Shadows on the Stars

by T.A. Barron

  Scanning the circular hall with a woodsman’s eye, Tamwyn quickly spotted the source of the sound. It was, indeed, a spring, at the far side of the hall. It flowed beside a patch of emerald green moss at the base of the largest root buttress. He strode over and knelt beside it.

  Cupping his hands, he filled them with the clear liquid, and drank. Many times before he’d tasted fresh water from a spring, but never like this. The water, not so cold as snowmelt but still cool enough to make his tongue tingle, poured over his dry mouth and throat like a sweet mist, awakening his taste buds even as it revived them. More nectar than water, its sweetness thrilled his lips, strengthened his limbs, and lifted his spirits. It seemed more like a meal, or a week’s worth of meals, than just a drink. What water! What life!

  Tamwyn sighed pleasurably, then took another drink. At that moment, a furry little head with oversized ears poked out of his pocket. Unfurling the wing that he’d wrapped around his face, Batty Lad sniffed the air with his tiny black nose.

  “Me smelly some wetwater?” he chattered. “Oo, manny man. Me lovey-do wetwater.”

  “Come on out then,” offered Tamwyn, wiping the dribbles off his chin. “Have some.”

  The batlike creature hopped onto the pocket’s edge, flapped his wrinkled wings, and drifted down to the spring. He plunged his tiny face right into the flow, gurgling with delight. Eagerly he swallowed, then came up for a breath of air, only to plunge right back in for more.

  Henni, seeing that something new was happening, climbed down from his perch. Limping slightly, he scurried over to join the others. As soon as he realized there was fresh water, he, too, bent over the spring. He pursed his lips, slurping loudly as he drank. Soon his circular eyebrows glistened with water droplets.

  After he’d drunk all he could hold, Tamwyn filled his water flask, sure that no matter how many times he refilled it, the flask would always contain a hint of this water’s wonderful sweetness. Then, having returned the flask to his pack, he lay down on his back to rest. He set his head on the small patch of moss that grew by the spring, careful not to scrape the sore spot behind his head. This moss, he guessed, would be softer than any pillow he’d ever known.

  But it wasn’t. Something jabbed into him, a sharp corner of some kind. He frowned, sitting up again. What sort of moss was this, anyway?

  Peering closely, he saw nothing unusual. Curious, he patted the thick pad of greenery with his hand. It seemed as soft as he’d imagined, luxuriant and deep. Then—he felt an edge.

  He sucked in his breath. Something was buried under the moss! It could be just a rectangular stone, or perhaps a slab of wood. Or it could be . . . well, he’d just have to find out.

  Swiftly, he dug his fingers into the soil beneath the moss. He felt something smooth, and a perfectly straight edge. He lifted, tearing it eagerly out of the green tendrils. For he was sure now that this was no stone, or slab of wood.

  This was a box.

  He pulled it free, brushed off the clumps of moist dirt, and held it before his face. In the flickering green light of the hall, it glowed eerily—a small box of smooth, tan-colored wood. There were no markings to be seen on its surface. But when he shook it gently, something rustled inside.

  By now both Henni and Batty Lad had stopped drinking to watch. Tamwyn didn’t speak to them, though, focused as he was on his discovery. Could it, perhaps, have been left here by Krystallus or one of his band of explorers?

  With trembling fingers, he lifted the lid. Inside was a gold-edged piece of parchment, tied into a scroll with a lock of gray hair. Even if he hadn’t seen that hair in his dream, Tamwyn would have known it by its touch, its sheen, which spoke a single word in his mind.

  Father.

  He carefully untied the lock of hair and squeezed it for a moment in his hand. Then he set it next to his pack, which held the rest of his possessions: the broken blade and handle of his dagger, the water flask, and the harp that he’d barely begun to carve.

  At last, he unfurled the scroll and began to read its message. Written in blue ink, in bold yet flowing script, the words seemed to leap straight into his mind. He could almost hear his father’s rumbling voice and thoughtful cadence.

  Dagda’s Day,

  the 27th since midsummer

  Year of Avalon 987

  Ah, for those long ago days! When I first set foot in this Great Hall of the Heartwood, more than two hundred years ago, I bore no cares beyond the adventure I had chosen, no worries beyond the perils at hand.

