by T.A. Barron
Tamwyn’s eyes blazed with fury. Without even checking the strength of his branch, he jumped straight up, came down hard, then felt the branch spring upward beneath him. At the highest point, he pushed off with all the strength of his legs.
“Aaaooaahhh!” Tamwyn soared into the air, right at his tormentor in the other tree.
Caught by surprise, the hoolah froze. He saw only Tamwyn’s wrathful face bearing down on him—and fast.
Then suddenly the hoolah’s silver eyes brightened. Tamwyn’s greater weight was carrying him down to a lower branch! The hoolah grinned again, knowing he’d escaped.
Just as Tamwyn reached the tree, though, he did something else the hoolah hadn’t expected. He stretched up a hand, catching the beast by the ankle. As Tamwyn smashed into limbs laden with balloonberries, he dragged the shrieking hoolah right along with him.
Pounding downward through the branches, cracking wood and exploding berries, the pair tumbled. Leaves, bark, broken twigs, purple juice, and the nest of an unfortunate bird all fell with them. More like a whirling purple tornado than a pair of bodies, they smashed through the bottom branches, hit the ground, rolled down a steep slope, and hurtled over a stone ledge.
12 • Song of the Voyager
Stop over there!” commanded Llynia, pointing to a slab of flatrock under a cliff. The sheer stone face, rising high above them, looked more dull gray than its usual autumn golden brown. “We’ll rest a few minutes—no more, we don’t have time. Though my feet could use about a week.”
She turned around only long enough to frown at Fairlyn. The tree spirit’s slender arms held the reins of two pack horses, loaded down with cooking gear, dried food, and enough flasks of water to last several days. Not to mention Llynia’s bundles of spare clothing, personal effects, and her old, leather-bound volume of Cyclo Avalon that contained some handwritten notes in the margins by Lleu of the One Ear himself.
“And don’t forget, Fairlyn, to tie up the horses! Can’t have them wandering off with all our supplies just because you were careless. The way you were yesterday at the Baths.”
Fairlyn’s eyes narrowed, and her scent changed to something like burning hair. But she said nothing, and led the horses over to a young rowan tree at the base of the cliff. A few steps behind came Elli, with Nuic’s misty shape on her left shoulder.
Llynia reached the slab of flatrock and sat down with a loud groan. She pulled off her leather shoes, then started rubbing her feet, scowling all the while.
“Out of my sight, you useless wastrel,” she barked at Elli. “I should make you carry all the horses’ loads, for your impertinence. You’re nothing but a millstone around my neck.”
Elli’s hazel green eyes narrowed. But before she could speak, Nuic gave her some advice.
“Don’t mind her,” he counseled. “She’s just feeling a bit off-color today.”
Llynia lifted her face, her anger darkening the green tones of her skin. “If that’s more of your sassiness, Nuic.. .”
“No, no, not at all.” The pinnacle sprite turned himself a sympathetic shade of green. “Just concern for your welfare.”
Llynia studied him, scratching her chin—where a triangular patch of green had deepened, looking much like a beard. “If that’s the case, then, why don’t you and that useless apprentice third class go find me some more of that herb—the one for restoring skin color. I’ve eaten what you gave me this morning.”
“With pleasure.” Nuic bowed slightly, then whispered to Elli from the side of his mouth, “Especially since dissimint doesn’t really restore skin color so much as rearrange it.”
Elli’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t mean . . . ?”
Her maryth gave a soft, splashy chuckle. “Right. It pulls the new pigments to the darkest place. Which means that while most of her face is getting less green, just as old Nuic promised, her little beard is getting darker. Much darker.”
Elli, who was helping Fairlyn tie the horses to the rowan tree, bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “I think her mood is getting darker, too.”
Fairlyn, who had overheard this last remark, waved one of her long arms, studded with purple buds, in front of Elli’s face. But as stern as she appeared to be, rising to the defense of her human charge, her scent had changed to popping corn—an amused smell if ever there was one.
