The Ancient One (20 page)

Kate, recalling the chase through the muddy streets of Blade, nodded.

“It was given other powers as well,” she continued, “many of them long forgotten. It is named the Stick of Fire, and it is said that it will burst into flames when so commanded by its rightful owner. That is not a command to be used lightly, however, for it will destroy the stick and all its powers. Carved on its handle is the likeness of the great-great-grandfather of my husband, the Chieftain Solosing de Notnot. It was he who caused the Stick of Fire to be made and these words to be carved into its shaft:

Fire of greed shall destroy;
Fire of love shall create.

The Stick of Fire possesses other powers, too, but the most important of these by far is the ability to travel through time.”

“Yes,” said Kate impulsively. “But tell me, how do I make it take me back?”

The yellow eyes of the Chieftess regarded her thoughtfully, with a hint of sadness brewing behind them. “Patience, Kaitlyn, patience. The powers of the stick you carry are more subtle than you think. For in the world that now exists, the Stick of Fire possesses a will of its own, uncontrollable by any creature. Its decisions about who to take through time and when are its own, and there is no predicting what it might do next.”

Kate felt suddenly weak in her knees. “You, you mean there’s no way to make it take me home?”

“I did not say that,” answered the gentle-voiced Tinnani. “There is one possible way to control the power of the Stick of Fire, and only one. That is to do the single deed that would give you even greater power than the stick itself.”

“What’s that?”

The white wings stirred softly. “Healing the Broken Touchstone.”

A muffled chorus of hooting sounds filled the chamber as the Tinnanis whispered among themselves. Again Kate addressed the Chieftess: “What does that mean? Healing the—whatever. Tell me.”

“I shall,” she replied. “For if you can heal the Broken Touchstone, the Stick of Fire will bend to your will.”

The Chieftess paused, closing her round eyes for a long moment. She rotated her round head from side to side, snapping her jaws rhythmically as she did so. Then slowly her eyes reopened, and she began: “The Great One, creator of all that exists, made in the earliest days of this world a single object that would harbor all the glorious powers of creation. It was a single sphere, of purest red obsidian, light as a bubble and powerful as a galaxy of stars. The Great One called it by a simple name: the Touchstone. It was entrusted to the Tinnanis for their safekeeping, and it was installed upon the throne of their Chieftain.”

Kate’s vision roamed to the empty cup on top of the throne. She noticed that the Chieftain, still sucking on this peppermint, was also gazing at the spot, a look of longing in his eyes.

“For some time beyond measure,” continued the Chieftess with a slight ruffling of her wings, “the Touchstone rested safely on the throne deep within the walls of Ho Shantero. In exchanged for their protection, the Touchstone gave the Tinnanis wonderful powers, and the most important of these was the power to connect living beings of all kinds to one another. So the Tinnanis became friends and stewards to all. They forged connections so that one group’s desire did not mean another group’s destruction. And because of this, their forest world thrived.”

Here she topped momentarily, squeezing the scepter with her sharp talons. “Then, in the reign of Solosing de Notnot, everything changed. The Wicked One, whose strength had been rising unnoticed for a long time, craved secretly to own the Touchstone, to turn its great power to his own ends. He dared even to enter Ho Shantero itself with the aid of his warriors, mounting a fierce attack. The Tinnanis, peace-loving and trusting, had underestimated his lust for power, and were caught completely unprepared. Still they managed to beat him back, to win the Great Battle in the end, but only through tapping the Touchstone’s own power—and only at enormous cost. Many brave lives were lost in that battle, and one thing more: The Touchstone cracked during the course of the fighting. A fragment of the sphere fell out, and its power decreased dramatically.

“After the battle, the Chieftain Solosing de Notnot decreed that the Broken Touchstone should not be healed, unless at some time in the future its full power was required to nurture the forest lands below—or to save the Tinnanis from total destruction.” She lifted her white wings and sighed deeply. “We have reached such a time today. But now, at our moment of greatest need, both pieces of the Touchstone are lost to us.”

“Lost?”

