Runemarks

by Joanne Harris

  He shivered.

  Surely not! There must still be time…

  If the Sleepers awoke, he was as good as dead.

  Unless he recovered the Whisperer…

  If Maddy was heading for the Sleepers, he thought, then the quickest way was underground. It might take her four hours to reach the place—that gave her quite a lead on him—but Loki knew World Below better than anyone. He had shortcuts through the Hill that no one else knew and, with luck, perhaps he could still cut her off. If not, then at least he could be sure that Odin would not have ventured underground. So the General would be traveling overland toward the mountains, which gave him a journey twice as long—and over some rather rough terrain. Which left Maddy and the Whisperer alone.

  Loki grinned. In a fair fight he knew he had no chance, but Loki was not accustomed to fighting fair and had no intention of starting now.

  Well, then—

  With a flick of the fingers he cast ýr at the ground and prepared to re-enter World Below.

  Nothing happened.

  The door that should have slipped open at his command remained sealed.

  Loki cast again, frowning a little.

  Still the doorway declined to reveal itself.

  Loki cast Thuris, then Logr, Water, and finally Úr, the Mighty Ox, a rune of brute force, which was his equivalent of kicking the door hard in his impatience.

  Nothing worked. The door stayed shut. Loki sat down on the forest floor, angry, puzzled, and breathing hard. He had flung those runes with all his glam. Even if the door had been magically sealed, surely something should have happened.

  It was shielded, then, whatever it was. He cast Bjarkán as hard as he could.

  Still there was nothing. Not a gleam, not a twinkle. The door was not just sealed; it was as if it had never been there.

  That shudder, he thought. He’d taken it for the work of those digging machines, but now that he thought about it more carefully, he realized he’d made a mistake. That was the echo of powerful glam—a single working, likely as not—and World Below had shifted accordingly, going into total lockdown against a potential intruder.

  He tried to think what kind of assault might have triggered such a response.

  Only one thing came to mind.

  Now he began to feel afraid. He was locked out of World Below, alone and with enemies on either side. Time was short, the Sleepers might already be awake, and every second lost brought Maddy and One-Eye closer together. The solution was a dangerous one, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He would have to go after them overland.

  He uttered a cantrip, cast Kaen and Raedo, and if anyone had been there to see, they would have been amazed as the young man with the scarred lips and the harried expression dwindled, shrunk, shed his clothes, and became a small brown bird of prey that looked around for a second or two with bright, unbirdlike eyes before taking wing, circling the Hill twice in a widening arc, and soaring away into the thermals and off toward the Seven Sleepers.

  Anyone with the truesight, of course, would not have been fooled for a minute. That violet trail was far too distinctive.

  8

  Nat Parson was enjoying himself. It wasn’t just the robes, or the ceremony, or the knowledge that everyone was watching him, majestic on his white horse, with Adam Scattergood standing beside him with the incense pot in one hand and a fat church candle in the other. It wasn’t the close attention of the visitor from World’s End, who watched him (with admiration, Nat thought) from his position in the Eye of the Horse. It wasn’t the noble sound of his own voice as it rolled over the Hill, or the roar of the digging machines, or the smoke from the bonfires, or the Fair Day firecrackers that popped and flashed. It wasn’t even the fact that that tiresome girl was for it at last—her and the Outlander too. No, all these things were pleasing, but Nat Parson’s happiness ran deeper than that.

  Of course, he’d always known he was destined for greatness. His wife, Ethelberta, had seen it too—in fact, it had been her idea to embark on that long and dangerous pilgrimage to World’s End, which had led to his subsequent awakening to the stern duties of the Faith.

  Oh, there was no denying that he had been dazzled by the sophistication of the Universal City: its abbeys and cathedrals, its solemn passageways, its Laws. Nat Parson had always respected the Law—what there was of it in Malbry—but World’s End had opened his eyes at last. For the first time he had experienced perfect Order, an Order imposed by an all-powerful clergy in a world where to be a priest—even a country parson—was to command hitherto unimaginable authority, respect, and fear.

