The Tree of Story (11 page)

“Father Nicholas,” she cried. “Don’t listen to the mage. You mustn’t let them—”

She broke off, stepped back. She had seen what Brax had seen in the old man’s eyes.

The mage moved swiftly. He caught Freya by the arm once more and brought the blade to her neck.

“Reveal yourself!” he roared at the old man.

In the next instant Nicholas Pendrake was gone and a huge tiger, its tawny coat rippling like fire in the dark hall, crouched on the stairs. Thorne let out a growl of fear and surprise, and the Errantry troopers raised their weapons. The tiger stared only at Brax and did not move. But now the mage had seen something else in the depths of those strange yellow eyes, and he knew that he had won. He thrust Freya away from him.

“You came from wherever the Loremaster’s power does,” he said under his breath. “The old man
made
you.”

He raised his staff with both hands.

“We mustn’t let it escape,” he shouted to the troopers. “We have to keep it here.”

Without warning the tiger gave a roar that seemed to shake the walls and then it sprang at the mage. At the same moment Brax swept his ivory staff upward. The tiger was caught in mid-leap and hung in the air on the point of the obsidian blade, but it had not been pierced by the knife-sharp stone. It was only held there, thrashing and writhing as though caught in an invisible net, its bright shape dimming like a guttering candle flame. Then, as if the flame had been snuffed out, the tiger vanished.

Brax lowered the staff with shaking hands. It was empty of its dark spellcraft now but that no longer mattered. It had been enough. Just enough.

Thorne and his men also lowered their weapons. Hodge and Flitch were still cowering on the floor. Freya had backed away when the tiger leaped and now she bolted for the door, but Flitch moved in time to bar her way. His huge hand closed around her ankle and twisted her sideways. She fell with a sharp cry.

Brax turned in a slow circle. He drew a deep breath, willing his hammering heart to slow. He was closer than ever to what he sought. The tiger, the shapeshifter, had come from the same source as the werefire, he was sure of it. Whether he had killed the creature or only wounded it, he didn’t know, and so he would have to move quickly. Somewhere in the house, he knew for certain now, the source of the shapeshifter’s power lay hidden. This time, with the help of the hogmen, he would find it.

Freya lay on the stone tiles of the front hall, clutching her ankle and grimacing in pain. Flitch stood over her, scowling. “You shouldn’t have run,” he muttered.

“Are you hurt?” Captain Thorne asked Freya, but she ignored him and stared with blazing eyes at the mage. The captain turned to Brax, as well. “You were right, Master Brax,” he said. “Whatever that thing was, it was not Nicholas Pendrake. Fortunately it didn’t harm anyone before you destroyed it.”

If Thorne had been impressed with the mage before, his expression was now one of awe. He had seen him tear apart a powerful being of flame and dark magic, and now he would do almost anything Brax told him to without question. He had no idea he’d witnessed the very last trick up Brax’s sleeve. There would be no more such displays if the mage did not find what he sought, and soon.

Thorne ordered his men to search the house for Rowen and the others. They hurried up the stairs and Brax watched them, trying not to let his impatience show. He wanted the captain and his men out of here. Time was against him. In a few days this city would be under siege, and not long after that, he was sure, it would be a smoking ruin. By then he had to have that power or he was finished forever.

“What was that thing?” Flitch said.

“It was the fire, brother,” Hodge mumbled. “Not the werefire. The good kind.”

“What do you mean, the
good
kind?” Flitch snapped. “It might have torn our throats out, like that damned wolf.”

“The wolf isn’t here anymore,” Hodge said.

Brax turned to the hogman. “You’re certain of this?” he asked.

“The wolf is with the girl and she’s gone, too.”

“How can you possibly know that, you gibbering dolt,” Flitch growled.

“I just know.”

“The two of you are coming back to Appleyard with me as soon as we’re finished here,” Thorne said. “In the meantime, keep your mouths shut.”

“Actually, Captain, I would like to keep these two with me,” Brax said. “Here at the toyshop. Whether the girl is found or not, this is a loremaster’s house, and if I’m going to help defend Fable, I must continue my investigation into what happened to Nicholas Pendrake. These two hogmen can be of service to me in that. Let me care for the Skalding woman, as well. If she’s broken any bones, I will tend to them.”

Thorne frowned. “You want to keep the hogmen here? You know I must inform the Marshal about what’s happened, Master Brax. He won’t be pleased to learn these two aren’t locked up at Appleyard.”

“Then perhaps it’s best you don’t inform him of the fact—at least not right away. I will have to work quickly and unhindered to get to the bottom of all this, and I need you to stand with me, Captain. The threat to Fable is beyond anything Lord Caliburn has ever dealt with, and we can’t wait while he deliberates and follows the old, safe ways of doing things. You understand that better than anyone. This city
needs our boldness and our willingness to do what must be done, however unpleasant.”

Thorne took a deep breath and then nodded. “The Marshal has other concerns,” he said. “You may keep the hogmen with you, but they must not be allowed out of the toyshop.”

Brax lifted his staff. He could feel the deep crack running through its heart. It held no more power now than any broken stick, but it could still be of use. He tapped the staff once, softly, on the floor, and the Marrowbone brothers quailed before it.

“Captain Thorne, I can promise you,” he said with a thin smile, “they will stay put and behave themselves.”

