The Bitterbynde Trilogy (141 page)

‘Scorn,' repeated Viviana.

A loud screech made them all jump; the bridge heaved and undulated. From everywhere or nowhere resounded a guttural pronunciation:

‘I walk with the owl

And make many to cry

As loud as she doth hollow.'

Wings juddered forth like squeaking hinges. They flapped away, to be swallowed by darkness.

‘I thought there were no birds here,' said Viviana.

‘That
was
no bird.'

Gingerly, with trembling knees, they set out to cross the next beflowered bridge.

It seemed that the day was closing. Pale grey leached to dark grey around and over and under the swaying, airy road. The wighting hours approached. Already, maniacal laughter tore through the trees, punctuated by simpering giggles and tortured groans.

Almost sumptuously, the next platform was surrounded by a low wall. It was laden with fruits, foliage, flowers and rain-filled gourds.

‘Here we may sleep without fear of falling,' said Viviana gratefully.

They feasted, sipping a drop of the seemingly inexhaustible dragon's blood as the evening drew chill. Taking turns to stand watch that night they saw, further off, tiny lights moving, up in the remote heights away to the right, which they had begun to call the east. The Tree-Dwellers' city.

Closer at hand, the forest's emanations were more eldritch. Sweet, wild music came spiralling on the cool draughts, a music that tugged at the heartstrings, its cadences evoking lost loves and lonely mountain urns in the moonlight. At the same time, way down below, something out of sight went clanking across the forest floor, shuffling, as if chained and gyved and fettered in iron.

In the pit of night the lights of the tree city blinked out, one by one. Silence settled in, except for the incessant susurration of leaves. Tahquil, who was on watch, remembered a place where harps and flutes resounded, and sweet voices sang—yet, trying to recapture the fleeting images of the Fair Realm was as hopeless as trying to hold water in a sieve, as vain as trying to fashion ropes from sand, as futile as reaping with a sickle of leather.

Tirnan Alainn—Faêrie.

How should I so love a place?
she thought.
A land of dream and legend, perhaps no more tangible than dreams and legends—a land which lies beyond the stars, and which is no more suited for my dwelling place than the sea is fit to be my abode. Why should I waste and weary and pine for a shining jewel that can never be grasped? Surely the rough homespun and coarse bread, yea, even the cool silks and Sugar-cakes of Erith ought to be enough for me. Yet, the Langothe overrides both my aversion to the Faêran and my love for my native land. It pulls the tide of my blood, and that I cannot change. Something in the very core of my being responds to its call—a recollection that seems to come from before my birth. It is like some powerful race-memory that awakens and reaches forth and, unavailing, mourns. For when I first set eyes on the Fair Realm, it seemed I had always known it. I recognised every tree and cloud, every lake and mountain as my heart's desire. Now would I go thence, if I could, like a shotten arrow.

She wondered again how long it would take for the Langothe to claim her life. Some of the children of Hythe Mellyn had succumbed within weeks of their return to Erith. Others had lingered for months, slowly fading. She, Tahquil, endured constant pain, and victuals held no relish for her. Yet her strength had not yet waned. Perhaps it was some property of Thorn's ring, or maybe part of the arcane gift Nimriel had bestowed on her in the Realm. Whatever the reason, the Langothe did not seem to be killing her as swiftly as she had expected.

On her finger, the gold ring tightened.

The sharp smack of a whip sliced the darkness. Tahquil peered over the edge of the stage, between the armouring of flabellate spikes. Shrunk by distance and lit by its own ghastly luminescence, a coach and four raced through the trees. The driver on the box wore a three-cornered hat and a short cape. What rode within the black coach Tahquil could not discern. The conveyance slowed to a halt and then rolled slightly backwards, in the manner of all wheeled vehicles finding their point of rest. In that similarity was the only commonality between the black equipage and more
lorraly
turnouts.

A door opened.

A boot weighed heavily on a step. A second dented the dank mold of the forest floor. Now a statue stood beside the coach. Motionless, the horses stood also, and the driver sat ramrod straight on the box. Then, as a sphere gyrates on a swivel, the statue's head turned. One expected to hear the sound of machinery in motion.

