The Fathomless Fire

by Thomas Wharton

  “Would Malabron destroy Fable if he knew about the raincabinet?”

  “Better to say he would use the raincabinet to destroy. Through the ages he has been so bent on conquering storylands themselves that he’s ignored the Bourne as unimportant, an out-of-the-way place with no story of its own. Then he became aware of your thread in the weave, so unlike any other, and he sent the Angel and the fetches to find you. He knows now what part of the Realm you come from and he will not have given up searching for you, of that I’m certain. I fear he may already suspect that this out-of-the-way little place holds a great secret. If he were to discover that here in Fable is a doorway to all of the Weaving, we would be in the gravest danger. If Malabron found this doorway, if he made it his own, with a moment’s thought he could unweave the entire Realm. He could make his story the only one, an Un-story of despair and darkness without end.”

  Rowen took a deep breath. She turned to the raincabinet.

  “Then maybe we should just keep it closed,” she said.

  “We cannot do that, Rowen. You must open this door now. If you’re going to stand any chance against the Night King, you need to see where the power to do that comes from.”

  She nodded bleakly, without any real hope or belief in what he had said, then she reached for the handle and tugged it. After a moment when she thought it wouldn’t give, the door swung open easily. A gust of cold, damp air struck her face. Inside, rain was falling, the wind-whipped droplets flickering in the light from the corridor.

  Pendrake raised his hand.

  “Behold,” he said, with a teasing smile Rowen hadn’t seen in far too long. She would have laughed if she’d been able to, but she was too uneasy, and now too curious as well. She leaned forward, rising on the tips of her toes, trying to see into the darkness of the cabinet without actually stepping inside.

  “How can this be here?” she asked in a whisper. “What happened to the broom cupboard?”

  “What you see depends a lot on what you expect to see.”

  “But where does this room lead to?”

  “Nowhere,” Pendrake said. “Some houses have mice or termites in the walls. This house has rain.”

  “I don’t understand. You mean it’s raining … inside the walls?”

  Pendrake nodded.

  “The loremasters of old built the house that way. When you walk outside in a real rain, things far away become blurry and hard to see. It’s like that with this rain. Anyone searching for us through the threads of Story will find only a tale of rain here, if they don’t look too closely. It’s like a curtain, or a veil.”

  “The rain keeps us hidden,” Rowen exclaimed, suddenly understanding. “So the Night King doesn’t find us.”

  “That’s it. We loremasters have kept this rain falling and this portal into the Weaving concealed through many generations. We’ve hidden ourselves here, too, whenever the Night King’s servants hunted us. And that’s why I’ve tried to keep you close to the toyshop all these years. I thought that only here would you be safe from harm.”

  There was such regret in his voice that Rowen felt tears start in her eyes. She swallowed hard, then looked again into the raincabinet.

  “I still don’t understand, Grandfather,” she said. “What is the Weaving?”

  Pendrake was about to answer, then he smiled and shook his head.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of an old man’s talk?” he asked. “I know I do. It’s better you see for yourself.”

  He tipped his staff towards the doorway. “Go on.”

  Rowen looked at him.

  “Aren’t you…?” she faltered.

  “I’ll be right beside you.”

  “Where are we going?” said a voice from behind them. The cat was sitting placidly in the middle of the corridor as if he had always been there.

  “Riddle, what are you doing here?” Rowen hissed, secretly pleased at the interruption. The cat peered into the raincabinet, sniffed, then looked up at Rowen.

  “It’s raining in there,” he said.

  “Yes it is.”

  “Riddle likes rain,” the cat said, his ears perking up. “We’re coming with Rowen.”

  “I’m afraid not, Riddle,” the loremaster said. “Where we’re going is not a good place for you to be.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. It would be frightening for you in there. Things are always becoming … other things.”

  The cat’s eyes brightened.

  “Just like Riddle.”

  Pendrake’s bushy brows knitted. He gazed curiously at the cat.

  “Yes, just like Riddle,” he said slowly. Rowen studied him. She knew that look: her grandfather had had a sudden new idea, and as usual, she didn’t know what it was.

  “Then can Riddle come with you?” the cat asked eagerly.

  Pendrake stroked his beard thoughtfully, as if he was considering it. Then he shook his head.

  “Listen to me, Riddle,” he said softly. “You promised that if we let you come home with us you would do as we asked. And I’m asking you to stay here. You can keep watch outside the door.”

  “Watch for what?”

  “Just stay here, by the door. Please.”

  The cat gazed at Pendrake a moment with its eerie eyes, and Rowen shivered in spite of herself. There was a power in him, she thought now, that he himself wasn’t truly aware of. Why did this creature listen to them at all when he didn’t have to? But then the cat looked away and commenced licking his paws, as if coming with them was the last thing on his mind. He was very good at being a cat, Rowen thought. Maybe that’s what he was really meant to be.

  “Right, then,” Pendrake said, and cleared his throat. “Let’s get on with this.”

  Rowen turned back to the raincabinet. There was a quick, dim flicker of light from somewhere within, like lightning seen through thick clouds. Rowen pulled her hood up, lowered her head, and stepped quickly through the doorway.

