The Dark Passenger (Book 1) (25 page)

“Go inside, Anne. Stay with Dana,” Edwin heard the man who
raised him say.

“But Willem—”

“Go!” Willem yelled. “Now!”

Edwin had never heard Willem Medgard yell like that before.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he said, but his mouth was so dry it sounded
more like a croak. “I just need some water.” He saw Anne draw the blinds, and when
they didn’t respond, he added, “It’s Edwin. I know what you might have heard,
but you know I wouldn’t hurt you. You were my family. Why won’t you talk to
me?”

He couldn’t believe he was back at the place he had called
home most of his life. At the back wall, he peeked around the corner and walked
towards the front entrance. To his right he heard the sound of something
falling over in the barn. For a moment, he wondered if he should just run. The
road to the pass was close, and he could make it there easily.

But then it was a long trek back to Chardwick, and he didn’t
think he could make it. Not for the first time, he considered taking his
chances walking up the pass to Newick. But then he remembered Walt.

“I just need some water,” Edwin repeated, making his way to
the front of the lodge where the Medgards had a well to collect rain and
snowmelt. “I know you don’t want me here, so I’ll leave. I’m just going to go
to the well to get a little bit to drink first. I’ll be gone soon.”

He had already dunked the pail and guzzled half its water
when he heard a twig snap behind him. Throwing himself to the ground, he
narrowly avoided an arrow, and there was a click as Willem Medgard locked
another. Edwin rolled on the ground, scrambled behind the well, and the air
burst with the sound of wood cracking on stone. He had thought the Medgards
might be afraid or run, but he had never imagined they would attack him.

“You don’t have to do this,” Edwin cried. “I got what I came
for. You can let me leave.”

“I always knew you were evil,” Willem said through clenched
teeth. “We should have told Headmistress Vanora what you were from the
beginning, but we just wanted you gone. We won’t make that mistake again.”

A moment passed but Willem wasn’t as quiet as he probably
would have liked, and Edwin heard him moving around the well. “I don’t want to
hurt anyone,” Edwin said. “I always tried to be good, and we were family once.
Let me leave.”

Willem Medgard scoffed. “You were never ours. The Lucent
made us take you in, but we always knew you weren’t right.”

Edwin needed to stall them while he figured out what to do. “What
if I went up to Newick?” he suggested.

Willem’s venomous laughter pierced the air. “Do you really
think we would let leaving Chardwick be so simple? From Chardwick at the base
to Newick at the summit, you and your kind are trapped. Nothing survives that
comes into the light.”

Edwin was shocked. “If you knew, why didn’t you kill me
sooner?”

Edwin continued to scramble around the well, but Willem was
gaining on him. “Your parents were the Goodfellows. How could we know it was
some kind of trick? When Rona Goodfellow disappeared your fate became the Lucent’s
to decide.”

Scrambling to keep mortar and stone between them, Edwin soon
found himself on the other side of the well facing the inn. He saw movement in
the window, a flash of brown, and then another arrow. Anne released the arrow, and
Edwin tried to cast the arrow aside with a thought and a wave of his hand.

His power had no effect, and it was only because of the
spirit that he reacted quickly enough to move at all. But the arrow was too
fast, and he had jumped aside too late. The arrow pitted itself in his side,
and Edwin hit the ground, gasping for air and crying out in pain.

But he knew he had to move. With one quick movement, he
broke the arrow off at its base, knowing from the pickaxe earlier that he would
bleed more if he pulled out the whole thing.

He scrambled around as quickly as he could, but soon Willem
was on him. “Your arrowheads… bloodstones,” Edwin gasped, looking up into Willem
Medgard’s face.

“Of course. What else would we have on the ledge?” Willem
asked. “I just regret it was Anne who caught you that day with the cat. If it
had been me you never would have made it down to Chardwick.” He locked another
arrow.

Savoring the moment, Willem aimed the arrow at Edwin’s face
and pulled the arrow back slowly, and there was a long hollow noise as the
bowstring drew taut. With one quick movement, Edwin pulled Herald from his sack
just as Willem launched the arrow, and it hit the book dead-on. Cursing, Willem
reached for another arrow. At the same time Edwin shot a crackling bolt of
energy from his hand, but it wound around Willem’s body and into the nearest
bloodstone arrowhead, only to disappear into nothing.

