Elated, he turned his attention to the huge mosaic overhead. He described the box in detail. Black mahogany. Old silver hinges and catch. The lid carved with a hawk’s head, the moon and the sun floating behind. Whorls curving in and out of each other on all four sides.
The mosaic sprang into life. The definition of color and shadow was more precise than what he had seen the previous night. The tiny stones shifted around each other. Colors blurred into other colors. Then the mosaic went still. The picture it presented of the box was indistinct. Not because of a lack of focus, but because the box was obviously in a dark place.
Nio cursed out loud. The mosaic was thrown into confusion by his words. The picture of the box vanished into a jumble of color and nonsensical shapes as the mosaic sought to portray what his cursing looked like. He had to laugh at that, and then he restored the original view of the box. When it was once again visible, he studied the picture.
The box was on a shelf in something like a closet or a cupboard. A faint bit of light shone from somewhere, perhaps a crack in the door. The space was lined with shelves crowded with boxes of all shapes and sizes, stacks of books, bulging velvet bags, and a heap of necklaces crammed into one corner and spilling over the shelf’s edge like a waterfall of gold. Obviously, the hideaway belonged to someone wealthy. The Guild.
Nio cursed again, but was prudent enough to do it under his breath. There was no self-evident way to shift the angle of view the mosaic presented. If he could see the outer door of the hideaway, then he might gain a clue as to where the thing was. Perhaps if he waited? Did the mosaic maintain its views in the changing immediacy of the present? If true, then he might see someone open the hideaway to take or leave an object. His eyes gleamed at the thought. But what if one of the old men came down the stairs and caught him here? He couldn’t risk that.
But what if finding the box was no longer important? What if whatever had been inside was no longer there?
The thought sickened him.
The boy had known where to look in the house. Someone had instructed him how to beat the guardian ward. That indicated magic at work. Ridiculous, to think the boy knew such arts. Someone powerful had set up the theft. That same someone might have known how to open the box. If he could find the boy, then he would unravel him like a thread and find his way, inch by inch, back to whoever had hired him.
The boy.
The frightened face appeared in his mind.
“A boy named Jute. Within the city of Hearne, most likely. Slight for his age. About thirteen years old. Ragged, probably. Dirty, I’m sure. Thin-faced. Straight black hair.” He wracked his memory, trying to recall details.
“Dark brown eyes. Old bruises on his face, I think. Slender hands. The hands of a thief. A thief. Oeof.” He held his breath and watched the mosaic.
The stones shifted. Colors rippled. Lines blurred into being and then rearranged themselves into shapes. A stone warehouse, long sweeps of wharves, the blue stretch of sea and sky behind. Figures bending over crates spilling over with silver. Silver. Fish. The docks. And there in the foreground, a boy clambering up from the beach. It could have been any one of the hundreds of street urchins afflicting the city of Hearne. But then, the boy turned toward him, almost as if aware of his gaze, and the dark eyes and face sprang into clarity.
Nio whirled and leapt up the stairs. He stopped, cursed, and ran back down.
“Undon,” he said to the little mosaic of the sea. The blue grayed into dull stone. He muttered a word at the mosaic of fire, and the image of the sceadu lost clarity, devolving into the indistinct mass of darkness and two red eyes that had been there before. He snapped a few words at the mosaic overhead until it swirled into a confusion of color and shape.
He ran for the stairs. There was no time to lose.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE PERFECT PLACE TO HIDE
Jute made his way along the foot of the cliffs until he came to the sweep of beach curving along the city walls toward the harbor. He hunkered down behind a boulder and thought for a while. At least he tried to think, but this proved to be difficult, as he was shivering with cold and growing hungrier by the minute.
It was some help, though, to think about the hawk. The whole affair was so strange that it diverted his thoughts from his miserable state. He had a memory of someone saying there were certain animals that could talk—beasts that had been enspelled. Perhaps it had been one of the older boys. Some of the Juggler’s children had come from privileged backgrounds, children who had run away from families wealthy enough to have afforded schooling.
What had the hawk meant?
