Chapter 66: Elias in Chains

We were halfway down the ridge when the lanterns came up the mill road.

There were six of them and they were moving fast and they were not Council men. They were pack wolves, and the one at the front was Mrs. Pike, and the one beside her was Harold, and the one behind them was Dale.

“Wren,” Elias said.

“I see them.”

We went into the trees off the ridge road and crouched down and watched the lanterns go past. They went up the ridge toward the cottage and the clearing and they did not see us and they did not stop.

“They are going to Maeve's,” I said. “They think we went to Maeve's.”

“Then they will be at Maeve's for a while.” Elias got up. “The mill road is open. Go now.”

We went down the ridge on the other side, through the trees where the ground was rocky and the snow did not settle, and we came out on the mill road a quarter mile above the mill and we went down it at a run.

The mill was dark. There was no lantern in the window and no light in the loft and the door was open the way it always was.

I went in first and stopped.

There was a man sitting on the floor by the grain chute with his back against the wall and his hands tied in front of him and his face bloody.

It was Rourke.

He looked up at me and his mouth was swollen and there was blood on his teeth.

“Warden,” he said. “You are late.”

“What happened to you?”

“Your pack happened to me.” He shifted against the wall. “They came into the tack room an hour ago with a crowbar and they took me out and they put me on my knees in the square and they asked me who sent the cull order and I told them the Council and they did not like it.” He spat blood on the floor. “Then they brought me here and they put me on the floor and they said I was to wait for the Alphas and they went up the ridge after your wolf.”

I crouched down in front of him.

“Where is Dale?”

“Dale is with them. Dale has been with them since the square. He told the pack he would lead them and they believed him.” Rourke looked at me. “He is not leading them to you, warden. He is leading them away from you. He has been walking them up and down that ridge for an hour.”

Elias came in behind me.

“The tunnel,” he said. “Wren, the tunnel is under the trapdoor and the trapdoor is in the cellar and the cellar is full of Rourke's men.”

“Rourke's men are in the tack room,” Rourke said. “Your pack put them there. There are four of them in the tack room and two on the door and the rest have run.” He looked up at me. “The cellar is empty. I have been sitting in this mill for an hour with nothing to do but listen and there is nobody in the cellar and nobody in the tunnel and nobody at the vault door.”

I stood up.

“Why are you telling me this?” I said.

Rourke looked at me for a long moment.

“Because I have been the Council's man for nine territories and I have never once been put on my knees in a pack square by a pack that had nothing left,” he said. “And because the chief clerk sent a wire this morning that said the cull was to go ahead no matter what the Alphas ruled, and I have been carrying that wire in my pocket for six hours and I am not going to carry it any more.” He nodded at his coat on the floor. “It is in the inside pocket. Take it.”

I took it out. It was a telegram and it was addressed to the culling officer and it said: The Council has ruled. The cull is to proceed before the Alphas hear the claim. The wolf is to be taken tonight and the mill land is to be signed to the Council by morning. The Alphas are not to be informed.

I read it twice.

“The chief clerk sent this,” I said.

“The chief clerk sent it. His name is on the bottom.”

I folded it and put it in my jacket.

“Then we have two wires,” I said. “One from the chief clerk to you and one from the chief clerk to the Alphas. And the one to the Alphas says the cull is not to proceed.”

“That is what the register will say,” Rourke said. “The register in the vault has every wire the Council has ever sent. Every order and every ruling and every cull. If you open that vault, you will have the register and the register will say the chief clerk ordered a cull against the ruling of the Alphas.” He put his head back against the wall. “I am not going to ask you to let me go. I am going to ask you to take the register to the Alphas and let them see what the man in Boise has been doing.”

I went to the cellar.

The trapdoor was where it had been and the wall behind the shelves was where it had been and the tunnel was dark and cold and it went east under the field. Elias came behind me with a lantern and the key was in my jacket and the ledger was under my arm and we walked the tunnel in silence.

It took half an hour.

The tunnel ended at a door.

It was iron and it was set into the stone and it had two locks on it, one above the other, and there was a mark cut into the iron above the locks. It was a circle with a line through it.

Elias put the lantern down.

“Two locks,” he said.

“Two keys.” I took the iron key out of my jacket and looked at it. “Silas said there were two keys. One in Boise and one in the pack house. But Rourke had the one from the pack house and Rourke is tied up in the mill and he does not have it any more.”

“Then where is the second key?”

I looked at the door.

“Silas had it,” I said. “He took it out of the box in the tack room before Rourke got there and he put it somewhere.” I put my hand on the iron. “And Silas is in the pack house and the pack house is full of Alphas and Council men.”

Elias was quiet for a moment.

“Then we need Silas,” he said.

“We need Silas.” I put my hand in my pocket and touched the key. “Or we need the second lock. Look at it.”

Elias came and looked. The lower lock was old and iron and it had a keyhole the size of my thumb. The upper lock was newer. It was brass and it had a keyhole the size of a pin.

“The upper lock is not a Council lock,” Elias said. “That is a pack lock. That is the kind of lock the founders put on the mill doors in 1891.” He put his hand on it. “And it is warm.”

I put my hand on it. It was warm the way the stones were warm.

“It is one of the founders' things,” I said.

“It is one of the founders' things.” Elias looked at me. “And there is a thing about the founders' locks. They do not open with a key. They open with a mark.”

I looked at him.

“What mark?”

“The Luna's mark,” Elias said. “The circle with two lines. The founders took the mark and put one line through it and called it their own. But the lock was made before the founders took it. The lock was made by the old pack.” He put his hand flat on the brass. “Put your hand on it and say the words.”

I put my hand on the lock.

I said the seven words that Ruth had written down in 1932. I said them the way they were written and I said them loud in the tunnel, and the brass under my hand went warm and then hot and then the lock clicked open.

The door swung in.

The vault was a room of stone with shelves along three walls and a table in the middle and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. There were crates on the floor and boxes on the shelves and files in rows and a register on the table as thick as my arm.

And on the far wall there was a map of the territory with the boundary drawn in red and the mill marked and the east field marked and the stone wall marked, and beside the map there was a row of small framed photographs.

I went to the photographs.

There were fourteen of them.

Fourteen women. Some of them were old and some of them were young and one of them was a girl of twenty-two with dark hair and a serious face. And at the end of the row, in a frame that was newer than the rest, there was a photograph of a woman with dark hair and a green scarf around her neck standing on a porch with a baby in her arms.

I put my hand on the frame.

“That is my mother,” I said.

And then the vault door swung shut behind us and the lock clicked.