The Land of the Silver Apples - Farmer Nancy - Страница 26

Jack had his own ideas about how lamblike the monks of St. Filian were, but he kept them to himself. His spirits sank through the floor. The only help he would receive was from a scrawny girl and a cowardly slave.

“Chin up, lad,” the Bard said. “You may be young, impulsive, half trained, somewhat ignorant, and inexperienced—but I have faith in you.”

“Thanks,” muttered Jack. “I think.”

They were interrupted by guards bringing food and supplies. “Eat up and pack the rest,” growled the chief guard. “We’ll be back at nightfall. It’ll be dark, but”—he grinned, showing a mouthful of ragged teeth—“not as dark as where you’re going.”

The food consisted of cold oatmeal, day-old oatcakes, sour oat mash, and oat pudding (with suet). “I wish they’d picked out the weevils,” said Pega, poking at the rubbery pudding with her finger, but no one else complained.

“Now,” said the Bard as they sat around the brazier and Pega stowed the leftover food into sacks, “you can put your minds at rest. The tunnel is not the mouth of Hell.”

“Are you certain?” said Brother Aiden.

“Absolutely! I have much experience with underground paths. Small ones are made by brownies, spriggans, and yarthkins.”

What are those?thought Jack. All the same, he was enchanted by the idea of tiny, magical creatures burrowing around under his feet.

“Most large tunnels are made by elves. The Lady of the Lake has a close friendship with the Queen of Elfland, and I imagine that’s where she’s hiding.”

“Have you been there, sir?” Jack asked.

“Oh, yes,” replied the old man with a not-completely-happy expression on his face. “What bard would not want to hear that music? But…” He fell silent. Jack was surprised. The Bard was usually so confident. He could control winds and call up fire with his very words. It was for that the Northmen honored him and named him Dragon Tongue.

“Are elves as wonderful as the tales say?”

“Of course,” the Bard said irritably. “They’re elves, aren’t they? Only…”

“They have no hearts. Good and evil swirl together in them, and they stand neither on the one side nor the other,” said Brother Aiden.

“They’re perilously fair, which even the wisest can mistake for goodness.” The old man sighed. “Men have abandoned their families to starve, to follow after elves.”

“Seems to me that’s the men’s fault,” said Pega. “Iwouldn’t take after an elvish knight no matter how many times he snapped his fingers.”

“You’re still a child. You don’t know,” the Bard said.

“I suppose Elfland is where the Lady took Lucy,” said Jack as a strange sensation fluttered along his nerves. “I suppose that’s where we have to go.”

“Yes,” said the Bard without any enthusiasm.

“Hurrah!” cried Brutus. “We’re going to have a wonderful, exciting, fantastic adventure!” His face was so transformed by joy, Jack forgot how spineless the slave could be.

“It is a quest.” The boy sighed. The image of a ship sailing north on a foam-flecked sea with merry berserkers singing “Fame Never Dies” rose in his mind. He discarded the memory of smelly boots and sloshing bilge as unimportant. Such things didn’t matter on quests.

“Excuse me, sir,” Pega interrupted. “You said mostof the large tunnels were made by elves. Who made the other ones?”

The Bard looked down at his hands. “Dragons.”

“Dragons!” cried Brutus. “I’ll slay them and rescue princesses.”

“Oh, be quiet,” said Jack.

“But that’s highly unlikely here,” the old man insisted. “The Lady of the Lake wouldn’t take a path inhabited by dragons. Water and fire don’t mix. Now let’s get on with the packing. Time is short, and I need to explain the ground rules for visiting elves.”

Chapter Seventeen

THE HALF-FALLEN ANGELS

“First, of course, you have to find elves,” said the Bard, opening a large, ornately carved chest in the corner of his room. Jack had not paid attention to it before—all houses contained chests. Even the humblest cottage lacking chairs or tables had a place to store valuables. This chest, he had supposed, held bedding, crockery, and other day-to-day necessities. “Elves don’t welcome visitors except on Midsummer’s Eve.”

“You don’t want to be around then,” said Brother Aiden.

“Why? What happens then?” asked Jack, but the two men ignored him.

“I’ve taught you to dowse for water—you’ve been doing the exercises, haven’t you?” The Bard removed a Y-shaped stick from the chest and handed it to Jack. The boy nodded. It was, in fact, difficult not to find water around his village. Every time he practiced dowsing, the stick dragged him into a bog or sinkhole. Once, out of curiosity, he’d pointed it at the sea and was pulled right off a cliff.

“If you can track water, you should be able to follow the Lady of the Lake. Elf tunnels are littered with wood. They like carrying leafy branches with them when they travel. They build bowers to sleep in and don’t bother to clean up afterward. You can use these for campfires, but don’t build one near any black lumps you might find.”

“Why? What are the black lumps?” Jack asked.

“Dragon poop. It’s flammable.”

“Elves are unbelievably trashy,” said Brother Aiden. “I put it down to all the mead they drink.”

“You can also use the discarded wood for torches,” said the Bard. “Remember to check which way the smoke is blowing. Never go into a tunnel with no air movement.”

“It will either be a dead end or a knucker hole,” explained Brother Aiden. “You definitely don’twant to explore a knucker hole. If the ground sucks at your feet, that’s a bad sign.”

“What’s a knucker? Why does the ground suck at your feet?” cried Jack.

No one answered these questions. The Bard rummaged under sheepskins and spare cloaks for the items he’d apparently been storing since arriving at the fortress. It was like him, Jack knew. No matter where he found himself, the old man gathered herbs, odd rocks, sticks, and potions. These things might look like trash to others, but to the Bard, they quivered with secret power. Jack had been trying to develop the same skill, with mediocre results.

Meanwhile, Pega was packing oatcakes and skins of cider into carrying bags. She had her own little mesh bag with useful treasures, including the candle Mother had given her at the need-fire ceremony. Pega carried that everywhere.

Jack wondered if Mother had any idea what was happening to them. He knew she could learn things by gazing into a bowl of water. The Bard called it “scrying” and said that it gave you only hints. When Jack was in Jotunheim, Mother had seen him in the middle of a swarm of bees. Where or when was unclear. And Heide had seen Olaf One-Brow dying in a dark forest, when he was to perish in an open valley fighting a troll-bear.

The bags looked depressingly large, but Jack supposed he would be glad of them in the tunnel. Brutus did nothing. He hummed a happy little song and tapped the rhythm on his knees with his fingers. Jack promised to load him up with bags later.

“I think you’re young enough to resist the lure of elves.” The Bard frowned. “It’s a curious thing, but this is one area where children are stronger than adults. They aren’t as easily taken in by illusions, and elves, above all else, are masters of illusion. That’s why they never come out into the light of day. Shadows, moonlight, mist… that’s their natural element.”

“You sound as if you don’t like them,” Jack said.

“Oh… I like them,” the old man said. His eyes seemed far away, as though he looked beyond the gray walls of the fortress into distances only guessed at.

“So what’s wrong with them? What areelves?” Jack expected to be ignored again, but this time Brother Aiden answered.

“Long ago,” he said, settling down in a way Jack knew signaled the beginning of a tale, “long ago they were angels.”