The Night of the Solstice (15 page)

“You mean,” said Alys, “that
nobody
else has ever been there? No one but her?”

“Three times since she found the pool the Chaos has welled up and flooded to the very edge here. The danger is always great. No one else dares go.”

Alys hung on to the side of the boat, head lowered, eyes shut. She knew what she ought to do. But she was wounded, she was tired, she had every excuse in
the world for not doing it. Arien herself had told her to stay. No one would ever know, or blame her.

Awkwardly, almost capsizing the boat, she tumbled out and floundered in the water toward the mud of the Zone.

“Come back! There is no need for
you
to go!” cried one of the rowers excitedly, and the other added mysteriously, “You have not been
invited
!”

Alys's answer was a shake of her head as she slogged through the mud in the trail of Arien's footprints. She could not explain it even to herself, but for the first time since Aric had held the Gray Staff to her throat her course was clear.

Arien Edgewater slowed as Alys reached her, and after one long searching look, she gave Alys the basket.

“Come, then,” she said.

All the way they walked the ground was the same: dark gray mud, sticky as tar, smelling of decay. Alys was ready to jump at shadows, but nothing moved except them.

The marsh and the boat were long out of sight by
the time they came to the pool. It was surrounded by flat gray rocks and surprisingly small. A bare inch or two of water lay on top of the gray silt that formed its bottom.

“The water seeps up very slowly, year after year,” said Arien Edgewater. “We try to be sparing.”

Alys knelt beside her. As she did, a wonderfully sweet smell wafted up to her, a clean, delicious smell that put the stench of the mud right out of her mind. She looked at the pool with new eyes, and saw that the water, though shallow, was clear as crystal. And clinging to the gray rock, with its roots in the water, was a little, low plant. When Alys gently stirred its dark green leaves with one finger she found hidden under them a flower, white in the moonlight, veined with silver. The blossom was no larger than her thumbnail.

All this time the fragrance of the pool drifted up to her, and when Arien Edgewater invited her with a gesture to bathe her face in it she obeyed eagerly. The water was icy cold and wherever it touched it left her feeling clean and strong, refreshed. The wounds on
her arms closed as a few drops fell on them. When she had finished, Arien gently took the limp serpent and coiled it in the water, which just covered it.

“I will come back every day and tend to it until it is healed,” she said, and Alys knew she would come, in spite of the danger, never touching the water herself.

“Why?” she said.

Arien Edgewater smiled. “Why did you come to the Wildworld?”

Alys looked down. “Someone had to,” she said slowly, “and …”

“And?”

“And … there wasn't anyone else.” Alys shut her eyes and took a deep breath of the pool's fragrance. When she opened her eyes again it was as if she were seeing Arien for the first time. “I have been very stupid,” she said, “thinking I could give up because I've been making mistakes. Making mistakes doesn't mean you're a failure, does it? It only means you're trying. And there are some things you just can't turn back on.”

“You
can
…”

“You can, but that won't make them go away. And you've got to turn around again sometime.” Alys sat back. “I know all this
now
,” she said. “When I leave will I forget?”

Very carefully, the elemental reached down into the little plant and snapped off the flower. Its scent was the scent of the pool. She laid it in Alys's hand.

“Keep this and remember,” she said. “It is called malthrum, and it will never fade. And now,” she added, “come back with me to my home, and rest.”

Alys touched a petal of the tiny flower with one finger. Then her hand closed around it and she looked up, steadily.

“I'm sorry,” she said, rising. “But I can't. I'd be grateful if you'd take me back to the edge of the marsh, though. You see, my brother and sisters are lost, and I have to find them.”

Charles had run until he ran into a tree.

For some time he'd been tripping over roots and underbrush, and now, as he disentangled himself from the low, twisted branches, there was no mistake. He
was in Elwyn's Wood. The shock of this realization, and the simple act of stopping, helped restore his senses. They shouldn't run anymore, they should sit down and figure out what to do next. He was surprised that Alys hadn't thought of that. In fact, where was …

The second shock was much worse than the first.