“Yes,” replied the Chieftess. “As I said, Solosing de Notnot believed it was better for the Tinnanis to live without the Touchstone’s full power than to risk its falling into the hands of the Wicked One again. So the sphere was not repaired. The Chieftain replaced the Broken Touchstone on his throne, and he hid the Fragment away in the most distant and difficult place he could find. So much time has now passed that its whereabouts are utterly lost from memory, known only to the spirit of Solosing de Notnot himself. The Wicked One he banished underground forever for his treachery, plus all of his servants with only one exception. To the Slimnis the Chieftain gave a second chance, both because they are the Tinnanis’ brothers and because he believed they would never allow themselves to be manipulated again by the Wicked One.”

“He was wrong,” muttered the Chieftain, bobbing his head angrily. He bit down hard on the remnant of the peppermint.

“Yes,” agreed the Tinnani at his side, her eyes increasingly sad. “For a time, the forest thrived again. Living things flourished everywhere and the blue lake cooled to a comfortable temperature. Even with only the partial power of the Broken Touchstone, the world lived in harmony and peace. Then, inexorably, the power of the Wicked One rose once again. He won over the Slimnis, who helped him find further recruits, above the ground. One of them, a man called Sanbu, is the most dangerous of all, for he is both very strong and very clever.”

Kate glanced at Laioni. “Is he the same one you told me about?”

The Halami girl grimaced, then said, “The same.”

“Gradually the Wicked One developed enough strength to reach into others’ minds, even within the very walls of Ho Shantero. One of those minds, sadly, was the Counsellor to the Chieftain, a man named Zinzin. Harshnaga Zinzin.”

As she mentioned that name, several Tinnanis screeched angrily in the background. Some scraped their talons against the stone floor. Kate looked at Jody, who stood paralyzed with fear. He clearly believed they were preparing to devour him,

“Zinzin,” the Chieftess went on, “heard the whisperings of the Wicked One but lacked the strength to banish him from his mind. The Wicked One promised him wealth beyond measure and power beyond his dreams. One day not long ago came the moment of truth: The Wicked One commanded him to deliver the Broken Touchstone as a gesture of loyalty. He obeyed, and during a holiday feast when no one was watching, he stole the Broken Touchstone and escaped from Ho Shantero. With the help of Sanbu, the traitor delivered it to the Wicked One in his mountain lair. But Sanbu then killed him, perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps thinking his master would reward him for his show of strength. So in the end Zinzin’s treachery got him nothing more precious than an early death.

“Since the theft of the Broken Touchstone, our forest has fared poorly. The power of the Wicked One has swollen, and he has tempted many new creatures to join his cause. Sanbu now commands a small but growing band of warriors. Like the Wicked One himself, they see the other beings of the forest not as friends but as adversaries. They use whatever they like with no thought of the future, burning great trees to make bonfires, catching more fish than they can eat and wasting the rest, hunting any animals that get in their way or killing them just for pleasure, fouling the streams with their excrement. The Wicked One has grown so confident that he has climbed steadily upward, almost to the surface, sending fire to the forest below and heat to the waters of our own lake.

The Chieftess raised her wings and gestured toward the assembled Tinnanis. “At the same time, our own power has diminished. No longer can we nurture and strengthen the life of the forest as we have for so long. Without the Touchstone, even our ability to keep the island of Ho Shantero afloat will come to an end, forcing us to abandon our ancestral home before it sinks and is lost forever.”

“The island is still floating in my time, five hundred years from now,” said Kate hopefully.

The Chieftess remained somber. “Even after we have been forced to leave, the island will stay afloat for a while solely through the lingering enchantment of the Touchstone. So your glimpse of the future tells me nothing about its fate, or ours.”

Turning her soulful eyes toward the Chieftain, she concluded her tale with these words: “And amidst all this suffering that we have borne, there is one wound greater than all the rest.”

With a wave of her wing she indicated a bench of black stone near the vacant throne. A torch flamed above, illuminating the bench, but Kate could see nothing resting there. Then, by looking slightly askance, she discovered a faint, frail glow of white light upon its seat. The light seemed to pulse, quivering with every breath of some unseen being.

