They stood between her and her path. And though they did not like the lantern, they would not let her pass.
Walk forward, the thrush’s silver voice sang in the deeper places of her mind. They’ll not harm you.
When she stepped forward, they lunged.
They’ll not harm you. Not while you hold the light.
In spite of this assurance, Rose Red could not help but stagger back.
Trust me, child. Trust me and walk before me.
“I . . . I cain’t,” she breathed. They would drive her out. Maybe she would rather let them herd her from this dark realm where the living did not belong? She did not have to come here. It was what the Dragon wanted, wasn’t it? Better to not give him his way.
Walk before me, child.
“I don’t know you!” she growled. “Not anymore!” She took another step back.
Then the Dragon spoke.
“Throw them your glove.”
That voice was more dreadful to her than even the baying of the Dogs. It came to her out of nowhere. But it came with heat and fire.
“Throw them your glove,” said the Dragon. “They’ll not stop till they have what they were sent for.”
“Wh-what were they sent for?” Rose Red whispered, unable to hear her own voice above the Black Dogs’ din.
“I sent them for your other glove, sweet princess,” said the Dragon. “They’ll not let you pass until you give it to them.”
“Maybe I don’t want to pass.”
“Very well,” said the Dragon. “Return to what’s left of your promise to the prince. I’m sure I can make Lady Daylily very comfortable down here.”
Rose Red swore. Then she looped the handle of the lantern over her arm and peeled her second ragged glove from her hand, this time with no hesitation. Her desperation to be rid of the Black Dogs and their midnight would have driven her to far greater extremes.
You needn’t give in to him. Walk before me.
But there was no certainty that way. The Black Dogs growled and lunged, and her fear was far too great. Rose Red flung the glove with all her strength into the darkness beyond the lantern’s glow.
The lantern dimmed.
There was a snarling, vicious noise as the creatures brawled like alley mongrels. The next moment, they were gone. The midnight faded into half-light.
Rose Red found that she stood on the shore of a vast black lake. She knew then that she had reached the depths of the Dragon’s world. Her bare hands were cold as they gripped the handle of the dimmed lantern.
“The Lake of Endless Blackness.” She named it, and knew the name was true. Only now the lake was no pond created by damming up a streamlet. It truly was a lake, too large for her to see across, and the water was as black as ink, even where the light shone upon it.
She had no boat. Was she supposed to swim? She put out a tentative foot, slipping a toe into the water. A dread like death overwhelmed her at that one touch, and she drew back with a stifled cry. “Silent Lady,” she whispered like a prayer. “Silent Lady, shield me!”
But there was no Silent Lady here. Rose Red stood alone.
“You’ve always been alone,” said the Dragon’s voice, disembodied in the half-light. “You’ve always been alone but for me.”
From the lake’s black waters rose a mist that carried the poison of the Dragon. It whirled in elusive shapes, like the sound of a scream or the sensation of pain made visible. Ghostly hands dragged a small boat across the water to the shore where Rose Red stood. Thus was a crossing provided.
“I’ve got to go on now,” she told herself. “I’ve come so far.”
The boat creaked as its prow touched the shore. To all appearances, it was made of twigs . . . incredibly large twigs tied together with twine the thickness of a man’s arm. Like one of Leo’s toy boats but life-size. It sported one raggedy sail and a rudder, and it waited just for her.
Breathing many prayers to whomever might listen, Rose Red stepped onto the flimsy craft. The ghostly hands gave a last tug, and it moved away from the shore, carried by the waves out into open water. Rose Red held tight to the lantern with one hand, its dimming light her only comfort on that water. Her other hand gripped the rudder, for all the good it would do her.
The lake pulled her out to its depths.
Just as before, a vault of emptiness arched above her, not sky, just darkness. The lake water did not reflect that darkness but was, in and of itself, black. The only light came from the lantern, but Rose Red did not like to look at it for fear of seeing her own bare hand clutching the handle. She set her face ahead, surveying those unsearchable reaches, hoping to catch some sight of a distant shore.
