The Shadow at the Gate (36 page)

Shadows, but the water was cold as ice. He could feel the stones of the ford underfoot. His mount nickered unhappily. He tugged the horse forward. The flow surged against him. And then he was forced to swim, the reins in his mouth and one hand gripping the horse’s mane. The horse lost its footing about midway. The current there was faster than Owain had thought it would be. The flow swept them both along, but the ford was wide and they had not gone more than a dozen yards before the horse struck bottom again. It snorted and surged forward toward the riverbank.

“All right then!” called out Owain.

They swam the ford, one by one. Some grinned at him, dripping with water and smeared with mud, some clambering out, sputtering and cursing under their breath. The horses’ breath steamed in the cold night air. Hoon came last, comfortably and impossibly perched on top of his mount, with his boots tucked dry inside his cloak.

“Perhaps my memory doesn’t serve me well,” said Owain sourly. “Didn’t you say we’d have to swim the ford?”

“Can’t rightly recollect,” said Hoon. “Though I do enjoy swimmin’ when it’s other folks doin’ it. Mebbe it’s cuz I’m so small, my horse don’t mind the weight.”

They made good time riding up through the gap at the mouth of the valley, where the sides were as steep as cliffs. The land fell away down to the fields that sloped all the way to the sea. The river rushed off into the night. It would reach Hearne before them, to curve around the city’s southern walls and there find the sea.

Lights winked in the darkness, far off the muddy track, as they passed solitary cottages and hamlets. The rain slackened and then ceased. The wind blew harder. Above them, however, the clouds scudded away to reveal a night sky shining with stars. The horsemen crested a rise and there, still distant but gleaming with more light than the stars themselves, lay the city of Hearne.

“An hour more an’ I’ll be drinking ale,” said someone.

“Bed,” said another. “Keep your ale.”

Someone else articulated the merits of hot mutton. There was much laughter and good cheer. The horses cantered down the slope.

“Oats and a warm stable,” said Owain. He patted his horse’s neck. It whickered as if it understood. “Oats and a stable for you. Home for me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

LEVORETH UNMASKED

Only a few weeks had gone by since he had been roaming the streets with the rest of the Juggler’s children. Only a few weeks. Jute stared into the darkness of the dungeon passage. He chewed on his thumbnail and snuffled once or twice.

It wasn’t fair.

When he had been particularly lonely, he had loved to climb up onto the roof of a house several doors down from the Goose and Gold. From there he could see down into the yard behind the house. Most days, if he waited long enough, the mother of the home would come out with the laundry or with a chicken to pluck or to weed the garden. She had four young children, and they usually tumbled after her into the yard, where they would chase each other about—if they could not catch the cat first—until all four turned into a pile of flying fists and happy roaring and, occasionally, an unhappy, bawling face. That was when the woman would straighten up from her laundry or potatoes, or whatever it was, and cuff the children until they were all bawling. And then, invariably, she would go into the house and reemerge with bread and honey to soothe their tears. Jute never tired of watching them.

It wasn’t fair. He would have given anything to have been one of those children being cuffed about. Instead, he was in this miserable dungeon. He got to his feet and stretched. His stomach told him it was getting late. No sign of the jailer. There were only shadows and the glow of an oil lamp burning on the wall further down the passage.

Oh, Hawk, he thought miserably. Where are you? If only I hadn’t climbed out of my window. If only I hadn’t left the ruins. The square was crowded with so many people. Surely I was safe in a confusion of faces and stalls and barrows like that. How was I to know?

But he hadn’t been safe in the crowd.

No
, agreed the darkness around him.

Jute blinked. For a brief moment, he thought the shadow lying across the far wall moved. Swirled, as water does when it pours down a drain. But now it was still. It was only a shadow.

Safety is found in small places.

Jute scuttled back against the wall.

In small, quiet places in the dark.

“Who are you?” he said. His skin twitched. The voice was quiet. He could not tell if the voice was inside his head or if he was hearing the sound.

Just a memory. Someone asleep, dreaming. Old bones and dust and words. Just someone thinking about waking up and having a bite to eat.

The boy’s scalp prickled.

“I-I wouldn’t taste good,” he managed. “I’m extremely scrawny.”

The voice chuckled. There was a sort of damp sound to it, and Jute’s imagination trembled into life, inhabited by things with pale eyes that could see in the dark. He remembered the spider he had seen while exploring—hundreds of eyes bulging on stalks and gleaming in the shadows with their own cold light.

There’s no telling for some people’s taste.

“I wouldn’t make more than a mouthful,” said Jute.

No, you wouldn’t.

“No,” said Jute, relieved they had arrived at some agreement.

How are you going to get out, boy? There are two doors in this place, but only one is unlocked and only that one leads out. You’ve tried it. What did you find?

“Nothing,” said Jute, thinking of the stone head rising up out of the stairs. He shuddered. “I’ll find a way.”

With the little girl also? I heard the two of you whispering in my dreams.

“Of course. I promised.”

Jute edged along the wall sideways, one eye on the shadows in the passage. It was unnerving to talk to voices without bodies. What made it even more disturbing was that he wasn’t sure if he wished the voice had a body or not. If it had a body, what sort of body would it have? If it didn’t have a body, how was it talking to him?

She wasn’t much of a help, was she?

“Well, no.”

Might be better to leave her, don’t you think?

“I promised to get her out of here.”

Of course, but there’s only the one way out. Up the stairs, and you know what waits on the stairs, don’t you?

