The Wicked Day

by Christopher Bunn

  “Sorry.”

  Hoon knelt at the keyhole of a door, a bit of wire twisting in his fingers. Two other doors stood flung open, revealing stairs up to an attic through one and a smelly bedroom through the other.

  “In here,” said Hoon. “Fat man. Dodged in quicker’n a pig on market day. I couldn’t get my hands on him, blast it. The lad got this one smart enough, but I think what we wants is behind this door.”

  “Break it down,” rumbled Bordeall.

  Hoon shook his head. “Nice oak, this. Built more’n thick. You’d need a proper axe an’ a good sweat at it. Stone frame an’ lintel too. This ain’t normal house construction here. Someone’s gone to trouble.”

  He bent back to the keyhole, but with no luck.

  “Er, if I could have a go.”

  Posle plucked the wire from Hoon’s fingers and knelt beside him. He scrubbed at his face beneath the sock and then probed at the keyhole. Behind the door, there came a faint noise. It sounded like wood scraping together. Something heavy grating against the floor.

  “Hurry!” said Owain.

  And then metal clicked in the keyhole. The knob turned and they flung open the door, trampling poor Posle in the process. A fat man glanced up, sweating, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. He was in the process of dragging an enormous chest across the floor toward a large mirror hanging on the wall.

  “You can’t—you can’t!” gasped the man.

  “Get him!” said Owain.

  It was probably due to the fact that they all reached for him at the same moment—except for Posle, of course, who had only managed to sit up by that time and wonder dizzily what had fallen on his head—but they got in each other’s way, and the fat man, evidently deciding that the chest was not worth it, hopped backward and dove through the mirror. At least, that’s what it looked like. There was an odd sort of ripple in the glass and the next moment the fat man was gone. The air whispered.

  “A warded gate,” gasped Posle, having got his breath back. “It’s how we—it’s how the Guild guards the entrances to the Silentman’s court. I don’t know how to use ‘em, my lord. I don’t— bless my heart—I don’t! Only the real Guild toffs know, an’ they ain’t many of them.”

  “Stone take it!”

  Owain rapped on the mirror with his knuckles. It seemed hard enough. Glass. Just a mirror. His eyes glared back at him through the holes in the sock. “With luck, though, what we came for is in the chest. Our fat friend certainly seemed determined to take it with him. But we’ve no time to fiddle with locks. Bordeall, you and Posle get that chest back to the barracks on the double. The rest of us’ll have a quick look around before the Guild turns up in force. Arodilac, go downstairs and get Varden.”

  But other than a small leather sack of coins—triumphantly discovered in the bedroom closet by Arodilac—there was nothing else to be found in the house in the remaining minutes Owain allowed. They found dust and a great deal of grime. Varden was convinced the walls had something to hide and began knocking holes in them with his cudgel.

  “There’s gold in these walls here, cap’n,” said Varden, bashing another hole. “Can’t you jest smell it? I can smell it.”

  “That’s enough,” said Owain. “We need to go. We’re out of time.”

  The four men slipped away into the fog. The streets were silent and, if any of the neighbors had heard anything, they had chosen to remain silent in their beds. No lights shone in any of the windows, although at one window across the street a curtain twitched slightly and then was still.

  “No trouble in the back, Varden?” said Owain, as they hurried through the fog.

  “Weren't nary a bit, cap’n,” said the old man. “Jest one nervous sort. Came hopping out like a durned rabbit, but I gave ‘im a tap on the head like you advised. Calmed him down.”

  They walked in silence that was broken only by the whisper of their footsteps and the occasional yawn from Arodilac. But as they turned down the street that led up to the barracks gates, a dog howled somewhere nearby. Hoon shivered.

  “Somethin’ strange about that house,” he said.

  “What’s that?” said Owain.

  “Not rightly certain. Somethin’ jest not right there. It didn’t tell on me until a while. I know ya don’t put much stock in such things, cap’n, but I’d say the Dark’s had a hand in that house. It were the smell, I think, an’ a bit else. It put me in mind of a thing or two I’ve run across in the mountains.”

  “What sort of thing?” said Arodilac, his eyes wide. “What do you mean by the Dark? That’s just an old wives’ tale, isn’t it?”

