The Tree of Story

by Thomas Wharton

  Corr regarded the old dwarf impassively.

  “Those who do not resist will be spared,” he said at last.

  “You are gracious, my lord. And so I dare one further request: Should Nonn be captured alive, bring him before me and my son in chains. Let his punishment be for us to decide.”

  “Very well. If he lives, Nonn will be yours to deal with as you please.”

  “Swear to what you have promised, Sky Lord, on your life’s blood.”

  Corr hesitated a moment, then he slid the knife from the sheath at his belt and drew the blade across his palm, as Nonn had done on the pier. He made a fist and the blood dripped through his fingers and onto the stones below.

  “On my life’s blood,” Corr said.

  The old dwarf bowed his head.

  “I will show you how the water may be diverted, and Nar will lead your men through the secret passages.”

  Corr gave orders to his lieutenants to prepare for a counterassault. Then he glanced up and saw Finn at the door.

  “You’ll be leaving now, I gather,” he said coldly.

  “I will,” Finn said.

  “The ships won’t be skyworthy for some time yet, but if you’re not willing to wait, you can use one of the undamaged skiffs. I can’t spare anyone to go with you, but Kern will supply you with the ore you’ll need and show you how to keep the thing aloft.”

  “I’m not using one of your ships, Corr. Your men need them. The golem is yours, too. I’ve already given him the command you asked for. He will obey you again.”

  Corr stared hard at his brother.

  “Finn, what do you think you’re going to do? Walk out of here?”

  “That’s right. I’ve come to say goodbye.”

  “You’ve come to …”

  Corr shook his head in disbelief. Then he reached out and gripped Finn’s shoulders.

  “We have him, brother,” he said. “An hour ago I thought we were finished and I would have agreed with you that leaving was our only choice. But now we have him and soon we’ll have all the fever iron we need. Don’t throw your life away, not when we’re so close to victory.”

  Finn set the pouch of gaal powder down on the chart table. He looked up at his brother but found he was unable to speak.

  “Even if you make it across the valley,” Corr said, “which no one ever has, not on foot, it would take you weeks to reach the Bourne. By then whatever’s going to happen will be over and done with.”

  “Corr, you and the Nightbane were killing each other over this poison, and now you’re at war over it again, this time with your allies. If you defeat Nonn and the mines are yours, someone else will come hoping to take them from you. And even if you win that battle, one day the ore will run out and your Stormriders will be killing one another for the little that’s left.”

  “You heard what the doctor said, didn’t you? Without the gaal you’ll be dead in a matter of days, Finn. If the beasts out there don’t get you first, that is. At least take the suit of fetch armour. It’ll give you a fighting chance.”

  “I’m not putting on that armour, Corr. When I woke up in the infirmary, I thought I had a choice between joining you or dying, but I see now it was no choice at all. The fever iron is death, and death is all you and your men will ever find in this place. It will find me, too, soon enough. But it won’t find me here. Goodbye, brother. We won’t see each other again.”

  Corr came around the table. He stood in front of Finn without speaking. Then he put his arms around him and embraced him.

  “I love you, little brother,” Corr said under his breath. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I did—once.”

  Finn left the flagship and went among the Stormriders on the pier, saying goodbye to the few he’d fought alongside. Then he strode across the pier to the great doors. He was carrying water, what little food the quartermaster could spare and the doctor’s journal, wrapped in a clean cloth. Before stowing it safely in his pack, he had turned the journal over in his hands, feeling the worn leather cover, the thin paper, soft at the edges with many thumbings. He knew the journal was not for him, but he could not keep himself from leafing through the pages and reading a few lines in the doctor’s neat, precise hand. I have stayed in Fable much longer than I ever intended to, the doctor had written on a day several years earlier. The knights of Appleyard wish me to remain and join their ranks. They tell me they have need of my skills, such as they are. I’m not certain yet whether I will accept, though it’s true I have grown very fond of this peaceful city and its people.

