Willow (6 page)

E
veryone loved the fair. Everybody came. They came in their boats from the north end of the valley, and from the Copper Hills, and from the broads in the south. Some traveled half the night in order to be present for the ceremonies at sunrise, and some, like Willow and his children, had less than an hour’s walk.

The fair was held in the meadows on the outskirts of Nelwyn Village, near the ruins of the first settlement. There the ancestral Nelwyns, escaping down the Freen from persecution in the north, had landed and settled and begun to build. The ruins of their old brochs and wheelhouses still stood in the meadow, and in preparation for each fair these ancient walls were garlanded with flowers and blessed by friars. In the fields around, the ceremonies were held, the competitions judged, the races run. Children gamboled, old friends met and gossiped, and young lovers strolled off together to quiet places on the riverbank. It was a time for much merriment, the fair, and a time also to reaffirm the vigor of the Nelwyn people and the health of the great Freen and the valley which it nurtured.

The symbol of that health was the Wickerman, a majestic woven statue to which each Nelwyn contributed a festive decoration—a ribbon or a garland or bouquet or a beaded necklace. When it was raised in the center of the common, all musicians played, all Nelwyns cheered, and the Wickerman presided over the fair and the community, a large and bountiful emblem of Nelwyn spirit.

By noon the fair was in full swing. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, the dancers whirled to sprightly Nelwyn reels, the honey wine flowed abundantly, and laughing children raced in all directions. Old friends embraced, clapping each other on the back. Farmers traded livestock. Merchants spread their wares on the long deal tables before their tents. Even Vohnkar, stern chief of the Nelwyn warriors, strolled through the crowds and smiled. It was a scene of great high spirits and conviviality.

No one had any hint of terror approaching. No one except Mims. Twice during the morning, the little girl had stopped running with her friends. She paused to listen, her eyes suddenly apprehensive, her head turning back and forth across the breeze from the north. No one noticed her. Each time she herself decided she had imagined something, and was soon back shouting happily among her friends.

At noon, Willow’s turn came on the magicians’ stage. All candidates for Apprentice to the High Aldwin had drawn lots to perform, and Willow was last. By that time, the crowd had thinned considerably. The acts had not been very good, there were many other distractions, and wonderful fragrances were luring people to the dining tents. Besides, the tug-of-war combat between miners and farmers had just begun in the adjoining field. Willow’s name, when it was announced, was drowned out by the roars of loyalists urging on their teams.

But Willow had his own cheering-section, and they were so enthusiastic that they even drew some curious spectators away from the tug-of-war. Willow’s boyhood friend, Meegosh. stood solidly in his leather miner’s apron, one arm around Ranon and the other around Mims. All three wildly applauded every trick, even the old pull-the-feathers-out-of-nowhere maneuver, which Willow actually did quite well. Meegosh slapped his apron and yelled, “Bravo! Bravo!” so lustily that he attracted the attention of Burglekutt. The Prefect watched disdainfully from across the fairgrounds, pudgy hands spread on his stomach.

“And for my final amazing feat,” Willow shouted, “I will make an entire . . . pig . . .
disappear
!”

“Bravo!”

“Hurray!” Ranon and Mims shouted.

“Humph!” Burglekutt grunted.

Ranon and Mims lugged a wriggling piglet onto the stage, and Willow held it with one hand while spreading his cloak with the other. The piglet nipped him on the hand and twisted free, scurrying around the stage, much to Burglekutt’s delight.

Meegosh covered his face.

Willow scampered after it.
“Whuppity bairn! Whuppity bairn!”
he chanted, spreading his cloak so that he looked like a small bat.
“Deru! Deru!”

The pig vanished.

The crowd gasped.

Willow lifted his arms calmly and triumphantly. But the cloak thrashed and churned. Muffled squealing issued from it, and a second later the pig thumped back onto the stage and scrambled away. Burglekutt roared. The crowd hissed and booed. In the field beside the stage, a mighty cheer arose as the miners triumphed in the tug-of-war, pulling the farmers face-first into the dirt.

“Never mind, Dada.” Ranon reached up to put his arm around his father’s waist. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Mims nodded. “Next year we’ll get a better pig.”

“Good show!” Meegosh said, clapping his friend on the back as Willow came off the stage. “Much better than last year. Just needs a little . . . refining. Come on, Willow, cheer up!”

