The geir pressed the Keeper’s hand more tightly. He leaned close to hear her, yet was barely able to understand her words spoken fast and tight.
“I saw the night crawl through her window!”
The Keeper frowned, drew back.
“I know what you think,” the geir said. “That I was drunk or dreaming. But I swear it is the truth. I saw movement, dark shapes blotted out the window frame, crept over to the wall. Three of them. And for an instant they were holes of blackness against the wall. They stood still. And then they were the wall!
“But I could still see them move, though it was as if the wall itself were writhing. They slid to my lamb’s bed. I tried to scream, to cry out, but my voice made no sound. I was helpless. Helpless.”
The geir shuddered. “Then a pillow—one of my lamb’s silk embroidered pillows that she’d sewn with her own dear hands—rose up in the air, borne by unseen hands. They laid it over her face and… and pressed it down. My lamb struggled. Even in her sleep, she fought to live. The unseen hands held the pillow over her face until… until her struggles ceased. She lay back limp.
“Then I sensed one of them come over to me. There was nothing else visible, not even a face. Yet I knew one was near. A hand touched my shoulder and shook me.
” ‘Your charge is dead, geir,’ a voice said. ‘Quickly, catch her soul.’
“The terrible drugged feeling left me. I screamed and sat up and reached for the evil creature, to hold him until I could summon the guards. But my hands passed through air. They had gone. They were no longer the walls, but the night. They fled.
“I ran to my lamb, but she was dead. Her heartbeat stilled, her life smothered out of her. They had not even given her a chance to free her own soul. I had to cut her.* Her smooth, pale skin. I had—”
*The first words an elven child of royal blood teams are those that will release his soul from the body after death. He repeats these at the time of death and the geir then captures the soul to take it to the cathedral. However, if the elf dies before the words can be spoken, the geir may free the soul by cutting open a vein in the left arm and drawing off heart’s blood. This must be done within moments after death.
The geir began to sob uncontrollably. She did not see the look on the Keeper’s face, did not see his forehead crease, his large eyes darken.
“You must have dreamed it, my dear,” was all he said to the woman.
“No,” she replied in hollow tones, her tears wept out. “I did not dream it, though that is what they would have me believe. And I’ve sensed them, following me. Everywhere I go. But that is nothing. I have no reason to live. I wanted only to tell someone. And they could not very well kill me before I fulfilled my duty, could they?”
She gave the box a last fond, grieving look, then placed it gently and reverently in the Keeper’s hand.
“Not when this is what they wanted.”
Turning, head bowed, she walked back through the crystal door.
The Keeper held it open for her. He spoke a few comforting words, but they were empty of conviction and both the speaker and the hearer—if she heard them at all—knew it. Holding the lapis and chalcedony box in his hand, he watched the geir wend her way down the gilt-edged stairs and out onto the large and empty courtyard surrounding the cathedral. The sun shone brightly. The geir’s body cast a long shadow behind her.
The Keeper felt chilled. He watched closely until the woman had vanished beyond his sight. The box in his hand was still warm from the geir’s fast hold on it. Sighing, he turned away, rang a small silver gong that stood on a wall sconce near the door.
Another Kenkari, clad in the multicolored butterfly robes, drifted down the hall on silent, slippered feet.