The Tree of Story

by Thomas Wharton

  The words of Dirge’s nonsensical song came back to him then. Tale is done, she had croaked as she rooted in the trash for something living she’d sniffed out. Tale is done and all is one.

  Rowen stumbled beside him, but when he put a hand on her arm she moved away from him. He fell back without a word and watched her struggle on. Everything is becoming more of the shadow, he thought again. Even us.

  Finally Morrigan said that they should stop and find a place to rest.

  “The shrowde says that we are close now,” the Shee woman said. “The place where the Angel brought his prisoners is not far.”

  She looked around. In the face of the steep wall of trash to one side of the path, she found a squarish hollow opening that looked like a cave entrance. As they crouched and climbed inside, Will saw two rows of bench-like seats and realized the cave was the interior of a large vehicle, probably a school bus. It had been buried in the wall of debris with only its rear door open to the air.

  The bus was dark inside, the windows blocked completely by refuse. Rowen sat down heavily on one of the seats. Will sat beside her and handed her a water bottle, but she didn’t drink from it. Once they were all inside, Morrigan drew back the hood of the shrowde cloak.

  “We must not stay here long,” she said. “Only until you are both able to go on again.”

  “Morrigan,” Rowen said weakly, “may I see Sputter?”

  The Shee woman brought out the waylight, still fixed to the end of the Loremaster’s staff. Rowen took it from her and opened the little door. For a moment Will wondered if the wisp was even still inside, and then a faint blue glow appeared, pulsing feebly.

  “This place is hurting him, too,” Rowen said. “But it’s too late to send him back. He’d never make it.”

  She shut the door of the waylight and handed it back to Morrigan.

  “You’re shivering,” Will said to her.

  “I’m all right. I just need to rest.”

  She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Will,” she said after a long silence. “The Dreamwalker … did he tell you anything else about me? About what I’m supposed to do?”

  “I don’t remember everything he said. Only that there’s something you would have to do here, for the sake of everyone in the Realm. He said it would be your task to make a new story.”

  “A new story.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what that means. I can do a few things that Grandfather taught me. But they’re just tricks. I’m not one of the Stewards. They were the only ones who ever had the power to create stories. Isn’t that right, Morrigan?”

  “They, and Malabron,” the Shee woman agreed. “But remember, you are their descendent. And your grandfather believed you would do greater things than any loremaster before you.”

  Rowen’s head sagged. “He was wrong about me,” she murmured. “He only said it because he loves me.”

  “Whatever the man of the Horse Folk saw, we should keep to our original purpose,” Morrigan said. “For all we know, Rowen, searching for your grandfather is what you are meant to do. Surely no one has dared go as far into the Shadow Realm as we have. Our very presence here brings something new into this nightmare.”

  Rowen did not reply. She stayed hunched forward with her arms wrapped around herself for a long time. At last she sat up, but she didn’t speak or look at anyone. She remained very still, her eyes fixed on the doorway.

  At last she said, “You were right about Shade, Will. You were right to stop me from binding him. I’m sorry I lost faith in him. In both of you.”

  “Do you think he’ll come back?” Will asked.

  “I don’t know,” Rowen said. “I can see him, Will. I can see his thread, but it’s very faint and far away. I don’t know if he’ll come back. But none of the others out there have dared to go near him. I can see them, too. The harrowers and the fetches.” Her voice was quiet and distant, like the voice of someone talking in her sleep. “I didn’t think they had any story left once they came here. But they do. Or it’s all one story now. His story.”

  “Does he know we’re here?” Will whispered.

  “I can’t see him,” Rowen said. “There’s just more shadow ahead, and all the threads of story lead into it. I can see the path, but not where it ends.”

  “What about the Loremaster?” Morrigan asked. “Can you see him?”

  Rowen closed her eyes tightly. Her lips trembled. At last she turned to them both with a lost, hopeless look.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can barely see you. Even right here it’s like you’re far away. Or I am. I think … I think what happened to Shade is happening to me. I can see whatever has become part of this place, but not Grandfather.” She pressed her hands to her temples. “My story-sight didn’t work here before, not because it couldn’t but because I wouldn’t let it. I was afraid to. Because it’s telling me I’m going to be like them. Like Dirge and Gibbet.” She buried her face in her hands.

  “We’re here with you, Rowen,” Will said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “We’re not far away. We won’t leave you.”

  “You should leave me, Will,” she said. “I should never have brought you here. Any of you. This nightmare turns everything into more of itself. That’s how it grows. It only happened to Shade first because of the gaal inside him.”

  “Shade resisted,” Will said, desperate for words that would give them both some hope or comfort. “He’s still out there somewhere, our friend. This place hasn’t defeated him yet. You have to be like Shade, Rowen. You have to fight against it.”

  “I’m trying,” she said sharply, looking up at him with eyes blazing. “You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t understand.”

  Again she had lashed out at him, and it hurt. But something of her former spirit had showed itself, like a curtain parting briefly to let sunlight into a dark room. That reassured him, just a little. In spite of what she had said, the Rowen he knew was still there.

  Then her gaze softened. She took his hand and gripped it.

