Imraldera drew a shuddering breath and let it out with a sob. That final vision filled her mind, that vision of blood and roaring darkness, the pain in the Wolf Lord’s dying voice. What might he be now had he lived a life of submitted humility rather than stolen divinity?
But the One who named the Beast Beloved drew her to him, and she wept upon his shoulder. The task was done. Her people were safe. And though her heart ached, it still beat. She had not become what she loathed. How dreadfully close had she walked to that edge? She could not guess.
“Starflower,” said the stranger, stroking her hair with the tenderness of a father, “will you now speak love throughout your days?”
Imraldera drew back to look into his face once more. She saw in his eyes what he asked of her: A life of service, of burden. These things, however, did not frighten her. All she feared was returning to the life of slavery she had always known.
She saw in the eyes of the Lumil Eliasul that he offered a life more whole and free than any she had ever dreamed. Imraldera took a deep breath. Then she nodded.
“I have loosened your tongue,” said the Lumil Eliasul. “You may speak!”
She opened her mouth. Her tongue tingled as though she had bitten fire. Licking her lips, she struggled to form the words that were always waiting to be spoken.
“My Lord,” she said, and her voice cracked and trembled. “My Master.”
There in the veil of mist, the One Who Names Them knighted the Silent Lady who now sang. And she knelt before him, words pouring from her heart and falling, stumbling, from her tongue, uncertain but full of joy even as she mourned the death of her enemy. For now she knew better what it meant to love and to be loved. And in loving, she found her spirit opening ever more to the greatness for which it was intended.
“Are you ready, Dame Imraldera, to do my bidding?” asked her Master.
“I am,” she replied.
“I am sending you back into the Wood,” said he. “To the Haven where once the Brothers Ashiun dwelt, offering succor to those in need and protection to both the Far World and the Near. You will take up the work that they began, guarding the gates I have set between the worlds and teaching the people of both worlds to walk my Paths. And I will give the keeping of records to you so that this story and others like it may not be lost to the memories of mortal and immortal alike.”
Imraldera nodded. But more tears caught in her throat, and she could not for a moment speak. Fairbird . . .
But there was no returning to the Land. She was no longer Maid Starflower, the silent daughter of the Panther Master. She was Dame Imraldera, Knight of the Farthest Shore, Lady of the Haven.
Oh, little sister!
The Lumil Eliasul placed a hand upon her shoulder. “First, gentle dame, go and speak to your sister. Tell her that the curse is lifted, and she need be silent no more.”
———
Was it a dream?
Imraldera stood once more alone on the isthmus, and the mist was receding. So much of her life these days seemed either a dream or a nightmare. Had she invented, out of the sickness of her sorrowing mind, the comfort she felt even now surrounding her heart?
She shook her head and slowly put her fingers to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “It was no dream.”
A growl drew her gaze swiftly to one side. Approaching out of the mist, she saw the form of a great Dog. But it dwindled. Still growling, it became a gangly child, its sex indeterminate, its eyes those of a wolf. There was blood on its face, blood not its own.
It saw Imraldera and stopped growling. Its peaked features grimaced with confusion and it whined softly.
Imraldera put out a hand. The words came with difficulty from her unpracticed tongue, and her voice was low and rasping. Yet there was gentleness when she spoke.
“Come to me, little beast. Let me wash your face and hands. I will love you, and I will help to make you whole.”
It took a few hesitant steps toward her. A bony hand reached out as though to catch hold of her and the possibilities it saw in her eyes. It was a creature divided, two entities in one. Child and beast, neither dominant, each driving the other mad. But the seed was there, only waiting to be watered.
“Come,” Imraldera said, extending both arms. She ached to embrace that lost little soul, to find the life inside that gaunt frame. “Come here to me. Be safe.”
It took another step.
