by R. J. Grieve
“Sareth try thimble? Gorm’s finger too big,” he explained, holding out his leathery hands. Sareth saw that instead of ending in a flat nail, like a human hand, the top of his finger ended in a slit through which he could extend or retract his claws like a cat.
She took the thimble and placing it on her middle finger, held it up for him to admire.
An anxious thought suddenly assailed him. “Not giving it to Sareth,” he explained hurriedly. “Just showing it.”
“I understand,” she smiled, returning it to him. “These are beautiful treasures. It’s really cheered me up to see them.”
Gorm grinned back at her delightedly, with a smile that would have been quite appealing if it were not for the fact that he exposed a set of teeth that would not have disgraced a wolf.
“Treasures secret. Sareth not tell?”
“No, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”
Reassured, he began to pack away his hoard, carefully counting the coins and beads.
When they were all away, he said: “Reach tower tomorrow.”
“Who lives there, Gorm?”
“Don’t know. Wizard, maybe.”
“You haven’t been in it?”
“Can’t get in.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see. Must do what lady spirits say.”
His reply, although uninformative, proved, as always, to be accurate, although for an unexpected reason.
In contrast to the misery of the previous day, the next two days provided the company with a pleasant ride. They travelled over a rather lumpy grassland that was characterised by sudden knolls topped by outcrops of the ubiquitous limestone at the foot of which many springs emerged. Equally suddenly, it descended into sheltered hollows often occupied by little pools nestling amongst the lush grasses, their mirrored depths revealing beds of white pebbles as clearly visible as if looking though glass. Eimer used Ferron’s crossbow to bring down one of the elusive wild sheep that occasionally could be seen nibbling the grass, perched perilously on the edge of the outcrops. Bethro believed that they were the descendants of domesticated sheep left to run wild after the fall of the Old Kingdom, but regardless of their lineage, they provided a welcome relief from lean rations.
With enough food, and warmth from the sun, spirits rose and the journey could almost be described as idyllic were it not for one minor incident that occurred just as they were about to set off on the second day – Vesarion could not find his silver box. As it was essential in order to get a fire going, everyone began hunting through packs and searching the campsite. Everyone, that is, except Gorm. He stood to one side, kicking his heels, looking a shade too disinterested in proceedings. Sareth, already alerted to his weakness for shiny things, had her suspicions, and fixing him with her eye, managed to convey these to him by means of a stern frown. Vainly, he attempted to look blandly innocent but only succeeded in looking shifty. Unfortunately for him, this by-play was witnessed by the owner of the missing item.
He crossed to Gorm and held out his hand. “If you please,” he said shortly.
Gorm, recognising that denial was hopeless, stuck his hand into his leather pouch and produced the missing box.
“Not stealing,” he offered unconvincingly. “Keeping safe.”
Although Vesarion turned away without a word, Gorm knew he was under a cloud. He now jogged along ahead of them, aware that even his adored Sareth was displeased with him. She had called him incorrigible. Gorm had no idea what that was, but he was fairly certain that it was something that one didn’t want to be. Anxiously he waited for her to punish him by giving away the existence of his treasures, but Sareth was true to her word and said nothing. Feeling a little more hopeful, he decided to redeem himself by being a model guide. Swiftly and surely he led them across the grassland, over small ridges and into warm dells until emerging onto the edge of a low escarpment, they could see, stretching out below them into the distance, the Wood of Ammerith.
Chapter Fourteen
The Wood of Ammerith
As they reached the top of the escarpment and gained an uninterrupted view of what lay below, everyone, except Gorm who had been there before, halted in surprise. There, stretched out below them, occupying the entirety of a large, wide valley was a forest of gold. From the height of their vantage point, the tiny ochre and buttercup-yellow leaves that made up the forest were not individually visible but gave the overall impression of a dragon’s hoard, a sea of shimmering gold set a-dance by the playful wind. The sun, sailing serenely in a cloudless sky, illuminated miles of aureate forest, that even so early in the year was glowing as if every beautiful autumn had arrived at once.
“What are those trees?” Sareth asked Gorm.
“Don’t know,” he replied, with his usual bluntness. “Bit like beech trees but leaves yellow all year, even in winter.”
“Imagine those golden leaves set off against a background of snow in wintertime. I would love to see that,” Sareth breathed, already seeing it in her mind’s eye.
“Well, I’d like to see it now,” said Iska, tugging impatiently at Vesarion’s jerkin. “What are we waiting here for? Let’s get down amongst the trees.”
They descended the low escarpment by means of an easy, zigzagging path and the moment they entered the forest, they realised that the trees were even more beautiful from below than they were from above, for the sun lit the canopy from behind, setting every leaf ablaze, glowing like some celestial treasure. Even the light filtering between the smooth, grey trunks was a soft, honeyed haze as if they rode through the distilled essence of summer. Nor was the forest silent. The air was alive with the song of many birds which chirped and twittered cheerfully to one another, flashing between the trees. The companions looked at one another and began to smile, finding it impossible to be downhearted in such a place.
