The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1)

“Who are you?” Colvin asked warily.

“I am Maderos. I do not want your names, so do not tell me. They would be filthy to me, since you are not of my country. Filthy to speak. Bah! I do not like the names from this country. And I do not want your blood also on these stones. Besides, I already know why you are here.”

“How do you know that?” Lia asked.

Maderos gave her a crooked smile. “Because you came with a maston, little sister. They always bury their own.”

Lia swallowed. “There is another maston here?”

“Only a part of him, child. His blood has already been spilt. So the spring weeps again. It weeps with his blood.”

Colvin slid the sword back into its scabbard. Anger stormed across his face. “Where? Where is the body?”

“You stand on it, pethet. I hid it in the well where they would not find it again to carve it like butchers. He did not name you, for he did not know your name. That saved you, I think. But he did name Demont. Gack! A horrid name to pronounce. Like speaking with worms on my tongue. Demont’s man. He came looking for you. But he found one who cannot be trusted. Who betrayed him to the sheriff’s men. He was a pethet too. Demont’s man did not know your name. But he knew enough. He knew the name of Winterrowd. Now the king’s army comes, and all the mastons gathering there will spill their blood in the fields. If you were a faithful maston, like the Aldermaston of Muirwood, you could stop them.” His eyes widened with laughter. “You could lift up the Tor! Then drop it down on them!” He laughed, a sickening booming laugh. “But you are not a faithful maston yet. You are a pethet.”

All the while the crazy man spoke, Lia realized something. His accent was foreign. He was not from their country. Perhaps he knew the language written on the orb. Perhaps he was the one who could read it. Not only did the orb bring them to a place of safety, it brought them to someone who could help them.

“You can read?” Lia asked him.

“Of a truth, I can!” he said, looking offended. “I read many languages. And speak them. And engrave them. I visit many lands and write their stories.”

Lia and Colvin looked at each other. She could see it in his eyes – they were both thinking the same thing. Maderos was the one who had lived in the caves where the old cemetery had been. He was the one writing the record and recording the history in the tome.

“Can you read the writing on the orb?” Lia asked him, holding it up in her hand.

“Let the pethet read it,” he sneered.

Colvin swallowed. “I cannot.”

“Eh?”

“I cannot.”

“You cannot? Because you think your language is the best language? That because you were born and your parents babbled to you in this tongue, that it is the best language to speak? How small is your mind, pethet. So very tiny. Little ideas. Puny ideas. Let me see it, child. Show it to me.”

Lia held up the orb and he squinted, looking at the whorl of letters scribed in the lower half.

He pursed his lips. “Yes…yes…and then what…oh, then I see…I see…very well. Yes, there. I see. Yes”

“You can read it?” Lia said, hope welling up in her stomach.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“You cannot?”

“No, for it is written in the language of the Pry-rian. A fallen people. But it is a good tongue. They had noble ideas in Pry-Ree.”

“But…but you cannot read it?” Lia said, disappointed.

He looked up form the orb and angrily into her eyes. “No, no – none of that, child! You make it dark again. No…you must not do that!”

“What do you mean?” she said, biting her lip, confused by his erratic words.

“Doubt. Do not doubt. Never doubt. I cannot read Pry-rian. It is a forgotten language by many. Though I cannot read the words, I was understanding what it said, little sister. The Medium whispers it to me as it does many ancient languages. Some have the Gift of speaking languages. I have the gift of reading them.”

“How?” she asked, frightened and excited.