The Skeleth Page 11

  “Father’s thunder! What is this?” A voice rose from the courtyard, distracting the guard long enough for Katherine to duck back down the stairs.

  “Edmund? Edmund Bale, are you still here?” She hunted around the inner ward of the castle, past servants and grooms standing in awed bunches around every fallen bird. Many of them stared up into the sky, but by then Ellí was long gone amidst the clouds.

  Chapter 12

  Geoffrey nocked his arrow. “Who’s there?” He drew to the ear, staring out at the mossy scatter of stones that were all that remained of the gates. “Who’s there?”

  After a breathless moment, an answer came. “Who.” A winged shape glided past on the wind above the walls. “Who, who.”

  Edmund dropped his guard and shot his brother a wry look as the owl flew past overhead. “You didn’t have to come up here, if you’re scared.”

  “Shut your face.” Geoffrey relaxed his draw. “You’re scared, too.”

  Edmund sat down amongst the rubble of the gates. “Hold that torch a bit closer, will you? I can’t make out the words.” He used a leaf to brush a caterpillar off the page and found his place in the crawling text: Each king built a tower for his queen, a Pael tower by a Dhanu stone.

  “It’s here.” He looked out over the broad valley that sheltered his village, the curve in the great river Tamber, the moon-touched pastures and fields of home. “It’s here, it has to be.” He turned back to examine the Wishing Stone, then the jagged towers of the broken-down old keep around it, hoping to notice something he had never noticed before.

  “There’s the fire pit, just as we left it.” Geoffrey handed the torch to Edmund and walked over to an ashy depression a few feet from the Wishing Stone. He knelt to pick something up—a girl’s shoe. “This is Emma Russet’s.”

  Edmund scanned the walls. “Has anyone ever been in that tall tower, that you’ve heard?” He pointed. “That one there, with the funny angles and those markings up the side.”

  “I never wanted to see this stupid place again.” Geoffrey let the shoe drop into the grass. “Where’s Katherine? Is she going to meet us?”

  “Don’t be such a baby.” Edmund brought the spitting flame of the torch as close as he dared to the parchment of the Paelandabok:—the covenant was made, the king through his queen, thrice-sighted, thrice-blind. Horse by horse and hero by hero did armies fall before the Skeleth, They Who Crawl Below, they who are seen and yet unseen, form without substance, man and monster both.

  “Geoffrey, have you ever heard of something called a Skeleth?” Edmund took up the tattered book and crossed through the overgrown grass beneath the crumbled walls of the old keep. “In the old stories, maybe, or from travelers at the inn?”

  “You can’t tell me you feel all right up here.” Geoffrey sat with folded arms beside the fire pit. “This is where the bolgugs caught me and Tilly, and dragged us away to the Nethergrim. Peter Overbourne died just down the hillside, over there.”

  “You are not helping me think, Geoffrey.” Edmund raised his torch as he approached the tallest tower. “If all you’re going to do is moan and cry about—”

  “You cry more than I do, so shut up about it!” Geoffrey leapt up with his fists balled tight.

  Edmund recoiled. “I do not!”

  “Yes, you do.” Geoffrey jutted out his chin. “You cry in your sleep all the time.”

  “Liar! You take that back!” Edmund advanced on his brother, brandishing his torch—and tripped over something in the straggled grass.

  “What’s this?” He reached down and unwrapped the flappy thing from his foot. He held it up—a wide square of double-stitched cloth, embroidered in a simple peasant pattern and knotted at two corners.

  Geoffrey blinked at it—and blinked, then turned away. “Tilly’s shawl.” His voice broke. “That was Tilly Miller’s.”

  Edmund let the shawl flutter to the ground. The last time he had stood within the tumbled walls of the old keep, he had watched a pack of bolgugs drag Geoffrey and Tilly away to the lair of the Nethergrim. He had pursued and persevered and brought Geoffrey home safe again, but Tilly lay withered and dead, unburied in the mountains.

  He turned to his brother. “Do I cry that often?”

  “Every night.” Geoffrey kept his back to him. “I think you talk to it, in your dreams.”

  Edmund’s skin prickled and crawled. “Talk to what?”

