Gossamyr

by Michelle Hauf

  "I cannot see a frog." She made a shape with her hands to demonstrate the girth of the creature. "They are usually big enough to spy."

  With a laughing grin, Ulrich said, "I know naught what manner of frog accustoms your dreams, fair lady—ah, so frogs are unique in Faery?"

  "Not really. They are usual. About this big." She caressed the air in a circle about the size of her head. "They usually fly during the night. But their song is more melodious than that bleating racket."

  "Frogs do not fly. Trust me."

  "They do."

  "Do." Ulrich bat an admonishing finger at her. "Not."

  "Where are you off to?"

  Cape abandoned in a lump, Ulrich wandered to and fro along the stream, his head down and searching. Skinny legs blocked by brilliant green stripes bent and twisted. A comical sight, his dance at stream's edge. After a few moments he returned and squatted before Gossamyr.

  "That—" he placed a small slimy creature in her cupped palms "—be a frog."

  Gossamyr tilted the brown, warty creature this way and that. Slime-glossed eyes filmed over. Its viscous body heaved in breaths. And the smell, like dirt, was the furthest from the sweet scent Faery frogs emitted.

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  She held the creature out on her splayed palm. "Looks like a toad to me."

  A heavy sigh preceded Ulrich's inspection of the amphibian. His eyes crossing as he peered closely, he smirked and gave a defeated nod. "So it is."

  Smiling not too large, Gossamyr set the toad on the grass at water's edge.

  "So Faery frogs be so big as a man's head?"

  "And winged. They make excellent leathers."

  "Don't tell me. Your braies?"

  She slid a palm along the still-intact leather braies. "They are thin and soft but strong."

  "And violet. I suppose they are not dyed, but the actual color of the beast?"

  "Do you find that strange?"

  "As a mortal, yes, I find that most unusual."

  "Then I suppose wee frogs may seem even more strange. They are a deep violet with yellow toes."

  "Wee frogs?"

  "Yes. Nasty bit of wings. They've a tendency to fly up a fee's nose should they be unfortunate enough to stumble into a pod flying head level."

  "Up one's— I don't even want to know. I can only be thankful the time I spent in Faery was brief. And yet...here in my own world..." He clammed up quickly. Too quickly.

  Thinking of his lost years, Gossamyr guessed. Time had stolen an entire chunk of his life—because of her own. She should be thankful he had not attempted malice against her in retaliation. He had every right. Twenty years stolen was hardly fitting punishment for but an afternoon of dance.

  Bowing her head and wincing at the horrible creaking frog song, Gossamyr studied the shore stones, smoothened and slick. Her thoughts skipped over to the mule's saddlebag. Just her luck she

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  had taken as her partner on this journey the one man who roamed the earth with a contraband alicorn in hand. She could hardly cut him loose to wander about on his own, most likely, to fall victim to evil.

  But she could not simply take the alicorn from him. He was the rightful owner. Should she touch the sacred object, well—she wasn't sure what would happen.

  It was a wonder the man had gotten this far with it. Only the pure of heart could actually handle the alicorn without protection. Remarkable, merely wrapping it in cloth shielded it from harm. And to even approach the unicorn to return it? Should not the man be an innocent? Pure and strong of heart. A virginal maiden or a valorous knight—those were but the choices.

  What of a champion?

  Gossamyr lifted a brow. She had yet to do anything worthy. Fighting off beasties had merely proven distraction. But soon. Somewhere in Paris the Red Lady lurked.

  Now, to keep Ulrich and his prize safe from the succubus.

  "It would fetch a mighty fortune."

  Gossamyr looked to Ulrich, who now stood over her, shadowing her troubled silence.

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  He nodded toward the mule and the tattered leather saddlebag. "You're thinking about it, I know."

  "Is mind reading another of your skills?"

  "Not at all."

  "Obviously, because you are wrong. I should never barter a sacred object."

  He squatted beside her. Suddenly aware of the man's size, Gossamyr took him in on the sly. Wider and more muscled than she, he smelled sweet from the stream and a fresh scrubbing. Earthy, as she had before noticed. And.. .hmm, what else made her close her eyes and sniff the air? Almost as if to breathe him in. To put him

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  into her senses like a new flower she wanted to memorize and catalog under the heading "favorable."

