The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  Coulten crossed his arms. “Either Rafferdy is not so talented as we thought, or your notion is incorrect, Eubrey. There’s nothing there.”

  “No, you’re wrong. Look.”

  Eubrey reached out with a gloved hand and brushed one of the stones. Rafferdy moved closer, peering over Eubrey’s shoulder. They were faint in the sunlight, but once he saw them they were unmistakable: small, fine runes shimmering on the surface of the stone.

  By the widening of his eyes, Coulten saw them as well. “Good show, Rafferdy! You’ve bested whatever magician it was that hid these runes.”

  Rafferdy knew that wasn’t entirely the case. He had possessed the Knowledge—that was, the correct spell—and the sum of his Power and Will had exceeded that of the concealing enchantment that had been placed upon the stones, but that was not as great a feat as it sounded. Unless rare and powerful magicks were worked, it was the nature of any enchantment to weaken over time. Which meant Rafferdy hadn’t been required to match the Power and Will of the magician who had hidden the runes long ago, but only the fraction of the enchantment that remained.

  “It’s some sort of spell of opening, isn’t it?” Coulten went on as he examined the wall. “I recognize most of the runes, but not every single one, I confess.”

  “You would know them all if you had been paying attention at our last meetings at the society,” Eubrey replied. “But yes, it is a spell of opening.”

  “Capital! But do you really think you can count on this discovery to get us admitted through the Door?”

  Eubrey let out a laugh. “It will get me admitted, I am sure! I believe you have a bit more to do to earn the regard of the sages, Coulten. You are making some progress toward that end, I think. Though if you don’t apply yourself, you may find Rafferdy will be admitted before you!”

  Rafferdy could not believe that was the case, though he made no reply. Sometimes by attempting to refute an assertion, one only served to lend it an air of credibility. “Now what?” he said instead.

  Eubrey traced a gloved finger beneath the line of shimmering runes. “Now we follow the instructions that have been left for us.”

  These words shocked Rafferdy. He had assumed that discovering the presence of the runes was the purpose of Eubrey’s mission for the sages, not actually invoking them. Before he could question the wisdom of the act, Eubrey was already sounding out the words of magick one by one.

  Despite his astonishment, Rafferdy said nothing. Now that Eubrey had begun, it would not do to interrupt him. He heard Coulten draw a breath, as if to make some exclamation, but Rafferdy gave him a firm look, and Coulten clamped his jaw shut.

  A tension grew upon the air as Eubrey spoke the words of magick, like when clouds gather and threaten a storm. Rafferdy read the runes silently to himself while Eubrey uttered them. As far as he could tell, Eubrey pronounced each one correctly and with the appropriate inflection. Rafferdy knew he could have done no better.

  As Eubrey spoke the last of the spell, the air seemed to darken several shades around them, and the sunlight went thin. Rafferdy gave a quick glance up, but saw no clouds in the sky save for a grayish smudge to the south, above the crowns of the trees.

  “By God, I can see right through them!” Coulten exclaimed.

  Rafferdy looked back down and uttered his own oath. Fortunately, there could no longer be a concern of disrupting the spell, for it was complete, and its result was apparent. Coulten was right; the red stones had faded in color, and vague shapes could be glimpsed through them. Even as Rafferdy watched, the stones grew lighter and lighter, becoming translucent as glass.

  Then they were gone altogether. All that remained was the line of runes, floating in midair. They flickered with crimson light, as if afire.

  “Rafferdy, may I borrow your cane?” Eubrey said.

  Such was his astonishment that Rafferdy did not think to question this request. He handed over his cane. Eubrey took it, then extended it into the empty space that moments before had been solid wall.

  The tip of the cane passed through the opening with no resistance. Beyond was a rough tunnel several paces long, and past that a dim greenish light that seeped among crooked shadows.

  Now that his initial shock had passed, Rafferdy could only be impressed. “The stones are gone,” he said.

  Eubrey shook his head. “No, not gone. Rather, they are … somewhere else.”

  “No matter where they are, the result is quite the same,” Coulten said. “Great gods, Eubrey! I didn’t think you were going to open it.”

