The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars
Page 13
From his pocket, Bo produced the first key and showed it to Selene. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked. When she nodded, he told her everything that had happened since the wolf attacked Mads.
“Mads said magic was returning but it can be good,” he added when he had finished telling Selene his story. “If we find the Stars we can make wishes—anything we want!”
“I could wish to become an apprentice guard!” She chewed on her lip.
“I just need to figure out where the second key is, but I don’t know what these scribbles are . . .”
Selene grabbed the key and held it almost to her nose as she inspected the engravings carefully. A grin spread across her face. “It’s writing!” she said. “Can’t you see?”
Bo chewed on the inside of his cheek as he shook his head. His face grew hot.
“Oh. It’s in Ancient Ulvish, so maybe you can’t read that,” offered Selene, and Bo nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “That must be it.”
Selene cleared her throat. “It says: ‘To speak of me is to break me.’” She turned to Bo with a satisfied smile, head tilted as though waiting for praise. But all Bo could do was frown: the words meant as much to him now as when he hadn’t even known they were words. It must be another riddle.
“What does it mean?”
“How should I know?” said Selene, nose in the air. “Even though I know heaps and of course I really did know what Stars were all along. I didn’t really think they were a cure for sadness. It’s just that Sister Magrid does go on and on and how can I be expected to listen to everything she says?”
Bo’s shoulders sagged. What was the point of knowing what the key said if it was just a load of gibberish?
“I’m never going to figure this out,” he murmured. At his feet, Nix whimpered. Bo glanced over his shoulder at the dishes that hadn’t washed themselves while his back had been turned. If only he had magic too.
Selene handed the key back, a thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t know what it means,” she said, “but . . .”
“But what?”
“I know who might.” Selene looked up and met Bo’s frown with a glint in her eyes.
“Who?” said Bo.
Selene grinned. “The Scribe.”
Chapter Fifteen
“The Scribe?” Bo cried. “But you said she wasn’t here!”
Selene shrugged, still grinning. “The Scribe is a secret. We’re not supposed to tell strangers she’s here.”
“I’m not a stranger,” said Bo. He wrung the dishcloth in his hands.
“Not now. You were when you first asked. But now you’re my friend, and friends tell each other secrets.” Selene charged from the room. “What are you waiting for, Irin?” she called over her shoulder. “You’re slower than a slugskild swimming through a bogmarsh!”
Bo rolled his eyes and threw the dishcloth to the counter. “The dishes can wait, right, Nix?”
Nix barked.
They chased after Selene, excitement thrumming through Bo’s veins. This time, the hollow-eyed kitchen workers ignored him as he passed, engrossed in their conversations: “. . . and charged me twenty Raha for a ghost charm that didn’t work!”
Bo caught up to Selene in the corridor. The young Nev’en was tapping her foot and scowling. “Honestly, if I had to spend my life waiting for you I’d be as bored as a rurer on a flodhestopomus’s nose.”
“Don’t know what a flodhestopomus is, but I’m sure its nose is a perfectly nice place to be,” said Bo. Nix yapped in agreement.
Selene rolled her eyes before hurrying away with a snort of laughter. “Keep up, Irin. You and your dog.”
Bo looked down at Nix. “Why does no one know what a fox is? Come on, then. Before we lose her.”
Down steps, around corners, and over smooth stone floors they hurried until Selene gently opened a door to a room overflowing with books and scrolls and torn paper and feather pens and chairs and empty teacups and dust motes floating in the air in a silent, mournful waltz. In the center of the room was a wooden desk and sprawled across the desk’s smooth surface was a scroll, unraveled and dotted with lines of small, spidery black marks.
Sitting at the desk with her back to them was a woman hunched over her work, a feather pen in her hand. She was fine-boned and small, with glowing, wrinkled, golden-brown skin. Her gray hair was coiled on top of her head.
But the woman was not alone in the room.
There were owls: two on the windowsill, three perched on the desk, one atop a bookcase, and two little ones hopping along the back of the chair. Hoot, hoot, hoot, said the owls, tilting their heads at Bo.
