Peter took out his pipe and lit it. Marja folded her arms and looked around her at the hoof marks that scuffed the dirt of the barn floor and scattered the dead leaves.
Nicolas closed his eyes and leaned against an empty stall. He sighed, and voices flooded into his head as he breathed in. They piled atop each other, layered, tumultuous. Voices of the dying, voices of the dead; ethereal voices that came from everywhere and nowhere; wind-voices, wolf-voices; and over it all the rushing, rushing, pouring, swirling of water.
The voices overpowered him. With a groan, he sank down to the scuffed dirt and dead leaves. From far away, he heard Marja and Peter asking him what was wrong. He thought he felt hands touching him, but all his senses were engaged in the world of sound.
Come to me, rushed the water. Come, Nicolas Fisher. Follow the river. No more delay.
* * *
Adhemar Skraetock had long ago ceased to be a man. Those who thought of him never pictured a face or a figure in their minds—only black robes, long, skeletal fingers, the tip of a white beard, and burning eyes that peered from beneath a cowl. If he had an age, no one knew it.
Not even those who were close to him—which meant only that they were often used by him—had seen the scars beneath the black robes, hundreds of them, small blood sacrifices made to appease the Blackness and increase his own power. Blood, to a burning shell like Skraetock, was a small price to pay. He had spilled torrents of it in his lifetime, and not only his own.
Where Adhemar Skraetock lived no one knew. His students, the followers of the Order of the Spider, met with him in the courts of the Empire. In Athrom, in Pravik, in Londren of the Bryllan Isles. In Ordna.
The black towers of Ordna rose blacker than ever behind Skraetock as he stood in the entrance of the courtyard, watching as chains ground and clanked to life, lifting the iron gate for the riders outside. He watched them enter. The young men of his Order were riding coach horses. They had the girl.
He did not have to wonder what had happened to the detachment of soldiers the Northern Overlord had sent along with them. He could see the answer on the face of the Nameless One; the exultant flush of fire in his veins. On the face of Christopher Ens, Skraetock saw death.
They did not see him. He turned and disappeared inside the black halls of the fortress as the Overlord’s men rushed into the courtyard to greet the newcomers. Soon the Overlord himself—Narald Black-Brow, the Emperor’s chosen ruler of the Northern Lands—would come to see what the Order had brought to his fortress.
No doubt he would be pleased.
* * *
Perhaps it was the smell of blood that so agitated the little black mountain pony. They could all smell it. The wolf whined and loped ahead—with its leg it could not run—and the men continued on at their former pace, dread mounting with every step. The pony rolled its eyes and tugged at its rope until Kris spoke to it sharply.
They entered the pass. Michael turned away at the sight, afraid he would be sick. Even Stocky was speechless. The snow was stained red and black around the bodies. The stench was nearly overpowering.
At first Michael thought that the men had killed each other in combat. They were still clutching their weapons, and many of them were wounded. But as they picked their way through the pass, each of the three men thought what not one of them would say: that this mass murder, for murder it must have been, was accomplished at one stroke by one unimaginably cruel power.
Michael’s heart beat in his throat as he scanned the bodies. He knew the faces of the High Police, twisted with pain and horror though they were. He had seen them in the village. He unsheathed his sword and clenched it tightly as he passed by, but Miracle was not among the dead. He became convinced that he would not find her, and he relaxed his grip.
They left the pass, but still the pony’s eyes flashed and rolled. The wolf raised its head and howled, long and wild. From the cliffs, the voices of other wolves joined in.
A storm came up with little warning, and the men took shelter beneath a dark overhang. The wolf settled itself at Michael’s feet. Kris tied the pony to a jutting bit of rock and started a fire. After a time, the pony grew calmer.
Michael fell asleep with the heat of the fire on his face and hands. He awoke when the pony leaped, neighed, and shook her mane, nearly breaking free of the rope. Kris jumped up to calm her. The snowstorm raged beyond the overhang, concealing all around them.
