Venom and Song (40 page)

“That would've knocked me out cold,” said Johnny.

Tommy whistled.

“Struck me well, she did,” said Thorkber.

“Never well enough,” said Sarabell, affectionately picking twigs out of her husband's hair. “Won the Thrashing, last year, he did.”

“Thrashing?” asked Tommy.

“Test of Gnome toughness and valor, it is,” said Gilbang. “Beat Strubthak the Old, he did.”

Thorkber laughed deeply, which sounded strange given his high Gnomish voice. “Talk of this no more,” said Thorkber. He took back his restraint cords and motioned for all to follow.

The Gnome village was long and narrow, but with all the merry Gnomes running about and all the warm lights, it felt cheery rather than confined. Their dwelling places, shops, and taverns had all been carved into the massive flaring trunks of the living trees . . . without doing any noticeable harm to the trees themselves. Tommy noticed that the trees were all practically bursting with foliage and bloom.

“It's beautiful here,” said Kat. Tommy nodded.

“Thorkber,” said Kiri Lee. “Why are all the young Gnomes up so late at night?”

Sarabell giggled. Thorkber said, “Know you not the ways of Gnomes? Moonchildren, we are. Sleep, we do, by day.”

“Oh, nocturnal,” said Kiri Lee. “That explains a lot.”

As they passed out of the village proper, the road narrowed more, and the trees even seemed to lean in. But still, Tommy thought it was more of a cozy feeling. Up ahead, the road appeared to end at an impossibly thick, barrel-shaped tree trunk.

“The Justice Tree,” explained Thorkber. “Hope, I do, that things go well for you.”

Tommy hoped so, too . . . though, honestly, he couldn't imagine that the Gnomes would do anything serious to him or the other Elves.
We're the Seven Elven Lords of Berinfell,
he thought.
If the Gnomes so much as delay our mission, it could make our two races enemies for a long time
.

Kat read his thoughts and projected back her own.
“They might not even know.”

Know what?
he asked in reply.
That we're Elves? What else would we be?

“I don't know, but our ears aren't right. Maybe they've seen humans.”

But they've seen our powers, some of them,
Tommy persisted.
They must know we're Elves
.

“Maybe . . . but that brings up a different possibility. What if Gnomes don't like Elves?”

You're not making me feel any better about this,
thought Tommy.
Get out of my head
.

“Leave you, we must, in the hands of the Leaf Guard,” said Thorkber as they came to the wide entrance at the base of the tree. Gnome soldiers stood on either side of the spade-shaped opening. More guards stood beside them, side-by-side, seemingly around the tree's perimeter. The Gnomes of the Leaf Guard were heavily armored with breastplates for chest protection and thick iron pauldrons to cover their shoulders. Each piece had been forged of some strange metal that was black here and blue there, gray in other places, and had been cunningly engraved to look like tree branches with wide leaves. The Leaf Guard obviously believed in being battle ready at all times—including weapons. Some held the long poleaxes like Thorkber's. Others had crossbows. Many had thwack hammers thicker than a man's arm.

Whoa,
thought Tommy.
I'd hate to get smacked in the head with one of those
.

The Gnome soldiers bowed once and stomped one foot, apparently a more formal military greeting, and then received the restraint lines from Thorkber, Sarabell, and Gilbang. Then, waving to the Elves, Thorkber muttered, “Hope we see you again, I say.” The three Gnomes strode away, giggling sinisterly.

“That's not funny,” said Jett. “If we ever get out of this gadget, I'm gonna—”

He stopped in midsentence as Kat's unspoken but urgent plea entered his mind.

Four of the Leaf Guard escorted the Elves into the Justice Tree. Their path forked, curling around the wide section of the inner tree. The torches ended, and they plunged into darkness.

“What's going on?” asked Jimmy.

“Silence, trespassers!” came a peculiar voice from somewhere up ahead.

Without another word, they walked slowly for about thirty paces. Certainly, the Justice Tree seemed colossal from the outside, but Tommy wondered just how deep the tree could go inside. Up ahead there appeared a shimmering green glow as if a small pool of emerald green water was lit from within and shone upon a dark wall.

“A few more steps,” came a gruff voice at their side, one of the guards. “Stop you here.”

