In the branches above his head, a bird trilled a silver melody, a stream of music flowing into the night. And Foxbrush believed he heard words in the song.
Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There,
Heal now the ills
Of your weak and weary Fair,
Lost among the hills.
You would give your own two hands
To save your ancient, sorrowing lands.
“Well, isn’t this a pretty dish of fish?”
Foxbrush started and looked down at his feet. To his surprise, he found a pair of golden eyes shining up at him, made luminous by the glow of firefly light.
“I followed my quarry this far,” said the cat, speaking in the voice of a man, “only to find the trail cold here. Tell me, mortal, have you seen a girl with reddish hair pass this way? I think I should like to scratch her eyes out. If it’s all the same to you, of course.”
10
OR PERHAPS I WON’T SCRATCH HER. Perhaps I will merely give her a disapproving stare. I haven’t quite decided.”
“Who are you?” Foxbrush stumbled back from the cat, which he could barely see in the night, other than those luminous eyes. In the past many months he had seen more than his fair share of Faerie beasts and had become uncomfortably comfortable with their strangeness. But, while this cat was far from the largest or most threatening encountered, he somehow frightened Foxbrush more than even the giant Kasa.
For Foxbrush felt, though he could not say why, that he knew this cat somehow.
“I’m far too busy to deal with stupid questions,” the cat replied, turning his head this way and that, delicately sniffing the air. “I pursued the mortals deep into the Wood only to lose their trail entirely. But I picked up hers again eventually, and she led me here, of all places. The South Land. Yet again. I can never seem to be rid of this place.”
The cat’s voice was surprisingly bitter. He stood and padded around beneath the fig trees, sniffing some more. He came to the place where Nidawi had sat with the dead body of Lioness, and his lips curled back in a hiss. Then he fixed his gaze upon Foxbrush.
“What do you know of Nidawi and her murdered companion? I can smell that you were here at the same time as Nidawi and the red warrior. Are you harboring a murderer, mortal?”
“Daylily is no murderer,” Foxbrush said with more courage than he felt.
“Daylily, eh?” said the cat. “So you know the warrior girl.”
The cat stood up then and disappeared into the form of a tall man with a golden, shining face that was visible despite the darkness. It was an angry face, its anger carefully masked in disdain. He looked Foxbrush up and down and, like a cat posturing for battle, began to circle him. “And who are you to be mixed up in the affairs of Faerie queens and murderers? You don’t seem either important or threatening. Why should they both come here to you and not trouble to kill you? They both are so dragon-kissed keen on killing things, each other included. Why not you?”
That was when Foxbrush knew. He didn’t know by virtue of any logic or reason. One cannot stand in the presence of immortals and expect reason to be of any use. He knew in a place far deeper, a place of childhood memory that understands the strange orders of worlds more completely and more simply than reason ever will.
“You’re Bard Eanrin,” Foxbrush said.
“Got it in one,” said the cat-man dryly. “But that’s not the question, is it?”
“I . . . you . . . You’re not blind. You have both your eyes,” Foxbrush said. A little stupidly, he thought afterward with some embarrassment. One can’t hope to simply strike up conversations with legends and come across as remotely intelligent, however.
“That I do,” said the cat-man, his teeth flashing what might have been a smile but was probably a snarl. “And a nose. And a mouth. And an irritable humor this evening, a humor that is urging a certain amount of biting, scratching, and . . . and, yes, I’ll say it. Rending. Rending is the order of the evening, in fact. So if you would prefer not to be rent, answer my question and . . .”
Eanrin stopped. He had drawn closer to Foxbrush by now, swelling up with anger threatening to burst. But his nose was still at work, and he smelled something he was not expecting, something that made him step back, his brow sinking into a frown. His voice altered to a softer tone, a little frightened even, when he asked, “Why are you on that Path?”
Foxbrush looked down at his feet. Once more he saw nothing. And yet Nidawi, Lioness, and Redman had all remarked upon the same thing. So Foxbrush shrugged. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I can’t see it. I wish I could but I can’t.”
