Runemarks (7 page)

—then, for each of its legs,
Bjarkán,
for the world of Dream,
Naudr
, for the Underworld—

—
Hagall,
for Netherworld, and
Kaen,
for Chaos or World Beyond—

—and finally, right in the middle of the Eye itself, the rune of the Sky Citadel—

—
Ós,
the Æsir, brightest of all, like the central star in the constellation of Thiazi, the Hunter, which hangs over the Seven Sleepers on clear winter nights.

Ós.
The Æsir. The Firmament. Maddy looked at the rune in silence. This was the moment of which she had dreamed, and yet now that she was so close, she felt a curious reluctance to proceed. It angered her a little, and yet she was conscious of a tiny part of her that wanted above all to step away from the threshold and walk back to Malbry and the safety of its familiar cleft.

One-Eye must have sensed it; he gave a little smile and put his hand on Maddy’s shoulder. “Not afraid, are you, girl?”

“No. Are you?”

“A little,” he said. “It’s been so long…” He took out his pipe, relit it, and drew in a mouthful of sweet smoke. “Foul habit,” he said. “Picked it up from the Tunnel People on one of my trips. Master smiths, you know, but terrible hygiene. I think the smoke helps them disguise the smell.”

Maddy touched the final rune. It flared opal colors like the winter sun. She spoke the cantrip:

Ós byth ordfruma…

The Hill opened with a sliding crash, and where the Eye had been there was now a narrow, raw-sided tunnel sliding downward into the earth.

6

Five hundred years ago, around the dawn of the New Age, there had been few strongholds more secure than the castle on Red Horse Hill. Built on a steep mound overlooking the valley, it commanded the entire plain, and its cannon were forever pointed at the Hindarfell pass, which was the only possible place along the Seven Sleepers ridge from which an enemy could attack.

In fact, it was a mystery to the people of Malbry how the castle had fallen at all, unless it was by plague or treachery, because from the broken stone circle, you could see all the way to Fettlefields to the north and, to the south, to Forge’s Post, at the foot of the mountains.

The road was wide open, barely shielded by gorse and sparse scrubland, and the sides of the Hill itself were too steep for men in armor to climb.

But Adam Scattergood wore no armor, the cannon had long since been melted down, and it had been fully five hundred years since a lookout had stood on Red Horse Hill. As a result, he had managed to climb the Hill unseen, and, crawling through the rabbit-tail grass to the lee of the Horse, he hid behind a fallen stone to listen to what the witch girl and the one-eyed scallyman were saying.

Adam had never trusted Maddy. Imaginative people made him nervous, and the world they inhabited—a strange, dark world where Adam Scattergood was neither noticed nor wanted—made him feel very uneasy indeed. But what he wouldn’t admit to himself was that Maddy frightened him. That would have been too ridiculous. She was a bad-blood, wasn’t she? No one would ever want her, not with that ruinmark on her hand. She would never amount to anything.

Adam Scattergood (Laws be praised) was a handsome boy with a brilliant future. He was already a parson’s prentice; with luck (and with his mother’s savings) he might even be sent to World’s End to study in the Universal City. In short, he was one of Malbry’s finest—and yet here he was, spying on the girl and her Outlander friend, like a sneak without any friends of his own. It annoyed him to think this, and he crept a little closer to the base of the stone, straining his ears for something secret, something important, something with which he could taunt her later.

When he heard the part about the treasure under the Hill, he grinned. There was a rich vein of mockery in that.
Goblin Girl,
he’d say.
Found any gold yet? Buy yourself a new dress, Goblin Girl? Get yourself a Faërie ring?

The thought was so appealing that he almost left his hiding place there and then, but he was alone, and suddenly the girl and the Outlander didn’t seem as funny as when Adam was with his friends. In fact, they looked almost dangerous, and Adam felt glad he was safely out of sight behind the big stone.

When he heard about the Whisperer, he was doubly glad he’d hidden away. Adam wanted nothing to do with any relic of the Elder Age, however valuable—in any case, it was probably cursed or possessed by a demon. And when it came to opening the Hill, Adam could have hugged himself with glee, for although he had a lively terror of anything uncanny, it was clear that this time, Maddy and her one-eyed friend had overstepped the mark.

Opening the Hill to World Below! Nat Parson would have strong words to say about
that.
Even Matt Law, who had no love for the parson, would have to admit that this time Maddy had gone too far. There could be no ignoring such a blatant violation of laws laid down in the Good Book.

This could mean the end of the witch girl once and for all. The people of Malbry had long tolerated her peculiarities for her father’s sake, but such conjuring was a serious crime, and the moment Nat Parson found out (as Adam fully intended that he should), Maddy might be Examined, or even Cleansed.

