The Lost Years

by T.A. Barron

  “On the wall here. Don’t you see it?”

  She climbed back up to me. After staring at the spot where I pointed, she seemed baffled, as if she saw nothing there. “Can you read it?”

  “No.”

  “But you can see it?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment she scrutinized me. “There is something different about the way you see, isn’t there?”

  I nodded.

  “You see without your eyes.”

  Again I nodded.

  “And you can see something I can’t see with eyes.” Rhia bit her lip. “You are even more of a stranger to me now than when I first met you.”

  “Maybe it’s better for you I stay a stranger.”

  Trouble fluttered his wings nervously.

  “He doesn’t like it in here,” she observed, heading down the stairs.

  I followed. “He probably knows what Arbassa thinks of him.” After a pause, I added, “Not to mention what I think of him.”

  The doorway creaked, then opened. We stepped through it into the morning light scattered by the leafy boughs overhead, even as the passage snapped shut behind us.

  Rhia glanced upward into the broad boughs of Arbassa, then quickly moved into the forest. As I followed, my walking jarred Trouble, and his talons squeezed me tighter than ever.

  Before long, she came to a large beech tree, its gray bark folded with age. “Come here,” she called. “I have something to show you.”

  I approached. She took her hand and laid it flat against the trunk.

  “No tree is as ready to speak as a beech. Especially an elder. Listen.”

  Gazing up into the branches, she started making a slow, swishing sound with her voice. Immediately, the branches began to wave in response, whispering gently. As she varied her pace, pitch, and volume, the tree seemed to reply in kind. Soon the girl and the tree were engaged in full and lively conversation.

  After a time, Rhia turned to me and spoke again in our own language. “Now you try it.”

  “Me?”

  “You. First put your hand on the trunk.”

  Still doubtful, I obeyed.

  “Now before you speak, listen.”

  “I already heard the branches.”

  “Don’t listen with your ears. Listen with your hand.”

  My palm pressed into the folds of the trunk; my fingers joined with the cold, smooth bark. Presently I could feel a vague pulsing at the edges of my fingertips. The pulsing moved gradually into my whole hand and then up my arm. I could almost feel the subtle rhythm of air and earth flowing through the body of the tree, a rhythm that combined the power of an ocean wave surging with the tenderness of a small child breathing.

  Without thinking, I started making a swishing sound like Rhia. To my surprise, the branches responded, waving gracefully above me. A whisper stirred the air. I nearly smiled, knowing that while I did not understand its words, the tree was indeed speaking to me.

  Both to Rhia and the old beech, I said, “One day I would like to learn this language.”

  “It would do you no good if the Druma dies. Only here are the trees of Fincayra still awake enough to talk.”

  I hunched my shoulders. “What can I possibly do for you? I already told you I’m not the person in your dream.”

  “Forget my dream! There is something remarkable about you. Something . . . special.”

  Her words warmed me. Even if I didn’t really believe them, it meant something that she did. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I thought of myself, seated on the grass, concentrating on a flower, making it open its petals one by one. Then I remembered where that path had taken me, and I shuddered. “Once there was something special. But that part of me is gone.”

  Her gray-blue eyes burrowed deeper. “Whatever it is you have, it is with you right now.”

  “I have only myself and my quest—which will probably take me far from here.”

  Adamantly, she shook her head. “That is not all you have.”

  All at once I understood what she must be talking about. The Galator! She didn’t want me, after all. She wanted the pendant I wore, whose power I did not begin to understand. It didn’t matter how she had concluded that I carried it. What mattered was that, somehow, she knew. How foolish of me to have believed, even for an instant, that she had seen something special about me. About my person, rather than my pendant.

  “You don’t really want me,” I growled.

  Her face turned quizzical. “You think not?”

  Before I could answer, Trouble’s talons dug into my shoulder with sudden force. I winced with pain. It was all I could do to keep myself from swiping at the bird, but I knew that he might attack me as ferociously as he had attacked the killer rat by the stream. All I could do was try to tolerate the pain, while despairing that he had chosen me to be his perch. But why had he chosen me? What did he really want? I had absolutely no idea.

