Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (54 page)

It was then that a flicker in the sky caught his attention. A colour splashed against the black and grey of the morning, high in the cloudless rafters of the sky. Blues, swirling with deep greens. Disappearing there, dancing here, flowing like a ghostly river. The Wake.

Farden watched it for a time. It looked like what he imagined magick to look like, were it tangible. It was heading north, by the looks of it. Perhaps it was magick after all, he thought. He was in the midst of pondering this deep thought of thoughts when the Wake began to do something he had never seen before. Parts of it seemed to crystallise in the unreachable sky, and drift slowly to earth. Little grains of sand, blue, green, and white, fell like snowflakes to the ice below. They took an age to fall, and when they did, they lingered on the wastes, refusing to fade. Farden squinted. None had fallen near to their mountain, only on the undulating band of ice between the Tausenbar and the Spine. Farden watched them as they slowly began to drift north and slightly east, towards an outcrop of black rock that was separate from the two mountain ranges, standing alone like a lost cousin.

Farden got to his feet as if it would somehow aid his eyesight. The grains drifted so slowly in fact that it hardly seemed like they were moving at all. Farden suddenly remembered the spyglass he had taken from the ship, and whirled around to fish it out of his pack. He tugged the thing free and held it gingerly to his eye, careful of its cold metal rim. He swung it to the ice fields and scanned back and forth. Nothing. He looked up to get his bearings and a frown creased his brow. The grains had faded away. Farden was about to hurl the spyglass into thin air when a tiny glint of colour caught his eye, far to the northeast, by the lonely rocks. Farden lifted the spyglass and tweaked every lever and cog his fingers could find until the contraption focused. Even then it struggled with the distance and Farden had to rest it on his knee to keep it still. But there it was, trapped in his eyepiece. A single grain of light.

The mage watched it as it travelled across the ice. It was bigger than he had first suspected, more a lump than a grain, and a strange shape too. It fluttered like a half-snuffed candle. He could have sworn the thing had legs. It seemed to step across the ice rather than drift across it, plodding slowly and deliberately, as if it were in no rush, but knew it had a place to be. Like a condemned convict trudging towards his morning noose.

Farden squinted again, cursing his eyes. The thing had arms too. He could see them now. Hanging limply by its side. Did it have a head? Maybe. He couldn’t tell. He looked again. The light it gave seemed to trail behind it, like the rags of a scarecrow in the wind. Farden snorted. What would a speck of light need with rags, or clothes, or hair?

Farden leant forward, almost forgetting for a moment that he had perched on the edge of the mountain. He watched, fascinated, as the light reached the base of a short cliff, where, if the shadows didn’t deceive him, he spied a hollow filled with five tall stones. Farden got to his feet, nearly falling to his doom in the process.

Five stones. Five monoliths.

‘Up! Get up!’ Farden started pounding his gauntlet on his greaves, making a clanging sound. Ilios was up in seconds, claws at the ready. Tyrfing, his leaning spot suddenly transformed into an alert gryphon, floundered on the ground. Loki opened his eyes as if he had been awake the whole time. Both of them got to their feet and came to stand by Farden. He pointed at the tiny light in the distance, barely noticeable. They glimpsed it just before it faded into the ice. ‘Gentlemen and gryphon, I think we’ve found ourselves a ghostgate,’ Farden announced.

‘What, there?’ Tyrfing gestured for the spyglass. He winced at the cold of its metal.

‘There indeed. Right where the Grimsayer said it would be. Barely a morning’s flight,’ Farden almost sounded excited.

‘What was that light?’ Loki asked, interested.

Farden shrugged. ‘Well, I assume it was a ghost for the gate.’

‘A soul, then,’ Loki said, biting his lip.

‘Whatever it is, it’s where we’re headed,’ Farden paused as a shiver ran through his body. ‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

Pitted like pox-scars, the grey faces of the stones were a strange contrast to the black of the yawning hollow of the cliff behind them. They sat in a circle, an awkward, granite crown poking from the snow. Five identical stones, each of them massive and towering, no fewer than fifteen feet tall at a sound guess. Their points were sharp. Their sides were sheer, ashen and sparkling in the morning glow. The runes and shapes that had once tattooed their surfaces were now eroded smooth and faint, whipped illegible by the wind and ice.

