The Shadow of Malabron

by Thomas Wharton

  They talked about returning to the Wood, which stretched north-east from the city to the River Arrow, the Bourne’s eastern boundary. This was the place where Will had crossed into the Realm, and so it seemed the likeliest direction to begin a search for the way back. Moth had reported to Pendrake that there was no longer any sign of the fetches or the mirrors. But as the toymaker reminded everyone, the fetches likely could not have set the trap of the mirrors themselves. They were shadowbeings that moved only under the power of someone or something else sent by the Night King. Going into the Wood might mean walking straight into the greatest danger.

  They considered going west, through the great forest of Eldark to the lands beyond. The ancient land of the Hidden Folk, before their exile, was in the west.

  Finn looked at the vast forest spreading across most of the western half of the map and shook his head.

  “There are scouts and knights-errant who know these woods far better than I do,” he said.

  “Yes,” Pendrake said, “but those who’ve travelled a place often might not see what is right in front of them.”

  He cautioned that when it came to the whereabouts of the Green Court, nothing was certain. There were many tales of wanderers encountering the Hidden Folk in unlikely, far-flung regions. And the forest, for that matter, held many dangers.

  The other directions were carefully discussed and considered, but in the end, there was no clear answer to the question of the road they were best to take.

  Pendrake noticed Will intent upon the map, his gaze travelling hopelessly over the many strange names.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, placing a hand on Will’s shoulder, “we will go to the crossroads, and there a path will be chosen. Until then, let’s not worry over what hasn’t happened yet. Sleep is more important right now than plans. As the Kantar says, you have to walk a road with your feet.”

  After Finn had left for Appleyard, the others went back downstairs for bed. Will and Shade said good night to Rowen and the old man at the door of Will’s room. At her own door Rowen paused before going in.

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” she said. “For letting me come along. I know you don’t really want me with you…”

  Pendrake took off his spectacles and nervously tapped the earpieces together. Then he slipped the spectacles back on again, sighed, and looked into Rowen’s eyes.

  “I want you where you’ll be safe, child,” he said softly. “But I don’t know where that is any more. Maybe there are no safe places. Maybe there never have been. And maybe I’ve protected you too much. Though you’ve managed to learn quite a lot about protecting yourself, despite me.”

  He looked past her into the room, and she saw his eyes fall on the chest at the end of her bed. She blushed and looked down at the floor.

  “Do you think that I could be like … that I could be a great knight-errant someday?”

  Pendrake hesitated.

  “You will do wondrous things,” he said at last, and there was sadness in his voice. “I’ve always known that.”

  Rowen started to say something else, but Pendrake turned and went back up the stairs alone. When he was well away from Rowen he sighed heavily. As he passed the raincabinet he paused and leant towards the door. From within came the faint but steady sound of the downpour that had not ceased for a moment since he had first come to live in this house, so many years ago.

  His granddaughter had grown up under the same roof and did not question the rain. It had always been there, just one more unexplained marvel in a house of wonders. She had lived so far without the knowledge that the rain was there for her, to keep her hidden.

  And now he was taking her out into the world, perhaps far from home. Deep into the weave of the Kantar, into the next chapter of her own story. With that thought, the toymaker’s heart misgave him. She was not ready. But would he ever feel otherwise? This time had been coming since she was born. He knew that she would have to learn of her inheritance, and that it was right, and he could not prevent it, no matter how much he feared for her. Until now he had thought of that day as far in the future, but with the coming of the boy and all that had happened since, he knew it was now rushing towards them, and that it would soon be here.

  He walked away from the raincabinet, went into his workshop and closed the door. Light burned in the windows long into the night.

  Finn Madoc set out the travelling clothes he would wear in the morning. His small room was almost bare: it held his bed, a washbasin on a wooden stand, a shelf with a few tattered books. A parchment map hung on one wall. Brass pins dotted it in many places. Markers of all the places he had searched, so far in vain. It had been ten years now, and no word had yet come to Fable of the fate of the missing.

  As he stood, gazing at the map, he turned the ring with the green stone on his finger, as if to confirm that it was still there. Each time he set out on a mission for the Errantry, he went in hope that this time he would stumble across some clue, some trace of those he sought. And each time he returned to Appleyard, his hope had lessened, and the Realm seemed an even larger place.

  He took up his sword, and went out into the dark corridor of the dormitory. The night sentry nodded to him as he passed through the entryway into the great hall, which was empty. Most of the knights he knew had already left on missions. He would be the only member of the Errantry keeping vigil tonight.

  Moonlight streamed into the room from the high windows. There were benches underneath each of the tapestries that pictured the legendary knights of the past. Finn did not take his place under any of these. He went instead to the furthest corner of the hall, where there was a space between the pillars with no tapestry. Here he sat on the bench, laid his sword on the cold stone floor in front of him, and set his hands in his lap. He heaved a sigh, and then went so still that he might have been one more silent figure on a tapestry.

