Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (23 page)

It wouldn’t be difficult, the way the people of Var avoided her. Not even the empty-headed Boy would tag along after her, for he had disappeared since the unicorn led him away. She dared not contemplate his fate too closely; she could only hope he was all right, somewhere in the secretmost places of Var.

“He’s made quite a beauty of you, hasn’t he?”

Varvare startled. In all the long hours she had sat beneath this statue, it had never directly addressed her.

“You would make an interesting queen.”

The princess bolted upright, staring up at the statue. For half a moment, she saw the pure white marble, the image of a goddess, the elegant work of an angel. But she shook that sight away impatiently, tossed aside the veiling enchantments, and looked at the truth that lay underneath.

The statue was crudely carved in black, flaking stone, shaped as though by the fingers of a clumsy child.

“The humility of a chambermaid couched in the body of a princess. An interesting combination indeed.”

Varvare got to her feet, swiftly tucking her work out of sight. The statue laughed and twisted on the roughhewn pedestal, feet like claws clutching at a perch.

“Don’t worry, little rose-spinner! No one has heard my voice in centuries. I won’t be telling your secrets.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” said the princess, backing away.

“Neither do I.”

And the ugly face closed its mouth and was as silent as though it had never spoken. Varvare stood staring up at it, and she couldn’t decide if she had invented the whole exchange or not. Perhaps she was losing her mind like the Boy. Or perhaps she’d never had a mind, and everything she had believed about her life was false, and the truth was the harsh, hideous world in which she now found herself. A world ornamented with enchantments, like a gilt sepulcher filled with rotting bones.

When the statue did not speak again, Varvare hesitantly took out her handwork.

Beloved, call for him,
said the wood thrush, far away yet ever present.

Varvare growled, her beautiful mouth twisting into a grimace. “Still singin’ that song, are we?”

Trust me. Call for him.

She clenched her fists. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. I will
never
call for Prince Lionheart.”

The unicorn in the depths of Var stirred, skin trembling across his body, and he turned his watchful eyes for a moment away from the still form of Vahe to the borders of Arpiar. Palace Var shivered on its foundations, just slightly, so that the courtiers within did not notice.

But an enchantment not of the king’s making shot from Var’s hall and sped across the blighted plains, breaking through the boundaries into the Wood Between. The silver stream of it, invisible to most eyes, flew past the Hunter’s face, and he saw it. With a cry he turned to catch it, but it frayed like old rope as it went, dissolving so that he could not trace it back to its source. Gnashing fangs, he tore after the enchantment, praying that it would not vanish entirely before he discovered where it led.

Vahe, sheltered within the Boy’s body, felt the tremble of his kingdom, felt the flying of that stray spell. He let out a moan that rattled throughout the cavernous Village of Dragons, then spread wide his arms and snatched what he needed before he sped back to Arpiar, snarling as he went, dragging his queen and a dragon behind him.

And somewhere in a far demesne, high in a tree, a young man frowned suddenly as something wrapped around his heart and clung there. For a moment he forgot the danger prowling below in an overwhelming sensation of regret and resolve. He almost dropped to the ground to continue his quest then and there, and only a sharp growl from the Tiger prevented him.

All this passed in an instant. Varvare, unknowing, continued her work at a furious rate.

“So don’t ask me.”

“Who the devil are you?” Lionheart cried, breaking twigs away in an effort to get a better view across to the other tree.

“Who do you think I am?” the stranger snapped.

“How should I know? Where’s the cat?”

“Ha! You’re blinder than I am.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

The stranger, ignoring this last comment, put his hand in his pouch. “Here. I retrieved this for you.”

He extended his hand, thumb and index finger pressed together, obviously offering something, though Lionheart couldn’t hope to reach it. “What is that?” he asked.

“Your hair.”

“My
what
?”

“Your hair. The one you so blithely handed off to the goblin dealer! You’re lucky you weren’t transformed into a toad for your idiocy.”

Lionheart’s jaw dropped, and he stared at the stranger with the patches over his eyes. “Cat?”

“NO TALKING!” the Tiger roared, and Lionheart and the red-clad man clutched their tree trunks. “No one speaks unless Ragniprava gives permission! I am master here, and I cannot bear idle chatter. Why else do you think I banished all living creatures from these lands?”

Lionheart’s gaze traveled from the Tiger, to the stranger, back to the Tiger again. Then, with widening eyes, he shot a last glare the stranger’s way and hissed through his teeth, “It
is
you!”

“SILENCE!”

The stranger who was sometimes a cat shoved Lionheart’s hair back in his pouch, then made sharp shushing motions with his hands, scowling for all he was worth. The Tiger got his wish as a deep quiet fell over that part of the emerald forest, interrupted only by the panting of Ragniprava himself. Even the waterfalls across the valley had ceased their laughter and watched the goings-on with watery eyes.

Lionheart tried not to move, though his left foot, tucked up under him, was going numb and a branch dug into his side like a dagger. His mind whirled with possibilities, but all of them ended with the snap of enormous jaws, perhaps heralded by a swipe of gargantuan claws. That, or a long fall with an abrupt conclusion.

