Willow Read online

  She was a princess from the East, a charming and empty-headed child of breathtaking beauty. She rarely finished what she began to say, except with a careless laugh or gesture, as if thought could be found later, if she needed it, as easily as she had found her beauty.

  Madmartigan’s affair with her lasted several months. Airk watched and worried, a conscientious but helpless mentor. Probably it would not have been serious, probably Madmartigan would have survived to have grown into the man everyone expected him to become if, in the middle of the affair, he had not had his Dream. It was a very simple dream, and it came easily to him, unlike those of others whose dream-visions had to be induced by fasting and long exposure on barren slopes.

  In Madmartigan’s Dream, a white stallion appeared out of the forest and told him that he was destined to carry him one day triumphantly—a king! But, said the horse, the vision and the prophecy must be secret, never to be shared with anyone; otherwise, it would not come true. With that, the horse vanished.

  The next day, laughing, Madmartigan told his lady love, from whom he had pledged to keep no secrets.

  Even this, though it would have put an end to the prophecy, would not have brought Madmartigan’s disgrace. That calamity occurred when the love affair ended, when the girl derided him in the presence of other knights, who turned away their faces in embarrassment, and when, in scorning his Dream, she revealed that he had told her of it and so had broken his Oath of Knighthood.

  Then Madmartigan knew hot shame and bitterness thick as bile. Honor gone, what now was left to him? His friendship with Airk remained, to be sure, but tempered now by Airk’s sad disappointment. His parents loved him still, but his shame was theirs, and under the burden of it they grew old before their time. His joy in the wilderness and the chase remained, but oddly lessened, compromised as were all other pleasures by his loss of pride.

  He grew wilder. He grew more reckless. Old comrades in the hunt drew back from riding with him, and although Airk Thaughbaer sallied at his side into many foolish perils (and twice saved his life) he got small thanks from Madmartigan. The young man who had once avoided the companionship of the mead hall became now a frequenter of inns, and many serving-wenches in the realm of Galladoorn and beyond grew to know Madmartigan well. In time he became less welcome at Galladoorn, and at last he was rarely seen there. He became a vagabond, a wanderer. Where he wandered and what adventures he had we shall never know, though they were surely many. Those adventures, those passions, became his life.

  Years later, the dark power of Nockmaar rose in the north and the plea went out from Galladoorn for all knights and warriors to rally to the defense of that kingdom. Airk Thaughbaer answered the call but Madmartigan was not with those who rode toward home.

  In the inns and taverns, Madmartigan drank with brigands; in the halls of Galladoorn, as Nockmaar power grew, there were good knights who wished him dead . . .

  Franjean recounted this tale with much gusto and gesticulation, interrupted often by comments from Rool. Elora Danan had long since fallen asleep in Willow’s arms. Several times the fire had dwindled to embers and had been replenished.

  “But what happened at Land’s End?” Willow asked when Franjean had finished.

  “Land’s End! You heard about that, did you? Ah, a great betrayal, a great desertion! There Airk Thaughbaer led loyal troops against the Nockmaar army, though they were far outnumbered, and there Madmartigan deserted him in battle, after Airk had scoured the realm to find him and return him to honor and the Fold of Knights. A sad desertion! A sad conclusion to this sorry tale! No, Peck, you are well quit of that Daikini. Place your trust in us!”

  “In us!” Rool echoed, slobbering down his chin. Willow looked skeptically at the two of them. Far, far away, so far that it was no threat but only a reminder, a Death Dog howled.

  V I I I

  FIN RAZIEL

  At dawn, Franjean led them down into a long, wooded valley. For a while both brownies marched along briskly, but when the calls and growls of large, waking creatures began to echo in the woods they scrambled up into Willow’s pockets. “Straight ahead!” Franjean ordered, ducking down inside. “Just follow the path.”

  And so Willow struggled on with Elora on his back and his pockets full of brownies, bending lower and lower under this load until at last he was looking almost straight down at the path.

  He saw the feet first, in soft leather boots.

  Then he saw the mauve skirt.

  And then, staggering back, the rest of the body. “Madmartigan!” He sat down abruptly.

