thousand beaks had lifted him aloft and carried him, depositing him three days’ journey from home. The man lived in perpetual fear of birds from then on, and his weapons grew rusted and dusty. He never did hunt again.
Tiny Teasel, with his chipped beak and ragged form, felt the calling of the caucus deep within him and another welcome feeling—a shiver of great anticipation.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Wolfsbane
hey moved through a lifeless wintry wood, Ivy and Lumpen Gorse, with Rue slung over her generous shoulder. Ahead lay nothing but hoarfrost, slackened pasture, and open moor. But in their wake, there grew a small splash of color—as if Ivy trailed the very arrival of spring.
Before her the cold was apparent—in the form of icicles on the bald trees, in the mist from her mouth as she exhaled. But she could not feel it in her fingers or toes, no prickling goose bumps; in fact, winter did not seem to attend to Ivy at all. This, she knew, was the scourge bracken inside her.
And still, she could not shake the eerie feeling of being followed.
Several times, over her shoulder, Ivy had thought she’dspied the drifting shapes of skulking wolves, weaving in and about the gaps in the crumbling stone walls. These creatures were hideous and hungry, stooped, their noses pinned to the ground in search of a scent. But they never drew close. Something was keeping them at bay—this invisible escort, this rustling that accompanied Ivy and her friends as they drew closer to Templar.
Lumpen took them along the path of tall, stone walls—evidence of ancient, ruined kingdoms. To either side were ghostly fields and farmland. Ivy tried to walk as best she could in the open sun, for when she stepped within the shadows of the hulking, crumbling stones, her vision betrayed her with frightening images of glittery, glowing eyes and repellent dark growth—a mossy blight like black velvet that grew in heaving clumps. This was the domain of scourge bracken: the crevices between the rock, dim and obscure. In it, Ivy knew, could be found the voice of her father, Vidal Verjouce, his evil inflection reminding her that she would never again be right in the shadows.
When the stacks of stones or the orientation of the sun above prevented Ivy from avoiding these dark places, the visions would resume. The world would ripple like a tapestry, a confounding apparition. She would see her father’s awful garden—his Mind Garden, dreary, morose—as if a transparent veil upon the snowy pastures of Caux. She would walk not the path that Lumpen Gorse plowed on ahead, but theambling rows of her father’s ruined vines—ravaged by scourge bracken. The slate-colored sky of the Mind Garden punctured holes in the clear afternoon of Caux’s; the turf turned hostile and murky. She walked between these two worlds, neither one quite real, a hostage to both.
For comfort, Ivy clutched Axle’s book. She stumbled as her father’s ravaged whisper returned to her ear—a slight song, in the tune of insanity—the sound of gnashing teeth. Unbeknownst to Ivy, it was a contribution not from Axle, but from the book’s owner, Rue, that was to prove to be invaluable to their journey. Something slipped from the pages of Rue’s
Guide
then, and drifted for a minute in the open air before settling on the snowy ground.
Blinking, Ivy stooped to examine the object—a plant, a pressed clipping that Rue had preserved between the pages of Axle’s enormous and heavy book. A prime specimen, it was. A small cutting of aconite, its rousing color faded to a brown, the delicate blue flowers now nearly transparent upon its stem. Rue had spread it attractively before flattening it, and Ivy held it in her opened palm, admiring it.
Aconite, Ivy knew, was known by another name. Wolfsbane. Its dark shiny leaves were keeping the wolves at bay.
A shadow fell over her; she felt the sun’s glow glide away.
Ivy
—came a voice on the bitter wind; in the new darkness it was ready, waiting.
Tiny Teasel, with his chipped beak and ragged form, felt the calling of the caucus deep within him and another welcome feeling—a shiver of great anticipation.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Wolfsbane
hey moved through a lifeless wintry wood, Ivy and Lumpen Gorse, with Rue slung over her generous shoulder. Ahead lay nothing but hoarfrost, slackened pasture, and open moor. But in their wake, there grew a small splash of color—as if Ivy trailed the very arrival of spring.
Before her the cold was apparent—in the form of icicles on the bald trees, in the mist from her mouth as she exhaled. But she could not feel it in her fingers or toes, no prickling goose bumps; in fact, winter did not seem to attend to Ivy at all. This, she knew, was the scourge bracken inside her.
And still, she could not shake the eerie feeling of being followed.
Several times, over her shoulder, Ivy had thought she’dspied the drifting shapes of skulking wolves, weaving in and about the gaps in the crumbling stone walls. These creatures were hideous and hungry, stooped, their noses pinned to the ground in search of a scent. But they never drew close. Something was keeping them at bay—this invisible escort, this rustling that accompanied Ivy and her friends as they drew closer to Templar.
Lumpen took them along the path of tall, stone walls—evidence of ancient, ruined kingdoms. To either side were ghostly fields and farmland. Ivy tried to walk as best she could in the open sun, for when she stepped within the shadows of the hulking, crumbling stones, her vision betrayed her with frightening images of glittery, glowing eyes and repellent dark growth—a mossy blight like black velvet that grew in heaving clumps. This was the domain of scourge bracken: the crevices between the rock, dim and obscure. In it, Ivy knew, could be found the voice of her father, Vidal Verjouce, his evil inflection reminding her that she would never again be right in the shadows.
When the stacks of stones or the orientation of the sun above prevented Ivy from avoiding these dark places, the visions would resume. The world would ripple like a tapestry, a confounding apparition. She would see her father’s awful garden—his Mind Garden, dreary, morose—as if a transparent veil upon the snowy pastures of Caux. She would walk not the path that Lumpen Gorse plowed on ahead, but theambling rows of her father’s ruined vines—ravaged by scourge bracken. The slate-colored sky of the Mind Garden punctured holes in the clear afternoon of Caux’s; the turf turned hostile and murky. She walked between these two worlds, neither one quite real, a hostage to both.
For comfort, Ivy clutched Axle’s book. She stumbled as her father’s ravaged whisper returned to her ear—a slight song, in the tune of insanity—the sound of gnashing teeth. Unbeknownst to Ivy, it was a contribution not from Axle, but from the book’s owner, Rue, that was to prove to be invaluable to their journey. Something slipped from the pages of Rue’s
Guide
then, and drifted for a minute in the open air before settling on the snowy ground.
Blinking, Ivy stooped to examine the object—a plant, a pressed clipping that Rue had preserved between the pages of Axle’s enormous and heavy book. A prime specimen, it was. A small cutting of aconite, its rousing color faded to a brown, the delicate blue flowers now nearly transparent upon its stem. Rue had spread it attractively before flattening it, and Ivy held it in her opened palm, admiring it.
Aconite, Ivy knew, was known by another name. Wolfsbane. Its dark shiny leaves were keeping the wolves at bay.
A shadow fell over her; she felt the sun’s glow glide away.
Ivy
—came a voice on the bitter wind; in the new darkness it was ready, waiting.
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