The Wicked Day (41 page)

“It can be the same with tracking,” said Rane. “You don’t always need to hear or see the animal’s prints. You can sometimes feel its passage. Rabbits and deer are easiest. The big cats are hardest.”

There was no further way to stall, even though Jute was becoming more nervous about the tunnel with each passing minute. They started out with Jute and the duke in the lead, a torch burning in the duke’s hand, the men treading in silence behind them, and Rane at the back of the line. Jute had warned them about being quiet and they had all nodded. The men of Harlech were hunters and trackers, and they were accustomed to silence.

“I trust the hawk is well,” said the duke quietly.

“The hawk!” said Jute.

“Yes, where is the hawk?” said the ghost from inside Jute’s cloak. “I miss him, even though he’s a grumpy old goose.”

Jute’s heart sank. He had forgotten about the hawk in all of the terror and hurry. He threw his mind wide, seeking for a hint of the bird, but there was nothing. Only stone and silence and the first few whispers of wards waiting somewhere further up ahead. He could not even feel the sky. They were too deep under the earth. There was magic of some sort woven into the stones of the tunnel. Nothing dangerous or aware. It seemed to exist only to preserve the stones, but it effectively shut out whatever lay beyond the tunnel.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” said Jute, swallowing. “He doesn’t like being away from the sky. He hates being cooped up.”

And so do I. Fly well, hawk.

The torchlight wavered in front of them, revealing the fitted stones of the walls, the dusty floor, and the cobwebbed ceiling. Somewhere, far up ahead of them, was the city of Hearne. But first the tunnel and then the university ruins.

“I wish Severan was here,” said Jute to himself. “I wish the hawk was here.”

No one heard him except for the ghost, and it said nothing. The men of Harlech walked in silence behind him. The shadows danced along the walls beside them, married to the wavering flames of their torches.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A KISS

Someone was whispering in his ear. It was irritating because he couldn’t understand what the person was saying. He just wanted to keep on sleeping. Owain tried to turn over, shut the voice out, but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t respond. It felt as if someone had shoveled earth onto him, tamped it flat, and then heaved a couple of boulders on top for good measure. He couldn’t move. But he could certainly go back to sleep. He started drifting down into the darkness. Surprising how pleasant it was.

The voice whispered louder.

Something tickled his ear. A soft brush, almost like a kiss. No. Like a whispered word. Words. Words like a school of fish. Tiny fish. Yes, that was it. Fluttering into his mind. Brushing away the shadows. The words seemed to gain more clarity now. More definition. He could almost understand them. But even though the meaning stayed just out of reach, the words continued dancing through his mind. Light spilled from them. It was a dim, peaceful sort of light, almost like sunlight reaching down through water. Down into the depths. He was waking. He could not stay down in the darkness. The weight on his body lessened. Surely he could move now. Drift up to the surface. The voice spoke again and energy surged through his body. It was like a wave on the shore. Washing away the darkness.

Owain opened his eyes. He was looking at a wall, his wife’s dresser heaped with clothing. The long mirror. The window was open. The one overlooking the kitchen garden. Stars shone outside in the night sky. He was home. Home in bed. He sat up, tangled in blankets. He could smell the sea, and for a moment, he thought he could hear the boom and crash of the waves far below the cliffs.

Someone spoke. He turned, certain he would see Sibb sitting in the chair in the corner, but there was no one. Just shadows. For a second, he thought he saw a dark form seated in the chair. But, no. It was a blanket folded over the back of the chair. He blinked. The battle! The enemy charging across the crest of the gap. The rain and the wind. Arrows arching down. The crows. The battle! Owain tumbled out of bed. He grabbed a pair of pants and a shirt.

“Tear it! How long have I been asleep? The moon’s up.” He buckled his belt on and strode to the door. “Sibb!” he yelled, flinging it open. “Sibb!”

“Hush!”

A shadow flew toward him down the hallway. The moonlight gilded Sibb’s face with silver. Tears shone in her eyes.

“Hush,” she said. “You’ll wake the children.”

