The Shadow of Malabron (24 page)

He whispered a word to Morrigan, and with a flap of her black wings the raven lifted from his shoulder and flew off in the direction they had come.

“I’ve heard of this Angel,” Finn said, “but always in the oldest stories. I thought he had been destroyed ages ago.”

“So it was thought,” Moth said. “I knew him once as Lotan, a traitor to his people. After Eleel fell, his own slaves rose against him, returning hate for hate. They feared he might come back even from death, so they cut off his head, burned his body, wrapped it in chains and threw it into the sea. They were right to fear.”

“I’ve heard about him,” Will said, remembering the story Pendrake had told about the city of Eleel. Everyone looked at him. “He was…”

“A prince of the Shee,” Moth finished, his eyes on Morrigan as she dwindled to a blurry black speck on the horizon. “Now he is a lord of the Shadow Realm, where stories fall into darkness. His body was destroyed, but through sorcery he was able to mould dead flesh over the nothingness that is his spirit. He can see like a cat in darkness, run day and night without tiring, without sleep. Steel shatters on his spell-guarded flesh, and fire does not harm him.”

He turned to Will.

“The Angel does not stop until he has found his prey.”

They floated across the lake in the dark, and then the moon came out from a black bank of cloud, a shining white face that seemed to be watching them. Its pale light turned the water to silver. As the companions shared what little food they had, Will told Moth the tale of how he had found Shade in the Library. Pendrake described the journey from Fable and their captivity in the storyshard.

“I believe Morrigan and I saw the golem, on our way to find you,” Moth said. “He was heading straight north, and moving at astonishing speed. We had no idea what he was or where he was going, and our concern was to find you, so we didn’t bother about him.”

“North,” Finn said quietly.

“As an arrow flies,” Moth said, turning to look at the young man.

“This is Finn Madoc, of the Errantry,” Pendrake said to him.

The archer bowed.

“I met your brother once,” he said. “A brave man. I hope he finds his way home.”

Finn bowed in return but said nothing.

“What’s in the north?” Will asked Rowen in a whisper.

“The Night King’s fortress was there, in the time of the Great Unweaving. The Armanath. It’s mostly just wasteland now, Grandfather says. Beyond is Arkland, the wilderness of ice and snow.”

By this time the raft had drifted to a part of the lake that was broken up into channels between small rocky hillocks and larger islands thick with trees and undergrowth. Moth and Finn took up the poles again to keep the raft in the midst of the current that was tugging them steadily westward. Will noticed again, as he had at the snug that first night, that the archer kept as far apart as he could from those around him.

Rowen gave Will some water from her flask, and sat beside him quietly, a look of tense concentration on her face, as if she were listening for the slightest sound out of the ordinary. Pendrake stood near them, withdrawn into his own thoughts, and from time to time the old man would shake his head, or mouth words to himself, as though he were reaching deep into his gathered lore for something half remembered. His grim, weary look had not changed since they had discovered the identity of their pursuer.

“Grandfather,” Rowen finally said, and the old man stirred, “what you did, back on the shore, with the light…”

“I should not have done,” Pendrake said, finishing her sentence. “There was little choice, but it may cost us dearly.”

“What
did
you do?” Will asked.

“I reached into the Weaving,” Pendrake said. “Something I have not attempted for a long time. All stories wait there, as possibilities, as dreams of what might be. Like the flame waits in dry kindling.”

“But you helped us escape the fetches,” Will said.

“And changed the weave of the Kantar. A dangerous thing to do. The Night King waits in his Shadow Realm, like a spider in its web, for any twitch or quiver in the threads he has woven to catch his prey. I didn’t just touch a thread, I gave one a good tug. And that may have made it much easier for Malabron’s creatures to find us.”

“I didn’t know,” Rowen said, staring at her grandfather with a look of mingled awe and fear. “I didn’t know a loremaster could do these things. I thought only the Stewards had that power.”

“Not everything the Stewards taught was lost,” said Pendrake, and then he turned away to gaze out across the water. It was clear that he didn’t want to say any more.

In the moonlit dimness ahead of them they saw a cluster of tiny glimmering lights that seemed to be close to the surface of the water.

“What is that?” Rowen cried.

