The fire! It was supposed to be kept going all night. Perhaps the cold had awakened him.
“Who’s on watch?” he asked quietly. No one replied. The swamp was silent, save for the scrabbling crickets and the hoarse cries of the frogs. His breathing increased as he felt for the woodaxe that had been at his side. It was gone.
His first thought was to shout for the others, but he dared not, as he wasn’t sure what was happening. If they were under attack, perhaps it was better if the merlings did not yet know he was awake. Trying to be silent, he slipped out of his bedroll and pulled on his river boots. With an odd twinge of homesickness, he noted that they were still new and stiff. A few days ago he had not wanted to soil them, now such thoughts seemed trivial. He reached over to shake Corbin awake, and his mind froze over. Corbin was missing. There was nothing on his bedroll but a cold patch of slimy mud.
“Corbin? Gudrin? Telyn?” he hissed into the blackness around him. The mists swallowed the sound of his voice.
He rose into a crouch, realizing now that he might be alone. Over the sounds of his breathing and his pounding heart, he made out the slapping of flat feet on mud. A stealthy gurgling sound came from the opposite direction.
“Merlings!” shouted Brand. He broke and ran for the boat. Something on the dark ground moved and tripped him. He went down sprawling. His hands reached out and found it wasn’t a merling, nor one of his companions. It was a leather knapsack. He grabbed at it reflexively, and ran with it in his hands. Something inside it shifted, and he almost dropped it in surprise. It felt as if a small, trapped animal were inside, struggling to get out. He remembered the axe; it must be Gudrin’s knapsack. He thought that it might be of use so he kept his grip on it and moved in the direction that he hoped the boat might be found.
At the shoreline, he found no boat, but he could see the dim outline of it, a few feet from shore. His first thought was that it had been cut adrift. He charged out into the marsh after it. Behind him, flat feet splashed and something hissed in excitement. The hairs on the back of his neck rose up as he feared that he might be cut down from behind.
He slogged forward, wading after the skiff. Unseen things clutched at his feet and the mud threatened to suck his boots away. Suddenly, he remembered the axe that he carried in his arms. It seemed heavier now, more deadly. He had an almost overwhelming urge to turn and face his pursuers and wield the axe. In his mind he could see their bulging eyes popping with terror, their alien skins and bones spilled open and their broken bodies floating in the stinking waters, righteously hewn down.
Then his train of thought was broken as his free hand reached the skiff. He hauled himself over the side. He scrambled up and was surprised to see a figure at the tiller. It was Telyn.
“Telyn!” he gasped. She made no reply, and her eyes stared fixedly ahead. He blinked back the red haze of the axe and forgot about slaughter and mayhem. Slipping twice on his muddy boots, he clambered to her side. He panted there, listening for the splashing of a merling arm as it came over the side of the boat, but he heard only a distant, rhythmic rippling sound. It seemed that they were content to swim after the skiff, perhaps not yet ready to board her. Merlings were always weaker and slower on boats and land than humans. They preferred to tackle only sleeping or unwary men in the darkness and close to water into which they could be easily dragged.
“Telyn? Where are the others?”
She didn’t look at him, but only pointed over the prow of the skiff. Brand peered ahead, but could see nothing but blackness and drifting mists. He couldn’t even tell which direction they were headed in. He laid his hands on her shoulders and was about to shake her, when he saw a light. It was a white ball of light, tinged with green. Shimmering through the fog, it danced and wavered in slow circles ahead of them. Just as quickly as it had appeared, it winked out again.
“Did you see?” asked Telyn in a hushed voice.
“Yes, I saw floating lights,” answered Brand. “What were they? Where are the others?”
“Old Hob’s green lantern,” said Telyn.
“What?”
“The Will-O-Wisp, the dancing lights of the marshes.”
“The Will-O-Wisp?” gasped Brand. He looked back into the darkness with his eyes wide. The light blinked on again, an indistinct ball of cold dancing fire. There was something about it, he could see now…. A beauty that made one want to follow it and see the magical loveliness that it had to be up close. No one in the River Haven knew what the Will-O-Wisp was, exactly, except that it was definitely related to the faerie and often led the unwary into danger.
