Winterveil (9 page)

Edgar's throat tightened. “I knew her,” he said. “Her name was An'tha. Her family came from the far south. She hadn't been with the Skilled very long.”

“So her mind could not cope with the onslaught of the veil,” said Silas. “She will have slipped into madness before the end. It would explain why she died here alone.” He stepped over the body and continued on his way.

“You're just going to leave her? Can't you do something?”

“She has been dead almost a day,” Silas said, without looking back. “Nothing could bring her back from that. Her spirit is gone. Considering the state of the veil, she will no doubt haunt these tunnels until someone sees fit to guide her fully into death.”

“Then help her!”

“This woman is dead,” said Silas. “There will be many more. You should prepare yourself for what may lie ahead.”

“Where are we going?”

“We have two Walkers up there who need to be brought under control,” said Silas. “The Skilled are the only people who may have a chance of doing that. Tempting as it would be, we cannot afford to let them die off one by one. We need them to slow Kate and Dalliah's effect upon the veil as long as they can.”

“Do you really think they'll be in any state to help?” asked Edgar, following him through the dark.

“They won't have a choice.”

9

BETRAYAL

E
dgar walked the rest of the way in silence, carefully checking the shadows of every tunnel that crossed their own. There was no sign of anyone else down here, but he was so busy keeping watch and listening for movement in the passageway behind them that he did not notice when they reached tunnels that he should have recognized.

Silas stopped at last in front of a long curtain covering a green door that marked the entrance to the only place in Albion the Skilled called their home. He tested the handle. The lock clicked, and the door swung silently open. “I was expecting more resistance,” he said. “Be ready.”

The cavern was lined with dwellings built partly into the walls. Their windows, normally bright with candlelight, were dark, and only a few lanterns flickered along the spaces between them, illuminating the cavern with scattered patches of weak light. The door had scraped open through a collection of sticks and daggers, the ground at their feet was stained with blood, and the smell of death clung to the air.

Bodies lay against the fences, upon the paths, and even slumped over windowsills. Some had been killed by weapons; others looked as if they had collapsed where they fell. So many faces. Edgar knew the name of every one.

“Stop there!” A man's voice broke the silence before an arrow flew weakly through the air and skidded to a halt next to Silas's boot. “State your name and your intentions or I will shoot again!” A second arrow followed the first, this time veering wildly off to the left and landing a few feet behind them. “This is your final warning.”

“Meeting hall,” Edgar whispered, but Silas had already seen the man. Their attacker was standing in the upper window of the meeting hall's bell tower, the cavern's tallest building. A bow was raised awkwardly before him, while his aim quivered almost as much as his voice.

“It's Baltin,” said Edgar.

Silas could feel the presence of the dead lingering in the atmosphere of that place. Recent dead, and every one of them had died in fear. That cavern had come under attack, though whether it had started inside or resulted from the actions of an outside aggressor there was no way to know.

“You seem to have had some trouble here,” said Silas, moving slowly toward the tower.

“ ‘Trouble' would be a minor inconvenience. This is not
trouble
you are looking at. It is horror.” Baltin's eyes widened as he realized whom he was speaking to, and his clumsy fingers readied another arrow. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Come to finish us off ?”

“If I were here for that, it appears someone got here before me,” said Silas. “Sloppy work. But effective.”

“Murderer!”

The bowstring snapped, the arrow flew, only this time there was real power behind it. The arrowhead ripped toward Silas, who casually stepped aside. Baltin started to ready another arrow, but his fingers were clumsy and slow. He cursed with frustration; then his shoulders slumped, and he dropped the weapon to the cavern floor. “What's the point?”

He disappeared back into the tower. A few moments later the lower door opened, and he stepped out into the open with his hands in the air. “Finish it,” he said. “It's better to die at your hand than the way some of my people have gone.”

“There are many dead men who would disagree with you,” said Silas.

The tiny sound of boots scuffing against the floor carried from inside the meeting hall, and Baltin glanced nervously into Silas's eyes. “Please,” he said. “We are no threat to the High Council or to you. Leave my people in peace.”

“You weren't so keen on peace the last time I was here,” said Edgar. “Last time it was
you
threatening to kill Kate and me. People like you always get what they deserve in the end.”