As they approached, the lights quickly went out. The raft passed the spot where the lights had been, and in the pale light Will could just make out what appeared to be a low mound of earth and twigs, like a tiny island.

“Creelings,” Moth said, as they left the mound behind. “Smallfolk. That mound is one of their cities. We are floating on another one.”

Rowen sat up suddenly and touched the surface of the raft.

“This is a … city?”

“It was, once,” Moth said. “There is no one in it now. The creelings often move from place to place. They like to keep to themselves, so they use these floating islands as decoys, to mislead anyone who comes this far into the bog. Morrigan and I met the creelings long ago, and befriended them. They were kind enough to lend us one of their floating islands for our escape.”

Will peered through the gloom at the island as it slid away behind them, but saw nothing. How empty it seemed out here in the wild, and yet how full it might be with creatures that he simply couldn’t see or wouldn’t notice because he didn’t know where to look. Or how.

He felt the world around him brimming with an unseen energy, a tumult of stories just beyond his sight. Was this the Weaving the toymaker had spoken of? Then the sensation passed, and the world was just the world again. Wind and water and darkness.

After a time Morrigan returned and perched on Moth’s shoulder. Shade was surprised again, and glared at the raven as though he was tempted to lunge at it. Will reached out and hesitantly scratched the wolf behind the ears, more glad than ever of his company. To his relief, Shade did not flinch from the touch but seemed to welcome it. He lifted a huge paw and placed it gently on Will’s arm.

“How are you now, Will Lightfoot?” he asked.

“Better,” Will said. The numbing chill in his veins was ebbing, but now and then he caught what seemed to be a faint echo of
her
voice, like ghostly whispers in his head. He stirred, restlessly wishing for some way to banish these phantom murmurings.

“I don’t understand about the fetches,” he finally said to Moth. “If they’re ghosts, how can arrows hurt them?”

“No weapon of wood or metal can harm them,” the archer said, his eyes still keenly scanning the wooded shore of the large island they were passing. “My arrowheads are engraved with runes to cut the spellstrings that hold the
annai
captive to the Night King’s will. Once that bond is broken, the fetch can pass on. It is no longer bound to another’s desires.”

“So the ones you shot won’t come after us any more?”

“Some fetches linger whether a spell holds them or not, hating the living and doing them harm. But most vanish and are never seen again. Whatever they are, though, they all speak with the same voice, that of their master.”

“You could hear them?”

“Could you not?” Moth asked, turning to look at Will at last, his gaze cold and piercing.

Will nodded, but kept silent, afraid to admit to one of the Hidden Folk that the fetches were still whispering in his thoughts. He felt safer now that Moth had joined their company, but the archer’s mood was even more grim and aloof than it had been when they first met. He was strung as tightly as his own bowstring, tensed and ready for anything, and for the first time Will glimpsed the fiery spirit brooding within the Tain warrior. He would charge into certain death, Will thought, without hesitation.

The steady lapping of the waves was soothing, and soon Will found he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Pendrake saw him drooping and urged him to sleep while he could. Gratefully Will curled up with his head resting on Shade’s warm flank.

A shriek from Morrigan brought him back to wakefulness. He opened his eyes to see the raven alight on Moth’s arm, squawking frantically. The sky was pale grey. It seemed to Will he had been asleep only a few minutes, but the night had passed and dawn had come.

“Everyone crouch down and do not move,” Moth said in a low but commanding voice.

As they obeyed him the archer turned, scanned the water ahead of them, and pointed.

“Finn, we must find shelter.”

While the others stayed low, Moth and Finn poled the raft swiftly and noiselessly to the nearest of the islands and ran it in under the cover of some drooping willow trees.

“What is it?” Rowen whispered, and Moth put a finger to his lips. They waited like this for a few breathless moments, and then they heard a faint sound that swiftly grew louder, a billowing and snapping like a flag fluttering in a strong wind. As whatever it was passed overhead, Will peered up through the canopy of leaves and for an instant saw a ragged white shape, rippling and writhing in the air. In the next instant the thing had passed and the sounds faded. Moth rose from a crouch and the others did likewise.

“I can answer your question now,” he said to Rowen. “Lotan travels on foot, but now he has a watcher in the sky, like we do with Morrigan.”

“It looked like a white sheet,” Will said.

