War in Hagwood Read online

  “Birds are difficult!” she countered defensively. “Why, only Master Gibble and Finnen could do them properly.”

  “Oh, here we go,” Bufus muttered. “Finnen this, Finnen that.”

  “He was the best wergler of us all!” she cried.

  “Till they caught him cheating!” the Doolan boy snapped back.

  Kernella huffed and folded her arms. “I’d feel a lot better if he was with us,” she grumbled. “He’d find a way out somehow, wergled or not.”

  Bufus blew a raspberry. “Just ’cos you think the sun beams out of his backside, doesn’t mean it does!” he jeered. “He’d be doomed along with the rest of us down here.”

  “I think he’s got enough problems of his own,” Gamaliel said softly. “The battle may have started by now. I wonder what’s happening up there?”

  “We’ll never know,” Bufus replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “No one will ever find us. We’re as good as dead.”

  “You’re as cheerful as Tollychook,” Gamaliel told him.

  “Just being practical, Gammy. Unlike you and Goofy Nelly over there, I’m not scared. If I gasp my last in this horrible hole that’s fine by me; I’ll be with Mufus all the quicker. I was hopin’ to do a bit more in the war and maybe get called a hero or summat, but this will have to do.”

  He frowned and looked over to where Kernella was shaking with silent laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

  “You!” the girl blurted. “A hero? As if!”

  They began squabbling and Gamaliel covered his eyes so he didn’t have to see them. Then he bolted upright.

  “Shush!” he hissed.

  His sister put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Don’t you tell me to—”

  She stifled her words and gazed about her. Without them even realizing, a pale light had been growing steadily. It was a gentle, ruddy glow that poured through a low passageway into the farthest corner of the cave.

  The werlings drew together and stared around them. High over their heads, the opening to the pit they had tumbled from was now blocked by tons of fallen stone. They could never return to the upper world that way. The only escape from that cave was through the dimly glimmering passage.

  “But what’s beyond there?” Gamaliel whispered. “What’s making the light?”

  Memories of the fearsome candle spright made Kernella shudder. “I don’t like it,” she said. “Could be anything through there.”

  “Can’t be worse than what’s in here,” Bufus sniggered with a sideways look at them both.

  Suddenly, a voice cut through their fear and apprehension. It was a kindly lilting sound and there was a definite chortle when it said, “Are you going to dawdle out there long? Shall I go back to sleep till you make up your minds? What a racket you make. I’m afraid you disturbed such a pretty dream I was having, such bonny vivid colors … I wonder if I can retrieve it?”

  The werlings stared at one another. The voice had come from beyond the passage.

  “Doesn’t sound frightening,” Kernella admitted.

  “But who can it be all the way down here?” her brother asked.

  Bufus snorted and was already marching away toward the light. “One way to find out,” he told them.

  Gamaliel and Kernella hurried after him. Crouching under the low roof, they walked the length of the passage, then shuffled to a stop when they emerged into the space beyond.

  Bufus let out a long, admiring whistle.

  It was a huge, pear-shaped cavern that tapered high beyond the reach of their eyes. Rising in the center was a cone of steps climbing in an ever-diminishing circle and carved with two enormous serpents. They coiled about the stone and each other until their tremendous heads met at the bottom; their large eyes stared fixedly into the opposite face.

  One serpent was black and hideous, mottled with livid moss and lichen, and with a starved and cadaverous appearance. A long row of bones protruded through the sculpted scales. Its monstrous, pocked face had terrible bulbous eyes and a fearsome jaw filled with jagged teeth. Two misshapen horns twisted from its spiky brows.

  Not even Bufus liked the look of that horrible face.

  The other, however, was beautiful. It seemed to have been carved from some glimmering, honey-colored mineral. The scales were like facets of a long, winding jewel and its form was lithe and elegant, looping around the steps in shapely, stately rings.

  Kernella marveled under her breath. The sculpture’s head was ravishing. It was wrought of gold and amber, with sparkling amethyst eyes that shone beneath gem-encrusted brows. Wisdom and benevolence were written on that peerless, opulent countenance. Whatever hand had fashioned that head had created a wondrous thing to be admired and adored and spoken of in hushed, venerating tones.

