Shadow Hand

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  The Prince of Farthestshore smiled, but his voice was no less stern when he said, “Yours is not to reason the wherefores and hithertos. Yours is to honor your promise. Your enemy is dead. Now protect this nation from further Faerie invasion.”

  Nidawi looked for a moment as though she would like to protest. Then, with a sigh, she sank into the form of a child and dashed off, disappearing into the jungle. But her voice carried back for some time, calling, “Beasts! Beasts! Faeries of the Far! To me, to me, to me!”

  “Well, that should keep her occupied and, I do hope, out of trouble,” said Poet Eanrin, who stood with his back against a tree, watching all with a bored expression that belied the beating of his heart.

  The Prince of Farthestshore turned to him then. “My brother,” he said, “it has been some time since last we spoke. Will you walk with me?”

  If Eanrin had been in his cat’s form, his ears would have flattened. But he shrugged coolly enough and fell into pace beside his Lord. They walked together into the shadows, disappearing behind green leaves and vines. Daylily found herself alone. She wondered what the Prince might say to the cat-man. She wondered if he would speak to her. She could not say whether she desired or dreaded such an exchange.

  Foxbrush drew nearer, and Daylily pulled herself upright and began, out of habit, to school her face into the cold, calm mask she had worn for so long. But the wolf inside her shook her head, and she thought, Whom do I deceive but myself?

  She would not play the fool to her own games. Not anymore.

  So when Foxbrush approached the welcoming shade of the jungle, his ruined hands hidden behind his back, she smiled. The sight of her smile took him aback, and he stopped dead in his tracks, staring. His face, behind the beard, twisted into a variety of expressions, none of which Daylily could read, none of them an answering smile.

  Suddenly the Prince of Farthestshore stood before them, and they forgot each other and their fears in the far greater fear of his presence. For he was unlike anything they knew, and they could not, with mortal eyes, quite perceive him, not in a bodily form. But he stood there, more real than real, and they felt the brightness of his gaze upon them.

  “Come,” he said, and where he went, they followed.

  They walked through Southlands.

  They skimmed over jungles, lakes, rivers.

  They passed over fields and towns and villages.

  They flew like birds. They swam like fish. They ran like deer through the meadows.

  And still they walked behind the Lumil Eliasul, not daring to look at each other for fear of losing sight of him.

  And then he stopped, and they stopped as well. They saw him extend his arm, pointing, and they could not have resisted turning their gazes where he indicated even had they wished to.

  “See now, King of Here and There,” said the Lumil Eliasul, and he spoke to both of them in that moment. “See now what I have purposed for you.”

  They saw orchards. Vast, sprawling, ripening orchards, heavy with golden fruit, alive with birds and bees and . . . and yes, with wasps. These grew in a thriving land, a land that was not Southlands as either of them knew it, but which was Southlands at its heart, at the core of the nation’s spirit. And both of them, man and woman, felt in their own hearts the lurch of love, of kingship.

  “Do you see it?” asked the Prince.

  They nodded, unable to speak.

  “Will you remember it?”

  Daylily nodded. Foxbrush said, “I hope so.”

  The Lumil Eliasul turned to Foxbrush then and took his ruined hands. He held them tight, and Foxbrush felt strength entering his body, a strength beyond any he had known.

  “Now and Then. Here and There,” said the Prince of Farthestshore, and he spoke the words like a name. “This is the truth, and you will hear it, and I will cause you to remember. If you were always to see before you the future I have shown you here, the way would be too easy . . . too easy to ignore, to forego, for why would you need to follow it? And that would be the greatest disaster ever to befall Southlands.

  “Instead, I will send you back to that place and time where the air is too thin for you to see my distant purpose. And you will have to walk the Path a single step at a time, trusting that it will lead you safe at last. But I will send you the memory of my promise, and when the road becomes too difficult, you will think on it and you will keep walking, even as I have called you.

  “This is the truth, Foxbrush Fourclaw-son: The strength of your hands is the strength of mine.”

