Silvermay

by James Moloney

  ‘We have to escape, then,’ said Ryall, already on his feet. ‘I saw ropes in the room upstairs. We can climb down from the roof like you said. If we leave now, there’s no one to stop us.’

  I shook my head. ‘We can’t. Ansuela and Marelle will die. We need to wait until Theron comes back — tonight, when he’s asleep. Then he only has himself to blame.’

  Ryall didn’t like it, but he knew I was right.

  So we waited, and the terrifying climb from the roof of Theron’s house was never far from my thoughts. When I wasn’t worrying about this, another matter taunted me. All for nothing. We’d come to Ledaris to find the talisman, which turned out to be a tattoo. Even if we escaped safely, we would be leaving without what we’d come for.

  Judging when to move was the worst agony. Too soon and a light sleeper would hear us and come to investigate; yet every minute we delayed meant less time to make our escape before dawn made us easier to find. Then there was Lucien to think about. What if he cried out? He snuffled and moved his arm about beside me on the straw, asleep but not as deeply as I’d like.

  At least Theron had gone to his bed well before midnight.

  ‘The talisman can’t be far away,’ he’d promised, feeding the lie.

  I’d forced a smile of gratitude onto my face and hoped it looked right. Inside, I was terrified I’d give away what we had learned.

  At last the house became silent.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I whispered to Ryall, who was up in a flash.

  The moon shone in through the windows, giving us enough light to steer a course to the staircase. This was the heart-stopping part. Would the treads squeak under our weight?

  The gods of luck smiled at our shoulders, it seemed, because a mouse wouldn’t have made any more noise climbing to the first floor. Ryall led the way along a hall that ended at Theron’s bedroom. Thankfully, we didn’t have to go past it. A door yielded to Ryall’s careful nudge and we slipped inside. The moon through another barred window gave a little light, enough for me to see the ropes Ryall had spoken of dangling out of the darkness above.

  He chose one, but it was firmly tied in place and the knot was well out of reach.

  ‘How will you get it down?’ I whispered.

  He hadn’t thought of this. Silence hung ominously in the air between us until a voice said from behind us, ‘He could cut it free with my knife, perhaps.’

  We spun round in fright to find the darkened outline of a figure in the doorway. We didn’t need to see his face to know it was Theron.

  ‘This is how we met, two nights ago — in darkness,’ he said calmly. ‘I’d come to kill you, did you work that much out?’

  It was a taunt, not a question, and neither of us offered a reply.

  ‘You might at least be grateful that I changed my mind. Instead, you insult my hospitality by sneaking away in the dead of night.’

  ‘There is no bronze talisman,’ I said. ‘It’s a trick to make us stay.’

  Theron leaned his shoulder against the doorpost. ‘I must say, it’s a relief to have the truth out at last. Some Wyrdborn like to play games with the commonfolk, to pretend they care in order to deceive, but I’ve never been one for lies. They’re for the weak who can’t get what they want by force.’

  He stepped back briefly into the hall and called, ‘Ansuela, bring candles.’ Just as quickly he was blocking the way again. ‘You’ll be my guests a little longer yet.’

  Ansuela came scurrying in her nightdress and carrying a candlestick in each hand. The anguish in her face didn’t exactly quell my own fear.

  ‘Take the child,’ Theron ordered and, before I quite knew what was happening, Ansuela had placed the candles on a table to one side and slipped Lucien from my arms. I wouldn’t have given him up so easily to anyone else.

  ‘Treat him well. His second mother may soon be as dead as his first,’ Theron said coldly, without bothering to glance my way.

  Light flooded the room now, but only managed to chill me all the more. The room was as bare and cheerless as any other belonging to its master, except that this one was furnished with a special task in mind. The ropes that had brought us here drooped from beams above our heads, and I saw on the table to the right of the door an array of implements used for things I didn’t want to think about.

  Theron saw the horror in my face. ‘Yes, stare all you like. Imagination is a better torturer than any of those tools. I’d hoped to learn why the child is so valuable without resorting to this room. Coyle has offered the boy’s weight in gold, and if that miserable fiend has offered so much, the child must be worth a lot more. My story of the bronze medallion was meant to win your confidence.’

