by James Evans
“That’s good, very good.”
The twins beamed and kept eating as Marrinek sat, thinking, trying to remember anyone at the Academy with a similar talent for working wood. When he couldn’t think of anyone, not even tutors, he tried to call to mind anyone he had ever heard of who could make wood melt and flow; nothing. As he sat there he couldn’t think of anyone, anywhere, who could do what the twins were describing. Metal, yes, but metal was a simple crystalline structure that could be heated and formed by anyone, if you really wanted to bother. Wood was different; it just didn’t work that way.
“Darek, run upstairs please and fetch your tools and practice pieces. I want you to show me what you’ve achieved.”
Darek pushed himself away from the table, stuffing the last of his meat into his mouth as he stood up, then hurried out of the room. While he was gone Marrinek cleared the long table to create space.
“Right, you first, Floost,” said Marrinek, once Darek returned with the tools and a few lengths of wood. Floost took out her number three charm tool and closed her eyes, working first through the calming exercise that Marrinek had taught them. Then she focussed power into the charm, opened her eyes and turned her attention to the wood, lowering the charm until it almost touched the grain. Nothing happened for a few seconds and then, as Floost pushed more power into the charm, the wood abruptly changed, taking the consistency of molten glass and splashing into a wave as it rushed away from the charm.
Marrinek gave a start, surprised at the sudden movement, and Floost withdrew the charm. The wood set immediately into a smooth wave, as if a heavy stone had been thrown at a puddle and the water had frozen as the crest of the splashed wave was about to break. Floost looked at Marrinek.
“That’s been happening most of the afternoon. We had to straighten it out to produce the forms Mr Eaves wanted,” said Darek, “which took bloody ages.” Marrinek looked sternly at Darek.
“I meant it took a long time,” he said hurriedly, abashed.
“That isn’t supposed to be possible,” said Marrinek, “maybe with simple materials, like iron or stone, but not with wood. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Marrinek shook his head, still not sure of what he had seen. He picked up the wood and examined it. The grain of the wood was still visible but now it ran up the wave. He turned it over and over in his hands, looking at it from all sides, then put it back down on the table.
“Do you have any more pieces like that?”
Floost nodded.
“Yeah, some. We smoothed down a few to use the wood again but there were some that were too far gone to change.”
“Right. Not a word of this to Eaves, you understand?” Marrinek’s face was stern and he looked from Floost to Darek to make sure they had understood.
“You’ve got some other pieces you can show him this evening?”
More nodding.
“Good, then go now and fetch any that are like this and bring them here to me. Say nothing to Eaves and whatever he asks you to do make sure you don’t show him how you did this, got that?”
“Yes, but why?” said Floost, confused.
Marrinek sighed.
“You’ve read bits of Sturge. Have you found the chapter that covers new applications of talent and power?”
The twins shook their head.
“It’s toward the middle of the book, I think. Sturge explains what happens when new and unusual talents emerge. You might expect these occurrences, rare that they are, to be greeted with celebration and joy but they are not. What you’ve shown me, what you can do with wood, is unique. Keep it hidden for now, read Sturge for more details and we will talk about it again tomorrow. Trust me, this is important; don’t let Eaves know what you can do.”
The twins nodded again, still clearly confused by his reaction, then gathered their things.
“Leave the wood, bring me any more that you have like this before you go to see Eaves.”
After the twins had left Marrinek sat at the table looking at a dozen absurdly mis-shaped pieces of wood. Then he dumped them all in the fireplace and set them alight with the fire charm, playing the flames across their surface until nothing was left but glowing embers. With the evidence gone he spent an hour with Bone Dancer losing himself in the repetitious working of the practice forms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHATEVER DIFFICULTIES GWILATH’S crew had expected to encounter while trekking through the forest-covered foothills around the ancient fastness of Lankdon Gate, the reality was worse and their progress was slower than even the pessimistic Thaurid had feared. For three days they had fought their way through the tangled undergrowth, following animal trails when they could but, increasingly, cutting away shrubs and brush in order to make progress.
The further north they travelled the thicker and more difficult the terrain became until by the end of the third day their progress had slowed to barely half a mile an hour as they beat and slashed a path between ivy-choked trees and over fallen trunks. As dusk began to fall the demoralised and exhausted crew came across the ruins of a small town - Dankfell, according to the legend carved into the stonework of the gatehouse - and after scouting several buildings in various states of decay they decided to camp in the gatehouse.
Inside they found that the tiled roof was largely intact and the first and second floors were mostly dry and free of the invasive plant life that seemed to have done its best to pull down most of the surrounding buildings. Three hard days of trekking through ever thicker forest and camping in rough clearings around a small fire had left the crew eager for rest and they were quick to dump their gear in the room on the first floor. With the horses stabled in a sheltered spot just inside the gate, Thaurid gathered wood for a fire while the others looked to their kit and Stydd, the servant they’d brought along to cook and clean, made a start on dinner.
“It will be boiled vegetables and meat again,” said Stydd, “but at least we have fresh venison rather than dried beef.”
