“Think about it. Your mother hid herself from everyone. Why? Because she didn’t want Fellstone to find her.”
“My mother's name was Gillian,” I protested weakly.
“Of course she couldn't use her real name. Take heart, Tessa. She escaped Arachne. She may yet be alive.”
We walked on in silence while I tried to wrap my head around what Calder had told me. It can’t be true. But if it were… it explained why Mama almost never left the house. Why, on our last afternoon together, she did go outside without seeming to feel any ill effects whatsoever. Why, when meddlesome neighbors stopped in, trying to get a glimpse of her, she would remain in her room and make up excuses not to come out. It all made sense if she meant to hide herself from anyone who might recognize her.
Then there was the windrider and the question of how Mama came to own such a powerful piece of magic. Because she was the wife of the Conjurer Lord Fellstone. Of course it must have been his, only a conjurer could’ve made it. She took it and perhaps even used it to make her escape.
And now, because of my carelessness… because I had flown right up to Lord Fellstone’s window and shown myself to him… he knew where the windrider was, and he wanted it back so badly he had killed my papa for it. I was not only to blame for refusing to run away with Papa, but for everything else that led up to his death. And yet, just when my thoughts were at their lowest, as I blamed myself for every terrible thing that took place since the day I discovered the power of the windrider, a small tendril of hope crept into my consciousness. If Lord Fellstone’s men had found Mama at our house and taken her back… she could be alive. She might be here at the castle, perhaps imprisoned, but still… alive. I knew it was greedy to wish for the recovery of both my parents, and yet that hope took hold of me hard and refused to let go.
Before long, we reached the end of Arachne’s line. The trees opened up and the castle, in all its grim majesty, soared before us. Somehow we’d passed through the Cursed Wood without dying and now we must find a way to enter without detection. I needed to concentrate on that goal and not allow myself to be distracted by thoughts of Papa inching closer to the point of no return, laid out on the table back home.
Calder beckoned us back behind the cover of trees, in case there might be eyes peering out of the castle’s black windows.
“Let’s gather our strength for a moment,” he said. “We need to determine our next step.”
We retreated to a small clearing, where we found logs and stones to sit upon. Calder took out a whiskey flask, while Ash found some beef jerky in his pocket to nibble on. I opened my pouch and took out a packet of sunflower seeds. I had started eating them recently and quickly learned to shell them with my teeth, sucking out the seed inside. I turned to Calder, determined to learn more of my mother, though I wasn’t yet ready to pronounce myself convinced.
“How did you come to know my… Faline?” I said.
“My mother was cook in her parents' household,” Calder said.
“I suppose it was a grand place to live.”
“For them it was. My mother and I slept in the garret. But Faline… she was nothing like the others in her family. We were close from early childhood.”
I looked toward the castle, which loomed above the trees. “Why did she marry that tyrant?”
“Her parents assured her not all conjurers were evil. They told her she would grow to love him in time.”
“I can’t imagine her believing that.” Mama would not have been so naive.
“I blame myself,” Calder said, squeezing his wristband. “Like a fool and a coward, I let her go.” He lowered his head.
I wondered suddenly how much Papa knew. She must have explained who she was, or else how could he have accepted her strange behavior? But if he knew… why had he left me in the dark? He should have told me.
An overwhelming exhaustion came over me. I sat beside Ash and leaned with him against the base of an oak tree. Before I knew it, we had nodded off.
#
I wasn’t sure how much later it was when I jerked awake and found my head resting on Ash’s shoulder. We pulled away from each other awkwardly. I rose and began gathering leaves and small branches while Ash and Calder talked.
“How do you plan to get us in?” Ash said.
“Uh, let’s see. Since the drawbridge is up and the outer windows are barred… we only need to swim across the moat, scale the tower wall to the ramparts, kill the sentries who are sure to be there, and finish before someone sees us and raises the alarm,” Calder said.
“I don’t think we can do that.”
