Crik (13 page)

Metal armour wrapped the three stone statues; the women wore bronze breastplates, decorated with a black swirl, and skirts of pleated metal, while the gazing man had tempered gold covering his chest and back, with protective greaves rising to sharp stabbing points. All carried a small shield, with a different picture engraved on its surface. An owl, its head larger than its small body, adorned one woman’s shield, while a black bird, a wriggling serpent in its beak, filled the round disc of the second woman. The man bore a clenched fist on his, with a broken spear below the disembodied wrist. A curved dagger, with a white hilt, rode each hip.

‘If these are as old as I think they are,’ began Jack, ‘shouldn’t the metal have rusted by now?’

‘They are Lindre,’ answered Inara. ‘Our laws, and those of nature, do not apply here. Look how the stream starts and ends in this glade.’

The stream Jack first noticed from outside the clearing ran for twenty yards before ending at the deep azure pond. ‘How is that possible? Where have the fish come from?’ His raised hand pointed out a leaping salmon.

‘Enchanted,’ said Inara. ‘If you ate an apple here, before you got to the core, another fruit would have grown in its place. Those flowers on the hillside,’ she stabbed the air with her finger in excitement, ‘will never wilt.’

‘Well its better than the marsh,’ said Bill, unconcerned with his mysterious surroundings. He jumped to the ground. ‘I’m famished, how about some fish?’

Inara shook her head. ‘Although you can eat the fruit and drink the water, it is forbidden to kill inside a Lindre Circle.’

‘Who forbids it?’ asked Jack.

‘The Lindre won’t allow a living creature to come to harm within the clearing.’

Peering at the statues bathed in the green light, Jack could not understand Inara’s meaning; why fear stone?

Bill stood off to one side. ‘Who are the Lindre? Why can’t we go fishing? An apple won’t fill me, I’m starving.’

‘It’s as I told you, the Lindre protect the clearing. They are older than the trees surrounding this glade. Once they walked these woods, nurturing everything within it and creating the hills. Cutting into the mountainside, they formed miles of caves as they explored the mountain’s secrets. My father told me the Lindre discovered the Rock Giants under the ground, and brought them into the light.’

Hearing the name brought the Giant back to Jack’s mind in vivid detail. Remembering the many-eyed Giant made him uncomfortable. How many secrets did the woods have? Unsettled, he raised his hand. His fingers hovered over his stomach, not wanting to touch his skin out of fear of feeling something beneath. When they delved into the earth, had the Lindre awakened the demons?

‘If they were so great, how come no one in Crik has ever heard of them,’ asked Bill. ‘I’ve read plenty of books about Crik Wood, and I’ve never heard them mentioned.’

‘You have to leave the safety of your houses to find the truth.’

‘We aren’t afraid to leave the village, hunting parties are always entering the wood; sometimes for days at a time,’ replied Bill, infuriated at Inara’s accusation.

‘I’m not arguing with you, the truth is here in front of you. I don’t need to say anything more.’

Jack sank into a tired silence. He moved from the green hand to sit under the shade of the apple tree. Reaching up he picked a red fruit from a low hanging branch, and bit into it. The juice gushed into his mouth and over his chin. Hunger, released like a captive bird flying from an open cage, surged up from his aching belly. Meaning to clip the wings of his gnawing hunger, he devoured the apple and did not stop eating until he crunched the core of a third fruit. Yang, vibrant in the green light, pulled Krimble’s arm, forcing the dead man into a lurching half-run toward the tree. Having Krimble close upset him, but he expected his shadow’s fascination with the zombie. Thankfully, the flies had left, though the zombie’s pocked white skin showed the ravages done by the foul insects. With Krimble came his smell, and Jack lost his appetite. Disregarding a fourth apple, he turned his back on his shadow, and its obsession, to see Bill marching toward him, his fists pumping at his sides.

‘She’s insufferable,’ Bill muttered. ‘She’s calling everyone back home dimwits. No one knows anything about the woods, she says. Ignoring me when I tell her about the hunters, to say if we knew nothing of the Lindre, then we knew nothing of Crik Wood. I have a right mind to command Black to dunk her in the water.’

‘She has a point. We knew nothing about how we got our Talents. If I hadn’t dug up the egg, we’d still have no clue. Everything we believed...’

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ Bill sounded angrier than before.

‘Like me you thought we were born with our Talent,’ said Jack refusing to drop the topic. ‘I told you how the demon hatched from the egg and disappeared into you.’

‘Yeah, thanks again for keeping that from me.’ He glowered.

‘I kept it from you, scared to tell you, in case the demon hurt you when you found out.’ Was he the only one who saw anything wrong with a shape-shifting demon living inside them? Inara saw it as natural. What of the others back home, did his mother know about the Narmacil?

‘Think what you like, I can’t see anything wrong with allowing something to use my body if I get a Talent in return. You are just like her,’ he glared at Inara, ‘you never listen to reason.’

