“Once Ouster Will was gone,” Amrah said, “Lord Gnag spent many years perfecting the melding, learning to reshape not just bodies but souls. He began to build an army. Green Fangs at first, but they were unruly, undisciplined, and weak—they couldn’t take the cold. Not only that, we realized that if the Fangs returned too often to familiar places, they began to remember things from their former lives—and remembering drove them mad. So we keep careful records of their old names and cities. We move them around. Lord Gnag, in his great wisdom, also learned something else.” Amrah looked at Gnag lovingly, but he was too interested in eating to notice. “He learned that if he wanted an army worthy of Throg, they had to be trained from a young age. He needed children. Children could be . . .shaped. And so he made the Grey Fangs.”
“Smarter, quicker. Able to fight in snow or summer,” Gnag muttered with a mouthful of meat. “And able to sniff you out, girl.”
“But why? You already have Anniera. You’ve already ruined everything there is to ruin!”
Gnag dragged his forearm across his mouth to wipe away the drool and stared at Leeli with a sneer. His pale cheeks were splotched with anger. The closer the carriage drew them to their destination, the more agitated Gnag became.
“Because the ancient stones are too small,” Amrah said. She placed a calming hand on Gnag’s forearm. He shot a glance at her and relaxed as she continued. “Their power is waning. He needs more stones—for himself. He only wants to be healed, Leeli. Wouldn’t you, if you could? You, at least, can walk with a crutch. But poor Gnag has never taken a step without the help of his servants.” Amrah’s voice sweetened. “Have you no compassion?”
Amrah’s words made a strange kind of sense, but Leeli knew it was wrong. Gnag was evil. He was a killer.
“Just take your silly stones and leave us alone,” Leeli said, tears springing to her eyes. “Take Anniera! There’s nothing left for us here anyway.”
Gnag leaned forward and clenched his fists. “Anniera is already mine, girl. It always was. I was born second, don’t you see? According to your silly tradition, I’m the king! All this time, I’ve been the rightful heir to the throne of Anniera. Isn’t that a delightful thought? It’smyisland! The Annierans aremysubjects. Rysen ismy castle.”
Leeli wiped her nose. “Then why don’t you just kill us and get it over with?”
Gnag leaned back in his chair. “Because, as much as it pains me to say it, I need your help.”
“What?”
“For nine years I have tried to open the door to the Fane of Fire, but I cannot do it. I have rubbled the castle, my Fangs have pummeled the door, we have dug into the heart of the island and melted the very stone, but the way is shut to me. One thing I found, however, among your father’s keepings—another of the First Books. It tells that the only way to open the door is with the Jewels of Anniera. And the key is word, form, and song. The king can’t open it alone, though I’ve tried with all my cunning. Only when there were three children born to the king could the Fane be opened. I need the Song Maiden. I need the Limner and the Shaper, too. Only the three of you can do it.”
“T.H.A.G.S.,” Leeli said.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she muttered. “And what if we refuse?”
Gnag rolled his bulgy eyes again. “Do you suppose I haven’t thought of that? Do you think I went to all this trouble only to allow you torefuse in the end?”
“Lord Gnag,” Amrah said soothingly.
“Quiet, woman!” He lunged forward and put his face only inches from Leeli’s. She shut her eyes, feeling Gnag’s hot breath in her face. “You will open the Faneway,” he whispered. “I have spent my life bending wills to my own, and yours will be no different.”
For a moment more, Leeli felt his reeking presence hover just inches from her face, then he grunted and leaned back in his seat. Leeli wept openly, too frightened to move, wishing she could wake up and find herself in her bed at Chimney Hill.
“Shh,” said Amrah. “We’re almost there, child.”
The driver reined up the weary horses and opened the carriage door. Leeli kept her eyes shut, trying to block out the sounds of Gnag’s grunting and the cloven snorting as the Fangs strapped Gnag to their backs. Amrah gently pulled Leeli from the carriage and handed her the crutch.
Leeli opened her eyes and looked through her tears at the place of her birth.
