“May I see it?”
Until you are ready to know the darkness. Not ready, not by half! But she was not about to deny the request of a wizard who had just changed another wizard into a grasshopper. She crunched through the brush. As she reached the spot, she nearly buckled under foreboding. She knelt and felt around in the shiny leaves until she found the edges of the rock, then flipped it up, exposing brown earth laced with pale roots and earthworms. She didn’t see the stone, but it shadowed her heart like a bad day. She dug her fingers into the earth until she felt the unholy thing in her hand. Then she held it out.
As the Raven of Muin gazed down at the stone, his face turned ghostly pale. “Where did your aunt get that?”
Tansel shrugged. “She didn’t tell me anything. Just to hide it. Something about darkness.”
“How long have you had it?”
“Seven summers.”
Nostrils flared, the wizard tore his gaze away and cast it around into the trees as if he expected to see something there. Tansel jumped as he took her hand and plucked out the stone. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped the stone in it and dropped it into a pocket as he had Maetor’s eagle pin.
“You must come with me,” he said firmly. “Gather your things.”
“What?”
“Quickly.” The tone of his voice frightened Tansel so badly it caused her to freeze like an animal in danger. His expression softened. “There is nothing for you here, Tansel, not until the warmth of the season brings it back to life. Until then, I should like you to come live with me in Muin. I have a garden there, and I confess it is not in very good standing.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I could use a gardener.”
“Will I have to become a wizard?” She said the word with thoughtless distaste.
“No.”
She looked around in disorientation until she spotted Mushroom in the garden by the center pool. “May I bring my cat?”
“Aye.” He cast his gaze to the trees, the sky. “Come,” he repeated. The darkness had returned to his voice. “We must go. Take only what you can carry. We will return for the rest of your things later.”
Tansel ran to her house and retrieved her pack and basket, which she stuffed with as many things from her pantry as would fit, including Mushroom’s bowl and her potted sage and rue. She put on her cloak and stepped from the door with a knot in her throat.
The Raven of Muin waited for her on the edge of the forest like a sentinel of the Otherworld. Mushroom sat by his feet.
Tansel didn’t look at her dead garden as she stumbled through it.
Gardens are made of darkness and light entwined.
Some things did not stay well in gardens. But as the oldest wizard led Tansel away from her home, she wondered why she had to be one of them.
The Hall of Muin
Tansel’s home faded behind as she hurried after the Raven of Muin. He had said something to Mushroom in a weird tongue that somehow convinced the cat to stay close. Tansel had a harder time keeping up. With remarkable agility for one so old, the wizard moved through the forest like something wild, graceful, and alert to the presence of predators. He took no path or common road. His presence had all the physical immediacy of a dream, reminding Tansel that he had appeared from thin air in the center of her garden. She had almost forgotten that.
She hadn’t forgotten the look on his face or the way he scanned the trees when she had shown him the fang stone.
He was still doing it.
“Master?” she panted, using the same title she had heard Maetor use. Her mother, for all her comments about wizards, had never explained how to address them. Tansel didn’t think Retch would invoke a favorable response. “Why are we in such a hurry?”
He touched her with a gaze that moved back into the trees before leaving her again. His mood had fallen like dusk on a cloudy winter’s day, the shortest day with a cruel storm coming.
“The stone,” she ventured. “What is it?”
“Something you should not have.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t reply, and would say nothing more no matter what she said or how she pressed him for answers. After a mile or two, she gave up trying. She moved after him, casting sullen looks at the fine, black fabric of his cloak and the symbol of his Order on the back: an interlaced six-pointed star surrounded by a sun, a moon and the boughs of oaks growing in elegant symmetry. An eye in the center stared at her dispassionately.
Memories surfaced, dredged by sadness. Tansel envisioned her mother kneeling before the fire, her green eyes glittering and the tendrils of her auburn hair twining from their bounds. The older a wizard grows, she said, the more silent he becomes, like a woody vine growing over time to choke a garden path, deep and full of moss and snakes, running everywhere, impenetrable. Tansel considered this at great length during her journey to Muin.
