Once Upon a Winter's Night fs-1

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Oh, no, Bear, that’s someone else’s meal.” Yet Camille’s mouth watered at the aroma and sight of the well-cooked meat.

  Camille looked out into the forest ’round, and she called aloud, “Allo, the woods! Is the owner of the camp nigh?”

  No one answered.

  Frowning, she turned to the Bear. “Do you know whose camp this is?”

  “ Whuff. ” And the Bear looked at Camille and the bedroll on the sward, and then sat down.

  Camille cocked a skeptical eye. “My camp, O Bear? Our camp?”

  “ Whuff. ”

  Camille shook her head in disbelief. “And just who set it up? Fairies? Sprites?”

  “ Whuff. ”

  Camille was taken aback by this answer from the Bear. Wait, the footsteps. The giggle. But who could command-? “The prince of the Summerwood, did he arrange such?”

  “ Whuff. ”

  “And this is our meal?”

  At another soft whuff from the Bear, Camille grinned and said, “Well, then, let us eat. I am starving.”

  “ WHUFF! ” agreed the Bear, loudly.

  Camille plucked the spit from the fire and gingerly-“ Ow, ow ”-pulled the rabbits from the wooden skewer. She held one out for the Bear, and with a great crackling and crunching, he ate it bones and all. Then he sat and watched longingly as Camille daintily ate of hers.

  It was delicious.

  But she could only eat one hind leg and a fore, and she gave the rest to the Bear, and snap, crunch, it was gone.

  She washed her face and hands in the rill running down, and scrubbed her teeth with a chew-stick, and then took to her bedroll, where she was lulled toward sleep by the ripple of water and the chirruping of small things nearby. But then she remembered the Bear’s implied warning that in Faery were monsters dire and other hazards herein, and this momentarily startled her back awake. But then she recalled Lisette’s words: As for things of peril, Camille will have the Bear for protection, and a finer guardian none could want. The last thing she remembered seeing was the great black Bear standing ward.

  The next morning tendrils of a misty fog wreathed among the trees as Camille stepped down to the spring-fed mere, and though the water was chill, she doffed her clothes and parted the reeds and slipped into the limpid pool, gasping at the bite of the water.

  Saving her precious soap for her hair, she scrubbed her skin with sand from the bottom. As she did so, again she heard the patter of tiny feet and the sound of a faint giggle. “Allo! Bonjour! Who is there?” she called, unable to see aught for the reeds. Once more came a giggle, and then the sound of wee feet running away.

  Camille sighed. If the Bear is correct, ’tis small Sprites you hear, ma fille.

  Working swiftly, soon she had scrubbed herself clean and had washed her golden tresses. As she clambered out through the reeds and into the chill morning air- Oh, no. How will I dry myself? — she found a soft cloth for a towel lying next to her clothing, and looked up to see the black Bear ambling away.

  And when she returned to the campfire, she found waiting a mug of hot tea and a meal of cold biscuits. They, too, were delicious.

  Her hair, though combed, was still wet when once more Camille mounted up, and the Bear headed through the forest again. As they padded onward, she could hear rustlings in the surround. In the morning light, Camille looked left and right, fore and aft, seeking to see what made the swash and swish among the undergrowth. Perhaps it’s whoever set the fire and spitted the rabbits last night, and who made the tea in the morn, and who may have been watching me bathe. Camille blushed at this last, yet she continued to search among the bracken and tall grass and the boles of the trees, where wisps of the morning mist yet threaded the greenery here and there. Finally, down within the early shadows, she thought she detected movement, for she caught glimpses of somethings or someones, small beings, perhaps, passing through the woods, though the sightings were so brief she could not be certain.

  The morning light waxed, and the sun shone aglance through the branches of the trees and down, and though it was daylight where trod the Bear, the distant twilight yet clung to the forest afar.

  Now Camille was certain she saw small beings keeping pace, for now and again one would pass through a shaft of sunlight, and it seemed they were riding small animals of some sort, lynxes she thought, though she was not certain.

