Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (67 page)

Aedan looked at the short, falchion-like blades
still covered in their thin layer of pale corrosion.

“It was dark by the time I found my way out the
main gate. Locating you took a while.”

“How did you do it?” asked Tyne.

“Strong breeze off the mountain. I stayed
downwind, ran until I smelled fire and stew, headed upwind.”

Osric laughed and cut off abruptly, clutching his
ribs with a grimace. “I thought you’d be peering at bent blades of grass and
listening to their complaints about hooves,” he said.

“Too hungry. And I’m still hungry. Will someone
please –”

Osric tossed him a saddlebag. Merter dug inside
until he found something edible and set to work. After a few mouthfuls he sent
everyone to bed and took the watch. Tyne objected but he told her to shut up
and sleep because he owed her his life. That earned him another hug after which
he melted away into the surrounding darkness without even the snap of a twig or
the crunch of gravel.

“I wish I could move like that,” Tyne complained.

“Even mice envy him,” said Osric, “I think you were
right about him being part cat. Frankly, I’m not actually that surprised to see
him alive and well. Probably still has several lives to go. At least with him
snooping around out there we can afford some deep sleep. And we’ll need it.
Tomorrow we must cover a good thirty miles, injuries or not. I won’t risk
another night this close to the fortress.”

By morning, Aedan felt better than he had expected. His
wounds, expertly stitched, drained, and bound, felt as if they had already
started to mend.

As Aedan had predicted, the wolves were thrown into
confusion by the scent, or rather, the stink of the party. After twice approaching,
they abandoned this smelly quarry that they could not bring themselves to
attack.

The mood in the camp was solemn for a time. More
than half their number had died in Kultûhm. Once they were a safe distance from
the fortress, they held a quiet memorial, each speaking in memory of those
lost.

Osric’s face seldom betrayed tender emotions, but Aedan
knew he mourned the loss of the faithful and steady commander whose large presence
and billowing pipe had become as reassuring to the party as the campfire. The
tears ran freely down Tyne’s cheeks as Osric recalled to them a man whose
honour and loyalty had earned him respect among his friends, his troops, and
even some of his enemies.

Fergal spoke of the Culver none of them had known
– a shy and quiet man with a quick sense of humour and an insatiable craving
for tales of adventure and romance. He told with a smile how he had often
caught the great man lost in a book full of brave heroes rescuing fluttering
maidens from pirates and dragons, instead of attending to more serious duties. Fergal’s
expression remained hidden, but his voice revealed the sadness that rested on
him.

As was the custom when bodies were out of reach,
the mourners placed headstones and buried articles that had belonged to the
dead. Aedan thought of burying a pipe Thormar had given him but, after a brief
consideration, decided against it. The pipe was inseparably linked to something
the man had said, something Aedan never wanted to forget – that the only good
reason for war was peace.

He let go of the pipe, allowed it to drop back in
his pocket and recalled the face of the rough commander who had shown him
nothing but kindness. Yes, Thormar would have understood. He would have approved.

It was only after a week that they decided to discuss
what had happened and what it meant. At nightfall, Captain Senbert and Holt
were posted on sentry duty, while Fergal gathered the rest around the fire.

“I came here in the hope of answering a question,”
he began. “It was this: Did the storm over the Pellamines set in motion something
that could destroy our city? Perhaps you felt the disturbances that have been
taking place under Castath ever since that lightning bolt?”

“I did,” said Tyne.

“I felt nothing,” said Osric.

“Yes, well, you shake the earth every time you
step,” she said, tossing a pebble at one of his massive boots. “Of course you
wouldn’t notice.”

Fergal moved on. “There was something in our
archives that gave me cause for concern. I knew that there had been reports of
strange storms at Kultûhm shortly before it was abandoned. The theory that
formed in my mind was that the latched, prolonged bolt of lightning disturbed
something in the ground under Kultûhm which led to earthquakes. Nobody wants to
be under stone roofs or beside block towers when they are shaking and leaning.
I suspected something like that, possibly combined with a release of noxious
fumes through a fissure in the earth, might have been enough to drive the
inhabitants from the fortress.

“So, if the very security of our own walls and
buildings was about to become a threat, it was necessary to know. We had the
choice to either wait and find out, hoping that the Fenn army would not be
camped outside our walls at the time, or travel to the Kultûhm archives and try
to glimpse our future by looking into their history. To quote Agoligh, ‘History
is the shadow of tomorrow.’ Though it does sound so much better in the original
Gellerac. My ears ache under the dead weight of these limping translations.”

“Gellerac,” said Osric, “sounds like a throat
infection. And it was the language of a people cruel enough to be considered an
infection themselves. I was forced to learn a little of it during a course in
historical tactics and I think it gave me scars inside my mouth. All that
snorting and scraping to get your meaning out has never seemed worth the effort
to me.”

