The Book Of Lost Things

“And what purpose did that serve?” said Roland’s voice.

David looked up. Roland was watching him from the edge of the woods, seated high on Scylla’s back.

“I thought you’d left me,” said David.

“Why would you think that?”

David shrugged. Now he was ashamed of his display of petulance and his doubts about his companion. He tried to hide it by going on the attack. “I woke up and you were gone,” he replied. “What was I supposed to think?”

“That I was scouting the way ahead. I did not leave you for very long, and I believed that you were safe here. There is stone not far below the ground here, so our friend could not use his tunnels against you, and at all times I was within earshot. You had no reason to doubt me.”

Roland dismounted and walked to where David sat, leading Scylla behind him.

“Things have not been the same with us since that foul little man dragged you beneath the ground,” said Roland. “I think I may have some inkling of what he said to you about me. My feelings for Raphael are mine, and mine alone. I loved him, and that is all anyone needs to know. The rest is no business of any man’s.

“As for you, you are my friend. You are brave, and you are both stronger than you look and stronger than you believe yourself to be. You are trapped in an unfamiliar land with only a stranger for company, yet you have defied wolves, trolls, a beast that had destroyed a force of armed men, and the tainted promises of the one you call the Crooked Man. Through it all I have never yet seen you in despair. When I agreed to take you to the king, I thought you would be a burden on me, but instead you have proved yourself worthy of respect and trust. I hope that I in turn have proved myself worthy of your respect and trust, for without it we are both lost. Now, will you come with me? We have almost reached our destination.”

He extended his hand to David. The boy took it, and Roland raised him to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” said David.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” said Roland. “But gather your belongings, for the end is near.”

They rode for only a short time, but as they traveled the air around them changed. The hairs on David’s head and arms stood on end. He could feel the static when he touched his hand to them. The wind blew a strange scent from the west, musty and dry, like the interior of a crypt. The land rose beneath them until they came to the brow of a hill, and there they paused and looked down.

Before them, like a stain upon the snow, was the dark shape of a fortress. David thought of it as a shape rather than a fortress itself, because there was something very peculiar about it. He could make out a central tower, and walls and outbuildings, but they were slightly blurred, like the lines of a watercolor painting made on damp paper. It stood at the center of the forest, but all of the trees around it had been felled as though by some great explosion. Here and there David saw the glinting of metal upon its battlements. Birds hovered above it, and the dry smell grew stronger.

“Carrion birds,” said Roland, pointing. “They feed upon the dead.”

David knew what he was thinking: Raphael had entered that place, and had not returned.

“Perhaps you should stay here,” said Roland. “It will be safer for you.”

David looked around. The trees here were different from the others he had seen. They were twisted and ancient, their bark diseased and pitted with holes. They looked like old men and women frozen in agony. He did not want to remain alone among them.

“Safer?” queried David. “There are wolves following me, and who knows what else lives in these woods? If you leave me here, I’ll just follow you on foot anyway. I might even be useful to you in there. I didn’t let you down in the village when the Beast came after me, and I won’t let you down now,” he said with determination.

Roland did not argue with him. Together they rode toward the fortress. As they moved through the forest, they heard voices whispering. The sounds seemed to come from within the trees, emerging through the openings in their trunks, but whether they were the voices of the trees themselves or those of unseen things that dwelled within them David could not say. Twice he believed that he saw movement in the holes, and once he was certain that eyes had stared back at him from deep inside the tree, but when he told Roland, the soldier said only: “Don’t be afraid. Whatever they are, they have nothing to do with the fortress. They are not our concern, unless they choose to make themselves so.”

Nevertheless, he slowly withdrew his sword as he rode and let it hang by Scylla’s side, ready to be used.