Oliver hurtled through the oaks. Whatever was thundering after him was fast, much faster than he was, and it BOOM.
was gaining rapidly. Whatever it was, the thing BOOM.
behind him had to be the size of a treehousea"the crashing and cracking sounds BOOM.
were deafening. What could he do? Should he play dead? He remembered hearing that that worked with lowland bears. But the thing behind him was no bear. Bears probably played dead BOOM.
to escape from it. In between the sheer terror and ridiculous mental images of piles of bears playing dead, a desperate thought occurred to him. If it wasn"t a bear, then maybe it couldn"t climb trees, either. Oliver dodged between oaks, looking at their branches. All of the lowest branches were far above his head. He couldn"t possibly BOOM.
climb any of them. But he knew of one oaka"Ilia"s oaka"that had low-hanging branches, if he could just get there before being flattened or devoured or skinned alive BOOM.
or however this thing normally disposed of its prey.
He ran for Ilia"s oak as the bellow of the giant creature rolled over him, bringing with it a horribly warm stench. At last he spied the tree, with its unusually low-hanging branchesa"except that in this world, low-hanging still meant far above Oliver"s head.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed the crimson kite from his pack. "I need you. Please," Oliver begged.
He jumped as high as he could, discovering that the fear of being eaten alive can add several inches to your vertical leap. The several inches were of little use, however, and he was on his way back down when the tail snapped taut on his wrist. He shot ten feet straight up and grabbed the lowest branch just as the kite failed and fell. Oliver scrambled furiously upward, trying to be Ilia-like, pulling the kite with him.
WHAM.
The oak shuddered and groaned. Oliver clung fiercely, too terrified to look down. A hideous roar shook the tree, and a wave of foul breath enveloped him, making him gag. The oak shook again, and there was another roar.
WHAM.
The oak leaned, creaking. Could the crimson kite fly him anywhere else? No, it was exhausted now, draped limply over a branch. He pulled the kite the rest of the way up.
Silence. Oliver took the opportunity to put a few more branches between himself and the ground. He could hear an impossibly heavy tread rumbling around. Loud snorts and a rotting smell came wafting up through the branches. Oliver tried to peer down but could not see a thing through the leafy cover.
What had happened to the branch he"d picked up? He remembered shoving it into his pack right before he started running. And it was still there, poking uncomfortably. He pulled it out, wondering if he should throw it at the creature. He gave it a few practice waves.
The kite shivered on its branch.
Oliver held the branch closer, and the kite shivered a little more.
Even this one piece of the riven oak had a small effect on the kite. Ita"
WHAM.
it didn"t really matter, because sooner or later that enormous thing was going to knock him out of the oak and eat him.
rumble rumble The heavy tread sounded like it was backing up. Oliver braced himself for a tremendous charge, one that would knock him flying from the oak.
A thundering gallop began. He gripped the kite and braced his legs and closed his eyes anda"
and then he could not hear the galloping. He couldn"t hear anything but an enormous, howling wind, striking from all sides. It was almost as bad as the creature"s attacks. Oliver pressed himself against the oak. The winds screamed around him in primal agony, a sound worse than anything Oliver had ever heard, and he screamed, too.
Through his closed eyelids he saw a flash of light, brighter than a thousand hunters appearing at once, explode over the mountain. It faded, and Oliver opened his eyes.
The winds fell, and the galloping sound returned. But this time the gallop was going in the other direction. The creature was running away. Through a small break in the leaves Oliver caught a glimpse of a broad, scaly back disappearing into the brush, leaving behind a path of flattened foliage.
Something had frightened off the monster, and whatever it was, Oliver could feel it, too. Something about this world"s living energy, the energy that had made him shout in joy, that had made the birds sing, that had made the oaks grow to wild heights, had vanished.
All around him, the forest was changing color.
For a moment Oliver thought the forest was on fire. All of the leaves were turning yellow and red, as though fire were spreading everywhere at once. As Oliver watched, the yellow and red burned into brown, and then, in a terrible convulsion, the leaves of every oak on the mountain fell in a thick cloud, an ocean of dead leaves. Winter had come in an instant.
If you do whisper, O winds, then whisper to me, of oaks which dwell across the worlds.
Great-uncle Gilbert"s strange words, scrawled in that ancient ma.n.u.script, came to Oliver. He did not need a whisper to guess that Lord Gilbert, tired of the chase, must have activated the rest of the hunters and was sending them all after Oliver and the kite. The power drain on the oaks was enormous, and now even this world, the strongest and most vital of all the worlds Oliver had visited, was dying.
He took his trembling kite and fastened it to his pack. Into the pack went the riven oak branch, too. And then he dropped swiftly, skipping from branch to branch as he"d seen Ilia do, until he landed on the ground with a thump.
