The Sett Owl regarded her without expression. Then she said, “Put one foot out onto the floor.”
Little Fur hesitated, then obeyed, lowering her four toes gingerly to the floor. She knew that no harm would come to her as long as some part of her stayed on the earth floor of the tunnel. To her amazement, she felt earth magic surging against her foot.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“I have asked the still magic to allow the passage of earth magic. Now enter,” the owl said. “How else will you prepare my tisane?”
Heart beating fast, Little Fur put both feet out onto the flagstones, keeping her bottom firmly on the earth floor of the tunnel. Earth magic flowed to the soles of her feet. Very slowly, she stood up and looked around. Above the tunnel was the statue of a winged woman holding out a slender white hand. The bubbling sensation that was the still magic pressed and nuzzled at Little Fur like some invisible and inquisitive animal wanting to smell her better.
“Have no fear that the earth magic will fail under you,” the owl said mildly. “Still magic and earth magic are not inimical to one another. It is only that both are very strong and are content to be apart.” The owl turned to greet Ginger courteously; then she spoke to the smaller creatures who had drawn together. She accepted their offerings and dealt quickly but kindly with their timid questions. Finally, only the fox, Little Fur and Ginger remained.
“Well now, Healer,” the Sett Owl said. “The storm orphan.”
Little Fur nodded, unsurprised to find that the Sett Owl knew why she had come. If the still magic had not told her, the owls she had spoken to would have done so.
“You are not content with the answers you have been given by my brethren?” the Sett Owl inquired.
“I understand what they are saying, but I don’t understand why the owls who have lost nestlings won’t just come and see if the baby is theirs.”
“For an owl, to fall is to die.”
Little Fur felt a surge of frustration. “I do not think the owlet who fell and lived would agree.”
“You and the fox come on the same errand, then,” observed the Sett Owl. “You both seek to thwart nature. That is a very human desire.”
Little Fur was shocked to be likened to humans. But the snarl of the fox overshadowed her reaction. “I have no human desires,” he said in a voice so raw with hatred that Little Fur thought he would leap at the owl and tear her to pieces.
The Sett Owl gazed at him without fear. “The human way is to set will against nature.”
“I do not wish to speak of humans or of nature,” the fox said in a low, angry voice.
“Nor do I,” the owl said with sudden weariness. “I have spoken too much of these things already this long night. Well, ask your question, Fox.”
“Ye know it already,” the fox said. “I wish to die, but my instinct to live chains me to life. I want to know how I can overcome my instinct.”
“You wish to join the world’s dream?” the owl asked.
“It is not known what comes after life, and I think none can know, for none who die return to say what they have seen. For myself, I hope there is no dream.”
“Some say the world’s dream is no more than a long remembering of all that was and all that will be,” the owl murmured.
“I did not come to talk about memories either, Herness,” the fox said shortly.
“Very well. An answer to your question. You cannot overcome your instinct to live, because its great strength is of your own long making.”
“Then ye cannot help me.”
“I cannot help you defeat your will to survive, for you have trained it to be indomitable. But perhaps I can suggest a way for you to find death.”
The fox’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“You must seek a road to death that does not oppose your will to survive.”
“Ye speak in riddles,” the fox said.
Little Fur’s ears prickled to hear the strange word again.
“Life is a riddle, Fox,” the Sett Owl told him. “One cannot speak simply of such a mystery. Now listen to me. If you wish to die, then you must give yourself wholly to a deadly quest. You must make it more important than your life. Only then will your instinct permit the sacrificing of life, should it be required by the quest.”
The fox regarded the Sett Owl steadily for a long moment. “Ye have such a quest in mind?”
“I do,” the owl said composedly. “A plot against the earth spirit is being hatched in this city, or to be precise, beneath the city, in the troll stronghold of Underth. You have heard of it?”
“I have heard of the troll city, but I understood
“I have heard of the troll city, but I understood it to be a myth. What would ye have me do? Set out to kill its king, if he exists?”
“He exists,” the owl said softly.
“What, then?” the fox asked.
“All night I have sought information in an attempt to guess what the Troll King plots. I have found no answer but this: an expedition must be mounted to Underth to discover the Troll King’s plans.”
“The storm,” the fox said thoughtfully. “There were omens in it. . . .”
“We must learn the nature of the danger. Without that knowledge, we cannot hope to defend the earth spirit. The omens say that if it is not defended, the Troll King will bring an age of darkness to the earth that will see the end of many things.”
“If I undertake to travel to Underth to get this knowledge, and if the stories of it and of the trolls that guard it are even partly true, my death is almost certain. That will serve my desire, but how will it serve yours? How will ye discover what I have learned?” the fox asked.
“You will have companions,” the owl said.
“I travel alone,” the fox replied at once.
“You will need a guide to lead you from the surface to the troll city. It is not just a matter of finding a way through myriad tunnels and holes. There are also the dark confusions of magic brewed by the Troll King, which affect any creature not born under his dominion.”
The fox broke in. “Ye spoke of companions.”