At last, the hall came into view. Evening cooled the air. Amid a sprawling forest of maple, ash and birch, the mossy stone house spread into many levels; the walls adjoined towering rock ridges and hollows, and windows gleamed on every surface that peeked from the trees or the ground. A faint, rose-colored glow pervaded the air.
The wizard led Tansel, with her pack and basket, her pots of sage and rue, and Mushroom, through the main entrance. Two large cressets hung on either side. A beautiful carving adorned the stone above the arch: a thick vine laden with garnet grapes twined into the shape of an interlocking pentacle. A topaz sun shone out from the center.
They entered a large foyer with a floor containing a colorful mosaic of an eye surrounded by flowering gardens. Tansel followed the wizard through a series of winding passages with windows, arches, and courtyards. The setting sun glinted on ivy growing through openings or twining around a sill. Here and there, a tree grew from a corner or a crack in the floor, having rooted in a beam of light from a window or an opening in the forest canopy. Tansel wondered what happened when it rained or snowed. Wet and cold, she supposed.
The wizard stopped and took a torch from the wall, and disappeared into a descending stairwell. Mushroom went after him; Tansel followed. They emerged into a large chamber with floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the far wall. The hearth, on the wall opposite the windows, had a mantel of green stone carved into a thicket of climbing honeysuckle with garnet flowers. A bed in the center of the room had four thick posts attached to the ceiling in a tangle of oiled tree boughs. The bed curtains were old, dusty and torn on the ends.
The wizard put the torch into a bracket by the hearth. “I once had a gardener.” It was the first thing he had said since that morning. “This was his room. Now it’s yours.”
Tansel set down her things and walked slowly to the windows. As she took in the landscape, her heart began to race. Her new garden had become a wild, growing tangle of life climbing over itself, cloaking paths, trees and retaining walls; tiers upon tiers of swirling color, shadowy patterns, stalks and leaves; mazes of brush and brambles woven into the forest beyond like a tapestry. The scope and disorder of it nearly unhinged her mind. Aside from the unbelievable variety, she couldn’t discern a single patch, path, grove or ledge that hadn’t been invaded by something around it.
To say that the Raven of Muin had a garden was a ridiculous understatement. What he had was something Tansel had never imagined in all of her dreams.
...deep and full of moss and snakes, running everywhere, impenetrable.
It scared the wits out of her.
“I must leave you for a while,” the wizard said in a strange voice not unlike the scary garden itself. “Feel free to explore. I’ll send someone to help you settle in.”
Tansel turned around and started to speak, but he was gone. She wrinkled her brow at the empty room. She hadn’t heard him leave; not a rustle of his cloak, a step, a closing door, nothing.
Tentatively, she unlatched and pushed open a tall glass door in the window wall. Fresh wind blew into the room. Dusk had brought low clouds and the
air smelled of rain. She took her sage and rue, slipped through the door and placed the pots on the flagstones outside. Then she returned to the room as if to escape the garden’s clutches.
She lowered herself to the floor and gazed outside. She spied the beginnings of a path, a bird’s nest, a rusty pot, a rotted snarl of twine. A bat moved about in the lilac-gray sky. Having explored the room to his satisfaction, Mushroom nosed through the open door and padded warily into the thicket. Night cloaked the room with unearthly quiet.
Tansel nearly jumped from her skin as a knock sounded on the door. She whirled around, spooked and unable to speak. Someone entered and came down the stairs. A man appeared, looked around, and spotted her sitting on the floor by the window. He carried a bucket with wood in it, which he set down by the hearth. He brushed off his hands and approached. He had a kind face, thin black hair graying at the temples, and eyes the color of a woodland pond.
“I am Sigen,” he said. “The Master told me you were here and asked me to see if you need anything.”
She returned her gaze to the scary garden, now cloaked in darkness. “I am Tansel.”
