Feynard (16 page)

“Oh
, it’s you, good outlander.”

“Aïssändraught,” said he, offering the flask. “Zephyr’s orders.”

Her tiny hand snaked out from beneath the enveloping cloak and relieved him of the flask. She sipped cautiously, and then snuggled down with a contented sigh. “It’s sweet of you to offer me your cloak.”

“
Uh … your clothing … uh, fiddlesticks,” said the new wizard, with great erudition.

“Our downfall was assur
ed, but for your brave actions. I misjudged you.”

Kevin
bit his tongue and stared off into the distance. “Why does everyone think I’m brave? And good? I was so terrified I–well.” Soiled his trousers, which thankfully had not mattered since his soaking in Mistral Bog’s rank waters. “I’m afraid, my dear girl, that I have made a terrible mistake in this whole venture. What if Elliadora’s Well is not the right place? I was afraid I had somehow unwittingly brought those Black Wolves upon us.”

“Oh, those poor wolves!” Alliathiune sniffled, wiping her nose.

He nearly had to pick his jaw up from the marshy ground. “What?
Poor
wolves? Poor, sweet little wolfie nearly tore our collective heads off back there! And killed how many X’gäthi? What’s the matter with you?”

“Dryads hate killing.”

“But you killed them, too–I was watching. Before I drank half of Mistral Bog.”

“I don’t appreciate your
judgmental tone, good outlander,” she returned, an edge creeping into her voice. “These primitive backwoods creatures you think we are, are more than capable of holding a nuanced worldview. I see greater imperatives in the world than the law of tooth and claw; that I must do what needs to be done to save our Forest, even though it grieves my soul and the essence of who I am. How does allowing the Black Wolves to sup on our entrails serve the myriad creatures of Driadorn, and the Forest itself? You killed hundreds. How does that sit in your conscience?”

“
I feel sick. I suppose I was tired of feeling useless and terrified you, and Zephyr, and the others would die. However, I do take your point.” Kevin stared moodily into the darkness. “I’m exhausted. How will I ever see this journey through to its end?”

“Are you not a wizard?”

“For the ruddy sixteenth time, you are as persistent as these insufferable mosquitoes!” Kevin slapped his neck.

“
Grimflies,” Alliathiune corrected. “You resisted Mylliandawn.”

“Unknowingly.”

“And the Black Wolves–”

“An accident, I assure you.
Heavens above! I
know
it sounds improbable, Alliathiune!”

She reached out and prodded his ribs.

Kevin jumped, spluttering, “Don’t. You have to believe me. Earth–my world–doesn’t have any magic. None that I know of, anyway.”

“I believe you
,” laughed the Dryad, clearly lying through her strong white teeth. “Tell me of Earth, good Kevin. What’s it like? What manner of people lived in your realm? What did you eat? Tell me everything.”

Kevin
began haltingly, but soon found his stride as he discovered in Alliathiune an eager and patient audience–and her attention was subtly flattering. Before long he had progressed from a description of Scotland to the ways and rhythms of life at Pitterdown Manor, and thence to a more personal digression on his impressions of Feynard. For he accepted it now, as far as the boundaries of his convictions would extend, that nothing in his experience so far could convince him that he was yet somewhere on Earth, or dreaming.

But he was not about to open that sack any time soon.

“I miss that life in some ways,” he said, at length. “Who knows where this journey will take us, Alliathiune, or what dangers we may yet face? At Pitterdown Manor there were no expectations of me, save that I should remain alive by taking my medications, and therefore not embarrass the family by an untimely demise. I had my books and the Library, and I always knew what the daily routine held for me. Life was comfortable and predictable. I could have lived another thirty years like that if the medicine allowed. I was perfectly content. Was I?” Kevin paused to consider this fresh perspective. How tiny his world had been! “I’m not sure, Alliathiune. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I just don’t want to shatter your hopes and fail you and your Forest, as I surely will. You picked the wrong person in your dreams, you know. You couldn’t have picked worse.”

