Ragniprava smiled. “You think to stop my blade with that?”
Lionheart didn’t know what he thought. He knew that the table could offer him no more shelter. He knew that he could see nothing in the dark save Ragniprava’s gleaming eyes and the light from them glancing off the sword edge. He knew with cold certainty that his final moment had come.
The Tiger leapt over the table, his great sword upraised for the kill. On instinct, Lionheart raised the beanpole to protect himself.
The ring of steel upon steel clanged in his ears, and both he and the Faerie lord cried out in surprise. For Ragniprava’s sword had broken into a thousand pieces and lay in shards upon the floor.
Lionheart stood eye to eye with the Faerie. Then he was a tiger once more. Before Lionheart could think to move, the Faerie’s bulk came down upon him. Claws drove into Lionheart’s shoulder, and his scream was lost in the Tiger’s roar. He felt the creature’s hot breath on his face, and still he screamed, in rage as much as pain, and waited for powerful jaws to close about his throat.
Then, suddenly, the Tiger’s roar ceased. His body fell atop Lionheart, smothering him with its weight. Lionheart gave one last gasp. His eyes rolled wildly and, for a moment, he gazed into the awful face of the Hunter.
Then Lionheart too was silent.
Eanrin, deep in the passages, heard Lionheart’s scream and its abrupt end. He cursed and spun around, bracing his feet, his long knife held in both hands. The second Tiger sprang at him, but at the last possible instant, the poet ducked and somersaulted so that the huge cat went over him into the darkness.
Then Eanrin was on his feet and running again, and this time he pursued the Tiger.
Ragniprava turned about in surprise to find the poet lunging at his face with a knife. His bellow filled the whole valley as the blade entered his eye.
Eanrin jumped back, just avoiding a slash of claws to his stomach. He sprang several steps away, crying, “You’re yet alive, Lord Bright as Fire. Would you like to retreat, or would you rather I took this life of yours?”
The Tiger crouched to the ground, blood seeping from his mangled eye.
“I’ll oblige you either way,” Eanrin said, taking a step forward. “What’s a single life, after all, to one such as you? But make a decision swiftly, for I must return to the jester.”
“You took my eye!” the Tiger snarled. “Death-in-Life devour you!”
“You have another,” said the poet. “Not everyone’s so fortunate.” He took another advancing step. “Would you rather I killed you now?”
The Tiger snarled again, feinting an attack. Then he turned about and disappeared into the darkness of his palace. Eanrin, relieved, let out a huge breath, then whirled and ran back the way he had come.
Lionheart! The dragon-kissed fool! Why had he not done as he was told and stayed put? The Tiger could never have reached him under that table, not if he was careful! The poet cursed to himself again and again as he sped through the corridors. Then he came to the banquet hall where the stone princes and their chairs lay toppled about the shattered table. The Faerie lord’s own seat lay in splinters, and . . .
Eanrin took a deep breath and smelled death. But it wasn’t a mortal’s death.
“Great Lumé’s crown!” he cried. “Have I misjudged you, jester? Did you actually slay the beast?”
“No,” spoke a voice, terrible though sharp teeth. “I did.”
11
Lionheart stood in stony darkness, and it was not as bad as it could be, considering. He was pain-free, which was not something he could say for his last few convoluted memories. These were indistinct on all but one point.
Ow!
Among the rest of the jumble that was his mind, that part stood out with crystalline clarity. Better not to try remembering too much, or to try recalling how he came to this place of darkness and silence. He was comfortable, and for the moment, that was all he cared about. So he closed his eyes—or maybe he didn’t? It was hard to say in this place—and let out a sigh that did nothing to disturb that enveloping, solid quiet. For the first time in many years, he felt at peace.
That’s when he heard a sob.
“By the Flowing Gold, what are you doing here?” Eanrin cried as he stepped into the banquet hall, his hand extended. It was clasped warmly in return, and a voice like falling rocks growled an answer.
