Starflower (31 page)

Midnight fell as the Black Dogs stepped from the Wood. Eanrin shuddered, glancing from right to left as they drew alongside him. But their eyes were fixed upon the girl; Eanrin might as well not have existed. One of them sniffed loudly, raising its ugly nose. Then it howled, a low, mournful sound.

Imraldera turned. With swift motion of her hand, she ordered the monster silent. It crouched to the ground, its body quivering, a black, voiceless shadow.

The strange party made their way along the isthmus, Eanrin avoiding the water lapping on either side as much as he avoided the Dogs. These faded into little more than phantom wraiths, invisible against the night. The mortal world was no place for beings such as they.

The journey must have been long, but they followed a Faerie Path, which carried them swiftly across the distances. At length they stood at the far end of the isthmus, and towering above, sheer and impassable, were the mountains. Eanrin sensed what these were in the Far World of Faerie. Giants! Stone giants! Nothing more than rock and silt in this mortal realm of dust and decay; yet their nature remained at their core.

“The Circle of Faces,” the poet whispered. He knew now where they were. Turning to Imraldera, he exclaimed, “You are from the Land Behind the Mountains! I thought no living creature dwelled therein, not anymore.
What a marvel you are, my girl, to have found your way out! Even I know that nothing enters and nothing leaves the Hidden Land.” He scratched his head then, making a face. “Which will make things a bit difficult for us, yes? If we are to venture in, I do hope you know the way.”

She nodded. With firm steps that belied her quailing heart, she led the poet and the Dogs to that place where the rivers escaped from their subterranean way. The rushing water nearly overwhelmed the isthmus. But Eanrin spotted what the receding tide slowly revealed: a small stretch of dry land leading into that dark cavern. It was narrow indeed, but it looked solid enough. He touched Imraldera's arm and pointed. She nodded, unsurprised.

Then she turned to the Dogs. They had hidden themselves from Eanrin's eyes, deeming him useless. But Imraldera saw them clearly. She signed a command she had used for Frostbite and her father's lurchers: “Stay.”

The Black Dogs sat. One growled. One faintly whined. Otherwise, they were like stone.

“Are they not coming with us?” Eanrin asked, uncertain if he was relieved or dismayed. After all, as dreadful as the monsters were, they were a known dread. Whomever the Flame at Night had sent them to face—whomever she could not face herself—was unknown and therefore more to be feared.

Imraldera beckoned to the poet and, moving carefully, crossed the land bridge into the cavern. Eanrin followed, leaving behind the Midnight to step into darkness deeper still. But this, at least, was a natural dark. He smelled earth and dirt, and thought for a moment that Glomar would have been much better suited to this mission.

Suddenly the hair on his neck stood on end. A sensation of utter cold wafted over his spirit. Freezing and smothering, it was familiar, too familiar. Rather than a flowing, living river, he smelled the stagnant stench of the Dark Water.

“Bravely marching to Death's door,”
he whispered, then cursed violently, his voice echoing and reechoing in the dark. “What have we done?”

His fey eyes struggled to see in the dark, but he could just discern Imraldera's form a few steps ahead as she felt her way along the cavern wall. “Wait!” Eanrin cried, leaping forward and grabbing her arm. He
felt her whole body convulse with terror, and she whirled about and gripped his arms as though holding on to life itself. He peered into her face and realized that her mortal eyes could see nothing in this place. She was walking blind.

“We must go back,” he told her.

She shook her head.

“We can't go on this way. I know this Path!” he insisted. “I've walked it before, though not in this place. This is the Path of Death!”

Her grip tightened for a moment, then relaxed, as though she forced her muscles to obey. She stepped out of Eanrin's grasp and turned back to feeling her way, her steps slow but firm.

“Imraldera!” Eanrin cried, hastening to keep up with her. “Don't you understand? You go to your own destruction! That's what it means to walk this Path. You will die!” A piece of his mind whispered,
I will die too.

But in that moment, he did not care.

This is what you have always feared,
he realized.
This is the final weakness.

He shook off the thought and reached for Imraldera again. She was beyond his grasp and moving swiftly. Two steps more, and Eanrin gasped in surprise. For they no longer walked Death's Path. Only a few paces before, without twists or turns, they had been on that inevitable road to the Dark Water. Now the darkness of oppression gave way to the natural darkness of underground, and the stench of demise was replaced with the smells of deep places, cold and dank but not fetid.

