by Terry Brooks
Her voice was flat and devoid of emotion, but there was an edge to it that Mistaya did not miss. “He kept her with him for a time, then abandoned her and went on to other interests. He was a fickle and irresponsible creature, like all of the fairy folk, unable to comprehend the demands and responsibilities of love. I was born of that union, conceived in the madness of spring light when the second cycle rounds and the shards of winter spill into melting ice.”
Her gaze went away again. Her words, though poetic and lyrical, were nevertheless incomprehensible to the girl.
“My father took the shape of a wolf when he conceived me with my mother. My mother embraced him as a beast and was, I think, his equal in fury and passion.” She blinked once, dismissing some picture that formed in her mind. “I took from their coupling a part of each, beast and madwoman, fairy and human, magic of one world and magic of the other. I was born with eyes that could freeze you alive. I was born with the ability to transform myself into a beast. I was born with disdain for life and death.”
She looked at Mistaya. “I was a child still, and I was soon alone. My father was gone before I came into the world. My mother gave birth to me, but then she was taken away.”
She trailed off, the echo of her words lacing the silence with bitterness. Mistaya waited, knowing better than to speak.
“The fairies condemned her for her efforts to become one of them. She had mated with a fairy and conceived a child, and that was not allowed. She was an outcast for this. She was sent from the mists and forbidden to return. She begged the fairies to reconsider. She wanted me to have the training and experience that only they could offer. She wanted me to have my father’s life as well as hers. She wanted everything for me. But she was turned away. She was sent back into her own world. It was a death sentence. She had been able for too long to travel the mists, to cross from one world to another, to fly where she chose. Confinement in one world was unbearable. She bore it as long as she could. Then she threw caution to the winds and tried crossing once more through the mists. She went in, and she never came out. She disappeared like smoke on the wind.”
Nightshade’s gaze was gathering focus once more. The force of her words was palpable. “Do you see how alike we are? Like you, it was left for me to discover on my own who I was. Like you, the truth of my birthright was hidden from me. I was given over to other people to raise, a man and a woman who did not understand my needs, who did not recognize the magic growing within me. They kept me for as long as I would let them, and then I ran away. I had begun to sense my power, but I did not yet comprehend its uses. There were stirrings, but I could give them no voice. Like you, I grew in the fairy way, in spurts that eclipsed human measure. The man and the woman were frightened of me. If I had stayed, they might have killed me.”
Like you, she was on the verge of saying, but did not. Nevertheless, Mistaya could hear the whisper of the words in the silence, and she was startled by them. She was not like Nightshade, of course. Not in that way, at least. She could see it quite plainly. Yet Nightshade felt an overwhelming need to believe that they shared more than they did. There was something happening here that the girl did not understand, and it made her uneasy and cautious.
Nightshade’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “I escaped into a forest that bordered on the fairy mists, a shelter for those who were part of both worlds and accepted in neither. I found companions there, some of one species, some of another. We were not friends, but we had much in common. We were outlaws without reason; we were condemned for who we were. We taught each other what we knew and learned what we could. We explored our talents. We uncovered the secrets hidden within us. It was dangerous to do so, for we were unskilled, and some of our secrets could kill. More than a few of us died. Some went mad. I was fortunate to escape both fates and emerge the mistress of my talent. I came away a full-grown woman and a witch of great power. I found and mastered knowledge.”
Wood from the fire crackled suddenly, sending sparks flying into the air. Mistaya started, but Nightshade did not move. She stayed frozen against the firelight, rigid with concentration.
Her eyes fixed on Mistaya. “I was younger than you when I learned of my power. I was alone. I did not have another to guide me, as you have me. But we are alike, Mistaya. I was hard inside, and nothing could break me. I was stone. I would not be lied to. I would not be cheated or tricked. I understood what I wanted, and I set about finding ways to obtain it. I see all that in you. I see such determination. You will do whatever you set your mind to, and you will not be deterred. You will listen to reason but will not necessarily be dissuaded from a course of action because of it, not if what you covet is important to you.”
