The Black Reckoning Read online

“Right you are,” the dwarf said. “This way.”

  The foursome walked down the pier, across the beach, past the crowds funneling through the walls, and into the town proper. The narrow streets wound up the hill, tacking back and forth in a series of long, shallow steps. Up close, the white stone that accounted for everything in the town—the houses, the streets, the garden walls, a birdbath—revealed itself to be not solid white, but speckled and veined with gray and black. They passed humans and dwarves and elves—shopping, sweeping out homes, eating in cafés—and Kate felt gaze after gaze turn toward them.

  Did everyone know who they were? Kate wondered. Or did she and Michael just stand out?

  “I arrived last night,” King Robbie was saying. “Everything’s as you asked.”

  “Thank you,” Dr. Pym said. “Tell me, have there been reports of any attacks?”

  He and King Robbie were walking a step ahead of Kate and Michael.

  “Aye. Two came in today. One from South America. Another from the Horn of Africa. How’d you know?”

  “We encountered our own trouble.”

  “It’s starting, then. These are the first showers before the storm. But how the devil is he this strong? He wasn’t half so bold before, waging war on the whole world!”

  “Indeed, he seems to have found some new source of power. I tremble to think what it might be. Have you had word from Gabriel or the others?”

  “No.”

  King Robbie and the wizard went on talking, but Kate stopped listening. She’d heard what she wanted to know. Emma was still lost.

  They came around a corner, and at the end of the street, Kate saw the rose-colored building that she’d first noticed from the boat. What was most striking—apart from its enormous size and the vibrant rose hue of the stone—was how wildly thrown together it looked. The façade jerked up and down at odd intervals; the roof was studded with a series of domes and pergolas and towers, all of different sizes and shapes; there were dozens of balconies and colonnades and arches scattered about; it was a giant mishmash. And yet there was a strange, almost perfect beauty to it all, like the natural, complex growth of a flower.

  And there was more: the building was home to something powerful. Kate had felt a vibration in her chest when she’d seen it from the boat, and now, up close, she knew for sure. The rose-colored building was built to protect something. But what?

  They walked through an archway where two armed guards (one human and one dwarf) saluted, and found themselves in a passageway under the building.

  The wizard stopped. “This is the Rose Citadel. When we of the magical world have gatherings, this is where we meet. This building holds the greatest magical library in existence, as well as being home to innumerable treasures and mysteries. It is part museum, part university, part council chamber. And on its upper floors, there are some very comfortable guest rooms. I’ve reserved a pair for you.”

  “What’s that way?” Kate asked, pointing down the passageway to where she could see a swath of green.

  “The Garden,” the wizard said. “The Citadel is built around it. I will take you through it later.”

  It’s in there, Kate thought. Whatever it is I’m feeling, it’s in there.

  They said goodbye to King Robbie, who promised he would see them at dinner, and Dr. Pym led them through a doorway and up a hopeless zigzag of stairs and hallways till, finally, he brought them into a large, cool, dimly lit room. Kate could make out a bed, a chair, a table; then the wizard pushed open a pair of heavy wooden shutters, light poured in, and the blue sea appeared, far below them. He pointed to a door.

  “That leads to a second bedroom. Take some time to rest, gather yourselves. I’ll come to get you for dinner. And do know, you are safer here than you are anywhere else in the world.”

  Then he turned and walked out.

  As if her exhaustion had been there waiting for her, Kate felt a heaviness settle on her shoulders. She sat down on the bed. Another moment, and she might have fallen over.

  “Well,” Michael said, “guess I’ll take the other room.”

  “Michael…”

  He turned back at the door.

  “I wanted to ask—”

  “Yes, I know, I didn’t tell King Robbie about Wilamena. But—”

  “It’s not that.” And while she had meant to ask if he too had sensed the presence of some great power in the Citadel, instead, looking at her brother’s face and feeling more than ever the new, awful distance between them, she asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you angry at me?”

