Dark Waters of Hagwood Page 15

  Terrified beyond measure, Tollychook called for his mother and tried to go faster, but it was no use. In one long stride, the High Lady caught up with him and raised the knife over her head.

  It was then she saw it, a blur of feather and claw. Down from the brightening sky it plummeted: a magnificent hawk. The tips of its wings rushed past her face and before she could stop it, the bird had caught Tollychook in its talons and plucked him from the ground.

  Wailing, the boy was borne up into the air, legs kicking and arms waving in shock and panic at this new, bewildering horror.

  “Save me!” he screeched. “Save me!”

  But he was soon an indistinct fleck in the sky as the hawk carried him off over the forest, and the werling boy was gone.

  It was all over in moments.

  Rhiannon lowered the knife, incensed and speechless to be so thwarted. There were other birds wheeling high overhead, but they would not deny her the satisfaction of putting the other werlings to death.

  Glaring down the avenue, she saw Liffidia and the fox cub, stumbling to a halt and staring aghast at the disappearing speck of Tollychook above.

  “No!” the girl shrieked. Two summers ago her father, Aikin Nefyn, had been taken and devoured by a hawk, and the hideous memory of that evil day reared in her mind.

  “Daddy!” she choked. “Now Tollychook …” Hanging her head, she fell to her knees.

  Harsh laughter brought her back from her desolation, and she lifted her stinging eyes to see the High Lady savoring her distress.

  At either end of the avenue they faced each other: one powerful and unassailable and the other a small, wretched child, quaking with grief.

  “And so it finishes,” Rhiannon’s harsh voice broke into her despair. “Was there ever any doubt it would be otherwise?”

  Liffidia’s misery boiled into anger, and she wiped her eyes fiercely as she stood.

  “Oh, we’ll see an end,” she yelled. “Even now Bufus is asking the Smith’s spirit where your heart is hidden. You can kill me, but you won’t catch Bufus! He’s too quick and sly, even for you. Your reign is over!”

  And she turned around, fleeing back into the stone circle with Fly hastening beside her. But, as she ran, the question that had been smoldering at the back of her thoughts suddenly blazed across her mind. Just how could Bufus summon the Wandering Smith? He had never spoken to him when he was alive.

  Calling the boy’s name in panic, Liffidia ran faster than ever before.

  With a thunderous face and wielding the brutal knife, the deathless Queen of Faerie pursued her.

  BUFUS DOOLAN KNELT ON THE end of the rocky pier and gazed into the jet-black waters below.

  He did not hear Tollychook’s screams as the hawk seized him, nor Liffidia’s agonized cries. All his attention was fixed upon the Pool of the Dead, and nothing else mattered in the world. He concentrated harder than at any other time in his willful, disobedient life and called incessantly for the spirit to appear.

  “Come to me,” he implored those dark depths. “Come to me.”

  Within the stone circle a mist was creeping, stealing in from the forest outside, curling about the huge granite monoliths and seeping slowly over the ground.

  Beneath the anxious boy, all was glassy and black. The pool did not reflect his desperate, expectant face, nor the dimly glimmering sky above.

  “Please,” he beseeched. “Just this once. For me—please come back.”

  He waited, and the mist flowed ever closer toward the pool, to shroud it from the rising dawn as it had always done since the beginning of time.

  “Oh, please!” Bufus begged, and a single tear welled up in his eye, ran down his nose, and fell with a tiny splash into the mysterious water below.

  And then it happened.

  A rippling ring went rolling over the surface, swiftly expanding till it broke against the mossy bank, and, to Bufus’s unending joy, down in the deeps a silvery blue flame flickered into existence.

  The Pool of the Dead began to churn and seethe.

  Breathless with anticipation and longing, he watched as sapphire sparks rose upward, erupting into the air with a crackle of ghostly fire. At once the entire pool was covered in a sheet of spectral flame.

  Strange shapes flashed and danced in the unearthly blaze that licked across the water: images of beasts and creatures that Bufus had no names for. The wild magic that the pool gathered to itself collected many other things on its way to Hagwood’s ancient, haunted heart.

