The Wildkin’s Curse (9 page)

‘The bread was poisoned?' Merry was horrified.

Liliana nodded. ‘I did not eat, though my mother tried to coax me. I did not like the bread, it was black and hard and bitter. I took only a mouthful and that I spat out. My parents argued over the little that was left. My mother made my father eat it, as he was to go hunting, to find us food. She ate only a slice. It was enough.'

There was a long silence. Both Merry and Zed had laid down their knives, unable to eat anymore, staring at her in horrified pity.

‘But why?' Merry asked at last.

‘Because we were wildkin? Because we were loose threads the starkin wanted tidied up? Why does one man ever murder another?'

‘But . . . you were only a child . . .'

‘A wildkin child.' She stood up abruptly. ‘Come, the day is getting on. Let's climb Stormfell and find our first feather.'

The peak of Stormfell rose more than a thousand feet, straight into the air. Clouds blew over its hoary head, and dark green pines clustered about its stony base. Far above, eagles soared in the high currents, occasionally shrieking out as if in pain.

‘That looks like a pleasant afternoon stroll,' Merry said.

Zed rolled his shoulders in their sockets and cracked his knuckles. ‘Lovely.'

‘You don't have to come,' Liliana said. ‘Why don't you two stay home and darn your socks, and I'll get the eagle feather.'

‘Oh, no, that's all right,' Merry said. ‘We love a nice little saunter, don't we, Zed?'

‘Do it twice before breakfast,' Zed said.

‘Wonderful,' Liliana replied. ‘Because for a moment there I thought you looked rather pale.'

‘It's hunger,' Zed explained. ‘A man my size has to eat rather often, you know, to keep his strength up.'

‘A man?' Liliana said scornfully. ‘You're nothing but a boy.'

‘But a big boy,' Merry pointed out. ‘Well, come on then, princess. All this chitchat is making me think you're the one who'd rather go home and darn her socks.'

Liliana looked at him disdainfully, then strode off through the rocks. Soon the path became a rough scramble, and then a climb, and then they were crawling their way up the cliff by means of narrow ledges and outcrops and tiny cracks. Below them, wisps of cloud half-concealed the dizzying fall to the valley below.

The wisps grew thicker as they climbed into cloud. ‘Don't worry, boys, it's a rare day Stormfell doesn't have a wig on,' Liliana called. ‘It's always a sign of a bad storm coming if he's bare.'

‘Oh, we're not worried,' Merry called back, his breath rather short. ‘We love a bit of a cloud. Nothing like a nice jolly climb in the mist, hey, Zed?'

‘My favourite thing to do,' Zed replied. ‘After playing knucklebones by the fire while a pretty maid pours me a cup of apple-ale.'

They did not speak much after that. It was too hard a climb. More than once, Merry found himself spread-eagled, his heart hammering against stone, his fingers barely gripping a tiny ripple of rock far above his head. Only his determination not to show weakness and fear before Liliana drove him on.

It was clear Zed felt the same way. He climbed with grim determination, occasionally pausing to offer Liliana a hand which she spurned scornfully. As he was much longer and stronger than either Liliana or Merry, he was soon far above them, and it was clear from Liliana's scowl that this did not please her. She began to climb recklessly, and Merry did his best to keep up with her, though sweat rolled from him in great droplets and his heart laboured painfully.

Kee-kee-kee!

The scream of an eagle overhead made Merry flinch. A pebble spun sideways under his grasping fingers and tumbled down into space. He pressed himself to the lichen-silvered rock, his heart pounding so hard he could hear nothing else for a moment or two. Looking down between his feet he could see the green floor of the valley, far, far below.

‘Come on!' Liliana whispered. ‘Just up here.'

Inch by slow inch, they crept up the last steep gradient. They heard high-pitched squeals above them and the ominous flap of wings. Merry peeked his head over the last boulder and saw below him an enormous messy nest, woven of branches and roots and bark and lined with grass. Only one eaglet squatted within, though there were two broken brown-blotched eggshells. Merry, trying not to shrink away from the frantic beats of wings, saw a dead eaglet strewn at the far end, neck twisted, blind eyes bulging. Zed was crouched behind a boulder nearby.

Then the eagle plummeted from above. Merry drew back sharply. The eagle was enormous, far bigger than he had expected. Its eye was golden and black and fierce. Its beak was made for tearing flesh. Its claws were cruel.

Down the eagle plunged, and landed with a whoosh of air. A dead rabbit dangled from its beak. At once the baby eaglet began to slash at it with its sharp, curved beak. Its parent brooded, one claw still clasped about the dead animal, its wings spread restively.

Zed reached out and plucked a feather from its wing. The eagle shrieked and turned its beak, darting at his hand. He snatched it back, and scrambled away over the rock, waving the feather in his hand. ‘Got it!' he cried.

Liliana slithered after him, one hand held out. ‘Give it to me! Rozalina is my cousin, I should have plucked the feather!'

Zed bowed with a courtly flourish and offered the eagle feather to her. ‘With my compliments, my lady.'

Liliana snatched it from him and stowed it away in her pack. Merry, wearily creeping down behind, saw her flash Zed a quick smile, which illuminated her face with sudden triumphant beauty.

The heavy beat of wings filled their ears as the eagle took flight again, rising and circling above them, screeching in warning. Merry ducked his head, scrambling down with very little thought for the steep fall below, the fathoms of gravity that would gladly drag him down. Zed led the way, sliding and leaping, while the eagle soared and ducked and shrieked above him.

