by Robin Jarvis
“He will not mind if Nanna borrows this sharp slicer,” she whispered. “Little Captain has so many already; he will not miss it.”
A moment later it had been tied up among the ladles and long-handled spoons next to the stoppers and bottles.
Then, clambering back onto the seat at the front of the caravan, she called in a bright, cheery voice. “Have no fear, little changing folk. Danger is over; the hillmen are taking nice naps and we are free to leave.”
Liffidia looked out from under the blankets, then hurried to lean over the caravan door and peer at the spriggans lying on the ground.
“What did you do?” she asked in wonderment.
The dwarf shrugged. “An old trick Nanna learned long ago,” she said, taking up the reins once more. “They will sleep for some hours, and we must put a good distance between them and us, for when they wake they will be fierce and Nanna’s trick will not work on them a second time. Go, my long-eared friend! We have need of your swiftest legs.”
With a flick of the reins the donkey obeyed, and soon the spriggans were left far behind.
Deeper into the forest they journeyed. Miles and the night rumbled by until the caravan came to another sudden stop.
“What’s wrong?” Liffidia whispered, cautiously leaning upon the door to look out. “More hillmen?”
“Worse,” came the gypsy’s reply. “Behold.”
Lifting the lantern from its hook, Nanna Zingara clambered down and strode ahead. The light shone over the track, and Liffidia saw that it branched into three separate ways.
“A merry puzzler this is,” the dwarf woman said, scratching her whiskery chin. “Which road do we choose?”
“I don’t know,” Liffidia answered. “What can we do? Try all three and see where they lead?”
“That would take a week and more. Our small chance lies in urgency and swift action. Before dawn this forest could be seething with a host of the High Lady’s soldiers, and there are worse things than spriggans in the Hollow Hill, if old tales be true—and they usually are.”
Holding the lantern in every direction, but finding no clue as to which one to take, Nanna Zingara hummed thoughtfully to herself and returned to the caravan.
“Nanna needs her pet dragon,” she declared. “He will show the way.”
Opening the door, she entered the caravan on her knees and rummaged under the bed.
A weird collection of objects came to light as she pulled out boxes and bags, bundles of dried herbs and pots of ointment, a long silver toasting fork, a cloth doll without any face or hair, and an old dusty wasp’s nest.
Liffidia had never heard of a dragon before, but it sounded very exciting, and she was glad that Tollychook was still sound asleep. He would only have been alarmed to learn that this dragon was directly beneath him.
Nanna Zingara gave a cry of delight and brought out a small bronze image of a serpentlike creature attached to a large linked chain. Two blue stones were its eyes, the mouth was open in a great roar, and its claws were like the talons of hawks and kestrels.
“A statue?” the girl observed with a trace of disappointment in her voice.
Nanna Zingara cackled and kissed the metal with her crabbed lips. “From the mystical orient this little pet has voyaged,” she said. “Over many seas and through squall and storm. It is a water dragon, spirit of rivers and rain and cloud. If anything knows where to find a magical pool, this fine fellow surely does.”
“How?” Liffidia asked.
“You shall see,” came the mysterious answer.
Carefully carrying the little dragon, the gypsy left the caravan and hurried back to the fork in the path with the lantern in her other hand. Liffidia watched as she held the bronze creature by the chain and began whispering into its ears.
“O beautiful spirit of water, hear Nanna. She has need of you now. Come do this one small boon for her, show the way—find for her the true path. Seek out the Pool of the Dead. For you who knows where every tear falls, this is surely a simple task. Malla falla timbletoot.”
She paused and waited. Watching from the caravan, Liffidia knew that something strange and magical was about to happen, and she held her breath in expectation.
Overhead, the leaves began to stir. A strong breeze pushed through the trees, swiftly rising to a powerful gusting gale that rocked the caravan. Every pot and pan clanked together, and the tails that dangled at the rear wagged and flapped as if the gypsy’s home was an excited puppy. On its perch the goldfinch tucked its head under its wing while the cage swung to and fro, and, leaning upon the door, Liffidia marveled at what happened next.
