The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4) (2 page)

Garrett pulled a pained expression. "Would you mind not saying anything to Uncle Tinjin, please?" he asked.

She gave him a stern look. "I suppose you didn't bother getting your uncle's permission before you went searching for the lost treasure of the Songreaver?" she said.

"Not exactly," he said, "but it wasn't treasure I was looking for. It was the magic word I needed to set Lampwicke free."

"Which you found?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"That sounds like something that would interest your uncle a great deal," she said.

"I know," he said, "just..."

"You know he wouldn't approve of your methods for acquiring it," she said.

"Yeah."

"You're going to have to tell him sooner or later," she said.

"I know," he said, "I just have to think of the right way to do it. Please don't tell him... Please?"

Ymowyn shook her head and frowned. "We still need to do something about the state you're in now," she said. She shrugged the worn leather backpack from her shoulders. She rummaged inside it for a moment, pulling out a woolen cap and scarf.

Garrett offered no protest as she pushed back his hood again and snugged the warm cap down around his ears. He felt a bit of a breeze through the openings on either side where her pointed ears would have poked through if she were wearing it. She covered these and wrapped his neck with the long scarf of soft purple wool that smelled faintly of lavender.

"Thanks," Garrett said, his voice sounding slightly muffled through Ymowyn's scarf.

"You like them?" Ymowyn asked.

Garrett nodded. "Uh huh."

"Warren gave them to me," she said, smiling.

Garrett looked at the shaggy gray ghoul. "Where'd
you
get them?" he asked.

Warren looked away, scratching at his ear with a black claw. "I dunno," he mumbled, "Found 'em on some dead guy."

"I think he knitted them for me himself," Ymowyn whispered, her emerald eyes sparkling.

"I did not!" Warren growled, "Ghouls don't knit!"

Ymowyn leaned over and pressed her lips to Warren's forehead. Then she sat back, hugging her knees and coiling her bushy tail around her feet as she reveled in the ghoul's embarrassment.

Warren scratched his head where she had kissed him. He looked at Garrett. "So, are you and fang-girl gonna be
gazin' the moon
now?"

"Huh?" Garrett exclaimed before collapsing into another coughing fit.

"You know, like me and Ymowyn," Warren said, "
Gazin'
."

"What is it that you think we are doing?" Ymowyn scoffed.

"
Gazin'
," Warren said, "a guy and a girl like each other, and they start... you know."

"What?" Ymowyn said, her green eyes narrow.

Garrett couldn't stop coughing.

"You know," Warren said, waving his paws, "They hang out together a lot more. Sometimes they sorta... smooch...
Gazin' the moon!
Everybody knows about
gazin'!
"

"Oh..." Ymowyn said, leaning forward to pat Garrett gently on the back until he regained his composure. "I believe Warren means that you are
courting
the young lady."

"Oh... uh, yeah," Garrett said, "We're supposed to be going to some kind of vampire play thing together tomorrow night." He coughed again.

Lady Ymowyn frowned. "You should really be resting for the next few days," she said.

Garrett's eyes went wide. "But I'm supposed to go to the thing!" he said.

Warren snorted with laughter.

"What?" Garrett asked.

"You're going to be
playing
with a bunch of vampires?" he laughed, "I'd watch my neck if I were you."

"No, it's a
play
, like in a theater," Garrett said, "and, anyway, they don't bite people's necks."

"Really?" Warren said, "What are the fangs for then?"

Garrett didn't have an answer for that.

"It really isn't a good idea to be going out in your condition, Garrett," Ymowyn said, "You have a very bad cold. You say you've been sick since the night you came back from the caverns?"

"Yeah," Garrett said, "The night I set Lampwicke free. I stayed up kinda late, and felt a little strange when I went to bed that night. When I woke up, I was coughing pretty bad, and my head hurt."

Ymowyn looked troubled.

"Can't you just give me some medicine to get me through the next few days?" he pleaded.

"I could make something to help you," she said, "but I'm not sure I should waste the herbs on someone who seems intent upon killing himself and infecting as many people as he can on his way down."

Garrett winced. "I promise I'll get some rest," he said, "and I don't think I can make vampires sick anyway."

Warren made a worried noise. "I don't know that this is a good idea, Gar," he said, "I mean Marla is nice enough, as far as blood-suckers go, but those others... I don't think you should be hanging around with them."

"Why not?" Garrett demanded.

"They're dangerous," Warren said.

"What... sorta like ghouls are dangerous?" Garrett scoffed.

Lady Ymowyn shushed them both. "I hear something," she whispered. Her foxlike ears tilted forward as she crouched low in the tunnel, her eyes on the mouth of the spillway below.

Garrett strained to hear anything over the gushing water below. He reached inside his satchel to grasp the filled essence flask within.

Warren sniffed the air and bared his teeth. The look in his eyes told Garrett that this wasn't going to be just another false lead.

"What is it?" Garrett whispered.

Warren shook his head, sniffing again. "Something..."

"Wrong," Ymowyn spoke for him. She wrinkled her snout and drew back further into the shadow of the tunnel, "It's coming this way."

Warren hunched low, ready to spring, flexing claws that could rend stone. Garrett drew the flask from his pack and silently readied himself to call forth a burst of faefire.

The three of them pressed their bodies against the damp stone of the tunnel floor and watched the black mouth of the spillway tunnel. Thin gray light sifted down through the mist from a street grate high above, dimly illuminating the chamber below. Garrett held his breath, feeling the little tickle of an impending cough at the back of his throat. His eyes bulged with the effort of holding it in, and he forced a dry swallow, buying himself a few more seconds.