Halfway down the cliff, scraping his cheek on the rock, blood trickling from his palms, Merry suddenly began to laugh. He bit his tongue to stop himself, but Liliana responded with a high, sweet trill of laughter.

‘We have it, Merry, we have it!' she called.

And we're alive
, he answered silently.
Although for how long, I wonder?

Dusk fell long before they reached Stormfell Castle.

Filthy and exhausted, Liliana and the boys trudged back up to the hidden room in darkness. The steps were old and broken, and Merry banged his shin and stubbed his toe more than once. He wished Tom-Tit-Tot was there to guide them, but the omen-imp had still not come back. Merry wondered if he found the ruined castle as eerie and unsettling as Merry did.

‘It'd be much easier if I just opened my night-light,' Zed complained. ‘There's no need for us to stumble about in the darkness.'

‘Shhh,' Liliana hissed.

‘But why? What's your problem?' Zed demanded.

‘You never know when the castle is being watched. It's too great a risk.'

‘But there's no-one for miles,' Zed argued.

‘Unless you count spiders,' Merry said, fighting off an unseen cobweb.

‘Shhh,' Liliana hissed again.

‘Or ghosts.' Merry peered along a dark corridor that showed, faintly, the shape of broken arches against the starry sky. ‘It's just the sort of place ghosts would love.'

‘The only ghosts here are my kin, and they would not harm me,' Liliana said. ‘Starkin soldiers will, though, so shut your mouth else I'll have to knock you out stone-cold!'

‘As if you could,' Zed muttered, but spoke no more.

The castle was indeed an uncanny place by night, keeping muscles and nerves tightly wound. The wind seemed to moan and sigh, and it was all too easy to imagine malevolent ghosts lurking in the corners. Merry felt keenly how hard it must have been for Liliana, growing up in this sorrow-haunted shambles. He thought how very lonely her childhood must have been, and pity pierced him, sharp as a thorn.

I
T WAS WONDERFUL TO OPEN THE DOOR TO THE HIDDEN ROOM
and find it warm and dancing with firelight. An old woman was boiling something in a cauldron on the fire. A curtain had been drawn back, revealing a stone hipbath steaming gently in an alcove nearby.

The woman was tiny, reaching no higher than Zed's elbow. She wore a patched and darned brown dress, with an old shawl tied crosswise over her shoulders, its ends knotted behind. Her hair was snowy white, growing away from a distinct v-shaped point in the middle of her forehead which Merry remembered his mother calling a widow's peak. It was a sign of a woman who would outlive her husband, Maglen had said.

The old woman's heart-shaped face was deeply furrowed and blotched with brown spots. Her back was hunched and her hands quivered.

‘Stiga!' Liliana held out her arms welcomingly. ‘It's so good to see you. I didn't think I would. I know how you hate strangers.'

Stiga stared at the boys with black, hostile eyes. ‘Sought to see them,' the old woman muttered. ‘Sought to hear them for myself, sought to keep my owlet safe.' She had so few teeth the words were oddly sibilant.

Zed stretched out his hand, a warm smile on his face. ‘Hello, Stiga. I'm Zed.'

She pressed closer to Liliana. ‘Starkin,' she hissed.

‘Only half,' Zed said, letting his hand fall. ‘My father is all hearthkin.'

Merry stepped forward next, trying to move as smoothly and lightly as Zed. ‘Starkin,' Stiga hissed again, shrinking back. She reminded Merry of a frightened wild creature, a broken bird trembling in the gaze of a cat.

‘Even less than Zed,' Merry said. ‘My father's mother. I never knew her.'

‘Do not be afraid, Stiga,' Liliana said, showing more gentleness than Merry had ever seen from her before. ‘The Erlrune trusts them, and you know she sees clearly.'

The old woman pointed one gnarled finger at Zed. ‘You fear the wrong fate. Fear those you love, not those you hate.'

Zed looked surprised. He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it had grown suddenly too tight. Stiga moved her intense gaze to Merry's face. He felt a cold wash of dread.

‘Three times you'll play dice with death, and the third time you'll yield your breath,' she said.

‘Don't say that, Stiga!' Liliana cried in clear distress. ‘To speak death is to invite death. Say it's not true!'

Stiga stared at Merry unblinkingly. ‘The only thing that can save you is the very thing that killed you.'

‘What does that mean?' Liliana demanded. ‘It makes no sense, Stiga.'

‘When?' Merry managed to say.

‘When there's dawn at sunset, and frost in spring,' Stiga said.

Liliana sighed in relief. ‘How can there be dawn at sunset? Surely that means never.'

Stiga looked sorrowful. ‘I see what I see, I tell what I see, and I tell you I see three deaths.'

‘But he can be saved? By the very thing that killed him?'

Stiga nodded slowly, than reached out to touch Liliana's face with one age-spotted hand, so clenched and twisted with age it was like a claw. ‘Remember.'

‘I will,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

‘I have food for you, my owlet, but you must wash first. You must cleanse yourselves, you must eat and sleep in peace. It will be the last time for many moons that you shall sleep so.'

Zed cast Merry a quick conspiratorial grin. It was clear he thought the tiny old woman more than a little mad. Merry was not so sure. Her words had sent a chill through him that raised all the hairs on his skin. He crossed his arms about his thin body and told himself he was just cold and tired.

‘You will have to wait outside while I bathe,' Liliana said.

The boys looked longingly around the golden room then glanced back out at the cold, black corridor. Both sighed and went outside.

‘Don't be too long,' Zed said with a winning smile.