“Which are in that garden.”
“In the garden, yes,” agreed Arodilac. “I pointed that out to him, and he told me to steal them.”
“What?”
“He told me to steal them.”
“So the regent’s muscling in on the Thieves Guild? Let the fruit vendors look to their knives, or they’ll be paying double in protection.”
Arodilac fell into a reverie, gazing out the window. Twilight was falling, and the oak trees that stood alongside the castle wall were dappled with shadow and blurred light.
“The house is at the end of the Street of Willows, and it was one of those trees that I climbed to make my way over the wall. Cypmann Galnes was working at his warehouse down at the docks. I swung over the top and Liss was there, sitting under a tree and doing needlepoint. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me. I figured it’d be best to leave with whatever dignity I had left. Of course, it’s easier to get into that garden than get out. After watching me slip and fall several times in trying to jump for the top of the wall, she brought me a cup of water. It was a hot day.”
“Over such little things have kingdoms fallen,” said Ronan.
Arodilac reddened. “She’s unlike anyone I’ve met before. Not like all the girls at court fawning around me, cooing like pigeons, all beady-eyed over my title and not ever seeing me.”
“You didn’t tell her who you are.”
Arodilac looked away. “Not until her father caught us together. He was angry. He went and told Uncle.”
“And you intend to marry her?”
He looked up. “Yes! We love each other.”
“You’re the heir to the regency of Hearne,” said Ronan. “Who you marry won’t be left up to you. Horses and the nobility. Both bred with an eye for bloodlines. No doubt there’s a duke’s daughter being groomed somewhere. You’ll be foisted on each other, whether you like it or not, for alliance, for blood, and for money.”
“I don’t care about such things,” said Arodilac.
“What you care about doesn’t matter,” said Ronan. “What I care about doesn’t matter. All that matters is that your uncle has hired the Guild to tidy up. So tell me, and with few words, why the regent hired thieves to clean up after his nephew.”
Arodilac’s eyes slid away from him. “Just some letters I wrote to her. That’s all.”
“Letters?”
“I promised we would be wed. My uncle would be embarrassed if—”
“Do you take me for a fool, boy? A letter, no matter how idiotic, is not going to matter a whit to the regent of Hearne. With all the beds and mistresses he’s worn out, he won’t be bothered by his nephew’s indiscretions, even if you ran about the city, naked as the day you were born. Tell me the truth.”
The boy hung his head.
“I gave her my family ring,” he said.
“You did what?”
“I gave her my family ring. I don’t know why I did it! Something came over me, but she doesn’t know what it actually is. She just thinks it an old ring, only dear because it comes from me.”
Wordless for once, Ronan stared at him. The boy winced.
“I know, I know. And it isn’t just my old family estate bound into it. Uncle’s been teaching me the wards of this castle.”
It was customary within the noble families to pass a ring down, from father to eldest son, or whichever heir was to assume the title. All the ward spells guarding the estate were bound into the family ring, so that whoever wore it, anywhere at any time, would always be aware of any dangers threatening the estate. What’s more, whoever bore the family ring could safely pass through the wards.
Possession of the family ring of one of the noble houses of Tormay was every thief’s dream. With such a ring, one could pass unchallenged into the richest estates of the land. But even though the house of Bridd was reputed for its wealth, this ring was much more valuable. It disarmed the ward spells guarding the regent’s castle. Ronan shook his head. He could hardly believe it.
“Are you telling me your uncle’s been teaching you his castle wards and then weaving the spells into your ring as he goes?”
Arodilac nodded.
“And she’s hidden it? Refuses to give it back?”
The boy nodded again.
“She says she wants something in exchange,” he said. “But she won’t tell me what.”
The words hung in the room, like dust glinting in the sunlight. There was irony in the fact the regent had called in the Guild to solve his problem. A missing ring containing his castle wards was bound to turn up. Such things always did.
