The Wicked Day (9 page)

“I’m getting too old for this,” he said. “My wife’s going to have my neck.”

“Watch out!” yelped Posle.

A sword hissed viciously through the air. Owain flung himself back against the wall. He felt the blade rip through his cloak. He kicked out hard, connecting with someone’s leg. The man cursed. Someone shouted in alarm further back in the house. Owain threw his cudgel at the man. He staggered back, dropping his sword, and then Bordeall surged to his feet and slammed his fist into the man’s face.

“Thank you, Posle,” said Owain.

“Ain’t nothing, m’lord,” said Posle.

The house was a dark, cramped sort of place, with narrow passages and doors that let into several rooms that looked uncared for: a dirty scullery piled with crockery and garbage, a room filled with what looked and smelled like sacks of dried fish, and several others in various states of disarray. They only spared these a hasty glance, for it seemed that no one was on the ground floor.

“Quickly now,” said Owain.

They rushed up the stairs and found themselves standing in a hallway. Arodilac grinned at them from the other end of the hall. A figure lay slumped at his feet.

“Pull that sock down,” said Owain.

“Sorry.”

Hoon knelt at the keyhole of a door, a bit of wire twisting in his fingers. Two other doors stood flung open, revealing stairs up to an attic through one and a smelly bedroom through the other.

“In here,” said Hoon. “Fat man. Dodged in quicker’n a pig on market day. I couldn’t get my hands on him, blast it. The lad got this one smart enough, but I think what we wants is behind this door.”

“Break it down,” rumbled Bordeall.

Hoon shook his head. “Nice oak, this. Built more’n thick. You’d need a proper axe an’ a good sweat at it. Stone frame an’ lintel too. This ain’t normal house construction here. Someone’s gone to trouble.”

He bent back to the keyhole, but with no luck.

“Er, if I could have a go.”

Posle plucked the wire from Hoon’s fingers and knelt beside him. He scrubbed at his face beneath the sock and then probed at the keyhole. Behind the door, there came a faint noise. It sounded like wood scraping together. Something heavy grating against the floor.

“Hurry!” said Owain.

And then metal clicked in the keyhole. The knob turned and they flung open the door, trampling poor Posle in the process. A fat man glanced up, sweating, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. He was in the process of dragging an enormous chest across the floor toward a large mirror hanging on the wall.

“You can’t—you can’t!” gasped the man.

“Get him!” said Owain.

It was probably due to the fact that they all reached for him at the same moment—except for Posle, of course, who had only managed to sit up by that time and wonder dizzily what had fallen on his head—but they got in each other’s way, and the fat man, evidently deciding that the chest was not worth it, hopped backward and dove through the mirror. At least, that’s what it looked like. There was an odd sort of ripple in the glass and the next moment the fat man was gone. The air whispered.

“A warded gate,” gasped Posle, having got his breath back. “It’s how we—it’s how the Guild guards the entrances to the Silentman’s court. I don’t know how to use ‘em, my lord. I don’t— bless my heart—I don’t! Only the real Guild toffs know, an’ they ain’t many of them.”

“Stone take it!”

Owain rapped on the mirror with his knuckles. It seemed hard enough. Glass. Just a mirror. His eyes glared back at him through the holes in the sock. “With luck, though, what we came for is in the chest. Our fat friend certainly seemed determined to take it with him. But we’ve no time to fiddle with locks. Bordeall, you and Posle get that chest back to the barracks on the double. The rest of us’ll have a quick look around before the Guild turns up in force. Arodilac, go downstairs and get Varden.”

But other than a small leather sack of coins—triumphantly discovered in the bedroom closet by Arodilac—there was nothing else to be found in the house in the remaining minutes Owain allowed. They found dust and a great deal of grime. Varden was convinced the walls had something to hide and began knocking holes in them with his cudgel.

“There’s gold in these walls here, cap’n,” said Varden, bashing another hole. “Can’t you jest smell it? I can smell it.”

“That’s enough,” said Owain. “We need to go. We’re out of time.”

