6. The Kaldis Tree

As they followed Doctor Dunelm down his garden path, his visitors gradually became conscious that the air around them was heavy with a most unusual perfume. It was not at all unpleasant; on the contrary, it filled each of them with a wonderful sense of ease and contentment. Moments earlier, they had all been anxious to continue with their quest as soon as they had found something to eat and drink. Now each of them secretly began to hope that the others would not try to rush things. Nothing seemed urgent anymore — not even the need for refreshment.
‘What is that lovely scent?’ Katy heard herself asking Dunelm.
‘Scent?’ said Dunelm, his voice sounding rather distant. ‘Ah, that’s the perfume of my kaldis blossoms. Delightful, isn’t it? Look, there they are.’ He pointed to a large tree in the centre of the lawn. It was full of globe-shaped, blood-red flowers and the grass below it was covered with their petals.
‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ said Katy. She looked at the gnarled and twisted trunk. ‘It must be very old.’
‘It began to grew here (so they say) well over three hundred years ago,’ said Dunelm. ‘From a spear driven into the earth by the "Prince of Darkness" himself, would you believe!’ He laughed and shook his head in disbelief. ‘I really never cease to be amazed at the way these stories grow up around anything that’s at all ancient or strange.’
‘It’s making me feel sleepy,’ said Katy, rubbing her eyes.
‘Yes, the perfume does have that effect until you get used to it,’ said Dunelm. ‘But it wears off after a time. In any case, you were tired to begin with. Had you been riding long?’
‘All night,’ said Simon, with a yawn.
‘Then you must have something to eat and after that you must rest,’ said the cat. He looked at Xanthus. ‘I’m afraid you will not be able to get through my door,’ he said. ‘But I shall bring some crushed oats to you out here, if that’s what you would like.’
Xanthus stepped lightly onto the lawn, lay down on the soft grass and began slowly to polish his horn. ‘What more could any unicorn wish for,’ he said drowsily.
Dunelm ushered the children and Drimwort into the house. (Roken had already left them and flown up to the roof.) The large entrance hall was panelled in oak and covered with a deep, wine-coloured carpet. It contained only a coat rack, an umbrella stand, and a table bearing a vase full of kaldis blossoms. Doors led off on either side and a broad flight of stairs led to a landing up above. The cat opened the first door on the right and they stepped into a room where a table had already been laid for breakfast. Dunelm hurried about setting three extra places on the starched, white linen table cloth and then disappeared into the kitchen which was through an adjoining door. Soon the aroma of fresh coffee and warm bread and kippers drifted through to where the children and Drimwort were sitting at the table. All three began to feel a little less drowsy.
‘It was a bit of luck finding this place,’ said Simon. ‘I hope we can stay for a while. I’ve done enough riding to last me a lifetime.’
‘Me too,’ said Katy. But then (without much conviction) she added, ‘Though we really shouldn’t stay here any longer than we need.’
‘A few hours are not going to make much difference either way,’ said Drimwort. ‘Anyway, no one said when we had to get to the mountains.’
Just then, Dunelm bustled into the room bearing a large tray laden with salvers and covered dishes and bowls. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘“Tuck in!” as they say. Don’t wait to be asked. Help yourselves to whatever you would like.’
His three visitors needed no further encouragement. No one tried to talk and, but for the clatter of knives and forks on plates, the only sounds heard for some time were, ‘Will you pass the marmalade, please?’, ‘Have you got the salt over there?’, ‘Is there any more coffee in the pot?’, and the like.
Through the window, they could see Xanthus munching from a pail of oats, and they heard his contented whinny as he finished off the last of them, lay on his side, and went to sleep.
‘That’s just what I would like to do now,’ said Katy.
‘And me,’ said Simon and Drimwort.
‘Then come,’ said Dunelm.
He took them back into the hall and up the flight of stairs to the landing — which was really part of a passage running the length of the house. The cat turned left and stopped at the door next to an old sea-trunk. On the wall above the trunk was a sampler which bore the message ‘Heseth is Love’ worked in cross-stitch.
‘This can be your room,’ said Dunelm to Katy, opening the door.
