The Fathomless Fire (43 page)

“What is it, Will Lightfoot?” Shade asked.

Will didn’t answer. He turned and searched for the star in the clouded night sky. He found it at once, a glimmering pinpoint in the darkness, the only star to be seen. He watched as it grew brighter and larger, and then suddenly it was gone. The dark had filled with whirling flakes of snow, like a moving, flurrying wall of white.

Then Will noticed that the ship had stopped shuddering. All was so still and quiet amid the swirling, streaming snow that he couldn’t tell if they were still falling through the air or had already landed. And the wind had dropped from a shriek to a whisper.

Will climbed to his feet, the planks creaking softly under him, and Balor and Yates did likewise.

“What is this now?” the wildman groaned.

“I think,” Will said, gripping the mirror shard tightly, “it’s a rescue.”

He looked towards the bow of the skiff. Out of the streaming white wall a small figure in a red cloak appeared, stepped down lightly onto the deck, and pulled back the cloak’s hood. It was Rowen.

Will hurried to her. They took each other’s hands. Rowen’s face was so pale and careworn that he was startled and frightened, but her eyes lit up with happiness as she looked into his.

“I found you,” she said.

Blue Hill, the
real
Blue Hill, was a day’s walk north-east of the Bourne. The little thatched cottage was half buried in tall grass. Mice ran in and out of the cracks in the walls. Even so, Rowen couldn’t help hoping her grandmother would suddenly appear to greet them.

Whitewing Stonegrinder had set the skiff down in the unmown meadow at the edge of the woods, his strength almost exhausted, and they all climbed out and took what shelter they could find in the cold, dusty cottage. Then the dragon, or the snowstorm, as he appeared to be, had flown to the top of the hill and settled there, a blanket of shining white against the stars. Stonegrinder spoke once more, and this time not only Rowen but all of them heard his voice like a deep drumming within them. The dragon told them that he must sleep for a time, but he would wake again when he was needed.

The fireplace was cleared of the straw and earth that had filled it over the years, and soon a fire was burning and they were huddled around it, warming themselves and sipping the medicinal tea brewed from the herb the doctor had given Balor. Only as the drink warmed him and calmed his racing thoughts did Will finally realize how powerfully the
gaal
had been affecting him. He felt his exhaustion now, but it was a true feeling, his body’s own wisdom telling him it was time to rest and restore himself. He felt a great weariness, and sadness. While they were still in the skiff Rowen had told Will what had happened to her grandfather, and now he sat and looked into the fire with a heavy heart.

A friend will fall
, the shadow of things to come had told him. What had the old man been if not one of Will’s best and most trusted friends? Now that he was gone Will understood how much his hope and courage relied on knowing the loremaster was there, and believing he always would be.

Will sensed that Rowen had more to tell him but she was holding back in the presence of Yates and the wildman, neither of whom she knew. For his part Yates said very little. He seemed stunned by the strangeness of their rescue, or by the fact that he was back in his own country again after so long. Whatever the reason, he soon left the fire and stood by the door, looking out with bright, watchful eyes. It was clear he could hardly wait to set off again, to find whatever friends and family had been waiting and hoping all these years for his return.

Balor did most of the talking, describing for Rowen what they had gone through and how they had found Corr Madoc and all that had come after. When he had finished, he glanced at both Will and Rowen, who had hardly spoken, and understanding dawned in his face. He gave a great yawn, got out his bedroll and dropped it in a straw-filled corner, announcing it was time to catch up on a little of all the sleep he’d missed over the past few days. Yates left the doorway then and went to another corner, where he hunkered down, wrapping himself in his cloak.

Without having to speak, Will and Rowen rose at the same time, and went outside together. Riddle followed them, picking his way carefully through the thickly drifted snow. The air was still and cold. Far-off lights of other farmhouses gleamed like fallen stars through the icy fog that hung in the air. Will looked up at the silent white hilltop, marvelling once more at the thought of the strange, powerful being that had brought them to this place and now lay slumbering there.

“This is where you lived?” he said. “It must have been a peaceful place.”

Rowen put her hand in Will’s.

“I think it was,” she said. “I remember more about it now.”

Then she told him about meeting her grandmother and all she had learned from her, about the Weaving and what she must do, how she would have to find a hidden way into the Shadow Realm. She showed him the ball of golden thread Grandmother had given her, and like her, when she first saw it, his eyes were drawn by its fineness and shimmer. He asked her what it was for.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. In her inward vision she saw the ball of thread uncoiling, spinning out into the dark, a spidery strand of gold so fine it was almost invisible, so gossamer thin it seemed as if a breath would part it. But she couldn’t see what had brought this about, or what the thread would weave, or mend.

When she had told him all there was to tell, Will said, “I’m coming with you.”

“I’ve seen you, in the story,” Rowen said. “I saw I couldn’t find the way without you, but … I don’t want you to come with me. I don’t want anyone I care about going into that place. You don’t know … you can’t imagine what it will be like.”

“We’ll do this together,” Will said firmly. He was about to tell her what the Dreamwalker had said to him, that he must stay with her or she would fail and be lost for ever, but he held back. Her task seemed hopeless enough without that prophecy to weigh her down. And there was much the blind man had told him that he didn’t understand. Rowen was going in search of her grandfather, but the Dreamwalker had spoken of a great task that lay ahead for her, something she must do to save all the worlds of Story. Will knew he would have to tell her what he’d learned from the Dreamwalker, but he couldn’t bring himself to lay this new burden on her shoulders. Not now, not yet.

“When I left the Realm the first time,” he said at last, “I told you that this was my story, too. That’s why I came back. I came back … for you.”

