The Tree of Story (49 page)

The Stormriders had begun salvaging what they could from the ships to set up their own encampment on the Course. Finn approached the golem, standing patiently at Corr’s side.

“What will you do with Ord now?” Corr asked.

“He’s not mine to command,” Finn said.

“Perhaps not, but it’s better he stays in your keeping. I imagine he could be of great help rebuilding this city.”

Finn gazed up into the stony grey face of the golem, a face that had never blinked or smiled or changed in all that they had gone through together. He remembered how they had first found him, relentlessly piling stone upon stone to build a tower doomed to sinking into the mire. If they freed him, would he simply return to that futile task? Not even a creature like Ord deserved such a fate. Finn had often wondered where this powerful being had really come from, and now the answer was clear to him.

“Ord has done enough for us already,” Finn said.

He reached up, and as he plucked the green stone from the golem’s forehead, he said, “Sleep.” He backed away.

At first it seemed that this command was one the golem could not or would not obey. Then the grey stone eyes closed for the first time and the giant body of the golem began to sag and collapse in on itself. Ord’s face dissolved into a featureless mass. His hands became rough clubs. His legs fused. At last he toppled over, and there was nothing left of him but a lifeless mound of clay.

27

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON
L
ORD
Caliburn rode out to the stream with the Duke and King Shakya.

A curtained litter appeared in the Nightbane camp, carried by four bearers and flanked by four riders in armour. The fetches parted long enough for the litter to pass through. It carried the same black standard that had flown above the viceroy’s carriage. As the procession came slowly up the Course, many wondered what sort of terrible being was hidden behind those black curtains, but when they were drawn back and the viceroy emerged, supported by two of the litter-bearers, those with keen eyesight or spyglasses saw that the viceroy was only a man like them. He walked haltingly, as if he might have been injured in the overturning of his carriage.

The conference ended more quickly than anyone expected.
The two parties soon went their separate ways, and those who watched from a distance feared that the negotiations had not gone well and that the fighting would begin again. But the Nightbane host began to take down their tents and fortifications, and the order sounded for the allies to do likewise.

The siege and the battle were over. Many from both sides eyed the fetches apprehensively, but they stood motionless and seemingly dead, like cut stalks of wheat. What was left of the enemy forces began to trickle away in small companies, leaving most of their weapons and gear behind.

King Shakya rode back to his men, and as he dismounted before his pavilion, a young man in an Errantry cloak approached.

“I would speak with you, Sire,” the young man said. He was carrying a leather-bound book in one hand.

“Who are you?” the king asked. Through his golden mask his voice seemed to come from far away.

“I am Finn Madoc of the Errantry,” he said. “I’m here to keep a promise.”

By sunset Brax’s labyrinth of walls and narrow, twisted streets had almost completely crumbled away. A few people were brought alive out of the rubble, while many others had died and some who had disappeared days before were never found.

Rowen and Will found Pendrake in the ruins of the toyshop. He was still sitting in the chair, in what was left of his workshop. When Rowen knelt beside him, speaking his name softly through her tears, the old man lifted his head and opened his eyes.

“My child,” he said, touching her wet face in wonder, as if he doubted what he was seeing. “How can this be? Where are we?”

“We’re home, Grandfather. In the toyshop. I found a way home.”

Pendrake rose with Will’s help and they took him downstairs to the library. It was still strewn with the books Ammon Brax had been searching through, but this was one of the few rooms the hogmen had not defiled, and the walls and roof beams were still intact. The old man sank into one of the armchairs and Rowen knelt beside him and held his hand. Will gathered the broken pieces of a shelf from the hall outside and got a small blaze going in the fireplace.

“I turned the fetches back, Grandfather,” Rowen explained. “I turned them against the Nightbane. They obey me now, but I’ll release them from their armour once the enemy’s gone. The fetches will be free to return to the Weaving.”

Pendrake was staring into the fire and didn’t seem to hear her.

“No one understands what you’ve done,” Will said to Rowen. “Did you hear what people were whispering as we passed by in the streets? They think I did this. The Pathfinder. They don’t know it was you who saved them.”

“Every story needs a hero, Will,” Rowen said with a smile, then she grew serious again. “It’s better this way. Most people aren’t ready yet to hear the truth. It will take time for the vision of the thread to sink in. For folk to understand we all created this story and we don’t have to believe in it anymore.”

“So you don’t want me telling anyone what you’ve done?”

“Not now. Someday you’ll tell the whole story. When the time is right.”

Will glanced around uneasily.

“What happened to Brax?”

At the mention of the mage’s name, Pendrake stirred and looked up.

“He’s gone,” the old man said. “The fire took him.”

The Loremaster seemed to have recovered his presence
of mind. He asked Rowen what had happened to her after he left the Shadow Realm. She began to tell the story in more detail, but there was much she had trouble finding words for. When she spoke of the Night King and what she had discovered, a light came into the old man’s eyes.

“You would think,” he said with a bitter smile, “that a man who has told stories all his life might have understood.”

Will asked about the Marrowbone brothers, and Pendrake related what had happened to them.

“I’m sorry for them,” Rowen said. “Especially Hodge. It all could have turned out so differently.”

“The story you saved us from, Rowen, has destroyed many lives,” Pendrake said. “There are many who can still be helped, many stories that need mending, but I do not have the strength anymore for the task.”

