by Brian Farrey
Once she left, Reena, Holm, and I went to Maloch.
“Okay,” I said, “so you were going to take us to the Dagger. Why?”
He took in a deep breath. “That’s where the Shadowhands keep the Covenant. Every recruit has to sign it, and then they’re magically bound to the Shadowhands. If you betray the group, all sorts of horrible things happen to you. It gets harder to breathe. You contract magical illnesses. You get terrible headaches . . . and your name starts to glow on the Covenant itself.”
“So we go to the Dagger, get the Covenant, and expose the traitor,” Reena said.
Maloch nodded at the door to the study. “But the Dowager can’t help. If the Dagger is compromised by the Provincial Guard, then it doesn’t matter if we find the Shadowhands or not. It’s all over.”
I guessed my own parents wouldn’t approve of me leading the royal family to the secret Shadowhand bunker. Which meant I had to convince the Dowager to let us go on our own. “All right,” I said, “let me take care of this.”
I called for the Dowager, and she joined us in the study.
“I need you to trust me,” I said carefully. The Dowager immediately stiffened, so I rushed to add, “I appreciate you taking us all in and making sure we’re safe. We’d still be dodging bloodreavers if it weren’t for the charms around Redvalor. We know you only want to help, but this is something we have to do ourselves.”
“Jaxter, I have the resources to get you anywhere you need to go in the Provinces much faster than—” She stopped and tilted her head. She stared into space for several seconds as if trying to figure something out. “Wait a moment. What charms around Redvalor?”
“You know,” I said. “When I started as your apprentice, you told me about the charms cast by the Palatinate to protect the castle from magical incursion.”
The Dowager chuckled. “I forgot about that. Well, I wasn’t exactly telling the truth. I told you that because I wasn’t quite sure I could trust you. I didn’t want you to get any sneaky ideas.”
My arms went limp. “So . . . we’re not protected here?”
Reena put her hand on Holm’s shoulder. “But that means—”
And right on cue, we heard the unmistakable howl of a bloodreaver. We looked out the window and saw several of the creatures scaling the walls of the castle.
“Oh, zoc,” I said.
A taloned fist smashed through the window, sending us all diving for cover. A bloodreaver reached into the study, snatching at empty air as we cowered from its grasp. It tipped its head back and screamed. A moment later, four distinct screams answered back.
As we jumped to our feet, the door to the study flew open, and Neron, the captain of the Provincial Guard, charged in.
“Your Majesty,” he said, sword drawn, “the castle is under siege.”
“We figured that out,” I said.
Pop! A cloud of smoke appeared in the study, and a bloodreaver leaped out at us.
Neron swung his sword at the creature, driving it back. “Everyone out!” he said, and we ran from the study, slamming the door shut behind us.
“Captain Neron,” the Dowager said, “gather the guards and mount a defense!” The captain saluted and ran to the staircase to raise the alarm. The Dowager turned to us. “The rest of you will be safe if we go—”
“No,” I said. “This is our chance. We have to go now.”
The Dowager stood her ground. “You cannot go outside while those creatures—”
“If the guards distract them, we can escape unnoticed.” I turned to the others. “Get our things.” Reena, Holm, and Maloch ran to get the backpacks.
Before the Dowager could protest, I said, “You can’t be seen harboring us. You said so yourself. If we’re found here by the bloodreavers, there’s nothing you can say to save yourself. We need you free to tell your brother what we’ve learned. Ask him to call off the bloodreavers. Tell him the Sarosans are innocent.”
She shook her head. “He won’t listen to me.”
“Make him!” I said as the others returned. Reena handed me my backpack.
The Dowager looked unconvinced, but she finally nodded. “Come with me.” She led us down the stairs to the foyer, where a dozen heavily armed members of the Provincial Guard, as well as Oxric and the Dowager’s entire staff—bearing frying pans, brooms, and other makeshift weapons—waited to defend the castle.