  And Nat had discovered that he liked to command authority. He had returned to Malbry with a craving for more, and for ten years following his return, through sermons of increasing violence and dire warnings of terrors to come, he had built up a growing clique of admirers, devotees, worshipers, and prentices in the secret hope that one day he might be called upon in the fight against Disorder.

  But Malbry was a quiet place, and its ways were lax and sleepy. Common crime was infrequent enough, but mortal crime—the kind that would enable him to appeal to the bishop, even the Order itself—was almost unheard of.

  Only once had he exercised this authority, when a black-and-white sow had been convicted of unnatural acts—but his superiors had taken a dim view of the matter, and Nat’s face had been red as a beet when he had seen the reply from Torval Bishop from over the pass.

  Torval, of course, was a Ridings man and took every opportunity to sneer at his neighbor. That rankled, and ever since, Nat Parson had been on the lookout for a way to settle the score.

  If Maddy Smith had been born a few years later, he often told himself, then his prayers might well have been answered. But Maddy had been four years old when Nat returned from World’s End, and although it might have been possible to take a newborn child into custody, he knew better than to try it then, just as he sensed that World’s End Law would have to be adapted to suit the needs of his parishioners, unless he wanted trouble from the likes of Torval Bishop.

  Still, he’d kept his eye on the Smith girl, and a good thing too—this present matter was far too serious for Torval to dismiss, and it had been with a feeling of long-delayed satisfaction that Nat had received the visitor from World’s End.

  That had been luck indeed for Nat. That an Examiner from World’s End should agree to investigate his little parish was cause enough for excitement. But by chance, for that same Examiner (on official business in the Ridings) to have been within only a single day’s ride of the Hindarfell pass—well, that was beyond anything Nat could have hoped for. It meant that instead of waiting weeks or months for an official to ride over from World’s End, the Examiner had been able to reach Malbry in only forty-eight hours. It also meant that Torval Bishop could not interfere, however much he wanted to, and that in itself was enough to fill Nat Parson’s heart with a righteous glow.

  The Examiner had had a number of complimentary things to say to Nat: had praised his devotion to duty; had shown a flattering interest in Nat’s thoughts on Maddy Smith, the one-eyed peddler who had been her companion, and the artifact they had called the Whisperer—which Adam had heard them discussing on the hillside.

  “And there has been no sign yet of the man or the girl?” the Examiner had said, scanning the Hill with his light-colored eyes.

  “Not a sign,” the parson had replied, “but we’ll find them, all right. If we have to raze the Hill to the ground, we’ll find them.”

  The Examiner had given one of his rare smiles. “I’m sure you will, brother,” he had said, and Nat had felt a little shiver of pleasure move up his spine.

  Brother, he had thought. You can count on me.

  Adam Scattergood was also enjoying himself. In the short time following Maddy’s disappearance he had almost completely forgotten his humiliation at the witch girl’s hands, and as the frenzy had spread, so had Adam’s self-importance. For a young person of such limited imagination, Adam had found p
lenty of tales to tell, aided by Nat and by his own desire to sink Maddy once and for all.

  The result had been far more than either of them could have hoped for. The tales had led to searches, alarums, a visit from the bishop, an Examiner—an Examiner, forsooth!—and now this wondrous combination of Fair Day and fox hunt, with himself as the youthful hero and man of the hour.

  He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. There were four machines on the Hill now, giant screws made of wood and metal, each one drawn by two oxen. From four drill points, two at each end of the Horse, came forth clots of red clay. Around these points the animals’ hooves had made such deep ruts in the earth that the outline of the Horse was barely visible, but even so, Adam could see that the entrance was still as closely sealed as ever.

  Boom-boom-boom!

  Once more one of the drilling machines had hit stone. Still the oxen strained and lowed. Nat Parson raised his voice above the squeal of the machine. A minute passed, and then another. The oxen kept on moving, the drill gave half a turn, and then there was a crack!—and the mechanism spun free.

