Worlds Unseen

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  It was a man on a horse, but both rider and animal were larger than any Maggie had ever seen. The horse’s eyes glowed with white fire. Its mane and tail were blue-white against a body the colour of the night sky. The man wore a long, dark blue cloak with stars woven all through it,and the stars were shining—the source of the light that fell on Maggie’s face and lit the farmyard with magic. The man wore a tunic and leggings and knee-high boots. Around his neck was a silver band, and he held a silver horn in his hand. On his back was slung a bow and a quiver full of arrows that shone like the stars in the cloak. The man’s face was unlike any Maggie had ever seen. It was a beautiful face, both fine and rugged, and framed by long black hair. The man’s eyes were white and blazing, much like the horse’s.

  As Maggie watched, the horse reared up on its hind legs. The man raised the silver horn to his lips and sounded a long, deep blast. Before the sound had faded away, the horse and rider had disappeared.

  Maggie’s heart burned inside of her, and a phrase she had never heard before was suddenly playing through her mind.

  Hear the call of the Huntsman’s horn;

  The stars all sing when the chase is on;

  Over the sky fields and cross the moon;

  The darkness meets its downfall soon.

  As the words began to beat a rhythm inside of her, Maggie ran out of the bunkhouse and into the yard. There were no hoofprints, no marks to show that anyone had been here. Only… Maggie crouched down to the hard-packed earth where a faint light was glowing. She picked up the shining thing carefully and found that it was a thread. It must have come from the Huntsman’s cloak, for its slender length shone with the blue-white light of the stars. In her cupped hands it shone all the brighter.

  Maggie stood in the center of the empty farmyard and let the light of the thread dance on the earth and the sides of the buildings, recalling the mystical moment when the whole yard was as full of the light as if one of the stars had come down to earth.

  With her heart full to the bursting, Maggie sat down cross-legged in the dirt and tilted her head up to the night sky.

  She fell asleep there.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  Betrayal

  Maggie awoke, vaguely aware that she was stiff and sore and a little cold. Someone was shaking her gently. Her eyes fluttered open to see Libuse looking down at her with a face full of concern.

  Libuse sat back and let out a relieved breath when Maggie’s eyes opened. “You’re all right,” she said. “I was afraid something had happened.”

  “Something did,” Maggie said, sitting up. Her mind was cloudy and she was not entirely sure why she was sleeping in a farmyard. An image of a horse and rider flashed through her mind.

  “I dreamed…” Maggie began. Her hand tightened around the silver thread. She held it up in front of her face with awe-filled eyes. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream.”

  “What is it, Maggie?” Libuse asked. “What happened?”

  “I saw a man from the Otherworld,” Maggie said. “If I could call him a man, though I feel sure he’s not one. Not really.”

  Libuse looked skeptical, but she was listening.

  “He was a hunter,” Maggie said. “The Huntsman—he blew his horn. It was a signal.” She smiled. The thread felt like a precious secret in her hands, throbbing with hope. “Things aren’t only stirring here. The Otherworld is preparing for battle, too.”

  “Maggie, I—” Libuse started to say. Maggie took her hand and pressed the thread into it.

  “Keep this,” Maggie said. “It’s a sign. We’re not alone.”

  Libuse cupped the thread in her hands. Her eyes widened as she realized that it was shining.

  A minute later, Mrs. Korak ordered them inside for breakfast. There was work to be done, and Libuse and Maggie did not speak again that day.

  * * *

  Virginia and Lord Robert had not yet settled into their rooms at a Pravik inn before the name of Jarin Huss reached their ears: the venerable old professor had been charged with insurrection against the Empire and the murder of an Eastern princess. His trial—and doubtless his execution—was less than a fortnight away.

  Lord Robert paled at the news, but Virginia only sank deeper into silence. She had not spoken once since they had set out for the city.

  The next morning Lord Robert left the inn in search of news—alone. It seemed wise to leave Virginia behind closed doors. The city was swarming with High Police.