She walked to a nearby table and retrieved Tree Bag. I had lent her the bag with Kolo’s notes before we went to bed. “Read page fourteen. It’s important.”
I nodded and slung Tree Bag over my shoulder.
“Captain,” the Dowager said to Neron, “you and your men are to engage the creatures. Keep them as far away from the main entrance as possible.” Upstairs, we heard the study door smash and the pops of more bloodreavers appearing.
The Dowager ushered us to the main door as the guards ran upstairs. “You’ll only have a few minutes at most to get away.”
“We may not look like much,” I said, referring to our motley group, “but we’re fast.”
The Dowager reached up to her throat and touched the pendant that hung around her neck. A small, star-shaped jewel sat inside a flat, silver triangle. She plucked the red gem from the triangle and placed it in my hand. “You and I will be able to communicate with this, in case you get in trouble. When you need to speak to me, just tap the gem three times.”
I repeated, “Three times.”
Above, we could hear the guards engage the bloodreavers. The creatures screamed as the soldiers swore and called them names that made Oxric blush.
“Let’s move!” Maloch said, throwing open the main door. Reena, Holm, and I stormed out and the four of us ran into the freezing night.
15
The Dagger
“The knife you use to prick a Shadowhand will double as the spade that digs your grave.”
—Baloras Grimjinx, architect of the First Aviard Nestvault Pillage
We ran for a solid hour, heading east from Redvalor Castle with Maloch leading the way. When we came across a small valley sheltered by everleaf trees, we set up camp for the night and collapsed, exhausted, next to a modest fire.
“Not too big,” Reena said as Maloch threw more branches onto the flames. “The bloodreavers will find us.”
“The size of the fire doesn’t matter, dolly girl,” Maloch said, throwing an extra branch on, to emphasize his point. “They can track us by the scent of our blood.”
“And that’s a problem,” I said, pulling Kolo’s parchments from Tree Bag.
Holm winced. “I know our blood betrays our group, but no more mud, I’m begging you!”
I shuffled through Kolo’s unfinished book to page fourteen as the Dowager had instructed. There I found Kolo’s notes that gave me the idea for the mud infusion that had hidden us from the bloodreavers in the first place. But now, in the margins, I found additional writing in the Dowager’s hand. It read:
Perhaps the addition of jellyweed to these ingredients would make a good tea that produces the same scent-masking abilities.
I smiled. The Dowager was brilliant. No more mud baths for us. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to make a tea. I quickly took out my flagon and the necessary ingredients, and soon we were all sipping a new elixir that would hide the smell of our blood.
“I’ve tasted worse,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Where, exactly?” Reena said, sticking her tongue out. “At the bottom of a latrine?”
“I think I’d rather let the bloodreavers get me,” Maloch said.
“Jaxter’s helping with his brining,” Holm mused. “Drink the tea and stop your whining.”
I beamed at the boy and forgave the terrible rhyme. Again.
Maloch nodded to the pouches on my belt. “How are your supplies?”
I patted the belt. “I stocked up before we left. Why?”
“According to my da, most of the Dagger’s defenses are magical. We may need you to . . . you know,
deal with them.”
I couldn’t help but smirk. He hated to admit that my skills in negating magic through nonmagical means were beyond his grasp. I enjoyed his envy while I could. Eventually, I’d have to admit that the spells protecting the Dagger were probably far beyond what I could handle.
“So are the Shadowhands mages?” Reena asked.
Maloch shook his head. “Shadowhands don’t trust the Palatinate. Kind of like you Sarosans. They’ve never allowed a mage to join.”
“Then where did they get all their defenses?”
Maloch leaned back. “The Dagger dates back to before the Great Uprisings, before there was a Palatinate to monitor the use of magic. Anyone could get any mage to cast any spell . . . for the right price. The first Shadowhands paid a bunch of mages to create the defenses long before there were laws against that.”
This worried me more. Old magic was almost impossible to defeat. Spells that had endured for centuries were difficult even for an experienced mage to break. I hoped that Maloch’s da had told him enough about the Dagger to get us through unharmed.
