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CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE HARRIED SCRIBE

D enying. Every part of me was caught up, denying.

“This can’t…” My voice carried up, and the glass ceiling threw it back. This can’t , my echo mocked. This can’t…

The old man peered at me through stone eyes. His hands were thin, with bulbous joints, the undersides of his fingernails ink-stained. He had no hair upon his head or face. No color in his sunken cheeks.

He said nothing, slowly running a finger through his inkpot as he stared at me.

“Don’t be an ass.” Maude elbowed the king. “Tell her who he is.”

King Castor gave a shaky laugh. “I should think it rather obvious.”

When I looked over my shoulder at Rory, none of my shock was painted upon his face. “What kind of cruel trick is this?”

“It’s not a trick, Diviner.”

The old man watched. “I see,” he rasped. “You mean to rip the veil from her eyes. So to speak.”

I had the brimming compulsion to scream. “Who are you?”

On and on, the man’s finger stirred clockwise circles in the black ink of his inkwell. “Traum’s historian. Its knowledge. Its greatest craftsman.”

He came toward me with pounding steps, as if he weighed a great deal, and the echoes traveled far and near. “For nothing but ink and the persuasive quill can devise what is true.”

A chill set its claws in me. I could see his pores—the lines of his face. Save his eerie stone eyes he looked so… mortal. “Those are the words of the Harried Scribe. An Omen. A god .” I stared at his inkwell. “But you—you’re just a man.”

He blinked once, twice, then, far quicker than a man his age had any right to be, he flung the ink from his inkwell.

And vanished.

The ink came at me in a black glob. I winced, waiting for it to splash upon my face. It didn’t. There was a ripple in the daylight, and then the ink was gone, replaced by the man who’d thrown it. He’d traveled nigh twenty paces on that tide of ink, invisible until he was but a whit from my face.

“Are these the eyes of a mortal—the inkwell of a mere man ?” His breath smelled of limestone rubbed too hard or too long. Rotten. “I am Traum’s Scribe. I’ve walked the cobbled streets of the Seacht for over two centuries, bearing magic . My ink never dries, a tool—a weapon. I can travel without being seen, lay waste to ravenous sprites. My writings have inspired reason, invention. My inkwell is a portent of things good or bad, but I have ever been an idol of knowledge. A symbol of truth . What is a god, if not that?”

I was shaking.

Rory’s hand found my elbow, a warm stanchion to keep me sound—

“Don’t touch me.”

I jerked away, carrying myself away to the nearest tower of shelves, fighting the rabid urge to be sick.

“And you—” The man, the Harried Scribe , turned his stone gaze to the others. “It’s been a long while since someone has stumbled upon my dwelling.”

King Castor cleared his throat. “It was I who discovered you, Scribe. Last night, in the market square. I placed a rather potent gift upon your altar. When you came to retrieve it, my knight and I followed you hence.”

The Scribe’s nostrils flared. “And you are?”

“I—yes, I can see why you might not know, given that I am new and not wearing my armor—” King Castor labored to swallow. “I am the king.”

The Scribe barked out a laugh. “Truly? Your ilk gets younger with time.” He looked fondly upon his inkwell. “Which is why my ilk remain ever at the helm.”

King Castor turned as red as a pomegranate.

“There are benefits to youth,” Rory snapped. “The mettle to break from tradition, for one.”

That seemed to hearten the king. He drew in a wavering breath. “We have come to challenge you at your craft and claim your inkwell, Harried Scribe. I, Benedict Castor the Third, am taking up the mantle.”

My gasp was a ghost, floating through the room. Claim your inkwell.

I looked to the Harried Scribe, expecting wrath. But he was still, standing in the middle of his great room, fixed in the light of the dome, surrounded by his books. He looked so untouchable, so solemn and imperious that for a moment I wondered if I’d been wrong. Perhaps he was more than just a man with strange eyes and a magic inkwell. Perhaps he was divine, an Omen—a true god.

