The Hawk And His Boy

by Christopher Bunn

  That was the question. Perhaps one of the four wanderers, the anbeorun, could command enough will to shape darkness? But they would never have reason, for the creation of a sceadu meant a level of evil in the creator equal to the abomination created. That made no sense in light of what was known of the wanderers. According to history, the anbeorun existed to guard against the Dark. Yet the mosaic indicated a tie of some kind between the anbeorun of fire, Aeled, and a sceadu.

  The entry in Fynden Fram’s anthology continued.

  A sceadu can take any shape it chooses: stone or shadow, the wind crossing the plain, animals, man, a tree growing in the forest. It mimics the shapes of things that already are, just as its power is merely a reflection of the strength of its maker and the darkness. There is no reliable way to determine the presence of a sceadu, though one account of the death of Allevian Tobry—

  Who was Allevian Tobry? Nio had always wondered about that, for he had never come across any other mention of the name.

  —records that a stranger appeared at his gates, cloaked and hooded despite the summer’s heat, and so brought death to that lord with a touch of his hand. Everyone of his household felt an intense cold emanating in waves from the stranger, as ripples do spread out around a stone tossed into a pool. After the stranger had departed, all fell sick of a lingering fever. The wizard of the household claimed it had been no man, but a sceadu. I cannot vouch for the truth of this account, as there is little other firsthand knowledge of encounters with sceadus. There is no known way of killing the creatures, though they themselves feed on death and will kill for no reason at all. They need death in order to live. This is not surprising, as they are the oldest servants of the Dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  LISS GALNES

  The following day, Ronan made his way to the Street of Willows in the Highneck Rise district. It was still raining. It had not let up through the night. The gutters ran with water.

  The worst of his injuries had faded to dull aches over night. Except for his ribs. He’d have to be careful there. He had always been a quick healer. His mother had said that came from her side of the family.

  A sour smile crossed his face. He could only hope the children wouldn’t breathe a word of what they’d done. If anyone found out about it, he’d be the laughingstock of the Guild. But those children would be thinking hard on what they’d done. Especially when they were alone. They’d be looking over their shoulders for a long time. He’d been the Silentman’s Knife for seven years now, settling matters in alleys and in back rooms where his prey had nowhere left to run to, except into the tired arms of death.

  Death. Like a shadow always on his heels, treading closer over the years until it was almost like his own shadow. But they weren’t friends, even though he had handed over many souls into its embrace. No, it was a working relationship, begun in distaste and dulling over the years into numbness. He didn’t dream anymore. His memories no longer troubled him, for they also had numbed.

  But it would be different when he went to Flessoray. It was too late to go back home, but he could go to the islands. If he could get the Silentman to release him from his duties. Maybe he would have to sneak out of the city. The Flessoray Islands were north, off the coast of Harlech. They rose up out of the sea, made of stone and scrub pines. Folk lived apart there, content with their lives and having no interest in the outside world of Tormay. Life was measured by the patience of the sea and by the wind wearing away the days until stone and man alike were scraped clean to their bones. Perhaps then, there, things would be different, and he would let the wind blow through him until he was empty.

  The Street of Willows was lined with manors, complacent behind their high walls. Gates were locked against the weather and thieves such as himself. The trees from which the street took its name stood in rows of drooping branches on either side of the cobblestones. He stood underneath one and considered the wall a few yards further down. Water dripped down from the leaves onto his head. Under normal circumstances, without broken ribs, the height of the wall would not have been a problem. He scowled. Children!

  Ronan wasn’t getting any warmer, or any drier for that matter, so he climbed the wall. Just as Arodilac had said, the tree outside the Galnes wall provided an easy ascent. He crept out onto a branch that reached toward the top of the wall and listened for a moment. But he heard no wards whispering, no rustle of invisible threads tightening, ready to snap around him. And then he was over and down, wincing as his ribs grated, a dark shape in the rain that melted into the darker shadows of the shrubbery.

  It was a small garden, filled with bushes and trees that crowded about a patch of grass. The rain had stripped the flowers from the bushes, and everywhere the ground was dappled with white petals. Lights shone in the windows of the manor beyond. And there were the apple trees. He reached out and plucked one. Tart and sweet. Good, but certainly not good enough to warrant this mess. There were better apples to be bought in the city. Something tickled uneasily at the back of his mind, but then he thought no more of it. A job was a job, regardless of the client’s reasons.

  Ronan paused in the shadows against the manor wall and pressed his ear to the stone. He heard nothing. No wards muttering their hidden menace. Nothing at all. He shrugged and began to climb. The walls were made of granite and offered easy holds. His hands and feet were unerring in their instincts. His ribs twinged in protest but he ignored them.

  He stopped at one window, just to the side of the casement. The glass was ajar, and he heard the sound of a lute. The notes bore a strange resonance in them that brought to mind the sea. They sounded singly. One like the wavering call of a seagull, others like wind plucking the rigging of a ship, still others that belled in the low tones of the buoy that swayed at the harbor mouth of Hearne.

