But with the Whisperer in his hands…

A distant shudder ran through the ground. It must have been the digging machines-though for a second Loki had been almost sure that he sensed something else: a convulsion that passed over the skin of the valley like a tremor on the skin of an old dog.

He shivered.

Surely not! There must still be time…

If the Sleepers awoke, he was as good as dead.

Unless he recovered the Whisperer…

If Maddy was heading for the Sleepers, he thought, then the quickest way was underground. It might take her four hours to reach the place-that gave her quite a lead on him-but Loki knew World Below better than anyone. He had shortcuts through the Hill that no one else knew and, with luck, perhaps he could still cut her off. If not, then at least he could be sure that Odin would not have ventured underground. So the General would be traveling overland toward the mountains, which gave him a journey twice as long-and over some rather rough terrain. Which left Maddy and the Whisperer alone.

Loki grinned. In a fair fight he knew he had no chance, but Loki was not accustomed to fighting fair and had no intention of starting now.

Well, then-

With a flick of the fingers he cast ýr at the ground and prepared to re-enter World Below.

Nothing happened.

The door that should have slipped open at his command remained sealed.

Loki cast again, frowning a little.

Still the doorway declined to reveal itself.

Loki cast Thuris, then Logr, Water, and finally Úr, the Mighty Ox, a rune of brute force, which was his equivalent of kicking the door hard in his impatience.

Nothing worked. The door stayed shut. Loki sat down on the forest floor, angry, puzzled, and breathing hard. He had flung those runes with all his glam. Even if the door had been magically sealed, surely something should have happened.

It was shielded, then, whatever it was. He cast Bjarkán as hard as he could.

Still there was nothing. Not a gleam, not a twinkle. The door was not just sealed; it was as if it had never been there.

That shudder, he thought. He’d taken it for the work of those digging machines, but now that he thought about it more carefully, he realized he’d made a mistake. That was the echo of powerful glam-a single working, likely as not-and World Below had shifted accordingly, going into total lockdown against a potential intruder.

He tried to think what kind of assault might have triggered such a response.

Only one thing came to mind.

Now he began to feel afraid. He was locked out of World Below, alone and with enemies on either side. Time was short, the Sleepers might already be awake, and every second lost brought Maddy and One-Eye closer together. The solution was a dangerous one, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He would have to go after them overland.

He uttered a cantrip, cast Kaen and Raedo, and if anyone had been there to see, they would have been amazed as the young man with the scarred lips and the harried expression dwindled, shrunk, shed his clothes, and became a small brown bird of prey that looked around for a second or two with bright, unbirdlike eyes before taking wing, circling the Hill twice in a widening arc, and soaring away into the thermals and off toward the Seven Sleepers.

Anyone with the truesight, of course, would not have been fooled for a minute. That violet trail was far too distinctive.

8

Nat Parson was enjoying himself. It wasn’t just the robes, or the ceremony, or the knowledge that everyone was watching him, majestic on his white horse, with Adam Scattergood standing beside him with the incense pot in one hand and a fat church candle in the other. It wasn’t the close attention of the visitor from World’s End, who watched him (with admiration, Nat thought) from his position in the Eye of the Horse. It wasn’t the noble sound of his own voice as it rolled over the Hill, or the roar of the digging machines, or the smoke from the bonfires, or the Fair Day firecrackers that popped and flashed. It wasn’t even the fact that that tiresome girl was for it at last-her and the Outlander too. No, all these things were pleasing, but Nat Parson’s happiness ran deeper than that.

Of course, he’d always known he was destined for greatness. His wife, Ethelberta, had seen it too-in fact, it had been her idea to embark on that long and dangerous pilgrimage to World’s End, which had led to his subsequent awakening to the stern duties of the Faith.

Oh, there was no denying that he had been dazzled by the sophistication of the Universal City: its abbeys and cathedrals, its solemn passageways, its Laws. Nat Parson had always respected the Law-what there was of it in Malbry-but World’s End had opened his eyes at last. For the first time he had experienced perfect Order, an Order imposed by an all-powerful clergy in a world where to be a priest-even a country parson-was to command hitherto unimaginable authority, respect, and fear.

And Nat had discovered that he liked to command authority. He had returned to Malbry with a craving for more, and for ten years following his return, through sermons of increasing violence and dire warnings of terrors to come, he had built up a growing clique of admirers, devotees, worshipers, and prentices in the secret hope that one day he might be called upon in the fight against Disorder.

But Malbry was a quiet place, and its ways were lax and sleepy. Common crime was infrequent enough, but mortal crime-the kind that would enable him to appeal to the bishop, even the Order itself-was almost unheard of.

Only once had he exercised this authority, when a black-and-white sow had been convicted of unnatural acts-but his superiors had taken a dim view of the matter, and Nat’s face had been red as a beet when he had seen the reply from Torval Bishop from over the pass.

Torval, of course, was a Ridings man and took every opportunity to sneer at his neighbor. That rankled, and ever since, Nat Parson had been on the lookout for a way to settle the score.

If Maddy Smith had been born a few years later, he often told himself, then his prayers might well have been answered. But Maddy had been four years old when Nat returned from World’s End, and although it might have been possible to take a newborn child into custody, he knew better than to try it then, just as he sensed that World’s End Law would have to be adapted to suit the needs of his parishioners, unless he wanted trouble from the likes of Torval Bishop.

Still, he’d kept his eye on the Smith girl, and a good thing too-this present matter was far too serious for Torval to dismiss, and it had been with a feeling of long-delayed satisfaction that Nat had received the visitor from World’s End.

That had been luck indeed for Nat. That an Examiner from World’s End should agree to investigate his little parish was cause enough for excitement. But by chance, for that same Examiner (on official business in the Ridings) to have been within only a single day’s ride of the Hindarfell pass-well, that was beyond anything Nat could have hoped for. It meant that instead of waiting weeks or months for an official to ride over from World’s End, the Examiner had been able to reach Malbry in only forty-eight hours. It also meant that Torval Bishop could not interfere, however much he wanted to, and that in itself was enough to fill Nat Parson’s heart with a righteous glow.

The Examiner had had a number of complimentary things to say to Nat: had praised his devotion to duty; had shown a flattering interest in Nat’s thoughts on Maddy Smith, the one-eyed peddler who had been her companion, and the artifact they had called the Whisperer-which Adam had heard them discussing on the hillside.

“And there has been no sign yet of the man or the girl?” the Examiner had said, scanning the Hill with his light-colored eyes.