Starflower

  ChuMana draped herself along one of the fallen columns. She might have been sunning but for the lack of sun. Her face was neither relaxed nor severe, neither satisfied nor discontent. It was a complete blank. She listened without interest to the songs of the frogs, all mournful and hectic with a smattering of sullen “Graaaups!” thrown in for emphasis.

  ChuMana was mistress of this demesne, and she understood every word of the songs being croaked around her. Frogs have limited interests (there were a few toads scattered about too, whose interests were more limited still). They tended to harp on the same theme:

  “Kiss me. Graaaup! Kiss me. Graaaup!”

  It was a bit monotonous. Yet ChuMana’s mental state remained tranquil. As life was, so it should remain. Consistency was the chief end of all aims—a steady, forever sameness.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, threatening yet unlikely to follow through with its threat. ChuMana did not smile, nor did she frown. She merely slid a little farther along her column, stretching herself out to a glorious extent. The nearest frogs shuddered and ceased singing when this movement caught their blinking, bulbous eyes. But they quickly forgot what they’d seen and resumed their song: “Kiss me. Graaup!”

  No one, ChuMana thought, had a collection to rival hers.

  The thought had scarcely passed the innermost recesses of her mind—so deep inside that it was more a warm vagueness than actual thought—when the shudder came.

  It was a shudder like an earthquake through the air. Someone pushed at the threads of enchantment that every Faerie queen spins on the borders of her demesne. Whoever pushed, pushed hard. ChuMana slowly raised her head and focused her lidless eyes on the direction from which this assault came. Her movements were as gentle as marsh weeds waving underwater.

  Another push. Another shudder.

  Then she heard it, on the edge of her lands. Someone called in a voice that burst like sunlight into the gloom. “Oi! ChuMana, m’dear! Are you about, then?”

  “Viper’s bite!”

  Her equilibrium shattered. The sameness broke into shivering pieces. Muscles beneath ChuMana’s skin quivered as, in a single, fluid movement, she slipped from her column and submerged herself in the swamp murk. She swam with uncommon grace, gliding her great bulk between scrag-grass, hillock, and column bases while innumerable frogs fled before her, still singing after kisses. She followed the shuddering that shook her enchantments with every inward step the intruder took.

  She knew who it was.

  She herself had given him entrance to her world long ago. Memories flooded back, unwanted visions that had no place in this heavy, languorous place of dampness and forlorn song.

  How his singing had charmed her! She should have let him taste her poison, but instead, she had fallen for his song, the little devil! And when he left her demesne, oh, how she had sighed for his return! Monster. Bewitcher. What a fool she had been to leave the safety of her swamp and pursue him into the wild Wood.

  The water was black before her eyes, but she followed her nose and that sixth sense of magic that led her unquestioningly forward. The Mistress of the Swamp hissed out curses as she swam. Then she smelled that familiar scent. A scent associated with bindings, with slavery.

  The poet. Her savior.

  Eanrin stood up to his knees in mud, cursing the heavy sky above him. Whenever he tried to step on what appeared to be a patch of solid ground, it turned out to be no more than an illusion, and he sank once more, oozing mud slurping at his sandals and soaking the edge of his cloak, all this while burdened with the weight of the mortal girl slung over his shoulder. Her long hair trailed down his back, the endmost tendrils collecting swamp refuse behind him.

  “Sweet ChuMana!” Eanrin called, unaware of the serpent’s proximity. “Do be nice and come greet your old friend!” He swore again, lifting one foot and shaking it, then obliged to put it back in the water before he could lift and shake the other. What a muck he was becoming!

  “ChuMana, Lumé smite you, do come out. I have no wish to venture any farther into your demesne; no more than you wish to have me! But you owe me, and you know it. Don’t think you can thwart the laws of Faerie. I’ve come to demand my dues, and I won’t leave until I’ve seen—mrrrreeeowl!”

  ChuMana rose from the reeds like the sinuous growth of a black, limbless tree, startling the poet so that he almost dropped his burden. Her head emerged first, her eyes bright and unblinking. Mud fell from her scales, blobbing into the pool about her, and still her great neck stretched higher and higher. Her scarlet underbelly flashed redder even than the poet’s grimy cloak.

