Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE NINTH

  The morning light that scattered through the narrow windows of the Toren Vaunt was feeble and chill. Lilia walked alone down one quiet corridor. Under one arm she carried her shawm wrapped in velvet. The walls, plastered in a dull eggshell white, remained stark in the uncertain light.

  Entering her father's bedchamber was always a distinctly unreal experience for Lilia. The guards in their oxblood livery stood just as always. Their faces, which Lilia knew on a rational level changed day-to-day, always looked the same to her, and always wore the same resigned expressions. She had a secret little imagined idea that the new guards marched in when no-one was looking, swapped their faces with the old guards, and assumed the exact same stances so that it would always seem that nothing had changed. Though the apothecary was absent this morning, his prentice--a youth with too much untrimmed black hair and a boy-sized potbelly--slouched in the bedside seat. He glanced up, and moved to stand when Lilia shook her head and said, "No, I'm just here to pay a short visit."

  With a shrug he relaxed once more. "If you want the seat, m'lady..."

  "Thank you." As she unwrapped the velvet, Lilia listened to the hollow rattle of the charms that hung from the rafters.

  "Rosa?" Her father's voice wheezed.

  "No. Your other daughter."

  "Oh." He closed his eyes. "My vision grows dim."

  "Yes." She did her best to show a warm, ironic smile. "It must be dim for you to mistake me for her. Very dim. I thought that I would play a tune." She took the shawm in a delicate grip, as if it were alive and easily bruised. "Is there a song you would like to hear? Some chantey from the seas? Some melody from your childhood? A jig or canticle? An aubade or a nocturne?" But he was no longer listening. Her father flickered his eyes and roved his gaze over the room, to the windows, looking, thought Lilia, at something only he could see. "You're still here." It was less a question than a statement, and Lilia wasn't sure if he was addressing her or something else. Although he had improved somewhat these last few days, his mind had been wandering a lot lately.

  "Shall I pick a tune, then?"

  The apothecary's prentice nodded, while the guards smiled in a sad, agreeable sort of way. Lilia imagined that any distraction from standing watch over her slowly decaying father must be welcome.

  "Very well." Raising the shawm to her lips she blew warm air into it. In that moment she felt both remote and graceful. Not elegant exactly, but beautiful the way wavering, unsure sunlight on water is beautiful, or the fragile song of a robin, or the hesitant grace of a deer. It was silly to think, and sounded like the doggerel of a talentless poet, but it was how she felt.

  When the first notes of her shawm flowed, they greeted her like the first glimpse of an absent friend. The song that she played was the past brought eerily to life. It was a song of forgotten joy and promises broken. Of lost ideals and childhood dreams.

  She played a strange melody, wandering and haunting, despite being difficult to catch.

  The guards, the prentice and even her father, widened their eyes. All of them were soon wearing sweet, childish smiles. She played with the music, toyed with it, teased it out here, ran it dashing through chords there... until gradually... note by charmed note... the song died away.

  The room was in a hush. Only the rude talismans and amulets dared to clutter the air with their noise.

  "Now," said Lilia, "was that not worth a little of your time?"

  The guards blinked vacantly. Their eyes were still with the song, distant and glassy. Walking up to one of the guards Lilia passed a hand in front of his nose. He did not so much as twitch. Slowly, carefully she rewrapped the shawm and then went to her father's bedside.

  "What did you think of my song?"

  His old man's mouth was hanging open. He started at her, not quite able to meet her eyes. "Lilia? How long have you been here? I was thinking of your mother."

  "Yes. You were. You always do when I play for you."

  "She was beautiful. When she was young. She looked so much like Rosa."

  "I know."

  "Oh."

  "You tell me every time I play for you."

  "I do not think you have never played your pipe for me before. I don't remember... or have you? It seems..." He wasn't able to find the words he wanted, his sunken face and red eyes became confused.

  "I have often played for you, father. Every day. But you don't remember. Don't worry. No one remembers." Laying the shawm on his bed, she opened a kid-leather purse and drew out a small wooden vial. As soon as she uncorked it the air thickened with a rich smell like crushed rosehip.

  "I have a potion for you. A curative."

  His round watery eyes flickered briefly to the vial. "It smells like perfume. You mother wore some beautiful perfumes. Sometimes a musk. When she was young. When she looked like Rosa."

  "Here." She held it under his nose. "It tastes sweet too. So I am told."