‘Is this it?’ Farden prodded the ground between the stones with his boot, making the snow creak. ‘There’s nothing here.’ Nobody answered. Loki was silent and distracted. He stood a short distance away, facing south, his hands hanging limply by his sides. Ilios was off hunting. Tyrfing was also silent. He was busy scraping the ice away from one of the stones, trying to get at the runes beneath. He shrugged.

‘Great. What’s a gate that isn’t a gate? A waste of time, that’s what,’ Farden muttered.

‘So the light faded here, did it?’ Tyrfing asked, casting around for something, anything. He had a cloth clamped over his mouth.

‘Right here,’ Farden stamped on the snow again. He took out his sword and prodded at the roots of the stones. Nothing budged. ‘Nowhere.’

Loki turned around, his face catching the morning light and making his skin glow. Had Farden been in the mood to notice things, he might have noticed how strange it made him look. How solid it made him. ‘Perhaps you have to be dead, to pass through the gate,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘By all means, god,’ Farden snapped, ‘be my guest.’

‘That would be impossible.’

‘Well, isn’t that a sha…’

‘Farden,’ Tyrfing coughed, waving his hand. Farden raised his sword. He had heard it too. A scraping. A puff of snow falling down the cliff above them, trickling from one crag to the next, like a miniature avalanche. The two mages crept forward until they were under the lip of the cliff, backs to the rock. Loki stayed where he was, oblivious, or distracted, or both.

The mages watched the shadow of the cliff, a jagged black line in the snow just beyond the furthest ghostgate stone. Farden pointed as a little shape popped up, and then disappeared. More snow trickled down. Another shape appeared, then another, and another, too small to be human, but too big to be a bird, or a rabbit. They could hear the scraping and tinkling of needle-claws on the rock above. Tyrfing and Farden pressed themselves against the cliff as something black and leathery flopped onto the snow in front of them.

It was a beastly little thing, that was for sure. All spindly limbs and feathers. Not quite a bat, but not quite a crow, and stuck somewhere in between. It was about the size of a cat, and had the tail of one too. Its beady little eyes hadn’t seen them yet. They were fixed on Loki.

Another three of the little creatures came down to join the first. They crept forward, sniffing at the air, chattering softly, hungrily. Farden stepped forward, and calmly dug the point of his sword into the ice with a metallic ping. The creatures flinched. ‘Stay where you are,’ he warned, hoping they would understand. Surprisingly, they did. The creatures slowly turned to face him, baring clusters of jagged teeth, rammed into beaks several sizes too small for their faces. One of them shrieked at him, a horrible noise like a strangled bugle, but otherwise stayed put.

‘Strangers,’ it said in a hissing, bubbling voice, not unlike a pot coming to the boil, ‘comes to stares at the gates.’

‘We do,’ Farden said. ‘And what, pray, are you?’

The first shrieked again. ‘We’s ares the watchers. Watches the ghosts comes and goes.’ The thing pointed the clawed stub of its leathery wing at patches of thin air. ‘There’s oneses. There’s anothers,’ it said, sniggering. Farden and Tyrfing looked around, wary. There was nothing except the stones and the snow.

Something rattled behind Farden and he felt a sharp pain on his neck. Another of the little creatures had jumped onto his back, sinking its claws through his cloak. Farden clenched his teeth and grabbed the thing by the neck. The others flapped and whined. ‘Be quiet!’ Farden yelled, holding the flapping, thrashing thing at arm’s length. ‘Be quiet, or I’ll rip this one’s head off quicker than you can blink.’ There was a hissing as the things calmed, sagging into the snow. ‘That’s better,’ said the mage. ‘Now, what do you want?’

The first raised a claw, blinking its little black eyes. ‘Hims,’ it said, pointing at Loki. The god was still oblivious to all. ‘He’s not like yous.’

The creature in his grip squawked. ‘Never mets a gods before!’

Farden threw the thing to the snow. It smelled like old meat and damp. ‘He’s none of your business. What are you creatures?’

‘We’s are the watchers!’ cried the first.

‘You said that, but
what
are you? What do you do here besides watch things?’ Farden asked.