A shadow moved behind Baltin, and a woman stepped out with her nose held proudly high. “Baltin,” she said. “We are ready.”

Edgar recognized the woman as Greta, the Skilled's magistrate. She was in charge of enforcing order among the Skilled. Edgar knew her as a hard woman who worked to the letter of every law the Skilled lived by. She had bracelets of dried herbs knotted around her wrists, her pale hair was loose around her ears, her feet were bare, and she was wearing what looked like a brown blanket over her ordinary clothes.

“What's going on?” asked Edgar. “What's happening in there?”

Silas held on to his shoulder, preventing him from walking forward. “Subtlety is a skill,” he said. “Learn it. Use it now.”

Edgar seethed inside. Something was very wrong in that place. If the Skilled had been attacked, why would they have left one of their doors to the tunnels outside unlocked? And why had no one made any effort to move the dead bodies?

Baltin's eyes were darker than usual, and he was breathing awkwardly. “This is the end of us,” he said. “We have done everything we can. We should never have let Kate Winters escape. I was weak. I should not have held back. We are paying the price of my failure.”

“You are a small man,” said Silas. “The world does not wait for you to tell it what to do. Step aside.”

“Stop!” protested Greta. “You can't go in there!”

Silas ignored her and pushed his way past.

Inside the meeting hall twenty or so nervous people were dressed much like Greta. Of the group, three were small children, eight were around Edgar's age, and the rest were elderly men and women. Greta and Baltin were the only people of their age who had survived. Silas doubted that was a coincidence.

The stage at the front of the hall was empty. Chairs were stacked around the edges of the main space, clearing the floor, and in the center a large circle had been drawn in blood. The younger children were kept to one side, while the older ones followed the directions of their elders, walking around the perimeter of the space and placing old skulls evenly around the bloodied line with their empty eye sockets staring into the center of the space. Silas did not go in any further, but all work stopped the moment people sensed him in the room.

Those who were holding skulls clutched them to their chests, and the rest looked to Baltin for some sign of what they should do. Baltin was too nervous to offer anything other than a weak hand gesture, warning them to keep their distance from the visitor.

“Is this your worthless attempt at a listening circle?” asked Silas. “Are you trying to heal the veil here or destroy it?”

“Neither,” said Baltin. “We are doing what we must to stay alive.”

Silas walked toward the circle and heard the whispers of the newly dead circling it like water gushing along a channel carved through rock. He felt the soft presence of a world beyond the living, the calm silvery place of peace. The Skilled were using that circle to connect with the second level of the veil, beyond the half-life, beyond the normal reach of any living soul. They were forcing open a window into a place seen only by the peaceful dead and Walkers of exceptional ability.

No one in that room was Skilled enough to recognize the truth of what they had done. Most of them would be able to sense a difference in the air within that space, but they would still be blind to the world beyond. They would not see the souls moving across the water or recognize the current of death when it drifted close. None of them could see the damage they had caused.

Silas closed his mind to the veil as far as he could, ignoring the warm ebb of stillness that tempted him to step inside the circle. “You are dealing with energies beyond your understanding,” he said. “Circles like this are old work. No one has practiced their creation for centuries.”

“This is what we have been reduced to,” said Baltin, sneaking in behind him. “The old ways are all that will save us now.”

“No. This is an experiment,” said Silas. “You have no idea what you are doing.”

One of the older boys spoke up. “We are calling for the help of the ancestors,” he said with well-rehearsed confidence. “They will help us.”

Silas laughed coldly. “Your ancestors do not care about you,” he said. “They are not waiting to step in and undo the mess that you have caused. Many of them have needed your help for generations. It is pitiful that you expect them to listen to you now.”

Baltin started to walk past Silas, but Silas drew his sword swiftly and blocked his path with the blade.

“I am not finished with you yet.”

Fear spread through the meeting hall, and one of the younger children began to cry.

“You,” Silas said, nodding to one of the elderly women, “take the children into the side room. The rest of you, leave everything where it is. Do not move until I order it.”

“You have no authority here,” said Greta, blatantly ignoring Silas's warning and stepping into the circle of blood. “Leave us to do our work.”

