Once Upon a Winter's Night

by Dennis L McKiernan

  And as the song came toward an end, a clear tenor voice from the audience joined with hers, and Camille nearly faltered—Alain?—and she looked to see who caroled in flawless harmony in melodic counterpoint to her soaring soprano. In the shadows beyond the footlights she could just make out a tall, fair-haired stranger standing midway up the right-hand aisle, someone she had never before seen, yet someone somehow familiar. The audience broke into spontaneous applause, quickly quelled, for they would not miss even a single note or word, as the stranger sang of the sparrow, and the golden-haired maiden sang of the girl.

  And the harp and fife, and flute and drum fell silent, for here was perfection needing no accompaniment.

  And as he caroled, the stranger walked forward to sing up to Camille, and she to sing down to him.

  At last the song came to an end, and both Camille and the stranger fell silent, as did the entire hall, some in the audience weeping quietly in joy, others sitting wholly stunned.

  But then Scruff emitted a loud “Chp!” and as if that were a signal, the hall erupted in great glad shouts and thunderous applause and calls of “Bravo! Bis! Plus!” and “Camille!”

  The stranger leapt onto the stage, and he took Camille’s hand and bowed to the audience as she curtseyed. As they stepped back from the footlights he smiled at her, the sapphire gaze of his tilted eyes sparkling within his narrow but handsome face, his alabaster skin somehow glowing as of a hint of gold. Tall and lean, he stepped forward with her again, and bowed as she curtseyed, and as he did so he glanced sideways at her and said, “My Lady Camille, I am Rondalo, and I hear you have been looking for me.”

  26

  Bard

  Hand in hand, they fled the music hall, escaping wellwishers and ardent admirers alike, Rondalo whisking her away into the shadows cast by a waxing gibbous moon above. He hied her down side streets, Scruff asleep in the special shoulder-pocket of her new-made gown. Finally, well clear of the devotees, Rondalo slowed to a stroll and reluctantly released his grip.

  Catching his breath, he said, “My lady, I did not know any other than Elvenkind could sing as do you.”

  Somewhat breathlessly, Camille replied, “And I thought none but Alain could sing as well as you.”

  “Alain?”

  “He is my love,” said Camille, not noting how Rondalo’s face fell at such news.

  “The one I seek,” added Camille.

  “Lost, run away, kidnapped, vanished?”

  “ ’Tis a long tale, sieur,” said Camille. “One I pray you can help me resolve.”

  “We have all night, my lady,” said Rondalo, “and I know just the place where your tale shall trip gently from your treasured lips unto my unworthy ear.”

  Rondalo swirled the wine in his glass and peered within. “ ’Tis quite a tale, that . . . one worthy of a saga or song, did we but know the end.”

  They sat in soft-glowing candlelight in a small, out-of-the-way restaurant on the downstream rim of the great isle. Faint dawn glimmered through windows. In a distant booth, the restaurateur slept.

  “Regardless, Lady Camille, I know not where lies this place you seek—”

  “Oh,” said Camille, despairing.

  “—but I know someone who might help.”

  Hope bloomed.

  “Who? Where?”

  “Nearby,” said Rondalo, gesturing outward. “As to whom, mayhap you know her as the Lady of the River, though her true name is Chemine. She is my dam.”

  “Your mère? But I thought you were one of the Fir—Oh, my, now I know who you remind me of: Lisane, the Lady of the Bower.”

  Rondalo laughed. “A distant cousin, Lisane. Yet how do I remind you of her?”

  Camille turned up a hand. “The same tilt of eyes, the same slender face, the same tipped ears, the same alabaster skin with an aura of gold.”

  Rondalo grinned and looked into his wineglass and shook his head. “My dear, those are but Elven traits.”

  “Lisane is an Elf?”

  Rondalo looked up at her. “Indeed.”

  Camille dropped her gaze. “I did not know, for she said nought.”

  “Undeniably, you are newly come unto Faery.”

  Camille nodded. “There is much in this realm of which I have not the faintest inkling. Still, if your mère, Chemine, the Lady of the River, can aid, I would be most grateful.”