The Castle Rysen looked like the skeleton of a giant beast, its ribcage open to the gray heavens. The roof had burned away long ago, and all but a few of the stone arches had collapsed. Heaps of rubble, the charred remains of rafters and timbers, broken glass, and blackened furniture were strewn in every direction. Leeli saw what used to be a courtyard, littered with the sodden splinters of chairs or tables where Annierans had once danced and feasted. Shards of pottery and tarnished silver cups lay half exposed in the mud. The castle had burned, and been rained upon, and had burned again.
More Fangs, both Green and Grey, emerged from the ruins. They carried pickaxes and hammers and looked haggard compared to the Fangs she had seen fighting in Ban Rona. When they saw Gnag, they bowed and held still.
Gnag ignored them. He forsook his robe and tilted forward, and the cloven carried him to the castle ruin. Amrah guided Leeli after him. She limped through mud, loathing the squelch of her crutch with each step. She tried not to wonder where her grandmother Wendolyn had died, where her parents had strolled, where her brothers had played as toddlers. Janner would have been three, Kalmar two, when Gnag’s hammer of war had fallen on the island.
Leeli kept her eyes on the mud at her feet lest she collapse into tears. She summoned Nia’s strength and fought to keep her back straight, her eyes fierce. She would not fall helplessly to the mud only to be wrenched to her feet and prodded forward by the Fangs. This washer home, not theirs.
Their way led to a corridor in the rubble, at the end of which was a well-traveled stair that sank away into darkness. Leeli paused at the top and looked up, wondering if this was the last time she would see the sky. Even sullied with smoke, it was beautiful. She bade it farewell and followed Gnag the Nameless into the dark below the Castle Rysen.
At the bottom of the stair was a torch lit room.
“Mother,” said Amrah.
When Leeli’s eyes adjusted she saw Amrah standing beside another robed woman. Beyond her, against the wall, were Janner and Kalmar, gagged and bound.
76
The Fane of Fire
Janner was as happy to see Leeli as he was frightened. She looked unhurt, if weary and a bit muddy. Her eyes widened when she saw the boys, and a silent fear passed between the three of them. Janner and Kalmar grunted and strained against their bonds—a pointless act. They had been tied and handled like bales of hay since their arrival on the island.
After the initial shock and relief of seeing Leeli, Janner beheld Gnag the Nameless in the flesh. No introduction was necessary. The pale, twisted old man wobbled closer on the clovens’ backs, gazing at the brothers with a look of gleeful triumph.
“The Throne Warden and the Wolf King,” Gnag said. His voice was dark and gurgling, like a muddy creek. “Limner, Shaper, and Song Maiden. I have you at last.”
The two Stone Keepers held still, watching their master. Janner couldn’t hide the revulsion on his face.
“You Annierans have such an aversion to ugliness.” Gnag chuckled and turned to face an iron door. The older Stone Keeper opened it and Gnag wobbled through. “Bring them.”
Two Fangs lifted the boys while the younger Stone Keeper led Leeli forward. “It’s nice to see you again, Kalmar,” she said. “You turned out beautifully.”
Janner wanted to scream, wanted to chew through his gag and rend the cords binding his wrists and ankles, but there was nothing he could do. Leeli looked hopeless. Janner’s eyes met Kalmar’s, and the despair he saw there wilted his heart. Whatever Gnag had wanted of them all these years lay just beyond the door, and there was no stopping it now.
The
room was round, like an empty well. The walls were ornamented with images of twisting vines, flowers, and depictions of stars, moons, clouds, hills, waves, and forests. Whoever painted it had possessed great skill, and in the flickering torchlight the scene seemed to breathe with life. The stones on the floor were laid in a circular pattern with three symbols carved at the center: a whistleharp, an eye, and a quill.
This was the chamber Esben must have written about in his letter to Janner.Ancient secrets lie beneath these stones and cities, he had written.They have been lost to us, but still, we mustn’t let them fall to evil.
“Help me, Murgah,” Gnag said to the older Stone Keeper. She skittered over to him and unbuckled the straps, then held him in her arms as if he were a child. “Out,” Gnag said, and the cloven and the Fangs hurried from the room. “Amrah, cut their bonds.”