The beasts cackled amongst themselves. ‘We’s make sures the deads do as they’s tolds.’

‘Which is?’

‘Go downs into the darks!’

‘We’s tells them their lives, if they wants to listens. Reads thems their pasts.’

‘Ands their futures!’

‘Eats their meats!’

Tyrfing sniffed. ‘Fortune-tellers?’

The eyes of the creatures glittered. ‘We’s cans reads you yourses, if you pleases? For a prices!’

‘Shrieks,’ Farden muttered to his uncle. ‘Fairytales were true after all.’ He turned around to find the four Shrieks had gotten a little closer all of a sudden. They had gathered around his boots. Farden nudged one away with the flat of sword, but it crawled right back.

‘Futures is all yous live oneses have,’ one said.

‘Pasts is all the deads oneses have,’ another added.

Farden aimed a kick at the nearest Shriek. They smelled even worse in a group. They looked hungry too. ‘Enough chatter. What do you know about the gate?’

‘Everythings!’

‘How do we get in it?’

‘Impossibles for the live oneses!’ cried the Shrieks, as one.

‘Lies,’ Farden grunted. ‘It happened before. Korrin was his name. He wore armour like this.’ Farden tapped his vambraces. The Shrieks fell silent. The breeze moaned through the stones, blowing a little snow in their faces. Tyrfing walked forward. His sword was out too. He flicked it up to hover barely an inch from the eye of the biggest Shriek.

‘Show us the way, or we’ll see to it that you never watch anything ever again,’ he threatened, grunting his words. Farden nodded and twirled his own blade menacingly. They had no time to waste with politeness.

The big Shriek relented. ‘Ones cames before. Before anys of us. Before anys of our eggs, or the eggs before that.’

‘But you know of him?’

The Shrieks cackled, unfolding the story one by one. ‘Storieses passed downs. Shriek to Shriek. We knows him. Korrins. Yesss.’

‘Asked us for helps, he dids.’

‘Asked us the ways in, he dids.’

‘Helped hims in the ends.’

‘Showed him the ways.’

‘Gave us meats!’

Farden looked hungrily at the stones. ‘Show us, like you showed him.’

The Shrieks fidgeted, creaking and rustling like slimy leather. A few moments passed. ‘A prices,’ one hissed. ‘There’s a prices for such knowledges.’

‘Yes! A prices!’ the Shrieks hopped up and down excitedly. ‘He paid!’

‘Whats can you offers us, in tradeses?’

‘Meats?’

Farden smiled a very wild smile indeed. ‘Of course,’ he said, gently. Laying his sword across his knees, he slowly crouched down and bent a finger to the Shrieks. They shuffled forward eagerly to hear their prize. Farden looked at each and every one, still smiling all the while, before he answered. ‘How about,’ he began, ‘you show us the way through this gate here, or we tie you all up in neat bundles, make you watch as we build a little roasting fire, and cook you all on spits. Alive, of course. One by one, so the rest can watch. You can even try a bit too, if you like. We’re more than happy to share.’ The mage grinned maniacally. ‘How does that sound?’

The Shrieks had begun to shake by that point. The big one licked its beak with a blue tongue and nodded. ‘We’s accepts your kind offers. This ways please.’

Farden stood up and winked at his uncle. Tyrfing just nodded. Farden assumed he was smiling under the handkerchief wrapped around his mouth. It was stained with blood.

The Shrieks shuffled quickly into the circle of stones and spread out, each Shriek to a stone. They began to scratch around in the snow, looking for something. Whatever it was, they soon found it. The snow in the circle began to fizzle and spit, melting away until a hole had been cut in the ice, just wide enough to swallow a man. Farden went over to it, keeping his sword at the ready lest it be a trick by the Shrieks. But they were silent, busy hugging their stones.

Farden looked down into the hole, and was not entirely surprised to find it filled with water, At its ice-white rim, the water was a deceptively pleasant azure, but as the hole burrowed deeper, it turned the colour of a cobalt ink, painfully dark and disturbingly deep. Farden leant over to try to see the bottom. It was nowhere to be seen; just the thick darkness of the water. He couldn’t even tell if it had a bottom.