They watched the wizard together as he scanned the wood for Marcel. His movements were sharp and agile, making a lie of those weary eyes.
‘I think he’s excited that Marcel’s taken off like this,’ Bea said.
‘He doesn’t seem very interested in you and me.’
‘Ah, you’ve noticed too,’ said Bea. ‘Hope he doesn’t leave us here for some real monster to feast on.’
Instinct made Fergus glance towards the sword he’d dropped at his feet. Bea’s eyes followed to the gleaming steel — the only weapon they had now, and a sadly useless one if Marcel was right and this wizard was the enemy they’d come to find. A treacherous thought crept into her mind: Marcel had abandoned them. Sword or no sword, Fergus would be her only companion until Marcel decided to show himself again.
‘You feel defenceless without it, don’t you?’ said Gannimere and, splashing across the stream, he stooped low and picked up the sword, a movement that prompted Fergus to step immediately in front of Bea.
‘No, no, I’m not about to harm you. Here, take your sword. It’s quite safe now,’ he said, offering the handle courteously. ‘You already know what will happen if you raise it against me.’
Bea could tell from the surprise on Fergus’s face that the metal was as cool as it should be.
‘Your friend has impressive powers,’ the wizard went on, scanning the greenery around them one more time with no better result.
‘He likes to impress people,’ Fergus said wryly. ‘Especially the sages of Noam.’
‘Marcel has been to Noam!’
‘His tutor was the Grand Master himself.’
Again, the wizard’s excitement shone clearly in his face. ‘Bring him to me, please. I’ve waited a long time to —’ He seemed to catch himself from saying too much. ‘Yes, tell him I’ve waited a long time to meet another of my kind.’
Bea glanced towards Fergus who seemed as unconvinced as she was. ‘We’ll try,’ she said. ‘But whether he wants to meet you is up to him.’
A LIGHTLY TRODDEN PATH led from the stream, which they had not yet crossed, to an opening between the trees and after twenty paces of careful progress, Bea followed Fergus into a clearing as pleasant as any she’d ever known.
‘You could forget we’re underground,’ she said lightly.
‘Look, a pear tree!’ cried Fergus, who also seemed to be losing his fear.
Bea hadn’t realised how hungry she was. She watched him pluck a fruit from its stem, waiting for her turn to do the same, only to find that first pear on its way through the air towards her.
‘Mmm, wonderful,’ she mumbled through lips dripping with juice.
When that first fruit was nothing but a core and she was well into a second Fergus had picked for her, she said, ‘You’re not really going to search for Marcel, are you?’
‘No, but he might come looking for us. May as well sit down.’
The lush grass seemed to invite such an indulgence. From where they lay stretched out, both could look up to see the great tree looming over them.
‘The wizard called it Arminsel,’ Fergus said.
‘Is it as evil as Marcel seems to think?’
‘There’s no way to know, until it tries to kill us, I suppose. Something that size … we don’t have much to defend ourselves with, do we?’
So he feels deserted too, Bea thought.
Fergus drew his sword, to inspect it, Bea supposed, ready for a futile battle. She was wrong though, because once he’d jumped to his feet he strode purposefully towards the nearest trees and began to examine them closely.
‘Come here, help me choose,’ he called.
‘Choose what?’
‘A part of this tree we can turn into a bow.’
There was no need to ask who it was for. ‘Grandfather says the secret is in the grain of the wood,’ she told him, tracing lines with her finger along the tree limb in front of them.
‘This one then?’
‘That one there would be better,’ she said, pointing at a higher branch.
Fergus swung himself into the tree and hacked off what they needed with a couple of well-aimed blows of the sword. When he returned to the ground, Bea took the sword from his hand.
‘What are you going to do?’
