Dragonwitch

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  It was no more pain than I had already experienced twice at his hand. I scarcely cared even as I fell, crashing into the ruins of the House.

  I died my first death.

  Mouse and Alistair stood where Eanrin had left them beneath the shelter of an oak tree, which the cat-man had told them was “kindly enough, but don’t tease it.”

  With this warning, he had vanished, and the two of them stood, not speaking and carefully not looking at each other. They could feel shadows creeping along the forest floor, sliding smoothly over moss and stump and twig, reaching out to them. Not necessarily malicious, but curious like sniffing puppies, ready to growl or wag a tail at a moment’s notice.

  Alistair glanced toward the girl, who stood with her hands folded—an attitude of prayer, perhaps. Of all the otherworldly things surrounding him, he somehow felt that she was the most otherworldly of all, though she was as mortal as he.

  He wondered suddenly if he would live long enough to know her.

  The young lord clenched his teeth, his fine face suddenly vicious. Just then he would have liked to take up his sword and hurl himself into an enemy, any enemy, be it real or imaginary, so he could feel that he was alive, so he could feel that there was yet some purpose in his being.

  He turned to Mouse, and though she did not look at him, the muscles in her cheek tightened and she was aware of his gaze.

  “I know,” Alistair said, “I probably shouldn’t say this.”

  She did not turn or move.

  “After all, it’s hardly the time,” Alistair continued, “what with my family home overrun with monsters, my mother captured, possibly dead, and us wandering through other worlds that shouldn’t exist. . . .”

  His voice trailed away. He thought of the smoke above Gaheris. He thought of Lady Mintha, the last he’d seen her, her face pale with fury as she watched her dream for her child snatched away at a dying man’s whim. He thought of the earls, his shame, and the face of his strange, small cousin.

  He thought of his dream.

  Mouse, stealing a glance, found that Alistair no longer looked at her but stared instead at his own feet. The scar beneath his torn shirt looked white and dreadful in the half-light.

  “Yes, well,” Alistair finished at last, “when I think about it, it’s not the time at all. Forget I said anything.”

  The next moment, Eanrin came storming back, the Chronicler following, shamefaced. “Well, now that our fine little king has had a lovely stroll through the dulcet forest glades, shall we continue?” the cat-man snarled and stalked ahead, looking more like an affronted tom than ever, despite his human shape.

  “Where did you go?” Mouse asked the Chronicler as the three of them fell into step behind Eanrin. She noted the dampness on his clothes and the water clinging to his hair.

  He answered only with a shrug and a dismissive, “I fell behind.”

  With this and no other excuse offered, the three mortals proceeded in silence.

  Mouse kept her gazed fixed upon the small form of the Chronicler, determined he should not wander off again. She noticed how even in the midst of this company he kept himself aloof, as if he believed that he moved in his own separate world where none of the others could reach him. It was a false attitude. For all the outward show of armor, Mouse thought it covered little more than a tender heart, easily battered, easily broken.

  She frowned. Had the scrubber misled her? Had she been wrong to believe that wizened, smelly old man to be the fabled Etanun? She thought of powerful Stoneye, reaching out to the great sword one moment, lying dead the next. And this little man, weak as a child, was supposed to do what Stoneye could not? He was supposed to carry the sword from the chamber, to bear it into the presence of the goddess? He would scarcely be able to budge it from the stone! It was too much.

  But he was all the hope she had.

  The Land Behind the Mountains was separated from the Between and the realms of Faerie by the many rivers that cut across its territory. The last time he was there, Eanrin had recognized the magical quality of those rivers—a protective barrier set in place by someone concerned for the mortals dwelling within. But of course, there were always ways to get around such protections.

  Now Eanrin felt the Near World close at hand.

  He stopped and waited for the mortals to catch up. When they hesitated, he beckoned impatiently. “Come closer, little ones,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Well, there’s you,” said Alistair, folding his arms and scowling at the cat-man.

  Eanrin didn’t respond. He turned to Mouse. “We’re close to your world,” he said. “Do you see the gate?”

