Fox and Faun

by Dani Smith

  “I heard it,” Mayur said quietly. “Just before I saw you coming my way. There is one near my home, too, just beyond this woodland. It’s growing.”

  Mayur dug into his pack and pulled out a flask. Unscrewing the cap, he took a shot and then handed it across to his guest. Ashe helped himself to two long swallows, grunting softly as the liquor pleasantly burned his throat and warmed his center.

  “I would hear the tale you have to tell,” Mayur said. “If, that is, you have the desire to tell it.”

  Ashe took one more swallow and passed the flask back over. He moved his hand back to Scarlett’s small head and stroked it absently, his fingers brushing over the nubs of her horns. She sighed in her sleep and shifted, squeezing Grym tighter. Ashe went into his bag and brought out his pipe and tobacco pouch, taking care not to expose its content to their host. He lit up and smoked thoughtfully, staring into the fire. With whiskey warming his belly, the world looked better.

  Finally, he said, “I’m not a man of many words these days, Mayur. I’m so used to running, to keeping my child safe at any cost, that having a simple conversation by a warm fire seems strange. But it would unburden me to share where we’ve been.”

  He took a few more puffs of his pipe and then leaned forward, handing a tattered square of paper to his host. Mayur took it slowly, holding it up in the firelight. It was a badly faded old photograph taken with one of the few remaining picture machines from before their world had moved on into shadow and ruin. The woman in the image—not much beyond girlhood—was sitting on a sill, the windows beyond thrown open, curtains swirling around her. She wore a pale-yellow shift that came just to the tops of her thighs. Her bare legs were drawn up against ample breasts. In one outstretched hand, a tiny sparrow perched, looking up at her in trusting adoration. Her hair was a corona of copper fire spilling down her back, the same vibrant shade blessing the small child that lay snoozing on the blanket across the fire.

  “She was beautiful,” Mayur said with a smile. “Almost—almost—as beautiful as my own mate.” He pointed at the sleeping child across the fire and nodded knowingly at Ashe. “She’s special, isn’t she?”

  Ashe grinned, his heart warming that much more. Here, after so long running, was someone who would listen, with respect and with reverence. He took the picture back and, gazing at it in the firelight, he began to speak.

  PART ONE: FOX AND JADE

  Chapter 1

  “The gods will despise him for what he is doing.”

  A kettle whistled shrilly in the shadows of the hut, and as the tea was poured, the smell of bitter herbs permeated the close space. At the window, Snow leaned on the sill and watched the sun sink into the sea. Soon, the waxing Sister Moons would rise, the breathless air would cool, and his thoughts would clear. As a Horned from the Duneyrr tribe of the far Northern lands, the summer heat did nothing for his thoughts, his demeanor, or his looks. And the godsdamned sun had trampled him all the way here; even when it had turned a swollen, feverish red toward sunset.

  “I don’t recall asking your opinion, old bitch,” Snow murmured. There was a cracked looking glass sitting on a shelf by the window, and he paused to admire himself in its dusty surface before turning to the bent figure sitting in the corner by the fireplace.

  Being Drake’s right-hand man, Snow was as loyal as they came to his boss and as conniving as a snake to all else. His skin was as pale as candle wax, giving him a ghostly, almost corpse-like look. His white-blond mohawk was bound in a series of stiff tails that crested from the top of his head to the nape of his neck, and pale cobalt tattoos decorated the bare sides of his skull. His eyes were a bizarre, milky blue, and somewhat unnerving to all who met them.

  All, save for the old nag before him, slurping tea and eyeing him suspiciously. She seemed to be taking him in, more fascinated with his appearance than fearful. Of course, her own countenance was enough to shrivel the bravest guts. Her withered skin was grey, ashy, and deeply lined by the passage of time. One of her curving horns had been savagely broken at some point in the distant past, and the remains poked from the top of her head like a raw chunk of rock rising from a salt flat. The other horn was cracked, worn, and painted with strange arcane symbols that Snow did not recognize. Some whispered that she had seen her first moonrise in their great-great-great-grandfathers’ time, when theurgy had still run thick in the satyr bloodlines, and her strange touch—the ability to look at a pile of soggy tea leaves in the bottom of a cracked cup and see a marvelously accurate future—was an echo of that lineage.

