The Fathomless Fire (14 page)

“You mean you don’t want me coming along.”

Finn shook his head.

“I’m afraid not. I’ll be travelling fast, through pathless country, and I know you haven’t done much riding. It might be difficult for you to keep up. And what’s more, whoever hurt Shade might still be out there hunting him. We don’t know who that is or what they’re capable of.”

“But Finn, Shade may be dying. I can’t just—”

“We have good healers in the Errantry, Will. I know one who’ll come with me if I ask him. He can help Shade, if anyone can.”

“But what if you can’t find Shade? You might need me then.”

“Will, you’re not coming along and that’s final,” Finn said sharply, and Will stared at him, stung by the cold finality in his voice.

After a long silence, Finn spoke again, his voice softer.

“Will, if you hadn’t gone to the Golden Goose we might never have found out what happened to Shade. You’ve already helped him. The best thing you can do now is stay here in Fable, in case Rowen returns. If I can bring Shade back, I will. I promise you.”

“I hear you’ve been looking for me, Madoc,” a deep voice boomed. Will and Finn whirled to see Balor Gruff lumbering towards them. With the news about Shade, and the return of Finn, Will had forgotten that he and the wildman had already planned to ride out on a search expedition tomorrow.

“Balor!” Finn exclaimed. “I’ve been searching for you for three days.”

“You’d think someone my size would be hard to miss. Good thing our pathfinder came along when he did.”

Will grinned in spite of himself.

“Did I hear the two of you talking about Shade?” Balor asked. “I hope you’ve had some news, Will?”

Quickly Will related Mimling’s story to Balor. The wildman listened with a scowl of concentration.

“Well, that settles it,” he said firmly when Will had finished. “We’ll find your wolf-friend, I promise you. And anyhow, you might need a
real
tracker on this expedition, Madoc.”

Finn nodded.

“I’d be happy to have you along, Balor,” he said.

“Oh, and I’ll be bringing my new apprentice,” the wildman added.

“I didn’t know you had one at the moment. Who is it?”

Balor grinned at Will. Finn looked puzzled, then he glanced from the wildman to Will and back again. His mouth dropped open a moment before he recovered himself and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, Will hasn’t had any of the proper … I won’t allow this, Balor.”

“It’s not up to you, lad,” Balor said darkly, folding his arms across his chest. “If it wasn’t for Will, I’d probably still be blundering around in some blasted dust cloud. It seems to me that if the world has grown that treacherous, we’d be wise to have Will Lightfoot watching out for us.”

“The Marshal will tell you the same thing,” Finn said with a rare anger in his voice, “that your apprentice hasn’t been trained.”

“My apprentice has already made it through worse things than most trainees ever see. Caliburn knows that. And
you
know that, Finn, better than I do. You were there when it all happened.”

Finn shook his head again. Then he sighed, and turned to Will.

“So be it. You can come with us for as long as I deem it safe, Will. But if I order you to return to Fable, you will do so with Balor. There will be no debate on that point. Are we understood?”

“Understood,” Will said.

Finn turned to the wildman and raised his eyebrows.

“Very well,” Balor grumbled.

“Good, then,” Finn said. “We ride out at daybreak tomorrow. Will, you’d best stay here at Appleyard tonight so we can be off as quickly as possible tomorrow. Be ready at the dawn bell. We’ll meet at the stables and find you a horse.”

Will went to see Edweth, to tell her he was leaving. She fussed over him and all but ordered him to stay in Fable, but when she saw the determined look in his eyes, she gave in. She wouldn’t let him out of the door, however, until she’d filled his pack with food for the journey, muttering that the Errantry kept its recruits disgracefully underfed.

Will returned at last to Appleyard and made his way to the dormitory to get some sleep, but he soon discovered that wouldn’t be easy. Moments after he arrived in the long room in search of a bed the other apprentices were crowded around him, eager to speak with
the
Will Lightfoot, the famous pathfinder, and hear first hand about his adventures. Once the prefect had ordered them all to keep quiet, Will found sleep wouldn’t come anyway. The thought of Shade kept him awake. He was still awake when the dawn bell rang.

