Her voice became a whispering shudder, little more than a breath. “Many worlds it took. Each time, it latched hold and the Mound appeared out of nowhere. And the twelve warriors moved at the will of Cren Cru, believing still that they were their own. Every time it took hold, the warriors passed through the land demanding the firstborn children. They formed blood debts and demanded tithes, and if any refused to give of their firstborn, the warriors took what they wanted by force. Twelve days and twelve nights they would gather the tribute and pay it, driving the children, one by one, into the door of the Mound.”
Nidawi looked up at Foxbrush, and though he still hid his face, he could feel her gaze.
“The blood of the firstborn was not enough. So the remaining warriors would go out again. They would make more of their kind, and spread through the land, taking the second born, and after that, the third. And eventually, whole worlds were eaten up. Mighty kings and queens fell as the Parasite drank up their lives, ate up their people! And when it was through, and even the warriors themselves had killed one another, spilling their own blood in tribute, there would be nothing left. And Cren Cru would wander on. And he would gather new warriors and start all over.
“He cannot learn! He has no mind! He has no real being save that which he steals! So every time he destroys a world and still can make no place for himself, he moves on, and he does it again. And again. And again and again! And the spilled blood never brings new life, and the decimated lands never revive under him: He can only destroy, never create; even as Meadhbh only killed herself and never brought forth life.”
She stopped speaking. Foxbrush began to believe she was through. But at last she said, “I never thought to see him in Tadew. Then one morning, I woke. And there he was. And the Twelve moved through my kingdom, and they demanded tithe. I resisted and expected to die even as all the other Faerie kings and queens who resisted the Mound did die!”
Here she sighed, such a sad, such a lonely sigh that Foxbrush lowered his hands and gazed upon her with great compassion, wishing he had the strength to ease her sorrow.
“I am Nidawi the Everblooming,” she said. “Though he sucked out my strength, it only bloomed again, always new. Always bright. He could not kill me.” She bowed her head, a wrinkled, haggard shell of a woman. “So he took all my people, and he left me alone. Without a demesne. As homeless, as empty, as lost as he. I had only Lioness . . . and now, he has taken even her from me.”
“What,” Foxbrush whispered, “can be done? Can anything be done?”
“So I asked,” said she. “So I demanded! I journeyed far, I journeyed wide, I journeyed deep and deeper still. I passed through the Netherworld itself, across the Dark Water and on to the Realm Unseen where the Final Water flows into the Vast. I stood upon that shore, and I shouted beyond the Highlands, demanding justice! And if justice could not be had, then mercy, mercy, mercy.” Her hands clenched at the memory, as though even now she made her plea.
“The Lumil Eliasul came. The Prince of the Farthest Shore beyond the Final Water. He came to me and held me there, beside that darkened flow. And he told me of mercy, and he told me of justice. And he told me of the King of Here and There.”
“The what?” said Foxbrush. “You mean . . . you mean Shadow Hand of Here and There?”
She gave him a puzzled look then. “I don’t know this Shadow Hand,” she said. “I know only of the King of Here and There. And it is he, the Lumil Eliasul told me, who will enter the Mound and see my people put at last to rest.”
With this, she took Foxbrush’s hand and turned him away from the clutching Mound of Cren Cru. It had no eyes and it had no life, and yet Foxbrush could not escape the feeling that it watched them as they took a Faerie Path and returned the way they had come. Even when at last they stepped into the familiar orchard and he smelled the ripeness of figs around him, Foxbrush could not shake the feeling that Cren Cru watched and Cren Cru waited.
Lioness’s body lay where they had left it. Nidawi, seeing it, began to weep once more. She let go of Foxbrush’s hand and gathered up her dead friend, holding her tight. Then she turned and looked at Foxbrush over the white fur, her face framed by death and sorrow.
“I’ve killed my share of his warriors. As many of them as I could find. But he takes more. You cannot kill his warriors and hope to kill him too. You must enter the Mound itself.”