  Onward went the Bear and onward she rode, yet scanning the surround; and then she gasped, for in the near distance and passing among the trees and keeping pace on a parallel track was a small white horse or some such, yet out of its head rose a- Oh, my, it is a Unicorn! Just like the one pictured on the tapestry in the sanctuary. “They seek out unsullied maidens,” Fra Galanni had said, but then did not tell me what unsullied meant, though Agnes, votary of Mithras and gardener to Fra Galanni, told me it meant ‘pure.’

  When the sun reached the zenith, again the Bear stopped. And this time they dined on true mushrooms, the kind Fra Galanni had named in the Old Tongue “le champignon de morelle, une autre nourriture des dieux,” and Camille had to agree, for morels truly also must be the food of the gods. Still, the truffle of yesterday had seemed even better. But here in this place the Bear had found an excess of the mushrooms, and he and Camille dined extravagantly. “O Bear, are mushrooms and the like to be our everyday midday diet? Even though these are delicious, I think our palates will grow weary of such over time.”

  The Bear did not respond, but continued snuffling after the scent of mushrooms and gobbling down those he found.

  After a rest and a drink from a nearby stream, onward they pressed, and Camille began to wonder just how far away the Summerwood lay, for the Springwood was yet all about.

  In midafternoon they topped a rise and came to the lip of a wide, deep gorge. Along one side sheer rock fell into the depths, while along the other, numerous waterfalls cascaded over the brim and down. On the floor of the ravine far below, the Springwood continued, the new green leaves vivid in the light of the afternoon sun. A river wended along the bottom of the gorge and seemed to disappear into a great split at the base of the rock-wall face. Far to the fore and in the distant twilight, the slope of the gorge rose up to meet the crags of a rising mountain range, and Camille thought she could see snow lying high.

  The Bear turned toward the cataracts and padded along the rim. He came to a pathway down into the chasm, and this he followed, descending toward the floor far below, the way quite narrow for the Bear, and the drop into the depths sheer. Gasping, Camille grasped the harness and cast her bent leg across the Bear, changing from sidesaddle to astride, for she thought it a safer way to ride. Now more firmly mounted, she did turn about to see if any wee folk were arear, those who perhaps were accompanying the Bear on the journey, but the way behind was clear of followers, and the path ahead clear as well. Looking up, she saw on the rim above the Unicorn standing in a shaft of sunlight, its coat a glorious white, as if the sun itself held the magnificent creature in awe, but it made no move to follow the Bear down into the deepness below.

  The Bear came alongside a cataract plunging, the great downpour falling silently but for the rush of wind, the water to thunder into a churning pool far under. And as the Bear wended back and forth along a series of switchbacks, now and again Camille thought she could hear giggling, yet the ways before and behind seemed clear. But then as they came toward the waterfall again, the laughter came quite near, and Camille’s eyes widened in astonishment, for swimming within and up the cataract was a trio of small laughing beings: nearly transparent they were, as of water itself come alive. Webbed fingers and long webbed feet they had, the latter somewhat like fishtails. Translucent hair streamed down from their heads, as if made of flowing tendrils of crystal. And they were female, Camille could see, for pert breasts and all-but-smooth cleft groins did they have. And though completely engulfed in lucid water, still did their laughter come ringing clear. And they swam, oh how they swam, defying the power of the cataract, as up and up they drove,
until they were lost to sight. Camille in awe looked upward, yet seeking, but they were gone as if vanished. Then Camille laughed in joy, for momentarily the trio of two-foot-tall beings reappeared, standing on the lip of the linn high above, only to dive into the falls and plunge merrily past, their shrieks of gaiety growing and then fading as they hurtled nigh and at hand and down.

  “Oh, Bear, oh, Bear, did you see and hear? Waterfolk. Waterfolk dear.”

  The Bear merely grunted, and, bearing Camille, followed the narrow way.

  On down they went and down, down to the valley floor, and the sun sailed downward as well. When they reached the bottom of the gorge, shadows from the mountains ahead o’erspread the land. But to the fore and alongside the river a small campfire burned, and upon arriving at the stone-encircled blaze, they found pheasants roasting above.