“I’ll figure something out,” said Jute.

One second if you’re lucky. That’s all the time you’ll have to get by it. And that’s not enough. Especially if you’ve got a little girl along with you. Listen, I know a word.

Jute crept forward a little from the wall. “A word? What do you mean?”

A word that’ll close its mouth. A word that’ll put it to sleep, just like me.

“What word?”

I’ll give you the word, boy, if you give me something.

“Give you what?” said Jute cautiously.

One little thing for one little word.

Jute crouched down. He stared at the shadows stretching down the passage. There. There it was. A tiny disturbance in the air, like a wisp of smoke on the breeze.

One little thing.

“What’s that?”

He stared, fascinated, at the eddy in the middle of the shadows. Certainly there was no wind down here within the stillness of the Silentman’s dungeon. Nonetheless, the shadow moved. He inched closer.

The little girl.

“What?”

Turn your back on her.
Walk out. Alone.

The shadows thickened. The lamp further down the passage went out. There is no telling what Jute might have said then, but at that moment, right when his mouth opened, there came to his mind a memory of sky—a bright, cold, wide open space awash with light—and there, so far away that it was only a speck of movement, flew the hawk. Jute heard his angry shriek. And that same shriek burst from his lips.

“No!”

A wind sprang up. It blew down the passage in a mighty rush that swept the darkness away. Jute tasted cool, clean air in his mouth. As quickly as it had come, the wind was gone and there were only the normal, gloomy shadows filling the passage. With a quiet pop, the oil lamp sprang back to life. The flame wavered once, as if breathed upon, and then was still.

“Hawk?” said Jute.

There was no response.

Shivering, he hurried off down the passage. Lena peered between the bars of her cell.

“Jute,” she said, her eyes wide. “What was that? Something woke me up and then there was a terrible noise!”

“Nothing. You must’ve been dreaming.”

Jute wished he had been dreaming, but it hadn’t been a dream. He glanced back down the passage and then nearly jumped when Lena grabbed his hands through the bars. Her fingers were icy cold. He chafed them with his own and tried to think, but nothing came to mind.

“Jute?”

She looked at him anxiously. He managed to smile.

“Don’t worry.”

Lena curled back up in the corner of her cell, but only after he promised he would stay nearby. He settled into the corner of an arch across from her and tried to think. As far as he could tell, there were only two ways out of the Silentman’s dungeon. By key or by magic. Either he had to have the key on the jailer’s ring that opened the wooden door he had seen the man go through, or he had to know the magic that commanded the horrible head in the stairs past the stone door. Both of them were keys, despite one being made of iron and one being made of words.

One word.

An idea wormed itself into Jute’s thoughts. If all else failed, he could always go back up the passage, around the corner and past the row of empty cells, right to where the shadows seemed to gather against the wall. Perhaps the voice was still there? He hastily squashed down that idea. The trick, obviously, would be to get hold of the jailer’s key ring.

Key ring.

Ring.

Jute frowned. There was something he should be remembering, something important to do with rings, but—shadow take it—he couldn’t remember. There it was—he almost had it. One of those endless stories Severan had told him (though, if he was honest, he had to admit he had enjoyed all of them). It had been a story concerning the old archivist of the university from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the evil Scuadimnes. He had a key of some sort.

No. That wasn’t it.

Light wavered in the passage and all thoughts of keys and rings fled from his mind. Jute sprang to his feet. Near the door of Lena’s cell, the oil lamp flame fluttered. He felt a faint breeze on his face. Someone, somewhere, had just opened a door.

He darted across to the cell.

“Someone’s coming!” he said.

“Jute!”

“Don’t panic!” He would have done well to heed his own advice, for his heart stuttered and sweat trickled down his back. “Just keep quiet. Pretend you’re asleep. Stay in the corner and don’t move unless they come in and drag you out.”

“Drag me out?” Her voice squeaked in dismay.

“Shush. Don’t worry.”

Lena scuttled back into the corner of her cell. The oil lamp flame fluttered again. The shadows in the passage swayed with it. He felt the breeze again. It was the gentlest touch on his skin, no more than old air shifting and then settling back into its familiar stone carapace of passageways. And what an odd smell!

Jute backed away into the darkness of a corner arch. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. The air smelled of musty cold things, of damp darkness, dead dreams, and nights without stars. His vision blurred and he could suddenly see the night sky. It was studded with stars flung out across unfathomable distances. Far off, high in the sky, a tiny black spot swiftly grew in mass. As if from far away, he heard the hawk whisper in his mind.

This is the enemy, though only a servant of our ancient foe. Beware, it draws near.

“Hawk!”

The dark spot grew larger and larger, until the stars around it were blotted out. Light was extinguished. The night became blacker than night. Jute realized that the darkness was some sort of body, a creature rushing through the night toward him. The bulk of it was so great that it threatened to cover the whole sky. There was a noise of rushing wind and a howling that groaned through his bones until he could hardly stand up. The hawk shrieked in fury—a terrible, desperate cry—and the darkness abruptly veered away. Jute opened his eyes and he was standing in the passageway again, his back to the wall and his teeth clenched so tightly together his jaws ached.

You see an old memory from him who went before you. But, wait, the servant draws closer.

The hawk’s voice rustled in his mind like feathers.

“Hawk,” he said.

Hush. I cannot help you. There is too much stone and darkness between us. I am relieved to have found you alive, but you are on your own for a little while yet. Use your wits well, fledgling.