“What?” said Foxbrush, sudden realization hitting him like a club. “You mean . . . you mean me? Personally?”
“Yes,” said she. “I vowed that I should wed the King of Here and There for the service he would render me. And you are he, for you are king of this land where Cren Cru has once more latched hold.”
“No!” said Foxbrush, raising both his hands. “No, I’m not king of anywhere. They’ve not crowned me Eldest in my own time, and—”
“They will. And you will feel then the tie to your kingdom that binds you throughout all ages. You are King of Now and Then. You are King of Here and There. And you will destroy Cren Cru.”
She blinked and then she was gone, taking Lioness with her. Foxbrush stood in firefly light beneath the spreading fig trees. But he did not feel alone, despite the loneliness pressing in on all sides, hungry and tearing and lost. He backed away, disoriented, uncertain where to turn even to find his way back to the Eldest’s House.
A voice on the wind in the far, far distance called mournfully, Foxbrush? Where are you, Foxbrush?
He spun toward the sound. And found Daylily standing behind him.
9
THE MOMENT SUN EAGLE TOOK DAYLILY’S HAND and pulled her onto the Faerie Path, she felt the wolf attacking her from the inside. She could feel the physical rip of the great stakes to which the wolf was chained pulling up from the soil of her mind, twisting and tearing as they went. The chains themselves strained to the point of breaking. Then one of them broke.
Daylily screamed and with surprising strength pulled herself free of Sun Eagle’s hand and collapsed there in the Wood. The trees backed far away, afraid of her and of what the stone around her neck represented. But they cast their shadows long, and it was black as night, save for the gleam of the Bronze.
Sun Eagle stood over her. He said, “Get up.”
“I can’t,” she gasped, and her voice was that of the wolf. “I can’t get up! I’m still caught in these dragon-cursed chains!”
“Not you. Her!”
“No!” snarled the wolf through Daylily’s mouth. “You’ve done enough to her! It is my turn now!”
But Sun Eagle knelt and took hold of Daylily by the hair on top of her head. He yanked her face back and smacked her across the jaw, drawing blood where her teeth cut into her lip. Then he dropped her, stood, and stepped back.
Daylily slowly pushed herself upright and gazed at Sun Eagle through the tangles of her hair. “What are we?” she asked, and it was neither the wolf who spoke nor the voice of the master inside her. It was her own voice, soft and tremulous. “What have we become?”
“Strong,” said Sun Eagle. “We have become strong.”
“You killed . . . I . . . killed . . .” She ground her teeth, unable to breathe. Sun Eagle stepped to her side once more and put his hands around her, helping her to her feet. Her body shuddered through a breath, and she leaned heavily against him.
“Twelfth Night is near,” said he. “It is time you learned, Initiate. It is time you knew.”
They progressed in silence through the Wood, following the Bronze. Their wounds pained them, but they moved as though they felt nothing. The dominant force inside them did not heed pain.
They crossed into the Near World, back into Southlands, and still their Path led them on. The bronze stone around Daylily’s neck heated until it scalded the skin over her heart, but she did not try to move it. She followed her Advocate until at last, even as Foxbrush had stood with Nidawi, she stood before the Mound of her master. The Mound she had seen in nightmarish visions and hoped, upon waking, had been nothing more than a nightmare.
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The Mound into which she had sent children.
Cren Cru sucked at the life of the land. And though he had no face, it seemed to Daylily as though he smiled upon her a hungry smile. And he said, using her own mouth: Mine.
“I was lost in the Wood Between,” said Sun Eagle, standing stern beside her. “I was young, and I knew nothing of immortality or the Far World. I was ignorant and weak and small. I should have died. But Dinhrod the Stone found me, and he became my Advocate. I was brought into the Circle of Twelve and given the Bronze. And now, all those who dwell in the Far World fear me.”
Fear us.
“But,” said Daylily, struggling to find words of her own, for she felt as if her mouth no longer belonged to her, nor her voice nor her heart nor the blood in her veins. “But you told me Dinhrod the Stone is dead. You were stained with his blood.”