How long she voyaged, she could not say. How could time be measured in this place? She felt very old and very young simultaneously. Like death and like birth.
Something flickered in the lantern light. Rose Red gazed forward and a little to her left and saw an enormous rock jutting from the lake. The little stick boat glided past it, and she saw that the rock was smooth and polished and gleaming, a pure gold stone. An altar. The sight of it made her sick, though she did not know why. She turned away and was glad when the boat sailed on and left the gold stone far behind her.
“You were always meant to be mine,” the Dragon whispered from the emptiness.
Skeletons of other boats and even great ships littered the lake beneath her. Rose Red saw them the farther she got from the shore. The hulls, like bleached bones, shimmered with their own cold, hopeless light, very different from that in the Asha Lantern. Rose Red remembered the games she and Leo once played, making and sinking ship after ship on the Lake of Endless Blackness. How many of their own dreams had they built and destroyed with their own hands, leaving them to sink into oblivion? How many of their own and each other’s?
“Leo,” she whispered as she looked over the side of her small craft down at the broken ships below, “I’m so sorry.” A tear slipped down her face behind her veil. “So far I’ve only failed you.”
Stop striving, child, the silver voice said.
“Stop striving,” said the Dragon. “Give in to me.”
Walk before me.
“You were always meant to be mine.”
I chose you before you were born.
“I want you.”
I love you.
She shook her head, closing her eyes. “If you love me, why have you abandoned me? Why do you let me wander down this Path to Death?”
This is not his Path, child, said the silver voice, the voice of her wood thrush’s song. Though darkness surrounds you, and you walk to the very household of Death, you walk my Path, not his. I am with you always.
“Don’t believe a word of it, princess,” said the Dragon. “Look around you! Could this world be anything but mine? I am Death-in-Life, and you have entered my domain. Your only chance is to turn to me. I am master here, and only I may help you.”
“No!” she growled, her grip on the lantern and the rudder tightening. “I don’t need you! None of you! I’ll do this myself. I’ll do this for Leo.”
“That’s right, my princess,” whispered the Dragon. “Come to my arms.”
Remember me, child.
Then, because she could not bear to hear those voices anymore, Rose Red burst out singing. Her voice was not beautiful. It was very ugly, in fact. But she sang loud and long, sending the words rolling across that black water, ringing from shore to shore. She sang the first song that came to her head, the song she had grown up listening to the mountains sing:
“Cold silence covers the distance,
Stretches from shore to shore.
I follow the dark Path you’ve set before my feet.
Let me follow no more!”
And answering her out of the empty vault above came the silver voice, stronger than her own:
Beyond the Final Water falling,
The Songs of Spheres recalling.
When you find you must pursue that lonely way,
; Won’t you follow me?
The light of the Asha Lantern flared to new and brighter life, and Rose Red felt her heart lifting.
At the same moment, she saw a red-gold glow flickering hot in the distance. She approached the far shore of the Lake of Endless Blackness.
Beana sat by the gates of the Eldest’s House. She sat in her own form now. What was the use of disguises? Four years at least, perhaps a little more, had passed since last she’d glimpsed her charge. Deep inside, she knew she was despairing; and though she also knew this was wrong, at the moment, she did not care.
Very faintly, wafting through the dragon smoke, across the courtyard and out the gate against which her back was pressed, a voice reached Beana’s ear.
Won’t you follow me?
She was on her feet in a second just as the gates, at long last, swung open to her. “Light of Lumé!” she exclaimed. “It’s about time!”
A shaggy goat pelted across the stone courtyard as fast as her cloven hooves could carry her, vanishing into the curtain of smoke.
