The Nethergrim Read online

  I was here when the first tree burst from its seed. I will be here when the last one withers and dies. Use any name for me you wish.

  “Why are you talking to me?” Edmund felt John silence him with a hard grip of his hand.

  I speak only to those I deem worthy to hear me. The minds of most men are painfully constricted.

  John turned back down the tunnel. Edmund followed. The moments crawled past without apparent effect. The floor descended at a faint but noticeable slope for a while, then leveled out and ran flat. They crept on and on, making not a sound, for what began to seem like eternity.

  You have such promise, Edmund Bale. You truly can be all the things you dream—but not if you persist in this.

  John stopped, then pulled Edmund’s hand down to touch the floor. Edmund felt his fingers around a hole that stretched across the width of the tunnel. The smell vented up through it, choking and sweet, a sort of rotten chamomile overlaid with the stink of bloated corpse.

  John spoke at Edmund’s ear. “Broken chimney.”

  Edmund lay flat by the edge of the hole, his hands over his head, though it was no use. There was nowhere to hide from the Voice.

  How do I know what is to come? Child, how am I speaking inside your thoughts? How do I restore old men to youth? Did you imagine, after all that you have learned, that I would still be some slobber-jawed monster, some dumb beast that needed a good stabbing? I am not mortal, Edmund, nor am I bound by much else that constrains a creature such as you. I can see the paths before you, and what will come of each.

  “Another ladder.” John shuffled over the edge. “Down from here.”

  Edmund felt out with his fingers and gripped the rung. He descended, favoring his injured arm as much as he could, and touched down in a long-dead hearth—right into an empty, rusted iron pot. Where John led him from there, or what the rooms and passages they stumbled through might once have been, would not have mattered much by then even if he could see them, for the Voice came again to blot out all things.

  With every step you approach your end—a hard death, too, as deaths go. I am curious, at least, to know why you rush toward it.

  Edmund formed an image of Geoffrey, tried to draw it in as much detail as he could, the snub nose and the freckles. For some reason it was easier if he thought of Geoffrey angry, Geoffrey jealous, that sour look that crossed his face when he thought he was being ignored.

  Do you indeed love your brother? If you do, is it only because you spring from the same womb? Think on that awhile, and then perhaps we can discuss this thing you call love.

  He gave up and tried Katherine—Katherine, her eyes and lips, the long spill of her hair—

  No. You would not long have loved the girl. See her old, see her sagging and gray, and try to love that.

  Edmund reached for rage. He balled it up inside him, tried to harden his purpose.

  Is that why you are here? To stop me? You might as well seek to stop the wind from blowing. I am not evil—child, there is no such thing as evil. There is only life, then death, only thrashing and struggle, then stillness.

  “Edmund!”

  Everything shook. He shook—John was shaking him.

  “What is wrong with you?” John let go.

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” Edmund turned away. “Where from here?” He felt around him, stumbling over debris whose shape and former use he could not guess. He stood at the corner of one passage with another, one running flat, the other descending at a sharp angle.

  “I am not sure.” John spoke little more than breath. “But we are being sought. Do you hear it?”

  Edmund fell still again and heard the sound of slapping footsteps, seeming to come from every direction at once—then a shriek, and the clacking of teeth.

  I have waited long ages to meet you, Edmund. I touched the thread of your coming centuries before you were born. Heed me, hear me, and be master of your fate as much as any mortal man can ever be.

  Edmund bit his lip. “Go away.”

  For me, Edmund, there is no such thing as away.

  Edmund put a hand to the wall. He felt chill stone laid without mortar, each block locked in perfect smoothness with the next, all of them covered in carvings from the height of his knee to his shoulder. He traced across the stone hands of That-of-Goodness. It felt as though they moved to touch him back.

  He tugged John’s sleeve. “This way. Down.”

  Their path descended steep, over rubble so thick that he thought more than once there was no way through. The air hung still and stale—the hard wind on the slope far above seemed like the memory of another world. The passage ended in a vast cold chamber, for their footfalls came back to them once and again, from far beyond, beside and above.

  “Listen for an ambush.” John started off at a wary shuffle. Edmund gripped the back of his shirt and followed, fumbling in the utter dark. He flailed out and touched stone, a pillar—no, a vault, a long run in the direction of their walk.

