Once upon a Spring morn ou-2

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Hsst!” cautioned Celeste. “Roel, at the far end, something or someone moves.”

  Down to the far extent they crept, to find several horses in stalls. “Celeste, there is Imperial, Laurent’s horse, and Vaillant, Blaise’s. They are here; my brothers are here. But, if that’s true, then why haven’t they-?

  Oh, are they prisoners?”

  Mayhap dead, thought Celeste. No, wait, Lady Doom showed us their images in her farseeing mirror. Surely they yet live; else why show us them?

  Quickly they tied their horses to stall posts, and then wrenched down two of the sorcerous flambeaus, and up a flight of stone stairs they went, to find themselves in a courtyard, the rain yet sheeting down.

  As they crossed, lightning flared, and Roel gasped.

  “Celeste, it is Laurent and Blaise.”

  “Where?”

  “Yon.”

  In that moment another flash brightened the courtyard, and near a gaping entryway stood two figures.

  “Take care, Roel, for the Changelings are shapeshifters, and this could be a trap.”

  “Laurent, Blaise!” called Roel, and, sword in hand, he and Celeste ran through the rain to where they had seen the two, slowing as they neared.

  Another flare.

  The figures had not moved.

  Stepping closer and raising their torches on high, they found two life-sized statues.

  Celeste recognized both from the image in Lady Urd’s dark basin. And just as they had seen at the crossroads some nine days past, both Laurent and Blaise stood with their hands on the hilts of their swords, the weapons partially drawn or mayhap partly sheathed.

  And their faces reflected either smiles or grimaces.

  Were they preparing to do battle, or instead were they putting their swords away? Neither Roel nor Celeste could tell.

  “Oh, Mithras, my brothers, an enchantment, have they been turned to stone?”

  “I do not know,” said Celeste, “yet we cannot stand and ponder. ’Tis nigh mid of night, and we must find your sister.”

  In through the opening they went, and they found themselves in a long corridor. From somewhere ahead came the sound of soft weeping.

  “Avelaine!” called Roel, and down the hallway they trotted.

  From a doorway at the end of the passage there stepped a maiden. “Avelaine, we have found you,” cried Roel in triumph. “We have found you in time.”

  “Is it you? Is it truly you?” asked Avelaine, sweeping forward, a beautiful smile transforming her face.

  Celeste’s heart plummeted even as Roel rushed forward and embraced Avelaine. Then he stepped back to look at his sister and said, “Where are Laurent and Blaise?”

  Celeste came to stand beside Roel, and Avelaine glanced at her and smiled. “Roel, she spoke to us,” said Celeste in a low voice.

  Roel shook his head. “Celeste, she is my sister,” even as Celeste held her torch up for a better look at this maiden, the light casting shadows against the walls.

  Celeste drew in a sharp breath between clenched teeth.

  And as Roel started to sheathe his sword, “No!” cried Celeste, and she dropped her bow and torch and grabbed Coeur d’Acier away from Roel, and in spite of his shout, with a backhanded sweep she slashed the keen blade through Avelaine’s neck, the head to go flying.

  Down fell the body and the head.

  “Celeste,” cried Roel, horrified, “what have you done?”

  But then the head began to transform into a visage of unbearable hideousness ’neath hair of hissing snakes.

  And as Celeste and Roel looked on, their own bodies began to stiffen, to harden, yet at that moment the corpse and its head collapsed into mucous slime and then to a malodorous liquid, and Celeste and Roel felt whole and hale again.

  Celeste said, “She was not Avelaine.”

  “But how did you know?”

  Celeste handed Coeur d’Acier back to Roel and retrieved her bow and torch and said, “She had a shadow, and Avelaine does not. And I remembered Skuld’s words:

  “What might seem fair is sometimes foul And holds not a beautiful soul.

  Hesitate not or all is lost;

  Do what seems a terrible cost.

  “When I held up the torch, her shadow showed her true soul, her true form-that of someone with writhing snakes for hair-a Gorgon. Besides, she spoke to us, and Lady Lot said that until Avelaine is fully restored to slay all those who do so.”

  “A Gorgon?” Roel glanced at the puddle that was her head and then looked over his shoulder toward the statues in the courtyard. “Laurent and Blaise, this is how they. .?”

