“You love her, don’t you?”
Dane gave no answer.
“It is well. Love is the strongest kind of courage. It is the only thing a man can bear with him into the next life. Whether it is yours to live or die in the face of this peril you go towards, love will serve you well. Farewell, King-son, I do not think our paths will cross again. Not on this plane.”
She turned to leave.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Dane said. “My father is not a king.”
She paused for a moment, her eyes roving over the sand as though seeking something there. “Then perhaps I was not referring to him.” She began to move away again.
“Wait,” he said.
She turned back to him.
“What does shriken mean?”
Her face changed. She walked quickly back until she stood before him. “Where did you hear that word?” she asked.
“One of your men used it.”
She nodded.
“Please, tell me what it means.”
“If you have spent time on that island,” she said, her gaze flickering northwest once more, “I think you have already begun to learn what it means.” She turned to leave.
“But what is it?” Dane asked.
“Not what is it,” she said, turning back to him. “But, what are they.”
“What are they then?”
“What are they, King-son?” For the first time in their conversation, she looked directly at him. “They are the reason we do not speak of your island.”
XVIII
The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel
As soon as Tipper and Rawl were back inside the compound they went in search of Elias and Leech. On their way, they passed back by the door of the cellar. Rundal and Crane and a few others were standing there. Rawl heard Rundal say as they passed, “They’ve given us a sign. Now it’s time for us to take a leap of faith.”
Leech and Elias agreed about the tunnel: it had to be filled in. But they differed on the best way to go about it. Elias thought it would suffice to fill in each end with stones. Leech wanted to dig up the entire tunnel, rip out the supports, and fill it with earth. In the end, they reached a compromise. The men would dig up and fill in two paces of the tunnel length from the outer foot of the wall. The space inside would be blocked with rocks. They formed a twelve-man crew: four pairs of workers to gather stones and destroy the tunnel and four bowmen to cover them from the walls. Before they did this though, Rawl asked them to call an assembly. The result did not surprise him. Fletcher Dibsy was missing.
Leech dismissed the assembly and began ordering the work party. It took a little while to outfit them all with picks and shovels and harness the donkey to a cart to haul stones, but eventually the four pairs passed under the gate. Each man stuck with his partner and no pair wandered out of sight from the walls. They gathered many stones in the clearing to the west of the compound and brought them back on the cart. The pairs split the work of filling the tunnel mouth inside the cellar with stones and tearing up the tunnel on the other side of the wall. By late afternoon the job was complete. The men filed back through the gate, weary but heartened to have spent the day in a labor that had a clear purpose and end.
Owen, who was counting off the men as they returned, called down from the wall as they were closing the gate. “Where’s Crane and Darinson?”
“I thought they were outside working on the tunnel,” Rawl said.
“And I thought they were working inside with you,” Paul said.
“When did you last see them?” Owen asked, coming down from the wall.
“I last saw them gathering stones in the field,” Dirk Ridder said. “That was a couple of hours ago.”
“Has anyone seen them since?” asked Tipper, who had been working in the cellar with Rawl.
Silence. Several men shook their heads.
Rawl notified Elias and Leech and once more the two men called the entire company to assemble before the south gate. It was worse than they thought. Rundal Tillman and Gundar Holt were missing, too.
“They weren’t on the work crew,” Elias said.
“No,” said Fish, “They were supposed to be on kitchen duty.”
“They didn’t pass out of the gate,” Owen said. “I counted every man that did.”
“They must have gone out through the tunnel before we closed it up,” Rawl said.
“We’ll form a search party,” Leech said. “They couldn’t have wandered far.”
“I don’t think that will do any good, sir,” said Rawl. “I think they wanted to leave.”
“Wanted to leave?” Leech said.
“I mean they deserted, sir,” Rawl said.
“Deserted? What chance do they think they’ll have of hiding from the enemy outside the walls?”
“I don’t think they’re trying to hide,” Rawl said. “I think they want to find them.”
Leech laughed. “Why on earth…”
“Rundal thinks they’re a thing to be worshiped. He was talking about it this morning.”
“Worshiped?” Leech laughed. “Is everyone here losing their minds?”
Elias did not laugh. “This is not good,” he said, loudly enough for only Rawl and Leech to hear him. “The dark energies of this island are already strong. If Rundal and his friends have given themselves to serve them, there’s no telling what will happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Rawl said. “I should have said something sooner. I just didn’t think they’d actually do it.”
“There’s no helping it,” Elias said. “We’ll just have to think of how to best counter it.”
***
Rawl followed the other workers towards the kitchen. Josie came out of the kitchen door before he got there with a large plate of scraps for the dogs. She knelt and scratched Dioji’s ears as he ate. Rawl marveled that Dioji, who snarled when the other dogs came too near his meal, let her do this.
“Shall we?” Josie asked Rawl, rising and holding her hand out to the targets. She had already had her supper and Rawl postponed his so he could spend the rest of the daylight with her on the range.
“Thanks for the lesson,” Josie said when it was too dark to shoot. She held the bow out to him.
