DAS VERSPRECHEN

German, "the promise"

Over the course of my life I've been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren't any less haunted than the others. They're just better liars. -- Kendare Blake, Anna Dressed in Blood

Diarnlan spent at least fifteen minutes screaming herself hoarse. At last she stopped -- but only because she ran out of insults. She leant against the door with all her might and tried to force it open. She might as well have been trying to move the whole house. Whatever that little bastard had shoved against the door it was much too heavy for her to move.

She tried to think calmly. It was very difficult when from outside she heard occasional cries and screams that were hastily cut off.

Her kidnapper had taken her to Miavain. That should be utterly impossible, but clearly it wasn't. However he'd done it, she couldn't teleport herself back. She tried. She couldn't even teleport out of this horrible cramped cupboard. Her magic was behaving very strangely. It was still there, still within her reach, but she couldn't make it do anything.

That bastard's cast some sort of curse on me, she thought, fuming.

There was nothing else for it. She'd have to find a weapon somewhere -- preferably her own sword, but the gods alone knew how she could get it back from that lunatic -- and kill him with that. Then she'd find a map and make her way back to Avallot.

The noises outside had stopped. Eerie silence reigned over the house. Then Diarnlan heard footsteps approaching. They came closer and closer to her prison. Finally they stopped right outside. She looked around for something to defend herself. There was nothing but a collection of coats draped over a rail. They didn't even have any hangers that could serve as makeshift weapons.

Screeeeeech went the statue as someone pushed it away from the door. Light flooded the little room as the door was yanked open. Diarnlan winced. Her eyes stung so badly she had to cover them, even though she knew that left her vulnerable to a surprise attack.

When the light stopped hurting her eyes she looked up warily. Her blood ran cold. The madman stood in the doorway. His clothes and face were dotted with blood. The sword in his hand -- her sword, damn him -- was completely covered with blood. It dripped down to splash on the floor.

"Come on," the madman said, impatiently tapping his foot on the tile. "We haven't got all day."

He sounded exactly like a customer in a shop exasperated with how long the person in front of them was taking to pay for their purchases. It was such a surreal tone coming from such a deranged person, especially under such horrible circumstances. Diarnlan stared at him in disbelief. She found herself wondering if she was unconscious in a hospital somewhere and this whole thing was a medication-induced nightmare. Had she been knocked out when the monster first appeared? Had there ever been a monster at all or was it part of her dream?

The madman's patience ran out. He grabbed her wrist and tried to physically pull her out. Diarnlan yanked her hand away, then slapped him across the face. He had the audacity to yelp and clutch his cheek as if she'd seriously injured him.

While he was distracted she shoved past him and tried to run for the door. Of all the times her ankle could have picked to give out, it chose the least convenient one. Sharp stabbing pain raced through her leg. A dizzy, painful moment later the world cleared and Diarnlan found herself lying on the floor.

The madman looked down at her and mock-pityingly shook his head. "You're a complete idiot."

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Diarnlan's kidnapper was surprisingly strong -- physically as well as magically -- for someone whose head barely reached her shoulders. He hauled her to her feet and half-dragged, half-carried her across the hall. Diarnlan made a point of doing nothing to help him. She leant on his shoulder as heavily as she could and took care to make him support her whole weight.

He grumbled under his breath as he dragged her down the hallway. It took a great deal of self-control for Diarnlan not to deliberately trip him up. Well, self-control mixed with the knowledge she couldn't stand on her own so it wouldn't be in her own interests to make him fall.

The madman kicked open a door. "Here we are!" he announced brightly, as if they were sight-seers visiting some notable place.

He practically shoved Diarnlan down into a chair. As soon as he was no longer the only thing holding her up she kicked out at his feet. Alas, he had expected it and dodged the blow.

Diarnlan looked around warily. She wouldn't have been surprised to find herself in a torture chamber surrounded by corpses. She was surprised to find she was in a large ornate hall, without any corpses or instruments of torture to be seen. A long table stood in the middle of the room. At the far end of it was a chair on a raised dais. In the chair sat a middle-aged man, so fat he looked more like a round dumpling than a person, wearing the most gaudy clothes Diarnlan had ever seen. His shirt, jacket, and the curious little cape draped over his shoulders were all eye-watering shades of green and purple. Worse, they were covered in so many frills and ruffles that it was impossible to tell where the clothes ended and the decorations began. Perched on his head was a bizarre hat shaped like a child's kite. It was decorated with dozens of tassels. Many of them fell over the man's face and hid it from view.

This spectacle almost took Diarnlan's breath away. She gaped at the man for several minutes, trying to comprehend how anyone outside an asylum could wear such monstrosities. Even her kidnapper, whose grasp on reality was as tenuous as a politician's grasp of truth, didn't walk around looking like a tailor's worst nightmare.