  Shade the wolf lay on the rug beside Will’s bed. His eyes were open. He had slept for so long in the dark of the Library that it may be he no longer had any need for sleep. When the boy stirred, or there was some unidentifiable creak or shuffle from somewhere in the house, his ears would twitch, but other than that, and his slow, steady breathing, he did not move. What thoughts wolves have, they generally keep to themselves. Or perhaps anyone who had seen him then would have said that the wolf was his thought, and that thought was watchfulness.

  Serpent without head or tail,

  Arm without flesh or bone,

  Running far without motion

  Unwinding ribbon of stone.

  — The Quips and Quiddities of Sir Dagonet

  THEY SET OUT FOR APPLEYARD before dawn the next day. As they were leaving the house, Pendrake gave Edweth its keys on a great iron ring.

  “While I’m gone,” he said to her, “you will not clean my workshop.”

  “Of course not, sir,” Edweth said, solemnly shaking her head.

  The housekeeper put up a stern front as she bustled about, making sure that Will and Rowen’s packs contained everything they might need, without being too weighty. But as they said their farewells she gave both Rowen and Will a tight hug, and tears brimmed in her eyes. For the first time it occurred to Will that if his journey was successful, he would not be coming back here. He would never see this house, or Edweth, ever again. He had come to appreciate the housekeeper’s gruff good nature, and her cooking.

  Finn met them at the doors of the Gathering House. This time he was wearing a long grey coat like the other knights-errant. As usual he had little to say, and only nodded to Will and Rowen without smiling. Will had seen knights coming and going on horseback, and he wondered out loud if that was how they were going to travel.

  “There are few mounts to spare,” Finn said. “And on foot we’ll blend in better with the other travellers on the road. And we may find paths that would be missed from horseback.”

  “Walking was how you found your way here, after all,” Pendrake told Will. “It’s said that the realms of Story are found by t
hose who walk rather than run. Perhaps that’s also true for those who wish to leave.”

  As they were preparing to set out, Lord Caliburn arrived to see them off, though he had little to say. He surveyed their gear with a stern eye, and saved an especially dark look for the wolf.

  “An unusual company,” he said. “You’re not likely to pass unremarked. And even in the Bourne that’s cause for concern. No road can be considered completely safe, not any more.”

  “No road ever was,” Pendrake said. “But we’re not without friends, even out in Wildernesse.”

  “May these friends prove trustworthy,” Caliburn said.

  He suggested that Will and the others take the high road south, which was well travelled by members of the Errantry on their way to the citadel of Stonebow, three days distant, where they would find refuge if need be.

  “We have considered the south road, along with all the others,” Pendrake said. “But it is Will’s choice to make.”

  Lord Caliburn looked to be about to reply, but pursed his lips and said nothing. He gave them all one final wish for a safe journey and strode away.

  Will and his companions left Fable by a postern gate in the south wall, and followed a narrow winding path down to the paved road, which they joined at the bottom of the hill. The story they had prepared was a simple one, that they were on a journey to visit friends in other parts, not an uncommon thing among people in the Bourne. They had all dressed in inconspicuous garments of green and brown cloth. Will carried his own clothes in his pack. He hadn’t wanted to leave them behind, as they were the only link he felt he had left with home.

  Finn had a sword at his side, and on his back he carried a short bow of pale wood and a quiver of snowy-feathered arrows. Pendrake walked with a long, gently curved staff of polished wood and a leather bag slung over one shoulder. He carried no weapon that Will could see. For Will, Finn brought a long knife that was much like Rowen’s. He said that the hilts were new but that the blades had come from a storyland where a war was fought over a magic ring that made its wearer invisible. The knives were crafted to bite into wraiths that no ordinary weapon could harm.

  “I know that story,” Will exclaimed. “I read the books. And I saw the movies.”

  “Movies?” Rowen asked.

  “Another kind of story,” Will explained. “With pictures that move. So these knives come from that story? How did they get here?”

  “They’ve been in the armoury a long time,” Finn said. “They were probably brought here by a traveller who bartered them for something else he needed more. A lot of weapons and magical objects end up in Fable that way.”

  Finn had also given Will and Rowen each a pack to carry food and bedding, and supplied them with leather tunics and sturdy, well-fitting boots for long travel. The tunic was stiff and felt constraining. When Will first tried it on he’d complained the tunic was too small. He said it jokingly, not wanting Finn to know how scared he suddenly felt, now that his journey was really about to begin.

  “It’s meant for protection, not comfort,” the young man had said with his usual coldness.

  The knife felt strange on his hip. Will pulled it from its leather sheath once before they left Appleyard. It was heavier in his hand than he expected, and had no markings. The steel hilt was wrapped in dark leather, and the blade, burnished to a mirror-smooth lustre, tapered to an alarmingly sharp point. He tried to imagine stabbing someone with it, and quickly slipped it back into its sheath.

  When they reached the road, Shade walked sometimes at Will’s side but often trotted ahead eagerly or plunged into the roadside greenery nose first. Will watched him, both amused and troubled by this fierce yet somehow innocent creature, and the way he had come into his life.

  “Shade seems glad to be on the road,” Rowen observed.

  “Fable was his first city, I suspect,” Pendrake said. “We’re finally in a world that he knows.”

