The Tree of Story

by Thomas Wharton

  Hodge whimpered and Flitch muttered a spittle-flecked curse at him.

  “Listen to me, you two,” the captain growled at the brothers. “You’ll be going right back to your cell once this is over, make no mistake about that. You conduct yourselves well here, though, and you might just earn your freedom one day.”

  “We understand,” Flitch said sullenly. “We will not disappoint you, Captain.”

  Thorne turned back to the mage. “Master Brax, tell my men what you told me at Appleyard. About what we might be facing here.”

  Brax faced the six uneasy-looking troopers.

  “You’ve all heard of this boy, whom some call the Pathfinder, and his protector, the wolf,” the mage said. “They are friends of the Loremaster’s granddaughter and they will fight for her if she tells them to. They must be prevented from interfering by whatever means necessary. If force is required, do not hesitate. You may not get another chance.”

  “What about the old toymaker?” asked one of the troopers, a burly man with a shaved head. “They say he’s got powers.”

  The old toymaker, Brax thought. He recalled how strange Pendrake had seemed when he’d returned from wherever the thrawl had taken him. There was that strange yellow gleam in his eyes, and he had glanced at the girl nervously, as if taking his cues from her. It had struck him then, with absolute certainty, that this was not Nicholas Pendrake. The girl had ound someone—or something—to impersonate her grandfather. She was far more resourceful than he’d suspected.

  “Listen to me,” he said now to the troopers, “the man who returned to the toyshop earlier today may look and act very much like Nicholas Pendrake, but he is an imposter. I know this for a fact. Whoever he is, he has none of the old man’s powers or he would have tried them against me already. Still, he is cunning and desperate, and therefore dangerous. Do not heed anything he says. And do not listen to the girl. She is under the imposter’s spell and will obey his wishes. As long as she stays in the toyshop, she is in grave danger. We must take her into custody, too, for her own good.”

  “He’s lying,” Freya shouted, starting forward. “He’s just after Father Nicholas’s secrets.”

  At a gesture from Thorne, Flitch grabbed hold of Freya’s arm. She struggled, her eyes fixed on Brax.

  “I’m here to save your friends, Freya of Skald,” Brax said in his most calm and reasonable voice. “I know they do not trust me, any more than you do. That is why I brought you along. I’m hoping they will listen to you. Please, help me to help them.”

  In Freya’s eyes he saw anger wrestling with doubt. She knew he might be telling the truth about this false loremaster. At last she stopped struggling against Flitch’s grip.

  The Skalding woman’s outburst had unsettled the troopers, but Brax saw that his words had worked on the captain. Thorne’s eyes narrowed and glinted like those of a hunter who has just caught the scent of his prey. The thought that he, Emric Thorne, might unmask a dangerous imposter and bring him to Appleyard was a powerful goad to the captain. Such a coup would only make it clearer to everyone that he was the best man to lead the Errantry.

  Thorne stepped up to the door and knocked on it sharply. He waited, then tried the door handle.

  “Locked,” he said to Brax.

  The mage stepped forward. He touched his fingers cautiously to the door handle and in a low voice uttered an unbinding charm. He felt the lock resist the charm, and as he had so often lately, he silently cursed the fading of his magecraft. Not long ago, opening a door like this would have cost him little effort. Now he was thankful the others could not see the strain on his face. After a long struggle the lock finally gave way and the door swung slowly inward without a sound.

  Brax let out his breath and carefully turned. Thorne’s troopers were hunched and ready, their hands on the hilts of their swords.

  Brax raised his lantern and the light fell into the dark front hall of the toyshop.

  There was no one to be seen.

  Thorne took the lead again. He stepped past Brax and strode into the hall, his shadow rising menacingly in the lantern light. “Master Pendrake,” he called. There was no answer. “Master Pendrake, it’s Captain Thorne. I’ve come at the request of Master Brax. I wish to speak to you about matters of importance to Fable.”

  Silence.

  Brax stepped through the doorway, followed by the Errantry troopers.

