Moonkind (Winterling) (6 page)

Ten

Fer was asleep in the Lady Tree, which swayed in the wind like a ship at sea.

With a start, she opened her eyes, and a room swooped around her; dizzy, she closed her eyes again. Oh, such a pain in her head, and the floor was awfully cold and hard. “Twig?” she croaked. “Fray?”

Then she remembered the figures in gray—the Forsworn—who had grabbed her at the Lake of All Ways. Her eyes popped open.

Fer was
not
in the Lady Tree. Holding her head, she sat up. Her stomach lurched at the movement. With her fingers she felt the back of her skull. A tender lump, but no blood. Too bad about cutting off all of her hair; if she’d had her braid, she might not have gotten such a bump. She looked down at herself. She still had her patchwork jacket on, at least. That was something.

She surveyed the room she was in. It was circular, about ten paces across. The floor was made of close-fitted stones. The walls were of the same gray stone with thick layers of mortar in the cracks between each one. Carefully Fer climbed to her feet, looking up. The walls stretched up to a flat ceiling—more stone—way overhead. In the ceiling was an open trapdoor that showed a flat, gray sky.

She was in a tower.

She turned in a circle. The tower only had walls; there was no door, no windows.

The Forsworn ones who’d grabbed her at the Lake of All Ways had put her here, no doubt. It was a prison. They must have lowered her down here from the opening in the ceiling, high above. “Ooookay.” She took a shaky breath. Then another. The air felt strange. Heavy, as if it was weighing her down. And it was cold with the chill of underground caves.

Fer shivered and her head ached, and she sat down with her back against the curving wall. A muffled buzzing sound came from one of her jacket pockets. She opened it up, and her bee bumbled out. It wavered around her head once, then dropped onto her sleeve. She cupped her hand around it, and it buzzed against her palm. It meant she wasn’t completely alone, anyway.

She rubbed her sore head and looked up at the trapdoor. At some point the Forsworn would have to come back, if only to lower her some food and water. Maybe they’d have a bucket on a rope. That would be her chance to escape. Dizzy, she rested her head against her knees and tried to think.

The Forsworn hated change. She was human, and she had the power to change things. The Forsworn had put her here, she guessed, because she was a danger to them.

They were right about that. Her thoughts bumped up against the memory of the Birch-Lady’s death. But she didn’t want to think about that. It led her to Rook and his latest betrayal, and she
really
didn’t want to think about that. Her chest still ached where she’d broken their shared thread of friendship.

After a long time, she opened her eyes. Overhead, the square of sky framed by the trapdoor had turned dark gray. Evening was coming on. She got to her feet and, keeping one hand on the wall to steady herself, made a circuit of the room. Surely her captors would come soon, to bring her some dinner.

Strange, though. She’d been here for hours, and she didn’t feel the least bit hungry. Or thirsty. Or tired.

Maybe it was because the air here was so heavy. It made her feel slow. She went around the edge of the room again. The air was as thick as honey; she practically had to trudge through it. She couldn’t hear anything from outside the tower either; the silence pressed against her ears.

As the night came on, the tower-room darkened. Fer settled down against the wall again, pulling the patch-jacket tightly around her for warmth. Her bee crawled up to her collar and nestled against her neck; it felt soft and comforting.

Sleep didn’t come. She stared out at nothing. After a while, Fer got up again and, in the darkness, circled the room once more. The stone walls felt rough and slightly damp under her fingers; in the dark, she traced the mortared cracks between each block of stone. Around and around she walked.

Fer hardly noticed the morning coming on, and then she realized that the stone walls had emerged from the darkness, gray and grim. She looked down at her patchwork jacket just to see a splash of color. Even the jacket looked washed-out in the dull light.

Morning. The Forsworn would have to come soon.

It was strange, though. She’d been awake all night, walking around the room, and she wasn’t a bit tired. She wasn’t hungry, either, or thirsty.

She stopped and stared up at the open trapdoor in the ceiling. A few dust motes hung in the morning light that shone in. Dust should float in the air, glinting in the light. These dust motes just hung there. Not moving.

“Oh, no,” she said, and the heavy silence swallowed up her words.

Some kind of spell was on the tower. Time didn’t pass inside these walls; it stood still. Frozen. That meant . . .

She clenched her fists, suddenly frightened. This was the power of the Forsworn, unchanging and uncaring. If time didn’t pass inside the tower, it meant she was stuck in it, like a bee stuck in a jar of honey. She wouldn’t get hungry or thirsty or tired, and no matter how long she was here she would never get any older. She would be like them—never changing.

Her breath came fast. What was she going to
do
?

