Runemarks

by Joanne Harris

  Rapidly Maddy went over in her mind all that she remembered about Freyja. The goddess of desire, Freyja the Fair, Freyja the Fickle, Freyja the Falcon-Cloaked—

  Ah. That was it.

  Sudden excitement surged through Maddy. Now she could see a glimmer of hope—not much, but enough—that once more set her heart beating fast.

  The runes felt familiar now, kindling quickly beneath her fingers. Here too the net that contained them seethed with impatience; the bindings itched; the glamours shone out with an imperious light.

  Maddy reached for them with one hand, a bunch of colored ribbons like those on a maypole. She pulled—

  —and the whole assembly came loose with a ripping and tearing and a great flare of colors and hues.

  This time the ice did not shatter, but instead melted away, leaving the Sleeper damp but unharmed, dabbing at her eyes and yawning delicately.

  “Who are you?” she inquired when the operation was complete.

  Maddy explained as quickly as she could. One-Eye’s capture, Skadi’s awakening, the Examiner, the Whisperer, the Word. Freyja listened, her blue eyes wide, but as soon as Maddy mentioned Loki’s name, they narrowed again.

  “I’m warning you now,” said Freyja stiffly, “I have…certain issues…with Loki.” (Maddy wondered briefly whether there was anyone in the Nine Worlds who didn’t have issues with Loki.)

  “Please,” she urged. “Lend me your cloak. It’s not as if I’m asking you to come with me.”

  Freyja looked Maddy over with a critical eye. “It’s my only one,” she said. “You’d better not damage it.”

  “I’ll be really careful.”

  “Hmm. You’d better.”

  Moments later it was in Maddy’s hands, a cloak of tricks and feathers, light as an armful of air. She pulled it around her shoulders, feeling the delicious whispery warmth of the feathers against her skin, and at once it began to shape itself to her form.

  The thing was alive with glamour, it seemed. Runes and bindings stitched it through. Maddy could feel them, delving, painlessly taking root in her flesh and bone, transforming her into something other.

  It was blissful; it was terrifying. In seconds her muscles lengthened; her vision sharpened a thousandfold; feathers sprouted from her arms and shoulders. She opened her mouth in astonishment, but nothing emerged but a harsh bird cry.

  “There. It quite suits you,” said Freyja, leaning over to inspect the result. “Now, when you want to take it off, just cast Naudr reversed.”

  How? thought Maddy.

  “You’ll manage,” said Freyja. “Just make sure you bring it back.”

  It took her a few minutes to become accustomed to her new wings. For an agonizing time she fluttered wildly, confused by the altered perspective and half panicked by the enclosed space. Then at last she found the skylight and shot through like a flung projectile into the night.

  Oh, the freedom, she thought. The air!

  Below her the valley hung like a silver-stitched tapestry—the glacier, the road twining down along the Hindarfell pass. The sky was all stars, the moon was dazzling, and the joy, the exhilaration of flight was such that for an indeterminate length of time she simply let it take her, shrieking, into the illuminated sky.

  Then she remembered the task at hand and, with an effort, took control. With her enhanced vision she could see about a mile ahead of her the hawk and the eagle—Loki and Skadi—streaking toward Malbry.

  Below them the fields were beginning to turn, moving from Harvestmonth yellow to Year’s End brown. In Malbry a few lights still shone, and the smell of smoke from the bonfires hung over the land like a banner. Somewhere among those lights, she knew, her father would be awake, drinking beer and watching the sky. Her sister would be dreamlessly asleep on her bed of boards, a lace cap tied around her cowslip curls. Crazy Nan Fey would be sitting in her cottage talking to her cats.

  And One-Eye? What was he doing? Was he sleeping? Suffering? Hopeful? Afraid? Would he be grateful to see her, or angry at how badly she’d handled the situation? Most important of all, would he play along? And if so, with whom?

  3

  Midnight. A potent hour.

  The church clock tower struck twelve, then, a minute later, struck twelve again. In a small bedroom under the eaves of the parsonage the visiting Examiner, who had been waiting for just that signal, gave a tiny smile of satisfaction. All the rituals had been performed. He had bathed, prayed, meditated, fasted. Now it was time.

