Once Upon a Dreadful Time

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Back at the linn, Céleste’s eyes widened, and she snatched at her bow, and nocked an arrow, for she had seen the pair. Yet ere she could draw and loose, Orbane, using borrowed power, spoke again the arcane word, and Valeray and the others, including Duran and wee Scruff, were frozen in place, as were Raseri and Rondalo and the colts of Asphodel.

  And Orbane, sneering in triumph, strode forward to come unto them, Hradian following after.

  56

  Reckoning

  Orbane strutted among those trapped at the linn, and he stopped before Auberon and smirked. “Well, Père, tried to stop me again, did you? You fool. Neither you nor your allies nor anyone else can prevent me from taking the throne you so haughtily denied to me, your very own son, your rightful heir. But I will not simply be the new Fey Lord to merely rule Under the Hill, for when I am done I will command not only all of Faery but the whole of the mortal world as well.”

  Standing motionless beside Auberon, Roél raged and tried with all of his will and heart and spirit and grit to raise his sword and cut down this arrogant being, but the prince could not twitch even the slightest of muscles. Although he could not move, still he could hear, and there came to his ears the faint sound of looms weaving, and of a sudden he realized that this very instant had been foretold, for had not Urd said—?

  “ ’Pon the precipice will ye be held,

  As surely as can be,

  Yet can ye but touch the deadly arcane,

  The least shall set ye free.”

  Roél’s mind raced. Surely this is the precipice of that conundrum as well as the moment of time. Yet did she not also say, “If you do not solve this rede, Roél, then all as we now know it to be will come to a horrible end”? And here we are held on the linn where Time begins. But what did she mean, “touch the deadly arcane”?

  Orbane widely gestured toward the cascade and the silvery flow beyond, and then back to his pustulant cloud. “See, Papa, what I bring? The corruption, the contagion, the Sickness, and with it I will pollute the River of Time. Then will it overflow its banks to run this way and that without reason, and orderly Time, heretofore so tightly confined in Faery, will be free to flow helter-skelter without bound and foster nought but Chaos itself. And as you know, Père, I am not only the Master of the Winds, but the Master of Chaos as well.”

  Roél now paid no heed to Orbane’s crowing, but frantically sought a solution to Urd’s rede. Clearly this is the place and the time, but what is it I am to do? Oh, Mithras, help me understand.

  Orbane stepped to the precipice of the linn, and he cried out, “Now is my time come, for henceforth the whole of the two worlds will be mine to rule.”

  Roél tried to calm his mind, and even as he did so, the solution came unto him, yet he could not move any part of himself, much less his hand, and so he despaired.

  Orbane turned toward the Sickness, and he gestured for it to come, yet it moved not. Again Orbane gestured, and his face grimaced and sweat beaded on his forehead with the effort, for he not only had to move the cloud, but he also had to control the black roiling skies, while at the same time holding motionless the allies and Raseri and Rondalo and the other Firsts and Valeray’s kith and the colts of Asphodel, as well as his very own throng. And it was at this moment he realized that had he not included his horde in the spell, he would have more than enough power to move the contagion. Yet he could not release the throng without releasing the others. And Luc and Roél and Blaise and Laurent and all the other knights at the linn had weapons in hand. And even though Orbane commanded the pustulation to come, the bilious cloud neither moved forward nor backward nor sideways.

  “Acolyte, I need more of your power.”

  “My lord, without Crapaud, I have no more to give.”

  Hissing in ire, Orbane slightly relaxed his hold as well as his link to Hradian to focus a bit more of his own power into fetching the Sickness, and oh so slowly the corruption began to drift toward the linn.

  Roél, yet straining to control his hand found he could now move a single digit, though barely. Will it be enough?

  Forward flowed the cloud even as downward inched the index finger on Roél’s right hand.

  Orbane’s face twisted with the effort of trying to hasten the pollution unto the linn.

  Down crept Roél’s finger, over the cross guard of his sword. . . .

  “Ha!” said Orbane, relaxing, for now the pustulation drifted under its own power.