Then its littermate appeared, as like to the first as a mirror image, only its eyes were given way to madness. It too was stained with the blood of its own father, and there was no child in that face, only monster. It snatched its sibling by the hand, snarling, froth dripping from its mouth. Two Dogs turned tail and fled Imraldera’s presence, dragging their Midnight behind them as they returned to bear word to their mother.
Imraldera wiped tears from her face. “I hope we will meet again,” she signed with tear-stained hands. Then she pursued the Path into the cavern, back once more to the Land of her birth.
The cat lay in a crumpled heap upon the sacrificial stone. But he was alive. Or at least he thought he was. He could feel every single aching muscle in his body and no fewer than three distinct bites out of his flesh and fur. So he must be alive, for what that was worth.
Before coming to full consciousness, he took on his man’s form, hoping that might help. It didn’t.
Opening his eyes, Eanrin saw his own hand lying before him on the gray stone. There was blood on it, perhaps his own. With a groan, he pushed himself up, glad to find all his limbs attached. One arm was numb, however, and he suspected a break. Dragon’s teeth! At least his kind healed quickly. There were teeth marks on one leg and across his shoulder, but nothing deep, thank Hymlumé’s grace.
“Imraldera,” he whispered.
Gasping, he struggled to his feet and turned about, searching for any sign of the girl. Had she taken advantage of what little time he could give her and fled this place? Or had the wolf overtaken her in the end?
He tottered to the edge of the stone and leaned a shoulder up against one of the Teeth for support. His lungs heaved, dragging air slowly in and out. What a place of horror this was! A Faerie Circle of dreadful purpose. The wolf must have built it himself ages before, when he took this mortal realm and made it his demesne.
But . . .
Eanrin gasped and pulled back, only just in time. For the great stone against which he leaned suddenly melted away, vanishing into nothing. “Light of Lumé!” Eanrin cried as the other stones and the great slab itself vanished, leaving the poet to fall through the air and land hard on the mountain slope beneath.
The Place of the Teeth was gone. So then was the wolf.
Eanrin picked himself up and, limping, started up the mountain Path, uncertain where he went but vaguely thinking that Imraldera had gone this way. If the wolf was dead, perhaps she lived. Perhaps she had succeeded in extracting Hri Sora’s revenge. He would not let himself consider that she might be dead.
The Hound stood before him.
At first, Eanrin was too exhausted to realize. Then he drew back with a cry, the fear of centuries compiling into that one moment. He saw again the Dark Water; he saw the lantern. He saw the choice that lay before him, the choice of godhood or life as a servant. What a terrible choice it was!
“No,” he whimpered, clutching at his wounded arm and limping several steps back down the mountain. “No, please. I’ve done enough. I’ve helped the girl just as you wanted me to.”
The Hound did not move. His gaze never wavered.
“I’ll never be what I was before. Everything has changed now that I’ve met her! I know I will be a different man. But please, let me just go home to my own world.”
“Your world is marred and shattered.”
Eanrin felt himself shaken to the core at that voice. He felt the ugly truth of his soul striving to flee. But there was no escape from the gaze of the Lumil Eliasul. The cat was hounded down at last.
“Strange, piteous, futile man,”
said the Hound. His voice held all sorrow and compassion. “How desperately you have fought all that would make you whole.”
Eanrin shrugged, wincing but still trying to make light. “I’ve been a good man. I’ve never harmed a soul. I’ve minded my own business. If I’ve pursued a life of laughs, who’s to blame me? I’ve only ever been myself.”
“You have the worlds at your feet,” said the Hound. “But you have not love.”
“I do!” The poet shook his head. Why were tears coursing so hot upon his face? He dashed them away furiously. “I have loved my life! I have loved Lady Gleamdren and my verses. I . . . I don’t deserve slavery.”
“What do you deserve, Eanrin?”
“I deserve to choose for myself. I deserve my freedom . . . and yet you chase me down, driving me before you!”
“You know where the road you walk will lead you. You have seen the Dark Water.”
“I was minding my own business,” the cat-man whispered, “but you had to set upon me. You’re worse than the Black Dogs, and they hound a fellow to Death!”
