The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) (26 page)

III

North of the master bedroom was a small chamber with windows looking east. One wall was made of sliding panels, which, when folded back, allowed Wendy and Raven to sit at the small table there and still see the grandfather’s bed and hear his faint, untroubled snore.

In the middle of the table was set Wendy’s miniature lamp, shining with strange argent rays. The silvery radiance played over their faces and hands,
leaving the rest of the room in shadow, making hair and clothing seem dark and distant. Raven, to ward off the chill, had appropriated the doctor’s Inverness cape, and buttoned it to his throat. (Wendy thought the outfit made him look splendid, matching his dark hair and beard, and bringing out the gray color in his eyes.) Raven’s shadow on the wall behind was huge and dark; Wendy’s shadow, slenderer, was never still, but danced from wall to roof. The bas-relief carven on the panels behind her appeared and disappeared as her shadow came and went: a one-armed man tying up a wolf with a strand of gossamer; a blindfolded archer shooting an arrow made of mistletoe into the sun.

“Guess what!” Wendy leaned forward, eyes bright with delight. “Guess who I met!”

“No, my little bird, I tell you first. I know where magic talismans are kept. Grandfather told me in his sleep. See here.” And Raven took out his little card.

“You found out! That’s wonderful!”

“Not so wonderful. Grandfather is in nightmare-place.”

Now he looked at the card by the lantern light, but the letters seemed to swim and tangle in his vision like gibberish. When he took his flashlight from his pocket, however, and turned it on, he could read the card easily, even though the fading yellow bulb was dimmer than the silver lamp.

Raven read the horrifying message (omitting the mentions of torture and dismemberment), while Wendy looked on, eyes wide.

When he had finished, she said, “That’s terrible! How mean! Maybe we can wake the grampa up! Poor man. One of the stories I read said something about curing this with laurel leaves.”

But Raven was staring at the miniature lamp. It had gone out when the flashlight beam touched it and lit up again when he doused the flashlight. Now he was flicking the beam off and on with quick twitches of his thumb, making the lantern pulse like a strobe light. Shadows jumped.

Wendy laid her small white hand on Raven’s large muscular one. “Stop that!”

“Sorry. Giving you headache, eh?” He rubbed his eyes. “Am very tired, you know.”

“My friend says he won’t come out while the flashlight is on like that.”

Raven jerked his head upright. “Friend?”

“I found him in the downstairs bedroom, next to Mr. and Mrs. Knight. There was a tall, dark man sleeping there, and this little guy standing on the bedpost.” Now she stroked her hair, smiling an impish smile, her eyes, turned to one side, bright with mischievous joy. “Come on out, little guy! Come on! He won’t hurt you!”

Raven thought he saw a motion in her hair, as if she had something the size of a squirrel clinging to her shoulder, using her bangs like drapes to hide behind.

A little voice chirruped, “Faith! And ye swore to keep me hid! Don’t go grabbing me so, ye wench, or I’ll lay to with me trusty blade!”

There was a flurry of motion in her hair, and she reached up with both hands, flinching and crying out, “Ouch!” as if a cat were clawing her.

Raven jumped to his feet, blinking and rolling his eyes, dumbfounded.

She pulled her hands down and dropped a little man on the center of the table with a hollow thud. He landed spryly on his tiny feet.

The creature was nine inches tall, dressed all in green, with a little red cap with a feather in it. He wore doublet and hose, and his slippers had curling, pointed toes. In one hand he held a miniature sword, and he slashed the air toward Wendy with fierce bravado.

Wendy put her scratched finger in her mouth to suck on.

“Leave me be, ye faithless wench! Yer solemn oath I had ye’d leave me be unseen! By the Eye of Balor, I swear this day will bring ye true grief! True grief! Ye’ll rue this day!”

“But it’s only Raven,” Wendy said. “He doesn’t count.”

Raven leaned forward over the table, squinting, and reached out, his forefinger and thumb arched in a tense circle. Raven flicked the sword out of the little man’s hand and sent it spinning across the room, where it tinkled against the far wall with the noise of a pin dropping.

Raven laid his big muscular hands on the table, one to either side of the little man, and leaned down toward him. “Apologize. Promise me nothing you do or say will hurt my wife. Promise. Or I smash you like a
^bu
g.”

