The Shadow at the Gate (39 page)

“L-lady,” stammered Jute.

She turned her head slightly but did not look at him.

“Hush, boy,” she said quietly. “This was nothing. It was woven in part with stone, and stone is mine. Stone shall not be taken from me. But now the true evil comes.”

He saw that her hands were clenched at her side. The light dimmed. The shadows thickened around them. Jute could no longer see anyone else except for the woman standing in front of him. But the hushed sounds of a vast multitude came to his ears—the rustle of clothing, the catch of breath, the muttered undertones. Somewhere, far back in the hall, someone was sobbing.

“Mistress of Mistresses.”

The voice was quiet, almost conversational in tone. It floated out of the darkness. A figure followed it, stepping into view as if through a doorway and out of the night. It was the strange man from the tunnels below the castle.

“Hold,” said the woman. She raised her hand.

The man stopped. He smiled. There was a dreadful beauty to his face. A blade shone in his hands.

“I still hold these lands, son of darkness.” Jute shivered in sudden terror and something akin to delight, for there was an old power in her voice that soothed his heart with strange familiarity. “The earth of Tormay is mine and every stone in this city is known to me. Be gone. Depart into your master’s night.”

The man barked an ugly laugh. His teeth gleamed.

“I came hunting a pup to blood my blade on, but I find the bitch wolf herself. The Dark will find great pleasure if I take both of your souls.”

“I’ve dreamed of the Dark’s demise,” she said.

“And did you dream of your brother wind’s death, too?”

The woman flinched at the words.

“I thought as much,” said the man. He took a step closer. “I have always wondered how closely those such as you are bound to each other. Did you fly with him in your dreams? When curiosity took him east, over the mountains and across the wastes? There, on the shore, he stooped down and found the edge of my knife. The foolish bird alighting to pick at a shiny stone. I knew it would not go unnoticed, but even I did not reckon such as you would bide sleeping still in your hills. What is your pretty hideaway called? Dolan? Mark my words, mistress—when my blade has taken you and the craven cowering behind your skirts, to Dolan the Dark will go to destroy the memory of Levoreth Callas.”

“You accursed sceadu,” she said. In her voice was the awful weight of the earth. The scent of green and growing things filled the air. Her hands fluttered into the air, shaping it. “I bind you by earth and stone, by oak and iron, by wolf’s fang and fox’s tooth, by—”

The sword was already arcing through the air toward her head. A tree appeared before him, catching the blade in its branches. The ground buckled. Jute could smell sap and he heard the tree groan in pain. A wolf sprang into being in mid-leap, its jaws snapping shut on the man’s arm. A pair of red foxes circled and slashed with their sharp white teeth.

“—by bramble and briar, by bear’s paw and horse’s hoof!”

An enormous bear lumbered out of the shadows. Briars rippled up out of the ground to bind the man with branch and thorn. There came the thunder of galloping hooves and an angry neigh. The blade whirled in the midst of it all and, wherever it cut, darkness bled. Darkness ate away at the neck of the wolf. Darkness seeped up out of the ground, creeping up the trunk of the oak and the green of the briar. Darkness tore at the flanks of the bear. The woman’s hands jerked in the air. Blood ran from her palms. She cried out in pain and rage.

“By wind and gale,” said Jute.

He did not know why he spoke the words. He was hardly aware he spoke them. No one heard them except himself, but instantly, there sprang up a wind, a howling wind that whipped through the air, dizzying and inexorable and joyous with being. It felt as if it blew straight through his body—he felt cold and empty inside. The woman in front of him swayed a step forward but did not fall.

It felt to Jute as if everything that was—as if the whole world—was caught up in the rush of the wind. That this was right. That this was the way things should be. The wind blew through him. It rushed forward, and color and line and shape blurred under its blast. The bear had tree branches for limbs now that threshed and swayed under the force of the blast, fraying into the red fur of the foxes, whose jaws grew among the briars and snapped and snarled and bit at wind and darkness alike. Stone encased the wolf in armor, shaped by the wind into shining planes. The man shouted with anger. His blade sang under the fury of the gale—a note rising up and up in shrieking pitch until the steel shattered into dust that blew away on the wind and sparkled under the light of the lamps above like falling stars. The woman called out in words that Jute could not understand and everything vanished. The man was gone. The oak and the briars and the beasts were gone. There was only the hall and the silent, staring assembly. And the wind.

The wind blew and howled. It groaned high overhead in the arches of the unseen ceiling. It set the chandeliers of lamps spinning and swaying so that everything was dappled with light that fled this way and that and would not be still. People staggered helplessly in the wind’s force and some fell, crawling on their hands and knees to find whatever shelter they could. A silver tray whirled by, followed by goblets that shattered into singing shards.

“Call back the wind, boy,” said the woman. Her face was tight with anger.

“I can’t,” said Jute. “I don’t know how.” A fierce gladness warmed him. He had done this. The wind blew because of him!

She slapped his face. Hard. He could feel the blood on his cheek from her cut palm.

“Call back the wind,” she said quietly.

“I-I don’t know how,” he stammered. He cowered away from the fury in her eyes.

For a moment she stared at him in disbelief, and then she sighed. Her eyes closed. A presence thrust its way into his mind. Shoved him roughly aside—inside—as if he were nothing. He could taste dirt in his mouth. And then the wind died and the presence was gone.

She opened her eyes and blinked.

“Sorry,” she said.

“What did you—?” He could not finish the sentence. He felt tears welling up.

“Come on,” she said briskly. “Time to go. No telling what’ll turn up next if we stay here. I’m afraid this night will be the talk of Tormay for the next five hundred years.”

