Shadow Hand

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  Even as he spoke, his eyes lifted unwillingly to the tree branches swaying above him as the wind creatures passed through, shushing leaves and breaking twigs, chattering among themselves. Despite himself, Foxbrush heard and understood each word.

  “It’s not as fun as the Fiery One.”

  “It does not billow as that one did.”

  “And it’s not so red.”

  At first, the horror of talking breezes was too much for Foxbrush, and he cringed and clutched the hair at his temples. Then he realized what they had said.

  “Fiery One?” he muttered. “Red . . . Daylily?”

  In a rush, his own fear was forgotten, and he addressed himself to the tossing branches (for he could not see the sylphs themselves). “I say, have you seen my lady Daylily?” He felt the fool indeed and blushed. Did he, after all, expect a breeze to answer?

  Lionheart would.

  The thought niggled at that corner of his mind he disliked admitting existed; the part of him that measured himself against Lionheart and always, always found himself wanting. Foxbrush scowled and, firmly pushing his wind-blown hair down onto his scalp, demanded in a voice he hoped was heroic:

  “Tell me, beings of air and . . . and . . . windiness! Tell me where the Lady Daylily is! Tell me if you have spied her in this dark forest!”

  The sylphs convened upon an oak’s stout limb, lined up like so many curious children at a shop window—or so many equally curious vultures at a dry watering hole—and stared down at their new playmate. One of them pointed.

  “Is it talking to us?”

  “I think it must be.”

  “Does that mean it loves us?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s a bit boring, don’t you think?”

  “Shall I pinch it?”

  Foxbrush heard each word as it rang through his ears to his still-protesting brain. Then the oak branch groaned as though under enormous stress. Foxbrush had just time to gasp “No!” before the sylphs descended upon him, pricking, pulling, smacking, plying, and laughing at every squawk he made. Foxbrush fled into the forest, and the sylphs battered him from all sides as he ran. The Wood laughed and pointed, and this pleased the sylphs so that they redoubled their game, squealing like a playful tornado. Foxbrush ran until his feet bled, without any thought for direction, and would have been swallowed up by the Wood entirely.

  But where he ran—though he did not see it—a Faerie Path opened up at his feet, always just one step ahead of him. Without his knowledge or will, he pursued this Path in loops and twists, bypassing all manner of terrors he did not know to avoid. And the sylphs whooped and giggled, as unaware as he, fully occupied by the fun of their new toy.

  Their laughs turned to screams in an instant, however, when a roar shattered through their midst. Following the roar, a streak of white sent the sylphs tumbling one way and Foxbrush tumbling another. He saw nothing clearly, for the roar had all but blinded him with terror. He fell with a crash, curled up in a ball, chin tucked to his chest and arms over his head. The voices of the sylphs faded swiftly:

  “It’s the Everblooming!”

  “Fly! Fly! Flee!”

  The echoes of that roar pursued them until all dissipated into silence.

  Silence fell, as dreadful to Foxbrush as the recent cacophony. He remained where he was forever . . . or possibly for a moment, Time being a fickle friend in the Between. When at length he could bear to uncurl and sit upright, his heart pounding a death march in his throat, he was as pale as a northerner, his eyes wide black circles on his face.

  The sylphs were gone.

  Another with more woodcraft might have seen the enormous, claw-tipped footprints crushed into the ground and tearing the turf in places, but it was just as well Foxbrush did not; otherwise, he would never have managed to get to his trembling feet.

  He stood, swaying and dizzy, and stared around. The Wood, no longer amused, stood in solemn disapproval, and he could almost have believed the trees folded their arms.

  He took a few futile steps. He still did not see the Path opening at his feet, and even if he had, it probably would not have comforted him.

  “Hu-hullo?” he called tentatively. He could not say to whom he called. In that moment, he was simply anxious to hear something, even his own voice.

  He certainly did not expect an answer.

  “Go away!”