“It is his cloak,” Moth said. “A creature of nightmare called a shrowde. It has bound itself to Lotan, and gives him concealment, so that he may go unseen. The cloak also shields him from the sun, whose rays burn his borrowed flesh. But if need be he will send the shrowde from him, to scout ahead. The creature can see, and hear, although like the fetches its powers are diminished in daylight.”

“Then we can’t stay on the lake,” Rowen said. “That thing might come back this way and spot us.”

“I do not think we are far from the western shore,” Moth said, and suddenly he turned, as if he had heard or sensed something. He leapt from the raft to the island’s stony shingle, which rose steeply from the water to the trees.

The others quickly followed him. On the crest of the slope above them, green trees touched by the light of dawn, beckoned like a vision of summer on a dark winter’s day. Morrigan circled over their heads, calling with what sounded to Will like joy.

“My people have been here,” Moth said, and Will stared at him, startled at the change in the archer’s voice. To his surprise, Moth unbuckled his black sword and cast it down on the pebbled shore as if it was a hated thing. With Morrigan on his shoulder he climbed the slope, gazing straight ahead like someone in a trance, and passed under the leafy shade. After a moment, Will and his friends followed.

In the centre of the island, in a hollow of stone ringed by trees, lay a small still pool of clear water. Moth was already there on one knee. He held his open hand over the surface.

“Énye Taina thu qantar
,” he whispered. “
El’il
…”

He looked up, his gaze far away.

“The Green Court was here. My people rested in the shade of these trees. The Lady of the Starlight sat beside this pool and sang of Eleel.”

Small white flowers grew among the thick moss beside the pool, and Moth passed his hand over these as well. Will remembered that he had seen this particular flower before, depicted in glass above the gate into Fable.

“The flower is called
aíne
,” Finn said to him quietly. “They say it grows wherever the Lady has been. That’s why it was named for her.”

“Can you tell how long ago they were here?” Pendrake asked Moth. For a long time the archer did not answer. Then he rose to his feet, and Will saw that his eyes were shining.

“Days. Or years,” Moth said, shaking his head. “Nor could I say which way they went after they left the island. There was a time when I could have followed them, and found them, but no more.”

He turned and walked away slowly through the trees.

Rowen had strayed further than the others and returned with the news that there were wild berries growing near by.

She turned to lead the way, and Will was about to go with her when he remembered Moth’s sword. The archer had left it lying on the shingle and had apparently forgotten it. While the others followed Rowen, Will turned back and climbed down to the shore. The sword lay there, like something cast up by the waves. Will picked it up by the scabbard, which felt ice cold to the touch, and perfectly smooth. He had been right: the scabbard was made of a lightweight black stone, or something that felt very much like stone.

Will meant to tuck the weapon under his arm and return it straightaway to Moth, but something made him hesitate. He touched the hilt, which was as cold as the scabbard, and like it shone with a lustrous darkness blacker than night. It seemed as if hilt and scabbard were one single piece, and now Will wondered whether there really was a blade concealed inside.

“Are you not coming, Will Lightfoot?”

Startled, he looked up to see Shade at the edge of the trees, regarding him with curiosity.

“In a moment,” Will said with a twinge of anger. Why did everyone have to watch him all the time?

“That is the Nightwanderer’s sword.”

“I know that. You needn’t wait.”

Shade seemed about to reply, then he turned and loped back into the trees. When he was gone, Will fixed his attention on the sword. If anything, the wolf’s interruption had made him even more eager to solve the mystery of the archer’s strange blade. He hesitated a moment longer, holding his breath, and then he drew the sword from the scabbard.

The blade made a sharp ringing sound as it slid out, but unlike the ring Will’s knife made, this sound did not fade quickly away. Instead it lingered in his ears, a faint metallic hum that was vaguely troubling. He held the sword before him and was disappointed to see that there was nothing unusual about it, as far as he could tell. The blade looked rough and dull-edged, not polished and reflective like his own knife, as though it was made of some raw, impure ore. Will turned the sword this way and that, trying to catch some kind of gleam on its surface. There was none, but as he peered closely at the blade he noticed that the sword’s eerie hum had become a kind of low vibration, more a warmth in the hand than a sound. He could feel it against his palm, growing to a pulsing heat, and as he continued to stare at the blade, he felt a hot, exhilarating dread grow inside him, as if in answer.