Willow (16 page)

Three swords Madmartigan ordered before the craftsmen of Galladoorn satisfied him with a blade of a thousand layers, finely tempered and polished, balanced and light, leather-honed to the keenest edge.
Sushin,
Madmartigan named that first sword,
Mosquito.
Like all later blades, he carried it on his back, so that at any time he might tip his head and feel the caress of Sushin’s haft against his neck.

By the time he was twelve, Madmartigan was a knight of Galladoorn, dubbed by the king in solemn ceremony, and honored by his peers. But, although he was courteous with them and respectful of their tastes, he spent little time with them in the mead hall or on the jousting field where their horses shook the ground with war games. He preferred the laughter of the lithe men of the East or the solitude of a long hunt in the foothills.

He had only one real friend among the other knights—Airk Thaughbaer, a youth a few years older than himself. A staunch friend Airk was, as loyal to Madmartigan as to the kingdom of Galladoorn. His oath bound Airk’s very heart to Galladoorn until the death. Although all knights swore that same oath, it was not something Airk
gave;
it was what he
was.

When Madmartigan fell in love, Airk tried to counsel him. He had been through the agony of first love and he had survived. Be cautious, he warned his friend. Keep pure the core of yourself. Do not be swept by passion, lest you mistake mere happiness for joy. Stay mindful of your oath to Galladoorn. Maintain the integrity that forged that oath.

Madmartigan heard but did not listen. What is advice to a young man in love? Words, words! As Airk spoke so earnestly, Madmartigan heard his mistress’s laughter in the rapids of a brook, saw her skirts rustling in the swaying boughs, smelled the perfume of her bosom in the banks of flowers. She was all he saw, all he listened to.

She was a princess from the East, a charming and empty-headed child of breathtaking beauty. She rarely finished what she began to say, except with a careless laugh or gesture, as if thought could be found later, if she needed it, as easily as she had found her beauty.

Madmartigan’s affair with her lasted several months. Airk watched and worried, a conscientious but helpless mentor. Probably it would not have been serious, probably Madmartigan would have survived to have grown into the man everyone expected him to become if, in the middle of the affair, he had not had his Dream. It was a very simple dream, and it came easily to him, unlike those of others whose dream-visions had to be induced by fasting and long exposure on barren slopes.

In Madmartigan’s Dream, a white stallion appeared out of the forest and told him that he was destined to carry him one day triumphantly—a king! But, said the horse, the vision and the prophecy must be secret, never to be shared with anyone; otherwise, it would not come true. With that, the horse vanished.

The next day, laughing, Madmartigan told his lady love, from whom he had pledged to keep no secrets.

Even this, though it would have put an end to the prophecy, would not have brought Madmartigan’s disgrace. That calamity occurred when the love affair ended, when the girl derided him in the presence of other knights, who turned away their faces in embarrassment, and when, in scorning his Dream, she revealed that he had told her of it and so had broken his Oath of Knighthood.

Then Madmartigan knew hot shame and bitterness thick as bile. Honor gone, what now was left to him? His friendship with Airk remained, to be sure, but tempered now by Airk’s sad disappointment. His parents loved him still, but his shame was theirs, and under the burden of it they grew old before their time. His joy in the wilderness and the chase remained, but oddly lessened, compromised as were all other pleasures by his loss of pride.

He grew wilder. He grew more reckless. Old comrades in the hunt drew back from riding with him, and although Airk Thaughbaer sallied at his side into many foolish perils (and twice saved his life) he got small thanks from Madmartigan. The young man who had once avoided the companionship of the mead hall became now a frequenter of inns, and many serving-wenches in the realm of Galladoorn and beyond grew to know Madmartigan well. In time he became less welcome at Galladoorn, and at last he was rarely seen there. He became a vagabond, a wanderer. Where he wandered and what adventures he had we shall never know, though they were surely many. Those adventures, those passions, became his life.

Years later, the dark power of Nockmaar rose in the north and the plea went out from Galladoorn for all knights and warriors to rally to the defense of that kingdom. Airk Thaughbaer answered the call but Madmartigan was not with those who rode toward home.