  He froze in place. Here, as in most of the Wood he had seen thus far, the ground was overgrown with tall ferns that acted as an effective canopy for whatever might lurk beneath. The voice had come from low to the ground, but everywhere he looked, he saw only green fronds. Still, whoever it was had not sounded especially threatening. Emboldened, Foxbrush tried again. “Um. Who’s there, please?”

  “I said go away!”

  “I . . . I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m simply wondering if you might, as it were, tell me where I am?”

  The ferns to his left rustled with sudden violence. Foxbrush turned and, of all things, saw a child rise up like a mermaid from the sea, except not so beautiful. The child’s face was wet and a little slimy with weeping, weeping that emphasized rather than softened its vicious expression. It had long hair that was either black or green, hard to tell for the moss grown in it. Its eyes were red, probably from its tears.

  The child stomped through the ferns with the ferocity of an angry elephant, though that ferocity was tempered somewhat by the loud snorts it made as it rubbed its runny eyes. Its voice rose in petulance as it neared. “When I say go away, I mean Go! Away! ”

  “I-I’m sorry!” Foxbrush cried, putting up his hands and backing away, for even a child can be intimidating in the Between. “I didn’t mean to offend, I simply—”

  “Go! Go, go, go!” the child cried, wiping its nose with a long swipe of its arm, its face wrinkling up into the hideous expression one makes when trying to suppress more tears.

  “Please, little boy,” Foxbrush begged, “I don’t want to—”

  “LITTLE BOY?”

  The child’s shriek turned into an explosion that knocked Foxbrush several yards back until he struck a fir tree whose prickly arms cushioned his fall. He sank to the ground, his eyes staring for all they were worth at the place where the child stood. Only there was no child anymore.

  In its place stood the most gorgeous young woman Foxbrush had ever seen.

  A white lion leapt into the space between her and him, its mouth a red chasm of snarling.

  10

  BEFORE, THE WOOD HAD LOOMED THREATENINGLY. Now it shivered as if threatened.

  All because of a little bronze stone? Daylily wondered and once more lifted the stone on the cord around her neck, attempting to look at it. It was difficult to see at the pace she was obliged to keep, dragged along behind Sun Eagle, who held her fast by the hand. And the stone swung like a pendulum, almost as though it did not want to be seen. It made her slightly sick.

  It is very beautiful.

  Was it? Very well, perhaps it was. Or perhaps it was just a lump of bronze melted down in some unknown furnace so that the original emblazoned image on its face was completely unrecognizable. Was the stone once a flattened disk? If so, that was a long time ago. Was that possibly the etching of a profile still visible through the melting?

  She was very beautiful.

  Daylily could not have told how she knew. But even as she trotted after her bloodstained guide and dropped the bronze stone so that it landed back on her breastbone, over her heart, she knew that whoever’s face had once graced that melted disk had been beautiful indeed. Beautiful and powerful.

  And the Wood, looking at it now—at the face or the memory of the face or perhaps simply at the Bronze itself—drew back and gave the warrior and the fire-haired maiden clear passage.

  “Tell me, Crescent Woman,” said Sun Eagle suddenly as they went, “do they speak of Elder Darkwing’s son in your day?” His voice was quick and low, as though he feared both to ask the question and to hear the answer.

/>   “Who?” Daylily asked. And that was answer enough in itself.

  The warrior ground his teeth and shook his head, angry at himself for even thinking the next question that sprang to his lips but asking it nonetheless. “And the Starflower. Do you know . . . does she yet live?”

  “Starflower?” Daylily frowned. “I couldn’t say. I’ve known many Starflowers. The Eldest’s wife, Queen Starflower, she—” For a moment, Daylily could not speak. But somehow the feel of the Bronze above her heart gave her strength. She was safe. She was not at the mercy of that which lived inside her. She was master of herself. “Queen Starflower died when the Dragon came.”

  “Dragon? Queen?” It would be difficult to say which surprised the young warrior more. He drew up sharply, and Daylily ran into him, staggering back a pace or two and treading on her dress. Sun Eagle rounded on her, his eyes narrowed, his face fierce. “Don’t lie to me, Crescent Woman. You are of my kin. Your blood and my blood flow from the same source. Do not lie to me.”