  Geoffrey turned a tear-marked, bitter look on him, then stomped away across the grass.

  Edmund set the Paelandabok atop his folded cloak and drove his torch into the ground beside the Wishing Stone. He sat down and read on: Childeric the Fair, king over men, reached his hand for kingship over that which men cannot rule. The iron-hearted king, golden-browed, he raised the most glorious standard ever seen beneath the grand tent of the sun, and yet was he brought low by That which dies and yet lives, That which reigns over all things hateful to men. He was betrayed by That Which Waits Within the Mountain—

  A cold, horrible, familiar feeling crept over him. That Which Waits Within the Mountain—the Nethergrim, the Voice, the eyes within the smoke.

  “I don’t see how you can be so sure it’s here.” Geoffrey startled Edmund from his unhappy trance. “No one really knows what the ancients were like, or why they did what they did.”

  Edmund looked about him at the ragged, ruined walls. “The Pael tower by the Dhanu stone.” He ran his hand over the surface of the Wishing Stone, feeling out the carven symbols weathered nearly smooth by centuries of wind and rain.

  Geoffrey’s voice echoed from the far corner of the keep. “Here’s the bolgugs, just where Katherine dragged them.”

  Edmund glanced up to see his brother prodding at what was left of the bolgugs he had blinded with the very first spell he had ever cast, on that night two weeks before—only two weeks? It felt like a lifetime. The bolgugs lay sprawled beside their crude, ugly weapons. Rain had come to wash their blue-black blood away. Something else had come to pick the flesh from their corpses down to the bones.

  “Not so scary now, are you?” Geoffrey stood over the skull of a bolgug. His lip quivered, he trembled—then he seized the heavy, spiked club lying near and started smashing the skull to powder. “Are you?”

  Edmund turned the Paelandabok to better catch the torchlight. “Geoffrey, come over here.” The symbols inked on the next of its pages seemed to match the faded designs on the surface of the stone. He traced out the symbols one by one upon the stone with his finger, while following along with the inscription in the book.

  “Folk used to make wishes on that thing.” Geoffrey flopped on the grass next to Edmund. “I wouldn’t touch that stupid rock now if you paid me ten gold marks.”

  “Listen.” Edmund read the symbols aloud: “One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. Mind-trust-truth, eyes-trust-lies. After that there is one of the Signs of magic, the Sign of Perception.”

  Geoffrey wrinkled his snub nose. “Is that some sort of riddle?”

  “I think so,” said Edmund. “The folk who lived here must have wanted to keep their knowledge hidden from the unworthy.”

  Geoffrey rummaged through the bundle at Edmund’s side. “People have been coming up here for years and years.” He pulled out another torch and lit it from the flame of the first. “I’ll bet the oldest folk in Moorvale used to play around these walls when they were kids, and their parents before them, back to who knows when. If there was anything to find, someone would have found it by now.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” Edmund read the symbols again: “One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen. The rest of it means something like ‘Trust your thoughts, not your eyes.’”

  Geoffrey shrugged off the coil of rope he carried on his shoulder. “All the doors and windows of that tower look like they were bricked up ages ago, which is why no one’s ever been inside it that we’ve ever heard
about. How are you going to get in?”

  Edmund stared at the blank-faced bricks of the tower. “One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen . . .”

  Aha.

  Edmund got to his feet. He shut the book—it puffed must into the air. “Here, hold this.”

  “Ugh.” Geoffrey scrunched up his freckled face, but he took the Paelandabok from Edmund’s hands. He beat bits of rot from the pages, then held it as though it could poison him by touch. “What is this thing, anyway?”

  “It’s a book.” Edmund paced out the distance from stone to tower. “I suppose it’s too late to teach you how to read one.”

  “I can read, you twit! I mean what sort of book? Where did you get it?”

  Edmund returned to his brother. “Ellí helped me find it.”

  “Who?”

  Edmund looked up at the tower, guessing at the height of his mark. “Didn’t you see her? Lady Elísalon—she’s traveling with Lord Wolland.”

  “Oh, her.” Geoffrey nodded. “Is she a friend?”

  “She helped me get that book, didn’t she?”

  Geoffrey waited, though with little show of patience. “Aren’t you going to do a spell, or something?”