Gradually, a cold, prickly feeling crept over Garrett's skin, and a sort of oppressive weight settled on his chest. He could feel the pulse pounding in his temples, and his stomach turned as if he were falling from a great height. Something unnatural was at work here.

Then he saw a slight movement in the mouth of the spillway below. He blinked twice, unable to make sense of what he was seeing. A long, pale arm stretched from the round archway of the tunnel, a man's arm, or nearly so. It was as if someone were clinging to the roof of the tunnel inside, crawling along the ceiling above the water like some great beetle.

The arm reached out, and its hand grasped the keystone of the arch with fingers splayed too far apart. At first, Garrett thought the man was wearing gloves, but he saw then that the hand itself was stained a silvery black up to its wrist. A second stained hand now grasped the lip of the arch, and the first hand reached higher still to find finger holds in the rough seams of the ancient masonry. The man's body swung into view beneath, and Garrett saw that he wore a close-fitting sleeveless black jacket, buckled around his thin chest, and a tight, leather mask covered his entire head, save for his eyes which were concealed behind a pair of thick goggles. His body swung upon his spindly arms with weird, inhuman grace, reminding Garrett of a stick insect he had once seen in Marla's pet shop, and the way his head pivoted on his neck, twisting further than it should, filled Garrett with revulsion and fear.

A racking cough erupted from Garrett's chest, and the man looked up, catching sight of their hiding place above. The green glass of his goggles flashed once in the dull light, and then he was gone, his body plummeting from the spillway into the churning swell of dark water below. Garrett saw the man's long, pale legs kick against the frothing current and then lost all sight of him.

Warren leapt from the mouth of the tunnel with a furious growl. He landed on the stone walkway below and raced on all fours in hopeless pursuit. The water was moving too fast. Garrett and Ymowyn climbed down the grimy rungs of an old iron ladder that had been mortared into the wall. Flakes of rust crumbled off in Garrett's hands as he climbed, and he paused a moment at the bottom to wipe red stains on the thighs of his robe, listening to Warren's snarls receding into the distance.

"I'm sorry," Garrett said, coughing again.

"It's not your fault, dear," Ymowyn sighed, "Honestly, I'm rather relieved that it chose flight over confrontation. I'm not entirely certain what it was, or if we could have captured it at all."

"I hope Warren's all right," Garrett said, pulling the essence flask back out of his satchel to provide a faint green light as they followed the path the ghoul had taken along the narrow walkway. The strange sensation of dread was gone, and Garrett knew somehow that the man with the black hands had made good his escape.

"I suppose Diggs was right after all," Ymowyn said, "That thing is using the tunnels below the city to move from the Upper City to the Lower, and probably out of Wythr from there."

"You think it was the traitor?" Garrett asked.

"I don't know," Ymowyn said, "It could be a spy, though I've never known the Chadiri to work with non-humans before."

"What do you think it was?"

"It
looked
human," Ymowyn said, "but the way it moved... Perhaps it was a vampire."

"He wasn't a vampire," Warren grumbled as he came loping back out of the shadows toward them, "He smelled human... just not right somehow. Vampires have a kind of
lizardy
smell to 'em, but this wasn't quite the same... Humans smell kinda
meaty
normally, but this guy had something else mixed in... I couldn't quite put my nose on what it was."

Garrett frowned at Warren. He slipped the essence flask back inside his satchel and pulled out his witchfire torch and lit it.

Warren scratched his jaw. "This guy smelled like his stuffing had gone rotten, but in a
bad
way."

Garrett's skin prickled. "You think he was undead?" Garrett asked, "I don't know of any undead that can move like that."

Lady Ymowyn shook her head. "I don't know
what
to think is normal in this city," she said, "You can't go to the market here without having some bogeyman from a storybook trying to sell you a basket of strawberries. How do we know this wasn't some hardworking merchant on his way home at the end of the day?"

"Why would he run then?" Warren asked.

Ymowyn gave him a smirk. "Imagine you're on your way home from a hard day at the shop, and an angry ghoul jumps at you from out of the shadows. What would you do? How do we know there even
is
a traitor?"

"If Uncle Raik says there's a traitor, there's a traitor," Warren said.

Ymowyn hissed and looked away.

Warren sighed. "I know you don't like him, but he saved our lives," Warren said, "Raik is on our side."

Ymowyn gave a bitter laugh. "I find that fact far from reassuring," she said, "Raikjaa is as dangerous to his friends as to his enemies." She turned and started walking back toward the rusty ladder.

"That's not fair, Ym!" Warren said, "We'd all be dead if he hadn't showed up when he did. I know he's a little creepy, but..."

Ymowyn stopped walking. "
Creepy?
" she said, turning to face him, "You have no idea, Warren! You don't know what he is capable of! You haven't seen the beast inside him!"

"The beast inside him?" Warren scoffed, "He's a ten foot tall wolf-man made of muscles and teeth. I saw him tear the head off a bear when I was a kid. I think I've seen the
beast
."

Ymowyn shook her head. "Have you ever seen him
skinwalk
, Warren?" she asked, "Have you seen him wear a man's face and pretend to be human?"

Warren shrugged. "Well, yeah," he said, "Those White Pack sorts use that trick all the time. It's weird, I know, but it's how they've lasted so long livin' up top around humans. They use it to sneak around and keep from gettin' caught. White Wolf magic."

"White Wolf magic?" Ymowyn chuckled, "Yes, it is a useful trick when you need to hide in a crowd. Do you think I would have survived so long in Braedshal if
I
didn't know a few tricks?" Lady Ymowyn put her hands over her face as though she were weeping.

"Ym, are you all right?" Warren asked.