The Shadow at the Gate (48 page)

“All right,” he said, straightening up. “
Gan.
”

The stone quivered and then rolled away across the tile floor. Not two feet away, it came to a blue tile. Immediately, a vapor rose up out of the tile, thickening and gaining form until the shape of a massive beast stood on the tile. Its fur shone blue in the pale moonlight. The thing turned and saw them. Instantly, it lunged. Jute shrank back, but the beast came to an abrupt halt as if it had slammed against an invisible wall blocking the doorway. It backed away and sat down, staring at them with bright blue eyes. Beyond it, more beasts rose up out of the tiles in the wake of the rolling stone.

Ronan raised one eyebrow. “I once tripped a ward that brought a sandcat to life. But a roomful of dogs?”

“They’re wolves,” said Gerade stiffly. “Hunting wolves spelled into the stone by Lana Heopbremel of Thule, three hundred years ago.”

“They’re the smallest wolves I’ve ever seen.”

The hawk launched into the air with an exasperated snap of his wings. They hurried across the room and down a winding stair. Gerade opened his mouth to speak but Severan held his hand up for silence. The stairs ended in what looked to Jute like a dark empty space without windows. Severan walked away into the shadows and came back holding an oil lamp. Flint sparked in his hands and light filled the room. He pointed up at the ceiling silently. Jute stared up and his mouth fell open in surprise. There, on the ceiling, was an immense picture of the tower library. The room was empty and obscured with smoke. Flames flickered from the charred remains of books and from the smoldering table standing in the middle of the room.

“That’s how he knew where we were,” said Severan grimly.

At the sound of his voice, the picture swirled and was lost in a confusion of color and meaningless shapes. Jute realized that the surface of the ceiling was made up of thousands of tiny stones, closely fitted together.

“It’s a mosaic,” said Gerade, “a mosaic that shows what is spoken aloud in this room.”

“And it’ll serve us well now,” said Severan. “Hush, and let it hear my voice.” He positioned himself squarely under the mosaic and then spoke.

“The mosaic room in the university ruins.”

The ceiling above them swirled and rearranged itself into new colors and shapes. Then, they found themselves staring up at a picture of themselves in the mosaic room.

“The sealed well in the mosaic room.”

The picture trembled and then seemed to slide over to one side, as if seen through the eyes of someone who had abruptly turned their head. The picture settled on a view of a wall at one side. A deep alcove was set within the wall.

“Aha,” said Severan. “So that’s where it is.”

The alcove was a dozen paces away to the right. The torchlight gleamed on a shroud of spiderweb draped down across the opening. Severan thrust the torch into the web. It caught fire and raveled the web away into nothing. The alcove had smoothly rounded stone walls that curved up to a domed ceiling. However, there was nothing there. The floor was made of flagstone, as perfectly fitted as the rest of the floor of the room.

“Doesn’t look like much of a well, if you ask me,” said Jute.

“Here,” said Severan. “Hold the torch and make yourself useful. Gerade, do you know any of the strictures of opening?”

“Just the first and the second.”

“Hmmph. I know those. Go and keep the mosaic occupied with Nio. Watch him.”

Gerade hurried out into the larger room. They heard him muttering up at the ceiling. There was a brief silence and then he called back to them.

“It seems confused with his name, almost as if—”

“Did you use his full name?”

“Of course. But I think the mosaic isn’t sure who he is.”

“Well,” said Severan, pausing in his examination of the alcove floor. “I suppose that makes sense in terms of a wihht and how it incorporates portions of those it eats. The Nio that we knew is, probably, only partially in existence. What he is now is mostly wihht. Darkness and the darker parts of Nio woven together, as well as anyone else the thing’s eaten.”

“Never mind. There he is now. He’s on a stairway. I can’t tell where. Um, he’s running. Down the stairs, of course.”

The hawk rocked from side to side on Jute’s shoulder in agitation.

“This is no time, old man,” he said, “for a discussion of the nature of wihhts. If you do not open that well, then we shall have a wihht in our midst, and a powerful one at that.”

