The Eternal Flame (6 page)

Tamwyn exhaled slowly, scattering the mist before him. All those people—and others, such as Rhia—had proven themselves to be true friends. They had stayed by his side, despite all his foolishness and clumsiness. And despite his bizarre fate to be the person who might actually save Avalon—and also the person who would bring its ultimate ruin. How could he be both at once? No one, not even Rhia herself, had been able to explain that to him.

In some distant part of his mind, he heard again the ringing words of the Dark Prophecy. They had haunted him all through the seventeen years of his life. Yet they had first truly come alive for him when he’d heard them sung by that strange old bard with the sideways-growing beard:

A year shall come when star so dark,
And faith will fail anon—
For born shall be a child who spells
The end of Avalon.

The only hope beneath the stars
To save that world so fair
Will be the Merlin then alive:
The wizard’s own true heir.

What shall become of Avalon,
Our dream, our deepest need?
What glory or despair shall sprout
From Merlin’s magic seed?

Exhausted in spirit as well as in body, Tamwyn forced himself to stand upright on the ledge. Yet another rocky cliff rose above him, though not quite as steeply as some that he had climbed. The pervasive mist seemed to thin a bit, shredding itself like morning haze in the day’s first light.

That was when he saw something new—something that made him rock backward, so much that he nearly fell right off the ledge. A splash of green, as well as a hint of lavender, gleamed through the vapors. And even more striking than the colors themselves was their position: They seemed to stretch not so much upward, like the formidable cliffs, but more outward, reaching to the side for a great distance, as far as he could see.

Tamwyn licked his salty, dirty lips. Could it be? He might actually have made it to the first branch.

6
•
Wood Chips

Tamwyn scaled the cliff, climbing hand over hand with renewed vigor. Sweat dribbled down his brow, streaking his face with dirt, but he didn’t mind. He was thinking about just one thing: topping this rise.

As he pulled himself up the final ledge, a new landscape opened up before him. His grimy lips lifted in a grin, for he could see enough beyond the shredding mist to know that he had, indeed, reached the first branch.

And what a landscape it was! Sharp, steeply cut valleys, running right beside each other, stretched in long green rows as far as he could see. From where he stood now, atop one of the parallel ridges that divided the valleys, he could make out three or four of the green swaths on each side. And each of those valleys, like the ridges that divided them, ran straight to the hazy horizon. The look of these slim ridges reminded him of something, though he wasn’t sure what.

Tamwyn peered down into one of the valleys below. Thick, lush grasses rippled in the buffeting breeze like the hides of galloping horses. It almost seemed as if the land itself were loping.

Adjusting the pack strap on his shoulder, he walked down from the ridge to explore the upper rim of the valley. Soft grasses soon replaced rough rock under his feet. Ahead, he could see several deep gullies that ribbed the slope. Within them, dense rows of lavender-colored bushes lined cascading streams where water sparkled in the starlight.

He smacked his dry lips.
A drink from a fresh water stream would taste wonderful right now.

As he reached the first gulley, he pushed his way through the bushes toward the stream. A sharp chirp from a nest hidden in the shrubbery made him halt. Seeing a sudden flash of brilliance from the nest, he realized that it held a fledgling prism bird, whose wingfeathers would someday catch the light as it soared, painting the clouds with radiant color.

He sat down on the muddy bank of the stream, peeled off his pack and the torch, and plunged his whole head into the water. He lifted his head, black locks dripping wet—and then plunged his head back into the stream again. Finally, cooled and rinsed, he cupped his hands and took several long, lovely sips.

At last, he sat cross-legged on the bank. Curious, he broke off a lavender leaf and chewed it to see if it had any flavor. Instantly he spat it out on the mud. For it had a flavor, all right, one that came perilously close to goat dung.

Scanning the ridgeline above him, he followed it down the full length of the valley. He spied several steaming pits, deep green in color, that dotted the rim. Sniffing the air, he caught the sharp, sweet aroma of resins, much like he would have found in a forest of pine and spruce. Could those be boiling pits of sap, bubbling up from below?