In the inns and taverns, Madmartigan drank with brigands; in the halls of Galladoorn, as Nockmaar power grew, there were good knights who wished him dead . . .

Franjean recounted this tale with much gusto and gesticulation, interrupted often by comments from Rool. Elora Danan had long since fallen asleep in Willow’s arms. Several times the fire had dwindled to embers and had been replenished.

“But what happened at Land’s End?” Willow asked when Franjean had finished.

“Land’s End! You heard about that, did you? Ah, a great betrayal, a great desertion! There Airk Thaughbaer led loyal troops against the Nockmaar army, though they were far outnumbered, and there Madmartigan deserted him in battle, after Airk had scoured the realm to find him and return him to honor and the Fold of Knights. A sad desertion! A sad conclusion to this sorry tale! No, Peck, you are well quit of that Daikini. Place your trust in us!”

“In us!” Rool echoed, slobbering down his chin. Willow looked skeptically at the two of them. Far, far away, so far that it was no threat but only a reminder, a Death Dog howled.

V I I I
FIN RAZIEL

A
t dawn, Franjean led them down into a long, wooded valley. For a while both brownies marched along briskly, but when the calls and growls of large, waking creatures began to echo in the woods they scrambled up into Willow’s pockets. “Straight ahead!” Franjean ordered, ducking down inside. “Just follow the path.”

And so Willow struggled on with Elora on his back and his pockets full of brownies, bending lower and lower under this load until at last he was looking almost straight down at the path.

He saw the feet first, in soft leather boots.

Then he saw the mauve skirt.

And then, staggering back, the rest of the body. “Madmartigan!” He sat down abruptly.

“Hullo, Peck.” Madmartigan was leaning against a fallen tree. A sword-sized stick swung gently in his left hand.

“I thought you’d be far away! What are you doing
here
?”

“Resting. You caught up with me.”

“Thank goodness!” Willow wriggled out of the papoose-basket. The brownies climbed out of his pockets and flopped into the moss beside him, wiping their brows.

“Hard work!” Franjean said. “Supervision! Directing! All that responsibility!”

“Madmartigan,” Willow sighed, “we need you.”

“Oh? I thought I drove wagons too fast. I thought I didn’t know how to look after children.”

Elora looked up out of her basket and raised her arms to Madmartigan. Smiling, he laid down the stick and picked her up.

Willow nodded. “Well, we still need you.
She
needs you. I can’t protect her, Madmartigan. Not the way you can.”

Madmartigan shrugged. “The little one’s all right, and you’re not a bad Peck, but I don’t like
them
!” He pointed to Franjean and Rool. “Brownies! Aargh!
You
heard what they said to me. In fact, you
all
insulted me, except the little one.”

Willow got to his feet. “Look,” he said. “We’re sorry. Aren’t we sorry?”

Franjean and Rool nodded.

“And if you come with us we promise not to insult you anymore. We promise not to pester you.”

“Hey!” Franjean exclaimed. “Don’t go too far!”

Madmartigan rubbed his mouth with one hand and the top of Elora’s head with the other. “Some crew! One Peck, one infant, and two gnomes! If we meet up with more Nockmaar troops, it’s pretty clear who’ll do the fighting, right?”

“Right!” Rool said.

“That’s the point!” Franjean said.

Madmartigan sighed. “Well, we’re almost at the end of the valley. Which way are you headed after that?”

Rool and Franjean spun into a weird little dance. Rool’s knobby arms suddenly extended stiffly in front of him with the palms pressed together, like a weathervane. Franjean clasped his waist from behind and whirled him around this way and that, until finally they zeroed in on the northwest. “That way!” Franjean exclaimed. “To the Lake of Fin Raziel.”

Madmartigan slapped his knee. “Bad luck! Exactly the way I’m going. Well, I suppose you can come with me as far as the lake, but no farther. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Willow said.

The brownies nodded. “Do you mind if we . . .” Franjean pointed at the higher, safer pockets.

“Yes! I do mind!” Madmartigan tucked Elora Danan back into her basket and picked up his stick. “I’ll have enough to do without being cluttered with brownies! If you want a free ride, ask the Peck.”