  Mouse looked around. She saw nothing but Wood and more Wood. There was no sign of a break in the trees, no sign of a gorge. “There was a river where I came in,” she said.

  “That’s nice,” said Eanrin.

  “No, I mean, shouldn’t we be looking for a river now?” she persisted.

  “Maybe,” the cat-man replied, shrugging. “This is the Between. A river might not always look like a river to you. I can smell your world, and I feel the barriers. But I cannot get us through, nor will I even be able to see the gate. That’s part of the protection on your realm. Only one from the inside can lead folk of the Wood in. Otherwise, none of us will get past the rivers. Quite the effective deadbolt, when you think about it.”

  “But . . . shouldn’t we be looking for a river, then?”

  Eanrin bit down hard on his tongue. He wasn’t generally one to restrain his words. After all, he was a poet. But he drew a long breath and reminded himself that she was, after all, young, scarcely alive yet by immortal standards. “Look closely,” he said between his teeth. “Maybe you’ll see your river.”

  Mouse turned, as did the other two, searching the solemn gloom of the trees. Nearby was a place where green bracken grew knee-high. Anything could hide there, anything at all. Even . . .

  Mouse darted forward. “Wait!” Alistair cried and started after her, but Eanrin put out a restraining hand. “No, let her be. She’s safe enough, and it’s up to her.”

  Mouse waded into the ferns, stepping through the lacy green fronds. And suddenly she said, “I’ve found it. I’ve found the river!”

  The others hastened to her side and looked where she parted the ferns, pointing. A small rivulet passed this way, dampening the ground as it flowed, silent as a stalking snake.

  “Well done,” said Eanrin. “Quickly now. Lead the way.”

  Mouse hastened along against the flow of the little stream, pushing aside ferns. The others followed, noticing how it seemed that the ferns moved with a gentle, flowing rhythm, though there was no breeze. Then they thought how remarkably the ferns, flowing together in indecipherable patterns along the forest floor, resembled water.

  The next moment, without any apparent change taking place, they walked along the edge of a wide river. There was a break in the trees up ahead.

  “Typical,” Eanrin said dismissively, though the others stared in surprise. “Rivers are all such crafty creatures; you never quite know where you stand with them.” He backed away from the water, keeping close behind Mouse.

  Then they stood at the edge of the Wood, gazing out into the gorge but keeping to the shadows. For though the Wood was the stuff of other worlds, it felt familiar by comparison. Both Alistair and the Chronicler, come from a North Country winter, were struck with a wave of sultry heat, and the light of the sun overhead was dazzling after the gloom of the Between.

  “There!” Mouse cried, pointing up the wall. “There is the path I followed down! It’s narrow but not impossible, and I’m sure we can make our way up again.”

  Alistair and the Chronicler exchanged glances, then turned to Eanrin, who was once more in cat form. “What did she say?” Alistair asked.

  They had stepped from the Between into the Near World. Once more the barrier of language separated them as effectively as any wall.

  “She says you have the ears of a monkey,”
the cat said, and trotted after the girl, who was scrambling over river-splashed rocks in glad haste. “Hurry up, lads!”

  So they climbed from the gorge. The heat of midday beat down upon them, and both Alistair and the Chronicler found the going hard. The Chronicler perhaps made better time, however, for the narrow path was better suited to his short stature than to Alistair’s long limbs. The cat sped ahead of all of them, slinking between their feet and hastening to the top, where he sat like a sentinel, looking out across the tablelands.

  He remembered this country over which Amarok, the Wolf Lord, had pursued him. He recognized the line of mountains, hazy in the distance, which he knew ringed this land, trapping those within like so many rabbits in a snare. A mortal land, yet the sort of place that would draw malicious Faerie kind with irrepressible attraction. Fortunate for the mortals that the rivers had been set in place, cutting them off from the Far World as effectively as the mountains cut them off from their own kind.

  But the Flame at Night had gotten through, and Eanrin could already see the scars of her work. The land on which he sat was dry as bone.

  Mouse scrambled the last few feet out of the gorge and stood panting beside the cat, covered from head to toe in dust. “Look!” she said, pointing. “Do you see the Citadel Spire? Do you see the glow of the Flame?”