  Outside the hut, the sun vanished below the horizon and stars began to wink in the purple depths of the sky. From somewhere near the old woman’s hut came a soft, quivering warble, a sound that made Snow wince. It briefly rose to a trill before dying away, soon replaced by the heady chirp of crickets in the brush.

  A gossamer, he thought. How she can stand to be so close to one, I will never know. Makes one want to puke.

  “My opinion is what you came for, is it not?” the old woman chuckled darkly, tipping the last of the bitter tea down her throat. She was blind in one eye, an ugly cloudy thing that rolled wetly in her head; the other was black as pitch and as lively as a star. There was a sharpness in her gaze that made Snow uneasy, a feeling he was not used to. He absently raised one hand and picked at the velvet peeling from his bone-pale antlers. They itched.

  Bloody summer.

  “Get on with it, Aura,” he muttered.

  Aura grinned at him, showing the last few rotting pebbles of her teeth. Her droopy horse’s ears twitched, making the dozens of charm piercings that lined them tinkle ominously.

  “Bring me the bones, then, laddie, and be quick about it.”

  Snow produced a small rawhide bag and tossed it onto the table beside her. She tore it open and poured the three big gryphon vertebra he had brought into her withered palm.

  “Good,” she muttered, rising stiffly and turning to the fire crackling in the hearth. Her long tail twitched from beneath the ragged fall of her dress, and her cat—a bony, hairless pink thing with multiple muddy green eyes—twined around her swollen ankles and swatted at its tip, purring rustily. “Drake will know what prize to seek, so he will.”

  She plucked a long metal rod from the fire and shuffled over to the table, spreading the pieces of bone out in an even row. One by one, she pressed the red-hot tip of the rod to each bone, muttering under her breath. One by one, the bones cracked under the heat. Aura set the rod back into the fire and poked at the cooling bones, turning them this way and that, chortling under her breath. The thin milky wisps of her hair stood out around her liver-spotted skull like swamp mist.

  “Drake must seek a bauble,” she breathed, her good eye bright in its socket.

  “A bauble? I need more details,” Snow grumbled.

  “Look for a bauble the color of leaves in early spring. One with a mind of its own. It can show its owner the whole of the world, so it can.”

  She paused in her reading, and a grin that would resurrect the nightmare fairy stories of childhood stole across her ancient face.

  “Its mistress is a pretty one. Aye, very pretty. And powerful.”

  Snow’s lupine eyes narrowed. “You see all of this in a bone? Preposterous.”

  Strange light swam in her gaze, and the hairless cat waowed at her feet. “I care little for your belief there, laddie,” she murmured. “Only Drake’s opinion matters, and it is he who trusts me implicit-like. He knows that you fight fire with fire.”

  “What makes this crystal worth possessing?” Snow asked.

  “It can manipulate the minds of those it is set upon,” she hissed, “and gives its owner the gift of Truesight. Drake will be able to spy on his most distant enemies and twist their minds to his will.”

  Snow was grinning. The hairless meowing cat twined around his legs and he kicked at it.

  “Bugger off!”

  Aura examined the bones once more and nodded. “Yes. You may march to find the Jade when yo
ur master sees fit. Peaceful, the Kits are, and a wee bit naive. They will not see you coming. But be careful, laddie … tell Drake that he must possess the mistress, too! For only she can make the damned thing awaken and reveal its secrets with effortless control. Long will she have trained with it, and she will have its trust.”

  Snow grinned wider at that, his weird eyes narrowing.

  “He will enjoy possessing the mistress,” he chuckled darkly. “He thinks with his prick as much as with his head.”

  Aura plucked up the last bone, holding it up so he could see. She tapped a thin crack that ran off to the side of all the others with one long, dirty nail. Her blind eye rolled in her head like a cloudy marble, but her good eye focused on his face with a black intensity.

  “Be wary, deer boy, and tell your boss-man to do the same. For the bones also prophesize that there may be a wild card in your midst.”