“He died on Thirteenth Dawn,” said Sun Eagle. “Twelve days and twelve nights, we gather the firstborn and present them as tithe. On Thirteenth Dawn, the Advocates themselves contend for the right to enter the Mound and become one with the master. Dinhrod was not victorious. He was slain by his brethren, and he died in my arms. Another won the honor to enter the Mound.”
Mine.
Daylily stared across the way at the great, thorn-clad growth of Cren Cru. She saw a little door, scarcely more than a hole in the side of the hill. Through it poured an awful stench. She remembered then with dreadful clarity all those nightmares she had tried to forget, all those children whom she had helped to carry, helped to lead.
The tithe of firstborn. The spilling of blood to make new life. A home. A stronghold among the worlds. We must, we will, we need to possess!
“Twelfth Night is near, when we will make the final offering,” said Sun Eagle. “Then, come Thirteenth Dawn, I too will fight. I will battle my brother and sister Advocates for the right to pass through Cren Cru’s door.”
There was deadness in his voice. Daylily looked up at him, and in his eyes, however briefly, she thought she glimpsed . . . what was it? Desperation? Fear?
But when he turned to her, all such traces were gone. “It is the best end. It is the only end. Should I be victorious, I will enter the Mound, and you will become Advocate in my place. And you will take an Initiate, and the circle will be complete, never again to be broken. All this Land will be your home. No more Twelfth Night. No more Thirteenth Dawn.”
No more failure. No more searching, searching, searching. No more desolation. We will be home. They will be home.
I will be Home.
“And we will rule,” said Sun Eagle. Daylily realized that her mouth had also moved in time with his, had spoken words that were not her own.
The wolf inside her snarled and tore at her with a fury she had not yet known, and she screamed at the pain of it. Even as she screamed, however, she turned and fled. The wolf drove her, and the Bronze did not burn or try to fight. She fled to the sound of frantic, haunted howling, away from the Mound, away from her Advocate, away from herself. But the wolf pursued, and the wolf would catch and devour her if she did not give in to the call of the Bronze. What escape was there? Death on every side, as sure as when she’d walked the paths of the Netherworld!
As sure as when she’d betrayed Rose Red.
There was no hope. No light burning in this darkness. Even the glow of the Bronze itself was as black as pitch, as empty as a bottomless chasm.
She collapsed. She did not know if she lay in the Wood Between or the Near World or the Far. It did not matter to her then. The wolf worried at her, but she could feel the wolf even now being dragged back in chains. Cren Cru, who had taken her, who had become her, who was more Daylily than she was herself now, would overpower all and drive her to whatever end it saw fit. And she would convince herself that it was her own choice and her own doing. But for this little slice of existence, she knew the truth.
“You’ll have to let it go.”
She shuddered at the voice of the songbird that alighted on the ground before her. In this dark place, his white, speckled breast seemed to glow with his own light.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped, the words scarcely audible.
The bird turned his head to one side, gazing at her out of one bright eye. “I am always near,” he sang.
“You’re following me?” She bared her teeth. “Go away. I don’t want you.”
“You want me more than you know,” said the bird. “But you must let the wolf go.”
“I can’t,” said Daylily. “Not anymore.” She felt the Bronze weighing her down, and for a moment she was the wolf tied to the stakes, brought low by chains and bindings. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late,” said the bird. “Not while I lead you.”
“You don’t lead me!” Daylily said. “No one leads me!” And she lunged at the bird, her fingers snatching, but he flew from her grasp, light as drifting smoke, up into the branches of a tree she had not seen standing near.
She stood and realized that what she had thought was the blackness of despair was in fact the deepness of night surrounding her. She even saw a glimmer of fireflies and, up above, between the branches of the tree, stars gleamed in the sky. The bird had disappeared, but she felt somehow that he was near. She smelled sweet things on the wind, the scents of fruits and nectars, contrasting with the smells of rot and spoil.
