“Listen to what you’re saying, brother,” Corr said. “This child has the power to challenge the master of the fetches? No, it’s nonsense. And anyhow, I put no faith in the prophecies of some mad Nightbane bone-caster. It doesn’t matter why they abandoned this city. The fact is that they did. And this place, with its gaal, this is real. This is what I have faith in.”
“You … should … not,” the Valkai gasped out, and they saw he was grinning, his bloody teeth bared.
“You finally have something to say?” Corr growled, crouching in front of the prisoner.
“Your friends, the mole people … they are not your friends.”
“You mean the dwarfs? What do you know about them?”
“This is their city. They want it back for themselves. Not for you.”
“I know that much already, my friend—”
He broke off as Kern reappeared, with Grath following quickly after, ducking his head to enter the cabin. The mordog’s hair and clothing were grey with dust, but his eyes blazed furiously.
“Nonn and his people,” Grath snarled. “They’re gone.”
“They sealed off the lower circles, my lord,” Kern said. “They’ve fled down to the mines, all of them, with their tools and supplies.”
“That treacherous old snake,” Grath roared. “He wants all the iron for himself. Always has. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”
“All the passageways are sealed off?” Corr asked.
“All the ones we know of,” Kern said. “Somehow they brought down stone slabs that have blocked every doorway and stair to the lower levels.”
“Some of my men were trapped on the other side when the slabs came down,” Grath said. “We heard them shouting to us at first and then nothing. We tried moving the slabs, but …”
He trailed off, then slammed his huge fist against the bulkhead.
“They were planning this all along,” the mordog seethed. “My lord, we can take one of the ships down into the lower circles. We can find them and blast them with the lightning. Bury them under the rubble of their own city.”
“And bury the mines, too?” Corr said. “No, we’ll keep the ships here for now. There may be another way. Where is the golem?”
“He’s with my company,” Kern said. “One of my men was pinned under falling rock and the golem lifted it off him.”
“Is your man badly hurt?” Alazar asked.
“His leg is broken.”
Corr turned to the Stormrider who had given the Valkai the gaal. “Keep at him. Send word immediately if he talks. Kern, Grath, with me. Finn and Alazar, you, too.”
With that Corr strode out of the cabin, followed by Finn, the doctor and the two lieutenants. They hurried down the gangplank and set off across the pier. A choking pall of dust hung in the air, and soon they were coughing and covering their mouths with their hands.
Corr had nearly reached the wide end of the pier when he stopped and raised his head as if he had caught a sound. A moment later they all heard it: a faint, slow metallic clanking from somewhere far below. Everyone went still and listened. The clanking grew louder, then was abruptly drowned out by a great, echoing roar. It sounded as if fire-breathing dragons were at war with each other somewhere in the deepest chambers of the city.
“What in all the hells is that now?” Grath breathed.
“They’ve relit the forges,” Corr said. “They’ll be smelting the ore soon.”
“Bastards,” Grath said. “May they burn themselves up like the black-hearted devils they are.”
The roaring subsided but did not entirely fade away. It went on, a deep throbbing pulse that sounded to Finn like the beating of an enormous heart.
“What can they do with the gaal even if they mine it?” Alazar asked. “They’ve trapped themselves down there.”
Corr shook his head. “You can be sure Nonn knows of other ways out of this city. He does nothing recklessly. And he’s made an alliance with the Nightbane if that Valkai is to be believed. This was all carefully planned.”
“We must take a ship down there, my lord,” Grath said. “Let’s strike back, before they strengthen their defences.”
Corr glanced at Kern. The lieutenant, impassive as always, shook his head.
“The ships would be difficult to manoeuvre in the lower circles, and they would be vulnerable to attack,” he said. “Nonn will have thought of all this.”
“You’re right,” Corr said. “Nonn will be expecting us to strike back with the ships. He’ll have something ready and waiting for them. No, we won’t fall into another trap. First I want to see what the golem can do about these slabs.”
Grath led the way down the nearest of the ramps. The passage at the bottom was blocked with a huge slab of gleaming black stone. The golem stood in front of it, as impassive as ever. A pile of broken stone from a partially collapsed pillar lay in a heap nearby, and the injured Stormrider sat near it, propped against the wall and watched over by two of his comrades.