Fer felt a flood of despair wash through her. She had really,
really
messed things up.

And then she had blamed Rook for it. She closed her eyes, remembering his stricken face after she’d broken the thread of their friendship.

But no. Rook had promised to tell her exactly what he was up to, and he hadn’t. He was a troublemaker, and it
was
his fault, at least partly. And the thing he’d said after she’d broken their heart-thread.

Curse it, Fer,
he’d said.
That was the third time
.

The third time the thread had been broken, he meant, and the pain of it really did have the power of three behind it. He must have broken the thread twice before, then. She wanted to forgive him for that, as she’d forgiven other things he’d done. She wanted to say,
Oh, he’s a puck, he plays by different rules
. But she couldn’t do it this time. Her heart hardened. He had never truly been her friend.

She sat with her back to the cold stone wall and felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her entire life. Tears streamed down her face, and she put her head down on her knees and cried for a long time. Maybe she did deserve to be here. A Lady was dead, killed because of Rook’s broken promise, but also because of her own carelessness. She was away from her land, which needed her just as much as she needed to be there. Her people would think she’d abandoned them. She was far from Grand-Jane, when she’d promised to visit more often. Weeks would be slipping past in the human world while she was stuck here in this timeless place. Weeks, or months. Or even more.

After a while, she lifted her head. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes. All right. Crying wasn’t getting her anywhere.

She really was going to be alone here forever unless she did something about it. The Summerlands people thought she was at the nathe. The High Ones and Gnar and Lich wouldn’t know to look for her; once they found out about the death of the Birch-Lady, they’d think she’d run away. And Rook—he’d probably gone back to his brothers, and he certainly wouldn’t notice that she was missing.

While she’d been thinking and crying and not doing anything, more time had passed outside. The sky over the trapdoor had darkened and lightened a few times; she’d lost track of how many. Days, maybe. She had all the time in the world, but no time left to waste.

“Fer,” she said aloud just to hear the sound of a voice. “Remember what Grand-Jane said. Don’t forget that you’re
human
.” She had her own human power, the power to change, to grow, to
live
. Maybe it would be enough to break the spell the Forsworn had put on this tower.

She got to her feet. “Bee,” she said, and the bee buzzed from her sleeve to land on the finger she held up. Sending it away would leave her more alone, and there wasn’t much chance of it helping, but she had to try. “Go and find my true friends,” she told it. Fray and Twig, she meant, in the Summerlands. “If you can, lead them back here.” She raised her hand, and the bee lifted from her finger. “All right?”

Zmmmmrmmrmmm,
the bee answered—
yes
. It climbed through the heavy air to the trapdoor. Then it was a dark spot against the sky, and then, with a buzz, it was gone.

Fer took a deep breath. Now she had to figure out a way to break the power of the Forsworn and escape.

Eleven

Rook waited in Old Scrawny’s rooms until night. The stick-servants had brought the wizened Birch-Lady back with them, and they’d cleaned the glamorie-muck off her and put her to bed. Arenthiel said he didn’t know if she’d recover or not, that they’d have to wait and see. For now, all she was doing was weeping and begging for a new glamorie.

Well, Rook wasn’t waiting around to listen to that. A stick-servant led him through the dark hallways of the nathe, then along a secret side tunnel and out a door that opened straight into the forest. In his dog shape he made it to the Lake of All Ways without any run-ins with the nathe-wardens.

Standing on the shore, the pebbles smooth and cool under his paw pads, he sniffed the air with his long dog nose and contemplated the Lake of All Ways. Pucks traveled a lot. They had to. For one thing, they were hunted out of all the lands, so they never stayed anywhere for long. For another, they were always looking for puck babies.

That was how pucks came to be brothers. A puck was born to a fern-woman, or a couple of duck-people, or a Lady of a swampland—to anyone, really. As soon as the parents saw the black hair and flame-colored eyes and realized their new baby was a puck, they abandoned it, leaving it at a Way for other pucks to find.

Usually he and his brothers found the babies in time.

Though sometimes they didn’t.

At any rate, Rook knew what land the Sea-Lord lived in. He’d been there before. The Way to that land was always open. It was open now.

He might be walking into trouble where he’d need his teeth, so he stayed in his dog form. Then he stepped into the Lake, and into the Way.

As Rook came through to the Sealands, he blinked at a setting sun that blasted him straight in the eyes.

Then the smell hit him. A wave of dank stench—dead fish, dead seaweed, dead crabs and snails, all left behind by the sea and baked for days under a hot sun.

Quickly he spat out his shifter-tooth, panting. Ugh. Too much of him was nose when he was a dog.