  Eubrey turned to give Coulten a pointed look. “What else does one do with doors?”

  “Sometimes one knocks to announce oneself,” Rafferdy said dryly.

  Eubrey laughed. “And I have found that, for some parties, it is best to arrive unexpected.”

  He held out the cane, and Rafferdy took it back. Now that the door had been opened, he could only be fascinated by it. How long had it been since a way had been opened in Madiger’s Wall? Surely the magician who put this door here had opened it, and perhaps other magicians since then. Yet for all they knew, they were the first to look through this gap in the stones in a hundred years, or in five hundred.

  Rafferdy moved closer to the opening. At the far end of the passage was a dense tangle of roots and branches and crooked black trunks. The ground was covered with a carpet of decayed leaves, and every now and then another withered specimen drifted down to add itself to the mold below.

  For all its age and history, the appearance of the Evengrove was decidedly unimpressive. To Rafferdy, the trees looked more spindly and decrepit than they did great or ancient. All the same, this was the Wyrdwood. It was this—this gloomy forest, these hoary old trees—that had impeded man’s and civilization’s march across the island of Altania.

  Yet Rafferdy could not say he felt any sort of menace emanating through the passage in the wall. Rather, it was a sort of melancholy he felt as he looked at the disheveled trees. A listless breeze passed among them, and they gave a weary sigh. Then they fell still again.

  A raucous noise drifted from above. Several crows wheeled in circles overhead. Rafferdy glanced in either direction, but as before there was no one in sight. Yet what if the soldiers were to come back this way? If they did, he could not imagine they would be pleased with what they saw.

  “Magick is not just the opening of doors, Eubrey,” he said, regarding the other young man. “It is also the binding of them as well. Do tell me you have some idea how to close this door again?”

  “Of course! For all that it was hidden, it is quite the usual sort of spell. Invoking it in the reverse will do the trick, I am sure. I will close it shortly—but not before I have a chance to work an experiment.”

  He moved closer to the opening, so that the toes of his boots were even with its edge.

  Coulten crossed his arms. “I don’t know what you are about, Eubrey, but I do hope you’re taking care. You always tell me I’m not properly sensible to the perils of working magick.”

  “That’s because you’re not. But I am.” Eubrey moved forward another step; he was now within the passage in the wall.

  Rafferdy suffered a sudden impulse to reach out and take Eubrey’s arm to pull him back.

  “So what is this experiment you’re planning?” he said instead.

  “I’m going to work the Quelling.”

  “You’re what?” Coulten and Rafferdy both exclaimed at once.

  Eubrey glanced back at them, his expression roguish. “I believe you heard me clearly enough.”

  Rafferdy had heard him, but that made Eubrey’s words no easier to comprehend. As children, everyone had listened to tales of Altania’s first great magician, Gauldren, and how he had worked a great enchantment over the forest that covered all of Altania, stilling the trees.

  Only they hadn’t merely been tales, as everyone now knew. The Wyrdwood had indeed fought the first men who tried to settle the island of Altania, just as the groves had recently lashed o
ut in Torland. It was only Gauldren’s spell, his Quelling, that had finally allowed men to press from the island’s edges and into its interior to build their forts and keeps, their castles and towns, without fear of reprisal from the forest.

  “How can you work the Quelling when it was already worked ages ago?” Coulten said, giving voice to the question on Rafferdy’s mind. “Besides, while I warrant you’re good, Eubrey, you’re not even a member in full standing in our society, and Gauldren was one of Altania’s greatest magicians.”

  “One of the greatest, yes,” Eubrey said. “But not the greatest—meaning no disrespect to you, Rafferdy, for I know that you are a scion of that particular House. As remarkable as the Quelling was, the enchantment was not perfect—as I believe the people of Torland can attest. The Wyrdwood was cast into a slumber, but it is a fitful doze, and one from which it can still be awakened.”

  “Which is precisely why we should not provoke it!” Coulten said, casting a wary glance past Eubrey.

