Halfway through the forging of a second pan-knife, to make up a set, Icrick was licking its edge with a whetstone. A waning expression had emptied his face. He, you should know, was back at Percy’s again, sporting that same old straw hat with a rake in hand, and there he was, admiring his gardening after a long and glorious afternoon with lots of little Grogochs running around him. In his dream he was married. Married to a maiden Grogoch who was mixing a bowl at the front door. The tree palace now belonged to them both. Too kind to banish Percy from his vision entirely, Icrick stuck him in there someplace; waving out from one of the higher windows, or what have you.
Icrick, who was happy with his make-believe life, took a bracing lungful of clean air. It was blended with the aromas of rose, hyacinth, jasmine, and fresh-cut grass. He folded his arms over his rake and watched the sunset melting into the clear titian canvas of the west. Pasting those clouds of few with the fond colours of mid-summer, it bade farewell to the evening before passing over to the twilight. This dream of his was so relaxing that, without knowing it, a ‘ffff…’ of clammy silence slid from his crack. He then took another deep breath so as to relish in that beautiful flowery scent a second time, but nearly suffocated with the stink of himself. Nevertheless, he could stomach his own pong ably enough, not like the others. So before that invisible bubble of outright nastiness could drift across the nostrils of that other moaner above, thus causing another all-out row, no doubt, Icrick puffed and fluttered his paws about to waft it off. A slight meaty residue lingered, but having long succumbed to his own dreams, Khrum hardly gave it a second sniff. He even responded with a little purt of his own, then lazed back into his little lewd scenario again, which, might I add, had since manifested into exploits best left for deaf ears.
In any case, having woken to the present again, Icrick returned to his pan-knife. He was wondering if it would stand up in a fight, and what sort of creatures it was yet to meet. This started him worrying about all sorts of nasty things. Nor were they a fair stretch from the truth, or a fair stint from the now.
With better fortune than he, Wren had a simpler little reverie. Pulling both wings of her coat in tightly, she snuggled into a smooth little alcove, big enough for one, in out of the cold. She envisaged herself surrounded by a brilliant, opaque whiteness. Both that and a gorgeous breeze that blew softly through her hair. What was she thinking of? Why, several things, really. But this was the one that stood out the most.
Higher into her dream she sailed, above those milky clouds of her imagination, to where she was completely engulfed by the unending blueness of a seamless, sunlit sky. A sky unlike anything she’d encountered in so long a time. Astride her young dragon, they voyaged on, far and high, slaloming in and out of those celestial vales of woollen meadows and misty mountaintops, to where she felt absolutely free again. Alas, it was but for too short a time when, by the disruption of some loose pebbles on the road behind, she came to; finding herself in Lór again, where those grim skies played far differently from the ones of her ponderings.
William wasn’t alone in wishing he was someplace else. Not anymore was he the only one to reflect upon a simpler time. This brought to light just how nervous, how uncomfortable, how grieved, how tired, and how withdrawn they actually were at this point. And this didn’t just go for Khrum, Wren, and Icrick either…because the Elf was there, too, whereas the Erethaoí was considering only that which needed considering; strategies, routes, conditions, and so forth. He was wise, after all. Strong. And such folk have good practice when it comes to dismissing the discouraging, and can therefore get any job done.
Stell was higher up than everybody else. Off on his own, crouched upon a pillar of stone. For some reason, he was grinning away. He had almost the appearance of someone at home, without a care in the world, watching it all go by. He may as well have been, too, for the visions he was having.
Warm, open skies stretched a mountain’s shadow across the plain as he lay nearby, in the open gleam, shaded only by his magical fruit tree, and a fishing pole planted by his hip. There was no place he needed to be. There was nothing he needed to do. There were certainly no villains he needed to fret about. It was simply him, the nice sunshine, and a stream of unwary pollan, who were about to face the sharp sting of his worm-hook.
