The Shadow at the Gate (26 page)

“In earlier days, I would’ve been happy to agree with you, Ablendan,” said Severan. He sighed. “It was hope of the book that drew me originally to Hearne and these ruins, though I’d some initial interest in that strange box Nio was always harping on. But after the weeks went by—perhaps it was the blasted dust in this place that clouded my mind—I no longer thought about the box, even after Nio found it. And then, of course, it proved an unsolvable riddle and couldn’t be opened. But now, as you all know, the box has disappeared. . .”

“So what? Some petty thief has burgled Nio’s house, the box is gone, he sits glooming and twiddling his thumbs, and we have work to do. Let’s find the
Gerecednes
! Let’s find that book. Nothing else matters.”

“Oh, but there is," said Severan. "There is. Something's come up. There are two things of much greater import for now.”

He fell silent, and a strange dread gripped the other men. The room grew stuffy and Gerade opened one of the windows. A breeze blew in from the night and, reluctantly, Severan began to speak.

“When the box was stolen from Nio’s house, one of the thieves, a young boy, was left for dead by his fellows. It was a poor trade in Nio’s mind—losing the box and gaining a worthless boy. He sought my skill to rouse the lad into consciousness and bade me keep silent on the affair, even from the rest of you, out of some strange embarrassment on his part. I agreed, not thinking much of it. I brought the boy to his senses and both Nio and I questioned him. His name was Jute. He knew nothing of the gravity of what he had done, or whose house he had burgled. However, the damage was done. It was then that I first saw another side of Nio, an odd malignancy that looked out of his eyes when I observed him covertly. He was harsh with the boy and would’ve killed him, I think, had I not been there.”

“Nio doesn’t have the best manners and can be abrupt, but killing a lad just for some tomfool thievery? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it,” returned Severan. “For though that’s troubling enough, he’s done something else. Something of grave evil. He’s fashioned a wihht from darkness to be his servant.”

“How can you know this?” burst out Gerade. “You make a dreadful charge against his name.”

“I know because I just encountered the wihht.”

“The other man!” said Ablendan. His jaw dropped. “I chatted with Nio. He had an old friend with him, a fellow wizard from his days at the stone tower. That was a wihht?”

“The same,” said Severan. He smiled sourly. “You’re lucky they came for me and not you, Ablendan. The wihht was hungry.”

Out past the windows, the stars were blotted out, one by one, as ragged wisps of clouds scudded across the sky. The breeze blowing through the room plucked at loose pages.

“This is dark news,” said Gerade. “If anyone else had said this, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I’ve known you for years, old friend, and I’ve never heard you speak anything but truth. A wihht made of darkness. How can this be? In all of Tormay, no one possesses the power for such a fashioning. Where did he gain this evil knowledge?”

“It’s an unhappy irony that we’re in this room, Severan,” said Adlig. “It was Scuadimnes, who took corpses—soldiers, students, and cityfolk alike—and fashioned them into wihhts. That’s what they were, weren’t they? They destroyed this university.”

“The thought occurred to me as I stood on the stairs,” said Severan. “It made it doubly hard for me to pronounce his name. His memory has found an acolyte in our Nio. But this isn’t all I have to tell. I fear that the wihht has been creeping about these ruins to hunt for the boy Jute.”

“The boy? The thief? What do you mean?”

The others stared at him.

“I erred,” said Severan. He shook his head unhappily. “I hid Jute here, thinking that he might be safe from Nio in the confusion of old enchantments about this place. But the boy has disappeared.”

“Good riddance,” snorted Gerade.

The breeze idling through the room kicked up into a wind. Books blew open. The windows rattled.

“Fools.”

The word rustled in the air. There was a dusty, creaking sound to it, as if the voice was unused to speaking. On the sill of the open window perched a hawk. Its feathers were as black as night, but its eyes were blacker still, and they gazed at the old men in the room with contempt.

“A talking hawk,” marveled Gerade, but the bird silenced him with one sharp click of its beak. Its talons grated on the sill and scarred the stone.

