The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  Her grass-green dress draped over the boulder’s edge, while her long, lean form aligned to the rock’s gentle curve, ending in well-worn boots of brown leather. A cascade of cinnamon waves tumbled past the hand which supported an elfin face, compelling green eyes and a pair of lovely lips offering an amused smile.

  Wondering where the maiden had come from, Gydryn asked, “What’s not going to work?”

  “Getting your horse to go any higher up the mountain.”

  Gydryn looked back to the trail ahead. The slope was admittedly steep and hosted an overabundance of loose stones, but he’d climbed worse among the cliffs of Dannym.

  She sat up and swung her legs down in the same motion, letting her boots dangle over his head. “The horse is your mistake, my lord, as any Shoringer could tell you.”

  As if her words gave the animal leave to act, said beast ducked its head and tried to turn tail, whinnying and snorting as if spooked by a bad smell. Gydryn got the animal under control again, but not before it succeeded in retreating a good five paces back the way they’d come.

  The better to see eye to eye with the maiden, he supposed.

  Her eyes were very green, and very definitely laughing at him, though she kept her amusement more or less contained behind a rosy-lipped smirk.

  Gydryn tightened his hold on his reins and aimed a curious look at the maiden. “What makes you think I’m not from the Isles?”

  “You’re clearly not from around these parts, my lord.”

  “You know everyone on the island, do you, my lady?”

  She pulled her masses of cinnamon hair across one shoulder and began combing her fingers through it. “All the locals know Caider Morh is haunted and the horses won’t climb it. Besides,” she looked him over with the hint of a teasing grin, “no local would wear court boots to hike the mountains of Shor Machnaed, and I see a rather large vessel in the harbor, flying—if I’m not mistaken—the colors of a mainland king.”

  Gydryn looked over his shoulder.

  Behind and far below the mountainside path where he was currently waging a losing battle with his horse, the sea made a bed of sparkling blue that extended from the island’s grass-green cliffs all the way to the horizon. Tiny boats floated in an azure harbor, toy-sized from that vantage. Largest among them was the carrack that had brought him and his royal parents to the Shoring Isles, but there were plenty of other foreign ships at anchor. Half the realm had been invited to his wedding to a Shoring princess he’d never met, said nuptials being held at the castle of King n’Owain on the morrow.

  A copse of hilltop trees concealed the turrets of said castle and most of the city it overlooked. Gydryn had left his family and friends there to trade pleasantries with foreign dignitaries while he traded that sea of unfamiliar faces and cold stone halls for colder hills and the bright spring sunlight and the taste of unbound freedom—perhaps the last time he would know its flavor.

  Gydryn turned a thoughtful gaze back to the maiden. “Fair point, my lady. I suppose I’m one of many who doesn’t belong here of late.”

  “Yes, our modest island is being quite overrun.” Her smirk made an appearance again, secretive and hinting of humor. “I hear there’s to be a wedding, in fact.”

  “I heard the same.”

  “Am I correct in assuming this fair event is what drew you to our shores? Would you be a guest of the bride or the groom?”

  Gydryn cleared his throat. “Ah...the groom, in fact.”

  “Oh, you’re a friend of the prince?” She looked him over as if he was suddenly a most intriguing specimen.

  Gydryn actually felt his face growing slightly warm. “Something like that.”

  The girl got to her feet. “I hear he’s quite handsome, the crown prince of Dannym.” She looked to him, expectant of confirmation of a truth.

  Gydryn cleared his throat again. “Yes, um, well...”

  His horse snorted and tried to rear.

  “And supposedly an accomplished horseman.” She gazed mirthfully down at him while he calmed the beast again.

  He eventually gave up trying to force the animal back up the trail and swung himself out of the saddle—that specific maneuver was only a little showy—then gathered his reins.

  Feeling intensely aware of the maiden’s gaze studying him the while, Gydryn secured the horse to a scrubby tree and looked back to her. He could think of no better use for his last unwed hours than to spend that time with a pretty girl.