Alazar hurried over to the wounded man and began to tend to him.
Corr stepped up to the golem. “The disc,” he said. He gazed at the golem’s feet. The black disc of fever iron that had compelled the golem to obey Corr’s commands lay in pieces in the dust.
“Nonn … he broke it,” Grath said. “It must have been him. Why would he do it? He could’ve taken the golem with him.”
“Ord wouldn’t obey him,” Corr said, “so Nonn had to break the stone to keep the golem from raising the slabs.”
“Then this thing is useless now,” the mordog lieutenant snarled. He cuffed the towering clay man with the back of his massive hand. Ord did not move in the slightest, but Grath grimaced and clenched his hand in pain.
“If there are any Nightbane still about,” he muttered, “and they find out the golem doesn’t work anymore …”
“Enough,” Corr said. He touched the polished surface of the stone slab, then stepped back. For a moment there was a blank look on his face. Then he turned to Finn.
“Brother, the green stone from my ring. Do you still have it?”
Finn nodded. Corr had given him the ring the day he left the Bourne. Years later, when Finn and his friends encountered the golem by chance in the Bog of Mool, Finn had set the ring’s green stone in the clay man’s forehead and it had sent him marching across the Realm in search of Corr. Master Pendrake had guessed that the stone had infused the golem with Finn’s own greatest desire: to find his brother.
Reluctantly Finn slipped his hand into the inner pocket of his Errantry tunic and brought out the stone.
“Put it in his forehead, Finn,” Corr said eagerly. “It worked before. It brought him here to me.”
Finn looked down at the gleaming green stone in his palm. He thought of his friends in Fable and the armoured fetches drawing closer to them with every passing hour.
“What are you waiting for?” Corr said. “Do it.”
Finn reached up and set the stone into the shallow round cavity in the golem’s forehead. Immediately the clay man shuddered from head to toe. Finn stepped back, as did Grath and Corr. Ord’s head turned slowly and his eyes, two grey featureless orbs, fixed on Finn.
“Ord,” Corr said, stepping forward again. “Lift the slab.”
The golem did not move at the sound of Corr’s voice.
“Ord, do you hear me? You serve the Sky Lord. Obey my command.”
The golem did not stir. Its seemingly sightless eyes remained on Finn.
“What’s wrong with him?” Grath muttered. “What did that damned dwarf do to him?”
“This isn’t Nonn’s doing,” Finn said. “Ord won’t listen to you, Corr, because you gave me the ring. The ring is mine. The golem was obeying my wishes when it went in search of you. And now it will obey my wishes again.”
He turned to the golem. “Ord,” he said, “lift one of those stones.”
With a low, grinding sound the golem bent at the waist, grasped one of the broken chunks of the pillar on the
chamber floor and lifted it easily.
“Now crush it,” Finn said. “Crush the stone.”
There was no visible sign of effort as the golem’s thick fingers closed around the stone. A moment later it shattered with a loud crack and a plume of dust. The bits and pieces clattered to the floor.
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Grath murmured in awe.
“It looks like you’re right, brother,” Corr said. “But this can work, too. If he’ll do only what you tell him, Finn, then tell him to obey me in all things. As long as the order comes from you, he’ll have to listen.”
Finn gazed at the towering clay figure before him. He saw himself returning to Fable with the golem, saw Ord plowing through the ranks of the Nightbane. The Errantry’s enemies would break like water on a stone. If he could only get there in time.
“Finn,” Corr said urgently. “Command him.”
Finn drew a deep breath. He felt distant from what was going on around him, as if seeing it all from a great height. His blood was on fire, but his heart was like ice in his chest. He knew what he had to do.
“The golem is no longer yours, Corr,” he said. “I’m returning to Fable and taking Ord with me.”
15
AFTER EDWETH HAD SPOKEN with Lord Caliburn about the mage, she had expected to be shown back to the toyshop. The Marshal had taken her accusations seriously. And so she hadn’t complained when she was escorted once again to the room they were keeping her in at Appleyard. She was prepared to wait there patiently until word was brought to her that Brax had been evicted from the toyshop and she would be allowed to return.