  She was standing in a sunny green meadow under a bright blue sky.

  The air was warm and filled with birdsong. Near her a stream rushed, burbling through tall grass. Rowen pulled back her hood and squinted in the bright light. On a distant hilltop three, no, four white horses were calmly grazing.

  She turned to her grandfather, her eyes wide with wonder. To her surprise he wasn’t behind her but seated on a large stone a short distance away, watching her.

  “Grandfather?” she said, hurrying towards him.

  “Yes, it’s me, Rowen. I’m here. We’re both here.”

  “Where is here?”

  “This is the Weaving.”

  She turned quickly. There was no doorway to be seen.

  “Where’s the way out?” she asked with a pang of dread. She heard the fear in her voice and tried to calm herself. “What happened to the rain?”

  “The doorway is closer than you think.”

  “But I can’t see it. How do we find the way back?”

  “We tell our way back. But not yet.”

  “So this … this is the Weaving?”

  “There is far more to it, believe me. I wove this lovely quiet meadow around us so that your first moments here wouldn’t be too strange. It won’t last long, though. Nothing in the Weaving ever does. But for a little while we can stay, as you get used to the way things are here.”

  “Good,” she said dizzily, and sat down on the stone beside him.

  As she gazed around she noticed something odd about the world. Whatever she looked at – the horses, the grass, the trees and the puffy white clouds in the sky – stood out sharp and clear, but as soon as she looked away from something it became blurred, shimmering, the way a stone pavement seen from a distance seemed to ripple like water on a hot day. When she wasn’t looking directly at them, things seemed to be flowing into other things, like different colours of paint running together. Nearby was an immense, gnarled oak that looked as though it had stood rooted in this one spot for hundreds of years. But as i
ts huge trunk and vast leafy canopy passed from her gaze, she saw it waver and melt into a shimmer of maybe, as if it might choose to become some other tree, or a stone, or anything else. Then she looked straight at the tree again and it was there, ancient and undeniable. It was a little like walking underwater.

  On a sudden impulse she stood up and stamped her foot. The earth under her shoes seemed solid enough, though it, too, wavered doubtfully at the edges of her sight.

  This would take some getting used to.

  She looked again for the horses on the hill. They were not there any more, but in the sky above the hilltop four feathery white clouds that were somewhat horse-shaped drifted slowly across the blue.

  “Everything here looks … unsure of itself,” she said.

  “What are you sure of right now?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Then the Weaving is unsure, too. It’s like the world of dreams, remember. A dream may seem to just happen, but the truth is you’re shaping it, too, with your thoughts and feelings. The Weaving responds to our presence. Just the fact that we’re here is changing what we see.”

  “What is everything here made of?”

  “What are stories made of? Dreams, memories, fantasies. There is great power in this storystuff, but you must be very careful how you use it. A true loremaster only draws from the Weaving for good reasons, never to cause harm or dominate others. If you try too hard to grasp innumith and bend it to your will, it erupts into werefire, the devouring flame of madness that destroys those who try to control it.”

  “Werefire… That’s what happened to Freya’s city.”

  “Yes. The mages of Skald let loose a force they couldn’t understand or subdue.”

  “You said the Weaving contains the threads of everyone’s story. Does that mean we could find out where Shade is, by finding his thread?”

  “In the Weaving one can see that all the threads of story are connected to one another. But it’s not easy to find and follow one single thread among the many. I searched for Shade’s last night, after everyone left.”

  “You did? And … you found him?”

  “I was able to trace some of his journey. He is somewhere north of the Bourne, as Mimling said, but beyond that, I could not see clearly. There is much disturbance in the Realm where Shade is. Stories clashing with each other. I searched as long as I could but eventually I had to give up. One can only go so far into the Weaving before there’s a danger of becoming lost and not finding the way back. This morning, after I got the Marshal’s message, I searched the Weaving for clues as to what might have become of Gared Bamble. He never left Fable, I’m sure of that much, but…”

  Pendrake’s brow furrowed.

  “What did you see, Grandfather?”

  “When you find the thread of someone’s story in the Weaving, it’s not the person himself, it’s more like the trace he’s left in the weave of things. Like the print of feet in wet sand. You can see where someone has been, or where he’s going. But Gared’s thread … it’s as if someone or something else is walking in his footprints. Covering them up.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I wish I knew, but I doubt that it’s anything good.”

  Rowen bowed her head for a moment, then looked up.

  “Will I be able to follow these threads like you?”

  “In time. Today there’s something else you need to see.”

  He bent down and plucked a flower from the grass. A small flower with white petals that he held up before her.

  “Here,” he said. “Take it.”

  She took the flower. As soon as she held the thin, fragile stem between her fingers, to her shock she felt the same humming, vibrant aliveness she’d felt when she held Riddle in her arms. Everything here was like that, she understood as it pulsed through her, too.

  “Grandfather,” she said quickly. “I think Riddle must have come from here. From the Weaving.”

  Pendrake nodded.

  “I’ve suspected that for some time.”

  “We should bring him here. He might be able to remember who he is.”