Things wake that should not have been disturbed. You would do well to avoid their attention.
Did the hawk mean things like the horrible creature in the cellar? Even though he was already shivering, this thought made him shiver even more. For now, be content with staying alive, youngling. He might be able to manage that, if he could somehow get warmed up. Some food would help too.
Several fishing boats were drawn up on the beach. Fishermen were stretching out their nets to dry on the sand. Others carried wicker baskets of fish from the night’s catch to the wharves further along the beach. Bigger boats were tied up along the wharves, prows in and crowded for space. Costermongers sold the fresh catch from their stalls. Housewives, cooks from the city’s inns, stewards, even the blue-liveried servants from the regent’s household prodded and poked and sniffed their way through piles of bass, snapper, and flounder, along with buckets of oysters and baskets of eels twisting about themselves like tangled black velvet ropes. Someone had caught a pair of sharks, and the brutes hung by their tails at the side of a stall, seawater and blood trickling from their jaws.
Past the wharves, an immense pier on stone pilings extended out into the harbor almost to the breakwater that sheltered Hearne’s port from the sea. Larger oceangoing vessels were moored along the pier. Slim, double-masted ketches, sturdy schooners from the northern duchies of Tormay, and huge galleons from Harth flying the golden flag of the house of Oran. Even now, a brigantine with square white sails running up was coming about, turning toward the gap in the breakwater and the sea beyond.
Jute stood and discovered his legs were trembling so badly he could hardly walk. Hunger drove him forward, however. He slunk down the beach toward the wooden arch named Joarsway, or the Fishgate, as it was called by the locals. One of the fishers, an old man mending a torn net, called out to him, but Jute flinched away at the sound of his voice.
The Fishgate neighborhood of the city was a warren of inns, shops, and dwellings, built in a hodgepodge fashion of stones and thatch and timbers and plaster. In places, the narrow streets were cobbled, but this was rare. Most streets were merely dirt packed to the hardness of stone by years of traffic and weather. Due to the night’s rainfall, the alleys and shadows were slick with mud. Jute made his way through the crowded streets. His stomach hurt.
He did not know the Fishgate neighborhood well. It was one of the poorer parts of the city and the Thieves Guild did not waste time robbing poor people. The Juggler’s children never worked the Fishgate streets. It was not that the Guild had sympathy for the poor; rather, they preferred to go where the money was.
Within the shadow of an alley, Jute paused and looked around. The back of his neck prickled as if someone was watching him. But there was no one there. The alley was heaped with rubbish. Other than that, it was empty. Three children ran past the mouth of the alley, threading through the crowd and shrieking with laughter. A stout woman trundled past in pursuit. With a grunt, she lunged and caught the smallest boy by the ear and hauled him off.
“But Mama, I don’t want to go!” Jute heard him squeal before the two vanished out of earshot. He felt nauseated and tired. His stomach spasmed. Sunlight angling over the wall fell on his face and he looked up toward the sky. It was empty and blue.
Jute let himself drift out into the crowd. The street opened up into a small market square bustling with life. An op
en-air butchery stood on one corner, with haunches of beef, pork, and mutton hanging red and fly-speckled from a crossbeam. Links of sausage glistened in looped piles alongside folds of rubbery tripe and stacks of muttonchops. The thwack-thwack-thwack of the butcher’s cleaver on the chopping block could be heard. At another stall, cabbages and wilted lettuces lay heaped on canvas. Shriveled potatoes sat mounded in baskets. The stink of fish filled the air, and a board slung across two barrels gleamed with piles of their slick silvers and blues and blacks. A small boy sloshed water onto the fish from a bucket and scratched himself, yawning. Flies buzzed around his bare feet.
A spicer stood guard in front of his wares and eyed the crowd. Jute could smell the pepper and cinnamon from where he stood, and he drifted toward the man, his nose twitching. The smell was pungent, even amidst the stench of fish and the butcher’s goods. Strings of dried chilies in green and yellow and red dangled from the awning next to braids of garlic. Behind the man were bowls of spice: chunks of rock salt, peppercorns, tiny green cardamom seeds, golden ginger, paprika in dusty shades of scarlet and orange, and brown cinnamon. Jute sniffed, his mouth watering.