  “Perhaps the knowledgeable lady would be so kind as to guide me to the best path to reach the summit?”

  She made a show of considering his proposal as if it concerned far more than cardinal directions. “I believe the lady could be persuaded...for a price.”

  “A price?” He looked her over curiously, for she hadn’t struck him as in need of coin. Her dress had an elegant simplicity to its line and was clearly cut from fine cloth. She wore a leather bag strapped cross-wise at her hip, secured with a leather belt bound twice around her waist. Her cinnamon hair hung wild and free, dancing on the wind to tease at her lovely green eyes.

  Gydryn imagined he’d pay anything to spend the day with her.

  “What is the lady’s price?”

  She flashed a smile, then turned and vanished behind the boulder. A moment later, she reappeared at the base of the rock and joined him briskly on the trail. She stood taller than his shoulder and easily met him eye to eye. “Very well, my lord, my services as a guide will cost you the price of a story.”

  He chuckled. “I expect I can manage that.”

  “Capital. Shall we?”

  Gydryn eyed her sidelong as they started off together. “What kind of story would please the lady?”

  “Something adventurous.” She arrowed a teasing smile at him again. “A tale of your friend the prince, perhaps.”

  “Oh, it should be nothing so mundane as that. The crown prince of Dannym spends all his time studying musty books. He’s many times conveyed his desire to spend more time in the world and less time reading about it.”

  Mirth danced behind her eyes. “He must be very learned, your prince.”

  “Oh yes, um...quite.”

  The path turned back on itself and soon led above the boulder where she’d been reclining. As it curved around the hillside, a new view of the island opened: flowering trees dotted the grassy hills and valleys before the land grew into wild mountains ridged with broken spires of dark granite.

  Just beneath their high trail, a prosperous, red-roofed town lay nestled in a valley that opened on a private harbor. Tiny sailboats floated at anchor there.

  Gydryn had never seen a place so picturesque. “It’s lovely here,” he said somewhat breathlessly, hardly aware he’d spoken at all.

  She turned him a pleasant smile. “I’ve always thought so. But you really can’t appreciate Shor Machnaed until you’ve seen it from the crags of Caider Morh. Come.”

  She led him off the trail into the breezy grass, taking long steps up the incline. He grew quickly warm, despite the brisk wind, and was soon wishing he’d left his cloak behind. They followed a game trail for a time—barely a snake’s path through the brush to Gydryn’s eye, though she appeared to know its twists and turns well. The way quickly became too steep for easy conversation, but her pace never slowed.

  She finally took pity on his labored lungs when the trail leveled off near a cairn of moss-eaten boulders. She seated herself on a low slab darkened with lichen, seeming very fey with her grass-green dress spread about the stone and her vibrant hair flying so wild and free about her shoulders.

  The island had grown larger in view as they climbed, such that its mass of mountain ridges now spread far to the north with the sea clutching greedily all around. Gydryn admitted he would’ve had a difficult time finding his way through the scrub and outcroppings of stone without her knowledge of the land.

  She must’ve read this in his gaze, for as she opened the bag at her hip, she offered, “I grew up in these hills.”
<
br />   “So you live nearby, then.” At her answering smile, which offered no answer at all, he added, “I only mean that I’d wondered if you might’ve come for the wedding also.”

  Her green eyes danced. “Oh, yes. I’ll be attending.”

  “A guest of the bride, I suppose?”

  She smiled. “Something like that.”

  She pulled a flask from her bag, uncapped it and drank deeply of the contents. Then she offered it to him.

  Gydryn hesitated. His own flask he’d left in his saddlebag, not expecting the climb to be so arduous. “I don’t want to impose.”

  She pressed it on him with an insistent smile. “The imposition would be far worse if the prince’s friend collapsed and had to be carried by the lady down the mountain.”

  He nodded to her point and took the flask. Its water was sweet and cold. He drank deeply and handed it back to her with his thanks.

  She looked up at him, and in that moment when their fingers touched, her bright gaze held him truly captive. And her smile...it was so secretive, yet so inviting. He might’ve studied her lips for hours, just trying to discern the meaning behind every nuanced curve.