“Really? It sounds so easy.”
“What if we create a distraction?” Ash said. “Something that makes them open the drawbridge.”
“Like what?” Calder said.
“Dunno. We could start a fire, and when they come to put it out, we sneak behind them into the castle.”
“Do you think they’d leave the entrance unguarded as they all race out? If they see a fire, they’ll expect an attack. They’ll be looking for the enemies who started it. Admittedly, it would be hard to imagine a less likely group of stragglers to storm a castle than us, so perhaps we’ll simply pass under their notice.”
Let them figure it out. I whistled softly to myself, forming a pile out of the sticks and leaves I’d gathered.
“What’s your idea then?” Ash said.
“If you recall, we started out in the vegetable cart. If no one had searched it, we would have been rolled right into the castle courtyard,” Calder said.
“That was it? No other plan?”
“What's yours? Charge the castle? We saw how well that worked against Arachne.”
“Says the man we found wrapped in her spider web.”
“Exactly my point. That's what happens when you let your emotions get the better—” Calder stopped speaking abruptly. Absorbed in my whistling, I didn’t bother to look over and see the cause. I sat on the pile of leaves and branches I’d made.
“Look at you,” Calder said with an air of bemusement.
I glanced over to find that he and Ash were staring at me. “What?” I said.
“Making your little nest. You're just like a bird.”
“That's ridiculous,” I said, rising immediately and kicking the branches out from under me. Just because I didn’t want to sit directly on the dirt didn’t make me a bird. And plenty of people liked to whistle. Mama used to do it all the time. Unless I was using the windrider, I was a person, one hundred percent.
Calder continued to watch me with growing curiosity. Finally he said, “Is there anything you'd like to tell us?”
“No, of course not,” I said.
“Something that might help us get inside the castle?” His gaze lowered to my amulet.
I touched my sparrow defensively. “I'm not sure what you mean.”
Calder let the moment sit. “Very well then.” He turned away.
Did he know what it was? It seemed that way. And he was right… I could easily swoop into the castle as a bird. But I’d never told anyone. Even Papa had to discover it on his own. There was something about the transformation of man into beast—or girl into bird—that felt intensely personal, like taking off my clothes in front of them. Maybe the use of magic was always like that. I didn’t know; I had no other magic.
Ash still looked at me. “Is it true?” he said quietly. “You know something that might help us?”
He had already faced death twice for us. The second time he’d had to endure spiders. My weakness was snakes… I couldn’t begin to imagine the horror of hundreds of them slithering all over me. And Calder… my mother’s dear friend. Both had risked everything to come with me on this quest to save Papa. Perhaps they had other motives as well, but still we were sworn companions and it would be unfair—nay, unforgivable—to hold back any skill or knowledge that might further our goals.
“I suppose I should've said something sooner,” I began, “but I've never told anyone befor
e.”
“About what?” Ash asked.
I held up my windrider. “This. It’s magic. It lets me change into a sparrow.”
Ash stared for a moment and then laughed. “Did you get into Calder’s whiskey?”
“You have to admit it explains a few things,” Calder said.
“You’ve imagined it.” Ash told me. “You were just sleeping, you must have dreamt it.”
“You'll see for yourself,” I said.
“I believe her,” Calder said. “I've heard of such magic before. It’s called a windrider, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. And then to Ash, “The bird who helped you against the boarman. That was me.”
He stared at me, clearly trying to remember the bird and its precise actions.
“I can find an open window and fly into the castle. If there are bars, I’ll fit through them.”
“If it's true, I don't like it,” Ash said. “You'll be all alone in there. What if you're caught? We won't be able to help you.”
His concern annoyed and pleased me at the same time. “I'll just look around,” I said. “I’ll be careful to stay out of sight.”
“I agree,” Calder said. “Try to find a place where we can enter. But do nothing. Come back and report. You’ll be our scout.”
