XVII. The Sirens of
Palewater Bog
Sunday dawned on the
downs of the North Road with a nip and a shiver. Thomas awoke with a start,
wrenched from dreams with no warning, and he scrambled a little in his tangled
bedding before the outside world imposed again on his senses and he recognized,
or at least remembered, where he was. He settled back into the blankets, his
head on his rolled-up jacket and satchel.
They’d had the silver
to purchase whatever they liked at Alice’s Apothecary, but the herbalist’s
stores of travelling supplies were—disappointingly, if unsurprisingly—low.
Nevertheless, parting with the strange fairy-earned discs of hardened silver
rain had bought the three companions blankets of all sizes, skins of water and
goatsmilk, tinder and flint, a sack of apples, a wheel of mild cheese seasoned
with sage, a light rain-cloak for Thomas, a set of needles and thread, a packet
of bandages and ointments, and of course a sheaf of dried herbs that Mistress
Alice claimed would cure “any ailment short of foolishness, and even death if
the rot hasn’t set in.”
The old woman had been
kind to them, and indeed unperturbed by any of the strangeness of the scene.
Thomas trusted that memory or age or the natural oddities of character would
keep Mistress Alice from mentioning the encounter to his parents; he didn’t
want them to worry. He’d left all the silver with the herbalist save for three
pieces, keeping these as charms of last hope should anything happen to him or
his companions.
Thomas’s satchel bulged
with their goods, as of course the mouse and the raven were ill equipped,
notwithstanding their many talents, to carry items larger and heavier than
their own bodies. Cathán had taken the needles and thread, looping them into
his belt alongside his own sword, and Avery had snatched the tinder and flint
from Thomas’s hand and tucked them under his wing. When the boy asked where the
raven would keep them while they travelled, Avery had only replied cryptically
that he would keep them dry from the coming rain.
Sunday dawned clear and
bright and chilly. Neither raincloud nor gentler puff of white marred the pale
blue of the morning sky, but a wind rolled over the downs from the North Road,
carrying the pending bite of autumn and a scent of clover and dust. Thomas
stretched and shivered and pulled the blankets up to his chin. The ground here
was soft enough, his belly was full from the night before, and he and his
companions were safe in the swaying grasses of the downs.
But of course that
peace was only temporary. After a few minutes, Thomas roused himself from his
bedding, stamping life into lethargic limbs as he tugged on his shoes and
jacket. He saw that Cathán still slept: nestled into a woven blanket the size
of a child’s scarf, nose twitching in dreams, squeaking snore punctuating the
windy morning silence.
Thomas smiled. He
stepped over the sleeping Mouse Knight and approached the swaying goldclaw
willow where Avery had chosen to roost for the night. Thomas looked up, then
jumped, finding the raven awake and alert and staring down at him with a
piercing gaze.
Thomas’s surprise
elicited a cawing chuckle from the bird. “Good to be wary, human boy, but not
to fright at figments or friends! Save your twitches for true threats, eh? I
see the mouseling’s still sleeping, though the day dawns already; have you
rested your frail body enough, then?”
“Aye,” said Thomas,
stretching again. “Not bad for sleeping on the ground outside. What about you?”
“Cunning birds such as
I need no sleep to replenish our vigor, for no adventures are too fearsome for
us to withstand with great cheer and cleverness,” Avery replied, flapping down
to Thomas’s blankets. “But yes, I slept well: longer and deeper than you,
surely, restoring all of my considerable strength.”
Thomas sat down next to
him and pulled an apple from his bag. Using the small knife Brak the Vathca had
given him in his poolside cave, Thomas sliced off some of the apple and passed
it to Avery. “Let’s give Cathán a few more minutes to sleep. Then I think we
should be on our way into the bog.” He ate a piece of apple himself, enjoying
the tartness of the juice in the cold light of Sunday morning.
When Cathán had woken
and prepared himself for the day, the three companions gathered up their
travelling provisions and left the downs for the North Road. This they followed
for a half-hour or more, Thomas walking on the edge of the road with his
satchel over his shoulder and his collar turned up, Cathán riding in his usual
position, and Avery soaring overhead. They passed no others on the road. Though
Sunday dawn lost its cold bite with the advent of morning true, the autumn wind
still swept over the downs to pluck at Thomas’s cloak, and he walked in quiet
contemplation.