  The sentries at the doors had already been informed Finn was leaving. They hurried to the winch and raised the small portcullis. As he was about to duck through the low, narrow doorway, Finn heard his name called. He turned to see Grath hurrying after him. He was wearing his battle mail and had a cloth pack slung over one shoulder.

  “I hear you’re deserting,” the mordog said brusquely.

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  “You’re going to die out there, you know.”

  “I wish you well, Grath. I hope one day you’ll find the freedom you’ve been searching for.”

  “Well, this seems as good a day as any to look for it. I’m coming with you.”

  “You’re … Does Corr know about this?”

  “I told him. His first thought was to have me clapped in irons. Then he changed his mind and decided I might be of use to you, since I am no longer of any use to him. Kern was happy, though. My leaving suits his ambitions.” He shrugged almost imperceptibly. “Together we might manage to stay alive a little longer than we would by ourselves.”

  “Have you ever been out there?” Finn asked, gesturing to the doorway and the cold grey light beyond.

  Grath grinned crookedly.

  “Out there, Finn Madoc,” he said, “is where I come from.”

  18

  WILL HAD ALREADY STARTED up the trash mound when Shade first attacked Dama. As he struggled through the jumbled, sodden refuse to the place Rowen lay, he saw Shade’s fall and Dama’s escape. Then he lost his balance and banged his shin painfully against a sharp-edged piece of protruding metal. He bit back a cry and kept going, his vision clouded with tears of pain and grief.

  He reached Rowen’s side. She was picking herself up, apparently unhurt but with a shocked, glassy stare in her eyes. He took her hand and helped her to her feet.

  “I’m all right,” she said shakily. “We have to help Shade.”

  Will looked around wildly, but he could no longer see the wolf. At that moment Morrigan joined them. She had glided up the slope in the shrowde cloak without making a sound.

  “We must not linger here. Dama will raise the alarm and others are sure to come,” she said. “I saw where Shade fell. Follow me.”

  They made their way slowly along and down the slope. Will was slowed by his bruised shin, which sent pain knifing through his leg whenever he put any weight on it. And Rowen was still unsteady on her feet. He stayed close to her, alarmed at how pale she was.

  At last they came around to the far side of the slope and found another narrow gully below them, like the one where they had met the harrowers. At the bottom they saw the wolf on his side in a shallow pool of filthy water.

  “Shade!” Will cried.

  He plunged down the trash slope, heedless of his injured leg, crying out the wolf’s name. As he reached the bottom, Shade stirred and climbed with great effort to his feet.

  Will came to a halt a few steps away. He couldn’t help himself. For a terrible moment he wasn’t even sure this was his friend at all.

  Shade had grown larger. Much larger. Will had always been able to stand face to face with him, but now he had to look up into the wolf’s eyes. Shade’s fur was darker, too, and matted into thick hackles spattered with blood, his own and likely Dama’s. From his heaving chest came a deep, shuddering rasp, like a saw being drawn through knotted wood.

  “Shade?” Will said. “Are you all right?”r />
  The wolf’s eyes, dull and bloodshot, regarded Will without seeming to recognize him. By now Rowen and Morrigan had reached the bottom of the slope.

  “Keep a distance,” Morrigan said, placing a hand on Will’s shoulder.

  The wolf looked at each of them in turn, his chest still heaving and his eyes showing no sign that he knew them. Then he took a step toward Rowen, who stiffened and backed away.

  “Shade,” Will said. “What’s wrong? It’s us.”

  The wolf took another slow step toward Rowen, then he stopped and lowered his great shaggy head. Will saw that his limbs were trembling, as if he was struggling to hold himself back, from either bounding away or leaping to attack. Slaver dripped from his jaws and a low, strained growl came from deep in his throat.

  “He’s trying to say something,” Rowen said desperately. “What is it, Shade? Can’t you speak? What did she do to you?”

  The wolf gazed at Rowen with a beseeching look, then lowered his head again.