“I’ve never seen the little girl so troubled,” Kris murmured.
“The storm has spooked her,” Michael said.
“No,” Kris said. “She’s not afraid. She wants to get loose.”
The wolf lifted its head suddenly, its ears perked forward. Michael and Kris watched as it leaped to its feet and whined. The pony stamped.
“Something’s out there,” Kris said. Stocky had awakened, and he moved closer to Michael.
A wolf’s howl broke out in the white of the storm and echoed off the sides of the pass, but in its notes was not the howl of a wolf only, but the bellow of an elk, the roar of a lion, the scream of a hawk. Michael stood and unsheathed his sword. Kris gripped his axe handle tightly, while Stocky took a sword in each hand and stood, knees bent, eyes watching, ready.
In the swirling snow a shape slowly took form. A wolf it was, white as the moon except for a crimson stripe that began at its shoulders and ran down its back to the tip of its tail. It was easily as big as the pony, and far more muscular. Its mouth was black, and its eyes seemed to burn with a deep fire. One eye was tawny like a hawk or an owl, the other bluer than the eyes of Kris of the Mountains.
As it moved toward them, Michael felt something inside him leap. He understood, suddenly, why the pony had yearned to be free. Inside of him was the same swell of wildness, of raw strength, grace, and a heartbreaking pang for freedom. The very Spirit of the Wild now stood before them, dimming their fire with the power of its presence. The sword dropped from Michael’s hand. He heard the weapons of his companions likewise fall to the earth.
The lame grey wolf knelt, its bandaged leg nearly buried in the snow as it touched its black nose to the ground and whined. The pony was silent and still.
The great white wolf touched its nose to the head of the grey, and then it looked into the eyes of Michael, of Kris, and of Stocky in turn. Without a sound it turned and headed back into the storm.
“Follow it,” Kris said. The others made no argument. Stocky threw snow over the fire as Kris untied the pony.
They could see nothing of their surroundings in the snow, yet they could always just see the white wolf, like a dream, moving through the blizzard ahead of them. They followed it for what seemed like hours, moving now up, over steep ground; now down, into valleys.
Once Michael looked down at the depths of snow in which his feet were sinking, and when he looked up he saw not a wolf leading them, but a man—a great giant of a man, with long hair and clothing made of skins; and he thought he heard laughter echoing in the air. But in the next instant the laughter was gone. The joy of it had become the sorrow of a wolf’s lonely howl, and he was once more looking at the crimson-streaked tail and powerful legs and back of the creature that had come to them by the fire.
The snowstorm cleared up as quickly as it had come. When the swirling curtain of snow was taken away, Michael found himself standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down on the towers of Ordna.
* * *
Chapter 5
Dreams
Narald Black-Brow had spent much of his childhood in Athrom, playing around the throne of the Emperor Lucien Morel. In Athrom, Black-Brow, the Northern Overlord, was a courtier: a man who knew when to speak and when to be silent, what vices to display with pomp and what sins to keep hidden.
In Ordna, the Overlord of the Northern Lands did not care so much for appearances. He ruled as his ancient forefathers had done, who in the Tribal Age were the marauding scourge of the Seventh World.
They sat together at a long table well-laid with haunches of meat
and deep cups of dark red drink: Black-Brow, Adhemar Skraetock, and the two young men of the Order of the Spider. It was a strange, silent dinner. Black-Brow kept himself buried in venison while Skraetock only drank. Christopher pretended to eat, but did a bad job of it. The Nameless One watched the Overlord moodily.
He had not always been nameless, this prodigy of the Order of the Spider. He had traded his name away to some creature beyond the Veil years ago, but before then his name had also been Black-Brow. He watched his father eat with thinly veiled disgust. Now and again Narald Black-Brow cast a look at his son that might have shriveled a weaker man. The father hated the son almost as much as the son hated the father.