  Rondalo looked downstream toward the distant small isle. “We will go thither this eve, for first light comes, and I deem you need rest.”

  Rondalo cast coin on the table, and they slipped out without waking the restaurateur.

  They strolled in silence along the bluff toward the Crown and Scepter, while the river below slipped gently through the waning night, and just as they reached the riverside door, full dawn finally came, and, with small, sleepy peeps followed by insistent chirps, Scruff awakened and scrambled to Camille’s shoulder and demanded they break fast.

  Rondalo was yet laughing when he bade au revoir, and that he would see her in the eve.

  It was late afternoon as Rondalo and Camille, with Scruff on her shoulder, stepped from the bridge and onto the high riverside bluff.

  “I thought we would be taking a boat to the isle,” said Camille.

  “Non, Camille, there are no docks, no cliffside stairs, no scaling ladders to my dam’s abode.”

  “Then how—?”

  “You will see,” said Rondalo, smiling.

  They followed the road a distance, past a large paddock and a busy set of stables, where, since no horse was allowed in the city of Les Îles, those of the red coach as well as those of other travellers were looked after. The road went onward a way, but then turned and ran down the face of the bluff through a series of heavily buttressed switchbacks to the ferry slips below. Rondalo and Camille did not follow this way, but instead at the high turn they did leave the road and entered into the galleries of the woodland beyond; therein they made their way among the trees overlooking the river far under.

  “Tell me, Rondalo, are you one of the Firsts? I mean, Lisane said you were, yet it would seem that your mère had to precede you herein. Would that not make you instead one of, say, the Seconds?”

  Rondalo smiled. “She was in labor the moment she stepped into Faery, and swiftly was I born . . . or so it is she tells me.”

  “What came before?” asked Camille. “That is, where did your mère live ere then? Whence came she?”

  Rondalo shrugged. “ ’Tis said that long past there was no Faery, until shaped in the tales of the Keltoi, a wandering race of true bards, every man a king, and they finally came to settle on an emerald isle somewhere elsewhen. How they did so—created Faery, that is—it is not at all certain. Some claim that as they told their glorious tales to one another, they spoke with such silver tongues, with such subtle mastery, that the gods themselves listened intently, and what the Keltoi told, the gods made manifest. Thus was Faery fashioned, twilight borders and all, and the moment my dam stepped into Faery was the moment I was born.”

  Camille frowned. “Has no one asked these men of the emerald isle? It should be easy enough to find the truth of the matter.”

  Rondalo shook his head. “Alas, the true Keltoi are no more, vanished from the worlds, and only their stone circles and dolmens remain.”

  “Then what of their descendants? Cannot they shed some light?”

  “ ’Tis said that many of those have silver tongues and some have golden pens, yet they are no wiser as to how Faery came to be than I.”

  “Then mayhap your mère will know,” said Camille.

  “Alas, my dam has but one memory of aught ere I was born, and that a grievous one: the death of my sire.”

  “Oh,” said Camille, and fell silent.

  The sun was just beginning to set, high white clouds turning golden in the foredusk sky, when at last they stood on the bluff straight across from the solitary isle. As Camille gazed at the distant white cottage within the walled grounds atop the sheer-sided river mesa, she sa
id, “Now that we are here, how do we proceed?”

  Rondalo grinned. “I will show you.” Pulling Camille after, he stepped through the long shadows cast by the trees to come to a great white boulder. And on the side away from the river, he placed his hand to the stone and whispered a word, and lo! a silver-bound, oaken door appeared. At Camille’s gasp, Rondalo said, “Fear not, lady, for my dam tells me ’tis but a simple glamour.”

  “ ’Twas not a gasp of fear, Rondalo, but one of wonder instead, for glamours are strange and marvelous: they turn beautiful Elves into crones, Unicorns into nags, and doors into stone.”

  “And sometimes just the opposite,” replied Rondalo, smiling.

  In spite of the illusion, the door was locked, but Rondalo produced a silver key, and in but moments, by the light of a newly lit lantern found on a peg just inside, they descended a long, spiral stair down into stone depths below. At last they came to the bottom, and a tunnel stretched into darkness before them, and along this way they went, their footsteps echoing hollowly down the long, granite corridor.

