Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

  Wrapped in cloak that was warm and heavy and cloudy along the trim with fur, Lilia wove a path through the woods. A cold wind coughed and wheezed through treetops. Ranks of bleak clouds blackened the west.

  "Good day, mistress."

  Looking up from her reverie, Lilia tensed, then scanned the woods: nothing but numberless trees and grey light.

  "I say again, good day."

  And there she saw him. Hidden amongst a tangle of holly, all in shadow, two eyes like polished beads of jet.

  "And good day to you."

  A scuffle came from the undergrowth and a face peered out that might have been carved from the sort of lignin-tough mushrooms that grow on old oaks. His hair, if it could be called that, was a mass of thorny, twisting leaves.

  "Lord Alraun awaits you."

  "He does." Her thoughts brightened. The stormy air seemed suddenly lighter. "So he does. And yet... I think I would like to walk alone a while. Tell him I shall meet him soon. At his wild court. I will meet him there."

  "To walk alone. To think. To wonder. To dream," said the small voice, its rounded tone like water rushing over pebbles. "They all do. They all take to silent wanderings in the gentle places once his touch goes deep." The voice grew mischievous. "Those Alraun has loved."

  She caught the implication and threw it back. "He has lived a long roll of years. I do not hold his past against him."

  "More than that. He still has others."

  Lilia turned her chin up and glared. "Nonsense. Where are his others then?" In her experience the smaller spirits of the forest enjoyed capricious lies.

  "Ah," said the creature with a blink of those dark glassy eyes. "About. Hither and thither. Everywhere if you know where to look. Or how to."

  "Nasty cretin," said Lilia and then was silent for a while before saying with mock gravity, "Go then. Tell Alraun to hide his others, for I will be joining him shortly."

  "As you wish," and there was a passing rustle in the underwood, not as if something were moving through it but rather as if the ferns and gorse had come briefly to life.

  She walked for a while in circles alone just to spite Alraun a little. Let him wait, she thought. She would go to him in her own time. Eventually, of course, the irritation subsided and her boredom grew, as well as her sense of longing. She turned towards the place in the woods where she knew Alraun kept his faer court.

  As she stepped through the stand of beeches that enclosed Alraun's court, Lilia found a strange sight. Not only did the Alder King slouch in his weather-bitten stone chair in an uncharacteristically tired, thoughtful pose, but he was surrounded by others of his kind. Many others. Far more than Lilia had ever seen together in one place. The others were neither as tall nor quite as regal as Alraun, but they still possessed some of his elder menace, grace and beauty. In among the usual grotesque dancers and jesters Lilia was accustomed to, it appeared that there was a formal gathering. It looked to her as if Alraun had called all his lords and ladies, dukes, duchesses, knights and champions. Many eyes turned to look at her.

  The mood of the place stitched an icy needle into her gut.

  As soon as his bright, gold-flecked eyes meet hers, he smiled a fraction, and dismissed his court with a subtle wave of the hand. For a moment, the courtiers milled and the focus of their proud, cruel eyes was wholly fixed on Lilia. Then, with smooth bows the faer creatures ghosted away, to fade amongst the shadows of the wood.

  "Lilia." Though Alraun smiled, she thought she sensed something of a strained note in his voice. "You come late, and now arrive at a difficult time. I sent for you hours ago."

  "I was delayed." She felt self-conscious. "I am sorry, Lord Alraun."

  "Hm. If you had been here an hour ago I would have been merry with music. But, I have since learned that a messenger of mine has been murdered by a dark sorcerer, or so we guess. My servant was sent to deliver some advice, and has not returned. The sorcerer makes himself at home in your house of stone and towers, this killer. I am saddened, and my children are worried."

  "Who?" said Lilia, "who would... who could do such a thing?"

  "His name is Kveldulf, and he is not what he appears. Avoid him, my beautiful. Should he speak to you, do not heed his poisonous tongue, and beware his subtle lies."

