Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) (11 page)

“Thank you, Firefly,” said Douglas. “Can we offer you anything to eat or drink? How can we repay your enlightenment?”

“Nothing, thank you, I’ve dined and was on my way to a fire dance rehearsal when I heard your call. Thank you just the same. It’s been a pleasure. Glad I could shed some light.”

“We won’t keep you, then,” said Douglas, and they watched his tiny green tail light weave off between the dark trunks of the trees.

“Handy, traveling with a Wizard,” commented Marbleheart as he snuggled down to sleep against Douglas’s hip.

“Handy is what Wizards are all about,” yawned the Journeyman. “G’night, Otter!”

But the Otter was already asleep.

Douglas found the ancient, wildly twisted Sentinel Oak a few dozen steps beyond their campsite. He knocked against the bark beside a hole at shoulder height.

An Elf, eight inches tall, dressed in brown mouse-skin breeches, a red felt jerkin, and wearing a floppy green cloth cap that came down over his ears, appeared at once. There was a pale green poplar leaf tucked as a napkin under his chin, and he clutched a fork in one hand and a knife in the other.

“Sorry to interrupt your fast breaking, Watch Elf,” said Douglas, bowing. “Good morning, however!”

“As good as you care to make it,” replied the watchman, politely. “What can I do for you while my griddle cakes are cooling?”

“Simply that my companion and I beg permission to pass through this forest by way of the river.”

The Elf swallowed the mouthful of pancake stuck on his fork and waved his knife at them while he chewed.

“I’ll have to check with the Guardians,” he said, swallowing at last “With all these here Witches and Warlocks coming along the river, they’re getting especially strict. ‘Twill take an hour or so.”

“There’s no hurry. Tell the Faerie Guardians I am Douglas Brightglade, Journeyman Pyromancer, student of Flarman Flowerstalk of Wizards’ High. They will have heard of him.”

“Even I’ve heard of the Fire Wizard,” said the Elf, visibly impressed. “And of you, too, Douglas Brightglade.”

“Word does seem to get around,” mused Douglas. “But I suppose the doings of the Faerie Queen are as interesting to ordinary fairies as the doings of Thornwood Duke and Prince Bryarmote are to their own peoples.”

“Precisely,” agreed the Watch Elf with a nod. “I’ll ride at once to Faerie Hill in the forest.”

“Oh, please! Finish your breakfast first,” Douglas urged him. “I can wait an hour or two.”

“Absolutely not!” cried the Elf, pulling his leaf napkin from around his neck. “Ertalla! Ertalla!” he called over his shoulder. “I’m off to the Hill! Be right back! Entertain Lord Douglas while I’m away!”

“That’s me wife, Ertalla,” he explained to Douglas. “She’ll be right up,” and he leaped on the back of a Bluebird who came to his whistle, and made a beeline for the center of the Forest.

The Watch Elf returned in less than half an hour, accompanied by five Faerie warriors in full regalia, crimson and gold coats and tall bumblebee-fur shakoes held in place with golden chains. They rode unusually large, ruby-throated hummingbirds. The soldiers saluted Douglas crisply with long, thin lances as their mounts thrummed to a hovering halt before him.

“Lord Douglas, Brightwing’s friend, we greet you!” cried their Officer. “We fought in Battle of Sea under Prince Aedh and remember you well. It’s a pleasure and an honor to welcome you to Craylor Wendys, the Royal Forest of Remembrance”

“Thank you!” responded Douglas with a deep bow. “I thought it was called the Forest of Forgetfulness.”

“It is—by our enemies,” explained the Faerie warrior, relaxing his stiff posture. “Friends remember. We invite you to join us at our morning parade, which is about to begin. We’re here guarding one of the four Great Gateways to Faerie. The Gate lies within this hallowed Forest. Few Mortals have ever seen it, and fewer have passed through it.”

“I would be honored, but unfortunately I’m on urgent business for the Fellowship of Wizards,” replied Douglas, shaking his head with regret. “And I suspect it’s best if even I don’t know where your Gateway is. It would be a secret shared, and, as Queen Marget once told me, a secret shared is no longer secret.”

