Caerles shook his head. “I will not go without him. He does not belong to me, and I must keep him safely and return him. What land is that, beyond the river?”
“I do not know. People go across, and they do not come back to tell me. A great King’s court lies beyond the trees, I have heard. Do you want to go there? You must pay me. I am a poor man and I have a wife and a son with no shoes.”
“What do you want of me?” Caerles said. “I will give you whatever you ask that belongs to me, for I think beyond this river lies the ending of my quest. But you must take the dagon across, too.”
“I will take him if he does not bark. I do not know if a Tree-Man has anything I will want.”
“I am a Cnite,” said Caerles, “and I can give you a promise of jewels, though I have none with me.”
“I can give you a promise of all the King’s gold,” the boatman said. “I do not want to offend a Tree-Man, but I have never seen a jewel and I do not believe in them. But there is one thing I believe in of yours.”
“Ask it of me.”
“Give me your mouse-colored boots for my son to wear.”
Caerles bent slowly and took off his boots. He gave them to the man and sat on the dagon, bare-headed, barefoot, listening to the gentle wind while the man brought his boat to them. The river spun in whorls from his dipping oars as he rowed them across, and the water was green and still and bottomless beneath them. Birds chattered from the woods ahead and flicked like jewels from branch to branch. A singing rose, soft as sunlight beyond the wind, and the Cnite smiled, and the quiet dagon licked his face. The boat thumped softly in the shallows and the boatman leaped ashore and drew them in beneath the sighing trees.
“Fare well, Cnite,” he said as Caerles stepped on the land. “There are those who look for quest’s endings, and others who are content with a pair of boots. I wish you your contentment.” And he got back into the boat and shoved it away with a ripple of oar. Caerles moved forward among the flowers massed at his feet. Ahead of him the trees thinned, and a meadow grew, full of cows with silver bells. Beyond the meadow fields began, lined with new plowing, and in the distance, on a hill, sat the dark, closed stone walls of the castle of Magnus Thrall, King of Everywhere.
A sadness beat in Caerles’ heart like the sudden ache of bruised bone. He sat down on a fallen tree, murmuring wordlessly of despair, and the dagon whimpered and licked his hands.
“Oh, dagon,” he mourned finally, “now what shall I do? I have made a circle of my quest, and there seems no ending to it. I have failed my Damsen, for I am too weary to hope any longer. There is no Throme, and if it does exist, it is always just beyond my outstretched hand, just beyond my eyesight.”
The leaves shook suddenly above him, as though they were laughing. He looked up and found a great tree full of children.
They looked down at him out of secret eyes, as they clung to smooth, strong branches. They were small, and simply dressed, and their clothes were colored like the deep hearts of flowers. The leaves rustled again, and a boy dropped to the Cnite’s bare feet. His eyes were round as berries, and his hands were brown with earth.
“Why are you sad, Tree-Man?” he said, and his voice squeaked a little with fear. “Do you have a mother to tell you everything will be all right?”
“No,” said Caerles, and the small boy vanished, suddenly as a bird. A girl called down to the Cnite, her hair short and curly, like a cap of sunlight.
“Climb our tree, Tree-Man, and you can see the whole world. Climb our tree, and you can see the sky, and you will not feel sad. I know. Come and sing with us.”
“There is no song in me,” said the Cnite.
“Then we will sing to you,” a black-eyed boy said, and their sweet voices rose and drifted down the wind.
A woman came running through the trees, wiping her hands on her apron as she followed the berry-eyed child. He stopped, pointing, in front of the Cnite.
“See—the Tree-Man and his Fire-Dog.”
“He is sad,” the Tree-Children called down and the bright-faced woman, her hair bound in a colored kerchief, smiled a little, and edged towards the Cnite.
“The dagon will not harm you,” said Caerles, and she came to stand beside him by the log.
“There is no such thing as a tree-man,” she said, and Caerles smiled.
“I am a Cnite,” he said woefully, “on a quest for the Throme of the Erril of Sherill.”
“There is no such thing,” said the mother.
“I know, but if I do not find that Throme, I may not have the one thing I want: the sad-eyed Damsen of Magnus Thrall. That is why I am sad.”
The sweet-eyed mother sat on the log beneath her child-tree. “But why are you barefoot, cloaked in leaves, with a harp at your back and a star at your side? I have seen Cnites and Cnites, but never a Cnite like you. They wear swords and shirts of metal and they ride horses, not dagons.”
“I have been on a strange quest,” said Caerles, and told her of it. The children were silent above him, their faces resting against the branches as they listened. The mother sighed when it was done.
