Besides, we need tack for Avelaine and Laurent and Blaise.”
“Speaking of needs,” said Celeste, “we need select enough supplies to feed us and the horses coming and going, and your siblings on the way back. How many days will we be in the Changeling Lord’s realm?” The hostler gasped upon hearing this. “Oh, Sieur, mademoiselle, you must not go unto the land of the Changeling Lord. Terrible things live therein, hideous things. They will kill you, Sieur, and take your demoiselle captive and do dreadful things to her-use her until she is worn beyond living.”
“You mean breed me?” asked Celeste.
“If you are a virgin, mademoiselle, then oui, they will use you to strengthen their line. If you are not a virgin, then they will merely use you for pleasure, one after another after another. Yet virgin or no, into the land of the Changelings you must not go.”
“We have no choice, Sieur,” said Celeste. “Three lives hang in the balance-a sister and two brothers.”
“Yours as well,” said the hostler, shaking his head.
Roel looked at Celeste, anguish in his eyes. “Cherie, I beg of you, stay here. I will go on alone.”
“Non, my love,” replied Celeste, “where you go, so go I.”
“Ah, zut!” declared the hostler. “Sieur, mademoiselle, it is but madness to venture into that dreadful realm, no matter the reason.”
Roel looked at Celeste, a plea in his eyes, but she shook her head in silent answer to his wordless appeal.
He sighed and turned to the hostler and said, “Mayhap indeed we are insane, yet go there we must.” The man then looked at the sword at Roel’s side and said, “If you are bound to take this unwise course, then this I will tell you: turn not your back upon any therein, for to do otherwise is perilous. This I tell you, too: the only sure way to kill a Changeling is to cut off its head, though an arrow through an eye will work as well.”
“Merci, Hostler,” said Roel. Then he turned to Celeste and said, “We have but the rest of this day and all of tomorrow up until midnight to reach the Changeling Lord’s tower and save Avelaine. And then we need to find Laurent and Blaise, and surely it will take no more than three days for the five of us to get back from there.”
Celeste nodded and she and Roel selected just enough supplies to last the journey to there and back and but a single day more, and they evenly distributed the goods among the six steeds to equal the loads. The remainder of their supplies they left with the stableman.
At last all was ready, and, with an au revoir to the hostler, out from the town they went. Behind them, the man watched them leave and smiled unto himself, and then stepped back in among the stalls, and the sound of looms weaving swelled and then vanished, and gone was the hostler as well.
Sunwise across the shallows splashed the horses, and upon emerging on the far bank Celeste and Roel broke into a run, two of the mounts bearing weight, four running but lightly burdened. Roel set their gait at a varied pace, and the leagues hammered away beneath their hooves. All day they ran thus: trotting, cantering, galloping, and walking unburdened, and then doing it all over again. Roel and Celeste changed mounts every two candlemarks or so, pausing now and then to stretch their legs and feed the horses some grain or to take water from the streams flowing down from nearby hills.
Long they rode into the late day, past sundown and well beyond, taking the risk of running at speed in spite of the darkness. When they stopped at last, it was nearly mid of night. They had covered some forty leagues or so, yet they had not come unto the twilight bound. But ere the two cast themselves to the ground to sleep, the horses were unladed and rubbed down and given grain and drink.
At dawn the next day, once more they set forth upon the sunwise track. Celeste was weary nearly beyond measure, and she wondered whether the horses could hold the pace; yet the steeds bore up well, for even though they had run swift and far, still half of the time they’d carried no burden. It was she and Roel who felt the brunt of the journey, for they had spent weeks on the quest, and little rest and but few hot meals had they had in those long days.
Yet on they strove, running sunwise-south, Roel would say-and among hills they fared, and they passed through vales and they splashed across streams. A woodland slowed them greatly, yet in the candlemarks of midafternoon, in the near distance ahead they espied the twilight wall rising up into the sky.
“What be the crossing?” called Roel.
Celeste opened the map and looked, and then called back, “A small waterfall on a bourne.”