‘Oh, how lovely!’ said Katy, looking longingly at the bed with its soft white sheets and pillows and its pale blue counterpane. ‘It’s perfect! Thank you!’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said the cat. He went to the window and drew the dark blue curtains to shut out the sunlight. ‘Sleep well,’ he said. ‘Simon will be next door to you and Drimwort will be over on the other side of the passage. If you need anything, just come to the top of the stairs and call me. I’ll be in my study.’
Within moments, Katy had undressed and jumped into bed. She was now so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open but, just as she was about to drift off to sleep, she noticed that, on the wall facing her, was a picture of Elyon. It was very like him except that his eyes were sadder than she remembered them.
Simon was the first to wake. It was still daylight — though, judging by the length of the shadows outside, he guessed it was now probably late afternoon. He felt greatly refreshed but still rather dreamy. The scent of the kaldis blossoms seemed heavier than ever. He pulled his clothes on and went into the corridor.
‘Katy! Are you awake?’ he called, tapping on her door.
After a moment, the door opened and Katy stood there rubbing her eyes. ‘Only just,’ she said. ‘We must have been asleep for hours!’
Then the door opposite opened and Drimwort emerged. ‘Candied cowslips!’ he said. ‘I was ready for that. And now I’m hungry again. Let’s see if we can find Dunelm.’
The three of them trooped downstairs and tapped on several doors until they found Dunelm in his study. The room was lined with books and paintings and all kinds of strange objects. There were masks and a curved sword with a jewelled hilt. There was a clock which had sea shells where the numbers should be and the legs of a crab as its hour and minute hands. There was a plate commemorating the coronation of Ulven the Magnificent as King of Galdania in 1102; and there was a map showing lots of unfamiliar constellations, entitled The Night Sky of Shalanor. In the centre of the study was a large desk covered in papers, but Dunelm was sitting in a winged armchair by the fireplace. He was carefully piling yellow, clotted cream onto a scone already heaped in strawberry jam when the children and Drimwort entered the room.
‘Do have some,’ he said, pointing to the little table in front of him. ‘I thought you’d probably be awake about now. Did you sleep well?’
‘Like logs,’ said Simon. ‘We must have had about eight hours.’
‘Eight hours?’ said the cat. ‘More like thirty-two. You’ve slept the clock round twice — and more besides!’
All three of them had the uneasy feeling that this should have alarmed them in some way — that there was something they ought to have been doing instead of sleeping. But nobody could quite recall what it was, and nobody felt that it was of sufficient importance to try to remember.
Katy helped herself to a scone, covered it with jam and cream, and began to eat it; but the scent of kaldis blossom (which seemed to be getting stronger all the time) spoiled it for her. It is almost impossible to enjoy the taste of one thing when you are conscious of the smell of something quite different.
She put the scone back on her plate and began to wander round the room. Glancing along the bookshelves, she read some of the titles: The Place of Legend in the Culture of Shalanor, Mount Frim Soteriology, The Myth of the Gates of Dawn, The Golden Pipes — Studies in Contemporary Elyonology, The Faun Motif in Comparative Religion. Then her attention was caught by another picture of Elyon. This one was painted on wood and had a little shutter attached to either side of it. The shutters had paintings on them too. There was a boy on the left-hand shutter and a girl on the right-hand one. The paint was faded and flaking but it was still rather splendid, and the hair and flanks and legs of Elyon were decorated in gold leaf.
‘Oh, you’ve discovered my icon?’ said Dunelm from the fireplace. ‘Do you like it? It’s very old and very valuable.’
‘I quite like it,’ said Katy, looking at it critically. ‘But not as much as the picture of Elyon upstairs. That one’s so much more like him.’
The cat looked at her curiously. ‘What a very strange remark,’ he said. ‘What do you mean by “like him”?’
‘I mean that the picture in my room is more like the real Elyon than this picture on the wall,’ said Katy.
‘Ah, I see,’ said Dunelm, putting the tips of his paws together in front of his chest. ‘You’ve had some sort of vision — some mystical experience — in which you saw Elyon as a faun.’
‘No,’ said Katy. ‘Nothing like that. He was there — just the other day. I was on one of the hills, over in the west, and I met him. I touched him and talked to him.’
Dunelm gave her a sad, indulgent smile. ‘My dear child,’ he said. ‘Bless you for your simple faith. And far be it from me to try to undermine it. But you really must understand that Elyon is spirit. He cannot be “seen” or “touched” — not in any meaningful sense of those words.’