“
Ghavgk krresh
û
gg
.”

“And yet when you produce noises like that,
you
sound like the uncultured barbarian. It’s enough to make a man’s tonsils
bleed.”

Fergal sighed and continued. “What we found in the
Kultûhm archives was not exactly what I had expected. According to the records,
the storms were first seen about eight hundred years ago. The Gellerac
documented observing them over the mountains for some five years before they ceased
completely – until now. More surprising than the storms themselves, were the
strange things they found at the lightning strike points. These copses of giant
trees that we have been seeing all over DinEilan are the points, and I think
you can guess what else they found there. All the giant insects, rodents and
worse that we discovered in that museum were collected from such points. Being
a systematic people, they collected pairs. They believed that the lightning
both enlarged and killed whatever it struck.”

“But it didn’t kill the snake,” said Aedan.

“Actually, I’m not sure the lightning killed any
of them. I spent my time with the creatures that had not been damaged by
skinning and stuffing. I found no signs of decomposition at all. Nothing. It
was like they had entered some kind of extreme hibernation that can apparently
last for hundreds of years.”

“You mean the others were skinned alive?” Tyne
blurted.

“Alive, yes, but not conscious.”

Aedan winced at the thought of those magnificent
creatures being cut up in their slumber.

“Some of you might have guessed it by now – the
riddle of the missing snake. Remember all the animals had been collected in
pairs, yet there was only one snake. That giant beast was the second snake.”

“But it was ten – twenty times the size,” said
Osric, “and the shape and markings were different.”

“It has been alive for over eight hundred years,
growing, and it would seem, changing in other ways too.”

Everyone was silent, incredulous, waiting for
more.

“It is my guess,” Fergal resumed, “that when the
first snake began to stir, the Gellerac quickly closed and sealed that storage
room in the hope of suffocating it. But a correct identification would have
shown why that was the worst idea. If you ignore the size, it’s –”

“A yellow-eyed mole viper,” said Merter. He was
clearly more concerned with safety than looking respectful, because he sat with
his back to the fire and the conversation, keeping his vision unspoiled by
light as he searched through the surrounding shadows. “Though the proportions
are changed and it has learned to spit like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“True,” said Fergal. “Now as you can imagine, a
burrowing snake, given enough time, would quite possibly be able to force a way
out from what was meant to be its grave. I think we can allow ourselves the
liberty of a guess as to why Kultûhm was deserted, and why it remains so. I
don’t think earthquakes had anything to do with it.”

Again they were quiet, contemplating what Fergal
had just revealed, imagining the horror that the Gellerac must have faced
within their own walls.

“The snake also explains the lack of birds,” said
Merter.

“Quite so.”

“Then the quest is concluded and the question
answered?” Osric asked. “We have no need to fear Castath’s walls being shaken
down around our ears. Correct?”

“The question is partly answered,” said Fergal,
“but the evidence does not establish a negative like that. All I can say is
that there is nothing here to confirm my original theory. The shakings in the
earth beneath Castath remain unexplained, and whether or not they pose a threat,
I have yet to determine.”

“Bit of a limp conclusion if you ask me,” Osric
growled. “You academics are always so timid with your words. Your conclusion
sounds like a different form of the question.”

“And so it is, Osric,” Fergal said with a chuckle.
“Slightly whittled, sharper, but it is still a question. In time it will be
sharp enough to impale the answer.”

“Fergal,” Tyne interrupted, “you said the shakings
in the earth might not pose a threat, but what if that weird lightning bolt
over the Pellamines created some awful creature near the city?”

“It is possible. There’s little more than dry rock
up on the Pellamines, but it is always unwise to assume security. Perhaps a
discreet investigation would be in order. If we do find something threatening,
we would need to destroy it without waking it.”

“I’ll see to that on our return,” Osric said.

Aedan had been sitting on a question for days and
he decided he wouldn’t get a better time to ask it. “In the museum there were
skeletons,” he said, his voice betraying his excitement, “and there were others
in the mine below. Massive things. Bigger than any of the animals in the museum
by far. What were they?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” said Fergal. “They were
discovered during mining. It was the Gellerac belief that these creatures from
a lost age were being returned to the land, but the storms that were returning
them were killing them in the process. We know now that the storms weren’t
killing them, but the Gellerac learned it too late.”

“So do you think it’s true – that we might see
monsters like that?”

“I screaming well hope not!” Tyne snapped. “Aedan,
haven’t you seen enough monsters already?”

Fergal laughed. “I don’t know,” he said, “but I do
share Tyne’s sentiments, and as she so eloquently put it, I also screaming well
hope not. But the simple fact is that these are events for which we have no
explanation. We may begin to understand aspects of it, but there is some power
moving here that lies outside the frame of traditional knowledge. We may be on
the cusp of the incredible, or terrible, and possibly both.”