  The hall was cold and unlit, and for an instant Brax wondered if the girl and her friends had abandoned the toyshop. But he stood still and waited, and his keen senses, honed over the years to detect anything threatening, told him that the silence was not that of an empty house. He and the others were being watched.

  The mage glanced back and saw that the hogmen were still standing just outside the entrance with Freya Ragnarsdaughter between them, their gross, sweating faces more pallid than usual. It was the wolf they were afraid of, Brax grasped. In his need to learn what they knew about the werefire, he had been forced to sit and listen to Hodge’s blubbering story about their long, weary travels with their older brother, Tuck, and how a garm-wolf had torn him to pieces and everything had gone wrong for them after that. The boy’s companion, the creature Shade, half looked like a garm-wolf. Not for the first time Brax doubted the hogmen would stand their ground, but at the least they might keep the beast busy long enough for the mage to launch his own attack. Angrily Brax gestured for them to get inside, and after exchanging a nervous glance, they obeyed.

  “Master Pendrake,” Thorne called again. “If you’re here, answer me. We’ve brought a friend of yours.”

  Brax took another few steps into the hall. A floorboard creaked under his boot and he heard one of the hogmen catch his breath at the unexpected sound.

  “Nicholas,” he said, “we have Freya Ragnarsdaughter with us. She has been very worried about you and Rowen, as you can imagine.” He eyed Freya as he spoke, saw the distrust in her face, but she remained silent.

  Brax turned and kept on up the passage. When he came to the kitchen doorway, he paused and looked in. The room was empty, but just as spotless and tidy as he remembered it. That thought gave him another idea.

  “Madam Edweth is waiting anxiously at Appleyard, too,” he called out. “She’s afraid that some harm may have come to Rowen. We are all very concerned about her.”

  The silence remained unbroken. There was only the library left on this floor. Brax reached it and peered in. There was no one to be seen. He motioned to the hogmen. Reluctantly they joined him at the doorway into the library.

  “This is where Master Pendrake was taken away by the servant of the Night King,” Brax said. “It may have been a creature of werefire. Do you sense anything?”

  He knew that the hogmen, having been in close quarters with werefire in the sewers of Skald for so long, could sense its presence. Especially Hodge. They were terrified of the fire, but their familiarity with it could be of great help to him now.

  Hodge leaned warily into the room and sniffed. He turned to the mage with a shrug. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “I can tell something happened here, something magic. But it was days ago.”

  “I know that much already,” Brax said tersely. “Go in. Check around.”

  “But the wolf …” Hodge murmured.

  “He’s not here,” Flitch said, keeping a grip on Freya’s arm. “Get in there, fool.”

  Hodge stepped cautiously into the room, for some reason on tiptoe. He looked absurd, Brax thought, like an enormous bloated child playing hide-and-seek. The hogman turned quickly in a circle, then gazed at Brax, his eyes wide with fear.

  “There’s nothing in the room, but … something’s here.”

  “Brax,” Thorne said in a warning tone.

  The mage pivoted—and saw what the captain and his troopers were staring at.

  On the staircase at the end of the hallway stood Nicholas Pendrake—or someone who looked very much like him. The old man was silent and unmoving, his eyes cast downward and his face s
hadowed by the overhanging arch of the stairwell.

  “Father Nicholas,” Freya cried. “Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar. He only wants—”

  “Silence,” Brax growled.

  “Why have you come to my house with weapons?” Pendrake asked in a calm, quiet voice. “There’s no need for any of this. Let Freya go and return to your business, all of you. There are far more important matters for the Errantry to deal with than bothering an old man in his home.”

  Thorne regarded the toymaker and swallowed hard. For a moment Brax feared he would give in, but then the captain drew himself up and stepped forward.

  “I’m sorry, Master Pendrake, but a grave accusation has been made and it must be answered. You will accompany us back to Appleyard or I shall have no choice but to take you there by force.”

  “I am needed here, Captain,” Pendrake said firmly. “If you wish to question me, you may do so now, but I will not leave the toyshop.”

  As he spoke, the old man raised his head. His eyes came into view and Brax caught the strange yellow gleam in them. He gave a shout of triumph.