Mistaya nodded not so much in agreement, for she was not at all sure she agreed with this assessment, as in encouragement. She wanted to hear more. She was fascinated.
“After a time,” Nightshade said slowly, “I determined that I would go into the fairy mists. I had been banished, but that was before I had discovered the extent of my powers. Now, I felt, things were different. I belonged among the fairies. It was my right to travel between worlds as my mother had once done. I went to the edge of the mists and called. I did so for a very long time. No answer came. Finally, I simply entered the mists, determined that I would confront those who had banished me. They found me at once. They gave me no hearing. They refused me out of hand. I was cast out, unable to prevent it despite my magic.”
Her mouth had grown tight and hard. “I did not give up. I went back again and again, unwilling to accede to their wishes, determined in the end that I would die first. Years passed. I lived several human lifetimes but did not age. I was impervious to time’s dictates. I was more fairy than human. I belonged in the mists. Still, I was not allowed to enter.
“Then I found a rift that let me come into the mists unseen. I changed shape to disguise myself, to keep from being discovered. I entered the mist and hid among its lesser creatures. No one recognized me. I stayed first as one thing, then as another, always keeping carefully back from the light of discovery. I became accepted. I found I could pass freely among the fairies. I began to use magic as they did. I worked my spells and performed my conjuring, and I lived as they did. My deception had worked. I was one of them.”
She smiled, cynical and bitter. “And then, like my mother, I fell in love.” Her voice was suddenly very small and brittle. “I found a creature so beautiful, so desirable, that I could not help myself. I had to have him. I was desperate to be his. I followed him, befriended him, companioned with him, and in the end gave myself to him completely. To achieve this, I was forced to reveal myself. When I did so, he spurned me instantly. He betrayed me. He exposed my presence. The fairies were not kind. I was banished out of hand. Because I fell in love. Because I used poor judgment.”
One eyebrow arched in bitter reflection. “Like my mother.”
She was almost crying, Mistaya realized suddenly. There were no tears, but the girl could feel the knife edge of the witch’s pain, sharp and close against her skin.
“I was sent here,” Nightshade finished. “To the Deep Fell. Banished from the fairy mists, banished from my homeland. Banished to Landover to live out my life. I had used my magic and left my mark upon their world, and I wasn’t one of them. I had transgressed. So I was punished. I was placed at the gateway of all the worlds I could never enter. I was placed at the edge of the mists I could never pass through.” Her hands clasped, and her fingers tightened into knots. Her head shook slowly from side to side. “No, the fairies were not kind.”
“It seems very unfair,” Mistaya offered quietly.
Nightshade laughed. “The word has no meaning for the fairy people. They have no conception of it. There is only what is allowed and what isn’t. If you think about it, the whole idea of fairness is a fool’s fiction. Look at our world, here in Landover. Fairness is determined by those who wield the power to deny it. Invocation of its use is a beggar’s plea for help when all else fails. ‘Be fa
ir with me!’ How pitiful and hopeless!”
She spit out the words in disgust. Then she bent forward with sudden intent. “I learned something from what was done to me, Mistaya. I learned never to beg, never to expect kindness, never to rely on chance or good fortune. My magic sustains me. My power gives me strength. Rely on these and you will be protected.”
“And do not fall in love,” Mistaya added solemnly.
“No,” the witch agreed, and there was such fury in her face that she was momentarily unrecognizable, a beast of the sort into which she claimed she could transform herself. “No,” she repeated, the word bound in iron, and Mistaya knew she was thinking of someone in particular, of a time and place quite close, of an event that still burned inside her with a white-hot heat. “No, never again.”
Mistaya sat motionless in the dwindling firelight and let Nightshade’s rage drain away, willing herself to be little more than another shadow in the dark, nonthreatening and inconsequential. Had she revealed herself to be anything else, it seemed that the witch’s rage might have swallowed her whole.
