Betrayal in the Highlands (18 page)

“You have a problem,” Edith continued. “And I have a problem. Help me and you’ll live, thrive even. Don’t help me and, well …” She sipped her port. “I’m quite sure you’ll end up back in the Undead King’s pits—or somewhere far less pleasant.”

There are no places less pleasant
.

She’s just being melodramatic. She needs you for something. You’re in control here. Ask her what this is all about.

“Edith, I’m tired—”

“That’s a shame, Edmund.” Her tone hardened. “But you’ll just have to manage. This is far more important than you’ll ever understand.”

The Undead King said something very similar.

He said exactly the same thing.

She leaned forward, staring intently at him. “Your friend has been telling stories about you.”

“My friend?”

“The new Lord of the Highlands,” she said, sickened.

“Norb?”

“It was stupid of you to give him the Star. Truly asinine. But that will have to be rectified later. We need a strong presence in the north, somebody who shares Iliandor’s insights.”

Iliandor?

A strong presence up north? Why?

And who’s this ‘we’?

Edmund’s head started to hurt as he digested too many things at once.

“Norb, Norb is telling stories?” he said with an effort. “Wh-what … what’s he been saying?”

“He’s telling people that you’re a magic user.”

Edmund’s skin turned cold as he fought to inhale.

“That’s bad enough for you,” she said. “But he’s also telling how the two of you went into Thorgorim and came out alive. That’s much worse for a lot of us.”

She sat back and took another sip.

“Most people, of course, think he’s a drunken fool or don’t know what he’s talking about. But there are some who’ve taken notice.” Edith watched Edmund’s expression. “More than one person has been asking questions about you in Eryn Mas. Who knows what’s being said elsewhere?”

Damn it! This is all I need. Curse Norb!

“As you may know,” Edith went on, as if discussing the weather, “King Lionel has made it his life’s work to eradicate anybody even suspected of using magic. I’m sure some of his witch hunters will be looking for you very soon, and I’m afraid that you are rather identifiable with your eye and speech issues—among other things.”

Edmund slumped in his chair.

Edith seemed pleased by his reaction.

“But I can help you.” She leaned forward again. “I can make sure they leave you alone. I can make sure they never find you or learn of your abilities. But you have to help us.”

“How can you protect me?”

“Times are changing, Edmund. Soon we won’t have to live in fear anymore. We won’t have to fear anything. Soon everything will be different.”

Filthy, hungry, and exhausted, Edmund rubbed his wrinkled forehead and then his remaining eye.

“What … what’s this all about?” he stammered. “Who’s this ‘us’? Who’re your friends? And what can you do about witch hunters that hasn’t been tried before? How are things going to be different?” He tossed up his hands. “Why won’t people just leave me alone?”

The corners of her thin lips lifted slightly. “Because, you have certain skills, certain remarkable abilities that no one else has.”

Edmund looked at her, puzzled.

“You have an incredible gift for languages,” Edith said in genuine admiration. “You have insights about history, and Iliandor, and the northern lands that everyone else lacks.”

Fat lot of good it’s done me.

“Believe it or not, Edmund—you’re very special.”

He wanted to laugh, but he was too shattered by Norb’s betrayal.

“All I need,” Edith said, “is for you to translate this. That’s all. Then I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you wish. We’ll make sure everybody leaves you alone.”

From the folds of her cloak she produced an ivory-colored envelope similar to the one Edmund had found shredded on the parlor floor of Baroness Melody’s guesthouse.

Immediately Becky sprang up to snatch it, but Edith jerked it out of her reach.

“Manage your rotten dog,” she shouted, holding the envelope away from Becky’s lunges.

“Sit! Becky! Sit!” Edmund commanded. “Sit!”

But Becky jumped again and again, snapping at Edith’s upraised hand.

“Call her off!” Edith yelled. She now held a curved knife, though where it had come from Edmund hadn’t seen. “Call her off, or I’ll kill her right here!”

Becky stopped and, legs tensing for another spring, turned slowly toward Edith, her canines a taunting grin. She snarled, soft and deep.

Edith scrambled to her feet and pushed her chair out in front of Becky, though it wasn’t much of an obstacle for the fifty-pound puppy.

