The Tree of Story

by Thomas Wharton

  Only Sputter didn’t seem to think so. The wisp danced around them frantically, then shot up to the tree’s heights and back down again to settle on Rowen’s outstretched hand.

  “What have you found, Sputter?” Rowen asked, and then she looked up with her eyes wide and said, “Oh.”

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  Rowen didn’t answer. Slowly she reached up and touched the rough, knotted bark.

  “It’s their tree,” she whispered. “Or it was. This was it, Will. The tree of the Stewards. The one that stood on the green hill where they met at midsummer with the Fair Folk and the Speaking Creatures.”

  “But it was destroyed a long time ago. Wasn’t it? That’s what Shade told us.”

  “This is how Malabron destroys,” Rowen said. “Like everything we’ve seen here, it all becomes more of the shadow. The same thing happened to the tree. But this is it. Sputter knows. He recognizes it. This is the Tree of Story.”

  The wisp sprang from Rowen’s palm and whirled into the air, dancing and crackling and buzzing like a firecracker that has spun out of control. Then, before they could do more than stare in surprise, the wisp shot toward the base of the tree and vanished into a furrow in the bark.

  “Sputter!” Rowen cried. She pressed her hands to the place the tiny creature’s light had vanished. There was no sign or sound of the wisp.

  Rowen stepped away from the tree.

  “He’s gone back to where he came from,” she said sadly. “At least he’ll be safe here for now.”

  “But we have to keep going,” Will said. “Master Pendrake isn’t here. This isn’t where he was taken.”

  Rowen lowered her head and stared at the ground as if she was deep in thought. Then she looked up and gazed around the hollow with a startled expression, as if she was seeing it for the first time. She reached out a hand and touched the tree again at the place where the wisp had disappeared.

  “No, Will,” she said. “We don’t go anywhere from here. I didn’t understand before. Or I didn’t want to. But Sputter showed me. This is the place all the threads lead. It all began here, at the tree, just like Sputter did. Everything that the Stewards wove and cared for began here.”

  “But there’s nothing here.”

  “That’s just it. Nothing. All the stories lead here, to the tree, and then they just … end.” Her voice had gone faint and hollow. “It’s just like Grandmother told me. Nothing is what will happen, forever, once he wins. Everything will end, in the same place it began.”

  The cold despair in her eyes terrified Will. The words of Dirge’s song came to him again: Tale is done, and all is one.

  “Then where is Master Pendrake?” he said desperately. “You said he’d be where all the threads ended up.”

  She didn’t answer but stared past him, at the tree. Her eyes seemed to burn in the gloom.

  Will turned to where she was gazing. In the furrow where Sputter had vanished, a slender, pale green shoot had grown out of the bark. Rowen crouched before it. She raised her hand but didn’t touch the thin, fragile tendril, as if she wasn’t sure it was really there. In the grey emptiness of the hollow this one tiny thread of life and colour held him spellbound, too, as if he had never seen such a thing before.

  “It’s him,” she murmured. “Sputter did this.”

  She set her hand on the bark beside the shoot, then pressed her ear to the tree, like someone listening for a heartbeat. After a long silence she gave a cry and looked up at Will with a gleam of hope in her eyes, the first he’d seen in a long time.

  “The tree isn’t dead, Will,” she said. “Not yet. Sputter knew. That’s what he’s trying to show us. That the fathomless fire is here. It’s so faint. It’s barely here at all. But Sputter felt it. The tree is still alive, Will.”

  “Can Sputter heal it?”

  “I don’t think he’s strong enough, not by himself. Not in this place. Malabron’s story is too powerful.” She took a deep breath and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Sputter’s returned to where he came from. This is his home, but he’s still weak. He needs my help. Maybe together we can make the tree grow again. If that happens …”

  “Will it stop Malabron?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know, but I have to try.”

  She fell silent, closed her eyes and crouched, pressing herself up against the tree once more.