  * * *

  Two days later a rebel carrier brought news from Pat. She had a job, not, unfortunately for her tastes, with the theatre. She was working in a dress shop, but enough gossip passed through every day to make the long hours more than worth her while.

  The date for the public trial and sure execution of Jarin Huss and Jerome was still unknown, but old women with uncanny instincts for such things put it at less than two weeks.

  The Ploughman sat in long silence when he read the letter, his fist crumpling around the paper. It was not enough time. Libuse stood behind him and whispered in his ear. He reached up his hand, the one with the ruby ring, to take hers and hold it tightly. Watching them made Maggie’s throat ache. She thought of Jerome, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  That day, Maggie followed some of the farmers into the barn. They carried heavy sacks, collected from every smithy in the region. They moved aside straw and dirt and pulled up four long floorboards to reveal case after case of swords, spears, bows, and arrows. The contents of the sacks went in along with them.

  The next few days passed in a blur. Hundreds of men arrived at the farm every morning before the sun came up, farmers and peasants, boys as young as thirteen and men as old as sixty. They pulled bows, clashed swords, and marched in rows as the Ploughman gave orders.

  Practice.

  Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Korak, Libuse, and Maggie worked for hours in the kitchen, struggling to keep up with the appetites of the peasant men. Most brought some food with them for the women to prepare. They knew better than to expect the Ploughman to pull food out of thin air.

  Another letter from Pat. The trial would take place in four days.

  The Ploughman clenched his fist again and went back to work.

  “Three days from now the Tax Gathering begins,” Libuse told Maggie in the bunkhouse, over the light of a candle. “Many will come to Pravik from all over the province. Zarras wants this trial public.”

  More weapons arrived. More men came to march and shoot and fence in the fields.

  One evening, the men took their weapons home with them. A few stayed, and they sat with the Ploughman at Mrs. Korak’s long table and argued and pounded the wood and pored over maps, planning and planning well into the night.

  Maggie went out into the yard sometime after four o’clock in the morning. The sky was cloudy, but here and there breaks in the grey allowed stars to shine through. The moon was wreathed by thin, ghostly wisps of cloud.

  The moonbeams shone straight into Maggie’s soul. She opened her mouth and sang softly.

  Hear the call of the Huntsman’s horn…

  * * *

  Lord Robert wandered through the city, listening. He heard nothing new: Huss and his apprentice were imprisoned in Pravik Castle under heavy guard; the apprentice, acting under Jarin Huss’s orders, had murdered the last living heir of the ancient royal family of Sloczka.

  Lord Robert had not seen his old friend in forty years, but it had not felt like such a long time until now. The murderer who awaited trial in Pravik Castle could hardly be the same man who had sat at the council table in Angslie and opened up the ancient writings for his companions. Yet it was the same man. Time had taken its strange toll, and Lord Robert felt utterly alone.

  The worst of it was, he could not shake a feeling of responsibility. Had he somehow brought his old friend to this? The rumours on the streets spoke of Huss as an odd man. There were whispers of a strange and mysterious branch of science and history that had led the ol
d professor into madness. Was it true? Had the study of the Otherworld led to this?

  If it had… what did it matter?

  Lord Robert clenched his jaw as he walked. There was power in the Otherworld. Enough to rescue a friend, to change the course of things. If only he could touch it.

  His head hurt.

  He was walking along a cobbled path beside the dark river. Young trees lined his way. Their yellow leaves crunched beneath his feet, and the breeze from over the river was cold.

  He lifted his eyes and saw her.

  Evelyn.

  She was leaning on the wrought iron fence overlooking the river. A rain of yellow leaves drifted to the ground all around her. She wore a dress of burgundy and gold, and her black hair was shining. She looked unchanged, as young as the day they had met: young and breathtakingly beautiful, and full of power. His heart caught in his throat. She turned, and their eyes met.

  No dream, this.

  She turned away and began to run.

  His heart pounding, tears rushing to his eyes, he ran after her.

