The Wicked Day

by Christopher Bunn

  “The Rennet Valley,” said Jute in great excitement. “Wind! Please, please put us down. We must see to Declan. At once!”

  No. There are still miles to go. Places to see. Chimney pots to blow down!

  Put us down at once.

  No!

  At once! Do you hear me?

  You needn’t shout, said the wind. Though, where is the rhyme to your wishes? First you are burbling with delight at being whisked away from that tower, overflowing with joy that those smelly little ravens did not catch you, and deliriously happy at my brilliance in bringing down the avalanches. Now you desire I desist and place you on the ground. The ground, of all places! Inexplicable.

  It’s not that.

  I know when I’m not wanted. On the ground. At once!

  With a breezing hmmph! the wind set them down. It dropped them from several feet up so that Jute and Declan fell in a patch of icy mud. The wind blew away in a grump and left them in silence. Jute dragged Declan by the arms out of the mud. The man was a dead weight, his eyes shut and his face white.

  “Wake up!” said Jute. “Wake up! Oh, stones and shadows. It’s no use. He’s asleep, though how anyone could have slept through being blown halfway across Tormay is a mystery to me. What’ll we do?”

  “A fire and a bite to eat sounds good to me,” said the ghost, poking its head out of Jute’s knapsack. “Not that they’ll do me any good, but I’ll enjoy watching them do you some good.”

  “Good idea, ghost. Maybe a fire will warm Declan and wake him up.”

  “That’s me,” said the ghost somewhat mournfully. “Full of good ideas, but mostly for other folks.”

  The wind had set them down on the upper slopes of the valley, just on the edge of a forest. It was cold, and the morning sunlight was weak and pale and did nothing to dispel the chill lingering from the night. Jute dragged Declan a little ways farther until they were under the pines. The snow was only a dusting beneath the shelter of the trees, and there were plenty of dead branches and pine needles lying about for fuel. Jute heaped together a pile and set a spark to it. The flames leapt up and crackled merrily.

  “Looks like it feels warm,” said the ghost. “Warm and comfortable. You’ve been up all night. Feel tired, don’t you? Eyelids heavy? I imagine you’ll nod off to sleep now and the forest will catch on fire. You and Declan along with it. Burned to a frazzle. Where’ll that leave me? Alone. Alone, I tell you, and friendless in an unfriendly world.”

  “Don’t be so gloomy. Declan will wake up, you’ll see. We’ll have some breakfast and then we’ll be off.”

  Jute rummaged about in his knapsack. All he could find was an onion and some stale bread. Not the most inspiring meal, but he wasn’t about to say anything to that effect, for the ghost was watching him closely.

  “Onion and bread,” said the ghost.

  “It tastes delicious,” said Jute stoutly.

  Declan woke just when Jute was finishing the last few bites of onion.

  “Onions?” said Declan, levering himself up on one elbow.

  “Not you too,” said Jute, but he grinned, delighted.

  Color ebbed back into Declan’s face. He held his hands out to the fire.

  “How long was I out?” he said.

  “A couple hours.”

  “More than three hours,” said the ghost. “I was counting. It was either that or do a lot of screaming.”

  Declan reached inside the collar of his shirt and fished out the necklace. The pearl nestled in his hand, warm and glowing with the light it caught from the fire and the few meager rays of sunlight that pierced the branches above them. The ghost drifted closer to him and gazed avidly at the pearl.

  “I think this saved my life.” Declan touched the pearl with one finger. “I could feel him at the edge of my mind. The duke. I couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe. It was as if I were surrounded by an abyss. Right on the edge of nothingness. And he was about to push me off. But this held me fast. He didn’t like that. And he knew what it was. I could feel it. He hates the sea.”

  “The sea gave you that?” said Jute somewhat shyly.

  “A gift and a burden at the same time. Twice the sea’s saved my life now, so I can’t deny her wishes. She’s kept me bound to your path. Wherever you go.”

  “I’m sorry for that—but thank you.”

