The Shadow of Malabron (15 page)

“There are few mounts to spare,” Finn said. “And on foot we’ll blend in better with the other travellers on the road. And we may find paths that would be missed from horseback.”

“Walking was how you found your way here, after all,” Pendrake told Will. “It’s said that the realms of Story are found by those who walk rather than run. Perhaps that’s also true for those who wish to leave.”

As they were preparing to set out, Lord Caliburn arrived to see them off, though he had little to say. He surveyed their gear with a stern eye, and saved an especially dark look for the wolf.

“An unusual company,” he said. “You’re not likely to pass unremarked. And even in the Bourne that’s cause for concern. No road can be considered completely safe, not any more.”

“No road ever was,” Pendrake said. “But we’re not without friends, even out in Wildernesse.”

“May these friends prove trustworthy,” Caliburn said.

He suggested that Will and the others take the high road south, which was well travelled by members of the Errantry on their way to the citadel of Stonebow, three days distant, where they would find refuge if need be.

“We have considered the south road, along with all the others,” Pendrake said. “But it is Will’s choice to make.”

Lord Caliburn looked to be about to reply, but pursed his lips and said nothing. He gave them all one final wish for a safe journey and strode away.

Will and his companions left Fable by a postern gate in the south wall, and followed a narrow winding path down to the paved road, which they joined at the bottom of the hill. The story they had prepared was a simple one, that they were on a journey to visit friends in other parts, not an uncommon thing among people in the Bourne. They had all dressed in inconspicuous garments of green and brown cloth. Will carried his own clothes in his pack. He hadn’t wanted to leave them behind, as they were the only link he felt he had left with home.

Finn had a sword at his side, and on his back he carried a short bow of pale wood and a quiver of snowy-feathered arrows. Pendrake walked with a long, gently curved staff of polished wood and a leather bag slung over one shoulder. He carried no weapon that Will could see. For Will, Finn brought a long knife that was much like Rowen’s. He said that the hilts were new but that the blades had come from a storyland where a war was fought over a magic ring that made its wearer invisible. The knives were crafted to bite into wraiths that no ordinary weapon could harm.

“I know that story,” Will exclaimed. “I read the books. And I saw the movies.”

“Movies?”
Rowen asked.

“Another kind of story,” Will explained. “With pictures that move. So these knives come from
that
story? How did they get here?”

“They’ve been in the armoury a long time,” Finn said. “They were probably brought here by a traveller who bartered them for something else he needed more. A lot of weapons and magical objects end up in Fable that way.”

Finn had also given Will and Rowen each a pack to carry food and bedding, and supplied them with leather tunics and sturdy, well-fitting boots for long travel. The tunic was stiff and felt constraining. When Will first tried it on he’d complained the tunic was too small. He said it jokingly, not wanting Finn to know how scared he suddenly felt, now that his journey was really about to begin.

“It’s meant for protection, not comfort,” the young man had said with his usual coldness.

The knife felt strange on his hip. Will pulled it from its leather sheath once before they left Appleyard. It was heavier in his hand than he expected, and had no markings. The steel hilt was wrapped in dark leather, and the blade, burnished to a mirror-smooth lustre, tapered to an alarmingly sharp point. He tried to imagine stabbing someone with it, and quickly slipped it back into its sheath.

When they reached the road, Shade walked sometimes at Will’s side but often trotted ahead eagerly or plunged into the roadside greenery nose first. Will watched him, both amused and troubled by this fierce yet somehow innocent creature, and the way he had come into his life.

“Shade seems glad to be on the road,” Rowen observed.

“Fable was his first city, I suspect,” Pendrake said. “We’re finally in a world that he knows.”

“This
is
the world,” the wolf growled over his shoulder.

They went south-west towards the crossroads of the Bourne. As they walked the morning chill from their limbs, the sun rose behind a veil of mist. They walked through the quiet valley at an easy pace, past the farms and outlying houses. The same small dog Will had seen the night he arrived darted out of its gate barking, took one look at Shade and sped back the way it had come. There were fewer people on the road than there had been before, and Will wondered whether this was a good sign or not. He thought of asking Finn or the toymaker, but then he decided he didn’t want to risk any more bad news.

