blind terror only dreams can give, or those things that have the unreality of
dreams. He had no idea whether that rattle had been the door – the wind, he
thought, the wind blowing something; but why this night-terror, this sickly
sweat, this conviction it boded something?
Then he saw the man standing in the room. Not – standing – but existing there,
as if he were part of the shadows, and light from somewhere (not the fire)
falling on golden curling hair, and on a bewildered expression. He was young,
this man, his shirt open, a charm hung on a cord about his neck, his skin
glistening with wine-heat and summer warmth as it had been one night; while
sweat like ice poured down Mradhon’s sides beneath the thin blanket.
Sjekso. But the man was dead, in an alley not so far from here. In some unmarked
grave he was food for worms.
Mradhon watched the while this apparition wavered like a reflection in wind
blown water, all in dark, and while its mouth moved, saying something that had
no sound – as, suddenly, treacherously swift, it came drifting towards the bed,
closer, closer, and the air grew numb with cold, Mradhon yelled in revulsion,
waved his arm at it, felt it pass through icy air, and his bedmates woke,
stirred in the nest –
‘Mradhon!’ Haught caught his arm, held him.
‘The door,’ Moria said, thrusting up from beside them, ‘0 gods, the door -‘
Mradhon rolled, saw the lifting of the bar with no hands upon it, saw it totter
– it fell and crashed, and he was scrambling for the side of the bed, the
bedpost where his sword hung even while he felt the blast of rain-soaked air,