Her only reply was a tiny snore.
Kevin smiled in bittersweet melancholy. “Bored you to sleep, have I? A most taxing day, I’ll grant. You don’t want to listen to my tedious ramblings anyway, nor hear about the life I’ve led.” He regarded her with boldness unthinkable save for her slumber. “An enchanting Dryad of the Forest of Driadorn. I thought Dryads were supposed to be shy and reticent woodland creatures. Ha! Why slap me? And curse me? And summon me? Sheer desperation, methinks. What would you say, Alliathiune, to years of maltreatment at the hands of an alcoholic father? Or a brother who beat me with a cricket bat to an inch of my life? What if I showed you the scars from when he kicked me into the fireplace? Or the cigarette burns on my thigh? I know you’ve marked my ruined ear–I’ve seen you staring at it. That’s the story of my life. A more pathetic and futile existence I cannot imagine. You have no idea the number of times I wished to die, yet was unable to summon the courage to take my own life. And now there is a cause. A Forest to save; a battle to win. I’m terrified, Alliathiune. I’m no wizard. I’m hardly Human, a nobody, and a coward through and through.”

Boldly, he reached out to tuck the cloak up to her rather definite chin.
“Heaven help me, even if I knew what happened today, could I ever find the nerve to do it again? This is one journey we’ll live to regret. I only pray I won’t drag you all down with me.” His limbs were numb from the kneeling. Kevin pushed himself upright with a groan. “Sleep well, little one, and let us hope that tomorrow dawns a brighter day.”

A flick of
white ears made his glance fall on Zephyr. But the Unicorn appeared to be asleep.

He should do the same.

T
he following dawn did
not so much break as ooze down from leaden skies. A steady drizzle had soaked them during the night, and though the X’gäthi took no notice, Kevin felt he would never be warm again.

Breakfast was a sombre affair, cheered only by a hot X’gäthi brew called
skue
, a fruit tea. Zephyr, apparently recovered from the travails of the previous lighttime, ministered to their various wounds and bruises with his healing magic and other medications. He removed Kevin’s splint, examined the leg with his horn-magic, and declared himself satisfied and Zinfandir an incomparable genius.

Kevin told Zephyr he was worse than a strutting peacock. The Unicorn immediately puffed out his chest at this ‘great compliment.’ Hopeless!

Alliathiune, enveloped in Kevin’s cloak, meantime made necessary repairs to her apparel with a fine bone needle and thread. He had not marked her as the sewing sort, and spent some minutes studying her frown of concentration and the deft movements of her small fingers. He never knew what to expect from her. At the very least she could remove some of the leaves and bits of twigs from her hair. She was so untidy and lacking the basics of personal hygiene!

Discussion as to how the
Black Wolves had discovered their whereabouts proved inconclusive. Zephyr was inclined to ascribe it to chance, while Alliathiune suspected foul play. The party agreed to redouble its vigilance.

The dark warriors had scouted the way ahead during the night, but had found no passage save one that
led deeper into Mistral Bog. After some discussion, Zephyr decided that they should rather brave the swamp than risk encountering the Black Wolves again. As he could imagine little worse than a thousand hungry wolves panting on their trail, Kevin breathed a sigh of relief.

Today, for the first time, he was prepared and able to make some headway under his own steam. His leg was weak and stiff, but largely usable, and it surprised him how much stamina he showed during that morning. These developments were greeted on his pa
rt with suspicion and mistrust. Again, he began to doubt and debate the reality of this experience. Talking to Unicorns was one thing. Doing the impossible was quite another. And Feynard had served up an ever-growing catalogue of impossibilities.

He could no longer accept that he was dreaming–but neither could he formulate a convincing alternative account of his experiences thus far.
Kevin, ever the scientist, began almost unconsciously to turn his attention more and more to his surroundings and became less and less focussed on his own infirmities. There was so much to learn in a new world!

The quagmire
grew deeper and more treacherous as the morning wore on. Dry areas were few and far between. For the most part they waded through dank waters between knee and waist deep to Kevin, and sometimes more. The X’gäthi were forced to probe ahead carefully for a path. Strike aided them in this, and thrice warned them before they stumbled into the bubbling pits called
glüalla
in the Old Tongue, which meant ‘death flower’. One of the X’gäthi explained that the death flower was a carnivorous plant which grew just beneath the surface, releasing bubbles of gas laden with scents designed to attract living creatures to its deadly embrace. Pheromones, Kevin thought, intrigued. Whatever the glüalla were, he was not about to stick his toes into their lair!