  “I’m here,” Bufus called with glee. “I’m here!”

  And then at last he saw, and the tears fell freely from his eyes.

  Within the flames an outline formed, shimmering and glowing: a radiant dazzling shape. But the face of that luminous figure was not the bearded countenance of the Wandering Smith—it was a mirror image of the Doolan boy.

  “Mufus!” he blurted. “Oh, Mufus!”

  The ghost of his twin, Mufus Doolan, looked up at him, grinning impudently.

  “Bufus,” it answered in an echoing, distant voice. “What tricks we up to today?”

  It was the first question the boys had asked of each other every morning since they could talk, and to hear it again brought Bufus unbearable happiness and pain.

  “Oh … the usual,” he answered falteringly. “Letting ’em all have it—an’ keeping the Doolan boys on top … you know how it is.”

  “Oh yes, I know, and they was good times, Bufus—the best ever. When we started our wergle training and caught our first mousies, that were a honking good laugh.”

  “What’s it like?” Bufus asked softly.

  “What’s what like?”

  “You know. Being dead.”

  The spirit shrugged. “Dunno yet, can’t even remember what it was like getting killed. I know it must’ve hurt, but I don’t recall what that means. Now I’m just waiting. They say I have to wait a year before this filthy pond brims over and sends us on our way. Then I find out for sure.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Oh … others in here. I’m not supposed to say, but they’re a dull old lot most of them. Reckon they’ll be downright sick of me by the time this year’s up.”

  The shade of his brother chuckled, and soon both twins were laughing as though the curtain of death had never been drawn between them.

  Over the edges of the pool, between the inward-facing skulls, the mist came flowing, while up in the heavens every star had failed before the conquering break of day.

  Bufus sighed, and he shook his head in sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Mufus,” he said. “So sorry.”

  “You was never sorry!” his twin crowed. “Nor was I, and why should we be? No one could match our team, Bufus!”

  “But I wasn’t there. When you needed me most, I wasn’t there. You faced them thorn ogres on your own. I should’ve been with you.”

  “If you had been, there’d be the pair of us swimmin’ about down here.”

  Bufus grew solemn and serious and, with a determined gaze, looked into the eyes of his brother’s soul.

  “That’s why I’ve come,” he announced gravely. “I’m going to join you, Mufus. I’m no good on my own. It’s always been us—always. The Doolan twins, the two terrors. We’re a pair you an’ me; nothing can split us, not even you being killed.”

  The specter reached up a glimmering hand, and the ghastly light flooded Bufus’s mournful face.

  “Not yet,” it said gently. “One day, but not yet.”

  “Please,” Bufus cried. “All I have to do is fall in that pool and sink. I won’t struggle, not one bit, I swear. It won’t … it won’t take long, and then we’ll be causing all sorts of chaos down there. Together again—you an’ me.”

  The phantom shook its head sadly.

  “You’ve too much to do up there,” it told him. “War is coming to Hagwood, and you’ll be needed.”

  “I don’t care about anyone here!” the boy wept.

  “Oh, Bufus. They’re such a useless b
unch. They won’t make it through without you. Them bossy clots up there, Yawny Mattock and uppity Lufkin, they’re not as smart as they fancy themselves. You were the bright one of our team—I just tagged along. You was always the one making plans, and I only followed. If I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have gone looking for trouble and found it that night. Don’t you see? Thinking of how brave and brainy you’re going to be will make me so proud. I wouldn’t be able to stick this year out if it weren’t for that.”

  “You … you’re really proud of me?”

  The specter winked at him. “Not as proud as I’m going to be,” it replied. “But don’t you dare tell anyone I said so!”

  Bufus dried his eyes. “I won’t,” he promised. “And I’ll help them and do my best for once—my very best ever. Just for you though … ’cos …”

  His voice wavered, and he struggled to say any more.

  The ghost smiled forlornly. “I know,” it said. “I miss you too.”

  An incredulous cry suddenly interrupted them.

  “What have you done?” Liffidia demanded, stunned and reeling at the spectacle before her.