  Daylily might have been afraid once. But she had entered the Wilderlands of her own choosing; she had danced with sylphs. And she wore the Bronze around her neck. What had she to fear?

  A distant part of herself observing from some secret corner watched in surprise as she put up a hand to touch the warrior’s bloodstained face. He, surprised as well, flinched but did not otherwise move, standing cold as stone under her fingertips. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Whose blood is that?”

  For a moment she thought he would not answer. For a moment she thought she did not want him to answer.

  Then he said, “Dinhrod’s. Dinhrod the Stone.”

  “Who was Dinhrod the Stone?”

  “My Advocate.”

  That distant part of Daylily told her to drop her hand. That distant part of Daylily urged her to back away, to run. That distant part of Daylily felt the danger in those strange words.

  But that part of Daylily was bound and paralyzed. She had no reason to heed it now.

  “Did you kill him?” she asked and her voice did not tremble.

  “No,” Sun Eagle replied. “But I watched him die.”

  Glorious death. From which springs life.

  Daylily stepped back, her hand still frozen in the air as it left his face. She was cold but did not know it. The Bronze over her heart warmed her. She asked without fear, “Who is my Advocate?”

  “I am,” said Sun Eagle. “I found you; I chose you; and you will not disappoint. You have taken the Bronze.”

  He turned then and led on through the Wood, depriving Daylily of the chance to ask her final question.

  Will I watch you die?

  She picked up her skirts and hurried after her strange guide. A bird sang, and she glanced briefly aside from her path, glimpsing the flash of a pale, speckled breast in the darker shadows.

  “I’m here,” sang a silver, trilling voice.

  Daylily scowled at him. Then she turned her face away and refused to look, no matter what it might say. Soon the outward portions of herself no longer heard it at all, and what the inner portion heard no longer mattered.

  They followed the trail left by the sylphs as they had dragged Daylily along, though Daylily herself did not recognize it. Nor did she recognize the five silver-branch trees growing close together, reaching out tender arms to touch one another with the comfort of kindred. They seemed almost to shine in that gloom, and the Wood stretched forever around them on all sides. The trees meant nothing to her now.

  But Sun Eagle stopped. He stared at those trees, his black eyes searching for something he could not quite see. When Daylily glanced at him, she saw . . . what was that expression? Hunger? Yearning?

  “I have searched long and hard for this gate,” said Sun Eagle. “I have wandered the Between with my brethren, and I have looked upon many worlds. But I have never found what I sought till this day.”

  Daylily shuddered at the sound in his voice. It was too close to tears, and she could not bear tears, not from him. “I see no gate,” she said.

  “You have not yet learned how,” he replied. He guided her with gentle force toward the trees, and they seemed to quiver at his approach. Daylily thought that, if they had not been caught by roots, they would have sprung up and run.

  The two trees in the center of the cluster formed a delicate, curling arch with their branches. Sun Eagle led Daylily until they stood between these trees, and Daylily looked out through the thin veil of leaves.

  She saw the Near World beyond, and the wall of the gorge.

  This woman who had trod the Paths of Death alone and unguided, who had breathed in more poison than a mortal should and still lived, held herself together like the foundations of a crumbling building. Nothing outward betrayed what she felt.

  But the bronze stone over her breast seemed suddenly to throb with a pulse more eager than her heart.

  The Near World!

  “Please,” Daylily whispered softly. “Please, don’t make me go back. Not to my world.”

  “You say that now,” Sun Eagle replied. “But then you will be lost too long, and you won’t be able to return. Even when you wish to.” His face was as sharp as his stone knife, and he would not look her way when she turned pleading eyes to him. “We must return, Crescent Woman. We must return while we may!”

  They stepped through the silver-branch trees, passing from the Wilderlands and the forever-reaching Between back into the world of Time and decay.