Edwin knew his powers were useless, but he couldn’t run. The
trees were too far away, and Willem’s arrow would land in his back before he
got even halfway there. As he scrambled across the ground, pebbles dug into his
hands.

He would never remember thinking about it; he just did it.

With a word and a circular flourish of his hand, he raised
the pebbles to the air, just as Herald had taught him, and with all his will,
pushed them forward.

With a series of thumps, they hit Willem’s body, and he fell
to the ground. His eyes were open, but he was dead. Blood fell from the corner
of his mouth.

“Willem!” Edwin heard Anne scream. Bow in hand, she had
flung open the door to the inn, and ran at Edwin and released an arrow. Unable
to see between her tears, she launched the arrow well over his head.

Running now himself, Edwin was past the inn and dashing down
the mountain pass towards Chardwick.

 Edwin was still holding his side as he went up the
stairs, unsure how he had managed to get back to the Morriseys’ house
undetected. His biggest fear walking through Chardwick had been that he would
collapse and it would all be over. At the top of the stairs, he called out for
help, but the house was empty. After filling a bucket with water, he released
the spirit, and without the support of its essence pain spread up his spine
like liquid fire. His legs became weak, he fell to his knees, a cold sweat
broke across his brow, and he laid himself prostrate on his back.

“I’m… I’m going to… pull this arrow out,” he told the
spirit. “I’m going to… need you to… sew me shut. Can you… do this?”

“Yess,” the spirit hissed. Its thick essence looked vaguely
human, and it wore an expression of concern.

“You’re getting… really big,” Edwin said, somewhat
delirious, but also proud. The room was spinning, but he managed to get his
shirt off. “Your… shape-shifting… really good…”

The spirit descended on the shirt and unraveled a length of
thread from it with ease.

Edwin’s breath was shallow as he put his hand to the base of
the arrow. He didn’t think, he just tightened his fist around the wood and
pulled as hard as he could. Pain shot up his body in waves, blinding him, but
he held tight. At first the arrow wouldn’t move, but then, in one long motion,
the tip lost its grip on his flesh and the arrow slid out of his body. Blood
pooled a moment in the hole the arrow left in his side before falling to the
wood floor. Grabbing the rest of his shirt, he dunked it in warm water and
pressed it to the wound.

“Hurry,” he told the spirit. It wrapped a part of itself
around the thread and rose to his side. Then, with surprising agility, it
pierced a small hole in his skin and went through, pulling the thread behind
it. Moving to the other side of the wound, the spirit repeated the movement,
and as it wound its way back and forth, Edwin reached down and tightened the
thread, pulling the skin together. When they were done and the hole was closed,
he released his grip on the cloth and let his head roll to his side.

*   *   *

When he woke the pain at his side throbbed, his back was
stiff, and it was dark outside. The house was still empty.

In the kitchen, he collected as much food and water as he
could carry in one trip before hobbling back upstairs. He drank the jug of
water first; after losing so much blood, he was dehydrated, his head ached, and
he felt like he couldn’t drink enough. Then he ate a few bites of leftover horsemeat
and cheese, and sat two apples off to the side. Eating was a chore, but he
forced himself to swallow every bite. The spirit was hovering next to him, and
he called for it to join with him so that they could absorb the apples. That
was all he could do before he sank down in bed, released the spirit, and fell
back asleep.

The next time he woke it was morning. The spirit was
hovering at his side, watching him. “Willem and Anne Medgard raised me. I lived
with them almost my whole life, I was there when Dana was born, and they tried
to kill me. You rescued me,” Edwin said. A pleasant gold spark traveled through
its essence.

Wearily, he got up from bed and found the will to clean
himself and the bloody floor. The house was still empty, and he grabbed Herald
and sat cross-legged on his bed. “Herald, open up. I need your help.”

“You want my help after using me as a shield?” Herald asked incredulously.
“For countless millennia, long before Chardwick, long before their ancestors
learned writing, I have withstood the elements, never bowing, never breaking.
Even a decade in Goodfellow’s furnace left me unscathed. Then, after only a few
months in your care, I’m hit by an arrow cut from a bloodstone.”

“But you’re fine,” Edwin countered. “The arrow didn’t even
pierce your leather binding.”

“No thanks to you,” the book grumbled. “Best I wash my hands
of you, so to speak, and wait for the next Host.”

