by Neil Gaiman
There was another rustle of leaves from above him.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said.
“Sorry,” said Tristran, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for. “But you were telling me that Pan owned the forest . . .”
“Of course he does,” said the voice. “It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours and then be willing to let it go. Pan owns this forest, like that. And in my dream he came over to me.You were in my dream, too, leading a sad girl by a chain. She was a very sad, sad girl. Pan told me to help you.”
“Me?”
“And it made me feel all warm and tingly and squishy inside, from the tips of my leaves to the end of my roots. So I woke up, and there you were, fast asleep with your head by my trunk, snoring like a pig-wiggin.” Tristran scratched his nose. He stopped looking for a woman in the branches of the copper beech tree above him and looked instead at the tree itself. “You are a tree,” said Tristran, putting his thoughts into words.
“I didn’t always used to be a tree,” said the voice in the rustling of the copper beech leaves. “A magician made me a tree.”
“What were you before?” asked Tristran.
“Do you think he likes me?”
“Who?”
“Pan. If you were the Lord of the Forest, you wouldn’t give a job to someone, tell them to give all possible aid and succor, unless you liked them, would you?”
“Well . . .” said Tristran, but before he had decided on the politic answer, the tree had already said, “A nymph. I was a wood-nymph. But I got pursued by a prince, not a nice prince, the other kind, and, well, you’d think a prince, even the wrong kind, would understand about boundaries, wouldn’t you?”
“You would?”
“Exactly what I think. But he didn’t, so I did a bit of invoking while I was running, and—ba-boom!—tree. What do you think?”
“Well,” said Tristran. “I do not know what you were like as a wood-nymph, madam, but you are a magnificent tree.”
The tree made no immediate reply, but her leaves rustled prettily. “I was pretty cute as a nymph, too,” she admitted, coyly.
“What kind of aid and succor, exactly?” asked Tristran. “Not that I am grumbling. I mean, right now I need all the aid and succor I can get. But a tree is not necessarily the obvious place to look for it.You cannot come with me, or feed me, or bring the star here, or send us back to Wall to see my true love. I am certain you would do a remarkable job of keeping off the rain, were it to rain, but it is not, at present, raining . . .”
The tree rustled. “Why don’t you tell me your story so far,” said the tree, “and let me be the best judge of whether or not I can be of help.”
Tristran began to protest. He could feel the star moving further and further away from him, at the speed of a cantering unicorn, and if there was one thing he did not have time for, it was the recitation of the adventures of his life to date. But then it occurred to him that any progress he had made on his quest so far he had made by accepting the help that had been offered to him. So he sat on the woodland floor and he told the copper beech everything he could think of: about his love, pure and true, for Victoria Forester; his promise to bring her a fallen star—not any fallen star, but the one they had seen, together, from the top of Dyties Hill; and of his journey into Faerie. He told the tree of his journeyings, of the little hairy man and of the small fair folk who stole his bowler hat; he told her of the magic candle, and his walk across the leagues to the star’s side in the glade, and of the lion and the unicorn, and of how he had lost the star.
He finished his story, and there was silence. The copper leaves on the tree shivered, softly, as if in a gentle wind, and then harder, as if a storm were coming. And then the leaves formed a fierce, low voice, which said, “If you had kept her chained, and she had escaped her chains, then there is no power on earth or sky could ever make me help you, not if Great Pan or Lady Sylvia herself were to plead or implore me. But you unchained her, and for that I will help you.”
“Thank you,” said Tristran.
“I will tell you three true things. Two of them I will tell you now, and the last is for when you need it most. You will have to judge for yourself when that will be.
“First, the star is in great danger. What occurs in the midst of a wood is soon known at its furthest borders, and the trees talk to the wind, and the wind passes the word along to the next wood it comes to. There are forces that mean her harm, and worse than harm. You must find her and protect her.
