The Great Tree of Avalon (16 page)

On and on Tamwyn ran. He leaped across several dry gullies that had once been streams. He loped past a circle of still-sleeping daffodil fairies, whose golden wings he glimpsed through a hole in the trunk of a beech tree. And once, in midstride, he swerved to avoid a huge, triangular stone that he recognized. A few years before, hidden by a bramble bush, he had watched a band of black-bearded dwarves move that stone to open a secret passage to their underground home.

As he ran, he couldn’t help but notice that the farther north he went, the dryer the landscape grew. This drought had been going on for months now, since early summer. And it was only getting worse, especially here in the hills of upper Stoneroot.

But that didn’t make sense! He’d seen dry spells before, but always in the southern parts of the realm. Up here, in the foothills of the high peaks, rivers ran full all summer long. In addition to melting snow, they carried water all the way from High Brynchilla, part of Waterroot—through deep underground channels. At least that’s what he’d been told by a bard he’d once met, who had studied at the Eopia College of Mapmakers. The bard had even said that some of that water might actually come from the legendary White Geyser of Crystillia.

He ran across a bed of moss, so brittle that it crackled under his bare feet.
What’s going on here? And could it be related somehow to that star going out?

Whatever was going on, this much was certain: Water was scarce. More scarce than he’d ever seen in his years of wandering through the wilds of this realm. Why, even the lakes at Footsteps of the Giants were almost dry. He hated seeing such drought, hated hearing the snap of dry grass and dead leaves underfoot. As thirsty as he was, and had been for weeks, he knew that he was still faring better than the land itself. For he, at least, could run freely, seek out water, and move on. The land, and the trees that were rooted there, didn’t have that choice.

Tamwyn slowed his running pace to look at an old rowan tree whose berries should have been bright red at this time of year, but were a faded pink instead. Even the stones like keljade and mica, which changed to bright gold in the autumn, were just dingy yellow. These lands weren’t just dryer, but they were also grayer. Blander, as if their colors were being slowly sapped right out of them.

Through a once-green valley, now brown and brittle, and past a string of dried-up ponds, he followed the tracks. The footprints, running right through the middle of a muddy stretch between what was left of the ponds, couldn’t have been more obvious. It was almost as if this hoolah wanted to get caught.

But Tamwyn knew better. This hoolah—like every other hoolah—just didn’t care.

Foolish beasts! No matter what their age, their sex, or the color of their circular eyebrows, hoolahs all shared one quality. They treated life as nothing more than a game, a chance to make mischief—as much mischief as possible.

Truth? Honor? Purpose? Those ideas held no meaning for hoolahs. They just loved to spit in the face of danger, which was why they were so often in trouble. Who cared, if they lived to laugh about it afterward? And they really couldn’t understand why other people, especially humans, got so worked up about little things like droughts, plagues, and wars. To hoolahs, these just added to the fun.

All of which made them probably the least loved creatures in the whole of Avalon. Right down there with gnomes, ogres, and trolls. A wandering hoolah had about as many friends as a double-jawed dragon with a toothache.

Tamwyn loped along, climbing through steep-sided hills ribbed with high cliffs. Even as he passed through a tall grove of balloonberry trees, his fists clenched.
Pretty soon there’ll be one hoolah who won’t cause any more trouble.

Suddenly he stopped. The hoolah’s tracks had disappeared!

He bent down, examining the last footprint. Set in the dry soil between the tree roots, it seemed perfectly normal. All the toes, all the edges, were clear. No sign of a scuffle. Then he noticed a slight depression, deeper than usual, just behind the toes. As if the hoolah had jumped on that final step.

Jumped. But where? He turned his face upward to scan the boughs of the trees.

Splaaat!

A balloonberry, very large and very juicy, exploded right on his forehead. The force of the berry—the size of a man’s fist—knocked him over onto his back. Juice, a lighter shade than usual but still quite purple, oozed into his eyes and hair, sticking like sap. He opened his mouth to shout when—

Splaaat.
Right into his mouth!

Splaaat. Splaaat.
Balloonberries splattered on his chest and thigh.

“Hungry now, clumsy man?” called a voice from the branches. “Missed your supper, did you? Eehee, eehee, hoohooya-ha-ha! Here. Have some more berries!”

Whizzz, splaaat.