“Now then, Skraetock,” said Black-Brow when he had consumed every piece of meat from the haunch in his hands. “What of this girl for whose capture a dozen of my best men died? You invade my home with your black-robed minions and your mutterings and candlesticks, and send my men roaming all over the country looking for her, and am I not to see her now that she is safely here?”
“She would hardly be safe here under your eyes, Father,” said the Nameless One.
“And she is under yours?” Black-Brow retorted.
“Enough,” said Skraetock. “She is in my keeping until I see fit to release her. Besides, Narald my friend, surely you had a look at her when your son brought her here?”
Black-Brow’s face shone behind the massive bone he still held in his hands. “And one look is supposed to be enough?”
The Nameless One stood abruptly. “Quite enough for you,” he said. “Master Skraetock, will she join us? What do you think?”
“I have spoken to her,” Skraetock said, and his fingers twitched. There was blood beneath his fingernails. “She does not sympathize with us, but she can hardly resist us.” His lips twisted in a smile. “The fire in her is powerful. She has done us some good already.”
Christopher started. “What have you done to her?” he blurted.
The Nameless One, still standing, cast a look of scorn on Christopher. The hood was thrown back from his head, revealing a strong, handsome face. He turned back to Skraetock.
“Master, I have served you well, have I not?”
“Without question,” Skraetock answered.
“Yet I have asked little of you over the years.”
“That is true,” Skraetock answered. “You have always been pleased to take what you wanted for yourself.” He smiled again. He knew what self-inflicted scars lay under the black folds of the Nameless One’s robes—what wraiths likely tormented him in the night.
The Nameless One ignored the jab. “Tonight I ask something of you. Give me the girl.”
Black-Brow jumped to his feet. “By rights she belongs to me,” he said. “My men arrested her.”
“But they did not bring her back,” said the Nameless One. A cold smile stretched his mouth and tainted his eyes.
“She is in my home,” Black-Brow said.
“It was my home once,” said his son. “It may be again.”
Skraetock pushed his chair back from the table, its legs scraping across the floor, and rose to his feet. He held a hand in the air. The spider across his palm pulsed in the candlelight.
“Enough,” he said. “I have no time to waste with selfish quarrels.”
As Skraetock spoke, Narald Black-Brow slumped forward in his chair. His eyes closed; his head bent down and rested on the table. But for the slow sound of his breathing, he might have been dead.
“Then she is mine,” the Nameless One said.
“She is not,” Skraetock said, “and she will never be. Do you think I would give so much power into your hands? The Gifted will belong to the Order. And I, not you, am the Order.”
“You will not deform her,” the Nameless One said.
“I will do as I see fit. And you will learn to be grateful for it.” Skraetock reached into his robes and drew out a small knife. Christopher closed his eyes at the sight.
“We have finished with trying to convince them. These are days of glory, my children,” said Adhemar Skraetock. “When we will at last see what fire may be drawn from Gifted veins.”
Somewhere close by, a wolf howled.
* * *
Nicolas came awake with a cry. “No!” he cried. “You’re tearing them apart!”
Marja was at his side in an instant, dagger in hand. Her dark eyes scanned the clearing. Seeing nothing, she relaxed her hand and put the dagger away. “What is it?” she asked.
Nicolas sank down on the ground and put his head on his knees. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Nicolas, you can tell me,” Marja said. “What do you hear?”
He met her eyes and shuddered. He looked away.
“I hear voices,” he said. “Every day now. I don’t know who they are—what they are. But they are dying.”
He was quiet. Marja waited in silence.
“Something is breaking through them,” he said. “Tearing them. Tearing through the—the Veil, Professor Huss called it. He said a Veil separated us from dark forces. But the Veil isn’t a thing. It’s alive.”
He looked up, and defiance flashed in his eyes. “There now,” he said. “What do you think of that?”