Adam had never seen an actual Cleansing. Such things didn’t happen much outside World’s End—but civilization was marching on, as the parson was wont to say, and it could only be a matter of time before the Order established an outpost within reach of Malbry. It couldn’t happen too early for Adam. An end to magic; the Hill dug out, its demons burned, and Order restored to the valley of the Strond…

But as time passed and nothing happened, Adam grew sleepy behind his rock. He began to doze, and when at last Maddy drew open the Horse’s Eye, he was jolted awake with a gasp of astonishment. One-Eye looked up, his fingers crooked, and Adam was suddenly sure the Outlander could
see
right through the ancient granite of the fallen stone to where he was hiding.

A great terror gripped him, and he flattened himself even more closely to the ground, half expecting to hear heavy footsteps coming toward him across the Hill.

Nothing happened.

Adam relaxed a little, and as the seconds passed, his natural arrogance began to return. Of course he hadn’t been seen. It was just this place, he told himself—this Hill, with its ghosts and noises—that had unnerved him. He wasn’t afraid of a one-eyed scally. And he
certainly
wasn’t afraid of a little girl.

What was she doing, anyway? Maddy seemed to be lifting her hand; from his position, Adam could just see her shadow on the grass. He couldn’t have guessed she was using
Bjarkán
—but now she too could see the boy hunched against the fallen stone, his face a blur of fear and malice.

Maddy needed no workings to know what her enemy was doing there. In that second she understood it all. She saw in his colors how he had followed her, how he had spied on her and One-Eye, and how he meant to run back to the village with his stolen knowledge and spoil everything, as he always spoiled everything.

And now her rage at last found an outlet. Quite without thinking, and with her bastard runemark glowing hot on her palm, she hurled her anger and her voice, like the stones Adam had so often thrown at her, toward the crouching boy.

It was instinctive. Her cry rang out across the Hill, and at precisely the same time there was a flash of light and a deafening
crack!
as the standing stone split into two pieces and granite shavings spackled across the brow of the Hill.

Adam Scattergood was left crouching between the two halves of the broken rock, his face the color of fresh cheese and a wet stain spreading over the crotch of his fine serge trousers.

Helplessly, Maddy started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. The attack had left her almost as terrified as Adam himself, but still the laughter came and would not stop, and the boy stared at her, first in fear, then in awe, and finally (as soon as he realized that he was unhurt) in black and bitter hatred.

“You’ll be s-sorry, witch,” he stammered, climbing shakily to his feet. “I’ll tell them what you’re planning. I’ll tell them you tried to murder me.”

But Maddy was still laughing, out of control. Tears ran from her eyes, her stomach hurt, and even so, the laughter felt so good that she couldn’t stop, could hardly breathe. She laughed until she almost choked, and Adam’s face grew darker still as, breaking away from the circle of stones, he fled back down Red Horse Hill toward the Malbry road. Neither Maddy nor One-Eye tried to stop him.

Now Maddy went up to the broken stone. The laughter had fled as fast as it had erupted, and she was left feeling drained and a little sick. The granite had stood three feet high and almost as broad; nevertheless, it had been split clean in two. She touched the break: it was rough and raw-edged, and inside it, here and there, nuggets of mica shone.

“So, you can throw mindbolts,” said One-Eye, who had followed her. “Well done, Maddy. With practice, that may be a useful skill.”

“I didn’t throw anything,” said Maddy numbly. “I just threw…my voice. But it wasn’t a
rune;
it was just nonsense, just random shouting, like today in the cellar.”

One-Eye smiled. “Sense,” he said, “is a concept of Order. The language of Chaos is nonsense by definition.”

“The language of Chaos?” said Maddy. “But I don’t
know
it. I’ve never
heard
of it—”

“Yes, you do,” said One-Eye. “It’s in your blood.”

Maddy looked out across the Hill, where the distant figure of Adam Scattergood was getting smaller and smaller along the Malbry road, occasionally giving vent to a shrill scream of rage as he ran.

“I could have killed him,” she said, beginning to shake.

“Another time, perhaps.”

“Don’t you understand? I could have
killed
him!”

One-Eye seemed unmoved. “Well, isn’t that what you wanted to do?”

“No!”

He smiled but said nothing.

“I mean it, One-Eye. It just happened.”

One-Eye shrugged and relit his pipe. “My dear girl, things like that don’t
just happen.
”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh yes, you do.”

And she did, Maddy realized—she was not the daughter of a smith for nothing. The thing she had thrown at Adam—the mindbolt—had not sprung out of thin air; it had been
forged
. It had been heavy, like a crossbow quarrel, and she had cast it at Adam with the strength—and intent—of years of pent-up anger.