Nightshade looked at her as if reading her mind, then gave her a disarming smile. “We are alike,” she said once more, as if needing to reassure herself. “You and I, Mistaya. The magic binds us, witches first and always, born with power that others can only covet and never possess. It is our blessing and curse to live apart. It is our fate.”
Her hand lifted and filled the air with emerald light, a dust that spread against the darkness and fell away like glitter.
Later, when she rolled herself into her blankets, Mistaya was still thinking of what Nightshade had revealed to her. So much misery, bitterness, and solitude in the other’s dark life. So much anger. Like me, the witch had repeated over and over again. You and I.
Mistaya’s uncertainty grew as she pondered the words. Perhaps there was more truth to their claim than she was willing to allow. She had not thought so, but she was beginning to wonder. Since she was a witch, too, perhaps she belonged here with Nightshade.
She was so troubled by the possibility that she only just remembered to call Haltwhistle before she fell asleep.
JUGGERNAUT
Dawn brought a change in the weather in the lake country, and when Ben and Willow awoke, a slow, steady rain was falling. They dressed; ate a light breakfast of fruit, bread and jam, and goat’s milk; wrapped themselves in their travel cloaks; and went out to find the River Master. Elderew was misty and shadowed beneath a ceiling of dark clouds, and the city’s canopy of rain-drenched boughs shed chilly droplets on them as they moved along the deserted trail toward the city. They did not hurry. The River Master would have been advised by now that they were awake. He would come to meet them before they were required to ask for him, because that was the way he was.
Ben glanced about surreptitiously for the Ardsheal but did not see it. He could feel its presence, though. He could sense it watching from the gloom.
The River Master appeared as they neared the city center, standing alone in a clearing through which the trail passed. He greeted Ben with a nod and Willow with a brief embrace, neither gesture offering much in the way of warmth, and advised them that their horses were waiting. He did not ask if they would like to stay longer. Now that he had given them the Ardsheal, he expected them to continue the search for Mistaya. He elicited their promise to keep him advised on their progress. Bunion appeared with Jurisdiction and Crane, his gnarled body hunched and dripping in the gloom, eyes narrowed to yellow slits. As Ben and Willow mounted, the River Master put aside his reserve long enough to declare that if he was needed in the effort to reclaim his granddaughter, they had only to send for him and he would come at once. It was an unexpected deviation from his deliberate distancing of himself from them. Ben and Willow were surprised but did not show it. They took him at his word and rode out.
Wood sprites met them at the edge of the old growth leading down from Elderew to guide them back through the swamp and timber mass that warded the city. Rain continued to fall, a drizzle that turned the ground beneath their horses’ hooves sodden and slick. When their guides had returned them to the more lightly forested country below Elderew, they paused to rest before continuing on.
“Have you seen it yet this morning?” Ben asked Willow as they passed an ale skin back and forth while standing down from their horses beneath the canopy of the trees.
“No,” she replied. “But Bunion has. He said it is tracking us back in the shadows, keeping pace. Bunion doesn’t like having it along any better than I do.”
Ben glanced over. Bunion was crouched to one side in a covering of trees, looking disgruntled. “He certainly appears unhappy, even for him.”
“He considers himself your bodyguard. The presence of the Ardsheal suggests that he isn’t capable of doing his job.”
Ben looked at her. “You don’t think the Ardsheal should be here, either, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, that isn’t what I think at all. I think the Ardsheal will do a better job of protecting you than anyone.” She gave him a long, cool look. “That doesn’t mean I like having it along, though.”
He nodded. “You said as much last night. Why is that?”
She hesitated. “I will tell you later. Tonight.” She was silent for a moment. “I told Bunion that the Ardsheal was a gift from my father and that it would have been impolite and possibly dangerous to refuse it. Bunion accepted that.”
Ben looked at the kobold again. It was staring back at him, yellow eyes glittering. When it saw Ben looking, it smiled like a hungry alligator.
“Well, I hope you’re right,” he said absently. His gaze shifted to meet hers. “I’ve been thinking. Should we try to contact the Earth Mother? She always seems to know what is happening in Landover. Perhaps she could give us some insight into what’s become of Mistaya and the others. Perhaps she knows something of Rydall.”