  “Do get ahold of yourself, Coulten. I’m not going to provoke it. Rather, my experiment will have only a further pacifying effect—if it has any effect at all. It was, I confess, more than a bit conceited of me to say I will work the Quelling. In fact, no one really knows what old Gauldren did when he worked his enchantment, but over the years various magicians have had ideas about how he might have done it, and the sages have charged me with testing one of the more plausible notions.”

  Eubrey took another step down the passage. He was over halfway through it now.

  “It is not an entire spell,” he went on, his voice echoing out of the opening in the wall. “Rather, it is but a fragment of one—a sequence of runes that might have been one portion of the Quelling, though far from the whole of it. Yet it is a beginning, and if I were to observe the spell to have some sort of mollifying effect on the Old Trees, the sages believe it would lend credence to the idea that it had been used by Gauldren in working the Quelling.”

  Rafferdy stood with Coulten on the very edge of the doorway, but he did not step through. “That’s all very interesting, Eubrey. But why should anyone want to know how the Quelling was worked?”

  “Because if we can learn what it was that Gauldren did, then we may be able to strengthen the Quelling, to perfect it. The sages are very concerned with the Risings.”

  “The Risings?” Coulten called out. “Why should the sages care about the Risings in Torland?”

  “They haven’t told me,” Eubrey said, taking another step along the passage. “At least not yet. However, I am sure I will find out more when they admit me into their circle—a thing they are bound to do if I succeed here today.”

  Coulten laid a hand on the rough gray stones and leaned through the doorway. “Really, this is madness, Eubrey. Rafferdy is right—the redcrests could come by at any moment. Surely by opening this door you’ve discovered enough to prove yourself to the sages. There is no need for you to do any more. Now come out of there!”

  “This will only take a moment,” Eubrey said, and he reached the tangle of branches at the end of the passage.

  Coulten looked at Rafferdy, his usually ruddy face grim and gray. “Good God, he actually means to do something. And he says I’m the foolish one!”

  Rafferdy hesitated for a moment, then he stepped into the passage. It was not long, being only as great in extent as the thickness of the wall, which was perhaps ten feet. At once he felt an oppressive sensation, like a kind of pressure pushing him back. He moved halfway down the passage and stopped. Eubrey was just over an arm’s length away.

  “Eubrey, I don’t think you should—”

  Rafferdy bit his tongue, for the other young man was already speaking words of magick, his hands before him. He had stripped off his gloves, and the ring on his right hand flared bright. Quickly, the words of the spell rose to a crescendo. As he spoke the final runes, blue sparks flew outward from his hand, striking one of the trees at the end of the passage, coiling and sizzling all around its trunk.

  The words of magick echoed off the stone walls, then fell to silence; the blue sparks dimmed and were gone. The trees at the end of the passage stood as they had before, motionless. Rafferdy let out the breath he had been holding.

  “I don’t think the enchantment did anything,” he said.

  “We cannot know until we test it.” Eubrey took out a small pocketknife and unfolded it.

  “Whatever is that for?” Coulten called out.

  “I am going to test if the spell had any effect.”

  “How so?”

  “Like this,” Eubrey said. And with a single thrust he plunged the knife into the trunk of the tree.

  Behind Rafferdy, Coulten let out a shout. Rafferdy nearly did the same. A shudder coursed up the trunk of the tree; at the same time a shower of dead leaves rained down from above. Rafferdy lunged forward to grab Eubrey’s arm, then hauled the other man back out of the passage into the sunlight.

  To his great consternation, Eubrey was laughing.

  “It worked!” he exclaimed, sounding not unlike the crows that circled in the sky above. “Do you see? The tree made no reaction at all despite my attack upon it.”

  “It shed a number of leaves,” Rafferdy said.

  Eubrey waved a hand. “No doubt those were already dead, and so were loosened quite naturally when the tree shook. But the tree did nothing in and of itself.”

  Rafferdy peered down the passage. In the dim green light he could see that the flurry of leaves had ceased. The tree Eubrey had struck was immobile, the knife lodged in its trunk.

  He glared at Eubrey. “What do you think it should have done?”

