‘The pathetic creature had made his home on the mountainside below, and had been drawn up towards the peak by Maugin’s thoughts, like a woodmoth to a candle flame. He had fallen in love with her from a distance, in the shadows, reading her thoughts and hoarding them in his mind.
‘What passed between the two of them in their minds, I can only guess at, but I believe the waif’s love curdled into a malevolent jealousy when he realized that Maugin remained loyal to me. And when I returned, that jealousy turned to murderous rage – and poor Maugin paid with her life …
‘How I would have loved to avenge her death, but the waif read my thoughts and never let his guard down for an instant, content instead that I was a prisoner here in the garden.
‘And so the hours, the days, the years passed,’ Twig said, his face glowing brightly in the sunlight, ‘until …’
‘I came,’ said Rook Barkwater.
• CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE •
‘Ever since I watched Twig, the last of the sky pirates, being carried from the Tower of Night over the horizon in the talons of the mighty caterbird,’ said Rook, ‘I wondered what had become of him. I left old Undertown and settled in the Free Glades – and only then did I discover that the sky pirate captain was in fact my grandfather.
‘That only fuelled my burning ambition to travel to Riverrise to discover his fate. But there were other things burning back then in the Second Age. The Great Library for one, in the War for the Free Glades …
‘I fought hard in that war – and the wars that followed, proud to be a Freeglade Lancer. I saw the beginning of the Third Age of Flight, and the growth of the great cities of Hive and Great Glade. And as my days drew to a close, I was proud of the life I had lived. I had five sons, all now grown to adulthood and with young’uns of their own. I had overseen the establishment of the Freeglade Lancers in Old Forest. And I had seen my great friend, Xanth Filatine, not only become head of the Lake Landing Academy but also the father of phraxflight …
‘When Magda my wife died, though, followed less than a year later by Xanth, I sought solace in the Gardens of Thought in Waif Glen with one of my oldest friends, Cancaresse the waif …
‘Cancaresse the Silent,’ he mused. ‘Keeper of the Garden of Thoughts … Such a wonderful individual. She tended the healing gardens for decades, helping me on so many occasions to deal with pain or come to terms with my loss. Finally, though, she announced that she wished to return to her home in the Nightwoods below the Riverrise mount before she died, a journey believed to be almost impossible, even in the early years of the Third Age. And she asked me to accompany her.
‘I had nothing to lose, and was pleased to accept this great challenge so late in my life. I agreed to go with her. Before I left, I handed the portrait miniature of my great grandfather, Quintinius Verginix, to my eldest son, for him to pass on to his son or daughter when the time came. Then I set off, my head full of thoughts of Twig.
‘That journey was one of the longest and hardest of my life, but through it all I was sustained by the thoughts of my friend, Cancaresse, one of the finest and noblest of her kind who has ever lived. The memories of that last march through the hell of the thorn forests will never leave me, but, thanks to Cancaresse, we made it to the great pool at the foot of the Riverrise mount.
‘The Nightwoods were a cruel and savage place, and the barren slopes of the mountain little better. Cancaresse had used up the small amount of energy her frail body still possessed in reaching the pool and, although I bathed her in its rejuvenating waters, they lacked the potency of the water at the mouth of the spring far above.
‘I found the ancient steps that Kobold the Wise had once taken, and carried my friend up the winding path, through the blackness. It was only when we emerged from the clouds and into the daylight that I realized she had died, peacefully in my arms, with a smile on her pale translucent face.
‘I continued up to the Riverrise spring, and stepped through the gateway. I didn’t see the waif, Golderayce, but I felt the sting of the dart from his blowpipe searing into my back. At the time, my thoughts were full of Cancaresse, my sorrow mixed with feelings of joy and thankfulness for her long life spent helping others – and this must have thrown Golderayce off his guard, for I was able to spin round and fire my crossbow in his direction before I passed out with pain.
‘When I opened my eyes, I saw my grandfather bending over me and tending to my wound with the miraculous waters of the Riverrise spring. It was one of the strangest and most wonderful moments of my life.