They were once more under the mountain. And they followed the Path of the Lumil Eliasul.

It was strange to walk Faerie Paths in the mortal world. In the Between or the Far World, it was as natural as breathing to be carried over those far stretches of land in a stride. In the mortal world, it was a nauseating sensation, and Eanrin often had to stop and let his head clear of dizziness.

In those times, Imraldera waited for him. She, for all her mortality, seemed less affected. Perhaps because it was her land. Perhaps mortals were bound to their demesnes, much like Faerie lords and ladies. Imraldera
was, Eanrin still insisted, a princess, and she would feel that bond as only those of royal blood would.

At last they left the caverns below the mountains and emerged, blinking and gasping, into daylight. They were both streaked with dirt and damp, but after their many adventures, this scarcely made a difference. Imraldera, who had been blind as they traveled underground, was obliged to stand for some moments, letting her eyes adjust. This gave Eanrin time to take in the world around him.

He was surprised by the freshness in the air, having expected yet again to be overwhelmed by mortal stinks. But it was as clear and heady to him as the breezes of Rudiobus itself, if warmer. He liked the smell of the forests growing here, the low shrubs and rich mosses. This was a good land.

But as they began to climb the mountains, still following the Path of the Lumil Eliasul, Eanrin grew uneasy. Something was wrong; something was false. Bald Mountain loomed above them, and Eanrin wrinkled his nose as the faint remnants of poison reached him. The Flame at Night had fallen here, he realized. This was the Near World mountain she smote after her plunge from the heavens. He saw the barren slopes where no living thing would thrive again; he saw the scorch marks upon the earth. Something much worse was amiss here, if he could but sniff it out.

Imraldera led him along the Path, up the dead mountain. They climbed into the freezing reaches near its summit, but the cold could not touch them on the Faerie Path. From that height, Eanrin beheld the Hidden Land for the first time: the green fields, the deep gorges wherein the rivers flowed, stretching to the far horizon and beyond sight.

“Your kingdom,” he said to Imraldera. But she gave him a puzzled look and shook her head. It did not matter. She was a princess, say what she would.

They picked their way down the far slopes of Bald Mountain. Imraldera's steps became more hesitant, and she stumbled dangerously once or twice. This was not a terrain on which to lose one's footing. Eanrin doubted she could fall so long as they pursued this Path, but he did not like to take the chance. He took hold of her arm, and she allowed him to assist her in the more difficult descents.

Her body shuddered in his grasp, and her dark face went ashen.

Eanrin stopped as though he had hit a wall. The scents of lies and deceits overwhelmed him, and he swayed where he stood.

“Lumé's crown!” he swore. “What is this horror?”

They stood on the slope just above the Place of the Teeth. In the cold light of the sun, the red bloodstains upon the stones showed darkly. The Teeth tore at the sky, and from them Eanrin felt the force of the darkness holding the Hidden Land in its grip.

Indeed, Imraldera could be no princess. No one could rule a land like this. No one, that is, save a Faerie imposter.

Eanrin understood, suddenly, the power behind the curse that kept Imraldera silent. A Faerie beast had crept from the Far World and stolen this land to make a false demesne. He had set up these stones, fed them with the blood of sacrifices, and turned this realm of mortals into his hunting grounds. He had made himself a god among the weaker beings. Wrenching the land from their power, he had bound it to his spirit in ways it was never meant to be bound.

It was a breaking of the Old Laws, a crime against Faerie lords and ladies. A crime against all worlds!

Eanrin turned to Imraldera. Her arms were wrapped about herself, and she stared down at the dreadful stones. The poet looked at her scarred wrists, from which he had cut those cords; then he looked at the central stone. He knew, or guessed at least, what had happened. The Beast had demanded this girl as the next sacrifice. He would have taken her blood or . . . or possibly more.

Fury rose like fire in Eanrin's breast. He strode down to the dreadful stones and struck them with his fists. “Evil, evil curse at your birth!” he shouted.

Imraldera cringed and backed away. Did Eanrin, now that he knew of this place, also believe in the curse? He was not of this world, after all. Perhaps he understood the Beast. Perhaps he sided with the god of the Land and also pronounced women a plague of nature.

Perhaps she had no friend.

Kneeling, she took up a stone. She had come this far. If he, her only companion, turned on her, so be it. She would fight! Fairbird must be saved, and the Beast must meet his end. Eanrin could not stand in her way.