At a signal from Avery,
Thomas left the North Road behind and turned into the untamed fields that
covered much of the land north of Mídhel. Here the wind lessened, and Avery
dropped down to perch on Thomas’s other shoulder and ride for a while in the
sun. The raven’s feathers tickled Thomas’s ear.
“How far until
Palewater?” Thomas asked.
“Another mile, perhaps?
Human distances are so arbitrary and restrained, but we should be to its edge
soon enough. Already the ground seems springy and damp compared to the packed
road, yes?”
Avery was right. The
land beneath Thomas’s feet was softer than the road, like fresh-tilled dirt or
the moss surrounding a small natural pool of water. It was pleasant for
walking, but Thomas knew it would soon thicken and deepen and drip as fields
became marshland.
“What of the bog
itself?” asked Cathán. “How will we fare on foot inside Palewater?”
Avery made a chirping
noise. “As I perhaps mentioned, I have never been so foolish as to fly directly
over Palewater Bog itself. The ground there exudes a foul miasma that makes
flight nearly impossible, choking the air into heavy stagnation. The sky there
feels like mud. It’s a terrible feeling for a bird—or so I have heard, for as I
said, I’ve not been. But surely the ground will be firm and easy.”
Thomas frowned. “They
say Palewater used to be a lake,” he said, “before it was cursed and filled
with monsters. I don’t know what happened to make it so. Dúnanhneall took me
here once, in the evening, though we stayed closer to the road, farther east
than we are now. I thought I could see yellow ghost-lights floating in the
dark. Dún said that a great battle was fought near Palewater Lake, and that the
dead spirits remained when the water turned to bog. But he wouldn’t tell me
what kind of monsters lived there or what caused the curse. He did say that
there was once a bridge that crossed the lake, and that buildings used to stand
in the middle of the water on tiny islands. If we’re going to the very center
of the bog, maybe we can use the bridge.”
Those words, along with
the haze that had appeared on the horizon before them, seemed to darken the
mood considerably. Thomas turned the conversation instead to happier thoughts,
prodding Avery for another story until at last the raven relented. Avery began his
tale with an odd song about a snake that fed on the embers of campfires; from
there the story turned to a description of the dances and courtship rituals of
sky-spirits, the floating memories of dandelions that, according to Avery,
governed wind-currents and rainstorms high above the world.
“And so the seven
sky-spirits decided to descend to earthly realms and investigate the source of
the disturbance,” Avery said some time later. “They floating down amidst the
whirlwind and alighted upon an old tree-branch. There was light below them, and
a shadow moving in the light—a creature that moved like wind given form.”
“The serpent in the
fire?” Cathán asked, his voice betraying excitement despite a feigned
disinterest in the raven’s fanciful tales.
“Perhaps,” Avery
replied. “But here the story must end—for see! we have arrived at the fringe of
the Palewater Bog and the wreckage of the bridge of old.”
So they had: Thomas,
listening to the raven’s strange stories and concentrating on the increasingly
muddy ground beneath his feet, hadn’t fully noticed the yellowing tint of the
air around them nor the wafting smell of fetor and damp until this moment. He
looked up. The world had taken a sickly hue, and he couldn’t see for more than
a hundred feet before it was all swallowed up in a kind of mist that seemed to
drip and ooze. The plants here were yellow as well, living but warped,
grass-blades sagging and trees drooping beneath the weight of the air. Ahead,
peeking out of the pale haze, was a wooden platform with a rope-looped railing.
“Palewater Bog,” Thomas
said quietly. He found a nearby log and sat, dropping his satchel and cloak
onto the tufted grass. “We should take a minute to rest and lunch and plan for
the bog.”
His companions agreed;
Cathán hopped onto the log and began to retrieve their food and skins from the
satchel, while Avery scouted the immediate area in a quick swoop and reported
that, at least for the moment, they were safely alone. Thomas ate a wedge of
cheese and drank cold water from the skin, chewing slowly and thinking. His
companions ate their various morsels and kept to their own affairs. It was
impossible to ignore the yellow haze seeping into their surroundings. Even
Thomas’s own skin was beginning to look pale and sickly.