When she didn’t respond further, Sigen stepped closer and knelt as if he had just found a wild animal wounded in the forest and didn’t know what to do with it. “You are the new gardener, I’m told.”
She nodded, her heart thumping at the base of her throat. “Are you a wizard?”
He shook his head. “My family has served Muin Hall for generations. My uncle was the gardener.” He moved his chin towards the garden. “We buried him out there. It was his life’s work.” He rose, walked to the hearth and began to build a fire.
Intensely uncomfortable with the idea of anyone doing anything for her, Tansel jumped up to help him. “Are there other wizards here?” she asked, gathering twigs and bark pieces to put into the barren hearth.
He grabbed the torch and used it to light the fire. “Maetor. He is Order of Eagle.”
Evidently, only Tansel knew that Maetor was in the belly of a frog. She decided to leave it that way. To change the subject she said, “Why did the Master not get another gardener?”
“Apparently, he has,” he responded with a glance. He placed a narrow log on the fire.
“It looks to’ve been a long time.”
“Twelve years. My lady keeps a corner of the garden for herbs and vegetables. Master never bothered to tend the rest.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know.” He stood up. “You must be hungry.”
Tansel didn’t remember the last time she had eaten. She nodded. After banking the fire, Sigen walked to the open door. He reached out to close it, as it had started to rain.
“Wait,” Tansel said. “My cat is out there.” She leaned outside and called softly. Only the wind answered, causing her to envision the scary garden devouring her only friend.
“Allow me.” Sigen knelt and spoke a word: “Graemalkin.”
The sound put a chill on Tansel’s neck. To her astonishment, Mushroom came out of the dark and appeared at the window with his tail held high. She reached out and grabbed him. He was wet, and purring. “How did you do that?”
“One learns things in the service of a wizard.” He closed the door and latched it. “Come. I’ll show you where to find food, and,” he glanced at the bed as he strode by it, “linens, firewood and the like.”
Tansel let Mushroom down with a soothing word and followed Sigen up the stairs. He led her through a series of corridors that passed by doors and openings where rain caressed the forest beyond. Not a drop of rain fell into the halls, though rivulets of water snaked through patterned cracks to feed growing things. Here and there, crystal or glass adorned a wall, ceiling or floor.
“How is it the rain does not come in?” Tansel wondered aloud.
After a pause, Sigen replied, “The gods who built Muin cloaked it with a spell that knows the skies.”
“Gods?”
Sigen slowed his pace. “So it is told. How did you come here, Tansel?”
Startled by the question, Tansel’s voice caught on the whole odd tale of her last day. Her mother used to say: It is better to be true than to dance. Tansel would be dancing, all right, to describe how she had come here. Finally, she said, “I had trouble with Maetor. My aunt told me the Master’s name, and I called to him for help. He turned Maetor into a grasshopper and a frog ate him.”
By the look on Sigen’s face, Tansel decided dancing around the truth might have been better. “Are you a storyteller?” he asked with a scornful laugh.
“That’s what happened. The Master asked me to come with him and be his gardener.” She decided not to bother mentioning the fang-stone. Not now.
Sigen said nothing until they reached a wide archway with shallow steps. Warm air scented with wood smoke and baking bread filled the opening. “This is the kitchen. We usually eat when food is prepared for the Master, but you can come here as you need.” He stopped and fixed his brown-green gaze on her. “I didn’t mean to question you. But your story is wee strange.”
“That’s what happened,” she repeated defensively. “The Master came to my cottage in the forest earlier today. We had tea. He brought me back here this very evening and left me in the gardener’s room.”
“No one knows the Master’s name.”
“He told me it was a nickname.”
“Something told you that,” Sigen returned, his eyes glittering in the dim light. “The Raven of Muin has not left this hall in three days.”
Stunned by the claim, Tansel said, “But he brought me here. Go ask him yourself.”
Sigen’s expression grew as distant as a room on the other side of a slamming door. “He’s in the Waeltower. We’re strictly forbidden to disturb him there.”