  "Told by who?"

  "You. Now, you need only a little of it, a drop or two, so open your mouth."

  Lilia's tapped three droplets of a slippery, red-black liquid into his mouth. He smacked his lips.

  "Very sweet," he said.

  "Still, it's good for you."

  "Where is it from?" He smirked. "Old August? I didn't think he made anything sweet. All his medicines taste like bile."

  Lilia looked at the vial cupped in her palm. "No, this comes from someone else. But let's not talk about that." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the forehead. "I shall have to go now."

  "Yes," said the Eorl, "go now... of course..."

  Lilia left the room. While the music had been drifting around her, she had felt beautiful and happy, and better. Now, without the music, she found herself self-conscious again, nervous and full of awkwardness. Of course, there was one other thing that made her feel beautiful and calm, and he was preying on her mind now too. The music brought him to her mind, just as it seemed to bring back old, innocent days of love for her father. She decided that she would go to him.

  Soon her footsteps were vanishing down a flight of stairs leaving the white-walled halls of the upper keep behind her.

  During idle moments of the day, when thoughts wander, the guards and prentice and their lord occasionally recalled snatches of a song, difficult to follow, yet haunting. And although each of them tried, not one of them could recall exactly where he'd last heard it. All of them assumed it must have been some half-remember air from childhood.

  And if anyone that day had asked whether Lilia had visited her father, the guards, and prentice and Eorl alike would have looked about in a confused sort of way, feeling uncertain and looking to one another for an answer. Eventually one of them, perhaps the prentice, perhaps a senior guardsman, would say that, yes, she had visited, but it was only a brief visit, to stand beside the bed and say very little.

  But no one ever did ask.

  Although, now and again, a few visitors did wonder aloud why the room seemed to smell strongly of rosehips.

  -oOo-

  Rosa was by herself, carefully tending her own thoughts. She moved in the twisted halls of the Toren Vaunt, through a chamber of square pillars, beneath a row of arched windows and then between two grim statues of ancestors frozen in silent contemplation of their own prayer-clasped hands.

  Just past the statues Rosa heard a familiar scrapping gait. With a smile dashing warmth on her lips, Rosa picked up her pace to chase after the limping footsteps. She found Margit emerging from a bedchamber that belonged to one of the under-seneschal's. Her face vexed by an ugly frown.

  "Good morning, Margit," said Rosa, "I have been meaning to have a word with you."

  "M'lady?" She attempted a curtsey and achieved only her usual awkward stumble.

  "What is that stench?" Rosa wrinkled her nose. "Is it..."

  Margit nodded and gently shut the door. "No offence by my saying, but the under-seneschal Frahard ought to seek advice from the apothecary. No healthy man ought make a smell like that." br />
  "Well, between you and me, I try not to sit near him when meals are set for the household."

  "You should try emptying his chamberpot."

  Rosa laughed, then laid a hand to her mouth to conceal it, blushing. "Come," she whispered through her slender fingers, "walk with me."

  Margit fell into step beside Rosa, who led the way towards her chambers. I want to know if you've been hearing rumours about Sigurd's hired man, Kveldulf?"

  "The northman?"

  "The northman, yes."

  Margit's face curled into a glow of curiosity. "He's barely spoken to anyone. Seems grim and full of black humour. And..."

  "And?"

  "Well, if I may be so bold, he strikes me as a dangerous man, but no one is saying much to that end, or anything else about him, really."

  "You may be so bold and I hope he is dangerous. It is the reason he has been hired. What is the point of a toothless hunter? You've heard no other rumours?"

  "Oh," said Margit in a small voice. "No. I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

  "You know me. I just like to hear what the gossip is. No one would tell me anything if it weren't for you." There was a certain enjoyment in leaving people guessing about things. "But Kveldulf has work to do for me, and I hope for all our sakes he does it well." Just as she said this, one of the kitchen pot-boys appeared around a corner and ambled towards them, hauling water. Rosa silenced herself and smiled pleasantly at the lad, then remained coolly quiet until he was out of earshot.

  "Would you like a cup of tea, Margit? I could do with some company and perhaps a chat. I would go to the woman's room, but the ladies are always talking about such dull things. Stitching and knitting, whose child has got up to what mischief, and whose husband is good for nothing, or something, or everything. I would much rather hear some interesting things."

  "Of course, m'lady. You are too kind to me. Far, far too kind."