Marja knelt in the dirt beside Nicolas and leaned forward so that her head was almost touching his. “Listen to me, Nicolas Fisher,” she said. “You are not crazy. I cannot hear the things you hear, but I believe you.”
For a moment he stared at her. The voices were still echoing in his head. So real they threatened to overtake the world he was living in. And yet it mattered that Marja believed him, that someone else might care.
“Thank you,” he said, faltering.
* * *
Michael slept fitfully on the cliff. He dreamed of storming the fortress—he, Kris, and Stocky—and seeing its towers fall before them. But even as he dreamed, the presence of Ordna weighed on him. Heavy and stone, real and impenetrable.
He did not know what awoke him, but when he opened his eyes in the darkness of the night, eyes were staring down into his—one blue, one gold. The wolf was waiting for him. He rose to his feet and took up the sword that had lain beside him, sheathing it on his back. The wolf led him soundlessly down a steep path toward the fortress.
It seemed that the path would lead right into the stone walls, but before they came up against the barrier, the path dipped. There was a hole in the ground next to the wall. Michael climbed in. The top of his head did not quite reach the level of the ground.
The wolf jumped down beside him and began to dig with its massive paws. Michael watched it for a moment, and then the two-coloured eyes looked up at him reproachfully. He fell on his knees and joined the wolf, digging with his hands.
The earth was softer than it should have been, and oddly warm. Even so, the dirt and rocks grated against Michael’s hands until his knuckles were cracked and bloody. And then, suddenly, his hands scraped up against iron.
Michael cleared the loose earth away quickly and uncovered an iron ring. He looked up to see what the wolf was doing, but the wolf was not there.
He was alone.
He pulled on the ring, and a trapdoor took shape beneath the last bit of dirt. Michael pulled with all his strength, and the door came away. A dark space opened beneath it.
Michael lowered himself into the hole, growing steadily uneasier as his feet did not touch ground. He gripped the edge of the hole and stretched his legs as far as he could, but there was nothing to stand on. Taking a deep breath, he set his feet against one side of the hole and his back against the other, and slowly descended into complete darkness.
Down the tunnel he went, wondering if he was lowering himself into a well. With every inch he wondered if he might suddenly fall out into nothingness. He wondered, as he went, if he wasn’t dreaming this—surely, had he been awake, he would not have done anything so foolish.
After he had gone down several feet, the walls of the tunnel disappeared and he fell. But the fall was short�
�only three feet or so. He landed on his back on the cool earth, and with hardly a grunt he stood. He could stand with his head and shoulders in the vertical tunnel he had just come through. He moved his feet and found that another tunnel, just big enough to crawl through, led away.
Michael moved awkwardly to his hands and knees and began to push through the new tunnel. If possible, it was blacker than the one he had just descended. It was longer, too. Not until he had begun to despair of its ever ending did he touch paving stones and breathe the cool air of open space.
Blood rushed to Michael’s head as he stood, and cramps seized his legs. He stretched and gratefully breathed the air. It was not so stale here as it had been in the tunnel. With his hands and feet, he began to explore the darkness. He was in a little room with nothing in it but a a pile of damp hay in one corner and an empty barrel in another. The ceiling was low. He ran his hands over it and found another trapdoor.
The door opened when he pushed it. A draft of cold air hit him in the face. He drank it in as he clambered out, into a cell where moonlight trickled in from a high window. He caught his breath.
Miracle was there.
She had curled up against the wall farthest from the cell door. She was asleep. Her skin was deathly pale, her mouth and the circles under her eyes dark against her face. One of her wrists was tightly bound with a dirty, bloodstained rag.
Michael crawled across the cold stones to her side. She awoke with a start. He put a finger to his lips.
“Hush,” he whispered. “I am here to help you.”
“How did you come here?” she asked. Each word sounded as though she had pulled it from some distant place.
“I’m not sure,” he said. He smiled, wondering how he could smile in such a place. He did it for her sake. But she did not smile back.
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