She was so distracted by his clothes it took her a while to realise the man wasn't moving. He sat still as a statue in his chair. The chair had obviously been intended for someone taller; its back towered over his head and added to how ludicrous he looked. She wondered if he was a clown from the local circus who had somehow ended up in this house at the worst possible time. It would explain his clothes and how still he could sit. Then she watched his face and saw how it barely moved. He hardly even blinked. Oh. A paralysing spell. Of course.

Diarnlan turned and gave her kidnapper the iciest frown she could manage. She was disgusted to see he looked absurdly pleased with himself. As if abduction, murdering random people, and casting spells on helpless bystanders was something to be proud of!

"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, using her best imitation of Teivain-ríkhon-hrair in one of her rare rages.

The madman brightened up even further, as if he'd just been praised by someone he especially wanted to impress. "I'm so glad you asked! This--" He waved at the clown. That unfortunate man couldn't make facial expressions any more, but he somehow managed to convey abject terror without moving a muscle, "--is this house's former owner."

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Diarnlan blinked and tried to reconcile the sorry figure before her with the idea of him owning such a grand house. She failed.

"He's a priest of the Bone-Worshippers."

Any sympathy Diarnlan felt for the man disappeared immediately. She eyed him as if he was an especially loathsome insect. He quailed even further beneath her glare.

"This is the third time I've killed him."

And there he went again, rambling nonsensically. Diarnlan didn't know why she was surprised. She didn't know how to deal with lunatics, and she would like to get out of this alive, so she just pretended not to hear him. Unfortunately the madman continued in this vein until it was impossible to ignore him.

"I know you don't believe me. You don't remember, but this is just the latest of many times we've repeated our lives. I don't even know which number this is. They all blur together after the first two."

Diarnlan couldn't stay silent after that. "You're mad."

The madman smiled. It was an odd smile, not quite angry and not quite mad; as if he was laughing at a private joke that not even he found funny. "I suppose I am. Wait till it's one of your lifetimes and you find I don't remember you any more. You'll see then."

What under heaven am I supposed to say to that?

Luckily for Diarnlan she didn't have to say anything. Karandren continued without waiting for a reply.

"I suppose you don't even remember my name."

"Of course I do," Diarnlan said without thinking. Then she stopped, bewildered, as she found it was true. How could she possibly know that? "...You told me, didn't you?"

That explanation didn't quite fit. Karandren had told her, but she hadn't paid any attention. She'd forgotten until now. An uneasy suspicion settled at the back of her mind. She refused to examine it. Some things were best left alone.

Karandren grinned humourlessly at her. She got yet another uneasy suspicion that he knew what she was thinking.

"Anyway, this is the third time I've killed him. Or it will be soon enough. Then I'm going to conquer Miavain and Avallot. Some day I'll have to find a way to stop the skrýszel getting through the veil. Then I'll find a way to break this curse so we won't have to keep reliving our lives. And then I'll kill you and rule the world."

Diarnlan rolled her eyes. She'd seen better villainous plans in the worst-written trash published by certain newspapers. "Good luck."

Karandren stared at her incredulously. For a moment she wondered if he thought she was sincerely wishing him well. Then he shrugged and picked up her sword. Diarnlan watched in mingled horror and disgust as he approached the priest. She briefly considered intervening. Then she remembered the crimes committed by the Bone-Worshippers, and decided it wasn't worth the effort. She looked away as Karandren swung the sword.

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"What do you mean, your student's in Miavain? No one can teleport into Miavain!"

Teivain-ríkhon-hrair closed her eyes and counted to ten. "Look, I've already told you she contacted me and told me herself. I think we can trust Diarnlan's judgement on where she is. She's one of my best students, you know."

Not that I'd ever tell her to her face, the mage thought with a shudder. She could just imagine how insufferable Diarnlan would be if she did.

The other magicians continued to look unconvinced. For the umpteenth time one of them said, "I don't care how smart she is; no one can teleport to Miavain!"

Teivain-ríkhon-hrair gestured to the monster's corpse. "No one can cut something this big in half either. But here it is, and it has something to do with Diarnlan being kidnapped."

Someone scoffed. "Oh, so now she's been kidnapped? And how pray tell can such a good magician get kidnapped?"

There were times when Teivain-ríkhon-hrair wanted to knock her fellow magicians' heads together. It seemed nothing else would get any sense into them.

Drefar-noraið-tirok, the oldest of the mages (and one of the few who in Teivain-ríkhon-hrair's opinion had any braincells), stepped in before anyone else made a fool of themselves. "It's a reasonable assumption when there are two sets of footprints here. As for teleporting to Miavain, it's highly unlikely and we'll have to wait to ask Diarnlan herself. Going in search of her is out of the question when we don't know where to start. In the meantime, what will we do about this corpse?"