  There it was that Scruff peeped drowsily a time or two within the shadowy hall, and Camille carefully slipped him into the high vest pocket, where, after another peep or two, the sparrow settled down to sleep.

  As they continued on, Camille asked, “Who made this?”

  “ ’Twas here from the first.”

  “A Keltoi creation, eh?”

  “Them or the gods.”

  Finally, they came to the foot of another stair spiralling upward into the darkness above, and up this way they went nearly three hundred steps altogether. They came to another door, this one locked as well, but the silver key opened it, too.

  As Rondalo blew out the lantern and hung it on a peg, Camille stepped outward into the early twilight beyond, for dusk was drawing down o’er the land, and she came into a splendid garden, flowers everywhere. A pillared gazebo sat centermost, beyond which stood a white-stone cottage. Pathways wended among blossoms. “Shall we?” asked Rondalo, offering his arm.

  As Camille slipped her arm through his, she looked back toward the door, yet ’twas nought but a stone boulder she saw, like the one on the shore opposite.

  Through the gloaming they trod along one of the pathways, but as they circled ’round the gazebo, a gentle voice said, “Would you pass me by?”

  Rondalo laughed. “Mother, I saw you not.”

  “ ’Tis no wonder, son, for what man would have eyes for aught but the beauty who walks at your side?”

  Even as Camille blushed, Rondalo said, “Mother, may I present Lady Camille; she has come for your aid. Lady Camille, my mother Chemine, the Lady of the River.”

  Camille curtseyed low, and Chemine rose and curtseyed as well. She was tall and graceful and had an ethereal quality about her, yet a quality of sadness as well. Her eyes were grey-blue and held a tilt, and her skin, like that of Rondalo, was alabaster touched by gold. Her hair was fair, though a trace of copper shone here and there among the flax.

  “Come and sit and have some tea. I have been waiting for you.”

  “You have been looking into the water again, eh, Mother?”

  Chemine canted her head and made a small gesture toward a stone bowl, which seemed to be filled with ink.

  Rondalo turned to Camille. “Mother is a Gwaragedd Annwn, or as mortals sometimes say, a Water Fairy, though ’tis a misnomer, for the Gwaragedd Annwn are of Elvenkind rather than of the Fairies.”

  “I’ve heard of Water Fairies,” said Camille, setting her cup aside, “yet I thought they were creatures such as those I saw in the Spring- and Autumnwood. Small, they were, nearly transparent, a long, graceful fin running from wrist to ankle.—Oh, and they can change into otters, or at least so did the males, as I discovered while swimming unclothed.”

  Rondalo laughed, and Camille blushed, and Chemine smiled and said, “La, child, those were Water Sprites. A curious folk, and playful. But not the so-called Water Fairies of lore, the Gwaragedd Annwn.”

  “Why do they name you so?—Water Fairy, I mean.”

  Chemine glanced at Rondalo, then said, “We have certain power over water.”

  “And that would have something to do with, um”—Camille glanced at the bowl—“ ‘looking into the water’? And, by the bye, is that ink?”

  Chemine smiled softly. “Not ink, but incanted water instead. And through it I can see far, though not without limits.”

  “Indeed, Mother, I brought Camille here so that you might see for her.”

  Chemine set down her own teacup and turned to Camille. “What is it, child? What would you have me espy?”

  Chemine looked up from the ebon water. “There is a strong spell here, barring the way. I can see nought of this place you seek, nor aught of your true love.”

  Tears welled in Camille’s eyes. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  Chemine shook her head. “The only other time I could not see what I sought was when I and others of the Firsts were after the terrible Wizard Orbane; yet he is now beyond the Black Wall of the World, and so it could not be his hand at work, else we would know of it, or so I do deem.”

  “What of Lanval or Blanche, or any of the others?”

  Chemine’s eyes widened. “Blanche and Lanval?”

  “My friends at Summerwood Manor. They’ve gone missing as well.”

  Chemine reached out and took Camille’s hand. “Mayhap you had better tell me the entire tale. Perhaps therein will lie a clue as to that which might help.”