They had all been running together, falling together, picking each other up. But as the effort of running became torture he had focused only on himself. Now, he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard one of the others.

After a moment he shouted, “Alys?”

The silence that followed told him everything.

After another moment he began to walk.

He walked between trees to other trees. At their roots grew phantom orchids and bindweed, enchanter's nightshade and fairybells, and tiny ruffled mushrooms which glowed like foxfire. Nowhere was there any sign of a clearing.

Don't panic, he told himself. Don't panic;
whistle
.

He whistled his way along for almost two minutes before something whistled back.

Bird? Maybe. He stopped whistling in case it was the kind of bird that was attracted by music. Thereafter the silence was broken only by the crunching of dead leaves under his feet, and by the little shuffling noises behind him—or were they to the left of him? He began to walk faster. Now the noises were to the right.
And
to the left. And—

He almost walked into the girl.

Her pale face shone out of the mist. She had a sweet, wild smile, and the moonlight reflected from her eyes.

Rustling noises behind him. Charles turned hastily to see another girl there. This one had a hunting horn slung over her shoulder.

More of the smiling, dark-clad girls appeared. Looking into their slanted silvery eyes Charles was overcome by the sudden absolute conviction that he was seeing the Dirdreth.

“Um …” He gulped and tried to smile. “Excuse me. Excuse me—please—but I have to …”

The two nearest linked hands to bar his way. Instead of answering him they spoke to each other.

“What shall we do with him, crimson and saffron? Pluck him and make him a cushion to sit on?”

There was ringing laughter. Charles looked down at his yellow windbreaker and red shirt nervously. They were all holding hands, now, in an undulating ring around him. Charles turned round and round in his tracks, trying to confront each speaker in turn.

“Put him in earth, then, or put him in water.”

“Put him in limestone and teach him to wander!”

“Come, he's a pretty one—”

“Deela says keep him!”

“Give him a draught and don't trouble his sleeping!”

The circle began to revolve the other way.

“What shall we do with him, poor little mankin?”

A dozen voices rose in answer: “Take him to Elwyn! Take him to Elwyn!”

Laughing, singing, they surged around him, forcing him to walk, and then run, in the direction of their choice.

“But I don't
want
to—”

They took no notice of his protests. If he stumbled or slowed many hands bore him up. The girls ran like
greyhounds, as lightly and effortlessly as the wind. Charles had lost track of time when at last the hunting horn sounded and was echoed from in front of them, and the wild girls slowed. They parted ranks before him and he stumbled into a clearing.

Heavy, night-blooming flowers hung from the trees on all sides. There were dozens of elementals, watchful, half-hidden by the veils of mist. And in the center of the circle, between mist and moonlight, sat Elwyn Silverhair.

“Do please sit down,” she said, and smiled at him.

Charles felt fear give way to anger.

“I don't want to sit down!” he snapped. “I didn't ask to come here at all, and you have no call to keep me. I—I demand my rights!”

Elwyn leaned her head on one side, puzzled. Of all the creatures he had seen in the Wildworld, she was the loveliest—and the strangest. The human world could never have produced such perfect delicacy of feature, such liquid grace of movement. A faint, insubstantial light hung about her, haloing her every gesture.

“You don't want to sit down?” she said.

“All I want is to get out of these stinking woods!”

Laughter from the wood elementals.

Elwyn Silverhair looked more puzzled than ever. “But you came into these stinking woods of your own will,” she pointed out reasonably. “You might as well enjoy them.” With her own hands she took a jeweled cup and, dipping up water from a flowing spring beside her, offered it to him.

Charles, thirsty after all the running, hesitated. But as he reached for the cup, several things flashed through his mind at once, forming a collage rather than a series of impressions. The vixen saying, “Luring young men into the Wildworld and then dumping them back twenty years later.” The serpent: “You would be in peril of your life.” The legends of Rip Van Winkle and Tam Lin. And the wild, merry voices of the wood spirits: “Give him a draught and don't trouble his sleeping!”

