Night Noises
O my children, listen! In the beginning all was dry and empty and
fruitless. Then the light came and brought life to the nothingness, and of
this light were born the gods, and all the earth's joys and sorrows.
This is truth I tell you.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
T
HE FACE WAS COLD and emotionless, the skin pale and blood¬less as Akaris marble, but it was the eyes that terrified Chert most: they seemed to glare with an inner fire, like red sunset knifing down through a crack in the world's ceiling.
"Who are you to meddle in the gods' affairs?" she demanded. "You are the least of your people-less than a man. You betray the Mysteries without apology or prayer or ritual. You cannot even protect your own family. When the day comes that Urrigijag the Thousand-Eyed awakes, how will you explain yourself to him? Why should he take you before the Lord of the Hot Wet Stone to be judged and then wel¬comed, as the righteous are welcomed when their tools are at last set down? Will he not simply cast you into the void of the Stoneless Spaces to lament forever…?" And he could feel himself falling already, tumbling into that endless emptiness. He tried to scream, but no sound would come from his airless throat.
Chert sat up in bed, panting, sweat beading on his face even in the midst of a chilly night. Opal made a grumbling sound and reclaimed some of the blanket, then rolled over, putting her back to her annoying, restless husband.
Why should that face haunt his dream? Why should the grim noblewoman who had commanded the Twilight army-who in actuality had regarded Chert as though he were nothing more than a beede on the tabletop-rail at him about the gods? She had not even really spoken to him, let alone made accusations that were so painful it felt as though they had been chiseled into his heart and could not be effaced.
/ can't even protect my family-it's true. My wife cries every evening after Flint has fallen asleep-the hoy who no longer recognizes us. And all because I let him go dashing off and could not find him until it was too late. At least that's what Opal thinks.
Not that she said any such thing. His wife was aware of the weapon her tongue could be, and since that strange and terrible time a tennight gone, she had never once blamed him. Perhaps I am the only one blaming me, he thought, perhaps that is what the dream means. He wished he could believe that were true.
A quiet noise suddenly caught his attention. He held his breath, listen¬ing. For the first time he realized that what had awakened him was not the fearfulness of the dream but a dim comprehension of something out of the ordinary. There it was again-a muffled scrabbling sound like a mouse in the wall. But the walls of Funderling houses were stone, and even if they had been made of wood like the big folks' flimsy dwellings, it would be a brave mouse indeed that would brave the sovereign territory of Opal Blue Quartz.
Is it the boy? Chert's heart flopped again. Is he dying from those strange va¬pors we breathed in the depths? Flint had never been well since coming back, sleeping away most days, speechless as a newborn much of the time he was awake, staring at his foster parents as though he were a trapped animal and they his captors-the single thing that tore most at Opal's heart.
Chert roiled out of bed, trying not to wake his wife. He padded into the other room, scarcely feeling the cold stone against his tough soles. The boy looked much as always, asleep with his mouth open and his arms cast wide, half on his stomach as though he were swimming, the covers kicked away. Chert paused first to lay a hand on Flint's ribs to be reassured by his breath¬ing, then felt the boy's forehead for signs that the fever had returned. As he leaned close in the darkness he heard the noise again-a strange, slow scratching, as though some ancient Funderling ancestor from the days be¬fore burning were digging his way up toward the living.
Chert stood, his heart now beating very swiftly indeed. The sound came
from the front room. An intruder? One of the burning-eyed Twilight folk, an assassin sent because the stony she-general now regretted letting him go? For a moment he felt his heart would stutter and stop, but his thoughts kept racing. The entire castle was in turmoil because of the events of Winter's Eve, and Funderling Town itself was full of mistrustful whispers-might it be someone who feared the strange child Chert and Opal had brought home? It seemed unlikely it was someone planning thievery-the crime was almost unknown in Funderling Town, a place where everyone knew everyone else, where the doors were heavy and the locks made with all the cunning that generations of stone- and metal-workers could bring to bear.
The front room was empty, nothing amiss except the supper dishes still sitting on the table, ample witness to Opal's unhappiness and lethargy. In Endekamene, the previous month, she would have dragged herself across the house on two broken legs rather than risk a morning visitor seeing the previous night's crockery still unwashed, but since Flint's disappearance and strange return his wife seemed barely able to muster the energy to do any¬thing but sit by the child's bedside, red-eyed.