“There may never be another Host,” Edwin said.

“Even better. Ever since the Hosts conjured me they’ve been
nothing but trouble. I could use a good rest.”

Edwin was persistent, and the book retreated further into
its sour mood until it ignored him altogether. Edwin yelled and threatened, but
it did no good. Finally, he tried prying the book open, pulling until his arms grew
tired, but no matter what he did Herald wouldn’t budge.

“Stupid book!” he yelled after he beat it against his
dresser but before he threw it on the floor.

“That won’t work,” the spirit hissed as Edwin fell to his
bed, defeated.

“I know,” Edwin said, fingering the arrowhead he’d pulled
from his side. He had never touched a bloodstone before, and even clean of his
blood, the arrowhead was so red it was almost black. Staring at it, an idea
came to him.

Back on his feet, he went to the book and held the arrow to
its spine. “My mother gave you to me for a reason, and you’ll help me whether
you like it or not.” Herald didn’t respond, so Edwin tried prying it open
again, this time with the tip of the bloodstone.

The room filled with a scream that was so loud and so shrill
that Edwin wouldn’t be surprised if Anne Medgard had heard it all the way up at
the inn. He grabbed his ears, and the book fell from his hands, closing with a
thud. “Why’d you do that?” he yelled. “Do you want to get us all killed?”

If a book could lie on the ground smugly, that is what
Herald did.

Waiting for his heart to slow, a smile crept across Edwin’s
face. He had forced the book open. “What do you think?” he asked the spirit.
“There’s probably a silencing incantation, but we would need to be able to open
the book to find it.”

“There are other wayss,” the spirit offered. “I think a bath
may be in order.”

“A bath?” Edwin asked. “Why would I want to take—oh,
do you really think that would work?”

“Water will not hurt the book,” the spirit said, “but it may
silence it.”

Back in the bathroom, the copper tub filled quickly, and he
placed the book underwater. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Yess,” the spirit replied.

Pockets of air rose from the book and burbled at the
surface. He pulled the arrowhead from his pocket and pried Herald open again.

Again the book screamed, but the water helped to muffle the
noise.

“It’s working,” Edwin said.

“Of course.” The spirit crackled happily.

With the tip of the arrow, Edwin opened a page at random. It
took a moment for the water to settle, at least as much as it was going to. The
screaming kept the surface choppy, but Edwin could still read through it. He
flipped a page.

“What are you looking for?” the spirit asked.

“A silencing spell, something about the Host’s Tomb, or anything
else that might help.” He hadn’t forgotten about Walt, and he hoped Walt’s
aunts were having better luck.

Being a magical book, words and pictures drifted from page
to page, always moving, but they drifted slowly enough that he caught much of
what a passage said before losing the rest to another page.

“A silencing spell, a silencing spell…” he mumbled.

His knees began to ache after a while from kneeling on the golemite
floor. “Did they make this book intentionally difficult to understand?” he
rhetorically asked the spirit. “There doesn’t seem to be any order… words
scattered everywhere, drifting all over the place… almost like the ink is
leaking from the seam…”

A while later a picture caught his eye.
The Seer’s Cloak
,
the title read. The picture drifted off the page and he flipped forward, but it
wasn’t there. A few pages back he found it.

The Seer’s Cloak

Woven from the blossoms of the Tree of Life, the Seer’s Cloak
has yet to reveal all its secrets. It is known that, like other parts of the
Great Tree, the Seer’s Cloak has antimagic properties…

He lost the passage again, but found a part of it on the
next page.

…those seeking its power be warned, it is not for the weak of
mind. Risks include possession, insanity, and death.

For a complete
history, see the Hallow Tree. For more uses of the Hallow Tree, see the Nuts Hallow,
the Roots Hallow, and the Amber Hallow.

Flipping through the pages fruitlessly, Edwin asked,
“Where’s the middle? Possession, insanity, and death? What is this thing my
mother left me?”

“We musst learn what else it does,” the spirit said. “Look,
a spell that will let uss transform its fiberss, it says into anything we
want.”

Edwin fingered the cloak, scared of it for the first time in
his life.

*   *   *

Night came and Edwin was still on the floor. “This is
hopeless,” he said. “I haven’t seen one word about the mine.”

“Nor the villagerss, nor Chardwick,” the spirit said.