“Quite a spectacle!” Burglekutt snorted. “Made a fool of yourself again, eh, Ufgood? Disappearing pig! The only thing you’ll see disappear is your farm!” Laughing, he headed for the food tent.

“Round the bend!” Meegosh grinned, poking Willow.

“Meegosh, I don’t feel like that just now. And besides, we’re getting too old for . . .”

“Round the bend!”

“All right. Round the bend!”

“Fat rear end!” Meegosh shouted after Burglekutt, cupping his hands.

“He’s a donkey . . .”

“And I’m your friend!”

The two old friends chuckled at their own childishness, and Willow immediately felt better. The children laughed with them, although Mims suddenly paused and lifted her head as if she had heard a faint sound from far away. The men moved off, not noticing her distraction, and soon she ran after them.

“Never mind Burglekutt,” Meegosh was saying. “When the High Aldwin picks you as his apprentice this afternoon, you won’t have to worry about Burglekutt anymore, ever again.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right. Wait and see.”

They shared a good meal and enjoyed the rest of the fair until the shadow of the Wickerman, with all its wreaths and drifting streamers, touched the High Aldwin’s throne. Since noon, people had been gathering in a big circle around it, and when the two friends arrived with Ranon and Mims, Meegosh had to stand on the remnants of a crumbled wall and lift the children on his shoulders to see their father honored by the High Aldwin.

Like a strange bird, the shadow of the Wickerman fluttered across the throne. The crowd hushed.

The High Aldwin appeared.

He came out of the ground, out of the ruins, out of the shadow. One moment, there was an empty throne; the next moment, the High Aldwin was sitting in it. “Good afternoon,” he said.

“Good afternoon, High Aldwin,” the crowd chanted in unison. Burglekutt and the other councillors bowed deeply.

He was very small, very old. His face was almost lost in white locks and braids, bushy beard and eyebrows. Out of this mass shone two blue eyes. His embroidered cap glowed eerily in the shadow of the Wickerman, and small lights twinkled in his starry cape. In his right hand he clasped a staff surmounted by an owl’s skull, and by frail wings of leafy gold.

“Are we ready? Are we ready?” He seemed a bit befuddled, as he always did on first appearance. Some said it was because he had just wakened; others, because he had been swept so fast through infinite space.

“Yes, High Aldwin,” the Council said.

“Then let us begin. Bring forth the candidates.”

This year there were only three.

“Ufgood?” Burglekutt said, spreading his arms in astonishment and turning to the rest of the Council. “
Ufgood
was chosen to be among the candidates? Is this a joke?” He laughed mirthlessly, but no one joined in, and the High Aldwin silenced him with a baleful glance.

The crowd grew still. The shadow of the Wickerman passed, and the High Aldwin stood in the sun. “The Great Mystery,” he began, looking hard at the would-be apprentices, “is the bloodstream of the universe, and sorcery is the way to its energy. Sorcery is not magic. It is not skill. It is not thought or knowledge.” He leaned close, and his blue gaze embraced the three of them. Willow felt enshrouded, closed off from his children and Meegosh. He felt alone. The High Aldwin’s voice deepened, grew more resonant. “Forget all you know or think you know. You will need only your intuition, your own deep feeling for what is right and good. Answer now!” He raised four fingers. “Which finger contains the power to enter the bloodstream of the universe?”

Hesitating, the first candidate chose the index finger.

The High Aldwin shook his head. “Next!”

The second, wavering, finally selected the little finger.

Again the High Aldwin shook his head. “Next!” He turned to Willow.

So intimidating was his manner, so piercing that gaze from his sky blue eyes, that Willow lost all confidence. He trembled. “That one,” he said, pointing to a middle finger.

Sadly, the High Aldwin shook his head. The failed apprentices heard him speak, although his lips did not move.
You have forgotten what I told you. You have forgotten the simplest, most important thing of all.

Still shaking his head, he stood up. The candidates drew back. “No apprentice this year!” Smoke curled from the place where his staff struck the ground.

The crowd released a long and disappointed sigh and began to disperse. Only Burglekutt spoke. “Just as I expected! Well, begone, the lot of you. It’s over for this year. Clear off, there, Ufgood! Don’t pester the High Aldwin!”