Willow nodded wearily and opened his pockets, and they hopped in.

After the end of the valley they climbed back to higher ground, angling northwest and keeping to the deepest woods. Twice they saw Nockmaar horsemen searching below, and once four Death Dogs at full run, hot on the scent of some unfortunate traveler whose path had crossed their own.

At evening they made camp in a secluded thicket. The brownies found tubers, gathered eggs and berries. Once again a nursing animal came close to provide Elora succor—this time a little vixen. She padded into the clearing, watched them with bright eyes while the baby nursed, and then slipped away as silently as she had come. There was no baying of Death Dogs, no distant clatter of Nockmaar harness that night. They built a little fire. Huddling close to it, Franjean and Rool quickly fell asleep, rear ends high in the odd position of sleeping brownies, and soon Madmartigan drifted off as well, cradling the sleeping infant in one arm.

Left alone, Willow drew closer to the fire, listening to the night sounds of the deep woods. He touched the magic wand in his pocket and felt a sudden surge of confidence. Emboldened by it, he drew the wand out. It gleamed with unearthly radiance, outshining the fire. He waved it, and the figure he inscribed hung in the air, a separate entity, until it crumbled to sparkling powder, glinting like fairy dust. Smiling, he wrote
WILLOW UFGOOD
in bold letters and admired the name until it too dispersed into gleaming dust. He wrote
KIAYA
, and
RANON
, and
MIMS
.
MIMS
hung in the air longer than any of the others, and it disintegrated in a curious fashion, growing larger and larger until it was no longer legible.

Willow was delighted.
Trust yourself!
Isn’t that what the High Aldwin had told him?
You have the ability to be a great sorcerer.
Well, perhaps he did have that ability! Perhaps he really would become a sorcerer!

He stood up.

Gripping the wand in both hands, he braced himself, pointed it at a flowering apple tree, and repeated a chant he had heard the High Aldwin use to produce sudden, luscious fruit.
“Tuatha . . . lawkathok . . . tuatha . . . !”

An explosion lifted him off his feet, somersaulted him, and draped him over the tree’s lowest branch. He blinked. He shook his head.

Madmartigan was on his feet in a flash, stick-sword in hand.
“Willow?”
He looked at the wand glimmering beside the fire. He peered into the darkness. “Ah, there you are! Made a mistake, huh?” He lifted the dazed Nelwyn down out of the tree and set him back beside the fire. “Please, no more magic games now. Gets too noisy.”

That night Willow dreamed horrific dreams in which he was chased by Death Dogs, trolls, and ravenous monsters. They all caught him. Several times Madmartigan wakened him, saying he was shouting and screaming. In the morning he felt exhausted, confused, and grumpy. Right away he picked a quarrel with Madmartigan, who was feeding Elora a tuber the brownies had found.

“That’s blackroot!” Willow shouted.

“Of course.”

“You should
never
feed a child blackroot!”

“Nonsense. Mother always fed me blackroot. Puts hair on your chest, right, Sticks?” He shook the child and she gurgled happily.

“Her name isn’t Sticks! It’s Elora Danan. She’s an empress, and the last thing she’ll need, Madmartigan, is hair on her chest. Give me that!” Scrambling over, Willow seized the root and hurled it into the underbrush. “Now let’s get going. The lake can’t be too far ahead. I hear the waterfall.”

The two brownies stared at him in astonishment.

“Well,” Willow said. “Can’t you hear it? There. When the wind blows.”

He was right. Two hours later they came to a cliff top and gazed down on the lake below. It was a spectacular sight. It wound like a long silver ribbon through the hills, narrowing gradually until it funneled into the cascade at the south end. Here it plunged out and down, falling in a thin plume wrapped in clouds of spray. Mist from this cataract drifted back over the lake and the small island that lay like a child in its two long arms, still far below the rays of the rising sun. Mist covered the marshes and the wooded shores, and the long beach on the eastern shore, parting only long enough for the travellers to glimpse a hodgepodge of small thatched rooftops.