The Lost Years (19 page)

In time, Rhia turned to me, her eyes clouded. “This tree has seen more than two hundred springs in Druma Wood. Yet now it’s sure it has seen its very last. It weeps every day for the future of its children. I told it not to lose hope, but it said it has only one hope left. To live long enough to do at least some small thing to keep the Druma safe from warrior goblins. But it expects just to die of grief instead.”

Shim, standing beside her, rubbed his dirt-caked nose and looked down.

I could only nod sadly and watch the streaming mist. All at once I picked up the sweet scent of apple blossoms.

“You sssseem sssso very glum,” said a familiar voice.

“Cwen!” Rhia leaped to her feet. “What ever brings you here? You almost never go out walking anymore.”

Passing a branched hand before her face, Cwen emerged from the mist. “I sssshouldn’t have followed you.” She hesitated, a touch of fear in her teardrop eyes. “Issss it possible you can sssstill forgive me?”

Rhia’s eyes narrowed. “You have done something terrible.”

At that instant, six huge warrior goblins stepped out of the mist. Swiftly they surrounded us. Their thin eyes glinted beneath pointed helmets, their muscular arms protruded from shoulder plates, their three-fingered hands grasped the hilts of broad swords. Beads of perspiration gathered on their gray-green skin.

One of them, wearing red armbands above his elbows, brandished his sword at Cwen. In a wheezing, rasping voice, he demanded, “Which one has it?”

Cwen glanced furtively at Rhia, who was glaring at her in astonishment. “They promissssed me I could usssse the Galator to make mysssself young again.” She waved her shriveled fingers. “Don’t you ssssee? My handssss will wither no more!”

Rhia winced with pain. “I can’t believe you would do this, after all the years—”

“Which one?” rasped the goblin.

Cwen pointed a knobby finger at me.

The warrior goblin stepped into the grove of elms and aimed his sword at my chest. “Give it to me now. Or shall I make it very painful for you first?”

“Remember what you ssssaid,” urged Cwen. “You promissssed not to harm them.”

The goblin wheeled around to face the aging treeling. A thin smile curled his crooked mouth. “I forgot. But did I make any promise about you?”

Cwen’s eyes widened in fright. She started to back away.

“No!” cried Rhia.

It was too late. The goblin’s sword whizzed through the air, slicing off one of Cwen’s arms.

She shrieked, grasping the open wound as brown blood gushed from it.

“There.” The goblin’s wheezing laughter filled the air. “Now you won’t have to worry about that old hand anymore!” He advanced at Cwen. “Now let’s do the other one.”

Screaming in terror, blood pouring from her stunted arm, Cwen stumbled off into the mist.

“Let her go,” rasped the goblin. “We have more important work to do.” He jabbed his sword, dripping with brown blood, at my throat. “Now, where were we?”

I swallowed. “If you kill me, you’ll never know how it works.”

A sinister look filled the goblin’s face. “Now that you remind me, my master did tell me to keep alive the person who wears it. But he said nothing about keeping your friends alive.”

I sucked in my breath.

“Perhaps if I agree to spare your friends, though, you will tell me how it works.” He winked at another goblin. “Then my dear master and I will have some bargaining to do.”

He pivoted to Shim, who was shaking in fear, and kicked him so hard he flew across the grove. “Shall I start our fun with this dirty little dwarf? No, I think not.” He turned to Rhia, his thin eyes gleaming. “A girl of the forest! What an unexpected pleasure.”

Rhia stepped backward.

The goblin nodded, and two members of his band lunged at her. Each of them seized one of her leaf-draped arms.

“Give it to me,” ordered the goblin.

I glanced at Rhia, then back at him. How could I possibly give up the Galator?

“Right now!”

I did not move.

“All right then. We’ll amuse ourselves while you make up your mind.” He flicked his wrist at Rhia. “To start with, break both of her arms.”

Instantly the goblins wrenched Rhia’s arms behind her back. At the same time, she cried out, “Don’t do it, Emrys! Don’t—”

She shrieked with pain.

“No!” I pleaded. I pulled the Galator out of my tunic. The jewels glinted darkly in the mist. “Spare her.”

The goblin smiled savagely. “Give it to me first.”

