The Shadow of Malabron

by Thomas Wharton

  Reaching the hall, they climbed a wide staircase to a high arched entryway. Here at last there were guards, one on each side of the doorway. At least Will thought they were guards. They wore no helmets or armour, but were dressed in the same long grey coats as the other people Will had seen. It came to him that these were knights of the Errantry, as were all of the men and women they had seen so far in Appleyard. They looked nothing like the knights in books and movies. Where was the shiny armour, the chain mail?

  At the door Pendrake paused and turned to Shade.

  “You’ll have to stay here, I’m afraid,” he said. “You were not summoned. I will make certain Will is safe until we return.”

  The wolf scowled, but did not protest. He gave Will a long look, then sat down in front of the doorway, immediately becoming as still and unperturbed as a statue. The guards looked inquiringly at the toymaker, who gave them a nod of reassurance and then beckoned Will to follow him.

  They went down a long corridor lit by many candles, and up a flight of stairs to a wide, high-ceilinged hall with pillars down its length. Low wooden benches lined the walls, and tapestries hung from the roof beams. On each tapestry was an image of a man or woman. Many were dressed in long coats, but some wore clothing and armour that made them look more like what Will thought of as a knight, from the pictures he had seen in books back home.

  “Renowned knight-errants of the past,” Pendrake said. He gestured to the image of a woman with long red hair. “That is Gildred of Blue Hill.”

  “She has the same last name as…” Will began.

  “She was my daughter,” Pendrake said. “Rowen’s mother. Rowen hopes to be just like her some day.”

  Pendrake had used the word was, but Will could not bring himself to ask what had happened.

  Will expected to see the Marshal in this great hall, seated on some sort of high throne and frowning down at him. To his surprise the toymaker led him all the way through the hall and across a narrow corridor to a much smaller room. Here the walls were bare except for a large framed map. There was a small fireplace in one corner and a tall cabinet in another, stacked with scrolls and bundles of paper. In the centre of the room was a wooden desk where a broad-shouldered man with cropped silver hair sat, studying a sheet of parchment. His high-collared brown cloak made Will think of a monk or priest. On the desk sat a glass of what looked like red wine, a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese, nothing of which appeared to have been touched.

  “Lord Caliburn, Marshal of the Errantry,” Pendrake said. Will was startled. He had thought the man was the Marshal’s assistant or secretary.

  Caliburn’s steel-grey eyes flicked up and then back down to the paper he was reading.

  “Thank you for coming, Loremaster,” he said in a low, clipped voice. “And for bringing the boy.”

  “This is Will Lightfoot,” Pendrake said, gesturing for Will to come forward.

  “From Elsewhere, yes,” the Marshal said, his eyes still on the parchment. “I have the report here. And another that just came in from Arrow Company which tells of ghostly shapes at night in the fields near Deeve Holm. These fetches, as you call them, are apparently still here in the Bourne.”

  “I didn’t bring those things here,” Will blurted out, and then regretted it. The Marshal had not accused him of anything, and now he had made himself sound guilty.

  Caliburn set down the document he had been reading and looked at Will.

  “You’re certain of that, are you?” he said, then turned to the toymaker. “Surely you’ve told the boy what you suspect.”

  “Not yet,” Pendrake said stiffly. “I didn’t want to trouble him needlessly, if it turned out I was mistaken. But recent events make it much more certain that I am not.”

  “Yes, I’ve already been informed about the Library,” Caliburn said. “And what was discovered there.”

  “You’re talking about Shade,” Will said.

  “And you,” Caliburn said. “A boy from Elsewhere, newly arrived in the Realm, who was able to find something that generations of librarians somehow missed.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Will shot back. The Marshal’s suspicious tone angered him. Once again he was being treated like a problem. Everything that happened seemed to draw him further into this strange world and deeper into trouble. It seemed as though they were blaming him for everything. The fetches weren’t his fault. Nothing was. He hadn’t asked to come here. “I was looking for a book. These things just seem to happen to me here. I don’t want them to.”

  “Perhaps not,” Caliburn said, studying him. “But still they happen. To you.”

  “Lots of strange things have happened,” Will said. “Why does it have anything to do with me? Maybe I just … stumbled into the middle of something.”

  “That’s it exactly, I’m afraid,” Pendrake said. “Once in a long while a Wayfarer comes along who stumbles upon that which others miss. Who ends up in the middle of things, as you say. In the Bourne we tell comical tales of a boy called Blunder, who was always falling in and out of danger.”

  “Things turned out well for him in the end, I believe,” Caliburn said. “But unfortunately we are not in his comical tale. Our own blunders could cost us dearly.”

  “Someone with such a gift,” Pendrake went on, “meets with strange happenings and coincidences wherever he goes. Most would call this chance, some call it fate, but I believe that the heart of such a Wayfarer is open to the perilous paths of this world in a rare way. I am more certain all the time, Will, that you are such a Wayfarer.”

  At that moment Will remembered the waylight he had seen in the Wood when he first met Rowen. He had known where to look for it, before it began to glow. He had seen it before Rowen did.

