Ronan shook his head. It was not possible.
We all have our jobs to do.
The boy stared up at him from within the chimney, falling backward. Vanishing down into darkness.
Just like himself.
Years and years of falling down into the darkness.
The stone ceiling seemed to be lowering. The lamplight swam in his eyes. The air was hot and stifling. Faces blurred by. Voices babbled around him. Ronan flung the half-eaten chicken away from him. His stomach clenched. Someone said something to him. He mumbled a reply, not knowing what the other had said or what he had said in return. He needed to get out.
The doors to the Court of the Guild swung shut behind him and he stood for a moment, breathing in and out and trying to quell the nausea inside. He looked up and down the stone passage. No one in sight. The place was silent. On the edge of his mind, however, he could hear the whisper of the ward that governed passage. It pushed its way into him, examined him, recognized him, and then retreated.
The first time Ronan had walked the underground passage as a novice member of the Guild, years ago, no one had bothered to explain the uniqueness of the ward guarding the passage. He had memorized the twists and turns and counted his steps. When he emerged once more into the sunlight, he retraced the way in his mind as he walked the streets of Hearne. But he found that the path only led him in a circle that meandered back to where he started. Later, it was explained to him that the ward guarding the passage was crafted to constantly manipulate the passage, forever shaping new routes beneath the city. It rearranged itself so that no one ever walked the same way to the Court of the Guild. The passage moved even as people walked within it, hurrying or slowing them on their way to the court. And for those who had no business with the Silentman? Why, they never found their way out of the passage. Ronan had come across such intruders before, but the rats always found the bodies first.
It didn’t matter what direction the passage chose. If you were walking away from the Court of the Guild, it would find an exit for you. The only trouble was, the ward spell was so powerful you could never be certain where you would find yourself when you exited. There were numerous places throughout Hearne the ward could choose from. It was irritating to emerge at the opposite end of the city from where you started.
Lamps burned on the wall every once in a while, but flames were so meager and the distances between them were always so great that most of the passage was plunged into gloom. Something scurried away in the shadows. A rat, most likely.
Scurrying away like himself.
Abruptly, the passage turned a corner and ended at some stairs.
“The stables on Willes Street,” said Ronan to himself, guessing.
At the top of the stairs was a wooden door. He opened it and shrugged. He was not in the stables, not that he had expected to be. He had never guessed right before. He was in the cellar of the Goose and Gold. He stepped through a door concealed within a wine barrel.
Something crashed and he heard a gasp.
“Now look what I’ve done!”
It was one of the serving girls. She crouched down onto the floor to pick up some pottery shards.
“Just filled it with ale, too.” She scowled at Ronan. “Gave me a turn, you did.”
“Sorry,” said Ronan. He shut the door behind him. It was built into a fake wine cask that sat at the end of a row of casks. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, it was impossible to detect the lines of the door.
The sky was clear and cold when he emerged from the Goose and Gold. The first few stars were emerging in the east. He breathed deeply and smelled the salt of the sea. That steadied him and he strode off, collar flipped up against the cold. He slept well that night and did not dream, even of the girl with poor Liss Galnes’s name.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: A DEATH, A DELAY, AND A WEASEL
They would have left that day for Hearne, but just after breakfast a horseman came clattering into the courtyard of the castle in Andolan. He was only a boy, but by the expression on his face, he bore sorry news.
“Stone and shadow,” said the duke. “So that’s why he didn’t come.” He stared down at the ground for a moment and then forced himself to smile—albeit grimly—at the boy.
“My thanks for your kindness. Get yourself to the kitchen and have them feed you there.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said the boy. The duke turned away, striding toward the castle steps.
“You, lad!” he yelled at a passing man-at-arms. “Find Willen and have him attend me immediately!”
Levoreth and the duchess were in the sunroom adjoining the duchess’s rooms. It was a pleasant room suited for silence, and both women liked it for that reason. Melanor was knitting what looked like the beginnings of a blanket. Levoreth was curled up in a chair, intent on a book of poetry written by a long-dead Harlech lord. The door flew open with a crash.
“Hennen,” said the duchess, dropping a stitch. “There’s no need to be stamping about so.”
“Ginan Bly is dead. He, his wife, and their babe. Torn apart by wolves—right inside their house.”
“Wolves?” said Levoreth. Her voice was sharp.
“Oh, my dear,” said the duchess. Her face whitened. “She was so happy to have borne a child.”
“I’m riding north for Bly’s farm. Willen and a score of his men will be with me as well. A couple of his lads are good trackers. If there’s a trail to find, we’ll hunt down the brutes. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”
He turned to go.
“But what about Hearne?” said his wife. “We were to set out this afternoon.”
“Hearne will have to wait.”
“It was not wolves that did this,” said Levoreth. But the door was already closing and the duke was gone.
She stared down blankly at the book in her lap. She flung her mind wide, ranging across the hills of the Mearh Dun toward the north and east. Earth and sky blurred through the speed of her thought. Dimly, she was aware of lives flickering by. Men, cattle, flocks of sheep scattered on the hills, dogs, rabbits in the heather, birds on the wing. Nowhere, however, could she sense wolves, even in the tangled weaving of old scents left from weeks past. Nothing. She pushed out farther, drifting up into the foothills of the Mountains of Morn.