Gorm led them steadily onwards, following what appeared to be a beaten track that meandered indecisively through the trees. There was little undergrowth to mar the purity of the trunks and this enabled them to see that the ground was in fact descending at a gentle gradient deeper into the valley, towards the heart of the Wood of Ammerith.
Bethro looked around him in delight, leaving it up to his horse to follow the others, feeling for the first time since he had left Eskendria, that he was safe. That horrible feeling of being watched that he had endured in the Great Forest, was absent here and he looked around him, not for sign of ambush, but in the hope of catching a glimpse of the cheerful birds as they swooped between the branches.
Gorm, whatever his other defects as a travelling companion, had not deceived them when he had told them that he knew the region well. He led them onwards at a steady pace, not hesitating for an instant but choosing every fork in the path with reassuring confidence. Steadily, through the somnolent light of late afternoon, they descended through the trees, deeper and deeper into the sleepy forest until the world beyond began to seem a harsh and distant place.
At last they emerged into a large clearing that boasted a grassy area open to the sky and in the centre stood a most remarkable building.
A broad, round tower made of blocks of sandstone occupied the middle of a lawn of short daisy-covered grass, completely encircled by a high, thorn hedge. By virtue of the fact that the ground was still descending and it lay a little below them, they could see over the hedge and had a fine view of the building. It was squat for a tower, rising to only two stories above ground level and was a little splayed at the base, giving the impression that some giant of old had absent-mindedly sat upon it, compressing it from something once much taller. The upper floors had a number of tiny windows that pierced the stone but the wall of the ground floor was, as far as they could tell, uniformly blank. Its roof was conical, neatly tiled in overlapping grey slates. However the very deep overhang of the roof gave the impression that it had been intended for a much larger building and had somehow been placed there by mistake, causing it to look like a boy wearing his father’s hat. Beside it w
as another, smaller building, an exact replica of the original only in miniature, as if the larger tower had given birth.
“It looks like an oversized pepper-pot.” declared Eimer. “Why is it called the Rose Tower, Gorm?” .
“Don’t know.”
“It’s not really a tower at all,” said Iska, “for it is really not tall enough to justify that description. Perhaps it got its name because the sandstone it is made from is slightly pink.”,
“Perhaps,” agreed Eimer. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure. How it got its name is a mystery now lost in the mists of legend. What do you think, Gorm?”
“Thorns not a mystery,” he replied, then added with all the feeling of personal experience: “Very big thorns.”
As they approached the barrier, it became clear that Gorm had not been exaggerating. The hedge was so dense that nothing could be seen through it. It soared above them to a height far above their heads, even on horseback, so that all that was visible of the tower was the tip of its conical roof. Every branch bristled with truly murderous thorns, as long and thick as a man’s finger.
“How do we get in?” Sareth asked. “Does the other side have an entrance?”
“No entrance,” Gorm advised. “No door. Told you before, can’t get in.”
Vesarion, nevertheless, refusing to take his word for it, did a circuit of the hedge and returned with failure written on his face.
“Well, this is just great!” exclaimed Eimer. “I thought we were supposed to get help here? Now it seems we can’t even get in. I presume we will just have to cut our way through.”
“No good,” said Gorm, his long arms folded forbiddingly.
But Eimer drew his sword anyway and took a vigorous swing at a thorny branch. To his astonishment, the blade bounced off with wrist-jarring force and flew from his hand, disappearing with a flash into the trees.
“Told you,” pronounced the Turog in glum satisfaction.
“This clearly is no ordinary hedge,” declared Bethro, who liked to state the obvious. “Eimer’s sword made no impression upon it at all, which suggests enchantment of some kind.”
The Prince returned from retrieving his sword in time to hear the remark. “Well, as none of us has any powers that would break the spell, it appears that we have wasted our time in coming here.”
“Perhaps if we can attract the attention of the Keeper of the Tower, he will let us in,” suggested Iska, who, acting on her word, began to call out.
Sareth caught her arm. “If the Keeper of the Tower has the power to put this spell in place, then I would suggest that he already knows that we are here.”
Iska stopped with comical abruptness, unsettled by the thought, and silence fell, broken only by the distant call of the birds echoing through the forest.
Finally, Vesarion, who had taken no part in the discussion but had been staring at the hedge in thoughtful concentration, spoke up.
“The spirits of the lake would not send us here only for us to have to give up in defeat. Whoever lives in this tower must remain true to the old ways and it therefore occurs to me that what is needed to get through this hedge of enchantment, is some sort of password.”
“But what could it be?” Iska asked.
They all, as of one accord, looked at Bethro.
“You are the self-proclaimed expert in all matters pertaining to the Old Kingdom,” Eimer observed tactlessly “So what do you think the word could be?”
The librarian, finding everyone’s expectation focused upon him, began to babble. “I really have no idea. I mean, it could be anything. The choice is virtually limitless. It could be connected with Yervenar, or the Book of Light or even something from the Lays of Tissro the Wanderer.”
