The Shadow at the Gate

by Christopher Bunn

  Jute ran. Behind him, the hawk surged back into the air. Darkness dripped from its claws. The street descended more steeply into the fog, plunging down into the city. Walls rose up out of the murk. Jute looked back, sobbing for breath. No one was there. But the fog hemmed him in on all sides. A crowd could have been gathered around him, running silent and watching, and he would not have seen them.

  Why? I used to be a thief. Just a thief. Steal, keep the Juggler happy, eat, sleep. Live.

  Keep yourself alive and I shall tell you your tale tomorrow.

  Where are you?

  I am near. The hawk’s voice was grim. Run.

  From the sudden levelness of the ground, Jute knew he was no longer in Highneck Rise. He was down in the city itself. He couldn’t see for sure, but the odors were different now. Grime, work, the dusty scent of beeswax. He was somewhere near the chandlers’ district. Something creaked open in front of him. A door, suspended in the fog. No—set within a wall. Something rushed out of the door at him. Jute screamed and flung himself to one side. The thing came after him in silence. It had too many arms. Jute darted down an alley.

  The wind last night. What if I. . .?

  No!

  Why not?

  Luck was with you beyond measure last night. If the lady had not been there, you would have unmade yourself. Yourself and all of this city. The wind is not so easily tamed. Even I cannot do what she did to you. It would mean both our deaths.

  Something hissed in the fog before him. An answering call came from behind. He was trapped.

  Take to the wall!

  Jute hurled himself at the wall on one side of the alley. His fingers slipped on the stone. It was slick with moisture from the fog. But there, just a few steps further, was a gutter pipe. He was halfway up the pipe in no time at all. Maybe the fog wouldn’t be as thick higher up on the roof. They wouldn’t catch him on the roofs. Whatever they were.

  Something grabbed his ankle and yanked down. Jute screamed, sliding back down the pipe. Desperately, he wedged his fingers behind the pipe. He kicked out with his other leg. His heel smacked into something rubbery. The thing glared up at him with eyes like holes gouged in shadow. He kicked harder, furious and terrified all at the same time. The thing fell away with a shriek. Jute scrambled over the edge of the roof.

  This way.

  The hawk shot past him, appearing out of the fog and vanishing just as quickly, wings outstretched. He ran after the bird.

  Most of the buildings in Hearne butted up against other buildings, so that it was almost possible to walk from one end of the city to the other without setting foot on the ground. Jute knew. He had tried it before, he and Lena and a few other children, one summer day when the Juggler had been snoring off a drunken binge in his room. The only problem was that getting across the city in such a fashion meant taking a lot of detours and roundabouts. You couldn’t go straight. It also helped if you could see where you were going.

  Turn right at this next crest. Hurry! Several of them have gained the roof behind you.

  Jute ran along the crest. He could hear tiles snapping under footfalls somewhere behind him and then slate sliding away to shatter in sudden cracks of noise on the street below.

  What are they?

  I know them now, for I’ve tasted their blood. Dreams and shadow. The dreams of men twisted into thread and woven with shadow. This is an ancient spell. I would have thought that there was no one in this land with the knowledge. There is dreadful power afoot this day.

  They’re like that thing in the cellar?

  Jute ran down a slope, arms windmilling to keep his balance. Moss grew in the valley where the two roofs joined. He slipped on it and went down hard.

  The wihht? Similar, but different. A wihht is held together by the strength of its master. These creatures that hunt you are held together by the malice of men’s dreams.

  The roof materials were changing from slate to clay tile. Cheaper. And weaker. He put his foot right through one, all the way down to his knee.

  Run!

  A blot of darkness crawled over the roof peak above Jute. It convulsed and separated into three figures that lurched down the roof toward him. They were skeletal, like limbs broken off a dead tree and reassembled into caricatures of life. Frantically, Jute heaved forward, yanking his leg out. He staggered down the slope. Clay tiles cracked underfoot like eggshells. His body felt too heavy, as if the fog had acquired weight and lay across his shoulders. As one, the three creatures behind him hissed.

