The Lost Years (16 page)

Grimly, Rhia poked at the shed skin with a stick. “As I said, a shifting wraith can change into anything. But there is always a flaw, something that gives it away, if you look closely enough.”

“The bird had only one leg.”

Rhia motioned toward the still-whispering branches beyond the dead stand. “The trees tried to warn me, but I wasn’t listening. A shifting wraith in the Druma! That has never happened before. Oh, Emrys . . . my dream is coming true before my eyes!”

I bent low and extended my hand toward the merlin, now preening his wings. Trouble cocked his head to one side, then the other, then hopped onto my waiting wrist. With quick, sideways steps, he climbed up my arm and sat once more on my shoulder. Yet this time his weight didn’t feel so troublesome.

I faced Rhia, whose brow was wrinkled with foreboding. “All of us were wrong about this little fighter. Even Arbassa was wrong.”

She shook her head. “Arbassa was not wrong.”

“But—”

“When Arbassa closed the door, it was not to keep out the merlin.” She drew a long breath. “It was to keep out
you
.”

I stepped backward. “The tree thinks I could be dangerous to you?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes. But I decided to let you in anyway.”

“Why? That was before your dream.”

She studied me curiously. “One day, perhaps, I will tell you.”

18:
T
HE
N
AME OF THE
K
ING

My second sight moved from the skin of the shifting wraith, as brittle as a dried leaf, to the living, whispering boughs of the Druma. “Tell me what is happening to Fincayra.”

Rhia frowned—such an unnatural expression for her. “I only know a little, what I’ve learned from the trees.”

“Tell me what you know.”

She reached toward me, wrapping one of her forefingers around one of mine. “It reminds me of a basket of sweet berries that turns sour. Too sour to eat.” She gave a sigh. “Some years ago, strange things—evil things—started happening. The lands east of the river, once nearly as green and full of life as this forest, fell to the Blight. As the land darkened, so did the sky. But until today, the Druma has always been safe. Its power was so strong, no enemies dared to enter. Until now.”

“How many wraiths are there?”

Trouble fluttered his wings, then grew quiet again.

“I don’t know.” Her frown deepened. “But the shifting wraiths are not even our worst enemies. There are warrior goblins. They used to stay underground, in their caves. But now they run free, and they kill just for pleasure. There are ghouliants—the deathless warriors who guard the Shrouded Castle. And there is Stangmar, the king who commands them all.”

At the mention of that name, the living branches surrounding the stand of dead trees started shaking and clacking. When at last they grew still, I asked, “Who is this king?”

Rhia chewed her lip. “Stangmar is terrible—too terrible for words. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve heard the trees say that when he first came to power, he wasn’t so wicked. In those days, he sometimes rode through the Druma on his great black horse, even pausing to listen to the voices of the forest. Then something happened to him—no one knows what—that made him change. He destroyed his own castle, a place of music and friendship. And where it stood, he built the Shrouded Castle, a place of cruelty and terror.”

She sat solemnly for a moment. “It lies far to the east, in the darkest of the Dark Hills, where the night never ends. I’ve heard of no one, other than the king’s own servants, who has gone there and returned alive. No one! So the truth is difficult to know. Yet . . . it is said that the castle is always dark, and always spinning, so fast that no one could ever attack it.”

I stiffened, remembering my dream at sea. Even now, that terrible castle felt all too real.

“Meanwhile, Stangmar has poisoned much of Fincayra. All the lands east of the Druma, and some to the south, have been
cleansed,
as those loyal to him would say. What that really means is that fear—cold, lifeless fear—has covered everything. It reminds me of snow, except snow is pretty. Villages are burned. Trees and rivers are silent. Animals and birds are dead. And the giants are gone.”

“Giants?”

Her eyes burned angrily. “Our first and oldest people. Giants from every land call Fincayra their ancestral home. Even before the rivers began rolling down from the mountains, the footsteps of giants marked Fincayra. Long before Arbassa first sprouted as a seedling, their rumbling chants echoed over ridges and forests. Even now, the Lledra, their oldest chant, is the first song many babies ever hear.”

