The Tree of Story (28 page)

“I know that much already, my friend—”

He broke off as Kern reappeared, with Grath following quickly after, ducking his head to enter the cabin. The mordog’s hair and clothing were grey with dust, but his eyes blazed furiously.

“Nonn and his people,” Grath snarled. “They’re gone.”

“They sealed off the lower circles, my lord,” Kern said. “They’ve fled down to the mines, all of them, with their tools and supplies.”

“That treacherous old snake,” Grath roared. “He wants all the iron for himself. Always has. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”

“All the passageways are sealed off?” Corr asked.

“All the ones we know of,” Kern said. “Somehow they brought down stone slabs that have blocked every doorway and stair to the lower levels.”

“Some of my men were trapped on the other side when the slabs came down,” Grath said. “We heard them shouting to us at first and then nothing. We tried moving the slabs, but …”

He trailed off, then slammed his huge fist against the bulkhead.

“They were planning this all along,” the mordog seethed. “My lord, we can take one of the ships down into the lower circles. We can find them and blast them with the lightning. Bury them under the rubble of their own city.”

“And bury the mines, too?” Corr said. “No, we’ll keep the ships here for now. There may be another way. Where is the golem?”

“He’s with my company,” Kern said. “One of my men was pinned under falling rock and the golem lifted it off him.”

“Is your man badly hurt?” Alazar asked.

“His leg is broken.”

Corr turned to the Stormrider who had given the Valkai the
gaal
. “Keep at him. Send word immediately if he talks. Kern, Grath, with me. Finn and Alazar, you, too.”

With that Corr strode out of the cabin, followed by Finn, the doctor and the two lieutenants. They hurried down the gangplank and set off across the pier. A choking pall of dust
hung in the air, and soon they were coughing and covering their mouths with their hands.

Corr had nearly reached the wide end of the pier when he stopped and raised his head as if he had caught a sound. A moment later they all heard it: a faint, slow metallic clanking from somewhere far below. Everyone went still and listened. The clanking grew louder, then was abruptly drowned out by a great, echoing roar. It sounded as if fire-breathing dragons were at war with each other somewhere in the deepest chambers of the city.

“What in all the hells is that now?” Grath breathed.

“They’ve relit the forges,” Corr said. “They’ll be smelting the ore soon.”

“Bastards,” Grath said. “May they burn themselves up like the black-hearted devils they are.”

The roaring subsided but did not entirely fade away. It went on, a deep throbbing pulse that sounded to Finn like the beating of an enormous heart.

“What can they do with the
gaal
even if they mine it?” Alazar asked. “They’ve trapped themselves down there.”

Corr shook his head. “You can be sure Nonn knows of other ways out of this city. He does nothing recklessly. And he’s made an alliance with the Nightbane if that Valkai is to be believed. This was all carefully planned.”

“We must take a ship down there, my lord,” Grath said. “Let’s strike back, before they strengthen their defences.”

Corr glanced at Kern. The lieutenant, impassive as always, shook his head.

“The ships would be difficult to manoeuvre in the lower circles, and they would be vulnerable to attack,” he said. “Nonn will have thought of all this.”

“You’re right,” Corr said. “Nonn will be expecting us to strike back with the ships. He’ll have something ready and
waiting for them. No, we won’t fall into another trap. First I want to see what the golem can do about these slabs.”

Grath led the way down the nearest of the ramps. The passage at the bottom was blocked with a huge slab of gleaming black stone. The golem stood in front of it, as impassive as ever. A pile of broken stone from a partially collapsed pillar lay in a heap nearby, and the injured Stormrider sat near it, propped against the wall and watched over by two of his comrades.

Alazar hurried over to the wounded man and began to tend to him.

Corr stepped up to the golem. “The disc,” he said. He gazed at the golem’s feet. The black disc of fever iron that had compelled the golem to obey Corr’s commands lay in pieces in the dust.

“Nonn … he broke it,” Grath said. “It must have been him. Why would he do it? He could’ve taken the golem with him.”

“Ord wouldn’t obey him,” Corr said, “so Nonn had to break the stone to keep the golem from raising the slabs.”

“Then this thing is useless now,” the mordog lieutenant snarled. He cuffed the towering clay man with the back of his massive hand. Ord did not move in the slightest, but Grath grimaced and clenched his hand in pain.

“If there are any Nightbane still about,” he muttered, “and they find out the golem doesn’t work anymore …”

“Enough,” Corr said. He touched the polished surface of the stone slab, then stepped back. For a moment there was a blank look on his face. Then he turned to Finn.

“Brother, the green stone from my ring. Do you still have it?”

Finn nodded. Corr had given him the ring the day he left the Bourne. Years later, when Finn and his friends encountered the golem by chance in the Bog of Mool, Finn had set the ring’s green stone in the clay man’s forehead and it had sent
him marching across the Realm in search of Corr. Master Pendrake had guessed that the stone had infused the golem with Finn’s own greatest desire: to find his brother.

Reluctantly Finn slipped his hand into the inner pocket of his Errantry tunic and brought out the stone.

“Put it in his forehead, Finn,” Corr said eagerly. “It worked before. It brought him here to me.”

Finn looked down at the gleaming green stone in his palm. He thought of his friends in Fable and the armoured fetches drawing closer to them with every passing hour.

“What are you waiting for?” Corr said. “Do it.”

