Feynard (51 page)

Kevin
’s eyebrows shot into his fringe. “Ouch!”

“Indeed. Each blow would be a shuddering agony for the Dryad before the final one severed her life completely.”

Her description struck home with such graphic force that Kevin gagged at once, fell to his knees, and deposited the contents of his stomach beside the trail. “Wretched, pathetic excuse for a Human–I’m sorry, Alliathiune. I couldn’t help it.”

“I’m sorry,” she
replied, patting his back ineffectually. “I should have known better than to recount such details for you.”

“I thought I was over this!”

“Wipe your mouth.”

Kevin
pushed himself to his feet. “I hate being such a weakling. I don’t know how you stand it, truly I don’t.”

The Dryad gave him a quirky smile that had an
uplifting effect on his self-esteem. She linked arms again. “So you don’t believe in the afterlife, Kevin? You don’t believe there is something more than your physical being that will outlive you? I would find that so depressing. What hope is there for the future? What separates a living being from an animal?”

“Ah, an excellent question!” he replied, eyes twinkling as he repeated verbatim her earlier exclamation. “Shall I tell you what I think?”

“My ears hunger for your wisdom, good outlander.”

“Well, in that case–”

Kevin glanced over his shoulder as Snatcher began to whistle a soft tune between his diamond-hard teeth, right behind them. The Lurk grinned. “A favourite Lurkish courting song,” he said. “I’m not sure I could translate the poetry.”

Alliathiune joined Kevin in scowling at him.

But the monstrous Lurk only grinned the wider. “Carry on, little ones.”

Before the Dryad could explode, Kevin made a shooing motion with his hands and said, rudely, “
Go talk to the Druid or something, you lumbering mound of swamp muck. We’re trying to have a serious conversation here.”

He walked off cackling like a marsh duck
.

*  *  *  *

Thirteen lighttimes after entering Utharia, the company found themselves nearing the Ur-Akbarra mountains, which were guarded by a sprawling region of wetlands known–unsurprisingly, Kevin sniffed, with more than a touch of Zephyr’s loftiness in his manner–as the Utharian Wet. What was it with Feynard and their utilitarian names for most places? From the Seventy-Seven Hills to the Black-Rock Mountains to the Broadleaf Valley … could they not decide upon poetic names?

“I think we’re lost,” said Hunter. “This mist is like soup.”

“Lost in a swamp?” Snatcher sounded amazed and vexed.

“This
is the nefarious Utharian Wet,” said Amadorn, peering into the mists as though he could pierce through to their destination. “The Ur-Akbarra mountains should be but a stone’s throw beyond.”

Akê-Akê put in, all excessive cheer, “But we have his Lord of all Bogginess to guide us–master of the slimy pits of Mistral Bog, in his native element and might I add, indisputably in the prime of his life! What terrors could this paltry paddling-pool possibly hold?”

Kevin chimed in, “Indeed, good Lurk?”

The Lurk lifted his arm and pointed one thick digit at a spot about ten yards from the shore
of a nearby pond. “Observe yon tiny bubbles, good Faun.”

“I must squint to even behold them, noble Lurk!”

“They are no coincidence, emanating from the rear breathing spiracle of the giant flat-nosed salamander, whose smaller cousin does infest Mistral Bog in great numbers. Let us further surmise,” he continued, bending to heft a rotting log in his right paw, “that lunch were to splash uncaringly nearby. We shall ask her to leap up onto yonder mudbank, where you see the sedge grasses growing more thickly, in order to fully appreciate her size and beauty.” And he flipped the log in that direction.

“You know it’
s a female?”

The words caught in Akê-Akê’s throat as the great, wet bulk of the salamander cleaved the previously placid surface asunder in a flurry and spray of mud that liberally splattered
the companions. The yellow mouth that gaped upon to consume the stone could comfortably have accommodated the slack-jawed Faun standing upright, and its claws might have furnished a Dragon’s paws without shame. It beached itself momentarily on the mud bank, giving them a fine view as suggested of its size and dubious beauty.

