Once Upon a Dreadful Time

by Dennis L McKiernan

  But even as the witch mused, just as had Camille and the Wolf that Hradian had spied upon in her ebon mirror, Liaze frowned and looked about, searching. Swiftly, the witch dispelled the image. Ah, if she only had mastered the skill at this as had her sister Iniquí—murdered by Liaze, no less—there would have been no seepage of power for any of them to have felt.

  Hradian stood and stepped to the hearth and took up the teapot sitting on the stones in the heat of the glowing coals. She poured a cup of the herbal brew—monkshood petals and belladonna berries among the mix of leaves therein—and then she paced to the window and stared out into the dank night. No starlight penetrated the thick blanket of fog, and the slitherings and ploppings of unseen things were muffled by the murk. Even so, a shrill scream sounded nearby, followed by a splatting of flight as something fled through the bog and something else hurtled after. Hradian smiled and dreamt of the day when that might be one of Valeray’s offspring fleeing in terror while she herself gave pursuit.

  Finishing the herbal drink, Hradian stepped back to the table, back to the bowl, back to the task at hand.

  An image formed in the dark mirror: that of a demoiselle with pale blond hair and green eyes. “Céleste,” hissed the witch. “The last of Valeray’s get. Bah, young she might be, yet ’twas she and her consort Roél who murdered my sister Nefasí.” The scene widened, and in the background stood a slender young man with black hair and dark grey eyes. “Ah, the consort,” muttered Hradian. “What’s this? It looks as if they also are preparing for a journey. Where to, I wonder? Beyond the Springwood? If so, perhaps I will have an opportunity.”

  Even as Hradian mused, Céleste shivered and frowned and looked over her shoulder as if seeking a foe behind. Hradian quickly gestured, and the image vanished.

  Again, Hradian arose and trod to the hearth and once more filled her cup with the herbal draught. As before, she stood at her window and peered out into the darkness; in the distance she could hear the crunching of bones as something chewed and slavered. “Ah, the hunter was successful, as one day I shall be.”

  Slowly she sipped until she had downed the last of her drink, and, renewed, again Hradian stepped to her ebon mirror. “One more. One more. I have seen the Summerwood, the Winterwood, the Autumnwood, and the Springwood . . . all of the spawn of Valeray and Saissa. Now to look in on those two.”

  She uttered dark words, and in the bowl as if in the distance there appeared an image of the Palace of Seasons, and toward this place Hradian willed herself to go. She seemed to fly o’er the wooded hills of this small demesne, the kingdom inaccessible except through the four forests ruled over by the children of King Valeray and Queen Saissa, though unlike those individual domains, this realm, central to the others, underwent the change of seasons, and now summertime lay on the land. Over the palace grounds she soared, and below in a grassy field stood tents and stands and a jousting list, and pennons flew in the starlight; it was as if all was ready for a tournament. And from tall poles flew the banners of each of the Forests of the Seasons—the green-leafed oak of the Summerwood; the silver snowflake of the Winterwood; the scarlet maple leaf of the Autumnwood, and the full-blossomed cherry tree of the Springwood. “Ah, are they preparing for a visit from their brood?”

  Into the palace she swooped, where servants bustled thither and yon, making ready for guests. “Ha! Yes, I do believe here is where the children come. ’Tis not far across the twilight borders from each of their separate manors. If so, then soon they will all be gathered together in this one place. Mayhap there is something I can do.”

  Given the seepage of power from her casting, and not daring to risk a confrontation with Queen Saissa that would perhaps whisper warning, Hradian dispelled the image and leaned back and pondered. “What to do? What to do?”

  Once more she stepped to the window. The distant sound of the crunching of bones yet drifted on the air. “How to gain my revenge? For the children murdered Rhensibé, Nefasí, and Iniquí, and the sire and dam are responsible for imprisoning my master Orbane in the Castle of Shadows beyond the Black Wall of the World, a castle from which even he cannot escape, and I have not the power to loose him. And Valeray and his get seem aided by the Fates themselves, and only my master can stand up to those three. What to do? What to do?”

  Yet mulling over what seemed an insoluble problem, Hradian, weary, threw off her clothes and took to her bed. And with all she had seen whirling about in her thoughts and her mind searching for some resolution, she fell into a restless sleep.

