“No thanks to you,” the book grumbled. “Best I wash my hands of you, so to speak, and wait for the next Host.”
“There may never be another Host,” Edwin said.
“Even better. Ever since the Hosts conjured me they’ve been nothing but trouble. I could use a good rest.”
Edwin was persistent, and the book retreated further into its sour mood until it ignored him altogether. Edwin yelled and threatened, but it did no good. Finally, he tried prying the book open, pulling until his arms grew tired, but no matter what he did Herald wouldn’t budge.
“Stupid book!” he yelled after he beat it against his dresser but before he threw it on the floor.
“That won’t work,” the spirit hissed as Edwin fell to his bed, defeated.
“I know,” Edwin said, fingering the arrowhead he’d pulled from his side. He had never touched a bloodstone before, and even clean of his blood, the arrowhead was so red it was almost black. Staring at it, an idea came to him.
Back on his feet, he went to the book and held the arrow to its spine. “My mother gave you to me for a reason, and you’ll help me whether you like it or not.” Herald didn’t respond, so Edwin tried prying it open again, this time with the tip of the bloodstone.
The room filled with a scream that was so loud and so shrill that Edwin wouldn’t be surprised if Anne Medgard had heard it all the way up at the inn. He grabbed his ears, and the book fell from his hands, closing with a thud. “Why’d you do that?” he yelled. “Do you want to get us all killed?”
If a book could lie on the ground smugly, that is what Herald did.
Waiting for his heart to slow, a smile crept across Edwin’s face. He had forced the book open. “What do you think?” he asked the spirit. “There’s probably a silencing incantation, but we would need to be able to open the book to find it.”
“There are other wayss,” the spirit offered. “I think a bath may be in order.”
“A bath?” Edwin asked. “Why would I want to take—oh, do you really think that would work?”
“Water will not hurt the book,” the spirit said, “but it may silence it.”
Back in the bathroom, the copper tub filled quickly, and he placed the book underwater. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Yess,” the spirit replied.
Pockets of air rose from the book and burbled at the surface. He pulled the arrowhead from his pocket and pried Herald open again.
Again the book screamed, but the water helped to muffle the noise.
“It’s working,” Edwin said.
“Of course.” The spirit crackled happily.
With the tip of the arrow, Edwin opened a page at random. It took a moment for the water to settle, at least as much as it was going to. The screaming kept the surface choppy, but Edwin could still read through it. He flipped a page.
“What are you looking for?” the spirit asked.
“A silencing spell, something about the Host’s Tomb, or anything else that might help.” He hadn’t forgotten about Walt, and he hoped Walt’s aunts were having better luck.
Being a magical book, words and pictures drifted from page to page, always moving, but they drifted slowly enough that he caught much of what a passage said before losing the rest to another page.
“A silencing spell, a silencing spell…” he mumbled.
His knees began to ache after a while from kneeling on the golemite floor. “Did they make this book intentionally difficult to understand?” he rhetorically asked the spirit. “There doesn’t seem to be any order… words scattered everywhere, drifting all over the place… almost like the ink is leaking from the seam…”
A while later a picture caught his eye. The Seer’s Cloak, the title read. The picture drifted off the page and he flipped forward, but it wasn’t there. A few pages back he found it.
The Seer’s Cloak
Woven from the blossoms of the Tree of Life, the Seer’s Cloak has yet to reveal all its secrets. It is known that, like other parts of the Great Tree, the Seer’s Cloak has antimagic properties…
He lost the passage again, but found a part of it on the next page.
…those seeking its power be warned, it is not for the weak of mind. Risks include possession, insanity, and death.
For a complete history, see the Hallow Tree. For more uses of the Hallow Tree, see the Nuts Hallow, the Roots Hallow, and the Amber Hallow.
Flipping through the pages fruitlessly, Edwin asked, “Where’s the middle? Possession, insanity, and death? What is this thing my mother left me?”