The boy sat back on the
log and looked at Cathán and Avery. “Our goal is to find the lichen,” he said.
“It’s a tuft
of yellow-green lichen wrapped around the bones of an ancient warrior, and it’s
at the very center of the bog. We need to make it safely through the murk
without being poisoned or haunted or attacked or whatever else the spirits can
do here. That means we need to be very alert. Palewater Bog might be even more
dangerous than the Grimgrove. We need to watch for ghost-lights and any other
signs of monsters. And we need to move quickly. I don’t know how big the bog
is, but I don’t want to be here tonight.”
“Nor I,” said Cathán with a shiver. He pulled a cheese-crumb from his
whiskers, finished it off, and stood upright. “You’ve named the quest truly,
friend Thomas: many dangers and obstacles but a great reward for heroic deeds.
Ahead we forge into the gloom, nary a thought of defeat save that of our monstrous
foes! Still,” the Mouse Knight added, a bit less boisterously, “I wouldn’t mind
riding on your shoulder for a while more, given the sturdiness of your steps
compared to my unshod paws.”
“And I certainly won’t be flying in this,” Avery said, flapping his
wings as if to prove his point. The air swirled in their wake. “Seems as though
you’ll pick out our path for us, human boy. Step carefully.”
Thomas nodded. “We’ll start on the bridge and see where it leads us.”
He gathered up cloak and satchel, then gestured for his companions to climb
onto his shoulders. When they both were settled, Thomas, taking a last breath
of partially clean air, strode forward toward the misty bridge.
To his surprise and
relief, the bridge remained intact enough to cross. It swayed and shuddered
under his weight, and the rope-railings were useless as protection against a
tumble into the water, but Thomas was able to make his way down the bridge by
stepping carefully past the rotted timbers and sticking to the driest and smoothest
stretches. The land on either side of the bridge quickly became mud and then
water outright as they passed from outlying marshes into Palewater Bog itself.
What water remained of
the former lake had turned sullen and torpid. Thomas couldn’t guess at the
depth of the bog; its surface was covered in mold and moss and bracken, all of
it yellow and dripping. Vapors of steam and stench rose from the bog and curled
over the bridge. Thomas soon pulled a scarf-blanket from his satchel and
wrapped it around his mouth and nose; Avery did the same with a smaller scrap,
while Cathán buried his small face beneath Thomas’s collar, only his ears and
brown eyes showing.
The bog hissed and spat
and spewed its yellow haze over everything. Thomas continued walking, slowly
but with purpose, careful with his footing on the moldering bridge. Bubbles in
the bog popped with a stench that penetrated the scarf. Even when Thomas placed
a bundle of mint sprigs from Mistress Alice’s sheaf between his nose and the
scarf, he could smell the muck of the bog. It clung to his clothing and dewed
on the fringe of his cloak and left a sheen on his exposed hands and forehead
and ears.
The three companions
came to the end of the bridge. The wooden planks creaked into a platform on a
mound of earth, a patch of sodden ground with wilting tussocks and small stones
strewn about. Thomas gingerly stepped from the last of the bridge onto the
mound, testing the earth to ensure that it was firmer than the false surface of
the bog. He took a few more steps on the tiny island and looked around.
“This must have been
where the humans of old made their dwellings,” said Cathán, poking his head
above Thomas’s collar. “How far does the land extend? Are we near the center of
the bog?”
“I don’t see any dead men
here,” said Avery darkly. “Not yet, at least.”
“Let’s take a look
around,” Thomas suggested.
He walked forward.
After a dozen paces, the earth sloped downward into the bog; the dirt was
yellow and white where the ooze lapped against it, reminding Thomas of piles of
leaves left to rot under the snow for the winter. He turned to the right and
followed the curve of the islet back to the bridge.
Thomas’s search of the
left side of the mound of earth bore fruit: another stretch of land, choked
with weeds and dead scrub but passable, leading away deeper into the bog. The
earth here was shored up with stone blocks; where they had fallen into the
muck, the bog had asserted itself, staining the soil white and leaving small shell-like
formations and films of gray moss. Thomas didn’t inspect them further. He
walked along the causeway as quickly as he dared.