  . . . and that was the moment Roél managed to touch the deadly arcane—the silver-flashed rune-marked blade of Coeur d’Acier, a steel sword in the heart of Faery in the hand of a spellbound man. And Roél felt the blade grow warm, yet he despaired, for he still could not move, and it seemed all were yet frozen in place. But then he heard wee Scruff peep. The sparrow speaks! Perhaps he has been set free, yet how can he possibly be of any—

  Scruff struggled out from Camille’s shoulder pocket, and he flew into Hradian’s face, chirping angrily and clawing and pecking, and she fell back in startlement—

  —and the rune-weakened link between wizard and witch was completely broken—

  —Raseri roared—

  —darkness swept over Alain—

  —Liaze and Valeray and Borel drew long-knives—

  —Céleste pulled her nocked arrow to the full—

  —Saissa scooped up Duran—

  —and Camille shoved Orbane in the back, the wizard to plummet screaming down the cascade and plunge into the River of Time.

  And Roél staggered, as if a grip of powers warring through him had suddenly been released, and Coeur d’Aciere instantly cooled to his touch.

  Hradian frantically reached for the clay amulet at her throat, the last of the Seals of Orbane, but Scruff stabbed at her eyes, and the Bear stepped forth from the darkness and, with a terrible roar and a swipe of a paw, eviscerated the witch. A look of astonishment crossed her face, and then she fell dead. Yet tiny Scruff kept pecking away and did not stop until he had pierced her eyes.

  And down in the current of the River of Time, Orbane screamed and began to rapidly age, his hair falling out, his eyes becoming dim, as the ravages of Time came upon him.

  The throng was freed, yet so were the allies, and Jotun began to stomp. Raseri took to the air, his fire devastating, and Big Jack with Lady Bronze dealt death. Borel and Michelle and the Wolves entered the fray with fangs and sword and arrows.

  And Roél and Luc and Blaise and Laurent and the other knights mounted horses and charged in with lance and sword, while lightning split the black skies above, and the heavens roared with rage.

  And in Time’s flow Orbane shrieked, “Mother, help me!” And the air on one bank shimmered as of a silver mirror, and stepping through the glisten came Gloriana.

  Orbane reached out his arms toward her. “Aid me, Mother.” Yet Gloriana wrung her hands and cried out in torment, for she could do nothing, her own unbreakable geas preventing her from doing ought. And she stood on the shore and wept, as upon the linn did Auberon weep.

  And seemingly from nowhere and striding across the vale toward the river and Orbane came the huge man they called the Reaper, and he held in his hands his scythe. “My lord, I will come when the time is right,” he had told Luc, and now the Reaper was here. On he strode, toward the bank opposite from Gloriana, and he paused not at the edge of the flow but walked out upon it instead.

  In that moment, Orbane began chanting, and slowly the aging of his face and form began to reverse.

  But the Reaper cast his hood over his own head, and with every pace he took, he changed: his coarse-spun cloak turning dark and darker and finally to black. The flesh on his hands became withered, and then his fingers and the forearms showing from his sleeves turned skeletal, and his face, what could be seen of it, became skull-like.

  Along the shore, Gloriana raged at the Reaper, yet just as Death held no power over her, she was equally ineffective in dealing with mortality.

  But Orbane now saw the Reaper coming, and he
began canting a faster chant, yet with one sweep of his scythe, the Reaper took off Orbane’s head . . . and something dark and wispy was caught on the blade, and it struggled as if to get free yet could not, and the grim being and his scythe and mayhap a black soul then vanished altogether. And in the stream Orbane’s head and body rapidly decayed and fell into dust and were swept away in the currents of Time.

  57

  Seal

  Yet the Sickness continued to drift toward the linn, and it drove away allies and Firsts alike, all but Jotun and Raseri, the Dragon with Rondalo astride, for Raseri flew well above the miasma, and the contagion only swirled about Jotun’s feet. They continued to go after the throng now hiding in the putrescence, with Jotun stomping and Raseri breathing fire and Rondalo loosing arrows against the dim shapes within.

  At the cascade, with Scruff flying about and chirping frantically, the Bear reared up and roared and looked about for more enemies to slay. But Camille cried, “Alain! Alain! We must flee the precipice; Orbane’s Sickness yet comes.”