  Gamaliel could hardly believe it. What was this place? He took a step closer. The unexpected spectacle of the serpents had so dazzled him that he had not yet examined the source of the light.

  Between those incredible faces, hanging from a slender chain suspended from a silver bracket, was an egg-shaped, bronze lantern. The joyous light within spilled out through differently sized round holes and spread over the surrounding stone in a rich, golden mist, flooding the cavern floor with deep buttery hues.

  Gamaliel and the others came a little closer. Then the voice they had heard outside spoke once more.

  “How disagreeable,” it said. “I do enjoy a really good dream. That really is irritsome.”

  “Hello?” Kernella piped up, looking searchingly around them. “Who’s there?”

  “Dear me, no,” came the voice. “You’ll have to come a lot nearer than that, and don’t drag your feet. A body would think you had all the time in the world. Well you don’t, not a bit of it. Hardly any time left for you to do what has to be done. You trudge so slowly. I’m shocked, I really am.”

  Bufus pulled a face. “Show yourself!” he called crossly.

  “Bother,” the voice said; “I so dislike sitting in a draught.”

  Approaching cautiously, the werlings peered up at the steps for any sign of movement. Gamaliel expected a concealed doorway to swing open and he watched the stonework closely. Kernella was convinced the voice was coming from one of the serpents’ heads and was sure one of those jaws would hinge open. She hoped it wasn’t the ugly head.

  It was Bufus who saw it first and he elbowed them both. “There!” he cried.

  He pointed at the copper lantern. It was the same size and shape as a duck egg and it was jiggling on its chain. As they watched, a section at the front of it opened with a tiny squeak and there, within, was the strangest sight any of them had ever seen.

  Sitting inside was a small, shining creature. It looked like a wizened old man, half the size of the werlings, wrapped in gossamer strands of fine golden hair from his head and his beard. It cocooned him completely and only his wrinkly little face was visible. But his lustrous skin glowed like a summer’s afternoon and his eyes were brilliant and penetrating.

  The cavern was suddenly swamped in a richer, warmer light and the shadows went flying up to the unseen ceiling. Kernella gave a yelp and hopped back but Bufus and Gamaliel were too amazed to move.

  “There,” said the strange creature. “Is that better? Now do be quick, I don’t want to catch a cold, you know.”

  Bufus was the first to recover. “What are you then?” he asked impertinently.

  The creature twitched his little nose and nibbled a strand of beard. “I don’t think you would understand, Master Doolan,” he answered at length.

  Bufus started. “Here!” he cried. “How do you know my name?”

  “I know all your names,” came the smiling reply. “You were in my dream. I may even be dreaming still—sometimes I don’t know if I’m awake or sleeping.”

  “I’ll pinch you if you like,” Bufus suggeste
d dryly.

  The stranger chuckled then looked at the others.

  “And to you, Gamaliel and Kernella Tumpin,” he said, “welcome.”

  The werlings stared at him in astonishment. They had never heard of any being like this before. Finally, Gamaliel overcame his stupefaction and took a pace closer.

  “You know our names,” he began, shyly. “Might we know yours?”

  The creature leaned back and the lantern bobbed up and down. “There were so many,” he said with a slow shake of his golden head. “You can’t expect me to recall them all. Most of them were quite ridiculous and undignified, absurd in fact. I told them so but they would insist and as for the propitiatory offerings …”

  He frowned gently as he considered. Then he brightened and the radiance swelled. “You may call me … Nest,” he said. “Yes, that will do for now; I like that—nice and cozy and sleepy. An ideal place for the beginning of things, from which new life will one day hatch. No need to confuse you with any of the other silly titles, now is there?”

  “Suppose not,” Gamaliel answered, still bewildered.

  “He’s a nutcase,” said Bufus.

  The creature called Nest laughed and nodded back at him. “Oh, I’ve certainly been inside many of those,” he agreed.

  Kernella disliked nonsense of any sort and felt this had gone on quite long enough.

