Runelight Read online

  The Seer-folk had the power to build Worlds. Why should Adam not have it too? But Adam had no ruinmark, and Adam had no Book of Words, and even if he had, he knew that there was no particle of glam in him, and the words would lie useless on the page, however hard he tried to awaken them.

  The Voice in his head had told him this – the whispering Voice that had guided him out of Hel and back into the Middle Worlds; the Voice that had taught him so many skills, but which sometimes still ranted and railed at him, calling him useless, stupid and weak – a nonsense, as Adam had trained relentlessly these past three years, and his body was all muscle.

  At first Adam had wondered whose Voice it was that guided him. He had seen, three years ago, how the Nameless had come in Aspect out of a stone head carved with runes, and had fought the blind General of the Seer-folk, and killed him; after which it had tried to possess Maddy Smith, and had failed, and been lost in the river Dream. Adam also seemed to recall that the Nameless actually had a name: it was Mimir the Wise, or the Whisperer; an ancient being with a bitter grudge against the gods and the power to enter minds and control the actions and thoughts of the weak.

  But here Adam’s native caution had blunted the edge of his memory. The affairs of gods were no business of his, and all in all he was happy to stay in ignorance. He sensed that the less he remembered of the events of three years ago, the less likely he was to incur the rage of the passenger inside his mind.

  Besides, there were compensations. His unseen passenger had skills. Now Adam shared them too: he had knowledge and instincts he’d previously lacked. Emerging from World Below, he’d astonished himself by hunting for food – killing a deer with his bare hands and dressing the skin for later use, though these were skills he’d never learned.

  Later, he discovered that he could fight too – as a group of hill bandits learned, to their cost. Sword, bow and throwing knife – all seemed strangely familiar. He could also ride a horse and trap a fish, and find his way at night by the stars, all of which had ancient names – names he’d never known before.

  He was not strong at first, of course; but walking and exercise hardened him, and by the time he reached the Universal City, he was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than when he’d left Malbry at the age of fourteen. In fact, Aileen Scattergood’s spoiled, lazy son had grown into a fine-looking young man, skilled in all manner of combat, speaking four dialects, and more learned in the Good Book than the most senior of the Order’s Magisters.

  His name was no longer Scattergood, although he had kept the Adam part. Scattergood was a provincial name, fit for a rustic from the North. Instead he had taken the name of Goodwin, a trusty, dependable Lowlands name, and invented a plausible history to account for his presence in World’s End.

  Not that he would need it now, Adam Goodwin told himself. No, after weeks of searching the city he had found the prize he sought. Two prizes, in fact – and the Voice in his head seemed to caper and howl in glee, reinforcing Adam’s occasional (but always unspoken) fear that the thing in his mind was insane.

  ‘Adam?’ repeated Maggie. Her eyes were dark and expressive, and coloured grey-gold like mountain granite. Just like her sister’s, in fact, he thought, and a new surge of hatred blossomed within him, seeing the face of his enemy …

  Of course he hadn’t seen her – except in his dreams – for the past three years. But those eyes were unmistakable; and that mouth, with its hint of sullenness; the hair pulled back in a thick braid …

  Why don’t we just kill her now? Send the Seer-folk her head in a bag—?

  You fool, whispered the passenger. Just leave the thinking to me, will you? And try to be charming, for once in your life. This girl is extremely valuable.

  And so Adam swallowed his hatred and gave the girl his most winning smile. It was a little cold, perhaps; but all Maggie saw was his blue eyes and the firm line of his jaw and the fair hair that fell almost boyishly across his forehead …

  Good, said the passenger. Now tell her what I told you. And for gods’ sakes, be courteous. None of your village-boy ways in World’s End.

  So Adam put out his hand and said: ‘Adam Goodwin, at your service. Maggie Rede? I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘HOW DID YOU know my name?’ she said. ‘Are you a dream, a demon – a ghost?’

  There were ghosts in these catacombs, though until now Maggie had never encountered one. But the handsome young man with the piercing blue eyes had none of the look of the ghost about him.

