“Amazingly effective accidents, however, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Exactly how many folk do you think I know in Driadorn, good Unicorn? I have hardly been here–what, a moon or two?”
Zephyr’s upper lip curled derisively. “How do I know you haven’t been in Driadorn before? Or been colluding with the Dark Apprentice?”
“Oh, hell–Zephyr, I don’t know him! I am no wizard!”
“According to Amberthurn, you are now.”
He elected to lose his rag. “Flipping heck, this is a ridiculous accusation! Alliathiune, you convince him that I am innocent–you know I am.”
She shook her head, refusing to meet
Kevin’s pleading eyes. “I think you should answer the question, good Kevin. It is important.”
“Important?” His voice rose to a
n outraged shriek. “It’s insulting, that’s what it is! After all I’ve done for your precious Forest! You would all be toast if it weren’t for me! The Dark Apprentice would be chortling over your graves this very second! Talk about ingratitude! If you want to pick on a suspicious character, regard the Witch–she has darker motives and origins than any of our number. Even our supposedly demon-conjuring Faun Loremaster treads carefully around her.”
The Witch said, icily, “Afraid to face up to your responsibilities, good
Kevin? This next phase of our quest will test us each one to the uttermost. For this reason if no other, we need to be sure of who you are and what your agenda is.”
“Well. I don’t know him. Period.”
“Perhaps you should cast your mind back to that encounter,” Zephyr suggested. “What do you remember about the Dark Apprentice–was there anything about him that seemed familiar to you?”
Kevin
folded his arms and stared off into the middle distance. It had been so fleeting, the change from inebriation so abrupt–and therein lay another mystery–that he had simply been reacting rather than thinking and processing the information his senses were receiving. Yet, he did recall the critical moment.
“Perhaps it was someone you know from Earth?” Snatcher rumbled from across the fire.
Zephyr looked up in surprise. “Indeed, an excellent suggestion, good Lurk!”
It was
Kevin’s turn to vent a fine snort at this idea. “My dear fellow, exactly how commonplace do you think travel from one planet to another is? Setting aside the scientific impossibilities of the matter, my life before Feynard was highly circumscribed–only my family and servants actually knew me and let me assure you, none of
them
is a wizard! It’s a nonsensical speculation.”
“No it isn’t nonsensical. You’re right, noble Lurk. Which other of Driadorn’s wizards, particularly one of the Dark Apprentice’s mastery of the vile arts, could possibly have encountered you during your short spell in Driadorn?”
“Alliathiune …”
“Humour us, please,
Kevin,” she entreated him.
Kevin
could have kicked himself for his reaction, for her expressive eyes, gentle appeal, and manifest beauty moved him more than all that had gone before. The coolly logical defences that had been building in his mind, an elegant counter-argument leading to his absolution, all was swept away in an emotional landslide. Alliathiune had bewitched him! This thought rang through his mind like the tolling of church bells. He saw himself frozen, a helpless captive to her mysterious Dryadic witchery. Why else would she have such power over him? Why else would she have summoned him? She had been controlling him all this time!
Now, he was incapable of stemming the words that flowed from his lips. “Look, Alliathiune, it can’t be any of my immediate family. This self-styled disciple of Ozark is undoubtedly male. That cuts the possibilities down to the princely sum total of two persons who might have recogn
ised me: my brother Brian, and Father. Brian is a dimwit and a sadistic lout. He would not have the intelligence or capacity for wizardry even if you slapped him in the face with a complete magical toolkit. When I was younger, he used to beat me with a cricket bat–a large piece of wood–for entertainment. Father–well, where do I start? There is not a nice bone in his body. I suspect he killed my mother through abuse and neglect that spanned all the years of their marriage, such as it was. He rejoiced at my Great-Grandmother’s funeral because it meant he could get his hands on her inheritance.”
He stared into the fire, remembering. T
he depth of bitterness in his voice was like draining a poisoned well. “He tricked them out of the inheritance, my dear old Father did. He had his expensive lawyers go through every last clause of the will and figure out how he could get his hands on the money and the estate. Poor Victoria had hardly had the earth tossed into her grave before he was making plans to move into Pitterdown Manor. And do you think it made him happy? No, not Father. He grew angrier. Even with money, he was still unable to make a success at business. He became bitter. He could not stomach life on a silver platter. All the possessions and trinkets came to mean nothing to him, for he was consumed with the reality of his failure.”
“Father always used to drink. But he got worse. He was drunk all the time. He used to shout at me. ‘
Kevin Albert Jenkins, you’re a pathetic excuse for a son! Why can’t you be like Brian? Brian’s going to college, you know. Brian’s trying out for cricket or athletics; manly sports, my boy. Do you know what a fortune your loving Father has to spend on you? Are you grateful, boy? Show me how grateful you are!’”