  You let the fear of them into your mind. This gives them power.

  The hawk shot out of the fog. Skimming the roof, the bird crashed through the three creatures. Limbs snapped as if they were dry branches, but the last of the things clutched at the hawk as it fell. Feathers fluttered down. The hawk beat his way back up into the fog. He seemed to stagger through the air.

  Leap!

  Except there was no next roof.

  Leap!

  Jute leapt. Out into nothing except fog. His arms and legs flailed and, for a brief moment, it felt as if the air thickened and became thick enough to swim through. The wind rushed past him. He tried to catch it in his fingers, but he fell. Something hit him hard. Everything went black for a second. Jute sprawled face down on the ground. Not the ground. Another roof. He could taste blood in his mouth.

  Get off the roof. Use the gable window.

  Jute staggered to his feet. The gable window was further down the roof. The casement was not locked. He scrambled over the sill and shut the casement behind, locking himself into a silence stale with the scent of dust. He was in an attic jumbled with rubbish. Everything was covered in dust. There was no door. Something thudded on the roof overhead. Jute looked around frantically. Surely there was a door. Every room had a door. Something scrabbled back and forth on the roof. He stared up at the ceiling. The claws scratched in agitation above him.

  You’re a thief. Thieves find doors.

  There, visible under the dust disturbed by his feet, was a groove in the planking. A trapdoor. But there was no handle. Jute dug at the wood with his fingertips until they bled. The latch on the gable window rattled. The wood shifted under his hands and the trapdoor lifted up. Behind him, glass shattered.

  Jute leapt down a stairway into a bedroom, crowded with a rumpled bed and sour with the smell of sleep. The trapdoor fell shut with a crash. Floorboards creaked overhead. The bedroom door opened into a hall. He could smell fried fish and onions. The hall ended in stairs.

  Careful.

  Jute tiptoed down the stairs. A ward whispered through his mind, spelled somewhere into the house. This was not a rich man’s house. And if it was not a rich man’s house, then he gambled good odds that the only ward would be the one woven into the main outside door. Behind him, the stairs creaked.

  He hurried down a hall and found himself in the kitchen. The air was choked with the scent of fried fish. Coals glinted on the hearth, under a pan full of charred fish. A table stood in the middle of the room. On the far side was a door. Several children sat at the table, slumbering over their bread and butter. A man snored into his greasy slab of fish at the end of the table. His shadow lay across the stone floor. It rippled as Jute stepped through it.

  Careful. These creatures that hunt you spring from the dreams of man, and this man dreams.

  Something squirmed in the man’s shadow. It wriggled up like a water snake lifting its head from a stream. Jute sprang for the door with a shriek. The ward came alive the moment he touched the doorknob. It was an inexpensive ward. The kind bought for a copper and no guarantees. It was designed to guard against intruders coming into the house, not out of the house. But the ward went off with a vengeance when he turned the knob. Jute threw up his hands as he ran out the door, cringing, shoulders tensed for an explosion of flames or something equally horrible. However, there were no flames, no quicksand underfoot, no stone hands bursting out of the ground to grab his ankles. Instead, the ward howled. It yelled and hollered and shou
ted. On any other day, Jute would have laughed. Not today.

  “Here now!” bawled the ward. “Here nownownow! Heyou! Aouaouaou-arr!”

  Unfortunate.

  Jute thought he heard the hawk snort inside his mind. Back down the street, the ward continued to yell.

  “Heyouyouyou! Yarrr. . .! Thief! Theee-ief!”

  Quick. Turn here. A mob of these creatures is hastening up the street toward you, and there are others behind you as well. They do not tire, for the evil dreams of men are never short of hope.

  Jute was exhausted and his knee ached. He felt blood tricking down his shin. It was beginning to rain. The cobblestones were slippery underfoot. Either the street curved or it narrowed, for he found himself running an arm’s length from the buildings on his right. Lamplight shone from windows, blurred by the fog and the water beading on glass. He caught glimpses of ordinary life: a woman asleep at her spinning wheel, a child nodding over his porridge, an older girl asleep in the act of braiding the tresses of her little sister, fingers caught and unmoving in the skeins of hair.

