Once Upon an Autumn Eve fs-3

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Nightshade, yet picking the route on his own, went down what must have been the main street of this village, and only sections of stark walls and tumbled wrack and windblown piles of bleak dirt watched their progress.

  Oh, my, all things alive or once living are gone from this once fertile place.-Orbane! Bastard Orbane, this is your doing. You and your acolytes have much to answer for.

  And Liaze rode on beyond the ruins and out into the barrens once more.

  It was late in the day when they came unto the sunwise twilight marge, and Liaze reined Nightshade to a halt and looked at the looming wall of crepuscular glimmer. “I hope you have chosen aright, noble steed.” Then she heeled the stallion, and forward they rode into the dimness, which turned darker the deeper they went and then lighter once more as they passed the ebon midpoint and began to emerge. And they came into low-angled afternoon sunlight and warmth and grass and trees, where but a slight waft of air softly caressed them all, and Liaze broke into tears.

  That night, with the horses cropping sweet grass, Liaze slept in her only dry blanket on a bed of boughs beside a warm fire burning, with sodden cloak and clothing and the remaining blankets strung from ropes and drying in its radiance. Nearby a gentle brook flowed, its purl singing in the silvery light of a gibbous moon waxing against the stars above.

  20

  Nixies

  Liaze awakened to the sound of distant shrieks. Feminine they seemed, as of demoiselles at play, or in peril. Liaze leapt to her feet and swiftly donned her undersilks and threw on her leathers. She pulled on her boots and strapped her long-knife to her thigh, and then strung her bow and slung a quiver of arrows across her back. She glanced at Luc’s sword in its sheath, but shook her head, for she was not skilled in that blade. Briefly she thought of saddling Nightshade, but instead she nocked an arrow and set off afoot through the woodland, following the stream in the direction of the ongoing screams.

  Scanning the surround as she went, but seeing nought of peril, Liaze slipped among the boles for a furlong or so, the shrieks growing louder with every step. And as she came within sight of the furor, the brook she followed joined a wide and deep flow, and where the tributary fed into the larger watercourse a broad pool slowly swirled ’neath ascending rock ledges against the far shore. And on the highest outcropping stood a slim, naked demoiselle, another one climbing up to reach her; and in the river nigh the foot of the drop swam several others. And with a shrill cry, the one on the ledge leapt outward, and, clutching her knees to her chest, she plunged down amidst the shrieking damsels below, a great gout of water exploding upward.

  Liaze heaved a sigh of relief. They are at play. And she stepped out from the trees and onto the wide, grassy bank.

  As the princess emerged from concealment, the climbing demoiselle’s eyes widened in fright, and she screamed in dread and pointed across at Liaze, then dove for the pool, and transformed!

  Even as the damsel clove the lucid water, and as the others spun ’round to see Liaze and flipped over and dove for the depths, the princess gasped in surprise: Mithras! Did my eyes deceive me, or did she become part fish?

  Only swirls on the surface of the clear-running river answered her-a language she could not read.

  Why did they flee?

  Liaze frowned and looked down at herself, then laughed. Ah, they think I am a warrior, coming armed as I did. And she slipped the arrow into her quiver and slung her bow across her back. Then she stood on the shore and waited.

  Long moments passed and long moments more, and finally a dark head briefly broke the surface and looked her way… then disappeared. Several heartbeats later another head bobbed up… and then down. Finally, one came to the surface and stayed long enough for Liaze to show open and empty hands.

  The demoiselle’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, and then she called out: “Femme?”

  “Oui!” answered Liaze, and she sat down in the grass along the bank. Mayhap they will think me less a threat this way.

  Briefly, the damsel submerged, and then reappeared with the others. Timidly they approached, and, as they did so, in the clear flow Liaze could see that each of these females had a diaphanous dorsal fin running down the length of her back and held erect by spines, and instead of legs each had a broad tail stroking; it was as if these people were half fish and half women. Yet one and then another of these beings transformed into two-legged demoiselles as they came to the shallows.

  And the one who had called out stood and stepped to the bank and spoke in the old tongue: “Qui etes vous?”

