Shadows on the Stars (39 page)

Tamwyn ceased working on the harp. He looked up at his bearded host, unsure what to expect.

After a long pause, Ethaun said softly, “Krystallus
did
come here.”

Tamwyn jolted. “But you said—”

“I know, I know. Fergive me. But ye see, he made me promise never to tell.”

“Why?” asked Tamwyn, still stunned.

“Well, lad,” said Ethaun slowly, as if the words themselves hurt his tongue. “What he said was he didn’t want no people from the root-realms comin’ up here, searchin’ fer his famous torch, hopin’ to claim it fer theirselves.”

In a flash, Tamwyn remembered what Nuic had said about that torch, and the only way Krystallus would ever set it down. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

“But methinks his real reason was different. Methinks he jest didn’t want no people tryin’ to carry back his body.”

All the blood drained from Tamwyn’s face. “His . . . body?”

“Aye, lad. Ye see, he arrived here shortly after me, lived with me fer jest a while, and then—died.”

Died.
The word dropped on Tamwyn with the weight of an anvil.

“He was hurt bad, real bad—but not in his body. His wounds from them bloody termites had all healed somehow. No, he died from . . .”

“What?”

Ethaun’s gaze moved to the hearth. Orange and gray coals still crackled, as waves of warmth made the air above them tremble. “It could pain ye greatly to hear, lad.”

“Tell me,” croaked Tamwyn.

Ethaun cleared his throat. “He died, pure an’ simple, from grief.”

Tamwyn’s head felt heavier than iron ore, but he managed a nod. “Did he tell you . . . why?”

“Aye, lad. Said he’d lost everythin’ he ever really cared about. His friends, his hopes, an’ worst o’ all, the two people he loved most—his wife an’ son. An’ then he told me that he’d lost somethin’ else, too. Somethin’ that had finally left him fer good.”

“His will to live,” whispered Tamwyn.

“Yer right, lad.”

Tamwyn studied the smith. “Did he say anything else?”

Ethaun drew a deep breath. “Aye. He said he fergave me fer runnin’ off like I did. An’ fer not fightin’ by his side, as well. Told me that he’d been afeared hisself, many times, more than he could even count. An’ then he said . . .”

“Yes?”

“That me true heart . . . was the heart o’ an explorer.”

Tamwyn gazed at him steadily through misted eyes. “And so you buried him up here, as close as he ever got to the stars.”

“Aye. With me bare han’s, I dug his grave.”

He squeezed Tamwyn’s shoulder just slightly. “An’ lad,” he whispered, “I’ll take ye to see the grave.” He nodded slowly. “Fer ye see, I’ve finally realized that yer his son.”

37
•
The View from the Grave

Wind whistled as Tamwyn and Ethaun trekked through the fields of tall grasses, climbing up to the rim of Merlin’s Knothole. Their long locks, as well as Ethaun’s beard, streamed out behind them. Though the wind this afternoon only came in gusts, with long moments of tranquility in between, whenever the gusts came the men had to lean over drastically just to keep standing.

Grasses waved all around them, a rippling sea of green, as they worked their way higher. The daytime sky was brighter than Tamwyn had ever seen, so bright that every tree, rock, or blade of grass was flooded with light, and every shadow crisp and dark. The smells of garden vegetables and freshly turned soil gradually lessened as the two men trekked farther above the valley floor.

Meanwhile, clusters of drumalings stood silently watching with narrow, vertical eyes, their knobby limbs gleaming in the starlight. Every so often, some of them would pull their burly roots out of the ground with loud popping noises, spraying dirt, and follow the two humans up the slope.
Scared o’
everythin’, Ethaun had described them—and although Tamwyn didn’t try to talk with them, he could feel their currents of fear and doubt.

Both of them were gasping for breath by the time they reached the upper edge of the grasses, above the place where Tamwyn had emerged from the tunnel. They didn’t take time to rest, however. Just a brief pause to look back at the fertile gardens below was all they gave themselves. Then they started to climb one of the brown hills that ringed the Knothole.

Soon the last tufts of grass gave way to crusty brown soil and scattered stones. Every few paces, a new gust of wind tore across the rim, whipping their faces with clouds of dirt. Already Tamwyn had grit in his mouth, ears, and eyes.

Of course
, he thought as he hiked up the hillside.
Nothing grows up here on the rim because of the wind!
He chuckled to himself, thinking that for any seed to stay in place long enough to root, it would have to weigh as much as Ethaun.

