So it was that the Dark woke to the existence of young Nio. It considered, watched, and waited.
A month later Nio left the Stone Tower and wandered across the duchies of Tormay. He arrived at the city of Hearne, where most people end up who have nothing better to do with their lives. Even then, perhaps nothing would have happened had he not signed on to a caravan that was heading toward Harth. Who knows? It is foolish to speculate on what might have been if another path had been taken. At the beginning of a life, there are many paths to choose from. At the end of a life, one looks back and realizes there was only one path all along.
The caravan master was pleased with his new hire. Travel and trade were always dangerous. He needed someone conversant with magic, even a fledgling wizard. Goods could be maliciously enspelled and there was always the inconvenience of unfamiliar wards in foreign cities.
Crossing the desert, they stopped on the outskirts of the ruined city of Lascol. Sheepherders kept their winter camp there, and the caravan-master always made a good trade bartering for their wool and fleeces. Bored, Nio wandered into the city ruins and spent several hours wandering about. Stone and fire-blackened timber formed a jagged mosaic around him.
It had happened then.
He found himself standing in a courtyard overgrown with weeds. A crow perched upon the sheared-off top of a pillar. It regarded him with one beady eye. The bird bobbed its head from side to side and fluttered off the pillar and onto the cracked flagstones below. It seemed almost as if the bird knew him. It hopped away and then stopped to look back at him.
The message was unmistakable. Nio followed the crow, not bothering to think why a bird would behave in such a fashion. It led him deeper into the ruins, through hallways choked with rubble, past collapsed walls, and around fissures that gave him glimpses of darkness below. The crow stopped from time to time, teetering on its claws and waiting until he came near. The sun gazed down through the gaps in the broken timbers. The stones shimmered with its heat. Sweat trickled down his back.
The bird halted at the foot of a marble stairway. The steps spiraled up until they ended in midair. The crow hopped up five steps and then pecked under the lip of the sixth step. One eye swiveled back to look at him. It pecked at the marble again.
Nio had known what to do, almost as if someone had spoken the words aloud. Kneeling, he felt under the lip of the step. A catch clicked under his fingertips and the face of the step swung open to reveal a recess. A book lay within the hollow. He heard a rustling flap behind him and turned, but the crow was gone.
Nio gazed out over the city of Hearne. The book. The writings of Willan Run had opened the door—true—but the book from Lascol had opened his eyes to what lay beyond the door. Strange. After all these years, he still did not know who had written the thing. The books of the wizards always had some hint as to which of them had been the writer, some mark or feel of the person reaching forward from the past. But the book from Lascol was different. It was a mystery that had intrigued him for years but was unimportant in the light of other questions. Such as who had hired the Guild, and where was the box? How had they known?
And what was in the box?
Had the thieves managed to open it?
The thought made him grind his teeth together. All the learning of forty years at his command and he had not been able to open the cursed thing. He wasn’t even certain what was inside. The enchantment woven about the box had been so beyond him that he had not been able to find the end of the weave, the knot, the last syllable muttered into being that provided the final knit of the spell. What he was certain of, though, was that whatever was inside the box had been instrumental in the death of one of the four anbeorun. He was sure of it.
Hunger rose up in him at the thought.
The book from Lascol was explicit in what it wrote of such an occurrence. If the life of an anbeorun be taken, and here I speak of the four great wanderers—Aeled, Eorde, Brim, and Windan—then that which hath taken life shall possess it until the blood of another is spilt by that same instrument. E’en death to life be returned by such a blow and with it the essence of the wanderer springs anew. But this be a perplexing matter, for the anbeorun cannot be known in form or custom, for they are not bound to the ways of men. And e’en if thou hath the fortune to encounter one such as these, with what will thou fill thy hand and strike?
Nio shivered at the thought. Shivered in anticipation of the life and power flooding through him. Which would it be? The strength of the sea? The solidity of the earth? The fury of the wind shrieking through the heights, or the hunger of the fire?
But the box was gone.
Severan and the other three old fools scrabbling in the university ruins had never understood the promise of the box. They had thought it only a curio, an oddity. He had been careful to not dissuade them of this. He had never told them all he had learned. They knew it perhaps contained knowledge of the anbeorun—that was all—another tool to combat the Dark. Knowledge of the anbeorun could be found in other places.
No. They could not be trusted with the whole truth. They were content enough to hunt in the ruins, looking for scraps of the past. Looking for the so-called Gerecednes. The Book of Memories. The fabled writings of the wizard Staer Gemyndes. Looking for a book that did not exist.
The box.
Glass shattered as he drove his fist through a windowpane. Far below, he heard shards breaking on the street. The pain of it cleared his head. Blood trickled down his hand. Blood. There was always a use for blood. An idea bloomed in his mind. He turned and went down the stairs.
The house was quiet these days. Originally, the entire party searching within the ruins of the university had stayed in the house. As the exploration progressed, they had determined there were safe areas within the university, and they had moved there to be closer. To be closer to what they might find. And now the house was his, alone.
Well, not quite alone anymore.
