Ravenwood

by Andrew Peters

  The hood had fallen back, and he could see the woman’s face covered in a light sheen of sweat as her other hand clutched at her throat.

  “What? I don’t understand what you —” But Petronio grabbed up the bag anyway.

  “Quick … gas …”

  Of course! Maybe this morning’s lecture hadn’t been so irrelevant after all. Petronio quickly emptied the bag. Various odd-shaped metal objects cascaded out. To a trainee surgeon, one of them was well known, though much smaller and finely worked than its Dendran version: a hypodermic syringe.

  Time was running out; the woman could barely draw breath, let alone speak. With her remaining strength, she pointed weakly toward her upper arm.

  His first real emergency! Petronio grabbed the syringe and quickly pushed up the rough woolen sleeve, revealing a smooth, hairless arm. The touch of her skin made him shiver. Clinically, his fingers felt for the right spot. He uncapped the needle and pushed it in deep, slowly depressing the plunger.

  The woman’s eyes rolled back and her arms flailed once, then flopped to her sides. She was dead! He’d killed her! But his hands worked of their own accord, doing what they’d been taught to do — grabbing her wrist and feeling for a pulse.

  Nothing. No. Wait. He felt something, faint as a breeze through leaves. The relief was enormous. Petronio took the leather bag and placed it under her head. Then he folded her body to one side, in the recovery position. All he could do now was to wait and see if whatever was in the syringe would do its work.

  A few minutes passed. The forest was unusually silent. No birdcalls. No scampering of squirrels. It was as if the trees were holding their breath to see if evolution could so easily be tricked. The woman’s eyelids began to flutter. Petronio bent over her and checked her vital signs again. Some moments later she opened her eyes, resting them on her rescuer. Even though the woman had nearly died, a thin smile creased her lips.

  “You saved my life.”

  Petronio turned bright red. He was surprised by his own actions. “Happy to be of … er … service.”

  “Yes. I think you are. Here …” She tried sitting up.

  He leaned forward to help, grasping her wrists to pull her up. He became aware of her scent again, her too-smooth skin, her differentness.

  “Your clever trees have tried to kill me. I am looking forward to returning the favor one day!”

  Petronio felt suddenly too close for comfort. He stood up, unsure of what to do, or say. “I’m, um, studying to be a surgeon.” He held up the syringe. “This must be some kind of fast-acting antidote?”

  “Good boy. They teach you well.” That smile again. It almost knocked him out.

  He nodded.

  “I have a daughter your age. Randall.” For a moment, her tone was distant. “We used to get on well.”

  Petronio wondered what life was like in Maw. The thought of it sounded exciting, full of potential.

  Hidden among the leaves above, a pigeon cooed. As if it was a signal, the woman recovered herself. She turned slowly to study him, her raven-black eyes like slivers of glass poking deep into every secret cranny of his soul. “I think, son of Councillor Grasp, you could be very useful to me. I might have a task for you, if you were willing. It’s dangerous, but there would be … rewards. What do you say?”

  A few minutes ago, the woman was nearly dead. Now she was asking him to join her. Excitement ran like chlorophyll through his veins.

  “My name, ma’am, is Petronio. Whatever you ask, I shall do!”

  She laughed. “How very gallant! And I am Lady Fenestra, secret envoy of Maw. I am glad we are properly introduced. A bright future awaits us. All we have to do is take it! “

  7• THE JOURNEY BEGINS

  Ark slept fitfully, his dreams punctured by huge ravens swooping toward him. Through the night, every little creak and cry saw his eyes shoot open, convinced the guards had worked out that he was still very much alive and in possession of dangerous information.

  That dawn, like any other dawn, his mother held him close and gave him a kiss that he’d usually find embarrassing. Only this time, she wouldn’t let him go.

  “I know it’s the only way,” she said. “You’re right that the King must be warned and soon, before the coming festival. If he is overthrown, chaos will rule and Maw will already have won. He needs to see that his councillors have driven a rusty nail into the heart of this good wood. But I hate to think of you facing danger. Maybe your friend can help.”

