by N. D. Wilson
“May I speak?” Thor asked. The young man nodded. “The Smiths have been loyal and faithful. They themselves were engaged in the battle and fought bravely. Their young son is wounded; their daughter is missing and likely dead. The fault does not lie with them, or with their daughter. She was attacked due to the folly of a woman named Granlea Quarles, and she fled. She had no knowledge that the opening of ways was forbidden. In all likelihood, she did not know that the opening of ways was even possible. She fought for survival and fled for the same motive.”
The young man cleared his throat, but an old man at the center of the table raised his hand. He had hollow brown cheeks and thin cobwebby hair. His eyes were small but bright.
“The actions of Ms. Quarles will be addressed. The rest of what you say has been considered. But if the girl did not know our laws, whose fault is that? If her gifts had never been assessed, whose fault is that?”
“Mine, sir,” Albert said. “Entirely mine.”
The old man nodded slowly. “Let me ask you this, Mr. Smith. And you too, Mrs. Smith. Would not the Order have been better off if your daughter had not opened a way? Even if she and her brother had been killed, would not the loss of those two lives have been preferable—to the Order, if not to you—to the seven thus far fallen?”
Albert didn’t answer. Trudie slipped her hand down into his and squeezed, biting her lip hard. She would not cry. She would not scream or collapse or flee the room. She would stand with her husband while they heard the worst.
The old man leaned back in his chair. The young man cleared his throat and resumed.
“If the girl, Hyacinth Smith, should be found alive, her life shall be forfeit. If any member of this Order should discover her location and not disclose it immediately to the Avengel, their life shall be forfeit. If any former member of this Order should discover her location and not disclose it immediately to the Avengel, their life shall be forfeit. Is this judgment clear?”
Albert said nothing. Trudie said nothing, but she felt like her heart had stopped beating. Her skin had turned to ice.
“Thank you,” the young man said. “Dismissed. The wounded deserve your prayers.”
“The judgment is clear,” Thor said aloud as the men and women rose slowly from behind the table. “But not just.” Turning, he leaned his head down between the two Smiths.
“I will take Lawrence to camp. He will be with his siblings and my Rupert. You”—he looked from one to the other—“go find your daughter.”
—
HYACINTH HAD GRABBED ON to the back of Mordecai’s shirt as they moved through darkness. Caleb gripped the back of hers, and Kibs led the way. Squid limped along behind them.
“The committee will have me skinned for this,” the faerie muttered.
“No,” Mordecai said. “They won’t. I won’t let them.”
“Yes,” Kibs said. “They will. Because you’ll be dead and I’ll be standing there with my fat hands in my empty pockets and an impossible tale to tell.”
Mordecai was silent.
“Why did I do it?” Kibs asked. “Lovely question. I did it because the boy told me I wasn’t banished anymore and he required my services. What services, you ask? Why, guidance down the forbidden roads into the forbidden land to fight the queen of all that is unholy, of course. I’m sure you’d have done the same in my slippers, Chairman Radulf, no doubt about it.”
“Will you be silent?” Caleb asked. “Where are we now?”
“Dodging quickly through what was once the central mound,” Kibs replied. “And why not? It’s only been cursed for a century or two, since Nimiane threw down her father and set out to drink us dry. We’re getting closer. Only a hop or two more and all your dreams will come true. Kibs will set your feet in the deadest of all the deadest lands, huzzah, hurrah, and oodahlay.”
“We’ll need a place with an exit,” Mordecai said.
The parade suddenly stopped in the darkness and Hyacinth banged into Mordecai’s back, her face colliding with the hard fungal teeth beneath his shirt. He flinched in pain but said nothing.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“What?” Kibs asked. “I don’t understand. An exit?”
Mordecai threw a thin gold vine up into the air, lighting the room. The vine attached to the ceiling, dozens of feet up, and Hyacinth looked around at what had been hidden in darkness.
“Wow,” Caleb said quietly behind her. “I hadn’t expected it to be so…big.”