  Like a lighthouse in the distance, a red fire burned above the horizon.

  “Tell me, little Mouse,” Eanrin said quietly, “what has your goddess done to this land?”

  Mouse swallowed with difficulty, for dust clogged her throat. “She has purified it,” she said at last, her voice full of conviction.

  “Has she?” Eanrin had only ever been one place before that was burned so badly. He hated to say, even to think it. But it was true nonetheless. “I could believe I stood once more in Etalpalli.”

  But Mouse did not know that name. She turned as first the Chronicler and then Alistair completed the long climb and stood panting, bent over, runnels of sweat cutting through the caked dirt on their faces.

  “Well,” said the Chronicler when at last he’d caught his breath, “here we are. What now?”

  Mouse couldn’t understand him, so she turned to the cat instead. “Come, we must hurry.” And she started across the plain, her gaze fixed upon the red light of the tower as firmly as it had ever fixed upon the gleam of Cé Imral.

  The cat hesitated. “Stay close to me,” he said to the other two. “We’ll keep after her for the moment, but don’t get out of my sight, do you hear?”

  “What a dreadful place,” Alistair said, gazing with disgust at the plain around them. “How can anyone live here?”

  “They can’t,” said the cat. “They die here.”

  The Chronicler shaded his eyes against the sun, staring in the direction Mouse was hastening. “Is that a storm cloud?” he asked.

  The other two looked.

  Then Eanrin screamed.

  Such a sound cannot be made in the throat of a man or even of a cat, but only by a strange blend of the two. Fear and rage and animal instinct combined.

  “Back! Back, back!” he cried, taking his man’s form and grabbing both Alistair and the Chronicler by their shoulders. “Back down, into the Wood!”

  The darkness swept across the sky. “Mouse!” Alistair cried, shaking free of Eanrin’s grasp even as the cat-man dragged them toward the edge of the gorge. “She’s too far ahead; she can’t hear you!”

  “It doesn’t matter! Get back, hurry!”

  But Alistair paid no heed. He darted out across the plain, hurrying after Mouse, shouting her name. “Dragon-eaten fool,” Eanrin snarled.

  “What is it?” The Chronicler, his face white, struggled to turn, to see.

  “It’s the Midnight,” said Eanrin. “The Midnight of the Black Dogs. She sent them for us!”

  5

  I AM A FAERIE QUEEN; it matters not that I gave up that title and that name. Though I reject it, queenship does not reject me. So I am gifted with three lives.

  I woke in a dark place, deep in my new Father’s realm. The Netherworld, the kingdom of Death-in-Life, my true Father. He sat upon a skeletal throne and watched as I struggled to breathe and felt the flame of my inner furnace course into my limbs once more.

  “Well done, daughter,” he said. “You nearly killed that little knight. But not quite. Your rending claws succeeded in filling him with poison, but not enough to end his life. See if you can’t do a better job of it this time. I need both him and his brother dead.”

  “So will they be, Father!” I replied, and I returned to the Near World.

  It looked like an oncoming storm rolling in from the sea. But there was no wind, Alistair noticed as he hurtled after Mouse, who was a good distance ahead of him. The air was thick and sluggish, without movement. He heard Eanrin’s shouting behind him, but he didn’t turn.

  “Mouse!” he cried. Though he was certain she heard him, she did not turn, but her pace slowed and then stopped. She stood stock-still, her head tilted to the sky as the darkness rushed down upon them. Alistair put on a burst of speed and drew alongside her. “Mouse, we’ve got to take shelter!” he said, though he knew she wouldn’t understand him.

  In the quickly fading light, he saw her face. It had gone chalky, and her lips moved in that familiar prayer of hers.

  “Fire burn!”

  He whirled about, gazing up into the darkness; there were no clouds to be seen in all the vast stretch. It was the darkness of night that slapped down hard upon this world, nearly knocking him from his feet with its suddenness.

  Howling filled the air. Mouse screamed, but the sound was lost in dissonance, in the haunting cry of the hunt. Alistair, thrown so swiftly from daylight into darkness, was blinded.

