Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (22 page)

Whyborne

I
crouched at the base of a column, alone as I’d asked. The stench of the umbrae
was so pervasive I barely noticed it anymore, even though their dried slime
cracked on my coat whenever I moved.

Was it
possible the Mother of Shadows told the truth? Had some ancient race or people
created umbrae and ketoi alike? Where were they now? Had their empire fallen
due to some calamity, as so many had throughout history?

Had they
been human?

I
doubted it. Whoever built this city and set these magical seals, it seemed
increasingly unlikely they owed anything to humanity. The sort of power it
would take to shape life as they had went far beyond any sorcery I’d ever heard
of.

Who had
they been? And were they right to have feared the umbrae? Had they been like
the Spartans, as Jack suggested, living in terror of revolt by the helots? Given
what the Mother of Shadows said, there had indeed been an uprising of some
sort.

And even
if the cause of the umbrae was just, even if they had no right to be locked
away, even if they wanted only to save their stolen child before Turner could
do her some terrible harm…what then? What came after? Would they be content to
remain here, in their prison? Or would they seize on the opportunity to spread,
to multiply?

My
throat constricted at the memory of Griffin’s words. How he’d looked at me with
such love and such pleading. And I’d wanted to agree with him so badly. To
throw it all aside and say yes, let’s go. Let’s leave this place together.

But the
Mother of Shadows wanted to do something to Griffin. Change his perceptions.
What would it do to him? Could I risk it? Was it even my place to decide?

If I did
nothing, if I sat here, Turner would take his stolen prize and flee. Scarrow
might have stopped him, of course, but if not? Could I insist my friends leave
me behind and face a sorcerer without any magic on their side?

If
Turner escaped with the chrysalis, the Endicotts wouldn’t just have another
soldier, like the daemon of the night in Egypt. They’d have a queen. A new
Mother of Shadows.

What did
that mean? I knew nothing about umbra reproduction—could they use her to
spawn an army of umbrae, all enslaved to their will?

Who was
I trying to fool? Of course they’d find a way. Then they’d send their army of
enslaved umbrae against every other sorcerer in the world. Against every ketoi.
Against any magic not directly controlled by them. And if innocents got in the
way, they would count it part of the cost.

How many
might die if they brought their battle to London? Rome? New York?

Widdershins?

Widdershins
would certainly be a target. Theo and Fiona had judged it necessary to wipe the
entire city off the map, along with everyone in it. The rest of the clan would
take no chances. They’d send as many umbrae as they thought necessary to
destroy the town. Father would die, and Miss Parkhurst, and Dr. Gerritson, and
so many others.

I couldn’t
know for certain what would happen if I agreed to break the seals here. Perhaps
the Mother of Shadows wouldn’t wage war against the entire human race. But if
she did, at least these umbrae were in the wilds of Alaska, not rampaging
through a crowded city. They might be stopped before they reached more
inhabited lands.

God.

I stood
up, wincing as my knees popped. Every eye turned to me, including those of the
umbrae. As I started back to my friends, Christine moved as if to meet me.
Iskander caught her arm, gave her a little shake of his head.

Griffin
hurried toward me. As our eyes met, I saw his fear give way to relief. He ran
the last few feet, and I caught him up in my arms.

“Ival,”
he said, his voice muffled because his face was buried in the front of my coat.

I leaned
my head against his, held him tight. “I love you,” I whispered. “And I don’t
know what will happen. If we can stop Turner, or if any of us will survive. Or
even if we’ll unleash something awful on the world. But we have to try to make
this right.”

“I love
you, too.” He looked up, tears making tracks in the grime on his face. “Thank
you.”

I kissed
him softly, acutely aware of our audience. I wished I had the words for what he
meant to me, but nothing ever seemed adequate. He’d changed my life, changed
me,
in ways so profound I couldn’t begin to describe them. “You are everything to
me,” I whispered. “Everything.”

It made
what came next even harder. Letting go of him, I stepped back. “Before I agree
to do anything, I want to speak with the Mother of Shadows again.”

“I
understand.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

His body
shuddered, then jerked. When he looked at me, his pupils were nothing but
pinpricks amidst pale green.

“Speak,
child of the sea,” the Mother of Shadows said.

