The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4) (42 page)

"Cramps, Garrett!" Warren exclaimed.

"What?" Garrett said, breaking from his reverie to see Warren and Ymowyn staring at him, wide-eyed. Bargas shook his head and coughed out a ragged breath.

"Never shoulda gone diggin'..." Bargas coughed, "You don't dig that deep, boy... not that deep."

"This is going too far, Garrett," Lady Ymowyn hissed, "You need help!"

"Yeah," Garrett said, "That's why I'm here. I don't know what to do with this fairy guy. He says he's some sort of important fairy official or something and he wants to take me back to the fairy court to stand trial, and I've gotta get back to Logate in like an hour... Cramps! I still have to run home and get dressed for Templar stuff! Can you look after this fairy guy for me?"

"Garrett, let me look at you!" Ymowyn said stepping up to grab his shoulders.

"No, really, I have to go!" Garrett said, pushing her away gently... only she staggered backward as though he had shoved her.

"Garrett!" Warren barked, reaching out with a restraining paw.

"I'm fine!" Garrett insisted, shrugging free of the ghoul's grasp.

Warren's eyes went wide, and he looked at his father.

"Hold him, boy!" Bargas growled as he rolled out from beneath his blanket.

Warren lunged toward Garrett, but Garrett shoved him back with such force that the ghoul cracked the fresh plaster on the entryway wall.

"Sorry!" Garrett said, lifting his hands in apology, "I really have to go! I'm sorry!"

Ymowyn glanced at Bargas with fear in her eyes, and the great patchy-haired ghoul growled as he faced Garrett, flattening his long ears against his head.

"I'm sorry!" Garrett said again, "I'll be back later, but right now, I 've really got to go!" He backed toward the door, feeling for the handle.

Warren let out a long, warbling howl, and then joined his father's wary advance toward the young necromancer.

"You guys are taking this way too seriously!" Garrett laughed, "I really am fine! I just..." he wrenched the door open, breaking the unopened latch in the process.

"
Oh, crix!
Sorry about that!" Garrett said, looking down at the broken latch.

Warren lunged forward tackling Garrett, and the two of them spilled out onto the front walk.

"Get off me!" Garrett roared, shoving Warren away with all his might.

A cloud of icy mist trailed Warren's body as he hurled through the air, smashing into one of the two columns of stone that marked the original location of the yard's front gate. The column crumbled into ruin atop the stunned ghoul.

"I'm fine!" Garrett shouted, standing up and dusting himself off as he spun to face Bargas who had just emerged from the doorway.

"I don't want to hurt you, boy!" Bargas yelled, his long arms spread wide.

"Then leave me alone!" Garrett cried, frost billowing from his lips.

"You need help, Garrett!" Ymowyn said, almost weeping, "Garrett, let us help you!"

"Back off!" Garrett said, holding his hands out between himself and the advancing elder ghoul.

Suddenly, Warren hit him again from behind, his massive arms locked around Garrett's waist as he drove him to the ground.

Garrett screamed in rage as he hammered blow after blow down upon the shaggy gray monster that held him fast. Another one snatched him by the right arm, a larger beast still, and Garrett slammed his free fist into the thing's nose, knocking it away.

Garrett managed to get his feet under him and levered himself upward, smashing his elbow down into the face of the monster that held him from behind. Three solid hits were all it took to free him from its grasp.

Garrett staggered away, facing the injured dog creatures as he retreated. An icy storm howled in his ears, scattering his thoughts, and a fine blue mist trailed from his lips as he swayed, trying to regain his balance.

"Don't touch me!" he shrieked.

More of the beasts had gathered, surrounding him now. He was going to have to fight his way out.

"Garrett, what's wrong?" said one of the creatures, leaner than the rest.

"Don't touch him, Scupp!" the one that had tackled him shouted, but the lean dog creature did not heed the other's warning and reached out toward Garrett with its loathsome paw.