  Through the streets they ran, Evelyn always just ahead, running like a deer. There was no one else anywhere; it was only the two of them in the world. Weaving through the alleys and the streets, now by the river and now in the city, Lord Robert did not know how far they went. But suddenly they were standing on the Guardian Bridge and all of the white marble statues were stretching their hands out toward them, and Evelyn stopped, leaning against the side of the bridge. Lord Robert was there, and she was in his arms, and she was kissing him.

  Forty years had not passed; it had only been weeks since he had seen her last. Surely, surely, it had only been weeks. He wanted to ask why she had left him, where she had gone. He had suspected her of so much! But he had been wrong; he knew now that he had been wrong.

  She moved away from him, just a little, so that they could look into each other’s eyes. Her eyes were so black, black like her hair, and beguiling. “You doubted me, my love,” she said.

  He hung his head. “I did not know,” he faltered. “Where—where did you go?”

  “I had to leave,” she whispered. “My enemies were at work. They would have killed me if I had not gone.”

  “I would have gone with you,” he said.

  “I would not put you in danger,” she said.

  “You broke my heart,” he told her.

  “But I am here now,” she replied.

  It did not occur to him to wonder how it was, why it was, that she was here now. She was, and that was enough. He was lost in her presence, a man in love with a mist that blinded his eyes and closed his ears, with a being of power that made his heart ache with longing.

  She began to move away from him, and he held her hands to keep her from running away. “Will you leave me again?” he asked, his voice breaking.

  “No, my love,” she said. “But our enemies are once more at work. I need your help. You have something we need—something that will take us deeper into the worlds unseen.”

  He could not answer before she was in his arms again, kissing him again, and for a long time he could see and hear and feel nothing but her. When she had moved back, her arms around his neck, he said, “I will do anything you ask of me.”

  Her deep red lips curled in a smile. “I know you will, dear one. I know.”

  * * *

  Lord Robert did not return to the inn that night, and Virginia did not sleep. She sat in a rocking chair in the corner of her room and listened to the creak of the floorboards. She had found her way to the window and opened it, so that the hawk could sit on the sill. Its presence comforted her. Once she nearly fell asleep, and she imagined herself back on the mountainside with her fingers entwined in the wiry fur of her hound. His whole body rose and fell as he breathed, deep breathing… but no, she awoke, and the hound was gone. The hawk stirred and ruffled its feathers.

  Visions visited her throughout the night. She saw Pat, working in a dress shop, listening intently to the gossip of dozens of housewives and maidservants who passed through. She saw the streets below her window filled with the clash of swords and the shouts of battle. She saw scenes she had seen before: a tall man on horseback, shouting orders, the air twisting and warping in golden waves around him; a young woman with auburn hair running along the ramparts of the city wall.

  Virginia wept that night, because she saw another vision as well: that of the laird falling into darkness, while she tried to reach him and found that she could not.

  His long absence did not surprise her. When he left she had felt, deep inside, that he would not be back. His fall had begun already.

  Near morning, the vision came again. Only it was different now, for when Virginia reached out to stop the laird’s fall, he pulled her down with him.

  So she waited.

  * * *

  The year’s first frost was on the ground when Maggie awoke. She rolled over with a groan—her journey through Galce had not taught her to love sleeping on the ground. All around her, the Ploughman’s soldiers were already packing up camp.

  Maggie jumped to her feet, embarrassed to be sleeping still when the others were already at work. She expected a reprimand, but the men said nothing.

  They had slept outside the walls of Pravik, surrounded by wagons full of crops and goods—taxes. They would enter the city in less than an hour. Maggie rubbed her stiff arms and yawned, picking up the wooden crutch she had brought from the house of the Ploughman. She had ridden a horse most of the way here, but she would be walking into the city.