“You can’t see that?” Eanrin’s frown deepened still more, dominating his shining face. “And you thought I was blind?” He crossed his arms. “I’ll not ask you your name again, so I suggest you confess it now and we’ll move on from there.”
Foxbrush fumbled in his shirt and removed the scroll Lionheart had given him. “If you please, Bard Eanrin,” he said, “I am the one to whom you sent this message.”
The poet-cat was not one to be easily startled or put from his ease. Thus the expression of surprise and then incredulity that filled his face was even more disharmonious with his golden face than the scowls he wore. “I’ve sent you no message,” he said.
Foxbrush nodded, changed his mind, and shook his head. “Um. Actually, I think you did. Through my cousin. Leo. Prince Lionheart, that is, of Southlands. Except he’s not really prince anymore; I am. But still he, well, um, he—”
“Please!” said Eanrin, and if he had been a cat, his ears would have gone back. “I can’t bear drivel at the best of times, and I’ll not hesitate to say that tonight is not the best of times. So choose your words with care, mortal.” His mouth flashed a smile that did not touch his eyes. “I don’t know this Prince Lionheart of whom you speak, nor this Southlands, unless you mean this dragon-kissed—oh, pardon, I do mean Lumé-blessed—South Land in which we now stand.”
“I do. I’m . . . I’m out of my time.”
“Sylphs?”
It never ceased to amaze Foxbrush how easily the people of this era accepted the idea of time wandering. “Yes. Sylphs.”
The poet-cat sniffed, his lip curling a little. “Fancy that.” His face was now all smiles, but they were smiles of extreme dislike, for cats are quick to form impressions and not so quick to change them. “Either way, I don’t know you, and you don’t look the sort I would ever bother knowing. So speak up and explain.”
“Um,” Foxbrush said, and when Eanrin’s hand twitched, he blurted out hastily, “Please, you wrote this a long time ago, or . . . or . . . or perhaps you will write it very soon now, since I don’t suppose it’s happened yet, and you had it sent to me, and I’d like to know, um, if you please—”
Cursing various bits of dragon anatomy (including but not limited to teeth, tails, wings, and spines), Eanrin snatched the scroll from Foxbrush’s trembling hand and pulled it open with enough vim that, hearty though the parchment had proven over time, it tore on the edges. His eyes darted back and forth, up and down, seeming to read the verses in no particular order, and rather faster than an ordinary man might. In mere seconds, he grinned over the edge of it at Foxbrush and said, “I never wrote this.” Then he looked at it again, and the grin slid away, leaving in its place a puzzled frown. “But . . .” He scratched an ear thoughtfully, closing one eye as he did so. “But this is Imraldera’s hand.”
Foxbrush, who did not understand the significance of this statement, stood silently and waited. The cat-man read the scroll a third time.
“It’s not my usual style.” Eanrin’s face became a degree more thoughtful. “Though I have been experimenting with ballad stanzas recently, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility or chance that I might turn my hand to a piece of this type. Given the right inspiration.” His voice became very bitter as it fell from behind his smile. “I don’t see a word about my lady Gleamdren, however, so there’s really no telling.”
“Please,”
said Foxbrush humbly. “I just want to know what it . . . what it means.”
“How should I know?” the cat-man snapped. Then, after a brief battle with himself, he shook his head and spoke in a kindlier and almost melancholy tone, if a being such as he could know melancholy. And his smile softened into something more sincere, if sadder than he had yet worn. “It’s addressed to this Shadow Hand of Here and There, so I would imagine, if I did—or do, in the future—send this to you, you must be he. Is your name, perchance, Shadow Hand?”
“No,” said Foxbrush.
“Pity. But that is the way of poetry. Poetic names are not always what you might expect. They are often titles as much as anything. And from the sound of it, this Shadow Hand will, as it says, ‘give his own two hands’ to some Faerie queen and thus acquire his name—”
He broke off suddenly and stood with his mouth open, staring at Foxbrush without seeing him. Then he said, “By my king’s black beard!” and held the scroll up close to his face, murmuring in his silken voice:
“The wolf will howl, the eagle scream.