  Wearily, Chemine slumped back. “Again I cannot see. Whatever happed to your Alain might have happed to them as well. The great wind you spoke of . . . a powerful spell, I deem, one that might have borne them all to this place east of the sun and west of the moon, and I do not know nor can I see where it is.”

  Silence fell over the three in the gazebo, now lanternlit in the night. But then Camille asked, “Can you look at all the places in Faery where you can see, and by elimination find the place you cannot?”

  Chemine sighed and shook her head. “Child, it drains me to see through the black water, and to look over all of Faery to find the place I cannot see would take much more than I have to give. What you ask could perhaps be done, but certainly not in the time you have left, nor in a thousand thousand times, for the Faery I know of is quite extensive, and, in truth, the whole of it might be without end.”

  Camille sighed. “Then I suppose I’ll have to keep asking, especially among those with much lore.” She looked at Chemine. “Tell me, is there among the Firsts, someone with deep knowledge of that which has gone before, someone who might know?”

  Chemine looked first at Camille and then at Rondalo, and suddenly she burst into tears. In spite of her weariness, she leapt to her feet and rushed into the garden. Rondalo sprang after, and when he caught her he held her in his arms as she quietly wept. After long moments she gained control of herself and sent him back to the gazebo. And Rondalo and Camille sat watching as Chemine paced the grounds, as if trying to come to a difficult decision. Finally she came and took Camille by the hands and haltingly said, “There is one who might help, for he is eldest in all Faery, the First of the Firsts. He has travelled far and knows much, yet he is a murderer.”

  “Murderer?” blurted Camille.

  Rondalo sucked air in through gritted teeth and clenched his fists and said, “Name him, Mother,” yet he was braced as if he already knew the answer.

  “You know who he is, my son.”

  “Raseri,” hissed Rondalo.

  Camille frowned, for she had heard that name somewhere before.

  Rondalo turned to Camille. “He is a—”

  “—A Firedrake,” said Camille. “Lisane named him during the reading.”

  Again tears streamed down Chemine’s face. “He slew Audane.”

  “Audane?”

  “My heart, my love, Rondalo’s sire. He was to me as your Alain is to you.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” said Camille, embracing Chemine. />
  Moments passed, and finally Chemine regained her composure. Gently disengaging from Camille, she turned to Rondalo. “You must guide Camille to Raseri.”

  “What? To my enemy? To the one who slew my sire? He of monstrous guile and loathsome treachery?”

  “My son, we have no choice. If Camille is to find her Alain, she must speak with the eldest in the land.”

  “But Mother, I swore that if I ever went to his lair, I would take my sire’s sword and slay him.”

  “Then leave the sword behind.”

  “Break my oath?”

  Chemine sighed. “No, I would not have you break an oath sworn upon the sword of your sire.”

  “Then what you ask cannot be done,” said Rondalo.

  They sat in silence a moment, but then Camille said, “Would it break your oath to guide me to a place from which I could go on alone?”

  “But Camille, I would not have you face that monster without someone at your side.”

  Camille smiled and gently touched the sleeping sparrow, and, as he gave a tiny “chp,” she said, “Scruff will be with me, a gift of Lady Sorcière.”

  Long did they debate, Chemine saying that this might be Camille’s only chance, and Rondalo admitting that he would not break his oath if he but guided her nigh, yet he would not abandon her to face Raseri alone, foul murderer that the Drake was. Yet Camille would not be swayed, arguing that without Rondalo’s help, Alain and the others would be lost forever; and as for facing Raseri, it was a risk that she and mayhap Scruff were willing to take.

  A glum silence fell over them all, yet at last Rondalo agreed, saying to Camille, “Your persuasion is almost as golden as your singing.”

  At this, Chemine raised an eyebrow. “You sing?”

  “Oh, Mother, you must listen,” said Rondalo. “Let us to the cote, and you take up your harp, and then you will hear.”

  Camille glanced at Chemine’s weary posture and started to demur, but Chemine said, “Music is restorative. Besides, it will break this somber mood fallen o’er all our hearts.”