  At last she reached her full size, towering over Eanrin. Her tongue flickered once. Then a tall, slender woman in a black robe stood before the poet. The front panel of her robe was embroidered in rich red threads, and her eyes were like two rubies. She was strange and horrible to look upon, for she was so tall and thin. But strangest of all, she had no arms.

  “Poet of Rudiobus,” she hissed. She slowly lowered her chin to her chest, her long neck bending gracefully. Her gaze never shifted from Eanrin’s face. “Many years have I wondered when you would return to claim your rights.”

  “Yes, well.” Eanrin gave a shrug and the sweetest of smiles. He dared not bow for fear of dropping the girl. “I hadn’t intended to make it so soon. But I was thinking to myself today, ‘See here, it’s been some time now since you laid eyes on that sweet ChuMana, hasn’t it?’ And then I asked myself, ‘Why not stop in for a chat and inquire after—’”

  “Still that wandering tongue of yours, charmer!” ChuMana’s long body swayed gently, as though moved by some soft breeze. “I fell for your pretty words once, and once is enough!”

  Eanrin met her red gaze with his own steady stare. “Charmer, eh? You misrepresent me to all those present.” He swept the hand that did not hold the mortal girl to indicate the hundreds of frogs peeping out from the weeds and rushes. “Why should you say such harsh things, m’dear? Can you possibly have forgotten that little run-in with the Roc?”

  The memory crashed back upon the serpent’s conscious mind, images she had long tried to forget: a form like a mountain hovering in the air; wings like thunderclouds; talons like lightning.

  “You tricked me!” Her whole body swayed now, rocked by some internal force. A grotesque vision, for without arms for balance, she should have toppled into the pool. Yet her lithe body undulated with perfect, unnatural grace. “You sang your pretty songs and entranced me!”

  “I’m a bard. We bards were born to sing. As I recall, you asked me my business, and I told you.”

  “You led me from the safety of my realm!”

  “You followed without my invitation.”

  “You lured me into the Karayan Plains, where the great Roc hunts and where there is no cover for one such as I!” A shudder ran up her body, and she flickered between snake and woman form. When the shudder passed, she stood as a woman again, though her flickering tongue was forked. “You knew what would be my fate.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said the poet with a disinterested shrug. “The Rocs are odd ones, and you never know what they might want to bring home to their nestlings. And it was your own fool fault, you must admit, for crossing into Arpiar. Vartera was sure to be upset.”

  “Vartera?” The serpent hissed and showed long fangs between her womanly lips. “It was never Vartera’s doing! It was yours. Yours, poet!”

  “It was my doing that you’re still alive,” said he. “I saved you from the bird, and at great risk to my own limbs, I might add. And . . . well, a fellow hates to bring it up, but you know the law as well as I.” His eyes glinted. Despite the misery of that damp land and the burden of the mortal girl slung across his shoulder, he was enjoying himself. It was not often that he found himself holding the upper hand to a Faerie queen. And such a queen as ChuMana, no less!

  He watched how she coiled and churned, losing her womanly semblance to that of a snake flashing her red underbelly as though to ward off
some danger. Eanrin leapt back for fear of getting lashed by the sharp scales at her tail’s end. He staggered and almost dropped the mortal girl but managed to brace himself at the last.

  Everything in ChuMana wanted to devour the poet. Her jaw swung open and shut in its urge to unhinge and swallow him whole. But the laws of Faerie were unbreakable, and she owed him a favor. Whether by trickery or fair dealing, he had saved her life, and she was at his beck and call until such a time as she might repay him.

  Finally she regained her woman’s form, her head bowed so that she need not look at her enemy. Her long tongue flickered again. “I am in your debt,” she said.

  “Yes, you are,” said Eanrin, grinning. He could feel the dampness of the land seeping into his bones. “And as it happens, I need a tiny little favor from you.”

  “Name your price,” said the snake. “I can refuse you nothing.”

  “Well, all I really need for the moment is one small part of your collection.”