  Declan looped the necklace back under his collar and let it slide out of sight. “I owe it to you. I don’t usually murder children, so I suppose that particular guilt will last the rest of my life. Besides, you took my part against the hawk’s advice.” He paused, and then said in a rather flat voice, “We didn’t rescue her, did we?”

  “No,” said Jute.

  “Decidedly no,” said the ghost.

  “I can’t remember all of what happened, particularly after the duke appeared.” Declan fell silent, staring down at the embers of the fire.

  “Well, there’s nothing left to do, is there?” said the ghost briskly. “No reason for long faces. We tried our best. Didn’t work. Clean conscience and all that. We should just run along home—er, do either of you have a home?—and settle down to a life of peace and quiet. Put in a garden, grow some tomatoes, argue with the neighbor about his blasted goat that’s always eating the dahlias.” The ghost rubbed its hands together. “Right. Let’s be off. After all, those crows might show up.”

  “Yes, let’s be off. To Hearne first, I suppose. We need to warn the regent, and then the duchies.”

  “What?” said the ghost, looking disgusted. “What about the tomatoes and some peace and quiet?”

  “What about the hawk and the wolf?” said Jute.

  Declan got to his feet. For a moment he looked as if he was going to topple over. His face whitened and he swallowed hard several times. “I don’t fancy explaining to that wolf how we managed to not rescue Giverny. I don’t suppose you could call up the wind and just whisk us off to Hearne?”

  “I don’t think so. I thought about that while you were still asleep. The wind’s gone. I think it’s irritated with me and pretending I don’t exist. We’ll have to walk.”

  They made decent time as the day progressed, for there was less and less snow the further west they went. The ground was frozen in most places. They crossed an ice-bound creek and found a narrow carter’s path. The wind must have dropped them a good deal south of the village of Ostfall. Habitations in this part of the valley were few and far between. Ostfall, of course, would not be an option for them, Declan pointed out, but any other village, or even a house, would be welcome, as they needed food.

  “And horses,” said Jute.

  Later in the afternoon, they did come to a house. A small house built of thatch and stone and tucked away in a canyon. A thin-faced woman answered the door, held it open a crack, and cautiously inspected them. Three children clutched her skirts and also inspected them, but from a much lower angle.

  “Don’t have much use for coin,” she said. “Seein’ how we trade with mutton an’ wool. My man’ll be back any moment now from the fold. He ain’t in good humor these days, what with the foxes an’ all.”

  She made as if to shut the door, but Declan said, “Perhaps double, mistress? Might be a rainy day when some silver’ll come in handy.”

  “Double?” She nodded at that, but shut the door on them anyway. A shutter swung open on the window beside the door and two small faces peeped over the sill and continued their inspection. A third small face made a brief appearance but then quickly disappeared in a wail and what sounded like a chair falling over.

  “Garn,” said one of the remaining small faces. The second small face agreed, but in words even less intelligible. Evidently, some conclusion was then reached, for both faces smiled benignly down upon Declan and Jute.

  “Well, one less thing to worry about,” said Declan. “Though I’ve found it a good policy not to turn one’s back on children, even if they seem friendly, for that’s when the rotten fruit starts flying.”

  “Oh?” said Jute som
ewhat guiltily. He could recall quite a few instances when the Juggler’s children, he among them, had climbed up onto roofs to pelt passersby with rotten vegetables. It was just something one did when boredom set in.

  The door opened again.

  “Where’s the silver then?” said the woman.

  The sun was overhead by that time, and they continued along the carter’s path as it followed every rise and fall of the valley’s edge. It was still cold. The wind blowing along beside them did not help matters much, for it got under their collars and put a chill in the sunlight. Jute tried talking to the wind, but it would have none of him, regardless of how he cajoled and pleaded. They would have to keep on walking. Thankfully enough, their stomachs were full of the cold mutton and cheese the woman had packed for them, and the memory of the dark tower was not so stark anymore, though Jute often noticed a grim expression on Declan’s face.

  “We’ll have to steal some horses,” said Declan. “Otherwise, it’ll be days to Hearne at this rate.”