  “He’s not a friend!” Ark protested. “I hardly know him.” Mucum was someone to get out of the way of at work.

  “He’s on your side — we think you should trust him. Anyway, Father and I spent hours discussing it. You’ll have to be the one to go. You can see, he’s not up to the journey today.” His father sat in his cot-bed staring at the fire.

  Nor any day, thought Ark. He looked at his mother’s face. The red rowanberry hair dye did its best to disguise her gray roots, but the years had eaten away at her youth, leaving furrows that lined her forehead, deeper than a scaffield plow could cut. Her dress was moth-eaten, second- or probably even thirdhand. How could they afford new cloth on his tiny wages? And now, even they were gone.

  “And they won’t listen to me, a mere woman.”

  “How can you say that? You’re stronger than any of them!”

  His mother shook her head. “That’s the way of the wood these days. But bless your heart for believing it. Now let’s have a look at you!” Ark’s britches were scraped from climbing over the woodway. At least she had managed to sew up the rips in his stockings. “It’ll have to do.”

  “It’s not a dress-up party, Mother.” Ark wished she’d stop fussing.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a plumber’s uniform, dearest, but you should look your best for the King!” She pushed a packet of food into a leather bag. “May Diana put wings on your feet! Here’s a coin for the shrine.” She pressed a shiny copper into his palm.

  “But, Mother, we can’t afford it!” It was worth two loaves and half a dozen eggs, at least.

  “Afford? What price prayer? Now go, before your old mother starts to cry. And take care.” He had been found long ago, a gift of the trees. She didn’t want to lose him now.

  Ark pocketed the coin and quickly crept behind the curtain to snatch a last look at his sleeping sister. She held her stick figure tight and her thumb had fallen out of her mouth. It was almost too much. Ark came back into the main room and knelt down by his father’s cot.

  “Good-bye, son. Don’t let the buzzards grind you down, eh?” Mr. Malikum tried to smile, but Ark could see his father’s eyes watering.

  Ark nodded and, before his face could betray his own emotion, walked off down the branchway. He stopped once and turned around. The forest filled with birdsong: robins, sparrows, blackbirds, and thrushes battling it out to greet the new day. Already, his home was lost among shifting shadows. No one waved good-bye. He felt a tightness in his chest, trying not to think of all those he was leaving.

  He felt like a ghost as he drifted toward the local sewage station, lingering in the shadows to avoid the few Dendrans who were up this early. But they were unaware of him, hurrying about their business. What was his purpose? He had to get to the King and quickly, but how? Maybe Mucum would come up with an idea.

  Ark set off down the inside of one of the nearby trunks, his footsteps echoing into the hollow depths. After a few minutes, he reached a landing with two exits. The branchway heading to the meeting spot was on his left. He paused, thinking about the coin in his pocket. The early service would have ended already and there would be no one around. What did he have to lose? He took a right instead and ten minutes later, the path led him to his destination.

  The great tree he approached from a thin, swaying gangway was different from all the others in one respect. The smooth bark was studded with portholes of stained glass, topped by a roof of thatch that clung around the edges of the massive hollowed-out trunk. Even in this gloom,
way below the crown of the tree, light from the glass punctured the endless shades of green, making the surrounding leaves look like they’d been dyed for display in a dazzling market stall. This was the effect that kirk was supposed to have. The doorway, always open, could only lead out of this drab life. Beyond, lay a kingdom of color, the palace of Diana.

  Ark paused before the entrance. A trickle of water spouted from a hole in the bark and made its way into a gleaming copper bowl, forged into the shape of raven feathers and set into the trunk at waist height. Water was a gift from the roots deep down, sucked up by the tree itself to spill out into this sacred spring. Ark crossed his hands over his chest. Earth Over, Sky Under, Leaves to East & West. He said a quick prayer for the soul of his long-dead twin, then pulled the coin from his pocket and dropped it in, watching the ripples as it sank to join the other offerings. A near fortune of gold and silver shimmered a foot under the surface, enough to feed his family for years. But nobody, not even Councillor Grasp, stole from Diana.

