by Jen Williams
Ignoring the agony in her arm, Wydrin pulled back on the whip and forced herself to her feet. She raised her dagger, preparing an over-arm throw she hoped would find Fane in his thick chest and split his rotten heart, when suddenly the young man from the crowd with the untidy hair was in front of her. He winked.
‘What are you …?’
He produced a strange knife from an inner pocket; it was clear and sparkled as if made of crystal. The young man pressed it against the whip and it snapped almost instantly. Wydrin staggered back and he caught hold of her hand.
‘We must run now,’ he said. He had an accent she couldn’t place. ‘If you and your friends wish to live, keep with me.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Wydrin.
She snatched Ashes up from the cobblestones and shouted at her companions; Frith and Sebastian followed readily enough, but so did the four identical men, whooping and howling as they came. The crowd parted for them and the young man led them deep into it, amongst the stalls and boxes, turning wildly here and there. All the time he kept Wydrin’s hand in a vice-like grip, which normally would have annoyed her, but she was afraid that if she pulled free she would lose him instantly in the swarms of townspeople. There was a clatter of wood against wood and she realised the guards on the walls were loosing their longbows, and only the shelter of the stalls protected them.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Keep close, little cat! Run where I run!’
They passed a cart filled with a towering heap full of mouldering pumpkins. There was a shout, and suddenly the pumpkins were tumbling from the cart onto the ground, directly into the path of the pursuing guards. Wydrin glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Dreyda back there behind the cart, her long thin face pinched in triumph, and the young man tugged her another way, moving towards the back of the market. The rolling root vegetables gained them a few seconds, enough to get out of sight of the Children of the Fog.
‘Who are you?’ said Wydrin, between gasps.
‘My name is Crowleo.’ He did not turn to look back at her, instead dragging her towards a ramshackle stone building across from the main bustle of the market. A pile of old leaves had collected in the doorway and the small windows were broken. ‘Are your friends still with us?’
‘We are,’ said Frith. His hair was stuck to his forehead with blood. Sebastian looked sickly and distracted. ‘What is going on?’
He gave a brief bow, and swung open the door.
‘No time to talk. Inside now.’
‘How do we know this isn’t a trap?’ asked Frith, but he followed them in just the same. Inside they could just make out an altar surrounded by broken wooden benches, and there was a slight smell of incense, like an exotic ghost.
‘A disused temple?’ said Wydrin.
‘No time, no time.’
From outside came the sound of men shouting, obviously trying to decide in which direction they had run. Wydrin thought they’d figure it out in less than a handful of heartbeats, and she could see no doorways out of the temple.
‘Listen, friend, if you’ve led us into a dead-end …’ She patted the dagger on her belt threateningly, but Crowleo was ignoring her. He walked up the centre aisle with his eyes on the floor, and then dropped to his knees in front of the stone altar. There was a mouldy rug on the floor which he picked up gingerly and moved to one side. Beneath it were flat grey flagstones. As she watched, he took a slim object from an inner pocket and pushed it against a small gap in the floor. There was an audible click and the flagstones swung away into the darkness below.
‘What was that?’ said Wydrin. Crowleo held up the object for her. It was a narrow rectangle about as long as the palm of his hand, apparently made of pink glass. Now the voices outside were very loud.
‘A secret key for a secret door,’ he said, smiling slightly. ‘Now, down here, if you please, or we’ll all be flayed alive. If we’re lucky.’
The three of them followed him down into the dark. There was a short drop and a strong smell of earth and leaf mould. Crowleo reached up behind them and did something with the glass key that made the flagstones swing back into place, and they were standing together in the pitch-black.
‘So, I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a torch with them?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Funny you should say that …’ There was a flicker in the dark, and Crowleo’s face was lit with a warm, sunny glow. He held a glass globe in his hand, and inside it was a hot ball of yellow light.
‘Oh, what is this now?’ said Wydrin, starting to get a little annoyed. This Crowleo character was a bit too confident for her liking; she liked to be the confident one.