‘A few days later, after making preparations for the arduous journey back to the distant world of the Deepwoods, Twig and I set off down Kobold’s Steps, only to find our way blocked by Golderayce and his waif accomplices. His eye was heavily bandaged, and I realized that I’d caused him injury. I could hear his murderous thoughts of revenge in my head. But he could also read my thoughts of Cancaresse and knew, as did his followers, that I was a friend to waifkind.
‘That was probably what saved my life – together with the fact that I didn’t care whether I lived or died. In Golderayce’s twisted mind, he had already calculated that keeping me a prisoner in the Garden of Life was a better revenge for the loss of his eye than a quick death, so that is what he did.
‘The years passed, turning to centuries, and the power of Golderayce One-Eye and his custodians grew. They organized the building of the Thorn Gate, the Waif Trail and the city of Riverrise itself. Below us, in the darkness, I saw the lights of the city grow ever brighter and more numerous, and the keep that he’d had built become more formidable, confining us to the Garden of Life. Finally, Golderayce had the sluice gates constructed by blindfolded brogtrolls, their every move directed by his thoughts, so that he could personally control the flow of the Riverrise spring down to the city below …’
He shook his head wearily.
‘And we, “the Immortals”, have endured this imprisonment for all these years with just each other for company, and the belief that some day, someone from below – some brave adventurer from the Third Age – might make it past the keep and discover our fate …
‘And now you have, visitor from the Third Age,’ Rook concluded, ‘just as the caterbird has finally returned.’
‘While I lived here in the Garden of Life, beyond the reach of death,’ Twig said softly, ‘the caterbird – bound, as it was, to watch over me – could not intervene. But now the end is drawing near, and that has allowed it to come back once more …’
‘Our time is almost over,’ said Rook.
‘It is?’ said Nate, staring into Rook Barkwater’s glowing face, his hand fingering the portrait miniature on the cord round his neck.
What had this ancient Freeglade Lancer said? He’d handed the portrait miniature of Quintinius Verginix to his eldest son, to pass on to his son or daughter … And on and on, down the family line …
Nate Quarter … Quarter … Bar-quarter … Barkwater … His head was swimming.
‘We have lived long lives,’ Twig was saying as he and Rook stood up from the lufwood tree stump and stared down at him. ‘But not here in the Garden of Life. This has been no more than a waking dream. The waters of the spring have kept us alive, but we are wearing thin as you can see …’
The sky pirate captain raised a glowing hand in front of his face, and Nate could almost see through it.
‘Now that Golderayce is dead, you can leave,’ said Nate, ‘with me. We’ll get though the keep together and …’
‘No,’ said Rook Barkwater with a smile. ‘According to the caterbird, our path lies another way, visitor from the Third Age.’
‘Where?’ breathed Nate.
‘There,’ said Twig, pointing a translucent finger to the sky.
• CHAPTER EIGHTY •
Nate looked up. Far above his head, the sky was growing dark. A black bank of cloud was sweeping in from Open Sky far to the east, gathering in magnitude and turbulence with every passing second.
The clouds we
re immense, and so dark they looked almost solid, like a rock slide of massive boulders tumbling over one another as they hurtled across the sky, coming ever closer. And as they did so, the air filled with the echoing din of deep rumbling thunder. Lightning flashed and crackled as fizzing bolts leaped from cloud to cloud in dazzling zigzags of white light, or exploded inside the clouds themselves, illuminating them from within.
As the storm approached, the wind rose to a howling gale, driving into Nate’s face and threatening to knock him off balance. Bracing himself, he turned and saw the two Immortals standing by the lakeside, their heads raised and eyes staring up at the sky as their waif robes billowed out behind them.
The two figures were beginning to glow brighter as the pale luminescence intensified within them, until both were shining against the darkening sky, their bodies enclosed in a pulsating blur of light.
