The flutter of feathers overhead made her look up, expecting to see Crow alighting. But to her amazement, it was the Sett Owl. The old bird landed in the tree and looked down at the fox. “He is dying. That is a pity.”
“You promised it to him,” Little Fur said sadly.
“I had hoped that he would not want that promise kept. But you have helped him.”
“His spirit is no longer sick, but his body . . .”
“Yes, there is a point beyond which a body cannot be healed,” the owl said with a sigh.
“Do you know what happened in Underth?” Little Fur asked.
“I have seen much of it in visions, and I do not need to know all things at this time.”
“Do you know if Sly is all right, and Ginger and the ferrets? And Gazrak? Gazrak . . .”
“I know what Gazrak did, and I am glad of it for his sake. As to my worthy servant and his companions, they make the slow journey here.”
A ferret appeared, and he was so much like Shikra and Brave Kell that Little Fur knew he must be a relative. Like them, he carried a little pack of food and a bowl of water.
“This is a brother of Shikra and Kell,” said the Sett Owl. “When I foresaw your coming, I asked the ferrets to prepare such food and herbs as would nourish you and ease the fox. I had hoped that Sorrow might be saved, but I think perhaps it is better not to trouble him.”
Little Fur looked at Sorrow and knew the owl was right, yet she decided she would clean the wounds. She opened the pack and forgot all else but her healing.
Hours later, her back hurt, and she could tell from the light that it was almost noon. The Sett Owl suggested kindly that she rest.
“I have done all I can for him,” Little Fur told her. “I know it is silly when he is so near to dying, but it seemed . . . proper.”
“No wonder the Troll King fears you,” the Sett Owl said, and her voice was warm.
Little Fur sighed. “I am sorry we did not learn the Troll King’s plan. It has something to do with a creature called an indyk and with a bottle of sickness stolen from humans. . . .”
“Indyk is not a creature but a name,” a swift, light voice interrupted.
Little Fur looked around and saw a small, dark-furred creature only slightly bigger than Crow sitting on the grass. She recognized the smell. “You are the monkey from the cage under Sorrow. You told me about the human experiment houses.”
“Indyk is my name,” the small beast said. “Your one-eyed cat friend set me free. In return, I will tell you the Troll King’s plan. It is only a little more of the tale I told you already. The humans created the sickness in the bottle to hurt other humans. It came from a place where many such things are made. Weapons, humans call them. The sickness the Troll King stole was a weapon.”
“I don’t understand,” Little Fur said.
“The sickness causes a rage of madness and violence. And once a single human is infected, the sickness will leap on their breaths to thousands of other humans. It may be that all humans catch the sickness and would open many other glass bottles which contain far worse weapons—things that will ravage the earth and kill the earth spirit.”
“The cat sickness?”
“The greep made it to prove to the Troll King how easily a sickness can be used against an enemy,” the monkey said.
“What will happen now?” Little Fur asked.
“Nothing.” The monkey chittered with laughter. “How would the Troll King dare use a sickness when he does not have me and my blood to make an antidote? For the sickness can be caught by trolls as well as humans.”
“He will be angry,” Little Fur said. She looked at the Sett Owl. “He will guess that you sent me.”
“Do not fear for either of us,” the owl said. “Brod is even now telling his master that Little Fur came with a pack of dogs to Underth to steal his precious antidote and spy on him in his very own city. The Troll King will fear Little Fur even more than he hates her after this, and he will not quickly plot harm against her and her friends for fear of what she will do to him.”
“What about the humans who made the sickness in the bottle?”
“They will learn fear when they discover that not only is the bottle missing, but also the monkey whose blood contains the only means of making a cure. If they dare to admit the loss to their masters, the place where it was made will be closed.”
The owl turned her enormous fierce eyes to the monkey, who was watching her with lively curiosity. “You will need a place to stay, Indyk, for soon it will be winter. The beaked house is a pleasant place to live, and I would like to hear all that you observed while with the humans and when you were a captive in Underth.”
“That is kind of you,” Indyk said simply.
The owl flapped down to the ground. “I will go back into the beaked house now. I cannot fly up easily, and so I must waddle like a duck through the tunnel and save my strength for the flight back up to my roost.” She looked again at the fox, who had not stirred. “There is no need for you to stay if you wish to return to the wilderness of the Old Ones, Little Fur. The earth magic will allow nothing to interfere with one who fought so valiantly for it.”
“I will stay until the end,” Little Fur said softly.
Left alone, the healer gazed into the ravaged face of the fox and ran her fingers gently over his black-streaked pelt, feeling the many scars left by the human that Sorrow had thought a brother.
Clouds gathered and made the day dull. After a time, the two black-robed humans that looked after the beaked house arrived. Little Fur’s heart beat faster at the sight of them, but neither of them even looked toward the tree where she sat with the dying fox.
After the two humans departed, a fitful wind blew up, rustling the leaves on the cobbles and making the dust hiss. The ferret brought more water and herbs and a sweet nut mash. Little Fur mixed salves and potions and applied them, unable to sit and let the fox die. She wondered how long the fox’s spirit would hold his body to life.