Chert heard the dry scratching again, and this time he could tell it came from outside the front door: something or someone was trying to get in.
A thousand superstitious fears hurried through his brain as he went to where his tools were hanging on the wall and took out his sharpest pick, called a shrewsnout. Surely nothing could get through that door unless he opened it-he and Opal's brother had worked days to shape the heavy oak, and the iron hinges were the finest product of Metal House craftsmen. He even considered going back to bed, leaving the problem for the morning, or for whatever other householder the scratching burglar might visit next, but he could not rid himself of a memory of little Beetledown, the Rooftopper who had almost died helping Chert look for Flint. The castle above was in chaos, with troops in Tolly livery ranging everywhere to search for any information about the astonishing kidnapping of Princess Briony. What if Beetledown was now the one who needed help? What if the little man was out there on Chert's doorstep, trying desperately to make his presence known in a world of giants?
Weapon held high, Chert Blue Quartz took a breath and opened the door. It was surprisingly dark outside-a darkness he had never seen in the night streets of Funderling Town. He squeezed the handle of his pick until his palm hurt, the tool he could wield for an hour straight without a tremor now quivering as his hand shook.
"Who is there?" Chert whispered into the darkness. "Show yourself!" Something groaned, or even growled, and for the first time the terrified Chert could see that it was not black outside because the darklights of Fun-derling Town had gone out, but because a huge shape was blocking his doorway, shadowing everything. He stepped back, raising the shrewsnout to strike at this monster, but missed his blow as the thing lunged through the door and knocked him sideways. Still, even though he had failed to hit it, the intruding shape collapsed in the doorway. It groaned again, and Chert raised the pick, his heart hammering with terror. A round, pale face looked up at him, grime-smeared but quite recognizable in the light that now spilled in through the doorway.
Chaven, the royal physician, lifted hands turned into filthy paws by crusted, blackened bandages. "Chert…?" he rasped. "Is that you? I'm afraid… I'm afraid I've left blood all over your door…"
The morning was icy, the stones of Market Square slippery. The silent people gathered outside the great Trigonate temple of Southmarch seemed a single frozen mass, packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the steps, wrapped in cloaks and blankets against the bitterly cold winds off the sea.
Matty Tinwright watched the solemn-faced nobles and dignitaries as they emerged from the high-domed temple. He desperately wanted a drink. A cup of mulled wine-or better, two or three cups! — something to warm his chilled bones and heart, something to smear the hard, cold edges of the day into something more acceptable. But of course the taverns were closed and the castle kitchens had been emptied out, every lord, lady, serv¬ing maid, and scullion commanded to stand here in the cold and listen to the pronouncements of their new masters.
Mostly new, at least: Lord Constable Avin Brone stood with the others at the top of the steps, big as ever-bigger even, since the dark clothes and heavy cloak he wore made him look like something that should be on creaking wooden wheels instead of boots, some monstrous machine for knocking down the walls of besieged castles. Brone's presence, more than all else, had quelled any doubts Tinwright might have had about the as¬tonishing events of the last days. Surely King Olin's most solid friend and most trusted servitor would not stand up beside Hendon Tolly if (as some whispered) there had been foul dealing in Princess Briony's disappearance.
Tinwright had not forgotten his own encounter with Brone-surely not
even the Tollys of Summerfield would dare make that man angry!
The skirl of the temple musicians' flutes died away, the last censer was swung-already the smoke was vanishing, shredded by the hard, cold breeze-and, after a ragged flourish of trumpets from the shivering heralds, Avin Brone took a few steps forward to the edge of the steps and looked down at the gathered castle folk.
"You have heard many things in these last days." His great bull-bellow of a voice carried far across the crowd. "Confused times breed confused stories, and these have been some of the most confusing times any of us have seen in our lifetimes." Brone lifted a broad hand. "Quiet! Listen well! First, it is true that Princess Briony Eddon has been taken, apparently by the criminal Shaso dan-Heza, the traitor who was once master of arms. We have searched for days, but there is no sign of either of them within the walls of Southmarch. We are praying for the princess' safe return, but I as¬sure you we are not merely leaving it up to the gods."
The murmuring began again, louder. "Where is the prince?" someone near the front shouted. "Where is her brother?"