I heard
the others come up behind me, but I kept my focus on her. “If I agree to your
request, I want some guarantees from you.” I swallowed against the dryness in
my throat. “There are other humans in Hoarfrost, who had nothing to do with
this. Promise me their safety.”

The
coils shifted in the shadows. How big was she? How long had she grown here in
the dark? “We do not wish war with the humans,” Griffin said, his voice harsh
and guttural. “We wish only to live, and for our children to be safe.”

God, I
hoped it was true. Did beings like the umbrae, who communicated solely through
telepathy, even have the ability to lie? “Then you won’t mind my other
condition,” I said. “If you’ve looked into Griffin’s mind, you’ve seen our
dealings with your kind haven’t been at all positive. If we remove the seals
and set you free, you must stay here in these mountains. It shouldn’t be hard to
avoid humans in this land. But if you attempt to spread too far south, a clash
will be unavoidable. Even if you don’t seek conflict, the humans will fear you.
And what they fear, they attack.”

They.
As if I had less kinship with humans than this vast creature.

Her bulk
slithered against the floor. A feeler as thick and long as a tree pulsed and
curled, perhaps communicating something I was unequipped to understand. “This
is our home. We would see the night sky again, we would hunt the things on four
legs and on the wing, gather green, growing things untouched by our kind in
millennia. But we do not seek war. We will hide ourselves here, among these
peaks.”

I didn’t
know if I could trust her. But it was the best I could do. “Thank you,” I said.
“This…perception you said you’d give Griffin. Why him?” I steeled myself. “The
dweller in the deeps once touched my mind. If I lower my defenses—”

“It will
not work. Our kinds are close, but we cannot speak in this way.”

Blast.

“What
about me?” Jack stepped forward. “It’s my fault Griffin is in danger. Alter my
perceptions so I can see the magic and guide Dr. Whyborne’s spell instead.”

“The
pathway has already been built in his mind, years ago, strengthened by
nightmare and opened wide by the Lapidem.” Her great head swayed back and forth
in the shadows, even as Griffin’s mouth spoke her words. “It must be him.”

“But it
won’t hurt him,” I said. “Er, will it?”

“I
cannot say.”

The
devil? “That isn’t what I want to hear.”

“No.”
And then suddenly she was
there
, rearing only feet above Griffin, her
orange eye like a flame in the darkness. “But it is his choice to make. And he
has made it.”

Griffin
screamed.

Griffin

My mouth
tasted of blood, and my skull felt slightly too small for its contents. My
pulse pounded in my temples, and I had the odd sensation of pain decreasing
from a peak I couldn’t quite recall, to something bearable.

“Griffin!”
Hands gripped my shoulders. “Griffin, speak to me, please!”

“Damn
you!” another voice shouted. “What did you do to him?”

I opened
my eyes. My vision wavered for a moment, nothing but a smear of color and
light. Then everything came into focus, and I gasped.

Whyborne
knelt over me, his eyes wide with fear. Nothing about him had changed…and yet
everything had.

No. Not
changed. There was just…more. I couldn’t even explain the sensation to myself,
except I felt as if I now saw with my eyes all the things I’d already known
with my heart. The fire burning inside seemed to light him up from within, and
his eyes all but glowed with it…and yet were no different from the dark brown
they’d always been.

I
reached up trembling fingers and brushed along the line of his jaw, to the
disaster his hair had become, and down to the puce scarf that I knew didn’t
hide gills beneath, even if it seemed suddenly not just possible, but likely.

“You’re
so beautiful,” I whispered.

“That
confirms it,” Christine said. “His brain has been damaged.”

“Christine!”
Whyborne snapped, brows drawing sharply together. I wanted to touch them, trace
the expressive dark lines across his face, but he batted my hand away. “Griffin.
Can you talk? Stand up?”

I felt
more and more myself. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Whyborne drew back, still hovering
anxiously as I struggled to sit up. Jack slid an arm around my shoulders, and I
nodded my thanks. He at least seemed no different to my sight.

But a
great deal of other things did.

The
entire hall seemed altered. Not lighter, but more clear. Lines of greenish fire
twined through the rock, through the columns, although they cast no light.

“What am
I seeing?” I asked aloud.

“The
spells that have kept this city from decay, eon after eon. The masters had no
time to remove them from this place. I do not know if they did elsewhere, if
they left the ceilings and walls to collapse on my sisters and bury them
forever.”

