THE BLACKBERRY WITCH: chapter 19

All chapters of The Blackberry Witch

XIX. The Shroud of Sir Elbarion

Avery was the first to respond. The raven pushed off Thomas’s shoulder with a sharp pinch, a mighty flap, and a shrill tinny squawk that was half menace and half fright. Like a feathery black dagger the raven swooped toward the changeling, extending glossy wings and the last moment, talons and beak extended. Avery’s head jerked in a jabbing motion and the changeling recoiled, a hand to his face.

Avery flapped again and plunged toward the changeling’s ear, poking a talon into the soft flesh between throat and breastbone, flapping to stay aloft and out of the reach of groping hands. Saf the changeling cried out in anger and pain, leaning away from the bird’s attack, thereby clearing a way forward.

Thomas needed only a little urging from Cathán to take the chance. The human boy ran forward, pushing past Saf, who reached after him with a futile hand and a snarl. Thomas heard Elwood barking and growling, close behind, and realized the dog had climbed the stairs to the broken hallway.

But Thomas had no time for such thoughts. The gap over the empty hallway was three steps ahead—two—a single step, planted on the loose stones of the crumbling floor, already shifting with the rest of the defunct castle—and Thomas leapt into the air, Cathán gripping his shoulder tight, hands wheeling, satchel suspended behind him, Elwood’s howls echoing off the walls and over the open space of the castle ruins, Avery’s flaps and the changeling’s cries accompanying the steady pounding of blood in Thomas’s ears—the hazy air rushed past him as he flew over the gap—

Thomas landed on his feet on the other side of the broken walkway. His satchel thumped against his back. He felt Cathán’s fur brush his face as the Mouse Knight regained a steady grip. Thomas reached out a hand and placed it on the dripping stones of the castle, just for a moment, to catch his breath and make sure he’d truly landed on safer ground.

He spared a glance over his shoulder. Avery was a wild black halo around the changeling boy’s head, pecking and flapping and clawing, deftly avoiding Saf’s frantic swats and Elwood’s nipping teeth, though both seemed too close to evade forever.

Then Thomas turned away from the fight and ran. He knew Avery’s distraction would only last a few more moments, and then the changeling and his hound would be after them, following the scent of blood and led by the sirens’ gravesong, eager to rip away his skin and leave his meat and bones for the monsters outside. Monsters everywhere, Thomas thought, sliding around a corner and taking the staircase three steps at a bound.

There were monsters inside the ruins and monsters outside the ruins and, seemingly, monsters everywhere else, but for now Thomas had a lungful of air and a flat stretch of castle hallway before him, and he ran as he never had, fast enough that he felt Cathán’s tiny paws scrabbling for purchase on his shirt-collar and shoulder.

“Left here,” the Mouse Knight shouted in Thomas’s ear when they came to an intersection. Thomas didn’t hesitate; he turned left and kept running. And so they proceeded, left and left again, straight forward through a junction of seven hallways, a sharp right and then down another corridor. It wasn’t far, but the layout of the castle ruins was tangled and made worse by the decrepit state of the stonework.

Cathán’s nose led them true; Thomas could feel it in his bones. They had almost returned to Saf and Avery and Elwood, to where the changeling had indicated, though it was hard to tell with the way the sound echoed and carried through the ruins. They passed under wet, low-hanging roofs and ran through open courtyard and broken-down chambers. Thomas felt as though he must have tread a mile in the space of a dozen yards. The gravesong of the lusting sirens never abated. Somewhere behind him, or perhaps ahead of him, the changeling’s angry voice and yelps of pain reverberated through the hallways.

At Cathán’s direction, Thomas rounded a final corner and came to a lurching stop. He panted and narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce the heavy fog before them. The way ahead was straight and shrouded in gloom, gray and swirling, impenetrable.

“Just as the changeling said,” Cathán declared, hopping off Thomas’s shoulder. The Mouse Knight took a few tentative sniffs of the air, then darted away on all fours. He returned carrying a long slender stick in his paws.