  "Kveldulf," she murmured, "I have already spoken with him. A warlock is he? I would not have thought my sister so brazen." She paused. "I could order him away, or have my father's guards chain him hand and foot and throw him in a deep hole beneath the fortress. Rosa would protest but I am the elder sister. Soon enough I shall be Mistress of all the Veld and ruler over the Toren Vaunt. Everyone knows that, even her."

  The smile he wore was both angry and amused. Rising from the throne and then gliding forward on long, gentle steps, he stroked her hair and spoke with a lulling voice. "No dear, sweet Lilia. No bars, nor chains, nor proud men of war could hold this warlock. You would risk your lovely neck to try it. Let him believe himself undiscovered for now, and I will see what I may do about him." In the shadow of the ruined court she leaned into him, let him caress her neck with gentle fingers, let him hold her. "Lilia..." his voice was faraway, "perhaps... There is another thought that has been playing in my mind. A matter you must settle. Would you still have what you once asked for, if it might be possible? What if I could bring my kingdom to marry yours, and I could make you not merely my lover, but my wife? Say it, and it might be." He breathed a warm sigh. "I have put the notion to my courtiers, and it is currently being discussed."

  Lilia pulled her head back a little and gave him an uncertain look. His words had more the tone of a consideration spoken aloud, than a proposition for her benefit. "I do not think I understand."

  "So many times, when we were alone in your garden you wished for me and mine to come to you," his eyes shone with an inner fire. "That I might fill your fortress with my magic and throng the great hall with bright-eyed spirits and grow glamour over every stone, thick as ivy. So that mortals everywhere will hear of the Veld and tremble to know that it is a land ruled by a enchantress-queen and her one master."

  "I..." she could not think of anything to answer with, "I... no... I don't want to stay in the Toren Vaunt--not for much longer. I need only a little more time now. Father is very weak. It's just--that is--I cannot leave him. The hour father dies, I shall leave. You have my word. I'll have nothing more to do with the place. I will come into your realm."

  "A moment ago you said that you were going to soon be the Lady of the Veld, and I think there was more than a small note of anticipation in that. Do you really want to leave the Veld?" He was scrutinising her, looking for her reaction.

  She shut her eyes and looked down. "Just wait a little longer."

  "Wait." He spoke in a flat, dead voice. "I am eternal, but even the eternal have an end to their patience. Wait. Wait. Wait. That is all you ever ask of me, and I am growing bored of it."

  "I will come to you."

  "Why do you deny my kingship of this land out of hand?" There was suspicion in his voice now. "Why should I not rule faer and mortal alike? Who is more rightful in this land than the ancient inhabitants who first ruled here?" He squinted. "Do not turn your face away from me. You are not telling me the whole of your thoughts."

  "I didn't really think you would want to take the whole of the Veld. I was joking, dreaming. Please, put the thought out of your mind."

  "I am afraid."

  After a long lingering stillness he said,"Afraid? Why? The magic I would bring to your little stone hovel would suffuse the blood of your folk." He shrugged. "What is there to fear in joy eternal?"

  "I am not a fool, Lord Alraun. I have looked into the eyes of your servants and folk. I know that no free will flickers there. You would not rule a kingdom. You would rule a puppet-show."

  "But you would give yourself to me?"

  "I can make that choice." She pushed herself a little bit away from him. A gap of uncomfortableness appeared between them. "What if I do want to
give away my decisions and responsibilities? What if I want to just be happy and let someone else rule me? I don't see anything wrong in that, but--"

  "But?"

  "But I do see something wrong in forcing that on people who never made that choice. Making people into dancers for you to command and master on whim. I cannot allow it."

  "Really? You. Cannot. Allow. It." He reined in some of the anger fuming behind his calm expression. "Your mortal folk, they would live in a world untroubled by pain or worry. Would you deny your subjects that?"

  "When they must give up their own free self for the price, yes." It was the gleam in his eyes that disturbed her. She added. "What would they become under your rule? Honestly?"

  It did not seem that he understood. When he waved a hand about he did it casually. "Well, look about, Lady Lilia, my love." At the edges of the ruined court the trees blinked with liquid eyes. "They would become my subjects. Many of those you look at were once mortal. In a manner of thinking, we all were once. Even me."