  He was hungry, but pleasingly so; tired, but not sleepy. Once more he had refused the Parsons’ offer of a home-cooked meal, and the resulting slight feeling of light-headedness had been more than compensated for by a renewed intensity of concentration.

  On the bed at his side the Book of Words lay open. Now at last he allowed himself to study the relevant chapter, with the familiar shiver of pleasure and fear. That power, he thought dimly. That intoxicating, indescribable power.

  “Not mine, but yours, O Nameless,” he murmured. “Speak not in me, but through me…”

  And now he could feel it already at his fingertips, moving through the parchment to illuminate him: the ineffable wisdom of the Elder Days, the desire, the knowledge, the glamour—

  Tsk-tsk, begone! The Examiner banished temptation with a canticle. Not mine, but yours is the power of the Word.

  That was better. The feeling of delirium subsided a little. He had a job to do, and an urgent one: to identify the agent of Disorder, the one-eyed man with the ruinmark on his face.

  That ruinmark. Once more he considered it, with a tremor of unease. A potent glam, even reversed—the Book of Words said so—and there were verses in the Book of Fabrications, obscure verses, couched in terms so archaic as to be almost impossible to understand, that hinted at some dark and perilous connection.

  By his Mark shall ye know him.

  Aye. That was the crossroads.

  If only the Examiner had completed his studies, stayed on at the Universal City for another ten years or so; then he might have been able to trust in his gut. As it was, he was still a novice in so many ways. A novice, and alone—but if Raedo meant what he thought it did, then he badly needed the support of his Magisters, and quickly.

  A horseman riding as far as the Universal City might take weeks to bring help. Time aplenty for the Outlander to regain his strength and to contact his minions. All the same, the Examiner had held back until now. The Book of Words was not to be used lightly at any time, and the canticles of greatest power—Bindings, Summonings, and Executions—were especially restricted. Even more so was the Communion, a series of canticles through which, at a time of great need, a member of the Order could convey a message to the rest. It was a ritual of great power, a merging of minds and information, a mental link with the Nameless itself.

  But Communion was dangerous business, he knew. Some said it drove the user insane; others spoke of bliss too terrible to describe. He himself had never used it before. He’d never had to; but now, he thought, perhaps he must.

  Once again his eyes slid back to the Book of Words, open now to the first chapter, “Invocations.” One canticle headed the first page—underneath, a list of names.

  The Examiner read: A named thing is a tamed thing.

  He read on.

  Fifteen minutes later he had made up his mind. The decision could no longer be delayed; whatever the risk to his sanity or his person, he had to invoke Communion with the Order.

  Some part of him regretted this—for the present the Outlander was his alone, and to involve the Order would be to lose that independence—but mostly it was a blessed relief. Let someone else take charge, he thought. Let someone else make the decisions.

  Of course, there was always the chance that he might have misread the signs. But even that might be a relief. Better the ridicule of his peers than the terrible responsibility of having allowed the enemy to slip through his untrained fingers.

  He considered the Book. It had to be done according to
the correct process, he reminded himself. His mind would be wide open during the time of Communion, and he wanted to be sure that no taint of vainglory marked it. It took him ten minutes to achieve the required state of tranquillity and five more to summon the courage to utter the Word.

  The rune Ós vibrated at untold length, an unheard note of piercing resonance that cut through the dark. All over the valley, dogs pricked up their ears, sleepers awoke, trees dropped their remaining leaves, and small animals cowered in burrows and nests.

  Maddy felt it in a pocket of turbulence that tumbled and turned her.

  Loki saw it as a ripple of deeper darkness that flickered over the land.

  Skadi neither heard nor saw it, all her attention being fixed on the little hawk ahead of her.

  For a moment the Examiner sensed their presence. For that moment the Examiner was everywhere: soaring in the air, crawling on the ground, imprisoned in the roundhouse, buried under the Hill. Power surged within him, terrible and astonishing. With his mind he reached further; touched World’s End and the tangle of minds awaiting him; was suddenly there—in a study, a library, a cell—linking, touching, Communing with every soul in the Order without the need for any words.

