Dark Magic (57 page)

Puck looked annoyed, but waited for his answer. Brand smiled, seeing Puck’s irritation. Grasty was often nearly deaf when you wanted him to hear something, but seemed equipped with a fox’s sharp ears when you did not.
He could be quite annoying, but he was a good sort in the end.

“We’ll go down into the castle storerooms,” Grasty said. “Then down into the catacombs themselves, then lower still. That area has been covered up for years. Our new construction has stirred it all into a lather, however. Whole new warrens of masonry are down there, and caverns below that. I should think the galleries extend to the Everdark itself at some point. You might be able to walk all the way to Snowdon—if you could only stay alive long enough and find your way in the blackness. Neither of those are likely, though.”

“Most encouraging,” Brand said. “Lead on, foreman.”

They walked past ranks of Kindred workmen dressed in leathers. They sweated and toiled, uplifting blocks of fallen stone and shoveling loads of crumbling masonry into waiting wheelbarrows. They looked up with interest as the party passed them, but none spoke or offered a hearty greeting.

At last they came to a hole that drove down into the bricks. They could see a tangled mass of roots, loose soil, and a series of broad steps that led downward into darkness. Each of the steps was cracked, as if a giant had trod upon them and broken them with his vast weight.

“This is it,” Grasty said, pausing with all of them to circle the hole. “Not much to look at. Leastwise, we don’t have to swing from ropes to get down there.”

“Lead on,” Brand said. “I’ll go second. Puck, would you mind taking the rearguard?”

“Not at all.”

Grasty lit a lantern and held it high as he stumped downward into the hole. Brand followed him, having to duck as he went. He was a head taller than all the rest. Kaavi stepped forward to take the third spot, but Telyn pushed past her to stand directly behind Brand.

“No need to shove,” Kaavi complained.

“Sorry, it was an accident,” Telyn said sweetly.

Brand rolled his eyes and sighed.

Overhead, the darkness closed over them all as they followed the stairway downward. Brand was surprised how directly and deeply the stairs drove into the earth. He could not see far ahead due to the gloom, which Grasty’s flickering lantern did little to vanquish. If one of them fell, would they roll for miles? He was left wondering about it.

The smells were different down here. The ground exuded not just a dusty scent, but the scent of freshly overturned turf. He suspected as they went deeper, the odors would become unpleasant indeed.

The natural noises of the surface world faded behind them, swallowed by the stillness of the underworld. He felt as if someone had placed pillows around his ears, muffling everything. No more than twenty feet down, he was regretting his decision to go on this exploratory mission. It was too late to back out now, however.

He waved Grasty onward and hoped for the best.

Chapter Eleven

The Seedlings

Morcant Drake had spent years buried beneath a great slab of stone. Unfortunately for him, his clansmen had placed him in a sarcophagus built for someone of normal size. None had found the purse or the desire to build him a special resting place.

He did not need to breathe, so although his breath was driven from his lungs and dust had filled them in its place, he was not discomfited. Dimly aware of time passing, but unable to move with the fantastic weight of stone that crouched upon him, he thought little and dreamt less. His imprisonment would have driven anyone other than a dead-thing to madness. But as he was now truly one of the Dead, he did not feel the pain of hope, aspirations or regrets. He only waited, as he could do nothing else.

The Black Jewel had treated him specially so he would not rot, nor fall to dust. One night without warning the slab slid away from him. The first phase of King Arawn’s curse was done, and the second had begun. On the seventh day of the seventh month by the Haven Calendar, Morcant climbed out of the hole he’d been trapped within for four long years.

Morcant looked around with bleary, dim eyes. Everyplace in the world would appear the same to him now, regardless of the light that was present or was not. Everything seemed to him to be lit in a permanent half-light, whether he walked under the sun or upon the bottom of the ocean. It was as if he no longer truly
saw the walls of the crypt, but rather
sensed
them. Such a power of sight, known to necromancers as the
deathsight
, was common to all the Dead.

He found himself in a crypt. It was, as it rightfully should have been, the Drake crypt. He did not have a prime place within its walls, he could tell that right away. He did not wonder that he had made it into the crypt at all—nor did he rage at the insult of having been placed in the least well-kept wing of the crypt at the lowest level, where roots were known to get in and rainwaters frequently soaked the corpses that lie quietly rotting here. He did not care about these things, although he was aware of them. He was beyond caring about much of anything.

Turning his head this way and that, hearing his bones and joints creak, he saw the lid of his tomb. The lid was the thing that had pressed down upon him for the last year. It lay slid aside and tipped down to touch the dusty floor beside him.