Seeing Bill was on the verge of storming off, Jack hurriedly said, ‘We can’t argue with Inara about the circle.’ He spun around. ‘This place is a mystery. Your grandfather never mentioned anything like this in his stories. She obviously knows the woods far better than us.’

‘I bet she knows nothing about the Hanging Tree,’ said Bill, sullen. ‘There are plenty of things we know, things we take for granted, which she doesn’t have any idea about.’

‘You’re right.’

‘I am, but I don’t go rubbing her nose in it.’ Bill folded his arms. Inara, oblivious of Bill’s rant, scrutinised the Lindre statues. ‘The quicker we can return her back to her folks, the better. She can take Krimble too; Yang is taking a liking to the walking corpse, and I don’t care if you are my best mate, I don’t fancy sticking around him for much longer.’

‘I wish we could get rid of him already,’ said Jack, looking across at Krimble’s weeping eye. ‘The decision is Inara’s to make. I won’t tell her what to do; he owes her for taking her legs.’

‘I can have Black chew his off, if that makes her feel any better.’

‘Not letting him die is a worse punishment; she doesn’t need to do anything else.’

‘I suppose it can’t be nice having bits of you falling off.’

The sound of splashing water stopped their conversation. In dismay, Jack watched Silver step out of the river, her grey fur clinging to her ribs in wet tangles. A fish squirmed in her jaws.

‘Why’d you let her do that?’ Inara shouted at Bill, her face flushed.

‘Me, what do you want me to do? I told you I’m holding Black in check, if you had let me send them off hunting when I asked, Silver wouldn’t be so hungry now.’

‘Quiet,’ said Jack. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Sounded like grinding stone.’

‘Oh no,’ cried Inara, ‘She’s awake.’

The female statue, bearing the owl shield, turned her lifeless face toward them, shattering her stone neck in hundreds of fractures. Dark blood, poured from the rents, drenching her bronze armour. Tilting back her head, the Lindre let out a shrill cry.

The statue’shead turne
d
, and the stone cracked. From the broken neck poured blood as thick as crude oil, drowning the intricate swirls on the breastplate. Setting her sights on Inara, who, astride Black, stood the closest, the Lindre lifted her shield. With a sound of tearing leather, the statue pulled her feet free from the green hand, splintering the ancient stone, sending jade jewels into the bordering grass.

Inara threw her hands in front of her face and screamed. Black, whether obeying Bill, or some primal urge, fled deeper into the clearing. He stopped under the leaning apple tree, snarling back at the statue.

On numb legs, Jack closed with Inara, followed by Yang, who towed Krimble behind. ‘How can this be possible?’

‘I told you not to kill anything in the circle. The Lindre will not stop until she has had a life for a life.’

‘Silver killed the fish, we didn’t. Tell her.’

Inara rounded on Jack, her dark eyes full and scared. ‘How can I tell her? The Lindre have guarded this glade for a thousand years, and you want me to tell her to go back, that it has all been a misunderstanding. Oh Jack, if it was only so simple.’

Holding onto a branch of the apple tree, Bill shouted, ‘If she wants a life, give her Krimble, she can do whatever she wants with him.’

‘He’s already dead,’ answered Inara. ‘Although he is conscious, it is my ability that animates him.’

The stone covering the joints of the Lindre fell away, revealing a mesh of grey muscle. The other statues remained in their silent repose, leaving their sister to deal with the group. With the owl-adorned shield thrust forward, the Lindre moved off the giant hand, with its many watchful faces.

Looking back to where they had entered the clearing, Jack saw the foliage had risen up, swallowing their retreat in an unruly nest of thorns and twisted wooden limbs.

Bill, also noticing the imprisoning wall, let out a gasped yell. Hopping down from a bulking tree root, to the grass, he said, ‘We’re trapped.’

The pleated metal skirt tinkled as it stroked marble thighs. A dispassionate stony stare tracked them as they hedged away from the awakened statue on directionless legs, seeking an avenue of escape from the ringed clearing. The statue’s stiff fingers dipped to the floor, flicking the blood away in smoking droplets.

Coming to the mysterious stream, filled with trout, salmon, and whiskered catfish, Jack paused. Ahead, flowers in eternal bloom, with yellow, red, and blue petals, welcomed them with a rich fragrant embrace. Surrounded by such beauty, it both felt unreal, and unfair, that they had escaped one nightmare to find another. His weary spirit faltered; only his fear for his friends’ wellbeing stopped him from giving in to full despair. He pondered sacrificing himself to save them. A life for a life, right, he thought with gloomy resignation.

‘The trees have moved; there is no way out.’

Listening to Bill, Jack searched the forest wall for any gap, no matter how small, for them to squeeze through. Silver trotted close to the glade’s boundary, sniffing the foliage with her sharp nose. Finding no egress either, the she-wolf returned to shadow Black. The Lindre had not gained on them, nor had she dropped back as they tracked through the flowerbeds. Free of the hand’s green light, her marbled skin gleamed in the sunlight. The reflected light from the armour forced Jack to shield his eyes as a hundred golden needles glinted with every move. Despite his desire to run, to stretch the distance between them and their hunter, Jack dismissed the idea; the trees imprisoned them in a strangling grasp.