  That night Camille awoke to find the valley filled with wee dancing lights flitting among the trees, as of a tiny folk bearing lanterns and riding upon dragonflies. While the Bear had been nigh when she had gone to sleep, of him there was now no sign, though the back of her neck did tingle, as if an unseen observer stood somewhere in the darkness watching her. And even though she saw the Bear not, still she did feel safe, and she fell asleep again, while in the forest all ’round, dancing lights did weave.

  After fording the river next day, up a long slope toward the far end of the valley they fared, making for the mountains ahead, Camille again riding astride. And as they went, the noontime came, and this day they dined on wild spring eschalots and the pale tubers of a sedgelike plant, all harvested by the Bear from the earthy banks of a stream, the gentle piquancy of the shallot bulbs complementing the mildly sweet and starchy taste of the nodules of sedgelike rootstock.

  After their meal, up the long remainder of the slope they went and out from the valley, and as they reached the beginning of the mountains, they came to the end of the Springwood. In contrast to the land behind, that before them was snow-covered and ice-laden and bleak. It was marked by a border of twilight, a dusky wall rearing up unto the sky, only this seemed a darker, more sinister marge than the one they had crossed when they had first entered Faery, and the moment the Bear stepped into that bound his ebony color vanished, and once again he became an immaculate white. Within the ambit of that frigid realm a harsh coldness bore down upon them, and Camille donned her cloak and wrapped it tight about her and pulled her hood up and ’round, for they had come once more into the brutal clutch of cruel winter.

  Camille looked at the way before them and gasped, for ahead stood a tangled and twisted wood, with barren, stark trees clawing at a drab, overcast sky. All was black and white and gray, no color whatsoever in the land. And there at the verge of this drear and lifeless place, the Bear paused as if reluctant to pass into the grim fastness beyond. But he roared in challenge, and clawed the frozen earth, and then pressed forward and into the wood.

  And as they entered this desolate snarl, Camille took a deep breath and straightened her spine, though her heart was racing in dread.

  5

  Winterwood

  Among the twisted trees they went, the Bear and his rider Camille, and all about was gloom and desolation and chill, a drear and silent wood. And now and again the Bear would pause and raise his head and sniff the air, but what he was seeking-water, food, habitation, friend, or foe-Camille knew not, though she suspected that what he sought was the scent of peril in the surround. After each pause, he would growl low over his shoulder at Camille, and she construed he warned her to silence, and for her part she did stay mum, as the Bear pressed on into what surely must be the Winterwood, or so Camille did think.

  Forward they went into the fading day, the Bear following a narrow track through the dreadful demesne. Embedded in ice and snow and looming all ’round were harsh gray rock and jagged crags and stripped, barren trees-nought but cracked and splintered and tangled wood-and Camille shrank away whenever a clawlike branch seemed to clutch at her. Yet even though this was Faery, where strange and grim things were said to occur, Camille reasoned it was the Bear passing under or near the deadwood that made the limbs seem to reach out to grasp, rather than it actually being so… or so she did think. Still, she continued to flinch away when misshapen boughs reached forth with their fingers of twisted twigs as the day drew down toward night.

  And just as the last of the dismal light was fading, a distant and terrible skriegh sounded, seemingly from far above, and Camille looked up through gnarled limbs to see high in the gloom a great and terrible creature of leathery wings and a sinuous body with legs ending in claws. “Oh,” she gasped, breaking her silence. “A Dragon. A Dragon dire.”

  Yet the creature flew on to disappear beyond ice-laden peaks afar. But even after it was gone, Camille’s heart continued to race, and a goodly while passed ere it came to steady rhythm again, if a beating heart within this tangle could ever be said to be steady.

  Even after darkness fell, the Bear continued apace, and in spite of the dreadful realm they trod, Camille began to nod in weariness, and now and then she would jerk awake in startlement to peer about, only to nod again. It was when she nearly fell from his back that the Bear came to a stop at last, and neither camp nor fire nor cooking food awaited them this night in this ghastly place. It was as if their unseen attendants had abandoned them.

  Stumbling about, Camille managed to loosen the bundles the Bear did indicate, and in one was food-jerky and cold biscuits… it would have to do.

  “I am thirsty, O Bear,” whispered Camille, her lips quite dry, for she had had nothing to drink since they had left the stream where they had eaten shallots and rootstock.