All at once, the mountain summit was cast into eerie shadow. Tearing his gaze from the Immortals, Nate looked up to see that the mountainous banks of rolling cloud were directly overhead, blotting out the sun. They curdled and coalesced and, as he watched, became a vast whirling vortex that spun round and round, high above the circle of Riverrise pinnacles. Thunder roared and the wind howled, and as the vortex spun ever faster, a dark circle formed at its centre, like a huge eye staring down out of the sky.
The lightning was coming in blinding flashes now, one following the other in rapid succession, and so bright that Nate had to shield his eyes. The deafening thunder that followed made the Riverrise peak shake, and seemed to leave the air trembling with anticipation of the next colossal explosion. Nate’s ears rang, and when he blinked his vision was filled with a curious pink-green afterglow of the intense light. His nose twitched at the faint burnt smell it could detect, lacing the air like the scent of toasting almonds.
The swirling vortex of black cloud hovered directly above the Riverrise peak, setting the turquoise water of the Riverrise lake in motion. Jagged peaks formed across its surface, and the whole lake began slowly to turn, like fine sapwine being swirled round a giant goblet.
Slowly, but deliberately, the two Immortals stepped from the shore and strode out across the spinning turquoise lake, their feet gliding over the surface as if the water was solid marble. When they reached the Riverrise spring, that great jagged needle of rock which pointed up towards the eye of the storm, the Immortals paused.
Suddenly the sky filled with hailstones, lumps of ice the size of snowbird eggs, which rained down from the spinning vortex in a hailstorm so thick and so dense that the glowing figures were lost from view. Nate bent double, his arms raised protectively above his head as the hail pummelled his shoulders and arms. The air around him became icy cold, yet the earth was still warm, and where the hailstones landed, they melted into the ground instantly and disappeared.
A few minutes later, the ice turned pulpy, like cold oozy mud which soaked into Nate’s hair and trickled down the back of his neck. He looked up warily a moment later, to find that the hailstones had turned to rain, which was pouring down on the Garden of Life with the same ferocity as the hail it had replaced. Like a mighty waterfall, it cascaded down from the vortex of black cloud above, soaking Nate to the skin.
He straightened up and, shielding his eyes with a raised hand, looked out over the lake. Its spinning waters had now formed a whirlpool of unimaginable depth, sinking down into the dark interior of the Riverrise mountain, seemingly for ever, and sucking down the torrential rain with it. Hovering now in mid-air by the thin needle of rock at the centre of the whirlpool and glowing more brightly than ever, were the two Immortals.
As Nate watched through the crashing blanket of rain, he could see that the glow was growing still more intense, forming two pulsating spirals of light that rose up from the Immortals towards the dark vortex above.
Nate wiped his face on a saturated sleeve and, blinking away the drops of water from his eyelashes, peered up at the swirling clouds. From out of the centre of the vortex, a ball of lightning was descending, white flashing tendrils fizzing and sparking in the air around it. The ball of lightning hovered over the spiked tip of the Riverrise spring as the spirals of light from the Immortals below connected with it.
As they did so, the rain became even more torrential, and Nate struggled to see through the thunderous downpour. The glow of the Immortals shimmered and glittered through the curtain of driving rain.
He never knew how long he stood there. An hour? Two? Six? The battering rain and howling wind – and the sight unfolding before his eyes – drove all thought from Nate’s mind.
The two glowing figures rose slowly towards the ball of lightning above the Riverrise spring, seemingly pulled by the spirals of light like golden edgesalmon on the end of a line. As they merged with the lightning, there was an immense flash of dazzling light, followed by a clap of thunder so loud that Nate felt the air pressing in on his eardrums. Instinctively, he curled up into a ball, his hands over his ears and his body tensed. The rain abruptly stopped and, looking up once more, Nate gasped.
The whirlpool had ceased, and the waters of the brimming Riverrise lake had become still once more. Twists of steam rose from the turquoise water and seemed to plait themselves together, until the whole lake was wreathed in a glittering blanket of soft mist that swirled around the central spike of the Riverrise spring. The vortex of black cloud had stopped spinning overhead and the howling wind had fallen to the lightest of breezes, while the ball of lightning above the spring had ceased fizzing and crackling and now glowed with a warm soft light, like a great phraxlamp.