Outside, came the whistling of wind and, from way off in the distance, a low rumbling sound. ‘Listen! That sounds like thunder,’ said Simon.
Dunelm got up and walked to the window. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The sky’s getting quite dark in the east. It looks as if we’re in for a storm.’ He continued to look at the sky for a moment, then turned his attention back to Katy. ‘It is, of course, true,’ he said, ‘that the mind can, at times, conjure up images — even sounds and smells — which have a semblance of reality. And such images may, at the time, be an aid to devotion. But we must remember that they are only figments of our imagination — never a foundation for faith.’
Outside, dark clouds had now blotted out the sun and the wind was rising to a roaring gale. Rain began to lash against the windows.
‘Elyon is unknown and unknowable,’ Dunelm continued. ‘He has no form or substance. He is, as the ancients would say, “without body, parts or passions”. Certainly he is not (in any real sense of the word) a faun. If we depict him as such it is because a faun symbolises the meeting of heaven and earth. The goat-like, lower parts remind us of the lower order of creation; the man-like, upper parts remind us of the heavenly, higher order and its governance of all that is beneath it. But Elyon is not a faun. Why, it would be absurd — heretical almost — to conceive of him as a beast with real hair and real hoofs and real blood in his veins!’
The storm was now crashing around the house and the scent of the kaldis blossom was almost overpowering.
‘But that’s just what he is,’ said Katy drowsily. ‘He held my hand and kissed me on my forehead.’
‘Oh, really!’ exclaimed Dunelm. ‘I must say, I find such language quite distressing; and it does not at all become you. Kissed you indeed!’
‘Maybe you did just imagine meeting Elyon,’ said Simon, yawning. ‘You do have a vivid imagination, Katy. You know you do.’
‘Well, I don’t think I was imagining him,’ said Katy; but the sweet scent of kaldis blossom was now so filling her head that her memory of Elyon was becoming more hazy by the minute.
Drimwort shook his head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs from his mind. He turned to Dunelm. ‘If Elyon’s not real,’ he said, ‘how do you explain the Two Sisters — and Mount Frim itself. They’re real. They’re there for all to see.’
‘Well, of course, they’re real,’ said Dunelm. ‘It’s just the story that surrounds them that’s not.’
‘What?’ said Drimwort. ‘You’re trying to say that there never was a Prince of Darkness, and that he never cast Elyon into the Fires of Frim; and that Elyon never came back to life!’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said the cat. ‘This is so difficult to explain; but I would be failing in my duty if I did not try. You must understand, you see, that all the things you speak of are part of a beautiful story. A myth. But the nature of myth is that it does contain truth. The Faun and the Dark Prince symbolise good and evil, both of which really exist. The killing of the Faun by the Dark Prince reminds us that good and evil are at war with each other and that evil often seems to triumph over good. And the return to life of the Faun reminds us that good will have the ultimate victory.’
The cat resumed his seat in his armchair. ‘The story is merely an attempt to put these truths into a form which people can easily remember and pass on to their children. It built up around Mount Frim because the mountain was clearly once a volcano and already had the appearance of having been split asunder at the time the story was invented. The Two Sisters are just two stones which look a little like two women — but they never were the princesses Amaryl and Rylama. Now that doesn’t mean we should get rid of the story, of course. Certainly not. Indeed, I have long campaigned for a special day to be set aside each year as Frim Day when we can celebrate the return to life of the Faun. But that does not mean that it ever really hap—’
A huge flash of lightning lit up the room and was followed immediately by a great crack of thunder. As the sound of the thunder rolled away, they all heard a noise of creaking and groaning coming from outside the house. Rushing to the windows, they saw the kaldis tree — split and blackened where it had been struck — sway for a moment and then crash to the ground.
‘Oh, no!’ cried Dunelm in anguish. ‘My kaldis! My precious kaldis!’
He rushed from the room and, moments later, the children and Drimwort heard the front door close behind him. Then they saw him struggling through the dying storm, an umbrella over his head, to where the ruins of the tree lay on the lawn.
‘Phew!’ said Simon. ‘That was quite something!’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t know about you two, but I feel as if I’ve been in a dream ever since we came here and that I’ve only just woken up.’