“We musst learn what else it does,” the spirit said. “Look, a spell that will let uss transform its fiberss, it says into anything we want.”
Edwin fingered the cloak, scared of it for the first time in his life.
* * *
Night came and Edwin was still on the floor. “This is hopeless,” he said. “I haven’t seen one word about the mine.”
“Nor the villagerss, nor Chardwick,” the spirit said.
“And Walt… Where are his aunts? And Sam?”
“It hass been dayss.”
Edwin shook his head. He wanted so badly to have a plan. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, not for the first time. But when he said it this time, something happened. “Wait, did you see that?”
“What?” the spirit asked.
“I thought I saw something about a horn.” He flipped as quickly as he dared under the water.
“Where did that passage disappear off to?” he said to himself. With his every move the water rippled slightly at the surface, making it harder to read.
“There!” he exclaimed, finding the words swirling on a nearby page. Below them was a picture of a bulbous creature with a curved horn growing from its nose.
The Cave-Giant’s Horn
Cave-giants are about as smart as regular giants, which is to say not very smart at all. Fat and moody, cave-giants rarely leave their caves, and they think nothing is funnier than blowing boogers through their nose-like horns. The universe is not without a sense of humor.
Sadly for any creature unfortunate enough to be resting near a cave-giant’s cave, the cave-giant’s booger blowing induces a trance, causing the poor creature to commit suicide by jumping into the cave-giant’s gaping mouth.
More unfortunate still, a cave-giant’s horn continues to be trance inducing after the cave-giant dies, and their horns have become a thief’s weapon of choice. The cave-giant’s horn has many calls and commands in an adept’s hands.
Fortunately, the horns became so valuable that cave-giants were hunted to extinction. Unfortunately, not all horns have been destroyed. Silencer spells are good against a cave-giant’s horn, but are not recommended as they often have nasty side effects. Breaking a horn is better.
“Well that wasn’t very helpful,” Edwin commented. “I wonder if Herald has any control over what we see. He’s probably mentioning silencer spells to mock us.”
* * *
The next morning Edwin woke to the sound of yelling on the street.
“Get up,” the spirit said, prickling the skin under his nose.
Edwin batted it away and rolled over on the hard bathroom floor. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep last night, and his brain responded slowly.
“Get up,” it repeated, pricking his skin harder.
“Go away!” Edwin grumbled. The spirit ignored him.
After a few minutes of this, Edwin finally got up and hit his head against the bathtub. Now fully awake, he said, “All right, all right, I’m up. Get off me!”
Having stood up too quickly, he was dizzy and unsteady on his feet, but he made his way to his room. There was noise outside, and he peeked out the window. At first he recoiled from the blinding light, but after his eyes adjusted, he saw that every person in the village had left their home and was on the road heading towards the village square. “What’s happening?”
“The roof,” the spirit said.
Only taking the time
to wrap himself in his cloak, Edwin left his room and ran up the stairs, his stomach in knots. About the time he reached the roof, an uneasy quiet rose from the village square, much like it did every time the Lucent spoke.
“My people,” said Lucent Weston, “I come to you with a heavy heart. Bring forward the supplicant.” There was a quiet murmuring. “Nemain Ross, your father was my most trusted advisor and a true believer in our cause. I raised you in my household as my ward.”
“Mercy,” a voice yelled from the crowd.
“Obviously, it pains me to see you here, probably more than you can know,” the Lucent continued. “Do you have anything to say for yourself before I render judgment?”
Lady Nemain’s voice didn’t carry as the Lucent’s did, but Edwin could still hear. “Lucent, please forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You are guilty of the highest of crimes: betraying your people,” the Lucent said.
Lady Nemain was crying. “Please forgive me. I try to see him for what he is, but he’s only a boy.”