But the woman didn’t turn. Bo watched her rock back and forth as she scribbled on the parchment.
“Won’t do, won’t do,” she muttered. “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”
Selene leaned against the doorframe and sighed loudly. “Hogsbeard! She’s in the middle of writing. She won’t want to be disturbed.”
Bo wondered why the old woman didn’t turn at the sound of Selene’s voice, but all she did was mutter and scribble and continue to rock back and forth. How could she not have noticed that two kids and a fox had wandered into her room? The owls had certainly noticed.
“This is the Scribe?” whispered Bo.
Selene nodded. “She’s a bit . . . eccentric. She’s the one who records The True Histories of Ulv. Everything that has ever happened in the entire land and she writes it all down. Can you imagine? Everything that has ever happened! No one knows how she does it, but the last person who dared ask ended up with a boil on her tongue so big she couldn’t speak for a year!”
One of the owls—russet feathers and a broad oval face—hopped along the edge of the desk and bobbed its head, hooting loudly at the Scribe. The Scribe’s hand shot up. “Ha! That’s it! Yes, yes, that will do! That will do nicely. Thanks ever so much for that tidbit, Abnus. You’re ever so wise,” she said before returning to her furious scribbling. A tawny owl fluttered through the window and landed, with a shiver of feathers, on top of a teetering pile of scrolls. It looked familiar somehow.
“What do we do if we want her attention?” whispered Bo.
“Well, that’s the thing, see. She’s a Qirachi—same ancestors as Irin and Nev’en except there was something about a shapeshifter or an Elfvor princess. I’m not sure—Sister Magrid does tend to go on and I don’t always listen. But the point is Qirachi don’t take lightly to interruptions. In fact, one time she called Sister Agnethe a rotting wratweezle for breathing too loudly three rooms away. Ha!”
Bo frowned. “A Qirachi? What’s—”
“A Qirachi,” said a surprisingly deep voice from the center of the room, “is one of the Seven Great Kin of Ulv, and what your friend tells you is true. We do not take kindly to interruptions.”
Bo spun around to find the Scribe had turned to face them and was peering over wire-rimmed spectacles at him. The owls stared at him too.
Mumbling his apologies, Bo shuffled backwards until he brushed against the wall. “We didn’t mean to disturb you . . . or . . . I mean . . . we did wish to disturb you but . . . we thought . . .”
“The True Histories of Ulv, Volume Three, ‘The Qirachi,’” said the Scribe. She tilted her head upward, squinting as if trying to remember something. “‘The Qirachi live mainly in the northwest, south of the Lost Lands of Sneeskove,’” she said in her rumbling voice. “‘They have shockingly good hearing—in tests conducted by the Royal Ulvish Academy of the Extraordinary, it was proven that an adult Qirachi could hear the beating of a butterfly’s wings from a distance of ten miles away! Of course this makes the world a rather loud place for the Qirachi, so you will find they are none too fond of jabbering fools.’”
Bo stared at the woman. She blinked at him with eyes that were large, round, and gray.
“Did you like that?” she asked. “I wrote it, so think very carefully before you answer.”
Bo’s mouth opened and closed but no words came out.
“Piglike?” gasped Bo.
“Ever met the Un-King? Fool of a man. Can’t abide my owls.”
“We’re nothing like pigs, thank you very much. Selene says I’ve got the same ancestors as her. And Tam said we didn’t come from pigs.”
The Scribe looked him up and down and grinned. “True enough. And I dare say you’ve got a bit more Nev’en in you than you think, judging by those lanky limbs and that tawny skin. Still, how do you feel about fluefenhare?” The Scribe narrowed her large eyes at him.
Bo looked to Selene for help. She shrugged.
“I’m more afraid of wolves,” said Bo.