They were the tastiest fish on Lythiann, Stell would often say. Without a belch, he could wolf down five for lunch, easily, heads and all, and still be hungry for more. Pollan was probably one of his most favourite meals, and thinking about it made him smile; the familiarity of it. But then he gave some thought to the fish themselves, and what it must’ve been like to be paddling downstream one minute, only to be whipped out to meet their maker the next. Briefly his grin welled when, suddenly, his expression altered to the opposite. How awful it must be to walk straight into your own grave like that, he imagined. The Elf’s dream did not prove quite so pleasant after that, and like the rest of them, he went back to quietly pondering about how truly treacherous this task was going to be. Still, he had since attained great courage, and it was this that encouraged him to keep a firm handle on his fear.
Even Khrum’s saucy little fantasy did not hold up any longer than he would have liked it to. As, before long, the parlour of his imaginings went dim; until it was just him, marooned in the unseeing gloom, with nought for company save for two sets of evil, red eyes that pointed at him from behind a dark and budding veil. This yanked him out of it sharply enough, and sure as can be, they all ended up sitting there, sighing not a tone, hung up on whatever troubles that had not yet come to pass. Then they remembered their fallen companion, Pew, and how he could have been there too, dreaming dreams of his own, were it not for his untimely fate. Perhaps he was just better off where he was; back in Ebyulán, sliding around on those polished floors on his belly, away from it all.
Under Redmun’s orders, they rounded up and started on a steep, sliding slope towards the north, through the nightly forest fog. They headed for that massive crater; ever glad that he didn’t decide to take them through the dismal wildlands for whatever reason.
They trundled down at so sheer a slant, in amongst the hideously bent witch-trees and giant corpse flowers, that it made them skid and hop, never slowing. But it made their trek go by all the faster; breaking it up into minutes instead of hours.
The legendary Iron Wolves—animals long reckoned exiled from those lands—had unexpectedly reappeared to run alongside them that descent. An unanticipated and very rare experience indeed. Prowlers of the dark, those magnificent creatures dashed either side of them, fairly near, as their pin-lit eyes pierced through the breaking fog. Flaunting no sense of enmity whatsoever, they simply followed our friends with interest before finally holding back and howling them, what seemed, a ‘Godspeed’ upon their future exploits. Curious beasts. As were they quite marvellous, sporting fine coats, stippled in iron wisps which, upon a time, glinted gold through the eyes of the greedy; the very reason why they were so seldom sighted on Lythiann anymore.
In due time they made it to the base of the slope, then down into one of the lower chasms of the crater. They hadn’t expected to be wandering underground like this, going by their deductions from the highland. But a bird’s-eye view can often be deceiving.
To assist them down there in the gloom, Redmun’s fist made a torch. Much like Lór’s beginnings, the area appeared desiccated of most life. Sometimes a Sandfish, or Jerboa, would hide from the raising wind which, in itself, rarely visited. Away they’d scuttle, or bury themselves into the sand to swim off. Bar this, those—what felt like miles of a deep, terrestrial depression—were beset with the ambience of still sands, of stone, and a jarring calm. However, this was not the worst part. The worst part was what awaited them. ‘Twas a wall. A huge scarp that roved from sight on both ends like the almighty steps of Sétanta.
Here, Redmun needed to stop, to address all options. For even he was questioning what to do next. This wasn’t at all like him, but it’d been a ghost’s age since he
was there last so it stood to reason. To fly up and scout would’ve been out of the question too, because most of the canyons were cutting under the rock.
In the end he came to the conclusion that this whole precipice, from crest to foot, had likely been perforated by the years with so many openings that, no matter which way they took, they probably would have ended up in the same place anyway. Turning back remained an option, but that dense jungle on the outskirts looked far more demanding than this. Masked in mist, it presented itself in the south, its hilly tree line soaring over everything. Sometimes the eerie sounds projected down into the gorges where they were, making them even warier of what could be living within. That decided it. To the scarp they soldiered, taking the first gulch they saw.