“Secondly, there is a path through the forest, off past that fir tree (and I could tell you things about that fir tree that would make a boulder blush), and in a few minutes a carriage will be coming down that path. Hurry, and you will not miss it.
“And thirdly, hold out your hands.”
Tristran held out his hands. From high above him a copper-colored leaf came falling slowly, spinning and gliding and tumbling down. It landed neatly in the palm of his right hand.
“There,” said the tree. “Keep it safe. And listen to it, when you need it most. Now,” she told him, “the coach is nearly here. Run! Run!”
Tristran picked up his bag and he ran, fumbling the leaf into the pocket of his tunic as he did so. He could hear hoof-beats through the glade, coming closer and closer. He knew that he could not reach it in time, despaired of reaching it, but still he ran faster, until all he could hear was his heart pounding in his chest and his ears, and the hiss of air as he pulled it into his lungs. He scrambled and dashed through the bracken and made it to the path as the carriage came down the track.
It was a black coach drawn by four night-black horses, driven by a pale fellow in a long black robe. It was twenty paces from Tristran. He stood there, gulping breath, and then he tried to call out, but his throat was dry, and his wind was gone, and his voice came from him in a dry sort of croaking whisper. He tried to shout, and simply wheezed.
The carriage passed him by without slowing.
Tristran sat on the ground and caught his breath. Then, afraid for the star, he got back to his feet and walked, as fast as he could manage, along the forest path. He had not walked for more than ten minutes when he came upon the black coach. A huge branch, itself as big as some trees, had fallen from an oak tree onto the path directly in front of the horses, and the driver, who was also the coach’s sole occupant, was endeavoring to lift it out of the way.
“Damnedest thing,” said the coachman, who wore a long black robe and who Tristran estimated to be in his late forties, “there was no wind, no storm. It simply fell. Terrified the horses.” His voice was deep and booming.
Tristran and the driver unhitched the horses and roped them to the oak branch. Then the two men pushed, and the four horses pulled, and together they dragged the branch to the side of the track. Tristran said a silent thank you to the oak tree whose branch had fallen, to the copper beech and to Pan of the forests, and then he asked the driver if he would give him a ride through the forest.
“I do not take passengers,” said the driver, rubbing his bearded chin.
“Of course,” said Tristran. “But without me you would still be stuck here. Surely Providence sent you to me, just as Providence sent me to you. I will not take you out of your path, and there may again come a time when you are glad of another pair of hands.” The coach driver looked Tristran over from his head to his feet. Then he reached into the velvet bag that hung from his belt and removed a handful of square red granite tiles.
“Pick one,” he said to Tristran.
Tristran picked a stone tile and showed the symbol carved upon it to the man. “Hmm,” was all the driver said. “Now pick another.” Tristran did so. “And another.” The man rubbed his chin once more. “Yes, you can come with me,” he said. “The runes seem certain of that. Although there will be danger. But perhaps there will be more fallen branches to move. You can sit up front, if you wish, on the driver’s seat beside me, and kee
p me company.”
It was a peculiar thing, observed Tristran as he climbed up into the driver’s seat, but the first time he had glanced into the interior of the coach he had fancied that he saw five pale gentlemen, all in grey, staring sadly out at him. But the next time he had looked inside, nobody had been there at all.
The carriage rattled and pounded over the grassy track beneath a golden-green canopy of leaves. Tristran worried about the star. She might be ill-tempered, he thought, but it was with a certain amount of justification, after all. He hoped that she could stay out of trouble until he caught up with her.
It was sometimes said that the grey-and-black mountain range which ran like a spine north to south down that part of Faerie had once been a giant, who grew so huge and so heavy that, one day, worn out from the sheer effort of moving and living, he had stretched out on the plain and fallen into a sleep so profound that centuries passed between heartbeats. This would have been a long time ago, if it ever happened, in the First Age of the world, when all was stone and fire, water and wind, and there were few left alive to put the lie to it if it was not true. Still, true or not, they called the four great mountains of the range Mount Head, Mount Shoulder, Mount Belly and Mount Knees, and the foothills to the south were known as the Feet.There were passes through the mountains, one between the head and the shoulders, where the neck would have been, and one immediately to the south of Mount Belly.