  The Bear gave a soft whuff, and he sniffed the air and then led her to a frozen pool. With his great weight he broke through the ice and then backed away. Camille knelt and sipped at the frigid water, her face twisting in revulsion, for it tasted of brimstone, sulphurous and disgusting, but she drank of it nevertheless. When she raised up and moved away, the Bear, too, drank his fill, though he snuffled in loathing.

  Back in the camp Camille fell asleep while wrapped in a blanket and eating, the partially consumed biscuit falling from her lax hand. Gently the Bear took up the remainder and finished it for her.

  The next drab day, after a cold breakfast and another foul tasting drink, and after Camille had relieved herself, again they went through the drear land, Camille weary of travel, weary of fear, weary of this dismal realm. And this day seemed even darker than the one before, the woods more tangled, the shadows deeper, the ice and snow more chill; it was as if they were now travelling within the malignant heart of the dreadful domain, with its shattered gray rock and dark, looming crags looking on with sinister purpose. Even so, she once again straightened her spine to sit up tall, for she would not be defeated by the grim Winterwood, no matter how baleful its frigid clutch.

  On padded the Bear through the unremitting gloom and rocks and crags and gnarl, and still the sky darkened above, and somewhere off in the remote fastness a distant Wolf howled, answered by an echoing howl even farther away. Though Camille gasped in alarm, the Bear gave no heed to these callings, as onward they went.

  They stopped nigh what Camille thought might be the noontide, though with the blackening skies above, she could not say of a certain just what time it might be. The Bear directed her to loosen the food bundle, and again they dined on jerky and cold biscuits. And once more the Bear found water to drink, water again tinged with a sulphurous tang.

  Forward they pressed after hardly any rest, and as the dark day began to wane, Camille thought she could see ebon shapes scrambling through the tangle afar. But the sightings were too brief for her to be certain, and the crags and rocks and shadows and snarl alone had fooled her more than once. Even so, “Oh, Bear,” she whispered, “does someone or something run alongside our course?”

  The Bear paused and raised his head on high and sniffed. Long he stood, snuffling, but then without comment continued on. Camille wetted a finger and raised
it to measure the flow of air, and yet all she discovered was the forward motion of the Bear. Mayhap the air drifts the wrong way for the Bear to scent th-What’s that? Camille’s heart hammered in her chest. I thought I saw something large and looming in the dark by that tall crag, something staring, leering. But the Bear had moved onward, and whatever it might have been had vanished behind a dead thorny tangle, and though she peered intently, she saw it not again. Slowly her heart calmed. Mayhap it was nought but shadows in the murk, or a standing stone or twisted tree or other such. Still she kept a sharp eye out, and now and again did she think she saw what might be dark forms running among the ice-laden twists and angular wrenchings of the tangled wood and the outlying crags and jumbles of shattered rock, but still she could not be certain.

  Long did they travel as the day wore on, and toward night a wind began to blow down from the mountains above, and the pall o’erhead was riven into ragged, gray, wraithlike tendrils streaming across jagged peaks. In an effort to stay warm at the end of a day become blustery and chill, Camille wrapped her cloak about and huddled down within, abandoning her vow to remain unbowed within the Winterwood.

  Night fell, and once again did the Bear pad onward as if trying to be quit of this terrible place. And once again did weary Camille nod and jerk and nearly fall from her perch. And in the windy cold, once again did the Bear finally stop for Camille to make camp and drink distasteful water and fall asleep while eating.

  Wha-what? What was tha-?

  Camille was wrenched from sleep by screams of dying and yawls of terror and howls of combat, and a great snarling and roaring. And just as she jerked awake in fear, a dark being crashed to the frozen ground beside her, his face torn off, his abdomen gutted. Shrieking, she scuttled back and away from this hideous dead thing, and looked up in the slanting light of a low gibbous moon to see a great battle raging, her Bear standing on his hind legs, ringed ’round by creatures with spears stabbing. And then she knew from her papa’s stories- Oh, sweet Mithras, they’re Goblins! And the Bear laid about with massive blows, his great claws ripping and rending, and blood flew wide and bones crunched, and Goblins fell ’round him slain. Yet the Bear was bleeding as well, his white fur stained with a scarlet gone black in the night.