  Shadows take it all, Jute thought to himself. Why me? I wish I was inside somewhere. Inside and asleep over my porridge. I was content being a thief. A beating from the Juggler once in a while wasn’t that bad. No hawk. No dreams. No sky. Nothing. I’d rather have nothing. Be nobody.

  Beware your mind. Of all dangers, there are two that wield the deadliest swords.

  Jute glanced over his shoulder. No one was in sight. There, he thought. I’ve outrun the wretched things. Hang it all. I know this city like my hand.

  Something small hurtled toward him from the fog. A little gray cat. One claw swiped at his ankle. Jute yelped in pain and surprise, turning toward the animal to kick it, just in time to see a dark figure detach itself from the wall and reach for him. Teeth gleamed in a face with no eyes. The cat yowled and shot away down the street, fur standing up on end. Jute darted after the cat, his heart hammering in his throat.

  Jute risked a look back and wished he hadn’t. The whole street crawled with shadows. They welled up from the puddles, out from the cracks in the cobblestones. They clambered down gutter pipes, sidled out of doors, and winked in and out of view in the falling rain, as if so insubstantial they might hide behind a raindrop. But they were not insubstantial. They were real. Jute could hear their hissing and snarling as they called to each other. He remembered the dark blood on the hawk’s beak. Some of the creatures looked like men. Some had extra arms or extra legs. Some had no heads. One had no arms at all but long legs like a spider, with a squat head in the middle covered with an impossible number of eyes.

  Hawk!

  As I was saying, concerning danger, there are two which wield the deadliest swords. Two which can never be underestimated. One, of course, is the Dark itself.

  Where do I go? What should I do?

  Follow the cat.

  Follow the what?

  The cat rounded the next corner, ears laid back flat, and going at a tremendous pace. It was all Jute could do to keep it in sight. Perhaps if he ran a bit faster he’d be able to give it a kick.

  Tush, said the hawk. The second danger is an everyday sort. Commonness renders it invisible, unacknowledged, and unchecked.

  This is no time for lectures, hawk!

  The noises behind Jute were getting closer. There was a horrible galloping, pattering, slapping sound to it all, as if dozens of hooves and bare feet and boots were running in concert together. The jumble of sound echoed off the high walls of the houses crowding around and became even more jumbled.

  The cat looked back. One blue eye flashed in the gloom, and then the cat bounded away, legs flying and fur matted with water. The rain fell harder. Jute pelted through a small square. A fountain splashed in the center and its pool was overflowing, unable to keep up with the rain. Water sheeted across the cobblestones. Several dark figures jumped up out of the pool at his approach. Jute skidded on the water. The cat yowled and dashed around one outstretched arm.

  We are cut off from the gates. You are being herded.

  The fog lifted then, up into a dark sky slashing down rain. Jute knew where he was now. The street widened. Shops and stalls and barrow carts were chained to railings. Canvas awnings sagged from the buildings, sodden with rain. Mioja Square. The tangled sea of the fair, of tents and carts and bannered poles, lay before him, huddled in the rain. The cobblestones underfoot were slick with mud. On either side of him, off around the edges of the square, he heard the sound of running feet.

  Quick.

  Jute plunged into the tents. His skin crawled. Where were the people? Where were the merchants and peddlers and people? He would have given much to see one normal face at that moment. But all he saw was the cat scampering off between the tents, its gray tail flying in the rain.

  Courage, Jute.

  Beyond the tent tops he saw the ruined walls of the university. His heart rose. There would be refuge behind those walls. Severan would be there. He would know what to do. Jute ran past the stone fountain in the center of the square. Water streamed over its sides. A dead pigeon floated in the pool, bobbing against the stone border. The cat vanished somewhere near the fountain. He didn’t blame it, for the hissing and snarling sounds behind him were growing louder and closer by the second. Regardless of the cat leading him through the fog, he would’ve enjoyed giving the animal a swift kick. His ankle still burned from the clawing it had given him.