“I hound you to life.”
“And what kind of life?” Eanrin’s voice became a growl. “I’ve seen what happens to your servants . . . beatings and imprisonments. Homelessness and hunger while they strive to achieve the impossible! Don’t think I don’t know what awaits me if I place myself in your service. I remember Akilun and Etanun when they first stepped into the Near World and made such names for themselves among the mortals! And I remember when all that changed. When Akilun was turned from every door. When Etanun’s name became a byword for traitor! I know what becomes of your servants. Their reputations are soiled among all who once loved them!”
“And yet, they are glorified.”
“They are brought low by dragon fire!”
“Yet not destroyed.”
“They are weighed down with sorrow.”
“And uplifted with rejoicing.”
“They have nothing!”
“They possess everything.” The Hound stepped forward, and he was bigger, brighter, more beautiful than anything found in the Far World or the Near. “All things are given to them,” he said, “for I have bestowed power upon them in my name. They are my servants, and though all the weapons of darkness are hurled against them, they will endure. I have placed my love in their hearts, and it overflows from them in love for others. And so they become great even as, in your eyes, they shrink into nothing. Even as you curse them, so shall I bless them.”
“Even Etanun?”
“Yes, even Etanun.”
“After what he did?”
“Even Etanun.”
“He betrayed you! Has he simply to apologize, and all is forgiven?”
“No. This is a mystery both more simple and more complicated than you may yet understand. But my love covers his wrong.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is because you do not know my love,” said the Hound. “Your heart has not yet learned that truth. That truth which is pain, which is sorrow, but which is beauty beyond any a loveless life may understand.”
“I am afraid.” Eanrin shuddered as he saw now the deepest secret of his soul. The secret he had kept hidden even from himself all the long ages of his existence. “I don’t want to love. I will be hurt if I do.”
“You were born in fear, Eanrin. But my love casts out fear.”
“How?”
And suddenly the Hound transformed. He was a figure of still greater glory, clothed, but only just, in a man’s shape. Tall and shining with a face bolder than the sun, the Lumil Eliasul, the One Who Names Them, the Giver of Songs.
“Will you take up your burden, Eanrin of Rudiobus?” he said. “Will you become a knight in my service? Will you, the masterless, call me Master this day and forever?”
In the end, Eanrin decided, there was only life or death. He saw now how small he was, another beast among beasts. No better than Hri Sora or Amarok or any creature who made themselves their only standard and their only source of truth. After all he had been through, Eanrin knew he could no longer live that way.
“I will, my Lord,” he whispered.
The Lumil Eliasul smiled. “Rise!” he cried. “Clasp my hand and come, Knight of the Farthest Shore!”
Eanrin put out a trembling hand and found it firmly grasped.
———
He stood alone upon the slopes of Bald Mountain. His wounds were healed, his body whole. Eanrin looked down on his shredded, dirty shirt, at the muscles and limbs beneath. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding. Then he pressed both hands to his heart, and here he discovered a marvel.
He had spoken to the Lumil Eliasul. He had given away his life forever.
For the first time in all the immortal generations of his existence, he realized that he lived.
With a joyful cry, he leapt forward, running on the Faerie Path, up the mountain and down the other side. He found the rushing river, and he rushed as fast or faster still, feeling the surging power of life and love in his limbs. To be bound was to be free! To be free was to be bound! He understood now. Later, doubts would return. Later, he would struggle with his bondage to duty, just as any cat must. But for the moment—and what a moment it was, the brightest and truest in all his long immortal life—for the moment, he understood.
He must find Imraldera! That thought gave his feet wings. He must find her and tell her what had happened, what he had seen and—Lumé love him—what he’d agreed to become! He must tell her everything!
If she lived.
All the joy crashed down in that one moment of pain. What if, after all this, she was gone? What if he had failed her in the end, and the wolf had caught up with her?