“There are those who’ve claimed I’ve been too soft these last several months,” the Lucent said. “I myself am convinced I was bewitched, but no longer. Nemain Ross, your actions offend me and the people of our noble village. I have no choice but to condemn you to death.” There was an audible exhale, and the Lucent continued, “Though I cannot excuse what you have done, you have served Chardwick well these many years, and I offer you a chance to die with honor.” There was a loud applause from the crowd. “If you accept my offer, you will sacrifice yourself at the foot of the hallow tree. Your blood will provide nourishment for our Great Tree, and her bounty will protect our village for generations to come.”
Through muffled sobs, Lady Nemain replied, “Thank you, Lucent. I will gladly die for Chardwick.” Edwin listened in horror as there was another round of applause.
“People of Chardwick, our way of life is under attack. We all know Lady Nemain, myself better than most, and yet she stands before you guilty of aiding the Other. The boy killed good Willem Medgard. Yes, the rumors are true! The boy has escaped from the mines.”
Loud grumblings filled the air. The Lucent raised his voice over the crowd. “Nemain Ross intercepted a communication from poor widowed Anne Medgard and tried to keep this information from my ears.” There was an outpouring of anger. “Hush, calm now! There is more! Today another of our people discovered the clothes of missing Ashton Hotraben. It seems our fears were true; that abomination killed our village’s beloved son. We can’t let these deaths go unpunished.”
Edwin cursed himself. He had always meant to go back and get Ashton’s clothes; he never should have been so careless.
“With Willem Medgard’s death we know the Other has escaped the mines, and we know that he ran down the pass to Chardwick, not up to Newick. It is clear that he could only survive among us with help. For this reason, I am left with no choice but to call on the aid of the Fury. With its help, we will search every home, every hole, every alley.”
“What do we do?” a lone woman yelled, audible above all the rest.
“He’s lived amongst us,” another woman cried, “served an apprenticeship, played with our children!”
“The boy has been with us all this time!” a man yelled. “We’ll never find him.”
“Burn it! Burn everything!”
Edwin’s jaw dropped as he realized the crowd was descending into chaos.
“Yes, burn it!”
“It’s the only way to be sure!”
“Burn it all!”
There was a chorus of yelling, and Edwin could barely hear the voice of the Lucent asking for calm.
“We have to leave,” the spirit said from his side, but Edwin didn’t hear. He heard only the yelling in the village square, and he imagined Lady Nemain being led to her death.
The spirit moved its essence in front of his face. “Edwin, we musst go. Now!”
“I get it now. I finally get it. The Hosts, the villagers—”
“Edwin, lissten.”
“This is war. I’ve been such a fool, fighting myself this whole time, I—”
The spirit slapped him with its essence. “This isn’t the time. You must move. This house is no longer safe.”
Edwin had never heard such clarity or conviction in his spirit’s voice before; it sounded almost human. “What about Herald?” he asked.
“We have no time. Ruun,” it hissed.
Edwin nodded, called the spirit to join with him, and they began running at once. Hopping from roof to roof, he ran as fast as the spirit could take him, and behind him he heard the deafening call of the Fury. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he knew he was going back to the mine. It was the only option he had left.
Sliding down a pipe on the building at the end of the road, Edwin hit the ground running. All the people of Chardwick had been in the village square, and he was glad to have a head start. He also knew how fast the Fury could make them run, and knew they wouldn’t be far behind.
He thought about poor Lady Nemain, and hoped that maybe with all the chaos they would forget about her. Inspired by their talk of fire, he wondered whether fire would help distract them, and lightning began flowing between his fingers as he shot bolt after bolt at nearby houses, which exploded and helped the inferno grow and spread.
Chancing a look behind him, he saw a cloud of smoke rising in the air and thought of Herald. As difficult as the book had been, his mother had left it for him, and it would be a huge loss to lose its knowledge forever. He could imagine the spirit telling him that if he died there would be no one left to read it anyway, and this made him run faster.