  “I passed this way last time I was here.” John whispered by his shoulder. “This is the path Vithric took to reach the chamber. We dragged him through on our escape—I remember he cried out in his delirium and tried to seize at something.”

  Edmund traced with his fingers, feeling out the slots recessed along its length. Most held smooth stone tablets laid on their ends, marked by symbols incised beneath. “It’s a library.” Another set of shelves stood an arm’s length across.

  These are my thoughts, Edmund, the secret knowledge I gave to my servants over centuries—more wisdom, more power than all that could be collected from every city in your little kingdom. Edmund, it can be yours.

  Edmund let go of John’s shirt. He drew a sharp breath in.

  You have in you the seeds of greatness. Have you not felt it? There is much that we could do together, if only you would heed me.

  Edmund touched tablet after tablet—book after book, hundreds and hundreds in their rows and piles.

  Understand what it is that I offer. You lose a brother, but you never really needed him. You lose the girl—Edmund, you are fourteen. There will be others. Many others.

  The Voice seemed to get closer, somehow, so close that Edmund thought he could feel warm breath across his neck. Eternal life, Edmund. Power beyond the dreams of kings. Mine is the only love you will ever need.

  “Edmund?” John Marshal hissed out from the darkness ahead. “Edmund, where are you? We must hurry!”

  Edmund stood statue still. The Voice seemed to caress him, to enfold him in its whispers.

  Serve me, Edmund. Join with me. Set yourself upon the rising path. There are no good and evil choices, only wise and foolish ones. Search inside yourself—my words are truth, the only truth. You hold the future in your hands. Do not let it slip from your grasp.

  Edmund did search inside himself, alone in the silent dark. For a moment it felt as though he was back underwater, drowning again in the freezing river.

  He found the truth—or it found him. He wanted to laugh, at himself more than anyone.

  “You’re afraid of me.” He pulled his hand back from the shelves. “That’s why you’re talking to me. Maybe you can see the future, and you’re afraid of what I will do.”

  This much is certain, Edmund Bale. The Voice lost much of its sweetness. If you carry on against me, I will be your death. It is written in the stars, graven in the earth. The rivers mutter it when no mortal is listening. The choice is yours.

  “You are lying to me. You are lying to get me to give up.”

  Are you willing to gamble your life on that?

  Edmund felt his way onward, out past the end of the shelves.

  How disappointing.

  “Up ahead.” John grabbed at Edmund’s sleeve. “See it?”

  Edmund peered, and to his surprise found that he did see—just a little, a glow so faint that he was not quite sure it was there at first. It cast the outline of the shelves in purple-black, showing that they ran for a hundred yards, but ended. The
sounds of speech rose to hearing from ahead, taking on a distinct character—solitary and male, airy and sharp—and coming close to intelligible despite the warping echoes of the chamber around them.

  “That voice.” Shock dawned on John Marshal’s face—then fury. “I know that voice.” He plunged on toward the source of the light, ducking into the mouth of a level passage beyond.

  “Master Marshal—wait!” Edmund loped along into the passage as quickly as he could. Somewhere ahead the stranger chanted and coughed, his words piled over each other in echo. He found John Marshal halted at a bend, pressed tight against the inside wall. The corner made something less than a right angle; flickering light from ahead spilled out long against the opposite wall, projecting a shadow onto the crumbling stonework. The shadow was too faint and distorted to resolve into a recognizable shape, but every few moments it moved, shifting about with an appearance of restlessness. From one side of it projected a point that looked just like the head of a spear.

  “AS THIS FIRE BURNS, SO YOU ARE CONSUMED.” The stranger’s voice resounded from beyond the end of the tunnel. “BY SMOKE YOU ARE CONSUMED. AS FIRE BECOMES EARTH, YOU ARE MADE DUST. YOU ARE TAKEN BY THAT WHICH WAITS TO TOPPLE THE SCALES OF THE WORLD. YOU ARE TAKEN AND MADE DUST, AND I TAKE HERE MY SURFEIT. WE DRINK YOU, WE DRAIN YOU, YOUR LIFE BECOMES OURS. YOUR LIFE BECOMES MY LIFE. YOUR LIFE BECOMES MINE.”