  “I don’t condone theft,” said the ghost primly.

  “All right, then. You can stay behind while we gallop off on our stolen horses.”

  “I don’t condone it, but I never said I wouldn’t enjoy the fruits of it. Besides, you’ll need me along to instruct you on morals and virtues, seeing that you’re sadly deficient. I recall a lecture I once gave on the subject, titled ‘Why Boys Must Behave.’ Or maybe it was called ‘The Breakdown of Society Caused by the Common Boy.’”

  “I wasn’t the one to suggest stealing horses,” said Jute.

  “If you’re patient enough, I’ll remember both lectures. Doubtless, you can’t wait to hear ‘em.”

  “We can’t wait,” said a voice from somewhere above them.

  “Hawk!” said Jute.

  The bird swooped down and landed in a flutter of wings on Jute’s shoulder. He hunched there, his feathers in disarray, head down.

  “You didn’t rescue her, obviously," he said gloomily, "I would’ve known from the earth if you had, but the earth has been silent. Tell me what happened.”

  They told him as they walked along the frozen ground.

  “This isn’t what I expected,” said the hawk when they had finished telling him their story. “Though, to be honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting, other than some vain hope that you might rescue her. We had to try. We had to try!” He repeated the words angrily, but almost as if he spoke to himself alone.

  “But did I hear you correctly,” continued the hawk, “that this so-called duke of Mizra said he was hunting for an answer to what the death of the anbeorun meant? At the university? There’s only ever been one university in all of Tormay, and that, of course, in Hearne. And then he said that you came three hundred years afterward?”

  “I don’t think he said what their death meant. Rather, what their death could do. What could be done with their death.”

  “At the university,” said the hawk. “He was at the university. Three hundred years ago. Three hundred years? Goodness gracious me. Could it be?” His claws bit into Jute’s shoulder and the boy yelped out loud.

  “What?” said the ghost. “What is it? You’ve remembered something? A clue? A lost word? A recipe for delicious roast duck?”

  “The duke of Mizra must be the same person as the wizard Scuadimnes. It makes a sort of dreadful sense.”

  “Scua-who?” said the ghost.

  “Scuadimnes,” said Jute, pleased to know something that the ghost did not. “He was a professor at the university in Hearne. He was in charge of the archives, and they say he was also responsible for the destruction of the university.”

  “Correct,” said the hawk, nodding approvingly. “I daresay you heard the tale from Severan? Good, good. You do listen sometimes. Scuadimnes was a servant of the Dark. He had no history, no past, nothing that might identify where he came from, for if you can discern the path upon which a man has trod, you can then predict where he will walk in the future. But when Scuadimnes appeared in Hearne three hundred years ago, no one knew him. He taught at the university for years without bringing attention to himself, other than the odd fact that he had an encyclopedic memory for words. The anbeorun paid no attention to him. There was no reason to. We were concerned more with watching the borders of Tormay, for there were rumors of a coming Darkness in those days. The sea in the west, the earth ranging up and down the length of the Morn Mountains and wandering out into the wastelands beyond, my master the wind blowing about the icelands in the north. Fire we had not heard from in many long years, as he had always been preoccupied with journeying far beneath the surface of the earth, down in the deep, dark places where the older mysteries of the world sleep. We paid no attention to Hearne and the comings and goings of a solitary professor at the university.”

  “But why did he destroy the place?” asked Jute. “Why did he kill the king? I always wondered about that when Severan first told me the story. There seemed no reason for it.”

  “Oh, but there’s an excellent reason. The Dark cannot create. It never could and it never can. Therefore, it hates everything that is with an everlasting hate. It cannot abide life. All the servants of Nokhoron Nozhan follow in his path and, like their master, they delight in killing and stealing and destroying. That is the sign of the Dark. However, my master always suspected that the destruction of the university and the death of the king—the destruction of Hearne itself—were not the chief objectives of Scuadimnes. Perhaps they camouflaged his true objective?”