The four men slipped away into the fog. The streets were silent and, if any of the neighbors had heard anything, they had chosen to remain silent in their beds. No lights shone in any of the windows, although at one window across the street a curtain twitched slightly and then was still.

“No trouble in the back, Varden?” said Owain, as they hurried through the fog.

“Weren't nary a bit, cap’n,” said the old man. “Jest one nervous sort. Came hopping out like a durned rabbit, but I gave ‘im a tap on the head like you advised. Calmed him down.”

They walked in silence that was broken only by the whisper of their footsteps and the occasional yawn from Arodilac. But as they turned down the street that led up to the barracks gates, a dog howled somewhere nearby. Hoon shivered.

“Somethin’ strange about that house,” he said.

“What’s that?” said Owain.

“Not rightly certain. Somethin’ jest not right there. It didn’t tell on me until a while. I know ya don’t put much stock in such things, cap’n, but I’d say the Dark’s had a hand in that house. It were the smell, I think, an’ a bit else. It put me in mind of a thing or two I’ve run across in the mountains.”

“What sort of thing?” said Arodilac, his eyes wide. “What do you mean by the Dark? That’s just an old wives’ tale, isn’t it?”

“That’ll do,” said Owain, and they said nothing more.

They parted at the barracks. Arodilac wanted to ask a question or two—and it was in the other men’s eyes as well—but he shut his mouth when Owain glared at him.

“My thanks for the night’s work,” said Owain. “You’ll not mention it to anyone. That’s all. Go wake the cook and have a bite to eat. Tell him to bring out a bottle of wine.”

“All right, cap’n,” said old Varden. He nodded and shuffled off. The two others followed reluctantly.

Bordeall was waiting for him in the armory. The chest stood unopened. Owain locked the door and nodded. Three blows with an axe was all it took. The lid shattered and the lamplight caught within, glittering between the shards of wood. The chest brimmed full of gold and silver coins. Owain grinned in relief.

“I feel a lot more kindly toward the Guild,” he said.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE HOUSE OF STONE AND HUNGER

At first, Jute thought he was still curled up in bed at the inn. But then he realized that blankets did not feel like this, no matter how rough the wool. He awoke and became instantly aware of pain. His head ached and throbbed, centered on a point at the top of his skull that threatened to drive itself down in a sharp spike of fire. His back felt as if a fat person in iron-nailed boots had spent the last few hours trudging back and forth across it. But it was his hands that were the worst. Jute could not feel them for a few seconds, and then they burned to life in utter agony. He gasped and opened his eyes. Blinked, and wished he could somehow go back to sleep. Never wake up. Memory swept back in a rush. The old man in the water mill. The shifter growling at the door. The village shrouded in night and rain.

“I wish I were back in Hearne,” groaned Jute. “Oh, hawk! Where are you? Ghost, are you there?”

But there was no answer.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Jute saw that he was in a cellar of some sorts. It was a gloomy place with crudely hewn stonewalls. Moisture oozed from the stone and moss grew in patches of slimy green. The air stank of rot. A staircase at the end of the room disappeared up into darkness. Behind him, he could hear the drip-drip-drip of water plopping down into a pool or basin. It was the only sound in the cellar.

Jute tried to turn, to see the basin, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His back shivered into agony, and his hands—well, he had no words to describe his hands. They were tied up high over his head, stretched out so that his shoulders and back ached abominably. Most of his weight hung dangling from his hands, but by arching his back and standing on his toes, he was able to relieve the stress a bit. By doing that, he was able to slowly turn. And to his relief, Jute saw he was not alone in the cellar.

Declan. The man hung motionless from a length of chain, his hands tied over a hook on the end of the chain. His head was slumped forward and his eyes were closed. Dried blood caked the side of his face. Beyond him, several other chains dangled from the ceiling. They all ended in rusty hooks.

“Declan!” said Jute.

The man did not move.

“Declan, wake up! Please!”

But it was no use. Jute groaned. This was the end. He was going to die in this dreadful place. He was going to die, far from his old life in Hearne, far from home. He had never had a home. It wasn’t fair. All he ever wanted out of life was a home. Tears trickled down Jute’s face.