“Well, right you’d be,” said the Scribe. “And I dare say our lovely Sister Agnethe curdles your blood too. Just between you and me, I can’t bear the officious toad either. Have you read The True Histories of Ulv, Volume Twenty-One, ‘The Surslang Dragon of Sur’? No? Pity! One of my favorite entries—ugly beast of a thing that prowls the swamps in Sur. Very poisonous and, oh! Quite a temper! Spits on you, you see. Instead of fire, as you might well expect from a dragon, it spits a sour-smelling poison all over you and if the stench of it doesn’t kill you, then don’t worry, you’ll be dissolved by the acid in mere seconds—distant cousin of the colossal spit-mouth slug, but try telling your Un-King that. Ha! He’d have a fit! But such a horrible way to go, dissolving in the dragon’s poison. Such a good entry. You should read it. Managed to work in a comparison to our dear Sister Agnethe. It’s the sour stench, you see.” The Scribe threw back her head and laughed, honking cries of hoo, hoo, hoo! The owls joined in: Hoot, hoot, hoot!
Selene and Bo shared a look.
“Never heard her talk so much in my life,” whispered Selene.
“Because I relish the quiet,” said the Scribe. Of course she had heard Selene. “When you hear as well as I do, you come to value the quiet. And here it is mostly so very, very quiet. Don’t have people shouting at me all day long. And I hardly ever receive visitors who aren’t owls, see. Too much work to do and people think I’m half-mad and who wants to talk to a half-mad Qirachi? I’m certain they’re worried I’ll compare them to the Surslang Dragon of Sur if they interrupt me. Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”
Selene nudged Bo in the ribs. “Get on with it, then,” she whispered.
Bo fished the key out of his pocket and took several tentative steps into the room. When he spoke, his voice sounded achingly small.
“I was hoping you could tell me what this means, Scribe. It’s terribly important. And my guardian, Mads, thought you could help me.”
Bo chewed his lip with worry. Perhaps this strange woman would turn out like Galvin—not to be trusted, eager to steal the Stars for herself. He took a deep breath and dropped the key into the Scribe’s waiting palm.
The Scribe snapped her fingers shut, enclosing the key in a fist. She settled a cold, hard stare at Bo. “The True Histories of Ulv, Volume Three, ‘The Wolf’s Prison,’” she began to recite. “‘Though not a soul could tell you where the wolf who ate the Stars is imprisoned—only Mathias the Gift-Giver knows—what is known is that three keys are needed to unlock the chains that bind the wolf to this earth. Mathias scattered the keys throughout the land but ensured that each key led to the next . . .’” The Scribe tapped her temple again. “See? Elkefant. I remember every entry I ever wrote. Pity nobody seems to read them . . .”
Bo felt the heat in his cheeks. “But what does—”
“Silence!” shouted the Scribe. She opened her fist and looked at the key, though not a second passed before she snapped her fingers shut again. “I write history—I do not make it.”
“But you barely—”
“Don’t you know how busy I am?” Her voice rose with indignation. “I’m responsible for recording everything that happens in this land. Every teeny tiny little thing.” She waved her hand at the scroll in front of her. It waterfalled off the edge of the desk, pooling in a great heap on the floor. “And with the spell holding back magic having been broken, well, I have my work cut out for me, don’t I? The owls have been nonstop, reporting this and that and everything.”
Bo nodded stiffly. He had pinned all his hopes on the Scribe—how would he find the second key now? “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he said before his head snapped up. “Hang on—do you know how magic returned?” Bo was certain the Shadow Witch had released magic and was responsible for the rise in Shadow Creatures—Galvin had said as much. But he didn’t know how she had done it.
The Scribe nodded slowly, a smile prickling the edges of her small mouth. She leaned in to whisper. “Just a draft at this stage. Not my best writing.” The Scribe pointed to the scroll on her desk with a flourish of long, knobby fingers.
“I’m . . . ah . . . I’m sure it’s . . . wonderful,” stammered Bo. He forced a polite smile, but his cheeks burned with embarrassment. All he could see when he looked at the scroll were meaningless dots and squiggles.