FLASH.
FLASH.
FLASHFLASHFLASHFLASH.
Hunters, Oliver thought, at the same moment he was diving into the carpet of dead leaves on the forest floor. He wriggled as deep as he could. Six flashesa"they were hunting him in sixes now. Six times as dangerous, then.
He waited for hours, breathing in the rich, damp scent of the leaves and listening to the shrieks of the hunters as they searched the mountain. At last there came another FLASH, and then several more, and then no more flashes and no more shrieks. He"d fooled them, but probably not for long.
Oliver crawled from the leaves and ran for the riven oak. He had a plan but didn"t have much time before nightfall.
When they reached the oak, Oliver collected as many twigs as he could, pulling them from the ends of hanging branches and stuffing them into his pack. He thought apologies toward the riven oak as the green pieces ripped away.
Dusk was falling as Oliver hurried back to the crest. The twilight winds carried along with them a mountain"s worth of dead leaves. As he ran, Oliver felt part of the great whirring, rattling cloud. He almost floated onto the crest, half carried by the winds, holding the kite close.
Oliver looked at Great-uncle Gilbert"s handvane. It pointed confidently west West, it is," said Oliver.
He held the kite high. "We have to keep flying west," he said. "Do you understand?"
The kite fluttered, weakly.
Oliver hoped that the bits of the riven oak he"d collected would give the kite the energy to find the way.
The night winds struck, and the kite and Oliver were s.n.a.t.c.hed from the crest.
As they flew through the mist, Oliver imagined he could feel strength flowing from the oak branches in his pack, through his body, and up to the kite, and tried to add to it whatever energy he could.
Carried along by the smooth winds, Oliver dozed off. He woke abruptly when he realized they were descending.
He could hear the kite"s sails whirring. The descent was alarmingly fast, and the kite seemed to be struggling to hold them both aloft. When they plunged out of the mist, there were hardly any winds to hold them.
The rough landing sent Oliver tumbling. He rolled professionally, noting that the ground in this world seemed, painfully, to be nothing but hard-packed sand and rock.
He stood up wearily in the semi-darkness. The winds were indeed light, more like night breezes. He could stand on the peak without any effort. He checked the sky and was relieved to see both moons. On the horizon, dawn was beginning to break.
Oliver gasped. The horizon! He had seen the black wires, he"d seen the riven oak, he"d seen the Crest Wall, he"d seen a monster, and he"d seen an entire mountain lose its leaves all at once. But never had he seen anything as awful as he did at that moment.
You did not see actual sunrises in Windblowne. The tall oaks blocked that view in all directions, even on the peak. And so Oliver saw something newa"a b.u.mp of light becoming a brilliant disc from which he had to look away. An impossibly vast landscape spread out around him, all the way from one side of the world to the other, and all of it was rock and sand, a lifeless desert painted in shades of brown and white. The mountain was rocky and desolate too, and seeing it stretch down on all sides was dizzying. He thought of stories he had heard about sailors in a stormy sea, their ship perched on top of a wave down which they were about to plunge, to be smashed into the ocean. Oliver was struck with that same sense of vertigo, as though he might fall down this mountain and keep falling all the way to the end of the world.
He blinked. The light wind was carrying sand everywhere. Far away, hundreds of miles away over the flat and endless plains, he could see swirling columns of sand moving regally across the distances, carried by the wind. In between them were rock formations as large as cities, with flat tops that looked as though they could hold a dozen crests. In all this overwhelming emptiness, Oliver saw no signs of life.
But as the blazing sun rose, Oliver realized that there was life on the mountain. Starting where the oakline should be were small, twisted things. Fighting vertigo, Oliver stumbled down the crest for a closer look.
The things were oaks. Or at least, something like oaks. They were stunted trees, not much taller than Oliver. Their bark was tough and smooth. They were growing in gaps between the rocks, stretching their wiry limbs in odd, crooked directions. If these were what pa.s.sed for oaks in this world, then Oliver could not imagine a greater contrast between other worlds and this one.
No use looking for a jumping marker here. This dead and barren Windblowne had never seen a Festival and never would.
"No one lives herea"no one"s ever lived here," Oliver said to the kite, which had settled wearily against his leg. "We"re all alone." It was a vast and dark sensation.
"Not entirely true," said a voice from behind him.
Oliver whirled. He hadn"t expected to see anyone in this wasteland. He especially hadn"t expected to see a familiar figure dressed in a robe and carrying a carved walking stick. He hadn"t expected to see Great-uncle Gilbert standing with a tired smile on his face, among the withered oaks.
19.
The h.e.l.l-world! Oliver thought. I found it! He cautioned himself to play it cool, in the manner of the world-cla.s.s adventurer he had become. "Hullo," he said with an air of breezy confidence. "I"m here to resca""
"Who or what," interrupted Great-uncle Gilbert, peering closely at Oliver, "are you?"
