long.”
Cythera’s jaw dropped. “Mother?”
Creeping dread made every muscle in her back ripple and tense. Slowly she turned around, expecting to see Coruth the witch standing in the alley behind her.
Instead there was a boy there, a little peasant boy with a dirty face. And several hundred birds.
Rooks, starlings, pigeons, and doves stood on the cobbles or perched on the timbers of the houses on either side. More of them came down to land around the boy as Cythera watched. Some fluttered down to land on his shoulders, others to perch atop his head. The birds were all staring at her.
The boy, in way of contrast, looked at nothing. His eyes were unfocused and it appeared they might roll up into their sockets. His arms hung loose at his sides, and the muscles of his face were all slack, so that he slurred his words as he spoke to her again.
“You are required in Ness. You must come home immediately.”
Cythera knew what was happening. That didn’t make it any less unsettling. Her mother had set her spirit loose upon the ether, let it drift with the movements of birds, as was her wont. It allowed her to see things hidden from human eyes and to keep a watch on the entire kingdom of Skrae at once. Yet birds could not convey proper messages-their beaks and tongues were ill-formed for human speech. So Coruth must have overridden the boy’s consciousness with her own. It was a cruel thing to do, and Cythera knew Coruth would only have turned to such magic if she had no other choice.
“Malden’s in trouble, Mother. You and I both owe him a great debt-I can’t go anywhere until he’s safe. I just watched him get struck by an Ancient Blade.”
“Chillbrand,” the boy said. He did not nod. Coruth was controlling only enough of his functions to speak with. That was the difference between witchcraft and sorcery, sometimes. A sorcerer would have taken the boy over completely-and left him mindless and half dead when the sorcerer was done with him. “One of the seven. Strange. I can see them all now, all seven of the swords. They are coming together, as if drawn by a magnet.”
“The swords are coming to Helstrow?” Cythera asked, intrigued despite herself.
“For a brief while. Hmm. This could be trouble. The future is not entirely clear right now. What is clear is that you must return to Ness. We must speak, you and I. Great events are unfolding. Some we care about will be brought low, while others are lifted to the heights. What was solid and eternal will become mutable. Malden… did you say Malden was in trouble? But that’s impossible. He has-he will-”
The boy’s lips pressed tightly together and one of his hands twitched. Coruth was losing control of him.
“Mother? Mother, what are you talking about?” Cythera demanded. Coruth could see the underpinnings of reality, she could even glimpse the future, but often what she saw was so cryptic that even she could make no sense of it. Cythera understood maybe one part in ten of what Coruth told her of those visions. “Mother, please. I need to know more-if this will effect Malden, or Croy, I need to know!”
But Coruth had released the boy. His eyes slowly focused and his face regained something like normal muscle tone. Cythera knelt down to put her hands on his shoulders and help him return to full control of his body by stroking his forehead and rubbing his back. “Mistress,” he said, and blinked his eyes rapidly. “Mistress, I beg your pardon-I musta come runnin’ down here and bumped you, and scattered me wits for a moment. I–I- Where am I? I was s’posed to do somethin’, but I can’t rightly recall what. I can’t remember much, tell the truth. My head aches somethin’ awful.”
“You were supposed to give me a message. You did just fine.” Cythera took a farthing from her purse and pressed it into his hand. “You do look like you’ve had a shock. Best run home now and lie down.”
The boy took the coin and headed off, scattering the birds that bobbed and scampered around the alley. Cythera hoped he would do as she’d said-the spell he’d been under would leave him drained and scattered for days, and she would hate to find out he’d come to some mischief just for helping Coruth.
Slowly she rose to her feet again. She would return to the inn and find Croy. The knight errant was Malden’s only hope now. Before she headed back, though, she waited until one of the birds turned away from her. Then she darted forward and grabbed it with both hands. It was a pigeon with iridescent wings, and it was not as frightened as it should have been. That meant some piece of Coruth’s mind was still inside its head. “Mother,” she whispered to the bird, “you could have been more helpful. I got your message but all you’ve achieved is to scare me a bit. If you have any idea what I’m supposed to do now, I’d love to hear it.”
The bird struggled in her hands, and she released it. Without even looking at her it took to the air and flew away.
Chapter Nine
They dragged Malden through the gate to the inner bailey, then up a hill to the keep. No one spoke to him, and he was still too blasted with cold to ask any questions. When they arrived inside the thick stone walls of the keep, he expected to be thrown into an oubliette and forgotten. He had, after all, threatened a knight of the king. Instead, however, he was taken into a spacious feasting hall where an iron collar was locked around his throat and then chained to a staple in one wall. The hall was already full of men, mostly young, mostly with the scrawny, shifty-eyed look of dire poverty. Malden thought he recognized a few of the faces-he had seen them being rounded up in the square. These, it seemed, were his people. Thieves and beggars, the seedy underbelly of Helstrovian society. Not that this knowledge was likely to help him-they didn’t know him from the Emperor of the South. Nor was he in any shape to introduce himself. He could barely keep his teeth from breaking, they chattered so much.
For a great while Malden curled himself about his stomach and just shivered. He felt like all of winter’s chill had gathered in his bones. He felt his heart racing, booming in his chest. His fingers turned bright red, as if they had been frostbitten. A fire burned in a hearth at one side of the hall, and he longed and dreamed of going to it, of shoving his hands directly into the flames, simply for the warmth he would feel before his flesh singed and burnt. Luckily the chain around his neck kept him from doing so.
In time, the supernatural chill withdrew from his bones. He doubted he would ever truly feel warm again, but his teeth stopped knocking together so much.
Blowing warm breath on his fingers, he struggled to sit up and look around. Nothing had changed over the last hour, save that more men had been brought into the hall. Very few of them were talking to each other. Mostly they sat in dull silence and stared at things that weren’t there. They came and chained up a man next to him, a middle-aged starveling whose eyes were quite mad. He stared at Malden without speaking until the thief turned to the man on his other side.
“You,” Malden said to the surly fellow. He needed information, and no other source provided itself. “What did they get you for, then?”
“What’s it to ye?”
“I’m a scholar of justice,” Malden told him.
That elicited a brief laugh, though little humor. “They never said why. Just grabbed me up outta me bed. Mind, I suppose I deserve to be here more’n some.”
“You’re a thief, then?” Malden asked. The other bridled, so he held up his hands for peace. “I’m in the trade myself,” he explained, “and will say as much to any man who asks.”
“All right, then. Call me a thief, if ye like.”
Malden nodded eagerly. Then he ran his hands across the rushes on the floor. As expected, there was a thick layer of dust underneath. He cleared some rushes away, then drew in the dust with his finger, sketching a heart transfixed by a key.
The other thief stared down at the image. Malden knew right away that the man recognized the symbol-he knew it for the mark of Cutbill, the master of the thieves’ guild in Ness. Malden had worried that the symbol might not be known in Helstrow.
The other thief slid one foot through the drawing, obliterating it before anyone else could see. “You’re his man?” he asked.
Malden nodded.
“We got our own boss here, though I shan’t say his name out loud, not in this place. You can have what they