  ‘It gave you away,’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t have tried to describe it.’

  ‘There is no talisman,’ Theron growled.

  ‘Not one made of bronze or gemstones. You’re right,’ I said. ‘But there is a talisman, and you have it with you, Theron. You’ve kept it all these years, without knowing it.’

  ‘Now you’ve gone crazy, girl. Why would I keep something that my family wished only to forget? Haylan Redwing was an embarrassment to all of us. We abandoned his name, we suppressed that mocking song, so we were hardly going to keep any symbol of his weakness. I’d have killed him, too, like my father did, if I’d been old enough to wield a sword.’

  I didn’t doubt a word of his savagery, but all he’d done was persuade me even more that I was right.

  ‘Your mother gave you the talisman,’ I said.

  My goading had begun to unsettle him, but at this he put his hands on his hips like a man watching a jester entertain a crowd in the marketplace. If a Wyrdborn was capable of genuine mirth, then this was it.

  ‘How could she give me some keepsake when I was a baby no bigger than the boy downstairs? All I cared about then was a full stomach.’

  ‘She gave it to you just as she gave it to your father.’

  Theron took a step towards me and pressed his face close to mine. I could smell the sweat on his skin and the mustiness of his shirt and, despite myself, I thought of Tamlyn, who had stood this close to comfort me. Theron’s only aim was to intimidate. And he was doing a good job of it, too.

  In case I missed his purpose, he said, without a flicker of shame or regret, ‘My father killed my mother. Did you know that, Silvermay? It was a warning not to give up my powers as Haylan had done. Otherwise he would do the same to me and not feel the faintest stirring in his heart. Just as I will kill you if you don’t tell me why Coyle wants this child.’

  If I stopped now, though, I’d never know if I’d guessed the truth about the talisman.

  I took a breath and, using lips and a tongue suddenly gone drought-dry, I said, ‘He killed her because she’d given him the talisman. Your father had a tattoo, didn’t he?’

  ‘Several,’ he answered, unperturbed. ‘They’re hardly uncommon.’

  ‘But there was one he wasn’t proud of, one he kept hidden beneath his clothes whenever he could.’

  Theron had batted away each of my theories — until now. His eyes darkened, the lids pressing low as he glared at me. ‘It’s not true.’

  But it was. This was the idea that had come to me from the old woman’s story. How else could a woman ensure the ones she loved carried the special talisman that would keep them alive in Erebis Felan? Like the love-struck girl in that faraway land, she had tattooed the symbol onto the skin of those she wanted to save. Once in place, it would remain for a lifetime.

  ‘Your father didn’t want the talisman tattooed onto his skin, so your mother did it while he was senseless with drink. And what mother would love her son any less than her husband? You have that same tattoo, Theron. She put it on your body when you were a tiny boy. Where is it? On your arm, or the calf of your leg? Do you keep it hidden like your father did?’

  To my astonishment, Theron rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, first one, then the other. He held both arms out for both Ryall and me to see. ‘Nothing,’ he sneere
d. ‘There’s not a mark on my body. Search the rest of me if you like, but you’ll have to kill me first.’

  His laugh filled the room as though this was the greatest joke ever told, and while he shook with delight at his victory, I had to accept defeat. Wyrdborn or not, he was telling the truth.

  ‘Enough of your stories,’ he said. ‘Why does Coyle want your baby so much?’

  ‘He’s not my baby,’ I reminded him. ‘His mother was a woman named Nerigold, but Coyle himself is the father. He wants him back to raise as his own.’

  Theron thought about this for a moment. ‘You’re lying, girl. Wyrdborn don’t love their children, not like commonfolk. Sentimental fools, all of you. If he’s ready to part with a bucket of gold, the boy is a prize of some kind that will earn Coyle a hundred times as much.’

  My flimsy lie had been brushed aside like a reed. There was nothing more to say so we fell into a stubborn silence. And, as we soon discovered, the Wyrdborn don’t like stubborn silences.