It wasn’t really that bad once they’d wandered inside. They were being guided along by those sandy-smooth walls of layered designs and outlandish beauty. But, on the other hand, that path seemed to be prone to flash floods. They kept having to negotiate great clumps of debris which had, at one time or another, been swept through by powerful floods, which didn’t help their nerves any. Flash floods hit hard, and with little warning. One would need to be a giant of giants to contend with one. Between that and the lurking sounds, their nerves were truly rattled.
One of them didn’t care too much about any of it. He was too distracted by a bee buzzing around in his bonnet.
Ever since Pew had died, the leprechaun was acting strangely. Not in a mournful way, either. More of a jumbled, dithering way. The only one to notice was William, which was very convenient, seeing as it was William to whom Khrum desired most to converse with about these unsaid concerns of his. And yet when the boy asked him about it, Khrum couldn’t mumble his thoughts outright, like he was not meant to and that terrible, terrible consequences could come of it if he did. So he went about it another way, by asking William a smorgasbord of daft and irrelevant questions, such as, what did he know about imps, chiefly leprechauns.
He knew Khrum wasn’t himself of late, so William chose to amuse him by telling him all that he knew, which wasn’t very much, as it so happens. Only that Leprechauns were small, partial to burying treasure at the ends of rainbows, and were fond of some light-hearted trickery. He offered little else, not out of choice. For as interesting as imps were to the boy, he rather preferred the tales of old heroes, wars and dates; few of such ever contained a rabble of unruly leprechauns. Mythical creatures were more of a sub-interest to him. He knew just enough about every creature to set him apart from any normal person.
This made Khrum very impatient and snappy, as such, he gave up going on about it. William didn’t mind, either. For he was finding it difficult enough to concentrate as it was, what with the threat of flash floods, and weird noises, that the last thing he wanted was to partake in some pointless chinwag.
William probably would’ve ignored the noises, only for he kept on thinking that Thérn had moved whenever the pebbles had. Then it’d stop before he could tell it true. He grew terribly uneasy at this, which is why he showed such disinterest in Khrum’s rather unexpected and seemingly inapt queries.
Redmun was equally as vigilant. The stone would crumble and he’d stop dead, turn, and scan the area with his left arm ablaze as a warning, whilst his sword bared an inch in the other. The noises subsided every time, which wasn’t comforting. Since when would a draught or a loose stone be afraid of getting caught? Stell, therefore, secured the rear and they ventured on alertly; right up to a bluff which overlooked lower, far trickier, terrain.
Within the few hours it took them to get there, nothing stirred. Whatever was out there knew they were on to it. Whatever was out there, in those creeping shadows, was watching its step.
Jutting out lopsided from beneath the overhang was an old tree. Or else it looked like a tree. Modelling crescent and abnormally bow-like limbs, it had an unusually odd appearance. It gave the impression that it was man-made, in that it may as well have been a collection of bows, lashed together, then moulded into the being of some eerie elder, as opposed to being of natural form. And as time went by, it had somehow developed a life of its own, fostering a black, bog-oak tone and, over the course of nature, had wound up encrusting itself together. It even seemed to be growing, just as a normal shrub would do, judging by its spindly roots that dangled out from under the edge.
This alone might seem weird enough, but the truly peculiar aspect about it was that they were actually bows. Of the firing kind. And it was man-made. Only one of them knew it at the time. Redmun. And he was very excited about it, what’s more.
“Dear Elf,” he summoned, “what say you of this marvel here?”
Stell responded in a way which staggered the man, by saying in an air unimpressed, “It’s a tree.”
“And…” said Redmun, motioning at him to particularize, for he could not believe that an Elf, of all folk, could prove so oblivious to such a treasured thing.
Stell shrugged. He had nothing else to contribute. He didn’t want to appear impassive, although he had no clue as to what Redmun expected him to say. Nor, like the rest, was he in the mood to be quizzed, considering the more severe matters at hand. Drevol Briggun, for one.