After that Teivain-ríkhon-hrair had to suffer through yet more bickering about the proper way to dispose of a dead monster. She ignored the arguments as much as possible. Instead she searched telepathically for Diarnlan's consciousness. When that failed she tried hunting for any trace of her magic. Nothing. Diarnlan might as well have been on the other side of the world for all her teacher could tell.

I promise I'll find you, she said anyway, just in case Diarnlan's telepathy picked her up.

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Diarnlan was all too familiar with fictional kidnapping plots. They were a favoured plot twist of stupid authors with no better ideas. Sometimes it was an excuse for the hero to oh-so-heroically rescue his or her love interest from the dastardly villain's clutches. Sometimes the hero themselves was the victim and the whole thing was an excuse to show off their intelligence and resourcefulness. Invariably it ended with the kidnapper defeated, the kidnappee rescued, and everyone lived happily ever after. She'd never given much thought to how a kidnapping would go in real life. Certainly she'd never expected to find out first-hand.

"Well, that's that," Karandren said brightly. He wiped the sword clean on the chair's upholstery. When he turned to face Diarnlan he found the priest's head lying in front of him. He kicked it away without even looking at it as he continued, "At least I don't have to cook anything today. Look at all that food!"

The table in front of the priest's chair was loaded with food -- gravy, potatoes, vegetables, and a huge chunk of meat. The servants must have just brought it out to the priest when Karandren killed him. No doubt it would have been appetising about twenty minutes ago. Now it was cold, the gravy was congealed, and just looking at the stuff turned Diarnlan's stomach.

Karandren was bothered by no such feelings. He picked up a carving knife and attacked the meat with as much viciousness as if it was his worst enemy. Diarnlan watched in disgusted disbelief as he sawed off a slice, cast a heating spell on it, and tore into it like a starving dog.

He paused when he realised Diarnlan wasn't eating. With his mouth still full he mumbled, "Well? Aren't you hungry?"

An hour ago maybe she had been. Right now she felt as if she never wanted to see food again. "No."

He shrugged and went back to attacking the meat. Diarnlan took advantage of his distraction to sneak out of the dining room. She ran to the front door and tried to pull it open. The handle turned round and round uselessly. The door didn't budge. It wasn't locked and there was nothing jamming it. A locking spell. She might have known.

She gave up in disgust. Next she tried the window beside the door. It wouldn't move either. She went around all the rooms on the ground floor, trying every window she found. None of them would open. Nor would any of the doors.

In the kitchen and the halls around it she stumbled upon the bodies of the servants. One especially unlucky servant had apparently tried to fight back. The carving knife embedded in his chest showed how well that had gone.

In a large room near the dining room she found something even more disturbing than the dead servants. A huge altar took up nearly the whole room. Piled on it were skeletons. Human skeletons. Some of them far too small to be adults. On spikes at the top of the altar were human hands with the flesh still on them. They were unmistakeably children's hands. The smell of death and decay filled the room.

Diarnlan had dissected many animals -- and a few humans too. She'd witnessed gruesome injuries. She'd seen the monster crawl out of the sea. None of those sights had ever made her physically sick. This one did. She fell to her knees and retched until her stomach's contents came up.

"I'm glad it makes you sick." She started at Karandren's voice. When she turned she saw him standing in the doorway. He looked at the bones as if they were just a foreign curiosity. "I didn't know anything could do that." In a voice that was almost mournful he finished, "Nothing makes me sick any more."

"Try arsenic," Diarnlan suggested sarcastically. "I hear it's very good at making people sick."

Karandren pretended not to hear. He stared at the bones for another minute. Then he shrugged and turned away. "Tomorrow I'm going to find the other local priests and kill them too. But now I'm going to bed. It's been a very trying day."

Diarnlan gawked at him. As he left she shouted after him, "You've had a trying day? What sort of day do you think I've had?"

She heard him walk up the stairs. He slammed a door somewhere above her head. Then silence fell on the house. Diarnlan immediately went back to hunting for a way out. She tried doors. She tried windows. She even tried to magically blow a hole in a wall. Nothing worked. At last she had to face the facts. Karandren had cast some sort of spell on this house to keep her in and block her magic. She couldn't get out on her own. She'd just have to wait until he deigned to lift the spell.

By now she was exhausted. Her ankle never stopped throbbing. Even though her every instinct warned her it was dangerous to sleep here, she couldn't stay awake any longer. She found a small bedroom in the servants' quarters, pushed the wardrobe in front of the door, and collapsed onto the bed. She was asleep within minutes.