  “Look!” Rhia pointed at a brilliant flash of iridescent red and purple disappearing into the trees. “The alleah bird!”

  She started after it, then paused, glancing back at me. “Come! Let’s get closer. The alleah bird is a sign of good fortune! I have not seen one for years.”

  With that, she dashed after the bird. I noticed that the wind seemed to sweep through the trees at that very moment, causing the branches to chatter vigorously. Yet if they were truly saying something, Rhia was not paying any attention. I rushed after her.

  Over fallen branches and through needled bracken we chased the bird. Each time we drew close enough to get a better look, it flew off in a burst of brilliant color, showing only enough of its plumed tail to make us want to see more.

  Finally, the alleah bird settled on a low branch in a stand of dead trees. Most likely it had chosen this place to perch because the supple, living branches all around were swaying so wildly in the wind. For the first time, no leaves hid its bright feathers. Rhia and I, panting from the chase, held ourselves as still as possible, studying the flaming purple crest on the bird’s head and the explosions of scarlet along its tail.

  Rhia could hardly contain her excitement. “Let’s see how near we can get.” She started to creep closer, pushing past a dead limb.

  Suddenly Trouble whistled sharply. As I cringed from the blast in my ear, the hawk took flight. My heart missed a beat when I realized that he meant to attack the beautiful bird.

  “No!” I cried.

  Rhia waved her arms wildly. “Stop! Stop!”

  The merlin paid no attention. Releasing another wrathful whistle, he shot like an arrow straight into his prey. The alleah bird, taken unaware, shrieked in pain as Trouble sunk his talons deep into its soft neck and pecked at its eyes. Still, it fought back with surprising savagery. The branch snapped beneath them. Feathers flying, the two birds tumbled to the ground.

  Rhia ran forward, with me right behind. Reaching the spot, we both froze.

  Before us on the brown leaves, Trouble, his talons smeared with blood, stood atop the body of his motionless prey. I noticed that the alleah bird seemed to have only one leg. Probably the other one had been torn off in the attack. I felt sick at the sight of those crumpled feathers, those luminous wings that would never fly again.

  Then, as we watched in amazement, the alleah bird began to metamorphose. As it changed, it pulled away from its former skin, much like a snake that is shedding. This left behind a brittle, almost transparent skin, marked with ridges where the feathers had been. Meanwhile the bird’s wings evaporated, as the feathered tail transformed into a long, serpentine body covered by dull red scales. The head grew longer and sprouted massive jaws, filled with jagged teeth that could easily bite off a hand. Only the eyes, as red as the scales, remained unchanged. The serpentlike creature lay dead, the thin skin of its former body clinging to its side.

  I took Rhia’s arm. “What does this mean?”

  Her face drained of color, she turned slowly toward me. “It means that your hawk has saved our lives.”<
br />
  “What is that . . . thing?”

  “That is—or was—a shifting wraith. It can change into whatever shape it wants, so it is especially dangerous.”

  “Those jaws look dangerous enough.”

  Grimly, Rhia poked at the shed skin with a stick. “As I said, a shifting wraith can change into anything. But there is always a flaw, something that gives it away, if you look closely enough.”

  “The bird had only one leg.”

  Rhia motioned toward the still-whispering branches beyond the dead stand. “The trees tried to warn me, but I wasn’t listening. A shifting wraith in the Druma! That has never happened before. Oh, Emrys . . . my dream is coming true before my eyes!”

  I bent low and extended my hand toward the merlin, now preening his wings. Trouble cocked his head to one side, then the other, then hopped onto my waiting wrist. With quick, sideways steps, he climbed up my arm and sat once more on my shoulder. Yet this time his weight didn’t feel so troublesome.

  I faced Rhia, whose brow was wrinkled with foreboding. “All of us were wrong about this little fighter. Even Arbassa was wrong.”

