Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 33
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 33 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
“I’ve just realized…” Stuart looked at me. “If we’re to become bards, we’ll have to learn to sing. I couldn’t have done any better than you did. It never occurred to me till now, that we might be missing this critical piece.”
I shook my head. “I practiced.”
“He wasn’t that good,” muttered Iain. “Just… better than expected. But Stu’s right.”
“I haven’t got a very good voice…” Stuart looked pale.
“It’s a skill,” Iain said, echoing my own reasoning. “Like anything else. If Tom bloody Firth can do it, so can we. We’ll join choir if we have to.”
If anything, Stuart got paler. “Choir? But they practice at the same time as band! What about violin? My parents…”
“We’ll figure it out,” Iain said, with the sort of surety of which only he was capable. “For now, we’d better get inside before this goes out. Go on, Stu. You first.” Stuart nodded queasily. His hand shook as he reached toward the fire.
Iain nodded at me. “Your turn.”
“Thanks,” I smiled weakly. It was good seeing him take charge again. Having the old Iain back. The fire licked at my fingertips. The world disappeared. And then I was back, in Lightfoot’s firelit antechamber, on unsteady legs, making a puddle on the ground.
“Oh good,” came a groan. “Another one.”
I looked up. Godwyn hung in the air a few feet away, his head candle flickering. The others were busy drying themselves. The warmth was life-giving. I stepped aside just in time for Iain to materialize where I’d been standing. “We’ve completed th—”
“I know, I know,” Godwyn waved me away irritably. “They told me,” he jerked his head. Tom still looked smug. I hoped it would wear off soon. And maybe that he’d be struck by lightning.
“Is that all of you, then?” Godwyn squinted at the five of us, then at the pools we’d left on the floor. “Feels like there were more.”
“This is everyone,” said Merry.
“Hard to keep track,” Godwyn muttered. “Like vermin. Well, come on! No point in prolonging this ordeal.” He floated toward the doors at the back of the room, once again closed. “I do hope you haven’t broken any rules.” He smiled at us wickedly over his shoulder. “The consequences would be dire if you did.”
We shared expressions of alarm. Consequences? No one ever said anything about—
Godwyn pushed.
Not even Tom was smiling as we followed him into Lightfoot’s chamber, standing shoulder to shoulder as the knot on the floor began to pulse, and the melody heralding Lightfoot’s arrival began to sound. It wasn’t strings this time. It was brass. Hope stirred in my chest. Perhaps singing wasn’t my only hope… The air was electric. Light streaked along the channels of the knot in time with the music, and at last, with the trumpeting of the final note and the ephemeral glow of a miniature sun, Cyril Lightfoot appeared.
“Welcome back, young adventurers!” he bellowed, hands on his hips, chest puffed. “Your shining faces are a beacon for these weary eyes.”
Godwyn glided forward to float beside him and sighed.
I began to speak, but Tom was quicker. “We’ve done it,” he announced with a flick of his hair that catapulted rainwater into my eyes. “We’ve completed the First Trial.”
I’ll kill him—
“I sensed it the moment you arrived!” came Lightfoot's toothy reply. He clapped his hands together. “Come then, my heroes to be—let the Telling commence!”
“Wait!” I blurted.
Lightfoot looked at me, along with everyone else. “Yes, Puw? What is it?”
Puw. Why hadn’t I lied about my name? “I… wanted to ask you something first.”
Lightfoot cocked his head a fraction. “Go on.”
“Do you know anything about a… man in green?”
“What is he—?” Tom hissed. Merry shook her head.
The bard looked confused as well. “A man in green?”
“An old man. With white hair. Who always wears green. We found this place because of him, and he’s sort of been… following me. I thought, maybe, you might know…”
Lightfoot’s expression told me what his answer would be. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Oh.”
“Perhaps it was someone you knew a long time ago,” suggested Stuart, and Lightfoot stroked his chin. “I mean, in here, everything stays the same, right? But outside, time is passing. Is it possible he’s someone you knew as a young man, forty or fifty years ago?”
I could’ve hit myself. It was such an obvious, brilliant idea, I was ashamed for not having thought of it. Lightfoot ran his fingers down the length of his beard. “There have been others… over the years. This fellow—did he have any identifying features?”
Identifying features?
“I—” I racked my brain. “Besides only wearing green? He’s tall, I suppose. Tall as Iain, maybe, but slender. I thought he might be Irish…?” Not a hint of recognition. “Oh! He had green eyes, too! A sort of muddy… No?”
I looked to Iain and Stuart, but they shook their heads.
“I don’t suppose you caught his name?” Lightfoot prodded.