  The light was too bright, and the heat of midday crushed down upon them. Daylily shaded her eyes, blinking, and her vision slowly adjusted. She saw that she stood before the gorge path she had descended. She recognized its twists and turns from but a few hours before, though perhaps it was more clearly cut than she recalled.

  “The Land,” said the warrior. His voice was a breath, a prayer. Daylily turned to him, surprised by the emotion she heard in his tone. It was too savage to be joy. How long had he wandered in the Between?

  Then something struck her that she should have noticed right away but that her mind had refused to see. Or rather, refused not to see. The mind is a powerful thing, and it will do all it can to organize the world into understandable forms, even deceiving itself if it deems deception necessary.

  But Daylily, however skilled she was at self-deception, could not avoid the sudden truth that overwhelmed her. Her gaze lifted up to the edge of the gorge, to the tablelands above. To the empty place in the sky where Swan Bridge should arch in remarkable majesty.

  A scream caught and strangled her, and she gasped for air.

  “What do you see?”

  Sun Eagle watched as fear fought with self-control for mastery of Daylily’s face. But she stood silent, gazing up at the lip of the gorge, and if he could discern nothing else about her, he saw disbelief in her eyes.

  “The—” Her voice broke, and she swallowed to wet her tongue and throat before continuing. “The bridge is gone.”

  “Should there be a bridge?”

  “Yes.” Daylily traced an arch in the sky from gorge edge to gorge edge, over the Wood. “There. Swan Bridge.” Then she shook her head, and a little color returned to her deathly face. “No. No, we’ve come out wrong. You’ve followed the wrong trail. This is not where I entered. . . .”

  But she knew that wasn’t true.

  Daylily was many shameful things that she hid from herself and the world as best she could. But she was no coward. With a growl in her throat echoing the growl in her mind, she picked up her skirts and hastened from the shelter of the trees across the stones. Her wedding slippers, long since destroyed, offered no protection either from sharpness or from the heat of the sunburnt stones. Each step was agony, but this only made her quicken her speed. The warrior fell in behind her, and she heard him muttering even as they climbed the trail, their hands clutching the rope for support, “This was not here in my time.”

  Not in her time either.

  But no! She would not think of that! She wou
ld not think at all until she reached the tableland above. She heard Sun Eagle taking deeper breaths as they went. As they drew near to the end of the trail, she heard him say with sudden, painful eagerness, “It must be. It must be!”

  Then she stood at the top, exhausted, sweat drenched, her feet bleeding. But she noticed none of this.

  “Gone,” she whispered. “Everything is gone.”

  The warrior, come up beside her, turned slowly in place.

  All was wild, untamed, vine-draped jungle. A thickness and greenness and dreadfulness that Daylily had never before seen or imagined, full of the buzzing of insects, the not-too-distant screams of monkeys, and the caws of ground-dwelling fowl. Mango trees, untended, bore bounteous burdens of fly-eaten fruit. The air teemed with life and death and moisture.

  Through the thick tangle of vines a narrow trail was cut, leading to the gorge, beaten down by many generations of feet. This alone gave sign of human life in this young, feral land.

  And Daylily felt . . .

  . . . the surge of ravening desire. The taste of blood on the air.

  This is good country.

  “My world,” said the warrior. Suddenly his face broke as something between a laugh and a sob escaped from his heart. “This is the Land !”

  “This is Southlands,” said Daylily.

  She knew this landscape, or a ghostly image of it. But the jungle she knew had been cut back, tamed, fit into a mold of elegance and refinement. There might be the chatter of monkeys, but they were pet monkeys who lived fat lives in the queen’s garden or perched on the shoulders of their caretakers. There may be ground fowl, but they were stately, spoiled birds, trailing their long plumes of tails behind them across sprawling green lawns.

  There should be a path, yes, but not a narrow dirt trail. Where was the paved carriage road from the Eldest’s City across the grounds to Evenwell? And Evenwell, across the gorge, where was it? Lost in that thick, wild growth? Where was the gatehouse where the bridge keeper lived?