Inara pulled Black to a stop. ‘It’s no good walking around without a plan of escape. We have to face her.’ Her set face demanded respect, Jack had not forgotten her formidable mental fortitude; how else could she have survived her captivity?

‘We haven’t got a plan.’ Bill, disagreeing, made Black continue forward, jostling the girl and making her cry out in surprise. ‘If we face her, one of us will die. Do you want to offer yourself?’

‘She’ll eventually catch us; this is stupid; all we’re doing is prolonging the inevitable.’

‘She’s right Bill, we’ll wait for her here.’

‘We haven’t circled the clearing yet, there may yet be another way out.’

‘There’s not,’ said Inara, yanking on Black’s fur to make him stop. ‘The trees closed in behind us; what makes you think the Lindre would leave another opening?’

Believing Bill would continue to argue, Jack opened his mouth to lend weight to Inara’s counsel, when Bill shocked him by turning to face the approaching guardian.

‘A bear would come in handy right about now,’ said Bill, clenching his fists. ‘What do you think Yin, could a bear break stone?’

‘I guess it could,’ said Jack, with a surprised smile.

Coming to heel beside Jack, Silver snarled, her black lips quivering in rage. Yang, appearing in the guise of a longhaired giant, stroked the wolf’s bristling fur.

‘Stand in front of us,’ Inara commanded Krimble in an emotionless voice.

Their one time captor came to stand two feet in front of Yang, facing the Lindre. The wretch rocked back on his feet, held upright, not by tendon and bone, but from the sheer force of Inara’s will.

A Wood Pigeon took flight when the Lindre emitted a loud groan. The statue came to a sudden halt. Black blood no longer pumped from her splintered neck. Tilting her head back, the Lindre forced her mouth open, showering the hillside with alabaster fragments as the stone fell from her fissured cheeks.

‘What’s her game?’ said Bill, touching Black with a restless hand.

‘I think she’s going to speak,’ answered Jack in awe.

‘She is our judge and executioner,’ Inara said, looking down at the two boys. ‘She is about to pass judgement.’

Seeing the Lindre motion toward them, Jack had no doubt what Inara said was about to come to pass, but the hollow voice of the ancient guardian surprised him with her first words:

‘Why do the children of Illyarden flee from me? You have entered our circle to enjoy our protection; why then do you fear my coming? Is it my visage that stirs fear in your breast? If that is so, please lay aside any concerns, I come to you now in this stone countenance only through necessity. I am ancient, having slumbered for long years. Tell me of Illyarden, of its troubles, and joys.’

‘If you come in peace, why trap us here? You’ve stalked us from one end of the meadow to the other,’ called Bill, in frustration. Under his words, like turbulent water beneath a placid surface, his fright stirred, threatening to pull him down.

The Lindre’s laugh that punctuated Bill’s challenge echoed inside her stone shell. ‘If I wanted to strike you down, I would not need to chase you. We, who saw the birth of your first, will see the last of you leave this world. We do not need to prove our peaceful nature, we who nurtured you when you were infant.’

Jack stepped closer, stopping once Krimble’s rotting flesh assailed his nostrils. The blood no longer clung to the Lindre’s brass armour; the beating sun dissipated it in a grey steam that bathed the white face. Only the cracks in the stone remained to spoil the beauty of the carven image, and like the moss covering the dulled headstones overlooking the Tristle River back home, they added a weight of passing time. ‘If not to punish us for the killing of the fish, why have you come?’

‘Doubt riddles you Yin. A newly planted disquiet awakens, making you fear yourself. I have answers to soothe your troubled mind, come to me and you will be eased.’

Jack could feel Yang behind him, stretching away, but always there, anchored to his feet, even while he slept. He needed to know what the demons were, where they came from, and what they wanted. Inara had called them Narmacil; was that all she knew of them? Only he had seen the demon that entered Bill, the mischievous sprite with its forked tongue and black skin. Jack couldn’t imagine the creature could be anything other than evil.

‘Yin stop,’ shouted Bill.

Although Jack heard his friend’s call, once he started forward, he knew he had to know, no matter the risk. If the Lindre could tell him the truth, perhaps she would know how to get rid of it. With Yang drawing up behind him, Jack left behind the flowers, stepping back onto the crisp grass. His friends stirred restlessly, but they did not follow.

‘There was a time when you would have come to me, without my asking,’ said the Lindre as Jack faced her. ‘Your unease is understandable, and unfortunate. We have been gone for a long time. Take my hand, and I will show you the answers you seek.’

He studied the offered hand, seeing the long lifeline imprinted on the palm. He backed away, his fear commanding his steps as surely as though someone held a knife to his exposed throat.

A golden light spilled from the Lindre’s eyes as they opened wide. With terrible swiftness, she reached forward, grabbing Jack by the shoulders and hoisted him into the air. Her cold fingers held him tight, while the colour rushing from her face engulfed him. Dimly he heard Inara scream.