  The Bear swung ’round toward Camille. “Alain!” she called again, and a dark shimmering came over the Bear, and from the shadow the prince emerged.

  “What?” he asked, even as Camille pulled at him to get him out of the path of the contagion.

  “The Sickness comes. We must away.” Camille pointed to those now fleeing up the slopes of the vale, some running, others riding.

  “Duran?” asked Alain, looking frantically about.

  “Gone with Saissa and Valeray,” said Camille, “and you and I must ride.” She gestured at two of the colts of Asphodel, both of whom waited nigh at hand.

  The contagion continued its drift.

  Camille called Scruff to her, and then she and Alain started to mount, but of a sudden, Alain called, “Wait!”

  He stepped back to Hradian’s corpse, and there he sought to retrieve Luc’s amulet, yet its protection stung him, for only the rightful heirs or those to whom it was freely given could safely touch the gem-set silver talisman. But then Alain espied the clay amulet on its leather thong about Hradian’s neck, and he realized it was one of the Seals of Orbane.

  Quickly he snapped the thong and snatched up the clay token and called out, “Camille, ride. I will come, yet I think I have the means to deal with the corruption.”

  “What is it?”

  “A Seal of Orbane.”

  “But it can only lay curses and do harm to others,” cried Camille.

  And now the fringes of the putrescence came upon the pair, and a wave of queasiness swept through them.

  But still Alain persevered. How to curse the cloud? Wind? Non, for then it would simply blow elsewhere and harm others. Rain? Non, for then it would but run off into the River of Time and pollute it still. What of Mithra’s light? Perhaps there’s a chance.

  Coughing, nauseated, for neither he nor Camille had been protected by the Fey Lord’s spell, Alain gagged, and yet he managed to lift the seal toward the darkness above, and as he called out, “I curse the Sickness to suffer the light of the sun,” he broke the clay amulet in two.

  A rift in the raging sky opened, and a beam shone down upon him, and then the heavens parted, the black skies were riven open, and the lightning vanished, taking with it the roar of thunder as all the darkness fled. And the full of the vale was bathed in the bright light of the midday sun.

  There came a thin wail from the Sickness as the corruption boiled away in the clean rays of light. And the wail became a scream, and the scream a roar, as of a raging forest fire, yet no heat was emitted as the radiance utterly destroyed the contagion. And then the roar suddenly dropped to a whisper and then to nought as the miasma vanished. The throng was again exposed, and once more the Firsts and the allies rushed into battle, and Buzzer, now awake in the sunlight, joined the fray, her bumblebee stings assisting Flic in stabbing whatever enemy Regar fought. The Bear and Big Jack fought side by side, and they, along with Jotun and Raseri and the four deadly horsemen, were particularly devastating, and soon the Goblins and Bogles and Trolls were no more, but for a smattering that managed somehow to escape the field.

  Under bright skies, Luc came riding back to the linn, and he dismounted and took up the amulet that was rightfully his from Hradian’s eviscerated corpse.

  And Liaze came unto Luc, and they stood on the precipice hand in hand and looked out over the River of Time, and in the distance along the shore they saw Auberon embracing Gloriana, the Fairy King and Queen holding one another and weeping, as the River of Time flowed on.

  58

  Restoration

  The Fey Lord sounded his silver horn, and Asphodel trotted down from the linn to the banks of the River of Time. Auberon mounted, and he took Gloriana up on the Fairy horse before him, and they rode over the crest to an adjoining vale and fared starwise, and then turned back toward the valley in which the arcane river flowed, and they came in among the allies. And when Liaze asked Luc why the Fairy king and his queen hadn’t ridden directly up from where they had been standing, Luc replied, “Auberon told us that one cannot go against the flow of time, hence he had to leave its presence to return to the fount.”

  Gloriana then passed among the wounded, and lo! with nought but a simple touch she healed each and everyone entirely of cuts and broken bones and bruises and such and of the effects of the Sickness, for her powers in this regard were remarkable. Yet she could do nought for the slain—they had passed beyond her ability to restore.

