Thorn Boy and Other Dreams of Dark Desire (47 page)

Without
planning a destination, he eventually found himself upon the road
that wound along the edges of Coolcandle Forest. The dark between
the trees seemed to beckon him; he felt soothed by it. By the
roadside, he came upon an old, wooden barrel that appeared to act
as a post box for lake-bound mail, and here there was a track,
leading into the forest. Filerion followed it. The strong scent of
the foliage enveloped him like the water of a scented bath. He felt
comfortably drowsy. Now, he would rest, shaded and fanned by
fragrant ferns. Tomorrow, he could plan his future.

Filerion woke
with the dawn. He stared up through the shivering fronds, arching
over him protectively and decided he could not bear to set foot
once more upon the hard, open road. Let the forest take him. He sat
up, ate some food from his pack, drank some water and ventured
further into the trees.

He travelled
this way for three days. To complement his meagre food supply, he
ate berries and nuts he recognised as edible. Later on, he unpacked
his slender knife and confidently, if inexpertly, killed and
skinned a small animal. He changed direction many times, doubling
back, leaving the paths, investigating each intriguing sound. At no
time did he feel in any danger. At first, it seemed he was the only
human creature in the forest, but as time went on, he scented smoke
and once passed a camp of charcoal-burners, who paid him no
attention. At night, resting in open glades, he patiently persisted
in the art of making fire. During the day, as he wandered, he was
wooed by the low, enchanting song of hidden life, and entranced by
the stranger places that seemed to vibrate with sentience, and
where there was no sound at all.

On the morning
of the fourth day Filerion discovered a brown, dusty pathway
shadowed by ancient trees. Short, dark green grass grew between the
massive, moss-carbuncled trunks. In the distance, he could hear the
sound of water running. Filerion felt a quickening of excitement
within him. The track appeared to have been beaten down by human
feet. Perhaps it would lead him to a deep forest settlement. What
kind of people would live there? Would they be friendly or
hostile?

At length, the
trees thinned and a large glade was revealed, overlooked by a
soaring, crag that reared above the trees. Filerion immediately
recognised the marks of cultivation in the glade. Against the dark
rock at the farther end stood a tall, black house.

Filerion
froze, staring. The house exuded a powerful air of great age, its
eccentric design suggesting someone quite apart from conventional
thinking had built it. There was no sign of life, however; no curl
of smoke, no sound, no open window or door. Brooding eaves overhung
the dark bricks. Grass and moss mantled the sagging roof. A weather
vane poised motionless among the tall, narrow chimneys. Every bit
of the building showed signs of neglect and decay.

After maybe
half an hour of cautious scrutiny, Filerion convinced himself that
if the house did have inhabitants, they must be old or dead.
Summoning courage, he walked up to the front door, which swung open
when he knocked on it. Filerion paused at the threshold, then
entered the building. What had he to lose? A search within revealed
the place deserted.

Dusty
furniture stood disintegrating beneath shawls of spider-web. In a
spacious, low-ceilinged kitchen at the back of the house, Filerion
found a large, cracked sink filled with leaves. There were
corridors and passages to explore, scurrying things darting from
his sight as he crept through the silence. There were stairs to
climb; stairs that wound, stairs that swept purposefully straight,
stairs behind doors, stairs down to darkness. And there was a
multitude of rooms; big rooms, small rooms, empty rooms, rooms with
books, rooms with torn, heavy curtains, rooms with bare, high
window-frames, rooms with beds. The place was enormous. Enormous
and unused.

Filerion found
himself once more in the kitchen, after having carefully made his
way down a narrow, dark stairway with a door at the bottom. He
dropped his bags upon the large central table, tested the pump
above the sink and was eventually rewarded by a trickle of clear
water. It was obvious no one had lived in the tall, black house for
considerable time. Filerion took a drink of the water, found it
good, and straightened up to assess his find. He breathed deeply.
Yes, he thought to himself, the house had a good feel. Solemnly, he
spoke aloud, introducing himself, asking if he might be allowed to
stay for a while. Silence. But not a menacing silence.