  “This is the world,” the wolf growled over his shoulder.

  They went south-west towards the crossroads of the Bourne. As they walked the morning chill from their limbs, the sun rose behind a veil of mist. They walked through the quiet valley at an easy pace, past the farms and outlying houses. The same small dog Will had seen the night he arrived darted out of its gate barking, took one look at Shade and sped back the way it had come. There were fewer people on the road than there had been before, and Will wondered whether this was a good sign or not. He thought of asking Finn or the toymaker, but then he decided he didn’t want to risk any more bad news.

  “There,” Rowen said, taking Will out of his thoughts. She was pointing to a wooded rise. “That’s where we came out of the Wood.”

  Will looked at the faint track winding into the trees, and wondered where Moth and Morrigan were now.

  Further along they descended into a dell shaded by drooping willow trees, and crossed a wooden bridge over a slow moving stream. On the far side of the dell they came out into dazzling sunshine. It promised to be a warm day. Birdsong soon filled the air. The roadsides were bright with summer flowers, and in the distance fields of ripening wheat and corn rippled in the morning breeze. The world seemed so peaceful that Will could not prevent a surge of hope from rising in him. He could almost believe his pursuers had gone far away, or forgotten him. Or that it had all been a mistake, the stories of darkness and evil were just that, only stories, and no one was hunting for him after all.

  When the sun was well up in the sky they reached a slight rise, shaded by a ring of tall elms, where roads from five directions met. In addition to the road from Fable, here the wide stone high road of the Bourne ran north and south, and crossed the narrower but well-tended east–west way.

  “Here is where you make your first choice, Will,” Pendrake said.

  Will nodded tersely. He was annoyed but hoped it didn’t show. Why did it have to be his choice? He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going. Pendrake knew much more than he did about this world. And he was the one who had insisted that Will go on this journey in the first place.

  Will sighed and looked about him, thinking over what he had learned from studying the toymaker’s maps. He knew that directly south on the high road lay the town of Goodfare, a day’s walk distant. To the east were Stook and Owlet, two tiny villages less than a mile away, the pale wood smoke of their chimneys visible above the trees. Other larger towns lay that way, too, and beyond them, the River Arrow and the eastern borderlands. To the north the high road wound up through a range of hills called the Brades and so to the citadel of Annen Bawn upon the Bourne’s stony northern marches. The road west led to several farming villages and other branching ways, then ended at the vast forest that had been spoken of with unease and concern the night before.

  Yet he was here now, without the map, and in every direction he saw only trees, and flowering hedges, and green fields. There was no way to tell the roads apart, nothing to hint at what dangers each might have in store. He went still and waited for something inside to speak to him, but nothing came, or at least nothing certain. One moment a particular road seemed to beckon him, but the next moment it was another. While he stood and waited for some kind of revelation, and wondered how he would know if it was one, a wagon pulled by two stocky horses and loaded with barrels came up slowly from the south, then at the crossroads turned onto the road to Fable. The thick-set man driving the wagon glowered at them as he passed.

  “Quests,” they heard him mutter sourly. “Why can’t folk just stay at home.”

  Will found himself wondering the same thing. He turned in a circle, still undecided. Rowen sat down by the wayside, on a large flat stone that looked as if it had been carved as a seat for just that purpose. It occurred to Will that many travellers over the years must have sat here, like him, with a choice to make. Finn Madoc stood near by, gazing into the distance in each direction in turn. Shade went sniffing down one of the roads, seemingly unconcerned about the whole affair. Will avoided looking at the toymak
er. Not for the first time he was sure the old man’s faith in him was misplaced.

  Then he looked again at Shade, who was still nosing his way along one of the roads. Will called his name, and the wolf halted and came loping back.

  “Don’t tell me that’s it already,” he grumbled. “You never get very far in your travels, Will Lightfoot.”

  In spite of himself, Will smiled. Then he remembered the statue of Sir Dagonet, the Lord Mayor, at the crossing point of the city’s main streets. He thought of the dog barking to warn his master of danger, and an idea came to him.

  “Shade will decide,” he said.

  Rowen grinned and stood up. Finn shot a dubious glance at Pendrake, who merely nodded and said, “Very well.”

  “You wish me to choose our road?” the wolf said, cocking his head to one side.

  Will nodded, wondering what on earth he was doing.

  “Then I will choose it,” Shade said. Without hesitation he trotted back the way he had just come, stopping once to look over his shoulder with a glare of annoyance that the others had not yet followed him.

  “This way,” he called. “This is the way back to the lands I know.”

  Shouldering their packs, the others walked along after him without speaking, and Will wondered if he had just made a terrible mistake. Shade had chosen the western road that led to the forest of Eldark.

  For the rest of that day they followed the road through the farmlands in the west of the Bourne. They met many other travellers, most of them were country folk going about their business. Almost all were heading the way that Will and his companions had come, towards Fable. Some looked friendly, and smiled or exchanged a greeting, while others eyed them suspiciously, especially when they saw the wolf. Finn said that the nearer one came to the forest, the more wary folk were of strangers.