  “What? No! Of course not.”

  Kate said nothing. The silence stretched out. Michael stared at the floor, and when he spoke again, his voice was different. It was his voice this time, his real one.

  “When I use the Chronicle, I live another person’s whole life. All their memories and feelings, for a few seconds, they’re mine. I should’ve told you before. I don’t want it to happen; it just does. Most of it I can’t remember afterward. It’s like trying to remember a dream.”

  “But some things you do remember.”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you brought me back…”

  Michael looked up, and the instant he met her eyes, Kate knew what he would say.

  “That boy in the bell tower, the one who became the Dire Magnus…”

  Kate’s throat was as dry as paper. “Rafe.”

  “You love him.”

  Kate didn’t know what threw her more, that Michael had said this or that he had said it so simply and directly. The old Michael, the one she’d left in Baltimore a week before, would have danced around and basically done all he could to avoid mentioning the subject of feelings, his own or anyone else’s.

  “You love him,” he went on. “I mean, you know he’s the Dire Magnus. You know he’s the enemy. But you still love him.”

  “No, I don’t…” Kate was gripping the edge of the bed with both hands. “I don’t…love the Dire Magnus.”

  “I mean you love him, Rafe. And he is the Dire Magnus. They’re the same person.”

  “Why are you saying this? What’s—”

  “You can’t save him. You have to know that.”

  Now it was Kate’s turn to stare at the floor. For as shocked as she’d been by Michael’s declaration that she loved Rafe, the boy she had met a hundred years in the past, who had saved her life and in so doing had become the Dire Magnus, no part of her denied the truth of it. How often in the past days—despite jumping around the world, despite being hounded by Screechers, despite Emma being gone—had she closed her eyes and pictured Rafe’s face before her, or remembered riding with him on the top of the elevated train as the wind bit into her cheeks or sitting in the warm, smoky comfort of the Chinese restaurant as he’d taught her to eat noodles or dancing with him in the snow and feeling the beat of his heart? How many times had she told herself to stop thinking of him, to forget him, only to be drawn back by the simple memory of her hand folded inside his?

  She said, “Have you told Dr. Pym?”

  “No. And I won’t. But you’ve got to choose. Emma or him. You can’t save both. You have to choose.”

  Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Crushed Leaf

  “So, you can imagine life here?”

  Gabriel stood in a village on the Rijkinka Fjord, a long sliver of water that curved deep into the dense forests of western Norway. The village was small, only thirty or so homes nestled between the trees and the glasslike surface of the fjord. At his side was a thin old woman with white hair and large blue eyes. One hand held a cane, the other rested on Gabriel’s arm. She was waiting for an answer, and so Gabriel looked again at the stillness of the water, listened to the silence of the trees.

  “It is beautiful. Peaceful.”

  “Yes,” the old woman said. And she sighed, “It was.”

  All abou
t them, villagers were moving among the ruins of smoking and blackened houses, sorting through their possessions for anything that could be saved. A smudge of dark smoke hung in the sky. Gabriel and the woman started down the muddy street, her cane feeling the way through the ash and debris.

  “Of course, Miriam and I set up defenses, the standard wards to protect against vampires and werewolves and the like. But that was decades ago. I suppose we’d become forgetful. Not that it would’ve done much good. There were hundreds of them. Morum cadi. Imps. Even a troll.”

  “Was he here?”

  “No. Rourke led them.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  The old witch gave a short, dry snort. “Oh yes. He sought us out. Told us, ‘You once stood against my master. That’s why this is happening. Defy him again and he will not be so merciful.’ He said that Pym would not defend us this time.”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  The old witch stopped. Her bony hand gripped Gabriel’s arm. “He’s more powerful than before. I could feel it.”

  “We do not believe he yet has the Reckoning.”

  “But he has the Keeper, doesn’t he? He has the Keeper of the Reckoning?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman’s grip slackened, as if some strength had gone out of her. “Then it is only a matter of time until he finds it. After that, he will be unstoppable.”