The little man rolled his eyes and blew out his cheeks, slapping his sword hand against his hip as if to take the sting out of it. Then he doffed his cap and bowed to Wendy, in a way so charming it made her giggle. The little man said, “Sorry there, lass; me blood was up. Nothing I do or say will hurt ye at all.”

“Who are you?” said Raven, staring down, his face gone blank with the effort to control his surprise.

The little man doffed his cap again and bowed, one hand on hip, back leg bent, front leg straight, the feather on his cap brushing the table top with a flourish. “Call me Tom O’Lantern, so please yer lordship; royal shoemaker to the Court of his majesty, Finn Finbarra, King Under the Mountain. I only make left shoes.”

Wendy leaned forward, her eyes sparkling, and said in a loud stage whisper: “I think it’s an
elf!
”

IV

Raven said, “Little man, do you know where sitting room might be? Or what looks like the man who is founder of this place, where is his picture, eh?”

Tom O’Lantern doffed his cap and scratched his head, rolling his eyes and blowing out his cheeks, and made a great show of puzzlement and deep thought, so that Wendy giggled again.

“Not poor Tom, sir, not me, with nary a thought in me head. Never have been in the High House before, not me, for I’m a polite soul (as most we wee folk must be, seeing as we haven’t the size to be rude, if you take my meaning) and we don’t never go where we’re not invited, no sir.”

The wind outside, which had been building up to storm, now diminished
away. There was a final roll of thunder; then silence. The pounding of the waves against the seawall grew less.

Wendy clapped her hands. “Sir Lancelot has driven the giants and the storm away!”

Tom said, “Or just given them pause while they gather their strength.”

Wendy chirped: “Now let’s find those talismans!”

“Where do we look for talismans?” asked Raven, “Which room is sitting room?”

Wendy hopped to her feet. “I’ll go look around! You stay here and guard Grandpa!”

Raven looked glumly at the sleeping figure in the other room. His shoulders slumped, and his eyes were red with fatigue. He had been, after all, awake since early morning of the previous day; it was now near dawn.

Wendy went away, holding her little lamp, her footsteps a rapid tapping on the floorboards of the hall. The little light she held diminished to a star; she turned and waved, then rounded a corner. Her light was gone.

Raven slumped in the chair next to the sleeping man’s bed. “Why am I pulling this watch? Maybe should not let wife go out alone. . . but, then, what is harm? Is nothing here but bad dreams. They cannot hurt us. Bah! I do not even believe in this! Magic and so on. Foolishness!”

Tom O’Lantern climbed up onto the footboard of the bed. “Aye, but when you’re right, you’re right! Magic is all bad business, and a soul shouldn’t get caught up in it. But hey! I’ll help ye keep awake! And do ye play at chess and have a board?”

15

Rumors
of
War

I

“Ahoy, friend! Ahoy! There’s news about the battle!”

“Hoy, shipmate! Come up here on the beach with me, away from the spray and surge of the sea. You never know what might be overhearing what you say, you stand too close to the surge and spray.”

“Hoo, ha! A nice place, a nice view! A short rise there to hide us from those other two. Hey! Let’s whisper now, we don’t want them to be hearing what we say!”

“They’ll hear enough ere long. Captains of all companies to report to the Grand Marshall; that’s the rumor I heard.”

“Rumor?”

“Orders. The orders I heard.”

“Ah, aha. Ha! Ha! You look so fine and fit! Haven’t changed a bit since last we met, old friend!”

“And when just was that? Maybe it slipped your mind . . .?”

“You told me not to tell you, friend. Recall? No secret passwords, you said; it’ll make it too hard for the secret police to catch the delators.”

“Aha. Ha! Haha! But that was all in jest! Beside, the secret police do not exist! Their Chief once told me so.”

“Or someone who looked like him, if I take your meaning?”

“Hoho! Very funny! You were ever one with the jokes and jest, yes, sir. I recall you well.”

“I never joke, myself.”

“I recall that too. Now, then, what’s your report, my man?”

“I? I report to you? Since when do captains report to mates?”

“Never, ha! Ha! That’s why I await your report, my mate.”

“Oh no. I have it on good authority (good authority, mind you!) that I was appointed Captain here.” “Oh.”

“You look downcast. What’s amiss, shipmate?”

“I was appointed myself, by Mannannan, mind you, before we set sail.”

“In front of witnesses, do you think? Neutral witnesses?”