‘I feel the same,’ said Katy. ‘I’m sure the kaldis blossom had something to do with it. Do you know, I was really beginning to believe that Elyon was simply make-believe.’
‘But he’s not,’ said Drimwort. ‘And he’s going to be pretty upset when he finds out that we’ve been wasting our time here for nearly two days.’
‘I think he knows already,’ said Katy. ‘Look!’ She pointed through the window to the garden gate. The rain had stopped now and the setting sun was breaking through the clouds again. By some bushes, stood the faun — his face solemn and still, his eyes gazing at them questioningly. ‘He wants us to leave, now,’ she said. ‘Come on, we must hurry!’
The three of them ran into the hall and through the door into the garden. Xanthus was there, shaking the rain from his head and flanks, and trying to dry his horn on the parts of him that the rain had not reached.
‘By the Pipes,’ he said. ‘What has been going on?’
‘We’ll tell you later,’ said Drimwort. ‘There’s no time now. Elyon is waiting — look — down there, by the gate.’
They all set off down the garden path. To their right, Dunelm was still gazing sadly at the wreckage on the lawn.
‘Doctor Dunelm,’ cried Katy. ‘We’ve got to go now. And if you still don’t believe me about Elyon, come and see. He’s there — at the gate!’
The cat turned and looked to where the faun was still standing patiently by the bushes beyond the end of the path. ‘Shadows,’ he said. ‘You are seeing only shadows, dear child. I admit that they do look a little like a faun; but, sadly, they are not. How could they be?’
Then Elyon spoke. ‘Dunelm, Dunelm,’ he said. ‘Why do you close your eyes and ears to me?’
‘And there’s still thunder in the air,’ said Dunelm. ‘Do you really think you ought to leave in this weather? Why not spend another day or two with me before you go? You really will be most welcome.’
Elyon shook his head sadly and began to walk away. Soon the bushes hid him from view.
‘No,’ said Simon. ‘Thanks all the same, but we must leave at once. And thank you for all your hospitality.’
Dunelm raised his paw in a gesture of blessing and dismissal, then turned to contemplate the fallen kaldis tree once more.
The little party hurried to the gate and passed through it.
‘Now! Where’s Elyon?’ asked Drimwort, pushing his spectacles up his nose and turning to look in every direction. But the faun had completely vanished. All around was open country. There was nowhere for him to be hiding, but he was nowhere to be seen.
‘We can’t all have imagined him,’ said Simon.
‘None of us imagined him,’ said Katy. ‘Look.’ She pointed to the damp earth where set after set of small, cloven, hoof prints led back towards the west. ‘He was here,’ she said. ‘But now he’s gone again. I was hoping he was going to stay with us — like he told me he would.’
‘I’m beginning to think that he is with us,’ said Drimwort. ‘But we just can’t see him most of the time. At any rate, he knew we were here.’
‘And he got rid of the kaldis tree,’ said Xanthus. ‘It had us all under a spell of some kind.’
‘It was the storm that got rid of the tree,’ said Simon.
‘Was it?’ said Xanthus. ‘Was it indeed?’ Then he chanted softly, ‘He moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Katy.
‘Just an old song,’ said Xanthus.
‘And the old ones are always the best,’ croaked a voice from the top of the gate.
‘Roken! I’d forgotten all about you,’ said Simon. ‘Where have you been all this time?’
‘What do you mean — “all this time”? I’ve just been on the roof having forty winks,’ replied the raven. ‘But then the storm woke me.’ He hopped off the gate and began parting the grass with his beak, searching for grubs.
‘You’ve had a lot more than forty winks,’ said Simon. ‘We’ve been here two days!’
‘Two days!’ exclaimed Roken. ‘No wonder I’m hungry. How can I have slept for two days?’
‘Because we’ve all been — well — sort of enchanted,’ said Katy. ‘By the kaldis blossom. But Elyon’s got rid of it. And now he wants us to leave.’
‘Fine,’ croaked Roken. ‘Well, I’m as ready as the rest of you.’ He jabbed at a large earwig with his massive beak and gulped it down. ‘So — which way do we go?’
‘West, of course,’ said Katy, looking at Elyon’s paw prints. ‘Due west until we get back on our path, then north.’