Snatcher grinned horribly. “
Salamanders are notoriously short-tempered. Now would be a good time to retreat.”

Akê-Akê led the way with alacrity. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the creature apprehend them, make an abortive charge towards the shore, before reversing course and sliding into the dark
, muddy waters with the facility of a fish slipping through water.

“Object lesson gratefully received,” he said, wiping mud off his brow with a contrite half-smile. “Good
Lurk, I yield without further ungraciousness. How shall we proceed? Will you lead us by paths unknown through the perilous quagmire to higher ground?”

Snatcher shook his
great head, clearly bemused by the Faun’s antics. “Noble Faun Loremaster, I believe I shall ask directions from yonder old woman.”

The Faun’s chagrin was priceless.

*  *  *  *

“Greetings and good health to you, good woman,” said Amadorn, making a complex sign with his right hand. “May your hearthstone be blessed.”

The companions ranged about the old woman, who was seated on a stone bench just outside her stick-and-rush hut, gnarled hands resting on the top of a walking-stick braced between her legs, eyes twinkling as bright as buttons in a wise, weathered face framed by a gaudy headscarf entirely out of keeping with the rest of her apparel.

“Good morrow to you, noble creatures of Driadorn,” she creaked in reply. “May your journey be swift, your hearts true, and the justice of your cause upheld.”

Kevin nearly gasped. How did she know all this? Amadorn courteously introduced them, one by one, as though this woman were the most important personage in Utharia and not a doddering old bird living in penury on the edge of a swamp.

She made that curious sign to the Lurk. “It is many seasons since the pad of a Lurk trod these misty waters,” she said. “What is your common name, great one?”

“Snatcher.”

“No, in Lurkish. Your
kêylar
name.”

As Snatcher sounded a long series of bubbling syllables from the depths of his throat, she closed her eyes and appeared to meditate on them for a moment. And when her eyes opened, there was a gleam
within that Kevin mistrusted at once.

But she said, “The honour is mine, noble Lurk. Have you come in search of your brethren, the Greymorral Lurks, who tarried here awhile?”

Kevin stared at Snatcher, who appeared stunned to silence. Since no one else was speaking, he took it upon himself to blurt out, “Not directly, ma’am, but any light you could shed on the mystery of the Greymorral Lurks would be a boon indeed.”

“Ah, the noble Human speaks. You are a curious one indeed, both in looks and in mind. May I read your palm?”

“Ah … Alliathiune?”

She nodded
gravely. Kevin frowned at the Dryad. What on Earth was going on here?

Strong fingers gripped his hand, turned it this way and that. “Ah, a young wizard we are. The magic burns strong within you but is overmastered by fear. That fear must be broken for your true powers to manifest.
Remember, not all magic is what it seems. Yours is a power of opposites.”

And she hummed softly to herself, examining his hand more closely. She glanced up at Alliathiune with an inscrutable smile. “Ah!” she said,
and bent her head again. Then, “Why grieve for the Unicorn in this manner? He has come to an evil strait, not to death.”

Abruptly she dropped his hand. “Very good.” Touched his jaw. “No need to catch flies, good outlander. Plenty of swamp creatures would love to make a home in there.”

He clamped his mouth shut and tried to make sense of her words.

“Don’t fret, good
Kevin. You will find the right way by following your heart. I shall show you the way hence, creatures of Driadorn, for a small boon. I have a vegetable garden here that grows but poorly in this climate, and I do so like a fresh stew and good things to eat. If I could prevail on the Dryad’s generosity …”

“At once!” Alliathiune smiled sweetly at the woman. “If there is any other boon
we may grant you, you have only to ask.”

She knelt at once in the loamy soil and touched it with her fingertips.

“It should by all accounts be rich soil.”

The Dryad nodded. “But there
was once a great violation nearby and the work of vile, corrupting sorceries in ages past. It is for this reason that your vegetables grow but poorly. They are unhappy.”

As her eyes closed in concentration her hands dug deeper, as if searching for something beneath the surface. The Dryad stiffened. Minutes ticked by, measured by a nearby croaking of frogs and the whine of a persistent
nisk fly near Kevin’s ear that made him execute a silent dance of annoyance. His scepticism multiplied in the interim. Unhappy plants indeed! Fiddle-faddle and poppycock!