The cat-man across the way wasn’t any help. He moved about in the branches of the other tree, nimble as a squirrel, not making a sound, though his long arms and legs should have been snapping twigs and rustling leaves with each movement he made. The Tiger paced, huffing great breaths between his teeth. The sun passed overhead and began its dip toward the horizon, and Lionheart wondered what it would be like, spending the night in a tree. And whether or not he would topple out when he finally nodded off.

Suddenly, Ragniprava spoke. “I’ll not climb up after you. Such does not befit a lord of my stature. You’ll have to come down.”

“Many thanks for the thought, mighty lord,” the cat-man said with a trace of a smile. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon stay where I am. The view of your realm is quite marvelous. Is that Goldstone River below us, perchance? Nasty character, that River, quite the libertine, they say! I do hope he’s not been playing the fool with your lovely waterfalls.”

“I grow weary waiting for you to drop.”

“Not so weary as I shall grow hanging on!”

The Tiger sank down on his haunches and puffed his whiskers. “If we must wait, you will have to amuse me.”

“I should think we’re amusing enough, dangling like baubles from these branches.” The cat-man swung about like a trapeze artist, still without making a sound. He did not move as a blind man should. Lionheart shifted his numb foot, cursing as blood rushed back in a million pinpricks.

The Tiger eyed them both, shifting his gaze from one tree to the other. At last he said, “I’ll make you a deal, trespassers and ill-doers. If you amuse me, I’ll let you down and host you in my own home for supper.”

“
For
supper or
as
supper?” the cat-man asked.

The Tiger only smiled. “Will you make a deal?”

“I do not doubt,” the cat-man said, tilting his head shrewdly, “that I could amuse you, mighty lord. Am I not Eanrin, Chief Poet of Iubdan Rudiobus, Knight of Farthestshore, bard and storyteller, devotee of the fair, the only, the most glorious Lady Gleamdrené Gormlaith, cousin of Iubdan’s wife? Perhaps you have heard of me.”

“Eanrin!”
Lionheart nearly dropped from his perch then and there.

But Ragniprava only licked his lips. “Proof is in the doing, little cat,” he said. “Sing us a song, and if I am amused, I’ll let both you and your mortal friend down. What is more, I’ll not eat either but treat you both to my own royal hospitality. You have the word of Ragniprava.”

Eanrin grimaced but quickly changed it into a bright smile. “The mighty lord is most generous—”

“
Bard
Eanrin?”

“—how can I do aught but oblige?” With those words, the poet stood up on his branch, supporting himself with only one hand on the trunk, and gave a twirl of his red cape. “For your listening pleasure, Lord Bright as Fire, I give you a sonnet composed in ancient days, before the moon’s children fell. ‘In Splendor’s Vault Thou Art!’”

As Lionheart looked on with sagging jaw and the Tiger gazed through half-lidded eyes, Iubdan’s Chief Poet sang:

“Fair Gleamdrené, in splendor’s vault thou art

Shining lone and sweet among the flow’rs of night.

From all thy sisters thou must stand apart

As Hymlumé outshines the imrals bright.

Like priests of old, in sacred reverence I

Will spread thy fame across the distant shores.

Thy praises ring from depths of sea and sky,

From mountaintops to sweeps of lonely moors.

Ever I, with heart unchangeable,

Deep adoration swelling in my breast,

Will walk far pathways for thy praise to tell,

Wand’ring always in divine unrest.

My one desire to sing till my last breath

Devotion’s fire and then to pass in death.”

The song ended, and the poet bowed his head and pressed his free hand to his heart. A poignant silence followed.

Ragniprava yawned.

Lionheart had seen one or two bored audiences in his days as a performer, had lost many a crowd to a series of yawns. But not once had a yawn been so full of huge, pink tongue and the light of orange sunset glaring off long, sharp fangs.

In a surge of panic, he pulled himself upright and, deftly swiping the Chief Poet’s tune, burst out with:

“O brother mine, it’s not my fault thou art

Whining lowly underneath thy bed tonight!

Did I not tell thee if thou threw that dart

The hound would turn and give thy rear a bite?

Sniff and snort, no sympathy have I

For one who interrupts Old Masher’s snores.

Thou got’st what’s coming, so blubber on and sigh,

Then up and at ’em! Thou canst do my chores.

Thou sayest nay? Don’t think thou’lt weasel out!

That is unless thou cares not if I tell

The pretty girlie next door all about

How thou and Masher get along so well.

I thought thou’d see my point. Here is my broom.

I’ll leave thee now to dust and sweep the room.”

Eanrin turned with open mouth gawping toward Lionheart, his golden hair bristling like a cat’s tail. “Of all the—” he began but was interrupted by the Tiger’s laugh.

A tiger’s laugh is a horrible thing, in many ways more horrible than a tiger’s roar, and the emerald forest of Ragniprava trembled and huddled into itself at the sound. But as the Tiger laughed, he stood upright on his hind legs and melted into a tall man with dark skin and wildcat’s eyes, clad all in orange and white and black. He wore a turban set with tiger-eye stones, and a huge sword hung from his belt. His fingernails were long and curved, and they glinted when he clapped his hands, exclaiming:

“Magnificent! Magnificent, my boy! The look upon that poet’s face when you began to sing is worth more than both your lives! I don’t remember the last time I was so well amused. Indeed, good poets both, you must do me the honor of visiting my house. Come, come, Eanrin of Rudiobus, and tell me the name of your mortal friend!”