7
THE NEAR WORLD
ORIANA PALACE SAT ON TOP OF A HILL overlooking the city of Sondhold by the sea. It was built in the time of King Abundiantus V of Parumvir, just outside the fringe of Goldstone Wood. This had been a daring move on the part of that king of old, for in those days Goldstone Wood was considered nothing short of an enchanted forest, a refuge for all manner of strange beings of the Far World. But the palace had been constructed nonetheless and, over the course of several hundred years, added on to until it was become a beautiful structure indeed, complete with a seven-tiered garden extending down the eastern side of the hill and ending where Goldstone Wood began.
King Fidel ruled the kingdom of Parumvir these days, holding court in Oriana. He was a well-liked king. Every third and fifth day of the week he opened the great Westgate to the common people so that they might bring petitions before him.
Southgate, however, was never opened to the common people. Certainly not on the first day of the week.
“Here! Here, what do you think you’re doing?”
Two guards in heavy armor (which may or may not have added to their sour moods on that hot summer’s day), who looked as though they were unused to actually working at this post, took hold of a brightly clad intruder as he sauntered without ceremony through Southgate into the gardens of Oriana.
“Oi!” cried the intruder, who was mad-looking in hideous, multicolored raiment. “I say, sorry about that.”
“Get out!” One of the guards pulled the idiot from the grip of the other guard and gave him a shove back through the gate.
The Fool shoved back. “Pardon me,” he said. “I’ll not leave just yet, thank you. I have a letter from—”
“Dragons eat your letter,” the guard said and this time shoved harder, pushing him back beyond the wall. “Out!”
“Not until you hear me.” The stranger shook himself free of the heavy hand and straightened his threadbare costume. “I am come from Amaury Palace, and I have a letter from King Grosveneur—”
“Sure you have,” said the other guard. He was smaller than the first, his voice thin. “Away with you, lad.” He made to shut the gate.
The Fool darted forward and caught it, and since he was stronger, pushed it back open and leapt inside. “I say, this is no way to treat guests!”
“We don’t treat guests this way,” the larger guard said. “Only tramps.” He caught the Fool by the back of the neck, lifting him like a kitten by the scruff. The Fool kicked, catching the guard in the shin, and both guard and Fool howled in pain, pulling apart from each other and hopping about, the guard clutching his leg, the Fool clutching his foot. The smaller guard hooted with laughter, which earned him a knock in the side of the head from his fellow. Then they both turned to the idiot and lunged.
“Oi!” bellowed the Fool. “If you don’t let me through, I’ll be certain it gets back to your superior officer, and you’ll wish you’d never—”
“Right. As though you’ll be on chatting terms with my superior officer,” the bigger one growled. “Listen, mister, we don’t let just anyone come trampin’ through here, and anyone who tells you otherwise—”
At that moment, movement among the bushes caught the Fool’s gaze. A girl stood there, peering out from behind a bush. She wore a simple gown, and her hair was pulled back in a braid with strands escaping messily about her face. Her eyes were round with surprise, and when she saw the Fool looking at her she ducked back behind the shrubs. He could not tell if she was a lady of the palace or merely a servant, but it seemed worth a try.
“Lady!” he cried. He pulled and twisted, nearly breaking free again. “Fair lady! You seem of a gentle nature. Tell these blackguards to unhand me—OW !”
The smaller guard caught hold of his ear and gave it a vicious twist, knocking his bell-dripped hat off in the process. Then the big one picked him off his feet and tossed him out through the gate. The Fool rolled ungracefully in the dirt partway back downhill. With a cry of “And take your hat with you!” the guards slammed the gate with a final, ringing clang.
Lionheart—for it was he, somewhat thinner, paler, and more threadbare than last seen—picked himself up stiffly. He could feel bruises developing all over his body. How was it that he could face a dragon and live, yet couldn’t get past two such bumblers? They watched him between the bars of the gate, so with great dignity he walked back up the hill. They stiffened and one put a hand to his sword, but Lionheart did not look at them. He picked up his jester’s hat, which looked like a crushed flower. Shaking it out so that all the bells jingled, he placed it back on his head, tilting it at a rakish angle. Then he swept the guards a bow. “Farewell, great oafs of idiotic disposition,” he said. “Until next we meet.”
