Shadowcloaks Read online

  Aisha hesitates. “I will not embarrass you in front of guests, Mother.”

  M’ma Ownie cackles. “You will never embarrass me, Aisha. Davaria might, but you never will. Sit down. This is my hold. I will handle this.”

  Aisha doesn’t like these words, but she doesn’t protest. She sits.

  “Kiri, you have broken the kereg. Come.” Ownie beckons to Kiri, who cowers in my shadow, clutching me as if I can deliver her from her tribe.

  “Do not be afraid,” Ownie growls. “You should be proud to learn and grow.”

  Kiri doesn’t move, little, greenish limbs trembling against my shirt.

  “Come,” M’ma Ownie growls. “It will be shameful if you do not.”

  Gradually Kiri unfolds, glances at me, and sets her teeth. She hops over to her grandmother, standing up straight like her Aunt Davaria instead of stooping like the others.

  M’ma Ownie’s claw takes her full in the face, raking furrows.

  Lucinda flinches, half rising as Kiri stumbles, but Davaria yanks Lucinda back down by the belt rope and doesn’t let go. Her downcast eyes tell Lucinda that intervening will make things infinitely worse, that there are customs at play here which Lucinda can’t possibly understand.

  Kiri falls. She picks herself up slowly, unsteady. Stands straight.

  Ownie beckons again. Kiri wobbles forward and is struck down again, this time from the other side.

  Lucinda puts a hand to her mouth, unable to stifle her cry of shock. My face burns, and I tense. No one will hold me back if this continues.

  Ownie beckons again. Little Kiri staggers to her feet. She sways, takes a step toward Ownie.

  This time the matriarch does not strike her. “Why did you do this thing? Do we not serve Giranna? All the magii who come to us have our protection.”

  Kiri tries to answer, but M’ma Ownie speaks over the answer, addressing the family. “She is a child. She does not understand yet. We bear the shame for this mistake. We must teach her.”

  It’s a lesson that won’t be forgotten.

  M’ma Ownie gestures to the food again, though none seem to be hungry anymore. “What’s done is done. The light balances the darkness. May our guests guard this secret and return again to rest from their eternal struggle here in the house of Giranna.”

  Slowly, people resume their conversations. The children begin playing their fist games. Aisha holds her arms out for her daughter, but Kiri does not go to her. She disappears into the shadows.

  A few minutes later she is back at my side, sitting quietly. I can feel her boney, little head on my ribs. I give her my food because I am not hungry. “I didna hear your answer,” I say quietly, “to your M’ma Ownie’s question. Why did you show me your magii guests, little one?”

  “The wind whispers quietly sometimes, but it whispers. You are not dark to me, Mr. CupufTea Steeps. You will not tell the Nightshades about Yessy and No-No, or kill them to make your Dreadlords. The wind, she whispers to me about you.”

  #

  In the middle of the night Kiri wakes me, little fingers on my lips to keep me quiet. She leads me silently past the kitchen and dining cavern to the edge of the pit, to the one place in the cave I have not been. Down the wooden staircase, down, down, down, hands tracing the smoothest stone wall I’ve ever felt.

  I smell dusty bones here, and not a scrap of fire lichen to light the place. Even so, Kiri’s steps are steady and even, as if she’s made this trip a thousand times in the dark. When we reach the bottom of the pit she shoves me into a smooth, small alcove behind the ladder and climbs into an adjacent indentation.

  For what seems to be an hour we sit in our carved seats and stare into the darkness. I am not impatient, because I owe Kiri for the price she paid to teach me this afternoon.

  When I clear the clamor of guilt from my mind, I can hear them, the two old magii from dinner. Their breathing rises and falls in perfect opposition. She exhales. He inhales. Her inhalations are soft and weak. His are throaty and obstructed. They lie side by side, always in contact, always making sure the other is present, even in their sleep. I can hear the rustling of their sleepy hands in the darkness as they touch each other.

  The hum of magic fills the base of this pit like quicksilver in a decanter. From No-No’s dreams come tiny pinpricks of light that blossom in the darkness, forming a ribbon of light around Yessy’s throat, a necklace and brilliant medallion. Her hair floats upward, expanding as if in water, even as his white curls flatten against his head. I can feel the throb of power, like the trap at Tom’s place, only fluid and fresh in comparison.