  In fact, Maggie Rede had never seen anyone so vital. He glowed with health; his hair shone; he moved with the easy, effortless grace of one who is completely at ease with every muscle and nerve in his body. He was a stranger, and yet there was something about him that seemed oddly familiar. Had she seen him in one of the markets? The tavern?

  ‘A dream?’ said Adam. ‘Far from it. In fact, if anything, you’re the dream. The dream I’ve been following all my life.’

  It was a good line, he thought. The Voice gave him lots of good lines, and he had become quite adept at delivering them. Besides, he knew girls, and he guessed that this girl was no different to the rest of them. A few good lines, a kiss or two, and she would be his for the asking.

  But Maggie didn’t seem impressed. In fact, he thought she looked furious. For a moment she seemed to struggle to speak; then she turned away from him, drawing her scarf protectively close.

  ‘Whoever you are, you shouldn’t be here. You woke me. I was sleeping.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry to intrude,’ said Adam in a humble voice. ‘But now that I’m here, aren’t you even a little bit curious about what I’ve come to tell you?’

  ‘No,’ said Maggie. ‘You shouldn’t be here. It isn’t … right for you to be here.’

  Adam Scattergood clenched his fists. The girl was going to be troublesome. Of course, he should have expected as much – knowing who the girl was.

  He swallowed his impatience. ‘What isn’t right?’ he asked her.

  ‘You and me, alone like this. Here. Alone. Together.’

  Adam turned his face away, not wanting his expression to show. Clearly the girl was some kind of prude. He should have guessed she would be. The bergha she wore told him as much; and, of course, no respectable daughter of the Order would want to be alone at night – with a man – in such a place as this.

  ‘Trust me. I’ve no interest. All I want is to talk to you.’

  He thought she bridled a little at that, and grinned to himself in secret. There’s nothing like a show of indifference to get a girl’s attention. From the corner of his eye he watched as she fought curiosity, fiddling with the little gold key that hung from the cord around her neck.

  At last she seemed to relax a little.

  ‘What did you want to talk about? And how did you know I’d be down here?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘I know lots of things. Those dreams you’ve been having, for instance.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t dream.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Adam said.

  Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Adam. ‘I’ve dreamed of you. I’ve dreamed of you every night for years. And you’ve dreamed of me. You know you have. You really think you can lie to me?’

  Maggie felt all the breath in her body suddenly leave it, as if she had been punched in the stomach. Then she looked into Adam’s face directly for the first time, and knew why he’d seemed so familiar.

  This was the face she’d seen in her dreams – her dreams of Tribulation. The blue of his eyes. The line of his jaw. She felt a surge of panic. How could this man have come from her dreams? How could she have known his face?

  ‘You are a demon,’ Maggie said.

  Adam smiled. ‘Quite the opposite. I’m a demon-hunter. I know all about you, Maggie Rede. Daughter of Donal, niece of Elias, known within the Order as Examiner Number 4421974.’

  Maggie’s eyes widened still further. ‘No one knows the secret name
s,’ she said in a voice that trembled a little.

  ‘I know much more than that,’ Adam said. ‘I know what you’ve been doing here, Maggie, delving into forbidden books. I know what dreams they’ve given you.’

  Guiltily, Maggie raised her hand to the golden key that hung round her neck.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Adam said. ‘I’m not going to try to take it from you. But I know how you lost your family – your brothers when the Order fell, your parents to the plague that came after. I even know how your uncle died.’

  Maggie went pale. ‘The Bliss—’ she began.

  ‘There was no Bliss. That tale was concocted to hide the truth.’

  ‘The truth?’

  Adam sighed. ‘I know it’s hard. But the Bliss was just a Faërie-tale invented by the enemy. Those people – the Order, your family – they weren’t reborn to celestial Bliss. There was no Nameless waiting for them on the shores of the First World. The First World fell long ago, in the days of the Winter War. The Order was trying to build it again – when all this happened … this massacre – what your people call the Bliss.’