“A brook?”
“Oui.”
And on they rode.
When they reached the twilight bound, no stream did they see.
“I’ll take the left,” said Celeste, raising her silver horn. “Mayhap even here left is right and right a mistake.”
“I’ll take the right,” said Roel, his face grim, for this was the day of the dark of the moon, and but nine or ten candlemarks remained ere the mid of night would come.
Away from each other they galloped, remounts trailing behind. And within a league Celeste topped a hill to see a stream in the vale below. Down she rode, and there a small waterfall tumbled o’er a rock linn and into a pool beneath, to run on into the boundary.
She raised her horn to her lips and blew a long call.
And in but moments it was answered by Roel’s clarion cry.
Celeste let her animals drink, and she fed them a ration of grain, and as Roel rode up, she moved her bow and arrows to the horse of hers whose turn had come.
Roel shifted his own gear likewise, and as soon as his steeds were fed and watered and he had changed mounts, with his shield on his arm and his sword in hand, and with an arrow nocked to Celeste’s bow, across the stream they splashed and into the twilight beyond.
They came in among high tors, nearly mountains rather than hills, and a passage wound downslope before them and out into a land of woodlands and fields.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Celeste as they carefully wended their way down the narrow slot,
“but certainly not a land such as this.” Then she grimly laughed. “Mayhap I thought it would be all ashes and cinders, much like Senaudon, with fire beyond the horizon and the smell of brimstone on the air. But this, the Changeling Lord’s realm, is rather like much of Faery elsewhere.”
“Me,” said Roel, “I was expecting bare stone and a cold wailing wind, yet it seems to be rich farmland and bountiful forests.”
Even as he spoke, Roel’s gaze searched the horizon for as far as he could see, yet no Changeling Lord’s tower did he spy nor a building of any sort. In the far distance ahead, dark mountains rose up, and a black storm raged among the peaks. Roel studied the crests and rises, and no tower or other structure on those stony heights did he see, yet they were far away and a tower could easily be lost to the eye against the rocky crags.
As they reached the foot of the passage and debouched into a grassy field, just ahead a child of a goosegirl, a willow switch in her hand, herded her flock toward a mere, the drove gabbling as they waddled forward.
Roel and Celeste reached the girl just as the geese reached the pond and splashed in.
“Ma’amselle Gooseherd,” said Roel, “know you the way to the Changeling Lord’s tower?”
“Oui, Sieur,” replied the child, her voice piping as she looked up at the man on his horse. She pointed. “That way, I think.”
“Roel,” murmured Celeste, “no matter what Lady Lot said, this fille can be no more than eight summers old. Let us leave her and ride on.”
Roel nodded, and as they turned to look toward the mountains-the direction the child had indicated-a darkness came over the girl, and she bared her teeth.
“Merci, Ma’amselle Gooseherd,” said Roel, turning back, even as the glaring child sprang, spitting and hissing, her leap carrying her shoulder high to mounted Roel, her hands like claws reaching for his throat.
Roel wrenched up his shield barely in time to fend her, and as she fell
away, with a sweep of Coeur d’Acier, Roel took off the child’s head. She struck the ground, her body dropping one way, her head tumbling another.
Celeste cried out at the sight of the decapitated girl, and Roel looked on in horror at what he had done, for he had slain nought but a poppet, a wee fillette but seven or eight summers old. Roel looked at Celeste, tears in his eyes, and he started to speak, yet no words came. But then Celeste gasped, for in that moment both body and head changed into a monstrous thing with fangs and glaring eyes and a hideous bulbous brow and a twisted face and a barrel chest and long hairy arms and legs and broad hands with lengthy, grasping fingers ending in sharp talons. And even as the horses danced aside, the hideous creature dissolved into dark mucus, and a putrid stench filled the air.
The horses snorted and blew and backed and sidled as the slime liquefied and seeped into the ground, leaving barren soil behind, the grass burnt away as if by virulent acid.
