Imraldera, her hunger ebbed somewhat, stopped chewing a moment. She frowned at the poet. He shouldn’t be here, she realized. He should be on his way back home, his lady in hand, triumphant and carefree. But here he was, sitting under the gaze of Hri Sora’s deadly children, slicking back his hair with his hand. His shirt was more muddy and tattered than ever. He was stained and disheveled, yet he sat like a dandy and smiled as though the worlds must be blessed by his very existence.
Behind that smile lay a tremulous hesitance she almost overlooked. Was he afraid she would turn him away?
“I can see you thinking,” Eanrin said, shifting a little uncomfortably. “You’re probably wondering what the blazes I am doing shadowing after you like some love-struck kitten.”
She blinked, and her hand holding the apple core dropped to her lap.
“I assure you,” the poet hastened on, “that I mean to accompany you purely out of a sense of obligation. You freed my lady Gleamdren. You danced right into Etalpalli the Unassailable, stood before the dreaded Flame at Night to make your demands, and danced right back out again. The conquering heroine, freer of prisoners and warrior maiden of great renown. I should like to write an epic in your honor . . . but alas! Such is not the work my audience has come to expect of me. No. I shall have to pay my obligation through practical rather than artistic means. That is, if it’s all the same to you?”
Who would have thought a cat’s face, even in human form, could look so pleading?
Imraldera reached out and took one of his hands. She squeezed gently, filling her eyes with gratitude. If there was one thing she needed out here in the Between, it was a friend.
Eanrin gazed back at her, his expression shifting between an uncertain smile and an uncertain frown. Then he took her hand in both of his and raised it to his lips. “So it is decided! I am your servant.”
Imraldera blushed and hastily rose, brushing away the dark seeds left from her meal. With a motion of her hand, she pursued her way. She did not know this Wood. She did not understand the Paths she walked. She knew the Black Dogs flanked her. She knew as well that she hated walking the Path they chose for her.
But something had changed. The Path was no longer so dark at her feet, though the Midnight itself had not lifted. And when she raised her eyes to peer ahead, she thought she glimpsed golden light, distant but steadily shining. She thought of her dream and wondered if perhaps it was no dream after all.
And Eanrin, falling into step behind her, sang softly to himself:
“Oh, woe is me, I am undone,
In sweet affliction lying!
For my labor’s scarce begun,
And leaves me sorely sighing
After the maiden I adore,
Bravely marching to Death’s door. . . .”
The Wood gave way at last, and Eanrin, for the first time he could remember (though perhaps there was a forgotten time or two in the generations of his life) stood on the brink of the Near World.
The ocean lapped the shores at his feet. A narrow stretch of land extended out over those placid waters, leading toward the hazy horizon of tall mountains in the distance. Eanrin shook his head, surprised at a sight of such majesty here in the mortal realm. Odd, for though he smelled mortality all around him, it offended his nose much less than it once had.
Imraldera stepped from his side down to the water’s edge. The ocean wind caught at her long hair and the tatters of her white gown, billowing them behind her like contrasting flags. She looked smaller even than before, offset by the vast expanse of water and those looming peaks. But there was strength in the set of her shoulders.
Midnight fell as the Black Dogs stepped from the Wood. Eanrin shuddered, glancing from right to left as they drew alongside him. But their eyes were fixed upon the girl; Eanrin might as well not have existed. One of them sniffed loudly, raising its ugly nose. Then it howled, a low, mournful sound.
Imraldera turned. With swift motion of her hand, she ordered the monster silent. It crouched to the ground, its body quivering, a black, voiceless shadow.
The strange party made their way along the isthmus, Eanrin avoiding the water lapping on either side as much as he avoided the Dogs. These faded into little more than phantom wraiths, invisible against the night. The mortal world was no place for beings such as they.
The journey must have been long, but they followed a Faerie Path, which carried them swiftly across the distances. At length they stood at the far end of the isthmus, and towering above, sheer and impassable, were the mountains. Eanrin sensed what these were in the Far World of Faerie. Giants! Stone giants! Nothing more than rock and silt in this mortal realm of dust and decay; yet their nature remained at their core.