  And Liaze smiled up at the dark-haired, small-breasted damsel and answered in kind: “Liaze, Princesse de la Foret d’Automne…”

  “Liaze, Princess of the Autumnwood. And you are…?”

  “Eausine,” answered the demoiselle. Then she added: “Are you one of the hunters who now and then come to spear our fish with their bows and swift arrows?”

  “We went to warn them,” said the second one as she came to shore, she with hair as golden as the heart of a water lily.

  “Ah,” said Liaze. “I see. You went to warn the fish. And no, I have not come to take them from you.” Then the princess looked from one demoiselle to another, each of them slender and comely, with green eyes large and aslant, tilted up at the outer corners and set in narrow faces. They had long, flowing hair, and now and then movement revealed shell-like ears. Exotic were these damsels, as were those yet in the water, their graceful tails slowly fanning the flow. “But tell me,” Liaze asked, “ what are you?”

  All looked at one another in puzzlement, for they didn’t understand.

  “I mean,” added Liaze, “you look like demoiselles, but you can become half fish.”

  “Ah,” said the yellow-haired one, sinking to the grass beside Liaze. “Nixies. We are Nixies.”

  “Oh, my,” said Liaze. “I have heard of your Kind, but never before encountered any.”

  Yet standing, Eausine glanced at Liaze’s bow and arrows and said, “We, on the other hand, have dealt with your Kind before. Are you certain you are not a hunter?”

  “Oh, I am a hunter, all right,” said Liaze, and collectively the Nixies gasped. “B-but of a different sort,” the princess hurriedly assured them.

  “There is only one kind of hunter,” said the dark-haired demoiselle, at least for now the nominal leader of the Nixies. “The kind who seeks to kill.”

  “Oh, I would not kill the one I hunt, for he is my true love,” replied Liaze.

  True love? True love? A murmur ran among the Nixies.

  “What is this true love?” one in the water asked.

  How can they know not true love? Liaze sighed and said, “A true love is a person you would wish to have forever at your side. One who is a companion, a lover, a friend. Someone who gives you joy, makes you laugh, and who consoles you when you cry. Someone you need and someone who needs you. Someone with whom you can face the trials of life and share its delights as well. Someone who was meant to be.. ”

  Liaze’s words fell into hesitance, for the demoiselles yet looked at her with puzzlement in their eyes.

  “… a mate,” finished Liaze, feeling as if she had ended lamely.

  But the Nixies giggled, and one said, “Ah, mating we understand.” And they broke into giggles once more.

  “And who is this mate of yours?” asked Eausine.

  “A man, a knight: his name is Luc,” said Liaze.

  “Luc? Luc? You know Luc?” cried one.

  “You have mated with him?” gasped another.

  “Would that it were I,” said a third.

  “What?” cried Liaze. “You know of Luc?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Eausine, plopping to the ground beside Liaze and then gesturing about. “He camped right here.”

  “My Luc? Metal shirt? Black horse? Silver horn?”

  The dark-haired damsel nodded. “We swam in the moonlight with him,” said one of the Nixies yet in the water, now transforming to come ashore.

  Liaze said,
“Did he…? I mean, did you… did any of you, um, er…?” But then she thrust out her hands and shook her head, saying, “-No, no! I don’t want to know.”

  Eausine looked at her in puzzlement.

  Oh, Liaze, it’s not as if you were without experience when you first made love to Luc. Nevertheless…

  Of a sudden, Eausine’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, no, we did not mate with him, though it’s not as if we did not try. It was clear he was ready”-Nixies giggled-“but he was too shy.” Eausine pointed at the golden-haired Nixie. “Jasine was the first to see him cross the river on his great black horse.”

  “Yes,” said Jasine. “I called the others, and we watched, fearing that he was a hunter, too. But he merely made camp, and then, in the evening, he dove into our pool, and, of course, we went to meet him. When he discovered we were swimming with him, he cried out that he was sans vetements. ”

  “As if that mattered,” said one of the Nixies yet in the water.

