Dragonswood (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

T
HE CROWN JEWELS
! Garth had struck me as an outlaw from the moment I saw him. How had he fooled me, fooled all of us? Garth or Bash or whatever his true name was, was no more than a common thief.

When he quit the cave, I followed him down the snowy ravine and up again, fighting through the thorns behind him.

The time we’d hidden from the king’s troop on the road? The man hadn’t done it to defend me; he’d done it to protect himself!

I kept him in my sights for an hour as I worked up the courage to confront him. I didn’t get the chance. He was suddenly accosted by seven knights of the realm. They surrounded him with such speed he’d no chance to defend himself. Next they made him mount a horse. A part of me wanted to rush out in his defense, but the other wanted him to get what he deserved. Just before they rode off, Garth spotted me through the greenery. He looked somewhat stunned to see me. Before he glanced away, he shook his head, warning me to stay hidden.

The royal troop rode off in swirls of snow and mud, Garth’s dark hair clinging to his cheeks. He’d warned me not to show myself, but I couldn’t let him go so easily. I darted through the wood after the troop. The horses’ easy trotting pace in the thicker wood turned to a canter as the trees gave way to wider paths. The captors rode too far, too fast. At long last I gave up the chase and stood, breathless in the falling snow.

I hadn’t written Garth a good-bye letter. Pointless now. His name wasn’t even Garth. He’d lied to me from the start.

I wandered deeper in the wood, paying little attention to my steps as my mind repeated the same words over and over.
Garth. Bash. Huntsman. Thief. Garth. Bash. Huntsman. Thief.

Three days I journeyed north. DunGarrow drew me toward itself. The tugging sensation was stronger with each step as if I were in an invisible river.

At first the foothills seemed farther and farther away as if I chased a moving land, but on the third day, Morgesh Mountain loomed ahead. Snow melted under a warmer sun, falling from the boughs in slow, heavy drops. Even in my weary state, I sensed a difference in the air as if I’d crossed some invisible boundary and entered the fairy realm.

Reaching a small clearing on the third night, I fell exhausted. By my count it was All Hallows’ Eve—a night to keep watch. All manner of spirits are loosed on the Witch’s Sabbath when covens meet to sacrifice the innocent and seethe a stew of human bones. I was wary to be in Dragonswood on such a night. It took a long while to light a small fire in the damp, even using the last of the parchment I’d taken from the study. Finally small flames licked the torn page and caught the kindling.

As I squatted, damp and shivering, holding my hands out to the fire, darkness weighed down over the world like a hushed, black wave about to fall. I was far from humankind, yet I felt I was being observed like an insect under a mage-glass. I glanced about. No eyes glared from the woods. I heard familiar scuttling noises of small forest creatures and the dry, dusty sound of flitting wings.

Still I sensed something else.
Who watches?
I looked left and right
.

Then in that hour light came, thrown like a ball to the base of a tree. One circling flame falling, then another, and another. I screamed as the light orbs piled up on all sides. Heat washed over me, drying my damp clothes to the stiffness of brown leaves. The rushing sound of flames hushed all else in the night wood. In brightness, I was lifted, swung, paraded through the forest on waves of living fire that did not scorch or burn, but sang beneath me:

Eshkataa breelyn kataa. Bring her in, her in, her in.

Fairy bound in human skin. Bring her in, her in, her in.

PART THREE

Fey Folk and Foul

Chapter Twenty-two

L
ET ME GO
! Put me down!” I shouted as the company of will-o’-the-wisps bore me over the night wood. Mighty in number, they flew on and on, all heat and light and whirring speed.

They raced me toward a castle that appeared at first to be made entirely by nature’s own device, rising in a series of gray-black pinnacles against the mountainside with a waterfall riving it in two and gushing right down the middle. The scalloped terraces on the pointed towers were edged with green. The ferns were all a-dance in the swirling mist sent by the fury of the central waterfall.

My frightened screams were as nothing to the whirring of the wisp wings, and soon the rushing water drowned out all other sounds. I was flown through an open window in one of the many towers. They careened down a maze of hallways to a large room with a central, steaming pool, stripped off my stinking clothes, and threw me in the water. I thought I’d drown till I extended my legs and found I could stand in the shallows. Making me sit again, the tiny fairies washed my hair.

Straight from my bath they flew me naked through more passages leading down to an inner room with one wall made entirely of hives stretching floor to ceiling. The wall hummed with what I supposed were bees. The whole of it was the glassy gold of Tupkin’s eyes. In the middle of the room a plump, milky-skinned woman sat on a throne made of vines.