  “That will not happen.”

  The old woman patted him on the arm.

  “Tell Pym we’re with him. We may not be what we once were, but we’re with him to the end.” She paused. “I mean to say, I’m with him.”

  “I am sorry about your sister.”

  She nodded her thanks, and pointed with her cane toward the line of trees. “They came from there.” Then she tottered off down the street, her cane making little pat-pat noises in the mud. Gabriel watched her go.

  It did not take him long to find where Rourke and his army had materialized. The trees had been felled in a large ring, and the ground was scorched black. But where had they appeared from? Gabriel knew that once a portal closed, there was no way of following it back to its source. At least no magical means. But his advantage was that he was not a wizard. He was simply a man. A man who knew about trees and plants and the land, and he crouched now and lifted a small crushed leaf out of the soil. The leaf had been trampled by many boots, and he gently smoothed it across his palm.

  Gabriel didn’t recognize the leaf, but he knew that whatever it was, it would never grow in this forest. That meant it must have come through on the boot of one of the attackers. But from where? Gabriel sensed that if he found the plant, he would find the Dire Magnus; and if he found the Dire Magnus, he would find Emma.

  But to do that, he needed help.

  —

  Two hours later, and five thousand miles southwest, Gabriel was walking along a steep, rocky trail as the sun fell behind the mountains and the trees threw long shadows across his path. The approaching darkness didn’t trouble him—he could’ve found his way blindfolded—and soon enough, he reached the crest of the ridge and stood gazing down at the small village that lay in the fold of the mountain.

  In the fifteen years since Stanislaus Pym had recruited him to the cause of defeating the Dire Magnus and saving the children, Gabriel had returned here only a handful of times. And each time, it had felt less and less like home.

  He knew it would be fully dark by the time he reached the village, and he would’ve gotten there earlier, but the golden key the wizard had given him, the one that allowed him to move swiftly around the world, required a keyhole or a lock to work, and his village had none. He had had to come through the mansion in Cambridge Falls, in the process terrifying half to death the old caretaker, Abraham. Once he’d recovered, the old man had pressed him for news of the children, and Gabriel had told him, while the sour-faced housekeeper, Miss Sallow, had eavesdropped from the kitchen. When he’d reached the part about Emma’s abduction, Miss Sallow had come out and taken Abraham’s hand.

  “You have to save her,” the old woman had said, her voice tight with emotion. “You have to.”

  He had left soon after.

  The village was silent and dark; no one was about, and Gabriel felt like a ghost moving through the shadows.

  He came to a ramshackle hut at the base of the village and raised his hand to knock. Before he could, a voice called from inside, “Come in, come in.”

  Gabriel pushed open the door and peered into the smoky interior of the hut. He could see a single cookfire in the center of the room and the large, messy outline of a woman bending over a pot. For a moment, he didn’t move. The sight of the old woman at her fire and the smell of her hut—the smoke, the scents of burning pine, of wild onions and carrots, of boiling potatoes and thyme—loosened a knot in the center of his chest, and he was a boy again; he was home.

  “I put on a stew when I knew you were coming,” Granny Peet said. “Though I don’t stand by the potatoes. Bad lot this year.”

  Pulled back to the present, Gabriel stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “I won’t ask how you knew I was coming.”

  “Good. You wouldn’t understand anyway. Sit.”

  Gabriel took one of the low stools by the fire as Granny Peet continued to stir the pot, the charms and vials dangling from her necklaces clinking softly as they knocked together. Gabriel still felt the tug of home, but already the tension was returning to his chest. It would be there, he knew, until Emma was safe.

  “You’ve been gone too long,” the old woman muttered, the fire multiplying the wrinkles of her face. “This is your home. It nourishes you.”

  “Things have happened.”

  “I know. I hear whispers. What have you brought me?”