The room was circular, domed, and terraced in rings, descending to a hole in the floor at the center. The interwoven old roots in the roof had died and collapsed in places.
“Don’t use light,” Kibs said. “Please.”
“Why?” Mordecai asked. “What have we to fear?”
“All the things that might choose to travel through a place like this,” Kibs answered. “None of them pleasant.”
“Things like us,” Caleb said.
“Right,” said Kibs. “Exactly what I was thinking. Terrifying things like children seeking destruction.”
“An exit,” Mordecai said. “I know the faeren had secret ways in and out of her dead lands. My father said you spy on your enemies almost as much as you spy on your friends.”
Kibs snorted and rubbed his nose, looking around the open space nervously.
“Do you see this, green man? This death? This is what comes from having doors into the dead lands. In the beginning, we had many and we stole much—cupboards and cabinets, wardrobes and bookshelves. Now the great doors are all that remain. The others were severed. The witch-queen leached our lives even through doors she could not see.”
Wings flapped on the other side of the domed room, just beyond a mound of collapsed ceiling.
Every head turned. Squid began to growl.
On the outskirts of the light, Hyacinth saw black-feathered wings gliding. And then a raven croaked.
Caleb set an arrow on his bowstring.
“If that raven escapes,” Kibs said, “she’ll know we’re coming, yes?”
“Maybe,” Mordecai said. “Or it’s just a bird.”
The raven’s croaking grew louder and multiplied.
“So much for that theory,” Hyacinth said. “There’s more than one. We should have brought some of those raggants. They ate two ravens on the island.”
She could see three. Four.
“Six,” Caleb said. “And more coming.”
Squid began to bark.
“All right, Kibs,” Mordecai said. “Now we hurry.”
—
NIMIANE MANAGED TO CRAWL back to the rocking chair, past the body of Granlea Quarles. When two of her witch-dogs entered the room to report, she saw the horror in their eyes as they looked at her. Both men drew away, but when she pointed her finger bone up at the chair, they stepped forward and lifted her beneath her arms.
Fools.
As they touched her, she desperately drank of their lives. The men wavered, weakened, and stumbled away when they set her down. She couldn’t see them, but she knew them by their smell and taste. One was bald, with a thick black beard. The other had his head shorn and was too young for hair of any kind on his face.
She couldn’t waste strength on her appearance, but she could speak. Barely.
“Report,” she said, and her voice was like a wind moving over an empty glass.
She heard the men straighten.
“The birds found the boy of this family,” the bald man said. “And traces of the girl. We pursued with full force but were met by an ambush, well armed, well positioned. We were pushed back.”
The witch could only gasp her anger, but from the smell the men both gave off, she knew her fury was made clear.
“A century of mushroom hunters have been lost,” the young man said. “And three dozen blades. We can spare them, but the way has been closed.”
“Not closed,” the bald man said quickly. “The other side has been sealed in a secure room. We have withdrawn fully, and I have sent the
birds searching the other ways.”
Bast. Nimiane needed her cat. Where were her eyes? She sent her mind roaming for the feline’s mind. She wanted to see these men when she killed them. Then, with their strength in her own legs, she herself would venture into the ways.
Outside, ravens began croaking wildly. The voices of men called out in excitement.
“Majesty,” the bald man said. And she listened to both witch-dogs run from the house.
Bast. Nimiane reached for her. Bast.
And suddenly Nimiane’s mind was bright, full of scent and taste and light, and very far away. Her face was low, and her tongue was licking blood up from a stone floor.
“Come.” Nimiane spoke the word loudly in her mind, but the sound barely crossed her lips.
The cat rose from her drink. She was coming.
—
THE SOUND OF RAVENS was becoming a storm in the chambers behind them, but it was getting harder for Hyacinth to hear over her breathing.
Still holding on to Mordecai’s shirt, Hyacinth was running. Behind her, Caleb was trying not to step on her feet.
Wings beat the air as a shape passed above her, and Hyacinth had already learned what came after ravens.