The poet turned, and his face was that of a fierce animal ready to tear into its prey. Imraldera's heart plunged to her stomach, and she braced herself, ready to hurl her stone as the cat-man strode back toward her.

Then he spoke: “The Faerie Beast will know we have breached his territory. It is the way of it, even in a false demesne. They set up protections on their borders, and they sense when those protections are broken.”

Imraldera's grip on the stone relaxed. She drew a shuddering breath and nodded.

“We must be prepared,” Eanrin continued. “I wish you could tell me everything. Curse the monster for taking your voice! But I can guess at most of it, I think. And some, perhaps, I do not want to know.”

He drew a deep breath and turned from Imraldera to gaze down into the Hidden Land. She could strike his head with her weapon. She knew where to hit so that he would fall senseless to the ground, never to move again.

She closed her eyes, whispered a prayer, and let the stone she held drop to her feet. She must trust someone. If she was wrong and Eanrin proved false, so be it. She would not live her life in constant fear of men.

Eanrin turned slightly at the crack of the falling stone. Again, he guessed at many things but chose not to look around. He had made his decision. He would see this adventure through, no matter what became of him in the end.

T
HE
LAND
WAS
BLOODIED
with war. Men fought brutal battles, brother slaying brother in a hopeless quest for supremacy. No man could reign supreme over this land that belonged to the Beast. The blood spilled by each warrior poured into the ground and fed the power of the dark god.

And the curse of silence held the women mute. Even if they dared think, “Surely there must be another way!” they could not speak it. They were slaves, shadows passing through the years of their short existences, unable to change what might be.

The season for campaigns was high, and the men were away at their wars. The cat bypassed the fields of blood as best he could, trotting through the villages instead. Every village was the same. Hollow-eyed women tended to the old men and the boys too young for battle as though they were minor gods. The cat would cozy up to one or another, occasionally receiving a pat for his purrs, once or twice a bite of meat. Usually he was repaid with kicks, however. These women to whom no kindness had been shown had little kindness to spare.

Eanrin searched each village with great care. Imraldera, once more scratching signs in the dirt, had been able to give him only a vague idea of what he sought. Through all the disjointed scribbling and a long guessing game, he had learned that he must find the king's village (though Imraldera had insisted there was no king, merely her father). To reach this village, he would have to cross four gorges and four rivers. He must look for the soil that was red and the house upon a hill. In that house lived a child and a . . . something. A cow? No. A lizard? No, no. A walrus? No!

“Not a . . . Iubdan's beard, not a dog!”

Yes, a child and a dog. Another dog. As though there weren't already dogs enough bound up in this adventure! The cat sighed as he padded his sleek way across the landscape. But Imraldera had been firm in this. He must find the house on a hill where a child and her dog lived. After a little guessing, Eanrin discovered that this was her sister and that Imraldera, above all, wanted to know that the girl was all right.

“But what about the Faerie Beast?” Eanrin had asked. “Are we not here for him? Gleamdren said Hri Sora sent you to find him. He will be aware that someone has breached his borders and may even now be looking for us. We must be wary!”

But Imraldera shook her head. The child and the dog . . . they were of first importance. The child must be safe. The Beast would come second.

Nevertheless, Eanrin insisted she remain behind and allow him to venture into the Hidden Land alone. “I won't be long,” he told her. “There are Faerie Paths throughout this kingdom, and not all of them are controlled by the Beast. I'll use those and be back before you know it.

“But,” he added with an earnest clasp of her hand, “if you see any sign of the Beast, promise me you will run. Don't wait for me. Just run. As fast as you can. Get out of this place and never return.”

Imraldera gave him a long look. Her face held an expression he could not read. If only he knew her language of hands and faces!

Then she nodded and patted his head as though he were in his cat form. When he started on his way, she stood at the Place of the Teeth and watched him, looking small and vulnerable but as brave as he had ever seen her.

What a creature this mortal maid was. What a spirit, bigger than life itself!

There had been no sign of the Beast as Eanrin made his way into the low country. He wondered if perhaps the Path of the Lumil Eliasul that Imraldera followed was imperceptible to the master of this demesne. That would be a bit of luck! If such were the case, Eanrin could take all the time he needed to search for that child and that dragon-bitten dog.