“We’ve just been calling him the man in green…”
“You said this man led you here. To me.”
“Oh—!” I wiped my hands on my trousers and swung my rucksack around to get the Book, still safe and dry in its wrapping. I opened it to Lightfoot’s page and held it out, wondering whether it would pass right through his silvery fingers. But the bard accepted the Book with an air of curiosity.
“What’s this?” He scanned the page. “The Standing Stones of Cyril Lightfoot… Legendary bard… Mm. Impeccable handwriting…”
I tapped the final paragraph. “This is how we found you. This is how we knew where to look.”
Godwyn dipped in to read over Lightfoot’s shoulder. “Fomorian threat…” his lip curled. “Heroic—!” he spat. “More propaganda!”
“Where did you get this?” Lightfoot seemed genuinely astonished. He turned the Book over to look at the cover. “Thomas P. Willoughby…” He peered more closely. “And the Giants’ dance.”
“The man in green practically threw it at me.”
Lightfoot shook his head, and after gazing at it a moment longer, handed back the Book. “I’ve no idea who your man in green is. But I would very much like to meet him. And this Thomas Willoughby.”
“What about them?” said Iain behind me. “What about him?” He was pointing at Godwyn.
The impish Fomorian wheeled end over end and swooped towards Iain, as though coming to rest on an invisible cushion, chin cupped in his hands. “What about me?” he inquired, all false sweetness.
Iain looked uncomfortable, but stood his ground. “I mean, what if the green man is working for the Fomorians? What if he’s on their side? What if he came here, and instead of sending him on to meet you, Godwyn turned him?”
Godwyn smiled. It was not a nice expression. “My dear boy. I have no interest in turning anyone. The day we come to rely upon the likes of you, you may as well expect to find two moons in the sky. Fire to burn cold. Shadows to dance jigs of their own accord. And swine to—”
“Fly?” supplied Stuart helpfully.
“To recite elegant verse! I promise you—my kin will not spare a single one of you hairless dirt-walkers when the final battle comes, no matter how traitorous. And besides—”
“And besides,” interrupted Lightfoot evenly, “Godwyn could not turn anyone if he wished to.” He wiggled fingers above his head to mimic a candle flame. “The enchantment prevents it.”
“The enchantment prevents it,” Godwyn parroted, wrinkling his nose.
“Oh.” Iain sounded disappointed.
“Quite the mystery,” Lightfoot mused.
“Did you lot come here to indulge conspiracies?” Godwyn gnarled. “Because if so, I have other places to be.”
“Now Godwyn, we both know that isn’t true. But I suppose we should get on to the business at hand. And I am very interested in seeing what you’ve brought. So, who’ll be first?”
“Wait!” said Merry. “I have a question too…”
“For the love of…”
“Quiet, Godwyn. Ask your question, Meredith. Perhaps yours prove be easier to answer.”
Uncharacteristically sheepish, Merry’s hand had gone to her throat, and she was having trouble meeting Lightfoot’s gaze.
“Oh, spit it out, lass!”
“Godwyn, be silent!”
“Sorry,” Merry finally raised her eyes. “I wanted to…” She cleared her throat. “Does God exist?”
Lightfoot practically fell over backwards and nearly lost his cap in the process. “Why—of course he does, girl! As well ask if the sea is wet, or if birds nest in trees!”
“Then you’ve seen him?”
“Seen him? Why, no, but—”
“But you’re a ghost, aren’t you? You’ve been to the other side.”
“I don’t know that ghost is entirely the right word for it. And as for sides, I fear there are rather more of them than you imagine. I am sorry to say that simply being dead isn’t enough to get you an audience with the Creator.”
“Then… how do you know he exists?”
“Because I have faith, girl! Like all good people!”
Merry frowned. “So that’s it? Even after we die, we have to rely on faith?”
Lightfoot’s expression softened. “It’s that way for me, yes. But perhaps not everyone. When my body failed, I wasn’t ready to move on. I had battles left to fight. Perhaps those who accomplish all they’re meant to do get to lie down in Paradise when they pass. I’d like to think such a fate awaits me, someday. But for now, I have far too many important things to do to sit around imagining the end. I advise you not to spend so much time worrying about what comes in the next life that you neglect your responsibilities in this one.”
“But—”
“Enough.” Lightfoot’s tone was gentle, but firm. The bard seemed eager enough to move on that I almost wondered if Merry’s questioning had rattled him. And while God and the afterlife were abstractly interesting, I was far more concerned with whether I was going to pass the first trial. I was tired of waiting. So when Lightfoot asked a second time who would be first, my hand shot into the air faster than anyone else could blink.