Finn reached up and set the stone into the shallow round cavity in the golem’s forehead. Immediately the clay man shuddered from head to toe. Finn stepped back, as did Grath and Corr. Ord’s head turned slowly and his eyes, two grey featureless orbs, fixed on Finn.

“Ord,” Corr said, stepping forward again. “Lift the slab.”

The golem did not move at the sound of Corr’s voice.

“Ord, do you hear me? You serve the Sky Lord. Obey my command.”

The golem did not stir. Its seemingly sightless eyes remained on Finn.

“What’s wrong with him?” Grath muttered. “What did that damned dwarf do to him?”

“This isn’t Nonn’s doing,” Finn said. “Ord won’t listen to you, Corr, because you gave
me
the ring. The ring is mine. The golem was obeying my wishes when it went in search of you. And now it will obey my wishes again.”

He turned to the golem. “Ord,” he said, “lift one of those stones.”

With a low, grinding sound the golem bent at the waist, grasped one of the broken chunks of the pillar on the chamber floor and lifted it easily.

“Now crush it,” Finn said. “Crush the stone.”

There was no visible sign of effort as the golem’s thick fingers closed around the stone. A moment later it shattered with a loud crack and a plume of dust. The bits and pieces clattered to the floor.

“I didn’t know he could do
that
,” Grath murmured in awe.

“It looks like you’re right, brother,” Corr said. “But this can work, too. If he’ll do only what you tell him, Finn, then tell him to obey
me
in all things. As long as the order comes from you, he’ll have to listen.”

Finn gazed at the towering clay figure before him. He saw himself returning to Fable with the golem, saw Ord plowing through the ranks of the Nightbane. The Errantry’s enemies would break like water on a stone. If he could only get there in time.

“Finn,” Corr said urgently. “Command him.”

Finn drew a deep breath. He felt distant from what was going on around him, as if seeing it all from a great height. His blood was on fire, but his heart was like ice in his chest. He knew what he had to do.

“The golem is no longer yours, Corr,” he said. “I’m returning to Fable and taking Ord with me.”

15

A
FTER
E
DWETH HAD SPOKEN
with Lord Caliburn about the mage, she had expected to be shown back to the toyshop. The Marshal had taken her accusations seriously. And so she hadn’t complained when she was escorted once again to the room they were keeping her in at Appleyard. She was prepared to wait there patiently until word was brought to her that Brax had been evicted from the toyshop and she would be allowed to return.

She was all the more surprised, then, when the guards who came to fetch her led her down into the lower levels of the Gathering House to a smaller room with a locked door. The furnishings were even sparser than in the room she had just left. There was a low, narrow cot and one wooden chair, and to her horror nothing but a bucket to relieve herself in. The tiny, high window was barred. She had been so certain
the Marshal would help her that it took her longer than it should have to understand that this was a cell and she was now a prisoner.

She had called the guards who locked her in every name she could think of and demanded to see the Marshal, but no one answered her. The door was locked and she was alone.

Hours went by. A guard arrived with a meal for her, but he made no response to her angry questions, as if he couldn’t even hear her.

So she was left with her questions, which went around and around in her mind without answers. Why had the Marshal done this to her? What was going on at the toyshop? And where in the world was Rowen?

Night fell and then dawn came, and she was still alone in the cell. Edweth had slept a little, but not deeply. She was sitting on the edge of the cot when she heard a key in the door.

As the wildman stooped and entered, Edweth stood, her hands clenched, ready to defend herself. She had never spoken with Balor Gruff and had only seen him from a distance on rare occasions. With his outlandish features and hulking size he had always looked ridiculously out of place to her, as if someone had mistakenly draped an Errantry cloak over a cave bear.

They stood looking at each other uneasily, and then Balor made a stiff bow. She noticed he had a dark cloak under one arm.

“Madam Edweth,” he said in a booming voice as the door was shutting behind him. “I am here on the acting Marshal’s orders, to ask you some further questions about the events in the toyshop.”

“
Acting
Marshal?” Edweth said with a start. “What’s happened to Lord Caliburn?”

“He’s been taken ill, ma’am,” Balor said, moving closer and lowering his voice. “Captain Thorne is in charge of the Errantry for the time being.”

“Thorne?” Edweth exclaimed. “That man is a far cry from—” Then she bit her lip and glared at the wildman. He stepped closer still, almost bending over her, and she drew back in fright. Balor lowered his voice to a near whisper and said, “Rowen sent me.”

Edweth stared fearfully into Balor’s eyes.

“Rowen?” she whispered back. “When did you see her? Is she …”

“When I left Rowen and Will, they were all right. They had Shade with them and … well, it’s quite a story, ma’am, and I promise to tell you everything in full when there’s time for it, but you must listen to me now. I believe you are in danger here and I am going to take you somewhere safe.”

“Danger
here
?” Edweth said incredulously. “They may have locked me up to keep me quiet, Mister Gruff, but this is still Fable. There’s been some misunderstanding, that’s all—”

“Much has changed in a short time,” Balor broke in urgently. “Lord Caliburn sent me to Annen Bawn with pressing news and I’ve only just returned. Otherwise I would have come to you sooner, as Rowen asked me to. But while I was gone, that scheming mage Ammon Brax seized power somehow. He’s got his own personal company of Errantry troopers doing his bidding, and it seems even Thorne is answering to him now. The city is under martial law, and you’re not the only one who’s been arrested for defying the mage. I’m telling you on my oath as a knight-errant that even Appleyard is no longer safe. I have to get you out of here before worse happens.”