I nodded and lifted the windrider to my lips, but then I hesitated. “Can you turn around?” I said. I had always changed in private. Once I tried staring into the mirror, but my vision clouded before the moment of transformation. As a result, I had no idea how the process would appear to others. It always began with a strong tingling sensation, and then my mind would grow murky, making me unaware of my surroundings, until suddenly I would find myself as a sparrow. What if I became naked for an instant before the change was complete? Anything was possible.
But there was another reason I wished them to turn away. I did not want them to see how to activate the magic. A small part of me feared one of them might want to try it himself.
Calder turned away immediately. Ash hesitated, probably because he still didn’t quite believe me and needed to see it for himself. But when Calder grabbed his sleeve and pulled him, he too looked away. Then I blew on my windrider three times, and became the russet sparrow. When I cheeped, the two men turned to look at me, their faces bright with awe. Calder opened his hand, and I flew up and landed on it. He smiled at me, while Ash reached over and smoothed my feathers with a tentative caress. Then I lifted off and flew toward the castle, its black, imposing form outlined against the sky, growing lighter with approaching dawn.
Even the gravity of our situation could not keep me from feeling the thrill I always experienced when the wind rushed through my feathers. I tried to stay focused on the task… straight to the castle, fly into the first open window, and explore from there. But then I noticed an odd, shimmery sort of movement forming at the base of the castle walls… dusky shadows that were hard to distinguish against the darkness behind them. I would need to find out what this was before continuing. If it were some sort of magical defense, it could prove to be a barrier to Ash and Calder. I flew lower and circled once, straining to make out the shapes.
My sight went black. When it returned an instant later, I lay in the dark cavern my mind had visited before, on the night Fellstone’s carriage appeared outside our house. My head restrained, my body strapped down… the sickly odor of decay. I struggled to move, but my bindings were too tight around me. I heard a sound like before, which became the scrabble of clawed feet over rock. Fear shot through me as I pictured rats finding me, climbing over me, scratching and biting as I lay helpless to run or fight. A candle flickered suddenly, and then came a deep, low, terrifying rumble… impossible to tell if the noise came from man or beast. I strained with all my might to burst out of my bindings. Hopeless. Heavy footsteps trod toward me. A scream formed in my throat.
Phoom! I was sparrow-me again, tumbling from the sky after a black crow rammed me. I beat my wings furiously, but the left one felt as if it were broken. Try as I might, I could not stop my fall. I stretched my good wing, straining to glide, trying to slow my descent… I was coming down fast, too fast, and when I hit the ground it was hard enough to stun me for a moment.
I glanced around to see the shadows drawing nearer. I tried my wing again but I could not get any lift. Without flight, I had no defense, and so I scraped the ground three times, transforming back. I stood up to run but now the shadows surrounded me, and I could see they were not shadows at all, but human beings, or what remained of them. Men, women, children… without eyes or noses or lips.
Calder’s shout echoed from a distance. “WRAITHS!”
They closed in tight around me, leaving no gap for me to slip between. I thought, perhaps I could walk right through them, as the other wraith did to me in the forest. But if it turned my insides to ice as it did then… how can I make it past so many?
I recoiled as the same wraith we’d seen in the Cursed Wood stretched his hand toward me. Behind me, others reached out. The man came forward and touched me. I dropped to my knees as his hand pushed into my chest, like a frozen knife cutting into me. Gasping for breath, I fell backwards, trembling uncontrollably. The wraith knelt over me, glowing from the warmth he’d stolen from me. A spasm ripped through me as his hand wrapped around my beating heart, and I felt no more.
CALDER
After watching Tessa get knocked from the sky by a suspiciously aggressive crow, Calder had opened his bag and begun rummaging through it. By the time he glanced up again, he saw the ghostly forms approaching her and cried out. But he feared his warning came too late.
He dove back into his bag. “Blast!” he said.