  Lilia felt a scuttle of fear crawl up her spine then. She had never thought he would really want to seize the whole of the valley. She looked around. These creeping shadows were once human. She had suspected that some of them might have been, but so many? All or nearly all? Were they netted souls given some misty form, or flesh withered by magic to a bloodless shadow? She forced a smile and put a hand on Alraun's arm. "It was silly. A mere whim. I was upset."

  "Speak not of mere whims. Mine is a kingship of whim. Am I not good to the good, and evil to the evil? Do the cottage-maids not both loathe and love me? Do I not protect and hunt the wild beasts? Am I not the very caprice of nature?" He moved closer, brushed his fingers along her brow, and let his hand caress the bare skin of her neck. "Let us cast open the boundaries of this, my realm." He stepped back violently and threw his hand to encompass the court and woods beyond, "This, My dark and dreaming wood: let it be a realm to encompass all, invite all, and seduce them. Oh, Lady Lilia. Do not think I am upset with you. I understand. You are mortal. Mortals are made of fear. But soon, I will extend my rule a dark and dreaming fortress too, and a whole realm of mortal souls to dance in my midnight revels. I have decided it. The argument is over."

  "We," said Lilia. "Don't you mean to say, soon we might rule..."

  He stared at her, coolly, silently.

  She wavered a moment, hesitant. When she managed words it was simply to say, "You are frightening me."

  His eyes were bright with an unnatural light. "Think of it. Think of what you might become. Yes, I had my plans for you." His voice trailed away to softness. "But now I see you are worthy of so much more. When was the last time anyone, mortal or faer-folk dared to argue with me." He considered her. "You are something much greater than you pretend to be. And I think you could be greater still."

  She took a step back, even as he reached out for her. "Alraun. I think that--"

  "No," he said, "do not think... see." and his eyes flashed like the last light of a sinking sun.

  She stepped from the forest, a presence, a young woman in silvery satins, stitched with glittering frost. Her hair was not a lacklustre off-brown, but a rich honeyed gold, and shone so brightly. Her face was so very pale that she had something of the look of a beautiful, romantic ghost. Indeed, a wraith she might have been, were it not for her eyes. Those eyes betrayed bright, powerful life.

  "She is beautiful," said Lilia, though she found it hard to look at the vision without letting tears wet her eyes.

  He was near her now, and circling around behind her, tailing fingertips against her throat. She could smell his scent as he whispered in her ear; she could feel the warmth of his breath. "She is what you have the power to be," and the apparition dissolved and blew away like so much mist.

  "No... bring her back." Lilia stopped herself short when she realised that she sounded like a spoilt child.

  "Give me your hand and the seat by your throne, and I will bring her back. Forever."

  Through trembling lips she tried to speak, but managed only a vague murmur.

  "Beauty Lilia... youth and beauty. Your face, now so pale, so pretty, is already touched by the first faint line of age. How long before your face turns old and haggard? How many years do you have left before your hair will be as thin and grey as smoke? Your sweet voice will someday be a rasping wheeze to frighten babes. Your whole body will wither away."

  There was a tear against one of her cheeks now. "I need time to think."

  "Time? Time? Time is your enemy, not your friend. All mortals think they want more time, but time kills your folk. More time will only kill you faster. Have I not given you time enough? Have I not been patient with you, as I have been with no other? Why do you deny me now, at this threshold?"

  She looked at him, in all his majesty towering over her, and felt his presence. She drank the sight and smell of him, and considered it. For the first time she wondered if she had fallen in love with an illusion. Only then did she speak. Her voice was low but steady. "There were others. The spright wasn't lying. How many, Alraun? How many have you had over the years? How many do you still keep somewhere, secret from me?"

  He was distracted. "How many?"

  "You mentioned others."

  "You have always known. You just did not want to ask."

  "Did you make them the same promises? Where are those promises now?"

  "You treat me unfairly, Lilia. I have treasured you above any of my dalliances. I have made promises to you that I never laid before any other. You are more than any of them." He brushed away the tear on her cheek, "You will be so much more than all of them."

