Chapter 136: The Ritual's Source

The bell of the northern seat was ringing the alarm and we went down the east stair at a run.

The corridor at the bottom was full of Council wolves and keepers and clerks and everybody was talking at once. There were guards with spears and a clerk with a satchel of papers and two of the keepers standing by the wall with their hands folded and their faces grey. Ilsa was in the middle of it with her shawl round her shoulders and her face set.

"Elder," I said. "What has happened?"

"The keeper Eamon has been in the room under the chamber." Ilsa turned round. "He went down at midnight with four wolves and a lamp and a barrel and he has been in the room under the chamber for three hours and he has sent word up that he will burn the spring at dawn."

The corridor went quiet.

"He will burn it," I said.

"He will burn it." Ilsa looked at me. "He has a barrel of powder and he has four wolves and he has barred the keeper's stair from the inside. And he has sent word up that if any wolf comes down the stair he will light it."

I stood in the corridor of the northern seat.

"Then we go down the other way," I said.

"There is no other way."

"There is always another way." I turned round. "Oisin. You have been in every harbour on this coast for twenty years and you have been moving things in the dark for all of it. Is there a way into that chamber that is not the keeper's stair?"

Oisin was at the back of the corridor with his coat still on.

"There is a drain," he said. "It comes down from the east side of the hill and it goes into the chamber at the back of the pool. It is old and it is narrow and it is not on any map."

"Can a wolf get through it?"

"A wolf can get through it. A man cannot." He looked at me. "It is a drain, Fiadh. It is two feet wide and it is full of water and it goes down for a hundred yards and there is a drop at the end of it."

I turned to the priestess.

"The spring," I said. "You said the chain is the spring. What does that mean?"

The priestess came forward with her staff in her hand.

"It means the spring is not a pool of water," she said. "It is a thing that holds the rites. Every binding that was ever made in the north was made with water from that spring and every binding that was ever broken was broken in it. The spring is the chain and the chain is the spring and if the spring goes the chain goes."

"And if we break the chain?"

"Then every false bond that was ever made with that water comes undone." She looked at me. "Every one. All at once. In every pack on this coast and in the north and in the south."

The corridor was silent.

"Then we break it," I said.

"Luna," Ilsa said. "If every false bond in the north comes undone at once there will be wolves who have been bound for twenty years and do not know it. There will be Alphas who have been kept in their seats by a bond. There will be a great deal of chaos."

"Then there will be a great deal of chaos," I said. "And there will be no more binders and no more keepers and no more children in a house in the north." I turned round. "Oisin. Get the drain open. Padraig. Get the black pot and the salve and the book. Priestess. You are coming with me."

"Fiadh," Ronan said.

I turned round.

"You are not going down that drain alone," he said.

"Ronan. You have been stabbed twice in a fortnight."

"I have been stabbed twice and I have been in a pool of black water and I am still standing." He came and stood beside me. "And I am not going to stand in a corridor while my mate goes down a drain into a chamber with a keeper and a barrel of powder."

I looked at him.

"Right then," I said. "You are coming."

We went out of the northern seat by the east door and down the hill in the dark to the place where the drain came out.

It was a stone mouth in the side of the hill with water coming out of it and it was two feet wide and it smelled of old earth and cold stone. There was a grate over it and the grate was rusted and Oisin got it off with a crowbar and a great deal of swearing.

"Luna," he said. "It is a hundred yards and it is full of water and there is a drop at the end of it."

"Then we go down."

I got down on my hands and knees in the water.

It was cold and it was up to my chest and the stone was slick and the dark was total. I went first with a lantern on my belt and Ronan came behind me and the priestess came behind him with her staff and Oisin came last. The water pulled at my boots and the roof was so low in places that I had to put my head down and go through sideways, and there was a smell in that drain that was old and wet and had not been disturbed in a hundred years.

It took an hour.

At the end of it there was a drop and a light and the sound of voices.

I put my lantern out and I got to the edge of the drop and looked down.

The chamber under the northern seat was lit by four lamps. The pool was black and still and the stone lip round it shone. And on the far side of it there was a barrel and four wolves and a keeper with a lamp in his hand and a taper in the other.

Eamon.

And there was a fifth wolf in the chamber.

He was standing at the edge of the pool with his hands behind his back and his grey coat and his Ravenscar colours.

Callum.

"There you are," Callum said. "I was wondering when you would come down the drain."

And he turned round and looked straight up at me.