Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell book Two

Javier looked up from his contemplation of the hearth and scowled at the bright wing feather in Kiram's hand.

"It came with a package from Scholar Blasio." Kiram felt suddenly afraid to read the letter. Today had already been so hard.

"Odd." Javier studied the feather with a suspicion that mirrored Kiram's own. The firelight cast deep shadows across the angles of his face and made black hollows of his dark eyes.

He didn't need more to worry about. Neither of them did.

"It's not that odd," Nestor said. "There had to be thousands of those birds in the orchards surrounding the academy. Remember? Kiram shot something like sixty of them for our meals in the winter."

"Sixty-eight," Kiram provided. He snapped the feather in half and let it fall, broken, to the floor.

Javier simply nodded and returned his attention to his half- packed saddlebags, which slumped at his feet like a sleeping dog. Out in the hall Kiram heard Morisio and Atreau arguing good humouredly over which liquor they should pack for their impending ride back to the academy.

"Sixty-eight is a lot when you really think about it." Nestor toyed with one of Kiram's arrows and then sighed. "I'm sorry you and the rest of the Hellions are riding back to school at the end of the week." He replaced Kiram's arrow carefully. "I was going to feel left out but then I realized that I'll be on my honeymoon, so it will be all of you feeling left out."

Javier snorted.

"You'll certainly be sleeping more comfortably than we will be," Kiram agreed.

"No sweets or anything in there?" Nestor asked as he peered into the trunk. The assortment of knives inspired a low whistle.

"No, just my brother's old stuff"."

"Can this wait till tomorrow?" Nestor asked. He gave Kiram an anxious look. "It's just the party is about to start and I bragged quite a bit about you. How you can divide almost any number and count cards and all the Haldiim dances you could teach us."

"There's a party?" Kiram supposed that if he hadn't been so distracted and tired he would have known as much from all the noise floating up from downstairs.

"It's the last night I'll be a bachelor," Nestor replied. "There has to be a party!"

"I thought that was last night."

"No, last night was to introduce Riossa to Anacleto society. That was all formal dancing and very serious. Tonight will be charades and party tricks!" Nestor grinned in delight. "We've hired jugglers and acrobats even a troupe of Haldiim musicians."

"Certainly beats brooding in my room all night." Javier pushed himself up from his seat and started for the door. Nestor bounded after him.

Kiram set Scholar Blasio's letter and the two journals aside. They could wait a couple of hours, he supposed.

But he soon discovered that he'd underestimated how very entertaining and deeply relieving a night of wild games, informal dancing, and wine could prove to be. He laughed and threw dice and taught some fifty drunk Cadeleonians the red hands dance. Well past midnight he and Javier stumbled up to their shared room. They lay curled together and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning the sunlight felt bruising against Kiram's eyes and every sound jarred through his head and heaved his stomach. For all the advice his brother and Rafie had offered about surviving his new life, neither of them had mentioned anything about Cadeleonian drinking games. His mouth tasted like old socks and a vague image of Nestor running naked through the gardens lingered in his hazy memory.

Kiram chose to forgo breakfast in favor of a few more hours of sleep, but only a few minutes after Javier left the room a restless unease overcame him. A weird anxiety gnawed at him every time he closed his eyes. As much as he wanted to sleep he knew Scholar Blasio's letter awaited. He clenched his eyes shut and attempted to will himself to sleep as if it were a matter of pure concentration.

The noise of conversation and laughter, barking, and the clattering dishes rose from the floor below. The more Kiram attempted to ignore the sounds, the more jarring they seemed to become. At last Kiram simply threw off his blankets and got up.

He washed, dressed in the traveling clothes that Majdi had packed for him, and picked up Scholar Blasio's letter. His eyes didn't want to focus on the fine script.

The deafening clang of the Grunito chapel bells broke Kiram's concentration entirely. It resounded through his aching head. As the bells continued to sound Kiram realized that they were some cruel announcement of the coming nuptials and more than likely would not cease until the ceremony had begun.

Kiram was almost certain he would be dead before then, because his head seemed about to explode. Either he or the hateful bells had to go. Kiram gathered the journals and the coin purse Majdi had given him and slunk out of the Grunito house using the back stairs.

He walked a ways along the city streets to get clear of the damned ringing bells and at last found a public house among the row of inns that surrounded the vast city stables. As travelers and soldiers came and went, a kindly-looking Cadeleonian woman seated Kiram near an airy window and served him hot Cadeleo- nian malt porridge and some kind of warm milky drink.

Kiram opened Scholar Blasio's letter as he sipped his drink and read through the cursory greeting and brief news of the academy. Not surprisingly, Blasio wrote most extensively of Donamillo's illness and his attempts to care for his brother. Blasio's neat handwriting deteriorated as he described searching through Donamillo's medical texts and journals for anything that might wake his brother from the wasting stupor that had seized him.

Kiram's heart went out to both brothers. Then he turned the page and found only a short, agitated scrawl.

Dear boy, in my search I fear I have discovered something terrible. I pray I am wrong but if I am not then I hope that I have not waited too long to write to you. I do not know what to do but you might. Please read the pages I have marked in both my brother's journal and the one belonging to Yassin Lif-Harun. I pray with all my heart that I am not too late and that you know some way to make this right.

– Blasio

Kiram considered the journals, choosing Yassin's first. As he ate his head cleared and his stomach settled but his anxiety grew.

Among Yassin's many observations of the heavens and his notes about how closely they matched the Bahiim legends were a growing number of references to spells and curses. It soon became clear to Kiram that, as the Mirogoth army had approached, Yassin and Calixto had not only considered opening a shajdi to drive back the invaders but also unleashing a shadow curse by carving away the wards in the trees that held the Old Rage in check.

Kiram stared at the yellowed page of curling Haldiim script in front of him. It was all right there: a step by step guide to creating a shadow curse. Yet even as Yassin wrote the steps out it was clear from his notes that he despised the idea of using such a tactic.

Can there be any more monstrous act than to deprive those tortured souls of their rest and inflict their agony upon the living world?

Apart from his moral hesitance, Yassin noted that he couldn't think of a way to control the shadow curse once it was created.

Directly after that, Yassin's journal turned to the subject of the shajdi. Over the course of seven pages Kiram found the basic instructions for creating a ghost locket.

As he studied the rough diagrams and notes he recognized the Bahiim incantations that had marked the locket Javier had worn. But with Scholar Donamillo in his thoughts he suddenly realized that he'd seen the same symbols etched across the huge iron ribs of one of Scholar Donamillo's mechanical cures.

A rush of dread went through Kiram.