  "Where are they then? What did you do with them?"

  His eyes narrowed into thin slits of rose and gold. "Very well, I shall indulge you once more, my beauty, though you try me." He turned and his cloak of otherworldly cloth swirled about him like the clouds in the winter sky. As he strode away from, the court in the woods bowed to him. The trees rustled and moved aside for him. A path cleared. "Well?" he called back to her, "Do you follow me or frustrate me again? You have such changeful moods. Sometimes, I think you would make a better lord of the wild things than me."

  "I will follow." And she did, though under her breath she said to herself, "for now."

  -oOo-

  They stood together at the edge of a deep pool, the water tinted black by the shadows of a ferny grotto.

  "There," said the Aldar King, pointing one firm finger at the water. "Look and know what has become of the others."

  Lilia thought for a moment that he meant that he had drowned them. "I do not understand." As she said this Lilia caught the gleam of something moving deep in the pool. Something sinuous and pale that rose to the surface. She stared at it, and then saw other shapes. When she realised what she was looking at her blood turned icy. Her fingers itched and burned.

  They burst up through the water, in showers of glittering water. Their limbs were long and nymphet, their skin white, their eyes cold and flashing. They made no sound, but wore expressions that were at once sad and hungry.

  "They're beautiful," she whispered, as the sleek, silvery women rose from the water.

  "They greet their master," whispered Alraun in her ear, "I am the only being who can touch them. Any other who goes into their arms embraces only death." He moved behind her, and whispered in the other ear. "For they hunger for warmth, they are cold as ice and forever so. And forever mine. In summer I let them out to wander in the woods and serve me in my leafy bed."

  "They look so sad." As she spoke, one of the lost souls reached out with her thin graceful fingers, and came very close to touching Lilia's face. Alraun's arm caught her shoulders and drew her back from the pool's edge. "Be wary, my beauty. For if you should slip then they would take you deep into the pool. They would tear off your clothes and run their cold hands over your naked body, stealing your warmth. Eventually you would realise they had not stripped off your clothes at all, but your flesh. I would have to lift your lifeless bon
es out of the water and bury them in the circle of dancing stones. The old priests used to make sacrifice to me there." He let out a soft, silvery peel of laughter. "I have to leave my own sacrifices, now that the priests are gone. And though I treasure you, I would have to treat you equally after you fell, or my other beauties would be jealous. I would have to educate you in the manner in which it is fit to serve a king. I promise, you would beg me to educate you further." His strong grip tightened a little about her shoulders. "You are in a precarious place to stand, my beauty, dear Lilia. Be very, very careful."

  She strained to move back from the pool, twisted and buried her head in his cloak. She had had enough of looking at the terrible, beautiful creatures in the water. "Why did you show me this?"

  "Because you asked me to. How am I ever to please you?" He breathed a sigh. "Still, let us not waste the moments we have. We can return to my court at once. I will summon those playful, joking sprights who you love to laugh at." His brow darkened. "And I need to confer further with my retainers and knights on the matter of the dark sorcerer too. He troubles us, and must be dealt with."

  Lilia forced her gaze to the pool and wondered who the dancing, writhing creatures had once been. What were their names? Did they remember their lives?

  "Yes," said Lilia at last, "that would be--" and her voice slackened into a single whispered word.

  "I did not hear you, my beauty."

  "No. I said, no."

  "Then where will you go?"

  "Home."

  "Back to that old grey ugliness of stone where the people despise you and laugh behind your back? That place you hate?"

  "Yes."

  "You intrigue me. You frustrate me. You make me wonder. There is no spright in my court so changeful as you."

  With a violent flail of her arms she tore away from his hold and broke away from the edge of the pool. Falling, slipping and leaning against the rough bark of an old, hoary oak she stared up at him. "I do not know you."

  "Now you speak riddles. Of course you know me, as a lover knows a lover."

  "What are you beneath all your magic?"

  "I am the king of all the wild things. I am wonder. I am joy. I am majesty. I am the beautiful, wonderful sense of peace that comes from never having to make any choices ever again." He moved towards her. She scrambled back, away from him, further away from that pool. "No, you are none of those things. You are small and ugly and petty and a hundred other evil things I can not think of right now."