Which would make what Rory and Maude and King Castor were doing sacrilege. Cold. Hard. Blasphemy.

“Take up the mantle, you say.” Stone of eye, stiff and wan of face, the Harried Scribe exhibited no emotion. But there was an air of menace about him when his attention fixed upon the king. “And when you fail to defeat me at my craft?”

Maude moved to stand closer to King Castor. “Then we will be at your mercy.”

The Scribe bared his teeth. I wished he hadn’t. They were gray and cracking, like he’d pressed his jaw down with too brutal a strength. “Then I accept.”

He flung his ink. Disappeared. When he was corporeal again, he stood directly in front of me. Hard hands found my waist. More ink was flung, and a terrible weightlessness touched my body. I went invisible and was lifted off my feet—flung upward.

I landed in the Harried Scribe’s clutches upon one of his shelves, fifty feet above the floor.

Below, the others were shouting.

“Fear not, my dear.” The Scribe brushed my hair out of my face as I grasped for something besides him to cling to. “I shall protect you against these disbelievers.” He reached for a book—began to thrum through its pages. “This has happened before, of course. Heretics have found me. Tried to take what is mine, tried to steal my inkwell—my power. They never do, and it always ends the same way.” He grinned at me, revealing those awful teeth. “In blood.”

Oh gods. It was a mistake looking down. My stomach was in my throat. “What is taking up the mantle?”

“Thievery. Dissent.” He closed the book he was reading and flung it, its responding thud against the stone floor echoing through the room. “A king’s quest to claim all five stone objects and take the power of the Omens for himself. But to succeed—” He pulled another book, then flung it as well. “My craft is knowledge, and they must beat me by it. Which, of course, they will not.”

He leaned over. Called down to the others. “There will be three questions. You must answer at least one correctly, then you must ask me a question that I cannot answer—”

Rory’s expert profanity drowned him out. “Bring her down, you fucking cur, or I will—”

Maude gripped him by the arm and said something I could not hear, silencing him.

The shelf creaked beneath my shifting weight. Sweat pooled in my palms. “I want to get down,” I told the Scribe.

“Shhh.” He sniffed the air, then drew closer. “I won’t let you fall.”

He put a cold finger under my chin and lifted it, baring my throat to him. He sniffed that, too. “Strange, that Aisling has sent you to me in this fashion. I’ve never felt a Diviner’s pulse before. Even stranger, that you come under the wing of a heretic.”

Once, back at the cathedral, a merchant had tried to pull One’s shroud off. He’d scratched her cheek. A moment later he was on his face, motionless, bleeding into the gravel. A gargoyle had hit him so hard in the head his skull had cracked. At the time I’d been reassured that such volatile, terrifying beasts were looking out for the Diviners. It was only after that I became unsettled. Volatile, terrifying beasts were, after all, difficult to read—impossible to predict.

I knew the machinations of the Harried Scribe’s inkwell, knew how to read his portents. And yet sitting on a shelf with him, so far above the ground… I was at the hands of something volatile, terrifying. Wholly unpredictable.

“I haven’t been sent,” I managed. “I’ve come because of my Diviners—”

“We await your questions, Scribe,” Maude called from below.

The Scribe forgot me, dropping my chin to look down upon the others. “Since you are a king, and these, I suspect, your appointed knights, I will transpose my questions into that which you can understand. Love, faith, and war—the virtues of knighthood.”

Rory rolled his eyes.

“Let us begin with a question of love.” The Omen flung his ink and vanished, reappearing on a shelf below me and pulling free a leather-bound book. “What, according to the Seacht’s poet laureate, Ingle Taliesin, does a king gift his bride upon their wedding night?”

I could tell by the tight lines of Maude’s, Rory’s, and the king’s mouths that none of them knew the answer. After a moment’s deliberation, King Castor said, “A dower share of his land and wealth.”

The Harried Scribe grinned, cleared his throat, and began to read.