They were wild mountains, inhabited by wild creatures: slate-colored trolls, hairy wild-men, strayed wodwos, mountain goats and mining gnomes, hermits and exiles and the occasional peak-witch. This was not one of the really high mountain ranges of Faerie, such as Mount Huon, on the top of which is the Stormhold. But it was a hard range for lone travelers to cross nonetheless.
The witch-queen had crossed the pass south of Mount Belly in a couple of days, and now waited at the opening of the pass. Her goats were tethered to a thorn bush, which they chewed without enthusiasm. She sat on the side of the unhitched chariot and sharpened her knives with a whetstone.
The knives were old things: the hilts were made of bone, while the blades were chipped, volcanic glass, black as jet, with white snowflake-shapes frozen forever into the obsidian. There were two knives: the smaller, a hatchet-bladed cleaver, heavy and hard, for cutting through the rib cage, for jointing and segmenting; the other a long, daggerlike blade, for cutting out the heart. When the knives were so sharp that she could have drawn either blade across your throat, and you would never have felt more than the touch of the lightest hair, as the spreading warmth of your life’s blood made a quiet escape, the witch-queen put them away and commenced her preparations.
She walked over to the goats and whispered a word of power to each of them.
Where the goats had been stood a man with a white chin-beard, and a boyish, dull-eyed young woman. They said nothing.
She crouched beside her chariot and whispered several words to it. The chariot did nothing, and the witch-woman stamped her foot on the rock.
“I am getting old,” she said to her two servants. They said nothing in reply, gave no indication that they even understood her. “Things inanimate have always been more difficult to change than things animate. Their souls are older and stupider and harder to persuade. If I but had my true youth again . . . why, in the dawn of the world I could transform mountains into seas and clouds into palaces. I could populate cities with the pebbles on the shingle. If I were young again . . .”
She sighed and raised a hand: a blue flame flickered about her fingers for a moment, and then, as she lowered her hand and bent down to touch her chariot, the fire vanished.
She stood up straight. There were streaks of grey now in her raven-black hair, and dark pouches beneath her eyes; but the chariot was gone, and she stood in front of a small inn at the edge of the mountain pass.
Far away the thunder rumbled, quietly, and lightning flickered in the distance.
The inn sign swung and creaked in the wind. There was a picture of a chariot painted upon it.
“You two,” said the witch-woman, “inside. She is riding this way, and she will have to come through this pass. Now I simply have to ensure that she will come inside. You,” she said to the man with the white chin-beard, “are Billy, the owner of this tavern. I shall be your wife, and this,” pointing to the dull-eyed girl, who had once been Brevis, “is our daughter, the pot-maid.”
Another crash of thunder echoed down from the mountain peaks, louder than before.
“It will rain soon,” said the witch-woman. “Let us prepare the fire.”
Tristran could feel the star ahead of them, moving steadily onward. He felt as if he were gaining ground upon her.
And, to his relief, the black carriage continued to follow the star’s path. Once, when the road diverged, Tristran was concerned that they might take the wrong fork. He was ready to leave the coach and travel on alone, if that should happen.
His companion reined in the horses, clambered down from the driver’s seat, and took out his runes. Then, his consultation complete, he climbed back up, and took the carriage down the left-hand fork.
“If it is not too forward of me to enquire,” said Tristran, “might I ask what it is that you are in search of?”
“My destiny,” said the man, after a short pause. “My right to rule. And you?”
“There’s a young lady that I have offended with my behavior,” said Tristran. “I wish to make amends.” As he said it, he knew it to be true.
The driver grunted.
The forest canopy was thinning rapidly. Trees became sparser, and Tristran stared up at the mountains in front of them, and he gasped. “Such mountains!” he said.