“Do you think I need a reminder?” grumbled Severan.

“Between knowledge and action there is a divide,” said the hawk.

“Fine!” Severan glared at the hawk and then scowled down at the floor. “Open. No, that’s not the right inflection. O-pen! Enter! Be opened! Unlock! Remove!”

Nothing happened. The hawk sniffed audibly.

“Here,” said Jute. “The stones are different in this spot. Look, right here.”

Severan knelt next to him on the paving stones. The floor was grimy with dust and tattered spiderwebs. Jute ran his fingers along the stone, his nose almost touching the ground.

“They look the same to me,” said Severan, wiping away dust with his sleeve.

“You aren’t looking close enough,” said Jute. “These stones and these stones there are obviously not the same stones. They’re the same size and the same color and the same texture, but these stones here—see?—are exactly the same as each other.”

“First you say they’re not the same, then you say they’re too similar,” said Severan. “What can you possibly mean? My eyes are too old.”

“He’s halfway across the corridor leading from the south inner hall to the hall of the wolves,” called Gerade from beneath the mosaic. His voice sounded tense. “He’s not alone, either. There’re some of those shadow creatures with him.”

The hawk settled onto the floor and brushed the floor clear of dust with one sweep of his wing. Everyone coughed and sneezed.

“Look closer, man,” said the hawk. The torchlight caught in his black eyes. They shone as hard as polished marble. “Look closer. It does not matter if the rest of you die in this wretched room where there is no sky. But it matters greatly if this boy dies.”

“Severan, he’s reached the hall of the wolves! He’s standing at the doorway. There are wolves everywhere, but he hasn’t crossed the threshold yet.”

A bead of sweat trickled down Severan’s forehead, hung on the tip of his nose and then fell. A dark spot appeared on the stone below. Standing beside them, Ronan cleared his throat. They could hear the sound of his fingers tapping on the hilt of his sword, but the man’s attention was not on them. His gaze was fixed on the top of the stairs leading down into the room.

“What’s the difference between these stones, Jute?” said Severan.

“It’s simple if—”

“Maybe to you.”

“—if you just look at these two stones—”

“He’s entered the hall of the wolves. There's darkness around him like a cloud. The wolves are throwing themselves against it in a frenzy. Severan, he’s unmaking them! Blue light is dripping down the darkness and pooling on the floor. The tiles in the floors are cracking, one by one. He’s destroying the wards!”

“—they’re the same color and shape as the rest of the stones, but they’re the exactly same as each other. All the stones between here and here. Exactly the same.”

“Exactly the same,” said Severan. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and peered closer.

“See, they’re all chipped on this edge here.”

“Severan! He’s halfway across the hall!”

The sword gleamed in Ronan’s hand. He strode out into the middle of the room.

“Your blade will have no effect on him,” said Gerade. “He’s a wihht. Darkness and magic.”

Ronan frowned at him. “I don’t intend to stand about while my throat is cut.”

Above them, the mosaic dissolved into a confusion of color and shape at their words.

“Nio Secganon,” said Gerade. Then, so quietly that Ronan wasn’t sure if he heard correctly, “Damn your black heart.”

The tiny stones shifted in agitation. Then the colors slowly sharpened into discernible forms. Ronan found himself looking up at a picture of the hall of the wolves. But the picture moved. A dark shape walked across the hall, surrounded by shadows. Bright blue forms—wolves—made quick dashes at the shadows, but they had no discernible effect.

“He’s almost at the door,” said Gerade. His voice trembled.

“Even the darkness can feel the edge of iron,” said Ronan. “Didn’t the men of Harlech defeat the shadow that came out of the north? They fought with sword and spear.”

“They did. But that was Harlech. Things are never what they seem in that land.”

“That’s it,” said Severan in triumph from the alcove. “Things are never as they seem.”