Brone's shoulders rose and he balled his fists. "Silence! Must you all jab¬ber like Xandy savages? Hear my words and you will learn something. Prince Barrick was with Tyne of Blueshore and the others, fighting the in¬vaders at Kolkan's Field. We have had no word from Tyne for days, and the survivors who have made their way back can tell us little." Several in the crowd looked out across the narrow strait toward the city, still now and ap¬parently empty. They had all heard the singing and the drums that echoed there at night, and had seen the fires. "We hold out hope, of course, but for now we must assume our prince is lost, killed or captured. It is in the hands of the gods." Brone paused at the uprush of sound, the cries and curses which started out low but quickly began to swell. When he spoke again his voice was still loud, but not as clear and composed as it had been; that by itself helped still the crowd. "Please! Remember, Olin is still king here in Southmarch! He may be imprisoned in the south, but he is still king-and his line still survives!" He pointed to a young woman standing next to Hendon Tolly, plump, and plain-a wet nurse holding what was apparently an infant, although it could have been an empty tangle of blankets for all Matt Tinwright could make it out. "See, there is the king's youngest," Brone declared,"-a new son, born on Winter's Eve! Queen Anissa lives. The child is healthy. The Eddon line survives."
Now Drone waved his hands, imploring the crowd for quiet rather than ordering them, and Tinwright could not help wondering at how this man who had terrified him down to the soles of his feet could have changed so, as if something inside of him had torn and not been fully mended.
But why should that surprise? Briony, our gracious, wonderful princess, is gone, and young Barrick is doubtless dead, killed by those supernatural monsters. Tin-wright's poetic soul could feel the romantic correctness of that, the sym¬metry of the lost twins, but could not work up as much sympathy for the brother. He truly, truly missed Briony, and feared for her-she had been Matt Tinwright s champion. Barrick, on the other hand, had never hidden his contempt.
Brone now' gave way to Hendon Tolly, who was dressed in unusually somber attire-somber for him, anyway-black hose, gray tunic, and fur-lined black cloak, his clothes touched here and there with hints of gold and emerald. Hendon was known as one of the leading blades of fashion north of the great court at Tessis. Tinwright, who admired him without liking him, had always been sensitive to the nuances of dress among those above his own station, and thought the youngest Tolly brother seemed to be en¬joying his new role as sober guardian of the populace.
Hendon raised his hand, which was mostly hidden by the long ruff on his sleeve. His thin, usually mobile face was a mask of refined sorrow. "We Tollys share the same ancient blood as the Eddons-King Olin is my uncle as well as my liegelord, and despite the bull on our shield, the wolf blood runs in our veins. We swear we will protect his young heir with every drop of that blood." Hendon lowered his head for a moment as if in prayer, or perhaps merely overcome by humility at the weight of his task. "We have all been pained by great loss this terrible winter, we Tollys most of all, be¬cause we have also lost our brother Gailon, the duke. But fear not! My other brother Caradon, the new duke of Summerfield, has sworn that the ties between our houses will become even stronger." Hendon Tolly straightened. "Many of you are frightened because of worrisome news from the battlefield and the presence of our enemy from the north-the enemy that even now waits at our doorstep, just across the bay. I have heard some speak of a siege. I say to you, what siege?" He swept his arm toward the haunted, silent city beyond the water, sleeve flaring like a crow's wing. "Not an arrow, not a stone, has passed our walls. I see no enemy-do you? It could be that someday these goblins will come against us, but it is more likely that they have seen the majesty of the walls of
Southmarch and their hearts have grown faint. Otherwise, why would they give no sign of their presence?"
A murmur drifted up from the crowd, but it seemed, for the first time, to have something of hope in it. Hendon Tolly sensed it and smiled.
"And even if they did, how will they defeat us, my fellow South-marchers? We cannot be starved, not as long as we have our harbor and good neighbors. And already my brother the duke is sending men to help protect this castle and all who dwell in it. Never fear, Olin's heir will some¬day sit proudly on Olin's throne!"
Now a few cheers broke out from the heartened crowd, although in the windswept square it did not make a very heroic sound. Still, even Matt Tin¬wright found himself reassured.
/ may not like the man overmuch, but imagine the trouble we would have been in if Hendon Tolly and his soldiers had not been here! There would have been riots and all manner of madness. Still, he had not slept well ever since hearing about the supernatural creatures on their doorstep, and he noticed that Tolly, for all his confidence, had said nothing about rooting the shadow folk out of the abandoned city.