The wild white lies dead.
Tears of Everblooming stream
As she bows her mourning head.”
The poet’s head came up, and for the first time he fixed Foxbrush with a gaze of real, earnest interest. “This has come about,” he said. “I saw these events. I saw the wild white killed and the tears of the Everblooming.”
Foxbrush felt his heart shiver. “It’s . . . it’s all coming true, then.”
An eager light sprang to Eanrin’s eye. “My dear fellow, you have brought us a foretelling of the future! Written in Imraldera’s own hand! She must have known you would see me, and she sent this back to me. I wonder why she . . . but no. It doesn’t bear considering.” He let the scroll roll up with a snap and squeezed it in his fist. “She—or I—or someone, anyway, has sent us a foretelling. Tell me, if you are from the future, do you know how this will play out? Do you know what this means?”
Foxbrush tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Useless mortal,” said the poet, though without malice. “We’ve got to find this King of Here and There, that’s certain. And he, from the look of it, will defeat this Mound and the warriors in some epic and appropriately poetic manner.”
Suddenly the night all around them exploded in a cacophony of voices. Strange, inhuman, cawing, rasping, braying, thumping voices, all speaking the same words in their variety of languages.
“We will help! We will fight! We will drive the Mound away!”
Even Eanrin started at this, and he and Foxbrush both turned in place as the darkness came alive with dozens of shining fey eyes. The Faerie beasts, the surviving totems, drew in upon them in the orchard. They swung in the boughs of trees; they crawled upon their bellies; they flew upon dark breezes; they trod the grass in solemn prance. Animals and yet not animals, with eyes more alive, more alert than any mortal’s could ever be. They drew in and they glowed with their own immortality so that the darkened orchard became nearly as bright as day.
And out from their midst stepped Nidawi in her fiercest aspect, beautiful and vicious with teeth bared.
“Lumé,” muttered Eanrin. “This is highly unexpected.”
“King of Here and There,” said Nidawi, stepping forward and making a reverent sign with her hand before Foxbrush. “I have gathered the totems of this land. They do not wish to perish by the hand of Cren Cru’s warriors. They do not wish to see another kingdom fall to the Parasite. They will help you. Lead them!”
“What? Him?” said Eanrin, turning to Foxbrush, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead in surprise. “This squinty-eyed mortal?” Then he glanced down at the Path beneath Foxbrush’s feet. “Well,” he said, then, “Well, well.”
Foxbrush faced Nidawi and looked upon his future in her eyes. He whispered the words from the poem he had by now committed to memory.
“Bargain now with Faerie queen,
The Everblooming child,
If safe you would your kingdom glean
From out the feral wild.”
He said in a voice that he wished to be strong but which quavered a little despite his best efforts, “Nidawi, I do not know that I can do as you ask. But I will try.”
“If you try, you will do,” said Nidawi. She stood alone even in that crowd, walled in by her ancient sorrow. But deliverance stood before her in the form of this mortal. Had not the time of fulfillment come? Had it not been spoken to her on the shores of the Final Water? “I have been promised.”
She stepped out through the veils of her own small world of grief, and she took Foxbrush’s hands in hers.
“King of Here and There,” she said, “Twelfth Night is upon us. Lead the beasts to Cren Cru’s Mound by the Path I showed you. Kill my enemy as you must.”
Foxbrush had aged since looking upon the Mound, since holding Daylily in his arms. He had aged by many years in one night, and though his face was still young, his eyes were much older. He looked by that light of Faerie eyes very like his uncle Eldest Hawkeye before the dragon poison corroded away his might.
“I will do what I must,” Foxbrush said, and he did not resist when Nidawi, still holding his hands, drew him toward her. But when she leaned in to kiss him, he turned his head to one side and said, “No. Please. I have to ask you—I must bargain with you.”
“Bargain?” said the Everblooming, her lovely head tilted to one side.
He nodded. “What will you do should I succeed? Should I destroy your enemy and put your people to rest once and for all . . . will you do something for me?”