Just in time, Tamwyn rolled to the side. The berry smacked into a tree trunk, spraying purple juice everywhere.

“You, you . . .
blaaaghh!
” Tamwyn spat out the berry skin that was sticking to his tongue. “You pail of spit! You underaged, undersized, underbrained worm!”

He leaped up, caught the lowest branch of the hoolah’s tree, and started to climb. Just as he reached for the next branch, he ducked to avoid another whizzing berry. Despite all the purple goo on his hands, tunic, and leggings that made him stick to the bark of the tree, he moved up rapidly. Years of living in the wilderness had made him a skilled tree-climber.

But the hoolah was just as skilled. His large hands gave him strong holds, while his long arms gave him extra reach. For every branch Tamwyn scaled, the hoolah did the same.

“Better be careful, clumsy man! Eehee, eehee oohoohooha. Might fall and break yourself like that bale of thatch!”

Tamwyn peered upward, forced to squint because of the berry juice that had clotted over one eye. “I’ll break
you
, you bag of dung! Just wait!”

“Hoohooheehee,” laughed the hoolah over his shoulder. “Smells to me like you’re the one who’s full of dung.”

Up, up, they raced, until Tamwyn saw the hoolah reach the tree’s uppermost limb. He slowed down, knowing that now the hoolah was trapped. Finally, his moment of revenge had come.

But the hoolah merely glanced down at him and cracked a wide smile. “Bye-bye, clumsy man!”

To Tamwyn’s amazement, the hoolah stepped out onto the limb, steadied himself, then started to walk away from the trunk. The branch sagged dangerously under his weight, but he didn’t seem to care. Chuckling to himself, the hoolah stuffed his slingshot securely into his belt, bounced hard on the branch—then leaped right into the air.

“Yeeheeeee!” cried the flying hoolah. He sailed across the grove, then flung out his arms and grabbed onto the branch of another tree. Pulling himself up onto the new branch, he looked back at Tamwyn. “Guess you’ll have to try harder, clumsy man! Hoohoohahahahaha, eehee, hoho.”

Tamwyn’s eyes blazed with fury. Without even checking the strength of his branch, he jumped straight up, came down hard, then felt the branch spring upward beneath him. At the highest point, he pushed off with all the strength of his legs.

“Aaaooaahhh!” Tamwyn soared into the air, right at his tormentor in the other tree.

Caught by surprise, the hoolah froze. He saw only Tamwyn’s wrathful face bearing down on him—and fast.

Then suddenly the hoolah’s silver eyes brightened. Tamwyn’s greater weight was carrying him down to a lower branch! The hoolah grinned again, knowing he’d escaped.

Just as Tamwyn reached the tree, though, he did something else the hoolah hadn’t expected. He stretched up a hand, catching the beast by the ankle. As Tamwyn smashed into limbs laden with balloonberries, he dragged the shrieking hoolah right along with him.

Pounding downward through the branches, cracking wood and exploding berries, the pair tumbled. Leaves, bark, broken twigs, purple juice, and the nest of an unfortunate bird all fell with them. More like a whirling purple tornado than a pair of bodies, they smashed through the bottom branches, hit the ground, rolled down a steep slope, and hurtled over a stone ledge.

12
•
Song of the Voyager

Stop over there!” commanded Llynia, pointing to a slab of flatrock under a cliff. The sheer stone face, rising high above them, looked more dull gray than its usual autumn golden brown. “We’ll rest a few minutes—no more, we don’t have time. Though my feet could use about a week.”

She turned around only long enough to frown at Fairlyn. The tree spirit’s slender arms held the reins of two pack horses, loaded down with cooking gear, dried food, and enough flasks of water to last several days. Not to mention Llynia’s bundles of spare clothing, personal effects, and her old, leather-bound volume of
Cyclo Avalon
that contained some handwritten notes in the margins by Lleu of the One Ear himself.

“And don’t forget, Fairlyn, to tie up the horses! Can’t have them wandering off with all our supplies just because you were careless. The way you were yesterday at the Baths.”

Fairlyn’s eyes narrowed, and her scent changed to something like burning hair. But she said nothing, and led the horses over to a young rowan tree at the base of the cliff. A few steps behind came Elli, with Nuic’s misty shape on her left shoulder.