Looking up at the tree arching its branches over her, Little Fur began to sing to it the song of their journey. She wanted the earth spirit to know how she felt about Sorrow’s story. She sent her song deep, so that the earth spirit should know who its true warrior had been.
Night shadows were forming under the tree and about the edges of the beaked house when Little Fur noticed the black dog was sitting a little way off by the spiked fence, watching her.
“I have not had the chance to properly thank you for helping the fox,” Little Fur said.
The black dog came closer. “You love him,” she said in her expressionless tone.
Little Fur realized that it was true. “I wish I could have helped him. You asked about my secrets. If there are any secrets I have that you want, I am happy to share them.”
“I wish to know the secret of your power,” said the black dog.
“My power?” Little Fur echoed.
“I wish to understand the power with which you stopped me from killing you. How did you know what words to say?” the dog asked.
Little Fur struggled to recall what she had said. It seemed very long ago. Then she remembered. She had told Ginger and Sorrow not to hurt the black dog. The dog had asked why she had stopped them, and she had stammered that she was a healer. That was all. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“My human masters taught me about the power of muscle and bone and teeth. They pitted me against other dogs and I won and won. I gloried in my strength. But I was not content. It seemed to me that if I could become strong enough, I would find peace, but peace never came, and in the end, I was half mad with rage. That madness caused me to break my bonds to seek out the cat and you. But when you spoke, all rage leaked out of me. Now I want only to understand the secret of the words that disarmed me.”
“I don’t know how to teach you words,” Little Fur said slowly. “But if you want to come to the wilderness with me and see what I do there, you are welcome.”
The d
og thanked her gravely and then went away, saying she would seek her out soon in the wilderness.
Little Fur watched her go, a great dark lump of a creature with no name, and wondered what Tillet would say when the dog appeared. The wilderness would already know from the tree on whose roots she sat that Little Fur had invited her.
She looked up and watched the sky darken and stars prick the blackness, and the bond she shared with Ginger told her that the gray cat was somewhere far away, also gazing at the stars, and thinking of her. I love him, too, she thought, and he loves me.
The moon had just risen when Indyk came and peered for a moment at the fox before going inside the beaked house.
Little Fur looked down and was startled to see the fox’s eyes were open.
“Little Fur,” he whispered.
She held him close and stroked his soft ears. “I am here, Sorrow. See where we are, under the tree beside the beaked house? We got back safely, and we did what we swore to do. We know what the Troll King planned. . . .”
“I heard ye singing,” Sorrow murmured. Suddenly Little Fur realized that he no longer radiated that sickly heat. She loosed her healing senses that she had kept tightly furled, not wanting to feel each second of the fox’s dying. The infection in his wounds was still deep and dangerous. But it had eased. Hardly daring to breathe, Little Fur pressed her senses deeper until she felt it: Sorrow’s spirit. It blazed within him like a star, making her catch her breath, for she had never encountered such a force. It was ragged and battered and yet as lovely as starlight on water or dew on a cobweb, as lovely as the song of the Old Ones.
Suddenly Little Fur knew that the fox’s warrior spirit had no intention of letting the wounds to his body kill him.
Sorrow was going to live!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Nan McNab, who received Sorrow in various degrees of chaos and tended its flesh and spirit with Little Fur’s own sweet grace; to Jan and Jií Tibor Novák, for inspiration and advice; to Peter Cross, who remains an unstinting source of creative friendship; to my brother Ken, who lends me his precious art books even when he knows it will take forever to get them back; and especially to the wonderful Marina Messiha, for her beautiful, tender design of the Little Fur series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Isobelle Carmody began the first of her highly acclaimed Obernewtyn Chronicles while she was still in high school, and worked on it while completing a bachelor of arts and then a journalism cadetship. The series and her short stories have established her at the forefront of fantasy writing in Australia.
She has written many award-winning short stories and books for young people. The Gathering was a joint winner of the 1993 CBC Book of the Year Award and the 1994 Children’s Peace Literature Award. Billy Thunder and the Night Gate (published as Night Gate in the United States) was short-listed for the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature in the 2001 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Isobelle divides her time between her homes in Australia and the Czech Republic.
Don’t miss Little Fur’s next adventure!
Available now from Random House Books for Young Readers
A Mystery of Wolves
The inspiring story of Little Fur continues in this third book about the enchanting half elf, half troll girl. Little Fur’s friend, Ginger the cat, has vanished completely. The wise Sett Owl tells Little Fur that before she can find Ginger, she must first unravel the Mystery of Wolves. Little Fur meets a mad prophet who explains that the Mystery of Wolves is a mystic order of wolves who dwell in the high mountains east of the city. On an adventure that leads to more than just Ginger, Little Fur learns about her long-gone father and mother. Ultimately, Little Fur will risk everything she loves to save the mysterious and dangerous humans who do not even know she exists.
Excerpt copyright © 2008 by Isobelle Carmody.
Published by Random House Books for Young Readers.
CHAPTER 1
A Herd of Dreams
Winter brings to the Land a mighty silence. Many beasts and birds fall deeply asleep under its spell, and the air turns thick with dreams.