  “Hullo, Peck.” Madmartigan was leaning against a fallen tree. A sword-sized stick swung gently in his left hand.

  “I thought you’d be far away! What are you doing here?”

  “Resting. You caught up with me.”

  “Thank goodness!” Willow wriggled out of the papoose-basket. The brownies climbed out of his pockets and flopped into the moss beside him, wiping their brows.

  “Hard work!” Franjean said. “Supervision! Directing! All that responsibility!”

  “Madmartigan,” Willow sighed, “we need you.”

  “Oh? I thought I drove wagons too fast. I thought I didn’t know how to look after children.”

  Elora looked up out of her basket and raised her arms to Madmartigan. Smiling, he laid down the stick and picked her up.

  Willow nodded. “Well, we still need you. She needs you. I can’t protect her, Madmartigan. Not the way you can.”

  Madmartigan shrugged. “The little one’s all right, and you’re not a bad Peck, but I don’t like them!” He pointed to Franjean and Rool. “Brownies! Aargh! You heard what they said to me. In fact, you all insulted me, except the little one.”

  Willow got to his feet. “Look,” he said. “We’re sorry. Aren’t we sorry?”

  Franjean and Rool nodded.

  “And if you come with us we promise not to insult you anymore. We promise not to pester you.”

  “Hey!” Franjean exclaimed. “Don’t go too far!”

  Madmartigan rubbed his mouth with one hand and the top of Elora’s head with the other. “Some crew! One Peck, one infant, and two gnomes! If we meet up with more Nockmaar troops, it’s pretty clear who’ll do the fighting, right?”

  “Right!” Rool said.

  “That’s the point!” Franjean said.

  Madmartigan sighed. “Well, we’re almost at the end of the valley. Which way are you headed after that?”

  Rool and Franjean spun into a weird little dance. Rod’s knobby arms suddenly extended stiffly in front of him with the palms pressed together, like a weathervane. Franjean clasped his waist from behind and whirled him around this way and that, until finally they zeroed in on the northwest. “That way!” Franjean exclaimed. “To the Lake of Fin Raziel.”

  Madmartigan slapped his knee. “Bad luck! Exactly the way I’m going. Well, I suppose you can come with me as far as the lake, but no farther. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Willow said.

  The brownies nodded. “Do you mind if we . . .” Franjean pointed at the higher, safer pockets.

  “Yes! I do mind!” Madmartigan tucked Elora Danan back into her basket and picked up his stick. “I’ll have enough to do without being cluttered with brownies! If you want a free ride, ask the Peck.”

  Willow nodded wearily and opened his pockets, and they hopped in.

  After the end of the valley they climbed back to higher ground, angling northwest and keeping to the deepest woods. Twice they saw Nockmaar horsemen searching below, and once four Death Dogs at full run, hot on the scent of some unfortunate traveler whose path had crossed their own.

  At evening they made camp in a secluded thicket. The brownies found tubers, gathered eggs and berries. Once again a nursing animal came close to provide Elora succor—this time a little vixen. She padded into the clearing, watched them with bright eyes while the baby nursed, and then slipped away as silently as she had come. There was no baying of Death Dogs, no distant clatte
r of Nockmaar harness that night. They built a little fire. Huddling close to it, Franjean and Rool quickly fell asleep, rear ends high in the odd position of sleeping brownies, and soon Madmartigan drifted off as well, cradling the sleeping infant in one arm.

  Left alone, Willow drew closer to the fire, listening to the night sounds of the deep woods. He touched the magic wand in his pocket and felt a sudden surge of confidence. Emboldened by it, he drew the wand out. It gleamed with unearthly radiance, outshining the fire. He waved it, and the figure he inscribed hung in the air, a separate entity, until it crumbled to sparkling powder, glinting like fairy dust. Smiling, he wrote WILLOW UFGOOD in bold letters and admired the name until it too dispersed into gleaming dust. He wrote KIAYA, and RANON, and MIMS. MIMS hung in the air longer than any of the others, and it disintegrated in a curious fashion, growing larger and larger until it was no longer legible.

