Dream Magic (30 page)

The rest of those present were startled by this development. None of the others who possessed Jewels of their own had yet to reveal theirs. To do so was bad form—rather like drawing a sword at a dinner table and driving the point through the host’s plate.

As he spoke rapidly, Tomkin did what he could with the time his surprise had provided him. He called upon the Rainbow with as much urgency as he’d ever done in his life.

“You can burn the tree, but I can put out the flame so the forest itself shall not be set alight!
What will be your role, Oberon? Will you track down the monster, should it decide to run?”

Oberon frowned at Tomkin and kept glancing at Lavatis. Was there a certain twinge of greed there in his eyes? Once a mind has been touched by one of the Jewels, it was never again fully free of the longing for it. Like a lover past who ever returned in heated dreams, the Jewel
forever stole part of every heart it touched.

“Put away your stone, manling,” Gudrin scolded him. “Don’t you know you’re torturing this poor old elf?”

“Nonsense,” said Oberon, putting on a brave front. “At least we know he’s not bluffing, and that he can play his part when the time comes.”

Then there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. The elves looked around them in surprise. Storms were rare here in the Great Erm. A stroke of lighting flickered overhead a moment later and a branch was struck from a massive pine. The branch fell in the forest nearby with a deafening crash. A peal of thunder rang over the village
. It was so loud it seemed that perhaps giants beat upon stone drums in fury.

All eyes we
re aloft at the heavens save for two sets: those belonging to Gudrin and Oberon. They were looking for Tomkin, rather than gaping at the brewing storm.

“He’s gone!” roared Gudrin
. Her finger was out, and flame rippled up and down her arm, coming to a blue tongue as hot as dragon’s breath at the tip. Her eyes blazed with fury that matched the fire that welled up to envelop her body.

“He’s called the Rainbow,” Oberon said, and he turned to
rouse his confused company. “To arms!” he cried. “Take not sword or bow—grab up nets. We must take him alive!”

Tomkin, who heard these words not far behind him, put on an extra burst of speed. All the while he’d been chatting and supping with these folk, he’d been calculating his exit route, should he get the chance. Now
he ran as only his kind could.

No hare, nor fox, nor soaring bird could match a Wee One in full flight. He scrambled over the spongy roof
s of huts and bounced from the curtain of woven logs that served the village as a wall. He saw the exit was guarded already, with alert sentries lifting nets to capture him.

How could they have nets at
hand so soon? He could only think they’d been prepared for his arrival—well prepared.

“There he is! At the gates!”

“He’s gone now, have a care!”

Skittering away from the
easy exit and following the walls, he now knew what he must do. He must not panic, and he must find another way out. Either that—or he could wait until the Rainbow came to distract them. But it seemed there was nowhere to hide, nowhere he could hunker down safely for a minute or two.

“He’s among the Dead!” roared another elf, making a cast for him.

Tomkin’s foot was caught by a whirling net. It was weighted with hooks and sharp stones. He struggled free, squeaking like a rabbit in a snare, then bounded away before the elf could land upon him.

T
he chase went on. Tomkin’s heart beat impossibly fast in his chest. His leaps, which had before been small and precise to keep him low to the ground and thus hidden from view by the huts, now became desperate high-jumps. Each stride took him so high into the air he cleared piles of rubble before his feet struck down again in a new place, whereupon he launched himself up again.

Each time he came down, an elf or two made desperate attempts to capture him. They threw nets and dashed themselves to the ground, fingers outstretched. When the
y leapt to their feet again, their faces and hands bled, but they paid no heed. Each and every one of them had a strange, yellow glint in their eyes. Tomkin was certain that their minds were not entirely their own.

Finally, at long last, the Rainbow arrived on the scene. A giant it was, shimmering and translucent. Like a massive pile of jelly that was more air than liquid, the creature’s great foot slammed into the two elves that had stopped Tomkin from leaving the village
gates. They were bowled over, one of them struck dead.

The second foot came down on the fire in the middle of the village, smashing aside the beas
t they roasted there on a spit and sinking into the bonfire below.

A mass of hissing fumes rose up, taking on a half-dozen shades. What had been smoke of the traditional gray-white now turned to a bubbling froth of magenta, bright green,
azure and blood red. The flesh of the Rainbow was like the meat of a cloud.

The pain of the fire caused the Rainbow to cry out for the first time. It howled, a sound at once both terrifying and beautiful in its alien tone.

Tomkin smiled as he made good his escape. The elves were now well and truly distracted. He ran and ran until he heard no more sounds of pursuit. Behind him, the Rainbow flailed at the elves, who were now unwisely attacking it with bow and blade. Arrows shot into its body so hard they burst from the far side, and blades cut colored wads of gauzy flesh from its stomping feet and ankles.

Tomkin suspected it would go mad soon, and destroy the village before it was done.

“Serves them right,” he said, watching from the lowest branch of the smallest tree he had found. It provided him the perfect vantage point.

“Does it now?” asked a soft voice.

Tomkin whirled, but he was too late.

A net did not descend. A blade did not thrust.
Instead, the fine-boned white hand of a fair lady reached out and caressed his cheek lightly. The touch was odd, and he slapped his hand to the spot. It tingled still, and it seemed to him that his hand was now tingling as well.

He looked down at his hand, but saw nothing amiss. His yearn to flee, however, had left him.

“Let’s talk for a while,” said the woman.

“You’re the
Witch of the Wood.”

“Yes, I am. And do you know what else I am?”

“No, lovely Lady.”

“I’m now your mistress, you troublesome little monster.”

Tomkin chuckled at that. He willed himself to bound away, but found his feet were stuck fast to the spot on the branch he’d perched upon.