T
wice they caught sight of marsh deer, a stick-thin species of incongruous appearance, for they skated over the viscous surface on hooves as large and round as dinner plates and fed on the ubiquitous reed-like flora of Mistral Bog. There were many varieties of birds too, insect-eaters feasting upon the plentiful pests and grimflies that plagued the travellers–Zephyr’s tail kept switching about to keep them off his hide, but he refrained from using his magic too much, he claimed, for fear of waking things older and darker than the Forest itself. The X’gäthi hunted the birds with their deadly slings, plucking and cleaning them on the march. Kevin kept his eyes averted from such activities. Scooping out warm entrails with one’s forefinger was far too much for his delicate sensibilities! Slapping mosquitoes was more his forte–or grimflies, or whatever the nasty bloodsuckers were. He was becoming a dab hand with practice.

The outlander quickly became fed up with the endl
ess, brackish pools, surrounded by floating mats of rich organic waste laid down by years of plant growth, which rotted and crumbled away beneath its own weight only to feed further generations. Here and there, in the drier parts, were tall fronded trees like willows, only more spreading in the branches and thicker in the leaf than those he had seen around Pitterdown Manor’s ostentatious pond. The odour of decay was pervasive. Several times vicious-looking amphibious predators stalked their party or ambushed them from the thick vegetation. The X’gäthi despatched them with characteristic competence.

Towards lunchtime, when his belly was gnawing insistently on his backbone,
Kevin contrived to prove his stupidity. As he teetered on the brink of an unsteady reed island, seeking sturdier footing while the X’gäthi painstakingly picked out a safe path ahead of them, he espied some twenty or so feet to his left, a curious sight. It was a vibrant green eye, waving atop a long stalk, which was regarding him with unblinking curiosity.

“Well hello, little fellow,” he muttered, “What have we here?” The eye blinked slowly and waved slightly, as though in a breeze.
Kevin grinned. “You must be the strangest creature yet in this dismal place. What an extraordinary way to wear an eye! Do you see me?”

The eye waved innocuously back and forth. Before he knew it,
Kevin had taken a half-dozen or so steps towards this intriguing sight.

“Take heed!” cried a voice behind him.

Kevin turned crossly. “It’s just an–oops!” His feet skidded on a hard, slick surface concealed just beneath the mud.

Zephyr, reversing his course too hastily, splashed into a deep pool and began to struggle to swim, causing immediate alarm amongst their X’gäthi protectors. One
readied a coil of rope to sling over to the Unicorn, while another two raced in Kevin’s direction, but they were mired thigh-deep and hampered by the uncertain footing. The slope suddenly tipped up, dumping the Human on his face.

“For heavens’ sake!” he squeaked, wiping his eyes. His eyes darted around in annoyance, trying to see what was happening. A wail split the air, silencing Mistral Bog’s frogs and birds instantly. “Oh
…
nooooo!
” For he glimpsed now what had eluded him before. He slid on hands and knees into a wide, bowl-shaped depression of perhaps thirty or forty feet in diameter, which had near its centre the tall, waving stalk that had lured him thus far. But the stalk adorned the lip of an enormous, crinkled orifice that had only too clearly gaped open in anticipation of making a meal of one Kevin Jenkins!

The rim of the enormous bowl rippled gently now, speeding his progress towards that gaping maw.
Kevin, shrieking in panic, attempted several times to find his feet, but these antics gained him no ground. The underlying surface was as slick as well-oiled metal. One of the X’gäthi threw a rope belatedly in his direction, but he missed his chance to seize it. He was far too panicked, and now his feet tipped over the edge …

The dark warrior leaped after him, careless of his own life, while Zephyr attacked the plant with blasts of powerful but ill-directed magic, even from where he was stuck.

An immense bellow shook Mistral Bog. A massive shadow exploded from amidst a reed-bed not ten feet athwart Zephyr’s right flank and hurled itself headlong over the rim of the carnivorous plant. Kevin squealed in terror as a huge dark shadow forced its way inside. The plant quivered; the Bog fell silent.

Kevin
found himself sharing the plant’s stomach with an X’gäthi warrior and a monster.

“You stalked us since yester-
lighttime,” growled the dark warrior.

In the green darkness, a pair of eyes gleamed with a radiance of their own.
“Peace, good X’gäthi,” rumbled the creature. “Your Dryad speaks to the plant even now.”

Kevin
did not feel peaceful. His skin was on fire. And sharing the belly of a carnivorous plant with a creature that sounded like the largest diesel engine he had ever heard was not adding to his comfort.