“Hang on to it,” Rawl said. “I’ll get a replacement from the armory.”
After piecing together a supper of leftovers, the best part of which was Josie’s company, Rawl shuffled off through the dark in the direction of the armory and Josie returned to the infirmary. Rawl found the door standing open and heard movement from inside. Peeking around the jamb, he saw, by the light of a single candle, a cloaked figure rummaging through the shelves. Rawl rapped one knuckle on the jamb. Elias turned from the shelves to nod at him.
“Can I help you find something, sir?”
“I wondered if we had more rope,” Elias said. He laid a coil of thick rope on the table by the candle. A few tools also sat on the table. “I need something thinner, more supple.”
Rawl felt the coarse fibers of the rope on the table. He nodded and stepped to one of the side walls of the armory, which doubled as a tool shed. There were several dusty bags of canvas and pelts hung there and Rawl felt around under them till he found what he wanted. “I think this is the best stuff we have,” he said, handing the rope to Elias.
The priest wrapped the end of the cord around his hands several times and gave it a few sharp tugs. He nodded. “This should do well. Thank you.”
Something seemed strange in Elias’s mannerisms. He did not seem to Rawl like a man about to start a project. He seemed like a weary soul eager to end a labor he has toiled over for a long time.
“Can I help you with something, sir?”
“No, thank you,” Elias said. “I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”
“I don’t mind, sir. I didn’t mind helping with the stone either.”
“Yes, the stone,” Elias said. The way he said it did not sound to Rawl as if his words had reminded him of it but as
if he had been surprised to hear Rawl speak of something he had been thinking on a great deal. “The stone worked, didn’t it?”
“Like a charm, sir,” Rawl said, slightly cautiously. “Are you sure I can’t give you a hand with anything?”
“No, thank you,” Elias said. “This is something I must do alone.”
Rawl forgot why he had come to the armory in the first place. He nodded to Elias and left.
But Rawl never really stopped moving once he left Elias. He went back to the barracks and tried to sleep but found he could only lie on his side and look at Fletch’s empty bunk or lie on his other side and think about Fletch’s empty bunk. He got up and pulled his boots back on and went outside.
He found himself circling the top of the wall. The sentries on watch nodded to him as he passed, but he did not stop to talk to any of them. He thought about Fletch. He thought about Elias. He thought about Fletch. He thought about Joseph. He thought about Elias. His mind was filled with a shadowy unrest about the priest. It seemed Elias had said something to him. Was it yesterday or the day before? Something that had not seemed important at the time and that he had not paid much attention to. Something, the exact words of which he had forgotten but the threat of which had grown in his mind like a shadow at the end of the day. Only a few months ago, Bailus had led Rawl and several other young trainees on their first march. It was only a training exercise, meant to condition them physically and mentally to the demands of war. The collar of Rawl’s shirt had slipped down so that part of his boiled leather jerkin chafed on his shoulder and neck. He had not even noticed it at first, but by the end of the day it had rubbed his skin raw. Elias’s words were like that now – they had seemed innocuous at first, but coupled now with the priest’s strange mood and multiplied by the hours that had passed since, Rawl’s dread had grown instead of diminished. If only he could remember what the priest had said.
On his second lap around the wall he passed again through a section on the northeast side where the gap was largest between the sentries. The moon cast the shadows of the rampart across the wall-walk here so that this part of the wall was darker than the others. His eyes were wandering along the conical spiked tops of the trunks that formed the wall when they spotted something there they had not seen on his first circuit. A rope had been knotted and wedged between two of the beams; the other side fell to the ground on the outside of the wall.
Rawl thought at first this was the work of some enemy trying to scale the wall and he leaned over the edge to see the foot of the wall and scoured the tree line. As he leaned over, he laid his hand on the rope. Its rough fibers were instantly familiar. Suddenly all the disconnected worries which drifted in his mind precipitated into one ice-solid awareness that struck him like a slap in the face. He dropped off the wall and ran in search of his brother.
He found him in the kitchen, seated with several men by the hearth, playing a dice game.
“Paul, I need your help.”
“Alright,” Paul said without looking up.
“Now,” Rawl said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him out of his chair.
“But I’m winning.”
“Come on,” Rawl said.
Something in his brother’s tone must have alerted Paul to the seriousness of the situation. “Alright. I’ll be right back, guys,” he said over his shoulder.
“What is it?” Paul asked as soon as they were outside. Rawl’s hand was still wrapped around his arm.
“It’s Elias,” Rawl said. “I couldn’t remember what he’d said to me that had me so worried, but I remember now and I understand. But it may already be too late.”
“Slow down, Rawl. What are you talking about?”
“I think Elias is going to do something awful.”
“How awful?”
“Paul, I think he’s going to kill himself.”
“How do you know this?”
“Do you remember the stone we helped him bury? The one he used to draw the curse out of Owen?”
Paul nodded. “Of course.”
“Well the other day he told me he thought a man could do the same thing for the island that the stone did for Owen.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s going to try to draw the island’s darkness into himself and then…”
“And then bury himself alive,” Paul said.