“There,” said the Chieftess, “lies our daughter, our only child. Not so many years ago, I held her as a newborn in the curl of my wing, singing her the songs that hold all the history of the Tinnanis. Then, before long, she, too, was singing, in a voice of such beauty that none who heard her could ever forget it. That is why we named her Fanona, which in the Old Tongue means Song That Never Dies.” She lowered her voice. “It is a bitter irony now.”

“It is indeed,” agreed the Chieftain, who reached out a hand to clasp that of his wife.

A heavy silence filled the chamber, and for a long moment the Chieftess did not move except to blink her yellow eyes several times. Finally, she continued: “When our little Fanona was born, it was prophesied that in some mysterious way her life would be bound up with the Broken Touchstone. We took that to mean that somehow, during her reign far in the future, the missing Fragment would be found and the Touchstone healed at last. We imagined her armed with the Touchstone’s full power, power she could use both to nurture the forest and to protect our people against the Wicked One. Yet when the sphere vanished from this hall, she grew weaker and frailer by the day, until she has now not even the strength to show her feathers. Now we see that the prophecy may have had another meaning, that she may never rule at all from her throne of clear crystal. For unless the Broken Touchstone is returned soon, she surely will die.”

She blinked again, then slowly spun her head back toward Kate. “There is one more prophecy you should know, though I cannot tell what it might mean for you. It concerns the lost Fragment:

Fragment, object of desire,
Shall be found anew.
One who bears the Stick of Fire
Holds the power true.

Those are the words of the prophecy, as translated from the Old Tongue, but hear me well: It could have two quite different meanings. Some believe it means that the Stick of Fire has the power to find the Fragment. The Wicked One, as he showed by sending his agents to attack you, believes that is the true interpretation. He craves nothing more than the Fragment, for then he could heal the Broken Touchstone and all things would bend to his desires.”

“What is the other meaning?”

“That not the stick itself, but the one who bears it, holds the power to find the Fragment. So someone from another time, someone who traveled here through the power of the stick, might be the one to find it.”

“Now I understand why you brought him here,” said Kate with a nod toward Jody. “You thought maybe he was the person from another time.”

“Proof of our desperation,” lamented the Chieftain. “Only the prospect of saving both our forest world and our daughter made it worth the effort to bring him to Ho Shantero. We tried to fix his broken arm, but he has deeper injuries beyond our power to repair.”

Jody, mustering his courage, stepped forward again. Facing the Chieftain, he declared, “You’ve got no right to keep me prisoner this way. Even if I did shoot that owl.” He turned to Kate. “This has to be a dream, a terrible bad dream. But if it’s not, if it’s really happening to me, what do I have to do to get out of here?”

“The same thing I have to do,” she snapped. “You see this stick? It can take us back to our own time. But only if we can find the Fragment.”

“The what?” he asked.

“And also the Broken Touchstone,” added Laioni. “You’ll need both pieces to heal it.”

Kate winced. “That means going—”

“To the lair of the Wicked One,” completed the Chieftess, shaking her broad wings. “No task could be more difficult.” She glanced at the fragile glow hovering above the bench of stone. “Or more important.”

Jody stepped closer to Kate, watching the owl-headed stick warily. “Let me get this right. You’re saying that’s some kind of magic stick?”

“You could call it that.”

“But it won’t take us home unless we can find something else?”

Kate nodded. “Two things.”

Jody scratched his tangled head of hair. “And finding them means leaving this owls’ nest.”

“Yes, but it’s going to be dangerous.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I mean really dangerous,” repeated Kate. “You should stay here and wait.”

“You just wanna get rid of me! Well, it’s not that easy. Where that stick goes, I go.” He looked spitefully at the Chieftain. “I won’t miss this place one bit.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” said the Chieftain, although to Jody it sounded like nothing more than the hoot of an angry owl.

“What about you?” Kate asked Laioni. “Shouldn’t you go back to your people? The chances, they’re so slim.”

The dark eyes flashed. “What are my chances if I go back? My people are doomed unless the Broken Touchstone is taken back. The Wicked One is destroying our lives, our forest, our home. Unless he is stopped, we will all end up like Toru.” She clenched her fists. “If you go to the Wicked One’s mountain, then I go too. I am She Who Follows the Owl.”