6

W
ILL HAD NO IDEA
how long they’d been travelling through the Weaving. It could have been moments or hours. Time was different here. His awareness of its passing seemed to come and go. He remembered walking into the raincabinet and ducking his head against the falling water, and the next thing he knew, he and Shade were following Rowen through vague, shadowy streets between tall, lightless grey buildings. Then the houses and streets had fallen away and they were hurrying through thick, gloomy woods.

They were moving much faster than should have been possible through this trackless forest, Will had thought, until he realized that everything around them was moving, too. Moving and changing. Walls of foliage parted like curtains to reveal a way forward. Tangles of thorny branches uncoiled themselves or melted into nothing but shadows.
A huge tree rose up directly in their path, but as they drew closer, the tree divided into many smaller trees whose slender trunks they could pass between.

Eventually Will realized that Rowen was making a path for them to follow. She was bending and shaping this strange world around her,
telling
it the way she had told the raincabinet into concealing itself.

The woods melted away into a wide, open plain of grass, and then the plain buckled and heaved itself into rocky hills, and still they hurried on at an impossible pace. From time to time dim shapes of people would loom up out of the shifting shadows and swiftly melt away again. Some of them seemed to notice Will’s presence: they raised their hands as if to hail him, speak to him, but he avoided meeting their gazes and kept moving, not daring to lose sight of Rowen. And like everything else in the Weaving the figures quickly melted and changed, becoming a stone or a tree or simply a trick of light and shadow.

Then it happened. A house swam up out of the shifting murk. A house tucked in among sleepy-looking trees, with a wooden front porch that needed painting, a peaked green-tiled roof and warm lights in the windows.

It was the house Will had grown up in.

He stopped in surprise. He took his eyes off Rowen and Shade only for a moment, but it was enough. When he turned to them again, they were gone.

Now he was standing in front of his old house, on the street of his childhood. He had grown up here. He had lived here until the day his mother died and then his childhood had ended.

It was all so real. The world was no longer changing around him. The familiar trees, fences, telephone poles—everything was where it belonged and just as he remembered
it. The front walk was solid under his feet. It seemed he really had left the Weaving. He had come home.

Yet it was the middle of the day and the street was deserted. That was strange. Old Mrs. Morrison wasn’t sitting on the rocker on her front porch. No one was mowing the lawn or washing the car. There were no kids riding their bikes or skateboarding, and there should have been because it was summer. Unless it wasn’t summer here. Time passed differently in the Perilous Realm. He knew that. Maybe he had come home on a day when everyone was at work or at school. Or had he come home at all?

Will gazed around at the silent street and tried to think. If he had really left the Weaving, he had to get back. He had to find Rowen and Shade again. He couldn’t leave them. But if he was still in the Weaving, what then? Rowen had told him the Weaving was like the world of one’s dreams. If he was in a dream now, could he wake himself up?

Not knowing what else to do, he climbed the creaking steps of the porch. The front door was open. He went in.

The house was dark inside and cool.

“Dad?” he called. “Jess?”

There was no answer. No one was in the front room.

He walked down the hallway to the kitchen at the back and was reaching for the light switch when he saw a shadow move on the wall beside him. He whirled with a cry.

Someone was standing in the dark hall. Someone in a bulky hooded coat. In the dim light Will couldn’t make out a face in the shadows under the hood.

“Don’t move,” said a man’s voice that was out of breath and strained. Something about the voice was familiar, too, though Will could not place it. All he knew for certain was that this man had been running, hiding from something or someone.

“I live here,” Will said.

“Take a step backward,” the man said. “Just one.”

Will hesitated, then did as he was told. He took a step and his face came out from the shadows into the light from the kitchen window.

The man gave a grunt as if surprised by what he saw. “It really is you,” he said. “The threads are all tangled. It’s happened before, the stories getting mixed up like this. But I’ve never seen you. You’re still at the beginning and me …”

He was talking to himself, Will realized.

The man shook his head slowly. “No telling how long it will last,” he murmured. And then Will felt rather than saw the man’s eyes fix on him. “No time,” he said. “You have to listen. You have to listen to me. Don’t make the same mistake I made.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Will said in as calm a voice as he could manage. The stranger sounded desperate, almost crazed. His unexpected, menacing presence here in Will’s own childhood home already felt like an act of violence, and he braced himself for whatever might follow.

The man seemed about to say more, then he lifted his head as though listening for something. Will’s eyes had begun to adjust to the dim light and he could make out more of the stranger’s face. He saw a sharp cheekbone, a thin fringe of beard and two sunken, haunted eyes. It was the face of a young man, but one who had lived through great terror or hardship. The eyes were familiar, too, like the voice. Will was sure he had met this young man somewhere or had seen him before, though he could not think when or where.

Then he heard whatever it was the stranger had heard: a distant roar and rumble, punctuated by metallic groans. Like the noise of great machinery at work somewhere not far off.

“They’re getting closer,” the young man said. “It won’t be long now. Listen to me. Where you’re going, you must stay with her. No matter what. Do you hear me?”

Will said nothing. This stranger, whoever he was, seemed to know him, and knew about Rowen. But Will wasn’t going to give anything away. This could be a shape-changing creature, like one of those fetches, sent here to trick him.