  “This is all wrong,” he protested, backing towards the door. “It was just an accident. I’m nobody special.”

  “Yet you found your way here,” Caliburn said, leaning forward suddenly in his chair, as if afraid Will would flee the room. “That’s rare in itself. The Perilous Realm is difficult to reach, by all accounts. Many try all their lives and fail. Spindlefog the printer even publishes misguidebooks for the very purpose of keeping unwary travellers out of these dangerous lands. For their own good. And yet you found your way in, apparently with no intention of doing so.”

  “All wanderers who come through the borderlands from the Untold must have something of these powers,” Pendrake said. “But I suspect that you are greatly gifted with them. It explains Shade, and much else. And if it’s true…”

  He took a deep breath.

  “It is a matter of grave consequence,” the Marshal said, finishing Pendrake’s sentence. “I know little of the tales that Master Pendrake has studied all his life. The ancient legends of the Realm are not my concern. The safety of Bourne and its folk is. And I see great danger here. But I also see what could be an advantage to us in a time of need.”

  “What Lord Caliburn means,” Pendrake said, “is that your powers could be trained and made use of by the Errantry.”

  “Not could, Master Pendrake. Should.”

  Will stood in shocked silence, and then shook his head.

  “You want me to stay here…” he began, and a surge of fear took his breath away. “I can’t do that. I don’t belong here. Why won’t you listen? I have to get home. They need me…”

  “The loremaster is fond of telling me that very little happens by chance,” the Marshal said. “Storyfolk seek refuge here now in greater numbers than ever before, bringing tales of Nightbane and other terrors. We know that creatures out of legend prowl our borders, and all we have is a fog of questions. Questions that a gifted Wayfarer might help us answer. And now it seems one has come among us at a crucial moment. I would not call that chance, but opportunity. Though the loremaster does not agree.”

  “We have discussed it already at length,” Pendrake said in a strained voice, and it was clear to Will that the discussion had been heated. “But we cannot ask Will to stay in Fable any longer tha
n he wishes.”

  “We can ask…” Caliburn said. “Surely we can still do that much.”

  “I thought, Marshal, we had decided against it.”

  “I don’t think anything was decided for certain, Master Pendrake. Not when we hadn’t yet spoken to the boy.”

  He turned to Will.

  “Master Pendrake fears that if you remain in the Realm, you could be the prey of others who wish to make use of your powers, and not with good intent. Has he spoken to you about that?”

  “He told me about the Night King,” Will said slowly. “He was the one who saw me in the mirror. I don’t understand why he’s after me. I’m not from here. I don’t have anything he could want.”

  “Yet he, or someone, went to a lot of trouble to snare you. Which, it seems to me, leaves us with a choice of two evils. If you stay here, we could find ourselves besieged. And if you leave Fable in search of your home, you could fall into the wrong hands and perhaps become another weapon turned against us. The wiser course, it seems to me, is to keep you here in Fable, guarded behind strong walls, until we know more.”

  “A weapon,” Will faltered. “How could I…”

  “The Realm is a shifting place that endlessly reshapes itself, like stories in the retelling,” Pendrake said. “Nothing here remains where it is, or what it is, for very long. There are a few places where this constant change is slower and less noticeable, like islands in a sea. The Bourne is one of them. That is why folk who have lost their stories come here. This is neutral ground, and all are welcome, provided they lay aside their feuds and grievances. No enchantment holds sway here but that of a tale well told. But out there, in Wildernesse, no road is certain. Very little can be trusted.”

  “And very few,” Caliburn added. “One who can stumble upon dangers and hidden traps, who can find a straight road where others see a maze, would be much sought after. By many powers in this Realm.”

  “It is possible Malabron seeks you for his own purposes, Will,” Pendrake said. “He could send a Wayfarer like you in search of what he seeks above all.”

  “What is that?” Will whispered, swallowing hard.

  “The Hidden Folk,” Pendrake said. “The Night King’s greatest desire, beyond the domination of all the realms and the end of stories, is to find the Shee n’ashoon and destroy them. In these days, when so much that might help us has been lost, only the Shee have the wisdom and the power to oppose him. And that is a danger for you, and for them.”

  “What do you mean? How could I be dangerous to people like Moth? I just want to go home.”

  “Yes, and the Lady could grant your wish, if anyone can. It would seem, then, that your best choice is to test your gift for … stumbling. To search for the Green Court. Just as the Night King himself is doing.”

  Will was standing near the fire, but it seemed to him that the room had gone cold. All at once he understood what the toymaker was telling him.

  “If I go looking for the Hidden Folk,” he said slowly, “I might be followed. I could lead their enemies straight to them.”

  “You are free to leave the city,” the Marshal said after a long silence, “though I think such a course is folly. You cannot understand what waits out there, beyond our borders. There is a reason why Wayfarers call these lands perilous. This is a world of fear and shadow, where even dreaming is dangerous.”

  “There must be another way,” Will said, turning frantically to the loremaster. “You’re telling me I can’t stay in Fable but it would be crazy to go out there. So what am I supposed to do?”