  “That’ll do,” said Owain, and they said nothing more.

  They parted at the barracks. Arodilac wanted to ask a question or two—and it was in the other men’s eyes as well—but he shut his mouth when Owain glared at him.

  “My thanks for the night’s work,” said Owain. “You’ll not mention it to anyone. That’s all. Go wake the cook and have a bite to eat. Tell him to bring out a bottle of wine.”

  “All right, cap’n,” said old Varden. He nodded and shuffled off. The two others followed reluctantly.

  Bordeall was waiting for him in the armory. The chest stood unopened. Owain locked the door and nodded. Three blows with an axe was all it took. The lid shattered and the lamplight caught within, glittering between the shards of wood. The chest brimmed full of gold and silver coins. Owain grinned in relief.

  “I feel a lot more kindly toward the Guild,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE HOUSE OF STONE AND HUNGER

  At first, Jute thought he was still curled up in bed at the inn. But then he realized that blankets did not feel like this, no matter how rough the wool. He awoke and became instantly aware of pain. His head ached and throbbed, centered on a point at the top of his skull that threatened to drive itself down in a sharp spike of fire. His back felt as if a fat person in iron-nailed boots had spent the last few hours trudging back and forth across it. But it was his hands that were the worst. Jute could not feel them for a few seconds, and then they burned to life in utter agony. He gasped and opened his eyes. Blinked, and wished he could somehow go back to sleep. Never wake up. Memory swept back in a rush. The old man in the water mill. The shifter growling at the door. The village shrouded in night and rain.

  “I wish I were back in Hearne,” groaned Jute. “Oh, hawk! Where are you? Ghost, are you there?”

  But there was no answer.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Jute saw that he was in a cellar of some sorts. It was a gloomy place with crudely hewn stonewalls. Moisture oozed from the stone and moss grew in patches of slimy green. The air stank of rot. A staircase at the end of the room disappeared up into darkness. Behind him, he could hear the drip-drip-drip of water plopping down into a pool or basin. It was the only sound in the cellar.

  Jute tried to turn, to see the basin, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His back shivered into agony, and his hands—well, he had no words to describe his hands. They were tied up high over his head, stretched out so that his shoulders and back ached abominably. Most of his weight hung dangling from his hands, but by arching his back and standing on his toes, he was able to relieve the stress a bit. By doing that, he was able to slowly turn. And to his relief, Jute saw he was not alone in the cellar.

  Declan. The man hung motionless from a length of chain, his hands tied over a hook on the end of the chain. His head was slumped forward and his eyes were closed. Dried blood caked the side of his face. Beyond him, several other chains dangled from the ceiling. They all ended in rusty hooks.

  “Declan!” said Jute.

  The man did not move.

  “Declan, wake up! Please!”

  But it was no use. Jute groaned. This was the end. He was going to die in this dreadful place. He was going to die, far from his old life in Hearne, far from home. He had never had a home. It wasn’t fair. All he ever wanted out of life was a home. Tears trickled down Jute’s face.
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  “I’m going to die,” he moaned.

  “Probably,” said a voice from close by. “Yes. It’s likely.”

  “Ghost!”

  The ghost wavered into view. It looked terrified.

  “Ghost! I'm so glad to see you!

  “Likewise, likewise,” said the ghost. “There’s nothing more I enjoy than a little chitchat with an old friend, but we don’t have the time for that. You have to get out of here, Jute. Now. Quickly. Hurry up!”

  “I’d like nothing more, but I can’t.”

  “Oh? Ah. I see what you mean. Er, well. . .”

  The ghost drifted up into the air to examine the chain.

  “Nonsense,” it said, popping back down. “Quite simple. Your hands are tied together and the rope’s looped on a hook. Nasty-looking hook, but no matter. All you have to do is inch your way up the chain a bit so you can get the rope over the hook. Easy as that. Grab the chain and start climbing.”

  “Easy enough for you to say,” said Jute furiously. “I can’t feel my hands, let alone get a grip on the chain!”

