Another stone.
“You wretch! Why’d you do it, Lena? I hope they paid you well for selling me. That’s what you did—you sold me out. We were friends. I taught you everything I knew! I protected you!”
Her face was pinched with anxiety, but still she said nothing. A stone came whistling at him and he tried to catch it, to throw it back hard at her, but his body would not obey him.
“We were family!” he shouted.
Another stone struck him. It dropped away, tumbling into the nothingness below him. He looked down. It was a long way to fall.
He fell. His mouth gaped open, desperate for the air rushing by.
Jute woke up, gasping for air. He breathed in the odor of straw and remembered where he was. The darkness around him was only darkness, and the stone wall inches from his face was just a stone wall. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he thought dismally. Something hit him hard in the back. He yelped and sat up.
“Be quiet!” said a familiar voice.
Lena crouched on the other side of the bars. Jute scuttled across the floor, so furious he couldn’t even think. He reached through the bars, grabbed her by the throat. Her little hands flailed at his.
“No, wait!” she said. “Please! He weren’t the Knife no more—everyone said so—kicked outta the Guild by the Silentman. Said he did what he did because he was forced to. He only wanted to help now. Said you were in terrible danger. I only thought I could help, that something would work out—Jute, please—I can’t breathe!”
His hands were wet with her tears. He let go of her and they both slumped down on either side of the bars. She sobbed quietly.
“Why’d you do it, Lena?”
“I thought I was helping.”
“Well, you weren’t,” he said. This only made her sob louder. “Shush. Or the jailer’ll come along and then we’ll be both locked up.”
“I’d rather be in there than anywhere else.”
“I don’t suppose you were clever enough to bring a—”
She produced a rusty nail before he could finish speaking.
“It’s no good,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I tried while you were sleeping. The tumblers are so rusty there’s no good budging it without a proper key.”
“Lemme have it.”
She sniffled and handed the nail over. He reached through the bars and around, feeling blind for the lock. The nail rattled in the keyhole. He investigated with his eyes closed, testing the tumblers.
“It won’t work.”
“Be quiet,” he said frowning, but already knowing she was right. He sat back on his heels.
“There’s allus another way to rob the duchess. That’s what you allus say.”
“Aye,” said Jute, considering the nail with disfavor. She pressed her face against the bars and smiled uncertainly.
“So how’ll it be?”
He told her.
The jailer came yawning down the passage. A torch burned in one hand, but it did little to dispel the gloom, for the fire guttered more with smoke than flame. He paused at Jute’s cell and raised the torch to peer within. Two hands shot out from the bars and grabbed him by the coat.
“Help!” yelled Jute.
The jailor shouted in fright and stumbled back, but he was held tight to the bars by the boy’s grip.
“Get me out here! Help me, kind sir! Get me out! Help! Help!”
“Leave off!” said the jailer, and he beat Jute about the ears. The boy ducked his head under the blows and doggedly held on.
“Help!” bawled Jute.
The tiny form of Lena materialized out of the shadows and tiptoed forward. Her fingers fluttered at the jailer’s belt. Torchlight gleamed on the ring of keys in her hands. She darted silently away.
“Help! Fire! Flood!”
“Here’s some help!” said the jailer, and he dealt Jute a tremendous buffet on the side of his head which sent the boy staggering back from the bars.
“Idiot boy.” And after tugging his coat straight, the jailer continued on his way. His shadow straggled after him, vanishing into the darkness that thickened as the torchlight disappeared down the corridor.
Instantly, Jute was at the bars.
“Quick,” he said.
Lena bobbed out from an alcove, her face pale with excitement.
“Hurry,” said Jute. “We haven’t much time. As soon as he comes to the next door we’re done for if that ring isn’t back on his belt.”
“Which one is it?” said Lena. The ring was heavy with keys. She tried them, one after the other. They sounded like chattering teeth as they rattled in the lock.
“Hurry up!”