  Gabriel reached into his bag and pulled out a folded square of cloth. He opened it, displaying the limp, black leaf. It seemed an impossibly small thing to pin his hopes on, but it was all he had. “A village in Norway was attacked. I found this.”

  Granny Peet had dirty, swollen fingers and thick, yellow nails, but she lifted the leaf delicately, turning it about in the light of the fire, then finally bringing it to one large nostril to sniff. “Hmph.”

  She carried the leaf to a table behind Gabriel where a pot of soil sat among a clutter of roots and branches. She poked a hole in the soil, placed the leaf inside, and covered it over. Then she ladled in what to Gabriel looked like ordinary water. She shuffled back to the fire.

  “We’ll see if it has anything to say. Now, you eat, then you’ll tell me what else is bothering you.” And she pushed a brimming, steaming bowl of stew into his hands.

  Gabriel was about to say he had come only about the leaf when he realized that wasn’t so. There was something else. Something that had been gnawing at his thoughts for days. But he also knew that Granny Peet wouldn’t listen to anything till his bowl was clean, so he picked up a spoon and ate. The stew was too hot and burned his mouth, but with each bite he was taken back to the hours he used to sit at the wise woman’s fire and listen to her stories about the world outside their village, how he’d nod when she’d tell him that he would be called to serve in a great cause. “Much will be asked of you,” she used to say. “A terrible sacrifice.”

  He had been a small boy, smaller than others his age, his parents dead in a landslide when he was younger than Emma (did that explain his bond to the children?), and he had been raised by the entire village, and by Granny Peet in particular. She had fed him, schooled him, and he had grown quickly, and while yet a boy, he had towered over the men in the village. He’d often wondered if Granny Peet had put something in his food. But when he’d asked her about it, she’d scoffed, saying, “Don’t question your strength. Be thankful. You’ll need every bit of it when the time comes.”

  When Gabriel finished the stew, he felt more rested than he had in days, and he sat there, the empty bowl in his hands. The old woman squatted on the stool beside him, smoking a short, gnarled pipe, her eyes two dark pit
s among the folds of her face.

  He began to speak: “For fifteen years, I have been helping Pym search for the missing Books. He told me that finding them was the only way to keep the children safe.” Gabriel did not say how often his own life had been in peril, how many new scars he bore, how much he himself had given up; the old woman knew. “But recently, I fought a man, a servant of the Dire Magnus.” Gabriel didn’t notice, but his hands tightened on the bowl as he recalled his battle with Rourke in the volcano. “He told me that if the children succeed in finding all three Books of Beginning and bringing them together, they will die. And he said that Pym knows this.”

  For a time, Granny Peet did not respond, but sat there, drawing on her pipe and letting smoke curl from her mouth. Gabriel could hear the trees creaking outside, the whisper of the branches rubbing against one another.

  Finally she said, “It is possible.”

  It seemed to Gabriel that he could feel the world moving beneath him, and he gripped the wooden bowl as if it were an anchor that would hold him in place. “So it is true, they will die if they bring the Books together?”

  “Yes. Most likely.”

  “And Pym knows?”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “And how have you known this and not told me? All this time I have been searching for the Books, I have been speeding the children to their doom.”

  Gabriel could hear the anger in his voice and he didn’t care. The old woman looked at him, motionless, her dark eyes unreadable. She seemed to be letting Gabriel’s anger subside, like waiting for a wave to crash and return to the sea.

  “The Books must be found,” she said at last. “They must be found, and the children are the only ones who can do it.”

  “But why must they be found? Because the Dire Magnus also seeks them? That cannot be the only means of defeating him. If necessary, I will kill him and each and every one of his followers. I do not—”

  “No,” the old woman said. And suddenly there was nothing shambling or messy or indefinite about her. She was hard and precise. “The Dire Magnus has grown in power. For all your strength and heart, for all Pym’s knowledge, for all the will and power of all good people in our world, it is not enough. Only the Books can defeat him now. And the children alone can find them.”