  She looked around at the little group of six men who were readying themselves for the day. They were a harmless looking crew, farmers all. One man wore a wide-brimmed hat over bushy gray hair that stuck out at the bottom; another rubbed a lucky coin given him by his sweetheart. There were other groups like them camped throughout the woods, none farther than an hour away from Pravik. Throughout the day they would drift in, one and two at a time, until the city was full of self-made soldiers. Under their clothes the men carried swords and long knives, quivers full of arrows, and bows. Some wore carefully patched leather armour.

  The Empire had a strict limit on how much weaponry peasants were permitted to own and carry, and the rebels were smashing the limit to little bits. Maggie knew it, as well as she knew how much trouble she would be in if anyone discovered that the cause of her limp was a sword strapped to her leg beneath her skirt. She sat down on a fallen log and strapped the sword on while the men finished their own preparations, then stood and practiced hobbling around on her crutch. No one would bother to search a cripple, or at least, that was the official hope of the rebels. An inordinate number of cripples would enter Pravik throughout the day and evening.

  One of the men finished loading a bad-tempered, foul-smelling donkey with long bundles of straw, in which was hidden a liberal number of arrows and a long bow. The donkey brayed loudly, and the farmer-soldier smiled. Hopefully no gatekeeper would be in a mood to meddle with the beast.

  Dirt was kicked over the fire, and the sorry-looking company headed down the road. They were mostly on foot now, their horses acting as pack animals. One horse pulled a wagon full of corn. The bottom of the wagon was false. Row after row of swords rested just beneath it. They were well-made swords, forged by blacksmiths who could have been jailed for the trouble. Strapped to the sides of the wagon, hidden beneath the corn, were heavy oak quarterstaves.

  They walked together for a while. Soon some pulled ahead while others lagged behind. The roads soon became crowded with tenant farmers and tradesmen. All of the Eastern Lands seemed to be coming to the Tax Gathering. Maggie hobbled along and kept her eyes cast down. The sword chafed against her leg, and she winced. At least she did not have to fake the discomfort of walking.

  In about an hour, she had reached the outskirts of Pravik. Maggie avoided looking around to see how many men she recognized. She knew there were about two hundred militia men seeking entrance into the city, and a hundred more still to
come with the Ploughman. The thought made her heart beat faster. She imagined Mrs. Cook worrying about her back at the farm.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said under her breath as she hobbled into the city.

  By the time she located Pat’s dress shop, her leg was raw from the rubbing of leather and metal, and the tears of pain in her eyes were real. She pulled herself up the steps to the shop and entered with a grimace. A bell rang to announce her arrival. Before she could properly take in her surroundings, she heard Pat call.

  “Maggie! Maggie, what’s happened?” Pat rushed up, all concern on her face. She linked her arm through Maggie’s and turned to a large woman behind the counter.

  “This is my friend,” Pat explained. “I’ll just take her back to my sewing room, out of your way.”

  Without waiting for permission, Pat hustled Maggie to the back of the shop and through a door into a snug, well-lit room. Before the door shut behind them, they heard the woman’s voice bellowing, “Don’t let it interfere with your work!”

  Pat stuck her tongue out at the door and then turned to Maggie again. “What has…” she began to say, and broke off when Maggie lifted her skirt to reveal the end of a leather scabbard. Pat’s jaw dropped for only a moment.

  “Is he here?” she asked, her voice dropped to a barely audible whisper.

  “He comes tomorrow,” Maggie answered. “But our men are filling the city.”

  “How many?” Pat asked.

  “Two hundred,” Maggie told her. “Another hundred or so with the Ploughman.”

  Pat frowned. “I haven’t been able to get a message out to warn you. This city is crawling with soldiers. They suspect trouble, I think.”

  “How are the people of Pravik going to react?” Maggie asked. “Libuse says she hopes for support from them.”

  “I don’t think we’ll get much help from the upper class,” said Pat. “They don’t like what’s happening, but they’re too busy courting the favour of Athrom to oppose Zarras openly. But the poor people are sick of being taxed out of health and home, and they’re tired of the High Police. We might have their help. They’re not well armed, of course.”