  And Jotun, with his great wide hands, collected the allied dead. Many were the pyres, and Camille and Alain and Rondalo sang their souls to the stars, while comrades and warriors wept. Having announced their intent to wed, Regar and Lisane stood with Auberon and Gloriana during these rites. And though Gloriana did not wholly accept Regar into her heart, still she came to a polite but cold truce with the bastard prince.

  Jotun then collected the slain of the throng—Hradian one of these—and all were burned without ceremony, Raseri providing the flame.

  Allies looked on with mixed emotions as the corpse of the witch was consumed by fire, for it was she who was responsible for setting Orbane free. The humans and the Firsts watched with grim satisfaction, whereas the Fairies themselves looked on in misery, for had she not acted, Orbane would yet be alive, and they all remembered him as a beautiful child who had somehow turned to iniquity.

  Yet Camille came unto the Fey Lord and his queen, and she spoke of the Keltoi and their silver tongues, bards who caught the ear of the gods themselves, and they in turn made Faery manifest. Camille posited that one of these bards had told of a Fairy child named Orbane and the things that came of that. Both Auberon and Gloriana took small solace in Camille’s supposition, yet mayhap in time it would give them comfort to think that it was nought they had done to turn their only child toward wickedness.

  And after the fires had burned away, all rested for two days, for the campaign had been hard, and humans and Fey were weary. It was during this time, as Michelle lay sleeping, Slate looked at her and then at Borel, sitting and watching the sunrise, and Slate said: Master’s bitch cub-smart. Walk stealthy. Talk good True-People-speak.

  Borel cocked his head to one side: What?

  Slate: Master’s bitch talk good True-People-speak.

  Blue-eye: Walk stealthy.

  Dark: Run fast.

  Render: Cub-smart. Learn fast.

  Shank: Talk almost good master.

  Loll: Bitch lead fight.

  Trot: Pack protect.

  The next thing Michelle knew, Borel had picked her up and was whirling her about and laughing, and then he stopped and kissed her gently. She knew not what caused this outburst of joy but she did not question it; instead, she reveled in his glee and returned his kiss with passion.

  The next day each faction of the allies set out for their various homelands: the Fairy army heading for The Halls Under the Hills; the Firsts withdrawing to go to their individual lieus, Jotun winging away on a lark as a Twig Man, heading f
or his mountain pass; various human brigades, with Sprites leading them, faring for their own domains; and Valeray and his family starting for the Forests of the Seasons, with Regar and Lisane accompanying them, for Saissa had asked them to come.

  Ere they set out, Michelle kissed her sire, Duke Roulan, and promised to come unto Roulan Vale soon. And the duke and King Valeray embraced one another, for they were thieving comrades of old. Luc clasped Léon and said that he and Liaze would be at the Blue Château in the Lake of the Rose ere the summer came ’round again. And Auberon hugged Regar and asked him to visit soon, for there was much he would tell his grandson. Auberon also told Valeray and his family to keep the colts of Asphodel until they reached their goals, and then to simply whisper “pays natal” in their ears and turn them loose, and they would find their way home. Still more fond farewells were passed among those there, and then all parted their ways. And so, among bugle cries and calls of “farewell” and “adieu” and those of “Mithras go with you,” the allies parted and rode away on separate tracks.

  Some six moons later, Valeray’s family sat before the great fireplace at the Castle of Seasons. A chill was in the air, for early spring was on the land, and in the demesne of Le Coeur de les Saisons, as the name suggests, the seasons followed their natural courses, unlike in the immediately adjoining domains, forever locked in spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

  And they mused over all that had occurred in the conflict with Orbane, for there were yet questions unresolved.

  “We saw the Reaper under his oak on our way here,” said Liaze.

  “Moissonneur?” asked Valeray.

  “Oui.”

  “Oh, my,” said Camille, shivering, “I think I’ll never look upon him quite the same way.”

  “I think none of us will, my dear,” said Saissa.

  “What did he look like?” asked Céleste, her eyes wide with remembered vision.

  “His usual,” replied Liaze, “a big redheaded man in home-spun garb with a great scythe across his knees.”