  "No, dear, not at all." She leaned close. "I like the gossip. And you always know something new. I bet the churls are saying interesting things about Lilia running out of the feast."

  "To tell truth, m'lady, yes. Strange rumours. She's an odd one."

  "You see. The others, the householders and ladies, they never think about who really knows what's going on in the castle. About the people who are in everyone's bedchamber, and who serves dinner, who hears things, who knows what doors are opening and closing in the early hours."

  "M'lady, when you put it like that..."

  "No, no. I don't mean anything by it. It's just a bit of fun isn't it? Talking about the life in the castle? What else would keep us from dying of boredom? We need something interesting to whittle away the hours."

  Rosa stopped at the door to her chambers and stood waiting. Margit with a flustered "Pardon me," limped forward and opened the door.

  "Thank you," said Rosa. She smiled with an ambiguous air as she watched Margit limp inside after her. She noticed that Margit glanced both up and down the corridor before shutting the door firmly behind her. The poor woman was always terrified that someone would see her speaking to Rosa, though she could never provide a rational reason why. The churl-woman seemed beset by ambiguous fears that somehow it was wrong to talk with a lady of the household. At times Rosa found their conversations were like talking to a badly beaten dog, a creature so afraid of doing the wrong thing that a simple friendly conversation was terrifying.

  But it was always worth the effort to coax Margit into conversation. It was true, what she'd said. It was the churls and the servants who really ran the whole fortress, and who knew what was really going on in the Toren Vaunt. And Rosa very much liked to stay informed.

  -oOo-

  Some time later, Margit scuffled out of Rosa's chamber. She limped through the narrow halls and visited a dusty storeroom on the second floor. From here she went on, carrying a woven basket that was covered with a brightly chequered kerchief. As she walked, she hummed to herself and her pockmarked face wore an abstracted smile, although her eyes were quite sharp and full of thoughts.

  Margit made her way to the lower levels of the keep, then through the great hall and out into the muddy light of day. A harsh fit of rain had recently passed over the Veld, leaving everything dewy and wet. Puddles filled with delicate lacy patterns of mud dotted the courtyard. As she walked the steep road that led from the keep to the hamlet below Margit had to hobble and hop over rivulets of rainwater that cut across the cobbles just to keep her feet dry.

  She nodded a greeting to the watchmen as she passed, and broke from hum to whistle as she crossed the bridge that looked over the millpond. It was only a brief glance that she cast at the water, but it was loving all the same, a quick embrace that took in the reeds and ripples, the reflections of clouds and the water-lilies that she could see beneath the surface of the water, brown and torpid, waiting for summer.

  And her own face, reflected, also waiting for summer. Longing for it.

  She crossed the barely fields--now stubble--and at the edge of the forest she stopped and sniffed the air, breathing deep. Nothing too strange was about. Nothing powerful anyway. There might be a boggelmann or puckrel hiding in the trees, but they were nuisances at worst, not really a threat to anyone. Still, it was some caution that she trod into the embrace of the forest. At the tangled roots of one twisted pine she found a few withered caps of fly agaric. The bright red mushroom with its white flecks had faded to an rotten tawny-grey but she picked them all nonetheless. A little farther on, she cut away a few branches of hawthorn, and found some cowbane and knitbone. Coming to a large and woven-branched elder that Margit had harvested before, she took out a knife and began slicing away twigs and leaves.

  "That's a witching tree."

  Margit spun around and quite forgot to limp as she took two swift steps forward. She narrowed her eyes and let her suddenly tight grip upon the hilt of the knife relax. "Good day, child."

  The young girl who stood at the edge of the glade clasped her hands behind her back and bobbed a couple times on the heels of her feet. She looked to Margit like the very picture of young mischief. "Mamma says that one should not cut the elder tree, for she's a witch in disguise or has a witch-spirit in her, or something of the sort. She'll bleed if you cut her, and come looking for you at night."

  "Rot and cock-a-ninny," replied Margit. "Wood is wood, not flesh, not blood. No one can turn into a tree. And I need kindling for my fire and this tree is as good as any other.

  "And Mamma says that witches make wands and staves from elderwood."

  "I thought elders were witches. Why would witches make wands from themselves? That doesn't make sense does it now?"

  "I suppose not."

  "Doesn't your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers in the woods?"

  "She tells me to beware of witches," said the girl. Her lips curled into a sly smile and she skipped a few steps away and hid behind an oak. Peeking out, her smile was playful and impish.