 
But, at that moment, a strange silence fell on the room. The air grew cold. The torchlight dimmed. High on the stairway, however, a green radiance shone from the open door. Darkness crept in its wake. The tiny stones of the mosaic trembled in agitation on the ceiling.

“It’s an illusion!”

“That’s not an illusion!” said Gerade. He stared up at the stairs.

“An illusion,” said Severan again. “Of course.” He seemed to have forgotten the situation they were in, but stared down at the paving, mumbling to himself in abstraction. “Now, what’s the word?”

“Old man,” said the hawk. “Our time is gone.”

The hawk launched himself up into the air. Shadows sidled down the stairs. Behind them, the thin dark figure of a man descended. The air smelled of rot and damp. Ronan quickly moved to the foot of the stairs. His sword blurred in the gloom. The shadows hissed and bled darkness. They rose up around him like waves. The hawk folded his wings and fell from the ceiling. Gerade dashed forward with light streaming from his hands. The shadows quailed and the figure high on the stairs paused.

“
Dyderung
!” said Severan.

The stone paving vanished. Jute pitched forward with a howl of terror, arms flailing madly at the air. He had a brief impression of darkness, of stone walls blurring by, of the air whistling past his ears. He hit water. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He choked on a mouthful of water and rose up and up, clawing toward the surface—where was it?—until the air broke cold on his face. He coughed and sputtered. Far above him, up through a shaft of stone, the darkness was relieved by a small square of light. A head appeared.

“Look out below!” the head yelled down. “I’m coming down!” Severan (for that was who the head belonged to) levered himself out over the edge of the well.

“Seal the opening behind you, old man!” said the hawk.

“Severan!”

The old man turned at the well. His eyes widened. Shadows spilled down the stairs and out into the middle of the mosaic room, their mouths gaping black holes. They eddied madly around Ronan and Gerade. The stones under their feet were slick with darkness. Light fluttered in tattered streams from Gerade’s hands. Ronan’s sword wavered in his grip. The shadows surged around them. Further up the stairs, the dark figure of the wihht descended. The hawk plunged down through the air. Shadows broke beneath him, wailing and yammering and bleeding darkness. But as the bird beat back up toward the mosaic far overhead, the shadows surged forward again. Still, Severan wavered at the well opening.

“Seal the opening!” called the hawk. “Are you deaf and blind? Stay and die if you must, but the boy must not. Seal the well!”

“Help us!” shouted Gerade.

“There’s no help for you.”

The voice whispered, but everyone heard it in the vast room. Even Jute, shivering in the bottom of the well, heard it. Movement ceased in the room. The shadows congealed into darkness. Ronan’s sword hung motionless in the air. Overhead, the mosaic abruptly went black. It seemed as if the ceiling vanished and they stood underneath a night sky without light of stars or moon. Severan’s eyes were fixed helplessly on the figure standing at the foot of the stairs. The darkness thickened around it. Vapor plumed in the air.

“All things die. All things end. Such is the lot of man. Peace waits for you in the dark. The peace of the long, cold sleep. Never waking. Never dreaming.”

“Lies!” The hawk hung in the air on motionless wings. “There is no peace in the Dark!”

“Ahh.” The wihht’s sigh slid through the stillness of the room. There was hunger in the sound. “Old feather. I’ve heard tales of you. You’ve flown far from the plains of Ranuin. I’ve heard the ancient stories of you and your windmaster, flying the sky of that battlefield. There are no brave standards here. All have fallen, and their lords gone the way of dust and darkness. There’s none to remember them.”

“I’ve kept their memories, shadow, and they are remembered in the house of dreams—”

“The house of dreams,” sneered the wihht. “A fool’s tale. Stories for old women spinning wool while their own lives are spun out and stretched across my master’s hands. Taut for the knife, old feather. Just as your master was taken.”

“A knife not wielded by you, shadow.” The hawk struggled up through the air. “It took a stronger hand than you!”

“A stronger hand,” said the other. “Here’s my own, old feather. I’ve brought you your end. Look what I’ve been given!”