again, Matya had the feeling there was something peculiar
about this village, but she could not quite fathom what it
was. She hurried on toward her wagon and the restless
Rabbit.
Then it struck her.
“The shadows are all wrong!” she said aloud.
Her own shadow stretched long before her in the low
morning sunlight, but hers was the only shadow that looked
like it was supposed to look. The shadow cast by a two-
story cottage to her left was short and lumpy – much shorter
than she would have expected for a building so high. She
looked all around the village and saw more examples of the
same. Nowhere did the outline of a shadow match that of
the object that cast it. Even more disturbing were the
villagers themselves. None of them cast shadows at all!
Her sense of unease growing, Matya gathered up her
skirts and hurried onto the stone bridge. She suddenly
wanted to be away from this troubling place. She was nearly
across the bridge when something – she was unsure exactly
what – compelled her to cast one last glance over her
shoulder. Abruptly she froze, clapping a hand over her
mouth to stifle a cry.
The village had changed.
Well-tended cottages were nothing more than broken,
burned stone foundations. The smithy was a pile of rubble,
and there was no trace of the mill except for the rotted
remains of the waterwheel, slumped by the bank of the
stream, looking like the twisted web of some enormous
spider. There were no people, no horses, no dogs, no
chickens. The dell was bare. The dark ground was hard and
cracked, as if it had been baked in a furnace.
Matya’s heart lurched. She ran a few, hesitant steps
back across the bridge, toward the village, and she gasped
again. Tambor looked as it had before, the villagers going
about their business. Blue smoke rose from a score of stone
chimneys.
Perhaps I imagined it, she thought, but she knew that
wasn’t true. Slowly, she turned her back to the village once
more and walked across the bridge. She looked out of the
comer of her eye and again saw the jumbled ruins and
blackened earth behind her. Slowly, she began to
understand.
Tambor HAD been destroyed in the Cataclysm. The
people, the bustling village, were images of what had been
long ago. It was all illusion. Except the illusion was
imperfect, Matya realized. It appeared only when she
traveled TOWARD the village, not AWAY from it. But how
did the illusion come to exist in the first place?
Resolutely, Matya walked back across the bridge. She
found that, if she concentrated, the illusion of the bustling
village would waver and grow transparent before her eyes,
and she could see the blackened ruins beneath. She walked
to the center of the village, toward the single standing stone
of pitted black basalt. This was the shrine of which Ciri had
spoken. At the base of the standing stone was an altar, but it
was not hewn of marble, as Ciri had claimed. The altar was
built of human skulls, cemented together with mud. They
grinned at Matya, staring at her with their dark, hollow
eyes.
“Did you really think I would allow you to leave with the
doll?” Ciri spoke behind her in a voice cool and sweet.
Startled, Matya turned around. She half expected to see
that Ciri had changed like the rest of the village. The
woman was as lovely as ever, but there was a hard, deadly
light in her sapphire-blue eyes.
Ciri gazed at Matya, then understanding flickered
across her face. “Ah, you see the village for what it is, don’t
you?”
Matya nodded silently, unable to speak.
Ciri shrugged. “It is just as well. It makes things easier.
I’m glad you know, in fact.”
“What do you want from me?” Matya asked.
“To strike a bargain with you, Matya. Isn’t that what you
like to do above all things?”
Matya’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“You have something I want very much,” Ciri said
softly.
“The doll,” Matya said, eyeing the woman.
“You see, Matya, despite the illusions I have used to