  Two men went to the beasts’ heads. Another climbed into the hole to inspect the damage to the drill. The three remaining machines went on, inexorably. Nat Parson seemed unmoved by the setback. The Examiner had warned him it might take time.

  1

  Deep in the tunnels of World Below, Maddy was hungry, tired, and at the end of her patience. The passage was featureless, they had been walking for hours, and the steady shuffling lurch of her footsteps in the semi-darkness had begun to make her feel quite seasick.

  Sugar had turned sullen as it became clear that he was expected to walk all the way to the Sleepers.

  “How far now?” Maddy asked.

  “Dunno,” he said dourly. “Never go that far, do I? And you wouldn’t, neither, if you knowed what was there.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” said Maddy, containing an impulse to mindbolt the goblin through the nearest wall.

  “How can it tell you?” the Whisperer said. “It has nothing but legends and stories to go by. Devices used by the ignorant for the benefit of the foolish and the obfuscation of the credulous.”

  Maddy sighed. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me, either.”

  “What,” it said, “and spoil the surprise?”

  And so they shuffled on, through a passageway that smelled sour and unused, for what seemed like leagues (though in fact it was only three or four miles). As they left the Hill, the pounding of the machines receded, although they all heard the peculiar clapping sound that came afterward and felt the cold tremor that shivered all along the granite layer above their heads.

  Maddy stopped. “What in Hel was that?”

  It was the sound of glam, she thought. That unmistakable aftershock—but so much louder, so much stronger than any mere cantrip she had ever heard.

  The Whisperer brightened like an eye.

  “You know, don’t you?” Maddy said.

  “Oh yes,” said the Whisperer.

  “Then what was it?”

  The Whisperer glowed complacently. “That, my dear,” it said, “was the Word.”

  2

  Nat Parson could barely contain his excitement. He’d heard of it, of course—everyone had—but he’d never actually seen it in action, and the result was more splendid and more terrible than even he could ever have hoped for.

  It had taken more than an hour of prayer for the Examiner to prepare himself. By then the Hill had been trembling with it, a deep resonance that seemed to suck silently at Nat’s eardrums. The villagers felt it; it raised their hackles, made them shiver, made them laugh without knowing why. Even the oxen felt it, lowing and straining at their harnesses as the machines went on grinding, and the Examiner, his pale face now sheened with sweat, his brow furrowed with exertion, his whole body trembling, stretched out his hand at last and spoke.

  No one had actually heard what he said. The Word is inaudible, though everyone said afterward that they had felt something. Some wept. Some screamed. Some seemed to hear the voices of people long dead. Some felt an ecstasy that seemed to them almost indecent—almost uncanny.

  Loki had felt it from Little Bear Wood but, in his eagerness to seek out Maddy and the Whisperer, had mistaken the vibration—and the crack that followed—for the work of the digging machines on the Hill.

  One-Eye had felt it as a sudden rush of memories. Memories of his son Balder, dead from a shaft of mistletoe; of his faithful wife, Frigg; of his son Thor—all folk long lost, whose faces seldom returned to his thoughts.

  On the Hill there had come a wakening shudder, making Nat’s hair stand on end. Then a crack like a thunderbolt.

  Laws, that power!

  “Laws,” he said.

  The Examiner was the only one who had seemed unimpressed by the procedure. In fact, Nat thought he had looked almost bored, as if this were some everyday routine, somewhat fatiguing, but no more exciting than digging out a nest of weasels.

  Then he had stopped thinking and, like the rest of them, had simply stared.

  At the Examiner’s feet there was now an irregular gash in the ground, some sixteen inches long and perhaps three inches wide. Its shape seemed vaguely significant—it was ýr, the Fundament, reversed—although Nat, who was not familiar with the Elder Script, did not recognize its importance.

  “I have broken the first of nine locks,” said the Examiner in his flat voice. “The remaining eight are as yet intact, but this reversal is the most important.”

  “Why?” asked Adam, which pleased Nat because it was the question he had wanted to ask but had not for fear of sounding ignorant.

