Freeglader (31 page)

Rook stepped closer to the creature. He licked his fingers and traced them gently round the prowlgrin's flaring nostrils, whispering as he did so.

‘Chinquix, Chinquix…’

As he did so, the prowlgrin breathed in. It stopped pawing the ground and seemed to listen. Rook smiled softly and, still holding the great creature's nervous gaze, he leaned forwards and blew softly.

The prowlgrin blew back and its bright blue eyes softened. The yelping sound subsided, and in its place, rumbling from deep down inside its throat, came a low, contented purr.

‘Good lad, Chinquix,’ said Rook, throwing the saddle over its back and tightening the straps under its belly, tickling and
stroking it all the while. ‘Good, good lad!’

‘Well, I never,’ said Rembit. ‘Most incredible thing I've ever seen. Where on earth did you learn to do that?’ he asked.

Rook turned towards the marshal, only to find Chinquix nuzzling against him, greedy for more attention. He patted the barkscroll in his top pocket. ‘Just something I read,’ he said.

Rembit shook his head. ‘If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes…’

Behind him, Ligger had mounted his own prowlgrin, an orangey-brown beast by the name of Belvix. He trotted over to Rook.

‘Very impressive,’ he said. ‘Now, let's see how you get on in the upper branches.’

Rook didn't need telling twice. Steadying his prowlgrin, he swung himself into the saddle and gave the reins a small flick. Almost immediately, Chinquix bounded into the air, and Rook found himself racing through the branches, the blood coursing along his veins. Not since
Stormhornet
had he felt such exhilaration.

‘I'm alive, Chinquix!’ he cried, his voice echoing round the Ironwood Glade. ‘
I'm alive!
’

• CHAPTER SIXTEEN •
CANCARESSE

I
nside the tall, dense ring of spike-briars and milkthorn trees, their curved thorns sharp and forbidding, Waif Glen was bathed in the pale yellow light of early morning. Everything had been made ready.

The winding gravel paths were newly raked, the pools and waterfalls clear, the rockeries tidy, while the ornamental evergreen trees with their small, dark, waxen leaves, had been freshly clipped into intricate, angular shapes. Arbours and alcoves had been prepared for those who would soon sit in and walk around them. At the centre of the garden was a circular lawn of fragrant herbs, recently mown, out of which towered an ancient gladewillow, its mighty branches falling like a golden curtain to the ground.

Cancaresse the Silent, Keeper of the Garden of Thoughts, stood in the shadows beneath the glade-willow, her shimmering robes hanging loosely from her bony shoulders and the tips of her long, spidery fingers pressed together in concentration…

They were coming, that much was certain. As her large, papery ears fluttered, she could hear them – all the ones who had been summoned to the Reckoning, plus those others who, for their own reasons, desired to be present.

Even now, her waif attendants were helping the visitors to navigate the seemingly impenetrable wall of thorns that kept the sounds of the outside world at bay. She sensed their amazement as the path through the treacherous thorn trees and briars opened up before them and felt their jolt of unease as they noticed the various waifs – ghostwaifs, greywaifs, flitterwaifs, night-waifs – staring back at them from out of the shadows. One by one, they began to appear, emerging from the thorny wall of undergrowth and blinking into the light.

Welcome
, she said, her soft
voice cutting through the cluttered thoughts in their heads.

Keeping largely to themselves, the visitors moved round the garden, unknowingly seeking out the places where they felt most comfortable. Some contemplated their reflections in the deep, limpid pools, some sat beneath the swaying sallowdrop trees, while others continued walking, lost in contemplation, their footsteps crunching softly in the gravel. And, as more and more individuals joined the slowly growing number, the sounds of their thoughts filled Cancaresse's head.

She trembled, her frail body quivering at the jumble of voices as they hummed and buzzed like woodbees. Already though, as the calming atmosphere of the garden took hold, they were beginning to quieten down; to be stilled and soothed and steered to clear, uncluttered thought.