She turned. And found herself facing Foxbrush.
“Daylily!” he gasped, his voice as frightened as though he saw a ghost.
She could scarcely discern his face in the gloom. But she recognized him at once by some sixth sense she did not know she possessed. She stood a moment beneath the spreading fig tree and the starlight, and she stared at him. He was all the things she had fled; but where had her flight led her?
“Daylily!” he spoke her name again as though he wanted to say something more but could not find the words. He took a step toward her.
Then she fell into his arms.
This could not be Daylily. It must be some phantom or some dream, come to walk the waking world. It could not be Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent! For Daylily never wept as this girl wept, her face buried in Foxbrush’s chest, embracing him in trembling desperation. Foxbrush stood as still as a totem stone, his arms at his sides, and she clung to him and dampened his shirt with her tears. Slowly he lifted his arms and wrapped them around her, holding her close to his thudding heart. All thoughts of what he had just seen and heard—the stone, the broken Lioness, Nidawi and her strange declarations—fled his mind. Everything about him was caught up in this one dreadful, horrible, wonderful moment. He held on to Daylily and he loved her more now than he had ever before loved anything or anyone. He felt strong and he felt weak; he could both move great mountains and be knocked down with a feather.
They stood thus for some time, and time meant nothing to either of them. Many eyes watched: eyes of the bird in the branches of the tree above, and the fireflies darting to and fro, and the fey beasts in the jungle shadows. And yet they were completely alone in that piece of eternity.
At last Daylily stepped back, though she still held Foxbrush by the arms. She could not meet his gaze but stood with her head bowed, weighted down by the enormous pull of the Bronze around her neck. Foxbrush saw it, and he recalled with sudden, gut-wrenching pain what Nidawi had told him about Cren Cru.
“Twelve in all it took, and it melted down Meadhbh’s twelve-pronged crown to give each of them a piece, a binding.”
He put out his hand and took hold of the Bronze. But it burned him, and he dropped it quickly, drawing a sharp breath of pain. Daylily let go of him then and placed both her hands over the stone, hiding it against her bosom.
“Twelfth Night is coming,” she said. “Eleven nights have I been bound by the Bronze.”
Her voice was strange and thin. Foxbrush frowned without understanding and wondered if she would let him hold her again. Somehow, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to try. “It’s been months,
Daylily,” he said. “Months since I saw you.”
She shook her head. “It has been eleven nights. And Twelfth Night is coming. The final tithe is demanded.”
Foxbrush licked his cracking lips. “You are not one of them,” he said, though he knew he deceived no one, not even himself.
“I am not one,” Daylily whispered. Her shoulder was stained with fresh, oozing blood from the wound Foxbrush had watched Lark dress. Her body trembled with the pain of it, but she could scarcely feel a thing through the Bronze she wore. “I am not one. I am many. And I am gone.”
“No!” said Foxbrush, and his voice was more fierce than she had ever heard it. He reached out to her, grasping her arms. “No, you are not one of them! You are yourself and . . . and you don’t have to go back!”
She looked up at him, and for the first time, Foxbrush saw Daylily. Not the Lady of Middlecrescent, cold and calculating, nor even the lovely girl who had flirted with Leo all those long summers ago. She was Daylily herself, and she was frail and frightened. But there was a wolf in her eyes.
“I love you,” he said. He didn’t know why he said it then. He knew only that he could not have helped himself, not though his life depended on it.
She blinked and for a terrible instant he believed she would vanish in that flash of her eyelashes. But when she looked at him again, she was still, however briefly, herself. “I know,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “But I am gone.”
He felt the tips of her fingers brush like cold fire against his skin. And then, Daylily’s mouth moved, but a voice that was not hers spoke.
Twelfth Night is near. Come away. . . .
Though she stood before him, Foxbrush felt her dissolving in his grasp. “No!” he shouted. “You don’t have to go back! Stay with me, Daylily! Stay!”
Then she was gone. Foxbrush stood in the orchard, his hands grasping empty air.