  “Who is this wild card?” Snow snarled. “You’ll reveal this to me, old bitch!”

  She grinned at him gruesomely. “He remains in shadow, and I cannot see his face, nor his form. But you’ll know, I have no doubt of it. Perhaps even before he does.”

  Aura rose stiffly from her seat and shambled her way toward him, the ragged layers of her dress trailing along behind her. She was grinning, shaking a claw-like finger at him. The cat darted away as she came close, her warty nose mere inches from Snow’s. He leaned away from the rot on her breath, grimacing.

  “Now, that bauble Drake will seek is powerful … too powerful to risk taking without some measure of caution.”

  “Drake needs no protection,” grunted Snow. “He is master of all he sees.”

  Aura cackled and snatched a gathering basket down from a shelf near her door.

  “Such a nice thought. Not when it comes to magic, laddie! Most of our kind saw the glammer drain from our veins when Drake’s great-great-great-granddaddy was shitting his nappies! So, it is protection Drake must have, along with the rest.”

  She looked back at him as she went to shuffle into the garden, shooting him a dirty wink. “But I promise that you all will enjoy the medicine I provide.”

  She shuffled out into her poisoned garden where pungent, scraggly plants stabbed their vines, thorns, and deadly blossoms toward heaven. The fly-eyed cat slunk out after her and trailed sinuously between the plants as its mistress plucked and dug and snipped, dropping roots and leaves and weird blue-black berries into her basket. It paused once to dig a small hole and take a neat shit in the dirt before resuming its explorations.

  Fifteen minutes later, Aura was back in her kitchen, pounding her cuttings together in an ancient stone mortar, mumbling conspiratorially to herself.

  She boiled water, poured and mashed and steeped. Snow stood back, watching silently, his antlered shadow a weird flickering mass on the wall behind him as sunset darkened to night both outside and inside the hut.

  “Ah! There it is. Gorgeous, my old son.”

  Aura took a large mason jar down from a high shelf and carefully poured a bright purple concoction into it, filling it to the rim. She sealed it carefully with melted wax that looked like blood, uttering a few guttering words that Snow could not understand as she pressed her seal into the molten mass. Snow watched her carefully place the jar into a heavy padded messenger’s bag, followed by a clear glass tube of wicked-looking syringes. He grunted at the glint of the long needles inside the tube as they disappeared into the sack with the potion.

  “Injectables?” he hissed.

  Aura winked at him. “Indeed, laddie. Inject the brew into a meaty part of the body and the potion will keep Lord Drakie and all of his fine lads immune to the Jade’s wiles … for a time.”

  “You’re saying we have to keep injecting?”

  “Aye. Every few weeks, lest you want the damned thing to twist your brains inside-out. That is, until he learns to contain it!”

  “And how, may I ask, does Drake contain it?”

  Aura cackled. “Not for me to say! It’s my job to say how to find the damn thing, not how to contain it!”

  After another five minutes of cajoling and arguing, Snow tramped out of the hut, the messenger’s bag slung over his shoulder. He was muttering to himself, his brows knit. Just outside her gate, the gossamer whined petulantly in the night. Snow cast a sneer in its direction before trudging up the hill beyond.

  “Laddie!” Aura’s cracked voice called across the starlit night. Snow paused, gritting his teeth.

  “Aren’t we done, you old nag?” he shouted behind him, his voice echoing down the hill. He heard her cackle gleefully.

  “Yes, we are, and thank the gods for that!” she shouted. “But one more thing … Only the mistress knows how to control that crystal, so tell that brute you serve to treat her nice … yes, very nice, indeed, for only then will she share its secrets!”

  “I don’t think you know who you speak of, Aura,” Snow grumbled and continued his way up the hill.

  Chapter 2

  The Sister Moons were the same as they had been the night that the Doomhands had driven, hellbent for leather, into Ashe’s village: the larger of the two a fat silver coin, the smaller a deep orange that blazed low in the sky like an ominous ember. A week after Snow had visited Aura in her hut at the edge of the sea, Ashe crossed the torchlit courtyard of Bargsea, Drake’s ancestral compound, from his bunk in the guard’s quarters. Tonight was cause for celebration, for Drake had returned with a new bride, and all who served the Doomhand chief had been summoned to partake in the festivities and to serve as guards as the satyr chief perched on his throne.