She was all the more surprised, then, when the guards who came to fetch her led her down into the lower levels of the Gathering House to a smaller room with a locked door. The furnishings were even sparser than in the room she had just left. There was a low, narrow cot and one wooden chair, and to her horror nothing but a bucket to relieve herself in. The tiny, high window was barred. She had been so certain the Marshal would help her that it took her longer than it should have to understand that this was a cell and she was now a prisoner.
She had called the guards who locked her in every name she could think of and demanded to see the Marshal, but no one answered her. The door was locked and she was alone.
Hours went by. A guard arrived with a meal for her, but he made no response to her angry questions, as if he couldn’t even hear her.
So she was left with her questions, which went around and around in her mind without answers. Why had the Marshal done this to her? What was going on at the toyshop? And where in the world was Rowen?
Night fell and then dawn came, and she was still alone in the cell. Edweth had slept a little, but not deeply. She was sitting on the edge of the cot when she heard a key in the door.
As the wildman stooped and entered, Edweth stood, her hands clenched, ready to defend herself. She had never spoken with Balor Gruff and had only seen him from a distance on rare occasions. With his outlandish features and hulking size he had always looked ridiculously out of place to her, as if someone had mistakenly draped an Errantry cloak over a cave bear.
They stood looking at each other uneasily, and then Balor made a stiff bow. She noticed he had a dark cloak under one arm.
“Madam Edweth,” he said in a booming voice as the door was shutting behind him. “I am here on the acting Marshal’s orders, to ask you some further questions about the events in the toyshop.”
“Acting Marshal?” Edweth said with a start. “What’s happened to Lord Caliburn?”
“He’s been taken ill, ma’am,” Balor said, moving closer and lowering his voice. “Captain Thorne is in charge of the Errantry for the time being.”
“Thorne?” Edweth exclaimed. “That man is a far cry from—” Then she bit her lip and glared at the wildman. He stepped closer still, almost bending over her, and she drew back in fright. Balor lowered his voice to a near whisper and said, “Rowen sent me.”
Edweth stared fearfully into Balor’s eyes.
“Rowen?” she whispered back. “When did you see her? Is she …”
“When I left Rowen and Will, they were all right. They had Shade with them and … well, it’s quite a story, ma’am, and I promise to tell you everything in full when there’s time for it, but you must listen to me now. I believe you are in danger here and I am going to take you somewhere safe.”
“Danger here?” Edweth said incredulously. “They may have locked me up to keep me quiet, Mister Gruff, but this is still Fable. There’s been some misunderstanding, that’s all—”
“Much has changed in a short time,” Balor broke in urgently. “Lord Caliburn sent me to Annen Bawn with pressing news and I’ve only just returned. Otherwise I would have come to you sooner, as Rowen asked me to. But while I was gone, that scheming mage Ammon Brax seized power somehow. He’s got his own personal company of Errantry troopers doing his bidding, and it seems even Thorne is answering to him now. The city is under martial law, and you’re not the only one who’s been arrested for defying the mage. I’m telling you on my oath as a knight-errant that even Appleyard is no longer safe. I have to get you out of here before worse happens.”
Edweth studied the wildman’s face for a long moment and then she nodded. With her quick but rarely mistaken judgment she had decided to trust him.
“How will you convince them to let me out?” she asked, glancing at the door. “And even if you do, they’ll suspect you, too, and lock you up.”
“Leave that to me, ma’am. Now, I need you to put on this cloak and cover your face.”
When she was ready, Balor turned and hammered on the door. It opened almost immediately and the sentry stood aside to let them pass without a word.
“I’m shutting the cell door now,” Balor said to the sentry.
“Right, Balor,” said the sentry. “And when I look in on the prisoner later, I will discover to my utter surprise that she’s not there.”
“You will,” Balor said. “Hard to believe she managed to vanish from inside a locked cell without any help.”
“No help at all,” the sentry said with a wink at Edweth. “I didn’t see you or anyone else down here. Must be more of that dark sorcery going on in Fable these days. Who knows what could happen next.”
“We have to keep sharp,” Balor said, and he nodded to the sentry and escorted Edweth up the stairs and out of Appleyard.