“Did you think Scuadimnes would leave a book such as the
Gerecednes
in this city? No. If it was here to find, he would have found it. You hunt a pearl that is not here, while a pearl of even greater price has been in your presence all the while. Long ago, the wizards were our allies and could be counted on to do their part. But now you are a foolish lot content to muddle about in your books and your stone tower, heedless of what goes on in the world outside your dusty learning.”

The old men gaped at the hawk.

“Our allies?” said Severan. “What do you mean? What—who are you, master hawk?”

“The wizards were once the allies of the anbeorun and aided them in their fight against the Dark. Staer Gemyndes was the greatest of them all. They wandered the world as we did, guarding it against the Dark. But no longer is this true, and I fly alone.”

“Pardon me,” said Gerade hesitantly. “But are you—are you the Wind?”

“Only his shadow, nothing more. Don’t you understand what was in that box? It hid the knife that killed the Wind. Due to curiosity, foolishness—fate, perhaps?—the boy Jute opened the box and cut his finger on the knife. Through some mystery, the Wind is now waking in him. He is becoming the Wind. But he does not understand yet. For now, he’s more like a breeze.” The hawk’s eyes gleamed in sudden humor that vanished as soon as it appeared. “But I cannot find him. He’s hidden away in the stone of this cursed city, hidden from my eyes. Though it galls me to say so, I need your help. You must find him.”

“Find him, my lord?” said Adlig. “But—”

“Find him. He’s of more worth than any of the hidden magic in your ruins. He’s worth more than all the knowledge in the book of
the Gerecednes
itself. Find him before it’s too late. I must hunt the skies, for the dreams of the Dark creep into Tormay and there’s no one to stem that coming tide. We were once allies, your forebears and my dead lord. I lay this charge upon you, even if it means your deaths. Find him, for the Dark draws near.”

The hawk spread its wings and was gone. The breeze died and the room was silent. After what seemed like a long time, Severan cleared his throat.

“Er,” he said, but he did not get any farther than that.

“Did my ears just deceive me,” said Gerade, “or did that thing—that hawk—just say that the boy—this Jute—is the anbeorun of the wind?”

“Er,” said Severan again. “I think so. Yes.”

“And was that the other paltry, insignificant bit of news that you were about to tell us?”

“Um, yes. I was beginning to have my suspicions.”

Gerade’s fist crashed down on a desk. “Shadows above and below, Severan. That makes Nio’s wihht seem like a rose in a flower garden!”

“It was only a suspicion until recently. Several days ago, the boy fell from the courtyard tower and the wind caught him. That should’ve been enough right there, but I just couldn’t believe my own logic. I concluded it was strange—”

“As strange as a giant sitting at your breakfast table,” fumed Ablendan, “eating your children with the morning marmalade.”

“—but then it made horrible sense this morning, for I realized that ever since he disappeared, sometime last night, the wind in the ruins has vanished. Surely you must have noticed. For the past several days the boy’s been here, the ruins have been filled with breezes and winds eddying around every corner and gusting in rooms with no windows. But now that he’s gone, they’ve gone as well. Don’t you see? They came because of him.”

“The only thing I noticed,” said old Adlig, “is that my rheumatism has been acting up more’n usual.”

“Well,” said Gerade grimly, “we had better find him. And one of us should ride straightaway for the Stone Tower. They should be told what the hawk said, for who knows what’ll come crawling out of the darkness now? Who knows what’s already come? Blast it all, Severan! A new anbeorun. Has there ever been such a thing? It’s unthinkable. He’ll be like—like a gawky duckling—won’t he?—and there’s no telling what’ll happen. Anyone could kidnap him and have in their control a terrible, unpredictable power.”

They elected Ablendan to ride out that night for the Stone Tower in Thule. He was the youngest of the four men and more suited to several days on horseback.

“Try the Old Crow,” said Gerade. “They have decent horses.”

