Maybe you’ve heard the tale differently from the way I’ve told it. That wouldn’t be surprising, for these stories have been passed around many a fire on many a night. The tales travel, from mouth to ear, east to west, near and far, and one thing is certain: nobody can say there is only one way to tell them.
– Tales from the Golden Goose
THERE WERE NO MORE TREES.
After he had walked a long time the woods had come to an end, and Will had found himself on an open stretch of bare, cracked earth. A few large stones were scattered here and there, but the world beyond this patch of barren ground had vanished in a pale grey haze. The air was bone-dry and cold.
The haze was dust, Will realized. He could feel it in his eyes as he walked, and tasted it on his tongue: it had a faintly bitter, metallic tang.
Will turned in a slow circle. Night was coming on, he was already tired from his long walk through the woods, and he didn’t know where he was. If he was really on the right path to the Realm, he thought he should have known for sure by now. The first time he had come to the Realm he’d been lost and confused, but he had known one thing for certain: the world had changed. Or he had changed worlds. This time he felt only that he was lost.
He walked for a while, but the dust did not clear. Another of the large stones loomed up out of the haze. Will sat down on it to rest a moment. It might be better to turn back and set out again in the morning, he told himself. But he wondered with a pang of fear whether he could even find his way home through this haze.
A friend will fall. No, he couldn’t turn back.
Almost without thinking he slipped his hand down the collar of his shirt and pulled out a silver chain that hung around his neck. On the chain was a small triangular piece of mirrored glass. He clutched it tightly in his closed fist.
Before he left the Realm the last time, the Lady of the Shee had given him a shard of the ancient Mirror Samaya, which had been shattered in the war against the Night King. The shard had helped Will find his way home. When he’d looked into it he was startled to see his own reflection disappear, but then suddenly he knew what he had to do. Maybe that’s what the shadow had been trying to tell him. The same way you left. Maybe he could use the shard the other way, too. To get back to the Realm.
Will opened his palm and looked into the shard. There was his face, reflected in the mirror. He stared into the glass, trying to summon the same certainty he’d felt the first time, but this time his face remained, looking back at him with a frown.
The stone moved under him.
Will jumped up with a shout. The stone was not a stone. It was a man. No, larger than a man. Someone or something huge, climbing to its feet and sloughing off the thick dust that had covered it so that Will had mistaken it for a stone.
Will backed away. The huge figure shook itself all over so that great clouds of dust billowed off it, and Will saw what he had been sitting on.
A creature shaped like a man, but there the resemblance ended. Under a mane of dark, shaggy hair was an ugly, beastlike face that brought to mind a cross between a lion and an ill-tempered pug dog.
Will stumbled backwards and fell.
“Wait,” the man-thing said. “Who are…?”
The man-thing’s voice was so low and booming, the sound of it thrummed in Will’s chest like the rumble of a kettledrum. Then he remembered the words of the shadow: A stone will speak.
Will picked himself up and was about to run for his life, but the man-thing’s stillness made him hesitate.
“I don’t know…” the man-thing said haltingly, “…where I am.”
There was such fear and confusion in his voice that Will paused, then took a step closer.
“I don’t know either,” he said.
“My name…” the man-thing said. “My name is … Balor Gruff. That’s it. Yes.”
His eyes wandered about the dim landscape, then fixed on Will.
“I don’t know how I got here,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it of the dust that surrounded them. “And I don’t know who you are.”
There was no threat in the man-thing’s voice, Will realized. And the first part of the shadow’s message, it seemed, had come to pass. But did the first part have anything to do with the friend who would fall? Would whatever he did now make any difference? Will thought quickly and decided to trust his instincts about the man-thing.
“I’m Will. Will Lightfoot,” he said. “You were asleep on the ground. The dust had covered you and I thought you were a stone, so I sat down on you. I’m sorry about that, really.”
The man-thing’s brow furrowed. Then to Will’s astonishment he shook himself all over once more, like a great shaggy bear waking from its winter slumber.
“What happened to me?” he roared. “I was on night patrol in the Wood and then all of a sudden here I am, which is I don’t know where, and here you are, and … what did you say your name was?”
“Will Lightfoot. I’m on my way to—”
He broke off, having glimpsed the pin on the man-thing’s cloak: a small white five-petalled flower that he recognized. Finn Madoc, he remembered, had a similar flower on his cloak.
“You’re from the Errantry,” Will said eagerly.
“I am,” the man-thing said, in a tone of certainty. “Yes, I am. And what’s it to you?”
“I know Finn Madoc, the knight-apprentice. He’s my friend. I was trying to find my way to Fable and then—”
“Wait, wait,” the man-thing broke in, “did you say your name was Will Lightfoot?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the Will Lightfoot?”
The man-thing eyed him up and down, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Will was stung, though he had no idea why he should feel that way.
“It’s an honour to meet you, Master Lightfoot,” the man-thing said, breaking into a toothy grin. Evidently he had decided to believe Will. “My name is Balor Gruff. Oh, yes, I’ve already told you that. Finn is a good friend of mine, too, though he’s not an apprentice any more. Earned his knighthood a while back. But more to the point, if you’re Will Lightfoot, then I believe my luck has changed for the better.”