  “You must leave Fable, Will,” Pendrake said. “I see no other way. You must set out on a journey into the unknown. Thus it has always been with Wayfarers in these storylands. But if it’s of any comfort, I will be there with you on your road. To help, if I can.”

  “You’ll come with me?”

  A smile finally flickered across Pendrake’s face.

  “And Rowen, as she has been hoping,” he said. “It’s the only way I’ll know for sure what she’s up to.”

  “I would prefer that you stayed in Fable, Master Pendrake,” Caliburn said. “Not because I will miss these debates over niceties of conduct while the legions of darkness gather around us. But the Council may need your experience in such matters. And I’m afraid that given the present threat to the Bourne, I cannot spare any of our knights to escort you. There are precious few in the city now as it is.”

  “The Guild of Knights-Errant has never refused help to those in need,” Pendrake said.

  “And we’re not refusing it now,” Caliburn answered gruffly, shuffling through the documents on his desk. “A member of the Errantry will go with you. But it will be a scout or a knight-in-training. I will look over the roster and select someone who—”

  Just then came a sound from the doorway, a quiet cough. Will turned to see a young man with a rolled parchment under his arm. His long ash-blond hair was tied back with a black band. His coat was shorter than those Will had seen before, and light brown rather than grey.

  The young man looked directly at the Marshal without seeming to see Will or the toymaker.

  “What is it?” the Marshal said without looking up, and the young man quickly entered the room.

  “The report from Owl Company, sir,” he said in a low voice. “You asked—”

  “Yes. Good,” the Marshal said curtly. “Leave it on the desk.”

  The young man did as he was told. As he set down the parchment Will noticed a silver ring on his finger, with a bright green stone. Then the young man bowed slightly and turned to leave.

  “Finn,” Pendrake said quietly to him as he passed.

  “Wait,” Caliburn commanded. The young man stopped and turned again to face the Marshal.

  “Madoc, isn’t it?”

  “Finn Madoc, sir. Knight-candidate in Owl Company.”

  “How many long patrols have you been on, Madoc?”

  The young man hesitated a moment before answering.

  “Four, sir,” he said.

  “How far afield?”

  “On our last patrol we reached the edge of the Screaming Wastes. An unthunk attacked our camp on the first night. We drove it off, but the next—”

  “Thank you, Madoc. Yes, you will do.” The Marshal dipped a pen in ink and wrote hurriedly on a piece of parchment. “I’m assigning you to escort this boy out of the Bourne. As you are still a candidate, I’m authorizing you to stay with his party for seven days and then return. Report to the duty officer and prepare your gear. Master Pendrake will call for you when it is time.”

  Caliburn rolled up the parchment and handed it to Madoc.

  “Thank you, sir,” the young man said. He still had not looked at Will or the toymaker, and now he bowed again to the Marshal and strode swiftly from the room.

  Will watched him go, then turned quickly as the Marshal spoke again.

  “Will that do, Master Pendrake?”

  “Yes, he will do very well, thank you.”

  “I wish you a safe and fortunate journey, Will Lightfoot,” Caliburn said, without a hint of warmth in his frosty voice. “And I hope that your land, wherever it lies, is never darkened by the shadow that threatens ours.”

  Do not burden yourself with possessions.

  Live as though you expect any moment

  to set out on a long journey.

  — The Book of Errantry

  WHEN THEY RETURNED FROM APPLEYARD Rowen met them in the hall. She wanted to know everything that had been said, and if they had met any of the famous knights-errant, but Will did not feel like talking. He soon said good night and took Shade with him up to his room.

  The wolf stretched out on the rug by the bed, and very quickly fell into what seemed a deep, untroubled sleep, though Will had the uncanny sense that Shade was still wide awake. Which would make sense, he supposed, if Pendrake was right and the wolf had been sleeping for hundreds of years. Will himself lay for a long time with his eyes open, gazing at the ceiling. Outside, ra
in began to fall, pattering loudly at the window as the wind rose. Lightning flashed, and thunder boomed, and Will turned this way and that in the bed, unable to rest. He thought of his father and Jess. Where were they now? Were they lying awake like him, wondering where he was? Once again he remembered his last sight of Jess, standing alone by the picnic table, her hand raised to wave goodbye. He imagined her still there, alone, waiting for him in the rain. Tears stung his eyes and he wiped them angrily away.

  Then he thought of Rowen and the young man named Finn. Pendrake was taking them all into the wilds beyond Fable, with no destination, no plan. What if the old man was wrong? They were all leaving the safety of Fable for Will’s sake, even though it meant they might be walking straight into terrible danger.

  Finally he sat up.

  “I’ll go by myself,” he said.

  He got out of bed as quietly as he could, opened the door of his room and peered warily out. He heard a sound behind him and jumped. Shade was standing there, alert and watching him.

  “I will not harm you, Will Lightfoot.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just not used to being around wolves.”

  “There are no wolves where you come from?”

  “None like you. Listen, Shade, I have to leave. Now.”

  “Then so do I,” Shade said.

  Will was about to protest, then noticed the calm way the wolf stood there, as if nothing could frighten or daunt him, and he nodded his agreement. He thought that with Shade beside him he might actually have the nerve to walk out of the door into the night.