I did not think the woman was a fairy; she was like none I’d spied anyway. White-haired, white-browed, and white-gowned besides, she seemed bleached of all color. The leaves sprouting from her chair looked vivid green by contrast.

Dripping wet and shivering, I faced her. I’d crossed into the fairy realm. Trespassed. Was that why they’d stripped off my clothes? Had they brought me here to torture me? I held one arm across my breasts, and one hand covering my most private part.

The woman appraised me without pity. I near fainted then and there.

“Turn about,” she said. I could barely hear her over the humming bees.

“First, my cl-clothes, please.” My teeth chattered. I tried not to whimper.

The woman’s gown swished about her ankles as she got up to pluck a needle hanging, point down, from the ceiling. In her chair again, she repeated her command, this time with a sigh. There was no anger in her voice and no love in it either. Afraid to cross her, I turned about as I was told, covering my behind as best I could when my back was to her, then bringing arms in front again to face her. “What are you doing? What do you want?”

“Mind me and we’ll get this done quickly.”

She had power I could sense from where I stood. Even now my flesh had begun to dry in the heated room. White as snow, this woman was all heat. She turned her attention to the glassy hives. “Grass green,” she mumbled. Pricking herself with the needle, she let out a little snarl of pain before pressing the bleeding finger into the wall. A long needle-thin green line bled across the glassy hexagonal orbs. Transfixed, I watched as it branched in all directions. It was like a map with a tiny blood-fed river crossing a golden landscape.

Then the green-winged insects flew out and swarmed overhead. Hundreds on hundreds. They looked like bumblebees but for their longer legs and strange color.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Do they sting?”

She laughed. The swarm descended. I flung my hands up, waved them off, then turned and ran down the long passageway. A few will-o’-the-wisps followed me out, though not enough to shed any real light. The green swarm was in chase. The woman shouted from her room. “I’ll call the flits back. Go naked to the fairy king if that’s what you want, half-blood!”

“Fairy king?” I paused, blushed at my condition, swore, and raced back inside. She’d called the insects flits. I’d not seen or heard of flits before. Why had she released them? The woman pointed to a flat stone pedestal three inches off the floor. “Stand there. Hold your arms out a little.”

“What for?”

“Do you want a gown or not, Tess?”

She knew my name. “Y-yes,” I stammered. “A gown, please.”

“Hold your arms out. No, not that much. Yes, that much. Now be still or be stung!”

The humming noise was deafening as the flits swirled down in a winged wheel spinning silken green threads from their abdomens. With wriggling legs they wove soft cloth about my neck and shoulders. Spinning down each arm, in a tiny windy gale that tickled as they wove shimmering green sleeves.

“Oh, beautiful,” I said all in a breath. I made to scratch a tickle and screamed. One of the little beasts had stung my forefinger. It throbbed.

“I said be still.”

“I am!” I shouted, and was stung again, this time on the neck. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I froze then and there. Two angry stings were enough for me, if all the flits should sting…

The woman watched me cry; seeming satisfied at last, she told me, “I am the fey called Morralyn,” she said. “Mistress of the Hives.

“Gold to set it off,” she said, her forehead wrinkling with concentration. She pricked her finger, fed the hives, and new flits swarmed and spun, adding golden patterns to the green.

They fell to the floor when done. I could not tell if they were dead or only sleeping, but as I touched the silky cloth I saw my green gown had the same golden stitchery I’d seen Mother wearing in my dream the first night I slept at the king’s lodge. This was the very gown. What did it mean? Was it myself I’d seen and not my mother? I whispered what I’d said to Mother in the dream.

“It’s you,” I said, blinking back the tears.

“Hungry?” asked Morralyn.

“I… I…”

The hive mistress sucked her pricked finger and frowned. “Did I waste my flits on a dull-wit?”

“No. I am hungry, mistress, thank you.”

“Good,” said she. “You’ve made me late to the feast as it is.”

Chapter Twenty-three

W
E MADE OUR
way through the long corridor. Few torches burned along the walls, but will-o’-the-wisps flew ahead for light. In the busy hallways we were greeted by fairy children running to and fro with food platters. Each waif stopped to bow, holding the trays steady as they did so. Mistress Morralyn dispatched them to their duties with a nod. Climbing a spiral staircase, I thought of what lay ahead. Would I meet my father at last? What would I say to him here in the fairy kingdom? He’d not come to me in my world. Left me on my own for seventeen years. Would he even wish to see me?

“I’m not ready,” I blurted. “My hair’s still wet.”