Then, near a jagged outcropping of stone that resembled an uplifted hand with fingerlike spires, he noticed some movement. Creatures! Gigantic in size, with hunched, hairy backs, they looked almost as gnarled and weathered as the rocks themselves. Brawny arms hung from their massive shoulders, while their heads tapered into long snouts. And, if he was seeing accurately, each creature stood on just one leg. Then, to his amazement, the creatures clasped hands and started circling the stone, hopping in unison.

They are dancing,
he thought, blinking his eyes in disbelief. Each one of them must have stood twice his height, yet they moved with the fluidity of blowing clouds, hopping and bowing in their strange, silent dance.

For an instant, he wondered whether he should use his last drop of Dagda’s dew, Gwirion’s parting gift, to study them more closely. But no—better to save that magical drop for later, when it might be more needed.

Watching the ring of huge, hunchbacked creatures, he reminded himself they could be dangerous.
Better stay right here in the bushes until they’re gone. Just in case.

Then he noticed a stand of tall, gangly trees just beyond the hunchbacked creatures. Drumalings! He shuddered, thinking of those walking trees that had nearly crushed the life out of him back in Merlin’s Knothole. Were it not for Ethaun, the affable blacksmith who stood as broad as a bear, they would have surely killed him.

Tamwyn shook his head, spraying the bushes with water droplets. No, he did not want to encounter drumalings again. When it came time to climb back up the slope, and to find the best route higher on the Tree, he would take extra care to avoid whatever beasts might live among these parallel ridges.

All at once, he realized why these ridges, with their steep-sided valleys, had reminded him of something. They looked like rows of bark! More than that, they
were
rows of bark, running the length of this enormous branch.

This is a whole new realm,
he reflected.
And to think that it is only one of many! Every single branch of the Great Tree is an unexplored region. And they could be as different from each other as Fireroot is from Airroot or Waterroot.

He lowered his gaze.
Or Shadowroot, where Elli is heading now.

Feeling a pang of worry, and maybe something more, he pulled out the slab of harmóna wood. He unsheathed his dagger, grateful that Ethaun had reforged it. But he didn’t take time to examine the ancient, mysterious words engraved on the side of the blade—words that spoke of Merlin’s heir . . . and Rhita Gawr. He just placed the slab on his lap and started to carve.

As the first curling chip of wood fell to the ground, it hummed ever so subtly. Meanwhile, the magical slab itself made a soft, breathy music, its orange-streaked grain helping to guide Tamwyn’s every slice. Slowly, the sound box grew more clearly defined, and the instrument began to take shape.

Something about whittling wood always consoled Tamwyn. The gentle sweep of a blade, the warmth of wood in his hands, made him feel more firmly planted in the present moment. And also more confident about the future. Yet today he couldn’t seem to banish his doubts. Why, he didn’t even know where he was going to find the strings for this harp! So how could he possibly hope to do his part to save Avalon?

He continued to carve. Wood chips piled up on the muddy bank, accumulating with his concerns.
I am, after all, just one person—and certainly no great wizard.
Then, unexpectedly, he remembered Ethaun’s words, spoken in the blacksmith’s rough whisper:

Ye know, the legends from Old Fincayra are mighty strange at times. But one o’ the strangest says that a young wizard only came into power when he carved his first musical instrument.

For a brief moment, Tamwyn believed. Or wanted so much to believe that it felt like conviction itself. Then the knife blade slipped, nicking his thigh. He groaned, cursing his own clumsiness.

Full of doubts again, he raised his gaze toward the sky. It blazed with stars so bright that he needed to shield his eyes from the most radiant clusters.
What am I thinking? I don’t even know how to begin to get up there!

Then, for the first time, he noticed something odd. Very odd. A vague line of light, so dim that he could only barely perceive it, ran across the middle of the sky. Like a luminous crack, or a seam in the fabric of day, it ran through the realm of the stars.

Tamwyn stared at the line of light, blinking. What was it? Maybe just a trick of the remaining wisps of mist. Yet it seemed more real than that. Perhaps it had always been there, but he needed to have climbed this high on the Great Tree before he could actually see it.

Flipping fire dragons, what could that be?