Will hurried to the stables, his weariness forgotten now that they would finally be setting out. Balor met him on the way to tell him that the Marshal had refused permission for their expedition to leave.

“Why would he do that?” Will fumed.

“He won’t let us go until he’s questioned Mimling for himself,” Balor explained. “He and Captain Thorne are restricting travel after what happened to me.”

“But Mimling told me he’d be heading home this morning,” Will said. “He could be miles from Fable by now. And the last time I was here, the Marshal didn’t keep me from leaving.”

“That’s because Master Pendrake was pleading your case. This time the loremaster isn’t here to speak up for you. And with Finn and I coming along, this is an Errantry matter now. So we will have to wait.”

As it turned out, Mimling hadn’t left Fable yet. The copious amounts of ale he’d drunk to ease his leg had necessitated a long sleep-in, and at noon the dwarf was just packing up his things when messengers from Appleyard found him at the Golden Goose. He was not happy about having to climb the hill and tell his story all over again, but in the end he consented. The Marshal kept him waiting hours, however, before he finally questioned Mimling and let him go on his way.

At last, late in the afternoon, the Marshal gave his consent for the search party to leave the following morning. When Finn brought the news, Will seethed with anger. It was a whole day wasted.

“It’s as if Lord Caliburn doesn’t want us going on this mission,” he said.

“He doesn’t want anyone leaving the city needlessly,” Finn said. “For him, a knight’s overriding duty is to protect Fable. That’s what started all the trouble between him and Corr—”

He broke off suddenly, as if he’d said more than he meant to.

“Listen, Will,” he said, “why don’t you go to the stables and find a horse for the morning. The head groom’s name is Arden. Tell her I sent you. She’ll help you pick out a good, reliable mount.”

Will wanted to ask Finn about his brother, but with a nod he silently agreed. He crossed the grounds to the stables, and after some searching and making inquiries, found Arden the head groom, a cheerful-looking older woman. She walked up and down the stalls with him, musing out loud about several of the horses. She seemed to have worked out straight away that Will was no rider.

“I wish I could give you Briar,” she said. “She’s a horse of the Hidden Folk, I’m told. I don’t know about that, but she’s a fine animal sure enough. Just brought to Fable today, from a very long journey, and I’d say she’s earned a rest.”

Will looked over the railing at the dappled grey and white horse calmly munching hay. She lifted her head a moment, giving Will no more than a passing glance, as if she, like Arden, had immediately sized up his riding experience.

“She’s been on the road for months, and none the worse for it, by the look of things,” Arden went on. “That doesn’t surprise me, since it was the toymaker she was with. He cares for animals, you can tell. And they trust him.”

“The toymaker?” Will said, his heart beginning to beat faster. “You mean Master Pendrake?”

“Of course. He and his granddaughter got home just a while ago. Why do you ask?”

He ran.

He made it to the corner of Pluvius Lane more quickly than he ever had before, but there he was forced to slow down, to catch his breath, but also because the street was busy with people going about their business. As he pushed through the crowd, ignoring the angry glances levelled at him, he caught sight of a red cloak on someone hurrying past him up the road to Appleyard. He stopped, and the person in the red cloak stopped too.

Rowen.

They pushed through the crowd towards each other. It
was
her, though he could scarcely believe it. She was beaming at the sight of him, calling his name, but he could barely hear her above the noise of the bustling street. She had grown taller, he saw right away, and something else had changed about her, though he couldn’t say what it was. They met and for a moment he stood stunned at the sight of her, until she spoke.

“Will. You’re here. You’re really here.”

They embraced. Will held her tightly. She was safe in his arms.

“I didn’t know you’d come back—” he began.

“Edweth told me you were at Appleyard—” she said at the same time. They laughed and stepped apart.

“You first,” Will said.

“Grandfather and I got home just now. Edweth said you’d arrived in Fable a few days ago. She said you were leaving to look for Shade. I was hoping you hadn’t left yet.”

“We leave in the morning.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment: they were still looking at each other as if not quite believing they were together again. For Will it had been less than a month since he’d seen her, but for Rowen, he remembered, a whole year had gone by. He saw the girl he’d known, in her eager smile and her bright, animated eyes, but he saw a young woman, too: she was taller, less wiry and more sure of herself in the way she moved. He felt suddenly as if she had left him behind.

