The Shadow at the Gate (24 page)

“Now that’s a man I’d have in the Guard,” said Owain. “I don’t know about how he treated Devnes Elloran—if there’s any truth in the songs, he’s got a wicked streak in him as wide as the Rennet River—but anyone who could track an ogre trail, months old, right into their lair and then cut ‘em down by himself. . .” He shook his head in admiration. “I wish I’d been there to see him fight.”

“Well, I heard tell you’ve had some fights yourself, in your time.”

Owain grinned.

“Still some time left,” he said.

And with that pleasant thought in mind, he turned his horse to the west.

“Lads!” he shouted. “We ride for home and Hearne!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

HUNGER AND THE WIHHT

Nio woke in the late afternoon, with the sunlight already fading behind the shuttered windows. His dream returned to him in a rush. It seemed as if the fortress loomed unseen behind the paltry reality of his room. If he were only to close his eyes and then open them, the walls would be gone to reveal the stone fastness standing within its unending night sky. Surely that terrible place was the deeper truth than his shabby bedroom. However, when he shut his eyes and then opened them again—chiding himself for being a fool and yet half believing there was a certain wisdom in being a fool—there was only the walls of his bedroom, grimy with neglect and gloomy with shadow.

Nio lit a candle and went downstairs. It had been a long time since he had eaten, but he was not hungry. He did not think he would ever be hungry again. The word stirred in his mouth, and it was meat and drink to him.

The fifth name of darkness.

He marveled at the simplicity of the word. Surely such a sound was self-evident in the shape of shadows, in the creeping dusk, and in the blackness of those rare night skies in which there are no stars. He whispered the word out loud. Instantly, everything around him—the walls, the stone tile of the floor, the copper handles and hinges and keyholes, the mirror reflecting candlelight and his gaunt face—everything began to unravel into shadow. Wood splintered into shadow. The stone underfoot softened. The candle in his hand melted and darkness dripped down his fingers. The mirror reflected nothing except shadow, was shadow.

He laughed aloud. For a moment, he allowed the change to continue, marveling in it and wondering if, left unchecked, it would spread outwards like the ripples caused by a stone thrown into water, until all of Hearne was plunged into darkness. But then he spoke the true names of wood and stone, of glass and copper, forcing his will into the sounds until the original appearance of the hall reasserted itself.

The wihht was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Nio unlocked the cellar door. He was no longer concerned by the thing. It was remarkable how closely it resembled a man. In height and face the wihht could have been his brother. This was probably due to the few drops of blood he had given the creature.

“There’s something I need you to do,” Nio said.

The wihht did not answer.

“We go to the university ruins this night. I’ll introduce you to an old friend of mine. There’ll be mutual profit in the acquaintance—he, in adding to his already considerable knowledge and experience, and you, due to your own particular needs.”

The wihht smiled.

It was twilight when they left the house. The wihht was cloaked and hooded. It no longer walked in the awkward fashion it had when Nio had first created it. The wihht strode along beside him, head down and silent. He could smell the sour must of the thing, but it wasn’t much worse than any poor city dweller who never bathed unless it was by chance of getting caught in the rain. Or perhaps he was merely getting used to the creature’s scent.

The streets were busy. They grew more crowded as they neared Mioja Square at the center of the city. Lamps burned along the edge of the square and at intervals throughout the sprawl of carts and tents. The people thronged under the flickering lights. Water shot up from the fountain in the middle of the square and gleamed with firelight. A cheerful babble of conversation, of vendors hawking their wares, of musicians plying their craft in the ale tents blended together into a surging clamor. Under it all, Nio could sense the countless threads of wards humming in wary readiness, guarding a rich merchant here, another there, woven about the tent of a jeweler, spelled into a nobleman’s purse, silver whorls hammered into the hilt of a soldier’s prized sword.

“Fortunes!” called a boy from the mouth of a tent. “Fortunes told! Fortunes!”

“Who’ll buy fine linens? Who’ll buy?”

“Wards! Wards for sale!”

“Cakes, cakes, cakeses!”

“Fortunes!”

A mist drifted down upon them as they walked by the fountain. The wihht was silent at his side. The falling water glimmered with dark colors. There were purples and blues quivering within the water and Nio could see the same colors leaping in the flames of the nearest lamp.

“Cakeses!”

And then they were at the steps rising up to the chained doors of the university. The place was a looming mass of stone and shadow hulking on the edge of the square. People sat on the steps, resting from their shopping, their thieving—resting their feet and chattering like the sparrows that made their nests in the eaves overhead. The last few steps, however, were unoccupied.

The little door to the left of the chained entrance opened at Nio’s word. The wihht slipped in after him. The door closed and its ward whispered back into watchfulness. They stood in silence in the great entrance hall. Nio closed his eyes and let his mind drift. He could taste dust in the air. There. A spark of life. He caught at someone’s thoughts. The slightest touch of surprise quivered in the other’s mind and then it was abruptly closed to him.

He opened his eyes and waited.

It was only a matter of minutes before he heard the sound of approaching feet. A glow of light grew far down the passage on the right. The shape of a short little man drew closer, hurrying along with a candle wavering in his hand. He paused at the entrance to the hall.

“Ablendan.”

“Nio.” The little man’s eyes flicked to the wihht and then back. “Did you—were you looking for someone? I felt your mind pass by. Who’s this?”

“An old friend visiting the city for the festival. We were students together at the stone tower.”

“Ah,” said Ablendan. He took a step forward. The candle in his hand seemed to brighten, but the shadows in the hall deepened in response. “Then I imagine he’ll be safe enough in here.”

“Yes.”