Covering his mouth and nose with his arm, and breathing through his coat sleeve, he surveyed the Sealands. The last time he’d been here the clouds had been gray and spitting rain into a wind-tossed sea bashing itself against sharp, black rocks. On a patch of sandy beach, sleek seals had gathered, and seabirds had wheeled in the sky, diving to pluck tiny fish from the waves.

Rook climbed from the rocky ledge where the Way opened down to the beach, where he stood looking out. The setting sun glared at him across a muddy plain edged by black rocks that were no longer wet with spray. The sea itself had receded; he saw it, flat and reflecting the bloodred sky, far out over the mud.

The plain of mud was where the death smell was coming from. It was covered with dead snails, rotting fish, strands of decaying seaweed, the empty shells of crabs. No seabirds circled overhead. All was still and silent.

Clearly something was wrong here. It must be the land’s Forsworn Lord’s broken oath causing it. But what was wrong, exactly?

A sandy path led from the beach. It ran parallel to the shoreline, winding around dunes covered with long, dry grass that hung limp in the still air. He followed the path, the setting sun glaring over his left shoulder, breathing shallowly to keep out the stench that hovered over the mudflats. He walked and walked; the path led on; the sun squatted on the edge of the sky.

He stopped and looked out, shading his eyes. The sun had been stuck in that spot since he’d arrived. It should be night by now. He shook his head and went on.

At last, the path came out on a wide stretch of sand. Squinting, he saw, way down the beach, a huddle of dark shapes. People, it looked like. He set off across the hard-packed sand. The sun still sat on the horizon; no wind blew. The sound of his boots scuffing on the sand sounded loud in the silence.

Finally he reached the people. They watched him come, wide, dark eyes in dark faces, then turned their heads again to stare out at the faraway sea.

They were seal-people. They had long, plump bodies and short arms and legs with webbed fingers and toes. Sleek, brown fur covered their earless heads; the men had spiky whiskers around their mouths. They sat close together, as if taking comfort from one another.

The seal-people were wildling, he realized—their Lord’s broken oath was turning them into wild creatures that would soon forget that they’d ever been people. Their land was dying before their eyes. They were unbound and adrift, and they were feverish and frightened.

They might be too far gone to answer his questions. Awkwardly Rook stepped closer and crouched next to a seal-woman. “Has your Lord been here?” he asked. His voice sounded rough and too loud.

The seal-woman looked at him. “Our Lord has gone away.” Then she turned her head again to stare out at the sea.

Rook found himself staring too, and shook his head. The air was so heavy here; it made his thoughts slow. If Fer was here, she’d brew some sort of medicinal tea to help the seal-people, but there was nothing he could do for them.

The seal-woman turned her head back. When she spoke, her words were slurred, as if she had almost forgotten how to talk. “The sea comes in,” she said forlornly. “The sea goes out. Then it comes in again.” She gazed out over the mud. The bloody sun was reflected in her eyes. “Then the sea went out and it never came in.”

She was talking about the tide, Rook realized. The sea washing in and out according to the movement of the moon. The seal-people were waiting for the sea to come back. If the tide went out and never came in . . .

It meant the Lord’s broken oath had broken something in his land. And it meant the Lord had abandoned his land and his people.

This land was stuck. The coming and going of the tides, the turning of the moon—those things were changes, part of the rhythm of the land. Because the Forsworn would not change, their lands wouldn’t change either. Maybe all the lands of the Forsworn were like this. Abandoned, dying.

He looked out over the mudflats; the smell of death washed over him again. The seal-people sat, hunched and unmoving. Waiting. They would be dead soon too.

He needed to warn Fer. As a part human, she was the force of change in the lands. If anybody could do something to save the lands of the Forsworn, it was she.

But he’d been away from his brothers for too long. He needed to see them first.

Lately the pucks had made their home in a huge tree in a forest made up of other huge trees. Just the cracks in the bark of those trees were deep enough for a puck to hide in; the trees themselves were a hundred paces across, and so tall, a puck could climb up them all day long and never reach the top, and if he did, he’d find strange creatures and plants living on those high branches, and maybe strange people, too. The land of the tree-giants was rainy and damp most of the time, the ground covered with ferns and pine needles. A good place for sneaking, because no footstep ever made a sound.

The tree his brothers lived in had been struck by lightning and burned; the pucks had dug out the burned place in the base of the trunk to make a cavelike shelter with a wide opening looking out over the forest. When Rook arrived, the tree was buzzing with activity. As he padded up and shifted into his person shape, his brothers saw him. “Rook!” they shouted, and, “Brother!”

Rook grinned. It was good to be home.

