Ealdstan turned and strode back the other way, his chest thrown forward, daring anyone to engage him. None did. Ealdstan made another pass and then spun on his heel and walked back towards the city.
Daniel and Freya shied away slightly as Ealdstan approached the group. Freya still had a bruise on her arm where Ealdstan had gripped her, and neither she nor Daniel had particularly wanted to see him again.
Ealdstan stood for a while, staring into the city, at the ruins of the wall and the bodies of the yfelgopes, lost in his own thoughts until Modwyn addressed him. “What is it that could accomplish this?” she said, raising a hand to indicate the wreckage.
“Gad did this. It is a spell of decay.”
“A magic to corrupt solid rock?”
“He must have been weaving it for some time. He would have had to build an entropic force and then push it along an enchanted wind. The spell would have looked like a black cloud. It blew centuries away from the stone in seconds and then nested inside of it. It is in it now, slowly eating away at it . . . our first, greatest defense . . .”
At his words, a chunk of stone the size of a small shed tumbled down from the top of the wall and crumbled into a mound of dust.
“Meotodes meahte!” exclaimed Ecgbryt. “How can it be stopped?”
Ealdstan sighed like a professor answering an obvious question. “It cannot be stopped-not completely. I can slow it with my power, but it will not quit until Gad’s life leaves him-at which time all spells that he has made will unravel.
“It cannot be doubted that he will strike again,” he continued.
“This is only one move in a game that he and I have begun to play.
There is no question that he has more schemes in mind, some of which are this very moment being put into effect.”
“He must be stopped and destroyed,” said Swi?gar.
“The other knights must be roused,” rumbled Godmund, tramping up the pile of rubble to join them. “They will arrive from all the corners of England and send the yfelhost into oblivion.”
“No,” moaned Ealdstan. “Not those sleeping, not yet. It is not their time.”
“What then?” Modwyn exclaimed passionately. Daniel and Freya glanced up at her and saw a face as harsh as a thunderstorm.
“A wall has been breached,” she rasped, “that has never failed since it was made over twelve hundred years ago. Enemies have had their way with the city for the first time in a thousand. There were yfelmen in the torr, Ealdstan-one of them attacked the lifiendes! If you were to act, t’would best be done soon, and best be done well!”
Ealdstan stood motionless as the silence left by the end of
Modwyn’s rebuke hung in the air. Eventually the old wizard said, “Gad will not be defeated easily. He will not die by spear-thrust, or axe-blow, for his life is no longer in his body. He has hidden his mortality somewhere else-somewhere safe, somewhere unknown to anyone. Only if that mortality can be found and destroyed will Gad will be vulnerable to attack.”
The company took this in.
“What do you mean his mortality?” Daniel asked.
“His life,” Ealdstan answered. “His heart’s soul. It is an object of his-a hand or a finger, perhaps his very heart-into which he has placed his mortal life and then removed from himself. As long as it is safe and secret, none can touch it.”
“How will it be guarded?” Ecgbryt asked.
“It will not be guarded,” Ealdstan replied. “At least, not by any guard aware of his purpose. There may be obstacles, but Gad would rely more on secrecy than force. No, not guarded-hidden . . .”
“I do not understand,” said Godmund. “How would he be terrified of his own weakness?”
“If he were to lose his power,” Ealdstan explained, “he would still want to reclaim his life and use it. The hiding place would be near, but still forgotten . . .” As Ealdstan talked, his eyes and voice drifted off. “He would have placed it on the other side of the Wild Caves, on the other side of the Sl?pismere.”
“The Slayp-is-mere?” Daniel said under his breath.
“It means ‘the sleeping ocean.’ It is the name we give to the enormous lake of water that lies beneath this island.”
“Then it is clear,” said Swi?gar. “We gather a party and make a sally out to destroy this mortal heart. What could be more plain?”
“Even so,” growled Godmund lowly, “even were the Gristgrenner killed, there would still be his general, Kelm, to settle with, and the only thing that can defeat the Kafhand is force of arms. Whence is that to come?”
There was silence. Ealdstan stood, muttering, “Not the sleepers . . . not now . . . not yet . . .”
“But with the enchanter,” said Ecgbryt after a short silence, “surely there is no reason to dither. We must destroy Gad, come what may, and it would best be done as soon as possible.”
“It is dangerous . . . ,” breathed Ealdstan.
“I am the fiend of danger.”
“No, you understand not. Gad’s heart can only be destroyed . . . by a mortal . . . not by a sleeper, not by anyone who is now dwelling within Ni?ergeard. It must be destroyed by a lifiende.”
Slowly, all eyes turned to settle on Daniel and Freya.
“I don’t understand,” Freya said. “What does that mean?”
“Dense children!” Ealdstan sneered. “It means that none in this city can destroy him-except one of you. You really want to leave this place? Then destroy Gad and break the siege. Either that, or grow old down here with the rest of us.”
In the silence that followed, the wizard Ealdstan stalked away.
2
Modwyn led them into a room on the sixth floor of the Langtorr, high enough above the rooftops of the buildings for them to see the ruined section of wall and the work that was already being done to repair it.
Craftsmen from every corner of the city were coming to join the emergency workforce, working quickly, faces gaunt. Stone was hauled from storage by huge workhorses, rolled across the city on metal poles and lashed to the backs of the impressive animals. The old, crumbling rock was being chipped away, carved out so that the new stone would fill the gap precisely. It nearly broke Daniel’s heart to see any of that beautiful, forest-like wall fall away, however necessary.
“Why aren’t the yfelgopes attacking?” Daniel asked, staring down from the window onto the work. “Wouldn’t they beat us all if they did?”
“I do not know,” said Modwyn after a pause. “Their minds are so twisted that I cannot guess. They have always plagued us, but I have never known them to be organized thus. I fear their leader.”
“Gad?”
“Yes, and also this Kelm. He is not an yfelgop, I wist, but something more-something older and cleverer.”
“I don’t understand. Why hasn’t this been dealt with ages ago, when you first saw the yfelgopes?” Daniel asked.
Modwyn sighed. “Ealdstan prevented it-he reasoned that Ni?ergeard is of little consequence in the face of the battle that is to come.”
“What battle is that?” Daniel asked.
“Just one battle in the long war that has been raging across the universe since near time began. The war between Creation and Destruction. Ealdstan has cast his sight forward and seen great forces clashing upon this island. Although of great consequence to us, this land is just a small pebble in the vast arena, and this glorious city, no more than a grain of sand.”
“But if Ni?ergeard is threatened,” reasoned Daniel, “that means the knights are threatened, and that means that the country is in danger.”
“Not necessarily.”
Daniel and Freya gazed blankly at Modwyn.
“But,” said Freya, “if protecting this city will help to win the battle-and then each battle afterwards-why not do it? Ni?ergeard may be a pebble, but if it falls, it could start an avalanche.”