  For a time it was a babel of minds, like voices in a crowd. The Examiner struggled to keep the link, struggled to keep his own mind from foundering. He could make out individual voices now—Magisters, Professors. The Council of Twelve—the high seat of the Order, where all decisions were made, all information regulated.

  Then, suddenly, all fell silent. And the Examiner heard a single Voice that addressed him by his true name.

  Elias Rede, intoned the Voice.

  The Examiner took a sharp breath. It had been close on forty years since he’d heard his name, had given it up, as all prentices did, for his safety and anonymity within the Order. For practical purposes he’d been given a number instead—4421974—which had been branded onto his arm during his initiation.

  Hearing his name after so long filled him with an inexplicable fear. He felt exposed, alone, utterly vulnerable beneath the scrutiny of some immensely superior mind.

  I hear you, Magister, he thought, fighting the urge to run and hide.

  The Voice—which was not quite a Voice, but an illumination that shone directly into his secret self—seemed to chuckle softly.

  Then tell me what you see, it said, and at once the Examiner felt the most terrible, most agonizing sensation: that of something moving relentlessly through the pages of his mind.

  It did not hurt, but it was anguish nevertheless. It was secrets thrown open, foibles exposed, old memories brought out to shrivel beneath that merciless light. There was no question of resisting it; beneath that scrutiny Elias Rede gave up his soul—aye, to the last scrap—every memory, every ambition, guilty pleasure, little rebellion, every thought.

  It left him empty, sobbing his confusion. And now he was aware of a new horror: that of the Order watching and sharing. Every prentice, every Professor, every Magister, every scrub. All were present; all judged him in that moment.

  Time stopped. From the depths of his misery the Examiner was conscious of a debate going on in the chambers of World’s End. Voices boomed around him, raised in excitement. He didn’t care. He wanted to hide, to die, to bury himself deep under the earth where no one could ever find him.

  But the Voice had not finished with Elias Rede. Now it shuffled through the past few hours, going over in relentless detail the business on the Hill, the arrival of the parson, and the capture of the Outlander—especially the Outlander—sifting and checking every feature, going over every nuance of every word the man had spoken.

  More, it said.

  The Examiner faltered. Magister…I—

  More, Elias. Give me more.

  Please! Magister! I’ve told you everything!

  No, Elias. You see more.

  And in that moment he realized he did. It was as if an eye had opened within his mind, an eye that saw behind the world into some other, fabulous place of lights and colors. His eyes grew wide.

  Oh! he gasped.

  Look well, Elias, and tell me what you see.

  It was a revelation. Forgetting his misery, he drank it greedily. Everything around him had a life, he saw: behind the trees, colors; behind the houses, signatures. Even his own hand, crooked into a circle with the thumb and forefinger joined together, cast a trail of brightness, gleaming against the dark air. Surely the Sky Citadel itself could not have been more beautiful than this—

  Stop your gawping and look outside.

  Forgive me, Magister, I—

  Outside, I said!

  He opened the window and leaned out, once more peering through the circle of his fingers. The night too was stitched with patterns: fading trails of many colors, most of them dim, but some like meteors crossing the sky. And above the roundhouse a brightness shone, a kingfisher trail that shot sparks into the starry sky.

  At last, in that moment, Elias Rede knew the man with the scarred face and hid his own face with trembling hands.

  Well done, Elias, said the Voice. The Nameless thanks you for your work.

  The link was fading, its many voices growing unruly as the One Voice grew faint. Elias Rede felt his mind contract; the Communion was nearing its end. And yet the visions—the wondrous visions—remained, though slightly dimmed, as if, once seen, they could never be quite unseen.

  A gift, said the Voice. For loyal service.

  The Examiner reeled. Now that his mind was mostly his own again, he began to understand the outstanding honor that had been given to him. A gift, he thought, from the Nameless itself…

  O Nameless, he cried, what must I do?