Sunday morning had
ceded to afternoon. It was difficult for Thomas to mark the passage of time in
Palewater Bog. The sky and earth were yellow and smoky; the ground was soft;
the water steamed and spat. He pressed on resolutely.
Occasionally Avery
would flap off Thomas’s shoulder and glide ahead into the yellow gloom to scout
out their way. But the raven always returned promptly, shaking his glossy
feathers and scowling, saying little, gripping Thomas’s shoulder a little
tighter.
The muck of the bog
made suckling sounds around them, pulling down dried branches and crispy leaves
and whatever else might have fallen onto its mossy slimy surface.
Thomas could see
strange lights in the distance, to the right and to the left. He tried not to
look at them. They looked a little like bobbing lanterns, and although they
were not particularly inviting, he did have an odd curiosity about them that
disconcerted him. Thomas mentioned as much to Cathán.
“Aye, the
ghost-lights,” the Mouse Knight said, snuggled up safely against Thomas’s neck.
“Bewitching they are, even for doughty creatures of the forest such as us. The
lights I’ve seen before were floating in the treetops near the mages’
observatory, deep in the Whiskered Wood: perhaps the most pleasant of all the
ghost-lights, for they were the souls of departed mouse-mages, they say, and
not unkindly toward their own kin. And yet still the mages cautioned us never
to stare too long nor too deeply. They
are . . . unsettling.”
“If you look at the
ghost-lights, they look at you back,” Avery added quietly. “You draw their
attention. And then you start seeing them everywhere, even when you close your
eyes. When the ghost-lights get inside your eyes, you’re doomed.” He shifted a
little. “That’s what the stories of the Blackhill Clan claim, anyway. Bit of
foolishness, I think, but—” His voice broke off into a croak and died.
Thomas kept his eyes
fixed firmly forward. At times he tried to make a joke or tell a story, or
petition one of his companions for some conversation; but his own words seemed
swallowed up by the bog, and neither Avery nor Cathán were inclined to offer
more than terse comments on the dangers of their surroundings. So Thomas kept
his silence and trudged onward.
As Sunday afternoon
trudged on into Sunday evening, the sky, such as it was, darkened to a shining
orange that filtered through the yellow-white haze of the bog into pale shafts.
Motes of dust and debris floated in the orange light. Some of them appeared
things alive: little wriggling bits of moss or leaves with sharpened teeth.
Thomas shuddered and tugged down his knit cap and pressed on.
Dark shapes began to
appear in the distance. Thomas’s imagination made them into wraiths and
skeletons creeping over the hissing water, while Cathán said he saw the
slavering jaws and bulky muscles of fierce predators. Avery remained silent,
ducking his beak and leaning his head against the side of Thomas’s, his
intelligent eyes firmly closed.
Thomas hurried on.
Haste was difficult in Palewater Bog, he found; though the way was straight,
the ground was treacherously damp and sticky, and the very air seemed to push
him in all directions but forward. The dark shapes continued to move in the
haze, always approaching, never nearing. Sunday evening embraced the three
companions fully, slipping cold arms around them and smothering them in the
folds of a mossy cloak.
Thomas imagined that
elsewhere, beyond the confining murk of the bog, Sunday evening was a mellow
pleasant creature, full of gray light and soft winds and a dwindling of merry
fires. But there was no merriness here. The bog had made Sunday evening
fearsome and bitter.
“We might have to spend
the night here,” Thomas said aloud. The words shivered in the air. “I should
light a fire, at least, to guide our way forward and keep the dark things
away.”
He produced the tinder
and flint from his satchel, along with a tree-branch the length of his forearm
that he’d collected before they entered the bog. Thomas wrapped the end of the
branch in dried sage and struck the flint. Lighting the branch took him longer
than it ever had, but eventually the sage flamed and the wood smoldered with
its own flickering fire, and Thomas lifted the torch aloft.
The torchlight drove
the miasma away, just a little, and the scent of sage was a balm to their
choked lungs. All three companions breathed easier, felt renewed strength in
their bones. Thomas replaced the tinder and flint in his satchel, squared his
shoulders, and set off again at a faster pace.