  At all times they dream of each other.

  The power fades. The quicksilver heaviness fades. The pearls fade.

  “We should’na be here,” I whisper.

  “Wait.” Kiri catches my wrist.

  The hum returns. Yessy’s long, grey hair floats again, and No-No reaches out a hand in his sleep. Suddenly the cavern walls are awash in white and yellow. Yessy rises, hovering a few inches above the cavern floor, while flame folds and dances in the palm of No-No’s hand.

  “See how Yessy listens to the earth?” Kiri whispers. “Yessy knows best where stone and sky hide their power.”

  “And No-No shapes it,” I breathe quietly, understanding. “One of them takes it from the earth . . .”

  “And the other gives it back.” She finishes my sentence as if she can hear my thoughts.

  No-No’s light dances on the wall, illuminating the entire pit, and something in the detritus of the cave floor catches my eye. Something sinister. I bend forward where I sit and pick up a discarded piece of broken stone.

  Not just stone, I realize. A knife made of semi-porous stone. Or rather, what once was a knife. More than half of its blade is gone, shattered away, but still it hisses softly, like a wounded snake that has been dying slowly for centuries, a snake that knows it will never fulfill its purpose. It’s a soul-knife, like those I’ve seen some Nightshades carry.

  “That is dirty.” Kiri barks. “Do not touch it.”

  I toss it aside, and Kiri tugs me toward the stairs. Kiri lets go of my wrist and begins to climb, unaware of what this place represents to me. This place is peaceful, this home of rock and straw and wolf pelts. Carmen, Timnus, and Valery? We could live here. We could be free. The magii need nothing, look for nothing. They barely speak a word that makes sense. But Carmen and I, we are not magii, and my kids are friends of the open air.

  “Kiri,” I whisper, “what do your magii do here?”

  Above me on the ladder she giggles. “Fix things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Weak rocks. Cracks in the ceiling.”

  “They can do that?” I ask.

  “Oh, yes. They are very old and wise. They can draw poison from a kill and spin soft, thin yarn-thread from the hair of the shadowcloak wolves. All the trappers will trade for this, and pretend it comes from the western kingdoms.

  The magii have nothing but each other here, and the unspoken agreement that the goblins will care for them. They are happy. This is more than most magii have in the human world, I realize. More than most humans. These two are lucky.

  M’ma Ownie is watching from the shadows of the storage tunnel when we return. She says nothing, does not call attention to herself.

  Kiri takes me back to my straw pile, rolling her eyes at Lucinda, who is nearby and snoring like a lion. Odd noise from such a beautiful frame. “How does she make so much noise and still sleep?”

  I shrug. “She is big. Big people grow very tired.”

  This seems to satisfy Kiri. It plays to her goblin prejudice. “Did you like it?” she asks me, changing subjects.

  I did like it. The glow of the magii is still in my mind’s eye, along with a budding appreciation for Grippy’s roots. I like understanding new things, and this may help if Lucinda and I face any magii while rescuing Carmen. Nightshades always seem to keep a pair around, I’ve noticed. But I don’t answer Kiri’s question because I’m afraid fo
r her.

  “Kiri, M’ma Ownie saw us.”

  “I know,” Kiri says. “She sent me to fetch you. ‘There are many things CupufTea needs to know,’ she says. And she thinks you will come back.” Kiri hops back toward her own sleeping pen. “Sleep tight, CupufTea,” she says over her tiny shoulder.

  #

  Aisha is right about the storm. On the fourth day the clouds break. The bears have little trouble clearing the rest of the cave entrance, as they’d already done half the work opening the way for the rescue party. The hardest part is putting up with the foul incense used in raising them from their slumber.

  Outside, the air feels almost balmy compared to what Lucinda and I were hiking in before. While the snow is still soft and crisp, there is sunshine, and travel is possible.

  Kiri insists that we take one of the bears to the base of the mountains, especially since poor Halifax disappeared into the forest and has likely since frozen to death, or been eaten. M’ma Ownie agrees with Kiri, though she refuses to allow the girl, or any other of her family to accompany us. While she and Lucinda haggle about supplies we need to reach the first village, I seek out the magii one last time.