  “You don’t understand.” The ghost stuck its face near Jute’s and lowered its voice to a whisper. “This is a bad place. An evil place! Do you understand the meaning of the word evil? Spelled E-V-I-L. Evil! We’re all going to die if we stay here. Well, not me. I’m already dead, but you certainly will. Oh, my poor heart. I can’t stand the tension. My nerves! Why won’t you listen, you stupid boy? I should’ve never become a professor. I should’ve listened to my father and stayed at home. Raising chickens is an honorable occupation.”

  “What do you mean?” said Jute. “What do you mean, this is an evil place?”

  “This place,” said the ghost, gulping and turning paler than it already was. “This place is the—”

  But at that moment they heard the sound of a door opening and footsteps on the stairs. The ghost vanished. And down the stairs came a monstrosity. A bulk that moved from step to step with all the slow deliberation of living stone. The shadow slid off the flat planes of face and neck, off the massive hands hanging at the figure’s sides. It seemed the thing was made of stone. Gray stone pitted and cracked with age until the flesh looked more like the weathered crags of a mountainside, rather than a living creature. Stubble grew on its scalp like dead hay.

  A peculiar clicking and clacking sound jittered in the air. Stone creaked. And settled to stillness before Jute. Eyes like pebbles gazed down at Jute. The mouth yawned open and revealed a cavern lined with enormous teeth like gravestones. The face was so large that Jute could not look at it all at once. He could only take in a bit here and a bit there. It was a strange, disjointed landscape of rock and shadow, planes and hollows, crevices and standing stones.

  “Boy,” said the creature.

  The word slid slowly out of the mouth, deep and dusty and reluctant, as if the creature had been a stranger to speech for so long that it was unsure of words and unsure of its own voice. Somewhere, further back in the cellar, Jute thought he heard the ghost whimper. Or perhaps it was his own whimpering he heard. The dead eyes studied him and, for a moment, it seemed as if something stirred beneath their flat surface. Curiosity.

  Jute heard the clicking sound again. It sounded like small stones knocking together. And then he saw the source of the noise. A rusty rope of iron lay around the thing’s neck. Skulls hung on it, the size of a man’s head but looking as tiny as children’s baubles in the shadow of that great head. They stared at Jute with their empty sockets and grinned at him with their toothless jagged jaws. Every once in a while, the skulls stirred on the iron strand and knocked against their neighbors.

  “You are strange, boy,” rumbled the creature. “There’s something old in you. Older than your simple flesh. But not as old as stone. No. Not as old as stone. Your bones’ll still make my bread. I’ll grind ‘em into flour. Seven wizards came creeping to these heights to try my hand and they all ended on my spit. Heroes with their bright swords. They died in my dark hall and I ground their bones to make my bread. I roasted ‘em. Meat and bread. You’ll taste just as well, boy.”

  “Heroes,” echoed a skull. At least, to Jute’s horrified eyes and ears, that’s what seemed to have spoken. “Heroes. Why, I was one of ‘em. Head full of sunlight and dreams.”

  “And me,” chimed in a nearby skull. “I was a hero.”

  “And me!”

  “Don’t forget me,” said a skull. It twisted on the iron strand and Jute could hear the grate of metal against bone. “I was a hero as well. I’d a horse and a sword.”

  “You’d nothing,” sneered the skull beside it. “Can you remember a single thing in that empty head of yours? You’d a nag and a broken blade that did better service chopping firewood than necks. You were better as bread.”

  “Weren’t we all,” said the first skull. But then it laughed, and it bared its jagged jaw at Jute. “It ain’t the bread that’s important, boy. It’s the teeth that bites it. He chews, he does, like boulders smashing on boulders. Got quite the gnashers, he does.”

  “Quiet,” said the creature, and the skulls fell silent, though Jute could feel their eye sockets staring at him. The figure stared down at Jute, not moving or blinking.

  “Fine as dust,” said the creature after a while.

  Then the massive head turned toward Declan.

  “What have my dogs brought me?”

  The voice came alive with sudden hate, though it still whispered in tones so quiet that Jute had to strain his ears to hear.

  “Farrow. . .”

  The enormous bulk of stone shifted one step forward. The face lowered until it almost touched Declan’s, but the man did not move. He hung there, apparently lifeless and insensible. The skulls clicked together in excitement.