For once, Ablendan did not joke, but made his farewells with a solemn face. The Old Crow tavern was close to the university. Ablendan had the mixed fortune of securing one of the best horses the tavern had for rent. He was fortunate in that the horse was the fastest in the stable. He was unfortunate in that the horse had an iron jaw and a sharp, bony back and Ablendan was unused to riding great distances. He did not consider any of these things, as he was not a horseman. Even though he was not an especially talented scholar, he was a scholar and that was all he was. The stableman, however, considered all of those things while appraising Ablendan’s stout form and soft hands with a contemptuous eye. He did not appreciate being dragged from his ale at such a late hour.

Ablendan rode away, clinging to the horse’s back and wondering miserably whether it would rain much on the way north and if it were possible to make the journey in less than four days. He clattered through the sleeping streets of the city. A yawning guard swung open the small night gate by the tower for him. He dug his heels in, and the horse set off with a gallop.

As for the others, Severan described Jute to them. They prowled the university ruins and hunted through the night, through the streets and alleys of the sleeping city. And though they searched into the gray hours of the early morning, they found no sign of the boy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A HORSE RUNS AWAY

That morning, a curious thing happened. A string of horses had been taken out from the regent’s stable for their customary gallop on the meadow north of the castle. The meadow was reached by a path that descended from the castle through a series of switchbacks to a small gate in the city wall. It was customary for the horses to be taken there for a gallop, after which they were walked down to the dunes to cool their legs in the surf.

It was early and the stable lads on the horses were still mostly asleep, heads slumped and bobbing, as the string wended its way down the switchback. Once they came to the meadow, they all awoke, for then it was time to work, and the trainer was a grumpy old fellow who was fonder of using his whip on the boys than on the horses. The regent had ridden down as well, and he sat his horse in the morning sunlight. Several guests were in his company, including the dukes of Mizra and Dolan, as well as the prince of Harth.

“A fine sight, my lord Botrell,” said the prince of Harth. “You’ve horses that beggar all other stables.” He himself sat upon a tall sand-colored stallion that seemed to understand its master’s words, for its lips curled in ill-concealed contempt. “I wager, though, my own beauty would press them hard.”

“Only the best,” said the regent. “I buy only the best. I’ve a good eye for horseflesh, mind you. It runs in the family. My father had a genius for bloodlines. Your steed, my dear prince, is doubtlessly fast, but I’ve bred some real runners.”

“Yes, yes,” grumbled the duke of Dolan, but no one heard him. He gnawed his lip in jealousy, for the regent’s horses were impressive. He wished he were home in the hills of the Mearh Dun, putting his own stable through their paces.

“Perhaps we should have a match later,” said the regent. “What say you, my lords?”

“Your words gladden me,” said the prince of Harth.

“I say, Gifernes,” said the regent, looking down, “that hound of yours isn’t about to trot off and take a bite out of a leg, is he? He’s looking rather hungrily at my horses. If he eats one, I shall have to declare war on you.”

The duke of Mizra laughed. He was on foot and accompanied by one of his hunting hounds. The dog stood pressed against his knee. There was no denying the regent’s words. The creature was staring with undisguised interest at the horses.

“Have no fear, my lord,” he said. “You could leave Holdfast here at a baby’s crib without worry. He’s well trained and will not attack or eat without my word. Your horses are safe.”

“I’ll take your word for it, but that’s a huge brute you have there.”

A sharp command came from the trainer and the string broke into a trot heading away from the city wall and across the meadow. Sunlight flashed on their long, slender legs and the ripple of muscle shifting under their skin. The regent smiled.

It was then that it happened. Halfway down the line, a horse began to buck. Startled, the horses nearby shied away until the line was a shambles. The culprit, a bony-looking two-year-old with an ugly brown coat, plunged and kicked and spun about. The unfortunate lad on top sailed through the air to land on the turf. The trainer let fly an impressive series of oaths and urged his gray forward, but it was too late. The ugly brown broke into a gallop and headed for the distant stand of trees at the end of the meadow.