  'Twas not a sensual attraction—but certainly she wanted to know this man. Mortal, so grounded. A man like one of those Ar-magnacs who would kill their own? Far from it. Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III somehow gentled her uncertainties. How, she could not determine. He be not a man of fine words or chivalrous actions. He cursed her and complained endlessly. Mayhap it was simply because he accepted her and treated her as an equal.

  Mayhap they two were more alike in ways she had yet to learn.

  Ulrich toyed with the thick grass tops. A cast of his gaze over the horizon snagged sun glints in his eyes. "What is it like to leave a place that must be truly magical and come to this.. .mortal hell?"

  Gossamyr shook out of her reverie. "Faery is not magical."

  "It is to a person who can only imagine it."

  "Magic does not exist in Faery. Magic is evil."

  "You say so?"

  His curiosity fixed sparkling blue eyes to her. What they searched for on her face Gossamyr could not know. But he looked, and took great leisure in doing so.

  "For every act of magic practiced on the Otherside," she said, "a bit of Enchantment is sluiced away through the rift. It is outlawed."

  "Really? Yet, it is quite common in my world."

  "Oh, of that we are aware. Magic be a mortal device, yet it cannot exist without Enchantment. Every act of magic, be it good or for evil, is felt by Faery. Makes me wonder if the fine lady in the caravan practiced. To wield such control over one of my kind?"

  "But if the caged faery was disenchanted?"

  "Yes, but one touch from a mortal has made her weaker."

  "Merely by a mortal's touch?" Ulrich rubbed his palms together and peered over his paired hands at her. "I have touched you."

  "Yes."

  "Am I.. .making you weak?"

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  "No. In fact, I feel no chill when you touch me. That is what happens when a fee is mortal touched."

  "I see. What do you feel?"

  "Splendid," Gossamyr said. She clapped her mouth shut. The man cocked a brow at her. "I didn't mean to say that."

  "Oh ho?"

  "No, I.. .blight." She had meant to say such. This conversation tread an intimacy that made her uncertain. "This Otherside is..." She splayed out a hand. "Different from my expectations. Not so vibrant. And dirty and slow. The sky here is sluiced with dull and the grass and trees are but a shade of the vibrance of Faery."

  "But it makes you dance."

  "Yes. I feel light. There are children in abundance here."

  "Not so in Faery?"

  "Newlings are rare. Faeries generally mate for life; a pairing that sees but a single child."

  "Sounds like we mortals—though we do tend to have hordes of children. So you marry and have children and settle long and happy lives?"

  "Marriage is not common. It is reserved for royals and the upper caste. Commoners merely...I don't know...join and have children. I believe it is called honeymooning. But a faery's fickle heart affords much time to discover a life mate."

  Desideriel was rumored to romance a new woman every new moon. A rogue who might never be tamed following their vows? She hoped he would turn true to her, but did not expect something so untouchable as love.
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  "Oftentimes, they never wed, and instead choose the singular life with assorted partners. A child is never born of such a situation."

  "Sounds freeing. To sort through a variety of choices before finally settling?"

  He shrugged at her wondering lift of brow. A soft, deep chuckle, innately male, was followed by his dazzling smile. "I am a man, Gos-

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  samyr. We men.. .fickle though our hearts may be, do enjoy our women. And if given the freedom to pick and choose?"

  Such freedom was far from Gossamyr's reach. For Glamour-siege, as Shinn would remind.

  "I should like to marry for love," she said. Trailing her fingers over the surface of the stream, she fell into the fantasy of a life she would choose for herself. "My mother loved a man who sought her out every morning merely to watch her wake. The blush of waking, Shinn had once told me, is the most beautiful color on a woman's face."

  "It is true. So smooth and perfect, a woman's lips, like tiny little sweets upon a king's table." Ulrich's sigh evoked a longing in Gossamyr. How she would like a man to look upon her with such reverence. "Er, I suppose you will wed a faery man? Can you ever return?" Ulrich asked.

