment later …

She steadied herself on the edge of the table and made herself look down at the old woman crawling on the stones of the kitchen floor.

Amarantz’s eyes met hers. And suddenly it seemed to Sharn that something else was watching her from behind that familiar, faded blue. Something alien. Something cunning. Something wicked.

Her stomach churned with sickness. She shrank back, shivering.

And then, horribly, Amarantz began to laugh. ‘Fools!’ she cackled. ‘Do you not know that you will never defeat me?’

With an oath, Doom leaped to his feet, his chair crashing behind him. Steven rose more slowly, gripping the edge of the table. The muscles of his arms and neck bulged as though he were lifting a great weight. He trembled all over. His eyes flickered from gold to brown as Nevets, the savage brother he carried within him, struggled for freedom.

‘No!’ Lindal ordered, putting a huge hand on his shoulder. ‘Nevets, we do not need you here. Go back!’

The terrible shuddering quietened and ceased.

Shoulders heaving, Amarantz crouched toad-like, watching them. ‘What joy it would have been to have sent you the way of the poor little bride, Doom!’ she croaked. ‘And your friends, those ugly freaks of nature, with you. But, ah well, this feeble body is nearly worn out as it is. I will see you another time, Doom, in another place.’

She pressed her clenched fist to her mouth.

‘Stop her!’ Sharn exclaimed urgently.

Instantly understanding, Doom leaped forward.

But it was too late. The poisoned cake was already in the old woman’s throat, and she was swallowing it whole.

‘Soon we will be everywhere!’ she hissed. ‘Very soon …’

Her face changed, her eyes rolled back. With a terrible shriek she clutched at her stomach and fell sideways, her feet kicking, her head beating horribly against the stones.

As Doom, Lindal and Steven stood frozen with horror, Sharn ran to her. She could not help it. For whatever hideous force possessed the old woman, this was Amarantz, the friend of her youth. She could not let her die horribly, alone.

She took the jerking body in her arms and held it tightly. For a long moment there was no change. Then suddenly the eyes returned to normal. They stared at Sharn vacantly for a single moment, then seemed to focus.

‘I am here, Amarantz,’ Sharn whispered.

The eyes grew puzzled. The cracked lips opened. ‘Sharn?’ Amarantz murmured. ‘Oh, Sharn, I had a terrible dream. Such a terrible dream.’

Sharn nodded, stroking the wet forehead, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘I dreamed that the Grey Guards came to the pottery, and we were all taken,’ sighed the old woman. ‘And I—’ Her eyes suddenly widened, filling with terror.

‘Do not fear any more, Amarantz,’ said Sharn quickly. ‘The dream has ended now. Ended.’

‘Yes.’ The faded eyes grew peaceful once more. The lips curved in a half smile. And then the breathing stopped. For Amarantz, the nightmare had truly ended at last.

‘What was that she said of “the poor little bride”?’ asked Doom urgently.

‘She thought she had poisoned Marilen. But she was wrong,’ said Sharn.

She laid the old woman’s head gently down and brushed the wisps of grey hair from the bloodstained cheek. Then she thought … she thought she saw something moving in the hair that trailed on the ground. Tears were blurring her eyes. She rubbed them, looked again, then jerked back with a scream of horror.

A long grey worm with a scarlet head was crawling from Amarantz’s ear. It slithered out onto the floor in a trail of slime and writhed there, its tail lashing in fury.

14 - Leap of Faith

His face twisted in disgust, Doom strode forward and stamped on the evil thing, grinding it into the stones.

‘What was it?’ screeched Lindal.

‘A new piece of Shadow Lord devilry,’ Doom muttered. ‘Amarantz was taken to the Shadowlands, it seems. And at some time—perhaps not long ago— that vile thing was put into her brain, and she was sent back.’

He looked down at Amarantz’s crumpled body.

‘At least we now understand what has been happening here,’ he said. ‘Why we are plagued by assassins and spies—all of them once good people.’

There was a short, fearful silence. One thought was in all their minds.

‘There could be thousands of them,’ said Lindal roughly, putting the thought into words at last.

‘No.’ Doom’s brow was furrowed in thought. ‘The words were, “ Soon we will be everywhere”. For some reason, the real invasion has not yet begun.’

‘I think—I think that is because the process is not yet perfect.’ Sharn was controlling the trembling in her voice with difficulty. ‘It still causes … damage.’

As her companions stared, puzzled, she took a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Do you not see?’ she said. ‘Amarantz said she had been deafened by a beating, but that was a lie. At the last, when she was herself again, when the worm had begun leaving her because it knew her time was ending, she could hear me clearly. The worm had been blocking her hearing, as well as controlling her mind.’

‘Yes!’ Doom’s eyes blazed. ‘And this explains many things. The babbling woman with the knife. The old guard who could not walk—’

‘And—of course!—the man Pieter, who put the scorpion in Lief’s bed chamber, was tormented by agonising headaches,’ Sharn exclaimed. ‘He was another—imperfect experiment.’ Suddenly the horror was too much for her. She covered her eyes.

‘The Shadow Lord is no doubt working to correct the fault in his process,’ muttered Lindal. ‘And when he is satisfied …’

‘Ah, you are as gloomy as Nevets, girl!’ growled Steven. ‘Are you trying to make us lose all hope? I suspect you have a worm in your own painted skull.’