  That smile widened, apparently again reading well of his thoughts. Then she dropped her gaze, capped her flask and returned it to her bag. “Well...we should keep at it. I’m looking forward to that story.”

  She set off again, walking briskly uphill. Gydryn obligingly followed.

  “I was wondering,” he posed before he lost his breath again, “might the lady know of the Shoring custom that the bride and groom shouldn’t meet before the wedding? It’s been explained to me only briefly.”

  “Oh, yes.” She turned a telling look over one beautifully shaped shoulder. “The custom derives from the legend of the Storm God and his concubine. Would you like to hear it?”

  “If the lady would indulge me.”

  “With pleasure.” She caught up the skirts of her dress and tucked the hem into her belt, giving her steps more freedom on the steep-sided hill and revealing shapely calves encased in leather boots. As she spoke, her pace slowed a bit, which was also to Gydryn’s benefit. “The story goes that the Storm God first met the woman he would take for his concubine—”

  “If I may,” Gydryn interrupted, “why did Llew not take Blodwyn as his wife?”

  “So you do know something of our legends, I see.” She darted an approving smile his way. “Llew had been cursed by his mother, Arianrhod, never to claim a wife—through no fault of his own save an unwelcome birth. In any event, the Storm God had no form on the day of their meeting, the sky being full of sun and him taking his rest upon a stony ledge near the great waterfall of Glenaevin. Some say he had form but was invisible to the human eye. Whichever the case, Blodwyn didn’t see anyone as she clambered down the rocks to reach the pool at the waterfall’s base.”

  The maiden used her hands to ascend a series of broken boulders and then stood at the top, smiling down while he followed with somewhat less alacrity, wearing as he was, apparently, the wrong kind of boots for climbing Caider Morh.

  “Some insist it was the beauty of Blodwyn’s bare form that attracted the Storm God’s notice,” she remarked while he was finding his footing, “but most agree that when Blodwyn descended into the pool, she lost the form given to her by the magicians Math and Gwydion and became once more the flowers of broom, meadowsweet and oak from which she’d been made.” She pushed a lock of cinnamon hair from her eyes. “Running water brooks no enchantment, as you surely know.”

  “Verily.” He smiled as he planted his feet beside her atop the knoll, whereupon he discovered that they had, in fact, reached the mountain’s craggy summit. The vista was both mysterious and beautiful, much like his guide.

  The maiden hopped from one rock to the next, expertly balancing on the uneven faces in her soft-soled boots. “So it was that Llew first perceived his concubine-to-be in the flowers of the forest floating upon the waterfall’s pool.” She aimed a follow-if-you-dare grin over one shoulder and continued skipping along the mountain’s spine, saying between leaps, “And there he fell in love with her, and she with him, though neither had seen the other’s form and knew not what sort of entity had so captured their hearts.”

  Gydryn, possessed of intelligence and prudence both in good measure, and understanding the sad limitations of his boots, followed her as best he could through the grass below.

  Which was to their mutual benefit in the very next moment, when her boot slipped off the spine of a rock and she fell.

  Gydryn leapt forward and caught her. She froze in his arms, her green eyes large and her breath sucked in sharply—though not nearly as sharply as his own. In the instant after he recognized that he’d caught her safely, he realized how blissful it felt to hold her close.

  She finished somewhat breathlessly and with a faint flush to her cheeks, “Consequently...it’s considered good luck for the bride and groom never to have met.”

  Gydryn realized himself and quickly set her down again with a murmured, “Apologies, my lady.”

  She laughed. “For catching me? How polite you are! I vow the indignity would’ve been much worse if you’d left me to fall.” She swept her hair back from her eyes and smiled at him. “Terribly thoughtless of me to fall so gracelessly.”

  Graceless was the last word he would’ve used to describe her.

  She blushed at this, whereupon Gydryn realized he’d spoken the thought out loud. He turned an embarrassed smile off towards the sea. “I was...just wondering what brought you to the hills when all the other guests are readying for a feast?”

