The Forests of Silence

Years passed and life went on. Jarred and Anna married. Then old Crian died and Jarred took his place as blacksmith.

Sometimes Jarred almost forgot that he had ever had another life. It was as if his time at the palace had been a dream. But still, every dawn, he looked up to the tree on the hill. And still he often read the small book he had found in the palace library. Then he feared for what the future might hold. He feared for his beloved Anna and the child they were expecting. He feared for himself, for Endon, and for the whole of Deltora.

One night, exactly seven years after the night Endon was crowned, Jarred tossed restlessly in his bed.

“It is nearly daybreak and you have not slept, Jarred,” Anna said gently, at last. “What is troubling you?”

“I do not know, dear heart,” Jarred murmured. “But I cannot rest.”

“Perhaps the room is too warm,” she said, climbing out of bed. “I will open the window a little more.”

She had pulled the curtains aside and was reaching for the window fastening when suddenly she screamed and jumped back.

Jarred leapt up and ran to her.

“There!” Anna exclaimed, pointing, as he put his arm around her. “Oh, Jarred, what are they?”

Jarred stared through the window and caught his breath. In the sky above the palace on the hill, monstrous shapes were wheeling and circling.

It was still too dark to see them clearly. But there was no doubt that they were huge birds. There were seven. Their necks were long. Their great, hooked beaks were cruel. Their mighty wings flapped clumsily but strongly, beating at the air. As Jarred watched, they swooped, rose again, and then separated, flying off swiftly in different directions.

A name came to him. A name from the school room of his past.

“Ak-Baba,” he hissed. His arm tightened around Anna’s shoulders.

She turned to him, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Ak-Baba,” he repeated slowly, still staring at the palace. “Great birds that eat dead flesh and live for a thousand years. Seven of them serve the Shadow Lord.”

“Why are they here?” Anna whispered.

“I do not know. But I fear —” Jarred broke off abruptly and leaned forward. He had seen something glinting brightly in the first feeble rays of the sun.

For a moment he stood motionless. Then he turned to Anna, his face grim and pale.

“Endon’s arrow is in the tree,” he said. “The call has come.”

In moments Jarred had dressed and run from the house behind the forge. He hurried up the hill to the palace, his mind racing.

How was he to reach Endon? If he climbed the wall, the guards inside would certainly see him. He would be hit by a dozen arrows before he reached the ground. The cart that collected the food scraps would be of no use to him. Prandine must have guessed that Jarred had used it to escape, because it was no longer permitted to enter the palace. These days it waited between the two sets of gates while guards loaded it with sacks.

Endon himself is the only one who can help me, Jarred thought as he ran. Perhaps he will be watching for me, waiting for me …

But as he slowed, panting, in sight of the palace gates, he could see that they were firmly closed and the road outside was deserted.

Jarred moved closer, his spine prickling. The long grass that ringed the palace walls whispered in the breeze of dawn. He could be walking into a trap. Perhaps at any moment guards would spring from their hiding places in the grass and lay hands on him. Perhaps Endon had at last decided to betray him to Prandine.

His feet brushed something lying in the dust of the road. He looked down and saw a child’s wooden arrow. A small piece of paper had been rolled around the arrow’s shaft and tied there.

His heart beating hard, Jarred picked up the arrow and pulled away the paper. But as he flattened it out and looked at it, his excitement died.

It was just a child’s drawing. Some palace child had been playing a game, practicing shooting arrows over the wall as he and Endon once had done.

Jarred screwed up the paper in disgust and threw it to the ground. He looked around again at the closed gates, the empty road. Still there was no movement, no sign. There was nothing but the wooden arrow lying in the dust and the little ball of paper rolling slowly away from him, driven by the breeze. He stared at it, and the foolish little rhyme came back to him.

Strange, he thought idly. That rhyme sounds almost like a set of instructions. Instructions that a small child could chant and remember.

An idea seized him. He ran after the paper and snatched it up again. He smoothed out the creases and looked at it closely, this time seeing two things that he had overlooked before. The paper was yellowed with age. And the writing, though childish, was strangely familiar.

This is the way Endon used to print when he was small, he thought in wonder. And Endon drew the picture, too. I am sure of it!

Suddenly he realized what must have happened. Endon had had little time. Yet he had wanted to send Jarred a message. So he had snatched up one of his old childhood drawings and sent it over the wall. He had used a child’s wooden arrow so that the guards would take no notice if they saw it lying on the road.

And if Jarred was right, Endon had not chosen just any drawing. This one had a special meaning for him. Why else would he have kept it?

Wake the bear,

Do not fear …

Jarred waited no longer. With the paper clutched in his hand he left the road and moved left, following the wall.

The road was out of sight by the time he found what he was searching for. Even overgrown with long grass and shadowed by a clump of straggly bushes, the shape of the huge rock was clear. It really did look exactly like a sleeping animal.

Jarred forced his way through the undergrowth to the rock. He saw that at one end, where the bear’s nose rested on its paws, the grass grew less strongly than it did anywhere else. Why would that be? Unless …

“Time to wake up, old bear,” Jarred muttered aloud. He ran to the place, threw himself to his knees, and began pulling at the weak grass. It came away easily, and as he scrabbled in the earth beneath it Jarred realized with a wave of relief that he had been right. There was only a thin layer of soil here. Beneath it was a large, round metal plate.

It took only moments for his powerful hands to uncover the plate completely and pull it aside. A dark hole was revealed. Its walls were lined with stone. In wonder, Jarred realized that he had found the entrance to a tunnel.

Scurry, mouse,

Into your house …

He knew what he must do. He lay flat on his stomach and wriggled into the hole, pulling himself forward on his elbows until the space broadened and his way became easier.

So now the mouse is in the mouse hole, he thought grimly, as he crawled along in the darkness. Let us hope that no cat is waiting at the other end.

For a short time the tunnel sloped downwards, then it became more level and Jarred realized that he was moving through the center of the hill. The air was still, the walls around him were ancient stone, and the blackness was complete. He crawled on, losing all track of time.

At last the tunnel ended in a set of steep stone steps that led upwards. His heart thudding, Jarred began to climb blindly. He had to feel his way — up, up, one step at a time. Then, without warning, the top of his head hit hard stone. With a shock he realized that the way above was blocked. He could go no further.

Hot panic flared in him. Had this been a trap after all? Were guards even now creeping through the tunnel after him, knowing that they would find him cowering here, without hope of escape?

Then, through the confusion of his thoughts, he remembered.

Lift the lid,

Be glad you did.

The panic died. Jarred stretched up his arms, pushed firmly, and felt the stone above his head move. He pushed harder, then staggered and nearly fell as with a grating sound the stone moved smoothly aside.

He climbed the last few steps and crawled out of blackness into soft, flickering light.

“Who are you?” barked a deep, angry voice.

A tall, shimmering figure was looming over him. Jarred blinked up at it. After being so long in darkness, his eyes were watering, dazzled by the light. “My name is Jarred,” he cried. “Stay back!”

He scrambled to his feet, blindly feeling for his sword.

Then, suddenly, with a rustle of rich silk and the clinking of golden ornaments, the figure was falling to its knees before him.

“Oh, Jarred, how could I not have known you?” the voice cried. “For the sake of our old friendship, I beg you to forgive the past. You are the only one I can trust. Please help us!”

And only then did Jarred realize that the man at his feet was Endon.