  Now I return, feeling very different indeed. My stated purpose is even grander than before—to find a route upward into the trunk and limbs of the Great Tree. But to my closest friends I have confided that my true goal is to seek the very stars on high, to solve at last the great mystery of their nature. This is a quest that has called to me since childhood. Yet now that it has begun, and I stand again in this hall, I bear a burden far heavier than the magical torch from my father. It is a burden I carry within: the faces of my wife and child, Halona and Tamwyn. For I have lost them. And yet, even now, in this faraway place, I see their faces as clearly as on our final, starswept morning together.

  In truth, I wonder just why I have chosen now to embark on this long and dangerous voyage to the stars. Surely not because my strength is at its peak; surely not because the timing is auspicious. Perhaps I am not seeking the stars after all, but merely fleeing my own past. The stars are bright and far away, but my wounds are dark and ever near.

  My route, what little of it is known to me, is simple. I shall find, somehow, the way to Merlin’s Knothole, a place he described to me once long ago. If I cannot get there by portals, I shall seek out another way, perhaps even a way that is portal-fast. I am eager to reach the Knothole! For Merlin told me that, from there, one could view something that no one from the Seven Realms, besides himself had ever seen: the very branches of the Great Tree, leading to the stars.

  He also said, with one of his secret smiles, that the view from the Knothole was almost as dizzying as the journey. What he might have meant by that, I know not. But I intend to find out.

  And he did, as well, say one thing more. When I asked him how, if I ever reached the Knothole, I could ascend further—all the way to the stars—he did not answer me directly. Rather, in that maddening way of his, he simply recited a riddle:

  To climb ever starward,

  To vault through the sky,

  Discover one secret:

  The Great Horse on High.

  Again, I know not what he meant. But as before, I intend to find out.

  Tamwyn stopped reading. Furrowing his brow, he repeated the riddle’s final phrase: Great Horse on High. Could that possibly be related to Rhita Gawr’s mysterious words when the great horse dies? And if so, how? He hadn’t even the vaguest clue what this horse could be. Or how it could die.

  Puzzled, he turned back to the scroll:

  Old and weighed down as I am, I suspect that this voyage will be my last. Or next to last, for the Otherworld itself now beckons. Because of that suspicion, I have chosen to leave this missive for any person who is bold enough to journey here and find it. And who, I hope, will carry on my quest if I do not succeed—for it is only right that a mortal man or woman should, at last, touch the stars.

  Who, I wonder, might that person be?

  And so I depart on my final expedition in Avalon. Just where it will take me, I cannot guess. Yet when, at last, it comes to an end, I shall meet that end with whatever grace I can muster.

  For my life has been a long and wondrous walk, with experiences far too many to remember. And one far too bitter to forget.

  Krystallus Eopia

  Tamwyn closed his eyes, crumpling the page. And in his mind, once again, he heard his father’s words: The stars are bright and far away, but my wounds are dark and ever near.

  “I will follow you,” he whispered. “Wherever you’ve gone, I will follow you.”

  11 • Deth Macoll

  Deep in the darkness
of Shadowroot, no far from the underground cavern where Rhita Gawr and Kulwych gloated over their newly corrupted crystal, an elderly woman approached. She came very slowly, hardly more than a shiver in the shadows. But she came.

  Hunched over so far that her face nearly touched her knees, she couldn’t have walked at all without the help of her cane, an old piece of cherry wood as gnarled and beaten by time as the hand that grasped it. Covered by her ragged brown cloak, she looked like some sort of humpbacked beetle that had wandered the underground caverns for ages.

  Hesitantly, she made her way through the maze of dark corridors and stone stairwells, dimly lit by flickering torches of oiled rags. It helped to tap her cane against the walls and floor, since the echo often alerted her to turns and pits ahead. And fortunately, her hearing was still quite good. Even now she could hear, above the machinery clanging and squealing in the distance, the wheezy breathing of the gobsken warrior who stood guard around the next corner.

