The countryside rolled past, changing gradually as they moved from the hills and onto open, empty plain. The ground was greener here. Small emerald shrubs abounded. Cacti waved them past with rigid, bristling arms. Herds of buffalo could be seen milling about in the distance. Mice ran under the hooves of the horses, and jackals yowled at them from their dens. In only half a day’s travel, Wyoming had come alive, and Merion soaked up every drop of it.
Every one of his senses was on fire. The twittering of little finches filled his ears. The blossom of the shrubs and the sour-sweet scent of the cacti bombarded his nose. He could taste every little bit of grit on his tongue. He knew every hair and bead of sweat on his skin. Even the light had its way with him; stinging his eyes and making the colours of the plains pop and shimmer.
‘When does this stuff wear off?’ he asked moodily. Lurker rode just up ahead. His head had been bowed most of the day. Riding horseback apparently made him feel sick.
‘Noon. You’ll feel right as rain,’ he grunted.
‘Rain would be very welcome right now.’
Lurker snorted. ‘You’d be lucky, now we’re slippin’ into summer. You picked one hell of a time to come to Wyoming, boy.’
And
hell
was the perfect word for it.
By noon, the air shivered over the prairie. Even there, amongst the green shrubs and cacti, the heat was oppressive. Sweat ran down his face in little rivers, making his eyes sting all the more. Every inch of him burned, almost as though he could actually feel his skin cooking, bit by bit. It seemed as though their journey would never end, that the plains would stretch on for eternity, but then a miracle appeared on the horizon.
First, it came in the shape of a long, dark smudge, punctuated only by a few hills and a dusty canyon carving a chunk out of its right flank. Halfway through the searing afternoon, it was a thick band of deep green, gently swaying in the heat-waves coming off the plains. Then at last, as the day crumbled to evening, Merion realised what it was. He shook Rhin, who had fallen asleep on Gorm’s neck. ‘It’s a forest, Rhin. Wake up.’
And what a forest it was. The trees stood like an impenetrable wall, hundreds of feet high, battlements bursting with deep green bristles and knotted branches.
Nothing is small here,
thought Merion to himself, craning to look upward, daring his neck to snap.
The Shohari made no signs of halting to gawp. They plunged straight into the forest without so much as a word. The dust-brown tree trunks they rode between were like the pillars of the sky itself. They must have been a hundred paces around, at least. Big red berries glistened in the lower branches, hiding amongst the sage green of the fir. Creepers tussled with their thick, wandering roots. The air was thick with the smell of acid-sweet resin. Their path led them a merry dance through the undergrowth and down into a small ravine made sheer by slick granite rocks. Water trickled under-hoof. The going was slow, but steady. Still the Shohari made no noise. They were deadly silent to the very last. At the bottom of the ravine they followed its walls deeper into the forest. The day was on its death-bed, and with the towering trees and dark granite, it was unnervingly dark in the ravine.
After an hour of silent trudging, they came to an opening in the rock. The sheer walls peeled away and formed a wide, teardrop-shaped hollow in the earth. A small lake had gathered there, ringed in ivy and shadow. One solitary island sat on its glass-like surface like a broken crown. One tree grew alone on the little spur of rock, and one tree only. Even from the little grey beach at the edge of the hollow, Merion could see it was stunted and crippled. Its pale-leafed boughs stuck out at odd, tortured angles, and it seemed to sway, even though there was no breeze.
‘The Sleeping Tree,’ murmured Lurker, from behind him.
On the beach, a small and no-doubt ancient canoe was pulled up. ‘Akway,’ announced Mayut, pointing at the dusty vessel. ‘He waits for you, little warrior.’
Merion scrambled off Gorm and stepped forward. ‘I go alone?’
Mayut shook his head, scowling as if that were preposterous. ‘No. I with you, and Lurker too. Maybe.’
‘He can come,’ Merion replied, with a sideways glance at the prospector. Lurker just shrugged. ‘And Rhin,’ he added, letting Rhin climb back into the rucksack.
‘Then let us go,’ Mayut nodded, and with a flick of his knife the chief cut the rope holding the canoe on the beach. Together the three pushed it across the shingle and into the cold water. Lurker and Mayut took the paddles, and with deep, strong strokes they powered the creaking canoe towards the island. Merion sat in the middle, staring at the water. The lake was like liquid glass. Even in the gloom, Merion could see fish at its bottom.