“I used to hide in the Library. Father and Brian didn’t like it there.
Given my condition, reading was the one solace I had, the one means of escaping into a world of imagination. Sometimes I used to imagine that I would one lighttime walk and play like other children must do. When I became a man, I forgot that dream. It was in the Library that Father kicked me into the fireplace and burned my ear and back–you’ve seen the scars, haven’t you?” Kevin jumped to his feet and jerked his shirt upward, tearing the seam. “Look. This is what finding the Key-Ring cost me!”
The spirit and memory of his father loomed over him like a vengeful wraith, and the years of hurt upon hurt were simply too brimful to avoid spilling over.
“Father used to beat me,” Kevin rushed on. “He used to beat me whenever he got drunk. He beat me with his fists and his belt and once with a heavy iron lamp. He would cry about it afterwards and say he was sorry. He made the doctors say I had accidents, that I was clumsy. In the years when I could still make it to school that was the lie I was forced to tell. Another accident–fell down the stairs. Fell off my bicycle. I used to lie in bed at night and wait for him to come home from the pub. Or sometimes he would be drinking right there in the drawing room, neat whiskey, shot after shot. When I heard the door slam I would tremble in my bed and pull the covers over my head. I would hear him bellowing at the servants. Then he would start to come upstairs. Terrified, I’d wet myself. I’d wet my trousers like a child who is afraid of the dark. He hated that. If he smelled it or suspected it, the beating would be much worse.”
The flames crackled up as
Kevin dropped his shirt again. “Father said he’d beat the sickness right out of me. The pain excited him. Brian just wanted to copy Father. He made it into a kind of sport. Nothing excited him more than finding new ways to hurt me.”
“So you see, don’t you?” He needed to vomit, to purge his soul of the taste and detritus of
those years of abuse. He shouted over his shoulder, “It can’t be either of them and I’m no stupid wizard either! I am telling the truth and if you don’t bloody like it then just put up or shut up and whatever you do, just LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Akê-Akê said, “That went well.”
Snatcher groaned and rocked back and forth on his heels, grieving in the manner of his race for Kevin’s pain.
Zephyr dashed after him, into the darkness.
H
e loved the seafaring
life. Kevin would not have believed it. The roll of the turquoise swells, the fresh, tangy air, the cawing of seabirds in the rigging–Alliathiune had been teaching him the names of all the species–and the magnificent sight of sailfish sailing by, their great diaphanous wings raised from the water, gleaming like polished silver in the sunset, seaborne dragons pacing the their ship as they called to one another in voices as sweet as sea-sirens. This was paradise, he thought. Paradise he shared with the finest companions a man could ask for.
They had hired a wide-beamed
sliplet, a wooden sailing ship popular in these waters and typically found hauling trade goods from Utharia to the coastal towns of Amberthurn’s realm, or further north to the lands of Men. Driadorn too had an outlet to this trade in the extreme south of the Hills, but they planned to cut directly west to the peninsula of Utharia across the narrow waist of the turquoise Aladar Sea. Technically the journey could be made entirely afoot, but it would probably take four to five seasons to complete that great arc–and the desert of Lakk would take more than an ordinary effort to cross. By then, fair Driadorn might be lost.
Kevin’s gaze turned, as ever, to a certain fair Dryad standing right at the prow, contemplating another fiery sunset as the blazing sun-flares of Indomalion set the ocean afire.
He alone seemed able to see beyond this Dark Apprentice to the Forest’s future. They must replace the Elliarana; that he understood instinctively. Equally, he was convinced the Dryads must perform this task. A seedling must begin with a seed. Then why the great secrecy of Dryad reproduction? It made no sense no matter how many times he turned it over in his mind. Zephyr had related the legend of the Arch of Indomalion, at the Sacred Grove, being the only place a Dryad could mate with mortal man. Mortal man? Did that mean Dryads were immortal? Or survived as long as a Forest tree, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years? Did Dryads mate with men? Apparently not, from the signals he was getting from Alliathiune. Did they bud off a seedling? Or carry both male and female parts, and pollinate themselves?
Why twin secrets hidden inside of her, Dryad and Seer?
As he came up behind her, treading quietly with the intent of surprising the Dryad, he realised she was speaking to herself. At the very last instant, she whirled on her heel and stared at him–no, through him. A bizarre spasm crossed her features and she shuddered from head to toe, like a tree caught in a storm. Her strange voice, the other voice, said:
“My daughter, we walked the leafy Forest lanes together, the King of the Ra’luun and I, and I truly believe I loved him. But the Ra’luun fell under the sway of Omäirg, the Dark Wizard. We Dryads destroyed him. We murdered him. Against all Dryad ways, lore, and love of the Mother Forest, this is what we did to save our Forest. How could we ever justify murder? It tore me apart.”