  Making no effort to hide, she hobbled around the corner. She surprised the burly gobsken, who started and drew his huge broadsword, grabbing its hilt with his three-fingered hand. Jabbing the point at her head, he thundered, “Who in Harshna’s name are you?”

  “Just a tired old traveler,” rasped the crone. She lifted her head to look at him, revealing a fringe of white hair under the cloak’s hood. “I must be lost.”

  “That you are, ol’ hag.”

  The gobsken stared down at her. The greenish gray skin of his brow furrowed. He seemed to be wondering which was more amazing: that he’d met any intruder at all down here, or that the intruder was an addled old woman.

  With a snarling laugh, he sheathed the sword. “Get out o’ here, hag. I’d kill you meself, but then I’d have to carry your body down to them furnaces for burning. Harrarr, harrarr, wid all the weapons ol’ scarface is having ‘em make down there, they always need more fuel! Though your shriveled ol’ body wouldn’t amount to much.”

  She bobbed her white head and hobbled a step closer. “How very kind of you, good sir. I am deeply in your debt.”

  “Begone, hag! Before I change me mind.” He raised his powerful hand to hit her.

  Quick as a striking snake, she lifted her cane and clicked a button on its handle that extended a dagger blade from its tip. Before the astonished warrior could even gasp, she used her lower height to aim upward and thrust her blade into the gap under his breastplate. He fell to his knees, green blood spurting from his riven heart. She pulled out the weapon as he collapsed dead on the stone floor.

  “Be fuel yourself,” she snarled, in a voice that sounded more strong and assured than before. Quickly, she retracted the blade and cocked her head, listening.

  “Ahhh,” she murmured in satisfaction. For behind the heavy door where the gobsken had been standing guard, she could hear the voices of those she had been seeking. The voices of Kulwych and Rhita Gawr.

  • • •

  On the other side of the door, the smoky shape of Rhita Gawr floated in the air, slowly circling the bloodred crystal. The cavern echoed with his hissing laughter. For he felt immensely pleased with his work.

  “Now, Kulwych my pet, you see my power. A marvelous thing to behold, is it not?”

  “Mmmyesss, mmmyesss, my lord.” The face of the sorcerer, so terribly burned and scarred, bobbled nervously as he spoke. “You have created this crystal of vengélano, just as you promised.”

  “I have done more than that, my duckling. Much more! Though I would not expect you to perceive it, limited as you are with your own feeble powers.”

  Kulwych winced at the insult. But he remained motionless by the cavern wall, saying nothing. Only the narrowing of his one eye gave a hint of his burning resentment.

  The smoky form continued to spin around the crystal that rested on its pedestal. As the dark serpent moved through the air, black sparks exploded in its wake.

  Leaning against the wet stone wall, Kulwych watched carefully. Although he couldn’t be sure, Rhita Gawr’s shape seemed to be more solid already, just two weeks after he’d appeared so suddenly. Now he looked more like a black coil of rope than a spiral of smoke. The sorcerer gulped, for he knew that this could mean just one thing: The spirit lord was swiftly gaining power, and would soon take his true form—whatever that might be—at which time he would launch the attack that would utterly demolish his enemies in Avalon. The only question was whether, at that stage, he would still have any more need for Kulwych.

  The dark being hissed in satisfaction. “You see, my magician, I have also done something else.” His voice sharpened, like a dagger slicing the air. “Something you tried to do, but failed.”

  Kulwych stiffened. “You have destroyed the heir?”

  “Indeed I have! He received a little messenger, you see—a token of this crystal’s new power, sent to the spot where I sensed his presence.” There was a crackle of laughter. “I disguised it as a flower, so beautiful he couldn’t resist, and set it to explode the very instant it was touched by someone with deep magic.”

  “B-but my lord,” asked Kulwych anxiously, “how can you be sure that the person it killed was the true heir of Merlin?”

  The dark spiral snapped in the air like a whip. “Are you so foolish as that? My senses are keener than you know, Kulwych! I felt him there, atop some mountain peak in Olanabram. I felt the flower explode. And now I feel him nowhere—not in any of the root-realms of Avalon.”