“And Walt… Where are his aunts? And Sam?”

“It hass been dayss.”

Edwin shook his head. He wanted so badly to have a plan. “I
don’t know what to do,” he said, not for the first time. But when he said it
this time, something happened. “Wait, did you see that?”

“What?” the spirit asked.

“I thought I saw something about a horn.” He flipped as
quickly as he dared under the water.

“Where did that passage disappear off to?” he said to
himself. With his every move the water rippled slightly at the surface, making
it harder to read.

“There!” he exclaimed, finding the words swirling on a
nearby page. Below them was a picture of a bulbous creature with a curved horn
growing from its nose.

The Cave-Giant’s Horn

Cave-giants are about as smart as regular giants, which is to
say not very smart at all. Fat and moody, cave-giants rarely leave their caves,
and they think nothing is funnier than blowing boogers through their nose-like
horns. The universe is not without a sense of humor.

Sadly for any creature unfortunate enough to be resting near a
cave-giant’s cave, the cave-giant’s booger blowing induces a trance, causing
the poor creature to commit suicide by jumping into the cave-giant’s gaping
mouth.

More unfortunate still, a cave-giant’s horn continues to be
trance inducing after the cave-giant dies, and their horns have become a
thief’s weapon of choice. The cave-giant’s horn has many calls and commands in
an adept’s hands.

Fortunately, the horns became so valuable that cave-giants were
hunted to extinction. Unfortunately, not all horns have been destroyed. Silencer
spells are good against a cave-giant’s horn, but are not recommended as they
often have nasty side effects. Breaking a horn is better.

“Well that wasn’t very helpful,” Edwin commented. “I wonder
if Herald has any control over what we see. He’s probably mentioning silencer
spells to mock us.”

*   *   *

The next morning Edwin woke to the sound of yelling on the
street.

“Get up,” the spirit said, prickling the skin under his
nose.

Edwin batted it away and rolled over on the hard bathroom
floor. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep last night, and his brain responded
slowly.

“Get up,” it repeated, pricking his skin harder.

“Go away!” Edwin grumbled. The spirit ignored him.

After a few minutes of this, Edwin finally got up and hit
his head against the bathtub. Now fully awake, he said, “All right, all right,
I’m up. Get off me!”

Having stood up too quickly, he was dizzy and unsteady on
his feet, but he made his way to his room. There was noise outside, and he
peeked out the window. At first he recoiled from the blinding light, but after
his eyes adjusted, he saw that every person in the village had left their home
and was on the road heading towards the village square. “What’s happening?”

“The roof,” the spirit said.

Only taking the time to wrap himself in his cloak, Edwin
left his room and ran up the stairs, his stomach in knots. About the time he
reached the roof, an uneasy quiet rose from the village square, much like it
did every time the Lucent spoke.

“My people,” said Lucent Weston, “I come to you with a heavy
heart. Bring forward the supplicant.” There was a quiet murmuring. “Nemain
Ross, your father was my most trusted advisor and a true believer in our cause.
I raised you in my household as my ward.”

“Mercy,” a voice yelled from the crowd.

“Obviously, it pains me to see you here, probably more than
you can know,” the Lucent continued. “Do you have anything to say for yourself
before I render judgment?”

Lady Nemain’s voice didn’t carry as the Lucent’s did, but
Edwin could still hear. “Lucent, please forgive me. I don’t know what came over
me.”

“You are guilty of the highest of crimes: betraying your
people,” the Lucent said.

Lady Nemain was crying. “Please forgive me. I try to see him
for what he is, but he’s only a boy.”

“There are those who’ve claimed I’ve been too soft these
last several months,” the Lucent said. “I myself am convinced I was bewitched, but
no longer. Nemain Ross, your actions offend me and the people of our noble
village. I have no choice but to condemn you to death.” There was an audible
exhale, and the Lucent continued, “Though I cannot excuse what you have done,
you have served Chardwick well these many years, and I offer you a chance to
die with honor.” There was a loud applause from the crowd. “If you accept my
offer, you will sacrifice yourself at the foot of the hallow tree. Your blood
will provide nourishment for our Great Tree, and her bounty will protect our
village for generations to come.”

Through muffled sobs, Lady Nemain replied, “Thank you, Lucent.
I will gladly die for Chardwick.” Edwin listened in horror as there was another
round of applause.