Rather than answer she showed him, drawing a sudden gasp when she raised the razor-edged blade and lowered it towards her scalp. ‘No bow is any use without a string,’ she said and, with a deft flick of her wrist, cut off a thin cord of her dark brown hair. ‘Nerrinder showed me how to weave a bowstring this way,’ she said. ‘The only thing she taught me that I took any notice of.’
They returned to the grass already pressed flat by their prostrate bodies and set to work, using the blade of Fergus’s sword to strip the remaining bark from the wood and to shape and shave it into the familiar curves of a bow.
Bea directed him in every tiny detail. ‘A little more there. Be sure to follow the grain as you work.’
At the same time, she teased out each fine strand of hair she’d nipped from her head and worked it into a bowstring that was stronger than a rope five times as thick.
‘I once tried to kill a witch with a bow and arrow,’ Fergus told her. ‘Her name was Tilwith and she was threatening the children in our village.’
‘Like the little girl who became your sister?’
‘Yes, Annabel. Tilwith had already stolen her brother.’
Bea pictured Fergus with the arrow drawn back and the witch in his sights. ‘I’ve never actually killed anything with my bow,’ she said.
‘Neither have I. Tilwith stopped the arrow only a thumb-length from her chest and almost killed me for my trouble.’
‘Was it for those two children that you went back to the farm after Cadell?’
‘I suppose,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Those two, and Stig and his wife … they seemed more like family to me than Marcel and Nicola. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready to live in Elstenwyck yet.’
The tone of his voice, usually so strident and cocksure, showed he didn’t have a ready answer. Marcel could learn a lot from his cousin, Bea thought, if he would only spare a minute from his grand plans.
‘How did you know it was time to come back to Elstenwyck?’ she asked.
Fergus was carefully cutting the notches in each end of the bow that would hold the string in place. He concentrated on this task silently, but when it was done, he had his answer ready.
‘I was getting restless,’ he said.
The word made Bea’s ears prick up. Wasn’t that exactly how she’d been feeling these past months in the Hidden Village?
‘I knew my farming family loved me and I could live with them as long as I liked,’ Fergus went on. ‘But I couldn’t forget the times I spent with Marcel and Nicola, and you too, Bea. It started with you, didn’t it, when you saved Marcel from the Book of Lies. There’s a bond between us all. I think now … since you asked me the question … I think I went back to the farm to live out the rest of my childhood. But that’s over now. My grown-up life is waiting for me. I’m sorry, that probably doesn’t make sense.’
‘No, it does,’ Bea told him. More than he could know. She stayed quiet, hoping he would go on.
‘My grown-up life, yes, and a farm isn’t the place I’m meant to spend it. The bond with Nicola and Marcel … I’m ready for Elstenwyck now. That’s where my future lies.’
In those few disjointed words, Fergus had described the very feeling that had badgered and cajoled Bea all this time. Time to start the grown-up part of her life — that was exactly how she felt. And as certainly as she knew this, she knew it wasn’t to be among the elves. She was half-human and the time for her to claim that half had come. Her place was with Marcel and Nicola and, yes, Fergus too.
No sooner had she decided this in her heart than her ears filled with the familiar warnings of Nerrinder and her grandfather. She was grateful when Fergus held up the bow with the string now in place.
‘Test it,’ he said.
‘But there are no arrows.’
‘Try the string at least.’
She did and it was as tight as her own bow back in the Hidden Village. The bow itself wasn’t well balanced though, and she worried the string would break free where the wood seemed a little frail at the bottom. Still, it was better than nothing.
‘Thank you, Fergus. I have a way to defend myself now.’
A way that didn’t need Marcel’s magic, she might have added. She knew Fergus understood this need without her saying it, though mostly she was thanking him for the things he’d said while they worked.
‘It’s useless without some arrows,’ Fergus pointed out when Bea was satisfied with the tension of the bowstring.
He had already gathered some promising sticks from beneath the trees. Bea chose the straightest for him to strip down and turn into a shaft, but the next problem quickly presented itself.
‘We’ll need something to make the point,’ she said.