Rowen stroked the old man’s hand.

“All you need to mend is yourself, Grandfather.”

“What will happen now?” Will asked. “If we’re beginning a new story, how will it end?”

“It won’t,” Rowen said. “Or I can’t see an ending. I think the thread will allow us a way out of all endings, Will, so that no story can do what Malabron’s did. No story can make us believe it is the
only
story ever again.”

They heard a noise at the door and hurrying feet, and Edweth entered, followed by Balor Gruff. The housekeeper threw herself at each of them in turn, holding them tight and weeping and stroking their hair. Everyone’s story was shared again, and when Edweth had listened and told her own tale, she insisted that the very next order of business was to make them all something to eat. She wept anew when she saw what had become of her beloved kitchen, but she didn’t weep long. Soon she had tied her apron on and was preparing a meal with her usual determined bustle.

Balor put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “You’ve done all that a knight could expect of his apprentice and more,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

“We all are,” Pendrake said.

While they were eating the meal Edweth had prepared, Finn and Freya arrived. Finn’s arm was no longer in its sling and the colour had returned to his face. Balor embraced him, and they spoke again of Doctor Alazar. Freya joined Rowen at Pendrake’s side and took the old man’s hand in hers and kissed it.

“I had hoped you were safely on your way home to your family, my dear,” Pendrake said to her.

“I will go home someday,” Freya said, and then glanced at Finn. “Not yet. I’m good with tools, Father Nicholas. I learned much from my father. I want to stay and help you rebuild the toyshop.”

“It should be rebuilt,” Pendrake said with a nod. “But it won’t have a toymaker, at least not for a while. Perhaps, Freya, if you stay in Fable, you could take up my trade and make toys for the children. They will need toys as much as anything after all this.”

“What do you mean, Father Nicholas? Are you leaving?” Freya said, and then understanding came into her face, and she leaned her head on Pendrake’s arm and wept.

Rowen understood, too. But she had thought of an answer.

“Grandfather,” she said softly. “Grandmother told me she had … become the past. She said she had woven herself into it, and that’s why she had to remain in the Weaving. I think that where she is, time doesn’t pass like it does here. Or maybe time doesn’t even happen there. I think that if you went there, if you found Grandmother, you could stay with her. You would be together again.”

Pendrake nodded sadly. “I promised Maya that I would
never leave you,” he said. “I can’t keep my promise, as it turns out. The werefire has made that a certainty.”

“But you can be with Grandmother,” Rowen said through her tears. “She lives in a cottage like the one at Blue Hill. It’s peaceful there. And maybe someday, when I’m finished what I have to do, I can visit you. I know the way now.”

“I will hold you to that,” Pendrake said softly. “And now, Will, help me up. It’s time.”

Will took the old man’s arm, and they helped him climb the stairs to the raincabinet. Edweth had come out of the kitchen and joined them, and when she understood what was happening, she struggled with her grief and embraced the Loremaster and wished him well.

“If you’re with her, as you should be, Nicholas, then all will be well.”

“What about you, Edweth?” Pendrake said, holding her hand. “I’m afraid I’ve left you without a house to look after.”

“Don’t concern yourself about me, Nicholas,” Edweth said. “Believe it or not, there’s a man in this city whose things are maintained in a worse shambles than yours ever were. I’ve already had a go at cleaning up after him, being cooped up and having nothing else to do, and I can see it’s a job that will keep me busy for much time to come.”

They gathered in front of the open door of the raincabinet. Only a few drops were falling softly in the darkness.

“If I understand what you’ve done, Rowen,” Pendrake said, “this isn’t the only doorway in and out of the Weaving anymore.”

“Maybe it never was, Grandfather,” Rowen said. “I think the Weaving isn’t really a place. It’s more like a way of seeing. Seeing how things really are.”

Balor grunted in surprise and they all turned to the cabinet doorway, where a tiger stood watching them. It had come out of the rain without a sound.

“Riddle will guide you to Grandmother,” Rowen said.

The Loremaster said his farewells to everyone. He held Rowen for a long while before he let her go. But at last he turned to the raincabinet door and stepped under the falling rain with the tiger at his side, and they were gone.

Everyone was quiet when they went back to the study. Without anyone having to speak, they all began the work of putting things to order as much as was possible: picking up books and returning them to their places, righting fallen shelves, sweeping the rooms and the halls of trash and broken furnishings. It seemed foolish to Will whenever he glanced up and saw daylight falling through the cracks and holes in the walls. The building itself was a ruin. But he understood. They were doing this for the Loremaster, and for themselves.

Freya was startled when she ventured into the rubble at the back of the toyshop, where the upper floor had fallen away. Something gave a squeal of terror and darted past her into the front hall. They all ran over to see what it was, and there, cowering in a corner, was a fat brown and pink-spotted pig, with the shreds of what might have once been a fine velvet coat still hanging around his neck.

“It’s Hodge!” Rowen said.

“You’re right,” Will said. “Look at his face. I guess the werefire didn’t destroy him.”

Rowen approached the terrified animal, speaking to it in a soft, soothing voice. Just as she was about to place a hand on it, the pig sprang out of its corner, bolted down the hall and was caught, squealing and snorting, in Balor’s arms.