Brand looked back and watched it with Telyn for a moment. It winked out suddenly, and he was left wishing it would return. He shook his head and looked around him, recalling the merlings and his missing companions. He became alarmed when he realized that the skiff had grounded, and was now far from the sandy island. Was the Will-O-Wisp bewitching him, as it appeared to be doing with Telyn? The softness of it belied the danger it represented.
“Telyn, what happened to the others? What about Corbin and Myrrdin? Did the merlings take them?”
Telyn said nothing. She continued to stare straight ahead. She raised her arm to point into the mists. Brand followed her gesture and saw the Will-O-Wisp again, this time much closer. There was more than one of them now, perhaps six, and they were bigger and brighter than ever. White ones, yellow ones and a single green one revolved around one another. Despite himself, Brand was entranced. They possessed a cold, silent beauty. Looking at them made sounds of music sing in his head and filled his nostrils with strong smells of spice and hot mead made from fresh honey.
He looked again to Telyn, and she was gone. She had already sprung out of the boat and was heading through the marsh toward the wisps, silent and intent.
“Telyn!” cried Brand, and sprang after her. Something tugged at his hand and he struggled briefly before realizing that it was the straps of Gudrin’s knapsack. Somehow, the straps had entangled his hand. Almost as an afterthought, he took the knapsack with him.
A chase began. He felt the part of the lumbering ox, splashing through bogs and crashing through dense growths of reeds and fleshy swamp ferns. She ran as lightly as a fox, circuiting the thickets he stumbled through, silent where he made a great racket, quick and agile where he was desperate and strong.
As quickly as they had loomed close, the wisps vanished from before them only to reappear moments later, this time off to the left and at a much greater distance. Brand realized that they were being led astray. He recalled his grandmother’s old songs of warning, the songs that every river child was rocked to sleep by in their cradles, but it did him no good. If Telyn was bewitched, he would never give her up. And so he fell as neatly into the web as had Telyn herself.
As he struggled and panted to keep her in sight, he sometimes lost her and was forced to stand stock-still, waiting for the quiet sound of her footfall or the flittering of the dancing lights. When he received such a sign, it always seemed to be far off and at an angle to his current direction, so that he was left to charge blindly into the dark marshes to save his love.
My love? he thought. Yes. For it was then and there, splashing about in the marshes outside of North End, that he decided—nay, admitted to himself—that he loved Telyn. What other explanation could there be? Why else would he risk everything for this uncontainable woman? He asked himself this and much more during the chase, which went on for an unknowable time.
Finally, there came a moment when he could no longer see the lights, nor could he detect any sound nor sign of Telyn. Two minutes he waited, listening and casting about for any hint. Five minutes more passed, and he struck out in a random direction. Ten more passed and he halted. He despaired, his sobs, part grief, part fear and part fatigue escaped him as hoarse, choked cries. He had lost his beloved, just when he had decided that she was his beloved.
Finding himself exhausted by the rigors of marching through the endless marsh, Brand found a relatively d
ry spot and sat down to rest with his back to a gnarled tree. The tree’s roots were twisted and exposed. Against his back they felt like the fingerbones of a dead, rotting hand.
He sat there for a time, in the blackness, hearing nothing but the nightbirds and the burbling of slow-moving waters. He head lolled, he snapped back awake. He forced himself to shake off sleep and stand up; he could not give up on his love. He was at a loss.
Between his legs lay the backpack and within it slept what Gudrin called her burden. He became curious about it. He still found it hard to believe that he held one of the ancient Jewels between his legs, one of the six colors of the rainbow. Each Jewel was said to embody the pure essence of its color. This one, Ambros, had been wrought long ago into a weapon by the Kindred.
Could Ambros help him? He felt sure that it could guide him, if only he were attuned to it. But he was no wizard! He had never even fashioned a charm or practiced a schoolboy hex! How could he hope to wield one of the six shards of the rainbow?