When twilight glimmered
over the bog and cast the bubbling water in black and gray, Thomas began to
hear a strange noise. It intruded upon his senses slowly, gradually; by the
time he realized it, the noise had grown quite loud, and Cathán had perked up
his ears and was standing on Thomas’s shoulder. The sound itself was not so
strange, but Thomas had become inured to the dank and damp of the bog, and at
first he didn’t recognize it.
The sound was
splashing: the splashing of clean, clear water, at that, not the hideous
sucking and spitting that surrounded them. Thomas slowed, listening intently,
surprised and a little relieved to hear a pleasant sound in the midst of
darkness.
“That way,” said Cathán,
pointing to the left.
The pathway had
broadened, stretching from a straight path into a courtyard of muddy earth and
sharp rocks. Thomas followed the sound, passing boulders and twisted
scraggle-trees that rose up in the gloom like tombstones. He came then to a
small rocky hillside with a narrow overhang; and below the stone outcropping
lay a glimmering pool of clear water that shone with the light of the full moon
in the twilight.
Thomas halted at the
edge of the hillside and stared into the pool. The water was indeed clean,
rippling with a liquid blue that seemed almost to quench his thirst where he
stood. A small waterfall fed the pool from the outcrop, and away in the
distance Thomas could hear a stream burbling. On the bottom of the pool, the boy
could see the glitter of gold and silver in the sand, dotted with the hues of
rare gemstones and the sleek shine of weapons. The pool was a trove of life and
treasure and peace.
Four women splashed in
the pool and laughed among themselves. Thomas could see that they were
mermaids, as he’d heard described in the hearth-tales: shiny scales covered
their lower halves, ending in powerful fins that flickered back and forth under
the water’s surface. The mermaids were dressed in the nakedness of children and
animals. Their skin was moonlight and alabaster, their hair sunlight and
nightshadow, and their voices rang with laughter and unbridled mirth over the pool.
Thomas leaned a little
closer, lifting his torch to cast its light upon the pool. He saw then that a
long blanket had been spread on the far shoreline, and upon it had been placed
a feast to rival anything he’d seen at the midsummer bonfire or the tables of
Luchamhá. The air here was sweet with lilac and birdsong; the splashing of the
mermaids made Thomas more acutely aware of the dirt and grime that coated him
after long treks through the Grimgrove and Palewater Bog.
Cathán leaned close to
Thomas’s ear, his nose cold on the boy’s skin, and whispered, “Sirens, of
course. Dark monsters of the deep. Watch and ’ware.”
The Mouse Knight drew
back his bowstring and loosed a tiny dart toward the frolicking mermaids. It
flew true, striking one in the forearm. Immediately the mermaid dove beneath
the surface of the pool and swam toward them at a breathtaking speed. Thomas
backed away from the edge of the pool, but the droplets that reached him when
the mermaid emerged once more hissed against the heavy fabric of his jacket.
The mermaid raised
herself up in the water and howled in an unearthly voice. Her hair, once glossy
and silken, was now whipped into a frenzy about her head like a den of adders.
Her skin mottled before Thomas’s eyes, white becoming red and black and gray in
scaly patches. She swayed in the water,
a shivering image of blind fury. Her fingers had become talons, her teeth
needles.
The wind shifted,
drawing the air of the pool toward them. It smelled now of rotten meat and poisonlily
blooms, making Thomas cough into his scarf. The other three sirens swam in
frenzied circles around the pool, while the one that Cathán had struck
continued to howl and lash out toward them from the pool’s edge. She seemed
unable to venture beyond the water, and Thomas made sure to stay a safe
distance away. Even that proximity made his flesh crawl.
“We ought to keep
moving,” said Avery from Thomas’s right shoulder. He cawed at the siren, a
sound both tentative and provocative; she replied by gnashing her sharp teeth
and flailing in the fetid water, howling louder still.
“Aye,” said Cathán.
“Their cries will draw other dark denizens of the bog. Besides, there is
nothing for us here. We should seek shelter and safety elsewhere.”
Thomas stared at the
furious sirens a few moments longer, then turned and continued on along the
solid ground leading through the muck of Palewater. The skin down his spine
prickled as the sirens howled in disharmony behind them. He kept his pace light
and quick, and soon they were beyond earshot of the sirens and their rage,
though it took longer for Thomas to outwalk the sense of unease their encounter
had brought.