Several long minutes passed while he became more fully awake. Concentrating with single-minded effort, Morcant moved his heavy leg to one side and swung it out of his stone coffin. He placed the leg upon the dusty floor and then moved another beside it. Struggling with unsteady arms, he heaved himself erect.

He stood there, motionless, as if he slept upon his feet. He stood that way for an unknowable time. Perhaps it was hours. At last he righted his head, which had fallen to allow his thick jawbone to touch his chest. He took a step forward and then another.

For the first time in more than a century, a new member of the Dead had risen inside the borders of the Haven.

* * *

Trev didn’t rest well after his father left. He constantly searched the town’s streets from the second story window of the Spotted Hog, hoping to see him return.

“He won’t be back for a week at least,” his mother assured him. “Why, just getting to North End and up the river to Castle Rabing will take a day or two. Then he will have to talk things over with Brand and return.”

Trev nodded, but he still watched the streets. His mother watched him, and fretted about both the men in her life. Trev knew she was a worrier, and he didn’t want to cause her undue upset. But he couldn’t help it. He was watching for someone else—not just father. He was watching for the Dead King and his people.

The second day, mother took him to market, and it was a fun place. They didn’t have much money, but what they had she spent in a vain attempt to make him smile. She bought him a toy: a streamer of colored ribbons tied to a stick with tinkling bells.

“It looks like a rainbow, mother,” he’d said as he picked it out.

“Indeed it does!” she’d agreed enthusiastically, and she’d bought it for him.

He hadn’t the heart to tell her he didn’t want it—that he was a little afraid of rainbows, like any young child of the Haven. Strange beings came out when the rainbows shone in the sky, and the other children at school told him sometimes rainbows could pick themselves up and
walk
. Great giants they became, things that men could not hope to stand against, monsters hundreds of feet high. Trev wasn’t sure if he believed the other children, but he was still afraid of rainbows.

Now he had one, and he knew enough about parents to know that he had to be seen playing with it. Heading back to the Spotted Hog after a day of wandering the market, he held it up and let the streamers flow in the fresh winds coming off the river. The bells tinkled and the colored ribbons fluttered brightly. He tried not to look at them, as they made him want to shiver.

It was on the way up the High Street from the market, which was located close to the docks, that he saw something of interest. A great, wide, swath of land. It was green and broad. Having grown up in a forest with only small plots of land for gardens, the rolling hills and open land intrigued him.

“What’s that place, mother?”

She spoke conspiratorially into his ear. “That’s Riverton Common, you’re father and I were married there, years back.”

Riverton Common. He stopped in his tracks, his mouth slightly open. His eyes scanned the distance until he saw it. Yes, there it was: the largest mound in the River Haven. The only one on Stone Island. “Isn’t that the place? Isn’t that where the offering used to be made?”

Mari followed his finger and saw where he pointed. “Yes,” she said in a hushed voice. “That’s it.”

“Where’s the cemetery, mother?” Trev asked.

“Why would you want to know that?”

Trev shrugged. He thought up a quick half-truth. He never lied, but he did mislead people sometimes. “We’re studying maps in school now,” he said.

“Oh,” said his mother, sounding relieved. She showed him where the cemetery was, up near Drake Manor, the biggest clan house on the island.

“Do they still bury people there?”

Mari cocked her head and frowned at him. “I suppose. Well, yes. But only local people—people do grow old, you know.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Not for a very long time.”

Mari smiled at him then and laughed. “Yes, and I like it that way. I want you to be around Trev, long after everyone here has passed on.”

“I don’t want to be lonely.”

“Don’t worry about that! There will be new people by then, plenty of them.”

Trev nodded. He kept staring toward the common, trying to catch another glimpse of the Faerie mound there. When his mother wasn’t looking, he cast watchful eyes toward the cemetery hill as well.

Late that night Trev’s eyes snapped open. He hadn’t slept at all, not tonight. He found he wasn’t like most other people that way. He could stay awake for days if he wanted to, and would only feel slightly tired after he did so. In fact, he often felt more awake at night than he did in the day. He wondered if he might be part cat sometimes.

Mother had gone to sleep hours before, and now he estimated it must be after midnight. His mind was full of images of marching rainbow giants, dancing Faerie on the commons and shuffling Dead in the cemetery. He didn’t know if any of these things were really going on—the world outside their window sounded quiet enough. But he couldn’t stop wondering what
was
going on out there. Surely, something had to be happening in one of these exciting places.