  “We will, when the time is right. I kept him away because I didn’t know what he was likely to do. It might be too much for him. Too sudden. I wanted you to see the Weaving first without any distractions. Now, breathe on the flower.”

  “Grandfather?”

  “Breathe on it.”

  She raised the flower to her mouth and blew a gentle breath over it. To her surprise the flower began to break up and scatter into tiny grains of light, like shining dandelion seeds. Rowen held out her hand to catch the grains of light as they slowly fell. They gathered in her palm and shimmered there.

  “What’s happening?” Rowen whispered.

  “This is the deep truth of the Weaving, in your hand. All stories flow into one another. Things change into other things. The Weaving is nothing but that change. Who knows what else this flower might become? A teacup, an apple…”

  She gave a little gasp. In her palm was a glass slipper.

  “Did you make it do that?” she asked.

  “I think you did, actually. You and the Weaving together.”

  “But I wasn’t thinking about glass slippers. Why did the flower turn into this and not something else?”

  He gave her a strange, almost sad look.

  “There are some very ancient, very powerful stories in the Weaving,” he said. “They’re like strong currents in a river that can pull you under. You’ll have to be watchful.”

  He tapped his staff on the earth.

  “I must go now, Rowen,” he said.

  “Grandfather?”

  “To really come to know your gifts, you must find your own path out of the Weaving. All loremasters have gone through this trial. I did myself, when I was your age, and I had to do it alone, as you will. I cannot help you now, because what you must learn in the Weaving is not some magical power, it is the power that comes from knowing who you really are. And only you can discover that.”

  “You’re … leaving me here?”

  “I won’t be far away. Trust me. And trust yourself.”

  “What’s going to happen when you’re gone?”

  “This meadow will disappear, but what will take its place I cannot say for certain. But if you keep your wits, and remember, you will find the way back.”

  “Remember? Remember what?”

  “Who you are. Everything here is like a dream, but you can always wake up from a dream. You always have that choice. And I already know that you will be a far greater loremaster than I ever was. We will see each other again soon.”

  He seemed about to say more, then he paused and peered up into the blue.

  “What is it?” Rowen asked. She followed his gaze, and stifled a gasp.

  The sky was falling.

  The bright blue dome was cracking, breaking away in large and small fragments, like bits of eggshell, which whirled and fell through the darkening air. And behind the blue was the starless black of night. The earth beneath her began to tremble and when she looked down she saw small round stones rising everywhere among the grass, like goose bumps on skin.

  “What’s happening to…” she began, but when she looked again at where he had been, her grandfather was gone.

  A shadow fell over the bright meadow, like an eclipse of the sun. Rowen felt the air chill, as if she had just stepped into cold water. Everywhere bits of blue sky were plummeting to the earth, and as they neared it their colour faded to a dark grey and they thickened, taking on solidity and depth. They were becoming slabs of stone, and as they reached the earth they began to pile up on one another, making walls that rose higher and higher. Then the walls grew windows and doors, and streetlamps sprang up one after another beside these sudden buildings like swiftly growing ferns. Rowen looked down and saw that the meadow had been paved over with cobblestones.

  She was alone on a deserted street, with the glass slipper in her hand. From somewhere far off a bell bega
n to toll. And then she was running, though she didn’t know why, or from what.

  …the wind always knows where it is going…

  – The Kantar

  WILL AND HIS COMPANIONS rode hard that first day, north from Fable along the high road that wound up through wooded hills. They passed through several villages, but Finn only let them stop once briefly, for a quick noonday meal and to water the horses. Cutter was a steady and reliable mount, as Arden the groom had said, and during the ride Will lost any illusions he might have entertained about who was really in charge. He had quickly given up trying to control the horse’s movements and had merely hung on while Cutter followed Finn’s horse. As long as they found Shade in time, it didn’t matter to him how poor a figure he cut in the saddle.

  At dusk on the second day of their ride they reached the citadel of Annen Bawn, the Errantry outpost on the northern border of the Bourne. The rocky valley they had been riding through for the last hour narrowed suddenly, and sheer cliffs rose on either side. A narrow, stony stream rushed through the middle of the valley, beside the road. Up ahead, Will saw what at first he took to be a natural arch of stone that crossed from one side of the valley to the other. As they approached, he saw that the arch was in fact a constructed thing, made of huge blocks of hewn stone. This was Annen Bawn itself, he realized. He could see lights in windows and on high ramparts. Below, on the level of the road, a wall ran from one base of the arch to the other, leaving a gateway that the road went through. A portcullis hung above, that could be lowered to seal off the gateway when needed. There were winches and stacked timbers on either side, which suggested to Will that the wall and the portcullis were new additions to the citadel’s defences and had probably just been finished.

  As they approached Annen Bawn a horn blew somewhere above them, and a cloaked sentry stepped out of the roadside shadows with a lantern and ordered them to halt. Finn handed him the letter of commission from Lord Caliburn. The sentry, an older man with a scarred face, took it and read it by the light of his lantern. When he was finished, he looked up at Finn. His eyes seemed to have gone cold.