Once Upon an Autumn Eve

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Léon shrugged. “If any did, I took no special note of them.—Still, if they were flying across sunwise borders, that’s the way the Blue Château lies.”

  Liaze raised an eyebrow. “Ah, I see. Then perhaps that’s the way the witch lies as well. As such, it gives a bit of credence to the idea that Guillaume is behind Luc’s taking.”

  They sat quietly a bit longer, and only the crackle of the fire broke the silence. After a moment Liaze stood and took up her mug and tin plate and knife and spoon and looked about the single room. “Where do we—?”

  “There is a spring nearby where I clean them,” said Léon. “Runs all year, summer, winter, it matters not.” He got to his feet and took up his own tableware and a modest stewpot and ladle, as well as the lantern, and together they walked to the rock face of an upjut of land. Water poured out from a cleft in the stone to run in a clear stream and away, and together they knelt thereat to wash the utensils.

  As Léon scoured away at the pot, he said, “What do you plan to do?”

  Liaze stopped her own scrubbing and sighed. “I think the only thing left to me is to ride to wherever lies this Blue Château of yours on an isle in the Lake of the Rose and take on a task of some sort in the hold and see what I can discover.”

  “Take on a task?”

  “Oui, as a goose girl or some such.”

  Léon shook his head. “You cannot ride in on Deadly Nightshade, towing your mare and four packhorses and claim to be a goose girl. You will need to leave them somewhere safe and go in on foot.—Ah, and perhaps I have just the place. There is a widow I used to visit when I was armsmaster of that keep, and . . .”

  Liaze stayed with Léon another day, but neither the princess nor the armsmaster could come up with a better plan. And so, the next morn, seventeen days after setting out from Autumwood Manor, eighteen days after Luc was taken, and forty-one days ere a heart would cease to beat in the dark of the moon, Liaze rode away from the woodcutter’s cote, heading in the direction of the sunwise marge, for that’s the way the Blue Château lay, though seven borders beyond. Liaze had in her possession a note written in code to deliver to the comtesse, in the hopes Lady Adèle could aid in the finding of Luc.

  And so, astride Pied Agile and towing Nightshade and the four geldings after, Liaze fared into the woods.

  Léon stood looking after her as she rode away, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if seeking weapons but finding none. And he despaired, for he would go at her side, yet he could find no way to get around Lady Wyrd’s rede. And though he had said he would ride with the princess even if it meant yielding up his life, Liaze had refused to let him accompany her. “Trust to the Fates,” she had said, and he had no recourse but to do so. And so he watched her ride away into the forest, and, when she was gone beyond sight, he turned and took up an axe and furiously began hewing cordwood.

  Three days later, Léon saddled his grey and laded on supplies, and then dressed in his armor and took up his arms and rode away from the woodcutter’s cote and toward the sunwise border.

  25

  Musings

  As Liaze rode deeper into the woods she could hear the distant sound of Léon’s axe hewing. Ah, but I would have loved his company, just as I would have liked Rémy and his warband at my side. Yet Lady Skuld said, “For should you take a few with you, / Most Fear would likely slay.” Ah, me, but I cannot have the blood of others on my hands can I help it. And if that means riding alone, then let it be so. Au revoir, Léon, mon ami, foster père of my Luc.

  On she fared, and the sound of hewing faded. Finally, she could hear the axe no more, and it was as if she had lost a friend.

  All morning she rode, as the sun rose up the sky, and occasionally she stopped at rills and streams to give the horses a drink and to take water herself. And at the noontide she found a lea with red clover growing, and there she stopped and let the horses graze, while she ate a bit of jerky along with biscuits slathered with honey.

  As she sat watching the animals crop sweet blossoms amid bees gathering nectar and pollen, she mused on what Léon had told her, and at one point she laughed. Ah, my Luc, you are a comte. I cannot wait to see the look on Tutrice Martine’s face when I tell her. Hedge knight, she called you, when you are anything but. Not that it matters one whit, for I love you for what you truly are and not for the title you bear. But Martine, now, she is caught up in status, for did she not say that instead of you, a mere chevalier, I should marry a duc or a comte at least? I am certain, though, she would prefer that I wed a prince or a king. Hedge knight, indeed. Ha! When I introduce you to her as Comte Luc du Château Blu dans le Lac de la Rose et Guardien de la Clé, ah, but she will be shocked.