  His expression froze. "You wound me to the heart."

  "Go away, and do not come to me again. Ever."

  At that he laughed. Peel upon peel of his musical laughter shook the trees. "You would forsake me? I think not."

  "I will. No," she said, "I think in my heart, I already have."

  "Have you indeed?" and now his eyes burned dully. "Then I take back all the gifts I gave to you." His eyes flared with light. The shawm, which she always carried with her, gave off a strange noise, plaintive and pained, as if it had been alive and someone had stuck a dagger through it. "Though because I am a forgiving king I will leave you with one last promise. When your need for me gnaws at you, for certainly it shall, when next you are sobbing alone, for certainly you will, remember this: should you but call my name I will take you back and you shall be glad of it. That, I avow. There is no promise more kind."

  He turned his back and vanished into the woods, laughing as he faded into the shadows. The sound of it rang in Lilia's ears, and laced into her mind, into her very soul. She stumbled to the lip of the pool again, and standing there, stared a long time at the pitiable, distant creatures who now huddled in the water.

  "I am sorry," she said not knowing if they could hear her, or if they cared. "I do not think there is any way to free you. I am sorry."

  -oOo-

  He did not go very far into the woods. Instead, he let himself vanish from mortal eye, so that he could stand in the shadows, watching her. She took a long time to stare at his beauties in the water. She cried.

  The shadows were lengthening and the moon rising, a ghostly spectre sailing far above the forest canopy, when she finally turned, and walked away.

  When she was a distant rustle moving away through the trees, Alraun returned to the pool himself. It was black and still, but soon a light began to grow in the depths. Gleams like the vague ghosts of stars grew, then swelled, until they turned a livid, unearthly shade of blue and formed into bodies. Long, thin, sinuous as willows, and as beautiful.

  "My beauties."

  They arose from the water, wetness dripping from their naked skin and long grey-blue hair. They did not speak but laughed, and their laughter was like a brook tumbling over ice.

  "It been so long. I had forgotten you a little..." And he drew his silken cloak about his shoulders until it seemed he was a half-carved statue of rippled, folded marble.

  Reaching up to him with long fingers one brushed his cloak and then, with a suppressed giggle, drifted back among her sisters.

  "Dream of summer, my lovelies. Dream of the season when you will again walk the woods, and be mine to love. Dream of when you may make a languor of yourselves in my court. When again the warmth will fill you." Letting his cloak fall open he reached out and traced his fingers over the face of the nearest of them. "Only for me." He was silent for a while. "Until then... until then, I have another to grace my side."

  "So they were mortal once?"

  Throwing his arms back he looked suddenly up, and his cloak swirled like the wings of a startled owl. With blazing eyes he searched the darkness, and all the ondine crowded below him, unable to leave the water, their wordless voices murmuring fear.

  "I can see it in their eyes." It seemed that it was the night who spoke. The voice tumbled out of the shadows. "There are mortal souls there in the colour of their eyes, and yet they have been changed. A change that is reflected in those same pupils."

  "Show yourself. Or I will summon every weird spirit in my realm to tear your from the shadows."

  Across the bank, among the ferns a hunched shadow moved. It had eyes like two small angry coals.

  Alraun's smiled. "A fellow dream. How long have you been lingering here?"

  "A while."

  "And so, tell me, dream in shadow's clothing, what right have you to press company upon the lord of all which is green and wild in this fair land?"

  "Lord?" said the shadow. "Lord? I know you for what you are, Lord. Illusion. Glamour. Nothing. I have met other 'kings' and 'queens' of your kind. Every one of them thinks they are the one true master of all the faer. And you? What are you? You are a swirl of colour and noise, at the heart of which lies a pit so deep it leads to oblivion."

  "Watch your tongue, little dream."

  The voice now lowered until the syllables were not so much spoken as growled. "I know you in all your names. Faer. Fay. Feerie folk. Fata regaliarum. Waldgeist. Ghost of the Wilds. But at the heart of it all? Beneath all those names? You are an illusion concealing a small, ugly nothing."