Llynia reached the slab of flatrock and sat down with a loud groan. She pulled off her leather shoes, then started rubbing her feet, scowling all the while.

“Out of my sight, you useless wastrel,” she barked at Elli. “I should make you carry all the horses’ loads, for your impertinence. You’re nothing but a millstone around my neck.”

Elli’s hazel green eyes narrowed. But before she could speak, Nuic gave her some advice.

“Don’t mind her,” he counseled. “She’s just feeling a bit
off-color
today.”

Llynia lifted her face, her anger darkening the green tones of her skin. “If that’s more of your sassiness, Nuic.. .”

“No, no, not at all.” The pinnacle sprite turned himself a sympathetic shade of green. “Just concern for your welfare.”

Llynia studied him, scratching her chin—where a triangular patch of green had deepened, looking much like a beard. “If that’s the case, then, why don’t you and that useless apprentice third class go find me some more of that herb—the one for restoring skin color. I’ve eaten what you gave me this morning.”

“With pleasure.” Nuic bowed slightly, then whispered to Elli from the side of his mouth, “Especially since dissimint doesn’t really
restore
skin color so much as rearrange it.”

Elli’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t mean . . . ?”

Her maryth gave a soft, splashy chuckle. “Right. It pulls the new pigments to the darkest place. Which means that while most of her face is getting less green, just as old Nuic promised, her little beard is getting darker. Much darker.”

Elli, who was helping Fairlyn tie the horses to the rowan tree, bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “I think her mood is getting darker, too.”

Fairlyn, who had overheard this last remark, waved one of her long arms, studded with purple buds, in front of Elli’s face. But as stern as she appeared to be, rising to the defense of her human charge, her scent had changed to popping corn—an amused smell if ever there was one.

As Elli bent low so that Nuic could slide off easily, the old sprite met her gaze. “Don’t waste your time coming with me,” he told her. “You don’t know dissimint from dysentery! Besides, I saw some by those bramble bushes over there.”

“But . . .” she protested.

He dismissed her with a wave of a misty hand. “Go find something else to do, Elliryanna.”

She couldn’t help but smile. Partly at his unending gruffness, and partly at his use of her full name. His way of saying it always sounded like the splatter of a mountain stream.

But what to do? Glancing at Llynia, who was massaging her feet in the shadow of the cliff, she walked over to the far side of flatrock slab and sat down. Her harp bumped the rock, sounding some discordant notes.

That’s it. I’ll play something.
Elli cradled the rough-hewn harp in her lap, feeling as always the subtle shaping of the maple wood by her father’s hands. With all that had happened in the last few days—even before this long day of walking behind Llynia—she hadn’t plucked a single note.

She tapped the knotty base of the harp. Less than a month ago, she’d walked through the great oaken gates of the Drumadian compound, having come all the way from Malóch. She’d arrived just as the Buckle Bell was chiming, thinking she could stay at the compound forever, and here she was now, already off on an expedition. And with precious little idea where she was going—or whether she’d ever return. By the elbows of the Elders, this wasn’t what she’d expected!

But I never expected to meet Nuic, either. Or High Priestess Coerria.
She gave the hawthorn pegs a twist, plucking each string in turn. Then, when the harp sounded in tune, she stole a quick look at Llynia, who was still grumbling at her sore feet.
Or her.

As she slid her finger down a kelp string, she thought about Papa: how he had loved to play songs of his own making; and how the memory of his hands on this harp had given her strength to survive the touch of those grimy, three-fingered hands that held her captive for so long.

She looked up into the boughs of the rowan tree under the cliff, whose leaves had started to whisper in the wandering breeze. And she began to pluck the strings, so softly that their notes seemed sung by the breeze itself. In time, she put words to the notes, words from one of her father’s favorite songs.

“Song of the Voyager,” he had called it. And although she’d heard it many times before, today it held new meaning:

Over the fathomless seas have I flown,
Searching for what I have missed:
Land of my longing, sought yet unknown,
Alluring so none can resist.
Avalon . . . does it exist?
Avalon . . . does it exist?

Dark now the air, and also my heart;
Low does my candle wick burn.
Seeking the Mystery—whole, not in part—
World of most sacred concern.
Frail though my hope, how I yearn.
Frail though my hope, how I yearn.