Gendra had brought down an aged stag just outside the town walls and they had been quick to butcher it, although there was far more meat than they needed for tonight. It was tough and sinewy but some of it went into the pot with the vegetables and more was set onto sticks for cooking and smoking in the chimney above the fire.
“That’s about the end of the vegetables,” said Stydd, “so tomorrow we’ll need to scavenge for more or find some fruit or something. Quarter-rations tomorrow, I think, unless we find more meat.” He looked worried and with good reason. Game had been plentiful when they had set out but, inexplicably, they had seen almost nothing worth hunting in the last two days and it was getting worse as they went north.
“It makes no sense,” said Thaurid, “we’re about as far from civilisation as it’s possible to get and yet the only game we’ve seen was a single scrawny stag.”
Gendra grunted and continued working on his shaft. He had cut the arrow from the deer while butchering the carcass and now he was cleaning and sharpening and tending the fletchings. Gwilath watched, fascinated but also slightly disturbed by Gendra's obsessive behaviour.
“Do you really need all those arrows? You’ve got, what, two dozen? And you’ve been cleaning that one forever. Seems like a lot of effort for a single shaft.”
Gendra snorted and shook his head as he smoothed the fletchings and slipped the arrow back into his quiver.
“And two more full quivers on the pack horses,” he said, “but I don’t want to waste one. Might need ‘em, one day.”
“Yeah, right.”
Ediaf spread the map out on the floor and used the case to weigh down one edge.
“We’re close, maybe eight or nine leagues.”
Gwilath looked through the slit window in the wall, staring out at the rain and the forest. Night had fallen and the trees were lit only by flashes of lightning. As he turned back to reply to Ediaf something moved amongst the trees and he snapped his head round, trying to work out what had caught his eye. He stared intently at the
trees but nothing moved.
“Trick of the eyes,” he muttered, rubbing at the offending organs, but he kept watching the forest until Stydd announced that the stew was ready.
“Nine leagues will take days at the rate we’re going,” said Ediaf, “but if this is Dankfell,” he pointed at an unlabelled dot on the map, “then this line should be a road that will take us to within a few miles of Lankdon Gate.”
Gwilath peered down at the map as he shovelled the thick stew into his mouth. He gestured with the spoon at the map between mouthfuls.
“So tomorrow we take the road and hope it’s not too overgrown to be useful. Can’t be worse than slogging through the forest.”
“The road doesn’t go to the city?” asked Thaurid from across the room.
“It’s difficult to be sure,” said Ediaf with typical academic vagueness, “but it seems to fork some miles south of the main gates. We’ll take the right-hand fork, away from the gates but towards the hidden entrance to the catacombs, hopefully.”
Thaurid shook his head and muttered something under his breath but Gwilath was looking at him, daring him to object again to the plan. Thaurid turned back to his stew and the moment passed.
The next day the crew forced their way through the town toward the northern gate. When they got there, they found that although the gates had gone, the gatehouse itself had collapsed. Gwilath clambered over the piles of rubble and windblown leaves, searching for a way across.
“I don’t think we’ll be bringing the horses over this,” he said finally from the top of the pile, “they’ll break their legs.” He clambered back down again and re-joined the group, brushing muck from his hands.
“We’ll have to go back, circle around. The road beyond looks good, though. We should be able to ride when we’ve made our way through the forest.”
The rest of the crew grumbled as they retraced their steps through the town. It took them the best part of an hour to fight their way through the dense forest to the outside of the pile of rubble that had once been a gatehouse.
The trees on either side of the northward road crowded over to form a dense green tunnel and only occasional shafts of sunlight penetrated to the gloomy cobbles but the surface of the road was in pretty good condition, even if it was thickly covered by rotting leaves. As they rode slowly north, taking care to avoid potholes, tree roots, fallen branches and collapsed sections of road, the mood of the crew started to improve and by noon they were positively cheery. Even Thaurid stopped brooding and made a couple of jokes, much to Gwilath’s relief.
By mid-afternoon they had managed maybe twelve miles and Gwilath called a halt next to a stream that crossed the road pooling across the cobbles and deepening into a small pond before plunging back into the forest. They watered the horses and allowed them to graze in the grass along the edges of the road.
Farwen was standing on the far bank of the stream looking along the road to the north when she suddenly gave a start and dropped the piece of dried meat she had been chewing. Something had run across the road, she was sure, but she hadn’t been able to make out what it was. She turned back to the others but nobody else seemed concerned. Looking again, she wasn’t now certain that she had seen anything at all; maybe it was just the shadows moving under the trees.
On a fallen trunk at the side of the road Ediaf had spread his waterproof cloak and laid out the map. He and Gwilath were now poring over it, trying to work out how far they had yet to travel and when they would need to turn off the road.
“Maybe there’ll be a sign,” muttered Ediaf, “or another road. There must have been roads all over the land between villages and towns and the city itself, after all, stands to reason, but unless it’s this line here then I’m not sure it’s marked on this map.”
Gwilath bent lower over the map.
“If this bit is the stream we’ve just reached then maybe that line is the road to Lankdon Gate and maybe this,” he jabbed his finger at what appeared to be a small village in the fork of the road, “will be our landmark. If we find those buildings then we find the fork in the road.”