  Tears brimmed in Celeste’s eyes. “I’m afraid so.” Gritting his teeth, Roel said, “The Changeling Lord will pay dearly for this. Come, we yet need to find Avelaine.”

  As they started down the hallway, again they heard the soft weeping. They came to a cross-corridor, and Celeste murmured, “This way,” and rightward she turned toward the sobbing.

  To either side open doorways showed chambers furnished with tables and chairs and cabinets and lounges and other such. In some, fireplaces were lit; in others the rooms were dark, and some were lit by candles.

  They arrived at the doorway whence the weeping came, and they stepped into a chamber where a maiden sat on the floor quietly crying. At hand stood a narrow golden rack o’er which a dark wispy garment draped.

  Celeste raised her torch and approached the girl to find she cast no shadow, though there was a thin line of darkness at her feet that shifted slightly as the torch moved about. “Is it Avelaine?” asked Celeste.

  Roel knelt before the maiden and whispered,

  “Avelaine?”

  The demoiselle looked up, yet there was no recognition in her eyes, and she cast her face in her hands and wept on.

  Celeste looked at Roel, a question in her eyes, and he nodded and glanced down at Coeur d’Acier and stepped well back and murmured, “Oh, Mithras, do not let her speak.”

  In that moment, Celeste gasped and pointed, where on the wall a huge celestial astrolabe slowly turned, the large disks of the golden sun and silver moon and the smaller disks of the five wandering stars-red, blue, yellow, green, and white-all creeping in great circular paths.

  “Roel, look, the disk of the moon is nigh all black. ’Tis but a faint silver line remaining, and even it is disappearing.”

  “We must hurry, for mid of night is upon us,” said Roel.

  Frantically Celeste looked about, her eye lighting on the golden rack. “Can this be her shadow?” asked Celeste, reaching for the dark garment. But her hand passed through; she could not grasp it.

  “It must be,” said Roel. “It looks just like the one the Changeling Lord had draped over his arm.” Celeste frowned in puzzlement. “If we cannot even touch it, then how do we restore it to her form?” Roel frowned and looked at the golden rack and then his face lit up in revelation. “Celeste, the Fate-given gifts!”

  “Oui!” cried Celeste, and she set her bow aside and took the three gifts in hand: the golden tweezers and spool of dark thread from her pocket, and the silver needle from her silken undershirt.

  With the golden tweezers and their very rounded, blunt ends, she found she could take hold of the shadow on the rack.

  But when she tried with her fingers to pluck the loose end of the wispy dark thread from the obsidian spool, she could not grasp it either. Once again she used the golden tweezers, and with some difficulty, she managed to thread the silver needle. Then she lifted the shadow from the rack and moved it to the thin line of darkness at Avelaine’s feet, and after comparing one with the other, she turned the shadow over to mate with the line.

  And on the wall the astrolabe showed a black moon with but a trace of silver remaining, and it began to disappear.

  Taking a deep breath and praying that she had gotten things right, Celeste began to stitch, the seam sealing perfectly as she went.

  Roel stepped to the door to stand ward, only to hear a distant rising and f
alling of an incantation echoing down the hallway.

  “Celeste,” he called quietly, and when she looked up, he glanced at the astrolabe where but a faint glimmer remained. “Someone is chanting. . mayhap the Changeling Lord. If so, it might be to entrap Avelaine’s soul forever, for mere moments are left of time. I must stop him ere it falls, but you must continue sewing.” Celeste paused in her stitching and glanced aside to make certain her bow was in reach, and then she nodded and whispered, “Go,” and began sewing again.

  With Coeur d’Acier in hand, Roel stepped quietly along the corridor toward the chanting. Past doorways he trod, and he turned at a cross-hall, the sound growing louder. Down the passage before him, an archway glowed with wavering light, and as he approached, a brief flare of brightness glared through the portal, followed by the boom of thunder. At last Roel came to the entry, and it led into a grand room bare of furniture, with a great, round skylight centered overhead. Again a stroke flashed through the sky and starkly lit the entire room, thunder crashing after. But the storm above was not what caught Roel’s eye, for there in the flickering candlelight, with his back to the door, in the center of the chamber at the edge of a circle engraved in the floor with five black candles ringed ’round, each joined by five straight lines forming a pentagonal shape, the Changeling Lord stood with his arms upraised, and he chanted, invoking some great spell.

