When first I heard of Ols, I did not believe in them. I nearly paid for that mistake with my life.
The Dread Gnome Sha-Ban told me of these white, formless creatures that could take the shape of any living thing — human, animal, or even insect. When attacking, she said, Ols emerge from their disguise, rising like ghastly, flickering white flames with holes for eyes, gaping, toothless mouths, and strangling hands. She said that Ols had been created by the Shadow Lord and sent into Deltora in the hundreds to spy and kill. She insisted that in the countryside everyone knew of Ols, and feared them. In my conceit, I doubted her. Surely, I reasoned, if Ols were so well known I would have heard of them. I forgot that Sha-Ban was the first traveller in years to bring fresh news from the west. I soothed her as if she were a child with nightmares, saying there were no Ols in Del. I did not consider that Ols might be all about me — listening, watching, spreading lies — doing their master’s evil work in secret. I bitterly regret my foolishness. Everything Sha-Ban told me was true, and she paid for the telling with her life.
After I found her dead I ran to the inn, collected my things, and crept out the back way. Through a window I saw the two fruit-sellers from the market talking to the innkeeper. He pointed towards the attic. They nodded, and strolled to the stairs. I looked at them carefully and saw they were Ols, and the killers of Sha-Ban. I knew I would be their next victim if they could find me. I left hastily.
You too, dear reader, must learn the signs by which Ols can be recognized. One day your life may depend upon it. To help you, I have painted a scene such as you might see anywhere.
Eight Ols are present. You must try to identify them, using these clues: Ols travel in pairs, which do not always look alike. They cannot eat or drink. They are cold to touch, and if they are in human form they try to disguise this by covering themselves with garments, even on the hottest day. Every Ol has the black mark of the Shadow Lord at its core, and whatever shape it takes, this mark appears somewhere on its body. If the mark cannot be hidden by clothing, it is often disguised among many other marks. An Ol can hold a shape without break for three days. After that, its control falters. The shape wavers for a few seconds before the Ol regains control. This faltering is called the Tremor. It is brief, but unmistakable.
If you suspect you are in the company of an Ol, slip away quietly. Do not try to stand and fight. Ols have enormous strength, and the dread chill of their touch is crippling. They can only be destroyed by being pierced through the heart, which is on the right side instead of the left. Once I saw this happen, but that is another story. I had intended to end this writing here, but I cannot. I learned too late that when Sha-Ban told me of Ols, she was speaking the truth. So I must add something else that she said, for this also might be fact, rather than fancy. She had heard a rumor of a new kind of Ol. Called Grade 2 Ols by those who believe in them, they are said to be far more cunning and difficult to recognize. They can successfully pretend to eat and drink, make their skin seem warm, and go about singly. If this is true, it is disastrous, and shows that the Shadow Lord has continued striving to improve his evil creations. What, then, is to stop him from going further? What if he at last creates a Grade 3 Ol? One that can be so like a human, for example, that it is impossible to distinguish it from the real thing? Or one that can imitate non-living things, as well as living? Then none of us will be safe. I can only pray that it will never come to pass.
It was the season for skimmers, and this year more skimmers than ever were coming over the Wall of Weld.
From dusk till dawn, the beasts flapped down through the cloud that shrouded the top of the Wall. They showered on the dark city like giant, pale falling leaves, leathery wings rasping, white eyes gleaming, needle teeth glinting in the dark.
The skimmers came for food. They came to feast on the warm-blooded creatures, animal and human, that lived within the Wall of Weld.
On the orders of the Warden, the usual safety notices had been put up all over the city. Few people bothered to read them, because they were always the same. But this year, in Southwall, where Lisbeth the beekeeper lived with her three sons, they had been covered with disrespectful scrawls.
No one knew who was writing on the notices — or so the people of Southwall claimed when the Keep soldiers questioned them. Like everyone else in Weld, the Southwall citizens were very law-abiding. Most would never have dreamed of damaging one of the Warden’s notices themselves. But many secretly agreed with the person who had done so.
Rye, the youngest of Lisbeth’s sons, had the half-thrilled, half-fearful suspicion that his eldest brother, Dirk, might be responsible.
Dirk worked on the Wall as his father had done, repairing and thickening Weld’s ancient defense against the barbarians on the coast of the island of Dorne. Brave, strong, and usually good-natured, Dirk had become increasingly angry about the Warden’s failure to protect Weld from the skimmer attacks.
Sholto, the middle brother, thin, cautious, and clever, said little, but Rye knew he agreed with Dirk. Sholto worked for Tallus, the Southwall healer, learning how to mend broken bones and mix potions. The soldiers had questioned him when they had come to the healer’s house seeking information. Rye had overheard him telling Dirk about it.
“Do not worry,” Sholto had drawled when Dirk asked him anxiously what he had said in answer to the questions. “If I cannot bamboozle those fancily dressed oafs, I am not the man you think I am.”
And Dirk had clapped him on the shoulder and shouted with laughter.
Rye hoped fervently that the soldiers would not question him, and to his relief, so far they had not. Rye was still at school, and no doubt the soldiers thought he was too young to know anything of importance.
As the clouded sky dimmed above them, and the Wall darkened around their city, the people of Weld closed their shutters and barred their doors.
Those who still followed the old magic ways sprinkled salt on their doorsteps and window ledges and chanted the protective spells of their ancestors. Those who no longer believed in such things merely stuffed rags and straw into the chinks in their mud-brick walls, and hoped for the best.
Lisbeth’s family did all these things, and more.
Lisbeth sprinkled the salt and murmured the magic words. Dirk, tall and fair, followed her around the house, fastening all the locks. Dark, lean Sholto trailed them like a shadow, pressing rags soaked in the skimmer repellent he had invented into the gaps between the shutters and the crack beneath the door.
And Rye, red-haired and eager, watched them all as he did his own humble duty, clearing the table of Sholto’s books and setting out the cold, plain food that was always eaten at night in skimmer season.
Later, in dimness, the three brothers and their mother huddled around the table, talking in whispers, listening to the hateful, dry rustling of the skimmers’ wings outside.
“Folk at the market were saying that there was a riot in Northwall this morning,” Lisbeth murmured. “They said that the Warden’s signs were set on fire, and the crowd fought with the soldiers who tried to stop the damage. Can this be true? Citizens of Weld acting like barbarians?”
“It is true enough,” Sholto said, pressing a hardboiled duck egg against his plate to crack the pale blue shell as noiselessly as he could. “Skimmers killed three families in Northwall last night. It is only the first riot of many, I fear. When people are afraid, they do not think before they act.”