“That’s an awful lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’,” said Thaurid, coming up to look at the map, “and who marks streams this small on a map of this scale?”
Gwilath snapped a look at Thaurid, who shrugged.
“I’m just saying that the map isn’t all that clear so we’ll have to go and look, right?”
Ediaf rolled up the map and stowed it away in its case before gathering his cloak.
“Thaurid’s right, Gwilath. The map isn’t likely to be precise or detailed even if the scale is right.”
“You too? Never mind, let’s just keep going and hope we can find somewhere to camp before dark.”
“And something else to eat,” rumbled Gendra as he led his horse back to the road, “I’ve seen no game and there wasn’t much meat on that stag.”
Gwilath threw up his hands.
“Yes, got it, thanks, we need to find more game. Let’s just keep heading north with our eyes open and maybe we’ll see something you can shoot.”
“I saw something a moment ago,” said Farwen, “but I’m not sure what it was.”
They all looked at her for a few moments, waiting for her to say more, then Gwilath prompted her.
“It might have been a deer,” she said uncertainly, “but I caught only a glimpse as it ran across the road.”
“A glimpse, eh?” said Gwilath, a worried frown crossing his face as he remembered the shape he had seen from the window of Dankfell’s gatehouse. Farwen shrugged but said nothing more.
“So there are things we can hunt,” said Gwilath, mounting his horse, “we just need to stay alert.”
He looked hard at Farwen until she turned to mount, then he nudged his horse forwards and led the way along the road as the shadows lengthened and the sun swung westward.
An hour later they found the fork in the road beside the overgrown ruins of a small village, just as Gwilath had predicted. His smug grin and the group’s morale faded quickly as they approached the fork and saw that the thing swinging from a tall post wasn’t an ivy-laden branch.
“It’s a corpse,” said Gwilath quietly, slowing his horse to stand in front of the makeshift gibbet. The others crowded around, staring up at the remains.
“Seen corpses before,” said Gendra, continuing down the road. It was true that hanged criminals were a common sight around the towns of Vensille but this was the first they had seen since leaving Riverbridge.
“This village,” said Ediaf, pointing at the ruins beyond the gibbet, “has been abandoned for decades.”
Gendra stopped his horse and turned back to look at the corpse, giving it a soldier’s eye.
“He hasn’t been there more than a month, I’d say. Five weeks at the outside.”
“So how did he get there? The sheriffs didn’t drag him here from bloody Riverbridge, did they, and there’s no way he walked all the way out here to commit fucking suicide!”
“Easy, Thaurid, easy,” said Gwilath as his friend’s voice grew louder and more panicked, “there’s bound to be an explanation, we just don’t know what it is yet.”
Thaurid goggled at him.
“What do you mean ‘yet’? Of course there’s a fucking explanation but what makes you think we need to find out what it is?”
“I just meant that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, that’s all.”
Thaurid shook his head.
“There’s something very fucking wrong going on here and I don’t think you’re taking it seriously.”
“It’s just a corpse,” said Gwilath, trying to play down its significance, although he too was worried about how it came to be there, “so like I said, we keep our eyes open, do the job, then head home.”
He kicked his horse forward and headed back out onto the road.
“Come on, we need to find somewhere to camp before dark unless you want to stay here? No? Then let’s go; I want to be almost at the Gate before
we stop for the night.”
The others followed him, keen to put distance between themselves and the corpse, but Thaurid sat there a little longer, watching as the light wind slowly turned the body back and forth. Then a noise from the forest brought him back to his senses and he kicked his horse into a trot, suddenly desperate not to be left behind.
The road now began to snake through the foothills, climbing gently towards the mountains and the ancient fortress city of Lankdon Gate. Under the shade of the trees the atmosphere remained warm and humid but every so often the road would emerge into a small clearing or onto a bare hilltop and the crew would notice that the air was getting steadily cooler. By the time they made camp near a small stream at the side of the road they had climbed far enough into the hills for the temperature to have fallen noticeably since their night in Dankfell.
Stydd setup the cooking pot and lit a fire but with only yesterday’s venison, some hard travellers bread and a few herbs the mood for the evening meal was decidedly depressed.
“No meat tomorrow,” said Stydd, “and traveller’s bread only until the day after.”
“Slaughter a packhorse,” said Gendra, not looking up from checking his kit by the light of the fire. There were protests from Farwen and Stydd but Gwilath held up his hand.
“Not yet. We’ll need all three packhorses once we find the vault.”
Gendra shrugged, as if a lack of food was a minor inconvenience easily remedied and went back to tending his equipment.
“Get some sleep,” said Gwilath, setting out his blankets next to Farwen's.
The next morning dawned bright but cold. The fire had died down during the night and the crew woke shivering, chilled by the cool air that flowed down from the mountains. A thin breakfast of hard bread and cold water did little to fire their enthusiasm but Gwilath did his best to raise their morale for the final push. He laid out the map and with Ediaf plotted their final approach to Lankdon Gate.
“This is what we’re aiming for, the labyrinth entrance on the southeast corner of the city,” said Ediaf, peering closely at the parchment, “and then we head down this tunnel and into the depths.”