  "Beware of witches? Indeed? And what is there to beware of?"

  "They in the service of the Night Queen. They've sold their souls and will eat up little girls."

  Margit cut away a nice, supple branch of elder and admired it. "Silly child. Do you think that is where magic comes from? The Night Queen and her children?"

  The young girl nodded.

  "Well perhaps," said Margit, "magic doesn't come from goddesses and godlings? Perhaps it can come from within, perhaps it is somewhere deep in us all? Like the songs or art or laughter. Perhaps it just has to be awakened."

  "How's that?"

  "How is what?"

  "How would you wake up magic then?"

  "How do you learn to sing? Would you ever know that songs were even possible if you didn't know such things existed? If you lived in a deep dank hole with no birds or music or minstrels would you ever learn to sing? No. How do you learn it? You watch someone else very carefully. Now away with you."

  The girl poked tongue out. "Shan't. Or maybe I will. Maybe I will r
un away and tell Mamma and Papa that there's a witch in the forest."

  "I know another thing about elder trees young girl... A child that's beat with elder withe, will fade away and ne'er thrive." Margit slashed the air with the elder branch. It made a snickering whisper and then a thud as it hit the ground.

  The girl shrieked, hitched up her skirt and scampered away through the undergrowth. Margit calmly collected some leaves from a low hanging sprig of mistletoe that was growing on a nearby birch, then proceeded back the way she'd come. As she neared the verge of the forest the sound of a young girl's shrill tantrum split the air.

  Closing her eyes and drawing her lips back over her teeth, Margit hissed out the names of seven old and nasty beings, forgotten ancients and strange spirits. As she mumbled, she walked and opened her eyes just enough so that she could see the world as a grey haze through her lashes. The words were sharp and dry, they clawed her throat and squirmed out of her mouth. The magic was already eating away at her. There was only so long she could hold the hush-breath chant.

  At the eves of the wood grey sunlight spread its wet silk rays over everything. A hay-harvester was wiping his brow with one hand while leaning against his heavy scythe. His ruddy cheeks were set in half-a-frown and half-a-smirk as he listened to the little girl cry and spill out something about a witch.

  Margit walked right past them both, mumbling under her breath as she went, but all they saw was a gust of wind and all they heard was a dry flutter of autumn leaves. She crossed the field and turned east, taking a path that lead away from the castle and into the hills.

  As soon as she was out of sight of the fields and cottages, Margit let go the chat. She had to rest a while before going on. There was spit and blood caked into the corners of her mouth. She smeared it away with a corner of the chequered kerchief.

  -oOo-

  With a sideways half-skip, Gnissa hopped through Snoro's door and into the middle of the cave. "There's someone coming up the hill. That woman with the pretty scarf and the ugly face."

  Snoro did not try to hide his wide, nasty grin. "Mmmmn? So soon? I wonder how she found out the curse was broken? How far away is she?"

  "Oh, a good way. Down by the big rotten oak."

  Snoro drummed his fingers on his stone desk. "I hate waiting."

  The cave was dark and musty. In Gnissa's opinion it needed a good cleaning out, but he never could convince Snoro of that. The hunchback liked the crowded darkness. All his shelves were crammed with objects that to Gnissa were useless rubbish: vinegar-filled bottles containing shrivelled lizards and toads and stranger things (inedible), old moth-eaten animal feet (inedible), two human hands (dried and tasteless), the skull of an animal that Snoro called an Elraby mimicker-dog (inedible) and the ingredients of every potion and unguent Snoro knew how to concoct (mostly bitter, sometimes poisonous, generally inedible).

  Gnissa's definition of useful was relatively narrow.

  Snoro returned to leaning over his desk. His quill scratched out a few more notes. Feathery grey ringlets of smoke curled from a candle beside him. Beside the candle, tied up with a red thread, was a tuft of dark and shadowy fur.

  "Strange things are out in the woods today. Big, savage things. The wild spirits are restless I think," said the raven. "Alraun is up to something."

  "Mmnhmm."

  "You studying your seeing-book?"

  Snoro did not bother to look around. He simply nodded his heavy, hairy head.

  "Been at it all day I suppose?" Gnissa skipped twice and then fluttered up to the desk, where he perched awkwardly. Squinting at the little scratches on the vellum he said, "You ought to take a walk. Get some fresh air. A walk, it'd be good for you. Flying would be better." Gnissa stretched his wings. "You'd love flying. But everyone would, as a matter of truth."