  ‘Tell me,’ he bellowed, slamming his hand down on the table so hard the knives and hooks and thumbscrews jumped inches above the surface before clattering to rest again on the rough wooden planks.

  No matter how desperately I wanted to defy him, I cringed and cowered backwards a step, betraying my fear. Ryall had done the same, which was some consolation for my own cowardice, I suppose. For Theron, though, we’d responded just as he wanted. He was already breaking us down and all he’d done so far was slam his hand onto the table.

  A knock intruded upon the excruciating quiet that had once again enveloped the room. ‘Master, you wanted to know when the hawk returned,’ came Marelle’s muffled voice through the door. ‘It has just taken its perch in the loft.’

  Theron glared at us briefly, then made up his mind. Moving towards the door, he said. ‘Take a look around while I’m gone. This room is full of delights. You can avoid their pain just by telling me what you know.’

  The door closed behind him and a loud click quickly followed.

  23

  Tools of the Trade

  I looked at Ryall. Did the terror show in my face as plainly as it did in his?

  ‘You should have gone back to Nan Tocha when you had the chance,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I should,’ he replied without the least embarrassment. ‘Then you wouldn’t have made it to Ledaris at all. You wouldn’t be in this room, either.’

  I struggled with tears when he said this. He was going to die with me, yet he was thinking of how I might have survived if he’d taken the easy way out and left us at the diggings.

  ‘You’ve grown up a lot since you joined us,’ I told him.

  ‘As much as I’m going to grow,’ he said grimly. ‘When Theron comes back, he’ll start using all these tools of his trade.’ He turned a circle where he stood, taking in the ropes and the table of ghastly implements.

  ‘Tools of the trade,’ I murmured. I’d heard those words before and on the same lips. In my mind, I saw Ryall standing on the trail where we’d first come across him using the skills his dead uncle had taught him.

  ‘Ryall,’ I said, without any real idea of what I was going to suggest, ‘these ropes. Could we use them?’

  He looked at me as though I was mad. ‘We kind of missed our chance, Silvermay. The window’s barred, same as our room downstairs.’

  ‘No, not for climbing,’ I said. ‘Back in Nan Tocha, you had all sorts of ropes hanging from your belt. You called them your tools of trade.’

  ‘Yeah, for making traps,’ he said, still not following me. ‘Could you make a trap out of these ropes?’ I asked, touching one that dangled close to my face. ‘Something that would tie Theron up long enough for us to escape?’

  ‘Like a bear trap?’

  ‘Yes, a bear trap.’

  Ryall looked at the many ropes hanging from the beams above our heads, some of them as thick as my wrist. ‘To catch a bear, you don’t use rope, Silvermay, you use a steel trap. And a Wyrdborn is ten times stronger than a bear.’

  I’d sparked his own thinking now, though. He went to the window and, reaching through the bars, unsnibbed the frame to push it open. Immediately, the monotonous music of the waterwheel filled the room.

  ‘I don’t know about a trap, Silvermay, but that waterwheel gives me an idea. If we could snag a rope on one of its buckets, the force of the water might pull these bars out of the wall.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Those bars look sturdy to me. And besides, even if we do manage to climb down the outside of the house, Lucien will still be inside. I’d rather die than leave him behind.’

  ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten about Lucien.’

  That was that, then. Our desperate hope had burned itself out.

  We went back to fretting until Ryall muttered, ‘Ten times stronger than a bear.’ I couldn’t see a reason for this repetition, but when I looked at his eyes, the spark was spluttering into life again.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.

  ‘That maybe you’re right, a trap is what we need. It wouldn’t be so hard to loop a rope around Theron’s legs. That’s the simplest trap of all.’

  ‘But we’re no match for his strength,’ I said, worried that this new plan was no better than the last. ‘You said so yourself just now: Theron is ten times stronger than a bear.’

  ‘Yes, but a waterwheel is twenty times stronger.’

  I didn’t have a clue what he had in mind, but that didn’t stop him. He climbed one of the ropes like a squirrel and, leaning out, managed to untie a couple just like it from the beam.