  “I had three sons. Three sons of stone I raised on this mountain. The wind wore away the crags and time wore away the sons of men into countless generations of death. But my sons grew strong. I fed them on blood and flesh and the bread of dead men’s bones. We lived on this mountain when the Rennet River was birthed high in the peaks, when the deep springs dug their way up into the light, when the river flowed down into the plain below and carved its valley to the accursed sea. We were old then, my sons and I. This land was ours. Ours, from the cold crags where the dragons sleep beneath the ice to the sands blowing in the south. Even to the shore we held sway, though there were eyes in the sea always watching. I hate the sea.”

  The ogre paused and Jute thought he saw the thing shiver. The smallest of trembles, like an earthquake so slight that it might have been no more than the ripple of grass on a hillside, so slight that only a mouse would have pricked his ears at it.

  “The sea,” said the ogre, not even looking at Declan anymore. “Wearing away my stone without my leave. Stealing it from me and grinding it into sand. May the darkness take the sea. All of Tormay was mine, and yet it is stolen away in little bits. Licked away by the sea, worn by the wind, thieved by those dirty little men crawling about like ants. I’ll kill them all. Death was our servant once, and it’ll be again. Aye, once again. It’ll all be mine, once again.”

  “It’ll be yours,” chimed in a skull.

  “Aye, yours,” cackled another.

  “We’ve heard! We’ve heard the voice in the dark. Promise this. Promise that. Whisper, whisper, whisper! Busy as bees, ain’t we?”

  “Silence,” said the creature.

  The room was silent again, except for the dripping water. Jute tried to breathe shallowly, willing the stone monstrosity not to turn its lifeless face back toward him. He couldn’t stand another glance from those eyes.

  “My sons wandered south, Farrow. They carved their place under the mountains. And you brought death to them, so many years ago. The shadows told me. I heard them dying, whispers and echoes from mountain root to mountain root until it came to me here. My three sons. My foolish three sons. Who knew iron could cleave stone? But I’ve a stone knife that needs sharpening. It’ll cleave flesh. It has before. I�
��ve been saving it for you. I've been waiting.”

  The thing turned without haste, shambling toward the stairs. Jute shut his eyes tight and listened to the sounds of stone creaking on stone, dust drifting down from the steps, the horrible clicking of the skulls, and then blessed silence.

  “Oh, mercy,” said the ghost. “Mercy, my poor nerves. I can’t stand this. Knives and cleaving. There’s bound to be a great deal of screaming. Oh, woe is me. How I wish I were back in my snug little attic. Why oh why did you ever speak to me? You wretched boy! A curse on all curses!”

  “It’s all well for you,” said Jute. “You’re already dead! What was that thing? It’s going to kill me! Help!”

  “Bread, specifically,” said the ghost. “You’re going to be baked into bread.”

  “An ogre,” said a voice. “That was an ogre.”

  Jute turned in a thrill of delight, swinging on his chain. Declan! The man’s voice was weak and his head was still slumped down on his chest, but he had spoken, nonetheless.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Barely,” said the man. He took a deep breath and raised his head. One eye opened to fix Jute with a bloodshot stare. “Listen to me. You’ve little time left. Ogres don’t play with words. They never lie. They can’t be untrue to their nature, just as a stone can only be a stone. He’s going to kill us and grind us into bread. Roast us on his fire. You have to escape. Listen to the ghost. Save yourself. Perhaps he won’t chase you. He has good reason to hate me, not you.”

  “I can’t,” said Jute. “I can’t feel my hands.”

  “You must.” Declan’s head slumped forward again.

  “You must!” chorused the ghost. “It’s quite simple. Grab hold of the chain and climb. You’re a thief, aren’t you? Aren’t thieves always climbing things such as, I don’t know, drain spouts and walls and gates and trees, whatever it is you climb. A chain can’t be any more difficult. Climb, you lazy boy. Climb!”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will!”

  Grinding his teeth together against the pain, Jute tried to grasp the chain with his swollen fingers. He pushed up on his tiptoes. Willed his fingers to close. Agony lanced down his arms. Clenched on the chain with one hand, inched the next hand up higher. Willed his fingers to clench once again.