Glancing over at the burly blacksmith who was huffing by his side, he added,
And that’s a lot.

Just as they neared the top of the rim, a powerful gust roared across the hills. The air howled furiously. Both of them crouched down as dirt swirled around them, stinging any exposed skin, even the backs of their hands. Finally, the wind blew itself out. As they rose again, Ethaun pointed to a small but deep cleft higher on the hill.

“See that notch, me lad? That be the place.” He worked his tongue and spat out some grit. “Protected from the wind it be, leastways mostly. An’ yet up here, close to the stars. That be why I picked it fer the grave.”

Tamwyn merely nodded. This wasn’t how he had hoped to find his father.

Up the last stretch of hillside they trudged. As the gravesite came fully into view, Tamwyn paused to look at it. Leaning on his staff, with wind tousling his hair, he could see a low mound of soil within the notch. The site was unmarked and unadorned, except for a single wooden pole. The torch!

At that instant, a keening cry echoed above their heads. Tamwyn looked up to see another prism bird. As it spun skyward, its wings spread wide and its feathers flashed, sending streams of color across the sky. One cloud, directly behind the top of the torch, caught the wash of brilliance, exploding with light for a brief, shining moment.

“Well, I’ll be a talkin’ turnip,” said Ethaun in awe. “There be no bird er beast more beautiful than that, anywhere in Avalon.”

Tamwyn nodded and started walking toward the gravesite again, thinking about what he’d just seen. It looked just as if the torch itself had burst into colorful flames. An omen, perhaps? Or just another false hope?

The real torch, he could see clearly as they approached, was dark. Dead and dark.

As he entered the notch, just behind Ethaun, the wind abruptly ceased. Tamwyn strode over to the mound of hardpacked soil. Awkwardly, he set down his staff and knelt beside it. He lowered his head, staring into the ground, wishing he could see right through the layers of soil—the layers between life and death—to look upon the man named Krystallus Eopia.

His father.

He saw nothing, though. Nothing but dirt.

Slowly, he lifted his head. Ethaun, too, was kneeling by the grave. He looked up at the same time and their gazes met.

“Ye know,” his growling voice rumbled, “we’re jest the opposite, ye an’ me.”

“How so?”

He gave his beard a thoughtful tug. “Well, fer me, knowin’ Krystallus, even fer a little while, was the best part o’ me life. From the very first moment he let me join the group, he always looked out fer me. Even shared his breakfast biscuits with me, he did! An’ while I never said so to him, I always wished . . . he was really me father. Though o’ course, he wasn’t.”

Tamwyn nodded grimly. “So you knew him, but he wasn’t your father. And for me—just the opposite.”

The smith’s dark eyes glittered. “Rot me roots, a bad deal fer both o’ us! But Tamwyn . . .”

“Yes?”

“At least he really
was
yer father.”

Tamwyn turned back to the grave. Under his breath, he said, “I’d rather have known him.”

At last, his eyes lifted again. He studied the torch. Its pole was made of simple, unpolished wood—no more remarkable than his own staff had seemed before he’d uttered the magical phrase that made its runes appear. And the top of the torch was merely a charred, oily rag, wrapped tightly and secured with twine.

Even so, he sensed some power within it. Magical power, that rubbed against his own like a pair of iron stones. But would that rubbing, he wondered, produce a spark that could burst into flame?

“Tell me about this torch,” he said to Ethaun.

The man shrugged. “It burned, an’ not jest now an’ then but all the time. Day an’ night. That be all I knows. Fer as long as Krystallus lived, it flamed away. Then, the very instant he died, it went dark. Jest like that.”

“But how did it burn? Do you know?”

“No, lad. Nobody knows. Not even Krystallus, methinks.” He scratched his hairy chin. “Only one person knows, I suspect, an’ that be Merlin hisself.”

“Merlin?”

“Aye. Krystallus said that Merlin gave him the torch, an’ made it flame, way long ago. So the wizard must have knowed. But he be long gone.”

“Maybe he left a clue,” suggested Tamwyn. He got up and circled the dark torch, inspecting it closely. Yet he saw nothing even remotely helpful. It seemed no more unusual than the straw that Ethaun had used for the pallet in his hut.

Still, he did feel something, from down deep in its core. Something magical. If only he knew how to reach it!