With his arms around Becky’s neck, Edmund tried to pull her back, but Becky still crept toward the screaming Edith.

“Control her or I’ll—!”

The door popped open.

“Hello,” Pond said, bouncing into the room with forced nonchalance. “Everything’s been taken care of. They’re filling four bathtubs with hot water as we speak.” Then he added, “Oh, still here? Edith, is it? Have a good chat?”

“Becky!” Edmund shouted, struggling to keep her from ripping into Edith behind the now-overturned chair. “Becky, stop it! Stop! Becky! Stop!”

She stopped.

Choking back a final snarl, Becky withdrew a step and sat in front of Edmund, her grey eyes trained upon the female librarian.

Breathing hard, Edith gripped her knife in one hand, the envelope in the other. Both were shaking. “Where did you get this foul beast? I thought they were all—”

Becky stood up again.

“Becky!” Edmund pulled her back.

Stepping around the overturned chair, Edith quickly made for the door and, passing a startled Pond, thrust the envelope into his hands. “Make sure the miserable creature doesn’t eat it.”

She paused to catch her breath then turned to Edmund.

“If you want to be the person you’ve always wanted to be,” she said, face a pulsating red, “if you want to be a hero and idolized by men throughout the ages, if you want to stop all the witch hunts and avenge your parents—figure out what that says! We’ll reward you in ways you’ve only dreamed of. Betray us, and we’ll make you and your friends suffer.”

She slammed the door behind her, rattling the walls.

“Avenge my parents?” Edmund muttered.

“Charming woman,” Pond said, examining the envelope. He gave it to Edmund. “I’m starting to like Becky more and more.”

Wagging her tail and barking playfully, Becky leapt for the envelope as Edmund slid it into his breast pocket.

“What the hell got into you?” he said. “Sit!”

She sat.

Pond righted the overturned chair.

“So what did you two chat about?” He poured the remaining wine into Edith’s empty glass. “I hope I wasn’t gone for too long.”

“No.” Edmund fell into the other chair with a grunt. “As always, your timing was splendid. Where’s Fatty?”

“Hiding in the stables. He refused to come out until your friend left.” Pond sipped the port; his expression turned pleased. “At least she has good taste in wine. We’ll have to get a few bottles of this.”

Edmund stared out the window, trying to piece everything together, wondering what Edith meant about “avenging” his parents.

His head hurt even more.

“So, what did she say?” Pond took another sip from Edith’s glass. He offered some to Edmund, but Edmund waved him away. “Anything interesting?”

“Norb is talking about me,” Edmund said.

Pond motioned for him to go on.

“He’s telling people that we went to Thorgorim. And that I’m a magic user.”

Pond’s mouth dropped open. He lowered the wineglass. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were.”

“Didn’t he promise not to say anything? I distinctly remember him promising that he’d take it to his grave.”

Now wishing the wine bottle wasn’t empty, Edmund nodded.

Pond pushed his half-full glass across the table. “So what do you want to do?”

Edmund took a drink and stared out the window again. The forest flanking the river had begun to twinkle in the gloaming as boys on stilts walked around the city, lighting lanterns hung from iron poles and tree branches.

He exhaled.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what we
can
do, other than keep running. And I’m getting tired of doing that. We can’t run forever.”

Becky got up and stalked to the door. She sniffed underneath it and her ears perked, head tilted to one side. Then she lay down and stared at the knob, waiting.

“You know,” Pond said, as though to raise a delicate point, “you’re going to have to do something. About Norb, I mean. You can’t just let him keep flapping his tongue. If somebody of importance hears about what you can do—”

“Apparently people are already asking questions about me. At least that’s what Edith says.”

Pond fingered the wineglass. “Do you believe her?”

Edmund pondered this question.

“That Norb is talking?” He sighed again. “Yes. He can’t keep his mouth shut when he drinks. I’d hoped that he would have changed after marrying …”

The sun was slipping below the western hills in a wonderful orange-and-purple ball.

“Yes, yes. After marrying Molly,” Pond said. “Go on.”

Edmund forced the images of Molly and Norb out of his head. “I don’t know about anything else. But I … I fear the worst.”