“And where are we headed?” I asked.
Maloch pulled Reena’s map of the Provinces from his pack and spread it out. “The Amberlock Mountains.”
Reena yawned. “We should get some sleep. It’ll take days to get there.”
“Well, the good news,” I said with a smile, “is that I estimate we only have to drink one cup of tea a day to keep the bloodreavers away.” As everyone groaned, I turned to Holm. “Hey, that rhymed! Think I’ve got a future as a warrior-bard?”
It took us four days to reach the Amberlock Mountains, and morale was vanishing quickly. Our food had run out, and water was dangerously low. Then a winter storm hit and slowed our progress through the mountain pass, nearly burying us under snowdrifts as high as the clock tower in Vengekeep.
“Are we getting closer?” I yelled over the roaring wind.
Maloch looked behind us to Reena and Holm, who were struggling to keep up. He leaned in so they couldn’t hear him. “I don’t know. I’m not sure where we are. The storm wiped out all the landmarks my da told me about.”
We trudged on, fighting against the relentless wind, blind to everything but the cloak of white that surrounded us. As night came, we knew we needed to set up camp. But we hadn’t planned on that. We thought we’d be at the entrance of the Dagger today. If we tried to set up camp outside, there was a very good chance we’d be buried by an avalanche or frozen solid in our sleep.
I heard a faint cry over the wind. Turning, I saw that Holm had fallen and Reena was kneeling at his side. I called out for Maloch, who was only a few steps ahead of me, but he’d already vanished into the wall of snow. Before I lost sight of Reena and Holm, I charged toward them.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Holm had curled into a ball and was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
“He can’t feel his legs,” Reena said, massaging her brother’s legs with her gloved hands.
I knelt down so the wind was at my back and I could shield Holm from the worst of it. Together, Reena and I rubbed his thin legs.
“Where’s Maloch?” Reena asked, looking around.
“I lost him,” I said.
Her face lit with alarm. “He’s got the tent. What are we going to do?”
A layer of snow had already formed over Holm. Darkness crept in all around. Reena leaned forward and covered Holm with her body to protect him. I foraged through my pack, hoping to find something that could help us. But it seemed hopeless.
Just then, I felt a hand close around my shoulder. I turned to find Maloch holding a torch that burned with green-blue flames.
“I found it!” he said.
He handed me the torch, helped Reena to her feet, then slung Holm over his shoulder. Reena and I leaned on each other, struggling to follow Maloch into the snowy darkness.
Suddenly, the howl of the wind died down, and I realized that we’d walked into a cave. I immediately felt warmer. The torch flickered, illuminating a thick curtain of roots that dangled from the ceiling.
“You must feel right at home,” I said, joking with Reena. She kicked my ankle.
Maloch laid Holm down on the cave floor and stood, looking around, quite pleased with himself.
“I’ll admit,” I said, “I was expecting a bit more from the fortress of the best thieves in the land.”
“This isn’t the Dagger,” Maloch said. “It’s the entrance. Or rather, it’s the illusion that hides the entrance. Harro dis garjoka!”
Calling out in ancient par-Goblin, Maloch folded his arms. The grimy earth walls began to melt. The roots in the ceiling dissolved as if made of ash. The illusion vanished and we found ourselves in a room of finely carved mordenstone. A row of green-blue flame torches lined the far wall. A large set of wooden double doors, engraved with columns of ancient par-Goblin text, sat in the center of the wall.
“So much for the magical defenses,” Reena said, hugging herself to get warm.
“That was nothing,” Maloch said. “Anyone who knows that bit of par-Goblin can shed the illusion.” He pointed to the double doors. “Once we pass through there, though, we won’t be able to trust anything we see, hear, or feel.”
“Since you’re the expert,” Reena said, “why don’t you tell us what we’re up against?”
Maloch shrugged. “Hardglamours, mainly—illusions that can touch you. And a bunch of real traps. The trick is telling the difference. Beyond that, I don’t know much. We have to be careful.”
