The Tree of Story (17 page)

Flitch pushed away his food. His thick hands were trembling.

“As you wish, my lord. My brother and I will keep searching. But—pardon me, I have to ask—isn’t there anything else you can tell us about what we’re looking for? It’s some secret of the old toymaker’s, we figured that out, but we’ve turned over all the toys in the place, shook them, took them apart. We’ve looked in every nook and cranny, under the beds, under the rugs, behind picture frames. I don’t think it’s really fair to get angry at us for failing to find this thing if”—he paused and glanced sideways at the mage—“if even
you
don’t know what it is.”

At that moment Hodge stumbled back into the room, breathing heavily.

“She’s gone,” he panted. “The room … it’s empty.”

Moments later the mage and the hogmen were standing in front of the broom closet. Two large metal-trimmed wooden chests stood stacked near the door, which was slightly ajar. Brax stepped into the broom closet and looked it over, top to bottom. He picked up a frayed length of rope.

“Her hands were bound tight as anything,” Hodge wheezed. “No way she could have got out of that.”

Brax stepped back out of the broom closet and studied the chests. “You say the door was shut when you came up just now and these were in front of it?”

Hodge nodded convulsively. “Yes. Yes. I swear it. We used those chests full of books you said you didn’t need anymore because you’d looked through them. They were so heavy the two of us together could barely lift them. There’s no way she could have …” He turned to his brother. “It was Flitch’s idea to stack the chests in front of the door. I told you it wasn’t enough. I told you—”

Flitch snarled, “You lying sack of tripe,” and advanced on his brother.

Brax raised a hand. “Enough!” he bellowed.

Flitch backed away from Hodge.

Brax crouched and examined the floor. Then he rose and set his hands to the two stacked chests. He gave a shove, grunted with the effort. “No, she could not have moved these away from the door,” he said. “And there are no scuff marks on the floor. She had help. Probably from the shapeshifter.”

“So that cat thing is still …” Hodge began, but his voice died to a whimper when he saw the look in Brax’s eyes.

Flitch had to see the broom closet for himself. He stepped inside, sniffed and looked around. Then he faced his brother. “You didn’t tie the ropes tight enough, gristlewit. Can’t you do one simple thing without botching it?”

“You’re the one who tied them,” Hodge blubbered.

Flitch raised a fist and Hodge cowered beneath it.

“Enough!” Brax roared again.

Flitch lowered his fist, then cursed and gave his brother a shove. Hodge slammed into the back wall of the closet with a howl, then rubbed his shoulder.

Brax ignored them. He was gazing off down the corridor that led to Pendrake’s library. “She may still be here somewhere, hiding and waiting for a chance to escape,” he said. “We’ll have to check all the rooms again, one by one. Search everywhere. If she gets away, things will go very hard for the two of you.”

The hogmen hurried out of the closet, first Flitch and then Hodge, still rubbing his shoulder. Brax shot them a look of disgust. He turned away and hesitated a moment, as if deciding which direction to begin the search. Then he turned back, more slowly this time, and peered into the closet a second time.

“We’ve searched there, my lord,” Hodge muttered feebly.

Brax raised a hand. “Silence,” he hissed. “Do you hear that?”

The hogmen shook their heads.

“Water,” Brax whispered. “There’s water here.”

Brax crouched at the back of the closet. He could hear water trickling. He pressed a hand against the wall, slid his fingers slowly up and down.

“What is it, my lord?” Flitch asked.

“Must be like the sewers in Skald,” Hodge whispered to his brother. “Pipes full of leaks.”

Brax stood and took a step back from the wall. He raised his staff, useless to him now for anything other than brute force, and began to prod and scrape the wall with the obsidian blade. He managed to leave pale scratch marks on the stone, but the wall remained as solid and impervious as ever.

The words from the tapestry came back to him.

Like water. Where you don’t expect to find it
.

“This isn’t really here,” he murmured. “The wall … it’s an illusion.”

“What did you say, Master Brax?” Flitch asked.

Brax ignored him. He struck and hacked with more force now, and the ivory staff, already cracked when he struggled with the tiger, now split into halves. He picked the half with the blade off the wet floor and went on hacking and slashing at the wall.

“This isn’t really here!” he shouted.

The obsidian blade broke and the pieces clattered at Brax’s feet. He stepped away from the wall, his breath coming in gasps, his arms hanging at his sides. He had been so certain. So absolutely certain that this was it.

He turned to the Marrowbone brothers. “Don’t just stand there,” he growled at their terrified faces. “Find her.”

Then he noticed that the hogmen’s looks of fear were directed not at him but at the room behind him. And now he
became aware of the roar that he had thought was his own blood rushing in his ears. He whirled.

The walls of the broom closet were gone.

A shimmering curtain of rain had taken their place. Brax stood open-mouthed, then he reached out his hand and thrust it into the falling water. After a moment he pulled his hand out and studied the glistening droplets in his palm. He watched them shrink into tiny grains of light and flow back into the rain.

“The hidden fire,” he breathed. His hand began to tremble, and he closed it into a fist.

Without another word to the hogmen he took a deep breath and plunged into the rain, disappearing from sight.

Hodge and Flitch gaped at the spot where the mage had been. After a moment, they turned to each other with eyes wide.