Thomas bent down and took the stick. It was wet and mossy, but it was the best option they had, so he withdrew flint and tinder from his satchel and struck. The tiniest of sparks found the driest edge of the stick and caught fire in the yellowing moss that slept there. The flame was tender and weak, barely a candle-wick in the humid and hazy air of the castle ruins, wavering as though the mere thought of moisture would snuff it out: but it was enough.

As if by some spell or summoned gust of wind, the fog began to burn away before their eyes, receding into the cracks in the stone a few feet at a time until the entire hallway was clear and open. It was a single corridor, just wider than Thomas’s shoulders, stretching on and on farther than the boy’s eyes could make out; and it appeared free of enemies or traps, insofar as he could discern.

Trusting and hoping that Avery still fended for himself against the changeling and the dog, Thomas lifted Cathán into his palm, held the glowing stick up, and started down the hallway.

Quickly Thomas and Cathán came to the end of a hallway and an open door with darkness waiting beyond. Thomas stopped before the doorway to catch his breath and settle his nerves. The door was flanked by bands of rough-hewn stone and capped with a lintel bearing crude scrollwork and a floral design, perhaps some ancient crest. Both the lintel and the side-bands were inscribed with symbols or glyphs, short intersecting lines and swirls that were clearly some sort of language but which Thomas could neither decipher nor recognize. He gleaned their meaning well enough, however: “The tomb of Sir Elbarion,” he said softly, setting Cathán back onto his shoulder. “Saf wasn’t lying about that part, it seems. Let’s hope the rest of it is true.”

“Forward in bravery, noble Thomas,” Cathán said, patting Thomas’s ear. Thomas could hear the tension in the Mouse Knight’s voice.

With a deep breath, Thomas stepped forward, passing over the threshold and beneath the marked lintel-stones, entering the gloomy tomb.

The stick he carried guttered out almost at once, its tiny spark having fulfilled its purpose. Thomas set the smoldering stick aside. The interior of the tomb was lighted with its own kind of illumination, though Thomas could see no source, no skylight or torch or bioluminescence. The tomb was bathed in a gray pallor, uniform and faint, eerie under any conditions except by comparison to the yellow mire that filled Palewater Bog, against which it seemed only weak and melancholy; but it was enough for Thomas to see by.

The room was modest in size, twenty feet square. It was the only tomb Thomas had ever been inside or even seen, so it looked large to his eyes, certainly larger than was necessary for a single body. A walkway ringed the room, two feet wide, elevating Thomas and Cathán from a recess in the floor that was filled with six inches of still water. At the center of the room, rising from the watery recess, stood a dais bearing a thick circular column of stone laced with dried brown vines. The column reached upward into the black of the ceiling; it was smooth save for the foliage, perfectly rounded, glistening with the sheen of reflected water in the gray light.

A skeleton was slumped on the dais before them. Its back rested against the column and its bony feet dangling in the water, the head tipped forward onto its chest. It held a silvery sword in its arms, the blade still shining despite the status of its bearer. Yellow-green lichen grew on the body’s ribcage, tangled around the individual bones as though it were a breastplate or coat of mail. A rusted helm sat askew on the skeleton’s grinning skull. A tattered robe, probably all that remained of the warrior’s clothing in life, was draped over the skeleton’s shoulders.

Thomas shifted from one foot to the other. “Sir Elbarion,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure if he was addressing the fallen knight or commenting to Cathán about the skeleton’s identity. Either way, the Mouse Knight squeaked his assent.

Thomas deliberated for a moment in his mind, not really considering other options so much as preparing himself. The hum of gravesong and the inscrutable shuffle and creak of others within the castle ruins came to his ears through the doorway of the tomb, though the sounds were faint and distant and muffled by the aura of preservation that hung over the watery chamber. The reminder of what had chased them here made up Thomas’s mind for him.

The boy from Mídhel removed satchel and shoes and set them on the dry walkway. He stepped into the recess. The water was cold against his skin. Not refreshing, exactly, but a relief from the clinging damp of the ruins and the bog—cleaner, if not pure in the strictest sense.