Rain dripped off the edge of Willow’s hood onto her nose, and she pulled the hood forward for better protection. “I gave thought to that. But the Earth Mother would have come to me by now in my dreams if she had any help to give. Mistaya is important to her, a promise of some special fulfillment. She would not let her be harmed if there was anything she could do to prevent it.”
Ben prodded a bit of rotting wood with his boot. “I wish some of these people would be more consistent with their help,” he muttered sourly.
She gave him a small smile. “Help is a gift that one must never grow to expect. Now, where do we go from here?”
He shrugged and looked off into the trees again. He hated that he couldn’t see the Ardsheal. It was bad enough being shadowed by his enemies. Did he have to put up with being shadowed by his protector as well?
He sighed. “Well, I can’t see any reason to go back to Sterling Silver. If we do, Rydall will just send another monster. And we won’t be any closer to finding Mistaya.” He frowned as if questioning his own reasoning. “I thought we might go into the Greensward. Kallendbor knows every adversary Landover has ever faced. He has fought against most of them. Perhaps he will know something of Rydall and Marnhull. Perhaps he will have heard something that will help us find Mistaya.”
“Kallendbor isn’t to be trusted,” she advised him quietly.
He nodded. “True. But he has no reason to favor an invading army. Besides, he owes me for sparing him worse punishment than I gave when he sided with the Gorse. And he knows it. I think it’s worth a try.”
“Perhaps.” She did not look convinced. “But you should be especially careful where he is concerned.”
“I will,” he assured her, wondering how much more careful he needed to be now that he had the Paladin, Bunion, and the Ardsheal all standing guard over him.
They remounted and rode on. Bunion, advised of their new destination, scurried ahead through the trees, scouting the land they would pass through, leaving them to the temporary care of their invisible bodyguard. The Ardsheal, however, stayed hidden. The day stretched away with languid slow
ness, morning turning into midday, midday into afternoon. Still the rain continued. They moved northeast toward the Greensward, the trees thinning as the lake country gave way to the hills below Sterling Silver. They stopped for lunch at a stream, where they took shelter beneath an old cedar. Rain dripped off the sagging limbs, a steady patter on the muddied ground. The world around them was cool and damp and still. When the meal was finished, they rode on. They didn’t see another traveler all day.
Nightfall brought them to the edge of the Greensward, where the grasslands spread away through the provinces of Landover’s lesser Lords to the Melchor. Sunset was an iron-gray glimmer in the west above the distant mountains, its light hammered tin reflecting off the advancing night. Ben and Willow made camp in a grove of cherry and Bonnie Blues on a rise that overlooked the plains. Bunion returned to share dinner, a cold meal prepared without the benefit of a fire, and then he was gone again. The Ardsheal did not appear at all.
When night had fallen and they were alone in its deep silence, the rains having abated to a damp mist that floated across the grasslands like ghost robes, Ben put his arms around Willow, pulled her back against him so that they were both staring out at the gloom, and said, “Tell me about the Ardsheal.”
She did not say anything at first, resting rigid and unmoving against him as his arms cradled her. He could feel her breathing, the rise and fall of her breast, the small whisper of air from her lips. He waited patiently, looking past the veil of her hair to the thickening roil of mist beyond.
“There have always been Ardsheals,” she said finally. “They were created to protect the once-fairy after they left the mists and came into the world of humans. The Ardsheals were an old magic, one born of earth lore, and because they were elementals, they could be summoned from anywhere. The once-fairy used them only rarely, for they were destroyers, cast of harsh purpose and desperate need. When the threat was so great that the once-fairy feared there would be loss of life among their people, the Ardsheals were called in. A few were usually all it took. In years long past, before the old King, when Landover was newly conceived and birthing yet its lands and peoples, there were wars between humans and once-fairy. Humans occupied Landover first; the once-fairy came after and were regarded as invaders. In the battles fought, Ardsheals were summoned to do battle against creatures conjured by wizards who served the humans.”