  It was in the hours just ere dawn that Hradian bolted upright. “So that’s what Iniquí was after!”

  Hradian jumped up and in her nakedness danced a whirling jig, her gleeful laughter ringing throughout the cottage, for now she knew how to get her revenge for absolutely everything.

  2

  Awareness

  “Oh,” exclaimed Céleste, looking over her shoulder, a fris-son running up her spine.

  “What is it, chérie?”

  The princess turned toward Roél. “As before, I felt as if someone or something dreadful were in the room.”

  Roél stepped to his racked armor and took up Coeur d’Acier, the sword gleaming silver in the lamplight.

  “It’s gone, Roél,” said Céleste. “Vanished as quick as it came.”

  “Nevertheless . . .” said the black-haired knight, and, with blade in hand, he moved to the door and jerked it open and looked up and down the empty hallway beyond. Then he strode back across the room to a window and threw wide the drapes and peered out into the glittering starlight to see nought but the lawn of Springwood Manor and the trees of the forest in the distance beyond, the green gone dark in the nighttime. He turned from the window and, as would a tiger unleashed, he prowled about the chamber, opening the curtains shrouding the bed and then the doors to the tall armoire, and then to the garderobe beyond. He flung wide the door and disappeared within, and then stalked back out and entered the bathing room and privy adjacent.

  “Nothing,” he said upon returning once more to the bed chamber.

  “Perhaps this time it was just a whim,” said Céleste.

  Roél reracked his sword and then stepped to the princess and took her in his arms. “Non, Céleste, I do not believe so. These feelings of yours have sporadically occurred throughout what, two or three summers? Love, you are sensing someone or something with malice in its heart.”

  She looked up into his eyes of dark grey. “As have Liaze and Camille . . . and Michelle, too, but only when she is with Borel.”

  “A deadly intent aimed at him, do you think?”

  Céleste shrugged but said nought.

  Roél stroked her pale yellow hair. “When all the family gathers at your sire and dam’s palace, we will call a conference and discuss this enmity.”

  “Oh, Roél, I would not press gloom upon such a gala.”

  “Chérie, ’tis something that must be dealt with.”

  “How can one deal with such?”

  “That I do not know, Céleste, but to ignore it is to perhaps court disaster.” Roél smiled down at her. “We must not hide our heads under our wings, my little towheaded chickadee, else the snake will strike, the cat will pounce, and we will be nought but a flurry of bloody feathers.”

  Céleste burst into laughter, her green eyes sparkling. “Chickadee? Chickadee?”

  “Oui, my love, now give me a peck.”

  In a bedchamber in Autumnwood Manor, Luc turned to Liaze. “Another one?”

  The princess took a deep breath and let it out. “Oui, chéri. It lingered a moment, then was gone. Yesternight Camille sensed maleficence, too.” Liaze replaced the long gown back in the garderobe and stepped to an escritoire. She opened a drawer and fished among tissue-thin tiny rolls of paper. “Here,” she said, handing the message to Luc. “This came by Summerwood falcon in the mark of noon.”

  Moving to the lamp the better to see the tiny writing, the dark-haired prince read the raptor-borne missive:

&n
bsp; My dear Liaze, it happened again, that feeling as if someone or something wicked were in my chamber. But then it vanished, just as before. We must speak of this at the gathering. Duran is well. Alain sends his regards.—Camille

  Luc looked up from the message. “She is right. We must hold council at the gathering. Yet were I to hazard a guess, I would say that the fourth acolyte is somehow involved.”

  “Fourth? Ah, oui. Hradian. But she is the only acolyte now.”

  Luc nodded and handed the missive back to Liaze, then turned and closed the portmanteau.

  “I believe that is all,” said Camille, hanging the last of the gowns in the tall, hinged trunk.

  Duran looked up from amid a scatter of toys. “Non, Maman.” He took up a white horse from among his playthings, the tiny bells on the caparisoned steed jingling. “Asphodel will go, too.”

  “Ah, the swift Fairy horse,” said Camille. “You are right. We must not leave him behind. After all, his namesake helped Oncle Borel save Tante Chelle.”