‘Can’t we just sharpen the wood?’
She shook her head. ‘Too soft.’
Now that they were among grass and trees, stones they could sharpen to a point were nowhere to be found.
‘There are plenty in the stream,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’s time we went back to the wizard.’
CHAPTER 22
Spirits of the Dead
BEA AND FERGUS HID the bow among the trees and began to retrace their path through the woods, only to find Gannimere heading towards them. When he was close enough, he called, ‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘Why’s he only interested in one of us?’ Fergus snapped. ‘I’ll bet no one else has come exploring Baden Dark, sorcerer or not, or seen his remarkable tree.’ To the wizard, he called, ‘No sign of him.’
‘I’ll have to be patient a little longer then,’ said the wizard.
‘Why send us to find Marcel when your magic can do it for you?’ said Bea, bringing a gasp of surprise from Fergus.
The wizard didn’t deny what she’d guessed, although the condescending smile loosened a little on his face. He turned without answering, as though he didn’t much care whether they followed him or not.
‘Marcel and Gannimere are a good match for each other,’ said Bea. ‘All they care about is their own world of magic.’
Fergus laughed grimly and stepped aside for her to go first on the path. ‘He might be listening right now.’
‘Good. I’m not afraid to let him hear me.’
‘Do you think the wizard would change his tune if he knew Marcel is planning to destroy Baden Dark?’
‘I don’t care about that either. He hasn’t given us a clue what this place is for, what this tree does, even if it is the most incredible thing I’ve seen in my whole life.’
‘More incredible than Mortregis?’ asked Fergus.
‘At least I knew what Mortregis was — it wanted to kill us and bring havoc to the entire kingdom. Somehow, I don’t think this tree can do that. It must have some other purpose.’ Then a decision seemed to make itself inside Bea’s head. ‘I’ve had enough of the way that wizard is treating us. Come on. It’s time he told us what this is all about.’
She ran ahead until she was only a few paces behind Gannimere. He knew she was there, but didn’t bother to turn, glance over his shoulder, or even to say a word to recognise her presence.
The elf in Bea took over and, slipping off the path, she hurried through the sparse undergrowth, dodging things that a human would surely blunder into and managing to stay both silent and out of sight until she was well ahead. Then she stepped back onto the path, blocking his way.
‘We’re not fools. We won’t help you coax Marcel from the woods until you tell us why such an enormous thing grows under our mountain and why my grandfather’s people were brought here so long ago to guard it.’
‘You’ve answered your own question,’ the wizard said. ‘They are here to guard the passageways into Baden Dark and ensure that as few curious people as possible ever venture here.’
‘Long Beard already told us that much. But this tree must be here for a purpose. That’s what we want to know.’
By now, Fergus had come up behind them, so Gannimere shifted to the side of the path and let the two come together where he could more easily see them both. There he stood, looking them over for a full minute, while Bea’s patience came close to snapping. Then his face, that odd mixture of warmth and rock-cold resolve, became an even more unusual blending of the two.
‘This tree has dealings with the dead. I thought you would have guessed as much already.’
‘The ghosts,’ said Fergus.
‘Yes. I told you before that I didn’t send them, that they come here of their own accord.’
‘But why here?’
‘Since you are so keen to know, come with me,’ he ordered. ‘It’s time I showed you what lies inside Arminsel.’
They crossed the shallow stream and entered beneath the arch formed by the massive roots to find a world illuminated by a light even gentler than the pale yellow that spread magically into the space around the great tree. Here everything seemed touched with gold. The ancient roots had woven themselves into tightly bound walls, impenetrable in most places, but creating enough narrow passageways for them to move deeper inside. Each step took them away from the outside, where Marcel’s magic gave them some hope of protection, even if they couldn’t see him. But in here … should she be afraid, or should she give way to the warmth of the light, Bea wondered. She was quickly reminded of more sinister possibilities, though, when a ghost swept along the passageway towards them, the first she and Fergus had seen since Marcel drove away the initial attack. This ghost veered into another passage at the last minute but not before Bea had gasped in horror.