At last, with Sunday
night fully upon them in weight and shadow, Thomas and his companions came to a
drier patch of ground with a crooked hazel and a growth of withering vines to
serve as their bed. They had accepted the necessity of camping the night in
Palewater Bog—fearing the horrors waiting in the dark but knowing that they
could not hope to find and claim the lichen without the feeble light of day.
They ate a quiet supper
of stores from Alice’s Apothecary and settled in for the night. They’d decided
to take their watch in two-hour shifts. Avery found a crook in the twisted
hazel and hunched over for sleep; Thomas bundled himself up in his blankets
beneath the trunk.
Cathán stood on the
boy’s chest and looked down at him. “Hopeful dreams, friend Thomas,” said the
Mouse Knight, drawing his sword and acorn shield. “I’ll wake you when it’s
time.”
The comforting weight
of the First Captain of the Thistledown Kingdom on his chest offset the other
worries that plagued Thomas’s tired mind, and he swiftly fell into dreams.
#
Thomas awoke in Mídhel
on a bright spring morning.
He recognized at once
that he was dreaming, for this was not his
Mídhel, but an imagined version with shifting buildings and strange colors
and the sense of something much like fairy-magic in the air. Still, Thomas was
glad to be back in a place resembling his home, and he strode forward through
the streets with a grin.
His smile quickly faded
as he realized that he was the only living person in the town. Markets and
squares and shops were empty; the forge was dark; the tavern stood with windows
shuttered and the paint fading on its signpost. Thomas walked along, less
confident now, looking down alleys and byways for any hint of life. He found
none.
As he walked through
the silent streets, he realized a deep, awful truth of this dream-Mídhel: it
was emptied, not just vacant. Its
inhabitants had been taken away. And Thomas knew who must be responsible.
In vain he searched for
any sign of the witch, seeking her pale skin and violet gown and black, black
eyes.
He hunted in the larders and granaries and workshops of the town, pulling aside
crates and rummaging through bundles of cloth, seeking any suggestion of the
witch’s presence or magic or influence.
He found nothing. She had taken everything important from Mídhel and
left him behind. And now she was gone, and Thomas was alone, and he was
powerless to bring them all back.
#
Thomas awoke with a start and a shudder and a quick sense of relief
that he was no longer trapped in the emptied dream-version of his home. That
relief was at once replaced by despair when he remembered his real
surroundings. He sat up stiffly, noticing that their campsite was still black
and glowing with the haze of Palewater Bog. He noticed also that, although
Avery remained sleeping in the hazel, Cathán was nowhere near.
Thomas heard a sniffling noise from somewhere close. It didn’t sound
like Mouse Knight, nor like the menacing sounds of the sirens or the other
monsters of the bog. To Thomas’s ears, it sounded human.
Warily, he rose from his blankets and stepped toward the sound, making
sure his knife was tucked into his pocket before leaving the campsite. The haze
and miasma of the bog made sight and tracking difficult; but Thomas managed,
within a minute or two of exploring, to locate the source of the sniffling cry.
It was indeed human: a small boy, no older than five years, sitting in
the muck with his head buried in his hands.
Thomas approached. “Hello,” he said softly, every story of every
horrible encounter with mischievous spirits he’d ever heard crowding into his
mind. “Are you all right?”
The boy lifted his head. His eyes were green and his cheeks stained
with tears; beneath a mop of unruly hair he looked up at Thomas. “Hello,” the
boy replied, sniffling again. “I’ve lost my dog.”
Thomas crouched down so he was looking straight at the hapless boy.
“Where did you see it last?”
The boy sniffed. “He was right here with me. I told him to sit here
while I went looking for some berries to eat, but when I came back he was gone.
And I can’t even find his pawprints to follow him!”
Thomas looked around. Truly the boy had spoken: no trace of the dog
remained, despite the muck and mud of the bog. Thomas couldn’t fathom finding
wild berries in Palewater, to say nothing of eating anything that grew here, and it was foolish indeed to separate
yourself from your companions with the spirits of the bog all around; but he
said none of this to the boy, just extended his hand in fellowship. “What’s
your name?”