Morralyn drew back. Her chest swelled, then she blew a stream of warm air. The hall torches sputtered in her wind and I broke into a sweat. My hair is thick and curly, often taking an hour to dry, but her breath nearly crisped it.

“There,” she said. “Ready?”

I had no excuse now. The last and longest passage opened to a Great Hall. A clear stream rived the room right down the middle. Fairies used the flower-spangled bridge to cross side to side.
I’ll cross the bridge just like the girl in the tale “The Whistler.”
I paused a moment.
Would God I won’t return to the human world an old woman after a hundred years have passed.
Mistress Morralyn urged me across the running water.

Crowded feast tables lined both sides of the enormous room, snaking through a high archway all the way out to the meadow. Only days before I’d been with my friends and Garth, and now here I was, about to dine with the fey.

I’d never seen such beauty or such variation. My fingers itched to draw them, even more to paint them in full color. All were richly dressed, yet it was not their clothes that captivated me, but their vivid faces, their smooth skin that varied from a rich black to light brown to a creamy pale (though Morralyn was in extreme the palest of all). Grandfather had said fey folk live hundreds of years, yet with exception of the smallest children who raced about in twos and threes playing with the will-o’-the-wisps, and the older children serving the repast, I could not begin to tell their ages.

As we moved among them, I scanned the Great Hall for my father. I was sure I would know him at once. I cannot say how. I checked the highest table, where the fairy king was slitting an apple. He was blond-haired, rosy-cheeked, and merry. He’d surrounded himself with beauties, a short, pale lady on his left, and a taller, dark-skinned lady on his right. Mother was blond like him, my hair was curly brown.
Not my father,
I thought. The bearded king leaned right, kissed the taller lady on her cheek, and raised his goblet to her. All the fairies in the room held their goblets high.

The lady was glowing. “Is she the fairy queen?” I asked.

Morralyn said, “For tonight.”

“I don’t understand.”

Morralyn urged me onward. Ladies turned their heads as we passed. They hadn’t a care for me, but many tugged the hive mistress’s sleeve, begging for a new gown. She ignored them one and all.

As many fey dined without as within. Knowing how cold I’d been outside, I wondered that they should choose to eat outdoors, but these were fey folk, accustomed to forest life. And although a frigid breeze blew through the meadow, my silky gown kept out the cold. I noticed no one wearing cloaks against the night, a testament to Mistress Morralyn’s art and to the flits’ shining weave.

Three deer stepped round the tables, regal in their gait, the males’ antlers adorned in green leaves and red berries. There were foxes too, and wolves, which frightened me more than a little, but not as much as the brown bear scratching his side against a tree. The fey folk seemed fearless in their company, and indeed one small boy had the gall to order the bear about, saying, “Get out of my way, ya great oaf!” To my surprise, the bear stepped aside. I remembered the bear in Poppy’s dream. She’d been right; here the bears came right up to you.

Morralyn sat on a pink-cushioned bench under a spreading oak and took a platter from an impish boy. Behind her bench I rocked on my feet. How could I find my father in such a crowd?

Then I saw a man’s back, and started. The dark hair and broad shoulders were like Garth’s.
It’s not him. You know he’s been locked up.
Still I went for his table. The fey man turned just before I reached him. His striking face was more handsome than Garth’s, but I found his unworldly perfection less to my liking. I shied away, circling back to Morralyn.

An urchin, beaming and filthy, brought me a platter stacked with food. I eyed the bright orange cheese suspiciously. There were no farmlands in Dragonswood that I’d heard of.

“How came you by this?” I touched a wedge.

“The farms near Oxhaven.”

“Stolen?” I whispered. In Harrowton farmers came to market complaining of missing eggs, or cows milked dry; they’d blamed the fey for their troubles, but I’d not believed the gossip.

Morralyn stuffed cheddar into her mouth. “Stolen, if you like, but cows milked by fairy hands never sicken.”

She chewed thoughtfully, washed the cheese down with wine, and banged her chalice on the table. The empty chalice rang like a bell. A girl raced up puffing; she carefully poured Mistress Morralyn’s wine, then filled her second cup with honey. No one else seemed to be drinking honey, but then, Morralyn was plumper than most.

Why hadn’t I seen him yet? As I took my seat on the bench, four minstrels passed playing pipes and mandolins. A sweet song, if a little haunting, that made me wish I could hear as well in my left ear as my right.

I’d not yet taken a bite. Eating fairy food caused one to be fey-struck.

Morralyn eyed my platter. “Eat, Tess. You’re a fey man’s daughter. It won’t enspell you.”