  A snort from Nightshade brought Liaze out from her reflections, and she leapt to her feet and drew her long-knife and looked about. Yet she saw nought of a threat, and Nightshade and the other horses yet grazed placidly.

  Again the black snorted, and Liaze laughed at the cause. “Eating bees, are we, my lad? Or did they sting your tender nose?” She stepped to the stallion and when he raised his head to her, she lifted his chin and looked at his muzzle. No bee stingers did she see embedded. “Ah, then, it was the eating of bees, eh? Regardless, ’tis time we were on our way.”

  Liaze rearranged the tethers for the mare to follow with the geldings in tow and for the stallion to lead, and she mounted Nightshade and rode away from the red-clover meadow.

  Down sank the sun through the sky as Liaze continued riding in the direction Léon had said the Blue Château lay. Léon had fled far with the child, and seven shadowlight borders stood between her and that goal. She fretted that she might fail to see the landmarks the armsmaster had told her to follow, and if she drifted too far off line and simply rode ahead, then she might altogether miss the realm wherein she would find the Lake of the Rose. To avoid going elsewhere, when she reached each sunwise border, if she found herself off course, she planned to roam along the near side of the given twilight wall until she came upon the marker described by Léon denoting the place to cross.

  As dusk drew its lavender cape o’er the land, with the black of night to follow swiftly after, Liaze made camp in a small hollow through which a stream ran. After taking care of the horses and laying a fire, she sat on her blankets and took a bite to eat. As she savored the last of the boiled eggs Léon had given her, she reflected on what the armsmaster had said. Château Blu occupies the whole of a small isle in the center of the lake. There is a manmade causeway running from the shore to the manse. The manor itself is really a walled castle, and it is made of a grey-blue stone, hence the name “Blue Chateau.” The Lake of the Rose is so named because of the reflections of the red-hued rock cliffs along one shore, giving the water a rosy appearance. Too, Luc’s ancestors planted roses along the banks, and the briers spread, and some now follow the outlet stream that flowed forth from the sundown end of the lake. Together with the mirrored color of the cliffs and growth of the roses themselves, that’s where the name came from, as well as the title of the comtes and comtesses who ruled there. And as soon as I find Luc and free him, he will take the title: Count Luc of the Blue Château in the Lake of the Rose and the Keeper of the Key.

  Liaze frowned. Keeper of the Key? What key? Why is a key part of the title? What might that mean? And why should it be guarded? Oh, I should have asked Léon. Shall I ride back? She sighed. Non, that would just waste two days—one going and then one returning. No doubt I will find the meaning when I reach the château itself. Surely the Widow Dorothée will know. I wonder, were she and Léon lovers? There was a certain fondness in Léon’s voice when he spoke of her as someone I could trust, as a person who would keep the horses while I go to the château as a goose girl and deliver his coded note to Comtesse Adèle.

  Even so, I would like to know what this “Guardian,” this “Keeper of the Key” means in Comte Luc’s full title.

  Liaze spent a moment washing herself in the nearby stream, and she rubbed her teeth with a chew-stick and
took a mint leaf and munched it to sweeten her breath, all the time wondering about the “Key.”

  The puzzle was yet flitting at the edge of her mind when she fell asleep.

  Just ere dawn, Liaze startled awake. “Caillou!” she said aloud. By the light of the embers of the fire and of the waning gibbous moon, Pied Agile looked at her, and then about, as if seeking a threat. Nightshade remained adoze. Liaze got to her feet and stepped to the mare and stroked her muzzle and along her neck to calm her.

  “Perhaps Caillou knew the answer,” murmured Liaze to her horse. “But then again, perhaps not.” And scratching Pied Agile’s forehead, Liaze recalled that day on the stone creature’s flank when he said he had seen a man with a black horse:

  Liaze’s heart jumped. “Did he wear a metal shirt and a metal cap and carry a metal horn like this one?” She held up Luc’s silver trump.