Thomas waded forward, Cathán still perched on his shoulder, whiskers quivering. Thomas stopped just before the skeleton and crouched closer, looking at the white bones and the gleaming sword and the color of the living moss, bright against the drabness of the tomb.

Holding his breath, Thomas reached out a hand toward the lichen. He needed a tuft, a fistful perhaps, a clutch of the yellow-green lichen to take to the witch and save his sister. He angled his hand beneath the skeleton’s crossed arms and reached for the ribcage.

Before he could grasp a fistful of the lichen, the skeleton stirred. Thomas yelped and withdrew his hand. The skeleton rattled into animation, its head drawing up, its fingers finding the hilt of the sword, its bony feet scrabbling on the stones beneath the water. Then it stood, creaking upright, sword lifted to point directly at Thomas’s chin.

Thomas fell backward into the water, eyes wide in terror. He felt Cathán’s warmth against his neck and the cold of the tomb-water seeping into his trousers. He tried to find his feet.

The skeleton leaned forward and touched the very tip of its shining sword to Thomas’s stomach. The movement was smoother than Thomas might have expected, as though the skeleton retained the fluidity and grace it had surely possessed as a warrior in life. The point of the sword was cold but not painful. It didn’t seem to have pierced Thomas’s flesh; he could feel it, in that single moment, poking through his shirt but just barely resting against his skin.

Thomas gulped a breath. The skeleton’s tattered robe suddenly fluttering wide to both sides, framing its shoulders like eagle’s wings, and then swooping around Thomas and swallowed him up.

Thomas felt like he was falling. The gray of the tomb was darkness inside the robe-folds, and there was no solid surface in any direction. His breath caught in his throat.

Then Thomas stood on his own feet again, upright, unharmed, and the feeling of the robe slid away from his body. He opened his eyes warily.

“Welcome to my shroud,” the skeleton said.

It was sitting on a tree stump a few feet in front of Thomas. It held the sword in its hands, running a whetstone along one edge in slow, methodical movements. The robe was gone from its shoulders and the rusted helm had been straightened. The yellow-green lichen still grew around and over and between its ribs.

Thomas looked around. He was standing in a strange place, a flat gray featureless land with only the stump and the skeleton and Thomas himself. He looked down at his feet and saw only the curling gray mist around them and beneath them. He had the sense of standing in a small closet at twilight.

“Are you all right, lad?” the skeleton asked. “First time in a shroud? You look a little pale.”

“Um,” replied Thomas.

“Only joking, dear boy; just a little humor among the dead. Here, let me accommodate you a touch.”

The skeleton rose to its bony feet and set the sword down on the stump, laying the whetstone beside it. Then it placed its hands together, bones clacking, and covered its face as though wiping dirt away. In a matter of moments, the skeleton was clad in flesh once more, and a royal knight stood before Thomas, a man with long curling hair and blue eyes and a full set of armor and a tunic that bore the image of a lion with a viper in its claws. The man sat down on the stump and resumed sharpening his sword.

“Is that any better? I know how difficult it can be to speak to the bones. Disconcerting and unnatural, at least for the living.”

Thomas took a step forward. Now that the skeleton looked more like a human, it was easier for Thomas to think of him as a person, not just a frightening collection of animated bones. But the boy could still see that something was not quite right about the knight, not quite alive: a grayness to the man’s cheeks, a frayed quality to his hands and feet.

“My apologies for staring,” Thomas said aloud. The knight looked human enough that Thomas felt politeness was in order, at least until some other course presented itself. “I’ve never met a talking skeleton before.”

“Nor have I, dear boy,” replied the knight with a chuckle. “I’d imagine it’s quite the show!”

“Where are we?” Thomas asked, glancing around again.

“The shroud,” the knight repeated. “My shroud, at that. My burial-shroud. I am, you see, dead.”

“Are you Sir Elbarion?”

The knight paused with his whetstone and his eyes gleamed brightly. “Indeed I am! Sir Elbarion of Dorrick! You must have heard the tales of my noble feats and valor, then?”