  "Hmmmmn."

  Gnissa turned one eye, then the other to study the confusing jumble of sharp little shapes. They looked like a hundred thousand spiders. Gnissa felt hungry. Once, when drunk, Snoro had told him that all the tall stories he told about the book were just to keep away thieves. "In the old days I used to say it was a gift from the horn-crowned storm god," he'd slurred, "but now folk have mostly forgotten that particular god. I tell them the same thing, but I tell them the Night Queen gave me the book instead. Shtupid foolsh." Gnissa suspected that Snoro had stolen the book from some doddering warlock. Or murdered someone for it. Or won it on a bet. Something much more dull and dishonest.

  Licking one long, hooked finger, Snoro turned a page. The air above the book smelled dryly dusty. "Can birds sneeze?"

  "What?" said Snoro.

  "Do bird's sneeze? The air is quite dusty, and I feel like I ought to sneeze. But I never have sneezed. Maybe because I don't know how?" Gnissa made three unconvincing attempts to sneeze.

  "Isn't there a rotting carcass anywhere in the forest?"

  Gnissa ruffled his feathers. "Thought you'd like a bit of company." A few moments of silence passed, during which Snoro concentrated on his book.

  Gnissa preened a wing. "Have you found what you are looking for yet?"

  "In the book, all is writ. One third writ by Debt, one third writ by Happening, the last third writ by Fate."

  "She who was, she who is, and she who is yet to be," said the raven. "Blah, blah, blah." He had heard this before. "So what are you looking for then?"

  "Maybe how to make raven stew."

  "Boil a raven." Gnissa flapped his wings lazily. "That being how I would make raven stew. Feather him first, maybe. Much like duck or chook stew, I should assume." Gnissa worried an itch on his leg. "How about sparrow stew instead? I do like a nice bit of sparrow, now and then. Hard to catch, though. Fluttery, swift little things. Do let me know if you decide to make sparrow stew. That'd be lovely."

  Snoro let his shoulders fall and slouched in his seat. "Perhaps if I tied your beak shut. Tiresome creature."

  "Yes. It's taken a lot of work to become so. I'm also annoying. And repetitive. Speaking of which, what are you looking for?"

  "I am looking for curses, or more particularly uncurses."

  "Ahhhh," said Gnissa knowingly. "Kveldulf. Looking for a way to cure him? And here I thought your old heart was nothing but withered coal. Come here, Snoro, give an old bird a hug, you scoundrel."

  "You've been eating green meat again, haven't you?" Snoro rolled his tongue over sharp little teeth, and then leaned back in his chair. "I'm not going to cure that wolf-thing monster. Why waste such a beautiful creature? No. I already know how to lift the curse. That is easily enough done. All he needs to do is kill the one who bite him."

  "Oh, that sounds easy then, doesn't it?" said Gnissa. "I'm assuming that if Kveldulf can't be killed, whoever bit him can't be killed either. Unless you go and kill whoever bit them, and that feels rather recursive."

  Snoro whispered in a sort of frustrated snarl. "There are ways to an ulfhednar. One just has to know how it is done. And I know how it is done. I could put an end to Kveldulf tonight, if I chose to--or his sire for that matter. Why, there's at least one thing that could end his life lying right under his nose in that nasty fortress, but no, that is not my plan." He dug a finger into one nostril and wriggled it around, balled the yellowish stuff that came out and flicked it away.

  "And you would do it 'easily' then? I hope you know how to sneak up on a spirit-wolf then."

  ""Well--no, not easy, exactly. Not exactly. If you put it that way. But, the ways and means are written in The Book, so at least I do know how to kill him, if the need presents. But what I really want is a way to suppress the curse temporarily. Something that will keep him coming back for more. I want something to dangle above him. I want the proverbial fox will leap for his grapes. I suspect he'll be a very useful servant, once I've got him to heel."

  "Alright. Tell me one of your curse-cures then, go on."

  "Frggmn, well, a poison made from the blood of three of the garmbrood and the spit of a giant with a dog's head--moss scraped from the gates of the Fortress
of Ice and Shadow ground up with the powdered teeth of nine wolf-skulls--a weapon made from bronze and quenched in the venom of a moor-wurum--any of those things might kill him--to be more sure, then a blade made from bone of--"

  "Ooh, ooh, I have one, he could balance of pea on his nose under moonlight on the third day of the month while the constellation of The Chalice is in the house of the five legged dragon."