  “Learning how to be a wizard is more than just making a fire burst. It’s thinking, it’s figuring things out.” Edmund licked a finger and held it out to gauge the wind. “Didn’t Nicky Bird try to climb that tower, back when he was our age?”

  “He almost died in the fall,” said Geoffrey. “It’s why he limps. He’s always said that there was something wrong about that tower, that he should have had a good grip between the bricks, but then, all of a sudden, he didn’t.”

  Edmund felt a surge of excitement. “Did he ever say how high up he got?”

  Geoffrey scratched his head—then pulled out a leaf that had gotten stuck in his mass of curly hair. “He’s told the story so many times at the inn, I can almost recite it by heart. Right under that ring of funny carvings, there, just past halfway up.”

  Edmund hopped into the air—Geoffrey was pointing exactly where he had hoped he would. He stretched out his hand. “Here, give me your bow.”

  Geoffrey held his bow in close to his chest. “What for?”

  “Just give it,” said Edmund. “It used to be mine, anyway.”

  Geoffrey took a step away, then relented and slapped the bow in Edmund’s hands. “Suit yourself, though I can’t see what use you’ll make of it.”

  “Oh, you’ll see.” Edmund drew back, took aim and let his arrow fly. It sailed up toward the mark—but then it veered sideways and disappeared into the night.

  Geoffrey followed an infuriating pause with an even more infuriating look. “Were you maybe trying to hit the tower?”

  Edmund snapped out with his drawing hand. “Shut it. Give me another arrow.”

  “Why, so you can throw that one away, too? I’ve only got so many.”

  “I said give me an arrow!”

  Geoffrey put another arrow in Edmund’s hand. “Then mind the wind—it’s blowing sharp above the walls. You’ve got your feet too wide apart, by the way, and you’re shanking the arrow with your thumb.”

  “Don’t tell me how to shoot.” Edmund planted his feet. He tensed up, drew back and let fly. The arrow whistled high into the air, never getting near the tower. Geoffrey had to hop aside to make sure it did not come down on his head.

  “You’re hopeless,” said Geoffrey. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a mountain.”

  Edmund snarled and grabbed an arrow from the quiver on Geoffrey’s back. He narrowed in his stance, aimed and let fly. His third arrow sped on an arc that looked as though it would strike right on target—but then it spun sideways and tumbled end over end out of sight.

  Geoffrey held out a hand. “Just tell me what you want to hit.”

  Edmund sighed and gave his brother back the bow. “The twenty-first brick, counting from the bottom.”

  Geoffrey felt behind him for an arrow. “Why the twenty-first?”

  “What’s one plus one?”

  Geoffrey crossed his arms. “Is this some sort of trick?”

  “Just answer me,” said Edmund. “What’s one plus one?”

  “Two, of course.”

  “And what’s one plus two?”

  “Three.”

  “Two plus three?”

  “Five!” Geoffrey scowled, but then his eyebrows raised. “Oh.”

  “And five plus three is eight, and eight plus thirteen is twenty-one.” Edmund pointed up the wall.

  “Right, right.” Geoffrey raised his head slowly, counting under his breath: “. . . eighteen, nineteen . . .” He nocked an arrow, drew back and shot, hardly even seeming to take the time to aim. The wind veered the arrow hard, but either by luck or design the gust pushed it right on target. The arrow sped to the spot on the wall that Edmund had marked—and went straight through.

  Geoffrey gaped, then let out a whoop. “That stone, it’s not even there! It’s a spell! You knew it was just a spell!”

  Edmund turned to him. “Good shot. Really.”

  “That was brilliant!” Geoffrey thumped Edmund’s shoulder. “You’re brilliant! How did you know—”

  It occurred to Edmund an instant too late that nothing in the riddle had told him exactly where the door was. The grass split, and the earth gave way beneath him. Geoffrey reached out and seized his collar, but then scrabbled at the yawning edge and fell in behind him. Torches and book, arrows, bow and brothers, all tumbled down and down together.