  I find them back in their cave-hole. A man might pass an unpaired magii in the street and never be the wiser, because they say there is very little power in an unpaired magii. A man might be magii himself and never know it unless he meets another magii, one tuned to the opposite end of the same song. Paired magii are rare and precious, and I feel drawn to them. The only paired magii I’ve met before were Nightshades or Tax Auditors and Auctioneers. Since I’m bound to meet a whole rat’s nest of Nightshades in Ector, this is something I should understand.

  No-No scowls at me, but Yessy smiles.

  “I couldn’t see you at dinner,” I say. “Can all magii do that?”

  “Do I dance the worm-jig for another magii?” No-No says, white hair flying away at odd angles, curling, his eyes old.

  “No?” I guess, clueless as to what he’s referring to.

  “Yes-Yes does it,” he cackles, “when she’s tired o’ looking at me.”

  “When she’s tired of what?”

  “Me own self,” he says, pointing to his chest. No-No’s small like me, but much older. Just how much older it’s hard to tell. “How old are you, No-No?”

  He ignores me. I can’t tell if he didn’t hear me, doesn’t know, or doesn’t care.

  Yessy laughs and claps her hands, approaching me from the side while I’m talking to No-No. She licks a bony finger and pokes it in my ear, wiggling it in a way that makes me shiver and pull away.

  She giggles. “Do your rats breathe fire and eat through the plaster, or swim in the butter?” she asks me.

  I have nothing to say. Her blue eyes are batty, droopy with age, and neither of them seems to be talking about invisibility.

  When I don’t respond, she answers her own question. “I can do both!”

  She raises her hands a bit and glares at No-No until her hair flattens. Then her lips twist, and a melon-sized ball of flame slowly gathers around her hand. “Ouch!” she says, though she doesn’t seem hurt. Yessy shakes her hand as if ridding it of dishwater, flinging tiny, flaming globs in all directions. I duck for cover as these splatter against cave walls.

  “Ouch,” No-No says, as his normally plastered-flat curls stand straight on end. He sits up slowly, coming out of a trance.

  Yessy glances at him. “But swimming fun is more for me.” As the magic fades, she becomes more coherent. “And door openings for No-No.” She presses something into my hands. “You like swimming and openings, too. I can tell. These will help you find her.”

  My hands are full of something prickly and flexible as I stare her in the batty, sincere eyes. I force myself to look away from those captivating eyes to what she has given me: gloves.

  They are difficult to examine in the dim light of the magii pit, but they grip my fingernails like horse glue without being sticky. They seem to be made of wolf bristle, but I know immediately what they are for: climbing slick walls. This must be how Davaria and her sister reach the emergency stores set high in the cavern walls.

  I tuck them into my belt and try to thank her, but she and No-No have disappeared again and don’t want to be found.

  “Thank you, Yessy,” I say to the darkness.

  “Stone and glass, and iron fired. Grip the slick when others tire.” Yessy’s voice is soft and echoey. I’m not sure she’s even talking to me as her soft cackles fade away.

  #

  When I return to the surface, our missing weapons are laid out for the taking, and Lucinda is strapping into her armor. The larger of the two bears, Brontok, is harnessed and ready to go. He seems more interested in napping in the sun than the preparations going on around him, but that doesn’t hinder the packing much. On one side he has a large cargo bag and a rider bag. The rider bag is almost big enough for me to sit in comfortably. Grafnuk explains that on a hunt, the rider bags provide comfort for the passengers and allow them to protect the bear’s flanks if necessary. In this case though, Grafnuk doesn’t think we’ll have any problems, and once we dismount Brontok can handle himself.

  On his other flank there is only a cargo basket for Lucinda. She’s too tall to stand in one of the goblin riding bags, but curled up in the lidless cargo basket she should do fine. She looks at me, eyes dark. She hates confined spaces.

  She hands me Grafnuk’s cargo and asks me to carry it, since I’m better at keeping valuables safe. It’s a braided bracelet of pale leathers, dark, medium, and light, with a pair of feathers on it to symbolize the magii. A name is carved in each strand of the braid. They are goblin names, and I only recognize one, Alteset, from a conversation with Davaria. Alteset is Grippy’s father’s name, his human name.