“I’m going to die,” he moaned.

“Probably,” said a voice from close by. “Yes. It’s likely.”

“Ghost!”

The ghost wavered into view. It looked terrified.

“Ghost! I'm so glad to see you!

“Likewise, likewise,” said the ghost. “There’s nothing more I enjoy than a little chitchat with an old friend, but we don’t have the time for that. You have to get out of here, Jute. Now. Quickly. Hurry up!”

“I’d like nothing more, but I can’t.”

“Oh? Ah. I see what you mean. Er, well. . .”

The ghost drifted up into the air to examine the chain.

“Nonsense,” it said, popping back down. “Quite simple. Your hands are tied together and the rope’s looped on a hook. Nasty-looking hook, but no matter. All you have to do is inch your way up the chain a bit so you can get the rope over the hook. Easy as that. Grab the chain and start climbing.”

“Easy enough for you to say,” said Jute furiously. “I can’t feel my hands, let alone get a grip on the chain!”

“You don’t understand.” The ghost stuck its face near Jute’s and lowered its voice to a whisper. “This is a bad place. An evil place! Do you understand the meaning of the word evil? Spelled E-V-I-L. Evil! We’re all going to die if we stay here. Well, not me. I’m already dead, but you certainly will. Oh, my poor heart. I can’t stand the tension. My nerves! Why won’t you listen, you stupid boy? I should’ve never become a professor. I should’ve listened to my father and stayed at home. Raising chickens is an honorable occupation.”

“What do you mean?” said Jute. “What do you mean, this is an evil place?”

“This place,” said the ghost, gulping and turning paler than it already was. “This place is the—”

But at that moment they heard the sound of a door opening and footsteps on the stairs. The ghost vanished. And down the stairs came a monstrosity. A bulk that moved from step to step with all the slow deliberation of living stone. The shadow slid off the flat planes of face and neck, off the massive hands hanging at the figure’s sides. It seemed the thing was made of stone. Gray stone pitted and cracked with age until the flesh looked more like the weathered crags of a mountainside, rather than a living creature. Stubble grew on its scalp like dead hay.

A peculiar clicking and clacking sound jittered in the air. Stone creaked. And settled to stillness before Jute. Eyes like pebbles gazed down at Jute. The mouth yawned open and revealed a cavern lined with enormous teeth like gravestones. The face was so large that Jute could not look at it all at once. He could only take in a bit here and a bit there. It was a strange, disjointed landscape of rock and shadow, planes and hollows, crevices and standing stones.

“Boy,” said the creature.

The word slid slowly out of the mouth, deep and dusty and reluctant, as if the creature had been a stranger to speech for so long that it was unsure of words and unsure of its own voice. Somewhere, further back in the cellar, Jute thought he heard the ghost whimper. Or perhaps it was his own whimpering he heard. The dead eyes studied him and, for a moment, it seemed as if something stirred beneath their flat surface. Curiosity.

Jute heard the clicking sound again. It sounded like small stones knocking together. And then he saw the source of the noise. A rusty rope of iron lay around the thing’s neck. Skulls hung on it, the size of a man’s head but looking as tiny as children’s baubles in the shadow of that great head. They stared at Jute with their empty sockets and grinned at him with their toothless jagged jaws. Every once in a while, the skulls stirred on the iron strand and knocked against their neighbors.

“You are strange, boy,” rumbled the creature. “There’s something old in you. Older than your simple flesh. But not as old as stone. No. Not as old as stone. Your bones’ll still make my bread. I’ll grind ‘em into flour. Seven wizards came creeping to these heights to try my hand and they all ended on my spit. Heroes with their bright swords. They died in my dark hall and I ground their bones to make my bread. I roasted ‘em. Meat and bread. You’ll taste just as well, boy.”

“Heroes,” echoed a skull. At least, to Jute’s horrified eyes and ears, that’s what seemed to have spoken. “Heroes. Why, I was one of ‘em. Head full of sunlight and dreams.”