  He edged closer and peered inside. A girl sat upon a stool, her head drooping over the instrument. He could not see her entire face. But he could see enough. The angle of cheekbone, stark with shadow, a white brow and neck framed by a wing of hair, burnished blue-black like night on water. Her fingers wandered across the strings, slow and blind in their movement, for her eyes were closed. Silently, he eased away and resumed his climb.

  A dormer window provided entrance to the house from the top of the roof. Ronan tripped the lock with a length of wire and slipped inside. Immediately within was a small room, dark except for light glowing from beneath a door. He took off his wet jacket and boots and then settled down in a corner.

  Anyone can rob a house. But to do the job well takes more than just skill. It takes an instinct for places—being able to walk into a house and let your senses reach out and become aware of spaces, shapes, shifts in temperature, drafts betraying holes and hidden rooms, the creaks of old wood, of water dripping, mice mumbling within walls. No amount of teaching or practice can guarantee this; it’s instinctive.

  A few notes drifted up to Ronan’s ears. The lute. He could smell bread baking—the old cook hardly ever left her kitchen, according to Arodilac. As he listened, he began to sense more: the tick of a grandfather clock, warmth from the kitchen stove rising up a chimney and exhaling into all the floors of the house, the contented creak of beams and boards complacent about the rain outside. There was a comfortable shabbiness to the place, as if many generations had been birthed and lived and died within its walls, leaving their marks in staircases worn smooth, faded paintings, and the ghosts of memories lingering in the place they loved.

  Ronan eased open the door and found himself at the top of a staircase. The lute played faintly from several floors down. The steps were silent under his weight—good workmanship and heavy wood. He smiled complacently. He had no fear of discovery within the manor. It was a large place, with surely many hiding spots if someone approached. And he knew—he sensed—there were only two people within: the cook far below in her kitchen, and the girl still playing her lute. Two floors down was his guess. He could sense something else. A touch of power concentrated in a tiny place. T
he ring.

  Far below him, he heard the lute stop.

  Footsteps creaked up the stairs. The girl emerged up from the shadows, still carrying her lute. She stopped in front of him, an almost incurious look on her face. The lamplight brought her face alive. He tried to move, but could not.

  “There are easier houses in Hearne to rob,” she said. He could not answer.

  She regarded him for a moment and then spoke again.

  “I am mistress of this house.” Her eyes turned on his, dark blue as a storm sky. Or gray. Yes—he was mistaken. They were gray. “My name is Liss Galnes.”

  Whatever held him vanished. He stumbled back and caught himself on the wall.

  “It would only take the blink of an eye,” he said, furious and shaky with fear at the same time, hand groping for the knife at his side.

  “Not in this house,” Liss said.

  He believed her.

  “Come,” she said, turning away.

  Liss led him downstairs, through room after room and more staircases. Faces stared down from paintings: knowing, secretive looks of men and women; children standing gravely with pet dogs; a mother holding a silk-swaddled infant who seemed to smile at him. Faded furniture, tall casement windows that reached up to the cobwebs of vaulted ceilings. Rain streaked against the glass. They crossed the polished wooden floor of a hall. Mirrors showed a girl who seemed to drift like a feather, followed by the grim-faced man moving heavily in her wake.

  “Where are we going?” he said.

  She smiled for the first time. “The kitchen. You’re hungry.”

  He was about to deny it, more out of contrariness than anything else, but it was true. Besides the apple in the garden, he hadn’t eaten anything that day.

  The cook stood chopping parsley at a table in the center of the kitchen. She was an old woman with a face as brown and worn as a walnut. A fire burned on the hearth, pots bubbled, and kettles steamed. Iron pans and ladles hung from brackets on the wall, and a row of windows looked out onto an herb garden.

  “Didja catch him?” said the cook, intent on her parsley and not turning her head.

  “Him?” echoed Liss. She looked at Ronan. He had the distinct impression she already knew his name.

  “My name’s Ronan,” he said. “Ronan of Aum.”

  “Sit, then—Ronan of Aum. His name,” she said, turning to the cook, “is—”

  “I know, I know,” said the old woman. “I haven’t gone deaf in my old age, though you think me feeble, with all your coddling, trying to do the cooking and whatnot. You’ll be the death of me, girl.”

  Liss smiled.

  Ronan sat down to soup, fresh bread, cheese, and a mug of red wine—tired, bemused, and not sure what to think. If anything, there was a pathetic humor in it all, in the fact that the revered Knife of the Guild could not defend himself against a handful of children. That the Knife could not even rob a house guarded by two women. But who would believe that? Certainly not the Silentman. He shook his head.

  “What’s that, then?” said the cook. “Don’t like my soup?”

  “No, no,” he said. “It’s good.”

  “Hush, Sanna,” said Liss. “Leave him to his food. There’ll be time enough to bother him later.”

  “Shaking his head like that,” said the old woman, “with a face long enough for a horse. Who is he now, besides a name? Has he come to rob the house or is he another half-wit like young whatsisname, mooning about and eating all the cakes?”

  “Hush.”