Those who are wakeful can sense the chaotic power of these long, strange dreams. But only the creatures from the last age of the world know what is to be done with them. As the midwinter night approaches, they journey to one of the secret places where magic remains strong, and they enact the ancient ceremony of the Great Weaving to summon the dreams and weave them into a potent gift for the earth spirit.
Only two kinds of creatures do not attend the midwinter weaving: trolls, who loathe the earth spirit with a deadly passion, and elves, for none survive in this age when magic is grown so thin.
Yet elf blood is not quite gone from the world, for there is one creature in whom it flows: a small elf troll named Little Fur.
Strangest of all the things of the last age she may be, for her father was an elf and her mother a troll. How this came about was not known, for Little Fur had no memory of her parents. She has lived her whole long life in a patch of wilderness that once lay at the heart of a vast forest of singing trees. Seven trees are all that remain, but these seven, known as the Old Ones, are saturated in the power of their fallen brethren. Though they sing no more, these sentinels protect the wilderness and all that dwell within it from the great dark human city that surrounds it. Such is the power of the seven that even those humans who live alongside the wilderness never think of it.
Though it was still weeks away, Little Fur was already preparing for midwinter night with the help of the beasts and birds of the wilderness. The squirrels were so mad with excitement that even their usual scatterbrained usefulness evaporated. The birds who were willing forgot any instruction almost the moment it had been given. But the rabbits were steady as long as boldness was not required. The weasels and stoats were clever and nimble, and several older burrowers were hard at work making different sorts of hollows and nests for the visitors.
One afternoon Little Fur paused from the preparations to tend to a wild rabbit that had gotten her paw crushed by a branch. The wan sun was already setting as she carried the rabbit into a cave whose entrance was partly concealed beneath an icefall. This was where she made and stored her potions and herbs and did of her winter healing. Little Fur set the rabbit’s tiny bones and mended her torn skin. Then she held her firmly as Tillet bandaged the paw. Tillet, a large hare, was Little Fur’s most competent and steadfast helper.
“You have been brave,” Little Fur whispered very softly, stroking the rabbit and looking around the cave.
The walls had niches of varying sizes that had been made by obliging moles. Many of the spaces were filled with piles of leaves and packets of herbs and powders all carefully made up and labeled. Other niches were heaped with stones, dried roots, tubers and bags of seeds. One large niche held an abandoned beehive. Its honey had been drained into a gourd, but its wax was yet to be scraped out. Field mice slept in a nest in the niche beside the beehive; below, a recovering ermine lay curled asleep. Higher up were nests, several occupied by birds that had hurt their wings before they could fly away for winter.
The cave was warmer at the back because a trickle of hot springwater welled from a split rock and pooled in a natural stone bowl, where it shimmered with a strange blue light. Beside the stone bowl slept a blind tabby cat with three of her kittens. A fourth kitten swaggered in a circle beneath a cluster of bats suspended from a stalactite. Dangling beside the bats were a fat braid of garlic, strings of wild onions and three great, knotty, earth-encrusted roots. Toward the front of the cave, dried leaves and berries dangled from plaited reeds. Along a special shelf were small nut gourds containing Little Fur’s more dangerous potions.
Though there were herbs waiting to be steeped and a great clump of spiderweb that needed weaving into bandages, Little Fur felt content. All these tasks could be dealt with after midwinter night. The one thing she ought to do before then was to make herself another cloak. The last one, sewn fr
om a bit of human cloth, had fallen apart, and although Little Fur did not feel the cold as keenly as humans, she did need the cloak for all the pockets she could sew into it.
She sighed, remembering the gray cloak her elf father had left her. It could make its wearer hard to see and remained light as thistledown no matter what she put in the pockets. But a human had taken it the first time Little Fur had ever gone out into the city. All she had of her parents now was the green stone that had once belonged to her mother, which she wore on a thong about her neck. Little Fur had thought it merely a pretty bauble until she had learned that the stone was also worn by troll royalty.
Her longing to learn more of trolls was another reason that she looked forward to the coming midwinter ceremony. Little Fur had not thought much about her parents before traveling to the troll city of Underth, but that perilous adventure had awakened both her troll blood and a powerful curiosity. It was strange that the newly awakened troll blood was not constantly at war with her elf blood, but it was as if they had agreed that whichever served best would take charge.
“Finished,” Tillet said.
Little Fur composed her mind and sang a song to the rabbit’s spirit so the wounded paw could heal properly. A swan waiting to have his wings cleaned waddled nearer to listen, and a big beaver with a toothache ceased his restless movements. Once the rabbit was asleep, Little Fur lifted her gently into one of the ground-level niches.
An enormous black dog lay sprawled asleep against the wall with a small red snake coiled under her chest, a family of mice sleeping on her tail and a tiny owl perched on her back. The owlet opened her round yellow eyes and hooted a forlorn inquiry.
“Crow will come soon, Gem,” Little Fur murmured, aware that the orphaned owl saw Crow as her brother, much to his disgust.
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