Her hands touched his face.

“How long have I been out?” His voice was low and urgent.

“Nearly twenty-four hours,” said Sibb. “You wouldn’t wake up. Your body was as cold as ice. Your heartbeat slowed until I could no longer hear it.” Her hands trembled against the line of his jaw. “There was darkness in the room, even though I tied the curtains wide. There was sunlight outside in the rain and the wind, but there was only darkness in here.”

“Were you,” he said, frowning, “were you just in here now, talking to me? I mean, while I was asleep?”

She looked at him, confused. “No. I was with the children. They’ve been having nightmares again.”

“How odd.” Owain shook his head. “I thought—well, no matter. I feel better now. Much better. How long have I been asleep? A day? No, don’t look like that, Sibb. I must get back to my men. You know that just as well as I do.”

“Owain.”

“You wouldn’t expect anything less of me.

“No. Go, but come back to me.”

He smiled. “I always will, Sibb.”

She followed him down the stairs, down into the dim candlelight of the hall. He opened the door into the night and stopped, staring. A red glow burned in the darkness. Far across the city, across the rooftops, past the twinkling lights of homes and hearths, under the starlight stabbing down from the black night sky. A flickering red glow. Watchfires at the city wall. His heart skipped a beat, quickened. Three Guardsmen snapped to attention outside the gate, spears motionless and horses standing in sleepy patience.

“Kiss me, Sibb.”

She did, trying to smile, and then he was hurrying out the gate, his voice raised. A horse nickered in greeting. She heard the creak of saddles and then the quickening tattoo of hooves as the horsemen cantered down the road. Sibb stood there until the night settled back into quiet. Tears slid down her face, but she made no sound. The house was silent around her when she shut the door. Moonlight slanted through the hallway. Something crunched under her foot. A leaf of seaweed, still wet and cold in her hand. She marveled at it, wondering. The thing smelled of the sea, and for a moment, her heart was comforted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE NAME OF THE GHOST

The tunnel seemed like one long, endless stretch of night. A night in which the seconds slowed into minutes, the minutes into hours, and the hours into days. Their torchlight fell on stones and dust and cobwebs, but everywhere, around and about them, waited the shadows. The shadows walked on their heels and retreated before their advance in slow and grudging step.

“Surely,” said the duke of Harlech, his voice weary, “we’ve walked to the sea.”

Jute managed a smile. “Not yet.”

The men of Harlech were silent, even through the long hours. Jute sometimes heard them whisper among themselves, but that was the exception to their closed and quiet faces. They made no noise as they walked. They were all alike, those men, tall and lean, moving like cats in the shadows behind him. Perhaps the north was a forge of ice that hammered everyone into the same semblance? The cold and the stony ground, the unrelenting winters, and the icy sea—they all conspired to bear the same children: children with ice in their blood, steel in their bones, the feel of the earth in their hearts. They grew up into men shaped by the wind.

“Hello,” said the ghost. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” said Jute.

The ghost materialized and drifted over to the wall. It stood there, gazing at the carvings on the face of the rock. Jute couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. This section of passage looked precisely the same as that which they had been passing through for the past several hours. The same carvings. The same dust. The duke coughed politely behind them.

“Ghost,” said Jute urgently, “we don’t have time to be deciphering old runes or whatever it is you’re doing. We need to hurry.”

“I think we should take a look at this,” said the ghost.

It sounded oddly solemn, and a shiver ran down Jute’s neck. He stepped forward, holding his torch high. The light illuminated the stone wall of the tunnel. There was nothing different about the wall. The stone was worked with carvings, true, but they looked no different from any other stretch of wall.

“Perhaps it’d be wise to continue,” said the duke politely. “I doubt our enemy has altered his intentions in any way.”

The ghost ignored him. It lifted its hand. Torchlight shone on the translucent edges of its fingers. It touched the wall.

“Here,” said the ghost.