  “I’m not certain, but so assaulted it should have done something, don’t you think? If the historical accounts are true—and given recent events in Torland, we must believe they are—the Old Trees are capable of resisting assaults. Only this tree has done nothing at all. The spell must have had some effect on it, rendering it quiescent. The sages will be very interested to learn this, I am sure. Now, if you’ll release me, Rafferdy, I’ll go retrieve my knife.”

  Rafferdy tightened his grip on Eubrey’s arm. “I’ll buy you another. I think instead you should close the door.”

  “I concur!” Coulten said, glancing nervously about them. “I can only believe the redcrests will be returning this way at any moment.”

  In fact, Rafferdy was surprised they had not done so already. The soldiers had been patrolling in both directions along the wall earlier. Why had they not come back this way?

  Eubrey scowled. “Suit yourself, Rafferdy. However, it’s an excellent knife of Murghese steel and has a pearl handle. It will cost you dearly to replace it. And do not think I will settle for something of inferior make!”

  The crows continued to circle above, making a racket.

  “Just close the door,” Rafferdy said.

  Eubrey studied the runes that blazed in the empty air of the opening. Then, as before, he incanted the words of magick, only this time speaking them in reverse. As he uttered the last one, his House ring gave a flash of blue, and a moment later the stones became faintly visible upon the air. They grew rapidly more opaque, until Rafferdy could no longer see through them. At the same time, the magickal runes flickered and were snuffed out.

  Rafferdy gripped his cane and tapped its end against the red stones. They seemed quite solid. He gave a satisfied nod.

  “Good, it is closed,” Coulten said, his relief plain. “Now let us be away from here.”

  This received no argument, and together the three young men turned from the wall and started back down the path. They had gone no more than a few steps when they heard a sound behind them: a rushing as of a wind through leaves.

  Rafferdy glanced at the ground. The tall grass beside the path drooped in the heat of the long afternoon, unstirred by any breeze.

  The rushing swiftly grew into a roar. It was accompanied by a groaning so low it was more felt than heard, as well as a high-pitched creaking that to Raff
erdy sounded almost like voices crying out in pain. As one, the three young men stopped and turned around.

  “By the hosts of Eternum!” Coulten cried out.

  While Eubrey said, in a lower voice, “Now I understand what it was they meant.”

  Rafferdy thought this a peculiar thing to say, but it was quickly forgotten as a dread came over him—or rather, a sort of terrible awe. Above the top of the old wall, the crowns of the trees were tossing violently back and forth.

  “Perhaps … perhaps it is a storm,” Coulten called over the din, though these words sounded far from confident. “There’s a dark cloud over there.”

  “No, it can’t be a storm,” Rafferdy called back. “There’s no wind. Besides, that doesn’t look like any usual sort of cloud.” He held a hand to his brow, shading his eyes as he studied the smudge to the south. It was thicker than before, billowing up into the sky in a black pillar.

  “May I suggest we retreat a bit farther?” Eubrey said, loudly now.

  The tops of the trees continued to heave to and fro, as if propelled by a capricious gale. Then, as the groaning grew louder, branches bent and lashed, clawing against the top of the wall like thin black fingers.

  Coulten’s eyes were wide, and his usually ruddy cheeks had gone pale. “I don’t think the trees cared for your spell after all, Eubrey. You had better undo it right this moment.”

  Eubrey made no answer. He only gazed at the trees, as if fascinated by them. The branches bent farther, making an awful creaking as they strained to reach over the top of the wall. Leaves fell all around like black snow.

  Coulten grabbed his arm. “Don’t just stand there, Eubrey! It was your spell that did this. Speak another spell to put a stop to it!”

  “He can’t,” Rafferdy said.

  “What do you mean he can’t?” Coulten shouted.

  Rafferdy held out a hand. One of the black leaves settled upon it. He rubbed it with his thumb, and it smeared into a sooty streak across his palm. The raucous noises made by the crows drew his gaze back up.

  “Look there, above the trees.”

  The others did so. The black cloud had grown larger yet. Only it wasn’t a cloud at all, Rafferdy knew.