  “You know what this means, Rowen,” Morrigan said. “What he is asking of you.”

  “I know,” Rowen said, shaking her head, “but I can’t do it. I can’t.”

  “You must. He cannot speak because the other wolf is winning the struggle. Shade is giving us this chance, before it is too late.”

  Rowen nodded. “Forgive me, Shade,” she whispered.

  Will watched in disbelief as she slipped the ball of golden thread from her pocket. This was the moment that the young man in the Weaving had warned him of. It had come already. He had thought there would be more time.

  In his mind he saw the young man’s feverish eyes, his look of a hunted thing.

  That’s not me, he thought. Not yet.

  “No,” he said with quiet force.

  Rowen turned to him with a look of anguish. “I have to do this,” she said. “Shade asked me to bind him before the shadow took him over. He wants this. It’s the only way he can keep us safe when the other wolf comes. Isn’t that right, Shade?”

  Shade’s great head nodded once. Rowen stepped forward and the wolf hunkered down and stretched out his front paws.

  “No, there has to be another way,” Will said. “Shade would never hurt us. I don’t believe it.”

  “If Rowen does not act now, Shade will become like those others,” Morrigan said. “Like the harrowers. He will turn on us. Either we bind him with the thread, or he must die here, now, at my hand.”

  “You’re both giving up on him,” Will said, clutching Rowen’s arm. “How can you do that? He’s never given up on us!”

  Rowen shrugged off his grip.

  “If you won’t help me, then stay out of my way,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Will stepped back. He stared at Rowen, who turned away from him and knelt before Shade. Quickly she teased out the end of the thread and began to draw it out from the ball.

  “Shade, don’t submit to this,” Will said. “Run.”

  The wolf gave no sign he had heard. His red-rimmed eyes were fixed on Rowen. When she had a good length of the fine, gleaming thread, she began to wind it tightly around Shade’s huge front paws. He lifted them from the ground to make it easier for her, but her hands were shaking so that she worked clumsily and slowly. Will watched, not understanding how something so thin and fragile could ever be expected to hold his powerful friend. And yet he knew that Rowen’s grandmother had told her that once she had woven with it, the thread could never be broken.

  When she had bound Shade’s front paws, the wolf lay over on his side so she could reach his back paws. Soon those were also tightly wound with the thread, which now seemed to shine even more brightly than before. Will glanced at the golden ball in Rowen’s palm and saw to his surprise that it seemed to be no smaller than when she’d started.

  He was jolted from his thoughts by Shade, who stirred suddenly and gnashed his teeth together.

  “He doesn’t want this,” Will cried. “You’re telling us not to do this, isn’t that right, Shade?”

  “He wants you to bind his jaws as well,” Morrigan said. “That’s what he is asking.”

  Again Shade lowered his head to confirm she was right.

  “But he’ll be completely helpless then,” Will said. “You saw those harrowers, Rowen. You know what they’ll do to him!”

  “His jaws must be bound,” Morrigan said coldly. “Finish it.”

  Rowen started to bring the end of the thread to Shade’s muzzle.

  “No!” Will shouted. “I won’t let you.”

  He crouched beside her and blocked her with his hand.

  “I have to finish,” Rowen said, tears sliding through the grime on her face. “I have to, or the thread won’t hold him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know. Or maybe it’s the thread that knows.”

  “But it’s not working. The thread isn’t being used up. There’s still as much left as when you started.”

  “I know, and I don’t understand it either. Grandmother didn’t have time to tell me everything. All she said was I would have to weave—”

  “Listen to me,” Will said as a memory suddenly came to him. “When I met the Dreamwalker, the old man of the Horse Folk, he said he’d seen you in the dream country. He saw you, Rowen, coming here, to the Shadow Realm. He knew it would happen even before your grandfather was taken by the thrawl.”

  “The Dreamwalker saw me?”