“Oh, Roel,” said Celeste, “Lady Lot was right.” Still shaken, Roel merely nodded, and Celeste intoned:
“Kill all those who therein do speak; Question not; you’ll understand.
“Roel, the girl was a Changeling, a monstrous thing, even though she seemed nought but a beautiful and innocent child.” Celeste looked away from the charred soil and toward the distant mountains and chanted:
“Ask directions unto his tower
In the Changeling Lord’s domain; The answers given will be true,
Yet the givers must be slain.”
Roel nodded in agreement and said, “Oui, the Fates are right. Even so, it seemed a dreadful thing I had done.”
“But necessary,” replied Celeste, yet looking in the direction the Changeling had pointed.
Roel’s gaze followed hers, and he said, “Somewhere yon lies the tower and my sister, perhaps my brothers as well. We must ride, for time grows perilously short.” And so, once again they took up the trek.
Often changing mounts, across the land they hammered, passing o’er hill and riding down through dale and across wide fields, as toward the mountains they raced. Occasionally they stopped at streams to water the horses and feed them rations of grain to keep their strength from flagging. And Celeste and Roel took food and drink themselves to keep their own vigor from falling any further, though fall it did. Even so, after but a brief respite, they would remount and fare onward, heading ever toward the mountains.
And along the course they asked a herdsman the way to the Changeling Lord’s tower, followed a candlemark later by a tinker, and later still by an old lady. Each pointed toward the stormy mountains, and Roel beheaded them every one, and hideous and garish monsters they became and then a gelatinous mucus that dissolved into a dark, foul-smelling liquid that burned the soil as it seeped away.
As the sun set, the mountains seemed no closer, and on galloped Celeste and Roel. Twilight turned into darkness as night pulled its black cloak across the world, and stars emerged, yet there was no moon to light the way. Once more taking great risk by riding swift in the night, the pair hammered on, hooves striking the ground at a trot, a canter, and a gallop.
And candlemarks burned away as on they raced, and it began to drizzle. They pulled up the hoods of their rain gear and sped on, hooves splatting against the wet ground.
They came to the foot of the mountains, and there a road led up into the massifs and crags, up into the raging storm, and a gate stood across the way. An elderly gatekeeper bearing a lantern hobbled out in the pour to ask them their business, and Roel said, “We seek the Lord of the Changelings’ tower.” Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, both riving the air.
“Eh, eh?” The keeper put a hand behind an ear.
“What’s that?”
“The tower of the Changeling Lord, old man,” cried Roel, louder.
“Oh. Up the road.” Slowly shuffling in the wetness, the man opened the gate, and as Roel charged by, he swept the old man’s head off even as the creature began to change into a monstrous Ogreish form.
Leaving a pool of slime in the road, up the way they splashed, and now they had to slow, for the road was steep and running with water, and the horses labored.
Lightning flared and thunder roared and rain fell down in sheets. .
. . And time fled. .
Now and again at twists and turns in the road, high above silhouetted by lightning against the raging sky, they could see a tall tower standing.
And another candlemark burned.
Yet at last they came to a flat, and before them stood a stone wall, an archway leading under and into a passage where torches in sconces shed a flickering, ruddy, sorcerous light, for though the flambeaus burned, they were not consumed. Beyond the wall as lightning glared they could see the roofs of buildings all attached to one another, and looming above all in the riven air stood a tall dark tower.
And with less than a candlemark remaining ere Avelaine’s doom would fall, into the archway they rode.
43
Failure
The warband paused at a crossroads to feed and water the animals and to take food and drink themselves. Borel looked at the stars and sighed and said, “ ’Tis the mid of night of the dark of the moon.
We can no longer save Avelaine. In that, we have failed.”
“ ’Twas the bloody swamp,” growled Chevell. “Had it not delayed us. .”
“Avelaine is not the only sister needing aid,” said Alain. “If Celeste is a captive, we can still rescue her, as well as Roel and his brothers.”
“How far?” asked Luc.