  Running on silent footsteps, across the broad floor sped Roel, his sword raised for a strike. But ere he reached the Changeling Lord, in the circle appeared a tall, thin, black-haired woman, dressed in a dark flowing gown. And her imperious face twisted in rage, and she shrieked, “You!”

  But it was not the Changeling Lord who evoked her venom, for, even as the lord turned to see Roel hurtling forward, the woman raised a black-nailed hand, and with a gesture she spat a word.

  And Roel was frozen in his tracks, and try as he might, he could not move.

  Sneering in triumph, the woman started forward, but the lines on the floor seemed to stop her. She looked down at them and with a negligent wave, as if flicking away a fly, she stepped out from the pentagon, out from the circle, and, with but barely a glance at the Changeling Lord, she strode past him and toward her impaled victim: Roel.

  45

  Reckonings

  A s the woman stopped before Roel and looked him up and down and smiled wickedly, “I did not expect you, Nefasi,” said the Changeling Lord.

  “Then why did you summon me, Morgrif?”

  “I did not summon you by name, Nefasi, but rather I summoned this one’s deadly enemy, for he is a most leathal foe.”

  Nefasi laughed. “Indeed, I am his deadly enemy, for he set back my revenge against Lord Valeray.” At the name Valeray, the Changeling Lord’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “He, who is most responsible for the defeat of Lord Orbane?”

  “Oui, Morgrif, the very same. And this fool twice kept me from seizing one of Valeray’s get: Celeste.” Nefasi turned to Roel and put a hand behind her ear in a pretense of listening. “What’s that you ask? How did you interfere? Pah! You fool, ’twas I who sent the brigands to capture Princess Celeste, Valeray’s youngest spawn. And ’twas I who sent my minions to attack at the twilight bound. And it was you who interfered both times, for I watched as you slew brigands and again as you slew Redcaps and Bogles and Trolls and fled with the princess.”

  “You watched?” asked Morgrif.

  The woman ground her teeth. “I looked through the eyes of my familiar and called out for revenge, ere some fool put a crossbow quarrel through my bird, and oh, how that pained me, and for that this man shall also pay. . and dearly.”

  Nefasi turned to the Changeling Lord and said, “You will be well rewarded for this, Morgrif. And when Orbane is set free, you will sit near the throne.”

  “I think I have another gift for you, Nefasi,” said the Changeling Lord. “This knight has a woman with him.”

  “A woman?”

  “Oui. Elegant and slender and of pale yellow hair and green eyes.”

  Nefasi crowed. “Ah, even sweeter than I thought.

  Surely it is Celeste. She has not escaped my revenge after all.”

  Sweat ran in rivulets down Roel’s face as he strained to move, yet he could not. And Nefasi laughed to see him struggle, and, preening in her power, she strutted back and forth before him, her long black gown flowing behind. “Why, you ask, do I wish to harm your love, the princess? Idiot, I am one of four sisters, two of whom are now slain: Rhensibe, killed by Borel; and Iniqui, murdered by Liaze. Those two assassins are siblings of your Princess Celeste, all of them foul get of thief Valeray and his slut Saissa. And I and my sister Hradian plan to kill them all; we will have our revenge, we two who remain Lord Orbane’s acolytes.”

  Hatred filled her eyes, and spittle flecked at the corner of her mouth, so rabid was her desire for vengeance.

  “There will come a day when we set him free, but you will not be around to witness it, nor will your whore Celeste.” Nefasi raised her hand, her black talons gleaming ebon in the candlelight, and she reached for Roel’s exposed throat.

  “Whore, am I?” came a call from the enshadowed doorway.

  Nefasi turned to see Celeste standing in the opening, her bow in hand, an arrow nocked. Behind her stood someone else in the darkness.

  The witch hissed, but then she laughed. “Have you come to save your love, Celeste? This is even better than I expected.”

  Celeste drew her bow to the full and aimed.