“When you are older,” said his companion, “you must visit my citadel, high on the crags of Mount Huon. Now that is a mountain, and from there we can look down upon mountains next to which these,” and he gestured toward the heights of Mount Belly, ahead of them, “are the merest foothills.”
“Truth to tell,” said Tristran, “I hope to spend the rest of my life as a sheep farmer in the village of Wall, for I have now had as much excitement as any man could rightly need, what with candles and trees and the young lady and the unicorn. But I take the invitation in the spirit in which it was given, and thank you for it. If ever you visit Wall then you must come to my house, and I shall give you woolen clothes and sheep-cheese, and all the mutton stew you can eat.”
“You are far too kind,” said the driver. The path was easier now, made of crushed gravel and graded rocks, and he cracked his whip to urge the four black stallions on faster. “You saw a unicorn, you say?”
Tristran was about to tell his companion all about the encounter with the unicorn, but he thought better of it, and simply said, “He was a most noble beast.”
“The unicorns are the moon’s creatures,” said the driver. “I have never seen one. But it is said that they serve the moon and do her bidding. We shall reach the mountains by tomorrow evening. I shall call a halt at sunset tonight. If you wish, you may sleep inside the coach; I, myself, shall sleep beside the fire.” There was no change in his tone of voice, but Tristran knew, with a certainty that was both sudden and shocking in its intensity, that the man was scared of something, frightened to the depths of his soul.
Lightning flickered on the mountaintops that night. Tristran slept on the leather seat of the coach, his head on a sack of oats; he dreamed of ghosts, and of the moon and stars.
The rain began at dawn, abruptly, as if the sky had turned to water. Low, grey clouds hid the mountains from sight. In the driving rain Tristran and the coach driver hitched the horses to the carriage and set off. It was all uphill, now, and the horses went no faster than a walk.
“You could go inside,” said the driver. “No point in us both getting wet.” They had put on one-piece oilskins they had found beneath the driver’s seat.
“It would be hard for me to be wetter,” said Tristran, “without my first leaping into a river. I shall stay
here. Two pairs of eyes and two pairs of hands may well be the saving of us.”
His companion grunted. He wiped the rain from his eyes and mouth with a cold wet hand, and then he said, “You’re a fool, boy. But I appreciate it.” He transferred the reins to his left hand, and extended his right hand. “I am known as Primus. The Lord Primus.”
“Tristran. Tristran Thorn,” he said, feeling that the man had, somehow, earned the right to know his true name.
They shook hands.The rain fell harder. The horses slowed to the slowest walk as the path became a stream, and the heavy rain cut off all vision as effectively as the thickest fog.
“There is a man,” said the Lord Primus, shouting to be heard now over the rain, the wind whipping the words from his lips. “He is tall, looks a little like me, but thinner, more crowlike. His eyes seem innocent and dull, but there is death in them. He is called Septimus, for he was the seventh boy-child our father spawned. If ever you see him, run and hide. His business is with me. But he will not hesitate to kill you if you stand in his way, or, perhaps, to make you his instrument with which to kill me.”
A wild gust of wind drove a tankardful of rainwater down Tristran’s neck.
“He sounds a most dangerous man,” said Tristran.
“He is the most dangerous man you will ever meet.”
Tristran peered silently into the rain, and the gathering darkness. It was becoming harder to see the road. Primus spoke again, saying, “If you ask me, there is something unnatural about this storm.”
“Unnatural?”
“Or more-than-natural; super-natural, if you will. I hope there is an inn along the way. The horses need a rest, and I could do with a dry bed and a warm fire. And a good meal.” Tristran shouted his agreement. They sat together, getting wetter. Tristran thought about the star and the unicorn. She would be cold by now, and wet. He worried about her broken leg and thought about how saddle sore she must be. It was all his fault. He felt wretched.
“I am the most miserable person who ever lived,” he said to the Lord Primus, when they stopped to feed the horses feedbags of damp oats.