How keen the young king to take up his bride, how noble and steadfast is he.

With wine, with brine, the vows are all said, his heart hence taken by she.

But, pray, what gift should he tend his new queen—what token could ever compare?

No silk is so soft as the touch of her skin, no portrait, no jewel, so fair.

Perhaps a song, composed in her name, or maybe an altar, a shrine.

Or even the moon, brought down from above—

Nay. His cock will do fine.

The Scribe let out a raucous laugh. I stared at him, dumbfounded. “That’s horrendous.”

Below, Maude was rubbing her brow. “Poet laureate my ass.”

“Never trust anything written in rhyme,” Rory muttered.

“Not well-read, I see.” The Harried Scribed composed himself. “I find courtly love rather banal. But a laugh from the belly is a welcome occasion.” He snapped the book shut, vanished, then reappeared on the shelf next to me, making it shake. “Onto faith, then.”

This question required no book. The Harried Scribe leaned forward, perched like a gargoyle upon his shelf. His rasp dripped with mirth. “What was the name of the first Diviner? The foundling child who came to the tor and named the Omens?”

The trio beneath me balked. “The abbess does not speak it in her Divination story,” Maude called. “It’s never been spoken.”

The Scribe toyed with the sleeve of my cloak. “Is that your answer? That the first Diviner was without a name?”

Another biting moment, then King Castor said, “It is.”

“Pity. Once more, you are incorrect.”

King Castor and Maude were unmoving and Rory the opposite, slouched, boot tapping, hand fidgeting incessantly in his pocket.

Only one question remained.

“What was it?” I whispered. “The child’s name?”

“All that matters is that I know it and they did not know it.” The Omen rolled his jaw, his shoulders, joints cracking, pointing to his shelves. “Knowledge is mine to bear, and theirs to beg. Even if they manage to get the next one right”—his lips peeled back in a grotesque smile—“they are condemned.”

I looked down at the others and felt as though I was dreaming—prickling, sweating, afraid. “Please. You must be aware that Diviners have gone missing from the tor. I’ve left Aisling in search of them—”

The Scribe threw his ink before I could finish and vanished, then appeared on a shelf across the room. “My final inquiry,” he called down to the king and Rory and Maude, “is a riddle of war.”

“Another lovely poem, I hope,” Rory deadpanned.

“The Seacht keeps its books, but also its forges, its armories and arsenals. This composition, I penned myself.” The Scribe held out a leaflet. I was afforded the barest glimpse of its cover.

A moth.

Once more, the Omen cleared his throat and read.

Not hefty in weight or long in the arm, it’s thin as a reed in the ground.

Kept sharp or kept dull, however you’re fond, its customs and merits abound.

So, too, is it stocky—a blunt heavy head, with sturdy wood handle to grasp.

With bodily might, it swings and it splits, with one fist or two to hold clasp.

In battle or field or wherever you stray, keep fixed in slack loops on your belt.

For breaking and beating, passion or labor, there ne’er was a blow thusly dealt.

The Scribe’s stone eyes lowered. “Well, king? What weapon does this poet describe?”

The king, Rory, and Maude all wore the same heavy brow, as if burdened by their own contemplation. But I—I was back on the tor, back to my chores, back to the stone wall. I’d spent days feeling ignorant and unworldly and helpless, a victim of my own occupation and the cathedral’s tight fist.

How fitting that the answer to the Harried Scribe’s riddle should be that which I took from Aisling itself.

My posture went rigid, and Rory’s gaze shot up. He studied me a long moment, as if unfurling the riddle of me and not the one the Harried Scribe had posed. His lips pulled back in a smile and then he was leaning over, whispering in King Castor’s ear.

The king let out a fraught sound of relief, then straightened himself. “It’s not a singular weapon,” he said to the Scribe. “It’s two. A hammer, and a chisel.”