Crossing the rivers was the worst part. When he came to those, he was obliged to take his man's shape and, under cover of night, climb down into the gorge. There were forests in these gorges through which the rivers ran. To his surprise, when he inspected them, he discovered they were part of the Wood Between. How strange that the mortal realm would be so close to the Between and yet remain so hidden and separate from all other worlds.

But then he sniffed the rivers and realized: They were barriers. They were enchanted waters set in place long ago to serve as protection. While those within the Land could pass into the Wood and become lost, creatures of the Wood could not come out. Not so long as these rivers were in place.

He wondered how the Beast had gotten in. The rivers should have prevented his crossing into the world. But from the smell of the earth, the Beast had been here for centuries. Perhaps he had come before these waters flowed. Who could say?

Eanrin found canoes tethered to the shores of these rivers and, though he was no waterman, managed to cross through calmer waters and climb the gorges to the tablelands above. In this way he crossed all four rivers and came to the place where the soil was red.

So it was that an orange cat with a plumy tail strolled into Redclay at noon one day, head high like a reigning monarch surveying new territory. Other mangy toms gave him dirty looks, and one or two offered to fight. But he was much larger than any of these and soon sent them running. Queen cats hissed and hid from him. He didn't smell quite right. They were no fools; they knew a true cat when they smelled one. This one was certainly a cat, but he was so much more, and this they did not like.

But the people of the village ignored him. To them, he was just another
cat. So he passed as though unseen through their midst, searching for a child with a dog.

The difficulty was, there were many ragged little urchins living in Redclay, and more than a few of them had great watchdogs standing guard while their mothers worked. How could one particular girl be picked out of all of these? The cat sat awhile in the village center, pondering this question.

Then he realized: None of the girl children, mute as frightened rabbits, had dogs. Only the boys.

That should narrow his search, he decided. Imraldera had been quite clear on the subject. The girl he sought had a dog. Also, that girl lived up a hill.

Eanrin turned to gaze up at the house on the hill overlooking the village. It was impossible to think of it as the house of a king or princess. It was little more than a glorified hut as far as he was concerned, larger than the rest of the huts making up the village to be sure, but a hut no less. He trotted up the hill to investigate more closely.

He halted halfway. He smelled the Beast.

The smell was intense, that contrast of immortality against all the mortal surroundings. Not the immortality of Rudiobus, of Bebo and Iubdan; no, this was a different scent altogether. It was full of the blood of this stolen demesne.

The cat's ears flattened and his tail bushed to twice its size. Growling in his throat, he backed down the hill, staring at the house as though any moment he expected the Beast to emerge. He was just another Faerie. Not a queen or a king. But this Faerie had been drinking in the fear of enslaved subjects for generations, and this had made him powerful. Eanrin crawled back down the hill and took shelter in the shadows cast by the nearest hut. He disliked the notion of meeting this self-styled god face-to-face.

“How did you get caught up in this wretched affair?” he muttered to himself. “And for what purpose? None of this is your business. The girl is nothing—”

But that wasn't true. Eanrin closed his eyes, and across his memory flashed the light of a silver lantern in a dark place, and the deep eyes of
the Hound. He cursed and tried to shake the images away, to smother them back.

How long he crouched there debating his next course of action he could not guess. But suddenly his nose twitched as he caught a familiar scent. “Imraldera?” he whispered, sitting upright, his fear of the Beast momentarily forgotten. Was it her scent? No, it couldn't be! She had remained in the mountains, far from here. It was dangerous for her to come so near to the Beast. Paths of the Lumil Eliasul aside, he was sure to sense her!

Footsteps drew near, bare feet treading softly on the dirt. She was coming this way! Did she think to climb the hill? Did she think to face the Beast here, in the center of his realm? No!

The cat leapt out of hiding, springing into the middle of the road, his back arched and his ears back. A gray dog, its face whitened with age, snarled at him, but he hissed and darted at it with his claws. It drew back, surprised.

A girl stood just behind the dog. She looked down on the cat, one eyebrow raised, then put a gentle hand on the dog's back. “Shhh,” she murmured, though in her muteness she could scarcely make the sound.

Eanrin stared. This girl was not Imraldera. But she was the same age and the same height, and she looked enough like Imraldera to be her . . .

“Lights Above us!” the cat swore, though to the girl and the dog, it sounded like a growl. The dog showed its teeth, its ears back.

“Shhh,” said the girl one more time, gently patting the dog's shoulder. Then she proceeded on her way, carrying a heavy skin of water up the path to the house on the hill. The dog gave Eanrin a last snarl, then fell into place behind the girl, moving arthritically, for it was old.