The Dryad shook herself wildly, gripped by some terrible emotion, and then suddenly, it was Alliathiune again regarding him from tearful eyes. “What was that? Was it a Seeing?”
Kevin bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. “Yes.”
“Are you alright?” He nodded, although he felt the opposite. “Tell me what I said. Please, good Kevin.”
He could not help it. He cast off her hand on his arm with a
tremor.
“Kevin?”
“You spoke of the Ra’luun King,” he offered, in low, wooden voice.
The breeze swept Alliathiune’s tresses back from her face, which turned as pale as ice. “
What?
” she gasped. She sagged against the railing as though he had struck her in the gut, driving the breath out of her.
But at that instant, Kevin heard a hoof-step behind him. He turned, hiding Alliathiune impulsively, and saw Zephyr approaching. What awful timing! Poor Alliathiune! T
he Unicorn favoured them with a flamboyant prance as he approached.
“Zephyr,” said Kevin. “How fare our companions?”
And from beside his shoulder, Alliathiune inquired, as merrily as if nothing had just upset her, “An acorn for your frown, good Unicorn?”
“That would be, my
diminutive damsel, a price too dear for such a muddle I am in this eventide,” said he, with a self-deprecating turn of his forehoof. “Nay, do not ineffectually paw that bird’s nest you call hair. I am grown rather fond of spotting new forms of life growing within your tresses.”
Kevin chuckled.
The Dryad blushed as vividly as the sunset. “Zephyr! Such commentary is uncalled for!”
“Merely a slip of the tongue.”
“I’ll slip you over the edge without remorse!”
Zephyr drew back in mock alarm. “Oh, the horror! Nay, good Dryad, I am latterly returned from tending our companions. It is the lowland fever, just as we suspected. Even the indestructible
Lurk is laid abed–”
“Can he
even fit on a bed?”
Alliathiune slapped Kevin’s
shoulder. “Honestly, good outlander–!”
“
Well, he barely fits in the entire hold of this oversized bathtub toy, doesn’t he?”
“Don’t
you knock a hole in what’s keeping us from swimming us with the crabs,” the Dryad said tartly. “Do you have any idea what this is like for a Forest-dweller? Bobbing about on endless blue swells, not a tree for a hundred leagues?”
“You’re not the only one who can’t swim.”
“All Dryads learn to swim in the Forest rivers,” Alliathiune replied. “You’ll have to learn. But what of the Witch, good Unicorn?”
“
She suffers silently. But our two-hoofed pocket army of a Faun fares most poorly. I have dosed him to the eyeballs with caraweed, inky redwort, and belladonna extract.”
“Lucky fellow.” Alliathiune pulled a face.
“Be thankful it’s not toad oil, good Unicorn,” Kevin put in.
“Quite so. However, an acorn might purchase your opinion of yonder clouds, boiling over our southern aspect,” said Zephyr, infatuated as always with fine-sounding phrases. “I did earlier quiz the doughty Druid thereon.”
“And what did you learn?”
“He shares my disquiet, good tender of our Mother Forest. The ship’s captain said, and I quote, ‘We are in for a bit of a blow’.”
“Ooh, I don’t like the sound of that. Give me a cool forest glade any lighttime over this bobbing about in the middle of nowhere upon a frail scrap of timber.”
The Unicorn glanced about and lowered his voice. “My horn tingles with the sense of
tharriln
, good friends. I have requested that the Druid make preparations against evil sorcery, and that he seek to turn this inclement weather from our course.”
What Zephyr referred to was akin to a sense of self-preservation, a well-documented sixth sense possessed by his kind that could sniff out and warn of impending peril. Unicorns, like Druids, were attuned to the natural rhythms of land and sky, just as Dryads enjoyed an innate empathy with living things.
Alliathiune rubbed her upper arms, as though struck by a sudden chill. “Think you this bears the hallmark of the Dark Apprentice, or of his black creature that troubled us in the Fenlands?”
“I would not discount it.”
Zephyr’s horn was shining slightly, Kevin noticed, in a manner he had never before seen. Just that morning Alliathiune had told him she was running low on energy. She should have taken Sälïph-sap before they left dry land, for it was partway through the moon cycle and the journey was consuming more of her resources than expected.
The Unicorn
asked, “Have you heard from your kin on the matter of the Elliarana?”
“Only that they still investigate what must be done. You made the still mirror, Zephyr–the same one where we saw the armies of Men beginning to march against Driadorn.”
“Be not dismayed, good Dryad. We shall prevail against this darkness that besets our land.” He touched his horn to her shoulder. “Strength to you.”