Tahquil held her breath. Oddly, she could perceive all this quite clearly from her perch, even through the gloom. It was spread before her like a miniature scene, like clockwork figures on a table, lit by a soft, eerie radiance.

As silently as it had appeared, the sculpted form was gone. The coach rocked with the motion of a weight settling inside. The door closed, the horses moved off with an echoing clang of harness, and the whip's crack shot upwards to explode beside Tahquil's ears.

Whether this unseelie manifestation had been tracking her and her companions she could not say, but such a powerful wight, so close by, could hardly fail to pinpoint its prey. It might be supposed that, fortunately for the mortal damsels, the creature had been hunting something else; that it was not aware of mortal watchers close by, or even of their presence in the forest. Tahquil knew the carriage for the same vehicle she and Muirne had seen before the attack on Chambord's Road-Caravan. She knew it now, with the certainty of recall, to be the coach of the Cearb, that unseelie slaughterer of Men and cattle they called the Killing One.

Day after day the three wayfarers travelled along the highroads of Khazathdaur, leaving behind the mysterious village or city of the Tree-Dwellers. Sturdy, numerous bridges leading to every quarter gave way to less numerous flying foxes. The arms and shoulders of the travellers ached from the tension of gripping ropes; their sinews transmuted themselves to agonised cables of steel.

When the shang came, the autarkens took on the mellow burnish of aged gilt; a sombre sheen like the last rich rays of vintage Summer lingering languidly on sated bronze. Every falling leaf became a spangle, each rope a chain of fireflies; the canopy turned into a shimmering galaxy of green-gold. The only tableau the travellers saw was of two children gathering flowers on the forest floor where no light-loving petals had bloomed for centuries, their images existing beyond harm there on the leaf carpet which now buried them to their waists. There was no other evidence of the psychic debris that haunted scenes of passion.

Each night the forest sprang to renewed vigour with queer sights and sounds. Far below, a heartbroken sobbing would start up like a millwheel, or weird, high singing would weave resonating glass rods through the forest, or eldritch knockings and tappings would echo through the lofty vaults, emanating from down among the roots. Sometimes strange smoke rings came floating; blue-grey wreaths of vapour that moved slowly through the trees. O, O, O, they made, before some transient breath of air deformed them, like buckled wheels. High on their airy perches the travellers would shiver, bearing witness to these phenomena; however, they sensed also that they were watched over by the elusive Tree-Dwellers. Food and drink, though monotonous, were never in short supply.

Yet ever and anon they felt
other
eyes upon them. Other beings bided here in Khazathdaur, amongst the serried wooden towers, the attenuated vaults, the fluted shadows like widows' veils trailing from every soaring bough, the endlessly falling leaves drowning in a watery twilight. It was ancient, this world of neck-breaking heights and breathtaking depths unknown by wind or sunlight, and it was filled with secrets. Gnarled roots dug deep below centuries-old layers of leaf mold imprinted only by the strangest of footprints or wheel ruts, a soft, yielding compost that covered up many curious things and out of which many curious things grew …

In the far reaches of the forest where stands of massive oaks began to mingle with the autarkens, the smell of aniseed came pouring like a rich oil upon the air. Grey malkins were about. Their eyes made the night into an aiode of emeralds. On the wide bands of iron nailed to the tree boles, the claws of the great cats could find no purchase. The predators yowled their frustration. Sometimes the night was further troubled by a loud ululating wail like theirs, yet almost human—Black Annis howled her dismal hungers in a cave somewhere down beneath the mold and stones. Once upon an eve there came a muttering, in a low monotone:

‘Ellum he do grieve,

Oak he do hate,

Willow do walk

If you travels late.'

‘Zounds,' whispered Viviana, ‘was that Black Annis, d'you think?'

If travel by bridge was slow, rope and pulley was faster. Fourteen days after coming under the stasis of Timbrilfin-Khazathdaur, there came a time when, alighting skillfully on a rather unkempt and shaky platform with frayed edges, instead of being greeted with a highway signposted by leaf or flower, the travellers found that they had reached a dead end.