He agitatedly began to pace up and down in front of the hedge, flinging first one word at it, then another, with no visible result.
One by one his audience began to sink down onto the grass, realising that they might be there for some time.
But as Bethro became more and more frustrated with the fact that nothing was happening in response to his efforts, once again, it was Vesarion who came up with the answer.
“Of course,” he suddenly cried, clapping his hand to his forehead. “How could we be so stupid? What is the one thing that symbolises the Old Kingdom?” Receiving only blank looks in response, he continued: “The chalice flower!”
The Keeper of Antiquities, somewhat disgruntled at being out-done in the intellectual field by a mere amateur, swung round to face the hedge and pronounced the words with something of a bite.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Repressing a smug smile, he said patronisingly to Vesarion: “A good try – but wrong.”
“It’s not wrong,” Vesarion countered. “You used the incorrect language. You spoke in the modern tongue instead of the old language.”
Looking steadfastly at the hedge, in a firm voice, he said: “Chalcoria.”
For a moment the word seemed to have no effect, but then slowly the tendrils of the hedge began to unknit, unwinding and retreating from one another, each stem uncurling, releasing its hold on its neighbour. The heavier branches did their part by leaning backwards until a gap opened, showing a clear view of the daisy-speckled lawn and the Rose Tower with its offspring basking in the last of the sun.
“Do we go in?” asked Eimer, finding that having achieved their purpose, he was now a little reluctant.
“What if the hedge closes behind us and we can’t get out again?” whispered Iska anxiously, still apparently concerned with unseen eavesdroppers.
Vesarion took his horse by the bridle and began to lead it through the gap.
“We can hardly sit outside and starve to death,” he said. “Come on.”
They all followed him except Gorm. Sareth turned to find the Turog hanging back.
“Are you coming, Gorm?”
“No. Don’t like magic hedge. Don’t like places of cut stone.”
“What does he mean by cut stone?” Bethro asked Sareth.
“I think he means that he doesn’t like buildings. Is that right, Gorm?”
“Like forest better,” he declared and began to back towards his favourite habitat.
When he had gone, Vesarion remarked to the Prince: “I wish that someone would introduce that rodent to pronouns. However, with any luck, we’ve seen the last of him.”
When they had all passed through the hedge, it quietly closed again, the flexible tendrils writhing towards one another to form a chaotic tapestry as dense and thick as it had ever been.
They decided to investigate the smaller building first. It only had a ground floor and quaintly wore its oversized hat like a mushroom. Although they entered it in some trepidation, it proved to be an enormous anti-climax, for they discovered that it was, in fact, something quite mundane. It was a circular stable, divided into about a dozen stalls, six of which were occupied by beautiful dun and chestnut horses, their coats glossy with health.
Sareth approached a mare who had a white star on her forehead and began to stroke her smooth neck.
“Our horses are tired,” she said, “ and as it looks like, regardless of what we find, we will be spending the night here, so we should turn them into the spare stalls to rest and feed.”
Bethro, who had not come with them to the stables but had instead, feeling unusually bold, done a circuit of the larger tower, arrived at that moment to tell them that he had found a door.
“Is it open?” Sareth asked.
“Em…..I didn’t try it. I thought we should perhaps all stick together,” he offered as a lame excuse for cravenness.
He led them to a small, pointed doorway recessed deeply into the rose-coloured stone. The faded oak door was shut in refusal but a heavy iron handle cast in the shape of an oak leaf, offered some hope of admittance. Eimer, taking the initiative, grasped the handle and pushed. To his surprise, the door swung open easily, revealing a narrow passageway that tunnelled through the thick stone leading directl
y towards the heart of the tower. The smallness of the doorway meant that they had to enter in single file. Without a word being spoken, Eimer and Vesarion went first, their swords drawn. After a short distance, they found that the passage opened onto a magnificent circular room that took up the centre of the tower. It had no ceiling but rose up through the first and second floors directly into the conical roof. Suspended galleries circled the chamber, leading to doors opening off the upper floors, accessed by slender, curved staircases fashioned out of the same stone as the building. The roof must have contained some concealed crystal or glass panels, for sunlight softly filtered its way downwards, illuminating the interior with a subdued, slightly dusty light. To one side, an enormous stone fireplace contained a log fire, smouldering somnolently in the hearth, around which were many comfortable chairs. In the centre, sitting on a carpet of rich red hue, was a round table made of some polished black wood, flanked by a dozen tall-backed dining chairs. Dotted here and there were slender holders for candles, as tall as a man, and fashioned out of silver to look like fragile tree saplings. Every branch was set with thick white candles as yet unlit.
There was not a person in sight. The only living thing, seated on a velvet-covered armchair by the fire, was a large grey cat, the proud owner of the most enormous set of whiskers anyone had ever seen. Green eyes met amber eyes as it stared fixedly at Iska.
“Do you think it is the Keeper of the Tower,” she whispered, avoiding its gaze.
Sareth crossed to the cat and picking it up in her arms, began to stroke it – a process that elicited a contented rumbling sound from it.
