The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World

by Brian Stableford

  “I mean that we aren’t finished yet. Methwold forest is only half a day’s ride from here. I can be there and back by nightfall. All I have to do, I reckon, is go there, find the signpost, and look at the stone.”

  Coronado moved his lantern jaw slowly from side side, ruminatively. After a brief pause, he said: “You know what you’re suggesting?”

  “Of course,” answered Ewan.

  “Methwold forest is over the border. In the magic lands. It’s enchanted. No one ever goes there. It’s said that the last half a dozen men who even went near it failed to return. There’s no daylight inside the forest, and it’s full of trolls and tree spirits. Not to mention poisonous snakes. It’s not the place to go for a picnic.” Coronado paused, wondering whether he ought to stop trying to talk the boy out of it. Then he went on: “The thing is, boy… I rather like you. You have the makings of a politician. You’re no fool. You know which side your bread’s buttered. Take a tip from me—in a situation like this you always try the tricks of the trade first. Let’s try the contingency plan, eh?”

  “It might not work,” said Ewan. “Sirion Hilversun is an enchanter. He may know what’s on the stone even if no ordinary eye has ever seen it. He may have… ways … of finding out.”

  Coronado nodded, slowly. “It’s a risk,” he admitted. “But so is going into the enchanted forest. I’m a politician. I only take political risks. Only a hero or a fool would take the other one.” While he spoke his eyes lingered on Ewan’s dust-stained face. Is this a hero? wondered the prime minister. Or a fool?

  “I want to go,” said Ewan.

  Coronado thought quickly. Discretion might be best. If the king found out, he might think that Coronado himself had asked or ordered the boy to risk his neck. The king had quite a sentimental streak when it came to the welfare of his subjects. This was better kept quiet.

  “Well,” he said, eventually, “they collected the horses yesterday, I’m afraid. There’s only a couple left. Two carthorses and an old grey mare who hasn’t enough years left in her to make it worth transporting her all the way to Heliopolis. I suppose you’d better take her. But go quickly and quietly. And remember… it’s your own idea. I advised you against it.”

  “That’s all right,” said Ewan. “After all, it’s for the good of the kingdom, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” confirmed Coronado.

  “And just between you and me,” said the boy, “we both know who’d take the blame if we submitted a fake answer and it all went wrong. Don’t we?”

  The prime minister’s eyebrows quivered restlessly. “We do understand one another,” he said, softly. “Don’t we?”

  Ewan beat a little of the dust from his jerkin. It didn’t seem to make much difference. He moved past the prime minister and headed for the door.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “With the answer.”

  “I believe you will,” murmured Coronado. “I do believe you will.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  It took longer than Ewan expected to get to Methwold forest. The aged grey mare which he had borrowed set off at a good enough stride but tired very quickly. She was doing her best, but her best was a very laboured trot, and even that could be maintained only for a few minutes at a time. He had hoped to arrive at his destination by noon, but the afternoon was well under way by the time he did get there.

  He soon found out, however, that the time of day was irrelevant inside the forest itself. Most of what Coronado had said Ewan had dismissed as superstition and rumour, but one thing, at least, was true. Once within the shadow of the trees the light faded dramatically.

  Even though he had given Coronado’s dire warning little credence, Ewan had had the good sense to take one elementary precaution. He had brought a lantern, consisting of a candle mounted in a glass casket with a hole on top to let the smoke out. As soon as it became obvious that the great canopy made by the foliage of the trees would let little or no light reach the forest floor, Ewan lit the candle.

  The wan yellow light seemed to make the shadows that gathered around so much more dense and menacing, but another half-furlong would leave the last tiny rays of sunshine long behind, and candlelight was infinitely preferable to Stygian gloom. Ewan leaned forward to stroke the mare’s neck reassuringly, and the mare turned to look at him over her shoulder. She looked apprehensive.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “If there are any trolls and the like, which I doubt, it’ll have been so long since they saw a boy or a horse that we’ll probably scare them half to death.”

  The mare grunted non-committally.

  The road across the magic land had so far been a good one—better than the dirt track that ran this way from Jessamy. It had once been firm and polished, but the times of strife had seen it cracked and worn, and it was hardly as good as new. Nevertheless, it was easy to follow and offered secure footing for a horse. In the forest, though, the road ended, and there was nothing at all beyond it to mark a way: not even an animal track.

  “It isn’t going to be easy to find a signpost where there aren’t any roads,” observed Ewan, chewing his lower lip. The mare made no comment.

  The world inside Methwold forest was not as he had imagined it might be. In his mind the word “forest” was associated with greenery and birdsong, the rustle of small creatures in the grass, and tall, round-boled trees. He had expected an enchanted forest to be a little less pleasant, but not so totally different. Inside Methwold, the basic colour was grey. The trees were gnarled and twisted, their trunks and branches made up of thin elements coiled and bundled together. No birds sang, and where there was the noise of movement near the ground it was always the sound of slithering.

  The trees were living, as was proved by the uncannily rich foliage which they produced, but seen from beneath they seemed as if they were being slowly consumed by decay. Their bark looked soft, and was overlaid by some greasy substance. As well as a multitude of little wrinkled leaves the branches were festooned by silvery networks like garments spun by giant spiders.