Borel unfolded the vellum. “Two borders remain; at the second one we will enter the Changeling realm. As to where therein we need to go, I cannot say, other than we must reach wherever our sister might be. After that, we can deal with finding Roel and his brothers.”
“If she is a prisoner,” said Luc, “I would think the Changeling Lord’s palace is the most likely place he would hold her.”
“Or manor or tower or wherever it is that he lives,” said Chevell.
“We have spoken of this all along the way,” said Alain, “and I say we must ask those living therein as to where their lord dwells.”
“What makes you think that by asking Changelings they will tell the truth?” asked Chevell.
“What else would you suggest, Vicomte?” coldly asked Alain.
“Mayhap holding a sword to their throat,” shot back Chevell.
“Peace,” growled Borel. “We are weary, and there is no need to squabble among ourselves.” Luc grunted his agreement. He glanced about and saw that the horses and men were done. “Let us ride.” And so, worn down and testy and somewhat dispirited, they all mounted up and galloped onward, midnight of the dark of the moon now gone.
44
Perils
Into the flickering torchlight way they went, Roel in the lead, Celeste following, and behind them lightning flared and thunder crashed, and the corridor flashed bright in the strike. And revealed by the glare, at the far end stood a tall figure in black, his cloak limned in red.
“You!” cried Roel, and he spurred forward, but an axe came flying the length of the passage to bite deeply into Roel’s shield. A second axe flew out from the wavering shadows, and a third, and they struck and slashed at Roel, wielded by no hands at all. And horses snorted and blew and recoiled and jerked this way and that in the clanging din as axes met shield and Roel fended with Coeur d’Acier. Yet a fourth axe joined the fray, and a fifth, and Roel was hard-pressed as the blades flew about and slashed at him.
Behind Roel, Celeste’s mount flinched and stutter-stepped, yet in spite of its frantic dancing the princess drew her arrow to the full and aimed and loosed. Even as the shaft hurtled through the fluttering light, the figure at the far end whirled and vanished, and the arrow hissed through where he had been and shattered against stone.
And the axes fell to the pave of the corridor, no longer under sorcerous control.
His breath coming in gasps, Roel said, “ ’Twas the Chang
eling Lord.”
Yet even as he said it, at the far end a huge knight in black armor and bearing a battle-axe with flames running along its blade rode out from a side archway on a horselike steed; but no horse was this mount, with its serpent scales and flaring yellow eyes and a forked tongue and cloven hooves.
And with a howl, the black knight charged down the corridor, his flaming axe raised for a killing blow.
Roel spurred his mount forward to meet the onslaught, Coeur d’Acier’s edge gleaming argent in the flickering torchlight.
Even as they closed, an arrow hissed past Roel to-
thuck! — pierce the serpent horse and plunge deep into its breast. A skreigh split the air, but still the creature thundered on.
Down swung the black knight’s fire-edged battle-axe, and with a mighty crash, it shivered Roel’s shield in twain, yet at the same time, Roel’s silver-chased, rune-marked blade swept under the black knight’s own shield and ripped open his gut. Roel spun his horse, and with a second blow, he sheared through the knight’s neck to take off his head, even as another arrow flashed along the corridor, this one to pierce the serpent horse’s left eye, and that creature shrilled and crashed to the stone. The black knight’s body smashed down beside his monstrous horse, and his head yet encased in his helm clanged to the pave just behind, his axe blanging down nearby, its flames now extinguished.
Celeste quickly nocked another arrow, but the grotesque knight and his hideous beast began to pool into slime. And a horrific stench filled the passage.
With their horses snorting and blowing in the malodor and trying to jerk back and away from the sickening smell, gagging in the reek, both Roel and Celeste prevailed and spurred past the now-runny sludge and on down the corridor.
To the right and through the archway whence the black knight had come, they found an extensive, torchlit stable.
“Mid of night is drawing upon us,” said Roel as he and Celeste rode halfway down the row of stalls and dismounted. “We must find Avelaine ere then.”
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