“I felt a trembling on the edge of Arpiar,” said the Hunter. “Someone calling from within. Only once, and very faint, but I felt it. I could not follow it to its source, but I was able to trace its destination. Here. That mortal, lying yonder underneath Ragniprava’s old carcass.”
“Is he alive?”
“Not in this body.”
“No, the fool, I mean.”
“The mortal? Yes, I think so.”
“Well, Oeric,” said the poet, “I’m glad you turned up when you did, then. Not that I needed you, of course. I had everything perfectly under control. But your ugly bulk may just come in handy.” He strolled over to the heap where the Tiger crushed Lionheart, and knelt to feel first the animal’s and then the young man’s pulse. “A little worse for wear, I should think.”
Oeric, massive as a mountain with stone-hard skin and luminous eyes that saw everything in the dark, stepped up beside the poet and, with one great heave, lifted the Tiger off of Lionheart. “We’d best leave this place, Eanrin,” he said gravely as his comrade, with sensitive fingers, inspected Lionheart’s wounded shoulder. “Ragniprava will not be glad of the loss of this life and will return for our heads soon enough. I’d not like to face him in a rage like that.”
“Oh, he’ll be a while at least,” said Eanrin dismissively. “I took an eye from his second life, and he’s off somewhere sulking about it.”
“A sulking tiger is no laughing matter.” Oeric eyed the carcass beside the fallen Lionheart. The orange and black fur began to gleam faintly in its own light, like fire. The lights of the forest were also slowly returning, illuminating the hall once more, revealing the captive faces of the stone princes. “Who are all these poor devils?”
“No one with whom you should concern yourself,” Eanrin said, intent on his work. His smile fell into something of a grimace as he realized the extent of Lionheart’s wounds. “They’ll remain bound as you see them until Lord Bright as Fire’s final life is spent. So unless you want to stay and kill him twice more—”
“And the mortal?”
“He’d be lost while you’re at it.”
Oeric sighed and knelt to put an arm under Lionheart’s shoulders. The dark Southlands’ complexion was chalky even in the strange glow of Ragniprava’s forest. “Is it safe for me to move him?”
“Safer than leaving him here.” The poet backed away as his giant comrade picked up Lionheart as easily as he would lift a child. But Lionheart would not relinquish his hold on his sword.
“A fine piece,” Eanrin said, feeling the weapon clutched in Lionheart’s fist. “A bit gaudy. He had it with him at Hill House, though it had not yet revealed its true substance to his mortal eye. How little the folk of the Near World trust the power of their own imaginations!”
The hilt was gold, encrusted with jewels, just the sort of weapon that a young boy would dream of wielding. But the steel was true. Magical, even, as evidenced by the broken shards of Ragniprava’s weapon lying about them on the stone.
“Let him keep it,” Oeric said. “He may be glad of a reminder of this night someday. I saw him. He faced the Tiger as bravely as any mortal might.”
Eanrin shrugged but arranged Lionheart’s arms so that the sword’s blade rested against Oeric’s shoulder. “Shall we to the Haven, then?” the poet said. “Imraldera will have an idea what to do.”
“Yes,” said Oeric. “And you can tell me as we go who this young man is. And why someone within Arpiar would call him, of all people.”
They left behind the ruined palace and the lurking presence of Ragniprava, who did not show his mutilated face. Oeric held Lionheart gent
ly and followed his blind guide. Eanrin took them straight through the seemingly impenetrable forest and up the side of the precipice. The waterfalls had ceased their laughter and watched the progress of the two knights. The forest did not hum but waited until these three intruders should depart the wilds of the Tiger’s demesne.
Eanrin led them to the two white birches without straying, a feat that even Sir Oeric with night-seeing eyes doubted he could have accomplished. There were reasons why he walked in the blind man’s footsteps. Eanrin passed between the birches, and Oeric came behind him, bearing Lionheart out of the Far World for the time being and back into the Wood Between. The sun was bright as midday overhead, though beneath the trees the shadows were dark green.