In any event, there was nowhere to go but back into the forest's heart or down the rickety ladder which swung against the trunk and vanished away towards the ground. It appeared that this tree was the furthest outpost of the network rigged and maintained by the Tree-Dwellers. All around, mighty tree stems continued to plumb the distance from canopy to floor in slatted hues of grey and black. Yet there was an end to the aerial roads.

A last offering of forest fare awaited the travellers, but their dismay at this turn of events blunted their appetites.

‘Where to now?' mused Caitri, staring down over the crumbling, barbed edge to where perspective falsely indicated that the bases of the surrounding trees huddled close together.

‘Down, by my reckoning,' replied Tahquil. ‘Let us go swiftly, before night draws in—and we would be well advised to carry some of this fare with us. It may be long ere we find any other provender now that we are leaving the auspices of the Tree-Dwellers.'

‘Conversely,' said Viviana, ‘it may be a short while before we personally provide provender for the grey malkins of Black Annis. The claws of the lovely Dianella are seeming ever more amiable by comparison.'

‘Do not underestimate that lady's weaponry,' said Tahquil.

Down the long, long ladder they stepped, past the iron bands that deflected predators' claws. Twenty feet from the ground the stair of rope and wood stopped short at a narrow ledge. On hooks there, a rope had been coiled, one end of which was belayed to the tree. This last distance must be descended by rappelling, with this rope passed under one thigh and over the opposite shoulder so that it might be paid out smoothly and gradually.

‘I shall go first,' said Viviana. ‘I am practised at this trick, for my brother and I used to clamber upon the oaks in Wytham Park when we were children, although our parents were kept ignorant of our vulgar behaviour. My lady has first braved every enterprise thus far, and it is now my turn. Should you not allow it I shall not be able to countenance myself.'

‘So be it,' said Tahquil, smiling wryly at the courtier's determination. ‘During my journeys in the wilderness I too have been taught somewhat of the art of rope-descent. Caitri, watch and learn. Viviana, should you spy danger, shout loudly and we will try to haul you up, although I fear there's not much leverage on this thin shelf.'

Viviana took the rope in both hands. Cordage made from the silk-smooth beards of autarken blossom did not burn the skin. She let it slip slowly through her fists. Nervously she set her boots against the trunk, gritted her teeth and leaned back with a display of confidence she scarcely recognised in herself. Pushing from the ball of her foot she walked backwards down the tree into the dreariness of everdusk. Her shoulders felt almost wrenched from their sockets. Her tensed forearms suffered a dull, sustained pain as though bruised; they trembled and threatened to lose all sensation, all power. At the last they betrayed her. The rope shot skywards through her fingers and she fell into a great drift of leaves which sprayed up like water.

Scanning the depths, her companions could see nothing.

‘I am hale!' Viviana called, spitting out a leaf. ‘Haul away!'

Tahquil and Caitri pulled up the rope. It occurred to Viviana that the bank of dead leaves in which she was sitting might be home to things with which she would prefer to avoid close contact. Hastily she waded out of it, thigh-deep. Tahquil came swinging down, then Caitri. By the leaf-ring's glow they looked at each other.

‘Should we simply leave the rope dangling?' wondered Tahquil. ‘Fain would I withhold from ground-dwellers access to the highroads of the Folk of the Trees.'

They tried tossing the rope's end back up to its hook, to no avail.

‘We beg pardon,' Tahquil called softly skywards. ‘We cannot close your gate.' Mindful of not thanking their benefactors in case, like wights, they took offence, she added, ‘Your kindness is gratefully acknowledged. May your trees be forever fruitful.'

From the jade demi-dusk came no answer.

‘Let us move on,' said Tahquil, shaking leaves from her hair. ‘We can do no more, and must flee before the coming of night.'

They set off. Thick shadows were fastened like webs in the hollows between the ancient trees. All that could be seen was the light of the leaf-ring shining on their three faces. The companions could not know where they were going—only intuition guided them, a sense that they should continue to progress in the direction they had been shown by the Tree-Dwellers.

Now that they were down on the ground their sense of unease quickly turned to dread. All around, the pit of Khazathdaur festered with unclean things. The whispers of the mortals fell dead on the dank compost underfoot. As they blundered forward their feet dragged as though weighted with stones, and they became certain some sightless horror came in pursuit, reaching out to seize them.