“Levoreth!”
She blinked and looked up. Her aunt was looking at her.
“Are you all right? You had such an angry look on your face. I’ve never seen you so—”
“Ginan Bly was a good man,” said Levoreth.
“Yes, yes he was.” The duchess blinked back tears.
The duke and his men returned two days later, tired and gray-faced from the hard ride into the north. The duchess hurried down the castle steps to meet him, with Levoreth behind her. He swung down from the saddle and trudged over to his wife. Stubble covered his face and his eyes were bloodshot. His wife touched him gently, running a hand down his arm as if to reassure herself.
“It wasn’t wolves, was it?” said Levoreth. It was more a statement than a question.
“No,” said the duke. “No signs to track. Nothing at all. I’m half in mind not to go to Hearne now, but don’t fret, love—we’ll be going still. Ealu Fremman’s six sons have promised to ride the borders and there are no better trackers in this duchy than those boys. The best of the men’ll be staying on at the castle.” He shook his head. “Dolan is in good hands with them, but this is poor timing. Poor timing indeed.”
Dinner was a silent affair that night, although the duchess tried to make conversation. The duke hardly spoke at all and Levoreth was even quieter.
“I’m dreadfully sorry about the Blys,” said the duchess, putting down her fork. “But they are gone and you do them no benefit by grinding your teeth like that, Hennen. My dears, we needn’t go to Hearne. There’ll be other times.”
“We’re going to Hearne,” said her husband.
“I meant what I said,” returned his wife. “It isn’t as if t
he regent and his Autumn Fair cannot go on without us. After all, what are we to Botrell but uncouth country folk, smelling of horses and going about with straw in our hair?”
“We’re going to Hearne!”
“Excuse me,” said Levoreth, and she got up and left the table.
“And you’re still coming, too!” said her uncle.
“I know that,” said Levoreth. She glared at the duke and then slammed the door behind her.
Levoreth had not known the Blys well. She could not even recollect what Ginan Bly looked like, let alone his wife and child. But they were still her people. This was her land.
No.
She forced herself to unclench her fists.
No. All of Tormay was her land. Not just this sleepy little duchy of Dolan.
She locked the door of her room and blew out the candle. Outside, a sickle moon was rising in the east over the Mountains of Morn. The moon was so thin it looked like the sky’s weight would snap it in two. There was something in the air. Something—she was not sure. She leaned out the window. Her nose twitched. Heather from the surrounding hills, woodsmoke, the scent of hay and horses in the stables, a guard in the courtyard below smoking a pipe. Apples rotting on the ground in the orchard behind the castle, the musk of a fox sniffing around the chicken coop.
A fox in the chicken coop. Teeth and feathers.
They kill for pleasure sometimes. But there are other things that kill for pleasure as well.
There was something else in the air. Her nose twitched again.
Definitely. Just the barest hint.
Something dark.
There was just enough time. She had to see for herself.
A cloak around her shoulders, Levoreth tiptoed through the hall. The castle was settling into evening. She could hear servants chatting and laughing down in the kitchen. Crockery clinked together. Somewhere on the floor above, her aunt was humming to herself. Levoreth tilted her head to one side and listened. The tune was an old Dolani love song. A smile crossed her face. She wondered if her uncle knew.
Mistress of Mistresses!
Levoreth looked down. A mouse scurried out from behind a chest and stood shyly before her.
“Sir Mouse,” she said. “Well met.”
Indeed, Mistress! Indeed!
“Can you do me a great favor?”
Aye! What is your wish? We mice will do anything in our power to aid you, even though it cost us our lives! Command us!
“I would have you and yours guard this castle and the town. Parley with the cats, with the hounds, with the horses, and with all that live hereby. Bid them my peace. Bid them that all must be my watch against the Dark.”
The Dark!
The mouse squeaked in alarm and its whiskers quivered.
“Aye, Sir Mouse. Can you aid me?”
The mouse bobbed up and down. It reached out one tiny paw and patted the hem of her cloak.
We shall! We shall! Word shall come to you if we see aught!
The mouse scurried away.
The moon was rising high when she made her way from the castle grounds. A small gate in the gardens opened into the street behind the castle. Though, in truth, it was more of a cattle path than a street, full of ruts and mud puddles. Lights shone from the windows around her. A cow lowed in question from a shed nearby.
Hay.
Hay. And grass tomorrow?
She quieted the cow with a touch of her mind and passed on.
Steps were built into the wall here for the soldiers who walked the watches, but no one was in sight. She hurried up to the top of the wall and glanced at the moon. There would be just enough time. Barely enough, and she would be doubtlessly falling asleep in the saddle in the morning when they left for Hearne.
She took a deep breath and jumped off the wall.
Landed already running. She could hear the galloping of horses in her mind. Herself galloping.