  Will watched and waited, not daring to speak and disturb her. He glanced up often at the rim of the hollow, dreading to see figures there: Dama and whatever creatures she had gathered to hunt them. But the hollow remained silent and Rowen did not stir.

  Then Will heard the faintest of sounds from the tree. He looked up in surprise to see another slender, pale green tendril rising from one of the crevices in the bark. It was so quick and fine that at first he thought it must be a tongue of werefire. Then he looked closer and realized the tendril was real and solid. It was another shoot, like the first, and it was uncurling as it came, growing longer and thicker. Tiny buds like green droplets of water appeared along its length.

  Then he looked higher up the massive body of the tree and saw that other shoots were appearing there, as well, some growing out from the trunk and others from the branches. The sound he had heard was the buds on all of these new shoots opening to the air, the leaves inside them stickily unfolding. Not all of the tree was growing, though, he noticed. Most of the branches remained lifeless and bare. And yet it seemed to him that the grey dimness of the hollow had lightened just a little.

  Rowen was still pressed to the tree, her eyes closed, her brow furrowed in concentration. She hadn’t given any sign that she knew what was happening. Will was about to let her know what he was seeing, but he held back, not wanting to disturb her. He caught the warm, sweet scent of sap and green life and breathed it in deeply. It seemed to him a lifetime since he had smelled anything but dust and decay.

  Then he glanced down at his feet.

  Green shoots were slipping from the cracks in the earth, too. These were stalks of grass, he realized. They were growing all around the tree, more and more of them appearing each moment. Each slender stem seemed lit with its own inner fire, as if the light of a sun that Will could not see was shining on them.

  He heard Rowen take a sharp breath and turned to her. Her eyes were open and she was marvelling, as he was, at the change that had come over the hollow. They shared a look of wonder but didn’t speak. Rowen climbed to her feet.

  The grass was growing with impossible speed. Instead of scattered blades poking up here and there through the barren earth, a deep, living carpet of green was spreading out on all sides, climbing the slopes to the rim and rising there, growing taller, the stalks tangling and intertwining to form a living wall. A moist, earthy smell filled the air. Will even thought he heard the sound of water trickling somewhere not far away. Water. It was something else he had wondered if he would ever see again.

  “You’ve done it,” Will said excitedly. “You and Sputter.”

  Rowen faced him. Beads of sweat glittered on her brow and she was shivering as she had been when they were hiding in the bus.

  “Now they know where we are,” she said. “We can’t hide anymore.”

  As she turned away from the tree, she staggered. Will caught her just as she was falling into the grass. He lowered her down and crouched beside her.

  “So tired,” she murmured, closing her eyes. Her breathing was deep and laboured.

  He waited for a while, not daring to disturb her. His own body so craved rest that he was tempted to sink down beside her and close his eyes, too. But her own last words kept returning to him, prodding him to stay awake.

  At last he could wait no longer. He touched her shoulder.

  “Rowen?”

  She opened her eyes but didn’t look at him.

  “They haven’t found us yet,” he said. “We should keep going. We don’t want to stay here and wait to be caught.”

  She didn’t seem t
o hear him. Will gripped her by the shoulders.

  “Rowen, listen to me. You have to get up. It isn’t over yet. If we find Morrigan we can—”

  “They’re bringing him,” Rowen said.

  “What?” Will said. “Bringing who?”

  Rowen sat up suddenly. Her fingers clutched the grass.

  “They’re bringing Grandfather here,” she breathed. “They’re bringing him to me.”

  Will followed her eager gaze to the hollow’s rim. Beyond the newly green slope there was nothing to be seen but the same slowly churning wall of dust.

  “We have to get out of here now,” Will said. “We can find Morrigan and—”

  “There’s nowhere else to go, Will,” Rowen said. “And I’m not leaving. Grandfather is here.”

  “Where?” he said. “I don’t see anything.”

