The Curse of the Beta のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 71 - チャプター 80

We went down into the hole in the rock.It was a low tunnel and it went down and in and the water ran along the floor of it and the walls were wet and black and there was a smell in it that I knew from the cave under the well. Aldous went first with his lamp and two of his men behind him, and I went after them with Clara at my shoulder and Bram and Thomas and six of the pack behind, and the priest came last with a chain on his wrist and a man on either side of him.The tunnel came out into the cave.It was the same cave. The pool and the stone and the light coming up out of the water and the great wolf lying at the bottom of it with its eyes closed. The crack in the door at the top of the stair was a finger's width open and there was light coming through it.Aldous stood at the edge of the pool with his lamp in his hand."There it is," he said. "The whole of it. The wolf and the well and the stone. I have been looking for this room since I was nine years old and I have come to it at l

I got up off the green with a club mark on my shoulder and the whole of the village fighting round me and a fever in my chest that had nothing to do with the fight.The moon was up. It was a full moon and it was white and high and the green was full of men and hooks and the shouting, and the thing in my chest was burning and pulling and the wolf under my skin was not asleep anymore.He was awake and he was standing up and he was pushing at the door."Bram," I said. "Get the pack back from me."Bram turned round with his hook in his hand and his face bloody."What?""Get them back. All of them. Get them away from me." I put my hand on the wall of the pack house and the stone was cold and my hand was hot and the mark on my wrist was grey and the wolf was pushing. "It is the moon. The wolf is coming up and I cannot hold him and if he comes up in the middle of this green he will not know who is a friend and who is not."Bram looked at me for one moment. Then he turned round and shouted."

The green was full of wolves when we came up the hill.The whole pack was there and George was in the middle of it with his good grey coat and his paper in his hand and two men behind him, and beside George with his wrists tied and his thinning hair wild and his old bare feet was Father Callum.Marcus was already on the green.He had his coat off and his copper red hair loose and he was standing in front of the pack with his hands at his sides, and he did not look at me when I came up.George held up his paper."The examination will now be conducted," he said. "The Alpha of Cragmoor will submit to the trial. If he cannot shift, the rank will pass to the Council and the pack of Cragmoor will be broken." He looked at Marcus. "Alpha. You may begin."Marcus did not move."I cannot shift," he said. "There is a hole in me where my wolf was and it has been there since the night the priest put a chisel to the door and the thing in the well came up. I have tried every day since and I cannot sh

We came up out of the cave with the stone wolf behind us and the water up to our chests.It came up the passage the way a wolf comes up a passage, and it did not swim and it did not struggle and the water did not seem to touch it, and when it came out onto the shelf with the moon going down behind the hills the whole of the pack went back from it."It is a thing of the old time," Thomas said. "It is a thing that was here before the pack.""It is the stone wolf," I said. "It has been under the island since before my grandfather was born and it has been waiting for a keeper of the old blood. It says there is a ship coming up the coast from the south and it will be at the mouth of the harbour before the sun goes down."The stone wolf sat on its haunches on the shelf with its grey green eyes on the pack and did not move and did not speak.Clara said, "Marcus is in the door. The copper wolf is in the door and it is holding it shut and the stone wolf says the door has to be closed by a keep

I did not get to the cave.I got as far as the shingle with the stone wolf at my side and Clara came down the shore to meet me and put her hand on my chest and stopped me."Not yet," she said. "There is a thing I have to say to you and I have to say it before the ship comes in and before the whole of it starts and I have been carrying it since the cave."The stone wolf sat down on the shingle and did not move."Say it," I said.Clara put her hand in her pocket and took out a small glass bottle with a ground stopper and a little of a dark liquid in the bottom of it, and she held it up in the morning light."This is the silver," she said. "The rest of it. From the bottle at the bottom of the dock. Nina gave it to me the night before the full moon and she told me to keep it and not to tell you and to use it if the fragment took me and there was nothing else." She put the bottle in my hand. "I have been carrying it for a week and I have not told you and I am telling you now."I looked at