  “This is not Pendrake, Captain,” he said. “Look at him. Look at his eyes. He’s some kind of changeling or shapeshifter.”

  Still he felt the hesitation in the men behind him. The Loremaster was deep in the counsels of Lord Caliburn and was respected, even a little feared, as a figure of wisdom and a wielder of mysterious power. Brax, an outsider to them as yet, had crossed an invisible line. Even Thorne had frozen where he stood and seemed at a loss now.

  “Go home to Kyning Rore, Ammon,” Pendrake said in a voice of gentle chiding. “Your fellow mages need their leader. Men of the Errantry, return to your duties. You are not at fault here and you will not be held accountable for the folly of others.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Brax yelled. “Arrest him before it’s too late. This imposter puts us all in danger.”

  “There is great danger to Fable,” the old man said, “but not from me.”

  “Where are Rowen and the boy?” Brax shouted. “What have you done with them?”

  “I have done nothing with them and you will do nothing to me,” the old man said, his voice deeper now and carrying a trace of threat. Some of the Errantry troopers shifted uneasily and a whimper of fear came from Hodge.

  Brax took a step back to where Freya stood with the hogmen. He reached for her arm and held the obsidian blade of his staff to her throat.

  “Reveal yourself,” he said, “or the Skalding woman dies.”

  “What are you doing? I did not agree to this,” Thorne hissed.

  “I’m doing what’s necessary and so must you if you care about the safety of this city. Arrest him, Captain. Now. Do you want the blame if he escapes?”

  But still Thorne did not move or give any command to his men.

  The Loremaster took one slow, cautious step down the staircase and raised his hand. “Do not harm the girl,” he said.

  Brax saw the yellow glow in his eyes flicker and brighten, as if whoever or whatever had assumed the form of the Loremaster was tensed and ready to leap out.

  But it was the Skalding woman who surprised him. Freya drove her elbow hard into the mage’s ribs. He let go of her with a gasp, and before anyone could move, she darted up the stairs and threw her arms around the old man.

  “Father Nicholas,” she cried. “Don’t listen to the mage. You mustn’t let them—”

  She broke off, stepped back. She had seen what Brax had seen in the old man’s eyes.

  The mage moved swiftly. He caught Freya by the arm once more and brought the blade to her neck.

  “Reveal yourself!” he roared at the old man.

  In the next instant Nicholas Pendrake was gone and a huge tiger, its tawny coat rippling like fire in the dark hall, crouched on the stairs. Thorne let out a growl of fear and surprise, and the Errantry troopers raised their weapons. The tiger stared only at Brax and did not move. But now the mage had seen something else in the depths of those strange yellow eyes, and he knew that he had won. He thrust Freya away from him.

  “You came from wherever the Loremaster’s power does,” he said under his breath. “The old man made you.”

  He raised his staff with both hands.

  “We mustn’t let it escape,” he shouted to the troopers. “We have to keep it here.”

  Without warning the tiger gave a roar that seemed to shake the walls and then it sprang at the mage. At the same moment Brax swept his ivory staff upward. The tiger was caught in mid-leap and hung in the air on the point of the obsidian blade, but it had not been pierced by the knife-sharp stone. It was only held there, thrashing and writhing as though caught in an invisible net, its bright shape dimming like a guttering candle flame. Then, as if the flame had been snuffed out, the tiger vanished.

  Brax lowered the staff with shaking hands. It was empty of its dark spellcraft now but that no longer mattered. It had been enough. Just enough.

  Thorne and his men also lowered their weapons. Hodge and Flitch were still cowering on the floor. Freya had backed away when the tiger leaped and now she bolted for the door, but Flitch moved in time to bar her way. His huge hand closed around her ankle and twisted her sideways. She fell with a sharp cry.

  Brax turned in a slow circle. He drew a deep breath, willing his hammering heart to slow. He was closer than ever to what he sought. The tiger, the shapeshifter, had come from the same source as the werefire, he was sure of it. Whether he had killed the creature or only wounded it, he didn’t know, and so he would have to move quickly. Somewhere in the house, he knew for certain now, the source of the shapeshifter’s power lay hidden. This time, with the help of the hogmen, he would find it.