  “So what was the real objective?” said the ghost, all agog at the hawk’s words. “I, er, have an idea already myself, but it’s always nice to hear someone else’s opinion. Professional courtesy.”

  “I wasn’t aware of such an obligation,” said the hawk dryly. “Your recent encounter on the tower, young Jute, lends weight to my old master’s suspicion. You see, the main purpose of the university, of wizards down through history to a man, has always been the hunt for hidden knowledge—whether it be a single lost word from an ancient language, a forgotten book, a song, or a poem. My master suspected that Scuadimnes came to the university to find something extremely important. Something dangerous. A deadly secret. Obviously, the Gerecednes would be the prime candidate, for it was rumored to hold lore reaching back to the founding of the world. Thankfully, it sounds like he did not locate the book. If the duke and Scuadimnes are one and the same, though, then perhaps he ultimately did find what he was looking for. Bits and pieces of knowledge. Words. Clues that he cobbled together. I daresay his search had something to do with the anbeorun. That would seem likely from the duke’s own words. And from the fact that he holds the earth captive in his tower and seeks to end Jute’s life. The death of the anbeorun. What would it mean? Well, I think we know what it means, and I suppose that the duke, whoever he is—whatever he is—knows as well.”

  “The Gerecednes,” muttered the ghost thoughtfully. “What an odd name. There's something about it that makes me nervous. But what about the girl? I don’t suppose she can hold out for long. Must be having a tough go of it, I’d imagine. Horrible! That dark tower was a nasty place.” But then it abruptly stopped talking, for it saw the expression on Declan’s face.

  “She isn’t lost yet,” growled Declan. “You don’t know Farrows. At any rate, she told us what to do, and that’s what we’re going to do.” Declan lengthened his stride until Jute was forced to half-run in order to keep up, the ghost drifting along in their wake.

  “As you say,” said the hawk. “You and the young wolf think alike. I left him prowling about the walls of Ancalon, though he had harsh words for you. She’ll survive, we can only hope, and we go to kick the duchies awake. Of course. Of course.” The bird shook his head sadly. “I see no other path at the moment. If I must die, then I’ll die fighting on a battlefield. But that doesn’t hold for you, young Jute.”

  “Thank you,” said Jute, who had no desire to die on a battlefield, or anywhere else.

  “You’re the only one
of the anbeorun left in the world of men. The guardian of the sea has rarely left her depths since the days when Tormay was young, when the first king ruled from Hearne, and who knows where her allegiance lies? She’s an inscrutable lady of devious designs and has never shown much interest in the affairs of men. The master of fire has not been seen for hundreds of years. Perhaps he’s still wandering the secret ways far under the mountains? And the earth? We could not rescue her.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about the sea,” said Declan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  RECRUITING FOR THE GUARD

  The man in the tavern doorway paused to give more effect to his entrance. He was dressed in the blue and black of the Guard of Hearne, a satchel over his shoulder and a pennoned spear in his hand. The hubbub inside died away and heads turned toward him. The herald, for that is what he was, drew himself up and cleared his throat.

  “Hear ye, hear ye,” he said.

  “We’re hearing ye,” said an old man sitting nearby.

  “Be it known that the Lord High Captain of the Guard seeks brave young men for enlistment in the ranks of the Guard. Adventure, excitement, romance! Excellent pay, the best of training guaranteed to turn even the most cowardly weakling into the epitome of manhood.”

  “I’d like to see one o’ them Guard fellers do a day behind the plow,” called out a burly farmer. Laughter filled the tavern. The herald frowned and then raised his voice once again, determined not to be done in by a roomful of country bumpkins.

  “A wage of two silvers a month with possibilities of bonuses and danger pay, plus a silver on the occasion of the regent’s birthday. Now, who could turn such an offer down, particularly”—and here the herald smiled in what he thought was a sympathetic fashion—“particularly when the price of corn is what it is these days.”

  There were some grumbling at this, but several of the younger men in the room, fourth or fifth sons in large families burdened with many uncles and older cousins, nodded thoughtfully.