He decided to
stay there for a couple of days until some plan presented itself
for the future. In the meantime, he thought, he could tidy the
place up a little. He took off his thick cloak, bound up his glossy
black hair and rolled up his linen shirtsleeves. Brooms were found
in a cupboard and he tore down some of the ragged curtains to use
as cleaning cloths. By mid-afternoon, the kitchen was almost
habitable.

Pausing to
refresh himself, Filerion heard an eerie scratching at the back
door. Suppressing a tremor of apprehension, he wrenched open the
protesting door and looked out. At first nothing. Then: ‘meow.’
Filerion looked down. A small grey cat sat upon the doorstep,
smiling. ‘Meow, pee-urr, yeowrrr!’ it said, and to Filerion it
sounded as if the cat was saying, ‘At last, you’ve finally
arrived.’

The couple of
days extended into a couple of weeks. Treasure after treasure
revealed themselves in the tall, black house. Not jewels or gold or
rare paintings, or any such riches, but useable crockery; packets
of seeds; a keg of salt; bales of twine; bottles, some still full
of wine; a chest crammed with blankets packed in lavender and sage;
baroque mirrors; bolts of cloth; jars of beeswax; dried herbs
hanging like mummified limbs in a closet, and many books.

The cat, whom
Filerion named Segila, followed him from room to room, jumping onto
the windowsills, whispering cruelties at the birds outside, jumping
down again to wash herself and generally keep him company.

Time sped by;
a holiday of exploration and renovation. Gradually, Filerion
accepted the fact that some part of him had decided to stay
indefinitely, and he gave in to that desire with little fight. The
house seduced him, constantly leading him to find things of use, to
bring comfort to his life. There were caves in the cliffs behind
the garden, some with pools of sweet, clear water. At one time,
someone had constructed a plumbing system, using as supply a
natural reservoir found within the caves, and had connected it to
the house. Filerion inspected the pipe-work and found it sound. A
survey of the garden and orchard revealed overgrown vegetable
plots, masses of riotous, giant herbs and fertile fruit trees.
There were hives for bees, sadly empty, but, Filerion reasoned, if
he could restore the garden, he could grow things to sell in the
villages that punctuated the road to Celestia and Grote. Maybe he
could buy some bees one day.

Buy bees he
did. And a goat, some hens, grain, meat and white, glistening sugar
in a sack. The garden responded to his attentions and even the
first harvest, only months after he’d begun work, rendered a
pleasing income. Sometimes, Filerion wondered who had lived in the
house before him, why they had left it, and whether they’d been as
contented as he was now. Surely, countless lives before his own had
whiled away the dark, green hours beneath this roof? Many of the
books he’d found had been written by hand, in graceful, curling
script. The subject matter was often esoteric and strange, as well
as being practical and eminently useful. Since studying them,
Filerion had learned how to heal his body, whether of disease,
wounds or spiritual ennui. He could treat his animals effectively.
All of the plants required were on hand in the garden, waiting to
be discovered and nurtured once more as Filerion cleared the ground
of weeds. The strength of will to empower the remedies he drew from
the trees themselves.

There was only
a single stain on his happiness. One afternoon, in summer’s full
heat, Filerion took mop and brooms to the uppermost floor of the
house. It consisted of a single passageway, with three doors
leading off it, and had the feeling and smell of a place that had
not been disturbed for years. There was almost an air of resentment
at Filerion’s intrusion. Summer was shut out there. Filerion did
not like it. He turned to say to Segila, ‘Perhaps this part can
wait...’ and then noticed Segila was not behind him. A shiver of
unease slipped up his spine. Usually, the cat followed him
everywhere. He stepped backwards, not through feeling threatened,
but wanting to avoid something he thought would be unpleasant,
sickening. The house would not allow that. It was quite emphatic.
As if dazed, Filerion let it show him a small, dismal room at the
end of the corridor.

Afterwards, he could not remember clearly what he had seen;
only a feeling of depression had remained, but words whispered
through his head for the rest of the day, faint yet
persistent:
‘This is why, this is why,
this is why...’
Filerion avoided that area of the
house thereafter.