“Indeed. You are too big and brightly colored to gather the information that is needed. That will require spies who can swim in the shadows and slip through small cracks and crannies.”
“If my companions are to be guides and spies, then why am I needed?” asked the fox. “I do not understand.”
“You will be the warrior who guards the expedition. You will protect your fellow expeditioners, even at the cost of your own life. You must be prepared to offer yourself as a decoy and draw danger away from your companions, that they may bring what has been learned to me.”
“Even if I agree, the chance of anyone escaping will be slim,” the fox said.
“In asking you to swear to place their safety above your own, I bestow upon them the protection of your ferocious will to survive. They can have no greater shield.”
There was a long silence. “Who will be the spies and the guide?” the fox asked.
Little Fur had the dreamy certainty that the Sett Owl would name her, but the owl merely said, “Two ferrets have volunteered as spies.”
“And the guide?”
“The rat Gazrak, who is my attendant. He knows the way to Underth, and having been born there, he will be immune to the glamours set up to trap intruders,” the Sett Owl said.
Out of the shadows at the back of the beaked house came a squeal of anguish and dismay.
CHAPTER 7
A Quest into Darkness
“No! Gazrak will not go! No! Noooo!” the rat snarled.
The Sett Owl merely watched until he had cringed and whimpered and hissed himself to silence. “You will go,” she said.
Cunning flickered in the rat’s eyes. “But, Herness, who will care for you when I am gone?” he said in a wheedling voice.
“That is not your concern, Gazrak. You will guide the fox and his companions to Underth, and when you return, you wil
l be welcome.”
The rat whined and trembled and shook his head some more. Little Fur thought Gazrak was rude and greedy, but it still did not seem right to force him to undertake such a dangerous quest against his will. The owl seemed to hear her thought.
“The rat has a debt that blackens his spirit. I gave Gazrak refuge here when the still magic would have rejected him, on the understanding that a day would come when I would require a duty which he must perform.”
“But not this! Not there! They will kill me. They will eat me!” the rat shrilled.
“The fox will protect you,” said the Sett Owl.
The fox replied, in a tone full of lifeless mockery, “It would be a fitting end to my life to die defending such a one.”
“No! No!” The rat dived into the tunnel and vanished.
“The rat seems unwilling,” the fox said.
“Gazrak will do as I have bidden,” the Sett Owl replied with a touch of sadness.
“And the ferrets?”
“They are volunteers. I do not yet see your other companions, nor can I see when they will join you,” the owl answered tranquilly.
“Wonderful,” the fox murmured dryly. “An unknown army which will assemble at some unknown moment, no doubt. Is there anything else ye can foresee? The success of the expedition, perhaps?”
“I have seen that there is hope if it is mounted, and none if it is not. But there is another thing that I have foreseen which may be useful for you to know: one of those who accompany you will betray you.”
“What?!” the fox exclaimed, for the first time looking incredulous. “Ye would have me go on so vital an expedition with a betrayer?”
“Without them all, the quest will fail.”
The fox gave a dour bark of laughter. “Your offer is compelling, Herness. To undertake an expedition that is almost certainly impossible, with unknown companions, one of whom will betray the rest. I accept. When do we leave? When the moon is blacked, or in the dead of winter, when snow freezes the earth? Or perhaps in the eye of the sun under the noses of the humans that infest the city?”
“You must leave when day comes,” the owl responded. “The Troll King, his chief captains and a good part of his army are mustering for a journey along a subterranean road to a city by the sea. If you leave when I have proposed, you will miss the Troll King and his army and find a city peopled by lower trolls with dull wits and slow minds, who, in the absence of their master, will discuss his plans and intentions. It is they who must be sought out and spied upon.”
“How long will this meeting of trolls take?”
“It will take the Troll King one day to reach the city by the sea,” the owl said. “The same amount of time as it will take you to reach the tunnels and caverns above Underth if you leave when the sun opens its eye this day. You will then have three full days and nights to learn what you can. Then you must come back to the surface, or run the risk of meeting the returning Troll King and his army.”
The fox was thoughtful for a while. Then he said, “Did ye foresee me coming here tonight?”
“I saw you enter the city,” the owl said.
“What would ye have done if I had not come here?”
Instead of answering him, the owl turned to Little Fur. “Healer, I have pondered your question and this is my answer. The way forward is not to go backward. The owlet, whom nature would have killed, was saved first by the cat and then by you. The falling and the saving set it on a path away from clan and kin. There is no going back. The orphan is now your responsibility. Unless you abandon her.”
Little Fur sighed. “Of course we won’t abandon her, but I don’t see how an owl can grow up into a proper owl mothered by a cat and an elf troll.”
“Who is to say what is a proper owl?” the Sett Owl asked distantly.
Little Fur knew that was all the answer she was going to get, but she still wanted to know more about the fox and his quest. “Shall I brew your tisane now, Herness?”
The Sett Owl inclined her head with a twinkle in her eyes. Little Fur did not dare to look at the fox. She set about preparing the tisane, losing her self-consciousness as she concentrated on adding the herbs carefully in the right order. When she was finished, she carried the little wooden bowl of tisane to where the owl perched on one of the human bench seats and set it down carefully. She was about to pack her things away when the owl suggested that Little Fur might tend the fox’s wounds.