Asher strode up and gave him a quick hug. “Pup!” he said, beaming. “You’ve come at just the right time.” He grabbed Rook’s arm and pulled him deeper into the hollowed-out tree. “How did the shadow-web work?” he asked.

Rook started to answer, but Asher shook his head. “Wait a moment; tell everybody.” He dragged Rook to the charred back wall of the shelter, where Rip and Tatter and a few other pucks sat in a circle. They were tying thick ropes into what looked like a net. The toddler-puck, Scrap, sat on Tatter’s lap; seeing Rook, Scrap grinned, showing off his new teeth. Rook grinned back at him.

“We’re almost done with this, Ash,” Rip said. “Hello, Pup.”

Rook nodded a greeting. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Oh, Pup,” Asher said, grinning. “Just wait until you hear the next part of the plan.” He pulled Rook down beside him. “But first tell us about that.” He pointed at Rook’s left hand, at the bit of shadow-web still stuck to his palm.

He told them what had happened, how the Birch-Lady had shriveled up and howled in pain when the glamorie had come off her.

“Huh,” Asher said. “But her glamorie was destroyed?”

“It was, yes,” Rook answered. Then he realized that Rip was staring fixedly at him.

“You haven’t mentioned that Lady Gwynnefar yet,” Rip said.

That’s because he hadn’t wanted to mention her. “We’re not . . .” He had to stop and clear the lump out of his throat. “We’re not friends anymore, Fer and me.”

“Good,” Rip said, with a fierce smile. “No more thread binding you, then?”

Rook shook his head. He rubbed the place on his chest where the shards of the shattered heart-thread still poked at him.

“Ah, but he’s broken up about it,” Tatter said. “It’s clear enough that he is.”

“Just leave it,” Rook muttered.

They left it.

Evening fell, and the pucks went out and built up the bonfire before the tree-cave and roasted delicious things over the flames. Rook ate his fill and then, exhausted, found a warm corner of the cave to sleep in.

In the morning, he opened his eyes to see Asher leaning against the cave wall; beside Asher stood a grinning Tatter, holding the baby Scrap.

Tatter said something. “No, he hasn’t noticed it yet,” Ash answered. “Pup,” he said, and nudged Rook’s shoulder with his toe, “come and have some tea once you’re awake.”

“Come have some breakfast, too, Pup,” Tatter said, then went away with Ash.

Rook’s bed against the wall of the tree-cave was too comfortable. He didn’t want to get up. He looked at the dark curve of the cave overhead; gray light flooded in from the wide doorway. He heard a buzzing noise. Then a tickling on his chest, right over his heart. He looked down at himself and saw a bedraggled bee clinging to his fine coat, buzzing softly.

A bee?

Fer’s
bee.

He sat up with a jerk and the bee tumbled off, then gave an annoyed buzz and flew up to perch on his collar. “What are
you
doing here?” Rook whispered.

Hmmmzmmrm,
the bee answered.

Oh, his brothers were not going to like this. Rook got to his feet and went out to the campfire in front of the cave. His brother Ash was sitting beside it, munching on a strip of dried rabbit. The other pucks lounged around on blankets, some of them sleeping in their dog shapes.

Tatter handed him a cup of hot tea. “Here, Pup,” he said. “Drink this.”

Rook took the cup and wrapped his fingers around it, warming them. The bee buzzed at his ear.
Hurryhurry,
he thought it meant.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’ll tell them in a moment.”

Rip came up then. “I see our Pup has got a pet,” he said darkly.

The bee, he meant. “It’s Fer’s,” he said, though they already knew that, he guessed. “Its coming here means she’s in trouble.”

“What’s that to us?” Rip asked.

“We thought she wasn’t friends with you anymore,” Ash added.

“She’s not,” he said. He knew Ash was watching for it, so he didn’t rub at the sore place over his heart. “But she needs my help.”

“
We
need your help with the next part of our plan, Pup,” Asher said.

“You still haven’t told me about the plan,” Rook said.

Ash shrugged. “We’ll get to it.” His eyes narrowed as he watched Rook carefully. “Are you going to send that bee away?”

Sending the bee away meant abandoning Fer. He couldn’t do that. “She’s in trouble, and I’m going to help her,” he insisted. He had decided to stay true to Fer; he wasn’t changing his mind about that. “I’ll come back to help you as soon as I can.”

Ash and Rip exchanged a glance. “All right, Brother,” Ash said slowly, getting to his feet. “Do what you have to do.” Then he grinned. “While you’re off finding out what trouble your not-a-friend Lady Gwynnefar’s gotten herself into, we’ll work on the rest of our plan. But you’d better hurry, Pup,” he said. “We’re not going to wait forever.”