  ‘Bring me the biggest hook you can find on the table,’ he ordered as he scrambled down.

  How long would Theron stay away? We worked feverishly until the heavy ropes had been linked with knots fashioned by Ryall’s nimble hands. Then he attached the hook I’d brought from the table to one end of a rope and fed it through the barred window so he could swing it back and forth to catch the wheel. Time and again the hook struck the dripping wood and bounced off. The room went blue with Ryall’s cursing. Mine, too!

  Then, at last, the hook caught. Ryall had already rigged the other end of the rope to one of the sturdy iron bars and he just had time to pull his head and shoulders back before the rope snapped tight. For a moment, I thought he’d been right and the force of the water would pull the bars free from the bricks around the window. But the bar bowed an inch and no more, and below, in the neatly channelled stream, the wheel came to a halt, white water frothing angrily around the buckets that could no longer rise.

  That was only one part of Ryall’s ingenuity. He hadn’t simply tied the rope to the bars as I’d thought. The complicated knot had a length of thinner rope dangling down the inside wall. When he saw me inspecting it, he smiled devilishly and said, ‘The trigger.’

  He wasn’t finished yet. Using a shorter rope, he laid out a loop on the floor where Theron would surely walk when he came back through the door, and tied its long tail to the rope that strained at the bar.

  We stared at each other. ‘Will it work?’ I asked.

  Before he could answer, footsteps approached the door and the distinctive scrape of a key slotting into a lock made us back away. Ryall took hold of the thinner rope he’d called his trigger and held it behind his back. Our lives depended on the answer to my simple question, and suddenly the whole idea of trapping a Wyrdborn with rope and a waterwheel seemed ridiculous.

  The door swung open and Theron appeared. He saw us pressed against the wall near the window and indulged in a smile that drained the warmth from my blood. One step closer and he would enter the loop that lay unnoticed on the floor between us. If he managed to take a second and third step closer, then our plan had failed.

  Theron turned away from us. Away from the loop! He went to the table instead and, taking a dagger from his belt, stabbed it viciously into the surface. Wedged deeply into the wood, it stood on its own after he took his hand away, drawing our eyes to its gleaming blade. The steel wa
s silvery blue and thinner at the hilt than my smallest finger, then tapered downwards to the deadly point now buried in the wood.

  ‘Since you are so interested in tattoos, Silvermay, I’ll carve some into your hide,’ he said. ‘Unless you answer my questions first, of course.’

  He liked the way his dagger intimidated us and left it there as he crossed the room. He stepped into the loop and there he stopped, both feet within the circle of rope. He couldn’t have chosen a better spot if we’d guided him there ourselves. I’d sworn I wouldn’t give the game away by turning towards Ryall, but in my desperate excitement I did just that, in time to see him tug on the rope.

  Nothing happened.

  Theron had seen Ryall move, and he could hardly miss the thin rope that now drew a straight line between Ryall’s hand and the bars in the window. ‘What are you up to?’ he snarled. But he didn’t go any closer to investigate.

  Ryall looked helplessly at the rope in his hand.

  ‘Again,’ I shouted. ‘Keep trying.’

  He did, but the force of the waterwheel hauling on the heavy rope outside was too strong.

  Theron would surely step out of the loop any moment, whether he guessed what was happening or not. I lunged at the rope, shouting, ‘Together! Now!’ We pulled as hard as we could and, just as Theron saw the trap set to capture him, the trigger broke free.

  All this happened faster than I could count to three, but what came after the trigger released was even faster. No longer restrained by the iron bar, the full force of the waterwheel took hold of Ryall’s loop. It snapped tight around Theron’s ankles and pulled his legs out from under him. It didn’t stop at that, either. There was nothing Theron could do as he was dragged feet first towards the wall and hauled up to the window. At last he halted, with a sickening thud and a cry that mixed pain with surprise. I doubted he’d ever been overwhelmed by sheer force in his life. The relentless tug of the waterwheel pinned his boots against the bars and, though he grasped and pulled in a desperate struggle, Theron couldn’t free them.