  Slowly, grinding, the eyes turned toward Liaze, the flinty gaze to at last come to rest upon her. “Yes . . . It was but a short pebble cascade ago when he came across.”

  “Oh, Lord Montagne, it was my Luc,” said Liaze. “It must have been when he was on his way to my realm . . . back whence I came. Did he recently return this way? Oh, I must find him, and I could use your help, Lord Montagne, if you have any to give.”

  As she waited for the answer, she returned her arrow to its quiver and her bow to its saddle sheath.

  At length, the being said, “Many things spill out of you all at once, as if in avalanche. . . . Indeed . . . avalanche . . .”

  Liaze waited, and just as she feared there would be no answer to her questions, the stone being said, “Yes, he went down the way you came. . . . No, he has not yet come back this way.”

  At these words, Liaze’s heart fell. Even so, she knew only by wild chance would the witch in her flight have flown through this pass, dragging the shadowy hand after, Luc in its grip.

  Again there came a rumble, and she realized that the mountain was yet responding to her questions. “Rrr . . . I have seen him but once, and though I tried, I could not stop him, for he bore the stone. . . . He passed through without giving me my due.”

  “He bore what stone?”

  As if thought moved slowly through a being who seemed to be made of the mountain itself, again there was a long pause ere the creature answered. “A tiny bit of keystone.” The eyes, grinding, slowly looked upward and then back down at Liaze. “It was the color of the sky.”

  Liaze frowned, then brightened and said, “The gem on a chain about his neck?”

  “I asked if he was going to open the way, but he did not know what I was . . . speaking of, and I did not enlighten him.”

  “Open what way?” asked Liaze.

  After long moments, the creature did not respond, and Liaze decided that he would not speak of it again, not tell her what he meant, just as he had not told Luc.

  “Pied Agile,” said Liaze, speaking softly to her horse, “Caillou said a piece of keystone was about Luc’s neck; it was a gift given to him by his père, or so Léon said. Could this be the key of the comte’s title? If so, what door does it open?—No, wait, perhaps it is not a door, for Caillou instead said it opened a ‘way.’ A way to where, I wonder? Or is it a way from somewhere instead?”

  With Pied Agile now soothed, Liaze returned to her bedroll and lay down. Yet, unable to answer her own questions, she could not fall asleep. After a while she gave up her chase of elusive slumber and arose and started breaking camp—drenching the fire, feeding the animals, feeding herself and taking care of her needs. She led the horses to the stream and let them take water, and then she laded the geldings and saddled the stallion and mare. Dawn was just breaking on the sunup bound as she rode on toward her goal.

  All day she fared toward the sunwise border, riding, walking, and riding again, pausing to feed the horses and herself, stopping for water, and then moving on. She passed by hunters’ shacks and woodcutters’ cotes and through hamlets and by farmsteads, and whenever she fared by or through those places some people would ask her for the news, but she had none to give, while others stood and watched in curious silence.

  As the day sank into the sundown bound, Liaze came to a small town, where she engaged a room for one night at a tiny inn, with a village stable across the way.

  “We don’t get too many travelers along this road,” said the proprietress. “ ’Cept in the honey season, and then it’s mostly buyers going up to Honey Creek, but surely you aren’t one of them.”

  “Umn,” said Liaze, shaking her head but offering nothing more.

  “Regardless,” said the innkeeper, “I’ve stew in the pot for tonight, and I’ll cook you breakfast afore y’leave in the morn.”

  “Speaking of leaving, how far is the sunwise border from here?” asked Liaze.

  “Oh, now, most of a day on a horse, if y’re goin’ direct sunwise.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, you take care, going that way, for I hear there’s strange doings down t’th’ ruins.”

  “Strange doings?”

  The woman shrugged. “J’st a rumor, now. Som’thin’ about ghastly goings-on.”

  “Ghastly?”

  “Spirits, maybe, or ghosts. I couldn’t say which. But—pshh—’tis j’st a rumor. Most likely some’n havin’ their fun.” The woman turned and started for the common room. “Come, mademoiselle, I’ll fetch you your food.”