Thomas shook his head.

The knight seemed unperturbed. “Ah, well, that’s no trouble. You’re just a young boy; you probably haven’t read the right sorts of books yet. Lots of blood and monsters in my stories, yes; heroes often face dark foes in battle. You’ll know what I mean, of course: a warrior yourself, I can just feel it! And you’re on a noble quest of your own?”

Thomas nodded. Before he could reply further, Sir Elbarion continued: “Well then, dear boy, perhaps I can treat you with a few of my stories, the ones you haven’t read about in those books of tales you haven’t found yet. My deeds in life contain many valuable lessons about heroism and duty and bravery. Would you like to sit and hear a few?”

“I would,” replied Thomas truthfully, “but I am in something of a hurry, unfortunately. As you said, I’m in the middle of a noble quest myself. I’m trying to save my sister. And, well—right now I’m in a bit of danger. I don’t know if you know this, but we’re in some castle ruins in the middle of Palewater Bog, and there’s a changeling and some sirens outside, and they’re all trying to eat me and my friends.”

“Heavens!” cried the knight, still sharpening his sword. “Dreadful monsters indeed. Well then, dear boy, we shall forego the stories for now. But do watch out for them in the history books, where you’re sure to find many great tales of Sir Elbarion of Dorrick. You’ll be much profited of them, and I’d consider it a personal favor to know that such a brave and intrepid young hero as yourself has read and researched my own noble past.”

“It’ll be the first thing I do when my quest is finished.” Thomas promised. “I’m sorry to intrude upon your tomb and your—your shroud like this. I know it’s very sudden and rude. But as I said, I don’t have much time. The changeling is hunting for me even now.

“Well,” said Sir Elbarion, “you see, time is eternal within the shroud, so really you are quite safe for as long as you’d like to stay here. But I take your point; and besides, there’s very little to entertain a young boy here, as you can see, except for my stories perhaps, which we’ve already discussed. What do you need?”

Thomas had become somewhat distracted by his surroundings. He gestured to either side. “So this is your burial-shroud? And we’re . . . inside it?”

“Yes indeed,” replied Sir Elbarion, “much as you are currently inside your own clothes. But my shroud is bigger. As big as death, perhaps, though I am not really dead in the sense that most people mean. You see, for example, that I am still here, in some kind of mortal world, able to talk and interact with the living. Were I truly dead, I would not remain in my burial-shroud with my bones; I would have traveled on, to new lands and new adventures, to roam the wild countryside beyond. But, of course, I am dead in the sense that my bones are lying in my tomb beneath a burial-shroud, tattered though it may have become.” Sir Elbarion paused a moment. “I believe that is the result of the dampness of the tomb, though I am no cloth-master.”

“Why aren’t you truly dead?” Thomas asked. “This seems like a lonely placed to remain if you’re not fully alive.”

Sir Elbarion nodded, a little sadly. “Lonely, yes, and very boring. I amn’t here by my own choice, though I suppose that I would have volunteered if I knew that the task would have fallen to someone else otherwise. I don’t like to see other people suffer. I am not suffering right now, mind you, but I believe that there will yet be some future battle to fight here, and I’d rather participate myself and save others the risk.

“As for the why of it all, well, it’s really very simple. There is a curse placed over Palewater. This was once a fair and glorious kingdom, you know, with the castle at its heart a living gemstone of life and wonder. You have perhaps seen the yellowy haze that has taken over Palewater. Not pale at all—not in the sense that the word was first intended, like the paleness of lilies or dandelions or a soft blue summer sky or, naturally, the clear mellow waters that flowed throughout these hills. But then came war and darkness to Palewater, and a curse fell over the land and turned it into the bog that you have doubtless encountered during your own quest.”

Sir Elbarion set down his whetstone and appraised Thomas with a glance. “There’s a curse resting on Palewater, so I have remained behind to help remove it. There’s a prophecy as well, as there often is: old and filled with wisdom. It tells of a young boy, a hero, who will come to purge the bog and set me free so that together he and I may defeat the curse and cleanse these wicked waters.”