The younger Stone Keeper produced a dagger from the folds of her robes and cut the cords and gags from both boys. Janner and Kalmar scrambled to Leeli’s side.
“Are you all right?” Janner asked, though it seemed like a silly question.
“Wonderful,” Leeli said.
Kalmar snarled and stepped in front of his siblings. “Let us out of here.”
“Oh! Yes. I’ll just set you free because you commanded it—since you’re the king, of course.” Gnag rested in the Stone Keeper’s arms and quivered with laughter. “No, Jewels of Anniera, I have you just where I want you.”
“We won’t do it,” Janner said. “Whatever it is you want us to do.”
“You won’t? Even if it means I send the order to slay your mother?”
“You don’t have her,” Janner said.
“Yes, he does,” Leeli said. “Ban Rona has fallen.”
“Then she may already be dead,” Kalmar said. “Besides, she’d rather die than let you win.”
“She’s alive. I got word by crow just this morning, and they assure me she’s in a great deal of pain. If you’re so certain she’d rather die, then perhaps I’ll just . . . keep her alive. I so enjoyed my time with your father. I broke him and your uncle both in the end. Your mother will break too, given enough time in the Deeps.” Gnag smirked. “And don’t try to do anything foolish. If anything happens to me in here, my Fangs outside have already been given instructions regarding poor Nia Wingfeather.”
“What do you want from us?” Janner shouted.
“All I want, children, is for you to open this door.”
“What’s down there?” Kalmar asked.
“Give me theholoréandholoél,” Gnag said to the Stone Keepers.
After a moment of hesitation they each removed a small pouch that hung around their necks and handed them to Gnag. He removed the two flinders and held them in his palm. The chamber pulsed with light.
“With these pebbles I melded armies. Below your feet lie hoards of the same. The power that heaves the tide, cycles the seasons, blossoms the trees—a whole cavern of glowing stones.” Gnag’s gaze drifted to the floor, and his face twisted into a mixture of deep sadness and terrible anger. “All I want is to be beautiful, don’t you see? To unmake what the Maker has done, to straighten what he bent, to strengthen what he made weak.” Gnag held out his arms and swept his hands across his wretched body. “Would you begrudge a crippled old man his only hope of healing?”
Kalmar shook his head. “There’s more to healing than what the eye can see.”
“Blather and rot,” Gnag said with a sneer. His hand snapped shut and the chamber darkened again. “You’ll open this door, or your mother will regret it for an age to come,nephews.”
“What?” Janner said.
“Tell them, Leeli,” Amrah said.
Leeli looked at him sadly. “It’s true.”
Had the Stone Keeper cast some spell over Leeli? Why would she believe such foolishness?
“We’ll open the door.” Leeli held out her hand. “But I’ll need my whistleharp.”
“Leeli, no,” Janner said.
“We can’t let him hurt Mama.”
“But we can’t just give him what he wants, either,” Kalmar said.
“We don’t have a choice,” she said, looking urgently at the boys. “Just trust me. Please.” Leeli limped to the center of the room and stood on the carving of the whistleharp. She pointed at the eye. “Kal, I think you stand there. Janner, you stand on the quill.”
Gnag grinned eagerly and watched as the boys, dumbstruck, did as they were told. Amrah handed the whistleharp to Leeli.
“What do we do?” Leeli asked.
The old Stone Keeper reached into a satchel hidden in the folds of her robe and retrieved an old book. It looked like Janner’s First Book but smaller. She handed it to Gnag, and he flipped it open to a page he seemed to have studied many times. He held it out in the torchlight so they could see.
“The Song Maiden plays this melody.” He jabbed a finger at a string of notes. “The Limner recites these words”—he indicated something written in an old language—“and the Shaper traces this symbol in the air. Thus the Fane is only opened by the Jewels of Anniera, as it was from the beginning.”
“Leeli, this is a bad idea,” Janner said. “We can’t let him in there.”
Leeli’s face was serene, and Janner was baffled. Kalmar stared at the symbol in the book and moved his finger, practicing the shape as if he were drawing on an invisible page.