  All in all, it was quite unearthly.

  On either side of Ewan’s path, as he picked his way between the trees, was a tangled network of plants which grew, at first, only as high as the horse’s withers, but which seemed higher and denser the further they progressed. It looked very soft, and was certainly not impenetrable, but as time went by Ewan got the distinct feeling that it was forming walls on either side of him, guiding him. He contemplated turning aside to force the mare through it, but hesitated because of an uncomfortable suggestion somewhere at the back of his mind that it would suck him in like quicksand, cling to him and hold him fast. It looked like a mixture of cobweb and candlewax, and he was afraid of it because he did not know what kind of plant could grow in perfect darkness.

  He looked carefully around and saw that this gentle barrier did, indeed, form a kind of corridor into which he had been unwittingly guiding the mare. Because he could not overcome his reluctance to defy its guidance and crash into or through it, there seemed to be little option but to follow it further. So he did. And as he did, the wall grew still higher and thicker, until it was at the level of his shoulder—and yet further, until it merged with low branches and the silvered foliage.

  He had no idea whether the course he was keeping was straight or not, and he harboured dire suspicions as to where the corridor might be leading him.

  He patted the patient mare yet again, though it was he that needed the reassurance. “If we ever come back here,” he murmured, “I want you to remind me of the old saying. A fool rushes in, but an angel carries a compass. Will you do that?”

  The mare made no answer.

  Ewan held the lantern a little lower to pick out the ground on which the grey mare trod. Scattered in his path was a carpet of toadstools, with caps that were grey and peeling, or blue and lustrous, or sometimes dark red and warty. All manner of similar fungi grew in the crevices of the gnarled trunks and at the junctures where branch-elements spira
lled off into the tangled skeins. They were often coloured, but never brightly—instead they were faded and dull and darkened and dim.

  Ewan had never felt quite so lonely.

  “You see,” he began to explain to the mare, “why people think this place is haunted. It does give that impression, although it’s all really perfectly natural. One can understand how these susperstitions start. At least, I can. I suppose that being a horse you don’t worry too much over these intellectual niceties, do you?”

  The old grey mare sniffed and grated her teeth a little.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” muttered the boy. “If an owl hooted right now I’d jump out of my skin.”

  He paused, as if expecting an owl to hoot on cue, but no owl did. He listened carefully, but all he could hear was the sound of slithering.

  He gulped.

  “If I were of a nervous disposition,” said Ewan, “I’d begin to worry right now about that old tale people tell about the way that roads in enchanted forests just go round and round, so that once in you can never get out. I suppose this is a road, of a sort… or a tunnel… or something.”

  While he spoke, the grey mare plodded on.

  And the soft walls seemed, now that they had stopped growing upwards, to be drawing ever closer.

  “It’s a curious illusion,” commented Ewan, “that parallel lines seem to meet at infinity. If you stand in the middle of a straight road, it seems to get ever narrower as it extends to the horizon. I’ve often wondered why.”

  The mare ducked her head and shook it slightly.

  “You always wondered why as well, eh?” said Ewan.

  In all probability, the old mare had meant nothing of the kind. But either way, the fact remained that the route was getting narrower, and it wasn’t an illusion.

  Somewhere off to the right, and then, again, to the left, there was a slow, stretching sound of sinuous slithering.

  “I don’t know about you,” muttered Ewan, patting the mare’s neck furiously, “but I’m terrified.”

  The way became so constricted that the tangled branches formed a matted roof just above Ewan’s head. The longest and limpest reached out to trail clammy tips along his arms and shoulders, and tap, tap, tap at the glass casket holding the valiant candle. This was a tunnel indeed—a horrid, soft-walled tunnel. And he came, eventually, to a place where there was no longer room for a boy on horseback to proceed.

  There were only two options open to him. He could try to go back. Or he could go on foot.

  He backed up three paces until there was room for him to dismount in the confined space between the mare’s flank and the glutinous wall. He went on alone, and the pale yellow light of the candle seemed to him to be the most precious thing in the world. In point of fact, as he walked alone in the enchanted forest, there was only one other thing that he could call his own, and that was a set of panpipes he carried in his pocket—a small present from his father, the maker of musical instruments.

  He looked back once, but the mare was already out of sight. He listened for the sound of her whinnying, or even the sound of her grinding her teeth… but there was nothing. Except, of course–-

  But he shut his ears to that sound and went on.

  And on.

  And on.

  The little toadstools broke beneath his feet and were squashed into pulp.

  Ewan kept licking his lips. He wanted to talk, to let some of the tension that was tightening his every muscle ebb away in the sound of his voice, but the grey mare was no longer there, and for some unknown reason he could not bring himself to talk to the empty air. It was not that he was afraid that no one was listening… but

  rather the reverse….

  The silence was unbearable, and that other sound, when it came, even more so. The only course possible was to take out the little reed pipes and begin to play.

  Considering that he was the son of an instrument-maker and had grown up surrounded by devices for making music, Ewan was not very good. There were a number of simple tunes he could pick out on any of a dozen instruments, but they were repetitive dance tunes and the rhythms of nursery rhymes. He knew nothing that really seemed appropriate to his present predicament. He could manage no stirring martial music, nor anything soft and beautiful.