  Rowen herself appeared uncertain. She turned in a slow circle, her brows knitted, then knelt and put a hand to the earth. She stayed like that, with her head bowed in concentration, as if listening for a heartbeat. Then suddenly she stood.

  “They couldn’t get through. I had to make a path.”

  Again Will looked where she was gazing, and this time he saw that the woven wall of green had collapsed in one narrow place, as if it had been mown or trodden down.

  Dama stood there. Others were with her—Dirge and Gibbet, and creatures Will had never seen before. Among their hideous shapes stood a familiar figure in grey.

  “Grandfather,” Rowen whispered. The Loremaster did not raise his head.

  Dama’s wings spread. She rose into the air and then came gliding down into the hollow, leaving Pendrake and the others behind on the rim.

  Will drew his sword and stepped in front of Rowen.

  “No, Will,” she said, clutching his arm. “That won’t do any good. Let her approach.”

  Swiftly Dama crossed the space between them, but as she came Will saw doubt and even fear in her eyes. Not fear of them, he realized, but of this place. She had never set foot here before. She had no more idea of what she would find here than they’d had.

  Dama descended to within a few paces of Will and Rowen, but her feet did not touch the grass. When her gaze fell on the tree a tremor crossed her face. A look, Will thought, of both fear and desire. At last she turned her eyes to Will and Rowen.

  “The armies of the One are before the walls of your city,” she said. “Soon all who dwell there will join you here. They will feed us. You have failed.”

  “What have you done to my grandfather?” Rowen asked.

  “He is unharmed,” Dama said.

  “Let him go. It’s me you wanted, and now I’m here.”

  “Whether he remains with us or goes free is of no consequence. But very well, we will bargain. If you want the old man set free, you must call off the wolf.”

  Will felt Rowen’s grip on his arm tighten, and it was as if the thought passed between them without words: Shade was still alive. He was alive, and still fighting. Still resisting the power of the Shadow Realm. He’s hunting them, Will thought with a terrible exultation. He’s hunting and killing the harrowers. And more than that, he realized, the harrowers thought Shade was under Rowen’s command.

  “Let my grandfather go, and Will as well, and I will bring the wolf to heel.”

  “Rowen, no,” Will said. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “We will let them depart unharmed,” Dama said, ignoring Will’s outburst. “The old man and the boy will have safe passage to what is left of the Uneaten Lands. But it is not enough. You, child of the Stewards, must remain. You must submit to the One and no longer use your power against us.”

  Rowen did not answer right away. Will felt her fingers dig into his arm, and then they let go and he knew what she was going to reply. He wanted to cry out, to stop her from answering, but his own voice was choked in his throat.

  “I will stay and submit to you,” she said. “But if you break your word the wolf will hunt you down and tear out your throat.”

  Dama snarled. She turned to the rim of the hollow, where the other harrowers waited, and raised a hand. Dirge and Gibbet, who had hold of Pendrake’s arms, released him. The old man stirred. Slowly he raised his head and gazed around dully as if waking from sleep. Then he caught sight of Rowen and his eyes opened wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was too faint and the hollow’s rim too far for them to hear what he was saying. Rowen raised her hand in a gesture of farewell. Pendrake seemed to understand now what was happening. He started forward, but Dirge reached out a bony arm and held him back.

  “Take him,” Dama called.

  “Wait,” Rowen said, and she held out the Loremaster’s staff with its broken waylight. “Please give him this.”

  Dama took the staff from her. She gave it a quick sneering glance, as if she could not fathom the worth of such a pitiful thing. Then she raised her arm and threw the staff end over end across the hollow. It landed with a soft thump in the grass below the harrowers. Dirge scrambled down to retrieve it and handed it roughly to the Loremaster. Then she looked back at Dama as if awaiting further instructions. The winged woman nodded her head, and the harrowers turned and hurried away with Pendrake, as if they could not wait to escape from this place.

  “They will take him to the edge of your realm,” Dama said. “No harm will come to him.”

