The Waterstone (10 page)

“It’s a gift!” Treeglyn snapped. “An
honor
!”

“So what happened all that time ago?” Tad asked quickly before Birdie could say anything else. “Did the Sagamore come and get the Stone?”

“So they
said
,” Treeglyn screeched. “But by the time anyone thought to wake me, it was all long over. My sisters were gone; the Kobolds were gone; and the Nixies were gone, too, or wherever they were, they weren’t talking.
Not
,” she added sharply, “that I would have tried to speak to them anyway, seeing how they had behaved.”

She ran her fingers through her wild hair, making it stand up in a tangle around her face. She had long, curiously bent fingers, Tad noticed, like twigs.

“The folk of the forest spoke of a great hero, but no one — you creatures are so short-lived — quite remembered who or what he was. By the time anyone thought to tell
me
anything, the Nixies had gone dormant, like apple trees, and the Waterstone was nowhere to be found.”

Her wild hair crackled and her voice grew more annoyed.

“One slips off for a refreshing nap . . . a matter of a few centuries or so. . . .”

“A few
centuries
?” Tad repeated.

“It doesn’t do to sleep too long,” Treeglyn said reprovingly. “Too long and you sleep deep and deeper until you forget about waking altogether. You
change.
The tree rings wrap around and around you, layer upon layer; the bark grows over you and covers your eyes. . . .”

“So why didn’t the Nixies just stay asleep?” Tad demanded. “Don’t
they
change?”

“They fight it,” said Treeglyn shortly. “Fight it, claw and scale. You don’t catch
them
settling for sleep when they could be up and about and making mischief. Grab-snatchers, every one of them, hunkering down at the bottom of their water, waiting for their next chance.”

“So they must have gotten their Stone back again,” Birdie said, “if they’re awake now and taking all the water.”

Treeglyn gave a wild pig – like snort.

“It was never
their
Stone,” she snapped. “It was a sacred trust.
They
tried to make it
their
Stone, which was where all the trouble began. Some things are not meant to be owned.”

Birdie began to bite her lip, which meant, Tad knew, that she was thinking.

“So if the Nixies have
the
Stone back,” she said carefully, “what happens next? What can we do?”

Treeglyn studied Tad, then Birdie, then Tad again, frowning.

“There’s a reason that you’re here, you two,” she said. “A reason you came to the black lake and then here to my tree. You’ll see. It will all become clearer to you as you go along.”

“I think,” she said finally, “that next you should go see Witherwood.”

“Who’s Witherwood?” Birdie asked.

Treeglyn ran her fingers through her hair again, which sprang up like bird straw, wilder than ever.

“They say his mother was a Dryad,” she said, “and if that’s true, he’s half a Witch, which may explain why he is as he is. He’s wise, Witherwood is; I’ll say that for him. There’s not much he doesn’t know. Though” — Treeglyn’s voice spiraled upward suddenly in a squawk —“what he chooses to tell may be another story. Still, Rune willing, you’ll get good advice from him.”

She hesitated for a moment, gazing at the children with a worried frown. “I wish I could go with you,” she said, “but of course I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” Birdie asked.

“Dryads,” Treeglyn said impatiently, “cannot leave their trees. If we try, we die. It’s like taking a fish out of water, though it takes longer. First we grow breathless and irritable.” Tad had a sudden terrible desire to giggle.
How would anyone notice?
he wondered. “Then there are headaches and digestive upsets. Then lethargy. And then we just fade away altogether. But you’ll be fine on your own. You look a capable pair.”

She eyed Tad and Birdie up and down.

“Stop slouching!” she snapped suddenly.

Hastily Tad and Birdie straightened their backs, and Pippit, croaking nervously, did his best to straighten his.

“Now that you’ve decided what to do,” Treeglyn said briskly, “best to be on your way. The sooner you take the first step, the sooner you’ll reach the last; that’s what I always say.”

Birdie’s eyes widened in surprise. It was one of Pondleweed’s sayings.

Treeglyn sprang to her feet and stamped across the floor toward the door. “Wait there!” she snapped.