  She had raced along the rocky pier and was now standing behind Bufus, staring down at the shimmering vision of his dead twin, unable to comprehend how selfish the Doolan boy had been.

  “Where is the Smith? He was our only hope! The hope of everyone! How could you? The magic … you’ve wasted it!”

  Bufus ignored her. The mist was swirling in, and he leaned farther forward determined not to miss a moment of this supernatural reunion.

  “N-now we’ll never know,” Liffidia stammered. “You’ve doomed us all! The High Lady has won.”

  Fly limped on to the rock after her and glanced warily back to the avenue.

  Within the stone circle a dense blanket of white vapor now covered the ground, and into it stormed the Lady Rhiannon. The mist parted around her, and with deadly intent she rushed toward the werlings.

  The ethereal flames of the pool spluttered beneath the enclosing cloud, and Mufus’s spirit began to fade.

  “Don’t go,” Bufus called. “Not yet!”

  The eerie light wavered, and the fiery blue tongues sank back beneath the water.

  “Good-bye!” the boy whispered.

  Mufus’s spirit gave one final wave and, with a mischievous snorting laugh, called back, “I’d duck if I were you!”

  And then it was gone, and the mist rolled in to obliterate everything. The glimmering pool went dark once more and was invisible beneath the shifting vapor.

  Not a shred of night was left in the sky above. The dawn had finally come, and the pale disc of the sun was edging over the horizon.

  Standing on that island of rock, surrounded by the surging mist, Liffidia turned to face the High Lady one last time.

  The evil tyrant was close now. Brandishing the spriggan’s knife, she slowed her pace and strode forward, consumed with malice. In the gray morning, the blade flashed and glinted, and Liffidia knew there was no escape.

  “To think I was almost afraid,” the High Lady scorned. “That you squalid creatures could do anything against me. Now pay the price for your insolence.”

  Liffidia saw the knife sweep back through the mist, and she clung to her fox cub.

  “What did he mean, ‘I’d duck if I were you’?” Bufus said, still staring over the brink. The boy lifted his face to the sky. “Duck from what?” he wondered.

  His eyes beheld the knife come slicing down, but beyond the High Lady’s shoulder he saw three great birds plunging toward them.

  And then all was confusion. The hawks fell upon Rhiannon, raking their talons through her scalp and ferociously clawing at her arms in a screeching frenzy.

  Rhiannon spun around in alarm, hacking at the air.

  Dumbfounded, the werlings stared with open mouths as she was pecked and bitten, scratched and ripped. It was a savage and violent attack, but the birds could not prevail against her. With a slash of the blade, a wing was severed and the bird fell into the mist at her feet. The remaining two intensified their onslaught, but their lives were almost spent.

  It was Bufus who first collected his wits.

  “This is our chance,” he hissed to Liffidia. “Let’s run now, into the forest. She’ll never catch us.”

  As if in a dream the girl slowly wrenched her eyes from the attack. Where would they go? The High Lady would not rest until she had hunted them down and burned their homes.

  And then dark shadows engulfed them. Fly barked and Liffidia cried out. “Bufus! Watch out—duck!”

  The boy leaped aside, but it was too late. Out of the sky two more huge birds rushed down, and before he knew what was happening, he felt strong claws dig into the shoulders of his jacket and he was dragged from the rock.

  Liffidia howled. Then she too was torn from the ground and carried up into the air.

  “No!” she cried. “Not like this! Not like this!”

  Rearing up on his hind legs, the fox cub barked frantically—but already the girl’s voice was lost as she disappeared over the standing stones and was taken high above the treetops beyond.

  CHAPTER 11 *

  FILTHY LYING LOLLY

  WHIMPERING, FLY LEAPED FROM THE rock, darted between the towering stones, and rushed headlong into the forest.

  The Lady Rhiannon had killed two of her attackers. Grabbing the third, she snapped its neck and flung it to the ground. A trickle of her own bright blood ran down her cheek from her forehead where one of the hawks had gashed her brow. The High Lady wiped it away casually, paying no heed to the other wounds that scored her arms and face. Some of them were already closing, healing through the same enchantment that had removed her heart so many years ago. The fox cub’s bite on her leg had already disappeared. While that spell endured, no power on or under the earth could harm her.