They obeyed the bodiless command, felt a slight tug on their restraints, and heard a series of clicks and snaps. Suddenly, in the middle of the green glow, there appeared a small dark figure. “Arise, Moonchildren!” cried the figure, raising his arms high.

There was a massive shuffling of feet. Lights, dozens of small lights, appeared on either side of the Elves. One after the other, blood-red candles were revealed. In their flickering light, Gnome faces materialized. Stern faces . . . even frightening, and so very many. Three, four rows deep . . . a small army of Gnomes.

The green light intensified at the feet of the Gnome up ahead. He stood on a raised platform and stared down at the Elves ominously. Like a Victorian Englishman, this Gnome wore a gray wig and a greatcoat with a loose chain dangling from each of four pockets. The sum of his appearance reminded Tommy of Marley's ghost from Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
. Not a very comforting image.

The Gnome lowered his hands and pointed at the Elves. “Come, you have, to the Justice Tree!” he said. “Stand accused, you do, of a most heinous deed: trespassing upon sacred Gnome land.”

A wave of hissing crashed down on them from the Gnomes all around them. Each of the young lords jumped. Startling and disconcerting, the hissing went on until the leader motioned with his hands. “Lord Barrister Gnome am I,” proclaimed the Gnome. “Hear, I will, your testimony and defense. Decide, we will, your judgment, your fate.”

“Fate?” Johnny echoed. “Hold on a minute here.” He struggled against his restraints, even kindling flame within the orbs. But stopped as the orbs constricted.

“Barrister,” muttered Jimmy. “So this wee fellow is a barrister, then?”

“What's that?” asked Autumn.

“In the UK,” Jimmy explained, “a barrister's like what yu'd call a lawyer.”

“Seems more like a judge to me,” said Autumn.

“Judge he is,” said one of the Gnome soldiers who overheard. “The highest judge in our land, but more as well. Chief Accuser, he is also, and . . . should your testimony merit it . . . Chief Protector.”

“Do you smell something?” asked Kat. “Jett, did you—?”

“Not me,” said Jett. “Why are you askin' me anyway?”

“Answer, you must, the charges!” declared the Barrister.

“Not guilty!” Tommy blurted out. “At least not on purpose. We had no idea the land was sacred to the Gnomes.” More hisses cascaded down from the spectators.

“Suffer not, we Gnomes, trespassing on our land. Is ignorance your only excuse?”

“Be careful, Tommy,” Jett urged. “He's trying to catch you in something.”

“Tommy!”
Kat's thoughts entered his mind.
“Does the Barrister seem familiar to you?”

Not now, Kat,
Tommy fired his thought back.
I'm kind of on the spot here
.

“Lord Barrister,” Tommy addressed the Gnome. “We wouldn't have come onto your land at all, but we heard Migmar screaming for help. I mean, he was screaming his head off. What were we supposed to do?”

More hisses—louder and mixed with angry muttering.

“Silence!” cried the Barrister. He lowered his brow and glared at Tommy. “Behold! Am Migmar, Lord Barrister Migmar!”

“I knew it,” said Kat.

“Screaming,” Migmar went on, “not hardly.”

“Awww, come on, man,” Jett interrupted. “You were screaming bloody murder. Hadn't been for us, you'd a' been a midnight snack for that forest dragon.”

“Jett!” Tommy muttered over the new chorus of hissing. “That kind of talk is not helping.”

“What is that smell?” demanded Autumn. “Johnny?”

“Wasn't me!”

“Dare you insult the Ruler of all Gnomedom?” asked Barrister Migmar.

Oh, great,
thought Tommy.
He's a king, too
.

“Well?”

The hissing intensified. Tommy sensed movement on either side. The Gnomes were descending from their seats, coming down onto the floor . . . coming closer.

“We were on an important mission,” Tommy said at last, “near this area of the Thousand-League Forest.”

“Mission?” asked Barrister Migmar. Then he paused, and an odd look came over his face. There was a sound like a sudden, quick buzz. “Speak you more of this mission.”

“In truth? We are trying to find a Keystone.”

The flowing, angry hiss turned to a gasp.

“Said you nothing before of this Keystone,” said Migmar. “Only the Elves—”

“We are Elves!” said Tommy.

“Take us for fools?” asked Migmar. “Dressed you are as Elves, but have you left your ears at home?” Harsh laughs fell like poison rain from the surrounding Gnomes.