The Lledra.
Had I heard that name before? It seemed familiar somehow. But how could it be? Unless, perhaps, it was one of Branwen’s chants.

“They can grow taller than a tree, our giants. Or even a hillside. Yet throughout the ages, they’ve stayed peaceful. Except for the Wars of Terror long ago—when goblins tried to overrun the giants’ ancient city of Varigal. Usually, unless someone makes them angry, they are as gentle as butterflies.”

She stamped her foot on the ground. “But some years ago, Stangmar issued a command—for some reason known only to him—to kill the giants wherever they were found. Since then, his soldiers have hunted them ruthlessly. Although it takes twenty or more soldiers to kill just one, they nearly always succeed. The city of Varigal, I’ve heard, is now just a ruin. It’s possible that a few giants still survive, disguised as cliffs or crags, but they must always stay in hiding, afraid for their lives. In all my travels through the Druma, I’ve never seen a single one.”

I gazed at the corpse of the shifting wraith. “Isn’t there any way to stop this king?”

“If there is, no one has found it! His powers are vast. Besides his army, he has assembled almost all of the Treasures of Fincayra.”

“What are they?”

“Magical. Powerful. The Treasures were always used to benefit the land and all its creatures, not just one person. But no more. Now they are his—the Orb of Fire, the Caller of Dreams, the Seven Wise Tools. The sword called Deepercut—a sword with two edges, one that can cut right into the soul, and one that can heal any wound. The most beautiful one, the Flowering Harp, whose music can bring springtime to any meadow or hillside. And the most hateful one, the Cauldron of Death.”

Her voice fell to a whisper. “Only one of the legendary Treasures hasn’t yet fallen into his hands. The one whose power is said to be greater than all the rest combined. The one called the Galator.”

Beneath my tunic, my heart pulsed against the pendant.

Her finger wrapped tighter around mine. “I’ve heard the trees saying that Stangmar has given up searching for the Galator, that it disappeared from Fincayra some years ago. Yet I’ve also heard that he is still searching for something that will make his power complete—something he calls
the last Treasure.
That could only mean one thing.”

“The Galator?”

Rhia nodded slowly. “Anyone who knows where it’s hidden is in the gravest danger.”

I could not miss the warning. “You know I have it.”

“Yes,” she replied calmly. “I know.”

“And you think it could help save the Druma.”

She pursed her lips in thought. “It might, or it might not. Only the Galator itself can say. But I still think
you
could help.”

I stepped back, jabbing my neck on a broken limb. Trouble screeched at me reproachfully.

Yet the pain in my neck, like the pain in my ear, didn’t distress me. For I had heard in her voice that certain something I had not allowed myself to hear before. She really did see something of value in me! I felt sure that she was mistaken. But her faith was a kind of treasure itself, as precious in its way as the one around my neck.

The words jumped out at me.
As precious as the one around my neck.
Suddenly I realized that I had my clue! The clue I’d been seeking!

Until now I had assumed that the Galator was simply known in Fincayra—not that it truly
belonged
in Fincayra. Now I knew better. It was the most powerful of this land’s ancient Treasures. And it may have disappeared around the time Branwen and I washed ashore on Gwynedd. If only I could find out how the Galator had come into Branwen’s hands, or at least learn some more of its secrets, then I might find some of my own secrets as well.

“The Galator,” I said. “What else do you know about it?”

Rhia released my hand. “Nothing. And now I must go. With or without you.”

“Where?”

She started to speak, then froze, listening. Trouble, clinging firmly to my left shoulder, also froze.

Rhia’s loose brown hair stirred like the branches as yet another wind moved through the forest. As her features hardened with concentration, I wondered whether her laughter like bells would ever ring again among these trees. The sound swelled steadily, a chorus of swishing and creaking, drumming and moaning.

As the wind subsided, she leaned toward me. “Goblins have been seen in the forest! I have no time to lose.” She caught a fold of my tunic. “Will you come? Will you help me find some way to save the Druma?”

I hesitated. “Rhia . . . I’m sorry. The Galator. I need to find out more about it! Can’t you understand?”

