The Curse of the Beta のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 81 - チャプター 90

Vaughan stood on the shingle with his dark coat and his silver pin and his smile gone, and he looked at the stone wolf the way a man looks at a thing he has been hunting for a hundred years and has just found standing in front of him."That is not a stone," he said. "That is the first wolf of this coast and it has been under that island since before my grandfather was born and it has been hiding from me for a hundred years." He put his hand out. "I have been looking for it since I was a boy. I have been buying Alphas and priests and men in good grey coats and I have been sending ships up this coast for forty years and every one of them came back with nothing. And you have had it under your island all this time and you did not even know it was there.""We knew," I said. "We have known since the spring.""You have known since the spring and you have not used it." Vaughan came forward. "I am not going to fight you on this shingle. I am not going to send my men up the shore and I am not g

The hole went down further than the cave floor should have allowed.We went down with a lantern and the stone wolf going first with the light under its stone, and the rock was black and wet and the walls came close and the air got warm and it smelled of the sea and of iron and of something older than either. The hole was not a hole in the rock. It was a shaft and it had been cut and it had been cut by hands that were not hands and the marks on the walls were the marks of claws.At the bottom there was a floor of black stone and a chamber.It was wide and it was round and the walls went up out of sight and there was water at the edges of it and the water was still and black and there was a stone in the middle of the floor with a hollow in it the size of a bowl."That is the same stone," Clara said."It is the same stone that was in the wolf's table and the same stone that was at the edge of the pool." I put the lantern down. "It has been copied. Or the others were copies of this."The

I woke on the shingle with the sun in my eyes and the whole of the pack standing round me.Clara was on her knees beside me with her hand on my chest and her face wet and her wrist bandaged."You are awake," she said.I sat up. The tide was coming in over the sand and the island was black behind us and the door was shut and the mark on it was whole and there was no light in the crack."The well," I said."It is closed. The water came back into the shaft and the stone went down and the door shut behind us and the stone wolf came up the stair with the light gone out of it." Clara sat back on her heels. "It is done. The binding is made and the thing is in the water and the door is shut."I put my hand on my chest. There was nothing there. No rope and no door and no wolf pushing at the inside of my skin and no warm place where she had been."The wolf," I said.Clara was quiet."The wolf is still there," she said. "Nina has looked at you and the wolf is in you and it is awake. The thing th

Clara stood in front of the three Alphas with the deed in her hand and she did not raise her voice."The Council has heard that the Alpha of Cragmoor is of unsound mind and cannot hold his rank. That is true and I am not going to argue it. The Council has heard that the Regent forfeited his rank and his chair and his name. That is true and he has done it in front of you and he has not asked for anything in return." She put the deed on the table in front of Callum. "Now the Council will hear the rest of it. This is the deed of the island and it is older than the Council and it names the blood of the man who kept the first wolf. The Council has no claim on the island and it never has had one. The only thing the Council can do is break the pack that keeps it and put another Alpha in the pack house who does not know the wall and the well and the song. And in a hundred years the lock will break and the water will come and the whole of this coast will be a place where no wolf can live."Cal

Marcus came into the byre with the light behind him and the whole of the Council went back from him.He was a man. He was a man with copper red hair and a face grey with the cold and a mark on his hand that had not been there before, and he walked the way a man walks who has been in the water a long time and has just come out of it. And behind him there was a shape that was not a wolf and was not a man and it filled the door of the byre and it did not come in."The copper wolf let me out," he said. "It has been holding the door since the moon went down and it has been holding it with me inside it and it has been talking to me the whole of the time." He looked at Vaughan. "It told me a thing I did not know and I am going to say it before this Council and this pack and the whole of it." He turned round and looked at me. "Elias. I am not your brother."The byre was quiet."The old Alpha was your father," Marcus said. "That is true and the book says it and the wall says it and the whole o