  Chapter 13

  Tom lay awake, just inside the door of Tristan’s great hall. He found himself in no danger of nodding asleep—instead it felt as though the watches of the night had stretched out forever, and that ten sunrises should already have come and gone. He tried not to think of all the folk who would likely be dead by the time the sun truly did return, should any part of his plan go amiss.

  He turned onto his back. A roof of braced and pillared hardwood arched high above him, over a floor of patterned stone strewn with moldering rushes. Trestle tables ran the length of the chamber, all at odd angles, all covered in dust. Tapestries hung between the pillars that braced the walls, each depicting a man at life size beneath a coating of soot. A knight stood square and grim within the first on the left, his gray beard flowing out over his chain cowl and the point of his sword driven down through the head of the twisted creature at his feet. A very tall man stood bent as though to squeeze himself into the frame of the first tapestry opposite. He wore huntsman’s green and cradled a great boar-spear in the crook of a lanky arm. Tom remembered the stories well enough—he looked upon Tristan’s old companions, the Ten Men of Elverain, the great heroes who had ridden with him against the Nethergrim long ago. He found himself wishing that they could somehow come alive, that some unknown magic would bring them leaping from their tapestries for one last daring rescue, but instead they stood frozen in the warp and weft of their cloth, looking down upon the scene of their old friend’s ruin.

  Tom crossed his hands on his belly. He shut his eyes and opened them—then shut and opened them again. How long could it possibly take Rahilda to get the word out to her neighbors? How long to move what needed to be moved? Were they arguing about the merits of his plan? Would they try it? Would someone betray them? He rolled onto his side, pressed to the flagstone floor by his doubts.

  When the moment long awaited arrived at last, it shouldered anticipation aside without the slightest courtesy. “Fire!” Tanchus burst through the front door of the hall. “Fire in the village!”

  Tom sat bolt upright. The men in the hall had helped themselves to no small portion of the ale, but even so, the cry of “Fire!” had them up and scrambling in a heartbeat.

  Hamon Ruddy snorted awake. “What’s that? Fire? Where?”

  “Fire in the—” From the grunt
and thud that came next, Tanchus tripped over a bench in the dark.

  Tom got up onto the balls of his feet. He peered about him, and in the glow of the embers from the hearth spied the brigands rising from their stupor to a quick-spreading panic.

  “Ow!” Tanchus kicked the bench he had fallen over and let out a stream of truly vile curses. “Fire in the village! In the barns, the grain sheds, the food stores! Fire!”

  Amidst the chaotic shouts that greeted the news, Tom heard the crossbowman rounding on Aldred Shakesby. “You jack-in-the-dirt! I told you we should have hauled the food inside the walls. You’ve ruined the whole caper!”

  “Shut your mouth! Move!” Aldred clattered about for his sword. “All of you, up! Move!”

  Tom slipped out into the courtyard, stealing through the shadows by the wall and through the rubble of the unfinished keep. He watched the brigands charge outside in a mob and thought he had completely escaped notice—but then he walked right into the path of the jailer rushing forth from his post in the tower.

  “Hoy!” The jailer grabbed Tom by the shirt. “Where are you going? What are you sneaking about for?” He held his sword, a thick, saw-bladed thing that looked better suited to torture than to open battle.

  Tom made a face of horror, which was not so hard to do given the circumstances. “Fire, fire in the village!”

  The jailer blanched to his stubbly jowls. “The food. All the food!” He let go of Tom and turned to yell. “Raise the gates! Raise the gates, we’ve got to get that fire out or we’ll all starve!”

  Tom slipped back into the shadows and ran crouching to the smithy, an open structure built without a north-facing wall. Shadows grew into shapes as he crept farther in: a stack of wood, a barrel, tongs, and then an anvil. He leaned around the anvil to peer into the courtyard, where a swelling mass of brigands collected by the raising gates.

  “Half of you, stay behind to watch the walls!” Aldred barked himself hoarse beneath the gatehouse. “D’you hear me? No, don’t all of you just—curse you all, listen to me! Get back here!” No one seemed to heed him. As soon as the inner gate had been winched above the height of a man’s head, the brigands charged off in a mass through the gatehouse tunnel. The fat jailer was not at all the fastest of their number, but once he threw off his mail shirt, he managed to keep up with the pack, following his fellows through the gates and out of view.