“There,” Rowen said, taking Will out of his thoughts. She was pointing to a wooded rise. “That’s where we came out of the Wood.”

Will looked at the faint track winding into the trees, and wondered where Moth and Morrigan were now.

Further along they descended into a dell shaded by drooping willow trees, and crossed a wooden bridge over a slow moving stream. On the far side of the dell they came out into dazzling sunshine. It promised to be a warm day. Birdsong soon filled the air. The roadsides were bright with summer flowers, and in the distance fields of ripening wheat and corn rippled in the morning breeze. The world seemed so peaceful that Will could not prevent a surge of hope from rising in him. He could almost believe his pursuers had gone far away, or forgotten him. Or that it had all been a mistake, the stories of darkness and evil were just that, only stories, and no one was hunting for him after all.

When the sun was well up in the sky they reached a slight rise, shaded by a ring of tall elms, where roads from five directions met. In addition to the road from Fable, here the wide stone high road of the Bourne ran north and south, and crossed the narrower but well-tended east–west way.

“Here is where you make your first choice, Will,” Pendrake said.

Will nodded tersely. He was annoyed but hoped it didn’t show. Why did it have to be his choice? He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going. Pendrake knew much more than he did about this world. And he was the one who had insisted that Will go on this journey in the first place.

Will sighed and looked about him, thinking over what he had learned from studying the toymaker’s maps. He knew that directly south on the high road lay the town of Goodfare, a day’s walk distant. To the east were Stook and Owlet, two tiny villages less than a mile away, the pale wood smoke of their chimneys visible above the trees. Other larger towns lay that way, too, and beyond them, the River Arrow and the eastern borderlands. To the north the high road wound up through a range of hills called the Brades and so to the citadel of Annen Bawn upon the Bourne’s stony northern marches. The road west led to several farming villages and other branching ways, then ended at the vast forest that had been spoken of with unease and concern the night before.

Yet he was here now, without the map, and in every direction he saw only trees, and flowering hedges, and green fields. There was no way to tell the roads apart, nothing to hint at what dangers each might have in store. He went still and waited for something inside to speak to him, but nothing came, or at least nothing certain. One moment a particular road seemed to beckon him, but the next moment it was another. While he stood and waited for some kind of revelation, and wondered how he would know if it
was
one, a wagon pulled by two stocky horses and loaded with barrels came up slowly from the south, then at the crossroads turned onto the road to Fable. The thick-set man driving the wagon glowered at them as he passed.

“Quests,” they heard him mutter sourly. “Why can’t folk just stay at home.”

Will found himself wondering the same thing. He turned in a circle, still undecided. Rowen sat down by the wayside, on a large flat stone that looked as if it had been carved as a seat for just that purpose. It occurred to Will that many travellers over the years must have sat here, like him, with a choice to make. Finn Madoc stood near by, gazing into the distance in each direction in turn. Shade went sniffing down one of the roads, seemingly unconcerned about the whole affair. Will avoided looking at the toymaker. Not for the first time he was sure the old man’s faith in him was misplaced.

Then he looked again at Shade, who was still nosing his way along one of the roads. Will called his name, and the wolf halted and came loping back.

“Don’t tell me that’s it already,” he grumbled. “You never get very far in your travels, Will Lightfoot.”

In spite of himself, Will smiled. Then he remembered the statue of Sir Dagonet, the Lord Mayor, at the crossing point of the city’s main streets. He thought of the dog barking to warn his master of danger, and an idea came to him.

“Shade will decide,” he said.

Rowen grinned and stood up. Finn shot a dubious glance at Pendrake, who merely nodded and said, “Very well.”

“You wish me to choose our road?” the wolf said, cocking his head to one side.

Will nodded, wondering what on earth he was doing.