The knight looked at Thomas expectantly. Thomas, a little embarrassed, finally said: “I’m not sure I know how to purge the bog and set you free, Sir Elbarion. I’m just here on my own quest to save my sister . . .”

Sir Elbarion laughed. “Never you fear, young friend: just another trick to ease my lonely existence. You’re not the prophesied savior of Palewater anyway, so you’ve no obligation to help. You’ve got your own quest, as you say. It was just some fun for the moment. But now, what do you need to help you escape this changeling and these sirens?”

Thomas frowned. “I’m not entirely sure yet. I’ve actually come because I need your help with something else first. I’m suppose to gather some of that lichen that’s growing on your ribs—on your skeleton back in the tomb, I mean.”

Sir Elbarion’s heavy brows drew together. “The lichen on my ribs,” he said thoughtfully, taking up the whetstone again, applying it with slow and steady strokes. “You’re welcome to it, young hero. Might I ask why?’

Quickly Thomas related to him the essential details of his encounter with the witch and his subsequent quest for the four items.

“Ah, yes, I understand,” Sir Elbarion replied at the conclusion of the story. “A dark and dangerous quest indeed. You want to be careful around witches, young hero. They’re worse than they seem. They’re cunning, and they’ll make you forget who and what you are. Don’t let them.”

“I’ll do my best,” Thomas said, feeling the familiar dreadful anticipation of considering what would happen when he returned the four objects to the witch. He stamped it out as best he could and focused on his present situation. “Thank you for allowing me to take some of the lichen. I’ll be gentle with your bones.”

“Most kind of you, dear boy. And then you’ll be off to leave Palewater? An excellent choice. If it weren’t for the curse, I don’t suppose I’d stay here much longer myself. Fairer lands and fairer days beyond the bog.”

“That’s right,” Thomas said. “Though I’m not sure how to escape the castle ruins, as you mentioned. I’ve been so focused on getting the lichen that I haven’t figured out a plan to get free. I don’t even know the way out.”

Sir Elbarion rose and hefted the sword in his gauntleted hand, then gripped it by the blade and held the hilt out to Thomas. “You’re welcome to take my sword,” the knight said generously. “It will show you the way out of the castle and out of the bog. It’s enchanted, you see.”

Thomas eyed the sword. “Don’t you need it? for when the prophecy comes to pass?”

“Oh yes, certainly,” said Sir Elbarion, still holding the sword out. “But it’s an enchanted sword, remember. It’s tethered to Palewater, much as I am. Besides, it’ll always return to my side soon enough. You can take it and let it show you the way, and when you’re done and free of the bog, just leave it by the exit; the sword will find its way back to me after you’re safely away.”

Thomas took the hilt. The sword was lighter than he’d expected, but sturdy in his hand. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” the knight said kindly. He rested a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I wish you all the best of fortune, young hero. I’d journey with you if I could, or at least try to provide some sort of protection against the changeling and the sirens. Alas, my powers in the halfway world are limited to my shroud, and although it is rather expansive”—he gestured to either side—“I am not sure I can lure them here. But you are a noble warrior, and you have friends with you in the ruins. I am sure you’ll accomplish your quest.”

Sir Elbarion knelt before Thomas, meeting his gaze directly, and clapped the boy’s shoulders warmly. “Safe travels and courage, young hero! Back to the world of the living for you! The shroud bids you away in hope!”

The gray shroud around Thomas fluttered and dropped away in tattered piles of nothing and faded into rippling water. The colors before him shifted; the image of the smiling, armored, flesh-clad Sir Elbarion faded, replaced by the skeleton on the dais. The sword remained in Thomas’s hands.

Thomas blinked. He looked around, at his own body, at the skeleton on the ground, at the sword in his own hands. Then he turned his head to look at Cathán, who was still perched on Thomas’s shoulder and regarded the boy with a baffled look.

Thomas shrugged. “I’m back from the shroud,” he said. “We can take the lichen now.”