The poor old man, thought Oliver. The h.e.l.l-world had driven him mad. Well, madder. "I"m your grandnephew, Oliver," he explained patiently. "And I"m here to resca""
"Oliver, eh?" interrupted Great-uncle Gilbert again, peering some more. "I suppose you are, under all that. You look like you"ve been shot through the woods from a cannon, my boy."
Oliver looked down at himself. True, he was not at his best. His flying outfit was in ruins, and there wasn"t much of him that wasn"t coated in dirt, leaves, twigs, and goopy substances of mysterious origin. He tried to remember if he had been this disheveled when he had met Ilia. "Well, I can"t exactly help it," he said. "I"ve flown across four worlds to resca""
"Didn"t listen to me, did you?" interrupted Great-uncle Gilbert, shaking his head. "Now you"re trapped, too." He sighed in a way that suggested he was resigned to Oliver"s stupidity, then set off at a trot, his walking stick rapping sharply against the rocky ground.
"Hey!" Oliver raced to catch up. "I came here to rescue you! Me and the kitea""
Great-uncle Gilbert whirled about and seized Oliver by the shoulders. "My kite!" he shouted. "Of course! My brave kite! Where is it?"
"Let go!" yelped Oliver, struggling. Great-uncle Gilbert was as deceptively strong as ever. Oliver thrust the kite into his great-uncle"s face. "It"s right here! See?"
Great-uncle Gilbert waved his hand dismissively. "That"s not my kite. My kite is one of the most beautiful creations that has ever come from human hands. It is a soaring masterwork."
It was true that the kite was worse for wear. It might have been shot from the same cannon as Oliver. "Well, this is it," Oliver said. "It"s been through a lot. All to rescue you, I might add."
Great-uncle Gilbert"s eyebrows arched upward. He bent down to examine the kite. For a moment, he was perfectly still.
"My kite!" he finally screeched. "My poor kite! What has he done to you?" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the kite from Oliver. "He broke you, didn"t he! How dare he!"
"I didn"t break it!" said Oliver, hurt.
Great-uncle Gilbert shook his head. "Not you. Him! The evil me!"
"I"m sorry," said Oliver, trying to keep his voice from trembling. "I tried to stop him."
"I"m sure you did," Great-uncle Gilbert said, patting Oliver absently on the shoulder. "But what could you have done? Even I was fooled at first! And if he fooled me, then what chance could you have possibly had?"
"Hey," said Oliver crossly, "Ia""
But Great-uncle Gilbert was trotting away, muttering "Tried to warn him a did my best to keep him safe a and do I get a word of thanks?" His feet sent up clouds of dust that swirled away in the breeze.
Oliver rushed after him. He could barely keep up with the old man as he strode rapidly along, twisting and turning expertly through the desert scrub. "Can you fix the kite?" he asked anxiously.
"Can I fix the kite?" Great-uncle Gilbert replied haughtily. "My dear boy! My kitesmithing skills are unparalleled! Ia""
"Well, can you?" interrupted Oliver.
"No."
Great-uncle Gilbert halted suddenly. He held the kite close to his face. His expert fingers danced, tenderly, across every inch of silk. When he came to Two"s makeshift spine, he snarled, "Amateur!"
Oliver felt unexpectedly defensive. "He didn"t have much time!"
"Time?" said Great-uncle Gilbert. "Time is just a construct!"
"What?"
"Never mind." The old man set off again. "I can"t fix the kite."
"But why not?" panted Oliver, jogging after him.
The old man sighed. "Insufficient materials!"
"But what about the riven oak?" said Oliver. "It must have an equivalent in this world. You could use bits from it to fix the kite!"
His great-uncle stopped short. "Why, yes," he said, surprised. "How do you know about that?"
"Oh, I"ve learned a thing or two the last few days," said Oliver smugly.
"Perhaps you have," Great-uncle Gilbert said. "Yes, in my talented hands, the kite can be repaired with a spar from its home oak. But you see, wonderful as these trees are, they are too small to fashion spars of suitable length." He started off again in a swirl of purple robe, leaving Oliver in a cloud of dust.
Coughing, Oliver reached for his pack. "Wait!" he shouted. Oliver removed one of the branches he had collected in the last Windblowne and caught up to his great-uncle. The kite began to shake in his great-uncle"s grasp. The old man jolted to a stop, gaping at the kite. Oliver stuck the branch in his face. "Here!"
Great-uncle Gilbert"s eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened. "Astonishing!" he cried. He tossed his walking stick to the ground and yanked the branch out of Oliver"s hands. He sniffed it all along its length. He gave it a shake. Finally he snorted and looked away.