“There seems to be a lot you don’t know,” said
Tyne. “I hope that doesn’t sound rude – it’s just that I expected with all that
reading you scholars do, you would have more answers. Didn’t think there would
be so many uncertainties for your kind.”

“I do not take offence at that, Tyne. In fact, I
am happy that I give that impression.
Lukrûggn krarsh mrastrafthi ghevk
.
Agoligh again. Loosely translated: The confession of ignorance is crucial to
the pursuit of knowledge. Another way of putting it is that those who pretend
to know never will – they lack the humility to learn. What we have fallen upon
is something truly mysterious – not a word we scholars like to use, but a
fitting one. I don’t believe anyone understands what is happening or what is to
come. If I had given a closed answer to each of your questions, I would not be
worth listening to.”

After a lull, Merter spoke, still with his back to
them. “Fergal, I know that you managed to get through those locks under the academy.
I know that you have some idea of what lies beneath Castath.”

Everyone fell silent.

Fergal gazed long into the coals before replying. “I’ll
tell you what I may,” he said, “but it will do little to appease your
curiosity. Castath, or Athgrim’s Castle, as you might recall, was built on the
grassed-over ruins of a much older civilisation. There is quite a labyrinth of
tunnels and caverns beneath the academy and beyond it – this is no secret – but
very few know that the tunnels have been cleared of rubble and restored, and
even fewer know how extensive they are. One of the caverns ends in a stone door
like a mountain on a hinge and with locks that have held since they were set.
It took some time and much reading to understand them, but in the end I was
able to open the door – giving the credit, naturally, to Culver. Inside is a
circular hall with three more doors – none of which I have succeeded in opening
– and a peculiar shaft extending down into the earth, the purpose of which also
eludes me. But by lowering a pair of lamps at the end of a three hundred foot
rope, we were able to observe something that I would struggle to explain even
if I were permitted. It is this that has given me cause for worry, and the prince
cause to seal off the entrance with sixty feet of solid stone and hard mortar.”

The breathless hush that followed was turgid, even
violent with curiosity. But Fergal disregarded it with practiced ease.

“You can’t stop there!” Tyne burst out. “Can’t you
give us
some
idea of what it is?”

“I’m afraid, my dear girl, that I may not offer
details. I am bound to secrecy, and in this case I believe the secrecy to be
necessary. However, I’ll keep observing and perhaps one day I shall find cause
to break my silence.”

“How will you keep observing? I thought you said
it was now inaccessible.”

Fergal looked over at her, his expression
altogether blank. “No. I don’t recall using the word inaccessible. I only said
Burkhart ordered the entrance to be sealed.”

“But don’t they mean the … Ugh, you and your
riddles.” Tyne looked away, dropped her chin into her palms and glared at the
fire.

Osric laughed. “Very well, Fergal,” he said. “Keep
your secrets. We will have to trust you as our watchman. Now, what about Aedan?
Why is he unchanged?”

“It would seem that whatever struck Aedan was
something different. It could not have been traditional lightning, for he
survived a direct strike, nor could it have been the phenomenon that changes
things, for he is unchanged.”

Aedan knew this was not true. Thought he hadn’t
grown any bigger, something else was different – he could still feel the heat
in his chest and a curious tingling in his fingers and occasionally his toes; it
also felt at times as if his hands and feet were surrounded by water rather
than air. But he was reluctant to speak of it. After Mistress Gilda’s exhibitions
of his scar, he had no desire to be scrutinised again as an object of interest.
That gave him a thought. He reached up and touched his left ear, then dropped
his hand with a sigh. It was still only a half ear. He pulled the hair down over
it as he had done times beyond counting.

“Any ideas on the second snake’s unusual behaviour
around Aedan?” Osric asked.

“Perhaps the confusion following a sleep of a few
hundred years,” said Fergal. “Merter?”

“Perhaps,” the ranger said, not turning around.

Aedan was thoughtful. He could still see the snake’s
eyes and feel the way it had appeared to question him. At first he had considered
its circling him to be a threat, but the more he thought of it, the more it began
to seem like a protective gesture. He shook his head. It was ludicrous to think
like this. Perhaps it was worth remembering that he had been near collapse from
his wounds. Perceptions would most likely have been distorted.

After a lull, Fergal spoke again. “We need to be
clear on what we say to Prince Burkhart, so I need you all to listen very well.
Firstly, he is not to know my true position as Culver’s master. Secondly, it is
imperative to convince him that none of us foresees any threat. The prince’s
objective in allowing this journey was to silence any voice that spoke of
danger to the city. If we return and claim that the original suspicions were not
confirmed, which is perfectly true, his objective is accomplished and he will
probably be relieved that our blood is not on his hands.