The Omen went still, and so did the sound in his cavernous room. He vanished—appearing once more on the shelf next to me. This time when he dipped his finger into his inkwell, he stirred it counterclockwise. “What would you ask me then, king of Traum?” he challenged. “To beat me at my craft?”

King Castor stepped closer to Rory and Maude. “Allow us a moment to confer.”

“Never say I am not a generous god.” The Harried Scribe watched them, drawing near to me—petting my head like I was a dog. “Do not worry,” he murmured. “They will not ask a question I have not already penned the answer to. Only ink and the persuasive pen—”

“If you know all,” I said, trying again, “you must tell me what has happened to my lost Diviners.”

The Scribe pulled away. I felt a sharp sting, several strands of my pale hair caught in the cracks of his aged hand. He brought them to his nose. Inhaled. “ Your Diviners?” His mouth opened, a wide, black hole, and then he was tossing my hair into his mouth. Groaning in ugly ecstasy. “You belong to Aisling. To the Omens. That’s what I know, and what I know is ever the truth.”

Below, Rory and Maude and the king were looking up once more, eyes darting between me and the Harried Scribe. “Speaking of Diviners,” Rory called. He said it idly, but the line of his shoulders was drawn tight as a bowstring. “Tell me, Scribe—do you favor them? Aisling’s holy dreamers? The hard-laboring harbingers of the Omens?”

The Scribe spat dark phlegm at the king. “I favor my Diviners more than you your gods, heretic.”

The phlegm fell, missing King Castor and landing on Rory’s boots. He glowered at his feet. “Will everyone kindly leave my fucking boots alone—”

“Our question is rather simple, Omen,” King Castor said in a rush. “Since you claim divinity—the god of all knowledge—tell us.” He nodded at me. “What’s her name?”

The Harried Scribe’s teeth groaned as he bit down. When he turned to look at me, his eyes bore a lifelessness not even the stones at Aisling’s wall, with their lichen and weather-worn flaws, possessed. “She is a daughter of Aisling. She has no name.”

Sybil came the faintest whisper deep within me. “Everyone has a name,” I murmured. “Even foundlings.” Then, with sudden, biting clarity, “If you were truly a god, you would know it.”

They knew then that they’d beaten him. Rory, Maude, and the king were grinning, standing tall, looking more fearsome and valiant than I’d ever seen them. They’d challenged the Harried Scribe to his own craft—his own knowledge—and won .

The Scribe knew it, too. I could see it, even in the emptiness of his stone eyes, the moment he realized that his magic inkwell was forfeit. The Omen dipped his gnarled finger into his inkwell, stirring it counterclockwise with a sudden fury. Then, with the same revulsion I’d seen the scribe at the bridge display when he’d attacked the sprite, he turned his inkwell over, upending its ink onto Rory and Maude and the king.

This time, the ink was not transportive.

It was a weapon.

It landed on the arm of Maude’s cloak. She let out a sharp noise and shoved King Castor and Rory back. The ink on her sleeve turned a molten red, burning like coal through the wool. Maude flung her cloak off, but the unmistakable smell of burnt fabric—and burnt flesh—lingered in the air.

The Harried Scribe laughed, and then he vanished, appearing on a shelf across the room—throwing ink once more.

“What are you doing?” I cried.

The Omen did not answer but to bark at me. “Stay as you are, Diviner.”

It was terrifying, watching him vanish and reappear—invariable in his movements and the flinging of his ink. Smells of burnt paper or wool and even hair filled the room; Rory and Maude and the king were fast on their feet—eyes up and weapons drawn—but Maude’s axe and the king’s sword were nothing to the ink. They were struck, burned, several times.

But they did not flee.

Maude’s voice ripped through the room. “You are defeated at your craft! Where is your honor?”

“You’re hurting them!” I screamed, watching as spots of ink burned King Castor’s hand. The boy-king winced, dodging the rest of the ink, swiping at the Harried Scribe with his sword and hitting nothing but air.