  Without words, it told him.

  And as the church clock struck half past twelve, Elias Rede—Examiner Number 4421974—lay on the floor of the Parsons’ guest bedroom with his arms wrapped around his head and shivered and wept with terror and joy.

  4

  Meanwhile, in the roundhouse, everything was quiet. Two duty guards stood at the door, but there had been no sound from inside the oven-shaped building since the Examiner’s departure, just before dark.

  Even so, the guards—Dorian Scattergood, from Forge’s Post, and Tyas Miller, from Malbry village—had been left with very strict, very specific orders. According to Nat Parson, the Outlander was already responsible for two near fatalities, and they had been strictly warned against any lapse in concentration.

  Not that he looked to be much of a fighter. Even if he were, the Examiner had left him chained hand and foot, with his fingers strapped together and with a hard gag between his teeth to prevent him from speaking.

  This last measure had seemed a little excessive to Dorian Scattergood—after all, the man had to breathe—but Dorian was just a guard, as Nat Parson had pointed out, not paid to ask questions.

  At any other time Dorian would have had no hesitation in pointing out that he wasn’t actually being paid at all, but the presence of an Examiner from the Universal City had made him cautious, and he had returned to his post without a word. Which didn’t make him any happier. The Scattergoods were an influential family in the valley, and Dorian didn’t enjoy being ordered about. Perhaps that was why he decided to check on the prisoner—in spite of his orders—just as midnight rang from the church tower.

  Entering the roundhouse, he found the Outlander still awake. Not surprising, really—it was hard to imagine anyone being able to sleep in such a position. The prisoner’s one eye glittered in the light of the torch; his face was drawn and motionless.

  Now, Dorian Scattergood was an easygoing fellow. A pig farmer by trade, he valued the quiet life above all, and he didn’t like unpleasantness of any kind. He was, in fact, Adam’s uncle, but had little in common with the rest of the family, preferring to mind his own business and let them get on with theirs. He’d moved out to Forge’s Post some years ago, leaving Malbry, Nat Parson, and the rest of the Scattergoods behind him. Unbeknownst to everyone b
ut his mother, he also had a ruinmark on his right forearm—a broken form of Thuris, the Thorn, which she had obscured as best she could with a hot iron and soot—and although he had never shown any evidence of unnatural powers, he was known in the valley as a skeptic and a freethinker.

  Unsurprisingly, this had not endeared him to Nat Parson. Tension had built up between them, and then, ten years ago, Nat had found out that one of Dorian’s sows—Black Nell, a good breeder with a broken ruinmark and a vicious temper—had eaten a litter of her own piglets. It happened occasionally—breeding sows were funny creatures, and old Nelly had always been temperamental—but the parson had made a great meal of the whole affair, calling in the bishop, for Laws’ sakes, and practically implying that Dorian had been involved in unnatural doings.

  It had cost Dorian some business—in fact, there were still folk in the valley who refused to deal with him—and it had left him with a great mistrust for the parson. Lucky for Odin it had, of course; for it meant that Dorian, of all the villagers, was the most inclined to disobey Nat’s orders.

  Now he peered at the prisoner. The fellow certainly looked harmless enough. And that gag must hurt, forced between the Outlander’s teeth and held in place with a bit and a strap. He wondered why Nat had thought it so necessary that he be gagged at all. Just plain old meanness, more than likely.

  “Are you all right?” he asked the prisoner.

  Understandably Odin said nothing. Through the gag his breath came in shallow gasps.

  Dorian thought he wouldn’t treat a plow horse to a bit like that, let alone a man. He moved a little closer. “Can you breathe?” he said. “Just nod if you can.”

  Outside the roundhouse Tyas Miller was getting nervous. “What’s wrong?” he hissed. “You’re supposed to be keeping watch.”

  “Just a minute,” said Dorian. “I don’t think he can breathe.”

  Tyas put his head around the door. “Come on,” he urged. “You’re not even supposed to be in there.” When he saw Dorian, his face dropped. “The parson said not to go near him,” he protested. “He said—”