Rhia’s captors twisted her arms harder, almost lifting her off the ground. She shrieked again.

I removed the cord from my neck. The grove was silent, except for the sad creaking of the old elm. I hefted the precious pendant, then handed it over.

The goblin snatched it from me. As he gazed into the jeweled object, he wheezed excitedly. Meanwhile, his greenish tongue danced around his lips. Then he smirked at me. “I have changed my mind. First I will kill your friends, and then I will ask you how it works.”

“No!”

All the goblins wheezed in laughter. Their immense chests shook at their leader’s joke, while Rhia winced painfully.

“All right,” rasped the goblin. “Maybe I will be merciful. Show me how it works. Now!”

I hesitated, not knowing what to do. If there was ever a moment to break my vow and call upon my powers, this was it. Did I dare? Yet even as I asked myself the question, my mind filled with surging, searing flames. The screams of Dinatius. The smell of my own burning flesh.

Try, you coward!
a voice within me cried.
You must try!
Yet, just as urgently, another voice answered:
Never again! Last time you destroyed your eyes. This time you will destroy your very soul. Never again!

“Show me!” commanded the goblin. Even through the thickening mist, I saw his muscles tighten. Raising his sword, he aimed the blade at Rhia’s neck.

Still I hesitated.

Just then a strange wind, wilder by the second, shook the branches of the old elm in the center of the grove. Its creaking rose to a scream. As the goblin looked up, the tree snapped free of its roots and toppled over. He had only enough time to howl in agony as the tree crashed down on top of him.

I reached for the Galator, which had dropped to the ground. I slung the leather cord over my neck. With my other hand, I grabbed the fallen goblin’s sword and started slashing at another member of the band. The goblin, far stronger than I, quickly backed me against the trunk of the downed tree.

The goblin reared back to strike me down. Suddenly, he froze. A look of sheer horror came over his face—horror that I had seen only once before, in Dinatius when the flames swallowed him.

I whirled around. Then I, too, froze. The sword fell from my hand. For out of the swirling mist came a gargantuan white spider, her jaws slavering.

“Huuungry,” bellowed the great spider in a blood-curdling voice. “I aaam huuungry.”

Before I knew what was happening, Rhia grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me out of the path of the Grand Elusa. To the shrieks of the cornered goblin, we ran down the hill, closely pursued by Shim. The little giant sprinted almost as fast as we did ourselves, his feet kicking up a cloud of dirt and leaves.

Two of the warrior goblins dodged the monster, leaving their companions to fend for themselves, and chased after us. Wheezing and cursing, waving their swords in the air, they pursued us through the mist-shrouded boulders. Though we charged with all our speed down the hillside, they gained on us steadily. Soon they were almost on top of Shim.

Suddenly a river appeared out of the mist. Rhia cried out, “The water! Jump in the water!”

With no time to ask questions, Shim and I obeyed. We hurled ourselves into the fast-flowing water. The goblins plunged in after us, thrashing their swords in the current.

“Help us!” Rhia shouted, although I had no idea to whom. Then she slapped her hands wildly against the water’s surface.

At once, a wave began to crest in the middle of the river. A great, glistening arm of water rose up, bearing Rhia, Shim, and myself in the palm of its hand. The liquid fingers curled over us like a waterfall, as the hand lifted us high above the river’s cascading surface. Spray, sparkling with rainbows, surrounded us. The arm of water whisked us downstream, leaving our pursuers far behind.

Minutes later, the arm melted back into the river itself, dumping us on a sandbar. We climbed out of the water, bedraggled but safe. And, in the case of Shim, considerably cleaner as well.

23:
G
REAT
L
OSSES

Rhia collapsed on the bank, her garb of leaves wet and glistening in the sun. As the surface of the river returned to normal, a thin finger of water splashed across her hand. It clung there for an instant before dissolving into the sand.

But she did not seem to notice. Morosely, she kicked at the emerald reeds by the river’s edge.

I sat down beside her. “Thank you for saving us.”

“Thank the river, not me. The River Unceasing is one of my oldest friends in the forest. He bathed me as an infant, watered me as a child. Now he has saved us all.”

I glanced at the waterway, then at Shim, who had flopped down on his back in the sun. For the first time, no dirt and honey covered his clothing, and I noticed that his baggy shirt was woven of some sort of yellowish bark.