  “Will, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean …”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think about it. Just rest now.”

  With an exhausted sigh she closed her eyes and lowered her head to his shoulder. Will could feel the feverish heat of her forehead through the sleeve of his shirt and it alarmed him. He turned to Morrigan with a pleading look, in the faint hope there was something she could say or do. But the Shee woman seemed to have withdrawn into herself as well. She gave Rowen an almost cold glance, in much the same way she had looked at Shade.

  They let Rowen rest, and Will even thought she slept for a time. Then abruptly she stirred and sat up, staring around wildly as if she had no idea where she was. She was still deathly pale, and when he helped her up her hands felt cold to his touch.

  “Rowen?” he whispered.

  “We’ll keep going, Will,” she said. “Morrigan is right. I don’t know what else to do, so I’m going to keep searching for Grandfather. All the threads I can see lead into the shadow. He must be there, too.”

  They were getting ready to leave the shelter of the bus when she halted suddenly and said, “Wait.”

  They turned to her. She stood without moving, staring straight ahead. Slowly she raised her hand and moved it back and forth, as if she were brushing invisible cobwebs out of her way. Will exchanged a glance with Morrigan, but neither of them spoke.

  At last Rowen turned to them.

  “They’ve found our trail,” she said. “We’re being hunted now. But the place the shrowde knows about is not far. I see the way there. I can take us by a path that’ll make it hard for them to follow.”

  * * *

  After a while it seemed to Will that each step took more effort. Soon he was breathing hard, as if he were trudging up the steep slope of a mountain into thinner air. But unlike a mountain climber, he had no sense that he was coming closer to a goal. Instead it seemed they were dropping fa
rther and farther into a pit, a forgotten place without life or meaning or even names. He found he had to keep reminding himself, as if he was about to forget, My name is Will Lightfoot. I am with Rowen and Morrigan of the Shee. We are trying to find Master Pendrake so we can return to Fable.

  Then, without warning, the trashlands ended.

  They had climbed another slope and were forced to halt at the brink of a sheer wall that plunged at least a hundred feet straight down. There were no more hills and gullies of stinking grey rubble before them. From here they could look out over a vast flat expanse of barren earth, bleached almost white and scarred with a web of cracks and crevices, like the floor of a dried-up lake. The white plain stretched away, seemingly without end, into a haze of dust and shadow.

  “This is where the shrowde says the Angel always brought his captives,” Morrigan said. “The shrowde does not know what dangers it might hold, but she has heard there is a place at its heart called the Silence, from which nothing ever returns.”

  “Did she ever see what happened to the people Lotan brought here?” Will asked.

  “She supposes that they became fetches, but the Angel never lingered in this place once he cast his prisoners from him. She thought that he feared it, too.”

  “There won’t be anywhere to hide out there,” Will said.

  “I’ll keep you both concealed in the shrowde,” Morrigan said. “She will be less visible on the plain, and we can go faster that way.”

  They waited for Rowen to speak. She hadn’t said a word since they’d halted at the top of the ridge, and now Will realized he and Morrigan had silently agreed that Rowen was the one making the decisions.

  At last she stirred and turned to them.

  “No, Morrigan,” she said. “We can’t hide in the shrowde because it’s her trail they’re following. They’re looking for the one pretending to be the Angel. That’s who they’re after.”

  “You’re saying we should leave the shrowde behind?” Will asked.

  “Out there is the place all the threads lead to,” Rowen said. “That’s where we have to go, and it’s not far. Will and I can make it, Morrigan, but only if you draw off the hunters.”

  “I cannot leave the two of you to cross the plain alone,” Morrigan protested. “There is no defence. Nowhere to hide.”

  “Rowen, we can’t even get down this cliff without Morrigan and the shrowde,” Will said.

  “We can,” Rowen said firmly. “There’s another way, Will. You’ll see. Morrigan, please. You must do this. The hunters are so close. If we stay together, they’ll catch us. I can see it. I see their threads and mine weaving together, but that doesn’t happen if you leave now.”

  The Shee woman looked back the way they had come, then she turned to Rowen again, her face set with grim resolve. Without a word she brought out the Loremaster’s staff and Will’s Errantry sword, and handed them over.

  “The shrowde and I will draw the pursuers away,” Morrigan said. “As soon as it is safe we will find you again.”

  “Morrigan, if they catch you …” Will began, but he couldn’t finish.

  “Then we will do our best to thin out their numbers, Will. If they threaten to overwhelm us, the shrowde has agreed she will leave me and seek you out.”

  She reached out a hand and touched Rowen’s cheek.

  “Go safely,” she said. Then she turned and they watched the flowing white form of the shrowde glide away over the ridge until it disappeared from sight.

  19

  THE MORNING AFTER ANNEN Bawn fell to the Nightbane, the sky over Fable was clear and the air mild and warm. The field before the city was dotted with tents of so many kinds that to anyone looking over the battlements it seemed as if the harvest festival had come early. But the mood in the city was far from festive. Errantry troopers patrolled the silent streets, and the shops and taverns were all shut.