Without, they dimly heard the Dryad shouting at the plant.
Kevin imagined tendrils of her magic stabbing through the mud and water. The walls around them shuddered. Without warning, the monster gathered them into its arms and cradled them close. A low rumbling like a minor earthquake began to build beneath their feet, and suddenly, there was a dull, muffled thud. The orifice gaped open and the three of them shot out in an enormous belch of noxious gas.

T
hey landed with an enormous splash, deluging the Unicorn and the Dryad in viscous grey mud.

“Release you
r prisoners, Lurk!” Zephyr snapped at once.

As
Kevin stepped free of the enormous hands, the great creature bobbed its neckless head and made what could only be a smile. “Well met once more, noble Tomalia. Did I not say, when you returned to Mistral Bog–”

“Snatcher!” Zephyr
cried. “Well, good Lurk, I could hardly knock on a doorpost and ask directions in your dismal domain, could I?”

Kevin
grinned. “He’s called a Lurk? How … appropriate. A lurking Lurk.”

But before the Lurk could respond, Alliathiune planted herself before him, plastered
in mud and slime and rotting bits of reed stalks, and told him exactly what she thought of his placing them all in danger. Kevin shivered and tried to look contrite, while attempting to comb the plant’s gooey digestive juices out of his ears and hair. Zephyr, chortling nearby, was not helping matters. He started to help Kevin with his magic, but somehow only succeeded in transferring a bucketful of slime from Kevin onto Alliathiune’s shoulder.

“You clumsy oaf!” she slapped his withers. “Watch where you’re throwing all that green snot.”

Zephyr let loose a long whinny of helpless laughter. “You look–we all look–utterly
ridiculous!
” Kevin started to chuckle fitfully too.

Alliathiune flicked her bedraggled hair back from her face. “No th
anks to the good outlander! Mistral Bog is not some walk in a pretty Unicorn park.”

“Now,
good Dryad, keep your hair on. It turned out alright.”

“Humph! Babysitting
is hardly part of the agreement, good Zephyr. People need to pull their weight around here. And by the Hills, will you
stop
staring at me like that!” She folded her arms self-consciously across her chest. “It gives me the creeps!”

“You’ve a little eel hanging from your … uh, there,” muttered
Kevin, pointing. An X’gäthi warrior immediately plucked the creature from her hair and popped it in his mouth with evident relish.

Zephyr broke in, “
Noble Lurk, we must thank you for your aid. Your courage is a credit to your kind.”

His shoulders hunched together like two mountain peaks huddling behind his neck.
Kevin thought the colossal Lurk was quite the ugliest creature he had ever seen, but was that his fault? And he must be ten feet tall if he was an inch!

“I make humble apologies if the manner of my sudden appearance should
have disadvantaged your powers of recollection, nobles all,” rumbled the creature. “I am the Lurk common-named Snatcher. The Peace of the Mothering Forest–”

Alliathiune
interrupted, “You found our mighty muddy wizard! Thank you. Sorry, Peace also to you, good Snatcher. It has been too long.”

The Lurk tried a bow, which was rather tricky for a creature with no neck and apparently no waist either.
“Indeed, it is I, escorting you through the swamp.”

“We were doing just fine until
someone
stuck his nose where it doesn’t belong!”

Towering over the Dryad, t
he Lurk grinned hideously. “Good
Allämiuna
, had I not protected you and your companions, you would have perished thrice during this past lighttime, which is barely half-old.”

“Thrice? Surely you jest.”

“Truly, good Dryad, you twice barely escaped the sting of the oldwort creeper, which is deadly to most creatures, and once would have stumbled upon a nest of lesser dark flatworms, had I not first exterminated it. Your X’gäthi are efficient, but not native to Mistral Bog.”

“Once more, good Lurk,
we are indebted to you.”

“It is far too trivial a matter for such weighty talk,” he replied. “So
, has the good outlander proved useful thus far?”

Kevin
scowled. “Useful?” he muttered. It peeved him that this Snatcher seemed to know all about him–he, a creature of Mistral Bog, hardly the cosmopolitan hub of the Seventy-Seven Hills. Ah, it was Snatcher who had rescued him. Zephyr had not told him this!

Zephyr proceeded to fill Snatcher in on what had transpired in Thaharria-brin-Tomal, and the nature of their journey to Elliadora’s Well.