  Again Nefasi laughed, and she raised her right hand toward Celeste, her index and little fingers hooked like horns and pointing at the arrow, and her middle fingers pointed down and her thumb pointed leftward. “You fool! Set aside your pinprick, for neither you nor it can harm me.”

  “Oh, no?” said Celeste, and she loosed the shaft to hurtle through the air toward the witch.

  “Avert!” cried Nefasi, and then her eyes widened in fear, and she shrieked as the arrow sped true and pierced her through the heart. Momentarily she looked down at the gray shaft, and then at Celeste.

  “Not even the gods could turn that one aside,” said Celeste coldly.

  And Nefasi fell to the floor, dead before striking the stone.

  Suddenly Roel could move, and he stepped toward the Changeling Lord.

  But Morgrif leapt into the circle and spoke an arcane word. And he laughed and looked at Celeste even as Roel approached.

  As the princess nocked another arrow, the Changeling Lord called out, “Though somehow you have managed to defeat your deadly enemy, I have now called out to my minions to come to my aid, and by their very numbers, they will o’erwhelm you both.” Celeste aimed and loosed her shaft, the arrow to hiss through the air, only to shatter as if against an invisible barrier at the perimeter of the circle.

  Once more the Changeling Lord laughed and called out to Celeste, “I am in a ring of protection, a place where your weapons of bronze cannot harm me.” His gaze then fell upon Roel, and Morgrif stepped to the very brim of the design toward the knight and added,

  “Not even that silver-chased bronze sword of yours, fool.”

  Roel, now reaching the circle’s edge himself, gritted and said, “Coeur d’Acier is no weapon of bronze.” And with a backhanded sweep, he took off the Changeling Lord’s head.

  46

  Flight

  Lightning flared and thunder roared throughout the chamber as the Lord of the Changelings collapsed and became a great pool of dark slime, which then degenerated into viscous liquid. A gagging stench rose up, and Roel backed away and turned to find Celeste right behind. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and then said, “Avelaine, my sister, is she-?” Celeste smiled and, disengaging, gestured toward the enshadowed doorway and beckoned. Out stepped a lovely, raven-haired young woman, her sapphire-blue eyes clear and sparkling. “Sieur Roel, may I present Dame Avelaine du Manoir d’Emile. My Lady Avelaine, this is your brother Roel.”

  Avelaine gaped and said, “Rollie, is it trul
y you?”

  “Oui, Avi, it truly is.”

  She rushed forward, and with tears in his eyes, Roel embraced her and kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “Oh, Avi, we searched so very long: Laurent, Blaise, Celeste, and I.”

  Avelaine drew back and looked about. “Laurent and Blaise are here?”

  Roel sighed. “I have some ill news, Avi. You see-”

  “Hsst. .!” silenced Celeste, and in the quietness following they heard distant oncoming yells and the drumming of running footsteps.

  Roel looked about, but there seemed to be no other exits, or if there were, they were well hidden.

  Celeste nocked an arrow, and Roel raised Coeur d’Acier. “Avi, get behind us.”

  “I can fight,” said Avelaine.

  Roel glanced at Celeste, and she looked at the door and then to Avelaine and said, “Do not leave her unarmed.” Roel loosed the keeper on his long-knife and handed it to his sister, and then he ran for the archway, shouting,

  “Kill any who get past me.” He came to a halt beside the opening, his back to the inside wall.

  A howl sounded, and Roel risked a quick glance down the passage and then ducked back. Some kind of great black doglike beast loped on all fours toward the chamber. Behind it came more creatures, some on two legs, others on four, some flapping on great awkward wings.

  As the black dog hurtled through the doorway-

  shkk! — Coeur d’Acier took off its head. A gangling man ran through, and, shouting a war cry, Roel swung again, striking off another head. A flapping creature shot past above, and an arrow pierced it through a yellow eye, and scrawking, down it tumbled.

  A vast roar echoed down the corridor, and Roel chanced another quick glance, and a great Troll lumbered toward the opening.

  Roel took a deep breath and then stepped into the entry, and on came the monstrous being, other of the shapeshifters giving way before it.

  “Vive la Foret de Printemps et le Manoir d’Emile!” shouted Roel, raising his sword to the ready.

  And from the far end of the hall, there came an echo-or was it a cry? — Vive le Manoir d’Emile!