Two years
passed and during that time, Filerion devoted himself to repairing
the tall, black house and its gardens. His old life seemed a
hideous, tawdry, contemptuous existence in comparison to what he
had now. It was very rare he missed the town, although one damp,
winter evening, when his spirits were low, he found himself
thinking about old friends and, perhaps unwisely, wrote a couple of
letters to people he knew. He remembered the place at the edge of
Coolcandle, where the woodcutters, charcoal-burners and local
villagers left items they wished to be taken to the towns. A man on
a grey pony came regularly to collect them, leaving behind any mail
or packages he’d picked up. Filerion went out into the drizzly
night, swishing through the trees. He began the journey to the edge
of the forest, unable in his sudden anguish to wait till morning.
By that time, he’d learned a quicker route to the road and had
reached the collection bin by the following afternoon. He left two
dozen eggs with the letters and hoped that would be enough payment
to cover their delivery.

The morning
after his return dawned bright and optimistic and Filerion’s brief
depression passed. The flight through the wood, the burning desire
to communicate seemed a silly, feverish thing to have done. He did
not need anybody. The advantages of his new life far outweighed the
ephemeral loneliness he experienced. After all, here in the forest,
the only twittering was that of the birds, not of gossips and
quick-tongues. The only harshness that of the elements, never of a
human temperament.

Not long after
he had taken up occupation of the house, Filerion had drawn himself
a likeness of Celestia, to serve as a reminder and perhaps a
warning. It hung on the wall in the kitchen, in an old, wooden
frame he had found. That evening, as he sat in the kitchen after
his meal, relaxing, sipping herb wine and smoking one of his green
cigarettes, he gazed at the picture thoughtfully. It seemed he’d
poured all the filth and subtle cruelty of the past right into it.
A purge. He was truly rid of it. The letters would reach the town
and people would laugh at his strangeness, and think him mad. No
one would come to find him and that was for the best. The pangs of
lust and hopeless love would never touch him here. All he needed
now was that which the tall, black house had given him. All the
company he needed was that of Segila, his hens, his rather
sour-tempered but amusing goat and the spirits of the forest
itself, never seen but often felt. In time, he completely forgot
he’d sent the letters.

One day, as a
summer evening bloomed around him like a late flower, Filerion sat
outside his house, taking a glass of wine fermented from honey and
elderflower, when he heard the unmistakable sound of human movement
through the trees. Very occasionally, other wood-dwellers crossed
Filerion’s glade, but they travelled with the silky, silent ease of
the wilderness-footed. An understanding existed between all forest
natives; contact was minimal unless invited, and respect for
privacy observed. This movement was accompanied by the warble of
voices, the sound of iron-shod hoofs, the swish of outraged
branches, pushed to the side. The noises came from the south.
Whoever travelled towards him must have come upon the wide, dusty
road from the direction of Celestia and Grote.

Filerion
watched with a mixture of fascination and fury as horses burst from
the trees. He stood up and put down his glass of wine. The horses
trotted nearer, two of them; one spotted grey, one dark dun.
Filerion wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or annoyed when he
realised he recognised the person riding the dun. A hand was raised
in a splash of yellow silk. A voice cried ‘Yo! Filerion, you imp!’
and an old friend urged his horse into a canter, spewing up clods
of turf behind him.

Filerion felt
weak. He remembered the letters; more than twelve months’ sent.
Finally, it seemed, someone had decided to sniff him out.

Filerion had
known Ricardo Neathtree since they’d been children. Their careers
had diverged somewhat over the years – Ricardo had nestled
comfortably into his father’s merchant business – but, up until
Filerion had left Celestia, their friendship had remained constant,
if rather shallow. Ricardo, after all, had never considered their
relationship close enough to offer Filerion the funds he’d
desperately needed after his mother died. And Filerion had had more
pride than to ask for it, although he’d fought resentment at the
time. Ricardo liked having a courtesan as a friend, rather like he
enjoyed owning exotic, foreign pets. In all the years he’d known
Filerion, Ricardo had never suggested their friendship change its
platonic state. Filerion had never desired Ricardo either, and even
though the pair of them behaved as if they were brothers, Filerion
was secretly glad Ricardo was not a relative. As he watched the
expensively-clad Ricardo spring down from his horse, Filerion
considered that he still harboured a vestige of feeling for his
friend, but it was faint.