Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) (27 page)

“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 gently 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

T
HE
L
ADY OF THE
H
AVEN
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.