"Get back!" Garrett shouted, driving his fist into the side of the dog-thing's head.

It went down with a startled yelp.

"Scupp!" another of the beasts howled, springing to the fallen creature's side. It looked up at him with confusion on its bestial face.

"It's not Garrett now!" the fox-thing shouted from the doorway, "Don't touch him!"

"Don't
ever
touch me!" Garrett screamed, turning to face the creatures that circled him, "Not
ever!
"

Garrett stared down at his hands then. They were flexed into claws with frosty vapors steaming off of his ice-crusted skin. He smiled at the sight of it, letting out a boyish giggle.

"Hey, Warren," Garrett laughed, "Look at this..."

Garrett's body crumpled as an icy river crashed in upon him, driving him down into the soft, black, bottomless mud below.

"Why did you bring him here?" Annalien spoke from somewhere above the surface of the river, her voice muffled as though he heard it through a thick layer of ice. A golden glow shimmered through the ice, sending little tendrils of light down into the cold darkness below.

"The message on his arm," Lady Ymowyn's voice answered, "I didn't know what else to do."

"Cover that up!" Annalien hissed, "Cover it up now!"

"You know what he is, don't you?" a thin, weary voice spoke next, the fairy known as Shortgrass.

"I know," Annalien answered sadly, "It's my fault he's done it."

"Your fault?" Shortgrass cried, "Bless ye for it, then, but couldn' ya have chosen a more worthy vessel o' deliverance fer our people?"

"Deliverance?" Annalien spat, "
Deliverance?
Do you not know your own doom when you look upon it?"

"He's a boy!" Ymowyn cried, "He's a good boy, and he needs our help!"

"He's dead, girl!" Annalien cried, "Can you not look in his eyes and see it for yourself? Is it my curse as well to go on seeing and seeing what others cannot, long after I should have left this foul, wretched nightmare of a world?"

"Pah! Spare me yer moanin', she-elf," Shortgrass snapped, "Yer dead, I know, but ye serve the same Song as I, so focus, dear, and tell me what ya know."

"He went off in search of the Songreaver's power," Annalien sighed, "He did it to save a fairy he loved... Forgive me, but he got the idea from me... I talk too much sometimes... tell too many stories."

"You mean this whole time the Wyrd's been here under yer nose," Shortgrass cried, "and you let it rot... while our people languish in chains above?"

"You think he brings your freedom?" Annalien scoffed, "You think this is the face of your savior, here before you?"

"Well, 'tis an ugly mug, I'll give ya that," Shortgrass laughed, "but I'll lay a thousand kisses upon it or any other part he offers up, if he'll do fer others what he did fer me!"

"You are a fool then for not seeing the price of that freedom," Annalien said, "Believe me, there are worse fates in this world than slavery."

"I take it ye've not spent much time as a slave then?" Shortgrass asked.

"It doesn't matter now!" Ymowyn said, "What's done is done, and this boy needs your help!"

"This boy needs a tomb to sleep in!" Annalien hissed.

Garrett tried to protest. He didn't feel dead. Then again, the weight of the icy river on his chest held him down in the soft black mud, and it seemed too much effort to talk.

"He's not dead!" Ymowyn cried, desperation in her voice.

"And what interest is it to you, soul-eater?" Annalien asked, "Thought you'd have a try at a taste of old ghost, or have you come to gloat over the Lost Sister's bones?"

"No," Ymowyn sighed, "I have nothing to gloat about... There is nothing I have done of which I am proud."

"
Mother o' Mystery!
" Shortgrass groaned, "Kin ye both spare me the dramatics an' give me a straight answer? How am I haulin' this great icy ball o' songreavin' back to tha folks at home?"

"You think I would help you take this abomination into the very heart of the wood?" Annalien scoffed, "Send you home with this cold, twisted thing that will only unravel every blessed song the Fair Mother ever wove?"