A ward-bound object attracted certain kinds of people who came near it. The problem was that most people attuned to such things tended to use their knowledge in illegal activities. Many of them worked for the Guild. Others worked alone. The regent’s decision to hire the Guild to find the ring—some of the people who would be most tempted to use it against him—was a clever move. Bound by their own honor code, the Guild would not be able to use that which they had been hired to recover.
“What does it look like?”
“A gold band carved in the shape of a hawk, with rubies for eyes.”
“The mark of the wind,” said Ronan.
“My family has always honored the wind lord and the sky.” His head came up, proud once more.
“Tales for old women.”
“Don’t hurt her,” said Arodilac.
“What do you take me for? The Guild doesn’t turn its hand against children.”
An image of the boy sprang unbidden to his mind, falling down the chimney into darkness. Ronan got up and pushed through the door, past the two Guardsmen, wooden at their post, and then down a hallway and out into the gloomy evening. The air smelled like wood smoke and coming rain.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHAT THE TRADERS FOUND
Murnan Col hailed from Averlay in Thule. He was a trader who worked the coastal route of villages down to the duchy of Vomaro and all places of interest in between, including, of course, Hearne. Once in Vomaro, he always turned inland to Lura to acquire more expensive items for the return north. That spring, however, a bag of pearls bought off a fisherman convinced him to venture south, down through the desert to the city of Damarkan in Harth.
Harth made him nervous. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the desert stretching on forever and ever into heat-shimmered distances. Perhaps the odd beauty of the Harthians themselves with their dark skin and their bone-white hair bleached by relentless generations of sunlight. Or maybe it was their courtly grace, their politeness, and the liquid cadence of their speech—all so different from the rougher customs of the north.
He grimaced, shifting in the saddle. Shadows, but it was a long road up from Damarkan. He’d be glad to get back to Averlay and his own bed. Cwen. How long had it been since he’d seen her? Four months? Much too long to leave a good woman idle. No telling what she had gotten up to in his absence. He smiled to himself.
Damarkan had been profitable. The pearls had brought the court chamberlain of Oruso Oran IX stalking through the marketplace, attendants scurrying along at his side. A cold man serving an even colder master, if the stories were true, but he had been fair in his dealings with the trader and he knew good pearls when he saw them.
Murnan turned in his saddle. The pack train straggled out behind him. Four heavily laden mules and the giant Gavran twins bringing up the rear, smiling as ever and singing one of their endless ballads. The sea and death and the melancholy of unrequited love, no doubt. They were young and didn’t seem to think about much else.
An hour would see them down into the valley of the Little Rennet River. They had stopped there on the way south. The villagers had been friendly, eager for news and a chance to trade for his iron, wool, and the small kegs of salt so dear to inland folks. He’d promised to buy some cheap silk in Damarkan for the miller’s wife. She’d be pleased with the bolt of ivory-colored cloth he’d found—smooth to the touch and full of light. Th
ere was to be a wedding in the family. A daughter. He frowned. Perhaps it was high time he married his Cwen.
They smelled the village before they saw it. Faintly at first but then stronger and stronger—the sickly sweet odor of rotting flesh warmed by the sun. The trader’s horse shivered under him.
Murnan loosened his old sword in the saddle sheath. “Gann, tie up the mules and stay with them. Loy, come with me.” His hand flexed on the sword handle. Not that he was any good with the thing, but you had to try. That was what life seemed to be about.
The stench grew as they rode down the trail into the valley. With each step, the horses grew more restive, trying to sidle off the path and head back up the incline. They came around a bend and a stand of pine. The village lay before them. Murnan reined in.
“The birds,” he said.
Below them, among the houses standing together beside the stream, crows rose and settled in flurries of wings. Dark blots clumped into bigger masses as if huddling together for intimate meetings. Here and there, buzzards were visible, waddling about the ground or stooped over the awkward, broken-looking shapes littering the earth.
“Shadows!” cursed Loy.