  “Listen,” she said, “I don’t care who you are or what you call yourself. You could be Danny the Dangly Dewdrop for all I care. The only thing I want to know is how to get out of here.”

  Nest beamed at her. “She’s so right,” he said. “That’s what you should be searching for, the way out and back to your little world up there. I dreamed it; I know.”

  “If you know there is one then tell us!” said Bufus.

  “Oh, it isn’t that easy,” Nest answered with a tut. “I can’t give you advice; it isn’t allowed. I can’t help you or influence you one way or the other. I’m just supposed to be dreaming here, until—well, until the proper time. You shouldn’t really be here at all and you must never tell anyone about me. I can’t have sightseers mobbing the shrine, throwing litter about and chipping bits off the Wyrms for souvenirs.”

  “Worms?” repeated Gamaliel incredulously and he gazed up at the gigantic serpents. “They’re the biggest worms I ever saw.”

  “Imagine the fish you’d catch with them,” Bufus sniggered.

  Nest shifted in the lantern, causing it to swing from side to side.

  “Have memories up there faded so much?” he asked despondently. “Does no one recall the twin Wyrms of Dunwrach? How very ungracious and thoughtless of you all.”

  “We’ve never heard anything about them,” Gamaliel said. “But then, we’re only werlings; no one takes any notice of us. Or at least, they never used to.”

  Nest stared into a space above their heads. “That really is no excuse,” he said petulantly. “It is their might and vigor that courses through the forest and makes it what it is. It is to appease and honor them that the hillfolk troop forth every quarter of the year and process along the ancient serpentine track. Do they not remember that? I really do call it most ungrateful and wretched.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gamaliel. “It isn’t our fault.”

  “Without the Wyrms, there would be no forces to draw on, no ancient channels to tap. There would be no High Lady and the troll witches could sit on their teetering heaps of stone till every one of their bottoms turned purple and still be just as powerless as before. As for you shape changers … well, at least you surrender yourselves back into the cycle when your time is over. Your Silent Grove shows some respect and is more powerful than you realize.”

  Kernella grunted in exasperation. “Will you stop wittering on and tell us the way out?” she demanded.

  Nest’s bright eyes fixed on her, and the keenness of his radiant glance inflamed the red in her hair and made her freckles stand out even more than usual.

  “I told you,” he said. “I’m not permitted to help. Your world is no longer mine. What I can do, though, is grant you a choice. Actually, Choice was another one of my old names and may be again one day. If you choose wisely—oh, let’s be reckless and bend the rules a tiny bit. If you make the right choice, you may ask three questions of me and I will do my best to answer.”

  “You mean like three wishes?” asked Bufus.

  Nest looked at him in surprise. “If you refuse to listen properly, Master Doolan, then you really should keep silent. You only make yourself appear more foolish than you are and that is a feat indeed.”

  Bufus made a face and looked away, but his curiosity soon overcame his indignation.

  “What is this choice?” Gamaliel asked.

  Nest grinned and his soft, shining beard parted as two small hands emerged and gestured to the serpents upon either side.

  “The glorious Wyrm,” he began, indicating the golden head on his left, “is called Myth. The other, unlovely Wyrm is named Sacrifice.”

  “Morning, Myth!” Bufus tittered.

  Kernella thumped him.

  “So what do we have to choose?” she asked.

  “Oh, not you,” Nest answered. “Didn’t I make myself clear? How remiss of me. No, it is Gamaliel who must decide. He alone has the responsibility—for all of you.”

  “Gammy?” cried Bufus. “It’s because of him we’re in this mess. I wouldn’t trust him to pick his own nose. Why him?”

  Kernella wanted to thump her brother too. “Yes,” she chimed in. “Why him? He’s hopeless.”

  “Because,” the creature told them, “he himself has already been chosen, and not by me—by another.”

  “Me?” Gamaliel asked in surprise. “Who’s chose me, and what for?”

  “You will realize that when the time comes,” Nest said with a gentle smile.

  Gamaliel chewed his lip. He was certain he would bungle it and get it wrong, whatever it was.

  “So what do I have to choose here and now?” he murmured.

  “This trial is simple,” Nest said. “Hold out your hands.”