Hierarch Sisel now came forth to bless the crowd on behalf of the Trigonate gods. As the hierarch intoned the ritual of Perin's Forgiveness, Lord Tolly-the castle's new protector-fell into deep conversation with Tirnan Havemore, the new castellan. The king's old counselor Nynor had retired from his position, and Havemore, who had been Avin Brone's fac¬tor, had been the surprising choice to replace him. Tinwright could not resist looking at the man with envy. To rise so quickly, and to such im¬portance! Brone must have been very pleased with him to give him such honor. But as Avin Brone now watched Tolly and Havemore, Tinwright could not help thinking he did not look either pleased or proud. Tin¬wright shrugged. There were always intrigues at court. It was the way of the world.
And perhaps there is a place for me there, too, he thought hopefully, even with¬out my beloved patroness. Perhaps if I make myself noticed, I too will be lifted up.
Turning, the blessing forgotten, Matty Tinwright began to work his way out through the crowd, thinking of ways his own splendid light might be revealed to those in the new Southmarch who would recognize its gleam.
To her credit, Opal handled the discovery of a bleeding, burned man twice her size sprawling on her floor with no little grace.
"Oh!" she said, peering out from the sleeping room, "What's this? I'm not dressed. Are you well, Chert?"
"I am well, but this friend is not. He has wounds that need tending…"
"Don't touch him! I'll be out in a moment."
At first Chert thought she feared for her dear husband, that he might take some contagion from their wounded visitor, or that the injured man, in pain and delirium, might lash out like a dying animal. After some con¬sideration, though, he realized that Opal didn't trust him not to make things worse.
"The boy's still asleep," she said as she emerged, still pulling her wrap around herself. "He had another poor night. What's this, then? Who is this big fellow and why is he here at this hour?"
"It is Chaven, the royal physician. I've told you about him. As to why…"
"Crawled." Chaven's laugh was dry and painful to hear. "Crawled across the castle in darkness… to here. I need help with my… my wounds. But I cannot stay. You are in danger if I do."
"Nobody's in anywhere near as much danger as you, looking at those burns," Opal said, scowling at the physician's pitiful, crusted hands. "Hurry, bring me some water and my herb-basket, old man, and be quiet about it. We don't need the boy underfoot as well."
Chert did as he was told.
By the time Opal had finished cleaning Chaven's burns with weak brine, covered them with poultices of moss paste, and begun to bind them with clean cloth, the wounded physician was asleep, his chin bumping against his chest every time she pulled a bandage snug.
Opal stood and looked down at her handiwork. "Is he trustworthy?" she asked quietly.
"He is the best of the big folk I know."
"That doesn't answer my question, you old fool."
Chert couldn't help smiling. "I'm glad to see the difficulties we've been through lately haven't cost you your talent for endearments, my sweet. Who can say? The whole world up there is topsy-turvy. Up there? We have a child of the big folk living in our own house who plays some part in this war with the fairy folk. Everything has gone mad both upground and here."
"Injured or not, I won't have the fellow in the house unless you tell me he can be trusted. We have a child to think of."
Chert sighed. "He is one of the best men 1 know, ordinary or big. And he might understand something of what's happened to Flint."
Opal nodded. "Right. He'll sleep for hours-he drank a whole cup of mossbrew, and he can't have much blood left to mix it with. We'd best get what sleep we can ourselves."
"You are a marvel," he told her as they climbed back under the blanket. "All these years and I still cannot believe my luck."
"I can't believe your luck, either." But she sounded at least a little pleased. Better than that, Chert had seen in her eyes as she tended the doc¬tor's wounds something he had not seen there since he had brought Flint back home-purpose. It was worth a great deal of risk to see his good wife become something like herself again.
Chaven could barely hold the bread in his hands, but he ate like a dog who had been shut for days in an abandoned cottage. Which, as he began to tell Chert and Opal his story, was not so far from the truth.
"I have been hiding in the tunnels just outside my own house." He paused to wipe his face with his sleeve, trying to dab away some of the water that had escaped his clumsy handling of the cup. "The secret door, Chert, the one you know-there is a panel that comes out of the wall of the inside hallway and hides the door from prying eyes. I closed that be¬hind me and went to ground in the tunnels like a hunted fox. I managed to bring a water bottle that had gone with me on my last journey, but had no time to find food."