  She settled back against a low rock and considered him quietly. Something changed in her demeanor then; she let him see into her deeper self with a candor that surprised him.

  “I imagine the same as you. Seeking the freedom offered by the hills, a way to step outside the trappings of society and expectation for a moment and just...” she shrugged, holding his gaze steadily, “just...be.”

  He sank down on a boulder across from her, startled at how closely her purpose indeed mirrored his own.

  “Do you disagree?”

  “No, I...” he smiled. “I found myself lost for words. Yours so well expressed my own.”

  She shrugged off his meaningful tone. “It’s said that like finds like upon the slopes of Caider Morh. If two souls find each other here, the pairing is meant to be.” Her gaze held his warmly.

  Gydryn, for his part, was unexpectedly overcome.

  Then she roused them briskly by first withdrawing her flask from her bag and offering to share it with him again, then by saying, “But I’ve delivered you to the summit now, my lord. What about my payment?”

  “Yes, a story.” Relieved of the tension the moment had brought to his thoughts, he drank thirstily and handed the flask back to her. “Would the lady prefer a tale of pirates or of dragons?”

  “You know tales of dragons?”

  He nodded significantly. “I know many such tales.”

  She motioned them to walk along the ridge, back towards the path they’d ascended. Wildflowers were growing everywhere that gorse did not. “I didn’t think dragons were popular lore in Dannym.”

  The wind gusted up, billowing her skirts and entangling her hair about her shoulders. Gydryn held his own hair back from his eyes. “I studied for a time with a prince of Kandori.”

  She lifted brows. “Stories direct from the ancestral mouth, as it were? Dragons, then. Assuredly.”

  So as they descended the mountain, with his boots finding much surer footing going down than they had going up, Gydryn told her a tale of the drachwyr Náeb’nabdurin’náiir and his true love, Amardad, as first told to him by Prince Jair of Kandori while they’d been hunting wild boar in the Dhahari. He omitted that last part, however. For some reason, he didn’t think hunting boar would impress her overmuch.

  They’d just come back in view of the boulder where he’d first spoken to her when he saw a rider sitting a horse on the
trail. The rider was holding the reins to Gydryn’s horse.

  Gydryn glanced culpably to the maiden.

  She smiled. “The cavalry comes.” She freed her skirts from her belt and fluffed them around her ankles. They stopped there on the high trail and turned to face each other. “Thank you for the story, my lord.”

  Gydryn didn’t want to part her company, but he saw no legitimate way to stay.

  She held his gaze. “I hope you found the solitude you sought.”

  He shook his head, feeling suddenly conflicted in a way he’d never experienced. “In the end...I found I didn’t seek it.”

  That elicited a blush in true. She glanced to the rider far below. “I believe your escort grows impatient.”

  Gydryn studied her with a growing sense of wonder. “He’s my brother. He’ll wait.” But he didn’t know what he could say to justify lingering. Finally, he shook his head. “I never learned your name.”

  She offered that teasing smile. “It’s for the best, my lord. This way, when our paths cross again, we can say we’ve never met.”

  Gydryn nodded, swallowed, glanced aggrievedly towards his brother. “Will we meet again, do you think?”

  Her eyes danced. “You may depend upon it, my lord.”

  Not knowing what else to say, Gydryn bowed to her and departed.

  He didn’t see her again until the attendants at his wedding dropped the ceremonial curtain between the bride and groom, and there she stood, veiled in tiny, jeweled flowers, smiling that smile which had captured him from the first.

  As the officiator joined their hands, Gydryn gazed wondrously into her eyes. “You knew?”

  She laughed. “Surprisingly, there are not so many raven-haired, grey-eyed foreigners wandering these parts, especially not handsome ones wearing a cloak you could trade for passage to Faroqhar.”

  Gydryn brought her fingers to his lips. “Errodan.”

  Her eyes danced. “Gydryn.”

  He presented his own surprise to her and was rewarded by the startled stare she offered him upon taking the bouquet.