The young Hark felt terribly nervous and yet excited at the same time. He wondered what Akway would look like, and how he managed to stay alive on his odd island.
Perhaps he caught the fish with a spear, and lived in the branches of this ‘sleeping tree’ …
Merion spun himself a little fantasy while the two men paddled.
With a thud, the nose of the canoe struck rock, and Merion was jolted forwards.
Mayut wrapped a scrap of rope around a protrusion of rock and then grunted at Merion. ‘Little warrior. Up there,’ he said, and pointed. Merion noticed his voice was softer now, gentler, as if he were afraid to wake something. It made Merion’s heart beat even faster.
This is it
, he told himself.
Merion hopped onto the rock, narrowly avoiding dunking one entire shoe in the water. With Lurker in tow, he scrambled up a little path to where the ancient tree clung to the rocks with thick, gnarled roots. There was no dirt here for its tentacles, only rock. He wondered how it had survived all these years.
Breathing slightly heavier than usual, Merion stood before the Sleeping Tree, and took in all of its twisted beauty. Every inch of its bark was contorted and warped into whorls, zigzags and spiderwebs. Even its leaves were curved or coiled, as though some great force had reached up inside its trunk one day and pulled out its insides, sucked everything inward. Even though there was no breeze, its leaves rustled, and Merion found himself transfixed by their sighing.
The boy looked all around, up and down, but there was no sign of any Akway, shaman or wise man, nor any other strange, old or malnourished soothsayers. Merion was beginning to feel that old familiar sinking feeling yet again.
‘So where is this Akway?’ he whispered, as loud as he dared. There was an air of the sacrosanct about this little island, one that he wasn’t quite sure about spoiling, not yet.
Mayut rumbled from behind him. ‘Clear as day, little warrior.’
Merion made a show of looking about again. ‘I don’t see a soul.’
The chief shook his head solemnly. ‘Not one soul. Three.’
Merion threw him a quizzical look, and Mayut pointed a finger at each of his eyes, then back at the tree. ‘Look into the tree. At its heart. You find your answers.’
Merion looked, eyes straining towards the rippled trunk, trying to dig out whatever it was the chief was talking about. Anything: patterns, words, faces …
Faces.
His eyes caught it, and Merion almost yelped with shock. The face was huge and gnarled, made of knots and creases. Embedded deep in the trunk, it must have been the size of a banquet platter, and terrifyingly enough, it was now grinning at the young Hark.
It took barely a second for Merion to spot the second face, almost conjoined with the first, hanging from its chin. It too was comprised of broken bark, though this one lacked eyes. The upper half of its face had been swallowed up by a mossy growth.
Then the third and bottommost face twitched. It wrinkled its knotted brow and took a breath, making a sound like fingernails dragging across sun-baked driftwood. Merion took a step back, doubting his nerve for a moment.
‘Fear not,’ Mayut advised him, in barely a whisper.
The other two faces were coming to life now, blinking and twitching as the magick crept into their wizened, ancient features. The tree itself began to quiver. Around Merion’s feet, the tangled roots started to squirm among the rocks. Rhin, now out of the pack, and as fascinated as Merion, hopped away from them, feeling the magick burning in them. This was old, older than anything Fae. Merion realised what Lurker had meant, back on the shore.
The topmost face smacked its lips together, clunking, and stared at him with eyeless sockets trapped in the whorls of the wood. The dark holes sent a shiver up the boy’s spine as they took a fix on him. ‘Smell like the sea,’ came a deep croak, impossibly old, yet in perfect common.
The middle face sniffed, the mossy growth quivering as he did so. ‘Like old houses and pines,’ he rasped, in a higher voice than his companion. The roots quivered as he spoke. Merion’s eyes widened.
The tall dark pines around Harker Sheer.
He stayed silent, even though he ached to blurt out his questions. The faces prattled on.
Bottom stuck out a tongue that looked like a sliver of bark. ‘And blood too. Seen his share.’ Here the face squinted his empty eyes. His voice made the stones shake under Merion’s feet.
Middle piped up again. ‘For one so young. Come far to find the truth.’
‘You can help me?’ Merion couldn’t hold his lips shut for a moment longer. He took a step forward.
‘Answers, we have,’ rumbled Top.
‘Answers, we can give,’ added Middle.