The same terror I felt dreaming, the keen sense of entrapment, was upon me. I wanted to fall into darkness and find myself somewhere else—to wake the fuck up. Only this wasn’t a dream. If I shattered my body falling, there was no waking up whole. One wrong move and I would plummet, thudding upon the floor like one of the Scribe’s books.

I began to climb down from the shelves. Closer, closer to the ground I got, until I was but ten hands from the floor.

A cold hand caught my arm. I looked into stone eyes.

The Harried Scribe bared his teeth. “I told you to stay—”

It wasn’t a conscious effort, what I did next. More like instinct, like muscle memory—the will to live. Strong and exact, my palm collided with the Omen’s inkwell, knocking it from his grasp. He let out a wretched sound, swiping at air, but the inkwell was already falling. It fell and fell until it clattered upon the stone floor, ink spilling like a great black wound.

The Harried Scribe’s hand, now empty, began to shake. He turned it on me, striking my face, his blow so vicious my lip split. I lost my grip upon the shelf. And then, just like his inkwell—

I fell.

My back slapped against stone as I hit the floor, wind shooting from my lungs. I coughed, blood spraying from my split lip onto the floor.

A grotesque noise, a cry and a moan, sounded above me. The Harried Scribe let go of the shelf, falling, then landing with a horrible crunch next to me. I flinched, expecting another blow.

He fell to his knees instead. The Scribe lay out upon the ground, prostrating like an overturned book, like a supplicant. He stuck out a mottled tongue.

And began to lick my blood from the floor.

I tried to get away, but the Omen’s horrible eyes wheeled onto my bloody lip. Springing to his knees, he crawled like a beast toward me. He looked possessed, as if he’d forgotten his surroundings—his vast stores of knowledge—reduced to a primal urge to chase me.

His cold hand closed around my ankle. Pulled me toward him. “I can smell it,” the Harried Scribe hissed. “It’s in your blood. Aisling’s waters—”

Rory caught the Scribe’s collar in an iron fist. He yanked the Omen away from me, then threw him upon the floor in the heart of the vast room. Rory stood with King Castor and Maude, who leered over the Omen, their faces painted with disgust. “What do you think?” the king said, his cheeks speckled with burns.

“His hands?” Maude offered. The fabric of her sleeve was in tatters, the skin beneath angry and red. “Or his throat?”

Rory was without burn. He reached into his pocket. Extracted his coin. “Why not both?”

The room was split by a thunderous crack .

My knees buckled, red dust filling the air. The Harried Scribe was no longer in one piece, but hundreds—like the mirror I’d shattered in my bedroom. Only the pieces of him were not glistening.

They were thick and weeping, as if the Scribe had been composed of but two things: bloody flesh, and stone.

I swallowed sickness and fled.

I made it to the dark corridor, running over woolen rugs, when Rory caught me. His fingers clasped my shoulder, but I answered in kind, turning around to take his arm—and slam him into the wall.

He didn’t fight me. I could tell by the tilt of his head against the wood panel that he’d expected my ire.

What he hadn’t expected was my hand, diving into his pocket. The front one along the left side of his waist, the one his fingers fidgeted in—that’s where he kept it.

Rory’s eyes widened. He wrenched me away by the wrist. “I’ll likely regret saying this—but keep your hands out of my pants.”

“That coin.” I was shaking. Seething. “Where did you get it?”

He didn’t answer. He just kept glaring down at my shroud like he wanted to rip it off.

“The inkwell is to the Harried Scribe, and that coin is to the Artful Brigand. You’re him, aren’t you?” I recoiled until my back hit the opposite wall. “You’re an Omen .”

He held his silence like a ransom. Then—“The coin belonged to the Artful Brigand.” He withdrew the coin from his pocket, turning it slowly between his fingers. “It belonged to him right up until five days ago when we went to Castle Luricht, challenged him to his craft, and used it to kill him. As to the accusation—I’m not one of your precious gods, Diviner.” His eyes flickered in the darkness. “I’m the one who’s killing them.”