  There. He’d done as his mother had asked. Maybe he should leave now. But the open doorway beckoned to him, as it always did. Going inside meant there was a chance he might meet a Holly Woodsman. He’d have to take it. Before he could think about it, his feet carried him into the porchway where he gently pushed open the second inner door.

  The main body of the kirk was a room about fifty feet around, with a carved and vaulted ceiling lost in the shadows high above. Many came to kneel in silence on the polished wooden floor. The air was thick with incense, an indoor fog of burned pine resin. Ark loved kirk, the way the light filtered through the stained glass, picking out the wooden statue of the Mother, cradling the first changed acorn. He fell for the mystery of the Holly Woodsmen, faces hidden in their hoods as they repeated words and phrases from a thousand years ago, raising their silvered acorn cup to sip of the tree’s water and share it in communion with their flock. But he also felt cooped up, as if the strength of the trees lay not in this chamber of worship but in the outside, the whole wide-wood.

  About twenty feet away, a figure, draped in a black cloak and squatting on hands and knees, was laying flowers for the coming harvest: chrysanthemums, asters, and pansies.

  The figure hummed to itself, and Ark hoped if he could creep past, the sound might cover his —

  “I recognize those footsteps!” The voice echoed around the hallowed hall.

  Ark stopped dead. He was discovered.

  “Where do you think you’re going, my Ark?” The figure shuffled around, revealing a face wrinkled like a winter-stored apple. The hair was tied back in a messy pigtail. Only the eyes, without pupils, seemed lost, their white expanses roaming aimlessly within their sockets.

  Ark had no choice. “Warden Goodwoody.” He bowed.

  “I thought so. Delicately as you might move, my ears shall pick you out!” and the face was split in half with a grin as sweet as any winter-stored fruit.

  Ark shuffled closer, nervously checking out the side chapels.

  “Why the worry? What is it?” A hand reached out, sweeping the floor like a broom until the fingers found what they were looking for. The Warden used her elm staff to pull herself up, towering over Ark.

  “Nothing. I came in. I wanted to …” He didn’t know what he wanted, why he was here.

  “Catch a cloud, eh? Well, don’t mind me.” She motioned her head to indicate a set of stairs at the back of the kirk, hidden in a dark recess. “Go on with you, then.”

  Ark wanted to stop and talk, but the urge was in him now. “Thank you,” he said.

  “And if you find the Goddess up there, send Her my love!” The woman sighed and bent back down to continue her arranging.

  Ark paused by the stairs, suddenly feeling like he was being watched. He turned uncertainly. A pair of eyes stared out at him from the dark. Ark almost stumbled backward in fright.

  “Dendrans ignore the Raven Queen at their peril!”

  How could Goodwoody have noticed what he was looking at? The eyes appeared alive, staring out from a dusty stained-glass panel disguised by a jumble of old broken chairs and rolled-up rugs. The figure was dressed in black. Ark peered closer. No. Not dressed in black, but wearing a cloak of black feathers that billowed out over a shadowy throne.

  “Our pious men have forgotten the old ways,” the Warden continued, “but Corwenna is the true face of nature. Some say She is the other face of Diana. One cannot have light without dark….”

  Ark had no idea what she meant. Disturbed, he ran to the back stairs and leapt up them two at a time, drawn to his favorite spot. The way up was far narrower than any main trunk, the steps little more than horizontal slivers. There was no expensive glass up here, only the occasional knothole through the skin of the tree letting in wind and ever more light as he climbed the familiar route. Soon, he left the main body of the building far behind, squeezing his already thin body into an ever-decreasing spiral, the triangular steps now so small his toes could barely find purchase. The branch in which he climbed began to rock from side to side. Up here, he and the tree were the wind’s playthings. This journey was never for the fainthearted. One strong gust and the wood could easily snap, with Ark, wrapped tight in this coffin of bark, tumbling down to certain death.