  In the eerie hush, the pounding of hooves could be heard by those on the Course, and a lone rider appeared on the north road, galloping hotly for Fable. He rode up into the city and silence fell again, but a rumour quickly spread that he was a herald from Annen Bawn, sent to report the fall of the citadel. It was not long before the rumour was verified, as the few survivors of Annen Bawn soon appeared in his wake, in ragged companies with bloodied armour and bowed heads. And everyone knew this meant that the enemy could be at the walls of Fable by the next evening.

  Preparations for battle and siege went even faster now, and the stream of folk fleeing the northern part of the Bourne increased to a flood that clogged the roads and led to arguments and in a few cases blows. With the Marshal unable to perform his duties, it was up to Captain Thorne to meet with the Red Duke and the captains of the other allied forces. The Duke’s great pavilion was even more crowded than it had been the first time.

  “We’ve been informed,” the Duke said to Thorne, “that your city is under martial law and there have been arrests.”

  “It is true,” Thorne said, darting nervous glances at the assembled commanders. It was clear he felt out of his element and was struggling to maintain his poise. “The archmage, Ammon Brax of Kyning Rore, has discovered a plot to overthrow the Errantry. We had no choice but to take these measures, for the safety of the people.”

  “This is troubling news,” said the Duke. “If you require additional troops to help—”

  “We do not,” Thorne said brusquely. “The mage will soon have the traitors unmasked.”

  The Duke nodded doubtfully, as if he wished to say more, but then he turned the business of the council to the coming threat. It was almost a certainty that the Nightbane would use the high road from the north, since that would be the quickest and easiest route from Annen Bawn. The enemy would know by now they could not hope to take the city by surprise, yet it was unclear whether they had any inkling of the size of the defending force. And so it seemed to the Duke and the other commanders that they themselves might have an element of surprise that they could put to their advantage, along with the fact that the enemy would be coming uphill to meet the defenders.

  “We need not wait for a siege to begin,” the Duke said. “And I believe we should not. The walls of Fable were not built to withstand the kind of onslaught that is on its way. They are neither high enough nor strong enough to last even a day against siege towers and battering rams. And to pen our combined forces up inside walls would be to hobble what strength we have. I say we take the fight to our enemy. We strike them hard and fast, and hope to break their lines and scatter them before they get anywhere near the city.”

  The various forces were divided so that if a company was made up of both archers and foot soldiers, the archers were separated from their fellows and assigned to one of two large companies of bowmen. They were to be situated on either side of the narrow, northern end of the valley, and their task would be to rain arrows down on the enemy from both sides. But this order would not be given until the main Nightbane force had come some distance into the valley. A shallow stream that often dried up in the hottest summers meandered across the northern end of the Course, and this was chosen as the point at which the enemy was to be stopped and driven back.

  Teams of diggers went to work on the banks of this stream, which was nearly dry now in the late summer heat, hollowing out the banks and making them deeper and more sheer. Stakes were driven all along this new trench on the Fable side. The plan was to let the enemy begin crossing the stream, and while they were struggling up the near bank, when their lines would be in disarray, the main force of defenders would launch its assault. A company of horsemen concealed in the woods on either side of the Course would charge out at the same time, with the intent of cutting through the enemy and breaking it in half. Then the archers would let loose their volleys.

  What remained was to decide how the Errantry itself, with its troopers and its small contingent of mounted knights, would be best deployed. The Duke had a plan for this, as well. The knights, he suggested, would form part of the concealed
cavalry brigade on the west side of the Course, nearest to Fable, while the foot troopers would join a reserve force that would remain closer to the city gates. These troops could be brought up to reinforce the main army if the battle turned against them, or they could be sent back into the city to defend it should the attack be repelled and the battle become a siege.

  “And what of the archmage?” the Duke asked Captain Thorne when the plans had been debated and approved. “I have had mages for counsellors myself in the past and have seen their power and the way they can stir hope and fighting spirit in men. Once the threat of treason in Fable has been dealt with, will Ammon Brax help us?”

  “Master Brax has informed me that he will stand with us,” Thorne said, though the nervous working of his jaw was at odds with his words. “I know he is making preparations for a great feat of spellcraft that he’ll unleash on our enemies in the hour of need.”

  “That hour may be soon,” the Duke said.

  The next day dawned as bright and serene as the last, and some began to question what they had been told, doubting whether there really was any Nightbane host on the march or whether these strange foreign armies—which counted among their number goblins and trolls and other such creatures of darkness—had gathered here under false pretences in order to lay siege to the city themselves. This fear, combined with rumours of dark sorcery in Fable, brought people out into the streets to demand answers. The Errantry troopers had to quell several near riots as they attempted to disperse the crowds and send everyone home. When it was all over, there were some bloodied heads and broken bones, among not only the people but the Errantry as well.

  Balor Gruff was kept busy all that day restoring order, although he sent two of the older Errantry apprentices he knew and trusted to keep watch on Pluvius Lane in case anyone entered or left the toyshop. Finally, late that evening, he turned his steps toward Appleyard, weary and disgusted with the force he’d had to use to keep peace in the streets. As was his duty, he went to report to the acting marshal, a task he had been avoiding ever since taking Edweth to the Golden Goose.