“And not just Elves,” said Tommy, undeterred. “But the Seven Elven Lords of Berinfell.”

“Ridiculous!” said Migmar, and the hisses rose again. “Know, we all do, that the Spider King murdered the Lords of Berinfell.”

“Our parents,” said Tommy, wincing at the unpleasant odor now seemingly all around him. “The Spider King killed our parents. We were taken by the Drefids as babies.”

“Kill, the Drefids do, everything they touch.”

“No,” said Tommy. “Even the Spider King was afraid of the curse. . . . The Berinfell Prophecies tell of three generations of horror for anyone who kills a pureblood in the line of lords before he or she reaches the Age of Reckoning. The Drefids knew the curse and took us into another world.”

“Another world?” Migmar crossed his arms. “Heard, we have, enough. No Elves are you.”

“I am Felheart Silvertree!” yelled Tommy. “Son of Velaril and Tarin Silvertree.”

The name Silvertree gave Barrister Migmar pause, and barely a hiss came from the still-closing crowd.

“Know, we do, Silvertree,” he said slowly. “Speaks, history does, of that name often. Know not what you are, but unconvinced that you be Elves.”

“But I'm blue!” Kat blurted out. “You've seen our powers. What else can we do to prove it to you?”

Barrister Migmar motioned with his left hand as if he was drawing a capital
Y
in the air. From the darkness, drums began to pound—
boom, boom, boom
. Drums so low and deep that the young lords felt the vibrations in their armor, their bones, and especially through their bare feet on the smooth wood floor.

For a moment it seemed that a living, walking red flame had appeared, approaching the Seven from the far left of the Barrister's platform. Another approached from the far right. Kiri Lee spun around and beheld a third approaching from behind.

The drums continued their slow, sonorous heartbeat. As the walking flames grew close, it became clear by their stature that they were Gnomes . . . Gnomes wearing red robes and hoods so that no one could see their faces. And each one held a white candle in one palm and a long, silvery tube clasped reverently in the other.

Migmar held up his hands. The drums stopped. The figures in red halted and turned to the Elves. Kat tried to read their minds, but her own fears created such an agitated jumble of thoughts that she could not focus. She could not, for long, endure the eyeless stare of the hooded Gnomes. She turned away and closed her eyes, sending a thought to Tommy,
“Is this really happening?”

“Come forth, the Breath Thieves have. Bear, they do, darts filled with a poison so potent fell a Gwar champion, it would, in three heartbeats. Sentenced, you are, to die . . . the fair and just penalty for trespassing in our most hallowed grounds.”

“Fair?” exclaimed Tommy, yanking at his restraints. “This is insane! You can't just kill us because we walked in your backyard! We were saving YOUR life!”

“Preach it, Tommy!” said Jett. “We are the Seven Elven Lords of Berinfell! You kill us, the Spider King wins. And even if he doesn't, you'll have war with the Elves forever.”

“Threatening us, you are?” asked Migmar. “Fear, we do not, the Spider King or the Elves. Commands, our law, that you must die. Accept, we must, the consequences for our actions.”

Another Gnome appeared on the platform next to Migmar. He bowed, stomped his foot, and removed a rolled parchment from a fold in his robe. He gave it to Migmar and whispered to the Barrister as he read.

The Gnome leader fell quiet for a moment and then said, “Have a provision, we do, in our law: one life for one life. Saved, you did, my life. Owe, we do, one life of yours. Choose, you may, one of your number to live and go free. A moment I give you to confer.”

As best they could given the restraints, the Seven huddled together. “This . . . this is madness,” said Tommy.

“We've got to do something,” said Johnny.

“Fight,” said Jimmy. “That's what we've got to do. Break those things on yur hands, and fry those psychotic midgets.”

“I should have fried them before,” Johnny muttered.

“No, I don't think so,” said Tommy. “I mean, now, it seems like that would have been the smart thing to do, but I just felt like it was wrong . . . horribly wrong. I still feel that way.”

“Too late now,” said Johnny. “I can't break 'em. I've tried.”

Kiri Lee pulled a foot of slack from her restraints and stepped forward. “What if . . . what if Jett used his strength to bang Johnny's hands together? Do you think those stone balls would shatter?”