Behind him, Ash unsheathed his sword and set off at a run toward the wraiths. Calder looked up too late. “Ash, no! Come back!” The boy didn’t lack bravery, but he needed some sense kicked into him. While Calder watched, Ash plowed into the field of wraiths and slashed at them with his sword, but wherever the blade made contact, the gash sealed as if it never occurred.
The drawbridge was lowered and knights poured out onto the field. We created a sufficient distraction after all, thought Calder. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, continuing to search inside the bag. Seconds later, he drew out a container with holes punched into the top. He used it to shake a fine white powder onto the bag, and then all over himself.
Calder and his bag began to fade until they were invisible. He felt around for the bag’s handle, picked it up, and ran toward the circle of wraiths, leaving impressions of his footsteps in the mud and on the grass.
The first knight reached Ash and prepared to engage him in battle.
“From ash you came, to Ash you return,” he shouted, clashing swords against his opponent. Calder slipped past them unseen, intent on reaching Tessa.
Calder had felt the touch of the wraith before. It was something he would never forget and prayed never to feel again. He looked for a path to reach Tessa, but he could not see her through the swarm. He lowered his bag, resolving to walk through them if it came to that, when abruptly the wraiths began to part.
Fellstone’s apprentice rode up on her grey stallion. Calder had never seen her before, but he’d heard talk of the mask she wore. She glanced ’round the field of battle while the wraiths spread apart and made way for her, as if she’d sent a signal only they could sense. They faded and grew dim until a moment later, they were gone.
Only then did Calder see Tessa, lying prone and lifeless on the grass. The sight pierced him through the heart. Did we survive the wicked forest only to die at the gate? The fault lay with him. What had he been thinking to bring two youths on this futile quest?
A boarman missing half an ear trotted up behind the apprentice. At the woman’s command, the boarman lifted Tessa over his shoulder and carried her toward the castle.
Is she alive? Now was not the time to lose hope. He must carry on as planned, with or without the help of the others. He swiveled around to catch Ash in battle with more knights.
Strong and lithe, swirling and slashing with the grace and power of an acrobat. What a swordsman we found without even realizing. But as Ash spun to block a thrust from yet another attacker, he came face to face with a wraith that had not faded with the others. The wraith was smaller than Ash, a mere boy. Ash went pale and doubled over, struggling for breath, though no soldier had struck him.
“Lance!” he called out with a voice so grief-stricken it would break the heart of any feeling person. Calder understood then that this was Ash’s twin, though not a twin any longer as he would forever remain the age of his death. Ash reached out to him, but Lance faded now, as the other wraiths had before him. A soldier knocked the sword from Ash’s hand, and another slammed his head with his shield. Ash fell, unconscious, perhaps even dead.
Calder could do nothing for his companions at the moment. Only pray for their lives, and the hope of reaching them within the castle. He rushed toward the drawbridge, weaving his way past the knights and boarmen. As he drew near, a devious-looking boarman sniffed the air and turned his way. The boarman bent down to look closer, noticing the impressions of Calder’s feet in the dirt. He drew in a long, wheezy breath, his snout an inch from Calder’s head.
Another boarman came behind the first and shoved him to the side to make way for the returning knights. Calder dodged just in time to avoid being pierced by the boarman’s keen-edged tusk. Then, quick as he could, Calder sprinted across the bridge and into the castle itself.
His goal must be to learn the fates of his companions, but first he had to negotiate the castle grounds and orient himself. The vast outer courtyard teemed with activity, both human and animal. He noted a stable, hen house, and pigsty, but the bulk of the area along the perimeter was occupied by soldiers’ barracks. Men on foot, knights leading horses, pairs of boarmen, and a surprising number of chickens crisscrossed the region as the invisible Calder picked his way toward the entrance to the castle proper. It took a great deal of last minute jumping out of the way to avoid collision, and he credited his frequent evasion of law enforcement with giving him the skills to succeed in this.
Dreadmarrow Thief (The Conjurer Fellstone Book 1) Page 9