  Maggie stared at him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this. The Order was fighting Chaos. Bringing perfection to the Worlds. And when their task was finally done, then the Nameless called them home—’

  ‘Maggie,’ said Adam. ‘Open your eyes. Does this world look perfect to you?’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘Look at it,’ he went on. ‘Thousands of people dead with the plague. The Universal City reduced to a sink of corruption and vice. Foreign traders in every square, stinking up the place with their food, their animals, their heathen ways. Slaves being traded where libraries stood. Opium-dens and liquor-traders on the steps of the cathedral itself – Chaos where Order used to be. Is this what the Order was fighting for? Is this what you call perfection?’

  Slowly Maggie shook her head. Now that she came to think of it, the stories didn’t really make sense. Souls swept up to celestial Bliss; bodies left to rot on earth. And the plague – surely that had not been part of the plan …

  ‘But if you’re right,’ she said at last, ‘then what happened to the Order? How could ten thousand people die, all at once, in a heartbeat?’

  Now Adam smiled to himself. ‘That’s what I came here to tell you,’ he said. ‘That’s why my mission led me here. Your parents, your brothers, your uncle Elias – all the other Magisters and Professors and Examiners of the Order, all those good folk who gave up their lives to keep the Worlds clear of corruption and Chaos …’ Now the young man’s blue eyes gleamed, and his face was alight with a fervent glow. He turned once more to Maggie and gave her his most earnest look.

  And then he put his hand on hers, and Maggie felt a shiver of something pass through her body, a sudden surge of mysterious heat as he looked at her and whispered: ‘They didn’t die from the Bliss at all; Maggie, they were murdered.’

  ‘MURDERED?’ REPEATED MAGGIE Rede in what sounded to her like a stranger’s voice. She knew she ought to feel angry – shaken, distressed, grieving, shocked – at the news Adam had given her. But in truth, the overwhelming sensation she felt was simple relief – relief that she had been right; that the feelings she’d had over the past three years had turned out not to be simply a figment of her lonely imagination, but the shadow of a deeper truth; that the forces of which she had read so avidly were not only real, but more sinister than even she had been led to suspect – forces that could wipe out ten thousand people at a single stroke, forces that threatened the very Worlds.

  Maggie already knew their names. They were names she had seen again and again in the pages of the Good Book; names that filled her with unease and with a kind of fevered excitement. The Æsir. The Vanir. The Seer-folk. The Firefolk …

  ‘Have you seen them?’ she said at last. ‘The Firefolk – have you seen them?’

  Adam nodded. ‘Once,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Maggie, eyes gleaming.

  ‘If I do,’ he said, ‘there’ll be no going back. It’ll eat up your life, as it did mine. And the things you’ll know – the things you’ll see—’

  Suddenly the young man’s face changed: a shadow seemed to pass over it – his eyes darkened, his mouth twisted – and if Maggie had been of a whimsical nature, it might almost have seemed to her that another face had surfaced briefly beneath the young man’s features: that of an older, harsher man, with a smile of infinite malice and guile …

  But Maggie was too excited to be deterred by shadowplay.

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ she said.

  ‘All right,’ said Adam with a smile. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  And so Adam Goodwin told his tale. And as Maggie listened in silence, she began to be conscious of a most curious sensation. Not pleasure – though her face was flushed. Not anger – though her heart was beating faster than a hunting hawk’s wing. Instead, she felt unexpectedly alive; like something that enters a cocoon to emerge, months later, as something else.

  It didn’t matter any more that she’d never been close to her family; that she’d almost forgotten her brothers, who had joined the Order when she was a child. As for her uncle Elias, Maggie had never met him at all. Still, those things didn’t matter now. Grief; loneliness; sorrow; guilt – all that belonged to the past. Now there was only the certainty of what her enemies had done – and the equal conviction that they had to be stopped.