Nio lit a candle in the kitchen and went down into the cellar. The candle guttered and shadows danced along the walls. The room was empty at first glance. The stone walls gleamed with moisture and shrouded with the tattered leavings of a thousand generations of spiders. Water murmured from the hole in the center of the floor. The same hole that the boy . . . With a grimace, he focused his thoughts. The room waited. Then, with an effort, he spoke.
“Wesan.”
Something stirred in the gloom. Shadow coalesced into a blob that wavered and stretched until it had achieved the semblance of a figure. The wihht. Water beaded on the floor around it, rolled toward the two feet and then vanished, as if blotted up by a dry bit of cloth. The addition of water lent the form definition, but it was hazy and Nio could see through its edges. The creature had lost much of its essence since the night he had spelled it into being. Pity that the wretched boy had escaped. His life would have given the wihht vitality.
“Neosian.”
The thing shambled toward him and stopped, several feet away. He could feel the chill rising off of it. A smell of decay filled the air. There was not much strength left in the wihht.
It took a tremendous amount of power to shape the feorh of anything, whether it be remaking wood into stone or a blade of grass into the petal of a flower. Simple things, but they required careful concentration. The crux of such fashionings was in the renaming. The true name of a thing had to be reshaped into a different name. Difficult enough with a blade of grass, but to fashion a wihht was a different thing. Who could mix darkness and matter and bend it to a human will? He doubted even old Eald Gelaeran would have been able to do such a thing.
A voice whispered inside his head that Eald Gelaeran would never have chosen to do such a thing.
Nio bit his lip. The voice died into silence. He had the will to succeed. The book he had found in Lascol had certainly taught him a thing or two. It was dangerous to fashion darkness, but darkness offered certain benefits—yes, benefits was the right term to use—that other materials would not give
. The water woven into the wihht lent placidity and made the fashioning easier to control.
But it needed a third element to add strength. He held out his bleeding hand. The wihht before him did not move. Portions of its form faded in and out of visibility. Gaps opened up in its torso, so he could see the wall beyond, and then drifted closed again. A drop of blood fell from Nio’s hand and plashed to the floor. It beaded into a ball and rolled toward the wihht’s foot. The blood vanished.
The thing whispered wetly in satisfaction and then extended its own hand. The two hands—shadow and flesh—melded and became one indistinct mass. Nio felt warmth creeping up his arm and then back down, like a tide moving sluggishly through his flesh. The sensation made him feel sleepy, but he knew better than to close his eyes.
“Enough!” he said, and he took a step back, pulling his hand free.
He was exhausted, but he held himself still. The wihht snarled but did not move. For a moment, there was no change in its appearance, but then it gained form and substance. The limbs took on definition; fingers appeared and divided; the torso thickened, broadening across the shoulders. A head rose up—a thing of clay as if made with clumsy hands—it had only a daub of a nose, a gash for a mouth. There were two holes for the eyes, as if the potter had merely plunged his thumbs into the clay to fashion sockets. These two holes lay under a slab of a brow and, though they were filled with shadow, Nio could detect a point of light in each, fixed upon him. He read intelligence there and nodded in satisfaction. It was good enough for his designs now, despite the startling appearance of its face. Besides, he did not fancy giving it any more blood. It would not do for the thing to develop a taste for him.
“I have a job for you,” he said. “In the city. Listening and watching. But first, we’ll have to find you some clothes.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE HORSES’LL MISS YOU
They left early the next morning, with the sun just up over the Mountains of Morn. Yora refused to leave the kitchen; she sat in a corner with her apron bunched against her face. She only hunched her shoulders when Levoreth kissed the top of her head. Outside, the stable hands stood in a row in front of the barn, caps clutched in their hands. They stared at Levoreth, barely acknowledging the duke’s admonitions to look after the horses and to be sure to mind Yora. The youngest, the boy Mirek, stumbled forward after being kicked by those nearest him. He touched Levoreth’s stirrup and then snatched his hand away, his face coloring.
“You’ll be coming back soon, M’lady?” he said.
She smiled down at him, not trusting herself to speak.
His face brightened. “The horses’ll miss you, M’lady.” He ducked his head, backing away.
She turned one last time at the river ford. Sunlight shone on the manor’s stone walls. The cornfields around it were soft and thick with the gold silk of their tassels. The hills rose beyond in green slopes. The air was still, as if time had stopped at this place, finding nothing to age and content to leave things as it had found them. The dust of their passing hung in the air and gleamed with light. But as the roan clattered down onto the riverbed and splashed across, Levoreth felt the touch of a breeze on her face.
It grew warm as the party rode along. Dolan tended to have long summers. This year was no exception despite the unseasonal rains of the past months. The men-at-arms loosened the collars of their leather jerkins and tipped their helmets back. At the head of the column, the duke rode alongside Willen, the old sergeant. They chatted back and forth, trading thoughts on horses and tactics and whether or not there was any truth to the rumors of wizards returning to Tormay. The duchess rode behind them, sidesaddle on a placid mare. She eyed Levoreth, who had opted for a split skirt and was riding astride.
“My dear,” she said, “I’d think you one of those unsavory Farrows if I didn’t know better.”