He moved into the shadows of the kitchen, leaving Tansel trembling and starving in the doorway with tears in her eyes.
*
Pre-dawn breathed upon the Hall of Muin as Tansel rolled over in her bed in the old gardener’s chamber. The linens smelled musty and were full of dust, as if they had been on the bed untouched for twelve years. She suspected they had.
Sleep had not come to her that night after Sigen showed her to the kitchen. She still saw his face as he had left her there, a kind face hollow with doubt and closed as a dried-up crocus bulb. She had gathered food for Mushroom, and a little for herself, and returned here. She was still hungry.
Dawn brought form to the scary garden. Mist hung in the shadows and water dripped from the eaves of the roof. Mushroom jumped off the bed and stretched with a scratchy yowl. He walked to his bowl and sniffed it, then to the door, which Tansel had opened again during the night. She noticed the purple entrails of a mouse on the floor and thought, At least one of us is eating.
She rose and walked to the windows with a deep breath. The air was cool and fragrant, and faint colors touched the foliage. A shed roof peeked out from an overgrown privet. She surmised it contained gardening tools—or worse, the body of the erstwhile gardener—but she decided not to entertain either notion. One bothered her as much as the other.
Sigen told her the Raven of Muin hadn’t left the hall. He said something had brought her here. Tansel ran over the entire day in her mind, but she couldn’t put that together. It had seemed so real. The few odd things she had noticed could easily be attributed to the quirks inherent in knowledge and power.
She decided to find the wizard and ask him. An uncomfortable idea, but less chilling than venturing into a dead man’s garden where nothing kept well.
A short time later, she stepped from her room. She walked in the opposite direction of the servant’s quarters. Hunger gnawed at her, but it was still too early to go to the kitchens. After her exchange with Sigen the night before, she didn’t wish to see anyone.
She wandered through the halls hoping to catch sight of something that might lead her to the wizard. Rose-colored beams cast geometric patterns on the walls, into corridors and onto the floor, sometimes striki
ng one of the many crystals that adorned the place. When Tansel put her hand under the light, she felt a faint, pleasing vibration. Wherever it shone, things grew: a tree, a rose bush, ferns, a splotch of moss, as if the light nourished them.
She entered a passage containing many doors, some of which were open to reveal empty bedchambers. They didn’t look like servant’s quarters, which meant they must be the rooms of wizards or guests. Strange, so few people lived here.
Given what Sigen had told her, everything she had experienced the day before could have been an illusion. It could have been conjured up by Maetor, designed to make her think a frog had eaten him when he still roamed this hall. Sigen believed as much. Maetor could be in one of these rooms, even now. Tansel hurried from the corridor, breaking into a run at the end. She didn’t know what to believe.
Maybe her garden in the forest hadn’t frozen at all.
Anxiety flittered around in her mind like a moth as she entered a large hall with a long table in the center and a hearth on each end, each with a mantel made of black wood carved into enormous trees. No fire burned in them. Tansel wandered to a row of tall windows on one side of the room.
Afloat in the dense canopy of the forest was a deep red spire with faceted sides. Tall as a watchtower and wide as an ancient oak, the spire pierced the sky like an enormous crystal similar to those Tansel had seen for sale in shops in the village, except those were only as long as her finger. The obvious source of the rose light shining throughout the hall, the spire emanated order beyond her comprehension.
In a wide chamber at the base of the spire, beautiful colored windows glinted in the morning light. It was a lofty, important place, the sort of place a wizard might be. Tansel had no idea how to get there or what to do even if she did.
Panic seized her like the scent of a predator, filling her with an overwhelming desire to get back to her cottage, her garden, and her life. She didn’t belong here. She whirled around and ran back in the direction of her room. She would look upon that scary garden once more, as long as it took to find Mushroom—she knew a word now to help her do that—and then she would escape this place like a tansy runner.
The Winged Hunter Page 3