The spicer scowled at him. “Are you going to buy my spice or just stand there, smelling it up? Run along, you wretch.”
Reluctantly, Jute moved away. At the far corner of the square, a baker did business. His oven exhaled the fragrance of yeast and salt. Jute edged closer and stared. What happened next would have been normally unthinkable for a boy of his abilities. Filching a loaf would have been child’s play for any of the Juggler’s children, but the past few days had taken their toll. His hand trembled on a loaf of bread and the baker glanced up.
“Thief!” yelled the baker, lunging for him. Flour billowed in the air around him. He missed, but the woman standing next to Jute did not.
The baker beat him soundly with the wooden paddle he used for shifting loaves in the oven. A crowd of people gathered and called out advice. Business picked up, and the baker’s assistant scurried about with armfuls of bread. Concerned the paddle would not hold up, the baker dropped Jute onto the cobbles and kicked him. The boy tried to crawl away, but the baker danced around him like a fighting rooster.
“This is what we do to your sort in the Fishgate!”
“Tsk—you’d think Hearne was run by thieves these days. How much are the large ryes?”
“Two for a copper! The baker’s assistant waved a loaf in the air. “Fresh an’ hot from the oven!”
“That’ll teach him!” said a crone.
“Aye, Mistress Gamall,” said the baker, his boot connecting with the boy’s ribs. “We should be concerned with the schooling of our youngsters.” He stepped on Jute’s hand and smiled in satisfaction as he heard the bones crack. The boy blacked out and then came to, gasping, as the baker kicked his stomach. He caught a glimpse of sky spinning overhead, empty and blue.
“Hold, baker!”
Dimly, Jute remembered the voice, but he could not place it. He heard a brief, angry exclamation from the baker. And then the sky was blotted out by a face peering down into his own. Brown eyes, faded, dusty clothing, a ragged cloak. The old man. Severan. The crowd drifted around them, the man kneeling next to the crumpled boy. The baker stomped back to his stall.
“Can you get up, Jute?” asked Severan. The boy shivered from his touch.
“I’m sorry for that,” said the old man.
“Sorry!” spat Jute. His voice cracked. Tears tracked down his muddy cheeks.
“I can’t fault you for judging me on the company I keep,” said the old man. “I fault myself! But trust me for now. You must be away from here immediately.”
“Back to the house and that basement?” said the boy.
“Darkness take me, boy, if I lie. I didn’t intend you any harm and you won’t be going back there. Not if I can help it. We’ve both learned a thing or two these last days.”
Jute tried to pull away from him once he was on his feet, but he was too weak and Severan held onto his arm. The old man seemed to know the neighborhood of the Fishgate well and led Jute through a maze of alleys and twisting streets. He moved fast for an old man. The boy was soon stumbling on his feet, barely able to keep up, but the man would not release his hold on him.
“Leave go,” gasped the boy. “Let me go. You’d take me back to him and—and that thing!”
Severan hustled him down an alleyway and did not stop until they had rounded a corner. He glanced around before he spoke, but there was no one in sight.
“Hear me out, boy. I mean you well. I never dreamed he would do such a thing. Such sorceries are forbidden!”
“Then you saw it?! That, that—”
The old man shivered. “You can know someone—think you know them—and then in one instant what you hold true is discovered to be false. The mask is peeled away and a strange visage is revealed. A chance trick of the light and suddenly a stranger is looking back at you. Last night, I happened to be at Nio’s house. Questions had arisen in my work that only Nio could answer. When I walked in the door, I sensed something strange. A scent in the air made me uneasy. The place quivered with the vibration of unseen magic. Somewhat similar to what you hear, boy, when you are about your thievery and listen for ward spells, but this was a tremble in all material at hand, as if something of the Dark had been recently near. Echoes, if you will. A kind of footprint peculiar to the Dark.