  Then the Lumil Eliasul let go of Foxbrush and stepped back. Daylily, watching all with hungry eyes, saw that the twisted fingers and roughly healed flesh were unaltered. But she saw something else as well.

  Where Foxbrush’s shadow fell, cast by the light shining from those vast, unending orchards, his hands were whole. Though mere shadows, they spoke the truth in strong fingers and sinews, well-knit muscles over delicate bones. And Daylily knew that this was the secret of this man she had known most of her life, but never truly known: He was made of more than her eyes could see. He was made of stronger, firmer stuff.

  “Shadow Hand of Here and There,” she whispered.

  Somewhere, from a great distance, a voice called. It was a lonely voice, completely lonely as only the wind can be, but without sorrow. It called with a dogged stubbornness that both Daylily and Foxbrush had heard before.

  Foxbrush! Where are you, Foxbrush? I am coming for you!

  The Prince of Farthestshore smiled. Then he called in answer: “This way!”

  The sylph, who had so long searched (without knowing how long, for time did not matter to its breezy consciousness), heard the voice of the Lumil Eliasul and let out a gleeful screech. Then it whipped and blew to this place that was neither in the Near World nor in the Far, nor even in the Wood Between. Summoned by its Lord, it skirted all boundaries of all worlds and came to this place of vision.

  “Aad-o Ilmun!”

  “And I thank you for it,” the Prince replied with a smile as the sylph, its form only just discernible to Daylily and Foxbrush, cavorted before him. “Are you ready to fulfill your promise to Lionheart?”

  “I am,” the sylph replied, eagerly dashing to blow amongst the treetops of the orchard, only to gust back in an instant to where the two mortals stood waiting. “I am ready! Are you Foxbrush?” it asked, turning to Daylily.

  “No!” said she hastily, and the sylph addressed itself to Foxbrush then, reaching out to snatch him up.

  “Come!” it cried. “Back to your own land! Back to your own time-bound world!”

  “Wait!” Foxbrush cried, for the sylph would have carried him off at once if it could. He turned to Daylily, and he found it suddenly difficult to breathe. She was so wild, so disheveled, and so strong, stronger than he had ever seen her. But she was weak as well, he thought, and there was a vulnerability in her eyes that he had not seen— No! This was not true. He had seen something like it once before.

  In the look she had given Lionheart the night he left her standing on the dance floor.

  “Daylily,” he said, “I won’t marry you.”

  She closed her eyes, though only for a moment. Then she looked at him and said, “I know.”

  “That is,” he hastened on, “I won’t marry you unless . . . unless it is what you want. Not what your father wants, or the barons or Southlands or politics or . . . or any of those fine excuses they’ve fed you all these years. I won’t marry you for those reasons, because I love you too well.”

  He put out his hand, and in that light she saw it as whole, just as the shadow it cast. “Come back with me. Help me save Southlands in whatever capacity you see fit. As my queen or as my friend. Either way I . . . I don’t think I can do it without you.”

  She caught his hand in both of hers. She said only, “Foxbrush!”

  Sometimes there is no need to say more. Especially when sylphs are catching you up and hurtling you across time and space and worlds. Sometimes the clasp of hands�
��the one strong, the other weak—is more than enough. For through the clasping of hands, the pulse of blood may be felt; and the equal pulse of love and the understanding of love without words.

  17

  MEANWHILE, LIONHEART FACED his imminent hanging.

  Twelve hours or so of living under the looming threat of death made the certainty of death no more palatable now. His heart beat a frantic pace in his throat as guardsmen hauled him roughly down the stone stairs of North Tower. He could hear shouts going up throughout the House as word of the baron’s rescue traveled.

  “Lionheart! Lionheart, I’m sorry!” Felix gasped from behind. Lionheart tried to look around, to catch the young prince’s eye. But he was struck in the jaw and told to face forward, and he did not have the strength to disobey.