“Griffin?”
Jack’s arm tightened around my shoulders, worry written clear on his face. “Are
you all right?”

I
nodded, then stopped as the world swayed around me. I closed my eyes tight for
a moment. When I opened them again, everything had settled. “Yes. I just need a
moment to adjust.”

“What
are you experiencing?” Whyborne’s hand rested on my arm, comforting and solid.

“I can’t
describe it. Not well.” I took a deep breath. “You look the same…but not.”

“You
mean me in particular?” Whyborne asked.

“I can
see the magic in you. Or maybe your ketoi blood. Or both.” I shook my head. “It
barely even makes sense to me. I noticed you the moment I laid eyes on you, and
yet now I feel as if I would have picked you from a crowd of thousands even if
we’d never met.”

“I see,”
Whyborne said uncertainly. “Anything else?”

I
described the lines of magic in the walls. “And whispering.” I’d not been
consciously aware of it at first, but now I felt as if I stood just outside a
crowded ballroom, listening to music and laughter and tears, and a hundred
different conversations going on at once. “I think…I think I hear the all
umbrae communicating with each other.”

“Hmm.”
Whyborne sat back on his heels. “If you can see the magic in the walls, you should
be able to see the seals. With any luck, it will be enough for me to use the
curse breaker.”

As
Whyborne helped me up, I heard the hiss of the Mother of Shadows, her coils
shifting on the stone. I turned to face her, half shocked I no longer felt
afraid. After so many years of living in terror of the umbrae, right now I had
only pity.

Her
looping coils drew back, revealing more and more of the floor. Something
gleamed in my sight, like a fallen star.

“What in
the name of heaven…?” Whyborne murmured.

A plinth
stood there, and on it sat a large, irregularly cut gem. I couldn’t have named
the mineral it was carved from: purple black, and shot through with veins of
red that pulsed in my sight. But I’d seen another much like it, half a world
away.

Whyborne’s
hand closed on my arm. “Occultum Lapidem,” he gasped. “Griffin, don’t look!”

“It won’t
hurt us.” I went to the plinth and laid my hand on the gem. It felt oddly warm
to the touch. Knowledge rushed into me, fed by the whispers I could perceive
more and more clearly. “Every city had such a gem. They allowed the masters to
order their slaves at a distance. But they also allow the Mother of Shadows to
communicate with her children at a greater range than would otherwise be
possible.”

“Take
this. It will allow me to speak with the children, if you must go far to find
this thief. Take it and find my daughter.”

“Yes.” I
lifted it carefully and tucked it into my pack. “I’ll do everything in my power
to bring her back.”

“I
know.”
I sensed an odd hesitation from her.
“You are not what
I expected. Your kind is terrible to look upon, and those who came before you
and stole the chrysalis matched their foul form with their deeds. But now I
have seen inside the far corners of your mind. You understand the value of
family. Strange. I would never have thought such creatures as yourselves could
do so.”

I wanted
to laugh. How frightened we’d been, and yet to the umbrae, we were the
monsters. “Some of us do, anyway.”

“You
love. And you grieve. You have lost one of your own recently.”

Pa. What
would he think of this creature before me? Would he have understood her at all?

“And
you fear to lose another. Your mother.”

I
swallowed tightly. What had the Mother of Shadows seen in my mind? “Yes.” I
spoke the word as a whisper, but wasn’t sure if I had to speak it aloud at all
for her to hear. “I don’t want Ma to die without ever seeing her again. I don’t
want…”

Emotion
constricted my throat, but the images were so clear in my mind: gentle hands
tucking me into bed, the smell of an apple pie baked for my birthday, the pride
in her voice as she told the other women at church about the high marks I’d
brought home from school.

“I miss
her,” I whispered at last. “I miss her so much.”

The
Mother of Shadows lowered her great head, and a feeler slipped lightly across
my face in a caress. It should have revolted me, sent me screaming in disgust
and horror. But I was beyond that now.

“You
have lost your mother, and I have lost my child.”
Pity, and
grief, and understanding.
“But it is not too late for either of us.”

Perhaps
she was right. But Ma was a thousand miles away, on the plains of Kansas.
“Whyborne and I will take down the seals,” I said, hitching my pack higher on my
back. “You’ll get your daughter back. I swear it.”