The Duke followed that faint thread, passing through the corridor and heading towards the southwestern corner of the courtyard.
The columns twisted into bizarre streamlines in the shadow space, gray-white dust covering every inch of the ground, silent under the boots.
The thread grew tighter and tighter, like a prey sensing the approach of a hunter.
The Duke stopped before a column, elongated and deformed, covered with gray-white dust, with fine cracks in the dust like the face of a dried old man.
Behind the column, something was moving.
Very light, very slow, as if deliberately suppressing its own breath.
But that suppression was as clear to the Duke's senses as a torch in the night.
"Come out." The Duke's voice was soft, but in the dead silent shadow space, each word fell like a stone into a deep pool, sending invisible ripples.
The movement behind the column stopped.
Then, the space ahead began to ripple as if stones had been thrown into a water surface.