  Snoro's voice was flat. "Do not mock the rituals." He then continued, reciting a few more means by which Kveldulf or anyone of his sort might be killed, though the rattled through the list with irritation, stiffly and formally.

  When he was done Gnissa piped up. "Or, he could dance naked around a pile of mackerel while whistling a furore of Fraenkish sea chanties."

  "Don't mock the rituals."

  "Well the rituals shouldn't be so silly if they don't want to be made fun of. So what's next then? What was it a bone of? A whale beached in Autumn and fed seagull pies to keep it alive until spring?"

  "I'm not discussing this with you."

  "It does involve a Fraenkish sea chanties doesn't it?"

  "You will be laughing on the other side of your beak when I've an ulfhednar at my beck and whistle."

  "Oh." Gnissa glanced around the corners of the ceiling, scanning the spider webs for any scuttling back shapes. He was still feeling hungry. "Don't know about that." he said absently. "He doesn't seem the sort. Seems to me he's more dangerous than that. More like a wolf than a man. He might not even want to be free of the curse, you know, not even for a little while. He might just kill your and eat you. Or piss on you. Wolves piss on things a lot. Maybe he'll piss on you, then kill you then eat you. Or he might eat most of you, then piss on what's left, then--" Gnissa spotted a spider, took off and snapped it up.

  "No, my feathered corpse-picker. I think there is still enough of a humankind soul in him to make him want a little peace, and I suspect he'll be willing to pay for it. Quite willing to pay. And that in the end is all that matters; who is willing to pay for what." Snoro made a sound like as if he was choking on tar and Gnissa realised he was clearing his throat. The Nibelung turned a page. Gnissa was looking for more spiders. "It is a quandary. Not a simple matter at all. For he has not, exactly, been changed by the curse. Rather something within him has been brought into being. In the old tongue it is his flygeur. His fetch. It's an aspect of the soul. The Leth called the hidden soul the genius. Sometimes, the folk today call 'em guardian spirits or familiars without fully understanding that the spirit is not truly external to the self. The flygeur is not something comes from without. It is something from within," he tapped his chest, "in here. Awakening ones flygeur needs powerful magic, but everyone has something deep inside waiting. Well, all of us who have souls anyway." He shot a brief, nasty smile at Gnissa.

  "Raven's don't need souls. We know that a raven's life is the best life there is." There didn't seem to be any more spiders. "The souls of kindly men and women and Nibelungs are reborn as ravens, don't you know? That is what my grand-mamma always used to say, back when I was...

  "An egg, yes, yes, back when you were an egg."

  "Mark my words: once you've been a raven you don't need to go off to any paradise or otherworld."

  Snoro scratched his bulbous nose. "Of course, cunning-men and wizards have found out a number of ways to bring out the flygeur."

  "Are you even listening to me?" said Gnissa.

  "Desperately trying not to." He stretched and scratched. "And there are ways to summon the selfsame spirit into the waking world, and shape it into a beast or spirit or demon. Woods-witches do it, if clumsily, and make toads and snakes and spiders."

  "Could you make a spider?"

  "Yes, Gnissa, I'm going to conjure up a piece of my unawakened soul in the shape of a spider so that you can eat it."

  "That'd be lovely. You are a real friend."

  Snoro folded his fingers over his tub-belly and stared up at the drunken shadows on the ceiling. "I once knew a warrior-shaman in the north. He'd go into a trance and a bear would leap out of thin air. He never used to fight. He'd just fall into a fit and let the bear run mad." Snoro turned a page. "The wolf-walkers were a similar cult of shamans. But their rituals were peculiar. By design or accident their sorcery turned contagious." He stretched his arms, yawned and sniffed. "I wonder? Was it was a part of the initiation?" His face screwed into a muddle. "Perhaps a would-be ulfhednar had to survive the savaging of his fellows to be counted strong enough? Or did the magic need to worm its way in through the wounds?" He pinched his brow. "I will never know, I suspect. Whoever did write The Book was more interested in the means by which the ulfhednar could be killed, than with any sort of history about their magic. Or perhaps it was all secret? That might well be one reason why the ulfhednar are no more? Their shrines are nothing but rot and ruin. Their practises are gone. But, the sorcery still lingers on in a few feral tatters, and Kveldulf's got it in him."