A faint, inscrutable smile plucked at the corners of her mouth as she slowly parted the gladewillow curtain and cast her gaze round the garden. Normally, there would be a troubled cloddertrog or two soothing their anger by the pools, or a solitary gyle goblin easing his melancholy on the gravel paths. But on days like this – Reckoning Days – it seemed as if all of the Free Glades had turned up, their heads filled with noisy thoughts.

As they moved around, Cancaresse began to listen in to them, one after the other. Some had dark thoughts, full of anger and blame. Some had sympathetic thoughts, full of sadness, whilst the majority had minds buzzing with the inquisitiveness and gossip-fed interest
of the casual onlooker. Cancaresse moved swiftly over these and concentrated on only the strongest emotions she could sense coming from the various corners of the garden.

There was a young sunken-eyed librarian knight brooding by the healing-pools. And there, a fussy under-librarian delicately sniffing a sallowdrop blossom to ease his pain. And over on the straight gravel path, the High Academe himself, head down and hands clasped behind his back, while in the wicker arbour there lounged a tense and fidgety ghost, his muglumpskin jacket bright against the dark evergreen bushes behind him. A little way beyond, two Freeglade lancers edged their way round the waterfalls of memory. Their thoughts intrigued her – she would get to them in due course.

A soft, scent-laden breeze wafted across the manicured lawns and neatly clipped bushes. Cancaresse paused. Her ears trembled and twisted round.

‘Aah,’ she sighed.

Behind her, standing in the deep shadows by the gnarled and knotted trunk of the gladewillow, was the object of all their thoughts: a youth with short cropped hair. He was pale and looked anxious, like a startled lemkin – but then, she thought, who wouldn't at his own Reckoning?

She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in, her frail body quivering as she did so. It was time to begin.

She stepped through the curtain of gladewillow leaves and made her way across the lawn and onto the gravel paths, stepping so lightly that her feet made no sound.

She wandered unnoticed, mingling with the visitors, seeking out those whose emotions ran deepest…

In front of her, kneeling on the marble surround of a pool, was the sunken-eyed librarian knight, his thoughts as deep and dark as the water he was staring into. There was pain and hurt in his thoughts, and a rage so strong, it made her papery ears flutter with its intensity. She approached him, and laid her spidery fingers against his chest.

Show me
, she spoke inside his head.

The youth unbuttoned his flight-jacket and hitched up his undershirt. A jagged scar crossed his ribs. Cancaresse reached out and traced a finger along the angry red line, staring deeply all the while into the youth's eyes.

Yes
, she said, her voice full of sadness and regret.
Yes, I see. An ambush – in the terrible city of the bird-creatures … Your friends, so young, so brave, hacked to pieces, one after the other by the vicious shryke-sisters. The blood, the screams, one, two, three, four – and now it is your turn
…

She shuddered, her tiny body quivering as it felt the librarian knight's pain.

A slash of a razor-sharp claw … And then you're running, running! Running!

Cancaresse closed her eyes and probed deeper into his memories.

Cowering in the shadows of a walkway; watching, waiting, praying that the shrykes won't find you. The terror. The pain.
The sound of the bird-creatures' triumphant cries … ‘Betrayed by their own! Betrayed by their own!’

She opened her eyes and stared into the librarian knight's face, the memory of the shrykes' taunting screech still fresh and raw.

‘
Thank you, Xanth!
' the shryke's voice cackled. ‘
Xanth Filatine!
’

Cancaresse let her thin arms fall limply to her side. She turned and walked away from the pool and across the gravelled paths, leaving the youth to his brooding. There were others whose thoughts she must hear. She crossed the scented lawn and wandered through the sallowdrop trees, their branches heavy with yellow and white blossom, stopping in front of the fussy under-librarian. She regarded him with large unblinking eyes.

He was slight, but spritely-looking, with half-moon spectacles which had slipped down over the bridge of his long, thin nose. His thinning hair had turned to a shade of grey, yet from the way the bright sun glinted on it, Cancaresse could see that once it had been as red as copperwood leaves. Inside him, the waif sensed a hole, a gap – something missing that could never be replaced.

Tell me
, she said.
Open your thoughts to me
.

She leaned forwards, reached up and placed her hands on either side of his head, and gasped as his pain washed over her.