I walked over to the doors and studied the par-Goblin writing.
“Is it a warning?” Reena asked. “A big ‘keep out’ sign?”
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s nothing. Just a fable. A par-Goblin fable.”
Not many non-thieves knew par-Goblin fables. Those familiar with the stories knew them to be particularly gruesome, every paragraph chock-full of bloodshed and dismemberment. To par-Goblins, the easiest way to teach children was to give them nightmares. Every single fable I knew ended with: “And then all the children died horribly.”
The one on these doors was no exception.
I gave the doors a shove. Both were heavy, creaking as they slowly swung inward. Just beyond, we saw a small corridor with pale light at the end.
“They’re not locked?” Reena asked. “I thought this was the ultimate thieving fortress.”
“No need for locks,” Maloch said in a low voice. “Not even magic ones. The par-Goblins always say, ‘An unlocked vault tempts the fool and worries the wise thief.’”
Which, incidentally, was the title of the fable on the doors.
One by one, we followed Maloch through the doorway. The musty passage made my eyes water with each step. When we reached the halfway point, we heard stone grinding on stone overhead. We froze, looking up and around to see if we’d triggered any traps.
At the end of the corridor, a wall of rushing water spilled down over the entrance to the chamber beyond, disappearing into a crevasse in the floor. Getting into the next room meant passing through the small waterfall. We approached slowly. Maloch was the first to gag, followed by Holm, then Reena. The mold in the corridor had plugged my nose, but the powerful odor of the water hit me once we got close.
“It’s awful,” Reena said with a gasp, covering her mouth and nose with her hand. “It smells like something died.”
To be more specific, it smelled like cadaverweed, a plant whose blossoms stank of rotting flesh. The water had clearly been infused with the plant.
I moved to the front of the group, grabbed a handful of blackdrupe pit powder and crushed benna leaves from my satchels, and mixed them together in my palm. Daring to take a deep breath, I blew the gray powder into the waterfall. The powder dissolved instantly and vanished.
“If it was acid,” I said, “the powder would have turned blue. I think it’s safe. It’s just water. Stinky, fetid water. We don’t have a choice. We have to go through.”
> Grumbling, everyone ran through the wall of water. We emerged out the far side, drenched and smelling like dead bodies. Once we were all through, the shower of water instantly stopped.
We stood back to back, wringing as much of the disgusting water from our clothes as possible. But no matter how hard we tried, the pungent odor lingered.
“An easily broken illusion,” Reena said, “and a stinky shower. If these are what the Shadowhands consider traps, it’s no wonder they’re so easily hunted.”
Maloch and I ignored the jibe. We’d both noticed the same thing: a soft whirring sound, like clockwork buried in the walls. I had a feeling Reena would regret her taunts. Instinct told me the water was just the beginning. The real trap was about to be sprung.
16
The Horror in the Walls
“A silvernib is quickly spent. A secret pays out over and over again.”
—Vaster Grimjinx, creator of the Ghostfire Proxy
Maloch pressed his ear to the arch of the doorway through which we’d just passed. “Where’s it coming from?”
I shrugged. “Best guess? Everywhere.”
“Are we just going to stand here?” Reena asked, one hand on her hip. She and Holm still hadn’t noticed the sound behind the walls.
“Forget it,” I said to Maloch. “We’ll figure it out. Soon enough.”
We stepped away from the doorway. The room we were in was perfectly circular. Magical green-blue flames from a chandelier above offered a dim, eerie light. Dusty cobwebs hung like palls from ceiling to floor, forcing us to push them aside as we walked deeper into the room. In the exact center, we found a tall stone table with another par-Goblin fable engraved across the surface.
Along the far wall, perfectly spaced, stood twelve stone sarcophagi, each twice as tall as Maloch. They were painted with skeletal images—skull-like faces contorted in fear. Or pain. The only visible door was the one we’d just come through. Clearly, the stone caskets hid the entrance to the Dagger.