  Beside him came Quinn the Puca, the bristles of his light brown mane tied with ribbons for the occasion. Quinn, like Ashe, was indentured to Drake, and through their mutual servitude as guards they had become fast friends. Quinn elbowed his bunkmate with a wink and a grin.

  “How many do you expect to put away tonight, Goat Boy?” he chuckled.

  Ashe smirked, shooting a wink back. “Are we speaking of drink or women?” he quipped. “At least twice what you can, Ass.”

  Quinn tossed his long, silky donkey ears back over his shoulders and held his head high.

  They came to the doorway of the Doomhand compound, a concrete hulk looming above them. Inside they could hear the racket from the band, the cry of excited voices, and the laughter and shouts of their fellow men. The air was redolent with the smells that, later in life, would always remind Ashe of Shale City: diesel, salt air, concrete, and the barely-there scent of the forests beyond the city walls. The last smell made his heart ache at times, though he refused to acknowledge it. Things were as they were, and his family’s safety in the distant mountains was more precious than gold, or jewels, or the lost smell of the woodlands.

  “Keep your head, friend,” Ashe said. “We’re here to serve, to protect.”

  “Drake seems to do just fine being a badass himself,” Quinn grumbled. “Never quite understood what he needs us for.”

  “Every king needs his guard,” Ashe said softly. “Even the fiercest.”

  They came to the steps leading into the compound’s main hall, and both laid their hands on their weapon hilts. Two guards—both satyrs—stood at attention, gripping tall lances decorated with black ribbons, their faces, beards, and tall horns painted with sputtering torchlight. The one on the right, a tall beast with a mane of unruly gold hair, nodded to Ashe. Ashe subtly nodded back.

  “Thorn looks as jolly as ever,” Quinn muttered as they passed through the doorway. He took a deep breath as they neared the grand hall, and sighed. “I can smell the brew and food. Barbecued baby centaur, so it is! Ohhh, gods … it’s gonna be good tonight. A real party.”

  “After the new bride is revealed, yes. I’ll knock my tankard against yours as many times as you’ll have it.”

  “And the women!”

  “That, too,” Ashe murmured, taking in the view. He may have been an indentured servant, but of women and whiskey, Drake let him have his fill. It made the bitter pill
of his servitude go down that much easier.

  They entered the great meeting hall at the center of the Doomhand compound: an immense circular room lit by torchlight and a big ruby red chandelier that glowed like strange blood. The concrete walls were painted with a mishmash of murals, many depicting Drake and his conquests. Off in one corner, a band was blasting something out that sounded both cheeky and menacing. Ashe and Quinn made their way through the rowdy mingling of satyrs to Drake’s throne.

  Drake was sitting in the hunkering carved stone chair with his legs kicked up over one arm. The Doomhand chief grinned around at his guests, tossing his thick, sable dreadlocks over his shoulder, where they hung down the other arm of his seat, the stone beads decorating them clicking against the carved granite. His teeth were big, his horns bigger. Everything about Drake was large, and the spirit behind his ember-colored eyes was mean enough to shrivel the bravest soul.

  Beside him sat his first slave bride, a unicorn maiden glowing like moonlight in her silence. She sat straight and still in her own smaller throne, pale as milk save for two spots of soft pink that flushed her high cheekbones. She wore a gown and corset of deep blue velvet with pearls and jewels woven into her silky white tresses, but despite this grandeur, the collar and chain around her neck stood out in stark contrast. Unlike the satyr folk that crowded into the wide circular meeting hall, chattering excitedly, and Drake himself seated smugly beside her, she stared straight ahead, unmoving, like a ghost.

  Ashe wondered what she could possibly be thinking.

  “Well, if it isn’t Goat Boy and Ass!” Drake shouted uproariously as Ashe and Quinn neared his throne.

  “I like it better when you call me that, Ashe,” muttered Quinn under his breath as he split off and stood beside the first bride. Drake poked a meaty elbow against Ashe’s patched vest, shooting him a nasty wink.