  Freya lay on the stone tiles of the front hall, clutching her ankle and grimacing in pain. Flitch stood over her, scowling. “You shouldn’t have run,” he muttered.

  “Are you hurt?” Captain Thorne asked Freya, but she ignored him and stared with blazing eyes at the mage. The captain turned to Brax, as well. “You were right, Master Brax,” he said. “Whatever that thing was, it was not Nicholas Pendrake. Fortunately it didn’t harm anyone before you destroyed it.”

  If Thorne had been impressed with the mage before, his expression was now one of awe. He had seen him tear apart a powerful being of flame and dark magic, and now he would do almost anything Brax told him to without question. He had no idea he’d witnessed the very last trick up Brax’s sleeve. There would be no more such displays if the mage did not find what he sought, and soon.

  Thorne ordered his men to search the house for Rowen and the others. They hurried up the stairs and Brax watched them, trying not to let his impatience show. He wanted the captain and his men out of here. Time was against him. In a few days this city would be under siege, and not long after that, he was sure, it would be a smoking ruin. By then he had to have that power or he was finished forever.

  “What was that thing?” Flitch said.

  “It was the fire, brother,” Hodge mumbled. “Not the werefire. The good kind.”

  “What do you mean, the good kind?” Flitch snapped. “It might have torn our throats out, like that damned wolf.”

  “The wolf isn’t here anymore,” Hodge said.

  Brax turned to the hogman. “You’re certain of this?” he asked.

  “The wolf is with the girl and she’s gone, too.”

  “How can you possibly know that, you gibbering dolt,” Flitch growled.

  “I just know.”

  “The two of you are coming back to Appleyard with me as soon as we’re finished here,” Thorne said. “In the meantime, keep your mouths shut.”

  “Actually, Captain, I would like to keep these two with me,” Brax said. “Here at the toyshop. Whether the girl is found or not, this is a loremaster’s house, and if I’m going to help defend Fable, I must continue my investigation into what happened to Nicholas Pendrake. These two hogmen can be of service to me in that. Let me care for the Skalding woman, as well. If she
’s broken any bones, I will tend to them.”

  Thorne frowned. “You want to keep the hogmen here? You know I must inform the Marshal about what’s happened, Master Brax. He won’t be pleased to learn these two aren’t locked up at Appleyard.”

  “Then perhaps it’s best you don’t inform him of the fact—at least not right away. I will have to work quickly and unhindered to get to the bottom of all this, and I need you to stand with me, Captain. The threat to Fable is beyond anything Lord Caliburn has ever dealt with, and we can’t wait while he deliberates and follows the old, safe ways of doing things. You understand that better than anyone. This city needs our boldness and our willingness to do what must be done, however unpleasant.”

  Thorne took a deep breath and then nodded. “The Marshal has other concerns,” he said. “You may keep the hogmen with you, but they must not be allowed out of the toyshop.”

  Brax lifted his staff. He could feel the deep crack running through its heart. It held no more power now than any broken stick, but it could still be of use. He tapped the staff once, softly, on the floor, and the Marrowbone brothers quailed before it.

  “Captain Thorne, I can promise you,” he said with a thin smile, “they will stay put and behave themselves.”

  6

  WILL HAD NO IDEA how long they’d been travelling through the Weaving. It could have been moments or hours. Time was different here. His awareness of its passing seemed to come and go. He remembered walking into the raincabinet and ducking his head against the falling water, and the next thing he knew, he and Shade were following Rowen through vague, shadowy streets between tall, lightless grey buildings. Then the houses and streets had fallen away and they were hurrying through thick, gloomy woods.

  They were moving much faster than should have been possible through this trackless forest, Will had thought, until he realized that everything around them was moving, too. Moving and changing. Walls of foliage parted like curtains to reveal a way forward. Tangles of thorny branches uncoiled themselves or melted into nothing but shadows. A huge tree rose up directly in their path, but as they drew closer, the tree divided into many smaller trees whose slender trunks they could pass between.