The Skeleth by Matthew Jobin Page B

guard walked the parapet above the courtyard, and another coughed from atop the turrets ofthe keep, but they seemed to walk on empty trails into another world, and showed no sign that they had noticed Edmund and Ellí passing beneath their gaze.
    The longer Edmund stayed within the spell, the easier it became to distinguish between the sights of his own world and the fragmented visions that trailed around them. He hurried himself to walk abreast with Ellí. “So where are we going?”
    â€œYour lord Aelfric comes from an ancient family, older than the kingdom itself, in fact.” Ellí ascended the narrow stairs that led up to the raised, narrow door of the keep. “All the legends tell me that when the Skeleth were last summoned, they ravaged someplace nearby to here. Lord Aelfric keeps a library, books he has inherited from his forefathers down through countless generations. If there are records left of what happened the last time the Skeleth were raised, they will be there.”
    â€œBut that’s in Lord Aelfric’s private chambers!” Edmund recoiled from the empty sound of his own voice, and dropped to a whisper. “We can’t just go in there!”
    â€œWe must,” said Ellí. “The fate of all the north might depend on it.” She did not pause at the door of the keep, and the guard posted there spared neither her nor Edmund a glance. Edmund felt a nagging tug of conscience, but Ellí swept on inside without an instant’s hesitation, and he was not about to lose his new teacher so quickly.
    The great hall roared with another night of noisy feasting. Edmund followed Ellí on tiptoes around the benches and past the hearth, taking care to avoid tripping over anyone on his way behind the tapestries at the back of the room. The narrow passage beyond led to a set of stairs that he took two ata time. When he reached the top, he pushed the door wide to enter the hallway above. Servants slept on rush mats in alcoves along the passage, huddled in pairs for warmth outside the bedrooms of the great folk they served.
    Edmund turned back to Ellí and found a gleam in her blue eye that matched the thrill he felt. “I must admit—this is fun.”
    Ellí gave him a wink; he found her prettier on the brown-eyed side, somehow. “This is where I will need your help the most. I can’t keep up this spell for much longer, so we should find what we need as quickly as we can. Start with the oldest stuff first.”
    â€œRight.” Edmund guessed at which door to try and got it right the second time. “In here.” He ushered Ellí into Lord Aelfric’s private study and closed the door behind them.
    â€œLook at all of this!” Ellí grabbed a pile of scrolls from the shelves and started flipping through the dirty, half-ruined pages. “There are scholars down in the Tithe who would kill for half of what’s on this shelf alone. Would you light those candles for me?”
    Edmund reached for the flint and tinder, lit the candles impaled upon the pewter holder, and dragged them close. He knelt at the bottom shelf and started searching. The words, glyphs and drawings under his fingers tempted and teased at him, seeming to crawl back and forth across the page beneath the swirling shadows of the spell. Ancient legends passed before his eyes, tales of the deaths of kings he had never even heard about, accounts of travels to places he had never known existed.
    â€œMany centuries ago, after the fall of the Gatherers and thecollapse of the great Dhanic empire, a wandering tribe crossed over the mountains from the west.” Ellí spoke softly as she searched the highest shelf, her skirts swaying and dangling by Edmund’s hands. “They found the remains of the old empire easy pickings, so they marched here in ever greater numbers, looking first for plunder, then for conquest.”
    Edmund picked up a book, then placed it