Chapter Eighteen #3
We hastened out into the network of tunnels that made up the Corpse Roads.
Then we turned a corner, and I froze. A large figure loomed ahead, a set of unnaturally white teeth gleaming as he chewed on something that crunched like bone.
I almost screamed, but Patrick put a steadying hand on my arm—and then I saw Baldbeak, perched on the man’s shoulder.
He launched himself off and flew to me, landing on my shoulder and nibbling my ear affectionately as I scratched his chest feathers and kissed his head.
“Dwale.” Patrick embraced the much larger man. The sight of him enfolded in those massive arms was comical, making his slight form seem even smaller. “Just in time, thank you.”
“The rush’ll cost you,” said Dwale, without heat. He tossed what looked like a chicken leg to the ground.
“You know I’ll pay handsomely.”
“Oh, you always pay handsomely. On time, on the other hand …”
Patrick sighed. “I’m a busy man.”
“Patrick …” I said.
“Oh, I do apologize,” he said. “This is Dwale, our savior for today—an immensely competent fellow and, despite his intimidating appearance, a good one.”
“Wish I could return the compliment,” said Dwale. He turned his attention to me. “And this is the little mage that everyone’s after. Skinny.”
“And you look like a bear with a toothache,” I said, affronted.
Dwale gave a short cough of a laugh. “Maybe not as harmless as she looks.” He took a strand of my Hair in his fingers. It twitched like a landed fish, then lay still again. “And this is the magic? This wilted vine?”
“It is bespelled,” said Patrick. “To hide its nature and its true color. And she has more magic than that.”
“It’s as well that black isn’t your true color, little mage,” said Dwale. “Against it, your skin looks like the belly of a trout.”
“And you smell like a trout,” I rejoined.
Dwale grinned widely, showing a gray, gap-toothed smile and bloody gums. I recoiled.
“Do not be afraid,” said Patrick. “He used his teeth to find us the way out. They will regrow.”
“You have tooth magic?” I asked the hulking man.
“I do,” he said. “I can’t do anything too complicated without a spellbook, but I’ve memorized enough small magics to open any path that I choose.
” He reached into his mouth and wiggled one of the loose teeth, pulling it free with a pock and examining it briefly before tossing it on the ground behind him.
Baldbeak watched it skitter away with interest.
“You can’t eat that,” I told the bird.
Patrick winced. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Dwale.”
“Apologies for offending your delicate sensibilities, my lord.”
“We have no time to tarry. We need to get moving.”
Dwale saluted ironically.
“What about Fane?” I asked.
“I hate to leave her, but I doubt they will harm the stabled horses, and we can’t take her through the Corpse Roads. I will send someone back for her when we reach Mirthwater.”
“Mirthwater? The king’s city?”
“Where the book was delivered, according to the letters,” said Patrick. “Which works out well, as I intended to take you there anyway.”
“Why?”
“To live among other mages like yourself, as I had promised.” He spoke smoothly.
I had to admit that my aching backside and I were relieved we wouldn’t have to get in the saddle again, but the idea of crawling through these dark tunnels made my skin crawl.
I seemed to be cursed to spend so much of my time in the Plague-ridden things.
I didn’t know which was worse—horseback or being underground.
“It’s this or fight our way past Ban Morin’s men,” said Patrick cheerfully. “I am none too fond of enclosed spaces either, but we have an excellent guide.”
“I hope you paid him enough not to bring the place down about our ears,” I muttered grimly.
“Easy,” said Dwale with a bloody grin. “We’re all friends here, now.”
“Only because of Patrick’s fat purse.”
He shrugged. “That’s as good a reason as any.”
The tunnels were, well, tunnels. Dark, damp, monotonous.
Dwale held the glim, as the tallest member of the group, and our way was lit, but the puddle of light only extended a few feet before and behind.
Baldbeak hated it. He hunched his shoulders so dramatically that his head almost seemed to disappear beneath them, his neck feathers standing out like a ruff.
I kept lifting my hand to pet him in reassurance, and he nibbled at my fingers with his beak and little gray tongue, something he only did when he was very nervous or worried.
I miss the sky, he said. It feels like the world has turned inside out.
I ran my hand along the wall. It trembled under my touch, and I snatched it away.
“What was that?”
The men had paused, too.
