The Tree of Story (5 page)

“Come with us, then,” she said. “There’s no time to argue about it.”

She held her hand up toward the open waylight. The wisp bobbed up and down a moment and then sped inside the
lantern, where its light dimmed to a paler blue glow. Rowen shut the little door, then lifted the waylight by its wire handle and set it atop the Loremaster’s staff. Will thought it would slip off as soon as Rowen moved the staff, but to his surprise the lantern stayed in place. He peered closer and saw that the lantern’s handle was now embedded in the wood.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

Will pointed to the lantern. Rowen looked up.

“Oh,” she said, and frowned. “I didn’t—it just happened. I didn’t even think about it.”

She tugged at the wire. It was stuck solidly in the wood of the staff.

“That’s just how it needed to be,” she said, and gave the staff a gentle shake. The lantern clinked against the wood.

“Is he going to be all right up there?” Will asked. He thought the wisp would be shaken about as Rowen walked with the staff.

“As long as he’s in the lantern he’s fine,” she said. “He’s used to being carried on long walks.”

Rowen took a final searching look around the workshop, as if reluctant to leave it. She paused in front of a tapestry beside the doorway. It was tall and narrow, hanging nearly from the ceiling to the floor, and on it was an image of a towering tree, its branches spreading to great clouds of green leaves dotted with glittering points of silver like stars.

“Grandmother wove this for Grandfather,” Rowen said wistfully. “Before she went into the Weaving.”

“I know this tree,” Shade said. “It is the tree that stood on the hill where we met at midsummer, in the time before the Storyeater, the one you call Malabron. We met there with the Tain Shee and the First Ones.”

“The First Ones?” Will asked.

“The Stewards,” Rowen said. “The oldest of all living beings in the Realm, Grandfather says. They spun the very first stories out of the Weaving. They created the tree, too. From a distance, Morrigan of the Shee told me, it looked like a great green cloud. At midsummer the white blossoms would open and scatter seeds throughout the Realm. The seeds were living things, as well. Some carried dreams and tales from the Stewards and returned with news from distant places.”

“The messenger wisps,” Will said. “So Sputter was one of them? I never knew that’s where he came from.”

“But then the tree was destroyed, wasn’t it, Shade?” Rowen asked. “That’s what Grandfather told me.”

“Yes, in the war with the Storyeater,” the wolf said. “Along with many other things that were good and beautiful.”

No one spoke for a while. Will’s thoughts were heavy. He knew something he needed to share with Rowen, but so far he hadn’t been able to tell her. Before he’d been reunited with her he’d met a man of the Horsefolk, who lived in hide tents on the plains. The man was a Dreamwalker, a seer, and he had seen Rowen in his visions. He knew she would be going to the Shadow Realm long before it happened, but he’d said nothing about her search for the Loremaster. According to the Dreamwalker, Rowen had another task before her, a much greater one that would change the fate of everyone in the Realm.

Will glanced at Rowen and then away again, not wanting her to see the look on his face. How could he tell her about what he knew, when all she wanted was to find her grandfather and bring him home? It would be too heavy a burden for her, he thought. And she might not believe him anyhow. He couldn’t even tell her what this greater task was. He hadn’t really understood the Dreamwalker’s words.

“Well, then,” Rowen said heavily. “Let’s go.”

They left the workshop and hurried down the hall to the rough-hewn door of the raincabinet.

Will hung back with Shade while Rowen stepped forward and opened the door.

Before them was a tiny room, with the same broom, mop and bucket Rowen had seen in it the last time she’d been here. Shade stuck his nose tentatively into the doorway and sniffed.

“It looks undisturbed,” Rowen said.

She leaned in and tapped her grandfather’s staff against the back wall. From the little room came a smell of damp and a faint scent of soap, and Will remembered when he’d first come to the toyshop. He’d already been confused and frightened by this strange world he found himself in, then he’d opened this odd door and to his terror found pouring rain and an echoing darkness inside. Now it was only an ordinary broom closet and he wondered if he had imagined what he had seen here before or if Rowen had somehow brought them to the wrong door.

“How did you get through it before?” Will asked.

“I didn’t,” Rowen said. “I mean, whenever I opened the door myself, there was only the broom closet. But when I came here with Grandfather the other day, the closet was gone and there was just the rain. That’s what I thought we’d see this time.”

“What do you think’s happened?”

Rowen frowned.

“The closet is only a disguise, to keep people from seeing what’s really here. It’s made of the same thing as Riddle. Grandfather calls it the fathomless fire. But
we
know this room’s not really here, so we should be able to see through it.”

“Then why can’t we?”

“I think it’s my fault,” Rowen said slowly, her brow knitting. “When I left here the last time, all I could think of was
that I needed to keep Brax from finding the Weaving. So I told the broom closet before I left and—”

“You
told
it?” Will broke in, not sure he had heard right. “Told it
what
?”

“No, I mean I told it like a story. I
wove
it, out of the fathomless fire. It was the same with the staff and the lantern just now.”

Will frowned. “I don’t understand. If it’s not some magic spell, then …”

“Grandfather always said to me, ‘Magic and story—they’re really the same thing.’ They’re the fathomless fire. It’s in everything. Or everything’s made of it. Some stories are very strong and they hold together longer than others.” She placed a hand against the back wall and pushed. “I suppose I made this one too well.”

“So what do we do?”