“Saf,” said the boy, letting Thomas pull him out of the mood. “Least
that’s what everyone says. And my dog is Elwood.”
“Well, Saf,” said Thomas, brushing clean his hands and peering about, “let’s
see if we can find Elwood and get you two to safety, and maybe a little food
and sleep. How did you come to Palewater Bog, anyway? Doesn’t seem the place
for a boy and his dog.”
Before Saf could answer, a noise pierced the haze: loud and sudden and
startling. It was the bark of an overeager dog, and before long the dog himself
followed after, loping through the mud toward Thomas and Saf with tongue
lolling and shaggy hair bouncing.
Thomas was surprised at the size of the hound. Elwood stood taller
than Saf and nearly to Thomas’s own shoulders, with great paws and a lithe
wagging tail and a shocking coat of fur that looked like piles of snow
splotched with blackcurrant wine. Thomas’s might’ve feared such an animal
bounding toward him from the gloom of the haunted bog had Saf not shouted for
joy and darted forward, or if the sight of the shaggy Elwood hadn’t been so
charmingly out of place for the landscape.
Thomas stood back and watched as Elwood, realizing too late his own
speed and force, skidded and slipped in the mud, trying to stop before bowling
over the young boy. Saf was evidently practiced at these greetings, for he
ducked to the side and caught Elwood round the neck, laughing and whooping in
delight. The dog eventually found his footing and promptly stood up on his hind
legs to cover Saf’s face in wet kisses, barking all the while.
Thomas saw something dart toward him in the air. He groped in his
pockets for his knife, but then the object struck him in the shoulder and his
realized it was only Cathán, who had leapt from Elwood’s back toward his
customary perch.
“Ho there, Thomas and Saf!” Cathán called, patting Thomas’s left ear. “The
dog and I were looking for you. He’s a shy fellow but loyal and true. He was
roving about whining after his master, and I heard him in the gloom of night
and thought he must be a whisperwight or a banshee or some such monster, so I
gave chase. Lo, there a brute of a dog, wandering in the swamp and howling for
his boy! We gathered our wits and came back quick as we could; and here you are
safe!”
Thomas smiled, watching Saf and Elwood embrace. “Did he tell you why
they’re out in the bog?”
Cathán shook his head and his whispers tickled Thomas’s neck. “Shy
fellow, as I said. But he did say something of interest.” Louder, the Mouse
Knight addressed Saf: “Do you recall walking past a square stone building all
covered in moss and dead branches, not too far from here?”
The boy disentangled himself from the dog and walked back to Thomas
and Cathán. “Oh yes,” Saf replied, patting Elwood’s shaggy head. “It looked to
me like a tomb, like a place where they’d bury some great warrior or wizard
maybe.”
Thomas shared a meaningful look out of the corner of his eye with
Cathán. “Do you think you could take us there?”
“Oh, I’m horrible with tracking!” said Saf with a grin. “But Elwood
has the best nose of any man or beast. He’ll lead us right back there. Is that
where you want to go?”
They returned to the makeshift campsite and roused Avery from his
roost in the withered hazel. After three explanations of increasing simplicity,
the raven captured what had transpired while he slept, and though he grumbled
about the impetuousness of humans and mice and ‘foul lumps of fur,’ and the
priority of sleep during trying times, he eventually agreed that finding the
warrior’s bones and collecting the lichen was more urgent still, and would in
fact allow them to escape the bog and return to decent places under the sun all
the quicker.
So Thomas and Cathán and Avery packed up their belongings and set off
deeper into Palewater Bog, following closely behind Saf and his dog Elwood.
Thomas kept a careful eye on his surroundings. It was still the middle of the
night, and the yellow haze of the bog was treacherous and dark. He could feel
Sunday night shuddering under his steps as they carried him toward the black
predawn of Monday.
Thomas also saw the ghost-lights flickering in the distance. They
looked almost inviting, as though they were hearth-fires and cheery stoves with
supper simmering. But Thomas, knowing the dark enchantments that lingered over
places such as this, and remembering too well the sharp teeth and sharper
howling of the sirens, turned his gaze away from the twinkling ghost-lights and
marched onward toward the warrior’s tomb.