As Elli bent low so that Nuic could slide off easily, the old sprite met her gaze. “Don’t waste your time coming with me,” he told her. “You don’t know dissimint from dysentery! Besides, I saw some by those bramble bushes over there.”
“But . . .” she protested.
He dismissed her with a wave of a misty hand. “Go find something else to do, Elliryanna.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Partly at his unending gruffness, and partly at his use of her full name. His way of saying it always sounded like the splatter of a mountain stream.
But what to do? Glancing at Llynia, who was massaging her feet in the shadow of the cliff, she walked over to the far side of flatrock slab and sat down. Her harp bumped the rock, sounding some discordant notes.
That’s it. I’ll play something. Elli cradled the rough-hewn harp in her lap, feeling as always the subtle shaping of the maple wood by her father’s hands. With all that had happened in the last few days—even before this long day of walking behind Llynia—she hadn’t plucked a single note.
She tapped the knotty base of the harp. Less than a month ago, she’d walked through the great oaken gates of the Drumadian compound, having come all the way from Malóch. She’d arrived just as the Buckle Bell was chiming, thinking she could stay at the compound forever, and here she was now, already off on an expedition. And with precious little idea where she was going—or whether she’d ever return. By the elbows of the Elders, this wasn’t what she’d expected!
But I never expected to meet Nuic, either. Or High Priestess Coerria. She gave the hawthorn pegs a twist, plucking each string in turn. Then, when the harp sounded in tune, she stole a quick look at Llynia, who was still grumbling at her sore feet. Or her.
As she slid her finger down a kelp string, she thought about Papa: how he had loved to play songs of his own making; and how the memory of his hands on this harp had given her strength to survive the touch of those grimy, three-fingered hands that held her captive for so long.
She looked up into the boughs of the rowan tree under the cliff, whose leaves had started to whisper in the wandering breeze. And she began to pluck the strings, so softly that their notes seemed sung by the breeze itself. In time, she put words to the notes, words from one of her father’s favorite songs.
“Song of the Voyager,” he had called it. And although she’d heard it many times before, today it held new meaning:
Over the fathomless seas have I flown,
Searching for what I have missed:
Land of my longing, sought yet unknown,
Alluring so none can resist.
Avalon . . . does it exist?
Avalon . . . does it exist?
Dark now the air, and also my heart;
Low does my candle wick burn.
Seeking the Mystery—whole, not in part—
World of most sacred concern.
Frail though my hope, how I yearn.
Frail though my hope, how I yearn.
Mist swirls about me, darkness abounds;
Nothing can save me, it seems.
Suddenly starlight! Green all around—
Life beyond marvelment teems:
The tree, and the world, of my dreams.
The tree, and the world, of my dreams.
All of this world did a single seed start,
Planted in wonder and whist.
It throbbed as alive, and beat like a heart,
Ready the Fates to assist,
Merlin’s own ultimate tryst.
Merlin’s own ultimate tryst.
Bursting with power, it sprang into life.
Out of its deepest core came
Wildness no people could tame,
And wonders too many to name.
And wonders too many to name.
Mighty now rises the world-tree so tall:
Part spirit, part body . . . and partly between.
So vast, so enormous, its fibers hold all—
Including the realms of my dream,
Embraced by the magical green.
Embraced by the magical green.
Avalon lives! The last place to keep
All the songs of Creation alive.
Sing every note—sing high and deep:
Voices uplifted shall thrive;
Singers themselves shall survive.
Singers themselves shall survive.
What riddles, what puzzlements, does this world hold?
Answers elusive as mist . . .
A world ever new and still utterly old,
A landscape by destiny kissed.
Avalon does yet exist.
Avalon does yet exist.
The last notes lifted into the air, joining with the whispering boughs. Elli looked up from her harp and saw, with surprise, that Llynia was gazing at her—and not in anger. The expression on her green-stained face was restful, if not exactly peaceful.
Even as the notes faded away, though, Llynia’s expression changed. Her gaze hardened. “Why don’t you ever do something useful? Instead of just sitting there, plucking your—”
A frightful crashing from somewhere above the cliff, combined with some creature’s shrieking wail, made her halt. And look up.