The door banged shut behind her.

“What do you think she’s doing?” Birdie whispered. “Chasing away the squirrels?”

The door slammed open —
Pondleweed would never approve of the way Treeglyn handles doors
, Tad thought — and the Dryad reappeared. She was limping and her face was tight with pain. In her hand, she carried a short stick of rich brown wood.

“Oak,” she said briefly. She thrust it into Tad’s hand. It was warm and smelled sweetly of saps and resins. Faint patterns were traced on it. They looked, when he looked closely, like ripples of wild hair and the almost invisible features of a face. Tad looked up at Treeglyn, startled.

“Keep it safe,” she snapped. “And keep it with you. You may need it.”

“You’ve hurt yourself!” Birdie cried. “What happened?”

Treeglyn pressed her lips tight and shook her head. It was clear that whatever had happened, she wasn’t going to talk about it. She hobbled painfully across the room to an alcove that held a little wooden bed made of artfully bent and woven branches. The bed was covered with a green-and-brown patchwork quilt. Treeglyn reached beneath it and pulled out a small basket. “I’ll pack some food for your journey!” she screeched.

With Treeglyn’s last shrieked admonishments —“Pick up your feet! Don’t slouch! No loitering now!” — still ringing in their ears, they walked in single file along a dusty little forest path heading east. First came Tad, then Birdie, and finally Pippit, hopping excitedly and treading much too close to Birdie’s heels. Every few minutes he hopped into the backs of Birdie’s legs, which made her stumble and say “Stay
back
, Pippit!” and Pippit would look sulky.

“Is she always like that, do you suppose?” Birdie asked. “
Stop it
, Pippit! Treeglyn, I mean. So . . . bossy and snappy?”

A Remember flickered in Tad’s head. A wisp of a conversation shared. What had they been talking about? A voice heavy with resignation.
“Dryads!”
it said. “It’s always hurry up, stay in line, shoulders back, and stand up straighter! I can’t think where they get it! It must come of living among tree trunks.” Someone else — was it his voice? — laughed.

“I guess she is,” Tad said. “But she was nice too. I liked her.”

“I did too,” Birdie said. “I wish she would teach me how to speak her language. The tree language.”

Lamallalanga.
The word popped unbidden into Tad’s head.

“You could ask her,” he said. “If we see her again.”

He picked up his pace. “We should try to walk faster, Birdie. Treeglyn said it was a long way, and we want to get there before dark.”

It soon became clear that they would never reach Witherwood’s house before dark. Traveling became increasingly difficult. The path before Tad, Birdie, and Pippit was clogged with fallen branches and thickly overgrown with brambles and blackberry vines studded with knife-sized thorns. They struggled along, pushing their way through twisted masses of tendrils and snarls of twining branches. Now it was not so much a matter of walking as of crawling to wiggle under things, climbing to scramble over things, and sometimes squirming desperately to squeeze in between. Thorns tore at their fringed tunics. Birdie tripped over a twist of creeping woodbine and went sprawling, skinning both her knees. Tad’s hands were striped with bloody scratches. Pippit, who had stamped on a particularly nasty bramble, was limping. Tad desperately missed Pondleweed. If only his father were here to tell them what to do. He had never felt so alone.

By the time the path grew clear again, the light was growing dimmer and long shadows stretched across the forest floor.

“How much farther is it?” Birdie wanted to know. Her knees stung with every step.

Tad shook his head. What had Treeglyn said? A three-hour walk, she’d thought, with time for rests. It seemed as if they’d been walking much longer than that.

Then suddenly, from behind them, Pippit set up an anxious croaking. It was the last thing Tad needed to hear. He was hot, tired, and scratched all over, and there was no sign of their destination in sight. And now a fussing frog.

“Shut up, Pippit!” Tad snapped.

Pippit croaked louder.

“Tad!” Birdie tugged at his elbow. “Don’t yell at him. Listen! It’s his warning cry!”