  Brooding on the werlings and the attack upon her person, the Lady Rhiannon returned through the avenue to the caravan and began unhitching the donkey.

  “My Lady!” a cry came to her through the trees. “My Lady! I bring tidings!”

  Gliding between the branches, skimming the morning air, came her owl.

  “What news do you bring me, my provost?” she asked, raising her hand in greeting.

  With a flap of its wings, the bird alighted upon her wrist and fluffed out its feathers in great excitement.

  “Thy realm curdles thick with rumor, O Dark Majesty!” it said. “A winged army hath scoured the forest. Every creature was aware of it.”

  “Including myself,” she said dryly. “They dared assail me. Fly up, my faithful love. Follow them. Tell me where they are bound.”

  “That much is already known unto me,” the owl informed her. “From the ruined tower in the east they came, and thither they return. The morning swarms with great flocks of massing birds.”

  The Lady Rhiannon turned eastward, toward the bright gleam of the climbing sun. “The broken watchtower?” she murmured. “It is many long years since we journeyed forth to that lonely spot. Who has taken up residence in that drear place? The hour has come for Raggalach’s daughter to ride.”

  Holding up the silver fire devil, she uttered the words of change, and the donkey threw back its shaggy head. The unkempt, dirty hide slid away. It bucked and reared and, with a piercing neigh, grew into a coal-black stallion, sleek and tall, with steam snorting from its nostrils.

  “My Lady!” the owl cried, flying up to perch between the horse’s ears. “There are yet more tidings to report. The one you sought, the wer-rat who was not at the gathering of their lowly folk—I have found him! Finnen Lufkin makes for the Crone’s Maw, beneath the great crag of the Witch’s Leap. He journeys with a lowly barn bogle. They will reach it ere the day grows much older.”

  “The Crone’s Maw?” the High Lady muttered. “What draws them there? When I was a child we played in the waterfall that flows from it, but there is nothing of import in that spot.”

  “Maybe they are to meet someone at an
hour appointed. A traitor from thy court perhaps?”

  “Then they shall meet another, whom they were not expecting,” she answered, leaping on to the horse’s back. “One final chance for Nanna to befriend those shape-shifting vermin and unmask any of the Unseelie Court who would rebel against me.”

  “And what of the broken tower?”

  “Set a watch upon it. Return to the Hollow Hill without delay and call out the spriggans, but use your deepest guile and do this without arousing the suspicion of the nobles, not even the Redcaps or the goblin knights. I want the eastern fringes of the forest crawling with my soldiers before noon. They shall be under your orders; await me there. Take no action against the tower till I arrive!”

  “My Lady!” the barn owl answered with a bow. Then, spreading its wings, it sped away, flying northward.

  Taking a firm grip of the reins, Rhiannon Rigantona cast a disdainful glance at the brightly painted caravan and hissed some words.

  Tossing back her dark hair, she spurred the horse on and cried, “To the Crone’s Maw! Run! Faster than the howling wind—race as though the devil’s own cavalry were behind you!”

  A high, screaming neigh blasted from the steed’s mouth. Rearing up, its mighty hooves thrashed the air and then it was away, tearing down the track at a ferocious pace. The din of its passing resounded through the forest like thunder.

  Already forgotten, a change came over the abandoned caravan. The cheerful red-and-yellow paint faded and peeled, falling in great flakes into the grass. A shudder rattled the timbers, which split and rotted as they returned to their normal state. With a groan, the wheels buckled and the caravan of Nanna Zingara collapsed in a sorry ruin of aged splinters.

  THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT GAMALIEL TUMPIN, Yoori Mattock, and Grimditch the barn bogle had journeyed without resting. While Liffidia and Tollychook were being driven toward the Pool of the Dead, and at the very same moment that Finnen Lufkin drank of the dark waters far beneath the ground and transformed into a sluglung, Gamaliel felt a shiver run down him and he halted.

  “How much farther is this place?” he demanded.