He realized he was staring, and looked down.

At Rowen’s feet was a cat. A cat with large yellow eyes that were fixed on him with an unsettling directness. It was as if this strange animal knew who he was.

“That’s Riddle,” Rowen said. “He used to live in the Forest of Eldark.”

“Riddle,” Will repeated, then he remembered where he had seen those odd eyes before.

“You mean, that’s…?”

“Yes. I’ll explain later. Edweth told us about the warning the shadow gave you, that brought you back. She said that Shade…”

Will told her Mimling’s story. When he came to the part about Shade being burned by lightning, Rowen put her hand over her mouth.

“Who would do such a thing?” she breathed, tears sliding down her face. “Find him, Will, please find him. We can’t let him die out there somewhere, alone…”

“I’m going to find him,” Will said.

Rowen wiped her eyes and tried to smile.

“I’ve missed you, Will,” she said. “I hoped so much you would come back.”

“I had to. I … had to make sure you were all right.”

He knew what he really wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. For all he knew, she thought of him only as a good friend. If he told her his true feelings he might drive her away and lose her friendship. He couldn’t bear that thought.

“I’m fine,” Rowen said. “Just tired. But happy to be back home.”

Will wanted to believe her, but he could see in her eyes that everything was not well.

A short time later they were sitting in the ground-floor library at the toyshop, a cosy, book-lined room with comfortable chairs and a fireplace, and Will was telling the story of his return to Master Pendrake, who was listening eagerly to all he had to say. Edweth had come in and out several times already, beaming and fussing over them, asking them repeatedly if they wanted anything to eat and bringing Rowen blankets in case she was cold. Every time the housekeeper came in or went out she glanced suspiciously at Riddle. The cat sat on the hearth rug, stretched out like a sphinx and watching all of this intently with his eerie eyes.

Finn was with them, too: he had heard the news of the loremaster’s return and had come from Appleyard not long after Will. There was much to talk about. The loremaster wanted to hear from Will about the shadow of things to come, and everything that had happened to him on his way back to Fable.

“The shadow must’ve been telling the truth,” Will finished, “because of what’s happened to Shade.”

Pendrake’s keen grey eyes became distant a moment.

“I’ve encountered these shadows of things to come,” he said. “It would be a very rare thing, if not impossible, for one of them to lie. In fact, I think they’re incapable of it.”

“Where do they come from?” Will asked.

“I’ve wondered that myself, but all I can tell you is that they simply turn up when they’re needed. In any case, the warning did bring you here, and with luck you’ll be able to help Shade. What’s most unusual is that the shadow crossed over into your world, Will. The Untold. I’ve never heard of such a thing happening before.”

“What do you think that means?” Will asked.

“I’m not sure, but clearly you’re needed here, Will, in what’s going to happen.”

“And what is that?” Finn asked.

The loremaster’s gaze fixed each of them in turn.

“It seems the shadow told Will that a friend is in danger, but the truth is, we all are,” he finally said. “And we have been for a long time, as the Fair Folk have always known and as the Lady warned us. Only now the danger is much closer to home.”

The loremaster had his own troubling story to tell, about the Deep Dark Forest drawing closer to Molly’s Arm.

“And there’s that strange dust that trapped Balor,” Finn added when Pendrake had finished his tale. “No one in the Errantry has encountered such a thing before.”

“No one who escaped to tell about it, at any rate,” Pendrake said.

“What do you think it was?” Will asked.

“Do you remember the Bog of Mool?” Pendrake asked Will. “The fragment of story we stumbled into there?”

“Of course,” Will said. “The storyshard. We kept repeating the same things over and over.”

“And we almost didn’t make it out, until we found the golem,” Rowen added.

“Balor was trapped by something much like that, I suspect,” Pendrake said. “An un-place, a hole in the fabric of the Realm where nothing happens, where one forgets oneself and falls into a slumber like death. The Night King’s rise is changing the Realm, tearing rifts in the Weaving that holds it all together. The stronger Malabron grows, the more of these rifts and storyshards there will be.”