“I want no healing!” the fox said sharply.
Little Fur hesitated; then, emboldened by what the owl had said, she murmured, “If you do not let me treat your wounds, you ought to tell the Sett Owl that you won’t go. I can smell infection deep enough to put you in a fever by tonight, and by tomorrow you will begin to lose the use of your leg.”
The fox spoke at last. “Very well, but be quick.”
Little Fur went through the contents of her pouch and laid out what she needed. Then she poured the remainder of the water from her bottle into another small bowl. She soaked a wad of soft cloth in it and began to bathe the numerous small wounds on the fox that were clogged with dirt and dried blood. None of the wounds were dangerously deep, and all but two of them, the most recent and the worst, had already been treated. She was puzzled, because the fox had so resisted her help.
As she worked, she noticed some strange things. The first was that all of the treated wounds were at different stages of healing. That meant they must have been inflicted at different times. The second was that the wounds were oddly neat, as if a small creature with very sharp teeth had delicately bit into the fox again and again. Looking more closely, Little Fur found countless older scars all over the fox’s body. Some were so old that the fox must have been a cub when they had been inflicted.
The fox’s obvious hatred of humans made Little Fur certain that they were responsible for his wounds. Perhaps a human had kept the fox as a pet for the dark pleasure of hurting it. Or maybe the fox had escaped from the mysterious place Crow had told her about, beyond the outer edge of the city. Zoo, he had named it, describing walled enclosures and cages where many different kinds of animals were held captive.
Little Fur wished she could just ask the fox, but he was rigidly silent under her hands. She sensed that his whole being was focused on forcing himself to sit still as she tended to him. She left the deep cuts along his flank till last. Already, invisible but poisonous threads of infection had spread out from them in a fine and dangerous web. She bathed them thoroughly, then pressed a pollen and honey mix into them. Lastly, she used a fine bone threaded with plied spider’s silk to sew the flaps of skin back together. She left a tiny opening at the end, where the wounds could drain. Throughout all of her ministrations, the fox grunted only once.
Finally, Little Fur smoothed a salve over the sewn cuts, feeling delicately along the outline of the long leg bones as she did to be sure they were not fractured or chipped. Again she found something curious. The bones were not broken, but there were bumps all along them as if they had been broken in the distant past, not once but many times.
“That is enough,” the fox said tightly, moving away from her touch.
She nodded. “You need to rest—”
“I will sleep after the expedition,” he said.
Little Fur wanted to argue but she said only, “I will mix you a tisane to take with you. It will help the wounds to knit more quickly and it will numb the pain.”
“Anything else?” the fox asked ironically.
“Yes,” Little Fur said. “You must eat now, for what I have done has drained your strength.” She turned to Gazrak, who had returned and was glaring at them. “Can you bring some food and some more water? And do you have a bottle with a stopper?”
“Bottle! Food! Water!” The rat’s eyes blazed with outrage, but he scuttled away. By the time Little Fur’s things had been cleaned and returned to their places in the pouch, the rat had come back with a bulging cloth full of food and a small bottle like her own, made from a gourd
and filled with water. He flung them down with a hiss and darted away.
“The rat will be a pleasant companion,” the fox observed.
“You should eat,” Little Fur urged.
“What is your name, Healer?” the fox asked.
Little Fur told him shyly.
“I am Sorrow,” the fox said. “I asked your name and I tell ye my own, for I owe ye a debt.”
“Why did your mother name you Sorrow?” Little Fur asked.
“I have no memory of mother nor father nor den kin. For a black age, I lived without any idea of what sort of creature I was, or any knowledge that there were others like me. When I learned the truth, I found my name,” the fox answered.
Little Fur did not know what to say to this. She had no memory of her father or mother either, and sometimes it saddened her that she could not remember them. But she could not deeply mourn what she had not known, or blame her parents or the world for their mysterious absence. But maybe it was not the lack of family that caused the fox his sorrow, but the circumstances in which he had learned that he was an orphan, especially if they were connected to the long history of scarring on his body. Little Fur wanted to ask about it, but the fox’s grief was like one of the shining human high houses, which could be seen from anywhere in the city but could never be entered.
The fox would not eat, and finally he went outside, saying he could not sleep inside the beaked house because the stink of humans was too strong. Little Fur waited until he had gone, then asked the owl if she would like some more of the tisane.
“As payment for the question you now wish to ask me?” the Sett Owl asked shrewdly.
Little Fur hung her head. “I did want to ask you something.”
“You are curious about the fox,” the owl said.
“Is it wrong?” she asked humbly.
The Sett Owl’s answer was kind. “There is no evil in your curiosity. It arises from your healing senses, Little Fur, and you need not feel shamed by it. But the questions you ask must be put to the fox himself. Yet know this one thing: for him, sorrow is a remembering and a reverence.”
A Fox Called Sorrow Page 4