“You are kind.”
“Strength to you, noble Kevin.”
“And the Peace of the Mothering Forest to you, mothering Unicorn,” he replied.
“Now, I wonder if you both could assist me in readying our companions for the coming storm? Chattels must be stowed and those who slumber made fast in their bunks. Your fingers are quick and nimble.”
* * * *
The unnatural storm blew up quickly during the darktime, despite Amadorn’s sweat-drenched labours to deflect it from its course. The ship quickly began to pitch and roll, and the deckhands were roused from their slumber to clamber aloft and make fast the sails and whistling rigging. They set a storm jib and triple-lashed the Helmsbear and his Human navigator in place. Below, the galley fires were banked back or doused completely, and the travellers adjured to stay out of the way.
The m
orning dawned wild and foul. Gale-force winds whipped spray off the rising waves, while the seas gathered around their craft like a troop of playful giants to toss it about with careless abandon. Ropes ran taut to the cleats and the salt-rimed captain made plans to throw out a sea anchor in order to stabilise their course and give the rudder some purchase amidst the heaving swells.
By noon waves
crashed over the decks, turning the ship’s progress into a drunken wallow punctuated with thumping sideways concussions as they persisted in forcing a westward passage. Amadorn worked himself to the point of collapse, earning some respite for the grateful crew, but the storm’s power was clearly beyond him. Hardened sailors cast suspicious glances at each other, wondering perhaps if it was one of their hire who had brought this tempest upon them–superstitious to a creature, and nervous of any wizardry. Toward late afternoon, such as could be discerned in the wave-blasted mayhem beneath lowering storm clouds and hail mixed with spray flying laterally across the waves, the Witch appeared above decks, fevered and irate, shouting that a storm elemental had been summoned and they should turn and run rather than fight it.
“Dark wizardry!” she shrieked at the captain, who took one look at her face and ordered the
Helmsbear to set a new course. “It cannot be stayed!”
The theory was that a storm elemental could be summoned, but the act of invocation tended to make it somewhat irate–especially at the
summoner. With all the awesome force of nature to throw at any annoyance, no mortal being could withstand its power and more than one wizard had been consumed in a conflagration of his own making. A storm might run for lighttimes before an elemental’s anger was appeased.
The Witch stood at the bow, her cloak whipping and snapping around her tall, thin form as she raised her clawed hands and cast her wiles into the storm’s teeth, shaping and manipulating it like an engineer seeking to contain a flood. For the vital moments they swung away to a new south-westward course, and were exposed on the flank, she forged a near-calm that had the sailors wiping their eyes in disbelief. The motion of the ship changed. Steadier now, they scudded forward on a new course.
For nine lighttimes the ship ran before the storm, trying at times to make better westward passage but flung back every time. Zephyr huffed to Kevin and Alliathiune that Utharia was definitely an unpopular destination in somebody’s reckoning. Hunter prowled their cabin like a caged animal, clearly eager for the opportunity to reason with someone at sword-point. Snatcher spelled the Helmsbear. His drenched, ten-foot bulk looming over the heaving ship’s wheel with his pellucid eyes gleaming in the semidarkness was a sight to behold, but his presence was a rock and a bulwark that gave the sailors renewed heart.
On the
tenth morning, the storm broke.
“Breakfast, sleepyhead,” said Alliathiune, poking
Kevin in the ribs.
He grumbled and turned over.
“Prod him again,” said Amadorn.
“Allow me,” said Hunter, extending her claws.
“Ouch! Flipping heck! Do you
have
to?” Kevin sat up too quickly and thumped his head on the bunk above. “Double ruddy ouch with knobs on! What kind of way is this to wake up? Call yourselves friends and companions?” He sat up and clutched the blankets as though he would never let them go. “Right, so tell me, for what reason–and it had better be a compelling reason–has my slumber been disturbed?”
“Grumpy as a–”
Hardly had he begun to speak a fearful blow struck the ship, shaking it like a child’s rattle from bowsprit to rudder. With a sickly groaning of timbers, it heeled over and rather than righting itself, simply stayed put at that angle. The impact catapulted Kevin from his bunk. He crashed into Alliathiune’s and somehow ended up at the wall, her skirt tangled around his face. Hunter, Amadorn, and Zephyr lay in a snarl atop the porthole, which had suddenly become the floor.
Frightened and dismayed shouts erupted from the deck, where one imagined sailors hanging on for their li
ves. “We’re lost!” “Help!” “We’ve run aground!”
“This is an ill accident!” Zephyr whinnied, thrusting himself clear. “Quick, to the decks!”
“Get off me!”
“Good gracious, Alliathiune, give a fellow a chance!”