Will didn’t know what to say to that.
“I was on patrol near Fable,” Balor Gruff said, “when this … dust came up out of nowhere. I kept walking, expecting it to lift eventually, but it didn’t. So then I … well, I don’t know what happened exactly. I couldn’t have fallen asleep. I never fall asleep on duty.”
“So we’re not far from Fable, then?”
“Well, I don’t believe so. But as to which way to go to get there, I may need some time to work it out.”
“You mean you’re lost.”
“Balor Gruff never gets lost,” the man-thing rumbled. “Never. I’ll find my way out of this place eventually, no fear of that. But now you’re here, Will Lightfoot, the pathfinder. There’s no reason we can’t work together, and maybe get home sooner.”
“The what?”
“Pardon?”
“You called me a…”
“Pathfinder. It’s what they call someone with your gift. You’re famous for it in Fable. Will Lightfoot, the great pathfinder, slayer of trolls, friend of wolf and raven.”
“Slayer of trolls? I never—”
“You’re a legend, lad. It’s all the knight-apprentices talk about these days.”
“How … how long have they been talking about me?”
“I don’t know. Ages. I first heard about you when Finn got back to Fable from his travels with you and the loremaster … must have been, let’s see, well nigh a year ago now.”
Will was relieved to hear that Finn had reached home safely, but Balor’s words also confirmed his fear: much more time had gone by for his friends than for him. Which meant that maybe the shadow’s warning was about something that had already happened, and he was too late.
“What’s the matter?” Balor asked.
“Have you seen Finn recently? Is he a
ll right?”
“I saw him just before I left on patrol. He was fine. Why?”
Will took a deep breath. Here was some good news, at last.
“Do you know Master Pendrake?” he asked.
“I’ve met him a few times,” Balor said. “Kindly old fellow. Gave me a toy horse once when I was just an ogreling, I mean when … hmph. He and his granddaughter went with you on your journey, didn’t they?”
“They did. Do you know if they’re back in Fable?”
Balor shrugged.
“Couldn’t say, lad. Haven’t seen Pendrake in a long time, come to think of it.”
“I have to get to Fable,” Will said. “I think my friends might be in trouble.”
“Well let’s not waste any more time gabbing,” Balor said, then he frowned. “But, the thing is, I don’t recognize this … ground.”
He raised his head and sniffed.
“Nothing here even smells familiar.” He cleared his throat. “The fact is, I’m not … hmm … entirely sure where in the Realm we are.”
“We’re not in the Realm,” Will said.
“What?”
“At least I don’t think so. Not exactly.”
“Well then where in blazes are we?”
Will shook his head.
“I don’t know. But maybe … maybe I can get us out of here.”
He took hold of the mirror shard again, but didn’t look into it. He would worry about the strange things this Balor Gruff had been saying later, once he’d found his friends and made sure they were safe. His thoughts needed to be calm, he needed to be calm, and he wasn’t. Time was passing while he was lost here, and who knew what was happening to Rowen, and Shade…
He closed his eyes, took a slow, deep breath, settled himself. How had it worked for him the last time?
“Is that some kind of compass?” Balor Gruff asked in a hoarse whisper, eyeing the shard. Will shook his head, irritated at the interruption. But the question suddenly made something clear. So clear it was like a voice in his head, telling him what he needed to do.
Get out of your own way.
“No, it’s not a compass,” he said.
The secret wasn’t really in the shard, he realized now. It had worked for him the first time only when he’d stopped trying to make it work. Its power was to make clear what was already inside him, what he already knew. He just had to trust that. He had to get out of his own way.
Will slipped the shard back into his shirt, took a deep breath, and started walking.
“That’s it?” Balor Gruff said, following him. “You know where you’re going?”
Will didn’t answer. He walked on at a steady pace, and the dust seemed to gather more thickly around him as he walked, falling upon his skin and eyelashes, but he didn’t stop. He kept on, with Balor Gruff’s heavy footfalls just behind him.
“By the way,” the man-thing said as they walked, “I’m a wildman.”
“What?”
“You must’ve been wondering about that. Everyone does when they first meet me. I’m a wildman. That’s the generally accepted name for my folk. Though ignorant people sometimes mistake me for a woodwose or an…” He mumbled a word that Will didn’t catch.
“Pardon?”
“I said ogre,” Balor muttered between his teeth.
Will stared.
“I never thought you were—”
“I’m a wildman,” Balor said loudly, as if announcing it to anyone else who might be nearby. “Let’s be clear on that point. I was found by a band of knight-errants when I was a baby, sleeping in a bed of moss in the middle of a forest that’s a known haunt of wildmen, not of ogres. Lost or abandoned, nobody knows, but there I was. Gruff was the only sound I could make back then, so it stuck. The knights brought me to Fable and I was raised by the Errantry and they taught me to read and fight and ride. Wasn’t really keen on the reading, but I took to the fighting and riding like a pig to slops. And I learned the Errantry code, to defend the weak and not set oneself above others. And while ogres are usually near-sighted and hopelessly stupid, I happen to have eagle eyes, an uncanny nose, and a matchless sense of direction. And that’s why I’m the Errantry’s best tracker, so…”
He paused and cleared his throat. It occurred to Will that here was the Errantry’s best tracker, following someone else.