“I do hope the roof isn’t about to fall in,” said Patrick coolly.
“Nah, it’s stable,” said Dwale, with a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “You hear strange things happen underground.”
“That’s your best explanation? You hear strange things happen underground?” I said. I touched the wall again, tentatively, and felt the same strange shudder. Again I withdrew my hand, and again it stopped.
“It’s me,” I said. “It’s responding to me.”
Dwale started to say something, probably something sarcastic, but Patrick raised a hand, cutting him off. “Wait.”
I touched the wall again. We all felt the shiver beneath our feet.
“Well, I’ll be Plagued,” said Dwale.
“There is much about her magic we don’t understand yet.” said Patrick.
“She can cause earth tremors? Without a spellbook, even? Unlikely. No one could cast magic that powerful without a written spell. And she’s not even casting! She’s just standing there.”
“Something in the rock is responding to her, clearly.”
“Well, we don’t have time to stand here and yap about it,” said Dwale. “How about we stop stroking the walls and just try to get to Mirthwater before your little mage brings the tunnel down about our collective ears?”
“Dwale is right, Netta,” said Patrick. “We can investigate this later.”
I didn’t appear to need a spellbook, or even a spell, to channel bone magic, if that’s what it was.
The most that reading a spell had ever done was cause my Hair to float.
Where others needed words and books to focus their power and intention, I seemed to be able to use my needle—the real needle, or my imaginings of it.
I was not ready to tell Patrick about my bone magic theory yet—even if I suspected he might share it. And certainly not in front of Dwale. I first wanted to understand it better myself.
We had been hearing the distant thunder of water for some time, growing louder and louder.
Finally, we stepped out onto a ledge, a winding path beside an immense underground river.
Now that we stood practically on its bank, the great rush and roar of it sounded like the wrath of an underworld god.
It writhed like a vast serpent through the passage, snapping and snarling against the stone banks where its darkness turned to white froth.
Baldbeak gripped my shoulder painfully tightly.
Angry water, was his only comment.
“The Mirth,” said Patrick.
“The Mirth? Really?” I couldn’t imagine anything less mirthful. I couldn’t believe that this great shining serpent was the same river as aboveground.
“By the time it reaches the surface, it is less …”
“Terrifying?”
“I was going to say less tumultuous, but yes.”
We walked alongside the river for a long time, picking our way carefully over the slippery stone.
More than once, I had to grab Patrick’s arm when my boot slid sideways a little on the moss.
Baldbeak fluttered up when I tripped, but he always came back to hunch on my shoulder again, disliking flying in the closeness and blackness of the tunnel.
The men fared better, in their sturdier boots, but there was little talk as we all negotiated the narrow path.
After a time, the tunnel widened, and instead of the narrow stone pathway, there was a flat expanse of beach; stones and gray sand all tumbled together. After the slick rock, however, this uninviting surface seemed a luxury.
We made a makeshift meal of some dry biscuits and hard cheese that Dwale had in his pack, while Patrick read through the stack of letters between my mother and the black market bookmaker.
I hovered beside him impatiently. He had refused to read each one out loud to me, not yet at any rate, arguing that it would take too long, and he would just share the most important parts.
“It may be distressing, also,” he said.
I felt impatience rising hot in my blood. “Tell me.”
He looked at me searchingly, then sighed. “Here,” he said, pointing to a list written in black ink. “The materials: Teeth. Hair. Fingernails. Skin. And blood.”
“Animal?” I asked, although I already knew the truth.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. It looks like your mother was consulting with him about making a spellbook from … organic materials. For years. And she promised him a share of its profits, which, by the looks of it, would be substantial.”
I took the letter from him, although of course I could not understand the words. The thin parchment seemed sinister, emanating a kind of dry, matter-of-fact evil.
“Whose?” I said through dry lips. “Whose … organic materials?”
“It does not say. Maybe one person’s. Maybe many.”
“Anthropodermic bibliopegy,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Binding books with human skin. The Book Man told me …” My voice trailed off.
I needed a moment before I could continue.
“If it is a mage’s body, that would imbue the book with added power, perhaps.
But he said they would have to consent to it, or the spell inside would be cursed. That was his guess, anyway.”
“Cursed?”
“Yes, if they were murdered, or if parts of them were taken without their consent … But if they agreed to it, then it could make the most powerful spellbook of all.”