  "Who sent you? What great monarch or old power of the earth has commanded you to annoy me?"

  "None."

  "Then be gone. I have no need of one more wolf in my woods."

  "Not before I deliver a small message to you. A message for a message. It seems fair, only I do my own talking. Quit your meddling in the affairs of mortals. Forget Lilia. Leave her be, and go back to your deep woods, and mists and illusions. Content yourself with the souls you have already stolen."

  He raised himself taller, prouder. He would not let himself be anything less than the very shape of majesty before this... this... thing.

  "Be gone."

  "No."

  The shadow leapt. Its great, coiled muscles heaved with surprising speed. The ondines screamed in thin, wordless voices, and vanished into their pool. Alraun staggered back, weaved and moved away from the water's edge. The shadow lighted on the ground with casual ease. It bore around, snarling through teeth like jagged shards of
moonlight.

  Alraun's hand went for the obsidian dirk he kept always at his belt, and the black blade licked out and cut the air. Circling, leaping and dodging, they moved like savage dancers. The dagger drew a thin line of blood from the wolf-wight, but even as the dark crimson appeared it blackened, and the wound healed.

  For the first time in an age, for as long as Alraun could recall, he felt a flush of trepidation. There was magic here that was older and stranger than he had assumed. While losing none of his grace, the king of woods and wilds gave ground, and used the knife that could cut a hair in two to guard himself from a shadow that would not be cut.

  "What are you?" He stared through level, slit eyes. "What are you?"

  The shadow-thing shook his head and blinked his coal-harsh eyes. The question seemed to rankle it. It held a moment, silent, before prowling closer and replying, "I am a dream. Like you."

  "No," said Alraun, and after a silence in which they eyed one another, "there is more to you. You are like my beauties I think. Like myself even, aeons and aeons ago. You were once mortal, but now? What are you now?"

  Angered, the creature leapt again--its slaver flecked Alraun's cloak as he barely moved out of its way.

  There were eyes appearing in the trees, small blinking eyes, and slits of fire and great orange orbs for seeing in the dark. Narrow eyes. Bright eyes. Watchful eyes. And all of them were fixed on the two creatures circling: one a monster of tooth and claw, and the other possessing the halting grace and dignity of a stag.

  The thousand eyes stirred and their voices rose in a restless whisper. As the wolf leapt once more, Alraun fell back and spoke, his breath haggard and hissing. "Enough." He lowered his knife and said, "My children, my subjects, my fellow creatures of woods and waters wild, have now your revenge on the forest prowler."

  And from every scrubby bush, from every leafy branch, in every dark hollow beneath roots the eyes all blinked together, in synchronistic motion, at once, and then filled with flame. They crept forward, and flitted from the trees, the multitudes of the forest. Their wild forms were full of sharp angles and ferret-quick teeth and badger-sharp claws. The swarm flew at the feral dream, clinging, pulling, biting and pinching. The wretched creature thrashed about, its shaggy hair caught by a hundred small clinging fingers.

  Alraun watched with a paternal pleasure.

  "I asked you before. I put it to you again. Who are you to threaten the king of the weird realm? Who are you to command me? You understand nothing of me. I would take Lilia to be my paramour, to dwell forever in the lands of midsummer twilight. She would know not of age, nor of death. She would wet her lips on my wine, and sate her hunger on the sweetest of my fruits, and dance with the fireflies under the moonlit sky, forever. Who are you to lurk at the gates of paradise and growl insults?"

  The shadow-thing struggled, caught an enraged polecat in its mouth, and snapped it completely in two. The rest of the horde broke off and backed away a little. They were rethinking their attack. "And if she will not give herself to your realm? I was watching, Lord of Beetles and Sparrows. I saw her deny you. She doesn't want you any move, King of Earthworms. Let her be." Silvery moonlit blood dripped from his jaws as he spoke.