“Here is our path,” Eanrin said, moving more swiftly now, for he was better acquainted with this terrain. Oeric hastened behind him as around them the world blurred, the shadows and lights blending together as the two knights and their unconscious burden traveled many leagues in a stride.
“You must tell me, Eanrin, who this boy is,” Sir Oeric said, the blade of the sword slapping and sliding against his shoulder with each step he took. “How have you fallen in with him, and what has he to do with Arpiar?”
Eanrin sneered a little behind his constant smile. “You wouldn’t know him, Oeric, but he was once a prince. He’s the Eldest of Southlands’ only son.”
“Indeed?” Oeric frowned and gazed down at the stony face in his arms. There was something distinctly gray in Lionheart’s skin now, beyond mere pallor. The power of Ragniprava was potent, and though Lionheart still breathed, he was slowly turning to stone. He was also getting heavier, though that hardly mattered to one of Oeric’s strength. “The lad who gave Princess Una’s heart to our Enemy?”
“The same,” said Eanrin, and this time his smile vanished, if only for a moment. “And if not for our Prince, my mistress might even now be as heartless and fire-filled as the Bane of Corrilond herself!” His voice became a growl. “I should have left the mortal to the Tiger.”
“Why are you with him?”
“The Prince’s command. This creature’s supposed to help us find the Crossing into Arpiar. Which should interest you, I imagine.”
Oeric’s eyes widened and he looked again at his burden’s hardening face. “He knows a way into Arpiar?”
“Hardly!” Eanrin snorted. “Do you think we’d have ended up in Ragniprava’s demesne if he did? No, rather than proving useful, he gave a strand of his hair to old Torkom in exchange for directions to his doom. The fool is useless.”
“Our Prince would not have sent you to help him for no purpose,” Oeric said quietly. “He always has his reasons.”
Eanrin gave a short laugh. “That’s good of you to say in light of your hopeless task.”
“Our Prince does not give his servants hopeless tasks. They sometimes do not follow an expected path, but they are never hopeless.”
“Even five-hundred-year searches for an undiscoverable gate?” Eanrin shook his head. “Your faith does you credit, Oeric. I serve the Prince and will serve him till I die or the Final Waters sweep all this away! But—” And here one hand touched the patches over his empty eye sockets, a swift gesture that Oeric did not notice. The poet dropped his voice and finished softly, “But perhaps I’ll always find the paths more difficult to walk than would a man of greater faith.”
Then, because he was the Chief Poet of Iubdan Rudiobus, he laughed and filled his face with more smiles. “I’m sorry to say this mortal is a worthless specimen, and I predict even our good Lady of the Haven will want to toss him out on his ear within a day and a night.”
“Imraldera never gives up,” Oeric said simply. “She didn’t give up on me.”
“She’s an idealist; we’ll grant her that.”
“Eanrin, tell me now: Does this boy know someone within Arpiar? Someone who would call for him?”
“We believe so, yes.” Eanrin turned toward Oeric, and the next moment he was an orange cat standing with tail raised in a plumy question mark. He flicked it twice. “You recall not long ago when the little maid Rose Red, for whom Vahe had been searching, was at last discovered? She was banished into the Wood—the Wilderlands, as the Southlanders call it—outside the circle of protection made for her. Not even her guardian could protect her when Vahe sent the one-horned beast.”
Oeric did not answer. He remembered all too well. Rose Red had not been the only one seized by the unicorn that day.
Eanrin twisted his ears and indicated Lionheart with a paw. “It was he who sent her there.”
Oeric froze in midstride, gazing down at the face of the young man he carried. He was silent as he studied it. He watched how the slow poison of Ragniprava’s spell seeped from the inside out and began to run down his body. Even then, he could not bring himself to speak for a long moment. At last he said in a low, growling voice, “Then he bears the guilt of many sins on his shoulders.”
“I told you he was a fool.”