Hanging from the gypsy’s fingers, the dragon was seized by the wind and spun around wildly. Then, as the werling girl watched, the stones of its eyes began to glimmer. A cold blue radiance shone out from the bronze head, and all at once the gale ceased.
Nanna Zingara smiled and put her head to one side.
“Welcome, old friend,” she said softly.
Gradually the dragon stopped twirling on the chain, and the light that shone from the eyes blazed ever more fiercely—as bright and as blue as a clean summer sky.
“Now,” the dwarf said, “show me.”
Liffidia clasped her hands before her mouth, thrilled to the marrow of her small bones. Suddenly she gave a startled yelp as from the statue’s open jaws there came a wisp of smoke that immediately gave way to a blast of thick white steam.
Out across the trackway it exploded, a plume of dense vapor that came boiling into the night, seething and charging in writhing spirals like a released snake. Up into the air it shot, somersaulting over branches and twisting around the gnarled tree trunks.
Nanna Zingara chuckled, nodding in recognition and greeting. “Too long it has been,” she cried. “Too long since last I called upon you. Nanna is sorry, my dewy love.”
Tearing through the boughs, leaving shreds of its thick cloud caught on the sharp tangled twigs, the churning serpent of smoke came coiling back. It fell upon the caravan and went racing around it.
Before Liffidia knew what was happening, the supernatural mist thundered straight into her. It rushed over and around her, streaming through her hair and stealing the breath from her lips. Then it barreled into the caravan and filled it with freezing white fog. For a moment the girl could see nothing but a blank whiteness in every direction, then the mist rampaged out again, leaving her damp and chill and gulping for air.
In the cage the goldfinch twittered bad-temperedly as the smoke engulfed it, blasting through the bars and setting every tiny bell jangling, before whisking off, steaming beneath the donkey’s legs, curling about its stomach, zooming along its back, and rushing between its ears. Up into the treetops it soared once more, darting from bough to bough, hiding in the leaves, bursting into hollow trunks and frightening the sleeping squirrels within.
Puffing out its wet feathers, the goldfinch hopped from one foot to the other in agitation while the donkey shook its head and stamped a hoof on the ground.
“A fine play you are having,” Nanna Zingara called out when the mist came whistling from all the holes in a dead tree as though it were a punctured kettle. “How dearly I wish there were time for you to cavort and frolic all the night long, but there is great need and haste. Most urgent is our plight. To the Pool of the Dead, my lithe, lissom lovely.”
Around and around, in an ever-widening circle, the twining mist went spinning, then, abruptly, it rocketed down the right-hand path, stretching as it raced, leaving a thread of pale vapor in its wake.
The eyes of the bronze dragon fell dark, and Nanna Zingara bundled the statue under her arm as she hurried back to the caravan.
“We must be quick,” she clucked to Liffidia. “The way is shown to us, but all too soon the trail will melt on the night air. We must follow without delay.”
Taking up the reins once more, she urged the donkey on and the beast obeyed.
“That was amazing,” Liffidia said.
The gypsy laug
hed. “Nanna told you she knows many creatures and is friends to all. My darling water dragon Nanna rescued a long time ago, and he delights in aiding her when she asks. That is the nature of friendship, is it not?”
“What did you rescue the dragon from?” Liffidia asked.
The dwarf shrugged. “It matters no more,” she answered. “And how is our other friend back there? What did he think of the misty serpent?”
Liffidia laughed. “Tollychook slept through it all,” she said. “But I don’t think he’ll be happy when he wakes up. His biscuits are damp.”
“It is good he sleeps. When we reach our journey’s end and learn what we seek, we will have need of rested wits.”
“Well, I could never sleep now,” the girl replied. “After all that, I’m wide awake. This is the best adventure I could wish for.”
Nanna said nothing in return. She took up her pipe once more and clamped it between her teeth. Then, very softly, she began to sing.