“I know, Will, but you’re in the Errantry now … they will need you in Fable.”

“I don’t care about that. You can’t … I’m not letting you do this alone.”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Riddle with me.”

Will glanced dubiously at the cat.

“Rowen … can you really trust him?”

“Riddle knows what he is now. I
need
him with me.”

Will stood in silence for a while.

“I’ll help you find a way to the Shadow Realm,” he said at last. “But I’m not leaving you to go there alone. That’s the end of it.”

Rowen was about to speak again, but she fell silent, slipped her arm through Will’s, and rested her head on his shoulder. Arguing was pointless: she knew he was right. She had foreseen enough of their journey already to know that he must come with her. Ever since she returned from the Weaving she had been aware that her gift of sight had grown, sharpened, to the point that now it was always
there
. She no longer had to search for the Story in things, she felt it shimmering all around her at every moment, and through her, too, the same humming life she felt when she’d held Riddle in her arms, the quivering, dancing movement of countless threads of possibility coming together, branching apart, joining together again to make the world. The weave of all that was and would be.

This endless, intricate dance was what she really was, what they all were, a ceaselessly moving and changing tapestry in which they lived and breathed and had their being. Grandfather had tried to show her this in the Weaving, she remembered, and she realized now that she had not really believed him. Or maybe it was that she hadn’t known
how
to believe him. But now she could feel the truth of it. Each thread was unique and unlike any other yet the tapestry was somehow a seamless whole, so that the deeper she looked the less able she was to tell where she ended and everything else began. That included Will, and because of it she knew in her bones that he would come with her, that it had to be.

They turned at the squeak of snow softly trodden upon and saw that Shade had come out of the cottage to join them. The wolf and the cat glanced at each other warily, and Will remembered that Shade had met Riddle once before, too, in the forest. He had been tricked by this creature just as Will and Rowen had been. It would take a while, he thought, before they all learned to trust one another.

“I will go with you, Rowen of Blue Hill,” the wolf said.

“Oh, Shade,” Rowen said, throwing her arms around his neck. “You’re the bravest, most loyal friend anyone could have, but you can’t come with us. What they did to you with the fever iron … if you went to that place it would only get worse.”

She clung to him, wondering how she could tell the wolf what she’d seen when she first climbed aboard the skiff, the terrible, undeniable change in him, and what she felt now as her hands sank into his warm fur. The poison was in him still, but it would fade in time and he would heal, unless he came with them to the Shadow Realm. If Shade set foot there, she saw now with horror, the power of the fever iron would grow stronger in him. The deeper he went into the nightmare that was the Night King’s story, the harder it would be for him, even with his great heart, to resist. And if he faltered, if he lost the struggle, that story would transform him for its own purpose, misshaping him in anguish and rage into a creature of the oldest, darkest fears. A beast rising like a mountain against the sky, a monster with blazing eyes and vast gaping jaws, and a name of terror prepared for him in ages past: the Devourer.

She let go of the wolf and looked into his eyes, and she knew that he had guessed something of what she had seen. And Will had, too. His sad, troubled look said as much. But only she knew how great the danger really was, and how dire the consequence. No, she could not tell them that. She couldn’t bear to see what little hope they had for this journey die in their eyes.

“I am stronger than I was,” Shade said. “My eyes, ears and nose are sharper and my legs can run further. The poison has done this, I know, but while I am still able, I will stay with you and help you.”

Unable to speak, she buried her face in the wolf’s fur.

“We’ll find your grandfather, Rowen,” Will said. “We’ll bring him back.”

Rowen turned to him.

“When we do, we’ll be coming back to a war,” she said. “We’ve both seen it, Will. Grandmother says that Storyfolk from all over the Realm are on their way to defend Fable. But I don’t know … I don’t know if it will be enough.”

“What about the Fair Folk?” Will asked. “They’re Malabron’s greatest enemies. Will they be there, too?”

“The Tain Shee,” Rowen said with a surge of hope. “Maybe they can help us find Grandfather. Some call them the Hidden Folk because they’re masters of concealment and illusion. No one sees them if they don’t want to be seen, and Moth said they know all the hidden paths.”

Will understood.

“If anyone knows a secret way into the Shadow Realm,” he said, “it’ll be the Lady of the Shee.”

“But first we have to find them, if we can,” Rowen said. “And to do that we need to get back to the raincabinet and look for their thread. There’s no time to set off searching for them out here. Only the Weaving can bring us to them before it’s too late.”

Will and Rowen stood together for a while longer, both eager to set off right away, but the night was cold and they were hardly able to stand for weariness. Finally they turned to go back inside the cottage, Riddle and Shade following them. First thing in the morning they would set out for Fable together. The return of Brannon Yates after ten years would be news indeed, and Rowen hoped it would overshadow everything else, so that she and Will could slip unnoticed into Fable and Ammon Brax would not hear of it. Somehow she had to get back into the toyshop, and into the Weaving, without the mage finding out. If he had discovered the raincabinet, then maybe they were already too late.

She went inside, her thoughts troubled, and Will followed her, but in the doorway he paused and looked out at the moonlit clearing that sloped down to the dark wall of the trees. He was reminded of the woods behind his house, the woods he had walked through to get to the Realm. Suddenly a strange feeling came over him that his own world was very close, that after his journey hundreds of miles across the plains and back again through the sky, he had not gone very far at all. It seemed to him he needed only to walk a short way through those trees and he would see the back porch light burning and be home. But with that feeling came the certainty that what he and his friends did here, in the Perilous Realm, mattered there, too. In the cold and silence of the night both worlds waited for him, and for what tomorrow would bring.

T
HE
S
HADOW OF
M
ALABRON