Rowen stepped back and bit her lip. Will could see her knuckles whitening as she gripped the staff.

“We don’t have time for this,” she said, her voice low and strained. All at once she lifted the staff and with its bottom end struck the back wall of the closet.

To Will’s astonishment the stone shattered and with a rushing sound the countless tiny bits became a glittering falling curtain of water. As he watched, spellbound, the other walls swiftly melted into shimmering cascades.

Rowen stood back. “There,” she said.

“You made this rain, Rowen of Blue Hill?” Shade asked.

“It was always here,” Rowen said. “That’s what Grandfather told me. I just helped a little.”

Will leaned forward and craned his neck to look up. There was no ceiling anymore. He saw only bright droplets falling out of blackness and heard a far-off rumble of thunder. When he’d first seen this impossible sight, he had wanted to ask Master Pendrake where the mysterious doorway led, but he
hadn’t dared then. Now he was going to find out what lay beyond the rain, and the thought troubled him. Rowen had already told him a little about this strange place called the Weaving. She’d said it was something like the world of one’s dreams, where things were always changing into other things. It was a tricky, shifting place you could get lost in very easily and never find the way out again. Rowen’s grandmother had gone into the Weaving years ago and had stayed so long she was no longer able to get back.

Raising his voice against the rushing din, Will said, “You’re sure we can find the Fair Folk in there?”

“Grandfather told me that the loremasters of old could step through the Weaving to other places,” Rowen said. “To distant lands or even other worlds. I know it’s true because I followed the thread of the thing that took Grandfather, the thrawl, and it brought me to the edge of the Shadow Realm.” She drew a deep breath. “I came to the black river that Riddle spoke about, and I waded across. I was nearly there, Will. In
his
realm. The water was so cold. I could feel the life leaving my body. I think if I’d gone all the way across, I would’ve become a fetch. But Riddle saved me. He pulled me back in time.”

“Riddle must’ve known what would happen to you.”

“He
is
the fathomless fire, Will. It’s like he’s … the opposite of whatever a fetch is. He knew I couldn’t go that way to find Grandfather. But if I could reach the Shadow Realm through the Weaving, then maybe it can also lead us to wherever the Fair Folk are. They’re the only ones who would know another way, a hidden way into the Shadow Realm. That’s what I’m hoping, anyhow.”

“So the Weaving is like one of those knot-paths that take you from one place to another in the Realm?”

“I suppose so, only it’s more like
every
path is there, on the other side of this door. So there must be one that leads
to the Fair Folk. There must be. We just need to find it. When I give the word, follow me through and stay close. The rain will be over in a moment and then we’ll be in the Weaving. Just stay close to me, no matter what.”

“Wait—what if Brax gets past Riddle?” Will asked. “If he comes up here and sees this rain, he’s sure to find the Weaving.”

“I’ll put the broom closet back in place,” Rowen said. “When we’ve gone into the Weaving, the closet is all that anyone will see.”

“You know that for sure?”

Rowen didn’t answer. She was staring into the rain, her whole body tensed and ready.

“Now,” she said, and without another word she darted forward into the cabinet. The rain closed over her and she disappeared. Will and Shade shared a glance, then they followed.

3

T
HE ENEMY BROKE THROUGH
the outer wall of Corr Madoc’s fortress just before dawn.

All night the catapults of the Nightbane had launched smoking black stones at the walls. Stones that burst into flame when they struck and shook the fortress from its turrets to its foundations. The defenders had struggled to shore up the wall with timbers in the places where it seemed weakest and most likely to give, but they could not work fast enough in the face of the unending barrage. At last, with an avalanche of broken stone, one large section of wall caved inward. When the dust cleared, the Nightbane that had been gathering on the slope below the fortress came charging up to the gap.

Finn Madoc was at the breach with his brother’s Stormriders. They’d had just enough warning of the wall’s collapse that they’d had time to gather and form a wall of their
own, with their long shields overlapping one another. There was no keep to fall back to. The shattered wall opened directly onto one of the lower passageways of the fortress and had to be defended at all costs.

The Nightbane in their hundreds poured through the breach, howling and brandishing their weapons. They broke upon the shields of the Stormriders like a dark wave.

Finn was in the midst of the Stormriders. Behind him he could hear the growls and yips of Corr’s vicious hunting wolves, which had been brought up to join the defence. Finn had no shield of his own, so he’d stayed back from the front ranks. The coat of mail and helmet he was wearing he’d taken from a Stormrider killed earlier in the siege. He had his own sword, though, his Errantry blade, and it was at the ready for the moment the defence faltered and the enemy broke through the tight-knit phalanx of the shields.

He didn’t have to wait long. The gap in the wall was wide and the Nightbane kept arriving, more than Finn had ever seen. They massed up against the shield wall, hammering and beating at it with their weapons, roaring and shrieking. Through the press of bodies Finn caught glimpses of contorted faces: mordog, creech, awgren and other creatures he had no name for. Finn braced his feet as well as he could on the stone floor of the chamber. He pressed up against the back of the Stormrider in front of him and felt the man behind him pressing against his own back. Like one enormous armoured body, the tightly ranked Stormriders shuddered as the enemy strained and battered against the shields. Soon men began to shift their footing, and some slipped and stumbled and had to scramble to their feet. The defence was being slowly, inexorably, pushed back and sheared apart.