The path to my tree had been clear enough under the milky ball in the heavens we call the Noc, but then clouds came and blocked it out, and I fell into darkness. I tied my blanket and sweater around my waist and lit a lantern I’d nicked from the Loons.
That’s when I heard it. Every sound in Wormwood needed to be considered, especially at night. I turned my lantern in that direction.
My other hand dipped to my pocket and clutched the cutting knife I often used at Stacks. I waited, dreading what might be coming.
Then the smell reached me and I knew what it was.
A garm! How could this terrible creature be so far from the Quag? I turned ready to flee, clutching my knife tightly, even though I knew it would be of no use. I put out my lantern, slung the rope tethered to the lantern over my shoulder, and shoved my knife into my pocket. Then I ran for it.
The garm was faster than me, but I had a bit of a head start. I followed the path by memory, though I took a wrong turn once and banged off a tree. That mistake cost me precious moments allowing the beast to nearly catch up to me. I redoubled my efforts. My heart was hammering so wildly, I thought I could see it thumping through my cloak.
I tripped over a tree root and sprawled to the ground. I scrambled on to my back, and there the beast was, barely six feet from me. It was huge and foul. It opened its fanged jaws, and I had but a moment to live because I knew what would be coming next. I flung myself behind a thick trunk an instant before the jet of flames struck the spot where I had been. The ground was scorched, and I felt the blast of heat all around me. I was still alive, though maybe not for much longer.
I could hear it taking in a long breath in preparation for another blast of fire that would surely engulf me. And in that brief time, I found a certain calm, knowing what I had to do.
I leaped out from behind the tree and hurled my knife straight and true. It struck the creature directly in its eye. Unfortunately, it had three more of them.
As the creature howled in fury, I turned and ran. I reached my tree, put one hand on the first rung of my wooden ladder and climbed for my life.
The wounded garm was coming on fast now. It is said that the garm hunts the souls of the dead. Others say it guards the gates of Hel, where bad Wugmorts are banished to spend eternity. Right now, I did not care which theory was right. I just didn’t want to become a dead soul this night, headed to Hel or any other place.
I knew the steps on my tree’s trunk as well as I knew my own face but, halfway up, my hand struck an unfamiliar object. I ignored it, grabbed the next board, and kept climbing.
I could feel the garm nearly upon me. It was large – easily thirteen feet long and over a thousand pounds in weight. Below, I heard claws on wood. I thought I felt heat rising towards me. Part of me didn’t want to look, but I did anyway.
I saw the hard, armoured face of the garm. Its chest was smeared in blood. It had killed nothing to get this. Its chest was always dripping with its own blood as though it were constantly wounded. Maybe that’s why it was always in a foul, murderous mood. It looked up at me, its thin, spiky tongue flicking out, its three remaining cold, dead eyes staring up at me. My knife was still sticking out from its fourth eye.
My only saving grace was that the garm, with all its strength, ferocity and ability, could not climb. However, momentum alone allowed it to get a few feet off the ground, but it fell back and hit the dirt with a thud. It roared and flames leaped upward, scorching my tree and blackening the edges of several of the wooden rungs. Even though the flames could not reach up this high, I jumped back. The garm rammed itself against the tree, attempting to knock it over. My tree shook under the assault and my oilcloth roof fell down—
And then disaster struck. One of my planks was knocked loose, tilted upward and caught me full in the face. I collapsed backwards and plummeted before my thrashing hands closed around one of my short climbing boards. My plunging weight nearly sheared it off the trunk. As it was, only one nail remained to hold it to the bark.
I looked frantically down below. The garm was up on its hind legs less than fifteen feet from me. Its mouth opened to deliver a blast of flames that would turn me to a blackened husk. With one hand gripping the board, I pulled my sweater from around my waist, balled it up, and threw it directly into the gaping opening. The garm choked and coughed and no flames came out. At least not yet.
I regained purchase with my other hand and fled back up the boards as the garm roared again to clear its mouth before the flames erupted anew. I leaped over the last short board, threw myself up on the wooden platform, and lay there panting.
I heard the garm make one more attempt to reach me and then it fell back again. Thankfully, it turned and headed off, no doubt looking for easier prey. I hoped it would not find any.
I sat in my tree, breathing hard and letting my terror recede. I could barely see the garm’s flames now as it moved in the direction of the Quag. The Quag made me think of Quentin Herms. He’d said he had left something that would set me free. And I intended to find it.
I looked in the waterproof tuck I kept hanging from a branch. But inside I found nothing. So where else could he have left anything?
I looked down my tree. Something was itching at the back of my brain, but I couldn’t think what. I went back over my frantic climb up here with the garm at my heels and it occurred to me. My hand had hit something unfamiliar.
I peered over the edge of my planks. I had nailed twenty boards as rungs against my tree’s trunk and now I counted twenty-one.
That was what my hand had hit. An extra board that shouldn’t have been there.
If I was right, then Quentin was brilliant. No one except me would have noticed.
Trembling with excitement, I climbed down to the board and examined it under my lantern light. Fortunately, the garm’s flames had not touched it. It looked exactly like the other boards. Quentin was indeed a skilled Finisher.
I scanned the front of the board for a message. There was none. But a message on the front would have been too easily seen. I tugged on it. It appeared firmly nailed into the trunk. Now I began to wonder whether Quentin was actually that smart after all. How was I supposed to pull the board out without falling and killing myself?
But as I looked more closely, I saw that the nail heads in the board were not nail heads at all. They had been coloured to look like nail heads. So what was holding the board up? I felt along the top edge of the wood. There was a slender length of metal that hung over the board. I felt along the lower edge and discovered an identical section of metal there. The metal had been darkened to blend in perfectly with the stain of the board. I put one hand on the end of the board and pulled. It slid out from between the two metal edges. The metal had acted as both a track and a support, to slide the board into place and keep it there. Now, with the board gone, I could see how Quentin had attached the metal to the trunk using stout screws.
I scampered back up to the top of my tree and sat on my haunches, the board in my lap. I turned it over and there it was: tethered to the back was an oilskin bag and inside it was a page of parchment.
I caught my breath. It was a map.
It was a map of the Quag.
More than that, it was a map of a way through the Quag.