‘Answers for questions yet unasked,’ boomed Bottom.
‘For…’ Merion stumbled over that. ‘What do you mean?’
Middle sighed and sniffed some more, bunching up his wooden cheeks until they cracked. The branches began to droop then, falling inwards at a gentle pace, like an umbrella closing. The leaves were rattling. ‘You come with questions. But not the right ones.’
‘What should I be asking?’ Merion furrowed his brow. The faces replied in turn, stealing the ends of each other’s sentences as if one mind owned them. And yet somehow they seemed separate—three old seers, frozen in wood and time.
‘Questions are for creatures …’
‘… Other than us.’
‘Answers are our …’
‘… skill. You must ask.’
‘And we must tell.’
‘So I can ask you anything, and you have to tell me?’
There was a loud creaking as each of the faces grinned. ‘That depends on the question, Merion Hark.’
Merion felt like scratching his head, too confused to realise he had never introduced himself. He looked at Rhin. The faerie was expressionless. He just sighed, shrugged, and turned his eyes back to the Sleeping Tree. ‘Right,’ Merion said, before taking a deep breath. ‘I want to know who killed my father.’
‘That …
‘… is not the right question.’
Merion started forward. ‘How can that not be the right question? That’s what I came here to find out!’
‘Have you no more?’
Merion’s heart threatened to jump out of his chest. He was an inch from fuming. ‘Fine. Then
why
was my father murdered?’
‘For money.’
‘Money?’ Merion felt the blood in his cheeks, felt how sweaty his palms were. The great Bulldog, slain for money.
How cheap. How despicable.
‘Will I ever catch my father’s murderer?’ Merion asked.
Bottom nodded, the wood around his face creaking. Still the branches lowered, they were almost touching Mayut’s back now. ‘You shall,’ rasped Middle.
The boy’s heart soared. He could have hugged the tree at that moment. ‘Then how do I catch him? When?’
‘One question …’
‘… At a time!’ hissed Middle.
Bottom rumbled as he cleared his throat. The branches shook as he did so. A few leaves sailed down to grace Merion’s shoulders. ‘You will learn in time.’
‘That’s not an answer!’ Merion spluttered.
‘It is the only answer,’ Top corrected him haughtily. Under the drooping branches, the air was growing thick, and heavy.
Merion pinched his nose between finger and thumb and screwed up his eyes. He wondered blithely if there was an axe to hand. ‘Fine!’ he snapped, making Mayut hiss. ‘Tell me why he sent me here. In his last will and testament.’
Bottom threw him a wide smile, showing off his splintered teeth. ‘That is a good question.’
Middle chuckled, rasping like wood being twisted and crushed. ‘Because Karrigan had a secret that he wished you to learn.’
‘A power.’
‘A power in the blood.’
‘Your blood and his.’
Top closed his eyes tight and bared his own broad grin. ‘And in the blood Lilain Rennevie draws from the veins of her dead.’
‘What?’ asked Merion.
‘What is not a question, Merion Hark,’ growled Bottom.
‘What power?’ Merion growled. The faces rattled off their answers like a Gatling gun, spitting moss and splinters.
‘Any and all …’
‘… powers can be found in blood.’
‘Your aunt collects.’
‘Your father drinks.’
‘The power comes from the belly.’
‘Speed.’
‘Brawn.’
‘Not alone, was your father.’
‘Neither are you.’
‘Are you saying he had … I have … some sort of magical power?’ Rhin looked at him sharply, but he continued. ‘You can’t be serious, tree.’ Mayut nudged him with a foot. ‘Akway,’ he corrected himself.
‘We say many things,’ Top grinned.
‘But we say no more,’ rattled Middle.
Bottom rumbled, almost pensively. ‘Our power is drained.’
Merion stumbled forward. ‘Wait, I need more than that! Do I have a power? Can it help me get home?’
Middle was sniffing again, as if scenting the future in the air. ‘In time. Though we see hardship. Toil.’
‘Loss.’
‘How do I get home?’
The branches were drooping so low that Merion had to fend them away. The faces were becoming sluggish. Middle mumbled away as if dozing off. The roots shivered gently to the sound of his voice. ‘Family. Come blood …’
‘… or come mud …’
‘Thunder and fire.’
‘And stolen words in ink.’
Merion felt like tugging out his hair. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Fight for family, Merion Hark.’
‘Spill blood for it.’