“I am!”
And then the lock opened with such a creak that both of them froze in horror, sure the jailer would be soon hurrying back. The door swung open and Jute popped out.
“In you go,” he said. He grabbed the ring of keys from her hand.
“Do I have to?”
“Lay down in the back corner with your face to the wall. He’ll think you’re me. Whatever you do, don’t move or say a word if someone comes. Hurry!”
“And you’ll be back for me?”
“Yes,” he said, and he pushed her inside and locked the door.
He darted through the shadows on noiseless feet. The jailer stamped along. Jute slipped the keys back onto his belt. It was lucky he did, because the man groped for them not a second afterward and vanished through a door. The lock on the door proved impervious to Jute’s nail. He stepped back, frowning, and looked down the passage on either side. Both directions looked identical. Here and there, oil lamps shone, sitting on ledges that jutted out from the wall. The light they shed, however, was so mean and miserable that it only served to deepen the shadows in the spaces between.
“Should just leave her to rot,” he said to himself.
It would serve her right. The stupid little beast.
And perhaps Jute would have left Lena, for there’s no telling what someone will do when left up to their own thoughts. However, just as he was considering which direction down the passage to investigate, he heard voices. He darted behind a stone arch. The voices slowly approached. There were two voices, and after a little while he managed to distinguish them. The first had a light, complaining tone, as if the speaker had just been roused from his sleep or a good meal and was not taking the interruption kindly. The second was deeper and seemed to spend all his words soothing the first voice.
“That son of a thrice-cursed misbegotten sheepherder,” said the first voice. “The gall of him. As if a desert nag could run the legs off one of my beauties.”
“Well,” said the second voice, “it’s difficult to ignore the fact that his horse won.”
“Entirely beside the point. Y’have to remember those sand eaters are steeped in magic, up to their noses. Wasn’t true speed—wasn’t real horse—that won the length. It was magic, I say, magic!”
“Magic,” returned the second voice. “I’d give my right hand to be rid of the lot of it—”
“Aye, then we’d be winning some races.”
“—for the stuff’s been nothing but a torment to us, ever since that cursed creature came knocking on our door. I’ve heard its whisper in my sleep every night since.”
“Gold.”
“More us the idiots, for I’m thinking it’ll be fool’s gold before the story’s out.”
Shadows wavered along the passageway. Jute felt the stone of the wall against his cheek. It was cold and hard and the silence of it seeped into his flesh. The two men appeared in the dim light. They were walking slowly, heads down, and so preoccupied with their conversation that they would not have noticed the boy had there been lamplight shining on his face. Both of the men wore long, draping cloaks with hoods so that Jute could not see much of them other than the shape of their bodies.
“You’ve always seen the darker side of things, old friend.”
“That’s what you pay me for,” said the second man. “So I’d think it remiss
if I didn’t look in that direction. But perhaps I’ll be proven wrong tonight when the creature returns. After all, we’ve the boy in hand now, locked up tight.”
“Shadow take the little wretch. I knew Ronan would come through. Didn’t I say he would?”
“I don’t recall your exact words,’ said the other politely.
“That’ll put us back safely with that—that—whatever that thing is.”
“I trust so. I hope so.”
“Well, I hope it snaps the boy’s filthy neck.”
The pair had passed on by this time and Jute, horrified by their words, slipped out and tiptoed along behind them. He knew that the filthy neck they spoke of was his own and, even though his neck was indeed filthy, he did not think it deserved snapping. But necks could get mistaken in the dark, particularly if someone was angry enough. Lena’s neck was no bigger than that of a sparrow. It would snap easily. He shivered.
The two men stopped outside the cell and he sidled into an alcove jutting off the passageway. He crouched in the shadows, gnawing his lip and hoping against hope they would not open the cell.
I can run at them, he thought. Scream and shout if they open the door. Enough of a distraction for Lena to dart out and be gone. If only I had a knife. If only I hadn’t touched the knife. None of this would be happening.