“A girl and her dog,” Eanrin said, watching them go. “How strangely Time moves here in the mortal world.”

Keeping his body low and straining every sense for any warning sign of the Beast, he followed the girl up the hill. He found her around the side of the house, emptying her waterskin into a large trough. It was uncanny how closely she resembled Imraldera! The same cheekbones, the same nose. The mouth was different, though. It had a distinctly downward turn, as though she had never smiled and perhaps did not
know how. And her brows were drawn together in a line that looked as though it would never soften.

Imraldera, though run-down and worn to the bone with fear and sorrows, was free in her heart and spirit. This girl was a slave through and through.

She drew a sharp breath and looked up, her frown deepening. A shadowed form appeared in the doorway. The smell of immortality was stronger than ever, and Eanrin saw the Beast for the first time.

He wore a man's shape, but his wolf nature was impossible to disguise. It was in his face, in the way he moved, in every breath he took. Rapacious and wild, but cunning as well. His eyes were sharp as ice but yellow as fire. They were familiar eyes. Eanrin shuddered as he recognized the Black Dogs in that face. The resemblance was remarkable. But while the Black Dogs were mindless save to obedience, this man—this wolf—was a master of many fates.

He stepped from the house and approached the girl as she finished emptying her skin. “Fairbird,” he said, and Eanrin saw the girl tremble. “I enjoy watching you as you work. Does this bother you, child?”

What could she answer? This man was her god. But, Eanrin wondered, did she know? Did she realize that this person was the Beast holding the land captive? Or had the Faerie kept his true self secret? After all, mortal eyes do not penetrate so far. She might not be able to recognize the wolf in that face.

She could not answer in words. She bowed her head, finished her task, and set the skin aside. Then, as though wishing to pretend the man did not exist, she turned to go about her next task. But the Beast stepped forward and blocked her way.

“I look forward to this time,” he said, his voice low. The dog near the girl's feet growled, but he ignored it. “I look forward to your visits at my house. Do you know, I asked that you be sent to fetch my water and prepare my meals. I could have had any girl in the village. I asked for you.”

She would not look at him but stared at her feet. Her dog pressed against her thigh, still growling. What a pitiful creature it looked, so old and decrepit standing in the presence of ageless power. But it growled
in the face of that power and did not back down. The Beast bared his teeth at the dog. “Brute animal,” he snarled and raised his hand to strike.

The girl, however, threw herself on her knees and wrapped her arms around the dog's neck. Eanrin was surprised. He hadn't thought the little maid capable of demonstrating such passion. But she clung to the dog, burying her face in its gray fur, waiting as though she expected the Beast's blow to fall on her instead.

But the Faerie stepped back, a smooth mask hiding the anger on his face. “Fairbird, Fairbird,” he crooned. “Sometimes I fear that you are little more than a mouse. But you have some spark in you after all! Not as
she
did, though. Not as she did . . .”

He said no more. The girl got to her feet and, still without looking at him, motioned her dog to follow and fairly fled down the hill. Whatever tasks she had meant to complete were forgotten now in her desire to get away. And the Beast did not stop her. He watched her instead, and the look on his face was hungry indeed, but also frustrated.

As lovely as Fairbird was, she was not her sister.

Eanrin, his body flattened to the ground just out of sight, watched the scene and trembled at what he saw. Imraldera had made him promise to do as she asked. First, he was to find the child with the dog. He had done that.

Then he was to tell the Beast that she waited for him at the Place of the Teeth.

But how could he do that? He saw the look on that monster's face, and he knew what it meant. He knew what fate awaited Imraldera should the Beast set on her trail again. He would run her down for sure! His was the nature from which the Black Dogs inherited their hunting instincts. And if those mindless beasts were lethal, surely their father was worse by far!

“She travels the Paths of the Lumil Eliasul,” Eanrin whispered to himself. But would it be enough? Perhaps if he gave the Beast his message and then fled with all speed across the Land. If he reached Imraldera first and gave her fair warning. Her plan was suicidal. But what other choice did they have?

He didn't have to tell her.

His tail lashed at the thought. He could return to her up in the
mountains and tell her the child was dead. He could tell her there was no point in continuing this madness because it was too late. Then they could run away together, back into the Wood! She need never revisit this dreadful land, never face that monster again.