A dark shadow fell over him. At the same instant, he felt a powerful rush of two emotions—fear and rage. But the emotions weren’t his own. Tamwyn sensed, before he’d even turned around, that they were coming from whoever had cast the shadow.

He spun around.

Drumalings! Tall and treelike, two of the creatures towered over him, the barkless skin of their knobby, many-limbed bodies glinting in the starlight. Like the drumalings who had nearly killed him before, this pair had faces midway up their scraggly bodies. Each had a ragged slit for a mouth, as well as a lone, vertical eye almost as narrow as a twig.

The unblinking eye of each drumaling stared down at Tamwyn. He held their gaze. As with the drumalings he’d met in Merlin’s Knothole, he sensed no thoughts from them—only simple, raw feelings. Right now he detected a steady undercurrent of anxiety, mixed with a hint of anger. Making no sudden movements, he quickly sheathed his dagger, stuffed the harmóna wood into his pack, and slipped the leather strap over his shoulder.

At the very instant he finished, he sensed a new flood of wrath—and the drumalings charged. Swinging their long arms studded with thick tufts of grass, they surged through the bushes, slamming down their heavy roots. Just as Tamwyn fled, those roots smacked against the stream bank where he’d been sitting, spraying mud and wood chips everywhere.

He bolted, leaping over the stream and hurdling the dense shrubbery on the other side. Hearing the crash of broken branches right behind him, he didn’t have to glance back to know that they were pursuing. Whether they considered him prey or a vile intruder, they clearly wanted to crush his every bone.

He dashed through the waving grasses, which swished against his leggings. For a second he considered transforming himself into a bounding deer, as he’d done once to save Elli’s life. But he knew that wasn’t possible, even to save his own. The bulkiness of his load, especially the torch across his back, kept him from striding freely enough to release the magic. All he could do was sprint as best he could on two legs.

They were gaining! Not far behind, the slamming of roots grew louder. Now he could hear the whoosh of air from the drumalings’ waving limbs, a sound that chilled him more than any winter wind.

Spying one of the steaming pools of sap, he veered higher on the slope to run toward it. With the drumalings’ limbs practically brushing against the back of his neck, he took a desperate chance—and hurled himself straight over the bubbling pool. The smell of resins overwhelmed him, searing his throat and burning his eyes. He landed on the other side, barely clearing the rim of the pool, and rolled to a stop in the grass.

Anxiously, he looked up, peering into the greenish steam over the pit. Had he lost them? Slow-witted creatures that they were, they might just think he’d vanished, and give up their chase. Or maybe they, too, had tried to jump, and fallen into the resiny cauldron.

No such luck. He saw the pair of drumalings charging around the pit. On each of them, the lone eye had reddened with rage. Their roots slapped the pit’s edge, splattering hot sap onto the grass.

Tamwyn leaped to his feet. How could he ever escape these vicious beasts? He glanced around, then spied the outcropping of stone where the strange, hunchbacked giants had been dancing. Seeing no sign of them, he realized that they must have left while he was working on the harp. He took off, sprinting toward the outcropping, hoping to climb up into its fingerlike spires before the drumalings could get him. There was at least a chance that those spires might shield him from their battering limbs.

Even as he approached the outcropping, he could feel his pursuers just behind him. But now that he was nearly there, he realized that the stone would be nearly impossible to climb. Unlike the rougher rocks on top of the ridge, it was polished as smooth as a river boulder, up to a height well above his head.

Nothing to grab. Nothing to hold his weight.

A drumaling’s limb swatted his shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground. Stumbling, he dodged another blow. Madly, hoping to find some way to climb, he ran around the outcropping to check the other side. He hurtled around the corner—

And slammed straight into a giant, hairy mass. As he hit the ground, a wrathful roar shook the air. Tamwyn found himself staring up into the eyes of a huge, hunchbacked monster.

7
•
A Terrible Weapon

The heavy door to Kulwych’s underground cavern swung slowly open. Meanwhile, the sorcerer stood inside, waiting, feeling rather pleased with himself. For he could sense, even now, the fear in the sturdy warrior who was about to enter the cavern—could smell it, as easily as if it were the pungent odor of a rotting carcass.