Haven Magic (37 page)

Telyn put her arms around him and hugged him. As she did so, a tiny squeak came from her tunic.

“The wisp!” she cried. “I forgot about her!” She produced the wounded creature and stretched her out upon her palm so that her legs dangled over her wrist. She was only barely glimmering with a pale radiance now.

Brand felt ashamed to know that he had harmed such a beautiful creature.

“Don’t be glum, Brand,” said Telyn, reading his thoughts. “Even if this wisp dies, you freed her and her family from slavery.”

Brand nodded. Still, it made his eyes burn to see the wisp hurt. It was like seeing the broken body of a child and a beautiful woman, all at once.

“Look!” Telyn hissed to him. He followed her gesture and saw lights glimmering in the trees behind them. “Hob follows us!”

Brand knew another thrill of panic. “Could Old Hob have recaptured his wisps so quickly?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“We don’t know what powers he might have over them,” replied Telyn. “The lights are approaching, we must flee.”

Brand groaned and began stumbling after her. Fleet-footed, she headed into the thickest stand of trees in sight. The only light they had was the glimmering of the axe, but it was enough to see by. Soon, they had lost themselves in a forest of vegetation. Ferns grew here in wild profusion. Giant fronds came up out of the darkness and brushed their faces like giant, caressing feathers.

For a moment, the wisps were gone. “Have we lost him?” asked Brand.

“I think not, he must know this land far better than we.”

“How then can we escape this monster?”

“Perhaps if we keep fleeing until dawn, he will concede the chase. Goblins rarely venture forth in the light of day.”

Brand groaned aloud. “I’m weary beyond belief, Telyn. I fear I might collapse. Perhaps we should make our stand on a spot of our own choosing before I lose all my strength.”

Telyn looked at him in concern. “The sun should rise in two hours, maybe less.”

Brand shook his head. He knew in his bones that he couldn’t walk the swamp for two hours more. “I don’t think I can make it. Besides, if he did catch up, we might be trapped in a bad spot, too fatigued to fight.”

“You mean too fatigued to wield the axe,” said Telyn. Her face was lined with worry. “In fact, you intend to wield it. Does it call to you, Brand? Does it want you to fight Old Hob?”

Brand blinked at her, thinking about it. “Yes, I believe that it does.”

“I’m not sure that we should trust it.”

“I’m sure that we shouldn’t.”

“It seems to want nothing but bloodshed, and tends to see everyone as a potential enemy. Like a man whose only tool is a hammer, it tends to see many nails—” Telyn broke off and pointed over his shoulder. He saw the look of fear in her eyes and fully expected to see Old Hob looming above him as he whirled. Instead, it was the green wisp, the male. He floated over the ferns, lighting them with his soft, green glow. Telyn turned to run in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” he cried to her. “They might be herding us into a trap like sheep!”

Telyn suddenly veered to the left, having just encountered another wisp, this time a female of the familiar yellow-white shade. Brand crashed through the ferns after her. He now felt convinced that the wisps had encircled them and were herding them into Hob’s waiting arms. He made a grab for Telyn’s cloak, but grabbed only big leafy fronds.

The desire to take hold of the naked haft of the axe became almost overwhelming. Slowing to a walk, he held it aloft before himself, so that the broad double-bladed head filled his vision. In the heart of the two blades shimmered the brilliant amber Jewel. In its light he saw a purity of color that had never been matched upon the earth or the heavens above.

The Golden Eye of Ambros brightened under his scrutiny. Some small, distant part of his mind wondered if the final decision to wield the axe would be his last conscious act of will.

Something loomed up to his right, a green glowing thing. He thought to see Hob’s face. His enemy was there, the enemy that must be struck down.

Cut down the fiend.

He felt a yearning to see his enemy cut and bloody and dead at his feet.

You must wield the axe.

Old Hob had threatened to make Telyn sire his foul offspring. This couldn’t be allowed. Death for everyone was preferable.