“I had uneasy dreams last night,” continued Severan. “When I awoke, I determined to go and confront Nio with my fears. Perhaps the thing, whatever it was, had crept into his house without his knowledge? I would not damn an innocent man with assumptions. But I saw him in Mioja Square this morning. He was oblivious to my presence. Something in his demeanor changed my mind and I did not approach him. What if the evil was in the house by his design?”
“He did it,” said the boy, shuddering. “He spoke and something came up out of the sewer in the basement! Darkness and water all mixed together. It felt like ice when it touched me!”
“You should have died there. Luck was on your side. The thing you speak of is called a wihht. The essence of darkness married with some item of our world. Such creatures cannot be created except through an evil will, for they can only be used for evil. This sort of magic is forbidden. It is accursed. When you use the Dark for your purposes, it uses you as well.” The old man sighed. “Whatever possessed you to rob that house of all others?”
The image of the Knife stooped over the chimney sprang to Jute’s mind and again he heard the whisper floating down through the darkness. Come up, boy. Come up. And the long arm reaching down for him. The Guild had a long arm indeed, and it could still reach him in this city. He stared at the old man and did not answer.
“I decided to investigate for myself while the house was empty,” said Severan, “for Nio was heading in the opposite direction when I saw him. The place was silent and filled with shadow. All the windows were shuttered. The air smelled of decay. It grew stronger as I entered the kitchen. The door to the cellar was ajar, and I eased it open to look down the stairs.”
Jute clutched his hand.
“And you saw it?” he said, his voice shaking. “Did you see it?”
“Not at first. It was dark inside. I crept down a few steps and thought to call forth a flame to aid my sight. I’m not a wizard, but one needn’t be a wizard to attempt certain modest things. But at that moment, below me in the darkness, I saw two dim points of light. Perplexed, I thought them a pair of candles. But then, to my horror, they slowly moved my way. I heard a wet, whispering noise as of sodden flesh pressing against stone. A form gathered shape out of the darkness. I turned and ran up the stairs with my heart pounding so painfully in this old chest of mine I could hardly breathe. I did not stop until I was out of the house and halfway down the street. I had to see the thing, to prove to myself—but for you to have been in that house . . .”
“It was a job.” A spark of defiance flared in Jute’s eyes. “The Guild needed the Juggler’s
best for that chimney, and I’m the best of his lot.”
“But why that house?” Severan shook his head. “I don’t know much about wihhts. However, creatures of the Dark all share certain similarities. One is that they do not easily forget a scent. The wihht will remember your smell and it’ll sniff its way through this city in search of you.”
Jute sat down on a wooden crate. His face was white.
“I’m as good as dead,” he groaned.
“Not if we act fast. We have some time, I think. I’m no tracker, but I think any scent would get confused in the Fishgate. The stink of fish is nauseating. Even a wihht, let alone a bloodhound, will have trouble here finding your scent. You’d be a sight safer if you hadn’t tried your luck with the baker. People remember that sort of thing. It gives them something to talk about over their ale. Wihhts do have ears.”
“But where can I hide?” said the boy. He looked up at the sky. “Where can I hide?” Severan got the odd impression that the boy wasn’t speaking to him.
“I have the perfect place,” said Severan briskly, “but we must be quick. The more time you spend in the streets, the more chance the wihht will pick up your tracks.”
He urged Jute to his feet and they hurried off. They made their way through the back alleys of the Fishgate, avoiding the busy streets. After a while, they came to a narrow passage that emptied out into a crowded square.
“Mioja Square,” gasped Jute.
Severan grabbed his arm. “But, look you beyond the square.”
“There are so many people! I might escape the wihht, but what if someone from the Guild sees me? They think I’m dead. I’ll really be dead then!”
“We’ll have to risk it,” said Severan. “This is our best chance. You see, just beyond the square? That’s where we’re going.”
Mioja Square teemed with life before them. Market stalls, barrow vendors, jugglers, musicians, a throng of humanity. Looming above it on the other side of the square was a massive edifice of black stone spires, squat towers, arches, and crazily angled roof planes that gleamed ancient green copper in the sunlight, rimmed with balustrades and festooned with every manner of gargoyle, glaring and grinning down at the city.
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