“So, this is the miserable wretch,” said the first man. “Strange to think the mighty Guild could’ve been brought near to destruction by a child. My father must be writhing in his grave.”
The second man sighed.
“I think we were done in by simple curiosity,” he said. “What child have you ever known to resist a shut door or a closed box? Doubly so if the child’s a thief. And we gave this boy an enticing mystery, for the instructions were to not open the box. If you tell ‘em a certain thing mustn’t be done, why then they promptly focus all their energies on accomplishing that particular thing. Each of mine was like that.”
“One of many reasons why I’ve never had children of my own,” said the other.
They fell silent. Then, without warning, the first man kicked at the bars.
“You there!” he shouted. “On your feet, shadowspawn. Up, and let me see your ugly face!”
Jute flinched at the rage in the man’s voice. His lips moved soundlessly.
Don’t move, Lena. Please, don’t move.
“Do you know who I am? I am the Silentman!”
Don’t even breathe.
“I own you! I own your worthless life and I’ll do with it what I will!”
No he won’t. I’ll get you out. It’ll be all right—you’ll see. It’ll be all right.
“Before this night’s over, boy, you’ll wish you’d never been born. Get on your feet!”
A shape passed before Jute’s staring eyes. The jailer. He shrank back into the shadows, but the man did not even waste a glance into the alcove.
“My lord.” The jailer bowed and tugged at his forelock.
“What is it?” said the first man.
He turned toward the jailer and, for the first time, Jute was able to look within the man’s hood. The jailer’s torch illuminated the passage, but where there should have been face there was only a strange blur of darkness that resisted the light.
“Mostly been like that e’er since the Knife brung him in,” offered the jailer. “Jus’ huddles against the wall.”
“Not dead, is he?” said the first man. “It’ll be your neck if he is.”
“Oh no, my lord,” said the jailer. “He ain’t dead. Eats his food quick enough, he does, an’ today he up and tries to grab me—right through the bars as I was makin’ my rounds. You want me to roust the beggar out, my lord?”
The keys gleamed in his hand and jingled against the lock.
“Nay, leave be, jailer. I don't have time.”
The first man turned back toward the cell.
“Listen, boy, for I know you can hear me through your shamming. Savor this cell and your stone pillow well, for it’s the only pleasant thing you’ve left to feel. You’ll not live out the night.”
Still, there was no response from the cell. The man spun away from it with an impatient snarl.
“And you, jailer—the hour after midnight, you be at the stairway door with your keys. You will be so good to hand them over then. Be sure to scrub them well, for I want none of your stench on them.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
The two men strode away down the passageway. After a moment, the jailer shambled off, and soon there were only the shadows and the stone walls. Jute darted across to the cell.
“Lena,” he said.
The shabby heap in the corner of the cell quivered into life. Her eyes blinked, staring and huge, and then she flew at him. Her hands reached through the bars and he caught them in his own. They shook in his grasp.
“Jute!”
“Shh! You’ll be out of here soon enough. I’ll steal the keys and we’ll be out.”
“You heard him.” Her teeth chattered. “An hour past midnight.”
“We’ll be out long before then—shh.”
“I almost turned when he spoke. I almost screamed an’ turned. . .”
He soothed Lena until her teeth no longer chattered and her hands no longer shook. She curled back up in the corner obediently, but the last glimpse he had of her was of two eyes. Then she turned her face to the wall and there was only a heap of ragged clothing lying there.
It shouldn’t be difficult, Jute told himself. Just find the jailer. Just find the jailer and you’ll have the keys and that’ll be it. He’s practically deaf and dumb. I could steal the shirt off his back. Not difficult at all.
But the jailer was not to be found.