“Oh, what a silly, wicked King to send you on such a quest, when he should have given his Damsen to you. But of course, there is one thing left to do.”
“Is there?”
“Of course. You must write the Throme of the Erril of Sherill yourself.”
And so the Cnite Caerles wrote a Throme, and it was a deep Throme and a dark, haunting, lovely Throme, a wild, special sweet Throme, made of the tales and dreams and happenings of his quest. He sat beneath the child-tree and wrote it, and the children played and sang and called like birds from tree to tree. They sat on the dagon’s back and scratched its ears, and they leaned against the Cnite and watched him write. The mother brought them milk and bread beneath the tree, and the Cnite ate and drank and kept writing. The sun slipped finally behind the dark house of Magnus Thrall, and the silver-belled cows went home across the cool meadow, and the weary children slipped away one by one to sleep. The Cnite put down his feather pen.
“It is a lie,” he said.
“It is a Throme,” said the mother, “and it is time for the King to give up his Damsen so that she can learn to laugh.” She held the last waking child to her side, its face resting in her apron. Caerles smiled at the name she spoke.
“Yes.” He stood up, rolling the Throme neatly, and the dagon sprang to its feet. “I will return now, to the King’s house. One day, I will come back here with Damsen, and then I can give you fairly the thanks for your help today.”
The mother smiled. “That will be fair thanks,” she said.
“Goodbye, Tree-Man,” said her child, yawning and its plump small hand flashed in the twilight like a star.
The Cnite Caerles rode the silent-pawed dagon over the drawbridge of Magnus Thrall’s house. The dagon followed him up the dark, winding stairs, through the empty halls, past silent rooms to the last high room where firelight flashed red beneath the closed door and a gentle, broken voice sang behind it. The Cnite opened the door. The dark-robed shadow that was Magnus Thrall stopped its pacing before the fire. The needle and needlework dropped from Damsen’s hands, and her face turned towards Caerles, pale and glistening, motionless with astonishment.
Then, suddenly, she began to laugh.
Her laughter was high and sweet and full, and the tears of it flashed like starlight in her eyes. She wiped them with her fingers and rose to touch the wordless Cnite.
“Oh, my Caerles,” she said in laughter and tears. “Oh, my Caerles, you are barefoot. Why are you dressed in leaves like a tree-man? Where is your cloak? Did you really ride this dagon instead of your horse? Oh, my fair and proper Cnite, where are your mouse-colored boots?”
“Where,” said the King, “is the Throme?”
“I have brought you the Throme,” said Caerles. “And now you must keep your promise.” He gave the King the rolled Throme, and looked into the wine-colored, laughing eyes of the King’s Damsen.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I never knew before how much I want a barefoot, leaf-cloaked Cnite. Oh, my Caerles, how did you find the Throme? It does not exist.”
“I found it,” said Caerles, and he put his hands on her face and looked deeply into her eyes.
Behind them the dark King whispered,
“The star-wand and the golden harp, the dark well, and the house of death, the jewel-eyed wiseman and the bottomless river and the flower world at the world’s end…The Throme. It is the Throme!” His voice shouted suddenly like a trumpet. “Take Damsen for I no longer need her weeping, and my heart will no longer wail with longing for a thing which does not exist. I have the Throme! I will wake content to the sunlight and simple wind, open my doors to the chatter of birds and churttels. I will be content with the green world, with the light that fades and the singing leaves that wither so quickly, for I have the Throme of such beauty that will never fade. I will make you my Chief Cnite—”
“I already am your Chief Cnite,” said Caerles.
“I will give you fat lands and churttels to toil over them and a house more magnificent than mine for Damsen and your sons.”
“And daughters,” said Caerles.
“I will proclaim your name in every village and city as the Cnite who has done the impossible deed of finding the lost Throme of the Erril of Sherill.”
Caerles sighed. “It is a lie,” he said to the dark eyes of Damsen, and Magnus Thrall’s voice stopped shouting and quivered.
“A lie?”
“I wrote the Throme. It is the Throme of the Cnite Caerles.”
The night was silent within the Dark King’s walls and without. The King stood still as the dark wood of an unlit torch. Damsen stopped smiling. Her mouth quivered.
“You wrote this Throme?” Magnus Thrall whispered.
“Yes.”
“How did you write it?”
“Sitting under a child-tree, with paper and a feather pen.”
“But I do not need a magnificent house,” Damsen said wistfully. “I need this leaf-cloaked Cnite with a gentle voice.”
Magnus Thrall stepped closer to them, his eyes flickering with firelight, his hands clasped tight around the Throme. “But where did you find the words for it? The names and dreams and colors for it?”
