The Nethergrim by Matthew Jobin Read Free Book Online

that.”
    Edmund rubbed a thumb on the surface of the bone. “What am I supposed to be feeling?”
    “It’s greasy, not dry,” said Tom. “This pig was alive yesterday.”
    Edmund took a closer look down at the pile. Even in the feeble light the bones had the yellowish tinge of a freshly dead animal—but there was not a speck of flesh on any of them.
    “Bossy,” he said. “Bessy and Buttercup.”
    Katherine glanced at him. “Hugh Jocelyn’s pigs?”
    “He was looking for them, said he’d lost them.” Edmund gripped his knife and looked around him. “There must be wolves!”
    “Not wolves,” said Tom. “These teeth marks are too long for wolves—and wolves don’t make a pile after the kill. They like to drag bits away.”
    The last tingle of thrill left Edmund, replaced by a true and present fear. “What are you saying?”
    “Look at this skull.” Katherine held it up. “Broken right in half and the brains scooped out. Those are hack marks—an axe or a sword.”
    “Cracked every bone to get at the marrow.” Tom dropped the bones in his hands. “Crunched the piglets to bits.”
    Edmund swallowed hard. His friends looked just as frightened as he felt.
    Katherine stood up first. “We should go.”

Chapter 4

    L
ook inside the flame.
    Edmund stared. He tried. The candle before him flickered back and forth. It fizzed and guttered, its light drowned in the sunshine flooding through the opened window of his bedroom.
    Look inside the flame.
Somehow he had to see the flame and know it. Somehow a wizard could know, just by looking, exactly what the flame would do, how it would move with every moment. Somehow a real wizard could ask it to change, and it would obey.
    He strained to remember what his books had taught him:
Fire is the right hand of the Wheel of Substance. Its color is red, it is both dry and hot. In its true form it is entirely red, entirely dry and hot—only in the lost and muddy world in which we live can it be any less than its perfect self. Do not see the flame before you. See Fire.
    “See Fire. See Fire.” Edmund gazed at the candle until it hurt his eyes. “See Fire and see Light. Fire makes light, but it is not Light.”
    The rickety stair outside the bedroom creaked. Edmund let the sound come and go in his thoughts.
    Bits and pieces of the next lesson returned, things he had read in the last pages of
The Seven Roads
:
Light, in its true form, is a crack in the darkness. It is the flaw in the tyrant’s perfect plan. It is hope flowing in with a dying man’s last breath. It is a sound, a harmony. When you wish to call on Light, do not see what meets your eyes. See Light, the crowning Sign of the Wheel of Essence.
    Wait—maybe that worked. The flame seemed to move the way he guessed. He raised his right hand in the Sign of Fire, his left in the Sign of Light.
    The stair creaked again. Edmund glanced aside.
    No! He snapped back. He had it—he almost had it! He could feel it, his mind moved with the dance of the flame. He had to get it right this time—good tallow candles cost a whole penny for a pound, and there were only so many he could sneak from the cellar before his father noticed the loss.
    One more sign: Quickening.
The first kick of a baby in her mother’s womb. To be surprised by joy. The world flows past in a ceaseless rush—Quickening, the right-hand sign of the Wheel of Change.
    He almost had it! He was sure—now all he needed were some words. The words would seal it, make it his own.
    “Fire is a quickness. Fire—” Edmund paused to think. “Fire within makes—”
    A hand snaked into the room. Edmund caught the sight from the corner of his eye. He could not help but look.
    The hand seized Edmund’s longbow from the wall, then his quiver of arrows.
    Edmund jumped up. “Hey!” He doused the candle and sprang from his bedroom, taking the stairs in threes. “Where do you think you’re going with that?”
    Geoffrey rounded at the front door of the inn. He