The watchfrog was right, Tad realized. Something was coming. He felt a faint tremble of the dry ground beneath his feet, the vibration of something large advancing toward them, moving in the direction of the forest path. Birdie felt it too. She and Tad exchanged worried glances.

“We don’t know that it’s an enemy,” Tad said, talking lower. “It could be a big Hunter caravan, lots of wagons all traveling together. Father says they do that sometimes.”

Pippit croaked agitatedly and began to jump up and down.

“We don’t know that it’s a friend, either,” Birdie said. “Quick, Tad! Whatever it is, it’s getting closer. Let’s hide!”

Hastily they plunged into the brown underbrush off the side of the little beaten path and burrowed under a heap of dried leaves. Tad crawled forward on his elbows and raised his head, peering cautiously through a clump of concealing grasses. The light had dwindled further. It was true twilight now, and the forest was gray and dim, slowly fading toward night. Then, moving toward them from out of the forest, Tad saw glimmers of yellow light.

The lights were burning torches. The company that carried them marched in silence except for the heavy thump of many feet on the dry ground. There were dozens of marchers. The first ranks wore long black robes with deep hoods and wide belts of black leather. Their faces, even in the torch light, were hidden and invisible. Next came a phalanx of foot soldiers wearing leather boots, round leather caps, and quilted leather vests, and carrying long metal-pointed spears. Then bowmen, in curving helmets made from hawks’ beaks, with polished longbows and quivers filled with black-fletched arrows. The rhythmic tramp of their feet sounded threatening and ominous, like the slow rolling grumble of distant thunder before a summer storm. Tad caught his breath.

Birdie wriggled steathily forward and peered out under the leaves at Tad’s side.

“Who are they?” she whispered.

“Grellers,” Tad whispered. “They’re Grellers.”

The Remembers came so easily now that sometimes it seemed as if they truly were his own. He had heard the story around a campfire. They had camped on the floor of a sheltered canyon, he and Burris and Vondo, and had talked far into the night. He could see Burris as if he were sitting beside him now — his bright brown eyes, round and shiny as new horse chestnuts, glinting orange with reflected firelight — and could hear his voice as he told the tale:

“They left the Digger Tribe long ago. There was a quarrel, and the Grellers left to make new diggings of their own. Some say they lived aboveground for a time” — the voice became mocking —“foolish as the Fishers and the Hunter folk, which is where the name comes from: Greller, ground-dweller. Or they might have had a leader named Greller. Nobody knows. We became enemies. The Grellers turned from the Tribe.”

There was a silence, while all absorbed the enormity of the Grellers’ deed. Then:

“Eh, that’s Diggers for you!” Vondo, taunting, gold earrings and white teeth flashing in a dark brown face. “
Scritch . . . scritch . . . scritch . . .
Always the heads in the ground; no care for anything outside their own tunnels —”

Burris’s broad hand, covered in short red fur, shoving him over, both of them laughing.

“Better that than behaving like the Hunters, care-for-nothings, eating pillbugs —”

“I could do with a juicy pillbug right now! Better than your earthworms, furface!”

Scuffles. Laughter.

Unexpected pain lanced through Tad.
I saw them die.

He tore himself away from the Remember, thrusting it behind him, wincing away from it.

“Look,” Birdie whispered fearfully.

Behind the armed marchers came a row of larger shapes, small eyes glittering and long necks swaying snakelike in the light cast by the torches.

“Weasels!”
Tad whispered.

There were eight of the great black weasels. Each wore a harness of gleaming oiled leather set with nuggets of raw gold and rough-cut chunks of turquoise. Grimfaced riders perched on their shoulders, each armed with a metal-tipped leather whip.

The company took no notice of Tad, Birdie, and Pippit crouching silently in the underbrush. One by one, legs and arms swinging in unison, eyes resolutely forward, they turned onto the path and proceeded in the direction the children had been going, swiftly marching east. Tad uttered a long relieved sigh.

“We’ll have to follow them,” he said. “They’re going in the same direction we are. We’ll stay far enough behind so that they won’t see us. We’ll just have to be careful that we don’t fall over them suddenly in the dark.”