“Not far,” Kibs said, and they veered left.
Hyacinth couldn’t see the doorway, but she knew when they passed through. The temperature rose. The air dried.
“Hold on,” Mordecai said, and they staggered to a stop. “That doorway…” He was panting. Only Kibs seemed unaffected by the effort.
“Was a four-hundred-mile leap south,” Kibs answered. “Two more miles on foot, and then another seven or eight hundred if we can’t open the doorway.”
“We’ll open it.” Mordecai’s hand blazed. “I should close this one behind us. If they’re coming…”
“Please do,” Hyacinth said. “I don’t want to be grabbed from behind in the dark.”
“Outrun them, green blood. Outrun them!” Kibs was insistent. “Save your strength. There won’t be much to draw on where we’re heading.”
“He’s right,” Caleb said. “We should run.”
Lit only by the light rising from his hand, Mordecai stood tall, gathering his breath.
“All right,” he said. “Hy?”
“I’m good,” Hyacinth said. “I can keep going.”
Her bare feet were throbbing, but at least the floors had been fairly smooth.
Echoing in the darkness behind them, they heard something much louder than wings.
Feet.
And voices.
“Maybe we should start right now,” Hyacinth said.
Caleb laughed, and Mordecai cracked a small smile. Forming back up in their train, two boys and a girl ran into the darkness behind a faerie.
One minute later, Squid collapsed in the doorway, straddling the two temperatures. He could smell the way his pack people had gone. That was easy enough. But he knew there was no way he would be catching them.
Hyacinth had tried to carry him when they had first started, but he had wriggled and fought free, forcing her to put him down.
Hunted people didn’t need to be slower because of a fat wounded dog.
Behind him, he could smell what was coming. There were the many birds. And the mushrooms. And the men. But out in front of them all, running silently, Squid caught the scent of wolf.
Birds could be ignored. Men could be fought. But Squid knew the wolf would catch his pack. It would attack from the darkness in silence and pull the girl down by the throat. She would not know it was coming. She would have no time to fight or scream.
Squid shifted his body around and backed through the doorway.
This was better. Being carried was not what Squid was for. Running many miles was not for him either. Neither was surviving.
He lowered his body to the floor and envisioned his movement—leaping up from the ground, his jaws would find wolf throat. He would close them, and he would never let go. Never.
The wolf would not reach his pack. That was all.
Squid rested his jaw on his paws and closed his eyes, smelling. Listening.
He knew it would be soon. And he was ready.
—
WELL BEHIND THEM IN the darkness, Hyacinth heard the sudden desperate snarling. Pulling Mordecai to a stop, she turned.
The snarling became a desperate howl as claws scraped and stone clattered.
“Squid,” Hyacinth said, and sadness flooded her.
“That’s not the dog,” Caleb said. “That’s a wolf. The dog is winning.”
Mordecai pulled Hyacinth forward.
“Come on,” he said. “He just gave us time. We have to use it!”
—
SQUID HAD JUMPED UP at the smell. His jaws had closed on the big animal’s throat. And then the thrashing had begun.
Claws tore into Squid’s back. Into his belly. The wolf snarled and shook and twisted and rolled and howled.
Squid closed his eyes and felt nothing but the strength in his own grip and the salty flood pouring over his jaws.
The wolf snapped at his back legs. At his spine. But Squid only squeezed tighter.
By the time the wolf staggered and fell, panting his last, Squid had forgotten that he was even there. He was back on the island with the winged horns. And Shark and Ray were there too, and they barked and beckoned to Squid to play.
—
THE DOOR INTO OLD Endor was big and black and dry, lined with deep rotten cracks, like burned wood, though no fire had touched it.
Touching it made Hyacinth feel ill, but Mordecai asked her to. He needed her help opening the doors. And so she swallowed down the bile that climbed up her throat, and she sent her mind into the dead wood.