A whirling mass of broken branches, leaves, twigs, smashed berries, two writhing bodies, and the remains of a bird’s nest tumbled over the ledge at the top of the cliff. Bits of bark, dirt, hair, rock, and torn clothing plunged down, too. Plus a shower of sticky purple sap.
All this landed with a howling thud—right on top of the travelers. Llynia screamed as someone’s foot smacked her in the head. Elli leaped backward, barely snatching her precious harp out of the way before a falling branch could smash it. The pack horses reared, snapping their tethers and scattering supplies everywhere, before they bolted off into the forest.
Nuic, who had just returned with a fistful of herbs, jumped backward to dodge the flying debris. And then watched in undisguised amusement as Llynia tried to remove a sticky chunk of bird’s nest from her hair. Fairlyn, her long arms outstretched, ran after the panicked horses.
Meanwhile, the pair of flying bodies had landed—and continued to wrestle in earnest. Across the ground they rolled, throwing up clods of dirt and leaves and shredded cloth. Finally, one of them—a filthy young man with long hair streaked with purple juice—prevailed. He held down the other: a short, thin person with the large hands and sassy face of a hoolah.
Tamwyn twisted the hoolah’s arm behind his back, ignoring the creature’s howling protests. “You . . . you . . . maggot! No, a maggot’s too good for you. You’re just the rotten carcass a maggot eats!”
“Aaawwooo!” cried the hoolah as it tried in vain to wriggle free. “Clumsy man is killing me!”
“Damn right I am.” Tamwyn shook a leafy twig, caught in his hair, away from his face. “And you’ll wish you never—”
“Stop!” bellowed Llynia, standing over them with clenched fists on her hips. “There will be no killing. And no more fighting.”
Before Tamwyn could protest, a pair of powerful, branchlike arms lifted him off the ground. At the same time, two more arms lifted up the hoolah. Fairlyn, who had just returned from the forest—without the horses—held them both in her sturdy grip. Her large eyes were rimmed in red, and she smelled like whatever part of a carcass even a maggot wouldn’t touch.
Catching her scent, the hoolah wrinkled up his nose. “Hooeee there, tree! You’ve got a smell even worse than clumsy man here.”
Fairlyn gave him a rough shake, as her odor grew even more rancid.
Tamwyn, swinging his legs in the air, demanded, “Let me down! You’ve no right to do this.”
Elli stepped in front of him. “And you’ve no right to come crashing down on top of us! You’ve scared off the horses, for one thing.”
“And smacked me in the head, for another.” Llynia touched her tender cheekbone. “You could have killed me.”
Nuic grumbled, just loud enough to be heard, “Maybe next time they’ll aim better.”
Llynia spun on him, but before she could say anything, the hoolah called out to her, “You got hit harder than you think, woman. You look sick, you do. Greener than a gullyful of frogs! Ee, ee, hoohoohoo hahaha.”
Now Llynia, her eyes ablaze, turned to face both the hoolah and Tamwyn. “You two are very lucky that I am a priestess of the holy Order. One who has never been tempted to bring pain to another creature... until now.” She sucked in her breath and chanted, “O Lorilanda, dear goddess, give me strength. And Dagda, fount of wisdom, give me patience.”
She turned to Fairlyn. “Did you see any sign of the horses?”
The trunk of the lilac elm spirit twisted to one side, then the other, Fairlyn’s way of shaking her head.
Llynia glared again at the two vagabonds who had tumbled out of the sky. “You have no idea what damage you’ve done! By the crooked teeth of Babd Catha . . . you’ve ruined everything! Without our horses, we can’t carry our supplies. And without our supplies, we can’t complete our que—” A sharp look from Fairlyn cut her off. “Our journey,” she said more cautiously.
Tamwyn, whose temper had only slightly cooled, spoke up. “Look, I’m sorry about the horses. It was an accident, believe me. But if it would help you out, I’ve worked as a porter before. And more often, a guide. My name is Tamwyn.”
Elli tapped the back of her harp in approval and turned to Llynia. “That would help, wouldn’t it?”