  “Fast,” said Duran, clip-clopping the toy across the floor to Camille and then into the portmanteau.

  “Oui, fleet,” replied Camille. Then she scooped three-summers-old Duran up in her arms. “Oh, my big boy, you are halfway to four, and every day you grow to look more like your father. You have his grey eyes, though your fair hair is more like mine.”

  “Will I be a Bear, too?”

  “ ’Tis unlikely.”

  Disappointment shone in Duran’s face. “I would like to be a Bear, Maman.”

  “Perhaps one day,” said Camille, clasping the child close. “And speaking of your father, where could he be, I wonder?”

  Duran’s father, slender and tall and raven-haired, and not at all looking like a Bear, stood in the Summerwood armory with Armsmaster Bertran. “Is the warband ready?”

  “Oui, my lord. Does Lady Camille yet sense something or someone of ill intent?”

  Alain glanced at the scarred veteran, the mark on his cheek taken in the battle in the realm of the Changelings. He nodded. “On occasion.”

  “My lord, we shall be armed to the teeth. She and Prince Duran will be well protected. It is a short journey to the palace.”

  “Two days apace,” replied Alain. “The baggage train: who is assigned as its escort?”

  “Gerard and his men are with those already on the journey. Others will trail us. Those I have assigned to Phillípe and his crew; they will arrive a day or two after.”

  “Good men, all, Gerard and Phillípe and their bands.”

  Alain fell silent, and after a moment Bertran said, “My lord, are you certain you will not go armed—a sword or even a dirk?”

  “Non, Armsmaster. The Bear will suffice, if needed.”

  “As you will, my prince.”

  Borel looked up from the missive and sighed. “Did you sense aught this time, Chelle?”

  “Non, Borel,” said Michelle, concern in her sapphire-blue eyes. “But you know it seems only to happen when I am with you. It’s as if something evil glances in upon us . . . or rather glances in upon you.”

  Borel ran a hand through his long silver-white hair. “Why is it, I wonder, that neither I nor Alain nor Luc nor Roél discern such?”

  “Mayhap it is because you are male?”

  Frowning in thought, Borel handed the message back to Michelle and said, “Now and again Slate seems to sense something amiss, and he is male.”

  As she put away the tissue-thin strip, “Slate is a Wolf,” replied Michelle, as if that explained all.

  Borel barked a laugh. “Are you saying that women are closer to Wolves than are men?”

  Michelle laughed and pushed Borel backwards and onto the bed, where she flounced up her skirts and straddled him. She bent forward, her long golden hair falling down about his face as well as hers as she looked into his ice-blue eyes and said, “Wolves, are we?” She kissed him, long and passionately, then gently took his lower lip in her teeth and growled.

  Some time later, as they lay side by side, Borel leaned up on one elbow and looked down at her and said, “Camille is right: we must hold a council at the gathering.”

  3

  Gathering

  Starwise they rode, did each of the four separate retinues travelling through their respective forests, and were it the Springwood, Summerwood, Autumnwood, or Winterwood, it mattered not, for all cavalcades went starwise, all heading toward the twilight bounds that would take each contingent into the domain known as the Palace of the Seasons. And each of the entourages timed their departures so that all would arrive within a candlemark of one another.

  In the Springwood, after a short journey, in midmorn the procession rode onto the grounds of a recently occupied estate, where they were welcomed by Sieur Émile and Lady Simone and their daughter, Lady Avélaine, and their two sons, Sieurs Laurent and Blaise.

  As stablemen and boys tended the horses and liveried staff scurried to pour drinks and provide a bite or two for the arriving band, Roél greeted his mother and sister with gentle hugs, and his sire and brothers with fierce embraces and hearty poundings, and Céleste greeted all with embraces and kisses on cheeks. As for their aspects, Laurent and Blaise, with their red hair and hazel eyes, favored their mother, while Avélaine and Roél favored their dark-haired father, though his eyes fell in a blue-grey range, while Avélaine’s were sapphire blue and Roél’s dark grey.

  As they moved toward a gazebo, Roél looked about the manicured grounds and, frowning, asked, “Avi, where is your husband, the good Vicomte Chevell?”