There was no life to awaken. There was not even the ghost of life—no way for her to sense what kind of a tree it had been or find a single ring, a grain, a shred of time or memory.
“It’s not just dead,” Hyacinth said. “It’s like it never lived.”
“How do we open it?” Caleb asked.
“We don’t,” Kibs said. “No key to this lock. No hinge to this door. The way was sealed, but even this—the seal—is now dead. Kick it in and I will leave you here, my duty done.”
Mordecai stepped back and then sent a fiery vine plunging through the rotten wood. Ripping it back, a three-foot slab of death fell into the darkness.
Moonlight poured in through the hole, and to Hyacinth’s fast-blinking eyes, it was as bright as searing flame.
“I still need you, Kibs,” Mordecai said. “But this I shouldn’t command. From here, if you come, it is of your own free will. That is how my father always treated the faeren, and I hope to do the same.”
“How your father always treated us when?” Kibs asked.
“Whenever he went knocking on death’s own door,” Mordecai said. “Stay and see how this adventure ends. Or don’t. I won’t judge you.”
Kibs shuffled in place and sniffed. Then he jerked a thumb at Caleb.
“But he will,” he said. “He’ll judge me.”
“That’s right,” said Caleb. “I’ll write a song about the coward Kibs and sing it to queens.”
Hyacinth laughed.
“And if I come?” Kibs asked. “What will you sing then?”
“Nothing,” said Caleb. “I’ll pretend you weren’t even here.”
“That’s cruel,” Hyacinth said, but she was smiling. She grabbed Kibs’s jacket and pulled him around to face her. “I forgive you for hitting me,” she said. “And if you come with us now and we succeed, I will make sure Caleb tells the truth about you.”
“I don’t care about that,” Kibs said. “Will you make me a pie?”
“Pie,” Hyacinth said, surprised. “I’ve never made pie, but my mother has. Often. I can learn.”
“I want a pie,” Kibs said. “For Christmas every year, for as long as we’re both alive.”
“Deal.” Hyacinth nodded. “Any fruit you like.”
“Well then,�
� Kibs muttered. “Let’s go hunting witches.”
The faerie tugged his jacket free, shuffled to the doorway, and hopped through the hole into old Endor.
Mordecai and Caleb followed.
Hyacinth held back for a moment, facing the darkness.
“Goodbye, Squid,” she said. “And thank you.”
THE CITY SLEPT UNDER a coating of dust, cool and soft beneath Hyacinth’s feet. The streets were empty. Towers had crumbled. Windows stared at the moon like doorways into emptiness.
They hadn’t stopped hurrying, following Kibs up hills and side streets, working their way toward a block of pillared buildings that could have once been palaces. Now they looked like sand castles built too high above the waterline, ignored by the waves and left to dissolve slowly in the sun.
And the moon.
Glancing back, Hyacinth watched the dust drift and settle in their wake. In the distance, she could see the little square with the dry fountain and the stone arch and door that they had entered.
She was sure that the shapes of hunters would emerge from it soon. And when they did, the path she and the others were leaving in the dust would not be hard to follow.
There had been other shapes—hooded human shapes wandering in madness, one standing frozen in a window, another swaying and rocking slowly in a circle.
“Where are we going?” Caleb whispered.
Kibs pointed at a big shape with its face all in moon shadow.
“A royal dungeon, indeed,” the faerie said. “Where Nimroth himself mutters through his centuries.”
“Mordecai,” Caleb said. “Our trail.”
Mordecai turned and looked back over the dead city. “Maybe they’ll be too frightened to follow.”
“The birds, maybe,” Caleb said. “Even ravens have their limit. But the men will come. And the hunters.”
“We don’t have time to make new trails,” Hyacinth said. “If anyone is still following, they’ll be here soon.”
“Not a new trail,” Mordecai said. “But maybe a bigger one.” He raised his hand and his green vine light joined the light of the moon. He swept his arm around, and Hyacinth felt the air begin to move above her. Around and around, bigger and bigger, Mordecai grew a whirlwind.