The circle thrilled with energy when Greta stepped into it, but only Silas's eyes saw the ripple of light glow around its inner edges like flickers of lightning. The souls of the dead that were lingering in that place fled from the hall at once, but one of the shades was too slow. The circle drew the faded form toward it, and the blood line crackled as their essences connected. The shade's energy sank into the stones of the meeting hall floor, and Greta's cheeks flushed with health.

To anyone else in that room it would seem that very little had changed. Greta's mind would feel clearer, more focused, but she would not understand why. That floor may have looked like a makeshift listening circle, but the Skilled were not using it for communication. They were using it to draw energy from the veil, saving themselves while inadvertently sealing the spirits of the dead in the stones beneath their feet.

“This is how you are staying alive?” said Silas. “You are feeding from the veil, focusing your connection, using the blood of the dead.”

“They have no use for it anymore,” said Baltin. “It is too late for them. We are doing all we can to continue to exist.”

“At the cost of the souls you are meant to protect!” said Silas. “This circle is a taint upon the veil, and that blood carries the mark of the Skilled. How many of your own people did you murder to create it?”

Baltin's face darkened. “Enough,” he said.

“You killed your own
people
?” said Edgar.

“Not all of them,” said Baltin. “The madness came too quickly. There were too many voices. Too many memories. We were not prepared for what our minds could see. When the first of us died, some took it badly. They did not want to die the same way, in confusion and pain. We sealed the doors, trying to keep everyone where we could see them so we could try to control what was happening to us, but a few escaped. We tried to maintain order, but the visions of the dead became too strong. It was hard to know what was real and what was touched by the veil. People began to arm themselves, and there were . . . accidents. Soon we lost control of the doors. Ordinary people touched by the sickness came to our cavern for help, looking for ways to close their minds to the veil. What they saw here was death. We could not let them leave! Some of them . . . fought back. The cavern filled with the cries of the insane and the dying, and I knew we were facing the end. The few of us who still had our minds sealed ourselves away and waited. For those who had gone too far into madness . . . it was a kindness, what we did to them.”

“You murdered the weak to save the strong. How honorable.” Disgust laced Silas's words, but Baltin was unrepentant.

“Do not lecture me on morality,” he said. “You have done far worse.”

“I did not torture the souls of those I killed,” said Silas. “I did not murder those who trusted me, harvest their blood, and justify it in the name of sacrifice.”

“Then you have not seen the things I have seen,” said Baltin. “You have not had to make that choice.”

“I am not interested in excuses. Are these the only people you decided to save?”

“I was in an impossible situation! I protected as many as I could. Others . . . left us. There's no way to know how many of them are still alive.”

“What about my brother?” asked Edgar. “Where is he?”

“Tom? He left with Artemis Winters before any of this began,” said Baltin. “No one has heard from either of them since you and Kate went missing. The newly Skilled were not affected as severely as the rest of us. If he is lucky, his descent will be slow. He may not see any effects until the veil has completely collapsed. After that, no one will care anymore.”

“
I
care,” said Edgar. “I never should have left him here.”

Silas crouched beside the edge of the circle and touched the streak of dried blood. Memories of six clear deaths played behind his eyes: four falling to blades held in Baltin's hand, two to Greta.

“You should have saved more of your people,” he said, standing up. “This group alone will not be enough to stop them.”

“Stop who?” asked Greta.

“Kate Winters and Dalliah Grey. They are together, in Fume,” said Silas. “They will make sure the veil falls unless you stop playing with death and blood and do what the Skilled were born to do.”

“We don't know how,” said Baltin. “We have spent generations restraining our minds. We were not ready for any of this. We learned how to create this circle from scrolls discovered hidden within the bonemen's graves. Most were rotten and incomplete, but they gave us enough to keep going. They gave us hope, if only for a short time. We believed we could help ourselves.”

“If Dalliah Grey is here, there is no hope of that,” said Greta. “We are not strong enough to stand against one Walker, let alone two.”

“You were willing enough to take lives,” said Silas. “Now is the time to risk your own. Otherwise what did those people die for? So you could hide here for the rest of your miserable days?”

“We do not answer to you,” said Greta.