His hand fell back. “No thanks.”

Elwyn laughed and tilted the cup to her own lips. The eyes which looked at him over the rim were as
blue as cornflowers, the same color as the jewels in the wide belt over her kirtle. She wore a small cap covered with pearls and sapphires, and beneath it the diaphanous veil of her hair was like moonlight.

“Well, now!” she said when she lowered the cup. “Who are you, boy, and what do you want in Elwyn's Wood?”

“I'm Charles, and I—listen, I'll tell you what I'm doing here! I'm here because of
you
!”

“Yes?” she said. Her lashes were as silver as her hair.

“Because of what you—
listen
. Do you know where Morgana is now?”

Elwyn thought. “No. I saw her some time ago, but … Do you like music? I do.” She nodded to a wild girl, who began to play a flute, all in a minor key.

“Do you realize what Cadal Forge is
planning
?”

Elwyn pursed her bright lips. “Cadal Forge spoke rudely to me once,” she mused.

Charles stared. “Did he? Did he really?”

“Perhaps I just dreamed it. Do you dream?”

“Have you understood a single thing I've said?”

“Of course I've understood a single thing you've said. You're a Charles and you're not thirsty. But perhaps you'd care for something to eat?”

Charles sat down and put his head in his hands. He was stranded in an alien world with a mentally incompetent midget—

“How old are you, anyway?” he mumbled.

“Old? Oh, I'm
old
. I've no idea, really. Why, do you think it matters?”

—with a mentally incompetent midget who didn't even know her own age. And no way of leaving. And who knew what might be happening to Alys and the others.

“You're not ill, are you? If you like I can try to figure it out.”

Charles raised his head listlessly. “Figure what out?”

“How old I am. It may take me awhile… .”

Charles sat up straight. Elwyn Silverhair was looking at him anxiously, hands clasped under her chin. The worst thing was that he was beginning to like her. Sure, she was out to lunch as far as reality was
concerned, but there was no malice in her and she was prettier than Bliss Bascomb.

“That's all right,” he said. Faintly ashamed of his bad temper, he leaned over to scoop some water out of the spring.

“Don't,” said Elwyn quickly, as he bent his head to drink. “Unless you
want
to be a fish, of course.”

The water trickled through his fingers as he stared at her.

The mist was thinning, and at the edge of the circle Charles spotted a newcomer to Elwyn's group, a young boy wearing breeches like Elwyn's maidens, but no shirt. He looked slightly less wild than the girls. As Elwyn spread a cloth and put out bread and cheese, Charles casually edged over to the youth and spoke out of the side of his mouth.

“Hey, look, do you happen to know the way out of these woods?” he murmured. “'Cause, you know, this place is pretty weird, and I've gotta go.”

The silence that followed was so long that at last Charles turned to look at his companion. For a moment longer the boy gazed at him out of cinnamon-colored
eyes without speaking. Then, with no warning at all, he threw back his head and howled like a wolf.

In three long bounds Charles was back in the circle beside Elwyn.

“Honey, or butter?” said she.

He sat down and put his head in his hands.

“Look,” he said, some minutes later. “I'm going to try to explain. There were some people with me, and we got separated. Maybe your friends here saw them?”

“Deela?” said Elwyn.

A copper-haired girl stepped forward. “Some time ago we saw three others. They were small but clumsy, mistress. Not unlike
him
, but less brightly colored.”

“Right,” said Charles grimly, and rounded on Elwyn. “Those small clumsy things were my sisters. And now I'm lost, and they're lost, and we're not even lost together. And the whole reason we're in this world at all is you. So”—belligerently—“what are you going to do about it?”

Elwyn offered him a piece of bread, saw by his expression that this was not sufficient, and tried again. “We
could sing and dance in the moonlight,” she suggested.

“No,” said Charles.

“We could listen to sweet music and count stars… .”