The passage meandered in both directions for a considerable way. It twisted and turned and digressed into side tunnels and alcoves. It took Jute quite a while to be certain he had covered every foot of the place. The walls were lined with barred cells, but there were no other prisoners. In most of parts of the tunnel there were none of the oil lamps that lit the area where Lena was locked up. Jute took one down from the wall and crept about with the hot metal scorching his hand. Cobwebs shrouded the stones. A spider scuttled across the floor and climbed the wall. It was much bigger than any spider he had ever seen. The lamplight caught in its mass of eyes, glittering and shining like a wealth of tiny jewels. He tiptoed past the thing. He shivered and imagined those dozens of eyes watching him, all swiveling at the same time, intent on him.
He did not find any other doors beside the one the jailer had disappeared through, except for one door at the opposite end of the maze of tunnels. It was at the end of a passage well lit with lamps and swept clean of spiderwebs. The door handle turned smoothly and silently under his hand and he stopped, wary of what came easily. He listened to everything around him, but he could hear only the silence of the stone walls. But then he remembered the ward that governed the terrible staircase in the university, and the silence of those steps that had almost sent him falling to his death. He listened again, his eyes shut, and then he heard. Rather, it was what he could not hear. It was not just silence. It was an absence. He could not hear anything through the door. He pressed his ear against the cold iron to be sure, but there was nothing there. The absence of silence was not silence, but it was dangerously close.
Jute settled back on his heels and pondered. It had to be a ward of some sort. If so, it was the only ward he had found in the entire sprawl of tunnels. Therefore, whatever lay behind it must be important. And, if one had a dungeon where people were kept locked up in cells, then surely the most important door would be the exit.
He examined the thought and found it reasonable. But even if it was reasonable, the conclusion didn’t help him. The door was still warded. However, ward or no ward, he would have to see what lay behind the door. He took a deep breath and filled his mind with the memory of sky, for the memory of sky is composed first of silence, and then of a distance that recedes beyond the reaches of sigh
t. Even there, the wind blows in silence. The sky flooded into his mind, replete with stillness and plucking at his thoughts with the cold, familiar fingers of the wind.
The handle turned under his hand and he pulled the door open.
Just as quickly, he shut the door. Stumbled backwards and crouched there in the middle of the floor, trembling. Sweat sprang from his forehead. He stared at the handle, willing it not to turn.
The door did not open.
Jute sighed thankfully and turned away.
When the door had opened, several inches ajar, he had seen a flight of stone steps mounting up. But, in that brief instant, he had seen a horrifying thing. Several steps up, the stone had shifted—in less than the blink of an eye—hard, flat surfaces becoming fluid, bending and shaping and rising up into the semblance of a gigantic head without eyes or nose or ears but split near in two by a gaping mouth crowded with teeth like shattered rock. The head strained toward him, mouth stretching wider and wider, and then he had slammed the door shut.
Some wards could not be evaded by silence. This was one. Opening the door activated the thing. It was as simple as that. It would take a spell to keep the steps stone and the head in slumber. Perhaps just a single word.
He settled in a dark corner near Lena’s cell and listened to her even breathing. She was asleep. Minutes drifted by—each one more valuable than the last. A yawn forced its way from his mouth and he rubbed at his eyes. His head hurt. He hadn’t noticed it until he had sat down.
And then he realized something. Right when the door had opened, he had felt a dizzying impression of whispers. It had only been for an instant. The sight of the head welling up from the steps had blotted the impression from his mind.
Jute’s headache pulsed with each heartbeat. He knew it was the result of the whispers. The whispers of hundreds of wards all concentrated in one place. Strange. The pain felt familiar, as if he had been in the vicinity of those particular wards before. Where had it been? He couldn’t remember.
How much more time until the hour after midnight?
Surely the jailer will come again on his rounds before then.
I’ll steal the key, and then—and then. . .
Jute’s eyes closed and his head fell forward on his chest. The jailer passed by three times more, but neither of the two saw the other, for the boy was sound asleep and the jailer noticed little even when awake.
The Shadow at the Gate Page 23