  Gnissa hoped onto the desk, and fixed Snoro with one of his eyes. "I think you're wrong. There ought to be a lot more of them then, shouldn't there? If the magic's just in the bite, well, then there'd be big, nasty shadow-wolves everywhere, wouldn't there? I bet Kveldulf's bitten a hundred people just on his own. He loves biting. It's probably his favourite hobby. Next time you see him at night poke him with a stick, and see. I bet he'll bite you. Bite-bite-bite-chew-chew-chew." Gnissa sighed. "Do you know bird's can't chew? We have to eat everything whole."

  "Don't you ever shut up?"

  "Okay, I'll be quiet." A pause. "There see, I was quiet. I could hear my heart beating. It was awful. Anyway, what's your answer, smart-britches?"

  "Well, Gnissa," said Snoro, gritting his teeth, "seeing as you have asked, Gnissa, and I don't have the energy to throttle you right now, Gnissa, most of the poor folk Kveldulf's savaged probably never survived. Perhaps the attack has to be at the right time of the year, or day, or night? Perhaps one has to already be a dabbler in sorcery to contract the curse? Perhaps there has to already be magic awakened in one's blood? Who knows? Kveldulf was certainly using the arts and the runes back in his day. He was hunting dark creatures centuries ago. His name is not unknown to me, though I thought him long dead." Snoro grinned and all his sharp little teeth glowed as bright as polished pearls in the firelight. "How strange to meet him here and now."

  Gnissa looked up. "She's here. I hear shoes upon the dirt."

  Snoro craned his head about. The crunch of feet on loose chips of rock was indeed growing steadily louder. "Ahhhh, so finally she arrives." He got up from his stool and stood, twitching his fingers and grinning and scowling all at once. The door opened and daylight wriggled into the room, followed by a young woman in a heavy cloak. Her dishwater hair was tied up with a scarf, and her chicken-pocked cheeks were sunk into an unhappy mess of lines and shadows.

  "Well, well, well," said Snoro with a brief, knowing smile. "I am most honoured to host a visitor from the Toren Vaunt." He mocked a bow, but remained seated. "Delighted. Overjoyed. Charmed."

  "Good day, Snoro." She limped into the cave, crouching a little to avoid the low ceiling. "I am sure you know by now--"

  "Yes, yes, yes. Someone has gone and hired a witch-hunter. But this one is not the usual pathetic man with his needles and ropes and perverse ideas. This one knows what he is doing. The Eorl? He is feeling better by now, I expect? Having a curse lifted will that do that to a man."

  "He has shown some small recovery, now that the curse is gone. Yes."

  "How good for him."

  She came a step closer. "I will need a method that is... swifter. Suspicions are growing. I do not want a lingering illness this time. Better to put the fear into all. I have brought silver."

  "Ahhh," said Snoro, "you forget so quickly? Your coin is no good here. I will have but one payment from you, my pretty." Snoro slid from his seat and swaggered closer. She was tense, shivering. Though he stood only as high as her shoulder his arms were long and lanky. He easily reached up and undid the clasp a
t her throat, then ran a sharp fingernails over her neck.

  "You are trembling. My bed is warm. The furs will stop those shivers."

  "Not so warm, Snoro, as I recall. And if I hope to forget, then it seems that so do you. For that price we agreed on something more valuable than a simple curse. We agreed that you would teach me more of your arts."

  "And I have."

  "And yet, I would know more, if I am to give you that price again."

  His smile was toothy and slick with saliva. "Very well. Fine. Whatsoever pleases you. After all, it is a pleasure to teach such a willing student."

  Gnissa edged warily along the edge of the desk, watching with his restless eyes. There were many things about creatures with the shapes of men and women that he did not understand, and some that he liked not at all. This was one. Birds were sensible. A bird's choice of a mate always had something to do with eggs and chicks. And birds got it over with quickly, the final act--after the dancing and fluttering and singing, which was always fun--but the final act for a bird was always just a brief touch of bodies. It wasn't a matter of pleasure, it was a final step of a timeless dance. Not that Gnissa thought the female took much pleasure in this. He wondered, as he had wondered more than once, if Snoro had made a mistake when he forced this desperate, angry woman into a bad bargain.

  Gnissa spread his wings, flapped through the doorway and into the sky before Snoro had time to begin his grunting and sweating.