‘It is a remembrance of light, that is all.’ Crowleo looked up at them all. The light made him look older. ‘You have questions.’
‘I certainly do,’ snapped Frith. ‘Where do you think you’ve taken us? And what do you know about Fane?’
‘And who is this Bezcavar bastard?’ added Wydrin.
‘We will walk and talk,’ said Crowleo, and with that he set off ahead, his ball of light revealing mould-encrusted stone walls to either side. They were in a tunnel. As he walked he spoke softly. ‘You are the young Lord Frith, returned to us, it seems, from a shallow grave. My mistress saw your arrival here in one of her glasses, and knowing you would meet with difficulties sent me to retrieve you.’
‘How could she possibly know that?’ said Frith. ‘We arrived here entirely at random. No one could have known we were coming.’
‘My mistress makes the finest of glasses,’ said Crowleo smoothly, just as though Frith hadn’t spoken. ‘And like the glass, all will become clear. Do you see?’ He turned and winked at Wydrin. ‘It is a joke. Now, this tunnel will take us out under the walls of Pinehold and some way into the forest, and from there I shall take you to see my mistress.’
‘And who is she?’ asked Sebastian.
‘An old friend of the family. One who knows how to keep secrets.’
22
After a long walk in the dim light of his globe, Crowleo led them to a set of rough steps cut directly into the earth, and they emerged blinking into the middle of the forest. Amazingly, there was still some light in the sky. Time is strange when you are fighting or fleeing, thought Sebastian. You think you have struggled through hours, when it has been mere minutes.
‘How far are we from Pinehold?’ asked Frith.
‘Far enough.’
‘And if Fane’s men pursue us outside of the town?’
‘The tunnel under the old temple is one of the many secrets my mistress keeps, and they will not find it. Now, we must walk north, and swiftly. The night is coming on and I do not wish to meet anything hungrier than me under these trees. The Secret Keeper is waiting.’
‘The Secret Keeper?’ Wydrin smirked.
‘As I said, all will become clear.’
Crowleo had a delicate face, with tanned skin and dark brown hair that fell in a centre parting, framing his jaw. The faintest dusting of stubble across his chin made him appear younger rather than older. Looking at him somehow made Sebastian think of Gallo, and that caused a brief constriction of grief in his chest. Crowleo caught his eye and gave him a look, as though he knew what he was thinking. Sebastian turned away.
‘We’d best get going, in that case.’
The Secret Keeper’s home was not especially secret, it seemed to Wydrin. They were not walking for long before they came to a place where the ground beneath them grew rockier and steeper, following a path that only Crowleo could see. The trees became scarcer, until they emerged on an outcrop of earth and rock, thrusting out over an unbroken sea of dark trees. On the cliff’s edge sat one of the oddest houses she’d ever seen, undoubtedly visible from the sweep of the Blackwood below, if you happened to be above the treeline.
The normal concept of a house – squarish, orderly, symmetrical – had apparently been lost on the architect. It was more a meandering collection of rooms, piled next to and on top of each other wi
th little thought as to how you might get from one to the other, and every single one had a window. Small ones, round ones, large ones, square ones; the peculiar house glittered with them in the last of the evening’s light. It was built largely from wood, and ivy had grown over portions of the walls, giving the place a queer, organic look. At the very front of this confusion was a large drum-shaped bunker, built from old grey stone. This was the only part of the structure that had holes rather than glass windows, and it was from those that they could see a fierce light glowing. Every now and then a thick cloud of black smoke would emerge, and they could clearly hear a female voice muttering and cursing.
‘I like it,’ Wydrin said as they stood outside. ‘Understated. Subtle.’
‘My mistress has eccentric tastes,’ said Crowleo evenly. ‘Her work has made her so. She sees things differently, you could say.’
‘So much glass,’ said Sebastian, impressed. ‘That must be expensive.’
Crowleo shrugged.
‘Perks of the profession.’