They galloped down the slope. The birds rose at their approach, sluggish and slow as if so heavy with their meals that they could only struggle up into the uncertain support of the air. Murnan could see Loy turning green beneath his sunburnt skin. Bile burned up inside his own throat. The dead were everywhere: lying in the clay and stone of the pathways between the cottages, sprawled across doorways, crumpled against walls.
They had been dead for perhaps a day, he reckoned. He swallowed, trying to calm his stomach. Even though the bodies were torn by bird beaks, there was enough definition left to suggest recent death. Perhaps even less than a day. And if we had not tarried another day in Damarkan? He shuddered.
His horse twisted and he caught a glimpse of a panicked white eye. He soothed the beast with soft words and touch. The horse shuddered and subsided under him.
Loy exclaimed. Murnan turned to look. Further down a path between two cottages stood a girl. She was a skinny little thing, no bigger than a shadow and with white hair tangled around her head. For a moment she stared at them, and then whirled to run. Loy jumped off his horse. It took only several steps of his huge strides to catch her, for the girl ran awkwardly. She screamed once when he scooped her up and then her body went limp.
“What shall we do?” asked Loy. His jaw was clenched in anger. The girl was tiny in his arms. She dangled there like a child’s broken doll.
“She’s unconscious?”
“Aye. Skin’s burning. She’s got fever.”
“We’re four days’ ride from Hearne. If we push the mules. Back with her to your brother, and I’ll do a quick scout through the rest of the village. Perhaps there are others still alive.”
But there weren’t any other survivors.
Murnan stood for a while over the body of the miller. The man’s eyes were gone, pecked away by the birds, no doubt, and his sockets stared up at the sky. There would be no wedding for his daughter. He turned away.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SPYING ON JUTE
Nio returned to the university ruins in the morning.
Mioja Square already bustled with people. Vendors called back and forth, vying for the attention of customers. Nio was so wrapped up in his thoughts as he walked along that he failed to notice Severan hurrying toward him, hand raised in greeting. At the last moment, though, the old man must have somehow thought better of it, for he ducked behind an apple cart. Nio swept past, head down and brow furrowed. Severan stood and looked after him, but then he made his own way in the opposite direction, away from the university and into the city.
As Nio expected, the university was silent within. He double-checked anyway and stood motionless for several minutes, eyes closed and listening to the silence looming around him. He let his awareness drift through the expanse of the ruins. Countless halls, chambers, courtyards choked with rubble, mold, dust, and silence. Towers crumbled in magnificent disarray or still standing proud over the city. Stairways climbing into the sky. Secrets and shadows and old memories soaked into stone, still stained with blood and tears centuries after the living had been brought down into dust. And the slumber of his fellow searchers, floating across his consciousness like dandelion seeds drifting in the air. No one was awake.
Nio frowned. Only three sleepers. The fourth was not in the university ruins.
He came to himself and opened his eyes. It was as he expected. Though the absence of one so early in the morning was a bit surprising. They all tended to stay up late, arguing over discrepancies in this history or that, or quarreling over inflections in long-dead words that had not been uttered out loud in hundreds of years. With such a habit, they all slept until noon every day.
Scholars. His lip curled. All of them hid behind the title scholar, rather than the dubious distinction of being a wizard. Both studied the same kinds of things. A wizard, however, sought to apply his learning to life. A scholar did not, being content to learn, observe, and record. It was a distinction that had arisen after the Midsummer War and the ill repute that conflict had given wizards. These days in Tormay, hardly a wizard could be found in any of the duchies, unless you counted the tame court wizards of Hearne and Harth, who existed only to ply their parlor tricks at parties to amuse the nobility. In truth, it wasn’t safe to be a wizard.
Ridiculous.
Things would be different. Someday. He would see to that.