You must…

“—Brand?” came a distant voice. He couldn’t identify it right away, although it seemed familiar.

… wield the axe.

“Brand, they’re friendly! Put down the axe!”

Telyn!
He had it now. That’s who it was. She was the one who must be saved. Her words, however, were lost on him.

Then, suddenly, something darted between his eyes and the Eye of Ambros, into which he had been staring most deeply. He blinked, and a flash of anger ran through him. With a growl, he moved to cut down the flittering thing.

Then he stopped. As if awakening from a dream, he found himself standing in the lush ferns, surrounded by wisps and Telyn. A tiny, beautiful female wisp had darted between his eyes and the Eye of Ambros. With a sick feeling, he looked about wildly.

“Did I kill her? I swear, I was not myself!”

“No, no, Brand,” said Telyn, putting her soothing hands on his shoulders from behind. She hugged his broad back. “You harmed no one.”

Brand looked up to see the wisp float closer to him again. She had risked her life to break the spell by passing between his eyes and Jewel. He felt ashamed to have threatened such a wonderful creature.

“But what of Hob?” he asked.

“He has retreated to his pond, I hope,” answered Telyn. “These wisps followed us. I believe they want the injured one returned to them.”

Brand nodded. Telyn produced the tiny wisp from her pocket and instantly the male wisp swooped down and took her away. His family followed him. He paused, looking back at the humans. He gestured to one of the yellow wisps, who separated herself from the others and returned to hover just inches from Brand’s cheek.

Brand was entranced and his face, which had scowled death’s own mask a minute earlier, now was wreathed with smiles.

“Not even the white lady could possess such beauty,” he said in wonder. Telyn made a sound of delight as well.

The wisp curtsied in mid-air, as if to acknowledge the compliment. She then pointed off into the swamp and made a series of short flights in that direction. Each time she returned to them and repeated the action.

Brand and Telyn looked at one another.

“Normally,” said Telyn. “I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that we follow a wisp, but this is a special circumstance.”

Brand nodded. “Indeed. This is the first time that I ever thought any of the Faerie could be trusted. I guess it is with them as Dando said, ‘Friendship is always earned, never given.’”

So saying, the two of them followed the wisp out of the fern forest and into the rest of Old Hob’s Marsh, going they knew not where.

They followed the wisp until dawn began to lighten the sky. Ever they begged her to rest, but she urged them onward. They didn’t know where she was leading them, but hoped it was to their companions, or a way out of the swamp, or just to the cabin of a marshman who could help them.

Just before dawn the wisp halted and pointed East, in the direction they had been going. They took it to mean that they should continue forward. To Telyn, she flittered close and caressed her cheek. Telyn smiled and touched the spot delicately. To their amazement the spot on her cheek and her hand where she touched it glowed for a time with the same radiance as the wisp.

When they looked up, they found she had gone. They cast about them for some sign of her, but could find nothing, not even a distant glimmer.

“She’s gone back to her family,” said Telyn. She still gazed down on the tiny spot, now fading, that glowed upon her fingertips.

“They are clearly creatures of the night rather than the day,” agreed Brand heartily. He sat down upon a relatively dry spot and leaned back against a gnarled tangle of tree roots. To him they were as comfortable as a featherbed.

“Ah! I’d thought she would lead us to Snowdon before she was done,” he sighed.

“Perhaps we should keep going,” said Telyn worriedly, looking to the East. “Perhaps the others need us.”

“Surely you jest, milady,” mumbled Brand through thick lips. Already his eyes had closed. “I, unlike the wisps, am a creature of day. Also unlike them, and yourself, I need sleep.”

“But the others, Brand.”

“If they have suffered the night, they can hold another hour. I have no strength left to rescue them now, if that’s what they are needing. Besides, we don’t really know what the wisp was leading us to. Maybe this is just a garden spot of the swamp to her, and she wanted to show it to us!” said Brand, making a clumsy, sweeping gesture that indicated their drab surroundings. Even while gesturing, his eyes stayed shut. The brightening skies of dawn seemed painful to his weary eyes.