Before Janner could say another word, Leeli raised her whistleharp and played a simple, lovely melody. The air shimmered with it, and the torches fluttered as if a breeze blew through the room. Shaking his head, Janner read the words aloud, though they were foreign and felt strange in his mouth—strange butright somehow, as if he had always been meant to speak them. While the melody rang and his words mingled with it, Kalmar raised his hand, extended one finger, and traced the symbol in the air. His finger left a trail of glimmering sparks that hung between the children.
The floor vibrated with a pleasant resonance, a deep accompaniment to Leeli’s melody. The words Janner spoke, the song bouncing off the walls, and the sparkling symbol in the air seemed to exist in an exquisite union, filling Janner’s ears, eyes, heart, and bones with the very life of Aerwiar. He had never felt anything like it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gnag and the Stone Keeper. Their faces were illumined and awestruck, but they seemed far away and irrelevant.
The symbol that floated between the children gathered to an exhilarating golden brightness, tilted until it was parallel with the floor of the chamber, then descended to the images around their feet. Warm light filled the carvings of the eye, whistleharp, and quill like liquid gold, then shot out along the seams of every stone in the chamber. The light surged, then vanished, leaving the chamber in an expectant silence.
Leeli lowered the whistleharp. Janner stopped talking and realized that he had been reciting the old words without looking at the page. Kalmar’s hand fell to his side. The only sound was their breathing and the crackle of the torches, which now seemed dim and lifeless compared to the uncommon light that had flooded the room. Gnag panted hungrily.
Then the floor moved. There was a deep grinding of stone on stone, and the three children hurried back to the walls. Yellow light burst from the edges of the center circle where they had stood. The stone sank away, and the light so filled the chamber that they had to shield their eyes. The grinding ceased, and Janner lowered his hands from his face. The room glowed again, now with a steady yellow luminescence, as if the rising sun shone through the opening in the floor.
Gnag the Nameless squirmed out of the Stone Keeper’s arms, splatted to his belly, and scooted forward, peering over the edge. He lifted his face to the children with a ghastly, trembling smile.
“The Fane of Fire,” he whispered, nearly choking on his tears. “Murgah, help me down.”
Gnag cast the two ancient stones into the Fane and held out his hands. The Stone Keeper glided forward, took Gnag’s hands, and lowered him through.
“What have we done?” Janner whi
spered.
77
Stealing the Stone
The Stone Keepers were so intent on the opening that Janner was sure he and his siblings could have slipped away unnoticed. But he was as curious as Gnag, aching to see what the ancient chamber held.
The old books said the Maker walked with Dwayne and Gladys there. Did that mean that the Maker himself was there even now? Could they see him? And if hewas there, what would he do with someone like Gnag the Nameless poking around in this sacred place?
Janner edged forward, and Leeli and Kalmar followed without a word. The entrance was like a well of light, but the light came from the stones themselves.
Gnag eased himself down, gripping the stones along one side of the shaft while his skinny legs dangled. He reached the bottom and looked up with a hideous, ecstatic smile.
“There are stones everywhere!” he shouted. He wriggled along the passageway and out of sight, then returned, clutching a stone the size of a loaf of bread in both hands. “Murgah, Amrah, look!”
“Bring it up!” Murgah said.
“It’s too heavy.”
The Stone Keeper pointed at Janner. “You. Go down and bring up the stone.”
Janner looked at Kalmar and Leeli, who both nodded. He sat on the edge and marveled at the way the light tingled on his skin, even through his clothes. He climbed down, silenced by the beauty of the stones and the warmth and energy surging in his fingers where he touched them. Janner reached the bottom and looked up at the glowing faces of his siblings and the twinkle of the Stone Keeper’s eyes deep in her cowl.
The passageway was littered with the stones, little ones and big ones piled against the walls—a million treasures heaped along the path. The passage led off into the distance, ever widening toward what appeared to be a large cavern. Janner heard the sound of running water and glimpsed the green of growing things mingled with the golden stones.
The Warden and the Wolf King Page 35