"Eat more, then," Chert said, "-but slowly. Why should you be hiding? What has happened to the world up there? We hear stories, and even if they are only half true or less, they are still astonishing and terrifying-the fairy folk defeating our army, the princess and her brother dead or run away…"
"Briony has not run away," said Chaven, scowling. "I would stake my life on that. In fact, I already have."
Chert shook his head, lost. "What are you talking about?"
"It is a long tale, and as full of madness as anything you have heard about fairy armies…"
Opal stood abruptly as a noise came from behind them. Flint, pale and bleary-eyed, stood in the doorway. "What are you doing out of bed?" she demanded.
The boy looked at her, his face chillingly dull. With all the things that
had been strange or even frightening about him before, Chert could not help thinking, this lifeless, disinterested look was worse by far. "Thirsty."
"I'll bring you in water, child. You are not ready to be out of bed yet, so soon after the fever has passed." She gave Chert and Chaven a significant glance. "Keep your voices down," she told them.
Chert had barely begun to describe the bizarre events of Winter's Eve when Opal returned from getting Flint back into bed, so he started again. His tale, which would have been an incredible one coming from the mouth of someone recently returned from exotic foreign lands, let alone the fa¬miliar precincts of Southmarch, would have been impossible to believe had it not been Chaven himself speaking, a man Chert knew to be not just honest, but rigorously careful about what he knew and did not know, about what could be proved or only surmised. "Built on bedrock," as Chert's father had always said of someone trustworthy, "not on sand, sliding this way and that with every shrug of the Elders."
"So do you think that this Tolly villain had something to do with the southern witch, Selia?" Chert asked. "With the death of poor Prince Kendrick and the attack on the princess?" From his one brief meeting with her, Chert had a proprietorial fondness for Briony Eddon, and already loathed Hendon Tolly and his entire family with an unquenchable hatred.
"I can't say, but the snatches of conversation I heard from him and his guards made them sound just as surprised as me. But their treachery to the royal family cannot be questioned, nor their desire to murder me, a witness of what really happened."
"They truly would have killed you?" asked Opal.
"Definitely, had I remained to be killed," Chaven said with a pained smile. "As I hid from them in the Tower of Spring, I heard Hendon Tolly telling his minions that I was by no means to survive my capture-that he would reward the man who finished me."
"Elders!" breathed Opal. "The castle's in the hands of bandits and mur¬derers!"
"For the moment, certainly. Without Princess Briony or her brother, I see no way to change things." All the talking had tired the physician; he seemed barely able to keep his head up.
"We must get you to one of the powerful lords," Chert said. "Someone still loyal to the king, who will protect you until your story is told."
"Who is left? Tyne Aldritch is dead in Kolkan's Field, Nynor retreated
to his country house in fear," Chaven said flatly. "And Avin Brone seems to have made his own peace with the Tollys. I trust no one." He shook his head as if it were a heavy stone he had carried too long. "And worst of all, the Tollys have taken my house, my splendid observatory!"
"But why would they do that? Do they think you're still hiding there?"
"No. They want something, and I fear I know what. They are tearing things apart-I could hear them through the walls from my tunnel hiding-places-searching. Searching…"
"Why? For what?"
Chaven groaned. "Even if I am right about what they seek, I am not cer¬tain why they want it-but I am frightened, Chert. There is more afoot here and in the world outside than simply a struggle for the throne of the March Kingdoms."
Chert suddenly realized that Chaven did not know the story of his own adventures, about the inexplicable events surrounding the boy in the other room. "There is more," he said suddenly. "Now you must rest, but later I will tell you of our own experiences. I met the Twilight folk. And the boy got into the Mysteries."
"What? Tell me now!"
"Let the poor man sleep." Opal sounded weary, too, or perhaps just weighed down again with unhappiness. "He is weak as a weanling."
"Thank you…" Chaven said, barely able to form words. "But… I must hear this tale… immediately. I said once that I feared what the moving of the Shadowline might mean. But now I think I feared… too little." His head sagged, nodded. "Too little…" he sighed,"… and too… late…" Within a few breaths he was asleep, leaving Chert and Opal to stare at each other, eyes wide with apprehension and confusion.