And in between this waking confusion, he slept, sometimes tossing and turning, muttering and crying out incoherently, at other times lying motionless while his mind soared off into eerie dreamworlds where the terrors and the furies of his waking thoughts ran hideous riot.
Yet, unvarying throughout, there ran the simple thought that he must return to the valley. He must finish what he had set out to do. He must find Rannick and somehow kill him. No sense of ordered law coloured this thought, neither the far distant king’s, nor even the village council’s. His parents had been cut down at Rannick’s foul whim, and he was tied to that event inexorably. That the bonds were of his own making, he could not know. All he knew was that his every endeav-our must be dedicated to the destruction of the murderer of his mother and father. What might lie beyond that end was one torment that never came to him.
He was thus little rested when finally he awoke to see leaf-greened sunlight percolating through a carved grille covering the window and dimly lighting the room that Edrien had found for him. He jerked upright, gazing about him, alarmed. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded of the silence about him.
There was no reply. And the room was quite empty. Yet for some time he could not shake off the feeling that he was being watched, or perhaps listened to.
Eventually, however, his aching body made itself felt, and the impression faded. Then a lifetime of early rising forced him out of bed. He looked about him as he dressed. The room was simply furnished, containing only the bed, a couple of chairs, and an odd circular table set with tiers of drawers, the like of which he had never seen before. And everything, he realized gradu-ally, seemed to be made of wood – even a bowl on the table, which at home would have been earthenware, was wood. He picked it up gently and examined it closely. At first he thought that it had been elaborately painted, but as he looked at it he saw that it was made out of many different-coloured pieces of wood, tightly jointed together in some manner that he could not discern. For the first time since his parents’ death he felt a distant stirring of wonder; pleasure even.
It shrivelled however, as soon as it touched the bale-ful thoughts that blew through his mind like biting winter winds. Its last residue faded as he ran his fingers lingeringly along the smooth rim of the bowl when he laid it down. The bowl became merely functional and unnecessarily ingenious. As did the wooden handles to the drawers in the circular table, and the peculiar hinges to the door.
His inspection was ended by a sharp knock on the door. As he moved to open it he noticed for the first time that a sword was hanging behind it. He was about to examine this unexpected find when a second, more impatient knock made him snatch open the door irritably.
Edrien bustled in. ‘Hello,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’re up at last, then? I gather the dawn horns didn’t wake you. Bildar said I should leave you until you woke up on your own.’
Without waiting for a response, she walked across the room to the window, where she fiddled with something that Farnor could not quite see. Silently, the grille covering the window divided and the two halves swung apart to form decorative panels on either side of the window. Bright sunlight flooded the room.
Blinking, Farnor moved to the window. He ran a hand over one of the panels. There was a quality about the delicate carving that, for some reason, reminded him of the ring that hung outside Gryss’s cottage, but he was in no mood to pursue the idea. Then, very tenta-tively, he tapped the glass. ‘Well, at least something around here’s not made of wood,’ he said.
Edrien looked at him, puzzled, but did not com-ment. In the light, Farnor noticed for the first time that she had pale brown eyes. It came to him that he had never seen such a colour before. And her hair was light brown as well. Like an autumn leaf, he thought, unwittingly poetical. But the eyes drew his attention again. They looked squarely at him and there was a look in them which seemed to challenge him. He turned away, uncertain how to deal with this strange young woman.
‘I suppose you’re hungry by now, aren’t you?’ she said, unexpectedly.
Farnor nodded cautiously, wary of some taunt.
‘Come on, I’ve arranged breakfast for you.’ With a flick of her head Edrien turned and walked briskly towards the door. Farnor glanced again at the sword hanging there as he followed her out. He was about to ask about it when he realized that he was standing on a narrow platform below which was nothing for some considerable distance except dense foliage and a few large and unwelcoming branches. Involuntarily he froze, his hands tight around the rail in front of him.
‘Sorry,’ Edrien said, turning back to him. ‘I forgot you don’t know anything about trees, do you? I’ll walk more slowly.’
‘I know quite a lot about trees, thank you,’ Farnor managed, straightening up and releasing the handrail as casually as he could. ‘I’ve just never lived in one, that’s all.’
‘What kind of lodge did you live in, then?’
The question made Farnor wince, as visions of his home and his parents rushed into his mind. Edrien however, was looking away and did not notice. With an effort, he set the memories aside, and did his best to give a brief description of a typical village house as they walked along. From time to time his telling faltered as the platform swayed a little, or worse, creaked. He noticed that Edrien made a conscious effort not to smile whenever, instinctively, he reached out and clutched at the handrail.
‘How strange it must be, living on the ground all the time,’ she mused when he had finished.
‘Not as strange as living in a tree,’ he retorted, more defensively than he had intended.
Edrien scowled a little and looked around. Walk-ways were all about them, above and below and on every side, sweeping hither and thither through the enormous leafy bower. Bark-covered walls appeared here and there, punctured by doors and windows.
The whole perspective of the place bewildered Far-nor.
‘There’s nothing strange about living in the trees,’ she said, a little indignantly, after this inspection of her domain. ‘How else are you supposed to live? it’s what all normal people do. We’ve always…’
‘I’ve never seen such splendid trees,’ Farnor inter-rupted hastily, suddenly anxious not to antagonize his guide. ‘There are some fine trees in the valley, but nothing to compare with these. They’re so big. So alive and vigorous looking.’
A proprietorial smile replaced Edrien’s scowl and she looked around again. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as if she had just been paid a particularly pleasant compliment, then, ‘Are you going to be all right on this ladder?’ she asked, her tone concerned. She suddenly slipped through a gap in the handrail and dropped down so that only her head and shoulders were visible above the platform.
‘Yes,’ Farnor said quickly, in preference to giving a more considered answer.
Edrien nodded and then disappeared. Gingerly, Farnor peered over the edge to locate the ladder. Edrien was just bouncing down on to the platform below as he did so and her face turned up to look at him. He turned around and, tightly gripping two well-worn uprights, he cautiously swung a leg from side to side until it made contact with the ladder.
I suppose I’ll get used to this eventually, he thought, unconvincingly, as he began the descent.
It was not a particularly long ladder, but by the time he reached the bottom, his hands were sore and his arms were aching.
‘I see you’re still very stiff,’ Edrien said. ‘But I watched you that time. I think you’re holding the ladder too tightly. Can’t you relax a little? I’m sure it would help.’ She seemed pleased at having arrived at this diagnosis.
‘I’ll try,’ Farnor mumbled, then, hastily changing the subject, ‘Where are we going?’
‘To Bildar’s,’ Edrien replied. ‘He wants to have an-other look at you, to make sure you’re all right.’
‘I thought we were going to eat somewhere,’ Farnor said, an old reluctance to place himself in the hands of a healer rising within him.