“The Circle of Faces,” the poet whispered. He knew now where they were. Turning to Imraldera, he exclaimed, “You are from the Land Behind the Mountains! I thought no living creature dwelled therein, not anymore. What a marvel you are, my girl, to have found your way out! Even I know that nothing enters and nothing leaves the Hidden Land.” He scratched his head then, making a face. “Which will make things a bit difficult for us, yes? If we are to venture in, I do hope you know the way.”
She nodded. With firm steps that belied her quailing heart, she led the poet and the Dogs to that place where the rivers escaped from their subterranean way. The rushing water nearly overwhelmed the isthmus. But Eanrin spotted what the receding tide slowly revealed: a small stretch of dry land leading into that dark cavern. It was narrow indeed, but it looked solid enough. He touched Imraldera’s arm and pointed. She nodded, unsurprised.
Then she turned to the Dogs. They had hidden themselves from Eanrin’s eyes, deeming him useless. But Imraldera saw them clearly. She signed a command she had used for Frostbite and her father’s lurchers: “Stay.”
The Black Dogs sat. One growled. One faintly whined. Otherwise, they were like stone.
“Are they not coming with us?” Eanrin asked, uncertain if he was relieved or dismayed. After all, as dreadful as the monsters were, they were a known dread. Whomever the Flame at Night had sent them to face—whomever she could not face herself—was unknown and therefore more to be feared.
Imraldera beckoned to the poet and, moving carefully, crossed the land bridge into the cavern. Eanrin followed, leaving behind the Midnight to step into darkness deeper still. But this, at least, was a natural dark. He smelled earth and dirt, and thought for a moment that Glomar would have been much better suited to this mission.
Suddenly the hair on his neck stood on end. A sensation of utter cold wafted over his spirit. Freezing and smothering, it was familiar, too familiar. Rather than a flowing, living river, he smelled the stagnant stench of the Dark Water.
“Bravely marching to Death’s door,” he whispered, then cursed violently, his voice echoing and reechoing in the dark. “What have we done?”
His fey eyes struggled to see in the dark, but he could just discern Imraldera’s form a few steps ahead as she felt her way along the cavern wall. “Wait!” Eanrin cried, leaping forward and grabbing her arm. He felt her whole body convulse with terror, and she whirled about and gripped his arms as though holding on to life itself. He peered into her face and realized that her mortal eyes could see nothing in this place. She was walking blind.
“We must go back,” he told her.
She shook her head.
“We can’t go on this way. I know this Path!” he insisted. “I’ve walked it before, though not in this place. This is the Path of Death!”
Her grip tightened for a moment, then relaxed, as though she forced her muscles to obey. She stepped out of Eanrin’s grasp and turned back to feeling her way, her steps slow but firm.
“Imraldera!” Eanrin cried, hastening to keep up with her. “Don’t you understand? You go to your own destruction! That’s what it means to walk this Path. You will die!” A piece of his mind whispered, I will die too.
But in that moment, he did not care.
This is what you have always
feared, he realized. This is the final weakness.
He shook off the thought and reached for Imraldera again. She was beyond his grasp and moving swiftly. Two steps more, and Eanrin gasped in surprise. For they no longer walked Death’s Path. Only a few paces before, without twists or turns, they had been on that inevitable road to the Dark Water. Now the darkness of oppression gave way to the natural darkness of underground, and the stench of demise was replaced with the smells of deep places, cold and dank but not fetid.
They were once more under the mountain. And they followed the Path of the Lumil Eliasul.
It was strange to walk Faerie Paths in the mortal world. In the Between or the Far World, it was as natural as breathing to be carried over those far stretches of land in a stride. In the mortal world, it was a nauseating sensation, and Eanrin often had to stop and let his head clear of dizziness.