Once again she felt a moment of dread as she imagined what might have happened if the stone had not taken the impact. And with that fear came the even more terrible knowledge that she could (and would) do it again.

One-Eye must have read her thoughts. “Remember what I taught you?” he said gently. “Fire burns; that’s its nature. Use it or not, but remember this: a mindbolt isn’t a blunderbuss. It won’t go off on its own.” He smiled. “As for the boy—no harm was done. It’s a pity he heard us, of course. It gives us less time. But it changes nothing.”

“Wait a minute,” said Maddy, looking into the open tunnel. “You don’t think we should go in right now, do you? After what happened?”

“After what happened,” said One-Eye, “what choice do we have?”

Maddy thought about that for a time. By now Adam would have made his report—unless he’d stopped to change his trousers—no doubt embellishing it with as many tales of demons as his limited imagination could invent.

Jed Smith would have to be told, and Matt Law, and the bishop, not forgetting Nat Parson, who had been waiting for such a crisis since his legendary pilgrimage to World’s End, and who would be delighted to have such an important violation to deal with. And whatever else happened, the incident would go down in the Malbry ledger alongside the most important events of the village’s history, and Adam Scattergood would be remembered until long after his bones were dust.

The sun was high in the sky now, and the valley was green and gold in its pale light. A little smoke rose over the rooftops, and the scent of burning stubble reached Maddy from afar, filling her eyes with sudden tears. She thought of the smithy and of the tiny house abutting it, of the smell of hot metal and smoke, of the ring of marigolds around the front door.

This was her world, she thought, and until this moment, when she was close to leaving it, she had never realized how much it meant to her. If she fled now, she tacitly admitted her guilt, and things could never go back to what they had been before.

“Is it worth it, One-Eye?” she said. “This Whisperer, whatever it is?”

One-Eye nodded. “It’s worth it,” he said.

“More than gold?” said Maddy.

“Much more than gold.”

Once more Maddy looked out across the valley. She could stay and argue her case, of course. She would at least get a fair hearing. There hadn’t been a hanging in the valley since Black Nell, a saddleback sow with a ruinmark on her back, had eaten her piglets ten years ago. But One-Eye was an Outlander—one of a tribe of beggars and bandits—and his trial was likely to be short and harsh. She had no choice—and besides, with the Hill standing open at her feet and the promise of hidden treasure below, how could she turn away?

The passage was rough-edged and narrow, sloping down into the side of the Hill. She stepped inside, stooping a little, and gingerly tested the earth ceiling. To her relief it was dry and firm; from the depths of the tunnel came a cellar scent. Maddy took another step, but One-Eye stayed where he was, watching her, and made no move to follow.

“Well?” said Maddy. “Are you coming, or what?”

For a moment One-Eye said nothing. Then he slowly shook his head. “I can’t go in there, Maddy,” he said. “He’d recognize me the moment I set foot in World Below. And he’d know at once why I was there.”

“Who would?” said Maddy.

“I wish I could tell you,” he said. “But time is short, and there’s none to spare for a long tale. The treasure you seek—the Whisperer—is no ordinary piece of loot. It may be disguised as a block of glass, a lump of iron ore—even a rock. It’s in its nature to hide, but you’ll know it by its colors, which it can’t disguise. Look for it in a well or a fountain. It may be buried very deep. But if you call it, it will come to you.”

Maddy looked once again into the passageway—it was dark in there, dark as a tomb, and she remembered One-Eye telling her that there were roads beneath the Hill that led all the way to Death, Dream, and beyond…

She shivered and turned to him again. “So—how do we know it’s still there? What if someone’s taken it?”

“They haven’t,” said One-Eye. “I would have known.”

“But you said there were others. And now—”

“Truth is, Maddy,” he interrupted, “I’m not sure if he’s there at all, or what he means to do if he is. But if I come with you and he’s waiting down there with whatever glam he’s managed to hang on to—”

“Who is he?” said Maddy again.

One-Eye gave a twisted smile. “A…friend,” he said. “From long ago. One who turned traitor in the Winter War. I thought he was dead, and maybe he is, but his kind have nine lives, and he always was lucky.”

Maddy started to speak, but he cut her off. “Listen, Maddy. He’s waiting for
me
. He won’t suspect you. He may not even notice you. And you can find the Whisperer and bring it to me before he sees what’s happening. Will you do it?”

Once again Maddy looked into the Horse’s Eye. It yawned darkly at her feet, as if the Horse were coming awake after centuries of sleeping.

“What about you?” she said at last.

The Outlander smiled, but his good eye gleamed. “I may be old, Maddy, but I think I can still handle a rabble of villagers.”