David Farland - The Lair of Bones

“It wasn’t a dream,” Erin said hotly. “It was a sending, a true sending.” For an instant Anders got a pained expression. Behind him, Captain Gantrell rolled his eyes. “Raj Ahten’s sorcerers summoned the Darkling Glory in Mystarria,” Erin explained, “at a town called Twynhaven. They burned the whole of it, using the folks there as human sacrifices to bring about their dark magic. They opened a door to the netherworld, and let the creature through. On our way back from Carris, Celinor and I stopped at the town. We found fiery runes among the ash, still glowing as they snaked across the ground in a large circle. The door to the netherworld still looked as if it was open. So I tossed my dirk down into the runes. It fell through the fire, and disappeared. It never touched the ground. We knew then that the door was still open.”

At this the men around Erin fell silent. They might laugh at her dream if it was only a dream, but each of them had heard of sendings, and as she explained the circumstances that led to her strange visitations, they began to look more apprehensive than amused.

“Later that night,” Erin said, “I dreamt of an owl in the netherworld that held my dagger in its beak. He was the one who sent me the warning.”

The Nut Woman spoke up. “It was a true sending, or I’m no wizard! I feel it in my bones. But take my word, it was no owl that spoke to you. It was a Bright One, or even a Glory. Much that is seen even in a true sending takes on the nature of a dream.”

Erin drew a breath in surprise. Could it be that a Bright One or a Glory spoke to her? These were creatures of legend. They had helped great folk like Erden Geboren. But she couldn’t imagine that one would help her.

“Why would he appear to her as an owl?” Celinor asked.

“Because something about him is like Ael, the wise lord of the nether world,” the Nut Woman said. “Perhaps it’s his name, or maybe the owl is a favored pet. But mark my words, we should heed this warning!”

There was a long moment of silence. Erin looked about. She was surrounded by men wearing the crow of South Crowthen, and a thought struck her. King Anders wore the symbol of a crow, and owls hate crows. They’ll kill them if they can, and a murder of crows will surround an owl in its tree at dawn and spend the day tormenting it, until they bring it down.

Is this why the messenger appears to me as an owl? Erin wondered.

King Anders said, “All right, let us imagine that it is a true sending. Why would you think that this...locus you called it?...why would you fear that it might come to me?”

“When Myrrima slew the Darkling Glory at Castle Sylvarresta,” Erin said, “an elemental rose from it, a great howling tornado. It went east. Binnesman said that it was capable of great evil still.”

“It could have come as far as Crowthen,” King Anders said with worry in his brow, “though many leagues lie between Castle Sylvarresta and my realm. And there are several cities between us—Castles Donyeis, and Emmit, and even the fortress at Red Rock. If what you say is true, this creature could be anywhere, inside anyone. It could inhabit a knight, a merchant, a washwoman. There are tens of thousands of people in those cities.”

But Erin suspected that it would not be content to merely occupy a washwoman. It had been a Darkling Glory, a lord of the netherworld. And a creature like that, bent on evil, would seek power. It wasn’t just the direction that the elemental traveled. There was the matter of the far-seer that fell from Anders’s watchtower, and the fact that he roused allies to fight Gaborn.

King Anders sat for a long moment, as if in deep thought. Finally, he sighed and addressed one of his men. “Sir Banners, take three men into Heredon, to the eastern provinces, and search the cities. See if you can find any sign of this locus—any murders that have been committed, any robberies.” Anders fell silent for a moment and bit his lip as he thought. “Perhaps I should go myself. I could use my gift to look into the hearts of men, and rout this creature out. It wouldn’t be able to hide from me, or Gaborn.”

“That is, if it’s in Heredon still,” Celinor said. “It could be in Crowthen. Or maybe it passed us all by completely, and went off to the east somewhere.”

King Anders nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. I could waste months looking for it. Besides, I have more pressing business to attend. I feel it in my bones. Our quest lies to the south, in Mystarria.”

So Banners took his men north, and King Anders rode south. Erin dared speak no more of her concerns, and time after time she considered how King Anders had responded to her news of the sendings. He had been quiet and gentle in his expression, but she had seen how he huffed when he spoke, as if he struggled to control his response.

She watched him throughout the day, and noted that most of the time he wore a beneficent smile. Often he would chuckle for little reason—when the sun came out from behind a cloud, or when a squirrel leapt from the Nut Woman’s horse onto his own. But he did not giggle maniacally as the wind-driven wizard from Inkarra had.

What had the owl told her—that the Asgaroth was the subtlest of all the loci?

Certainly a subtle creature would not declare itself. It would stay hidden, wreak its damage from a concealed position.

Yet something that King Anders had said bothered Erin. A locus could be anywhere, inside anyone. It could be hiding in Gantrell, or even in Celinor for all that Erin knew.

Erin wanted to know more. She wanted to question the owl of the netherworld.

She’d been fighting sleep for two days, and so in the afternoon, as the sun dropped toward nightfall, during one of the group’s many stops to let the horses rest, Erin went alone to an old hickory tree by the road and leaned with her back against it.

Despite the noise and commotion around her, she soon fell asleep. She woke in the netherworld.

It was night, and Erin found herself inside the hollow of the vast tree. Lightning was flashing outside, thunder snarled through the heavens and a storm howled through the branches of the tree, shaking the limbs so that they creaked beneath the blow, and the leaves hissed and rattled.

She could hear cries in the wind, too. Wolflike howls and the blood-curdling screams of Darkling Glories. This was no natural storm blowing outside, she felt sure.

Erin peered about in the darkness, seeking for sign of the owl. By flashes of lightning, she made out the now familiar knots and roots that could be seen in the hollow of the tree. The bones of deer and small animals lay in a pile beneath the owl’s roost, and in a far corner were steps leading down between some forked roots into a deeper chamber. Above the entry, a woman’s face had been carved into the roots, and her hair seemed to cascade down around the tunnel’s opening.

She climbed up some steps and peered outside. The limbs of the vast tree swayed, and their shadow blotted out the sky overhead. But lit by flashes of lightning, Erin could see the batlike shapes of Darkling Glories sweeping across the sky in a vast flock.

Her heart began pounding. She slipped back from the opening. She stumbled down the stairs and raced deeper into the burrow, past the face of the carved woman that was sometimes lit by lightning, deeper into the hole where no light could find her at all. The journey took her down stairs that wound deep underground. At last she reached a landing where the echo of her breathing told her that she had entered a vast stone chamber. She could see nothing.

In total darkness, she halted.

Where is the owl? she wondered.

Owl, are you here? Erin shouted wordlessly. I need your help!

She called thus for long minutes, but there was no answer.