“Away with you!”
Lionheart hastened back down the hill.
He did not retrace his path down the western side of the hill into Sondhold. No, that would be to admit defeat. This was merely a regrouping to consider his next course of action. He’d already tried his luck at Westgate and been rebuffed. “Bring your petitions on the third and fifth days of the week,” everyone said.
“I don’t come with a petition! I come with a letter of recommendation from—”
But no one believed him.
One dead end after another. Lionheart cursed as he picked his way down the hill. Was he destined to spend another four years in Sondhold, just as he had in Lunthea Maly, desperately trying to gain access to the palace and being turned back at every portal? Performing at Beauclair had not proven this difficult. Amaury Palace was famed for its spectacles and entertainments, however, and a jester of any worth could easily find a place there. Not so in sober Parumvir.
Goldstone Wood grew up this side of the hill, and Lionheart found himself approaching its thick and untamed borders. The shade cast by the trees looked inviting. Any relief from this blistering heat would be welcome. Lionheart doubted any of the fabled monsters that purportedly lived within that shade would suddenly creep to this portion of the wood to devour one rejected jester. So he flopped down with his back against a tall, spreading maple at the edge of the forest, and took stock of his position.
Somehow he had to get into the palace and present his letter to the steward. King Grosveneur’s seal would undoubtedly carry some weight, but not with idiots like those guards at the gate, who probably couldn’t spoon porridge to their mouths without special instruction. Yet how could Lionheart get past them?
The weight of his problem, the heat of the day, and the long climb up the side of the mountain joined together in a force too great to withstand. Exhaustion worked its own persuasion, and he slept.
You know the Princess Varvare.
The voice sang into his mind while Lionheart lay between waking and sleeping.
She has gone from this world. Beyond reach of my voice.
He groaned and stirred, but his eyelids were too heavy with sleep to open. His body felt oddly para
lyzed where he lay amid the roots of the maple tree. His mind felt paralyzed too, unable to drive out that voice that was not a voice, speaking without language.
My master grows impatient.
Lionheart muttered, “Dragons eat your master.”
Then his eyes flew open and for the briefest moment he saw the Other.
When you see her, you will send her to me. I will wait in the Wilderlands.
Lionheart woke in a cold sweat, still sitting up. His hands had torn up great handfuls of dirt, which he now released. Slowly his breathing calmed, and he crawled out from under the shade of the trees.
“Serves you right,” he whispered, taking comfort in self derision. “Everyone knows you shouldn’t nap in a Faerie Forest. Especially not so late in the day.”
The sun was setting, and the day was cooler. Lionheart was just as much on the wrong side of the wall as he had ever been. He stood awhile, trying to shake off the nightmare. He remembered none of it—almost the moment he woke, the vision had fled his memory—but the sensation of fear lingered. To drive it off, he started walking along the wall of the palace gardens, trailing a hand against the stone blocks as he went.
Suddenly Lionheart turned and looked up the wall.
All he needed was a moment with a housekeeper or the steward, someone with brain enough to recognize King Grosveneur’s seal. If he could just present himself at the palace and bypass those dragon-blasted guards, he did not doubt he would gain entrance.
He must gain entrance. He had a ring to find.
Resolve quickened him. He darted downhill until once more he reached the edge of the Wood, where the trees grew right up against the garden wall. As easily as he had once climbed the mountainside near Hill House, he scaled the trunk of a big oak and scooted along thick branches overhanging the wall. Gaining the wall itself, he looked down.
The sun was setting in earnest now, illuminating some of the world in a brilliant glow but casting the rest into deep shadows. In that awkward lighting, he found it difficult to guess how great the drop below him was, whether it was the same as on the far side, shorter, or longer. But there was nothing for it now. He took a deep breath and jumped.
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