At his side, Nio sensed the wihht’s body tense. He could feel the creature’s hunger—a spark of greed that threatened to burst into ravening lust. He snapped a silent command at the wihht.

No.

And to his surprise, a thought pushed back at him.

But this one will please me.

No.

“Did you say something?” asked Ablendan. He shuffled his feet, eyes again sliding over to the wihht. The candle wavered in his hand.

“No,” said Nio, stepping closer. “Is Severan near?” He spoke quickly, for he could see suspicion surfacing in Ablendan’s eyes. “I’d like to introduce my friend to him, as they both shared the distinction of solving the yearly riddle Eald Gelaeran set for the students. In my year it was never solved.”

“Mine either,” returned the other. His face cleared and he grinned. “We always thought old Gelaeran posed riddles without solutions. Ours was that old chestnut—can there be shadow if there’s no light?”

“Which has never been answered to anyone’s satisfaction. The riddle during my year was supposedly first asked by Staer Gemyndes himself. Where did the men of Harlech come from, and why is it that the ghosts in that land never rest in the earth?”

“I’ve heard that asked, but not in the stone tower. Hmm—yes, where was it? Was it during the—”

“Is Severan here?” asked Nio again.

“Oh—yes, of course. He’s down in the mosaic chamber, trying to find some—something he lost. I’m off to the tower library. I expect you can find your own way.”

“Yes, I can,” said Nio.

The long hall was dark, despite the windows lining the west wall. Nio could see the moon, a sliver of silver ghosting through the sky. The wihht stirred behind him. Nio muttered a word—light—were light and heat and color always going to be so necessary? Surely the cold space between the stars was lovelier and more interesting than the stars themselves. But for now he still needed light to see with. He spoke the word again and fire arced through the hall, separating into tongues of flame that hung in the air like a line of torches.

“Don’t tread on the blue tiles,” he said to the wihht.

They stepped through the door at the far end of the hall. Unbidden, the wihht paused and seemed to disappear into the darkness. Light shone deep within the stairwell leading down into the chamber below. Nio let his mind feather out into the stillness. There. He recoiled and then drifted back, testing delicately.

“Severan,” he said.

No one answered. He could sense the wihht near him, but only as a hunger, a void that sought to be filled. The silence continued unbroken, but there was a tautness to it that spoke of awareness. The stairwell spiraled around him as he descended the stone steps down toward the light. An oil lamp burned in the middle of the chamber floor.

“Severan.”

Nio paused on the last step. In the ceiling above, the huge mosaic shifted with strange colors and shapes that suggested forgotten things teetering on the edge of remembrance. Dreams and nightmares fading at the moment of waking. Words lost on the tips of tongues. The touch of tattered silk draped on dead hands. He could taste the fifth name of darkness in his mouth. The lamplight wavered.

“There’s so much memory in this place,” said Severan’s voice from somewhere in the room. He spoke so quietly that Nio had to strain to hear.

“Farmers, lords, ladies, kings, merchants, craftsmen. They came here for hundreds and hundreds of years—from each duchy of Tormay. Even the men of Harlech.”

“And the wizards,” said Nio.

“And the wizards. All knowledge was esteemed, whether it was the humble art of the potter shaping clay, the machinations of the king’s mind unraveling the fortunes of land and people, or the old languages devolving backward into increasing rarity and power as they approached the language of creation itself.”

High above, the mosaic swirled in response to the old man’s voice. The tiny stones rearranged themselves around each other and then settled, waiting patiently for whatever might be said next.

“One of the oldest strictures of learning is that all knowledge, no matter how humble, is part of the same whole. Everything learned is another strand to be woven into the tapestry portraying the final truth. Not
is
the final truth, mind you, but a depiction. Mortal eye has yet to see it, though surely there’s a room somewhere in the house of dreams where the complete tapestry hangs. And past that room, perhaps there are other rooms in which hang other tapestries? But those aren’t for us.”

“And what of the darkness?” said Nio. He spoke as softly as he could, as if loud words would shatter the quiet into something that could never be mended.

“What of it?”

“Isn’t knowledge of the darkness part of that same whole?”

“I don’t know,” said the other. His voice sounded tired. “Though I’m certain the things of light can be inferred by the darkness, for the shape of shadow only exists out of opposition to the light.”

“Not so. The darkness can create. Perhaps, one day, we’ll understand that light is only the shadow cast by darkness.”

There was a long pause at that point. The lamplight dimmed and the colors of the mosaic dulled into muteness. Then, Severan spoke again.

“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

Now.

The wihht blurred past Nio. It was utterly silent. Part of him was shocked by the speed of the thing. It has grown, he thought. Grown into something I do not understand. But I can control it. I possess the fifth name of darkness.

“
Beorht scir
!”

Severan’s voice rang out. Instantly, the chamber blazed with radiance. The mosaic flared white-hot. The light was savage, incomprehensible in its totality. Nio staggered back against the steps, his hands flung to his face, but seared behind his eyelids was the huge red blot of the mosaic like some gigantic sun. Under its merciless light stood the stark, dark form of the wihht stunned into momentary stone. For a second Nio could not think—the light had pushed everything else from his mind—and then he found a word on his tongue, but it was too late. Someone brushed by him. Footsteps clattered up the stairs.

“
Dimnes
!”

The light faded down into shadow. The mosaic darkened and he could see again. The wihht snarled in fury. It rushed past him and up the stairwell. He turned to follow. He was tired. There was no longer any chance for the wihht to catch Severan, not in the labyrinthine sprawl of the ruins. The university was endless. The halls stretched farther than the memory of any man alive.