  Edmund rolled forward, putting his hands to the foul, dirty floor. The tunnel grew wider and taller around the bend; firelight flooded down its length, casting the shadow of a bolgug standing ten paces away.

  “YOUR LIFE BECOMES MY LIFE.” The voice gained in strength. The bolgug shuddered its bulbous head and clacked its long teeth together. John turned to lock eyes with Edmund, then stepped around the corner and charged.

  At five paces’ distance the bolgug shrieked and raised its spear. John dodged under the point and cut its alarm short with a thrust of his sword. He shouldered the twitching bolgug aside and bolted down the last few yards of the tunnel, black blood arcing in droplets from his blade. Edmund grabbed for his longbow, nocked an arrow and started after him. There was no time left to be afraid. An entrance widened before him—a square of light, fire and smoke.

  The braced ceiling of the chamber into which they sprang arched high and cavernous above. Smooth walls fashioned of large, mortarless blocks of blue-gray stone formed a chamber of eight sides around him, marked all about with the soot of some ancient fire. A disintegrating jumble of objects lay smashed under bits of fallen ceiling—flanged metal vessels tarnished to green, tapestries rotted half to dust. Seven other exits led from the room, each a squat, deeply recessed door made of ancient and desiccated oak save for one large entrance choked with rubble. A platform rose one foot high in the center of the chamber, clear of all debris—a seven-pointed star chased with carvings filled with grout and ants’ nests and yet still suggestive of a crawling fear. Even its shape, seven points in a room of eight sides, was strangely sickening in its odd-angled aspect, but none of this was what made Edmund start in horror.

  At the center of the star was a roaring fire, the only source of light in the room, above which hung an iron cauldron that roiled and bubbled, giving off an awful stench and a stream of thick black smoke. The smoke did not rise to the ceiling as smoke should—it rolled and twisted, splicing itself out into ropy strands. Seven figures of various sizes lay on their backs along each of the points of the star. Tom was closest, his bony arms draped to the floor. Katherine looked like she had died in the middle of a nightmare, hands crossed on her breast as though to ward off a blow. Geoffrey curled on his side the way he always slept—he seemed younger than he was, the little pest Edmund had protected and tormented at turns throughout their lives. The smoke snaked into the mouth of one victim after the next, spilling out through their noses to form a shape at the center of the star that grew more solid by the moment.

  Would you like me to appear as a dragon, perhaps? The voice of the Nethergrim was no longer like Edmund’s mother’s, or like Katherine’s. It felt like a hungry worm burrowing into the side of his head. The smoke pulsed in time with its cadence. I could, if you like. There were folk who once gave me tribute in that shape—it is how I got the name you use for me.

  Edmund clutched at his ears. “What are you?”

  Or perhaps a lovely young woman, as before? The Nethergrim formed from coils inside coils, snaking mouths with too many tongues, the constant knowing that something was poised to reach out and seize you from behind—that there was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run and be safe. I did enjoy that, for a while—but this time I feel more inclined to rend and to shatter. Shapes appeared within the smoke—monstrous faces, claws and bristled limbs, a boiling profusion of eyes.

  “AS THIS FIRE BURNS, SO YOU ARE CONSUMED.” The stranger stood over the brazier, with his arms splayed out at angles and signs of awful power in his hands. “BY SMOKE YOU ARE CONSUMED. AS FIRE BECOMES EARTH, YOU ARE MADE DUST.” The book lay open on a lectern beside him, its pages weighted down by a jagged bronze knife. A half-dozen bolgugs stood about the chamber—they snarled and whined, and reached for their weapons.

  John Marshal stood dumb for a moment, rooted to the spot by what he saw before him. “Vithric.” He raised his sword—his voice rose to thunder. “Vithric!”

  Edmund stared at the stranger. Vithric?

  The spell had already done some of its work. Vithric’s voice no longer faltered in the chant. The wrinkles on his face had smoothed, and his hair had turned a rich full brown. His skin flushed with blood, his lips had gained flesh—they were set in a rictus of lewd and terrifying bliss.

  “Vithric!” John chopped a bolgug aside. He lunged for the star, for the place where his daughter lay—but more bolgugs raced in from all sides, too many. Vithric smirked and resumed his chant.

