Chapter 166: The Council in Ruins

We went down to the northern seat at dawn.

Bran's forty came down the high road behind us and there were wolves on the walls of the town who saw us coming and did not sound the horn.

The gate was open.

We went in.

The square was not full. That was the first thing I noticed. The square had been full for a month and now there were twenty wolves in it and half of them were Council guards and the other half were wolves who had come in from the coast and had nowhere else to go.

And there was a wolf standing on the steps of the northern seat with a paper in his hand.

Lorcan.

He was in a grey coat that had not been brushed and his hair was not silver at the temples any more. It was grey all over and his face had gone thin and there was a cut on his lip that had not healed.

"Luna," he said. "You are early."

"Lorcan."

"I have been in this building for four days." He came down the steps. "The elder Soren died in his cell on the third night and there was a wolf in the corridor who heard him say a name before he went and the name was not mine."

The square was silent.

"Then who has the seat?" I said.

"I have the seat." Lorcan held up the paper. "I am the only elder left in this building who has not been put in a cell or sent north. Rannoch is under guard in his room and the grey wolf with the broken nose has gone to the coast and the woman with the short hair has resigned her seat and gone home." He looked at the paper. "There are five chairs at that table and there is one wolf in them."

I stood in the square.

"Lorcan," I said. "What happened?"

"Soren happened." Lorcan came down the last step. "He was in a cell for a fortnight and he wrote letters every day and every letter went out with a keeper and every letter went to a different wolf and every one of them said a different thing." He looked at me. "By the end of the fortnight there was not a wolf on that Council who trusted another one and there was not an elder in the north who would sit in the same room as the keeper. And then he died in his cell and the whole of it came down in a day."

The square was silent.

"And you?" I said. "You signed the orders. You wrote the letters. You sat in a room with a paper and a pen and you have been Soren's envoy for twenty years."

"I have." Lorcan's jaw worked. "And I have been in this building for four days trying to hold it together and there is nobody left to hold it with."

I looked at him.

"Lorcan," I said. "Where is the keeper Eamon?"

"Eamon is in a cell." Lorcan looked at me. "He came back from the coast three days ago with a barrel of powder and a book and he went down to the cellar of the house of the north and he was going to burn the second pool."

The square went silent.

"And?" I said.

"And there was a wolf on the door." Lorcan looked at me. "A keeper on the door of the house of the north who has been on that door for twenty years and who was in that house when the twelve walked out and the seven came out at midnight. And he had a knife in his hand and he would not let Eamon down the cellar stair."

The square was silent.

"What happened?" I said.

"Eamon put a knife in him." Lorcan's voice was flat. "And the keeper on the door is in a room at the top of the house of the north with a healer and he is not expected to last the night."

I turned round.

"Ronan," I said.

"I heard."

"We go up the hill."

We went up the hill.

The house of the north was standing and the door was open and there were two Council guards on it and they stood aside when they saw me.

The keeper was in a room at the top of the house.

He was the old thin wolf who had stood in the corridor with a knife in his hand and said, if you are the founder, come in. He was on a bed with a blanket over him and there was a healer beside him and there was blood on the blanket and his face was the colour of ash.

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Keeper," I said.

He opened his eyes.

"Luna," he said. "You came back."

"I came back." I put my hand on his. "You held the door."

"I held the door." He looked at the ceiling. "I have been on that door for twenty years and I have watched a great many things go up and down that cellar stair and I have never once stopped a wolf from going down it. And last night I stopped one."

"You saved the second pool."

"I saved the second pool." He turned his head. "Luna. There is a thing I have to tell you and I have been carrying it for twenty years and I am not going to last the night."

"Tell me."

He got his hand up and put it on my wrist.

"The second pool is not a pool," he said. "It is a door."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"A door," I said.

"A door to the place where the rites are made. It is older than the spring and it is older than the Council and it is the thing the keepers have been guarding for three hundred years." He looked at me. "And there is a thing behind it that Soren has been trying to open since before you were born."

"What thing?"

The keeper looked at me.

"Your grandmother," he said.

And down in the square, a horn sounded.