  “It was one of the things that attracted us to him,” said another. “-Being without clothes, I mean.”

  “That among other attributes,” said a third, giggling.

  “Yes,” said Eausine, sighing in remembrance, “other attributes. But it was as I said: we wanted to mate with him-every one of us-but he was too shy. Not only that, but he said something about waiting-oh, now I remember-waiting for true love. I knew I had heard that somewhere before. I didn’t understand it then either.”

  “We even sang to him,” said one of the part-fish demoiselles, her dorsal fin now folded down against her spine, “but he resisted our songs.”

  Liaze momentarily glowed with satisfaction, for she had been his first love, his one and only, yet, even as it came on, the warm feeling was quenched under a pang of guilt, for, unlike Luc, she had not waited for true love. Liaze sighed. Still, there is some consolation: because one of us had some experience, we avoided all of that awkward fumbling. With this minor bit of self-justification, the guilt receded but did not vanish.

  “We would have sung to him the next night and perhaps swayed him,” said Eausine, “but that very morn he said adieu and rode on into the woods.”

  “Whence came he?” asked Liaze. “-I am following his track opposite the path he rode.”

  “But why?” asked Eausine. She pointed into the forest back in the direction of Liaze’s camp. “That’s the way he went.”

  “Yes, but you see,” said Liaze, “someone-a witch, I believe-snatched him up and flew off with him. I despaired of ever finding him, but then we discovered the witch had left behind a messenger crow-”

  “Ssss…” hissed several of the Nixies. “Crows,” said Eausine, “murderers of stranded minnows and larger fish when we do not get there in time.”

  “Have you seen crows flying above?” asked Liaze.

  Nixies nodded, and the yellow-haired one pointed upstream. “Over the ford they sail, dipping low to see if any gasping fish has drowned in the sea of air. Pick at their flesh, they do, and then fly on.”

  “Ford?”

  “Yes, a bit that way,” said Jasine, again pointing upstream. “It’s where Luc crossed just before he made camp here.”

  “Then that’s the way I intend to go, for I follow the crows, and if Lady Fortune smiles down on me, I will find Luc at the end of their flight.”

  “Oh, but that means you will pass through the Forest of Oaks,” said Eausine.

  “Forest of Oaks? You make it sound somewhat dire.”

  “It is if the Fauns enspell you.”

  “Fauns? But I thought them quite benign.”

  “They are, my lady, but their pipes are enchanting, and they might enspell you as they do the Nymphs.”

  “Nymphs,” said Liaze. “Still-”

  “Oh, it’s not the Nymphs nor the Fauns you need fear, but the Satyrs.”

  “Satyrs,” said Liaze.

  “The always-rutting Satyrs,” said Jasine. “When they hear the pipes, they come running, just on the chance that Nymphs are enspelled.”

  “And…?” said Liaze.

  “And,” said Eausine, “should you be entranced and a Satyr capture you, he will keep you for long whiles and pass you about to other Satyrs until all weary of you.”

  “Ugh,” said Liaze. “Still, I must follow the line of flight of the crows, else I might never find Luc, certainly not in the time given.”

  “Time given?”

  “I must find him before the dark of the moon-not the next, but the one after”-Liaze paused and counted on her fingers-“a moon and twenty days from now.” Tears welled in Liaze’s eyes. “If I fail, I believe he will die.”

  “Oh, no,” gasped Jasine, her face falling, “not Luc.”

  Eausine said, “Then among the Fauns you must pass, but you must ward off the sound of their pipes and completely avoid hearing them. That is their enchantment, and the lure that brings the Satyrs.”

  “Yet if Luc rode through,” said Liaze, “he must have heard them.”

  “He is male and you are not,” said Jasine, as if that explained all.

  “You must not hear their pipes,” stressed Eausine.

  Liaze frowned. Then I need go deaf. But how-? Ah yes, there is honey among my goods.

  Liaze smiled and said, “Fear not for me, my friends. Yet tell me: where does this Forest of Oaks lie?”

  “Beyond our realm,” said Eausine, “past the very next sunwise twilight border.”