Astounded by this response, the Erethaoí recoiled and eyed Stell up with a sense of scepticism, and he ended up asking, if not a mite cheekily, “Forgive me. You are an Elf, are you not?”
“Of course!” Stell stated, fairly embarrassed and even a bit nettled for being pressured like this. “What are you driving at?”
“And you are a bowman too, I take it?” Redmun asked.
“Yes! So?” Stell grumbled, with his sallow cheeks now redder.
The others also found this rather amusing. They had no knowledge of this tree either, but it was still entertaining to see Redmun getting the Elf so worked up. The man seemed giddy almost.
“And you have no clue as to what this tree is?” the man pushed further.
Then, bitterly, Stell nipped, “I already told you, Redmun, I…haven’t…got…the…foggiest! Or shall I spell it out for you? What is all this? Am I being interrogated or something?”
Amused enough, the man gave him a fine pat on the back and said, “Ease down, my lad. Let me tell you all about it, shall I? But first: that bow of yours, tell me, is it treasured?”
The Elf evaluated his weapon, and replied, “About as precious to me as anything I own. Bows come and go. I tend to fashion a new one whenever I need it. I’ve had this bow for about three years now. A blink. It’s strong, yes. It’s true, indeed. And yet, when it comes to sentimental value, I can honestly say it has none; aside from it being with me on this journey. Just another bow. Why is it you ask?”
Redmun, strolling Stell over to the tree, decided to continue with his story.
“This tree was planted under the magic of the Andeluvían. I trust you have heard of them?”
“The Andeluvían?” Stell recollected, taking it all in. “Why certainly. They were the hooded assassins of the north. Graceful bowmen, truly.”
“Truly. And this very bluff, where we stand this day, was the exact spot where they kept legions of enemies at bay, way back when, during the fifth wave of the Battle of the Seasons—the Fight of the Flies. Armed with hundreds of arrows they dropped every target, square on, without fault. Not one untrue bolt flew that day. Not one! But they were outnumbered, nonetheless. Fifty Ahueé to every one of ours! And for every thirty enemies that were slain, one of our thirty-three Andeluvían fell with them. Eventually reinforcements came and stole our victory back that night, but all of our hooded archers lay bloodied on the soil. So, as a memorial, their bows were planted here in the dust. Little did anyone know that, one day, they would sprout. Farmers of the west believe that ‘twas their noble blood in the earth which made it happen. Others simply believe it a freak occurrence, nothing more. Myself, I prefer to believe the first. You have heard this story, no?”
It had been ages since he’d heard it last, but this tale did strike a chord with our Elfish
friend, and so he replied, “Come to think of it, I do recall it, if only faintly. And so it was said, that this tree has been enchanted ever since? Is that accurate? Or am I getting confused with some other story?”
“You remember it well enough, Master Elf.” Redmun smiled, and showing his hand, he requested, “Your bow now, if you would be so kind.”
Stell, divulging no protest, handed it over.
Nearing that phantom tree, the Erethaoí combed through it briefly before finding himself a gorgeous horse-bow limb. Its shape was perfect. Utterly flawless. He gingerly snapped it off. But, in so doing, replaced it quickly with the other. He was almost surgical about it. The broken joint then latched onto the bow, like a symbiote to its host, and in a second’s breath, Stell’s old weapon glazed over into blackness when, it itself, became part of that enigmatic tree. As the story goes: for one limb to be taken, another must take its place. That’s just the way it was. Over time, it will then marinate in the magic of the tree to, someday too, become as powerful as the rest.
Redmun carefully set the dark horse-bow down before him. Drawing his dagger, he hunkered over it, shuffled nearer, then ran its edge across his palm, opening a clean slit. As it would anyone, this had them asking themselves, “What on earth is he at, injuring himself so?” And yet they just kept watching with mouths ajar, dumbstruck with curiosity and fascination.
Redmun clenched his bloodied fist, and panned it over the bow’s body, squeezing several drops into the fine wooden cracks.
The Other of One: Book Two Page 51