  "She will come back to me. And then I shall bring my realm to hers. No one, not you or her shall deny me that." His voice broke suddenly into silvery laughter. "She dreamed of it herself, and what is my world but that which springs from hopes and dreams and wishes." Alraun's voice became menacing, "Now, my subjects, destroy this thing."

  And again the creatures flew at the shadow-thing. Blood in small trickling snakes wetted the creature's fur. From under a mass of flailing limbs and devilish snarls and bright, bright eyes it threw back his jaw and howled. It gave one last attempt to shake off the little wild beasts the way a dog shakes off water, then turned and bounded away. In one leap it cleared the pool, and ran with the cloud of little fluttering, sneering, snickering creatures trailing him like a cloud of gnats.

  -oOo-

  Pain and panic drove Kveldulf through the night. He ran past old, gnarled oaks, fighting back as he sprinted, snapping and snarling, splashed through a black river and fled through the woods. More and more of the woodland creatures attacked him, joined soon by a thousand little shadowy sprights too, mindless in their own tiny howling rages. He was soon running without thought or reason. Wounds, weeping, glistening in the moonlight, cut every inch of him. Struggling under the weight of the swarm, he howled and bit and threw himself about in a frenzied attempt to throw them off. But, though many of the small creatures were crushed in his jaws and others thrown to the ground, the horde would not give up.

  Through glens, over streams and down the winding paths they fought and brawled, then past the first sleeping cottages of the village. No one who woke dared to open a door or peek out a window. The noise of the struggle was terrifying.

  Kveldulf was in a small field behind a copse of trees when he felt himself turning faint. Soon all that gave his body substance and form was the power of his will, and his will wavered.

  Strained.

  Faded.

  Gone.

  And in that moment he was nothing more than a shadow. His body fell from him and turned to a black mist. All the little creatures of the forest laughed and danced about him, but none could touch him now, and he could not touch them either. He was a ghost in the night.

  As he stood amidst the leaping, cavorting creatures he felt a gentle urge that grew to urgency. A sensation like being caught in a fast, chill river. He did not resist. Allowing himself to be caught by the flow he was swept away through the air. Some of the creatures flew after him, their eyes like pricks of fire in the night, their mouths like smouldering hearths. The world turned vague, as if the colour had all drained from it. He was unsure if he was carried over the walls of the castle or speed right through the stones.

  Still a few of the sprights followed.

  His body lay asleep on the cot and seemed uncannily at ease. The face, to look at, from above, was a mask of gentle repose. The tide lulled him back into his body. Warm blood flowed again in his veins, and the nerves tingled and twitched.

  Kveldulf awoke to convulsions. Sharp pains scythed through him. Gashes burst open as if torn by invisible knives, scrapes and bruises spread like spilled ink on his flesh. Rolling from the bed he hit the cold stone floor on hands and knees and opened his mouth to cry out but found only blood bubbling from his mouth.

  He heard dimly, as if from far away, a small ugly snickering in the dark. Looking up with bloodshot eyes he saw them. Squeezing under the door, and crowding into the dark spaces, a dozen gangly creatures with bright eyes and sharp, grinning mouths. The most persistent, the most hateful of the wild horde were now slowly, very slowly, inching closer.

  He tried again to shout at them, but only coughed up something wet and dark. With tremendous effort he raised himself up on one knee and drew from the belt that hung over the stool a pitch-black hunting knife. Then he stood, and grabbed at the feather, talking it from the wooden peg on the wall. With the knife in one hand and the feather hanging by a chain in the other, he glared at the things.

  The sprights all stopped. Hunching their shoulders, they snarled through bright, needle teeth, retreating from the warm glow of the spirit's feather.

  Kveldulf barley managed to speak through a mouth of tacky blood. "I'll send you to the darkest pits of the Lady Night." Half collapsing, half lunging, he slashed at the nearest of the creatures. An arc of shimmering blood spilled and evaporated as soon as it touched cold stone. The creature opened its mouth, issuing a silent scream, then writhed and dissolved away. Cursing him with wordless, harsh little voices the others withdrew, scurrying and creeping under the door like a dozen spiders.

  Kveldulf fell to his hands and knees, and prayed for morning.