  So, in the wake of the baron’s wrath, they marched at double-time down the stairs and through the Great Hall. The baron did not pause and waved away all those who flocked to him full of questions and concerns. He led them all out to the courtyard alight with torches that cast an eerie glow in that predawn gloom. A glow that made the scaffold standing in the middle of the yard—right where the old Starflower fountain had been before the Dragon destroyed it—look like some sort of otherworldly creature. Perhaps a dragon itself.

  “Iubdan’s beard!” Felix exclaimed when he saw it, yanking against the strong arms of the guards who held him. “Are you all out of your minds?”

  Sir Palinurus and other lords of Parumvir staggered down from their chambers and, nearly as frantic as the prince himself at the sight of Felix so near the scaffold, fell upon the baron like so many vultures, pecking him with protests. But guards with fierce and frightened faces pushed them back, using the butt end of their lances roughly enough to show willingness for more violence if necessary.

  The baron stood ringed in torchlight, surrounded by his guards, and his face was unreadable. It was not difficult to believe that he could and would order the death of his strongest ally’s crown prince.

  Instead, however, he turned to Baron Blackrock, who stood near him. “Have the Baroness of Middlecrescent brought to me,” he said softly. Baron Blackrock, trembling, hastened to obey, only to be caught by Middlecrescent’s restraining hand. “In chains,” Middlecrescent added, more softly still.

  “Yes, my liege,” Blackrock gasped, though Middlecrescent was not yet his sovereign by law. He hastened away, summoning his men to follow.

  The baron turned to Lionheart and Felix, surveying them with his cold eyes. Then he said, “Where is the girl? My wife’s lady who aided in this little venture?”

  “Here, my lord!” cried Dovetree, hastening forward and curtsying deeply before the baron. She smiled most winningly and was very pretty in that place of execution. “At your service.”

  “My service?” echoed the baron, eyeing her. His thin lids closed partially over the dark bulbs of his eyes but could not hide the light reflected there. “I do not keep traitors in my service.”

  “What?” Dovetree gasped but had no time to say more before guards, at a motion from the baron, fell upon her and bound her, screaming, alongside Lionheart and Felix. “But, my lord! I saw to your rescue! If not for me, you’d still be—”

  “Traitors will be granted no voice,” said the baron, adjusting the cloak he wore over his naked torso, fastening the buckles at the shoulder. “Gag her.”

  Felix felt sick as he watched rough-handed men stuff rags into the girl’s mouth and tie a gag in place, muting Dovetree’s continued screams. Her eyes kept rolling toward the scaffold, and suddenly her knees buckled and she lay all but fainted upon the courtyard stones. Felix wished he could comfort her and had to remind himself that she had tricked them, had certainly brought about Lionheart’s death and, quite possibly, his own (given the look in the baron’s eye).

  Lionheart stood with his head down, staring at the stones beneath his feet. Looking at him, Felix thought how strange it was to be here in this faraway foreign court beside the jester-prince, waiting to be hanged. It was perhaps stranger than their meeting in the Village of Dragons.

  “Leonard,” Felix whispered, and Lionheart glanced at him through the thick tangle of hair falling over his forehead. “Leonard, forgive me. I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t, Prince Felix,” said Lionheart. But he couldn’t find more words to say, so he stared again at his feet.

  Where was the Path? He had been promised a Path! But he saw only shadows and torchlight and the ominous scaffold, so near. Was this it, then? Was this the one and only quest that he, Childe Lionheart of Farthestshore, would face? Make peace with your father and . . . die.

  But if so, what then? Had he a right to complain? He, who had plunged into the darkness of the Final Water and stared down the flaming throat of the Dragon . . . he who had been renewed, restored, forgiven.

  “Very well,” he whispered to the one he hoped was listening, though he saw no sign of his presence. “Very well, my Lord. If this is what you would have of me, let me die with honor.”

  Let me die for the sake of the cousin I have hated. And in my death, let me show love.

  And that was the moment—with the pound of his blood in his temples and the rush of terror he could not suppress roiling in his gut—the moment he knew the impossible had happened. He loved Foxbrush. He loved his cousin, and he would die for him. Foolish Foxbrush. Weak Foxbrush. Chosen heir of the Eldest, baffled fool.