Willow had lingered behind and approached the throne. “Sir, forgive me but I have to talk to you. It’s a matter of great importance. I have something . . .”

The Aldwin’s gaze turned to him, but it was not, this time, the enfolding stare that Willow had felt earlier. It was cool and dispassionate, even a bit amused.

“Sir, I have a child . . .”

Mims screamed.

It was the high, piercing, sustained scream of a child who has seen something so terrible that she wants to blot it out completely, wants to remove it from the Earth and from all memory. “Look out! Look out! Look out!”

Meegosh had just taken her off his shoulder. She was standing on the ruin of an old wall, pointing north. Her eyes were shut tight.

“What is it?” the crowd asked, seeing nothing. “What’s wrong with that child? Is she having a fit? Is she . . .”

Vohnkar’s shout of warning joined Mims’s scream—too late!

A Death Dog rounded the bend at full speed and was among the revellers before they knew it. The brute was one of the largest and strongest of Bavmorda’s creatures, bigger than any Nelwyn. For several days it had run hard on the faintest scent, pausing only to lap water from the Freen and to rip apart an occasional fawn or rabbit. Its pace quickened as the scent grew stronger, leading it down at last into Nelwyn Valley. Its eyes blazed as it charged. White froth had formed a crust across its chest and shoulders. Great muscles and sinews rippled under its hairless skin.

Willow seized the High Aldwin’s arm. “
Do
something!”

The old man looked at him in surprise. “
I
do something?
I
, Willow Ufgood?”

The beast ripped through the village, straight for Mims. The scent was so strong it was crazed by it. It snapped and tore at random. The Wickerman toppled at a blow from its shoulder. A heavy cradle from which a screaming mother barely had time to snatch her baby crumpled like twigs in its fearsome claws. People scattered in all directions from the mayhem.

Only Mims held her ground. As the dog bore down on her, the child standing on the mound of ancient stones grew calm. She stopped her screaming. She ceased jumping up and down. As Willow shouted her name and ran toward her, Mims opened her eyes. Wide. She looked at the dog.

The creature was only three bounds away, its blood-flecked jaws open to strike. But in that instant it faltered. Its left forepaw folded and its knee hit hard on the flinty path. It snarled in fury and was up again at once, but the instant was all that Vohnkar and his men required. Willow reached Mims and swept her aside just as two stout arrows slammed into the dog, the first narrowly missing its heart, the second slicing up through its throat and into its jaw. Howling, it reared on its hind legs, clawing air. Vohnkar moved in, struck once, twice with his sword, dancing under the lashing talons. All Vohnkar’s band were shouting now, the ululating war cries of Nelwyn warriors that had struck terror into the hearts of bigger men. Moving like lightning, another warrior leaped up and slashed the dog across the head and Vohnkar came in again to deliver the coup de grace with a lance through the creature’s heart. Dead but still snarling, still slavering, the dog yet stayed on its feet until a swarm of ordinary Nelwyns hacked it down with spades and sickles.

Throughout, Mims surveyed the tumult as if she had seen it all before, seeming quite calm in Willow’s arms. “Mommy,” she said. “The baby.”

“Beware!” Vohnkar shouted above the chaos. “Watch out for more! Look to your children!”

“Ranon! Come on!” Willow looked wildly for Meegosh, but he was busy on the other side of the common, tending to wounded. Carrying Mims and clutching Ranon’s hand, Willow ran for home, a dozen horrid images in his mind. But when they burst in, Kiaya was peacefully rocking beside the window, feeding the baby.

“Thank goodness!” Willow exclaimed, embracing her. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”

“Why? Willow, what
happened
!”

“A dog,” Ranon said.
“This
big. It attacked the fair. Killed people.”

“No!”

Willow nodded, biting his lower lip. “I knew it! I knew something awful would happen!”

Kiaya held the baby close. “You think it’s
her
fault? It’s
not
!”

“Of course it’s not her fault, but it happened because she’s here. I know it! We have to take her to the Council, now. Everyone must know. Besides, the High Aldwin will tell us what to do.”

Kiaya held the baby close. “I’m afraid, Willow.”

He nodded, embracing them. “Oh Kiaya, so am I. But we can’t just be
afraid.
We have to fight back. We have to
act
! Right, Mims?”