Over by the bramble bushes, Nuic snorted. “It’ll take more than one man to carry just her clothes.”
Llynia scowled, but said nothing.
Tamwyn glanced spitefully at the hoolah. “Don’t expect any help from him, though. Helping’s not in his nature.”
To the surprise of everyone—most of all Tamwyn—the hoolah thrust out his chin as if he’d been insulted. Light from the midday stars glowed on his circular eyebrows. He straightened the woven red band on his forehead and declared, “Whatever the clumsy man can do, so can I! My name is Henniwashinachtifig Hoolah. And I’m just as good as he is.”
“Henni . . . what?” asked Elli.
“Call me Henni Hoolah if you want. Your new porter.”
“Don’t believe him!” warned Tamwyn. “It’s just one of his tricks. He’ll take your things and dump them in the first pit he finds, then run off laughing.”
“Will not!”
“Will so!”
“Will not!”
Llynia waved her hand for silence. “A pair of porters, is it? The most ragtag, filthy porters anyone could imagine.” Her scowl lessened just a bit. “Well, I’d prefer our pack horses . . . but if you can carry our things, then we can keep going.”
“You’ll regret this,” muttered Tamwyn.
“Only because of you, clumsy man.”
“Is that so? Why, I’ve guided people halfway to Woodroot and back!”
Llynia interrupted them with another wave. She gazed scornfully at Tamwyn and said, “You’re my porter now, nothing else. Don’t even think about trying to guide. I am our leader . . . and even if I didn’t have the Sight, I’d need no help from the likes of you.”
Henni nodded vigorously. “Smart move, Lady Greenbeard. Clumsy man there isn’t old and wise like me. He’d just lead you into a swamp or a dragon’s lair.”
“Stop calling me clumsy man!” roared Tamwyn. “Or however old you are, you won’t get any older.”
Llynia squinted at him. “And just how old are you, porter?”
Tamwyn swallowed. “Er, eighteen.”
The priestess nodded, but over by the brambles, old Nuic turned a suspicious
shade of rusty red.
Just then Henni spat a shred of balloonberry out of his mouth—which just happened to smack Tamwyn right between the eyes.
Angrily, Tamwyn swung his fist at the hoolah. Although he couldn’t reach his target, the force of his swing twisted him free from Fairlyn’s grasp. He dropped to the ground, stumbled to stay on his feet, and fell against Elli.
Elli cried out as the harp slipped from her hand. It fell to the ground with a loud twang. Tamwyn, meanwhile, finally regained his balance—and planted his foot squarely on the harp. There was a splintering crunch of wood, a gasp of horror from Elli, and a groan from Tamwyn.
And a chuckle from the hoolah.
Then everyone fell silent. Elli stared wordlessly at the shattered remains of her harp. Tamwyn stood frozen, aghast at what he’d done. Even the rowan tree’s boughs ceased their whispers.
In a single, swift motion, Elli whirled around and slammed her fist right into Tamwyn’s nose. He howled in pain, even as his knees buckled beneath him. He collapsed on the dirt, seeing more stars than in any Avalon sky.
“Elli!” scolded Llynia. “That was totally un-priestess-like.”
“And totally deserved.” She glared at Tamwyn, fuming. “You are a clumsy man. The clumsiest man alive! Or dead! Did your mother never teach you to walk? Or was she just as stupid and clumsy as you?”
Tamwyn glared right back at her, dropping his hand from his rapidly swelling nose . . . and the dark bruise forming under his eye. But just as he was about to hurl a few insults of his own, Nuic interrupted with a shout.
“Don’t mind her, good fellow! Nothing for you to worry about, really. You just destroyed her only possession, the last gift from her father before he died. And, oh yes, the one thing that kept her sane through six years of slavery.”
The sprite shrugged his round shoulders. “Don’t know why she got so upset at you.”
Tamwyn, suddenly looking as crushed as the harp itself, turned slowly back to Elli.
She just stared at him, almost tearful but with eyes ablaze. Then she turned and strode off.