Pond watched him in interest.

“What?” Edmund said.

“Aren’t you going to open her letter?”

Edmund felt his breast pocket. As soon as he touched the envelope, Becky’s head snapped in his direction. She sprang to her feet.

“Stay where you are,” he told her. “Guard the door.”

Becky sat.

Edmund pulled the envelope from his pocket and turned it over in his fingers.

“It feels heavy.”

He broke the wax seal.

Becky crept closer.

“Stay. Guard the door.”

She sat again, her intense gaze fixed on the envelope.

“Now she’s behaving?” Pond chuckled. “Fatty must be a better influence on her than I thought.”

“I’m just thankful she was with me. Edith will think twice about threatening our lives again with Becky around.”

Edmund slid a packet of parchment from the envelope and unfolded it. By the door, Becky barked and pawed the floor like a snorting bull.

“Hush!”

“What does it say?” Pond asked, trying to get a better view of what Edmund was reading.

“These runes …”

Becky’s barks quickened.

“What is it?” Pond said.

Edmund inspected the first page. On it were runes meticulously drawn in black ink—the same mysterious runes he’d seen in the book Edith had shown him at Eryn Mas, the same runes in the tome he took from the troll’s lair.

“What does it say?” Pond persisted.

Becky growled and nipped, her whines high and desperate.

“I don’t know.” Edmund flipped through the pages. “Nobody does. Nobody can decipher them.”

“Nobody?”

“If I could decipher them,” Edmund said to himself, “I might unlock the secrets of the troll’s tome. Not to mention all of the ancient manuscripts Edith said are in the royal libraries at Eryn Mas. If only I had a clue as to what this—”

He reached the end of the packet. There were thirteen pages in all, and the last one had only two lines.

Just like—

Becky tore across the room. She leapt for the papers, but Edmund stood, shielding them with his body. “Down! Down!”

“What?” Pond said, pushing Becky away. “What’s wrong?”

Fingers trembling, Edmund riffled through the papers, scanning the length of each unreadable line and paragraph.

“They’re the same. Exactly the same.”

“What?” Pond repeated louder. “What is it? What’s the same?”

Becky kept barking.

“This …” Edmund stared at the odd runes. “This is the same document I found in Iliandor’s diary, but in a different language. This is the formula for Iliandor’s secret metal.”

Chapter Twenty

“So what does all of this mean?” Pond asked, peering over Edmund’s shoulder at the spidery runes.

Becky walked to the door, turned in a circle a few times, and fell to the floor with an exhausted thud. Curled into a ball, she closed her eyes.

Edmund’s heart sank. “It means Edith and her friends are looking for the same thing as the Undead King.”

“Why would Edith and her friends want the formula? I mean, she’s a magic user, right? Why would a magic user need unbreakable steel?”

“I think,” he said slowly. “I think she wants to fight the witch hunters. I think she wants to end the witch hunts.”

“Good! So why not help her?”

Edmund studied the runes again. He could smell the parchment; it reminded him of the Undead King’s library—old and dusty.

“Why?” he repeated, slipping the papers back into their envelope. “Because I don’t trust her. She doesn’t seem right to me. Besides …” He slumped back into his chair. “I think she was one of the people who attacked you in the rose garden.”

“Yeah,” Pond admitted, returning to his seat. He lifted the wine bottle, forgetting it was empty. “I was kind of thinking that myself. I mean, how many other magic users could there be running around and everything?”

“Not many.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Edmund sighed. “I’d do anything to end all of these witch hunts.”

“So give her the formula, and let her fight the witch hunters to her heart’s content. Maybe she’ll kill some of them. Maybe they’ll kill her. Either way, you’ll be left alone.”

“There’s a problem.”

“What?”

“Back in the rose garden, she was going to kill you and Fatty, remember? She was going to kill you for no reason at all,” Edmund said. “And you heard her as she left. She threatened to kill both of us if I don’t do what she asks.”

“Yeah.” Pond reclined in his chair. “She doesn’t seem like the happy sort, that’s for sure.”

Edmund drummed his fingers on the table. “Tell me, if you were Edith, what would you do once I gave you the formula? Would you want me to give it to anybody else?”