Good night, good night, to you who roam,
Who tramp and walk abroad.
Bless all who brave the cold bleak night,
May you dream of hearth and home.
Good night, good night, you wanderers all,
Hear not the lonely wind.
To you who face the fear and dark
Safe passage to your halls.
Sleep tight, sleep tight, we travelers now,
A fire will keep us warm.
So close our eyes, forget our woes,
Another long day is done.
The tune was gentle, but filled with sadness. It spoke of years of solitary journeying, and, as she listened, Liffidia felt the burden of the day settle upon her shoulders and take its weary toll. Her eyelids became so heavy that when she fell back on to the bunk, they were already closed and she was fast asleep.
Humming the song over and over to make certain, Nanna Zingara rocked slowly on the seat. Following the floating trail of mist, the donkey pulled the caravan ever deeper into Hagwood and toward the Pool of the Dead.
CHAPTER 9 *
A FEARFUL AWAKENING
TOLLYCHOOK AWOKE WITH A START. He had been having an unpleasant dream in which all his provisions had magically grown legs and were running away from him.
“Come back, you naughty bramble buns!” he called out.
The boy rubbed his eyes, clasped his bags close to his chest, and, in a panic, foraged hastily inside to make sure the contents were still there.
A grateful sigh escaped his lips, then he let out a groan when he remembered where he was.
“Is we there?” he muttered. “Is we at that ghosty pool?”
The caravan was still and wrapped in silence. They had stopped, and Tollychook looked around him.
Liffidia was sleeping soundly close by. He gave her a nudge, but she didn’t stir.
He sat back and took a bite out of a biscuit, hardly noticing that it was a little bit soggy. When he had finished all of it, he ate a mushroom pie to wake himself up properly, then rose and peered over the little door.
“Where’s that old Missus Whatsername?” he asked.
The little seat where Nanna Zingara sat was empty. The donkey was flicking its ears wearily in front, and Tollychook noticed that the birdcage had been taken from its hook.
He stared out into the night. He had never seen such ugly-looking trees. Their gloomy silhouettes were threatening, sinister shapes. The black, crusted bark formed startling faces with blank, hollow eyes.
“Missus?” he called in a small voice. “Is you out there?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw a crackle of light in the distance as a small fire spluttered into life.
“That’s where she be,” he murmured as a familiar stunted shape passed in front of the flames. “What be that old gypsy woman doin’ all the ways over there? And why for she lightin’ a fire?”
Suddenly the boy clapped his hands with glee when he realized what she was up to.
“She’m makin’ us a supper,” he declared. “Another of them there luvverly stews. I should think so an’ all. Can’t spect us to get very far with nowt hot and tasty inside us.”
He turned to wake Liffidia, but she looked so peaceful he couldn’t bear to disturb her. The fact that he might get an extra plate of stew if he were to reach the campfire long before the girl hardly occurred to him at all.
Wiping his sleeve across his mouth, he clambered over the door, scrambled on to the seat below, then dangled himself over the edge and dropped to the ground.
A light dew was already sprinkled over the grass, and Tollychook sensed that the night was nearly over and soon the first gray fingers of dawn would brush the darkness away.
“You did kip long and deep,” he told himself. “No wonder you got a growly tum.”
He marched along the track. The frightening trees that reached overhead with grasping branches were forgotten. Tollychook’s mind was filled with the prospect of a delicious meal, and he jauntily made his way toward the light of the small fire ahead.
He did not notice the first of the large gray stones that poked from the grass on either side of the path, nor the second. Only when he was halfway down the avenue of standing stones did he turn his head left and right to gaze at them curiously.
“Two rows of Dooit Stones,” he exclaimed. “Well, they sure was busy folk. Must’ve took ages to plop these girt, enormous things ’ere.”
Sauntering farther he tapped his stomach expectantly.