Pushing the idea and the knapsack aside, he tried to forget about it. In the morning, which could not be long in coming, he would backtrack to where he had lost Telyn and follow her trail as best he might.
Follow her trail? Through the marsh?
It was true, he admitted to himself, he had never tracked anything in a marsh before.
There is water. Water, water, everywhere. Not even a hound can track across water.
He would do it, somehow. He had to.
“But what if you can’t?”
Brand gave a start. He peered around himself in the darkness, sure that he had heard a voice speak aloud. Nothing met his eyes or ears except the night sounds. Not even the Will-O-Wisp had come back to collect him. He sighed, thinking that he had been dreaming.
Old Hob’s Lantern.
Green. Mostly Green, and yellow and a bit of dull white. That’s what it was. It had led Telyn off into the night. What dangers did she face even now?
She’s in water.
He didn’t even know if she was dead or alive. He might find her tomorrow, floating in the marsh, her lovely face down and her long dark hair matted and wet.
Up to her knees, and getting deeper. The Wisp is almost done with its game. Soon it will grow bored and drown her.
Brand gave another start. He found that the knapsack was in his arms now and that he had hugged it tightly to his chest. His mouth was open, his jaws were slack. A cold thread of spittle ran down his chin.
Save your beloved.
In a loving fashion, he rubbed his cheek against the rough leather of the knapsack’s tightly cinched mouth.
Save her.
With sudden, urgent movements, he grabbed hold of the knapsack and worked at the knot. It unraveled easily, as if by its own accord, giving his blind, fumbling fingers no difficulty.
Hurry.
Brilliant golden light, like the last dying light of a summer afternoon, streamed out to stain the gnarled trees. The trees seemed almost to strain away from it, contorting their twisted branches and shuddering. A single gray-brown leaf fell fluttering down to the marsh floor.
He paused there for a moment, stricken even as were the trees, by the beauty of it.
Hurry.
Brand reached into the sack and grasped the handle.
Chapter Fourteen
Old Hob’s Green Lantern
Brand stood woodenly. In his hand he wielded frozen sunlight. The cold mists drew back from the blazing light of the exposed Jewel. The last tattered leaves that clung to the bony marsh trees fluttered as if pained by brilliance. Brand closed his eyes for a moment and willed the axe to tell him where his beloved faced mortal danger.
He felt nothing.
Confused, he turned about slowly, in a circle, trying to feel something, anything. All he could feel was the enemy. Enemies, many enemies. It seemed that the world teemed with them. But there was one powerful one…not too far off….
It was the Will-O-Wisp. Turning sharply on his heel, he headed off into the darkness. He felt no fatigue. He felt little, not the slippery mud beneath his tread, nor the dank cold of the night. All he felt was the cool pressure of the axe’s flat, broad blades, which he rubbed against his stubbly cheek to soothe himself. The cold touch of it seemed to clear his head of sleep and uncertainty.
Behind him, forgotten in the dark, lay Gudrin’s empty knapsack.
* * *
For an unknown time, he trudged through the marsh, oblivious to everything in his path. Twice, unthinkingly, he swung the axe, felling trees that barred his way rather than stepping around them. He was focused, he and the axe, focused upon a single objective. Little else could penetrate their collective thoughts.
His stride was long and purposeful. He passed over a great deal of ground with each step and never paused or wavered. When he finally saw the wisp—the first glimmer of green, drifting light—there was no change in his step. He didn’t increase or decrease his pace, but rather continued on with deadly purpose. The axe now rode his shoulder, the haft of it feeling good on his collarbone. He touched the blades to his cheek again and felt the surge of coolness run through his body and his mind.
He smiled then, and it was a wicked thing, not a smile of gladness. It was a thin, curving slit in his face, like a wound. Rather than happiness, it spoke of slaughter, gore and rapine.
He finally came to a large open body of water. Above it, six dancing, blinking balls of fuzzy light drifted. All of them were white or yellow, the green one was not present. Like glowbugs in June, the things winked on and off and flittered about with seemingly aimlessness movements. Always, however, their drifting was taking them farther out over the waters.