‘I’ve told you, they will not harm you. Once inside Arminsel, their journey is almost complete and they are far too busy with their own concerns,’ Gannimere assured her.
And this seemed true enough, for, when others appeared, if they noticed the presence of three living beings, they showed no sign of it.
‘Their own concerns?’ Fergus asked.
‘The dead come here to leave the essence of their lives in Arminsel’s fibres.’
‘You mean the tree takes it from them.’
‘Before they pass into eternity, yes. What bliss would there be in the endless world of death if they took with them the cares of this one?’
‘Marcel thinks it’s the other way round; that whatever lives here in Baden Dark, what lies at its core …’ Bea paused to nod at the tree that surrounded them, tilting her head back for a moment to recognise how high it towered above as well, ‘… that it sends its influence up through the soil.’
The wizard’s eyes widened in astonishment. ‘He believes that already?’
‘You mean he’s right? This tree feeds itself into the soil, becomes part of life beneath the sun and the sky?’
The wizard, still swept up in his own strange euphoria, answered with a single nod.
Bea felt her knees grow shaky. She made herself swallow and take a breath, things she knew might clear her head. Marcel had been right to believe the sages about this much, so was he right about the rest? Her distrust of the wizard increased. If he was the trickster she half-believed him to be, then she was glad she hadn’t coaxed Marcel out of the woods just now. It might have been the most foolish thing she’d ever done.
‘The essence of the dead,’ said Fergus. ‘You mean their memories of being alive?’
‘Not quite. Some might call it knowledge. A better word would be wisdom, perhaps. Life grants a being many insights. If these were lost, the world you live in would be a poorer place. Arminsel sees that they are not lost.’
‘But people pass on what they’ve learned when they teach their children, or write it down in books,’ said Fergus.
‘Some do, not all, and even then they can pass on only a small portion in such ways. But everything that has been learned and known and felt by the beings
who walk the Mortal Kingdoms comes to this tree, so that it is not lost among the dead who no longer need it. That is why Arminsel is so vast. It winds through all the Mortal Kingdoms, drawing down the essence of the dead and sending it back to nourish the earth so that it can live again and grow, like the tree itself.
‘Here, give me your hand,’ he said to Bea, and when she didn’t immediately offer it, he grasped her wrist and pressed her palm against the wood.
It was surprisingly warm and smooth to her touch, but its feel was soon the last thing she was thinking about. A voice had begun in her head:
… such hardship for a mother. To have a son who turns on her is not what any woman should have to endure, but I never ceased to care for him, no matter how much he betrayed me. The bonds of the human heart are not easily broken, and the strongest of them all lie in a mother’s heart when she thinks of her child.
Bea let her hand drop back to her side. Whose memory had this come from, this small grain of wisdom about the strength of a mother’s love? Intrigued, she chose another place at random on Arminsel’s silky bark and flattened the pads of her fingers against it.
… seek the creature’s trust firstly, for this is the key to all. Some fools are too quick to command and bend an animal to their will. At best, you will end up with a cowed beast who obeys out of fear, where the best …
Knowledge and wisdom, the wizard had claimed. These two brief tests certainly seemed to bear that out. What evil could reside in the words she had just heard? A thought came to her, which quickly became a question for Gannimere.
‘The men Fergus and I talked about, Starkey and Damon. There was a woman too, named Eleanor. They are all dead. Did their spirits come here to feed their poison in with the rest?’
If there was evil in this remarkable tree, as Marcel believed so adamantly, it would come from people like them, she thought.
‘Arminsel has no place in her fibres for greed and treachery. Some might create such things out of what this tree offers them, but that happens in the Mortal Kingdoms, not here in Baden Dark,’ he told her solemnly.
The Book from Baden Dark Page 18