  ChuMana gazed at her intruder, the rubies of her eyes flickering with thought. Then, like water falling, she slipped from her upright stance down into the slime of her realm. Once more a serpent, she circled the poet, sometimes sliding over tufts of dirt, otherwise half under water. Her bulk was thicker than Eanrin’s waist, and her length greater than a fallen pine. Eanrin swallowed, his heart racing in his throat. He wasn’t used to being afraid. He should not fear ChuMana now, bound as she was by the laws of the worlds as every Faerie queen or king must be. Yet this inarguable fact failed to ease his mind.

  At last ChuMana said, “What do you need of my collection?”

  “Just to borrow one, that is all,” said Eanrin. “This girl here”—he lifted his shoulder to indicate the mortal—“has had a bit of trouble, as it were, with the River. Fallen asleep, you see? She needs a prince to wake her.”

  The serpent’s head rose from the water. “And you wish to borrow one of mine?”

  “Any will do. It’s only for the kiss, you understand,” said Eanrin. Though he trembled under that cold gaze, he met it eye for eye and never ceased to smile. “You cannot possibly refuse such a small request. Not after our history, ChuMana! Not after—”

  “Cease your talk!” ChuMana stood once more as a woman, her eyes flashing, her tongue flickering like lightning in and out between her teeth. “I will loan you one prince. But I will not give him up!”

  “Oh, quite so,” said Eanrin. “The last thing I need on my hands is a mortal prince as well as this princess! Let them rescue themselves, I always say. Makes for better epics. But just this once . . . you know how it is. Every rule needs to be bent now and then to test its mettle.”

  “Very well,” said the Mistress of the Swamp. Then she knelt in the water, her eyes scanning the murk. Suddenly the frogs stopped singing. Dead silence hovered as heavy as the black-clouded sky.

  Though her form remained that of a woman, from somewhere several yards away, the end of a serpent’s tail moved. It darted out. There was a splash, then a loud, “Graaaaaup!”

  The tail emerged, holding, wrapped in its coils, an enormous bullfrog. It boasted the most mournful face ever seen on one of its kind, its great back legs kicking, its eyes rolling skyward with heavy resignation.

  Eanrin nodded, satisfied. As gently as he could, he slid the mortal girl from his shoulder, kneeling so he could support her across his knee. He hated putting her in that swamp water, but she was already so dirty it could hardly matter. He took the offered bullfrog from ChuMana. Turning it until its bulging eyes were level with his, he addressed it sternly:

  “Now, you know your part. Kiss the girl like you mean it, and we’ll all be better off, understand?”

  “Graup,” it said without enthusiasm. With a nod, Eanrin twitched the frog and its dangling limbs about and pressed its mouth to the mortal girl’s lips.

  The River was angry.

  As far as Glomar could tell, however, it wasn’t angry with him. His Path had been long and winding indeed, trailing the Black Dogs. Perhaps Eanrin was right and he should have stuck to the simpler way. One would think the Dogs would take the swiftest route back to their lair, but instead they had led Glomar over hill and dale, doing everything in their power, he suspected, to lose him. Well, they got more than they bargained for! Glomar of Rudiobus was no mean footman. He was Iubdan’s captain, a soldier of the field. He knew a thing or two about tracking.

  Nevertheless, he frowned grimly as the Path he followed finally led him to the River. If Eanrin took this simpler road, he might indeed have already entered Etalpalli far in advance. Glomar knelt and put his badger’s nose to work, snuffling the turf for any sign of the poet. There was none to be found.

  Yet the River was angry. Furious, even. Glomar found it growling like a wild animal with unsuppressed ferocity, tearing at its own banks. But the force of its personality focused elsewhere, farther upriver. What could have caused it so much ire?

  Glomar swallowed hard and adjusted his grip on his hatchet. Not that it would do him a great deal of good should the River decide to vent its anger on him. Still, he felt better for handling it. He picked his way from the higher banks down to the water’s edge, following the course it cut through the rocks and roots. The River, like all the Wood, was a treacherous sort; one could never be overcautious when dealing with it. Glomar, his face set in stern lines of concentration, made slow but steady progress.