  Willow was delighted. Trust yourself! Isn’t that what the High Aldwin had told him? You have the ability to be a great sorcerer. Well, perhaps he did have that ability! Perhaps he really would become a sorcerer!

  He stood up.

  Gripping the wand in both hands, he braced himself, pointed it at a flowering apple tree, and repeated a chant he had heard the High Aldwin use to produce sudden, luscious fruit. “Tuatha . . . lawkathok . . . tuatha . . . !”

  An explosion lifted him off his feet, somersaulted him, and draped him over the tree’s lowest branch. He blinked. He shook his head.

  Madmartigan was on his feet in a flash, stick-sword in hand. “Willow?” He looked at the wand glimmering beside the fire. He peered into the darkness. “Ah, there you are! Made a mistake, huh?” He lifted the dazed Nelwyn down out of the tree and set him back beside the fire. “Please, no more magic games now. Gets too noisy.”

  That night Willow dreamed horrific dreams in which he was chased by Death Dogs, trolls, and ravenous monsters. They all caught him. Several times Madmartigan wakened him, saying he was shouting and screaming. In the morning he felt exhausted, confused, and grumpy. Right away he picked a quarrel with Madmartigan, who was feeding Elora a tuber the brownies had found.

  “That’s blackroot!” Willow shouted.

  “Of course.”

  “You should never feed a child blackroot!”

  “Nonsense. Mother always fed me blackroot. Puts hair on your chest, right, Sticks?” He shook the child and she gurgled happily.

  “Her name isn’t Sticks! It’s Elora Danan. She’s an empress, and the last thing she’ll need, Madmartigan, is hair on her chest. Give me that!” Scrambling over, Willow seized the root and hurled it into the underbrush. “Now let’s get going. The lake can’t be too far ahead. I hear the waterfall.”

  The two brownies stared at him in astonishment.

  “Well,” Willow said. “Can’t you hear it? There. When the wind blows.”

  He was right. Two hours later they came to a cliff top and gazed down on the lake below. It was a spectacular sight. It wound like a long silver ribbon through the hills, narrowing gradually until it funneled into the cascade at the south end. Here it plunged out and down, falling in a thin plume wrapped in clouds of spray. Mist from this cataract drifted back over the lake and the small island that lay like a child in its two long arms, still far below the rays of the rising sun. Mist covered the marshes and the wooded shores, and the long beach on the eastern shore, parting only long enough for the travellers to glimpse a hodgepodge of small thatched rooftops.

  “Fishing village,” Madmartigan grunted.

  “We can get a boat there,” Franjean said, hopping out of Willow’s pocket. “I’ll lead the way!”

  “Franjean,” Willow asked, his brow creased with worry, “are you sure Fin Raziel’s there?”

  “Certainly. You heard the legend! Cherlindrea told you.”

  “But . . . but it was a long, long time ago. She may have died.”

  “Died? Impossible! What a stupid Peck you are! Of course she isn’t dead. Sorceresses never just die!”

  “Never!” Rool said, looking at Willow as if he were an idiot.

  “But what if . . .”

  Franjean waved his arms. “No more! No more! I haven’t got time to answer a lot of stupid questions. Hurry up! You’ll see for yourself when we get there.”

  They emerged into the misty dunes of a broad beach, crossed to the water’s edge, and followed the shore toward the village they had glimpsed from above.

  It was very quiet. Uneasy, Willow held Elora close, trying to peer through the dazzling clouds of mist. At home on Ufgood Reach, morning was the noisiest time of the day. Fish jumped, dogs barked, cattle moaned to be milked and fed, and myriad birds greeted the dawn from high perches. But here there was no sound, except the distant rumble of the falls. No children shouted from the beach in front of the village. No oars creaked in the mist. No animals announced their presence.

  It was too quiet. It was eerie.

  Madmartigan stopped them when the first houses appeared. “Wait here,” he said softly. “I’ll be back.” He had tied the skirt into a loincloth. Naked except for this and his boots, he moved across the beach and vanished into the mist like a hunting animal, soundlessly, crouched low. They didn’t wait long. In a few minutes he was back, loping along the water’s edge. “Deserted,” he reported. “Every last house. A long time ago. Plates on the tables, weapons on the walls. See?” He displayed a stiff leather buckler and a rusty sword—no warrior’s weapon, but the sort of implement a farmer or a fisherman might keep. “There are some boats that might still float. Come on, we’ll have a look.” He led them into the center of the village.