"Well, yeah, that's a pretty fair appraisal o' what I'm goin' ta do," Shortgrass said, "I don't know that you've had much a look around since ya... you know...
died
, but things are awful bad out there, and gettin' worse by the day. Weren't for this boy, I'd be naught but a shriveled husk in a pretty wee cage by now."

"You're free, be glad of it!" Annalien said, "But don't expect that's the only trick this thing knows how to play. First he'll unravel all the black spells that the vampires wove, and you'll all stand around singing his praises... but then he'll start in on the other spells, the bright, happy spells, plucking at the loose threads of magic, because he just can't stand to leave 'em alone. Then the trees start to die, and the unicorns forget their names, and the summer turns to frost, and all that is good and green in the world begins to fade. Then maybe you'll look back and wish you hadn't lived to see it after all."

"Yer the dreariest old ghost I've ever met. I'll give ya that!" Shortgrass laughed.

"You fear the shadow so much that you'd make a deal with the dark itself!" Annalien said, "Do you think you can control this? You think you can master it? Have you ever sat and listened to the death-song of a thousand wisps, sent screaming into the netherworld by the monster that lies here at our feet? Have you done that, fairy?"

"Well, no, I haven't," Shortgrass mused, "but then I have heard the cries as the Children of the Grove are slaughtered for meal or sport. I've watched 'em wither and fade, bound in cages, weepin' ta know they're ne'er ta fly again... so maybe that counts fer somethin', ya think?"

"Don't do this, please," Annalien wept, "Don't let my failure become my people's doom."

"Doom, is it?" Shortgrass said, "’Tis not the way I see it."

"Then you are a fool," Annalien said.

"Enough!" Ymowyn snapped, "Both of you stop feeling sorry for yourselves and help me aid this boy, or
by the black heart of the Moon That Was
, I
will
start eating souls!"

Silence hung in the golden air above the icy surface of the river, and Garrett, grateful for the quiet at last, let himself sink further into the cool black mud below.

"What's got yer tail in a bunch, girly?" Shortgrass said.

"Garrett needs help," Ymowyn sighed, "This... thing... is starting to control him, and he needs our help to bring him back from it."

"He's gone, girl," Annalien sighed, "and the most merciful thing we can do is to let him sleep."

"No!" Ymowyn said, "We need him... We
all
need him... We need the power he holds, but, most of all, we need
him
, the boy he is, and the man he can become."

"Now what would
you
be needin' him for?" Shortgrass asked, curiosity in his voice, "Yer no Fae. The blood drinker’s laws hold no sway o’er you or yer kin. So what reavin' would
you
have 'im do?"

"Look at him!" Ymowyn sighed, "Look at him, and what do you see? A tool? A threat? Is that all you see?"

"And what is it that you see there, soul-eater?" Annalien asked.

"A
king!
" Ymowyn said.

"Yer mad!" Shortgrass laughed.

"Yes!" Ymowyn gasped, "I am mad! I sought to use forbidden power to save my people, and I was driven mad by it! I know better than anyone what he must be going through now, but I know as well how strong this boy truly is. I’ve seen it in him! I know that, if any of us have a chance to hold that kind of power and not lose themselves to it...
it is this boy!

"Look at him! Look at this simple boy. He didn't seize this power for his own gain. He wasn't trying to conquer or destroy. He did what he did out of compassion... out of love!

"One of you looks at this power and wants to use it. The other wants to bury it. I... I want to serve the only one worthy enough to wield it with justice and mercy!"

"What if you are wrong about him?" Annalien sighed, "If you are wrong, you will undo us all... the last human to wield this power very nearly tore this world in half. Would you put another
son of dust
upon that throne?"

"If it comes to that, I'll end 'im meself," Shortgrass said.

"He could unmake you with a
word!
" Annalien hissed.

"If he falls to madness...
I
will slay the Songreaver," Ymowyn whispered, "I swear my soul upon it."