“What deviltry is this?”

Morgana showed him the White that gleamed upon her breast. He knew the truth then, and his will to flee ebbed away.

“How did you catch me? How did you come to be here?”

She shook her head and laughed. “Before I answer that you must send away the Rainbow. It’s making a mess of my elf village. Fools they may be, but I have need of them.”

Tomkin turned back that way
and felt as if he were in a dream. He saw the Rainbow was down now. They had shorn away one of its legs. But instead of dying, it had only grown more furious and enraged. It struck down huts, punching huge holes in the walls.

Gudrin’s fire leapt up as he watched, gushing flame over the body of the thrashing Rainbow. It howled again in agony, pumping limbs with abandon.

“Poor thing,” Tomkin said. “I’ll wish it away.”

And he did so. This did not happen in an instant, but the Rainbow
did begin to melt, like a block of ice left to sit upon an iron stove. It fell apart in the end, running with colors like a dozen shades of blood or spilled wet paint. Rivulets of orange, mauve and indigo flooded the village and stained the shoe of every panting elf.

“Now,” Tomkin said, turning with a smile back to Morgana. “Tell me how…?”

“How I caught you?” she said, smiling. “Firstly, I knew your mind via the minds of other Wee Ones I’ve caught. I knew you would stop to watch this mischief you’d left behind. Your kind can’t resist the urge.”

He nodded. There was no denying such self-evident facts.

“And so, I knew if you won free you would have done so by creating a massive turmoil in the village, and you’d want to see what a mess you’d made. All I had to do is give you a good vantage point and wait there. Notice no tree in the Great Erm has a low-lying branch of the type your kind prefers? I had one brought and planted right here for this purpose. Then all I had to do was wait nearby. If the elves caught you, all was fine and good. If they failed, I was positioned to finish the task.”

As she spoke, she gently stroked Tomkin nearly bald pate. Normally, this would have filled him with the desire to snap off her fingers with his surprisingly large, sharp teeth. But he didn’t feel th
at urge, and was puzzled as to why he would accept such familiarity from a human stranger.

“Impressive!
” he said to her, watching her fingers massage his scalp. “Such clever planning. Even your touch seems to numb my nerves…are you part spider, milady?”

She laughed.
“An impertinent question! As I’m under no obligation to answer, I’ll not do so, Tomkin my pet.”

* * *

Brand found the way home was much easier than his path to the Great Erm had been. Instead of traveling the hostile Everdark, fighting through dream-monsters and Dead-things, he was able to walk the forgotten circle ringed with black mushrooms and transport himself directly to the Haven Wood.

Once there h
e looked around, finding it to be a remote place, but soon got his bearings. There were few places in the Haven he wasn’t familiar with after a lifetime of patrolling its borders.

As h
e was closer to Rabing Isle than he was to his castle or Riverton, he walked that way. Soon, he could pick out the tiny white light of Telyn’s beacon. He frowned in concern and increased his pace.

In the night
, only a single creature came to accost him. It was none other than Old Hob himself.

At first, there was nothing to indicate the devil’s
presence other than a whisper of wind and a rustle in the high leaves of the trees. That could have been the evening breezes—but the night was utterly still.

Brand was
instantly on alert. He’d had enough of being stalked by phantoms. He was tired, but wary. He reached up and reached for the haft of his Axe.

“Hold, Axeman!” came a voice from above. “I beseech thee, do not draw Ambros!”

Brand halted and looked this way and that in the gloom. “Hob? That’s you, isn’t it? Show yourself, or I’ll burn and hack away the very tree you perch upon.”

Old Hob did appear. In the dark of night he was nothing but a hulking shadow, and he
was perched upon the branch of an ancient almond tree. The thick black bark blended seamlessly with his robes.

Brand chuckled and lowered his hand. He didn’t feel the need for Ambros when facing Old Hob. He wasn’t entirely harmless, but of all the creatures who ruled over a Jewel, he was easily the weakest.

“I’m annoyed,” said Hob. “You didn’t even wonder if I were a spirit of the Dead. You went right to the point and called me by name. Have you some kind of new power of divination, Brand?”

“Not at all.
You do have a distinctive odor, which the Jewel seems to be incapable of masking.”’

“Odor? Lilac, I hope?”

Brand chuckled. In truth, there had been no odor. Old Hob didn’t smell good up close, but he’d been far too distant to be detected that way. Brand decided not to tell the other he’d suspected the presence of the eldest of the goblin race when he realized he was being stalked. It had been a simple matter of betting on the odds.

“
What do you want?” Brand demanded.

“Rude
and to the point, as usual. I’m here on a mission of mercy.”

Brand laughed again and waited for Hob to get on with it.

“Truly, I am!” Old Hob said. “Allow me to explain. I’ve been busy of late, trying to stop a calamity from befalling us all.”

“By ‘all’ you mean yourself, correct?”

“I’m included on the roster, certainly. I’m talking about all of us who wield power in Cymru. All of those who bear Jewels. There is a new enemy afoot and her power can’t be overstated.”

Brand frowned and crossed his arms. “I’ve heard of a
Witch in the Wood. Is that the person you’re speaking of? I’ve not met her, but I hardly think—”

“Then think again, Axeman. Already, she’s gathered several of us under her banner. She plans to master
us all—or destroy us.”

“What is her name and what is her power?”
he asked, deciding not to reveal what he knew from Myrrdin.

“She is Morgana, and she
wields the White Jewel, the last complete sliver of the Sunstone. It has power over the minds of others. When you dream, Morgana walks with you. If she caresses you, you are lost forever.”