Her eyes narrowed. Without saying good-bye, she turned to go.

I strode up to her and caught a vine from her sleeve. “I wish you well.”

“And I wish you well,” she said coldly.

A sudden crashing came from the underbrush behind us. We whirled around to see a young stag, with the beginning of a rack above its bronze-colored head. The stag leaped over some fallen timber, eager to get away from something. For a split second I caught a glimpse of one of its brown eyes, dark and deep, filled with fear.

I tensed, recalling the one time before when I had seen a stag. Yet that time the fear was in my own eyes. And that time the stag did everything in its power to help me.

Rhia pulled free, then started to go.

“Wait! I will come with you.”

Her whole face brightened. “You will?”

“Yes . . . but only until our two paths diverge.”

She nodded. “For a while, then.”

“And where are we going?”

“To find the one creature in all the Druma who might know what to do. The one who is called the Grand Elusa.”

For some reason, I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that name.

19:
H
ONEY

As swiftly as the stag, Rhia bounded off. Although my legs still felt stiff, I tried my best to keep up with her through dense thickets and over moss-banked streams. Even so, she often needed to stop and wait for me.

Because the sun rode high above us, sending shafts of light to the forest floor, I could see obstacles much more easily than the night before. Even so, I stumbled often enough that Trouble finally took off from my shoulder. He stayed close by, flying from branch to branch. And while my shoulder felt grateful for the rest, I did not resent his watchful eye as I had only a while ago.

Animals of all kinds were on the move. Birds with small gray bodies or bright green wings or huge yellow bills, traveling sometimes in flocks and other times alone, flew overhead. Large-eyed squirrels, beavers, a doe with its fawn, and a golden snake also passed me. In the distance, wolves howled. At one point an enormous shape, black as night, ambled out of the trees. I froze, fearful, until two smaller shapes appeared just behind—and I knew that I had encountered a family of bears. All these creatures shared the same look of fear I had seen in the stag. And all of them, it seemed, were heading in the opposite direction from Rhia and myself.

Late in the morning, perspiration dripping from my brow, I stepped into a shadowed glade. Cedars, very old from the looks of them, stood arranged in a perfect circle. So shaggy was their bark that at first glance they might have been mistaken for an assembly of ancient men whose long manes and beards flowed down over their stooped bodies. Even the sound of their gently stirring branches seemed different from the whispers of other trees. More like people at a funeral, humming a solemn, mournful lament.

Then I noticed, in the center of the glade, a narrow earthen mound. No wider than my body, it stretched at least twice my own height in length. It was surrounded by round, polished stones, which glistened like blue ice. Cautiously, I moved closer.

Trouble flew back to my shoulder. But instead of perching himself as usual, he paced back and forth with sharp, agitated steps.

I caught my breath.
I have been here before.
The notion—the conviction—came to me in a fleeting instant. Like a scent of some flower that appears and then vanishes before you have time to find its source, some dim memory touched me briefly and then fled. Perhaps it was only a dream, or the memory of a dream. Yet I could not shake the feeling that, in some way I could not quite identify, this mound within the circle of cedars was familiar.

“Emrys! Come on!”

Rhia’s call jarred me back to the present. With a final glance at the mound, and at the mournful cedars, I left the glade. Soon I could hear the strange humming no more. But it continued to haunt the darkest corners of my mind.

The terrain grew steadily wetter. Frogs piped and bellowed so loudly that sometimes I could not even hear my own breathing. Herons, cranes, and other water birds called to one another in eerie, echoing voices. The air began to reek of things rotting. At last I saw Rhia, standing by the tall grasses at the edge of a dark swath of land. A swamp.

Impatiently, she beckoned. “Let’s go.”

I viewed the swamp skeptically. “We have to cross that?”

“It’s the quickest way.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But we are running out of time—did you see all the animals fleeing?—and if it works it could save us an hour or more. Just on the other side of the swamp are the hills of the Grand Elusa.”

She turned to cross the swamp, but I caught her arm. “Just what
is
the Grand Elusa?”