  She shook her head. “Arbassa was not wrong.”

  “But—”

  “When Arbassa closed the door, it was not to keep out the merlin.” She drew a long breath. “It was to keep out you.”

  I stepped backward. “The tree thinks I could be dangerous to you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Yes. But I decided to let you in anyway.”

  “Why? That was before your dream.”

  She studied me curiously. “One day, perhaps, I will tell you.”

  18: THE NAME OF THE KING

  My second sight moved from the skin of the shifting wraith, as brittle as a dried leaf, to the living, whispering boughs of the Druma. “Tell me what is happening to Fincayra.”

  Rhia frowned—such an unnatural expression for her. “I only know a little, what I’ve learned from the trees.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  She reached toward me, wrapping one of her forefingers around one of mine. “It reminds me of a basket of sweet berries that turns sour. Too sour to eat.” She gave a sigh. “Some years ago, strange things—evil things—started happening. The lands east of the river, once nearly as green and full of life as this forest, fell to the Blight. As the land darkened, so did the sky. But until today, the Druma has always been safe. Its power was so strong, no enemies dared to enter. Until now.”

  “How many wraiths are there?”

  Trouble fluttered his wings, then grew quiet again.

  “I don’t know.” Her frown deepened. “But the shifting wraiths are not even our worst enemies. There are warrior goblins. They used to stay underground, in their caves. But now they run free, and they kill just for pleasure. There are ghouliants—the deathless warriors who guard the Shrouded Castle. And there is Stangmar, the king who commands them all.”

  At the mention of that name, the living branches surrounding the stand of dead trees started shaking and clacking. When at last they grew still, I asked, “Who is this king?”

  Rhia chewed her lip. “Stangmar is terrible—too terrible for words. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve heard the trees say that when he first came to power, he wasn’t so wicked. In those days, he sometimes rode through the Druma on his great black horse, even pausing to listen to the voices of the forest. Then something happened to him—no one knows what—that made him change. He destroyed his own castle, a place of music and friendship. And where it stood, he built the Shrouded Castle, a place of cruelty and terror.”

  She sat solemnly for a moment. “It lies far to the east, in the darkest of the Dark Hills, where the night never ends. I’ve heard of no one, other than the king’s own servants, who has gone there and returned alive. No one! So the truth is difficult to know. Yet . . . it is said that the castle is always dark, and always spinning, so fast that no one could ever attack it.”

  I stiffened, remembering my dream at sea. Even now, that terrible castle felt all too real.

  “Meanwhile, Stangmar has poisoned much of Fincayra. All the lands east of the Druma, and some to the south, have been cleansed, as those loyal to him would say. What that really means is that fear—cold, lifeless fear—has covered everything. It reminds me of snow, except snow is pretty. Villages are burned. Trees and rivers are silent. Animals and birds are dead. And the giants are gone.”

  “Giants?”

  Her eyes burned angrily. “Our first and oldest people. Giants from every land call Fincayra their ancestral home. Even before the rivers began rolling down from the mountains, the footsteps of giants marked Fincayra. Long before Arbassa first sprouted as a seedling, their rumbling chants echoed over ridges and forests. Even now, the Lledra, their oldest chant, is the first song many babies ever hear.”

  The Lledra. Had I heard that name before? It seemed familiar somehow. But how could it be? Unless, perhaps, it was one of Branwen’s chants.

  “They can grow taller than a tree, our giants. Or even a hillside. Yet throughout the ages, they’ve stayed peaceful. Except for the Wars of Terror long ago—when goblins tried to overrun the giants’ ancient city of Varigal. Usually, unless someone makes them angry, they are as gentle as butterflies.”

  She stamped her foot on the ground. “But some years ago, Stangmar issued a command—for some reason known only to him—to kill the giants wherever they were found. Since then, his soldiers have hunted them ruthlessly. Although it takes twenty or more soldiers to kill just one, they nearly always succeed. The city of Varigal, I’ve heard, is now just a ruin. It’s possible that a few giants still survive, disguised as cliffs or crags, but they must always stay in hiding, afraid for their lives. In all my travels through the Druma, I’ve never seen a single one.”