  "Of course "

  When Shinn saw to retrieving her, for she had not an idea in all the Spiral how else to return. Without twinclian she was a literal prisoner on the Otherside.

  "And.. .you will return?"

  "Anon. When my mission is complete."

  "Of course, you must. So! Are all faery warriors women, then?"

  Gossamyr smirked and stroked the base of her throat. "I explained before, male and female fee are equal. I took this mission because I was the only one qualified for it. My father was reluctant to send his daughter to the very land that stole away his wife—"

  "Your mother was stolen from you? Be that something like the Dance?"

  "Not at all, it was the mortal passion." She shifted on her feet, moving closer to Ulrich. The need to scent him remained fore.

  "And do you have this mortal passion?"

  "I pray not."

  Those words came out more quickly than the truth registered

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  in her brain. Of course the passion festered within her. Else she would not at this moment stand ready to enter an embattled city. And she would not be sitting so close to a mortal man merely because he intrigued. Nor, she suspected, would the air entice with every light step she took.

  The mortal world lay beneath her feet. No one stopped her from seeking. Perhaps—following their defeat—she would listen to the mortal opera and watch a comedy in the theater. Ride upon the great barges floating the river and listen to the choirs sing under a lusciously arched nave in a grand cathedral. The bestiary had il-lustrated the beautiful colored windows and alluded to the tempestuous religions that reigned in the center of many a war between the mortals.

  And then there was the chance she may stumble across him.

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  But to stay? She did not wish to go rogue! And there was always Time of which to be wary.

  Ulrich's open expression beseeched her to continue.

  "I do not have the leisure to think on anything but defeating the Red Lady. She will not see me coming until it is too late."

  "You are brave." He reached and touched her forehead, smoothing aside a strand of hair that had escaped the tight plaits. Gossamyr flinched at the touch, but Ulrich made a soothing sound deep in his throat. Ah, that throaty rumble, initially frightening to her, but now it fit in her breast—right—as she fit here in this air.

  "I mean you no ill." He lingered as his fingers traveled down to her shoulder.

  "It is said," she offered, "that a fee who is touched by a mortal receives a chill that cleaves to his bones ever after."

  "That be mortal touched."

  "Yes."

  "Do you wish me to stop touching you?"

  She clasped his wrist, but let it go immediately. "Your touch... gentles."

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  "Your hair is soft and shiny. So elegant these twists of summer sunshine," he marveled.

  "Witch plaits. They keep away—"

  "Witches?" He gave a soft chuckle. "So faeries are as superstitious as we mortals?"

  She twisted her head, tugging at the tips of her plaits, and eyed Ulrich's hand, which, in the strangest way, claimed. She regarded the touch as personal for it lighted a flame in her breast and stirred—just a little—her reasoning. What did the man want from her? She would never again wager her heart. Not for the ache that still pulsed within. You could find him. Mayhap he has thought of you?

  "Your closeness causes wonder, Ulrich."

  "Ah. Indeed. Not minding my own caution." He snapped back his hand, but did not change the distance between them, which was fine for Faery but far too close for his mortal reasoning. "Mortal touched aside, have you never been touched by a faery man?"

  She twisted her neck, tilting her chin away from him. "Why ask you that?"

  "Just a little jumpy. You don't like my being so close." A tilt of his head hushed his breath across the bridge of her nose. "How is it when you deem it fine, it is, but when I decide to, it is not."

  "It is.. .uncomfortable."

  Now he caressed her chin. Commanding fingers forced her to look back at him, yet the gentlest smile filled his eyes. "Perhaps there are a few wonders for you to discover in this Otherside, eh?"

  "Mayhap you guess at something I know well?" She pushed from his touch and began to march alongside the stream. But frustration kept her from treading too far, so she turned back. She wanted to look him in the eye. To challenge his teasing. Gossamyr de Win-tershinn stepped from no challenge!

  "Ah, so the woman has had a lover."

  'You imply very much!"

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  Putting up both palms to placate, he then stood and brushed off his cloak. "Just making small talk."