The Scribe waved his compliment away with a “Pish, pish” and a bashful smile. “Shall I tell you what happened? What I believe happened?”
Bo nodded quickly.
The Scribe cleared her throat—agghem hem urrrrgh. “Listen. I believe magic was locked away somewhere natural—no artificial prison would do. Magic is a naturally occurring phenomenon, so only nature can contain it, see? It would have been something like, say . . . oh, I don’t know, how about a . . . a tree? Yes! Sounds wonderful! A tree in a forest. In a small, Dark forest that hardly anyone ever enters. Some insignificant place that no one would think twice about.”
A gasp caught in Bo’s throat; his heart thrummed in his chest. A tree? He looked down at Nix; the little fox whimpered in the back of his throat.
“But for a tree to contain magic for over seven hundred years! Oh, it would have required a very special spell. A spell that would need to be maintained with special powders—ground valarius root, for instance, lovely gold-red color—otherwise the spell would fade, the lock would break, and magic would seep back into the world. So Mathias would have left a guardian in place. Someone who would stay close to the tree, someone who would tend to the lock. But it would become hard for the guardian, you see. Magic is so strong! And a spell trying to contain it, to keep it hidden, well, it would grow weaker and weaker and after seven hundred years the guardian would need more strength to hold it back, see? More than the ground valarius root on its own could offer. He might even need someone to help him. An innocent. Yes! What an idea! That would work—an innocent child, for there is nothing stronger against the most sinister of magic than a child with no ill will, no guile, no malice, no impurity. That’s old magic, don’t you know? The strongest spells always called for a child to cast them—every Ulvian knows that!”
The Scribe shifted closer to Bo, her eyes never leaving his. Sweat gathered on his upper lip but he was frozen to the spot. He could hardly process what she was saying but he felt her words crawl into his mind, where they grew like vines—tangled, prickly vines that curled around his every thought, pulling tight until he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
“So the guardian would use a child,” continued the Scribe. “Any child would do, but an abandoned child is best, since longing amplifies magic and there’s no one in this world who longs for more than a child who isn’t wanted, is there? And that child would tend to the lock—perhaps he might not even realize he is doing it! Could you imagine such a thing? And perhaps he might become forgetful or perhaps he might be lazy or perhaps he might just be tired of being told what to do without explanation, but w
hatever the reason, one day he doesn’t tend to the lock and that’s all it takes, see, one loose link in the chain and CRACK!”
Bo jerked back as the Scribe’s sudden cry rang through the room. His heart hammered loudly, a ringing chorus of guilty, guilty, guilty! Could the others hear it? Nix pressed close to his side, a warm comfort. But even that was not enough.
The Scribe snapped her fingers. “Just like that, the lock breaks and the worst of magic seeps through and the Shadow Creatures draw on it, growing stronger, growing in number, growing bold and hungry and desperate. And when there’s enough magic in the air, enough Shadow Creatures to draw strength from, enough fear in the land, then the witch Freja will find a way to piece herself together and she will rise. She is rising . . . There have been unconfirmed sightings in the Valley of One Thousand Deaths, the Broken Plains, the Forest of Tid, in every corner of the land. But why has she returned? Will she try to find and destroy the Stars? Will she attempt to claim the sky and the land for her rule yet again? No one knows, not even I, not even the owls. The only thing one can know for sure when it comes to Freja and her return to our land is that nothing good can come of it.” The Scribe paused; her large gray eyes wandered Bo’s full height, up and down, up and down. “Well, now, what do you say to my theory, young Irin?”
Bo’s mouth was too dry to speak. Somewhere in the room was a clock—he could hear it ticking softly. But that was the only sound save for Bo’s heart breaking.
It was me.
It wasn’t the Shadow Witch.
It was me.
I released magic.
I gave the witch the strength to rise again.
The Shadow Creature attacks really are my fault.
I am a curse.
Tears threatened to spill, but Bo held them back. Somehow, he held them back.
Selene’s mouth gaped. “But magic returning is horrible!” She looked down at her hands.