Suddenly, I remembered the yellow-rimmed eye of Trouble. Had the brave hawk eluded that swarm of bees? If he had not, had he survived their wrath? And if he had, would he ever be able to find me again? My shoulder felt strangely bereft without him sitting there.

I turned back to Rhia, who looked more glum than I. “You don’t seem very glad.”

“How can I be glad? I lost two friends today—one old, one new.” Her eyes wandered across my face. “Cwen I’ve known ever since she found me abandoned so long ago. The old elm I met only a few minutes before she felled herself to spare us harm. They couldn’t be more different—one crooked and bent, the other straight and tall. One stole my loyalty, the other gave me life. But I grieve for both.”

I heaved a sigh. “That elm won’t see its saplings ever again.”

She lifted her chin a bit. “Arbassa wouldn’t agree. Arbassa would say that they’ll meet again in the Otherworld. That we all will, someday.”

“Do you really believe that?”

She drew a deep breath. “I’m . . . not sure. I know I
want
to believe it. But whether we really will meet after the Long Journey, I don’t know.”

“What Long Journey?”

“It’s the voyage to the Otherworld, after a Fincayran dies. Arbassa says the more a person needs to learn when she dies, then the longer her Long Journey must be.”

“In that case, even if the Otherworld is real, it would take mc
forever
to get there.”

“Maybe not.” She glanced at the rushing river, then back at me. “Arbassa also told me that, sometimes, the bravest and truest souls are spared the Long Journey completely. Their sacrifice is so great that they are brought right to the Otherworld, at the very instant of death.”

I scoffed at this. “So instead of dying, they just . . . disappear? One second they’re here, writhing in pain, and the next second they’re in the Otherworld, dancing merrily? I don’t think so.”

Rhia lowered her head. “It does sound hard to believe.”

“It’s impossible! Especially if they’re not capable of such a sacrifice anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If they’re too cowardly!” I bit my lip. “Rhia, I . . . could have done more, much more, to help you.”

She looked at me sympathetically. “What more could you have done?”

“I have some, well, powers. Nothing to do with the Galator. I don’t begin to understand them. Except that they are strong—too strong.”

“Powers like your second sight?”

“Yes, but stronger. Fiercer. Wilder.” For a moment I listened to the churning water of the River Unceasing. “I never asked for such powers! They just came to me. Once, in a rage, I used them badly, and they cost me my eyes. They cost another boy much more. They weren’t meant for mortals, these powers! I promised never to use them again.”

“Who did you promise?”

“God. The Great Healer of Branwen’s prayers. I promised that, if only I might somehow see again, I would give up my powers forever. And God heard my plea! But still . . . I should have used them back there. To save you! Promise or no promise.”

She peered at me through her tangle of curls. “Something tells me that this promise isn’t the only reason you didn’t want to use your powers.”

My mouth went dry. “The truth is, I fear them. With all my heart I fear them.” I pulled a reed out of the shallow water and twisted it roughly with my fingers. “Branwen once told me that God gave me those powers to use, if I could only learn to master them. To use them
well
, she said, with wisdom and love. But how can you use wisely something that you fear to touch? How can you use lovingly something that could destroy your eyes, your life, your very soul? It’s impossible!”

She waited quite a while before responding. Then she waved toward the white-capped waters. “The River Unceasing appears to be just a line of water, flowing from here to there. Yet he is more. Much more. He is all that he is—including whatever hides beneath the surface.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Everything. J think Branwen was right. If someone—God, Dagda, or whoever—gave you special powers, they are for you to use. Just as the River Unceasing has his own powers to use. You are all that you are.”

I shook my head. “So I should ignore my promise?”

“Don’t ignore it, but ask yourself if that is really what this God wanted you to do.”

“He gave me back my sight.”

“He gave you back your
powers
.”

“That’s insane!” I exclaimed. “You have no idea—”

A loud snort from somewhere nearby cut me off. I jumped, thinking it came from a wild boar. Then came the snort again, and I realized that it was not a boar after all. It was Shim. He had fallen asleep on the sandbar.

Rhia watched the tiny figure. “He snores loud enough to be a true giant.”