  Edmund drew back and loosed his arrow—terror seized his fingers, and the shot came closer to hitting Katherine than Vithric. In the time it would take to breathe twice more, John Marshal would be outflanked by three of the bolgugs. The other two stood guard in front of Vithric, swords held at the ready.

  You once turned a bonfire into light and it nearly stopped your heart. The Nethergrim rose and roiled, as though to stare Edmund down. Work against me and your death is sealed. Bow down before me and your death will never come.

  A moan sounded. A diminutive figure twitched on a ray of the star—white hair, a wrinkled face contorted in agony. The figure collapsed—a child, aged to his death in mere moments. The smoke grew more solid, a tail flopped forth, the multitude of eyes became two, slitted and orange-bright.

  Edmund heard, saw, and felt the awful draw of youth passing from the child into Vithric, and something else into the Nethergrim. The meaning of the spell came clear at last—Vithric was stealing their lives away, and the Nethergrim was feeding on the agony of their dying minds, growing more powerful with every tortured moan.

  “YOU ARE TAKEN BY THAT WHICH WAITS TO TOPPLE THE SCALES OF THE WORLD. YOU ARE TAKEN AND MADE DUST, AND I TAKE HERE MY SURFEIT. WE DRINK YOU, WE DRAIN YOU, YOUR LIFE BECOMES OURS.”

  All at once Edmund knew. He knew how to stop what was happening, and the terrible cost of it.

  He threw down his longbow. “Master Marshal, clear me a path!” He dropped his head and charged, though a pair of bolgugs raised heavy-bladed swords to bar his way. John Marshal parried, wove and ducked. His sword flashed and wove—he shouldered one bolgug aside, but the other seized at the quiver slung over Edmund’s back. Edmund shrugged it off, spilling arrows all around, then dodged through the gap.

  There is nothing you can do, Edmund. All is lost. Save yourself.

  Vithric’s spell was cleverly done, supremely clever—the cost of the spell, the agonies of the victims, were being absorbed by the Nethergrim. To block it directly would be beyond any wizard ever born, so Edmund chose to join it instead. The bolgugs guarding Vithric screamed and gnashed their teeth. If the spell did not kill him, the bolgugs would.

&n
bsp; Edmund took one last look at Katherine’s sleeping face.

  “I TAKE THIS COST AND PLACE IT ON MYSELF.” He matched the cadence of Vithric’s chant. “I HOLD THEIR PAIN TO ME, I HEAR THEIR THOUGHTS IN MINE. I HOLD THEIR PAIN.” He inverted Vithric’s signs, traced out the signs of Life and Making. “I TAKE THIS COST AND PLACE IT ON MYSELF.”

  It worked. It hurt, it hurt, but it worked.

  Edmund buckled, flooded with the dying torment of Tilly Miller. He felt her trying to hold on to one happy image, her mother smiling down on her as a baby, felt her trying to make peace with the life she would never get to have. He heard her shrieks in his own wailing voice. Somewhere underneath it was the awareness of the pain in his own body. He tasted something salty and metallic in his mouth.

  Vithric’s smile broke. His eyes went wide in alarm.

  Edmund held the pain, denying the Nethergrim her feast. He stumbled up toward the star and reached for Tilly’s withered hand. He held it tight as she died.

  Vithric’s spell lost its power.

  Everything stopped.

  The orange eyes fixed on Edmund, and a mouth formed in the smoke beneath, as if by chance. So be it, Edmund Bale.

  Vithric let out a scream of frustration and rage. The eyes dissolved. The tendrils shivered and broke apart, and rose toward the ceiling, like smoke should.

  Chapter

  28

  Edmund breathed. His heart beat—fast, but steady and strong. Vithric crouched, huddled and shaking behind the cauldron. The Nethergrim rose as a formless wisp of smoke between them. Her Voice spoke no more inside Edmund’s mind.

  Edmund spent a dizzy moment wondering why he was still alive. His spell had worked. It had not killed him, but it had cost him—a little blood, a flood of tears and nightmares enough to last a lifetime.

  He looked around him. John Marshal lay sprawled atop the corpses of the last two bolgugs, the sword spilled from his injured hand.

  Vithric moaned and struggled to his feet. Edmund met eyes with him. He should have seized the moment to attack, but only words came: “You were a hero.”