The morning sunlight poured in through the thin clerestory windows of the west wing hall. The blue tiles shimmered benignly, as lovely a blue as a summer sky. He picked his way around them, though he deliberately stepped on a blue tile just before the threshold. Safely on the other side, he turned and watched the dog rise up from the floor. A blue vapor, like steam rising from a kettle spout, thickened until it grew opaque and took on solid form. The creature snapped at him once, but then settled on its haunches not two feet away. They regarded each other silently, the man and the beast, and there was interest on both sides.
It has intelligence woven into it, thought Nio. It isn’t just a mindless ward created to strike out blindly. Those eyes are assessing me. Thinking. Planning.
He marveled at the craft, wanting to understand and possess the knowledge that had gone into the making. The dog stared back at him. After several minutes, the thing grew transparent, and then it was only a blue mist that drifted down and vanished into the floor.
He stood in silence beneath the ceiling mosaic for a while. It waited in a meaningless jumble of colors. He wondered what the others had sought from it the night before. The three smaller mosaics were still in the same state as when he had last seen them: the hawk, the wolf, and the red eyes of the fire staring down from within darkness. Only the mosaic of the sea was featureless, secure within its border of carved fish, seabirds, and waves.
First, there was the fire mosaic to restore.
“Brond, byrnan, sweodol, ond lig,” he said. The stones shifted, the colors sharpening. “Fyr ond bael!”
And then the image was clear. Not as clear as it might have been, had he possessed more knowledge of fire, but clearer than what the others had seen last night. It stared down at him. It was similar to a man, yet not. The face was formed of shadow. The eyes were coals, banked and smoldering behind the lids.
A sceadu.
His heart quickened and his mouth went dry. A sceadu. A being woven out of the true darkness at the beginning of time. According to lore, only three of them had ever existed. No one had ever seen one since the days of Staer Gemyndes, and even he had written guardedly of them in his books. But there had been a sketch of a sceadu in one of his histories. Nio shivered and tried to doubt his own eyes. There was something oddly familiar about the sceadu’s face. What was it? The wihht. That’s what it was. A hint of similarity between the two.
The wihht, he thought guiltily. But seldom do I exercise suc
h a spell. It is always on behalf of a greater need, when there are no other choices available. I will unmake the wihht once I have no more need for it. Besides, I would never have dealings with such a thing as a sceadu.
What could it mean? The fire wanderer, Aeled, served by a sceadu? But perhaps we had it all wrong. Perhaps these four smaller mosaics signify something different and do not represent the four companions of the wanderers. After all, the three visible are all black in color to some degree. Surely that might represent some sort of tie to the Dark, like the sceadu. Might they all represent enemies of the wanderers? The purpose of the anbeorun is to guard against the Dark, all the histories agree on that, so how could one be served by a creature of the Dark? Also, the earth mosaic should portray a horse, not a wolf. The horse Min the Morn. Were all the old writings wrong?
He pondered on this a while, but he could not come to any conclusion and so turned his attention to the lifeless mosaic of the sea. Sometimes it was better not to think about certain things.
Only one word of the sea. That was all he knew. The memory of its cost was still painful. Even after all these years, he wasn’t sure if he had been cheated. Was there value in the word? Or was it merely a lifeless sound? He had never been able to devise a test. He wet his lips with his tongue and then spoke.
“Seolhbaeo.”
The word whispered in the air. It sounded like the ocean surf sighing on the shore. Nio held his breath. What sort of creature would be revealed? He was not sure he had pronounced the word correctly. The old man who sold the word to him had refused to say the thing out loud, but had written it out on parchment, which he then burned after Nio memorized it. Not a safe word, lad, he had said. No telling who might hear. Things listen, they do.
For a moment, Nio was sure he had been cheated. The old man had swindled him. But then the little mosaic came alive. Its stones did not move like the other mosaics. Rather, all of its stones turned blue. A deep, greenish blue the color of the sea. There was nothing else. Just the color. The blue seemed to heave and sway as soon as he looked away, but whenever he stared straight at the little mosaic, it was still.
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