He led them over to the stone room, and waved a hand at them to keep back. He leaned in the doorway and spoke softly. An elderly female voice answered. They couldn’t make out the words, but the voice was rough and full of impatience. Crowleo reappeared, that half-smile back on his lips. Wydrin thought his gaze lingered on Sebastian, but then there was a lot of Sebastian to see.
‘You are to wait inside. My mistress is just finishing up some work.’
‘Where is she? It is quite urgent that I talk to her.’ Frith glanced at the door to the stone room. Patterns of red and yellow light spilled out onto the ground.
‘She will be with us shortly. Believe me, it is not worth disturbing her while she is working. I shall never hear the last of it.’
Crowleo led them to the nearest door in the wooden portion of the house. Inside they found themselves in a large but crowded workroom. There were benches everywhere, covered with all sorts of odds and ends, the purpose of which Wydrin could only guess at. There were glass jars filled with all manner of substances, delicate vials containing brightly coloured liquids, and a huge pestle and mortar covered in something black and crusted.
‘Come in.’ Crowleo began moving some of the debris from one of the lower benches with a deftness that suggested he did this quite often. ‘Have a seat. There are more comfortable rooms, yes, but she’ll be finished soon and she’s always happier in here than anywhere else.’
Wydrin perched on the bench, trying to take it all in. Sebastian looked uncomfortable, no doubt concerned that his bulk or his sword might break something. Frith stood with his arms crossed over his chest.
Crowleo cleared his throat.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
Wydrin looked around at the bottles and jars full of viscous liquid.
‘Is that safe?’
Crowleo laughed, and his cheeks turned a little pink. He is uncommonly pretty when he blushes, thought Wydrin. She glanced up at Sebastian to see if he’d noticed, but the big knight was backing slowly away from the table, not paying attention.
‘I have some blackberry wine here somewhere. Don’t worry, it is entirely not poisonous. Holley is very partial to it.’ He opened a small cupboard and began pushing bottles aside.
‘Holley?’
‘The Secret Keeper. That is her name.’
Crowleo fetched four glasses and a tall bottle filled with a dark purple liquid over to the bench, when the door was flung open and the Secret Keeper came in.
‘Is that the good wine, Crow? Only the best for our Lord of the Blackwood.’
She was a well-built woman in her late fifties, with black hair just turning to grey in little flurries at her temples, and a tanned face with deep lines at the corners of the mouth and eyes which spoke of a lifetime of hard work. She wore a grey shirt under a thick leather apron streaked with soot.
Crowleo poured a glass of the wine and passed it to his mistress, who took a sip, and shrugged.
‘It’ll do, I suppose. Now, what do you want?’
Frith stood up straight, bristling at the direct question.
‘Your … assistant here escorted us from Pinehold. He seems to know who we are. He even claimed that you knew in advance that we were coming.’
‘And who are you, exactly?’
Frith frowned, obviously confused.
‘I am Lord Aaron Frith, of course.’
Wydrin took a glass from Crowleo and drank down the blackberry wine in one gulp. It was good stuff, ripe with the taste of long summer days and meadow grass.
‘And how do I know you are Aaron Frith, then?’ said Holley. ‘From what the people are saying, the Frith family were butchered and buried under the black soil, right down to poor little Tristan.’
Frith’s face contracted with impatience.
‘This person said you knew who I was. That you sent him to us! Can you not see?’
‘Aye, I see well enough,’ Holley waved a hand at Frith dismissively. ‘Don’t get yourself all worked up. You have your father’s look, right down to that piggish impatient expression he used to get when I was late with a project.’
‘You knew my father?’
‘Your mother’s nose, though,’ continued Holley. ‘Aye, I’d know who you are even if I hadn’t seen you in the glass. What happened to you, boy?’
Frith sipped at his wine, as if to sweeten the taste of his words.