With a sigh, Telyn sat beside him.

Chapter Fifteen

Merlings

In the light of morning, he awoke, shivering. The tree roots had cruelly dug their way into his back and ribs, causing a dozen sharp aches and cramps. He eyed the marshlands around himself blearily, realizing that for perhaps the first time in his life he was truly and utterly lost.

Then he noted the only source of warmth that touched him. He looked down upon Telyn, asleep upon his shoulder, and smiled. Although the weight of her slightly discomforted him and the roots that dug into his back from behind made him want to stretch, he did not move. This was a moment to dream of. Telyn slept on his shoulder, touching him. A thrill of pride and contentment and protectiveness shot through him.

The sleep had done him a world of good. He lay back and breathed deeply of the morning air. It stank, but he didn’t care. Out on his own like this, with Telyn, he felt more like a man than he ever had. It was exciting and daunting, all at the same time.

Soon, he could stand the pinching of his shoulder no longer. To relieve it, he rolled it slightly under her weight. To his disappointment she awakened almost instantly. She made a small sleep-sound that made him smile again, then she blinked at the world. She yawned and it seemed to him that even her yawn was attractive somehow.

“Morning,” he said quietly.

“We’ve slept for hours!” she exclaimed, staggering up.

Brand winced at the pain in his shoulder and back, but tried not to let on. “Yes, we should be moving.”

“You should have awakened me, Brand,” she scolded, picking up her things. She emptied out her knapsack, which she still had after all this time, and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“Put the axe in it.”

“Right,” said Brand, thinking of the axe for the first time. He felt a pang of worry, but quickly found it leaning against the tree beside him. “I’ll look like Gudrin’s over-grown son with this thing moving about like a full game-bag on my back.”

The axe barely fit into the knapsack, and Brand worried that its razor-edged blades would cut through the leather. The handle poked out of the top so that there was no way to hide it.

“Well, people are going to know what you have,” said Telyn, putting her things into various pockets of her muddy cloak and tunic. “But at least there is less chance of you getting bewitched again by accident.”

“Yes. Now if I wield the axe, there will be no question that it was my choice to do so.”

Telyn glanced at him sharply. She nodded. “Let us hope so.”

After making a poor breakfast of the odds and ends from Telyn’s tunic and a few swallows from Brand’s waterskin, they set off in the direction of the rising sun. Soon, they came upon signs of merlings: a woven mesh of reeds designed to trap and drown six-legged muckfish, a clutch of sucked-dry bird’s eggs and last a totem made of a skull. The skull had braided strips of hide and was decorated with chips of colored glass. Brand recognized the totem as a crude effigy of Herla.

Brand felt a sudden urge to crush the effigy. He advanced on it, a growl emanating from his throat.

“Brand!” hissed Telyn. “Don’t! We can’t afford the noise or any obvious signs of our presence!”

Brand halted, shoulders hunched. He sighed. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Telyn nodded with pursed lips. She gave the axehandle that rode his back a long, mistrustful look. Then she continued eastward and Brand followed, feeling sheepish.

Speaking only in whispers and moving with stealth they approached what could only be a merling village. Brand had never seen one before, but knew that the best time to venture near one was in the brightest light of day, when the merlings were at their most sluggish.

They came close enough to see the earthen mounds before the River Folk quailed. Telyn sank down behind a gnarled tree trunk and Brand knelt by her. Brand studied the village with interest. The entire encampment was difficult to spot unless you knew what you were looking for. All surrounded by a central pond, he counted six of the long, low lodges made of muck and woven sticks. All of the lodges abutted trees and seemed like unnatural extensions of the trees’ root systems. Each of the squat, cancerous mounds would have multiple secret tunnels that led into the surrounding pond.