“Of course,” said she. “I will marry you.”
“I . . . I would rather you protected Southlands.”
The Faerie beasts watching whispered together, a rumble of growls and caws and hisses. And they and Eanrin all watched Nidawi to see what she would say in response.
Nidawi studied Foxbrush’s face. Thinking did not come easily to her ever-shifting mind. She was much better at spontaneous feeling and overwhelming emotion. But she liked this mortal, for all his faults, and for his sake she made the effort and thought about his request, however briefly. Then she replied:
“If you destroy my enemy, King of Here and There, I will see to it that no Faerie beasts will enter your kingdom unbidden again. All these you see gathered, they and I will build gates such as you have never before seen. Beautiful gates.”
“Can you do that?” Foxbrush asked, his eyes suddenly lit with hope. “I mean to say, have you built such things before?”
“No. Why would I?” She laughed then, a faint echo of the merry, manic laughter in which she had gloried before the death of the white lion. “But I can do anything I set my mind to! You kill the Parasite, little king. Let me handle my side of the bargain!”
She squeezed his hands then, and Foxbrush shuddered. His face was pale and gray in the growing light of day. “I will give you both my hands, Nidawi,” he whispered. “To seal the bargain.”
“What?” She made a face, sticking out her tongue and wrinkling her exquisite little nose. “What would I want with your hands? I’m not one to collect such gruesome trophies! Keep them, mortal. Use them well and kill my enemy!”
“But . . . but the story. I’ve read the story. I’m to give you my hands to save—”
“I don’t want them.” Nidawi dropped her hold on him and stepped away, older and fiercer than she had been a moment before. “I want Cren Cru dead!”
“Dead! Dead! Dead!” said all the Faerie beasts together.
“Lead us, king!” cried Nidawi. “Lead us to our vengeance! Lead us to our victory!”
And all the immortals raised their voices in such a shout that those in the village heard and fled to their homes in terror at the sound. The orchard itself shook with the thunder of it, and even Eanrin, caught up as he was in his anger and disappointment, found his heart beginning to race, thrilling at the power of those eager voices pledging
faith and fight to this one humble mortal.
But Foxbrush, when the noise at last subsided, responded quietly, “Um. Can someone please point the way?”
11
FELIX HAD KNOWN a number of interesting experiences in his young life. He had survived more than one dragon attack (a feat few could boast); his body had been taken over by a goblin enchanter while he suffered under the influence of dragon poison; he had lost his mind and many times nearly lost his life, only to be healed at the last. He had held the sword of swords, the mighty Halisa, in his own two hands and with it brought low the Bane of Corrilond herself (though, granted, he hadn’t known it was the Bane of Corrilond at the time . . . or Halisa either, for that matter).
All this to say, Felix was a lad with adventures aplenty under his belt. But that did not make this current adventure any more palatable.
For one thing, it didn’t seem sporting to hide behind a door while the baroness summoned one of her guards inside, then to hit the guard on the back of the head with a decorative urn the moment the door shut behind him.
The guard fell like a toppled oak and lay inert amid shards of urn.
A knock at the door, and the pretty lady-in-waiting called from without, “Is everything all right, my lady?”
The baroness stepped swiftly forward and used her voluminous skirts to hide the fallen guard just as the door opened and the lady peered in. Felix, holding bits of broken pottery in his good hand, his sprained wrist pressed to his chest, ducked out of sight. The baroness said lightly, “Oh, everything is fine, Dovetree, my pet! I dropped an urn, that is all.”
“Over Sergeant Fleet-Arrow’s head?” asked Lady Dovetree, who was no fool. She looked pointedly at the booted feet sticking out from under the baroness’s skirts.
“How clumsy of me, yes?” said the baroness with a laugh. “Now do run along, dear, and let no one disturb us.”
Lady Dovetree raised an eyebrow but curtsied and departed, shutting the door with a firm click. Felix sprang out of hiding and turned the key in the lock. He then remembered how to breathe and stood gasping, pressing a piece of pottery to his heaving chest.