Telyn was there. He could see her now, wading up to her neck in the slimy pond. It was around her head that the wisps did dance, summoning her, guiding her, dragging her deeper still. As one of the lights danced close, almost touching her drowning face, Brand saw her hair floating free on the surface of the still pond. Her face was white and vague. She gave no sign of recognizing him, or her plight.
Brand never broke his stride. He never spoke. He simply walked out into the waters where the Faerie were toying with his love. The stinking water came to his knees, then his thighs, then flowed into his high boots in a slippery flood. Behind him his cloak floated on the surface. Reaching his love, he grasped her unceremoniously by the hair and yanked her back.
She gasped and struggled, but his grip was firm. He backed up, hauling her toward the shore. Around him, the wisps moved with greater agitation. They blinked in and out rapidly and drifted around the two humans. Their reflections glimmered and rippled on the surface of the cold water.
One came close enough to Brand for him to examine it. For a moment, he was stricken. He had seen the like of it before, he realized. It was a tiny, nude female. Her form was exquisite, perfect, beyond nature. She had wings of gossamer that flittered like those of a large dragonfly. Despite her impossibly small size, she somehow exuded lust. Brand’s breath quickened and his backpedaling halted.
Standing as if frozen, chest-deep in the pond, he gazed up in wonder at the creature. She caressed her own cheeks and ran her tiny hands over her body in a smooth, languid fashion. Still held by the hair in Brand’s inexorable grip, Telyn sought to free herself. He stared at the Faerie female in open-mouthed wonder, for the moment completely unaware of Telyn or anything else. Gradually, the other wisps began to come closer, circling around, revealing themselves to him. Each was female, each was perfect, but unique, like rare shining jewels exhumed from the hearts of individual mountains.
Then, quite by accident it seemed, Brand touched his cheek to the axe once again. A cold shock ran through him. It was as if he had been tossed into a snowbank while in a deep, warm sleep.
He staggered, almost losing his grip on his beloved’s hair. The tiny nude nymph floated away, shaking her head with terrible sorrow. She felt him leaving her possession, and it pained her. Her pain was almost too much for him to bear. He took
a step forward, still dragging Telyn.
“No,” he croaked, “don’t leave.”
Then the axe brushed his cheek again and his face twisted into a snarl. He saw not a tiny beauty, but a wicked cunning creature that sought to destroy him.
For the first time, he swung the axe in anger, and it flashed with the light of the sun when it struck. The tiny nymph fell into the pond with a small shriek, one of her wings shorn cleanly off. In that instant, the other nymphs winked out and vanished. The Will-O-Wisp that they had formed together ceased to be.
Telyn grabbed for the fallen creature, echoing the nymph’s shriek with one of her own. Brand glared down at it, and saw that it would most likely live. He let go of Telyn’s hair and reached for it, lifting the axe for a second, killing stroke.
“No, Brand!” cried Telyn. “You can’t kill her!” She clutched the nymph to her breast and held it tightly. Then she saw Brand’s face and the shimmering light of the axe, and her face changed to one of mortal fear.
Enemies.
Brand paused.
Evil. Slay them both.
Brand’s arm rose. The Golden Eye of Ambros blinked then, filling the pond with the brilliance of day for a moment— like the strike of silent, amber lightning. Telyn, expecting death, cried out and shut her eyes. She protected the wounded nymph as a mother would a child.
Brand’s arm rose higher still, but the axe did not fall. Within his mind and spirit a struggle went on. With a gasp, he released his grip upon the axe, and it splashed into the pond. It sank down into the stinking waters reluctantly; its light fading from brilliance to a glimmer, then a dull glow.
Taking hold of Telyn around her shoulders, he made for the shoreline. When they neared the water’s edge, he turned back for the axe.
“Leave it!” cried Telyn.
“I can’t,” said Brand.
Have 2 Sky Magic (Haven Series 2) Page 11