  The Examiner gave a small, impatient sigh, as if to deplore the ignorance of these rustic folk. “See this mark—this ruinmark? This marks the entrance to the demon mound. Eight more of these locks remain to be broken before the machines can get inside.”

  “How do you know there isn’t another way into the Hill?” said Dorian Scattergood, who was standing close by.

  “There are several,” said the Examiner. He seemed to be enjoying himself, though his voice remained dry and contemptuous. “However, the enemy’s first defense is to close the Hill against all intruders. To dig deep, as a rabbit does when it scents the hawk. And so now, as you see, the Hill has been sealed. No escape from within, no way in from without. However, as any hunter knows, it is sometimes useful to fill in smaller rabbit holes with earth before setting the snare at the main burrow’s mouth. And when this burrow is opened at last”—the Examiner gave a chilly smile—“then, Parson, we shall dig them out.”

  “You mean the…Good Folk?” said a voice behind him. It was Crazy Nan from Forge’s Post, perhaps the only person, thought Nat, who would have dared to speak openly of the Faërie—and in front of an Examiner, no less.

  “Call them by name, lady,” said the Examiner. “What good can possibly come from this evil place? They are the Fiery, Children of the Fire, and they shall be put to the fire, every one, until the Order rules supreme and the world is Cleansed of them forever.”

  A hum of approval went around the gathering—but Nat noticed that Crazy Nan did not join it and that several others looked a little anxious. It was easy to see why, he thought; even in World’s End such powers as the Examiner’s were rare, honors conferred upon the highest and holiest rank of the clergy. Torval Bishop wouldn’t have approved; to an oldster like Torval such things would have seemed dangerously close to magic—which was, of course, an abomination—but to Nat Parson, who had traveled and seen a little of the world, there could be no mistaking one for the other.

  “Not children, though,” persisted Nan. “I mean, goblins, Good Folk, that’s all right, but we’re not going to Cleanse any real children, are we?”

  The Examiner sighed. “The Children of the Fire are not children.”

  “Oh.” Crazy Nan looked relieved. “Because we’ve known Maddy Smith since she were a bairn, and she may be a little wild, but—”

&n
bsp; “Lady, that is for the Order to judge.”

  “Oh, but surely—”

  “Please, Miss Fey,” interrupted Nat. “This isn’t just common business anymore.” His chest swelled a little. “This is a matter of Law and Order.”

  3

  “The Word?” said Maddy. “You mean it exists?”

  “Of course it exists,” said the Whisperer. “How else do you think the Æsir were defeated?”

  Maddy had never read the Good Book, though she knew “Tribulation” and “Penitences” well enough from Nat Parson’s Sunday sermons. Only Nat and a handful of prentices (all boys) were allowed to read any part of it, and even then, their reading was restricted to the so-called Open Chapters of “Tribulation,” “Penitences,” “Laws,” “Listings,” “Meditations,” and “Duties.”

  But some chapters of the Book were locked, with silver clips that pinned the pages shut, the key kept on a fine chain around Nat Parson’s neck. No sermons were ever preached from these Closed Chapters, as they were called, although Maddy knew some of their names from One-Eye.

  There was the Book of Apothecaries, which dealt with medicine; the Book of Fabrications, in which were histories of the Elder Age; the Book of Apocalypse, which predicted the final Cleansing; and, most importantly, the Book of Words, which listed all the permissible cantrips (or canticles, as the Order preferred to call them) to be used by the special elite when the time of Cleansing came.

  But unlike the rest of the Closed Chapters, the Book of Words was sealed with a golden clip, and it was the only chapter of the Book that was closed even to the parson. He had no key to the golden lock, and although he had tried several times to open it, he had always failed.

  In fact, on the last occasion, when he had taken a leatherworker’s awl to the golden lock, it had begun to glow alarmingly and to get uncomfortably hot, after which Nat had been careful not to interfere with it again. He knew a charmed lock when he saw one (it was not so very different, in fact, from the runecharm the Smith girl had placed on the church door), and though he was disappointed that his superiors had shown so little trust in him, he knew better than to challenge their decision.