  ‘These Firefolk,’ Maggie said. ‘They won the war by a trick. A cheat.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Adam. ‘They’re devious. They have no Laws, no honour. They lured the Order into Hel and unleashed Pan-daemonium onto them without a thought for the consequences. And that’s why you see the Universal City as it is – overrun, in Chaos. But in the North it’s far, far worse. There are gateways there through which things can pass – not just in dreams, but in the flesh. Things from before Tribulation, released into the waking Worlds like flotsam from the river Dream.’

  Maggie’s eyes grew wide with alarm. ‘And is that what you do?’ she said. ‘Hunt down these things and send them back?’

  ‘I used to,’ said Adam. ‘But not any more.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Maggie.

  ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Somewhere light. This place reminds me too much of—’ Adam broke off. ‘Too much of the Seventh World,’ he finished in a low voice.

  It took Maggie some time to take that in.

  ‘You were there?’ she said. ‘You were actually there?’

  Adam nodded.

  ‘But how did you …?’

  ‘I wasn’t in the Order,’ he said. ‘I’d never received Communion. So when the Firefolk made their move, I alone was overlooked. I survived. I saw it all. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.’ He paused. ‘That’s why you have to trust me now. That’s why I need you to understand. With the Order gone, there’s no one left to continue the fight. No one but me – and you, Maggie.’

  He looked at her appealingly, and Maggie thought she had never seen anyone with eyes so blue. World’s Enders were most often dark – Maggie was almost Outlandish – but Adam was like the sun on the Sea, and Maggie was bedazzled.

  ‘Me?’ she said.

  Adam smiled.

  ‘But how can I—?’

  ‘Shh. You trust me, don’t you?’

  Maggie nodded. ‘I think so,’ she said.

  ‘Then do as I tell you.’ And Adam drew from his pocket a slim pearl-handled razor. ‘I need you to keep very still …’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to show you a mystery.’

  ‘You’re going to cut me?’ Maggie said.

  ‘Power demands a sacrifice. Believe me, this is worth it.’

  Maggie looked at the razor. The thought of being cut alarmed her a little; but blood, she knew, was a powerful thing. Perhaps this was some kind of initiation, she told herself; something like the prentice’s rite when he first entered the Order.
r />   ‘All right.’ She held out her hand.

  ‘No. Take off your headscarf.’

  ‘Why?’ said Maggie in surprise. Brought up in the ways of the Order, she had strict ideas of modesty. Even now that the Order was gone, to show her hair to a stranger – a man; a man who was not a relative – seemed almost indecently intimate.

  ‘Do I have to explain everything?’ said Adam, getting impatient. ‘Come on, Maggie, it’s only a scarf. You think I haven’t seen a girl’s hair before? Besides, where I come from, only married women cover their hair.’

  For a moment Maggie was pulled two ways. She wanted to do what Adam asked, but still it felt obscurely wrong. It wasn’t so much the bergha itself, but all that it had meant to her. To Maggie, wearing the bergha returned her to a more orderly time, a time when to be called modest was the greatest praise a girl could receive – that, and unimaginative, which was nearly as good as obedient. Maggie had tried to be all those things for as long as she could remember – and the urge to be obedient now, to do what Adam asked of her, was almost overwhelming. Adam had worked with the Order. That made him practically an Examiner. And the language he used – that of sacrifice, and power, and mysteries – was so close to that of the Order that to refuse him anything seemed so much worse than removing a scarf.

  The bergha was pinned around her head and shoulders in a style that had once been popular, and that some of the older women still followed. It took Maggie a moment or two to remove the pins that held it in place; beneath it, her long hair was braided.

  Adam nodded approvingly. ‘Keep very still,’ he told her.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Maggie said.

  ‘It won’t hurt a bit. I promise.’

  ‘But – this is going to help you, right? Help you fight the Firefolk?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Adam said. ‘This is going to hurt them bad.’

  Maggie obeyed and closed her eyes as he reached to unfasten her hair. Clearly it had never been cut. The Good Book frowned on short hair in girls, just as it did on long hair in boys. Each to his own, and each in their place, the Book of Laws instructed them, and although this rule had never been particularly enforced in Malbry, World’s End was closer to the Order, and therefore more likely to insist on such things.