Alliathiune began to sing a traditional Dryadsong in praise of the earth and life, of verdant fields and gelid sap stirring in ancient places, of vibrant, uninhibited growth, of the harmonious rhythm of seasons and freedom from blight and disease. Her voice was sweet and melodious, and
once more, as he remembered, the range of notes she could attain made the musician in Kevin gasp in delight and wonder. No Human voice could reach or perform the birdlike trills that characterised the swifter passages of her song, which reached so high as to be almost inaudible, nor could any Human make soil burst forth with new life and hold birds and animals spellbound. Kevin found his feet twitching and itching as if they too wished to take root and participate in an early Budding season. The mists parted overhead to bathe Alliathiune in sunshine; she threw back her oak-green tresses and laughed for the sheer joy of work and worship. Her eyes shone as she looked to the old woman.

The old head bobbed in accord and appreciation. The Dryad seemed to have had an ecstatic experience.
Kevin had never seen a face light up in quite the same way. It made him want to smile too. It also made him insanely jealous of whatever it was that she felt just then.

“I’m sure my vegetables will be very happy now,” said the old woman. “Thank you,
noble Alliathiune.” She turned to Snatcher. “Noble Lurk, your palm please.”

Snatcher gurgled in the back of his throat and covered her lap with his paw. Five fingers, two massive thumbs and a palm
much larger than a shovel fazed her not one whit. Kevin was beginning to think the woman a magician or a witch. He marked the Lurk’s eyes flicker into deep sight and back again, almost imperceptibly swift, but the old woman had detected it too.

Her smile was that of a mother for her treasured son. “Who is able to deceive a Lurk? You may tell them after.”

“I shall do as you command.”

“Good
Lurk, what was done by your kind to the Greymorral Lurks, was the work of evil creatures. But Ozark the Dark it was who conceived the plot and stoked the fires of dissension between the Greater Lurks of Mistral Bog and their less illustrious neighbours. Jealousy was his key weapon. Envy and pride were their downfall. And so as you know, the Greymorral Lurks were sold into the hands of the Men of Ramoth for the pittance of safety for the Lurks during the war to come, if they kept their neutrality. To their lasting credit this was a bargain that many Lurks chose not to keep.”

“
That great sorrow can never be undone. Ozark did furnish the Men of Ramoth with a magical means of leashing and herding the Greymorral Lurks, and they took them away, out of Mistral Bog, and led them by road and by ship here to the Utharian Wet, from which Ozark employed these master builders in the construction of his great fortress called Shadowmoon Keep. Enslaved by Ozark’s dreadful yoke, the Lurks had no choice but to labour many seasons over a fortress suitable for he who from within its impregnable granite and korialite fastness would dominate all living creatures on Feynard.”

“The Dark Wizard had no desire that the secrets of his fortress should become known in the outside world, so when the work was complete, he once more rounded up the Greymorral Lurks and led them to a place called Shadow Peak. Here he commanded them to be flung into the abyss. But legend
tells how partway through that great slaughter, Ozark was struck with a more cunning use for the Lurks. He led those who remained into the dungeons of Shadowmoon Keep, and they have never been seen again. Some say they remain there to guard the greatest treasure of all–the Magisoul. If so, they must have perished long, long ago, but that is not what I have heard.”

And how did the old witch know that? Kevin was on the verge of blurting out his suspicions when Alliathiune trod on his foot. She met his frown with a butter-could-not-melt smile and a tiny headshake.

“The sign you see Utharians making in the presence of a Lurk means ‘your sorrow is my sorrow’. You see, it was here in Utharia that Ozark rose to power and prominence. They said he was paler than an ordinary Human and stocky, a man of overriding passions and unquenchable ambition. Some called him an outlander–like you, good Kevin. Whatever his origins, for nobody truly knows, it was here that they granted him the means and opportunity to pursue his evil agenda. The Utharians made Ozark their king.”