“Everywhere,” said Caerles to Damsen’s eyes.
“In my land you built this Throme?”
Caerles looked at him. “There was no place else to go. So I built a lie. And now, do what you will with me, because there is no place in the world to find that Throme you wanted.”
The King of Everywhere took off his crown. He threw it against the stones and it bounced and spun and rolled into a corner. And then he took the rolled Throme of the Cnite Caerles and flung it into the fire, where little flames danced black across it.
“You lied to me!”
“I know,” whispered Caerles.
“You failed your quest.”
“I know.”
“You tried to trick me with a false Throme, to slyly take my Damsen from me.”
“But I love your Damsen,” said Caerles helplessly, and Damsen, clinging to his leaf-cloaked arm, looked up at him with dry, midnight eyes. The dark King’s shadow ran like withered ivy across the stone walls.
“There are Cnites and Cnites,” he said. “There will be other Cnites to find the great Throme, other Cnites to love Damsen, to lead her into the green world. You are not my Cnite. You are a Tree-Man, with no shield but a silly harp, and no sword but a fading star. I must have the Throme for the ease of my longing heart and I will wait for it in these dark rooms forever if I must, and my Damsen will wait here with me.”
The Tree-Man Caerles sighed beneath his leaves. He sighed again, his leaves whispering, his eyes on the fading star of his Throme. He said softly, “Then I will go back and look again, forever if I must, and Damsen, if it pleases her, will wait here for me.”
Damsen’s mouth trembled. Then she straightened beside Caerles and her mouth went straight and taut as a new bow-string. “I will not,” she said to him, and her eyes were dry as nights with a thousand stars. “I will not wither here in these stones.” She turned to Magnus Thrall. “I do not care about your Throme. I want this moon-haired, barefoot Cnite, and I will have him, Throme or no Throme. I want to walk in the singing world. I want to laugh instead of weep. You can weep here alone. I will go with him.” She turned back to Caerles and took his hands. “And you will write your Throme again for me. I have known a fair and moon-colored Cnite with a horse and shield and sword, and I know a barefoot Tree-Man with a Dagon and a star-wand, and I know which one sang a Throme to my heart to make it wake and laugh. I know, in all the worlds, there is no Throme more beautiful than the Throme of the Tree-Cnite Caerles.”
Words gathered like tears in the Tree-Cnite’s eyes. He shook his head, smiling through them. “No,” he whispered. “There is one more beautiful Throme, and that is one I will write only for you, my Damsen.”
“Bah,” said Magnus Thrall. He looked at the dark, still walls around him. He kicked the fire to make it spark. Flames leaped upward, but still the shadows clung like cob-web to the silent corners. “You will regret it. He is no longer my Chief Cnite.”
“He is mine,” said Damsen.
“He brought back dishonor and failure from his quest, and he will have no place in my favour.”
“There is no favour in you for anyone.”
“From my stone walls to his stone walls you will go.”
“No,” said the Tree-Cnite quickly. “I know a place with quiet water and wind singing through trees, where I will build a house for you with flowers at your doorstep and cows with cow-bells in your field.”
“I would like to hear a cow-bell,” said Damsen.
“And together, if it pleases you, we will grow a great tree full of children.”
His Damsen smiled. “I would like a child-tree.”
“Cow-bells,” said Magnus Thrall. “You will be sorry. You will leave him and come back and wait with me for a proper Cnite.”
“I have a proper Cnite,” said Damsen, and the Tree-Cnite lifted her onto the flower-eyed dagon. “And I will go Everywhere with him.”
“Bah,” said Magnus Thrall. The fiery breath of the dagon lit the dark, winding stones as Caerles led his Damsen into the sweet night-world of whispering grass and moonlit leaves. The King watched the fire-breath fade across the fields like a dying star. In the fire, the ashes of the Tree-Cnite’s Throme crumbled and drifted apart. The dark King stared at them and whispered in the stillness,
“Bah.”
About the Author
Patricia A. McKillip was born in Salem, Oregon. Since her father was in the Air Force, she lived in various states during her childhood, and spent some time in England in a 300-year-old house. In a fit of boredom one day when she was 14, she sat down in front of a window overlooking a stately medieval church and its graveyard and produced a 30-page fairy tale. She has been writing ever since. She moved to California in 1962, where she was educated at the College of Notre Dame, Belmont and at San Jose State University. She has recently received an M.A. from San Jose State.
The Throme of the Erril of Sherill is Miss McKillip’s second published book. The first was The House on Parchment Street.
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