“Where did he go?” Hodge whispered. “Is he … gone?”

Flitch shook his head slowly, then his eyes flicked to the chests by the door. “Quick, let’s put those back,” he said.

“What?”

“If we put the chests back against the door, we can shut him in there.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. But, but what if he—”

“Just do it, fool. Quick!”

The brothers had just moved toward the chests when the mage reappeared out of the rain. His hair and cloak were steaming and luminous tendrils of pale green vapour were twining and curling about his outstretched hands. His face was whiter than when he had gone in, and to the alarm of the hogmen his eyes were glowing with the same unearthly green light. The Marrowbone brothers warily backed away. They had seen this light before, when they’d been in hiding under the keep in Skald. It was the light of the werefire.

“Master Brax?” Hodge whimpered. “What did you find in there?”

“We—we’re sorry she got away, the Skalding woman,” Flitch stammered. “But—but now I think you don’t need her anymore, isn’t that right, my lord? Isn’t this what you’ve been looking for? And we helped you find it, if you think about it. We brought you here to the broom closet and if it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t have …”

Brax seemed not to hear the hogman’s frightened babbling. He moved slowly, his eyes unfocused, as if he were walking in his sleep. He glanced at the cowering Hodge, then at the chests full of books, and his eyes glittered feverishly.

“Stories,” he said.

The mage lifted his hand, studying it as if it were something he had never seen before, and then he gestured almost casually at the chests. With a crack and a groan the iron corner braces and side straps sprang off and the wooden sides fell away. Books tumbled onto the floor like the spilled guts of a slaughtered animal. As they fell, they fluttered open, and then it was as if their leaves were being torn out by invisible hands and tossed away. Page after page flew up and went whirling about the corridor. And as they whirled and scattered, the pages burst into green flames and were swiftly consumed, leaving nothing behind, not even a puff of smoke or a trace of ash.

“Master Brax?” Hodge whispered. “Don’t forget we helped you find it. I mean, if we hadn’t put her in there, you might never have come up here to see and then you wouldn’t have—”

The mage turned to the hogmen with a smile that was more terrifying than any look of threat or anger they had seen from him yet.

“You did help me,” he said. “And for that I will let you live.
At least, as long as you obey without question. If you fail me, rest assured I will do to both of you what I did to those books.”

“We understand, my lord,” Flitch said, bowing solemnly and elbowing his terrified brother to do likewise. “We are yours to command.”

“Yes,” the mage agreed, as if there could be no other possible answer. “Yes, you are.”

10

“D
O WE RUN
?” W
ILL
began, but in the next moment he and Rowen saw and heard what Shade’s keen eyes and ears had detected. A barrel-shaped green caravan appeared at the top of the cutting, drawn by a large piebald horse. Two people sat on the front seat of the caravan, but with the light behind them it was difficult to make out their features. Even though the caravan was not moving quickly, Will knew there wouldn’t be enough time to outrun it to the other end of the cutting.

“Stay behind me,” Shade said, stepping in front of Rowen and Will.

The caravan was descending the road now, and they could more clearly make out the figures seated on it. It was large but shabby looking, its once-bright green and gold trim faded and chipped. It had the bowed roof and tall spoked wheels of old-fashioned gypsy caravans Will had seen pictures of in his
own world. The sides of the box were hung with all sorts of old and well-used things: a wooden wash tub, a shovel and rake, rolled-up lengths of cloth.

The two people seated on the box of the caravan could not have been less alike, yet something in the very oddness of their appearance made them look suited for each other. The driver was a stocky, muscular young man whose bald head was filigreed with tattoos. He wore a dark leather vest without a shirt underneath and his chest was darkly furred with hair. Beside him sat a small, sharp-featured older woman in a shawl over a faded green velvet dress. Her greying hair was matted and tangled. Both she and the driver had seen the three strangers and were staring at them with wary surprise. Then the driver flicked the reins and shouted at the horse, which broke into a quicker trot.

Whether he meant to overtake them before they could escape the cutting, or pass them more quickly, Will had no idea, but his hand had already gone to his sword hilt. As the caravan approached, the driver turned his head to the side and shouted something that Will could not hear over the clatter of the horse’s hoofs. Will thought he was speaking to the woman, but a moment later a third figure appeared, pulling open the yellow curtain that separated the front seat from the caravan’s interior. It was another young man, very tall and even more muscled than the driver, his head covered with a mop of unruly red hair. His one hand gripped the side rail of the shaking caravan and the other clutched a thick wooden cudgel.

“I will hold them off while you run,” Shade said.

“No, wait,” Rowen said. “We must stay together. I don’t think these people mean any harm.”

“We can’t take that chance,” Will said. He looked again at the caravan and saw the woman speaking quickly to the
driver, her mouth close to his ear. The driver was shaking his head and muttering something back to her, then with a scowl he pulled up on the reins and slowed the horse. The man with the cudgel did not seem threatening: his eyes were wide and his mouth slack, as if he was merely curious about these strangers. Will understood then that the driver had increased the horse’s pace out of fear. Rowen had been right. The people in the caravan were just as alarmed by this unexpected meeting as they were.

The caravan had already rattled past the three of them by the time the horse drew fully to a halt, whinnying nervously and tossing its head. Obviously the animal was very aware of Shade’s presence and disturbed by it.