  “That’s no way to eat the food. He’ll sicken with that frown on him, no matter how good the fare. Why, what you’ll get from this hearth is better than what even the regent sups on. Him and all his gold plates and—”

  “Sanna.”

  The old woman shut her mouth, but began to clatter pots and pans about in the sink. Liss gazed at Ronan. He noticed that her eyes, even though he had thought them gray, seemed to shade blue or green at times, depending on how the light fell. He pushed his plate away, the bread uneaten. A sniff came from the vicinity of the sink.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked.

  “I think you already know,” he said.

  He was tired. None of it mattered anymore. Loyalty to the Guild. Serving the Silentman. Whether or not he could find the boy and prove his own innocence. The islands of Flessoray waiting for him. All the memories uneasy in his mind. The girl from Vomaro—how old would she be now?—surely graying and gone fat with bearing children. They could go to the shadows, every one of them, for all he cared. Besides, he hated the city. He always had. Sleep would be nice. That was what death would be. A dreamless sleep with no end.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But I’d like to hear it from you.”

  Ronan shrugged, not caring anymore. “I work for the Thieves Guild. A job came through several days ago to recover the ring of Arodilac Bridd. You have the ring. Simple as that.”

  “Ooh, the Guild,” broke in the cook. “I always thought if they were foolish enough to break in, they’d come for that sea-jade figurine in the drawing room—nice piece. Fetch a better price than that ring. I’m more inclined to a string of pearls myself. Pity the oysters are always so stubborn about giving ‘em up, the grumpy little beggars. Here.” She banged down a plate of cakes in front of him. They were tiny and sprinkled with chopped almonds. “Eat.”

  “Surely there’s more to it than that,” said Liss. She took a cake, as if to encourage him, and ate it in three neat bites.

  Again, he shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter if you know. I’m already ruined.” He bit into a cake—apple—and almost found the strength to smile. “Nimman Botrell hired the Guild to recover the ring. He doesn’t approve of you as wife of the next regent of Hearne. And that ring isn’t just any old ring, it’s—”

  “The regent,” said the old woman. “Doesn’t approve of my Liss! Why, I’ll give him what for, the wretched man! I hear he doesn’t like fish at all.”

  “Of course,” said Liss, ignoring the cook. “Of course it isn’t just an old ring. Why else do you think I made him give it to me? I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came looking for the thing. The tide always brings me what I need.”

  He almost choked on his apple cake.

  “What? Me? Arodilac said that he gave you the ring impulsively. He climbed the wall, fell in love . . .”

  Her eyes were unblinking and remote. He could not look away. The gray of them deepened to blue and then receded back to gray, like the surf of the sea washing up and away on a shore. Something ancient and serene gazed out at him, as patient as the tide. She blinked, once, and released him.

  “Men can be impulsive. Particularly for love of a girl.” She frowned, as if puzzled by the idea.

  “It’s an unusual ring.”

  He looked down, unwilling to meet her gaze. Somehow, he knew it would be better—much better—to tell her what he knew, rather than have it taken from him in some other way.

  “It’s his family’s ring, passed from father to heir. It holds the key to the wards of the Bridd castle in Hull.”

  She waited patiently, displaying no interest in plundering the wealth of the Bridds, saying nothing. He took an apple cake and fumbled it to bits in his hands. It was the last part, of course. The regent didn’t care about his nephew. Only a fool would believe that. But a ring that could open up the secret ways into the regent’s castle—now that was something to care about. Why did she want him?

  “The ring also . . .” Ronan trailed off in to silence. The tide turned within her eyes—gray to blue and back again. Infinitely patient. Water, wearing away the stone. The moon sailing over the sea to its dark, unseen horizon. Endless and inexorable.

  “It holds the keys to wards in the regent’s castle. Spells that guard his castle. Here, in Hearne.” There. He’d said it. Now he could leave. Leave and tell the Silentman of his failure, and then wait for death, however it would be meted out.

  She reached for the last apple cake, broke
it in half and offered him a piece. She smiled and she was only a girl again. Behind them, scrubbing potatoes in the sink, the cook broke into wordless song.

  “For a thief, you’re an honest man.”

  “An honest dead man, mistress,” he said. His voice was dull.

  Ronan’s thoughts drifted. He could creep out of the city at night. Over the south wall where it angled near that hostelry with the conveniently high roof. And then disappear. Forever. It would have to be north. The Guild never went there. There was nothing to steal except ice and snow and, farther north, the treasures of giants—and no one stole from them, even the Guild. Or perhaps he could go east, past Mizra and into the wastes.

  “You needn’t run,” she said, frowning.

  “You can read thoughts as well?”

  “It’s evident from your face.” And she slid something across the table toward him. A ring. A gold ring fashioned in the shape of a hawk.

  “Take it,” she said.

  “You’d just give it to me?” He reached out for the ring.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “Why else did the tide bring you here? You’ll do something for me in return.”

  His hand hovered over the ring. “And that is?”

  “In seven days’ time, a ball is to be held at the regent’s castle in honor of the Autumn Fair. I wish to attend, uninvited though I will be.”