The ground flowed away beneath her, earth and stone and trees blurring into one. The wind whipped through her hair and her cloak, tossing them back like a dark mane. She heard the river Ciele murmuring before her, and then she was past it, hurdling it in one stride. The moonlight flashed on the water, and the moon in the sky was the only thing that stayed motionless with her, watching her with the narrow curve of its unblinking eye. Hills rose and fell before her. The dew sprang from the grass at the strike of her feet. Her cloak was drenched in it. Time slowed, but she ran faster and faster.
Oh, Min!
Her heart was full and it seemed to her that if she turned her head she would see the great horse galloping next to her. She was up higher now, up on the plateau that rises in the northern portion of the Mearh Dun hills. She slowed her pace and felt sweat springing cold from her limbs.
The moonlight gleamed on the whitewashed stone walls of a cottage. A barn stood nearby. The ground was hard underfoot. She smelled the oily tang of sheep in the air. Sheep and hay and death.
And the other smell.
It was unforgettable. The Dark. Nausea twisted her stomach.
A memory struggled to life and for a moment she went blind to the cottage and the silent land around her. Shadows were falling from the sky. A mountain range rose like broken teeth into the night. Fires raged on the plain below. She heard the distant shouts and screams of the dying. The battle lines snaked across the plain. Iron clashed on iron. And the shadows fell from the sky.
They fell and they fell.
So long ago.
Long before we fled to Tormay.
But the stench was the same.
Levoreth forced her eyes open. Her head ached. The cottage sat waiting for her in silence. She swallowed and tasted bile.
In the little garden behind the cottage were two fresh graves. They were heaped over with stones and she touched them. The animals would respect her scent. They would not bother these graves. The lock on the cottage door was shattered. The smell was almost overpowering inside. She doubted, of course, that a normal human would be able to smell the scent. A wizard might be able to. Others would merely become uneasy, fearful, or sick to their stomachs, but they would not know why.
Animals, however, would smell it and know it for what it was.
The cottage was a single room that served as kitchen, living space, and bedroom. Just inside the door, moonlight slanted down onto the wood flooring. The wood was stained dark. Someone had kicked dirt over it, but the stain was apparent, ugly and dark red. Broken crockery, torn bedding, and splintered furniture had been piled up in one corner—all that was left of the Blys besides the two graves in the garden.
There was something else in the room. A thread of emotion fast fading away. Terror. And rage.
Ginan Bly had died fighting.
Levoreth nodded. She looked once around the cottage and then walked outside. The stench was all around. It clung to the stone walls and to the grass poking up from the ground. She stalked around the cottage, her head down.
There.
There it was.
The scent led away toward the north.
North. Yet she had no time to go north herself. Something in the city of Hearne was calling her. She cast her thoughts wide, searching across the surrounding land. Nothing. Not even a field mouse to be found. She pushed wider, but there was only a residue of fear. The animals had all fled. But there—there was something. A weasel skittering along the ground, nervous and hungry. She caught at its mind and pulled it toward her, but the animal shied away. She snared it again and soothed it with thoughts of fat mice and crickets. The weasel shivered.
Come.
The animal came, snarling and protesting, hardly able to talk for fear.
Afraid. Evil. Here! It is here! Run! Run away!
It popped its head out of a bush several yards away, its shiny black eyes darting every which way at once, and then it disappeared.
Come.
Run! Run away!
Come.
The bush quivered and then the weasel burst out from among
the leaves and scurried across the ground to her. It wrapped itself around her ankles. She could feel the staccato of its heartbeat trembling against her skin.
Peace, little one.
Here! It is here! Everywhere!
Peace.
The weasel poked its head out from under her cloak and stared up at her. The moonlight glittered in its eyes. She felt the animal quiet down, but its thoughts still darted through her mind, tense and afraid.
Mistress of Mistresses. The Dark has been here. Not long ago. Can you not scent it? Humans lived here. They are dead. All dead.
Aye, the Dark has been here, but it is here no more. Peace, little one, and listen to what I shall say. Alone, there is none of you that can stand against the Dark. That is not your place, for it is the duty of those who have been given charge over you. Now, listen, for I would have you do a great thing for me.
Name your bidding, Mistress of Mistresses! Even if it be death, I shall do it!
Go now to all the nyten, all the four-footed folk who call these hills home. Go to the hares, the deer, the mice, and the foxes. In my name, put aside your enmities for a time and bid all to keep watch against the Dark. Do not stand and fight, but wait and watch.
I shall do so, Mistress. Even to the mice! The plump and tasty mice!
And one last thing, little one. A very important thing.
Aye?
Find me a fleet-footed deer and send her to the Mountains of Morn. Give her word for the wolves, that they must come to this place and track the scent of Dark as far as they dare. If the deer keep my name in her mouth, the wolves shall not harm her.
The weasel bobbed its head up and down in obedience. Then, without a backward glance, it scampered away and was soon lost in the night.
Levoreth sighed.
“I know this stink,” she said to herself. “Damn you to your endless night, wherever you have gone! But my little ones shall keep watch, and the wolves shall track you to your doorstep, and then I shall unmake you, if it’s the last thing I do. If my fate didn’t bid me to Hearne, I would hunt with the wolves. I would hunt you to the ends of the earth. Even if it took me back east over the sea.”
Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey Page 137