The gray weathered stones towered above him. This was a silent, solemn place, built thousands of years ago by a half-forgotten people who understood the power of the earth and the magic locked within hills and stones, trees and rivers.
To the werlings, the Dooits were a vague race of big people who lived in Hagwood long ago. Nobody knew who they really were or where they had gone or why. They were only remembered because of the Hag’s Finger that defined the werlings’ northern border, and nobody could guess what its original purpose might have been.
The obelisks of stone, which reared on either side of the track, were twice the size of that, and as Tollychook made his way along, he did not realize that he was approaching the very heart of Hagwood.
Before the Dooits first entered the forest, even before the Unseelie Court came to this land and delved their halls beneath the hill, this part of the world had been possessed by strange powers. Here was the last surviving pocket of primeval times, when raw, untamed magic flowed freely on the wind and the very earth pulsed with unnamed forces.
Feeling in the highest of spirits, Tollychook toddled on. Approaching the end of the avenue, he saw that it opened out into a wide clearing surrounded by a circle of even greater Dooit Stones and there, standing before a small fire, was Nanna Zingara. She was holding up the birdcage and gazing intently at the goldfinch within.
Tollychook was about to call out to her when he noticed there was no pot hanging above the flames and no sign of any vegetables nearby, peeled or unpeeled.
“What’s she a-doin’ of then?” he grumbled. “Lazy lummox.”
Folding his arms in annoyance, he pulled a face and was about to stomp over there and demand to know where his much-needed stew was when the gypsy opened the cage and the bird hopped out onto her finger.
“The one we seek has not yet arrived,” the dwarf said in a voice that was cold and hard and not at all like her usual croaky, good-humored self. “For one hour more will my patience last.”
The goldfinch cocked its head to one side as though it understood every word she was saying. Baffled, Tollychook scratched his large nose. Then, to his complete astonishment, he saw the bird open its beak and heard it speak in answer.
“Mistress,” it said with a voice deeper than its tiny form should have been capable of producing. “What proofs do we have that he is even bound hither? The wer-rats were not so certain.”
Placing the cage on the ground, the dwarf gently stroked the bird’s head. “No other chance is
open to him,” she said simply. “Finnen Lufkin will be here. He must.”
“Yet some unlucky fortune may occur along the way. There are many perils in this realm.”
“There are indeed,” she said. “That was why I brought those other two loathsome maggots with me. If the one we seek cannot be found, then why not use the plan of Nanna Zingara? Let the shade of the Wandering Smith yield up his secret to them after all.”
“Verily thou art beyond wise. Thy trick with the water dragon was deftly done. Pretending thou hadst no inkling where the Pool of the Dead couldst be found and thus feigning to discover it by magic arts. Those wer-rats wouldst now do ought you bid them. They trust you, Mistress.”
The gypsy paced around the fire, and Tollychook could see her weathered face was set stern and grim. Not even the firelight could throw any warmth into the depths of her dark eyes, and the boy felt a terrible fear creep over him.
“The night grows stale and old,” Nanna observed. “I am impatient. Go, spy out the wild wood. He cannot make his way here without alerting the countless sharp ears and eyes of those who do not sleep. Question them and report back ere this last hour passes. Do not fail me.”
“On my life, I will not,” the bird swore.
The goldfinch opened its wings and threw itself into the air. High into the night it soared, and as she watched it fly, the gypsy fingered the silver talisman of the fire devil around her neck, uttering strange words. To Tollychook’s amazement, it seemed that the goldfinch grew in size, but it disappeared into the darkness before he could be certain.
“I doesn’t like this,” he murmured, afraid and confused. “This bain’t be right. Get out of ’ere, old lad.”
Nanna Zingara continued to stare into the night sky.
Finnen Lufkin will be here, she told herself. There is no other hope for him now. The Smith would not have told him everything. He must come and ask for the answer to the Pucca’s final secret.
Tollychook began to back away, slowly at first, unable to wrench his eyes from the sight of the dwarf prowling around the flames. Then he saw something that made his knees buckle.