  As Liaze sat drinking weak ale and eating her stew—a hodgepodge of beef, tubers, and beans, all cooked together with a seasoning of salt and pepper and a bay leaf or two, along with other herbs—she pondered what the proprietress had said. Can the ruins she speaks of be the same ones that Léon has said would be my first landmark? If so, what might be afoot in that place? Ah, Liaze, you will not know until you get there. And even if there are strange doings, still you have to pass nearby.

  The next morning after breaking her fast Liaze settled her bill and went across to the stables to retrieve her horses. She laded the geldings and stepped into Nightshade’s stall to saddle him. “I hear there’s something about the ruins along the sunwise border,” she said to the stablehand.

  “ ’At’s wot they say,” replied the man, “though I don’t know what it can be. Started about a moon ago. Haunting, I think some’n said. You plannin’ on going there?”

  “Nearby,” said Liaze. “Down through a vale along the sunup side.”

  “Well, ain’t no one lived there for uncounted seasons,” said the man. “Not since they fled the place.”

  “Fled? Who?”

  “Who fled? Them wot lived there, ’at’s who, or so the tales tell. Seems a wizard or warlock cursed the place long past.”

  Orbane? “Did this wizard or warlock have a name?”

  “ ’F’he did, I know it not.”

  Liaze moved to Pied Agile’s stall. “Is there ought I should know or be wary of?”

  “Well, I’d steer clear o’ that place, ’f’I were you, ma’am. It’s got an evil reputation.”

  “Because of . . . ?”

  “I dunno what it’s because of, ma’am, j’st that it’s not a place to visit.”

  Liaze led the mare from her stall and then tethered Nightshade after, and then the geldings to him. She paid the hostler and led all outside. As she mounted up, the inn proprietress stepped out onto her porch, and she and the hostler watched as Liaze rode away. As the princess came to the end of town, she angled the mare toward the sunwise border and kicked her into a trot.

  In midafternoon Nightshade’s ears pricked forward and he snorted. Liaze looked back at Pied Agile now in tow, and her ears as well as those of the geldings were pricked forward too. What are they hearing? she wondered, but then the sound came to Liaze:

  It was a distant yelling, as of a single voice crying out.

  On Liaze rode, and the shout became louder, and finally, as Nightshade broke out from the forest and into the open, the sound came clear.

  A howling. Someone is howling in rage or fear or grie
f, or is it in agony instead? And whence comes it?

  Straight ahead, the land fell away into a forested vale before her and toward a marge of twilight at the far end; a glittering stream tumbled o’er rocks at the bottom of the dell. Down in the notch a tangle of trees marched up the steep slopes to either side, but to the right and on the very brim of the vale and amid a twisted snarl of woods stood a vine-covered castle, or rather the remnants of one.

  And it was from there the yowling came.

  And the words of Lady Skuld echoed in Liaze’s mind:Instead ride with the howling one

  To aid you on the way.

  He you will find along your quest.

  He is the one who loudly cried.

  He will help you defeat dread Fear,

  But will not face Fear at your side.

  Liaze frowned. Can this be the howling one? Someone within that wreck? But then she recalled the hostler’s warning. “Well, I’d steer clear o’ that place, ’f’I were you, ma’am. It’s got an evil reputation.”

  Liaze sighed and said to the black, “Evil or not, my lad, I cannot let this pass,” and she reined Nightshade toward the ruins.

  26

  Castle

  Circling ’round to come at the remains from a less tangled way, Liaze urged Nightshade forward. And as they approached the snarl of woods surrounding the ruins, louder came the yowling. The stallion seemed to take it in stride, but Pied Agile and the geldings snorted in apprehension and drew back on the tethers, dancing and sidle-stepping nervously. “All right, all right, I’ll not force you to go,” said Liaze, and she reined the black to a halt and dismounted. “Besides, I doubt you can work your way through the beringing clutch I see ahead.” She tied the animals to a nearby tree, and strung her bow and took up her quiver, and loosed the safe-keeper from her long-knife in case the blade were needed.