I tried the wine first. I’d had an overpowering thirst; the coolness of the drink addressed my jangly nerves even as it lightened my head. I drank more, sighed, then tried one of the little cakes. I’d never tasted such delights. The round-faced maiden to my left with steel-gray eyes and bluebells in her dark hair looked me up and down as I ate, her lip curling as if my human smell offended. She leaned in a little. “I know you,” she whispered. “I saw you on the cliff.”

My mouth full of cheese, I peered closer. I remembered her too, though last time I’d seen her she was flailing in the old dragon’s claws. So the dragon
had
brought her here to DunGarrow. “It was dark that night, but I saw you also.”

She’d been burned before the dragon flew in. Were her legs very damaged? The fey had helped her, no doubt, and she was well enough to join the feast, but I’d yet to see her stand. I’d have asked about her burns if it weren’t so callous to do so.

“I am Tess,” I said.

“Tanya,” she said with a nod. “Half fey,” she added in a whisper. We looked at each other. I wondered what her story might be, how long she’d known, what the realization meant to her. Had she longed to come to DunGarrow? Had she heard whisperings? Felt strange tugging? But I couldn’t ask her such things here.

By now many tables were deserted and folk were dancing. All the harder to find Father, I thought glumly. A motley juggler who’d swiped a stack of empty platters from two urchins tossed them in the air, first three, then four and six. Throwing out his hands, he let all fall in a loud crash. The fey children screamed, but the juggler laughed and snapped his fingers. Clickety-click the platters mended themselves and leaped into neat stacks. The fairy children clapped, the juggler bowed, his red curls bouncing like springs.

When the juggler left, I saw my father at last, and no mistaking. He was the tall, broad-shouldered man in belted leather tunic and dark breeches, dancing with a lovely dark-skinned maiden in a shimmering purple gown. As Father turned his lady round, my heart sped. My curling hair is his, as are my green eyes, also my oval face and thick brows, which accentuate his merry eyes but hunch broodingly over mine.

“There you’ve marked him,” said Morralyn.

“He looks as noble as the king,” I whispered.

“It wasn’t long ago Onadon
was
our king,” she said. “But Elixis rules now.” She pointed through the torch-lit archway into the Great Hall where King Elixis dined. I’d known him for the king at once when we’d passed through the Great Hall.

My eyes were on my father again.
Onadon
. I heard magic in the name.
Onadon of the water. Onadon of the forest.

Morralyn took the uneaten food from my platter. I didn’t care. Here was my true father, the one I’d wondered about since I’d learned Mother’s secret. I wanted to go to him. Greet him as a daughter greets a father, but he’d not yet looked my way. Lithe on his feet and laughing, he danced with a new partner now. The fey folk changed partners often, but never mind that, my chest ached just watching my father, and my heart felt too large in my breast.

Morralyn drank honey and said in a sticky voice, “If you look for some special affection, child, you are all too human.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fey men are fathers of all just as fey women are mothers of all.”

The tune changed, Onadon switched partners again. The fey children dashed about, most now clearing the tables, stacking platters one upon the other in dangerously steep piles. “Don’t fey men know their own children?”

“They might. Does it matter?”

“Matter? Yes it matters!”

Morralyn gave a little huff and licked her fingers to capture the last crumbs on her platter. “You have lived too long with humans,” she said. “We should have brought you here years ago.”

“Why didn’t you then? Why let me grow up apart from all of you? Instead you abandoned me to be raised by a brute.”

I stopped. I wouldn’t bare any more of my troubles here. Tanya scooted away from me, disturbed by my outburst, but Morralyn looked unimpressed.

I tried to steady myself. “How can a man not know his offspring from another’s when his own wife bears them?” I asked.

“Fey men do not own women, nor do fey women own men. Wedlock is a human custom.”

I wanted my father to stop dancing, to turn and look at me with kind eyes, then tenderly cup his hands over my shoulders and draw me to him. I wanted him to hold me and welcome the girl he’d lost, the daughter he’d longed to meet but could not until now. Still he danced, and did not look around.

He’s only thirty paces from me—a short walk.
I stood, wavering.
I will go to him, curtsy, and meekly say, “I am your long-lost daughter, Tess.”

I could not move my feet.

Onadon’s new partner danced with her back to me. Morralyn had made her an exquisite gown embroidered in red and pink roses. The pale yellow bodice matched the fey girl’s hair. I could see her gown was much finer than mine. Why had she been favored so?

Onadon spun his pretty partner round.

I gasped and ran.