“Her wisdom is only surpassed by her graciousness,” said the guardian. “We truly regret that you are not able to stay awhile with us. As it is your wish, you have our full permission to pass through the Forest upon Bloody Brook. Nothing will stay your course. However, it were best if you and your companion did not set foot on dry ground beyond here until you emerge on the lea on the far side. There are certain pitfalls and snares set for the unwary intruder, you see. Perhaps we should send an escort with you...”

“How far is it to the other edge of the forest?”

“In Man-miles, exactly twenty-eight, by the river,” said the Faerie Guardian.

“Then we should be beyond the upper edge before noontime,” decided Douglas, “and will have no need for escort nor reason to stop on our way, if the Brook is clear of obstructions.”

“Bloody Brook is highly revered,” said the other. “It is kept free of snags here, natural or otherwise.”

“Then I thank you and apologize again for not staying to visit,” said Douglas with another deep bow. “Give my best wishes to Her Majesty the Queen when you see her next, and to the Prince Consort. Her time of birthing must be very close.”

“We expect word daily,” acknowledged the soldier.

“And we must be on our way, unfortunately,” Douglas said. “I wish we could linger until you have heard.”

The Faerie Guardians saluted with their sharp lances again and, executing a neat about-face aboard their metallic-green-and-red hummingbirds, disappeared into the forest’s daytime gloom.

“And thank you, too, for your courtesy,” said Douglas to the Watch Elf. “May you and your wife have a quiet day.”

“Every day is quiet here,” said the Elf wife, who had enjoyed talking to Douglas and the Otter and serving them griddle cakes the size of small coins, delicious and rich with clover honey and milkweed butter. “It’s the way we like it. In the olden, terrible days, we had enough excitement for six Elf lifetimes hereabouts.”

Although they would have liked to stay and chat with the kindly couple, the travelers returned to their boat and shortly pushed off, heading in under the first of the overarching oaks.

“We might have stopped long enough to see their morning parade,” complained the Otter. “I confess to being very curious about these Near Immortals.”

“A Bump of Curiosity is a good thing to soothe, but there is at least one drawback to accepting Fairy hospitality,” lectured Douglas, spelling the boat swiftly forward against a current much stronger than it had been in the two days before. The river here had grown narrower and the heavily wooded banks steeper. “Fairy Time runs differently from ours.”

“How do you mean?” Marbleheart wriggled his nose in perplexity. “A day is a day, isn’t it?”

“We might go with the Guardians, watch their parade, and have lunch with them and take a quick look at the Great Gateway, which I understand is quite a splendid and memorable sight to see, but when we resumed our journey, we might find that not a single day but a hundred days, perhaps even a hundred years, had passed.”

“Great Groupers! Let’s get through this place,” cried the Otter. “I don’t even intend to swim these waters!”

Douglas grinned and stepped up their speed. There was really no reason not to speed. The river was, as the Faerie Guard officer had said, unobstructed, deep, and straight as an arrow.

Under the trees it was dim, cool, and still—rather restful, in fact. After three hours of steady skimming they sighted a bright light ahead, the last arching of the Forest oaks at the western verge.

Beyond, the noontime sun shone on treeless, emerald green meadowlands rolling gently to the horizon. At the farthest reach of sight rose low purple hills and, dimly in haze beyond them, a dark blue north-south range of mountains capped with snow.

The river in front of them now wound lazily from side to side, sliding rapidly around an occasional ait or rippling over rock-bedded shallows.

As they ate their noontime meal on the move, the travelers heard singing and, rounding a sharp bend, came upon a crowd of twenty or so diminutive men and women seated on smooth rocks along the shore, harmonizing beautifully in song.

At the approach of strangers the singers were startled into silence and seemed about to bolt into the brush beside the stream, but Douglas called out to them in Faerie, and the Nixies—for that was what they were—skipped lightly out upon the water to meet the gondola, greeting the travelers shyly but courteously and asking for news.

“You’ve heard about the Battle of Sea against Frigeon?” asked Douglas, and they shook their heads. The Wizard moored the gondola to a sapling among the rocks and brought the dainty people up to the present. He was getting quite good at it by now.

“So, Frigeon is a changed man since he regained his conscience,” Douglas finished. “He’d locked it away in a Great Gray Pearl, which allowed him to do all sorts of wicked things without feeling remorse. He has even changed his name and is now called Serenit. As punishment, he’s having to help undo all his evil spells and other harms, and is held a virtual prisoner in the land once known as Eternal Ice, although it hasn’t got much ice left these days.”