  That fool poet thought he couldn’t get into Etalpalli. Hmph!

  The water rushed faster and faster, churning white foam and dangerous currents only inches away from Glomar’s Path. He must be nearing the gate, he thought. He had passed that way once before, and he knew what to expect. There the River’s waters fell in great, rushing torrent. There the mists of its wild careening billowed far below. There, with his heart in his throat and his courage grasped firmly in both hands, a man could stand on the brink and gaze upon the gate of the City of Wings.

  Only a soul who wished to pass for the sake of another might enter. Glomar licked his lips and thought of Lady Gleamdren. Sweet Lady Gleamdren, who would be Eanrin’s fair quarry should Glomar fail. The captain gnashed his teeth. He could never let that happen! Gleamdren was too fine a gem to belong to that brute of a cat.

  Within another few paces, Glomar beheld Cozamaloti Falls.

  9

  AT FIRST HER MIND crawled slowly out of the deep recesses of fading dreams, back into the waking world. Enchantments often cause pain as they break and fall away, especially spiteful enchantments like the River’s. They pulled at her, struggling to keep hold even as her body forced her to wake. A smashing whorl of colors and impressions filled her mind, allowing no coherent thought to take form. She was hot; she knew that much. A damp, soaking, dirty sort of hot, sweating from every pore.

  Strange, for the last she remembered, she had been shivering.

  Every limb was paralyzed and heavy, but her mind was returning to her. She wanted to wake. She did not want those dreams to pull her back down. So she fought the last fading shreds of the enchantment, mentally hurling herself against their hold. The more she struggled, the more she felt the damp and awful heat. But it was better than dreaming.

  She strained again, and this time thought perhaps her body moved as well. At last she regained enough consciousness to open her eyes.

  And found she was kissing a bullfrog.

  Immediately, use of every limb surged back into her body. Her eyes flew wide; her arms flew wild. One hand struck the frog away, the other struck something or someone else. She heard a croak and a curse, and the next thing she knew, she was submerged in water. It closed over her head, stinging her eyes and filling her mouth. Thrashing madly, she pushed herself up again, coughing out a stream and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

  For a frozen moment, she stared up into the face of a pale man with fiery gold hair and yellow eyes.

  “Quite the clip in the jaw you just gave me, my girl! Come, now, let’s make up and be friends, shall we?”

&nbs
p; In her haste to turn about and simultaneously scramble to her feet, she slipped and went under again, this time face first. Her hands and elbows sank into mud, and swamp weeds wrapped about her arms and tangled with the ropes still attached to her wrists. But her flight instinct was strong, and though exhaustion threatened to betray her, she shoved forward even before she brought her head to the surface again.

  She heard a shout and a splash and felt someone’s hands grabbing at her shoulders. With an animal snarl she twisted away, writhing in the muck and kicking. She heard an “Oooof!” and a body landed partially on top of her. She pushed out from underneath, managed to gain her feet, and stood a dripping moment, poised to flee but without bearings.

  Her gaze met that of the serpent.

  ChuMana’s long neck rose from the dark water, her flat head looking down. A forked tongue flickered from a mouth that could have swallowed a small pig whole.

  A bead of water fell from the girl’s nose.

  Then she dropped like a stone, not asleep but in a dead faint.

  Hri Sora awakened on the brink of a chasm.

  She stared down into blackness, and her head whirled with that sickening sensation that was still so new to her: the fear of falling. All in an instant, she relived that plunge from the heavens . . . that moment when her wings were stripped from her and the mortal world dragged her down.

  Then she wrenched herself back from the chasm and sat gasping, her feet inches from its edge.

  Slowly, the flames in her head cooled and she was able to open her eyes and survey the world. She remembered her name, and she knew where she was this time. She felt Etalpalli pulsing with the pain of its wounds beneath her. And she remembered the Flowing Gold and her bargain with the Dark Father. What she could not remember was why she was here, on the rim of this drop.

  On trembling limbs, she got to her feet and slowly spun about. The memories returned but without pain. She could not, at least at this moment, feel pain. She recalled the tomb of her brother. Poor Ttlanextu.