  Kulwych’s hideously scarred face gave a ghoulish smile, as the lipless gash that was his mouth curled upward, melting into the jagged scar that ran from the stub of his ear down to his chin.

  “And now,” continued the floating form of Rhita Gawr, “there is one more person I would like to destroy, before initiating my ultimate plan. She will not be felled so easily as the heir, for I cannot sense her whereabouts as easily as I could someone who carried the rancid blood of Merlin in his veins. But Kulwych, I want her dead. And soon.”

  The sorcerer, eager to prove his worth, rubbed his pale white hands together. “I have just what you need, my lord. An assassin of the highest order.”

  “Not that stupid ox of a man you have been using to whip the gobsken into making weapons?”

  “Harlech? No, my lord, not him. This work you describe requires a thousand times more delicacy.” Kulwych nodded eagerly. “In fact, anticipating your needs as ever, my lord, I have already called for this person to join us. Mmmyesss.”

  The spiraling form crackled, sending up a shower of black sparks. “Good. Then that must be the dangerous presence I sense even now, behind the door.”

  “What?” asked Kulwych, caught off guard. “So soon?”

  Slowly, the heavy door swung open. A frail, hunched woman shuffled into the cavern, leaning heavily on her cane. She glanced at the sorcerer from the side of her hood, then turned to the serpentine shape hovering beside the corrupted crystal.

  “Yes,” she said in a thin, wavering voice. “So soon.”

  “Show me who you are,” commanded Rhita Gawr.

  All at once, the old crone stood up straight, doubling her height. She threw back the hood of her cloak, whipped off the wig of white hair, and ran a hand over the bald spot that shone red in the light of the crystal. A sallow face peered at them with flinty gray eyes. Then, with a flourish, the man—for it was indeed a man—bowed in greeting.

  “Deth Macoll,” he announced. “At your service.”

  The snakelike form floated away from the crystal and approached this new arrival, inspecting him closely. As Rhita Gawr encircled him in a smoky noose, moving just a hand’s width away from his chest, Deth Macoll merely stood there, relaxed, showing no sign of nervousness. His gray eyes followed the circling form as if he himself were the hunter instead of the prey.

  “Very good,” declared Rhita Gawr at last, his voice bubbling like hot lava. “You are a master of disguise, I see. But not a changeling.”

  The man did not answer.

  “That’s right, my lord,” sa
id Kulwych proudly. “He is human, the superior race.”

  “Bah,” spat the spirit lord. “Superior to what? Cockroaches, perhaps?” His dark tail crackled in the air. “But perhaps I have spoken too harshly, Kulwych. After all, both you and your friend here are human.”

  Deth Macoll squinted at the sorcerer, and spoke again. “He is not my friend,” he said casually. “Merely someone who provides me with interesting work from time to time.”

  Kulwych bristled. “You mean someone who pays your exorbitant fees.”

  The other man’s voice dropped to a growl. “My real pay, as you should know by now, comes not in coin.” His chin angled toward the sorcerer. “I choose my work for other reasons. My own reasons.”

  “Maggots of Merlin! You ungrateful—”

  “Silence,” snapped Rhita Gawr, still circling. “You have proven my point, Kulwych. Humanity may have some superior gifts, I suppose, but also superior flaws. And it is the flaws that make them so very useful to me. For their very natures are arrogant, greedy, and superstitious.”

  Neither man said anything more. Their eyes, however, glinted like sword blades.

  “And now,” declared Rhita Gawr, “are you ready to hear my command?”

  “To hear your request,” corrected Deth Macoll. “Tell me your target, and then I will decide.”

  Sparks of darkness flew into the air, and the spinning form hissed, “For your sake, let us hope you decide correctly. Your target is a woman of considerable power.”

  “Who?” asked the assassin, shrugging his shoulders lazily.

  Kulwych stepped forward. His wretched face was so contorted by anger that he would probably have grabbed Deth Macoll by his cloak and shaken him, but for the dark form that sizzled between them. “Are you really that stupid? Who else but the Lady of the Lake?”

  “No, my plaything,” corrected Rhita Gawr. “It is not the Lady.”

  As Kulwych froze, openmouthed, the other man smirked ever so slightly.