Nate screwed up his eyes and shielded them with his hand. There were shapes within the light, three of them. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the golden glow, Nate began to see them more clearly.
They were the figures of three youths, no older than himself. One wore a spiked waistcoat of fur, and his hair was tufted and knotted in the style of a woodtroll.
‘Twig,’ breathed Nate.
Next to him was a figure in a chequerboard collar and white tunic emblazoned with a banderbear badge.
‘Rook,’ Nate murmured, recognizing the old-fashioned uniform of the Freeglade Lancers. ‘And …’
Nate swallowed hard, his hand reaching for the portrait miniature around his neck. He pulled it from his tunic and stared down at the familiar image, before gazing back at the third figure hovering above the spring in the ball of light.
He wore the armour of an ancient knight academic from the First Age, seemingly too big for him, and his dark hair was tousled and unruly, but the face … Nate knew that face so well. It had always reminded him of his own father. It was the face in the portrait, handed from father to son down the generations for hundreds and hundreds of years, until it had come to him. Now, here Nate was, staring at this familiar figure hovering before him.
‘Rook’s great grandfather … Twig’s father …’ he said in awe. ‘Quintinius Verginix.’
Nate felt a surge of emotion overwhelm him. He, a humble lamplighter from the mines of the Eastern Woods, was connected to these three legendary figures from the distant past, proof of which hung from the cord at his neck: the lufwood portrait. Their stories had passed into legend, recorded in barkscrolls and recounted around blazing fires; stories that would live on for ever. Now Nate’s story was entwined with theirs. Surely this, rather than that faded never-ending existence conferred by the Garden of Life, was true immortality.
Suddenly, the light grew dazzlingly intense, and Nate was forced to look away. When he returned his gaze, the ball of light had risen into the black clouds above. Around him, by the lake shore, strands of glittering sand were spiralling up into the clouds after it, making the air sparkle. Slowly, as a warm wind got up, the mighty cloud bank began to drift away, becoming whiter and wispier as it dispersed into the open sky.
For a moment, Nate stood on the edge of the lake as a warm sun began to shine. Deep down in the mountain there was a rumbling sound that grew steadily louder until, wi
th a gurgling roar, the flutes of the Riverrise spring spouted jets of sparkling water.
Nate pulled the glass vial from his inside pocket and crouched down at the water’s edge. Unstoppering the tiny bottle, he thrust it into the turquoise water. A stream of bubbles floated to the surface as it filled. When the bubbles stopped, he climbed to his feet, pushed the cork back into place and held the full bottle up to the light.
The liquid it contained sparkled with tiny specks of chine. A smile played over Nate’s lips.
‘At last,’ he whispered.
He pushed the bottle inside his jacket and started back across the garden, hurrying towards the staircase carved into the rock on the other side. A soft warm breeze was blowing, stirring the leaves and needles of the surrounding trees and filling the air with the perfume of the sweet-smelling flowers. But Nate scarcely noticed them, his head reeling with the event he had just witnessed. He paused and glanced back at the Riverrise spring.
The Immortals had gone, released at last from the extraordinary Garden of Life that Golderayce One-Eye had turned into a prison. Nate paused. Yet this was a wonderful place – a place of miraculous healing waters that should be shared by all, not hoarded by the custodians …
His head suddenly filled with images of all those he’d seen on his journey through the thorn forests: the pale wheezing infant clasped to the chest of its desperate lugtroll mother, the hobbling pink-eye old’uns, the blind woodtroll, the crippled flathead matron, the paralysed mobgnome and the canker-racked brogtroll …
Jaw clenched, he strode round the shore of the brimming lake, stopping only when he came to the heavy ironwork sluice. He jumped up onto the jutting side and seized the great wheel set into its top. Then, gripping it tightly in his hands, he tugged sharply to the right.
There was a soft grinding sound as cogs turned and ratchets shifted and, before him, the two great iron gates slowly began to open.
Edge Chronicles 10: The Immortals Page 46