In those times, Imraldera waited for him. She, for all her mortality, seemed less affected. Perhaps because it was her land. Perhaps mortals were bound to their demesnes, much like Faerie lords and ladies. Imraldera was, Eanrin still insisted, a princess, and she would feel that bond as only those of royal blood would.
At last they left the caverns below the mountains and emerged, blinking and gasping, into daylight. They were both streaked with dirt and damp, but after their many adventures, this scarcely made a difference. Imraldera, who had been blind as they traveled underground, was obliged to stand for some moments, letting her eyes adjust. This gave Eanrin time to take in the world around him.
He was surprised by the freshness in the air, having expected yet again to be overwhelmed by mortal stinks. But it was as clear and heady to him as the breezes of Rudiobus itself, if warmer. He liked the smell of the forests growing here, the low shrubs and rich mosses. This was a good land.
But as they began to climb the mountains, still following the Path of the Lumil Eliasul, Eanrin grew uneasy. Something was wrong; something was false. Bald Mountain loomed above them, and Eanrin wrinkled his nose as the faint remnants of poison reached him. The Flame at Night had fallen here, he realized. This was the Near World mountain she smote after her plunge from the heavens. He saw the barren slopes where no living thing would thrive again; he saw the scorch marks upon the earth. Something much worse was amiss here, if he could but sniff it out.
Imraldera led him along the Path, up the dead mountain. They climbed into the freezing reaches near its summit, but the cold could not touch them on the Faerie Path. From that height, Eanrin beheld the Hidden Land for the first time: the green fields, the deep gorges wherein the rivers flowed, stretching to the far horizon and beyond sight.
“Your kingdom,” he said to Imraldera. But she gave him a puzzled look and shook her head. It did not matter. She was a princess, say what she would.
They picked their way down the far slopes of Bald Mountain. Imraldera’s steps became more hesitant, and she stumbled dangerously once or twice. This was not a terrain on which to lose one’s footing. Eanrin doubted she could fall so long as they pursued this Path, but he did not like to take the chance. He took hold of her arm, and she allowed him to assist her in the more difficult descents.
Her body shuddered in his grasp, and her dark face went ashen.
Eanrin stopped as though he had hit a wall. The scents of lies and deceits overwhelmed him, and he swayed where he stood.
“Lumé’s crown!” he swore. “What is this horror?”
They stood on the slope just above the Place of the Teeth. In the cold light of the sun, the red bloodstains upon the stones showed darkly. The Teeth tore at the sky, and from them Eanrin felt the force of the darkness holding the Hidden Land in its grip.
Indeed, Imraldera could be no princess. No one could rule a land like this. No one, that is, save a Faerie imposter.
Eanrin understood, suddenly, the power behind the curse that kept Imraldera silent. A Faerie beast had crept from the Far World and stolen this land to make a false demesne. He had set up these stones, fed them with the blood of sacrifices, and turned this realm of mortals into his hunting grounds. He had made himself a god among the weaker beings. Wrenching the land from their power, he had bound it to his spirit in ways it was never meant to be bound.
It was a breaking of the Old Laws, a crime against Faerie lords and ladies. A crime against all worlds!
Eanrin turned to Imraldera. Her arms were wrapped about herself, and she stared down at the dreadful stones. The poet looked at her scarred wrists, from which he had cut those cords; then he looked at the central stone. He knew, or guessed at least, what had happened. The Beast had demanded this girl as the next sacrifice. He would have taken her blood or . . . or possibly more.
Fury rose like fire in Eanrin’s breast. He strode down to the dreadful stones and struck them with his fists. “Evil, evil curse at your birth!” he shouted.
Imraldera cringed and backed away. Did Eanrin, now that he knew of this place, also believe in the curse? He was not of this world, after all. Perhaps he understood the Beast. Perhaps he sided with the god of the Land and also pronounced women a plague of nature.
Perhaps she had no friend.
Kneeling, she took up a stone. She had come this far. If he, her only companion, turned on her, so be it. She would fight! Fairbird must be saved, and the Beast must meet his end. Eanrin could not stand in her way.
