Joanne Harris - Runemarks

By this time they had reached the upper levels, and Maddy could see increasing signs of goblin activity. Their colors gleamed across her path; their footprints scuffed the red earth floor. When she found she could hear them too, she stopped.

This was the most dangerous part. From here on, there would be no place to hide. The long climb to the upper level would leave her visible on the rock stairway for a dangerous length of time. But she knew no other way out: all other paths led into the warren of storage and treasure rooms that honeycombed the Hill, and below there was the river, a crashing darkness in which lay no hope.

“What have we stopped for?” demanded the Whisperer.

“Quiet,” said Maddy. “I’m thinking.”

“Lost, are you? I should have known.”

“I’m not lost,” said Maddy, annoyed. “It’s just that-”

“Told you you should have killed him,” it said. “If I were him, I’d get back before us, set up an ambush, have posses of goblins at every corner, and-”

“Well, what do you suggest?” she snapped.

“I suggest you should have killed him.”

“That’s a lot of use,” she said. “I thought you were an oracle. Aren’t you supposed to know the future or something?”

The Whisperer glowed in open contempt. “Listen to me, girl. Gods have paid-and dearly-for my prophecy. The General gave me his eye, you know; but that was a long time ago, and he got a bargain. As for you-”

“I’m not giving you an eye,” said Maddy at once.

“Gods alive, girl. What would I want with that?”

“Then what is it you do want?”

The Whisperer glowed brighter still. “Listen,” it said. “I like you, girl. I like you and I want to help. But you’ll have to listen to me now. Listen and take notice. Your old friend One-Eye has systematically lied to you to bring you to this point. Over the past seven years he has fed you a careful diet of half-truths and deceptions, all the more heinous for what you are-”

“What d’you mean, what I am?”

The Whisperer glowed brighter than ever, and now Maddy could see sparks of runelight trapped like fireflies within the volcanic glass. They danced, beguiling, and Maddy’s head began to feel pleasantly befuddled, as if she had drunk warm spiced ale. It was a charm, she told herself, and she shook aside the pleasant feeling and pronged ýr with her fingers at the Whisperer, which continued to glow-in smugness, she thought-as if it had made some rather clever point.

“Stop that,” she said.

“Merely a demonstration,” said the Whisperer. “I speak as I must and cannot be silent. That rune of yours is strong, you know. I predicted such runes before Ragnarók. I imagine that’s why One-Eye sent you. Didn’t want to risk his own skin.”

For a moment Maddy said nothing. She was cautious of the Whisperer, and yet it confirmed some of what Loki had said. Loki, of course, was not to be trusted, but the Oracle…

Could an oracle lie? she wondered.

“He means to start a war,” it said. “A second Tribulation, to wipe out the Order once and for all. Thousands will die at a single word.”

“Is this a prophecy?” Maddy said.

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent.”

“What does that mean?”

“I speak as I must-”

“All right, all right. What else do you see?” Now Maddy’s heart was beating fast; behind the Whisperer’s rocky face, lights and colors danced and spun.

“I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.”

“Couldn’t you be a little less vague?”

“I speak as I must and cannot be silent. The dead will awake from the halls of Hel. And the Nameless shall rise and Nine Worlds be lost, unless the Seven Sleepers wake and the Thunderer be freed from Netherworld…”

“Go on!” said Maddy.

But the Whisperer’s colors had suddenly dimmed, and it almost looked like a rock again. And now Maddy was conscious of something nearby: a furtive movement in the shadows, a tiny crunch of pebbles on the floor. She spoke a sharp cantrip-

Nyd byth nearu

– locked her hands together to form the runeshape Naudr, then reached into the gloom and dragged out a diminutive figure, furry-eared and golden-eyed and covered in mail from head to foot.

“You again!” she said incredulously.

Sugar’s curiosity had finally got the better of him.

“Kill it,” said the Whisperer.

Maddy was looking down at the dazed goblin. “Spying, were you?”

“Kill it,” repeated the Whisperer. “Don’t let it get away.”

“I won’t,” said Maddy. “Will you stop asking me to kill people? I know this goblin,” she went on. “He’s the one who guided me.”

The Whisperer made a sound of exasperation. “What does it matter? Do you want it to report us?”

Sugar was squinting cautiously at Maddy. “Report what?” he said. “I don’t know nowt, and I don’t want to know. In fact,” he went on in sudden inspiration, “I think I’ve lost me memory-can’t recall a thing, kennet. So there’s no call for you to be worrit about what I’ve heard-you can be on yer way and I’ll just lie here quietly-”

“Oh, please,” said the Whisperer. “It heard everything.”

Sugar assumed an expression of hurt astonishment.

“I know,” said Maddy.

“Well, then? We have no choice. The minute it gets the chance, it will report to its master. Why don’t you just kill it, there’s a good girl, and-”

“Be quiet,” said Maddy. “I’m not killing anyone.”

“Spoken like a lady, miss,” said Sugar with relief. “You don’t want to listen to that narsty thing. You just get on back nice and safe to the Horse’s Eye. No need to be staying here any longer than you have to, kennet?”

“Shut up, Sugar. You’re going to lead us back to World Above.”

“What?” snapped the Whisperer.

“Well, obviously we can’t leave him here, and we need to find a safe way out of the Hill. So I thought-”

“Were you listening to anything I just said?”

“Well…,” said Maddy.

“I happen to have just made a major prophecy,” said the Whisperer. “Have you any idea how privileged you are? Four hundred years in that blasted fire pit, with Dogstar at me every day, and I never gave him so much as a syllable.”

“But aren’t you supposed to be telling One-Eye all this?”

The Whisperer made a sound very like a snort. “Look what happened last time,” it said. “The idiot got himself killed.”

It was just then that they heard the sound. A distant pounding directly overhead, too regular to be accidental, which sent shock waves through the hollow Hill that made the rock walls tremble.

Boom-boom-boom.

Boom-boom-boom.

“What’s that?” said Maddy.

“Trouble,” said the Whisperer.

To Maddy it sounded like cannon fire; to Sugar, like the Tunnel Folk at work. Some kind of mining or digging, perhaps, and now they could hear the sound of falling grit as it filtered down onto the stairway from the ceiling far above.

“What is it, Sugar?”

Sugar gave one of his whole-body shrugs. “Sounds to me like the Horse’s Eye,” he said. “P’raps it’s your lot at it again. Bin a lot of bloody noise among the Folk recently.”

Maddy wondered how long she had spent underground. A day? Two days? “But we have to get out. Can’t we bypass Red Horse Hill?”

“You can, miss, but it’s a long way round, nearly as far as the Sleepers, and-”

“Good. It’ll be safe, then.”

Safe? thought Sugar. Safe? The idea of safety and Sleepers in the same sentence-even in the same paragraph-made him want to whimper. But there was no denying the hammering sound, and now his sharp ears could make out other sounds too: the sounds of heavy horses, wheels, and the occasional clap of metal against metal…