  I gazed at the corpse of the shifting wraith. “Isn’t there any way to stop this king?”

  “If there is, no one has found it! His powers are vast. Besides his army, he has assembled almost all of the Treasures of Fincayra.”

  “What are they?”

  “Magical. Powerful. The Treasures were always used to benefit the land and all its creatures, not just one person. But no more. Now they are his—the Orb of Fire, the Caller of Dreams, the Seven Wise Tools. The sword called Deepercut—a sword with two edges, one that can cut right into the soul, and one that can heal any wound. The most beautiful one, the Flowering Harp, whose music can bring springtime to any meadow or hillside. And the most hateful one, the Cauldron of Death.”

  Her voice fell to a whisper. “Only one of the legendary Treasures hasn’t yet fallen into his hands. The one whose power is said to be greater than all the rest combined. The one called the Galator.”

  Beneath my tunic, my heart pulsed against the pendant.

  Her finger wrapped tighter around mine. “I’ve heard the trees saying that Stangmar has given up searching for the Galator, that it disappeared from Fincayra some years ago. Yet I’ve also heard that he is still searching for something that will make his power complete—something he calls the last Treasure. That could only mean one thing.”

  “The Galator?”

  Rhia nodded slowly. “Anyone who knows where it’s hidden is in the gravest danger.”

  I could not miss the warning. “You know I have it.”

  “Yes,” she replied calmly. “I know.”

  “And you think it could help save the Druma.”

  She pursed her lips in thought. “It might, or it might not. Only the Galator itself can say. But I still think you could help.”

  I stepped back, jabbing my neck on a broken limb. Trouble screeched at me reproachfully.

  Yet the pain in my neck, like the pain in my ear, didn’t distress me. For I had heard in her voice that certain something I had not allowed myself to hear before. She really did see something of value in me! I felt sure that she was mistaken. But her faith was a kind of treasure itself, as precious in its
way as the one around my neck.

  The words jumped out at me. As precious as the one around my neck. Suddenly I realized that I had my clue! The clue I’d been seeking!

  Until now I had assumed that the Galator was simply known in Fincayra—not that it truly belonged in Fincayra. Now I knew better. It was the most powerful of this land’s ancient Treasures. And it may have disappeared around the time Branwen and I washed ashore on Gwynedd. If only I could find out how the Galator had come into Branwen’s hands, or at least learn some more of its secrets, then I might find some of my own secrets as well.

  “The Galator,” I said. “What else do you know about it?”

  Rhia released my hand. “Nothing. And now I must go. With or without you.”

  “Where?”

  She started to speak, then froze, listening. Trouble, clinging firmly to my left shoulder, also froze.

  Rhia’s loose brown hair stirred like the branches as yet another wind moved through the forest. As her features hardened with concentration, I wondered whether her laughter like bells would ever ring again among these trees. The sound swelled steadily, a chorus of swishing and creaking, drumming and moaning.

  As the wind subsided, she leaned toward me. “Goblins have been seen in the forest! I have no time to lose.” She caught a fold of my tunic. “Will you come? Will you help me find some way to save the Druma?”

  I hesitated. “Rhia . . . I’m sorry. The Galator. I need to find out more about it! Can’t you understand?”

  Her eyes narrowed. Without saying good-bye, she turned to go.

  I strode up to her and caught a vine from her sleeve. “I wish you well.”

  “And I wish you well,” she said coldly.

  A sudden crashing came from the underbrush behind us. We whirled around to see a young stag, with the beginning of a rack above its bronze-colored head. The stag leaped over some fallen timber, eager to get away from something. For a split second I caught a glimpse of one of its brown eyes, dark and deep, filled with fear.

  I tensed, recalling the one time before when I had seen a stag. Yet that time the fear was in my own eyes. And that time the stag did everything in its power to help me.