  But Ark felt the opposite of fear. He was a foundling of the forest. The trees would not abandon him now. Sometimes, he wondered who his real mother was. How could she have left him and his sister out in the cold? Maybe he was the hidden son of a duke, and one day the knock at the door would come announcing his inheritance. He shook his head. Useless daydreams. The closer he got to the sky, the more the events of the last day and night faded from him. The back-and-forth motion soothed his runaway mind. A few more steps and there it was: a tiny door, set like a stone in a ring. He pushed and with that one movement left behind a world of gloom.

  The view, from this tiny circular platform high above the crown of the tree, was immense. The forest that contained the country of Arborium spread away from him in every direction. It was an unending and undulating green blanket, rippling with leaves and hidden life. This rickety nest that now only children could reach was ancient, its original use lost over the centuries. Ark imagined it as a lookout post in a battle from long ago, or perhaps the site of offerings to Diana. The kirk services were all right, but it was here, where the only vaulted roof was carved out of cloud and air, that he felt as if he slotted into place.

  Not far to the west Ark saw the great palace of Quercus rearing up out of the trees. It was still a few miles away, its battlements gleaming with beaten and polished copper. He’d never had business there, although he’d been on the grounds along with all the common folk for the yearly Harvest Festival. But the son of a plumber was hardly welcome at court. Those snobs would thumb their noses while the whole country went up in the fires of treachery.

  The sense of well-being that normally met him up here was missing today. He was no longer soothed as he swung back and forth high above the world. His head filled with family; the look of surprise on Petronio’s face; the chase that had ended in his so-called death; the image of Arborium chopped down and burned. The weather sensed his mood, the sharp wind pulling at his clothes, making his eyes water with its promise of winter. The sun lay low, hidden behind the clouds, as if ashamed at the treachery soon to take place far below. Ark circled the platform, carefully holding on to a waist-height rail that banded the trunk. This was stupid. He needed to get going, meet Mucum, work out a —

  A black flash caught his eye. For a brief moment, the clouds parted and the sun caught a reflection off the lip of the platform. “What’s that?” Ark muttered to himself. The lip of the platform was ridiculously low. As he leaned out over the edge, he tried not to look down. This platform reared out of the woods like a single, slightly crooked finger. He was hundreds of feet above Arborium. Normally, he felt at home in the trees, but they might not feel the same for him. The glint caught his eye again, resting in the crook of a branch, just out of re
ach.

  Ark tried to hook his feet around the door frame and lean over the edge of the platform, trusting that ancient carpentry would hold his weight. Infuriating! His fingers brushed the edge of the object. With the wind now blowing so hard, his eyes filled like cruck wells and he could hardly make out what lay in front of him. Just one more stretch. One more and …

  As Ark reached toward what resembled shining black treasure, as he leaned out over the edge of the platform, the wooden door frame began to creak and groan. The wind joined in, howling with invisible strength as it bent the branch forward until Ark was no longer horizontal but facing almost straight down.

  A voice called out, “Ark! “

  His head whipped around. No one. A trick of the screeching wind.

  “Oh … dear,” said Ark. The frame, devoured by centuries of woodworm, cracked and splintered, unhooking Ark’s feet and toppling him over the edge to plunge headfirst toward the forest like a stone.

  8• A FALL FROM GRACE

  This time there was no rope, no backup plan. As Ark plummeted toward the forest, he wondered vaguely what would happen first. If he was lucky, his neck might be snapped by a passing branch. If he hit a woodway, every brittle bone in his body would be crushed. The thought should have terrified him and yet he felt strangely calm as the ever-nearing woods spread their green arms ready to envelop him.

  The acceleration was terrific. His cheeks pulled back like rubber and his eyes streamed like a cruck spring in full flow. He felt invisible fingers trying to rip off his clothes as he sped earthward faster and faster. Maybe this was what it was like for a raven, pulling in its wings and plunging straight down through nothing but air, a feathered arrow flying for no more reason than the sheer joy of the hunt. Ark was no raven, though. Wingless and out of control, he was not the hunter but the victim as death stalked him, about to claim the prize.

  Ark closed his eyes as the thatched roof of the kirk reared up to meet him. So this is how it ends.