  A slash of her staff connected just below his chin. A jerk lifted his head so he had to look down at her. "It is small when you seek intimate means with someone you know so little."

  "I merely seek to know you better. I did not intend to offend."

  Gossamyr followed his parti-colored strides as he paced over and stepped inside the shell of the mill. Tall and lithe, a quiet fluidity marked his movements. If she must sum him up he was a fine mortal man. Not so cocksure as the fee male.

  Marry jour daughter, my lord? Er...

  One fee man had not seen the usual in her. Exotic, he had labeled her. And his kisses, even now, stirred a longing in Gossamyr's belly. Arousal tended to show in the fee wings, turning the normally pellicle appendages a deep color. His papilonid hind wings, with elegant projections that curled and uncoiled, had shaded to a lovely violet, stirring his long black hair to elegant waves across his back...

  The memory of her loss hurt, and so Gossamyr pushed back the urge to re-create their tender moments. Her father had been cruel, reacting before considering his daughter's heart.

  "Faeries know little of love," Shinn had warned. "It is merely lust you feel."

  Lust was not what her heart knew. It could not be! Nor could lust have driven a man to arrive at his wife's bedside every morning just to watch her wake. It was something more. And the only something she could summon was love.

  If her father's words held truth, why had it been so easy for Shinn to marry Veridienne? Had he loved her? Should not his marriage

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  have been arranged, as was hers? Rarely did a fee lord marry by

  choice. Love? Or was it merely lust wanting to be so much more?

  Gossamyr could guess. Mortal women were compelling to the

  fee men. Exotic and easily seduced by the Enchanted. Though, no

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  fee would make it known, they carried on illicit liaisons against the commands of their elders. Gossamyr had not heard the fee women mention such desires for the mortal male, though it was possible.

  Half mortal in b
lood, flesh and soul—who was she to discount a mortal man?

  "Do you hear that?"

  Turning to the man's voice, Gossamyr stood and strode toward the water mill.

  Ulrich propped himself in the doorway beneath a surviving wood awning, one leg dangling, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Suddenly the rains increased. Now the wooden slats were beat upon by heavy drops. The fresh scent smelled good enough to eat.

  "Sweet, redeeming rain," Ulrich said reverently. Then he twisted his attention to Gossamyr.

  So fierce his gaze fixed to her, she stepped back. A slick of her palm erased the rain from her nose and cheeks. "What?"

  "I've an idea."He gripped her wrist and tugged. "Come with me." But—

  Cool, fat raindrops skipped across her face and soaked into the dusty wool gown. Gossamyr raised her face to the rain and closed her eyes. She felt Ulrich move his hands over her eyelids, her cheeks and her jaw but did not protest what he was doing.

  "Forgive my touch, my lady."

  "Blight that. Is it working?"

  "Yes. Look!"

  She opened her eyes to see his palms glittered with faery dust.

  "It is washing from your hair, as well."

  Gossamyr lifted her thick plaits and made to brush away the offensive glimmer, but she paused. Do I really want this? The surrender of all Enchantment? Her last tie to Faery and the father she relied upon for return. You yet have thejetch.

  "What is it? Gossamyr? Ah." Ulrich's voice moved close to her ear and he embraced her.

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  She remained stiff, fingering the carved bone clasp tipping a plait, not sure how to react, or what to say. Embraced without her consent, she initially felt violated, and yet, the feeling was immediately replaced with relief and reassurance. How long had it been since she'd been embraced by a man?

  "I understand," he said against her ear, his wet lips cold. "Perhaps you should take cover?"

  Close, this man. Close, this mortal realm. And she but a step away from completely joining it.

  Gossamyr held out a hand, palm up, to catch the rain. Pulse, pulse, against her hand. Beat, beat—her heart favored this man's closeness.

  Can you do it? Wash away all trace of Faery?

  Can you become a champion?

  "This must be done. It is.. .bone." Gossamyr lifted the hem of the sodden blue wool and pulled it up over her knees and hips, exposing her braies. Striding around the windmill and toward the stream she called back to Ulrich, "Don't look!" And she pulled the gown over her head and tossed it to the ground in a tangle.