  The young werling obeyed and the stranger raised his arms. The radiance flashed and shimmered and the werlings blinked. Gammaliel felt a sudden weight in his grasp and when the light subsided, he discovered that he was now holding a large, golden crown.

  “It’s way too big for his daft head,” sniffed Kernella jealously.

  “The diadem is not for your brother,” Nest chortled. “It is for one of the Wyrms. You, Gamaliel, must choose which of their heads it should grace and place the crown upon it.”

  Gamaliel looked at the serpents’ heads again. The beautiful golden one, called Myth, truly was ravishing and spectacular. The crown would sit so perfectly upon that stately brow. It seemed made for it and he could feel his sister willing him to place it there.

  Swallowing nervously, he looked across at the other and remembered, with a shudder, that its name was Sacrifice. That head was repulsive and frightening. The bulging eyes looked ferocious and savage and the two tortured horns that grew above them left no room for any crown.

  Instinctively, he edged away from it.

  “Hang on,” Bufus interrupted. “What happens if cloth head Gammy here gets this wrong?”

  The creature in the lantern grinned back at him. “Oh, forgive me,” he said. “I thought I’d told you. Most forgetful—I’m still a little drowsy, I expect. If Gamaliel makes the wrong choice, then nothing will happen.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Fancy me forgetting that; what a silly old bright seed. You three will remain down here until you die from thirst and starvation, while your friends and the world you know up above will perish.”

  The three werlings stared at him, aghast.

  “W-What sort of choice is that?” Gamaliel stuttered. “That isn’t fair
.”

  “I don’t believe I mentioned anything about it being fair,” Nest said with a laugh. “Whatever gave you that idea? Nothing is fair in any world, neither mine nor yours. Surely you have learned that much already. What you must do is choose the best course, use your insight and experience. Inform your choice by using everything you have learned. That is the best anyone can do. And if young Gamaliel Tumpin cannot choose, then I’m quite sure no one else in Dunwrach can. You are the key to this whole sorry business; remember that.”

  Gamaliel looked helplessly at Bufus and his sister.

  “Don’t foul this up!” the Doolan boy warned him.

  “Put the crown on the pretty one!” Kernella prompted. “Even you can’t get that wrong.”

  Gamaliel took a faltering step toward the great, golden serpent head. It really was stunningly beautiful. The amethyst eyes were scattering Nest’s wondrous light in a thousand violet splinters and the amber depths of its being seemed to throb with a secret, inner life.

  Myth was the most ravishing and exquisite thing his rustic eyes had seen, except perhaps for … the High Lady.

  Gamaliel choked back a cry and stepped away. He thought of the Tyrant of the Hollow Hill and how her beauty was but a mask to conceal the evil corruption within. Then he thought of Peg-tooth Meg, her sister. She was deformed and grotesque, and yet she was loved. The Tower Lubber had devotedly waited an age for her and she was adored by the sluglungs.

  Turning a determined but fearful face to the others, he said, “If I’m wrong, I’m sorry!” And he rushed toward the ugly serpent and drove the crown between the horns, wedging it in and bending it out of shape.

  “No!” Kernella yelled. “What are you doing?”

  “You mad freak!” Bufus shrieked, lunging forward to pull the boy and the now-buckled crown away, but it was stuck firmly in place.

  “The choice has been made,” Nest announced solemnly.

  “That wasn’t my choice!” Bufus protested, shoving Gamaliel to the ground.

  “Nor mine!” fumed Kernella.

  But it was too late. There was an ominous cracking of stone and the immense, horrendous serpent began to break away from the steps as supernatural life coursed through it. The famished-looking body lifted itself clear and the bony coils unraveled from the shrine with a crick and a clack along its entire length. The monstrous head shook itself and the bulging eyes blinked and roved around. It reared up above the terrified werlings, the massive horns ripping into the darkness overhead as the horrifying jaws snapped open and from that great throat came a rumbling bellow. It was so bass a sound, it was like the cataclysmic movement of mountainous rocks in the stomach of the world. The werlings felt it travel through their bones rather than heard it with their ears. It shook the cavern and set the loose stones on the floor dancing.