The Nixies laughed with glee at the news and cavorted on the river in such a merry way that Marbleheart, who loved nothing better than a romp in water, joined them—the first time he had been in the river since they had entered the Forest of Remembrance.

“We were especially terrified of Frigeon-that-was,” explained the Nixie Choirmaster. “Long ago we lived far to the north of here, and when Frigeon came to live nearby, his icy magic froze our pretty streams, so we left our elder home and fled southward.”

“You were not here during Last Battle of Kingdom, then?”

“No, we came a bit later. Fortunately so, for these now-peaceful meadows were the scene of the worst fighting in the Battle. Two hundred years ago or more, that was. Tens of thousands of Men and thousands of Near Immortals fought here for seven dreadful days and fearful nights. Thousands were destroyed, including an amazing number of Faeries, who are very difficult to destroy.”

“I’ve heard the story from one who was there,” said Douglas, nodding sadly. “So this is Last Battleground? It doesn’t look so grim now, though. I’ve rarely seen a more peaceful-looking place. It reminds me of my home Valley.”

“We’re proud of our work clearing the devastations of war we found everywhere when we first came here,” said the Choirmaster. “The whole plain was littered with broken weapons and horribly ravaged bodies of Men and beasts.”

“It must have been truly horrible!” gasped the Otter.

The Choirmaster bobbed his head solemnly. “We buried the dead in long barrows on the western edge of Battleground. By then they were but rotting rags, rusted armor, and bare bones! We managed to separate the enemy from the companions by the remains of their armor, so they didn’t have to share the same grave mounds, at least. We did whatever we could, but I fear many have been uneasy between death and life ever since.”

“Where are these barrows? I would have thought you’d put them in the center of the field, or perhaps here by the streamside.”

“Our elders consulted with the Queen of Faerie and she advised us to keep the barrows as far from the habitations of Men and Near Immortals as possible—especially far from the Faerie Forest—yet still within the Field of Chaos, so we interred their bones in the far west, under the foothills of the Tiger’s Teeth Mountains. You can just see their peaks there,” he said, and pointed off to the west.

“That’s where we’re headed,” said Marbleheart. “The place we’re looking for—Pfantas. It’s in the foothills, I understand.”

“You’re correct,” said the Choirmaster. “None of us has been that far west, but rumors come to us ... not a pleasant land to visit, I fear.”

He called his singers to attention with a rap of his baton and they sang a farewell-and-safe-journeying song as the sleek gondola surged forward once more, breasting the swift current.

Bloody Brook shortly began whirling madly about sharp, half-sunken rocks and foaming as the calm waters turned to rapids, but even so, Myrn’s reliable pushing magic was strong enough to move the boat against the current at great speed.

Marbleheart dived in and swam ahead. He reported the water was still many feet deep if they avoided the shallows on the outside of curves. Both travelers kept close watch from then on so as not to run afoul of snags or damage the gondola’s thin hull on unseen ledges beneath the surface.

That night they slept aboard the boat and in the morning pushed on as quickly as they could safely go. The Choirmaster’s words had infected Douglas with a sense of urgency. The air had turned cooler again, and they were slowed by morning mists that hung over the water and didn’t lift until well into midmorning. Otherwise, the day passed without incident.

By late afternoon they were close under the barren foothills of the Western Mountains. The densest fog yet suddenly lowered about them, cutting off all distance and shrouding everything in an eerie white silence.

Douglas made landing and, picking a red maple leaf from the ground enlarged and altered it into a tent snug against the damp night air. He also started a fire which, despite his best magical efforts, burned with only a feeble light and meager heat.

It turned quite cold after an unseen sunset. A mournful breeze blew fitfully out of the north. It carried to them an acrid, musty smell, something like last year’s moldering leaves, Douglas thought, with just a hint of something else, something unpleasant and ill intentioned, in the swirling mist.

He shuddered from the chill and moved his blanket closer to the fire. When he looked about for his companion, Marbleheart was nowhere to be seen. The Otter often went off in the evening to seek his preferred food and to explore the riverbank out of Otterly curiosity.

“He’ll be back when he gets cold and wet,” Douglas reassured himself, and he went to sleep almost at once.