When he reached the mine, he didn’t bother to sidestep the torchlight and ran as fast as his legs would take him. With all the miners in the village, all he heard was the drip, drip, drip of snowmelt making its way down to the deepest tunnels. Joined with his spirit, all the twists and turns he’d made last time made sense, and it wasn’t long before he reached the tunnel guards. He was annoyed to see they hadn’t left with the others.
At first the men didn’t move, but they must have recognized him when he got closer because the man on the right lifted his staff and banged it against a bell tucked into a recess cut into the wall, sending a reverberating wail throughout the tunnels.
The bell having been rung, the men moved in a synchronized crouching motion, locking their staffs between themselves to block his path. Seeing the glistening red reflection of a bloodstone, Edwin didn’t waste energy casting an incantation. Instead, he ran at the man on the left, jumped in the air, and kicked him in the stomach. It was like hitting a brick wall, but determined not to fall, he used it to leap backwards.
“Nothing can ever be easy,” Edwin groaned as he picked up a handful of pebbles and flung them forward, propelling them at the guards with the power of the spirit. The guards were nimbler than Edwin would have expected of such huge, muscular men; their bodies and staffs moved at dizzying speeds, deflecting and avoiding his assault.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said, sure that the rest of the village couldn’t be too far behind. Desperate to keep moving, he pulled at every rock and speck of dust around him, and a whirlwind began to grow and circle his body. With a growing barrier of dust between himself and the guards, he approached the guards again, who waited under the torches. As he moved between the two men, the man on the right came down first with a swat of his staff, and Edwin leapt into the air, his elbow grazing the roof of the tunnel as he flipped and rolled above the guards’ heads.
The air grew darker as it filled with dust, and the men struggled to keep their eyes open. Like Edwin, their movements were impossibly fast, and their staffs blurred with movement. Jumping and ducking, moving in a blur of speed, Edwin evaded their every blow.
Unable to see each other through the dust, the guards’ staffs connected. Finally, one guard swung and missed Edwin, but connected with the head of the second guard. There was a crumpling so
und as the man fell to the ground.
Swiftly, Edwin grabbed the fallen guard’s staff. Though the remaining guard towered over Edwin, knocking him to his knees was easy with a weapon in hand, and with one final blow to his head, the man fell. Blood spattered across the wall behind him, but the guard was alive.
When the air settled Edwin heard the faint echo of footsteps behind him, and knew the villagers were close. He ran on, past the point where the tunnel curved, and on to the strange blue-white light. Reaching the ledge, he began running to his left towards the rock-bridge just as people began pouring out of other nearby tunnels, and he realized he wouldn’t make it to the bridge before the way was blocked. The spirit, he felt, wanted him to jump, but he hesitated. The moat was too wide, even with them joined.
Retreating back into the tunnel, he saw that more villagers were heading towards him, leaving nowhere left to go.
Jump! Jump! the spirit urged.
With no other choice, Edwin told it, “We need a running start.” He turned and ran back towards the ledge and leapt forward when he reached the edge.
Before his feet had even left the ground the spirit took control of his body and was grabbing for his cloak. It was off his neck and in his hand in a second, and his mouth was whispering words from the book, words that he had only just read in Herald. The words sounded strange but familiar to his ears, and his cloak transformed into a rope. As he fell he threw it across the moat, hoping to snag a rock. The rope reached the surface, but despite his best efforts, he hadn’t leapt far enough. With horror, he watched as he fell below the field of flowers and down into the moat.
But then the rope pulled taut, and he flew the last few feet across the moat. He hit the column of rock with a thud, making his teeth chatter, but he held tight.
Before he could even process what had happened, the spirit was urging his body up the rope, and within moments he was pulling himself onto level ground and was surrounded by a field of the yellow flowers. They nuzzled his shin, cooed, and smiled with their vicious little teeth. As he picked up the rope, some of the flowers moved out of the way, and he realized that a horde of the strangle little creatures had piled on top of it to keep him from falling.
The Dark Passenger (Book 1) Page 25