Shadowland

    First he saw the dead wolf. The sword wound in its belly gaped. Tom suddenly smelled mustard flowers, smelled Rose's faint perfume lacing delicately through. The wound in the wolfs belly gaped because the wolf had been nailed to the tree by its paws, and gravity was trying to haul it earthward. It hung just below the torch. 'Rose . . . ' he said. 'Please . . . '

    A man in black stepped out of the woods. Black cape, black hat shielding his face. He carried a bloodied sword and pointed it across twenty feet of open space at Tom's chest.

    Have you worlds within you?

'No.' He did not want these worlds.

    Do you want dominion?

'No.'

    He saw the treasure within you, child.

'And he hated it.'

    Honor the Book.

'I don't even know it.'

    You belong to the Order.

'I don't belong to anything.' Tom feared that the man with the invisible face would run him through, but instead he said, You know what you are, child.

The sword burst into flame. The man swung it to one side and pointed the way he must go. The way led straight to the sixth light, now extinguished.

7

In the dark glade Del lay curled on the ground in his sleeping bag. His hands pillowed his head. When his own sleeping bag was unrolled and he had slipped in, Tom lay on the ground, feeling every hump and depression fail to fit his body. He heard a cricket's chirp-chirp, a sound of mechanical and idiot joy. Tom rolled on his back, adjusting his body to avoid the most prominent bumps, and looked up at a full moon. It looked damaged, a battered old hull. You know what you are. He turned his head, and his eyes found a tree split in half by lightning.

    Del stirred and groaned.

    Help me, Rose. Get me out of this.

8

An animal was breathing on him, bathing his face in warm foul air. He shuddered into wakefulness; the animal retreated. Tom could smell its fear of him. Now it was hours later: the moon was gone. He could see only the white oval of Del's face, ten feet away. But though he could see nothing, he felt around him the presence of a hundred alien lives — animal lives. In the invisible trees was a drumfire of wingbeats. 'No,' he whispered. He closed his eyes. 'Go away.' Something rustled toward him. No fear came from it, only a cold self-possession. In the invisible trees, the hundreds of birds moved.

    You know what you are, boy.

Tom shook his head, clamped his eyes shut.

    There are treasures within you.

He tried to stop his ears.

    What is the first law of magic?

The snake waited patiently for him to answer. He would not.

    We have no doubts about you, boy.

Tom shook his head so hard his neck hurt.

    You will learn everything you need to know.

Then something else approached, some animal he could not identify. The snake-furled rapidly away, and Tom clamped his eyes shut even more firmly. He did not at all want to see it — the same searching, grasping feeling came from it as from the little figure down on Mesa Lane, back at the start of everything. This animal had about it an air of irredeemable wickedness; not cool and insinuating and impersonal like the snake, it was deeply evil. But it spoke in a thin and graceful voice which hid a hint of a chuckle. It was a mad voice, and the animal was no animal, but whatever the man with the sword had been pretending to be.

    You will betray Del.

'No.'

    You will stay here forever, and drive Del away.

'No.'

    You are welcomed, boy.

At once all the birds left the trees. The noise was huge and rushing, almost oceanic. Tom covered his face: he thought of them falling on him, picking him to ribbons of flesh. Del sobbed in his sleep. Then the birds were gone.

    Tom rocked himself down into his bag.

9

When he woke up, it was with a realization. If Rose had been right about the date, his mother must have had his letter for at least a few days. Very soon it would be time to run. He rolled over and saw Del sitting on the grass at the far side of the glade, leaning against a tree. 'Good morning,' Tom said.

    'Morning. Where did you go last night? I want you to tell me.'

    'I just walked around. I got lost for a while.'

    'You didn't see my uncle.'

    'No. I didn't. I told you.'

    Del shifted and rubbed his hand over damp grass. 'I don't suppose anything happened to you last night. I mean . . . anything like he was telling us about?'

    'Did it happen to you? Were you welcomed?'

    'No,' Del said. 'I wasn't.'

    'I wasn't either,' Tom said. 'It was probably the dullest night of my life.'

    'Yeah, me too.' Del beamed back at him. 'But I thought I heard something — really late, it would have been. A big noise, like a billion birds taking off at once.' He looked shyly at Tom. 'So maybe I was welcomed? Maybe that was it?'

    'Let's go brush our teeth,' Tom said. 'There'll be food back at the house.'

    Tom put on his shirt, which was wrinkled as a relief map. They rolled up their sleeping bags and left them in the glade.

    'You look different,' Del said.

    'How?'

    'Just different. Older, I guess.'

    'I didn't get much sleep.'

    They were walking through the woods, going beneath big high-crowned trees. In minutes they reached the clearing where the man with the sword had told him that he knew what he was.

    'Maybe we'll see Rose today,' Del said.

    'Maybe.' Tom walked straight through the clearing toward the barely visible path, no more than a few trampled weeds, which led to the rock shelf.

    'Tom, I'm sorry I got so mad at you. I thought you were trying to ruin things — you know. That was nuts. I'm really sorry.'

    'It's okay.' Tom pushed aside ferns and went back into deep woods.

    After a while Del spoke again. 'You know, I think we've been here a lot longer than it seems. He did that once to me before.'

    'Yeah, I think so too.'

    'The sun's in a different position. Isn't that neat? It's like he can move the sun.'

    'Del, I have a headache.'

    'Oh, that's probably why you look different. Look, what did you think of Rose? I know you only met her once, but what did you think? I hope you liked her. I think you did.'

    'I liked her,' Tom said. This was unbearable. He thought of a way to stop Del talking about Rose. He turned around on the narrow indistinct path. Now they were within sight of the rock shelf. Spangled pale light fell on them. Del looked up at him, purged of his doubts and friendly as a puppy. 'I want to ask you something,' Tom said.

    'About Rose? You can be my bes.t man, if that's what you want.'

    'That time you broke your leg. That was the time you were here longer than you thought?' *

    'How did you guess that?' Del looked at him in amazement. 'Yes. You're right.'

    'Can you remember anything about what happened? When Bud came for you?'

    Del's amazement altered to perplexity. 'Well, it's like I

    was asleep for a long time or something. Why do you want

    to know about that? Sometimes I remember little pieces