The yellow-eyed dragon knew the Crossing to and from Arpiar well enough. He crept there like a shadow, moving as only dragons can so that unfriendly eyes might not see him. The Old Bridge in the forest was a familiar sight, though it was many centuries since he’d last seen it. He crossed over, out of the Far World and into the Wood Between. Vahe showed no signs of stopping him. There were no spells that the dragon could sense on the boundaries of Arpiar to prevent his leaving. But he knew what his doom would be.
He must be swift, very swift, or he would never reach the Haven.
Wraithlike, he fled down Goldstone Hill and into the forest, using Paths he had not trod since days he’d thought forgotten. Every step that took him nearer to the Haven was an agony. The thought of seeing any of his former brethren again was bitter in his heart.
But Anahid had asked. He could not refuse.
The unicorn, on feet too fine to touch the boards beneath, crossed over the Old Bridge and stood a moment in the Wood. It lifted its nose, sniffing the air until it caught the scent it needed. Then it too descended Goldstone Hill, although without haste. It would reach its destination in good time.
1
The Lady of the Haven sat watch at the bedside of the wounded Lionheart, her hands quiet in her lap. There was little else she could do. He was sinking deeply into the stone of Ragniprava’s spell. More than half his body was rock hard now. But worse than that, so was more than half his soul.
Now and then she would sing to him. Her voice was low and almost too rough to be thought pretty. It bore a sound of ancient days, of young people living on a wilder land in a wilder time; a sound of one who lived close to dirt and roots but who also knew how to gaze into the highest vaults of the sky. And the song she sang was old.
“Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
Won’t you return to me?”
When she could convince one of her brethren to sit with him, Dame Imraldera would go to her library. There, she searched among her books and scrolls and papers for something that might help. Every time she returned, however, she could only repeat the same song she had sung already a thousand times.
Her fellow knights came and went, ever ready at her call should she need them. Eanrin showed his scornful face, but she glimpsed the concern hiding there. The poet was all talk. She had known him long enough to recognize that. What he truly thought and felt behind those silken eye patches, however, was anyone’s guess. Despite all the years they had served together—centuries by the Near World’s count—Imraldera still could not fathom the workings of his mind.
Oeric was different. Though his ugly face was like rock, his eyes were as transparent to her as glass. She saw each emotion play through them. She saw the anger, carefully controlled. She saw the desolation and then the faintest hope. Five hundred years he had labored in his quest, a labor of which all others had long since despaired. Yet here, in the form of this fevered young man, lay perhaps the key—the key to entering Arpiar, the
key to reaching Var.
She saw how the goblin knight’s hand sometimes drifted to touch the knife at his side. She never need speak or move to interfere, but she saw the pain in his eyes and wondered. For this fool who lay unconscious under her care had unknowingly dealt a most painful blow to Sir Oeric. There were some, Imraldera knew, who would not stand in the knight’s path to revenge.
Nevertheless, he would turn his sad eyes to her and say only, “Will he recover?”
To that, she could only reply, “He’s not gone yet.”
So they waited.
If anything could disturb the perfect equilibrium of that quiet, hard place, it was a sob. The sound sent chills up Lionheart’s spine, and that peace he had known, if only for a short time, shattered around him.
He waited to hear another.
It was like one stormy night when he was a boy, and his servant put a basin beneath a leak in the ceiling, for even palace roofs sometimes leak. Drip, drip, drip, the rain fell in a regular beat, a beat he could fall asleep to. Then suddenly, the dripping was less frequent, the timing thrown off. He heard a last drip, then strained his ears for the one that must follow. But it didn’t. Wasn’t it beating a regular rhythm just moments ago? Would there be—
Drip!
There it was, and he breathed once more.
Then he waited for another.
So it was in that blackness. Lionheart heard a first sob, and it was followed by a second soon thereafter. But Lionheart, though his every muscle tensed with expectation of a third, heard nothing more. He turned in the darkness, casting about for some sign of the sobber, whoever he or she might be. He wondered for half a moment if it was his own voice. But he was altogether too content right now to cry! No, there must be someone else with him in this place, disturbing the stone-silence. He might need to have words with this person when he—