  Ownie squints into the sun at the cave entrance, summoning me. Her face has lost some of the anger and bitterness that has been her hallmark the last few days. Without this, it looks ten times older. Deprived of her spite, will she wither away and die?

  My concern must show through to her. “Do not worry about my family,” she says. “They are strong and capable. They have Yessy and No-No for a few more years. And Davaria will protect them when I am gone. Tell me, is my son respected in your world?”

  Her eyes brook no lies, and I have to dig deep to answer truthfully without disappointing the old matriarch. I do not tell her the rude things people say when Grippy leaves the tavern, or the way the other dockworkers watch him with heavy-lidded eyes. I tell the only truth worth telling.

  “The two finest men I know have honored him with their words and companionship, Ownie. The three have stood shoulder to shoulder, and he is their equal.”

  Her old-woman’s eyes gleam as I say this. She can smell the truth, even the parts I am not telling. “What are the names of these fine men who honor my son?”

  “Tom Leblanc of Maudark, late Dreadlord of Eastmarch, and Magnus Palaidus, Mitre Medius of Fortrus Abbey.”

  She cackles, delighted to be paid such an honor. Her eyes hint that I do not fully comprehend the magnitude of it. “In the house of Giranna,” she intones, “they shall break bread, and lay their quarrels aside . . .” She stops abruptly. “Tell my son that I love him. I do not understand his path among humans, but I am proud of his strength.”

  “I will tell him.”

  She turns away abruptly, masking her eyes. She doesn’t stay for the real goodbyes, having said the only one that matters to her. As she hobbles back down the tunnel into the darkness she seems slower, more at peace with herself. I know I am right. She is dying.

  When Kiri leapfrogs onto my shoulders from Crooktooth’s back, Ownie has already disappeared into the blackness.

  She doesn’t bite me this time. She shows me her teeth, instead, sliding one foot down until my belt supports her weight. She grabs my face so I’m forced to look at her, much as Ownie did a few days ago. The furrows on her cheek are clean and healing, though they may scar. Kiri wears these like a ba
dge of honor.

  “Will you come see us again, CupufTea? I will soon be tall and beautiful like my cousins. Maybe even as tall as Aunt Davaria. You will want to see me then.”

  I smile, knowing she will never grow tall like Davaria. She doesn’t have the blood for it. But I let her hope. “You must meet my son, Timnus.”

  Diversion has always been a fine diplomacy.

  Kiri’s eyes open wide. “You have a son? Is he handsome, like you?”

  “More handsome, or so the girls say. And clever with his fingers. He made me these.” I show her my boots.

  “P’pa made that one,” she insists, gesturing to the fur boot that Trig stitched together to replace the one I lost in the snowbank.

  “The other one. See how the seam is sealed? How the laces slide?”

  Kiri nods appreciatively. “Is he tall like you?”

  I suppress a grin. Val got any height that Sarah and I had to offer. But Timmy will be plenty tall for a goblin princess.

  “Yes,” I say. “He is very tall.”

  FIVE

  Brontok moves with a rocking, lumbering motion that puts me to sleep. The flank-chaise is definitely more comfortable for me than a horse saddle. It reminds me of my cozy, rafter nook on Redemption Alley. It’s padded with fur and framed out with flexible rods of green ash and aspen, oiled against the cold, dry air of the mountain. When the bear moves like this, which he does most of the way down the mountain, I can sleep.

  Lucinda can’t. She’s too big for a flank-chaise and has to sit in a cargo basket that isn’t nearly as comfortable.

  “It’s much better than wading through snowdrifts,” I remind her.

  “Or curling up in a footlocker on the back of a bouncing carriage,” she responds, laughing.

  “Or being chewed alive by goblin children.”

  Lucinda stops complaining for a few minutes.

  When the night comes, we don’t bother pitching the tent. Every time we try, Brontok sidles up, knocking over our feeble attempts. It’s just as well. As soon as we lay down, he curls up next to us with a satisfied grunt, his flanks throwing off waves of heat. It’s nice to stretch out a bit, and before long, I’m asleep.