  Again Liaze smiled and her gaze swept o’er the Nixies all. “Lady Skuld told me I would find help along the way, and-”

  The Nixies all drew in sharp breaths, and Jasine said, “Lady Skuld? Oh, my, dire events must be aswim.”

  Liaze nodded and said, “Indeed, and so I must not tarry, for the moon itself tarries not.” Liaze stood and looked upstream, but she could not see the ford.

  The three Nixies stood ashore as well and stepped back into the water, and Eausine said, “You must be careful, Princess Liaze.”

  “That I will be,” replied Liaze. “And thank you for the warning as well as confirming to me that Luc did ride this way, and opposite flew the crows.” She glanced once more upstream, and then with a farewell salute, she spun on her heel and strode into the forest.

  A candlemark later, Liaze rode Nightshade across the ford, Pied Agile and the packhorses in tow, and downstream in waist-deep water stood the Nixies, all waving and calling out their Au revoirs! and Bon voyages!

  Liaze held a hand, palm out, to them, and rode on across, and when she reached the other side of the wide ford, she turned to look one last time, but the Nixies were gone.

  21

  Croft

  Up and out from the ford rode Liaze, Nightshade yet choosing the path. “Well, my good steed, it seems you truly do know the course, for Caillou and the Nixies both confirm Luc went opposite this way. But even more importantly, the crows flew this line bearing their messages to the witch, and so perhaps we can rescue Luc if the witch’s dwelling lies between here and your stall. But if her place lies beyond your own home, then we’ll need to seek more help. Regardless… fare on, black horse, fare on.”

  Nightshade made no comment, but continued his pace, the gait a trot for the nonce, the mare and four geldings coming after as the steed followed a trace of a trail among the trees and headed for the sunwise bound.

  All day they followed the hint of a path, stopping now and then for the horses to take food or to drink from running streams, or for Liaze to take sustenance or relieve herself. At times the princess heeled Nightshade into a faster gait, or lightly pulled on the reins to change into one slower, Liaze varying the pace to preserve the endurance of the animals; at other times she dismounted and walked the horses and stretched her own legs. But always she let the black choose the way.

  In midafternoon the sky overhead began to darken as brooding clouds crept thwartwise o’er the forest. “Well, my lad, it looks as if we’re in for a storm, not now, but ere the night is done. We’ll need to find shelter b
y the coming of dark.”

  Just before dusk drew down, and as the wind kicked up, she rode out from the forest and onto a fall-away slope overlooking a land of low, rolling hills. In the near distance to the fore she saw a farmstead, where a handful of workers in a field hurriedly laded forkfuls of cut hay into an ox-drawn wain. And down that way Nightshade went.

  Even as Liaze neared the meadow, a few spatters of rain blew down, and one of the men afoot began driving the oxen toward a near byre, the others running ahead.

  Liaze hailed the drover and he glanced back at her but kept moving forward. Moments later she rode alongside the wain and the man afoot, even as more rain came on the forerunning wind. “Have you shelter for me and my steeds?”

  “Aye,” replied the drover, a rather grizzled and sun-baked man, his faded blue eyes appraising her and the horses, especially eyeing Deadly Nightshade. His gaze dwelt a moment on the silver horn slung across Liaze’s shoulder, but then he looked forward and lowed at the oxen, flicking a long flexible switch against their hindquarters, seemingly with no effect whatsoever.

  “I am Liaze of the Autumnwood,” said the princess.

  “Matthieu,” said the man. He gestured ahead, where the four other workers stood waiting just inside the doors of the now-open barn. “Vincent, Thierry, Noel, and Susanne,” said Matthieu, his words laconic.

  Into the byre rolled the wain, Liaze following. And as she passed the youths and the maid, they all looked up at her, their eyes filled with curiosity, especially those of the girl Susanne, a fille of no more than thirteen summers.

  Outside, rain began pouring.

  “We really needed the sun one more day,” said Vincent, the young man the eldest of Matthieu and Madeleine’s brood, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the water hammering against the shake-shingle roof of the modest house.