At that moment, Ethaun rose. Standing beside Tamwyn, he seemed like a huge, pitted boulder, as much part of the hillside as the notch itself. “It be time,” he growled, “fer me to go. Got some smithin’ to do fer them rootyfeeted friends o’ mine.”

Tamwyn nodded. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Yer welcome, lad.” He reached his burly arms around Tamwyn and gave him a powerful, bone-cracking hug. “I’m thankful, too, ye came here.”

Releasing his hold, Ethaun fumbled in the pockets of his tunic. “There be a little gift I want to give ye now, to help ye on yer journey.”

“No, really. You don’t need to.”

“ ‘Course I don’t need to! But I truly want to.” He pulled something from the folds of a cloth: a glass globe held inside a leather strap. “Here, lad. Take it.”

Tamwyn hesitated. “I saw that on your wall. What is it?”

“It be somethin’ that Krystallus hisself gave to me, afore he died. Told me to take care o’ it fer him.” He cleared his throat. “An’ that I have.”

“Ethaun, are you sure?”

“Listen, lad. Do ye think I’ve got any use fer it, havin’ made this valley me home? No, yer the only one who’ll be needin’ a compass.”

A compass.
Tamwyn held his breath as he took the globe from the smith’s weathered hand. Here was the very thing he had longed for!

Carefully, he examined it. Inside the globe, held by hair-thin wires, were a pair of silver arrows. One, like every compass in Avalon, rotated horizontally and always pointed westward—toward El Urien, for travelers in the root-realms. But there was also another arrow, which had been set to rotate on a vertical axis, and always pointed starward! So no matter how lost a traveler might be, or how far beneath the surface, he or she could always find the direction of the roots below and the stars above.

Eager to see if it really worked, Tamwyn carried the compass outside the notch that sheltered the gravesite. Though the wind suddenly whipped his face and tore at his tunic, he held tight to the globe as he carried it over to the farthest tip of the rim where he could stand.

Ahead of him, rising steeply higher, he could see the rugged ridges of Avalon’s upper trunk, lifting into the misty horizon. And beyond that, starkly etched against the bright afternoon sky, were the shadowed shapes of the branches—even easier to see than they had been before. They reached up into the sky, flowing like uncharted rivers, until they disappeared at last into the brightness above.

As the wind howled all around him, he peered into the globe. Sure enough, the starward arrow was pointing straight at the place where the branches faded into open sky—the realm of the stars.

Smiling with satisfaction, Tamwyn headed back, leaning to keep his balance against the wind. When he reentered the notch, and the wind abruptly stopped, he faced the broad-shouldered smith.

“What a marvelous gift,” he said gratefully.

“Jest might prove useful,” said Ethaun with a wink. “Fer a real Avalon explorer.”

“Right,” Tamwyn replied. “And now here’s another gift. For another explorer.” He slipped off his pack. Even as he stuffed the compass inside, he pulled out the lock of gray hair that had been tied around his father’s scroll. Placing it in Ethaun’s hand, he said, “You know where this came from.”

The big man blinked in surprise. “That I do, lad.”

“You should have it.”

“But . . .” the smith protested, trying to give it back, “yer his son.”

“And so, in a way, are you. So keep it. Please.”

Ethaun dragged a sooty hand across one of his eyes. Then he squeezed the lock tight, nodded farewell, and turned to go. He shambled off down the slope, looking very much like a bear going back to his den.

Tamwyn watched him go, then turned back to the grave. His gaze roamed across the mound, and to the soft dirt surrounding it. He could see his own knee’s print from where he had knelt, as well as his footprints and the marks of Ethaun’s boots. Then, to his utter astonishment, he saw something else: a footprint left by neither of them.

The footprint of a hoolah.

Tamwyn bent to look more closely. There could be no mistake. The outline was just as clear as could be. And the imprint was no more than a couple of days old.

Henni! Could he still be alive? And wandering here in the upper reaches of Avalon? With Batty Lad, too, perhaps? No, the chances of that were just too remote. He shouldn’t raise his hopes. And yet . . .

He scanned the area around the notch. There were no paths, no signs of anyone else. Ogres’ uncles, if that hoolah was really here, where had he gone?

He lifted his gaze higher, toward the branches and stars. If Henni had somehow survived, and had found his way up to the Knothole, it was at least remotely possible that he’d also found some way to climb up there, into the branches. And yet, if that were true, how could Tamwyn ever hope to catch sight of him? Those distances were simply far too vast to find anything as small as a hoolah.