  “He’s going,” Rowen breathed, the tears sliding down her face. “He’ll make it home.”

  Dama moved more swiftly than Will would have thought possible. She lunged and her talons sank into Rowen’s neck, then she sprang away, rising on a powerful beat of her wings as Will slashed at her in vain with his sword.

  “Leave or stay, boy,” Dama cried as she soared toward the rim of the hollow. “It no longer matters.”

  Rowen staggered and Will caught her. He lowered her to the soft, cool grass. “What did she do to you?” he said, his voice breaking.

  Rowen gripped his hand. “You must go, Will,” she said. Her eyelids had begun to droop and her breath was coming in shallow gasps. “Find Grandfather and go with him.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Sputter is … keeping the harrowers out. Making this place a refuge. But it won’t last. They’ll get through. You must go.”

  Will glanced back at the spot where the harrowers had appeared. The green wall had closed up again and there was no sign of Dama.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said once more.

  She grasped his hand and placed something in it.

  “Take this,” she said, and he saw that she had given him the ball of golden thread.

  “Rowen …”

  “I forgot it. When you get back to Fable, give the thread to Grandfather. He’ll need it.”

  “But your grandmother gave this to you. There must be some way for you to use it, before—”

  “Grandfather can save Fable with this, I’m sure of it. Take it to him, Will, and go now. Promise me you won’t stay here after I’m …”

  “Rowen, please don’t.”

  “Promise me.”

  Her eyes implored him and he nodded. “I promise.”

  She closed her eyes. Her head fell back. Will spoke her name again, but she did not answer.

  22

  THE IRON CARRIAGE SAT at the end of the Course while more Nightbane poured into the valley and swarmed around it like a dark tide around a great black stone. There were no other heralds, and yet no assault began. Some of the commanders began to urge an attack of their own, to drive into the ranks of the enemy while they were still assembling. The Duke decided against such a move. The enemy numbered at least ten thousand and there might be many more concealed in the woods, waiting to surround them if they charged straight down the field.

  And so nothing moved on the Course, and there was silence as the two forces waited and watched.

  At midday a company of three hundred or more riders came up from the south, dark-skinned men in gleaming silver armour. Their leader, who
wore a mask of gold, dismounted and sought council with the Duke in his pavilion. The allied troops waited, wondering who these new arrivals were and where they were from. It wasn’t long before the news passed through the camp that King Shakya of the Sunlands had brought his finest warriors to join the defence. The young king wore a mask, it was said, to hide the disfiguring marks of leprosy on his face.

  In the early afternoon, a dark cloud appeared in the sky to the north. It was thought at first to be drifting smoke, perhaps from the burning of Annen Bawn, but quickly it became clear that the black cloud was moving against the wind and directly toward Fable. Those with the keenest eyesight soon gave the warning that there were huge winged creatures within the smoke, and in a short time everyone could see that they were right. There were seven shapes within the cloud, and they flew with great flaps of their huge, translucent wings in a loose formation toward the city. The closer they came, the stranger they appeared. They were massive, swollen creatures, like immense black bags, with little in the way of limbs or tails. They had tiny eyes on the sides of their great heads and gaping mouths that belched black smoke and glowed red even in daylight.

  Only Balor, watching with the Duke’s retinue, knew what they were.

  “Motherworms,” he told those gathered around him.

  “Not many of them whatever they are,” the masked king observed. “The archers and musketeers should drive them off soon enough.”

  “They’re more of a threat than you know,” Balor said. He asked the Duke for permission to warn the city, and when it was given he rode back in great haste to the gates of Fable.

  “You will need more hands to carry buckets,” he told the sergeant in charge of the Errantry’s fire brigade. “Our troopers won’t be enough. The people have their own brigades.”

  “No one is allowed out of their houses, Balor,” the sergeant protested. “The acting marshal’s orders.”

  “There won’t be any houses left standing if we don’t act,” Balor roared.