  “Oh, Rollie,” said Avélaine, “he’s back at our estate in Port Mizon, for King Avélar has him assembling a great fleet and training marines to once and for all rid the seas of the corsairs on the isle of Brados. But despite my protests, he sent me on, for he knows how much I enjoy the tournament.”

  “You came alone?”

  “Oh non, Rollie. Laurent and Blaise and a small warband fetched me.”

  “Well and good, then,” said Roél, turning to nod at his brothers.

  “Chevell would like to have been here,” said Blaise.

  “I shall miss him,” replied Roél.

  “As will we all,” said Émile.

  They took seat in the gazebo to chat and quaff a goblet of wine, the men all armed with swords at their waists and long-knives strapped to their thighs and armored in helms and leathers, the latter with arrayed bronze platelets riveted thereon to cover each torso. Céleste and Avélaine wore leathers, too, though they forwent the burden of metal. Lady Simone was dressed in a flowing riding gown, one that was not a split skirt, for she was of the old school.

  “Are you well settled?” asked Céleste. It was just summer last that Émile and Simone and their household had left the mortal world to come and live in the Springwood to be near Roél and Céleste.

  “Oui,” said Simone, smiling. But then she shrugged and added, “Some of the staff, though, remained behind, for they would not face the perils of Faery.”

  “Perils, Maman?” said Avélaine, her sapphirine eyes sparkling. “Oh, poo. This is a wondrous place.”

  Simone frowned and canted her head, her red hair cascading down one shoulder. “Was it not but some four summers past that you were yet held captive herein?”

  “Oui, but that should not dissuade any from living in Faery.”

  “Speaking of living in Faery,” said Simone, turning to Céleste, “I thank you deeply for sending Reydeau to tutor us in the ways of Faery, the beings herein, these shadowlight walls we must cross from realm to realm, and the perils we might face if we cross at an unmarked place.”

  “Ah, Simone, ’twas meet,” said Céleste, “else who knows what troubles you might have gotten into.”

  Avélaine laughed gaily and said, “Such as the time you and Rollie fled through a border at an unknown place. Many times did Reydeau use that as an example of the dangers of the borders. Though in your case you landed on the deck of Chevell’s Sea Eagle, thanks to the Fates, else you
would have fallen into an ocean far from land.”

  Émile frowned. “But Reydeau never said why you couldn’t have simply swum back through the marge.”

  Roél shrugged. “Mayhap we could have, Père, had we not landed on the Eagle, though I don’t know whether there were currents that would have swept us along, nor do I know how we would have regained the top of the precipice we sprang from. Besides, there were Redcap Goblins and Bogles and Trolls on our heels, and we were sorely outnumbered.”

  Simone sighed. “Redcaps and Bogles and Trolls and Changelings and other such Faery creatures: dreadful things they are.”

  “But Maman,” protested Avélaine, “there are also Sprites and Fairies and Elves and Twig Men and Pixies and the like: splendid beings all, Reydeau said, and I would like to meet each and every one.”

  Céleste nodded and said, “In Faery there are many dangers to be avoided as well as joys to experience; the trick is to know which is which.”

  “Let us not talk of perils and pleasures in Faery,” said Blaise, “but speak of the tournament instead.” He turned to Roél and said, “This year, little brother, this year, one of us must defeat Luc. The honor of the House of Émile demands it.”

  Nodding in agreement, Laurent said, “Thrice he has bested us, but you, Rollie, you took his measure last time, though in the end ’twas his skill with a bow that decided the outcome.”

  “I have been practicing,” said Roél, “but even so . . .”

  “Ha!” barked Sieur Émile. “The prince is quite accomplished. ’Twas that armsmaster from his childhood, um—”

  “Léon,” supplied Céleste.

  Émile nodded at Céleste. “Ah, oui, Léon, who drilled him from infancy on. A more skilled man I have not seen.”

  “Léon or Luc, Papa?” asked Blaise.

  “Either one,” replied Émile, “though Luc is a shade faster.”

  Armsmaster Anton came striding, and as they turned toward him, “My lords and ladies,” he said, “the horses are fed and watered. We should leave if we expect to reach Auberville ere sundown.”