“And so,” Balor finished in a somewhat more subdued voice, “I’m a wildman.”
A few moments later Will slowed down, then stopped and stood still.
“What is it?” Balor whispered.
Will didn’t answer. He had no words for the strange sensation that had just passed through him. It wasn’t anything he could see, or smell, or feel in the air. It was more like a pull on his body, as if he had begun to walk downhill, even though the ground here was perfectly level. He had felt something like it once before. One summer when he was little, Will had visited the seashore with his family. He’d waded out a long way into the water, which came up only to his waist. Then suddenly he felt the sandy bottom drop away beneath his feet. He had come to the edge of the deep. The ocean. Terrified, he’d thrashed his way back to the safety of the shallows.
Now he had come to an edge like that. What lay beyond was deeper somehow than where he had just been walking, though not in a way that could be seen. There was no slope here, no sudden dropping away of the ground beneath his feet. He could simply feel a whole world tugging at him. He was on the edge of the Realm and its vast ocean of stories.
Instead of pulling back in fear, he plunged forward, walking more quickly than before.
“What is it?” Balor whispered again, hurrying to catch up.
“We’re almost there,” Will said.
Balor took a deep sniff of air. He nodded eagerly.
“Yes. I think you’re – we’re on the right track. We found it.”
They walked on more quickly now. The dust began to thin out, until they could see further ahead. There were shapes now … trees, bushes, mossy boulders swam up out of the yellow haze.
“There!” Balor cried.
They hurried forward and suddenly before them, on a hill at the far end of a wide green valley dotted with a patchwork of fields, was the city of Fable.
Will let out his breath. It felt as though he hadn’t since he started walking. He took in the city’s familiar walls of motley-coloured stone, the slender towers, the mysterious gleam of the city’s innumerable blue lamps shining in the dusk like stars. At the height of the city he could just make out the great cloudy plume of trees that surrounded Appleyard, the home of the Errantry, the company of knights whose duty was the defence of the Bourne.
“We’ve done it,” Balor exclaimed. Then he turned to Will and clapped a huge hand on his shoulder. “No, you did it, Will Lightfoot. You have my thanks, and my vow as a knight-errant that if there is ever any way I can be of service to you, I will.”
Will nodded. Rowen had wanted to become a knight of the Errantry, he remembered, like her mother. But after what she had learned about her ancestry and powers, it seemed unlikely she would be given the chance to fulfil that dream. At the thought of Rowen, Will felt a rush of eagerness. She might be here, in Fable, only moments away.
A short time later they were approaching the gates. So much was coming back to Will now, memories that seemed to have almost faded away, as if he’d been gone for years instead of a few weeks. Fable was home to a people known as Wayfarers, descendants of travellers from Will’s world, which people here called the Untold. A few Wayfarers had come to the Perilous Realm on purpose, but most, like Will, had found this world by accident. Of those, some had chosen to stay in the Realm, like Rowen’s father. He had met Rowen’s mother and had never gone back to the Untold. When Rowen was a small child her parents had died in a raid by Nightbane, vicious creatures from the dark side of Story who served Malabron. Rowen had grown up in the care of her grandfather, Nicholas Pendrake, the loremaster.
Balor raised a hand and shouted something th
at Will guessed was a password. A moment later the tall wooden doors braced with iron swung slowly open. Will glimpsed sentries just inside, and more on the parapet above the turreted gatehouse. He was surprised to see the gates guarded like this. When he came to Fable the first time, they were open for travellers and countryfolk to pass in and out, even at night. He knew from something Rowen had hinted at that the gate was watched or protected in some mysterious way, but whatever that protection was, clearly the people of Fable no longer thought it enough.
Two of the sentries approached the wildman with astonished looks on their faces.
“Balor Gruff?” the younger of the two said hesitantly.
“Gared Bamble,” the wildman replied. “What are you gaping at?”
“Nothing,” the sentry stammered. “I mean, you’ve been missing for three days, Balor. Nobody had any idea what had happened to you.”
“Three days,” the wildman echoed. He looked stunned for a moment, then gave Will an uneasy glance.
“Finn Madoc and some of the other knights are out looking for you right now,” the sentry said. “They’ve been searching everywhere.”
Balor glowered at the sentry. “If you’re trying to pull one over on me, Gared Bamble…”
“It’s the truth, Balor, I swear.”
“Well, I’d better report in at Appleyard,” Balor said grimly. “And this young lad is coming with me.”
“Who is he?” the older sentry asked.
“You’ve heard of Will Lightfoot, pathfinder, wolf-friend, vanquisher of Nightbane, haven’t you?”
“We’ve heard of him,” the older sentry said.
“Well here he is, in the flesh.”
The sentries exchanged a doubtful glance.
“I don’t know, Balor…” the younger one said. “We’ll have to get permission from Appleyard first. You know Captain Thorne’s new orders. No strangers allowed past the gate without his approval.”
The Fathomless Fire Page 5