“I hope we’re going straight to the toyshop, Mister Gruff,” Edweth said when they had left Appleyard and Balor had steered her into a narrow alley. “I have some choice words for Master Brax.”
Balor made a rumbling noise. “Er, that would not be wise.”
“Why not? I’m not afraid of that phony, that charlatan—”
Balor fixed her with a sombre look that made her stop in her tracks.
“As I said, things have changed, ma’am.”
She glanced around them then, and noticed for the first time that she hadn’t seen any people on the streets. No carriages rattling past, no hawkers and sellers crying out their wares.
“Curfew,” Balor said. “And no gatherings of three or more persons permitted at any time of day. There’s been some panic, you see, about the coming battle, and the odd things that have been happening in Fable, thanks to the mage. There’s been some rioting and looting, and Brax has the Errantry busy quelling what he says is a treasonous uprising. It’s no such thing. It’s just folk scared and angry, that’s all.”
“Brax did this? All the more reason, then, to hurry to the toyshop and put a stop—”
“We’re not going there, ma’am, and I’ll tell you why. When I got back from Annen Bawn, no one would tell me where you were,” he said, “so I went to the toyshop. I wanted to make sure Rowen and her friends weren’t Brax’s prisoners. And I’d found out that Rowen’s friend, Freya of Skald, had been taken there, as well. Ma’am, you wouldn’t recognize the place anymore.”
“What do you mean, Mister Gruff? Oh, I knew that
horrible man would make a mess of things.”
“It’s much worse than that, I’m sorry to tell you. The shop, even the street it’s on, has changed. I don’t visit Pluvius Lane very often, but I know for certain it never looked the way it does now, all narrow and dark as a tunnel and cold, too. And all the other shops are gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“Walled up. Nothing but blank stone from one end of the lane to the other.”
“How can that be? I was there only two days ago, and Old Gimlet, the tailor, and Kyndle, the bookbinder … everyone was open for business.”
“Well, they’re gone now. Folk who live nearby say they heard screams for help coming from inside the walls. Screams growing fainter, and then nothing.”
Edweth put a hand over her mouth.
“It’s the mage’s doing,” Balor went on with a grim scowl. “That’s the only explanation. When I got to the end of the lane, I thought I must be in the wrong place because I didn’t recognize the toyshop. Somehow Brax has turned the master’s house into a fortress. The walls are covered in some kind of dark green stone, the windows are all gone, the door is barred with iron and half a dozen armed Errantry troopers are standing guard in front of it. And I don’t know how to describe it, but there’s something about the place now that … well, it just felt wrong to me, wrong in my bones. I’ve been to a lot of haunted and sorcerous places in my travels, ma’am, and I’ve learned to trust my bones when they shiver like that.”
“Oh, no, no,” Edweth said under her breath. “He must have found …”
She gave Balor an alarmed glance, as if she had said too much. The wildman shook his head.
“Ma’am, I know that Rowen had to get into the toyshop in order to go someplace else,” he said, “and that’s all I know. The rest is none of my business. But I’m pretty sure Rowen made it to wherever she was going and Brax does not have her. When I got to the door the sentries stopped me, so I made up some story about delivering a message from Captain Thorne that was for the mage’s ears only. Then the door opened a crack and one of those filthy hogmen poked his head out. The scum was wearing the dress uniform of a knight-errant, with a lot of ridiculous gold trim and braid added on. I got pretty steamed when I saw that, but I kept the lid on and told him I’d come on Errantry business to fetch the Skalding woman back to Appleyard. I thought I’d start with Freya, you see, in the hope he’d let something slip. And he did. For an instant he had this panicked look, then he sneered and said that the mage released prisoners to no one, and I knew then that Freya had been in their clutches and escaped somehow and it was the hogmen’s fault. Then he seemed to think of something, and he asked me if I was the scout who’d arrived two mornings ago with the news of the fetch host. Brax must’ve learned I was with Rowen when she got back to Fable, and he was wanting to question me about her. That means he doesn’t know where she is, and he’s worried she’ll suddenly show up and ruin his plans. So now I think that Rowen succeeded at whatever she went back to the toyshop to do, and she’s safely out of his reach. At least, it’s what I hope.”
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