  And so he played “Baa, baa, black sheep” instead. In situations like his, you have to do what you can. He played it over and over and over. There was no one to sing the words, but he imagined them inside his head. He also imagined children dancing to the sound. At first it was just his little sisters, but then he added himself and his mother and his father. After a while, he brought in a few passers-by, and then invented a carnival troupe. He realized that the process could go on for ever, and ultimately he had the entire population of Jessamy, including the ministers and the royal family, dancing in his head to “Baa, baa black sheep.” As an afterthought, for good measure, he added a trio of trained elephants and the old grey mare.

  He didn’t count the paces he took or keep any track of time. He just kept on, and he ignored the fact that he was dog tired and that his feet ached terribly. He might have gone on for ever.

  Eventually, though, he had to pause. His fingers and his lips just couldn’t keep it up. “Baa, baa black sheep” stopped. The dancing horde inside his head stopped, and then faded away. Into the silence there came a new noise— neither the neigh of a horse nor the perpetual slithering. It was laughter. Cool, cruel, cackling laughter. And it came from behind him. A bolt of fear struck straight into his heart. He could feel the blood pounding in his veins. He couldn’t bear to look back. He knew he had to, but he couldn’t.

  The slithering was suddenly loud and all around him, mingling with the laughter, mixing and dissolving into it. He realized at last what the slithering was.

  It was the branches, creeping like snakes, writhing as they knotted and kneaded, tangled and touched, quivered and quaked.

  And the laughter was the laughter of a million shivering leaves, rattling and chuckling, rustling and giggling. Then a branch reached out, closed cobwebbed finger-leaves about the wick of the candle, reaching through the hole cut in the glass. The light went out.

  Ewan quivered, just once. He felt faint. He dropped the lantern. He stood quite still and waited.

  Soon, he realized that he could see again, by pale greenish-white light. The branches of the terrible trees were alive, not merely with their own sinuous movement, but with glow-worms that crawled from every crack and cranny. They came from the murky depths which surrounded him to make a cocoon of radiance.

  He looked round, awed and quite unable to understand.

  The way ahead was still waiting. But it was no longer a tunnel getting ever narrower and leading nowhere. It was a doorway to a clearing. In the clearing, illumined by a chandelier of glow-worm infested branches, was a mound of stones, and supported by the mound of stones was a signpost.

  It was the weirdest signpost that Ewan had ever seen. Its arms hung limp and were crumpled, as if half melted by great heat at some time in the indeterminate past. Its stem was bent over, so that two of its arms pointed down, two up.

  Ewan walked into the clearing, and the gateway behind him sealed itself silently. But he was past fear by now. He was quite calm.

  He walked forward and began to rummage among the rounded stones which formed the cairn beneath the signpost. It didn’t take more than a minute to find the stone that he wanted. It was in no way similar to the rest. It was flat and square and pale blue in colour. It was polished smooth, and engraved upon it were the following words:

  TURN THE SIGNPOST ROUND

  And that, thought Ewan, dazedly, is that. So much for one of the great mysteries of our time. But it was not so simple.

  He had, by some peculiar quirk of fate, been allowed to reach his destination just as it seemed the forest would not let him… but getting there was only half the battle.

  The question now was: how did he propose to get back?

  He looked arou
nd and saw that the clearing was ringed by a solid wall of tangled branches, utterly impenetrable. He looked up and found that he could see dim and distant stars in the circle of night sky which the clearing cut out of the forest canopy. But that was no use. He couldn’t fly.

  Nowhere in the confining walls was there the slightest chink. There was not the thinnest sliver of empty shadow. There was no way out of the grim and gloomy prison.

  Unless….

  He leapt suddenly up on to the mound of stones and grasped the bent stem of the signpost in both hands.

  It turned quite easily. He turned it round one quarter of the way, and nothing changed. Then he turned it halfway round, and then three-quarters. Still nothing happened, and so he completed the operation, bringing the stem back to its original position.

  Then it came alive in his hands.

  There was a blinding flash as if lightning had struck into the clearing. Ewan’s body jerked rigid with the shock. It was as though there was an explosion inside his head.

  He toppled slowly from the mound to fall unconscious on to lush green grass.

  Much later, he awoke.

  It was late evening. The sun was sinking toward the western horizon. The sky was deep blue. Everything was

  bright.

  Everything–-

  The signpost stood tall and straight, its four arms pointing along four neatly cut tracks extending into the forest. The forest was green, its trees standing tall and dignified, no longer involved in a conspiracy to cut out every last vestige of the sunlight. Around the signpost grasses grew, and there were flowers on the forest floor. The sound of birdsong was dancing in the air.

  Leaves rippled, and the undergrowth rustled with the passage of small creatures. As Ewan sat up and looked round, a butterfly which had settled on his sleeve took off and bobbed in the air as it steered itself to a nearby cluster of willow-herb. There was a sweet smell on the drifting wind. A small stream emerged from the other side of the moss-covered cairn to run away downhill towards the edge of the world.