  “He called you the weaver of worlds. He said you would find a great power in yourself. He called you a weaver. I think he must have been talking about the thread. You’re supposed to do something with it, but not this. This can’t be it. This whole journey is not just about finding your grandfather. You’re supposed to change everything, the Dreamwalker said. Everything in all the worlds. There’s something else you have to do here, and if you bind Shade with the thread, you won’t be able to do it.”

  Rowen’s eyes were wide with shock and fear.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Will?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t want to make things harder for you. I didn’t …”

  He was about to say more when he felt a sudden sharp pressure on his raised arm, and turned to see what had caused it.

  His wrist was caught between the wolf’s jaws.

  “Shade?” he whispered.

  The wolf’s eyes burned into his, but Shade did not move or release him. Will held his breath and went still. He could feel the points of Shade’s teeth on his skin. The wolf was holding his arm with just enough force to keep him from pulling away. A cold chill crawled over him. He knew that with the slightest clenching of those powerful jaws, Shade’s fangs would bite through his flesh and bone as easily as snapping a twig. Will’s heart thudded in his chest and every nerve was screaming at him to pull away, but he dared not move a muscle.

  “He does not wish to harm you, Will,” Morrigan said. “He is warning you. He wants you to stay out of the way so that Rowen can finish binding him.”

  Shade’s eyes moved to Morrigan and the steady look in them confirmed what she had said.

  Will swallowed hard. “Shade, listen to me,” he said in as calm a voice as he could muster. “I am not going to let Rowen do this. If you want her to finish, you’ll have to take my arm.”

  “No!” Rowen cried. “Will, don’t say that.”

  “Will,” Morrigan said warningly. “You cannot survive a wound like that. Not here in this place.”

  “You were there, Shade, when the Dreamwalker told me about Rowen,” Will went on, ignoring them both. “About what she had to do. The thread isn’t meant for this. Binding you won’t help any of us. You’ll just die for nothing.” He was crying now, his words coming in gasps. “If you really wanted to, you’d have taken my arm off already. But you’re still you, and you always will be, no matter what. You would never hurt me or Rowen. I know that because I love you, Shade. And I trust you. So trust yourself.”

  For a long moment the wolf’s eyes stayed lock
ed on Will’s. Then they closed, and tears slid down his ravaged face.

  Will felt the points of Shade’s teeth lift ever so slightly from his skin. Slowly and carefully he pulled his arm back until it was free of the wolf’s jaws. Shade’s head sagged down. His muzzle nudged Will’s hand.

  “Unbind him,” Will said.

  “Will …”

  “Do it.”

  Rowen hesitated, terror in her eyes, then she began to unwind the thread from Shade’s paws. Will looked at his arm with a kind of numb shock, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was still there. Shade’s teeth had left a livid half-circle on his skin. The sick fear of what had almost happened was still churning through him and he struggled to climb to his feet.

  In a few moments the wolf was free, and Rowen was weeping and stroking Shade’s fur.

  The wolf pulled away from her and climbed unsteadily from the ground, his fur dripping where it had lain in the filthy water. He gazed at each of them, Morrigan, Rowen and finally Will.

  “Shade,” Will said. “Go. Run. Find the way home.”

  The wolf’s huge body burst into motion. He bounded away from them, a blur of black and grey, and was soon lost from sight. Will touched his arm. The marks of Shade’s teeth were already fading, but the words of the young man in the Weaving came to him again: The wolf must be bound, or all is lost.

  Will and Rowen didn’t know how long the Shee woman led them along winding paths through the mountains of trash. Their thoughts were on Shade and they paid little attention to their surroundings. After a while, though, Will couldn’t help noticing that the litter of devoured stories was changing around them. The broken glass and crockery, the books and clothing, the tools and toys—it was all blending together, the colours fading, the edges of things blurring, each thing becoming indistinguishable from everything else until it all seemed to be turning into one lifeless grey mass.

  Like everything’s becoming more of the shadow, he thought, and then he realized it was true. Everything around them was turning into more of the Night King’s realm.