He’d never put much thought into these matters before he’d met the Dead King. He knew father was an elf, of course, and that he came and went to the Twilight Lands frequently. That all seemed normal to Trev. He knew also that in the fullness of time Puck would take him to meet his grandfather Oberon, who was by all reports a frightening fellow.

After meeting the Dead King personally, however, he felt more directly involved in great matters. For a short moment he had been the center of something exciting, something historic, according to father. The Dead normally did not wander about in forgotten pet cemeteries in the Haven Wood.

Climbing out of his bedclothes and pulling on trousers of woven wool, Trev moved with fantastic stealth. This was another thing he was unusually good at: moving about quietly.

He’d planned, in his heart of hearts, to only go to the window and gaze outside. But something out there caught his eye. A tall man stood near a lamppost. The man reached up and put out the lantern that hung from the post with his bare finger. The man then stood there, motionless.

Trev got a chill, looking at the man. He was not one of the Shining Folk—that was for sure. If anything, he was dark and dingy. What was truly strange about him was his lack of movement. He made no sound and he did not look about…he did not even twitch.

Trev licked his lips and gazed back at his mother. She was sound asleep. Why wake her over something that was probably nothing at all? For all Trev knew, Riverton guardsmen stood this way nightly, motionless and alert until dawn.

As quietly as he could—which was very quietly indeed—Trev slipped out the window and onto the ledge outside. The window washers used this ledge to get around the large building and clean the windows. Today, however, it would be Trev’s walkway. A similar ledge had been built onto the original Spotted Hog, and had served Piskin as a walkway.

Trev had no fear of falling. Not even in the night, not even if it rained. He ran along the ledge without a care and jumped when it ended, landing with a soft thud on the roof of the stables. The horses inside whickered and shuffled about. Trev ran over the roof and paused there, in a spot that should afford him an excellent view of the dark lamppost and the motionless man who stood beneath it.

But the man was not there. Trev looked up and down the High Street, seeing no one. He crouched there, staring and listening. Nothing happened, and after a short time his excitement faded. He thought about going back to bed, but watched as a fat night watchman came walking down the street. Had the watchman seen the strange man? Should Trev call out and tell him about it? Trev did nothing except crouch down on the rooftop. He was too unsure of himself to take any action.

The watchman came up to the lamppost and put his hands on his hips. The lantern was supposed to be lit, and it was part of his job to keep it burning. Grumbling, the corpulent man pulled out a flint and tinderbox and struck sparks on the side until he had a taper burning, then he stretched and grunted to reach high enough to relight the lantern.

When he was finished and putting away his tinderbox, he spoke aloud: “What’s this then? By the River! Sir? Are you all right?”

The watchman knelt at the shrubs beneath the lamppost and dragged a figure out of an overgrown clump of boxwood. He knelt and examined the man.

Trev could stand it no longer. He hopped down from the roof and trotted across the cobbled street to stand beside the kneeling watchman.

“Is he all right?” the boy asked.

The watchman jumped and turned so suddenly, he lost his balance. He almost fell onto the cobbles. Wide, staring blue eyes stared at Trev. “Who are you then?”

“I’m Trev. Who are you?”

“Rude child! I’m Roland the watchman of High Street and the Manor. Now, tell me what you’re doing out of bed so late.”

“I saw this man,” Trev said. “I saw him put out the lamp. Then I thought he’d walked away, but he must have fallen. Is he all right?”

“No,” said Roland, turning back to examine the fallen figure. “He most certainly isn’t all right. He’s dead. By the look of it, he’s
long
dead.”

“But he was standing here. Right here just a few minutes ago.”

The watchman stared at him. “Are you having a joke, kid?” he asked.

“I never make jokes.”

“What are you doing out here so late? You should be in bed.”

“I saw him behaving oddly, and I came to see what he was doing.”

The watchman turned back toward the corpse. Trev could see now that the body had been dead awhile. It stank, and there was fresh mud on it here and there.

“Well I’ll be,” said the watchman, cursing silently under his breath.

“Do you believe me?” Trev asked.

“Yes, lad. I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I recognize him now. He’s Morcant Drake, or I’m a hedgehog. He disappeared some years back. Everyone said he ran off because of his debts and because of that elf girl he was carrying on with. They had both disappeared, but then we found Morcant’s body in the woods and buried him. But you don’t need to know anything about all that….”

“About what? Why would he run off with an elf girl?” Trev asked.

“Never mind! What I can’t puzzle out, is why he has any meat left on his bones. He should be a skeleton by now.”

“What does it mean?”

Roland turned to him and blew out his cheeks. He shook his head slowly. “It means someone has been mistreating our dead, that’s what it means. We’ll have to put a guard up at the cemetery.”