“They’re the best horsemen in all of Tormay,” said Levoreth.
“And the best thieves and killers,” returned her aunt. “So it’s said.”
“So it’s said.”
“Hmmph.”
It was true. In addition to being the best horsemen in the four kingdoms, the Farrows also were acknowledged as being extremely handy at theft and killing. To be fair, the Farrows tended to steal only under great mental duress—such as when confronted with a beautiful horse or a beautiful woman. However, the Farrow men were polite enough to never steal a beautiful woman without stealing her heart first. As for killing, that only happened if the clan itself was threatened, or if someone came along who was stupid enough to steal a Farrow horse or a Farrow woman.
Certain members of the clan had been known to kill for hire, but they were shunned by other Farrows. The most famous of these had been Janek Farrow the Blackhand, who had climbed the tower of Tatterbeg on the northern coast and fought the wizard Yone. Their struggle broke the tower into ruin. Dying, Yone had cursed Janek, that everyone Janek loved would be brought to heartbreak, ruin, and death. Janek fled to the east, determined to forget his family so that the wizard’s curse would not come to settle on them. He disappeared and was never heard of again. The other famous Farrow, of course, was Declan Farrow, son of Cullan Farrow, who had stolen his father’s sword.
The roan danced under Levoreth, drunk on sunlight and fresh air and the prospect of a lengthy and leisurely outing. Levoreth patted its neck and brooded on Declan Farrow and Farrows in general. Odds were, Declan Farrow was still alive, for the incident that had resulted in his disappearance had happened only fourteen years ago. He would still be a young man. At least, young by her standards, and Levoreth smiled to herself.
The road turned to the west. A few oaks grew in the rolling grasslands. They stood like sentinels of the Lome Forest, which lay miles further to the southeast. Crickets hidden in the grass rasped their music, buzzing cheerfully of the last days of summer. Occasionally, the hooves of the horses stirred them up into sight and then the little creatures would hop lazily away to safety.
Levoreth hummed under her breath, picking up the note of the crickets. Blackbirds swooped by with their wings flashing blue in the sunlight. She borrowed the melody of their song and wove it into her own. She pursed her lips and turned the tune into a whistle.
“Lovely,” said her aunt, riding near. “What is that, my dear? A folk song?”
“Just an old tune about the earth. I think they’re all based on the same handful of melodies.”
“It puts me in mind of green things. Rather like one of those songs the girls sing while out in the harvest.”
Levoreth smiled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE MOSAIC IN THE CEILING
With a sigh, Nio shut the book of Lascol and rose from his chair by the library fireplace. He put the book back on the shelf. The firelight flickered on his face as he stood a while in thought. A musty odor of parchment and leather filled the air—the scent of books, of time stopped and caught by words.
The book of Lascol contained an index of anything relevant to the subject of the anbeorun. Aeled, Eorde, Brim, and Windan. The guardians of fire, earth, sea, and wind. The four wanderers who had walked the world since the beginning of time, bulwarks against the Dark so that man and beast could live their lives in peace. It had taken years to track down everything referenced in the book, all the other books, the inscriptions in tombs and castles, even a tapestry in the manor of Duke Lannaslech in Harlech. Shadows, that had been a close one. If he had been discovered there, his life would have been forfeit. The lords of Harlech did not suffer strangers gladly, least of all a thief prowling their halls at night.
Forty years searching, and the final answers still eluded him. The information contained within the book had not proven to be enough. It was silent in several areas. Such as what could kill an anbeorun. Or what the origin of the anbeorun was. But at the end of the day, there was only one question that mattered: What was in the box?
A noise drifted up from below in the house. Nio went to the door, opened it, and listened. Th
e wihht had returned. He heard the front door close, and then there was silence.
The wihht was waiting for him in the hall at the foot of the stairs, motionless in the shadows. Only its eyes moved as Nio walked down the steps. The candles in their sconces on the walls flamed to life when Nio muttered a word.
Lig.
Light.
It seemed there was more detail in the creature’s face, more pronounced cheekbones and a fuller nose. Odd. He put the matter from his mind. He was honest enough to realize he did not know everything about fashioning something as complex as a wihht. Little was written on the subject, for not many wizards had ever dared to fashion the darkness.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
The thing answered him with a hoarse voice that was strangely soft, as if it had no lungs to breathe with and so make normal speech.
“Many things were learned, master. What would you wish to hear?”
“Tell me about the fat man called the Juggler.”
“He cares for a band of children who live and work together. Without father or mother. Orphans. He works for—this group of thieves, this—” It paused, stumbling for the word.
“Guild.”
“Guild,” repeated the wihht.
“Go on.”
“The Juggler controls their lives.”
“Ah,” said the man. “He would’ve certainly known more than the boy. Describe the Juggler to me so I’ll know him when I see him.”
“This one is a short, fat man with a round face. A round face like the smaller sun that lights the night.”
“The moon. It’s called the moon.”
“A round face like the moon.”
“Does he have a real name, other than this Juggler nonsense?” asked Nio.
“This was not learned,” said the wihht.
The Hawk And His Boy Page 6