And Jute, peering closer, caught by the melancholy in the ghost’s voice, saw something. A single rune. It was carved within the curve of a rose vine, hidden within a profusion of stone flowers and dusty thorns. One character. There was nothing complicated or strange about the lines of the rune, but it somehow held his eye. He immediately knew he had to know the meaning of it. Despite the urgency of the moment. Despite their need to escape the sceadu.

“What is it?” said Lannaslech. The duke stepped up beside Jute and stared at the wall. The wavering torchlight deepened the shadows in the grooves of the carved stone relief. Behind them, the other men waited in patient silence.

“This rune,” said Jute. His finger wavered over the character. For some reason, he could not bring himself to touch it.

“I am not unversed in languages,” said the duke, his voice quiet. “The members of my family, despite our devotion to the hunt and the art of war, are also given to study the history of words. It has always been our love, ever since Harlech was settled by my forefathers. The men of Harlech have certain obligations to the past. This rune, I think, is from the time of Siglan Cynehad, the first king of Tormay.”

“Then it’s very old?” said Jute.

“More than three thousand years old. I thought I knew all the characters from that time, from the language they spoke then. Mind you, what men speak has changed greatly from then to now. But this character is very strange. Due to its composition, it belongs in that alphabet of runes. Of that I have no doubt, but I’ve never seen this one. I wonder if there’s a man alive who would know its meaning?”

“You’re right,” said the ghost. “No one alive, but I’m dead and I know.”

“What?” said the duke, astonished at the ghost’s words. “How’s that possible?”

“Because it’s my name.”

Jute stared at the ghost. There was an odd silence in the shadows around them. An expectant hush in the stone and dust. The carvings high on the walls, just out of reach of the torchlight, seemed to be moving closer, inching across the stone so that they could see and hear better. The ghost sighed.

“I’d forgotten,” it said, “but now I remember. I carved that so very long ago. I had forgotten. I wonder what else I’ve forgotten?”

No one said anything, until Rane, who had been edging closer, spoke.

“What is your name?”

“My name,” said the ghost, whispering more to itself than to the others, “my name was Staer Gemyndes. Yes, that was my name. I’d forgotten. I remember now.”

At his words, the rune on the wall began to glow. A shiver ran down Jute’s neck.

“Staer Gemyndes,” said the duke, his jaw dropping. “But that’s impossible. The advisor of Siglan Cynehad. The most powerful wizard ever known in history! He died thousands of years ago. How can it be? You? A mere ghost? I’ve nothing against ghosts, and you strike me as being an excellent fellow, but—Staer Gemyndes?”

“I know,” said the ghost, sounding embarrassed. “It hardly seems plausible. It’s been so long, thousands of years, did you say? I’ve forgotten most of who I am. I only remembered the name when I saw the rune on the wall. I’m very sorry. I wish my memory was a bit sharper.”

“Even I know who you are,” said Jute. He touched the rune in amazement. It felt warm. “Staer Gemyndes! Just wait until—”

But Jute didn’t finish his sentence. As soon as he said the name, his fingers against the carving, the wall moved. It didn’t just move. It vanished, revealing a shallow alcove. Within the alcove was a shelf, and on the shelf was a book. The ghost made a pleased sound.

“Ah, there it is. After all these years. How nice.”

“What is that book?” said the duke, his voice shaking.

Jute, hearing him, knew what the book was. He did not need the ghost to say anything. He could hear Severan’s voice whispering in his head. He could see the old man’s face bright with longing.

“The
Gerecednes
,” said the ghost.

“The
Gerecednes
!” The duke could barely manage to speak the word.

“Yes,” said the ghost, sounding embarrassed. “I should’ve never written the thing. I’m remembering more now. Yes, that’s it. I hid the book here during the construction of the university. It was becoming much too dangerous to keep the thing. The Dark was determined to get its hands on it, and I was tired of evading murder at all hours of the night. All for the sake of that book. It wouldn’t have been safe to leave it in the university library, though the professors begged and pleaded with me. I couldn’t destroy the thing—there was too much power in it—so I hid it here and then went north. I suppose that was when I founded the Stone Tower. I was rather tired of Hearne by that time.”