  Here fishermen once landed with their catch. Here the boats were hauled up, the trout cleaned, the nets strung on drying-posts in the breeze. Once the place had been filled with life; now, it was strangely still. The drying-posts vanished like a line of sentinels into the mist.

  “Let’s try this one,” Madmartigan grunted. He kicked the side of what appeared to be a sound little boat. Unlike most of the others, which had been abandoned to the weather and had rotted, this one lay overturned on logs. Madmartigan flipped it right side up. Oars clattered inside. He skidded it down to the lake and launched it. Some water seeped in through the dried-out seams, but it floated. “In you go, Peck. Best of luck to you and the little one. As for these wretched brownies . . .”

  “Glad to be rid of you,” Franjean grumbled.

  “You eat too much,” Rool said, scrambling into the prow of the boat. “And you make too much noise!”

  Willow stood in the sand, dismayed. “But you’re not coming with us?”

  Madmartigan laughed and shook his head. “No, little Peck. You’re safely here, and this Fin Raziel, this sorceress, will look after you.” He peered into the mist, where the first sun was touching the tree-tops on Fin Raziel’s island, and he shook his head again. “Sorcerers, enchantresses, magic wands . . . No, my friend, I’m a warrior, and what should a warrior do with all of that? You deal with Bavmorda in your way, and I’ll deal with her in mine.” He patted the sword. “Hop in, now, and I’ll push you off.” He touched the child’s head as Willow climbed over the gunwale, and then he sent the boat gliding out onto the mirror surface of the lake. He stood a moment with his fists on his hips. Then waving farewell, he strode up among the huts. Soon he was lost in the mist.

  “I’m going to miss him,” Franjean said.

  “Me too,” Rool said.

  “Teasing a Peck just isn’t the same as insuiting a Daikini!”

  Willow unslung the papoose-basket and settled Elora safely on his lap. As the boat drifted farther out he fitted the oars into their locks. The lake was still quite shallow, and both brownies, Rool in the stern and Franjean in the bow, were gazing down through the limpid water at strange markings on the bottom. So preoccupied were they, and so busy was Willow struggling with the oversized oars, that none of them noticed a young boy appear suddenly out of the lake.

  “What are you doing?” the boy asked.


  Both brownies vanished in a flash, under the seats. Willow dropped the oars and reached for Elora. The boy was smiling radiantly. He was fair, and tanned, and blue-eyed. He stood waist-deep in the lake, his palms brushing its surface.

  “We’re just borrowing this boat,” Willow said. “To row out to the island. We’ll return it. There was no one home. We thought . . .”

  “That island’s cursed, didn’t you know?” The boy kept smiling, blue eyes fixed on Willow. He brushed little ripples toward them.

  “Cursed?” Franjean’s head appeared above the gunwale. “The legend says nothing about a curse.”

  The boy laughed innocently. “Oh yes. All this lake is cursed. Queen Bavmorda’s powers control the elements here. Venture on it at your peril!”

  “Fin Raziel . . .” Willow began, but the boy was gone. Only a little whirlpool remained where he had been, sucking the ripples back into its vortex.

  They stared at this whirlpool. They stared at the island. Except for the very tops of its trees it was still dark and misty, although the rest of the lake was bathed in sun.

  “Odd,” Franjean said. “Odd boy.”

  “I don’t think Elora should go out there,” Willow said.

  “I don’t think we should go out there,” said Rool. “Aha! Idea!” Franjean held up a finger. “Of course you should go, Peck.”

  “Of course,” Rool agreed.

  “That’s your mission, after all, to deliver Cherlindrea’s wand to Fin Raziel. But you’re right about the child. Crossing the lake might be, uh, rough.”

  “Winds,” Rool said, nodding.

  “Waves. So leave her with Rool and me. Back there. On shore. In one of those huts.”

  “You’ll guard her?”

  “With our lives! Right, Rool?”