The poet turned, and his face was that of a fierce animal ready to tear into its prey. Imraldera’s heart plunged to her stomach, and she braced herself, ready to hurl her stone as the cat-man strode back toward her.
Then he spoke: “The Faerie Beast will know we have breached his territory. It is the way of it, even in a false demesne. They set up protections on their borders, and they sense when those protections are broken.”
Imraldera’s grip on the stone relaxed. She drew a shuddering breath and nodded.
“We must be prepared,” Eanrin continued. “I wish you could tell me everything. Curse the monster for taking your voice! But I can guess at most of it, I think. And some, perhaps, I do not want to know.”
He drew a deep breath and turned from Imraldera to gaze down into the Hidden Land. She could strike his head with her weapon. She knew where to hit so that he would fall senseless to the ground, never to move again.
She closed her eyes, whispered a prayer, and let the stone she held drop to her feet. She must trust someone. If she was wrong and Eanrin proved false, so be it. She would not live her life in constant fear of men.
Eanrin turned slightly at the crack of the falling stone. Again, he guessed at many things but chose not to look around. He had made his decision. He would see this adventure through, no matter what became of him in the end.
4
THE LAND WAS BLOODIED with war. Men fought brutal battles, brother slaying brother in a hopeless quest for supremacy. No man could reign supreme over this land that belonged to the Beast. The blood spilled by each warrior poured into the ground and fed the power of the dark god.
And the curse of silence held the women mute. Even if they dared think, “Surely there must be another way!” they could not speak it. They were slaves, shadows passing through the years of their short existences, unable to change what might be.
The season for campaigns was high, and the men were away at their wars. The cat bypassed the fields of blood as best he could, trotting through the villages instead. Every village was the same. Hollow-eyed women tended to the old men and the boys too young for battle as though they were minor gods. The cat would cozy up to one or another, occasionally receiving a pat for his purrs, once or twice a bite of meat. Usually he was repaid with kicks, however. These women to whom no kindness had been shown had little kindness to spare.
Eanrin searched each village with great care. Imraldera, once more scratching signs in the dirt, had been able to give him only a vague idea of what he sought. Through all the disjointed scribbling and a long guessing game, he had learned that he must find the king’s village (though Imraldera had in
sisted there was no king, merely her father). To reach this village, he would have to cross four gorges and four rivers. He must look for the soil that was red and the house upon a hill. In that house lived a child and a . . . something. A cow? No. A lizard? No, no. A walrus? No!
“Not a . . . Iubdan’s beard, not a dog!”
Yes, a child and a dog. Another dog. As though there weren’t already dogs enough bound up in this adventure! The cat sighed as he padded his sleek way across the landscape. But Imraldera had been firm in this. He must find the house on a hill where a child and her dog lived. After a little guessing, Eanrin discovered that this was her sister and that Imraldera, above all, wanted to know that the girl was all right.
“But what about the Faerie Beast?” Eanrin had asked. “Are we not here for him? Gleamdren said Hri Sora sent you to find him. He will be aware that someone has breached his borders and may even now be looking for us. We must be wary!”
But Imraldera shook her head. The child and the dog . . . they were of first importance. The child must be safe. The Beast would come second.
Nevertheless, Eanrin insisted she remain behind and allow him to venture into the Hidden Land alone. “I won’t be long,” he told her. “There are Faerie Paths throughout this kingdom, and not all of them are controlled by the Beast. I’ll use those and be back before you know it.
“But,” he added with an earnest clasp of her hand, “if you see any sign of the Beast, promise me you will run. Don’t wait for me. Just run. As fast as you can. Get out of this place and never return.”
Imraldera gave him a long look. Her face held an expression he could not read. If only he knew her language of hands and faces!
Then she nodded and patted his head as though he were in his cat form. When he started on his way, she stood at the Place of the Teeth and watched him, looking small and vulnerable but as brave as he had ever seen her.