  But none of that mattered, not now. Lionheart would die for him, and it would be a good death.

  So Childe Lionheart stood straighter, throwing his head back and unbowing his shoulders. The guards restraining him shifted their grips and watched him uneasily, but he took no notice of them. He looked at Felix, and his eye was bright and his voice did not tremble when he said, “All will be well. Wait. Just wait . . .”

  At that moment, the voice of the baroness was heard ringing across the courtyard. “I do not see why you should handle me so roughly! I can walk quite well on my own— Darling! ”

  The baroness wafted across the courtyard in a flutter of butterfly frills. She flew to her husband, her face full of smiles, exclaiming, “Darling, how glad I am to see you well and whole! Have you quite changed your mind, then?”

  Her guards caught her; otherwise she might have thrown her arms around the baron’s neck. He looked as though he had swallowed snake spit, his eyes bugging out from his face. But he spoke as quietly as ever, more quietly perhaps.

  “How dare you speak to me thusly, woman?”

  “But, darling,” said the baroness, as yet unaware of her peril, looking perplexed at the shackles on her wrists and the hands clamped like more shackles on her arms, “what do you mean?”

  “You betrayed me,” said he. The gray of dawn streaking the sky fell upon the baron’s face and made him look so very old. Beneath the shielding cloak, he was a withered, wrinkled, gray man. And his voice was so low that only the baroness and those two who held her heard what he said (and those two turned their faces away and hoped to forget, as they valued their lives!).

  “You betrayed me. The one person in all this world whom I have trusted completely.”

  At those words, the baroness lost all trace of the silliness that so regularly painted her face more thickly than cosmetics. With deep sincerity she gazed up at her husband and tried to put out a hand to him, forgetting that she was restrained.

  “My love,” she said, “I could never betray you. You betray yourself, but I will only ever bring you back.”

  But the baron could not bear her words or her face. He turned away, and those standing nearest caught a glimpse of agony such as they had never seen in the eyes of any lord of Middlecrescent. When he spoke again, however, his voice was firm enough to say:

  “Hang the traitors.”

  Dovetree tried to scream, nearly choking on the rags in her mouth. The baroness turned and saw her lady-in-waiting being carried up the scaffold steps. “Oh!” she cried, struggling against her guards. “Let po
or Dovetree go! She’s done nothing to merit this!”

  “She betrayed you, my dear,” said the baron with deep bitterness. “Let traitors hang with traitors.”

  Sir Palinurus shouted, and all the men of Parumvir raised an angry, threatening cry. The guards holding Prince Felix dared not move, for they saw the promise of war on those northern faces, a war they knew Southlands could not hope to win. But the dread of their master was great, and they stood frozen, unwilling to free the prince without the baron’s word, unwilling to drag him up that rickety stair and, with every step, drag their nation closer to destruction.

  Felix watched Lionheart being pulled away, behind the collapsing Dovetree and before the confused baroness, who kept saying, “My dear girl, it will be all right! Lumé, child, don’t carry on so! You’ll be all out of breath!”

  The baroness had strength in her. Just when one might most expect her to give way to hysterics, she seemed calm and motherly, smiling even at Lionheart as they were arranged beneath the nooses. Perhaps this was but the form of her hysterics.

  Lionheart closed his eyes. As his hands were bound before him and he breathed the stench of the guardsman’s breath upon his face and heard the creaking of the scaffold floorboards, he pictured in his mind, as he had promised himself he would, a face. A sweet face with enormous silver eyes, otherworldly, strange, and lovely, crowned in roses.

  “Beyond the Final Water falling,” he whispered as the noose was placed around his neck.

  And Felix, standing below, watching all, wished desperately that he could look away. But he couldn’t. He stood staring, and he found himself saying, though he couldn’t hear his own voice in the din of the crowd, “Aethelbald, please . . .”

  A wolfish snarl exploded over the heads of all those gathered.