‘The castle was taken by Istrian thugs, as you must know, and once they’d tortured and murdered my family they got down to the business of torturing me.’ He paused, and put down the glass. His fingers were trembling ever so slightly. ‘Luckily a group of loyal fighters smuggled me out of the dungeon, although almost all of them died in the attempt. I made my way to Creos, as best I could …’ His words trailed off. ‘What happened then does not matter. What is important is that I have returned, and I have debts to repay.’ He glared up at Holley. ‘Is that enough for you?’
Holley sniffed, and emptied her glass.
‘A bad business, that’s for certain. If I’d seen it in the glass … but there’s no point in dwelling on that now. And who are these two? Not Blackwood men, if I’m any judge.’
‘I am Sebastian Carverson, a knight of Ynnsmouth, and this is my colleague, Wydrin of Crosshaven.’ Sebastian bowed slightly, narrowly avoiding knocking a row of glasses off the bench with his sword. Wydrin suppressed a smile. ‘We are currently employed by Lord Frith.’
‘Hmph. Interesting company you’re keeping,’ Holley said to Frith. ‘I’ve seen more trustworthy-looking mercenaries ransacking bodies on a battlefield.’
‘Hey,’ said Wydrin. She liked this woman. ‘I am deeply insulted.’
Holley stood up abruptly.
‘It’s the vault, isn’t it? The greedy, murderous bastards. I can give you the location of the vault. It is yours by right, after all.’
‘You know where it is?’ said Sebastian and Frith together. There was a pause, and they glared at each other. Sebastian rounded on Holley.
‘There are people dying in Pinehold, tortured or torn apart by bears, and you sit out here and let it happen? If you know where it is and you know what they want …’ There was a tinkling of glass as Sebastian’s shoulder brushed a shelf loaded with delicate instruments.
Holley held up hands thick with calluses.
‘It’s not as simple as that. Put your knightly indignation away, you fool. I hold the information, but only a person of the Frith blood can access it. Besides which, I made certain promises …’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Frith. Some of the anger had left his face, to be replaced with confusion. ‘The secret was kept strictly between my father and my oldest brother. I was only to be told when I, when … No one outside the family was to know. It was our deepest secret.’
Holley turned to Crowleo, her eyebrows raised.
‘You told them who I was, yes? Particularly the part involving secrets and keeping them?’
Crowleo dipped his
head once, smiling faintly.
‘Right, good, can’t expect everyone to be swift on the uptake I suppose.’ She gestured at a door on the far side of the room. ‘Follow me, Lord Frith and associated untrustworthies. I think this will be easier if I show you.’
23
Holley led them from the workshop. They walked down a short corridor where the ceiling was so low Sebastian had to bow his head, and they entered another room crowded with books and instruments. A big window to their left, filled with warped, greenish glass, looked out onto the rocky grounds outside. Wydrin looked from it back to Holley and was surprised to see that in this light her hair looked darker, the white hairs at her temples invisible. She even appeared to have fewer wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
They passed quickly through a further two rooms, these ones much more like those of a normal house. Wydrin saw sofas and chairs, a sink covered in cups and old saucepans, the sort of general chaos found in a home occupied by two busy people. Finally, they came to a room with an ornately carved wooden door. Crowleo threw it open, and Wydrin felt her breath catch in her throat. It was a room filled with light.
Windows stretched from one side to the other, looking out over the cliff’s edge to the dark forest below. The last ruddy light of sunset was smeared across the clouds in the distance, filling the room with a deep orange glow. And the items in the room caught that light and twisted it into strange shapes.
‘What are they all?’
Beneath the window was a long table, and upon it were hundreds of delicate glass objects, every one different, and every one beautiful. There were globes of all sizes and every colour of the rainbow, strange cubes that sent geometric reflections streaming out in front of them, filigrees of glass clumped together in spirals like exotic, fragile plants, as well as figures of men, women and animals, all created from shining crystal.
‘They are the secret holders,’ said a woman who sounded like Holley, but when Wydrin turned towards the voice there was a much younger woman standing there. She cast about in confusion.