“We have to go after him,” Rawl said. “But we’re going to need help.”
Rawl burst through the door of the infirmary. Bailus, who had spent most of the day sleeping, was awake and going at it with Leech.
“Great,” Bailus said. “So young Dibsy gets sucked down a rabbit hole and Rundal defects with Vick Crane and two of his other cronies. What account are you going to give of this when Dane returns?”
“I’ll tell him the truth,” Leech said.
“Lucky he’s your friend.”
“Lucky nothing. I only took this post because you went and bled your fool self unconscious. Dane can’t return soon enough.”
“Dane returning isn’t going to fix this,” Bailus said.
“Well at least I only have to keep this post until he does.”
“You shouldn’t be worried about how long you’ll have to keep your post. You should be worried about how long you’ll be able to keep your head on your shoulders. We all should.”
“I liked you better unconscious,” Leech said.
“Get a room, you two,” Josie said from Mara’s bedside. “This poor woman’s trying to sleep.”
Rawl took Josie’s hand and nodded to the door. As he led her and Paul to the rope, he told her everything, including his last conversation with Elias in the armory-tool shed. “As soon as we’re down, pull the rope up. We wouldn’t want anything from the woods crawling up. I’m on watch next so you’ll have to find a replacement. Tell them I’m sick in the infirmary.”
Josie just nodded to all of this. Rawl was surprised she didn’t insist on coming with them. Paul slung his bow on his back and dropped down the rope. Rawl followed him.
“Alright, Josie,” he called when his feet touched down.
Josie appeared on the wall above them, but instead of pulling up the rope she swung herself over the wall and started descending. Rawl and Paul backed away from the wall and dropped their eyes for the sake of modesty.
“I don’t think she understood what you wanted her to do,” Paul said.
Rawl sighed. “She understood me just fine.”
When Josie was down, Paul still seemed confused. “Josie, you were supposed to pull the rope up.”
As he was talking, she tied a heavy knot in the end of the rope and tossed the weighted end up and over the wall. She turned to Paul. “Like that?”
“Yes, except you were supposed to stay inside.”
“You boys aren’t the only ones who languish here when the men go out on patrol.”
“Wait a minute. Does that mean you don’t count us as men?” Paul asked.
“Enough,” Rawl said. “Paul, do you remember how to get to the meadow where we buried the stone?”
“Why there?” Josie asked.
“He seemed to think that place was right for offsetting the energies trapped in the stone. I think that’s where he’ll go.”
“It was east of here,” Paul said.
“We started off by heading east,” Rawl said. “But we ended up zigzagging all over. I think we ended up somewhere north-west of here.”
“No,” Paul said. “It was east; I remember. I can find it if we see some landmarks. I think we should try to retrace our exact steps.”
“That’s only going to waste time,” Rawl said. “He could be digging his grave as we speak.”
“I don’t think Elias went to the meadow,” Josie said.
“Why not?” Rawl asked.
“Because, think about it, a man can’t bury himself alive. Not with a pit and shovel. Not like you did with the stone.”
“But he’ll want to trap the energy somehow.
”
“The only way he could bury himself is by collapsing a mine or cave on himself. But to do that he’d need blasting powder to cause a cave-in or a sledge hammer to break the braces.”
“He wouldn’t use blasting powder,” Rawl said. “He needs a physical body to trap the darkness in. It wouldn’t do to blow himself to pieces.”
“But did he have a sledge with him?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know,” Rawl said.
“But you saw him in the supply shed. What tools did he have with him?”
“There was a hammer, but only a small one. And some pointed tool. An awl or a chisel; I can’t remember. It was dark anyway. These were laid out on the table; I’m not even sure he was taking them with him.”
“So maybe you’ve been reading it all wrong,” Paul said. “Maybe all he’s planning to do is carve some warding spell on a tree or stone.”
“No,” Rawl said. “I’ve got a feeling it’s a lot worse than that.”
“What else do you remember?” Josie asked.
“He asked me for rope. He tested it to make sure it was strong and he wrapped it around his hand several times. I think he was planning on making knots or tying something.”
“Oh, Kran. He’s going to hang himself,” Paul wailed. “And you’re an accomplice. The curse of this will be on our family forever.”
“How was I supposed to know what he was planning?” Rawl said.
“I should think when a depressed loner asks you for a rope it would be fairly obvious,” Paul said.
“No,” said Josie.
They turned to her.
“He’s not going to hang himself.”
“How do you know?” Paul asked.
“Because if that was enough, he could have just tossed the stone out in a field. He buried the stone so no one could ever use the energy trapped there for evil again. He’ll do something with his body so that no one will be able to find it and use it against us.”
“All this detective work is great,” Paul said. “But we’re running out of time.”
Josie didn’t seem to hear him. She was repeating softly, “Hammer. Awl. Chisel. Rope. Rope. Rope. Hammer-Awl-Chisel-Rope.”
The Silent Isle Page 21