“Then I will choose it,” Shade said. Without hesitation he trotted back the way he had just come, stopping once to look over his shoulder with a glare of annoyance that the others had not yet followed him.

“This way,” he called. “This is the way back to the lands I know.”

Shouldering their packs, the others walked along after him without speaking, and Will wondered if he had just made a terrible mistake. Shade had chosen the western road that led to the forest of Eldark.

For the rest of that day they followed the road through the farmlands in the west of the Bourne. They met many other travellers, most of them were country folk going about their business. Almost all were heading the way that Will and his companions had come, towards Fable. Some looked friendly, and smiled or exchanged a greeting, while others eyed them suspiciously, especially when they saw the wolf. Finn said that the nearer one came to the forest, the more wary folk were of strangers.

In the afternoon they halted at a branching where a slender track angled away north-west from the main road. Without hesitation Shade chose the narrower road. This led them for a while between fields of green barley and corn that in places rose over their heads. Then the countryside grew more rolling, and the road wound down through a pastureland dotted with clumps of trees, where cows grazed. Here and there steep hillocks with sides of naked rock jutted out of the softly rolling landscape.

As evening was falling they came out of the pastures. The road climbed between two steep hillsides and then levelled off. Ahead of them in the distance Will could see a few lights twinkling in the gloom.

“That would be the village of Hare’s Hill,” Finn said. “One of our riders passed this way yesterday, and reported all was quiet. There is an inn where we could sleep, and the folk are trustworthy.”

“But Lord Caliburn was right, we make a strange company,” Pendrake said, eyeing the wolf. “The news of our stopping there would be told to anyone else who came this way.”

“I know a place where we can shelter,” Shade said. “It’s not far.”

The others consented and the wolf led them away from the road, through a grove of stunted, thorny trees. The ground rose steadily and soon they found themselves at the foot of a grassy hillock. Shade led them round to the far side, and there they came to a small hollow ringed by three huge jagged stones that leaned together as though they were holding a secret conference.

“This will make a fine campsite,” said Finn, looking around approvingly. “It’s out of the wind, and gives some concealment. I think we can risk a fire.”

Rowen and her grandfather had been gathering dry sticks as they travelled, and now they set about making a fire, while Finn went off to scout the surrounding area.

As soon as he stopped walking and sat down heavily, Will’s feet began to throb and ache even worse than they had all day. He tugged off his boots, certain that he had never walked so much in a single day. Rowen looked tired, too, and even Shade was content to sit quietly near them. The toymaker wandered off a short distance, and seemed to be studying one of the stones.

Will rubbed his sore feet.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to walk again,” he groaned.

“Today wasn’t too bad,” Rowen replied. “Once we leave the Bourne there won’t be any nice smooth roads like this.”

Will gaped at her.

“If we don’t know where we’re going,” he said, “why are we hurrying?”

“We weren’t hurrying. I suppose people don’t walk much where you come from.”

Will said nothing. He had to admit it was true. At home, he rarely walked anywhere if he could avoid it.

“Have you met others like me?” he asked finally. “People that your grandfather has helped?”

“The last I know of was my father. He came here when he was a young man, from Elsewhere. He was determined to find his own way home. Until he met my mother.” Rowen smiled. “Grandfather says he was a lot like me.”

Will remembered the tapestry he had seen in Rowen’s bedroom, the man dressed in the clothing of his own world.

“Have you ever been there? To where your father came from, I mean.”

Rowen shook her head.

“I’d like to see the Untold. At least I think I would. But it’s not easy. And Grandfather says that once you’ve gone there, it’s even harder to find your way back.”

An owl hooted near by, an eerie sound that made Will aware of the unknown countryside surrounding them. He thought of the warmth and comfort of Pendrake’s house.

“What happened to them?” he asked. “Your mother and father.”

At first Rowen did not answer. She fed a handful of dry twigs into the fire, and then at last she spoke.

“When I was very young, we lived in the Brades, north of Fable. Our farm was called Blue Hill. One winter a large band of mordog came out of the north, looting and burning. Such a thing had not happened for many years.”