She turned and walked off. Jute stumbled after her. The hall rustled into life around them. Faces stared in shock. People backed away. A babble of excited talk filled the air. They neared a wide arch that swept down in stairs to a hall below, filled with light and torches and the shouts of approaching soldiers. The crowd of nobles near the stairs shrank back. Some averted their eyes from the woman and Jute. Others stared greedily, whispering to their neighbors. An older lady emerged from the crowd. A man followed after her. They approached hesitantly.

“Levoreth,” said the lady.

“Aunt Melanor,” said the woman.

“No,” said the other, hesitant. “I’m not your aunt, am I? I never was.”

“No, you weren’t, my dear,” said Levoreth. “Rather, I’m the great-great grandmother of your husband, though I’m afraid I’ve left out about a dozen greats in there.” She gently touched the lady’s face. “We are still family. My blood will run in the veins of your children.”

“Children?”

“Yes. Twins. In the spring.”

Levoreth turned to the man. Her face warmed in a sudden smile.

“Uncle, take care of Dolan for me.”

He could not say anything, but took her hand and brought it to his lips. Tears sprang from his eyes.

“I must go away,” she said. “I can no longer hide in my hills. I’m known, now, for what I am. Soon all of Tormay will know and, with it, the Dark. The Dark has come to these lands and it won’t rest until it finds what it seeks.”

She kissed them both and they were silent. She strode away down the stairs without glancing back. Jute hurried after her.

“Lady,” he said, “who were they? Where are we going? And who was—what was that thing?” He paused and then added timidly, “Who are you?”

Levoreth did not answer.

Guards ran up the steps, their officer urging them on hoarsely, but they did not bother looking at the woman and the boy. They walked through another hall. Servants were gathered in clumps, whispering and glancing about them with frightened eyes. It seemed to Jute that he saw Lena peeking around a corner, but he was not sure. Tall doors swung open before them.

It was raining. Horses standing with their carriages stamped and steamed in the torchlight. A contingent of soldiers ran across the courtyard toward the castle steps. An old coachman huddled on his seat called down a question to Levoreth, but she did not stop. Jute had to run to keep up with her. Then they were past the castle gates and walking down through the night and rain, down through the quiet streets of Highneck Rise.

“Lady,” said Jute, but she interrupted him.

“Levoreth. For you, I am Levoreth. That’s all. No lady this or that.”

“Levoreth—”

“Hush. A ways more and then we’ll talk. There’s not much time, boy, but what time we have might be lost, and lost badly, if we stay too near the castle. No telling what’s been woken up by our little spat back there.” Levoreth shook her head ruefully. “No use crying over that. What’s out is out and that’s all there’s to it.”

She shut her mouth at that and would not speak anymore. Jute trotted along at her side. He thought he would burst from all the questions boiling up inside. He discovered that he was somehow very happy, despite having a lot of bruises and a nervous twitch that had him looking over his shoulder every few minutes in case something terrible was about to come charging out of the night.

Considering your astounding stupidity, you have certainly landed on your feet.

It was the hawk. He sounded relieved. And before Jute could even protest, he heard the rustle of wings, and there, in the rain with the moonlight shining on his wet feathers, was the hawk. He floated down and landed on Jute’s shoulder. Levoreth smiled.

Mistress of Mistresses.

“This is a strange night. Faces from the past, both good and evil, but it does my heart well to see you.”

The hawk bobbed his head.

As your face gladdens mine. I am beholden to you, Mistress. We are in your debt, this young dolt and I. Thank you for preserving him, for such a task this night would have been far beyond my powers. I cannot stand before a sceadu.

“Wait one minute!” said Jute, his face reddening. He no longer felt all that happy.

“You are not in my debt, old wing,” said Levoreth, ignoring Jute. “All this time I have known it my fate to be in Hearne this year, and who knows but it was for this night?”

No. I am in your debt and shall repay it fourfold someday. It is on my blood and the blood of this boy. So be it.

A long, wavering howl broke the stillness of the night. It rose and fell, and then was answered by another same cry.

“What in shadow’s name was that?” asked Jute.

“Do not speak by such a name,” said Levoreth. “That was a shadowhound.”

Another howl keened in the night sky. It seemed to come from somewhere further away in the city.

Three such hounds, I think.

Levoreth’s shoulders slumped.

“Have three such creatures ever been seen in Tormay?” she said. Her voice was weary. “We have been given a dreadful night. I don’t want to think on what this means, but I fear there’s more evil here than a sceadu. But how can that be? The three sceadus were the lieutenants of Nokhoron Nozhan, and there were none mightier than they. We are faced with a peculiar mystery.”

The hawk unfurled its wings and launched into the air. Two powerful strokes and it was invisible against the night sky.

A sceadu, Mistress? A sceadu did kill my master.

“I’ll weep for thy master another day, old wing,” she said swiftly. “But for now take your youngling to safety. Keep him alive. Keep him alive so that he may grow in wisdom and power. Hide him in whatever nest you can find. No, I speak hastily. Go north, rather, north to the Duke of Lannaslech of Harlech and command him—command him in my name—to guard the boy, though he spend every drop of blood in his land and Harlech groans with death.”

You speak wisely, Mistress. And what of you?

“I’ll lead the creatures out of the city, for doubtless they have my scent. They’re drawn to power, even over blood. I’m weary this night, but I’ll lead them a chase to their deaths.”

“What do you mean?” said Jute, bewildered. “What’s to become of me?”

“What’s to become of you?” Levoreth echoed. She drew close and touched his face with her fingers. Her eyes were sad. “I don’t know your name, boy.”

“My name is Jute.”

“Jute. Know that I grieve for you. I would wish your road on none, but we cannot ordain our days. It is all dreamed beforehand in the house of dreams. Ours is merely to live it well and die. I’d hoped to explain more to you, but the hawk will do so when he sees fit.”

She bent down and kissed his brow. Her lips were cold and wet with rain.