  The cat saved your life, said the hawk. The second danger, if you had not yet guessed, is your own self. For every man, regardless of how noble or miserable his life may be, the second danger is his own self. First the Dark, then your self. And in some men, they are the same.

  Jute staggered up the steps of the university. He turned and his heart faltered, for out of the maze of tents came his pursuers. They came forward, slinking and crawling and lurching. They leered up at him through the rain with faces that had no eyes, and eyes that had no faces, shadows with teeth and quick, twitching hands. There was nowhere left to go. The great doors were wound with chains. The stone wall was worn smooth by the centuries. There was nowhere to climb to. The little door Severan had opened buzzed with wards. There was no way through.

  “Hawk!” Jute said.

  A man stepped out from behind one of the pillars. In his hands gleamed a sword. Jute shied away in terror, but the man moved past him.

  “Stay behind me, boy,” Ronan said.

  The creatures rushed up the steps in a wave, advancing in a crescendo of snarling darkness. Jute cowered back, certain the wave would crash over him. He thought he heard a voice hiss his name from the crowd. But Ronan’s sword sang into life, whistling through the air, weaving a wall of steel in front of his eyes. The wave broke on that wall and the sword ran with black blood.

  The creatures fell back down the steps and then surged forward. But again they were beaten back. The stones underfoot were slick with their blood. Their bodies fell on the steps to be trampled by their fellows. The dead flesh subsided into mist that drifted down the steps, as if it were heavier than air and sought some low place to rest. The breath grated between Ronan’s teeth, and his arm trembled. There seemed no end to the creatures, no matter how many he killed. Perhaps he might have fallen under one more wave had not the hawk stooped down out of the rain. The bird was nearly invisible with his black feathers against the gloom and the dark mass of the attackers. The creatures lifted up their faces to his claws, hissing in fear. Ronan spared the hawk one startled glance and then redoubled his efforts. The wave broke once again.

  Where have you been?

  Saving your neck, boy, said the hawk. He beat back up into the rain and was momentarily lost to sight. I went in search of the old man. The sky above the university is warded. I singed my feathers. There is trouble in the ruins, but I would judge us safer within than without. Look to the door.

  And at that word, Jute heard the wards woven into the wall behind him subside into silence. The little door sprang open with a cr
ash.

  “Hurry!”

  It was Severan. Jute dove for the door. He felt the hawk’s wing brush past him. Ronan sprang back, his sword swinging. The door slammed shut and the wards whispered back into life. The door shook under a tremendous blow. The wards buzzed in agitation. Jute could feel them inside his mind. There was almost a coherence to the sound, as if they muttered words from some strange language of rock and dust and earth. His head ached with it.

  “Will the door hold?” said Ronan.

  Severan touched the door. He frowned.

  “I think so,” he said. “These wards were woven by one of the wisest professors to ever teach within these walls. Bevan was the master of such magic, and one word from him held more strength than a thousand bolts and locks. It’s a strange enemy we have outside, though.”

  “They bleed well enough,” said Ronan in distaste. He turned to look at Jute. “All right, boy?”

  “No thanks to you,” said Jute angrily. He backed away from him. He would have said more, but the hawk settled onto his shoulder. The claws gripped him hard, and he subsided into silence.

  Severan shook his head. “From what I saw, I think him worthy of thanks. And as I bear this boy some affection, despite his pigheadedness, my thanks to you," he said, turning to Ronan. "But come, we shouldn’t stay here.”

  The old man hurried away down the hall. A lamp burned on one wall, but other than that, the place was shrouded in shadow. Behind them, the door shook again under its assault. A hollow booming echoed through the hall.

  “Walk where I walk,” said Severan. “Touch nothing, and keep silent. Something happened last night, either here in the ruins or close by in the city—we aren’t sure—but not all the wards are stable anymore.”

  There was a trembling in the air, and the light filtering down from the windows high overhead had an oddly tentative quality to it, as if it were nervous of being caught within the stone walls. Pools of water lay here and there, catching the raindrops falling down through holes in the roof.

  The wards are awake, Jute thought.

  He can hear them too.