“No,” he growled. “No, that cannot be.”
New urgency drove him now along the Path, and he did not smile. He followed the river to where it plunged beneath the earth. Only a few more paces and he would vanish once more into the darkness, searching and searching.
But there was no need.
“Imraldera!” he cried, surging once more to the very heights of joy. For she appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, blinking and dazed, her face streaked with tears. When she saw the poet careening down the slope of the riverbank, however, she smiled. She opened her mouth but had no opportunity to speak, for he reached her in an instant and scooped her up in his arms. Pressing her close and swinging her about, he shouted: “You’ve won! You’ve won! You bested the Wolf Lord, you marvelous creature! I will never doubt you mortals again . . . well, not never. But I will think twice before doubting; I swear on my hand! Oh, you amazing girl!”
Without thinking, he pressed a kiss to her cheek. A hot flush rushed to his face, and he dropped her unceremoniously and quickly put his hands behind his back. “That is . . . I’m glad to see you whole.”
Imraldera placed a hand to her cheek, her smile a little lopsided but still present on her face. Then she reached up and gently touched the poet’s scarlet face.
“Eanrin,” she said, her voice rough and low, “I know your true name.”
“Well, of course you know my name, my girl. Everyone knows Bard Eanrin. I’ve told you, I’m the most famous . . . Hold on! Did you just . . . Imraldera, my dear, did you just speak?”
7
WATERSKINS DRAPED OVER HER SHOULDER, Fairbird made her slow way down to the stream. She avoided the other women and did not take her water from the same streambeds as they. There was no reason for this. No one was unkind to Fairbird, especially since she was a favorite of the High Priest.
But when she was a little girl, her sister had taken Fairbird to a private place and always gathered water there, just the two of them. Now Fairbird did the same.
She preferred solitude, with only Frostbite for company. They had begun life as outcasts. And when that dreadful day had come and her sister was taken from her, when the women of the village came up to the house on the hill and brought Fairbird down to their homes, it made no difference. Fairbird shut herself
up inside, hiding under a shell much thicker than silence.
As a child, she had been glad when the Eldest did not return, though it meant years of war for the tribes of Redclay. The Eldest had taken Starflower from her. If he would not give her back, well, he might as well not return himself.
The silent girl, her face pinched, her mouth always frowning, made her way down to the water and knelt to fill her skins. Frostbite lowered her grizzled muzzle to lap at the stream. Fairbird stroked the dog’s head and down her back, feeling the protruding bones. Her faithful companion was growing old. How lonely her life would be when the lurcher died.
Suddenly Frostbite growled and lifted her dripping muzzle. Fairbird sat upright and turned to look where the dog’s gaze was fixed. A woman she did not know stood downstream near the edge of the gorge. Had she just climbed up? Was she a woman of the Crescent Tribes? A victim of the wars, fleeing for safety? Her dress had once been white and might have been fine indeed. Now it was brown and torn. Her face was dirty and streaked, as though she had wept many tears. A refugee for certain, she looked no more than Fairbird’s own age.
Frostbite growled again, backing up a step or two. Fairbird placed a soothing hand on the dog’s head, then turned to the girl. “You have come to Red Clay territory, near Redclay Village,” she signed. “Where have you come from?”
The girl raised her hands and signed in return: “From beyond the Circle of Faces.”
Fairbird frowned. At first she thought she must have read the strange girl’s signs wrong, and she asked her to repeat herself. The girl obliged, signing the same odd phrase. “Beyond the Faces?” Fairbird asked. “That is . . . not possible.”
The stranger’s eyes filled with tears. Fairbird watched them fall down her cheeks as she drew nearer. Then Fairbird drew a sharp breath, and Frostbite whimpered. The girl’s drawn face was so familiar.
“Who are you?” Fairbird signed.
The stranger came nearer still until she stood no more than a few paces away. Her black hair blew across her face, but she pulled it back impatiently, her mouth opening and closing. Then she spoke out loud.