  But in his blindness, he saw.

  The Dogs.

  The darkness.

  Where was the child?

  No! Don’t look for the child! This was no dream! Where was Mouse?

  He lashed out, both striking at the dark and searching for her. He screamed her name, but nothing could be heard above that demonic din of voices born of wind and fire and emptiness. He thought he felt Mouse’s fingers brush his.

  Then red eyes blazed through the dark. Four red eyes, and two great red mouths that howled darkness and flame, creatures bigger than horses, bearing down upon the two helpless mortals on the plain. There was only Death and Midnight and the hollow, empty longing of the Black Dogs baying across the worlds.

  ———

  Then they were gone.

  Alistair lay prostrate in the dirt, his mouth full of grit, his face pouring sweat. At first he was afraid to open his eyes, to discover that he was dead. But when at last he did, blinking against the swirl of dust that threatened to blind him all over again, he lay upon the plain, and it was empty, and daylight had returned.

  He sat up, coughing. Dimly he became aware of shouting behind him, someone calling his name; the cat, most likely. He looked around.

  “Dragons blast and eat and blast again!” Eanrin swore as he skidded to a halt beside Alistair, grabbed him by the shoulder, and dragged him to his feet.

  Alistair, bewildered, could only ask feebly, “Where’s Mouse?”

  “Where’s Mouse?” the cat-man cried. He released his hold, allowing Alistair to drop, weak-kneed, to the dirt once more. “At a time like this, all you can ask is where the pretty little wench got off to? Egg-headed, dragon-blasted mortal !”

  Alistair shook his head, trying to clear it of the ringing din of howls that remained. He realized suddenly that his cousin was missing. “The Chronicler,” he said, turning to look back to the edge of the gorge.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” growled Eanrin. “They took him! They took the girl too! She sent them after us, and they took both the heir and our guide.” He cursed again and kicked in futile frustration at the dirt. “The Black Dogs always catch what they are sent for. Dragons eat them!”

  Alistair’s mind whirled. He knew ta
les of the Black Dogs, of course. Death’s hounds, spawn of monsters that dragged the souls of the dead into the Netherworld. “Are they dead?” he asked, almost afraid to voice the question. “Did the Black Dogs kill them?”

  Eanrin, like a spooked cat trying to settle his upraised fur, took off his red cap and smoothed down his shock of bright hair. He shook his head, and his voice was a little calmer when he spoke. “I don’t think so. I don’t believe the Dogs were sent by Death this time.”

  “Who, then? Who else can command the Black Dogs?” Alistair asked.

  “Their mother,” said Eanrin, and his lips curled into a grimace. He stared across the plain, seeing, as the dust settled, the distant light gleaming once more from the Spire tip. A suspicion was growing in his mind. An ugly suspicion, but one he should have considered.

  “Who is their mother?” Alistair asked. “Where are Mouse and the Chronicler? What . . . what are we supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Eanrin whispered. His hands clenched into fists. “Something. But I don’t know.”

  “You could try waiting.”

  The cat-man whirled about, his cap flying from his head, and Alistair, still collapsed upon the ground, turned. The swirling dust parted like a curtain, revealing a lone figure—a small, hunched, tottering figure with a withered face like a cracked walnut.

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the centuries of my existence,” he said in a voice as dry as the dusty air, “it’s that answers often come to him who will wait long enough to see them.”

  Eanrin’s lips drew back in a teeth-baring snarl. “Etanun!”

  The Chronicler came to himself with a start and realized that he wasn’t dead.

  His head rang with the echoes of the Black Dogs’ snarls. He lay stunned, unseeing and unfeeling for the moment, aware only of the pounding of his head and the certainty that he did still breathe. Then he opened his eyes.

  He lay upon his back on hard, hot stone, staring up at an arched ceiling, also of stone, blistered red but polished bright as gemstones and carved in reliefs of feathers and wings. He glimpsed pillars of the same red stone supporting the roof. Save for the dreadful heat, he would have thought it beautiful.