“Hard to say, hard to say. One of them was trying hard to look like he fit in, so he might not have been Mannannan’s tricksy boys all playing at being witnesses, but a real honest witness either there by mistake, or only pretending, if you catch my drift.”

“Mannannan privately appointed me captain, too.”

“Mannannan himself ? Or someone who looked like him?”

“Ar! Arrgh! Mannannan and his tricksy tricks! He’ll pay the price when we find out who the real Seal King might be! He can’t hide forever! I’m convinced he’s the chamberlain, myself. The chamberlain had a knowing squint to him when last I was in Heather Blether.”

“Keeper of the Privy Purse. How else would he make sure his orders are obeyed?”

“Nar! Gar! If he’s the real Seal King, we’ll never find him; all the real Seal Kings we found before weren’t him at all.”

“I think it might be Mannannan, myself.”

“Looking like the Seal King with a gold crown on his head, whiskers and bloody teeth and all? Too subtle. Too subtle by half.”

“Well, until the real Seal King is found, one of us is Captain and should hear the report and tell the Grand Marshall.”

“Hmph. Ha! Aha ha! No one’s here. If anyone asks me, I’ll say I reported to you; if anyone asks you, you say you reported to me. If no one knows who is really Captain, there is no blame and no responsibility!”

“Oho! Oho! ‘Tis clean against the law to say such things. You might be trying just to entrap poor me. I’ll have the secret police on you for that.”

“I’m a lieutenant in the secret police! Don’t go trying to turn me in!”

“Yes, Captain, is that an order, Captain, sir? Ha!”

“Oho! Aha! Ha, Ha! Don’t go trying to push the blame on me! You wouldn’t be trying to make me captain if you hadn’t messed up good and sweet! What’s the news from the battle?”

“You were coming to tell me!”

“I wasn’t.”

“You said!”

“Didn’t.”

“You said! Ha!”

“I was only asking. There’s news about the battle? I said. Like that. It was a question.”

“So it
is
bad news.”

“Something fierce. Er . . . or so I’ve heard.”

“Arggh! Haha! Ha! You know, our people could take over Acheron and rule the lot of ‘em, the whole kith and kaboodle, if we ever got squared away, all organized neat and proper, shipshape.”

“Aye. And if the moon was cheese, we could eat it up for lunch.”

II

The two of them sat in glum silence for a time, watching the waves of the sea of dreams washing up against the shore, the deep the twilight of the sky above reflected in the black waters.

“Ar! I love the sea.”

“Aye. Once it gets in your blood, it never lets you go.” In the distance, across the waves, they heard a sound like thunder and the clash of arms, cries of pain.

III

“Ah. I’ve a thought now, mate! The kelpie boys over the hill there must be getting a report as well. Let’s sneak up on our bellies and keep an ear cocked. We’ll hear what they say. And that’ll be the report. Anyone asks, I’ll say I had it from you.”

“I’ll nip you till you bleed, if you do!”

“Ho ho ha. And how will you know me tomorrow? I’m only someone else today, only pretending to be me. When the real me finds this cloak missing from his wardrobe, he’ll be sure you took it!”

“He doesn’t even know who I am.”

“You are best friends! So you said!”

“Didn’t! I was only asking. Like it was a question.”

“Well, I’m going up. Stay here, and I’ll tell you what they say when I come back.”

“And I should believe lying filth like you, shipmate? Make way! Keep down! I’ll be coming too!”

“Psst!”

“Aye?”

“Is it true the Key Thief, the White Hart Slayer, Azrael de Gray, it is
true he be one of us now? Njord of Skule Skerrie got killed and eat up by him, I heard, and the Wizard took his coat and became one of us!”

“Ah! You shouldn’t believe what you hear.”

“Then ‘tis false?”

“No, ‘tis true, sure enough. But you shouldn’t believe everything you hear, just in general. The Wizard, he’s in the House now, or dreams he is, and may get one of our people inside. I saw him wave from the window and signal to Captain Aegai of Atlantus.”

“Aegai’s dead. That’s Triton of Cantriff Gwylodd, but wearing his cloak.”

“No, no, shipmate. I have it on good authority that Aegai escaped with a cloak from Mannannan’s wardrobe and now serves aboard ship in disguise. Ha! Very good authority. Now hush! Let’s hear what the kelpie folk are saying down there.”