Gossamyr

by Michelle Hauf

  "Can you perform a miracle of loaves and fishes with your mutable coin, Faery Not?"

  "I don't understand."

  "It means, no, you cannot. You have but a few disks of faery coin in your purse. Of course you cannot increase it. Can you?"

  She shook her head.

  So she pressed ahead, clinging to Ulrich's hand and using Fancy to part the crowd. They were trailed for a few steps, then the crew veered off, likely in search of more giving marks.

  "How does your leg fare, Ulrich?"

  "Those fangs were like needles, a straight pierce and then out. They did not tear the flesh so much, so I feel little pain."

  "Either that or your leg will fall off before we find shelter."

  "Be you the bearer of such fine tidings, my lady?"

  "Sorry. Methinks it is this gown. It binds and digs into me. I will split the seams anon."

  "I shall keep watch for a string of laundry. If you can wait until the morning, the shops will be open. All the braies your coin can purchase."

  "Very well."

  Gossamyr followed the trail of a fat rat as she strode alongside Ulrich and the mule. The rodent looked overly plump, not sleek and speedy as the meadow rats. Truly, this city of evil corrupted even the vermin.

  High above, the shadowed shape of the fetch reassured. She wished the fetch worked both ways, that she could get images from Shinn. But, alas, she could not connect to the fetch, much as Shinn had attempted to teach her the mind-share required. She mentally sent blessings to her father. Be he lacking in enemy revenants to battle.

  210 MicheleHauf

  Beside her the soul shepherd sucked in a breath. She sensed Ul-rich's leg did hurt, no matter his concessions to lacking pain. Interesting to find both a kelpie and werefrog here in the city of no Enchantment. Had they been called up by a magical spell?

  Where in this tangle of humanity did the succubus hide? Shinn had not known, beyond that she lived deep in Paris. Gossamyr could guess the Red Lady would place herself at the perimeter of the city, far from the draining influence of the mortal population. But the perimeter seemed to be the most violent, attracting brigands and cruel Armagnacs.

  Might there be a central gathering location where the Disenchanted congregated? Fee were attracted to splendor and elegance. They would not be found in filth and destitution such as Gossamyr had seen upon passing through the gates. A palace, surely they would insinuate themselves into the court.

  Startled back to the now by a touch to her shoulder, Gossamyr looked in the direction Ulrich pointed. Here the streets were quiet, save one single man fit out in finery and staggering as if soused.

  Skipping across the wide gutter gurgling down the center of the street, Gossamyr approached the man who clung to the corner of a building. He moaned and spat blood. A dueling injury?

  It wasn't until Gossamyr got right up to the miserable wretch that she saw his stare. Now she assessed the fine gold stitches darting up and down his slashed doublet of crimson plush. Gold chains swung at his hips, decorating a graceful stretch of limb.

  He groped through the air in an attempt to clutch at her. She dodged, yet moved right back into his face to study his eyes. The red did not drip down his cheeks but instead clung to the eyeball as a convex shield. Close then, she thought. Death stood near. Though, why the unfortunate things did not immediately die was unclear to her. Why did the succubus not directly take the essences? Or had this one merely escaped? The one in the village had gotten far away.

  Gossamyr 211

  Looking about, Gossamyr scanned down a narrow alley that was nothing more than a whisker of space between towering buildings. Something rustled within.

  "Watch him," she hissed at Ulrich, and dashed into the shadows. When the rustling became a scramble she picked up speed and thrust out her staff, catching the man who ran away under the chin and effectively pinning him against the rough stone wall. A black leather hood shadowed half his face and covered his head, save a wisp of unnaturally red hair.

  "Who are you?"

  Even with the dim light that poured through the end of the alley where Ulrich knelt over the dying man, Gossamyr recognized her captive's face. It could not be!

  The entire world slipped from beneath Gossamyr's feet.

  FIFTEEN

  To find this one man in such a place? Memory flooded with glimpses of happier times: a sensuous discovery, followed by a heart-wrenching betrayal. Swaying, she fought against a sudden rise of dizziness.

  The man she held pinned with her staff kicked out, a bare foot jabbing her in the gut. In his right fist clacked a conglomeration of—Gossamyr slid a look over the gleaming instruments—pins.

  But the man. Him. He— Did he not recognize her?

  "Gossamyr," Ulrich called. "Methinks he is soon gone!"

  "No!" Her quarry struggled.

  She did not relent, keeping her staff tucked under his chin.

  "It is time!"he moaned. "Release me!"

  "Did you injure that man with those pins? Tell me!" She pressed closer, staring deep into his pale eyes. Violet. And yet, each blink glossed them over with a receding sheen of red. Curving around his left eye were fine pinpricks of red, forming an arabesque design.

  Was it truly? It could not be! Yet, her heart knew. Banished.

  "Ave—" She choked on the name. Three days of tears. Never

  Gossamyr 213

  again had she wept. She had not thought to ever see him again. "Do you not recognize me?"

  A globule of spit hit Gossamyr's neck. She twisted her staff, wrenching a yelp from the man. Pins scattered and dropped to the ground in a sinister clatter.

  It could not be coincidence, this—this fee who smelled of summer flowers and blood and who wielded sharp pins had been lurking so close to the dying fee. Was he connected to the Red Lady? The succubus's signature gleamed in the man's crimson violet eyes. Mayhap he had received her killing kiss? What manner of weapon be those long pins of steel? This man had been...

  So close.

  A stolen tryst.

  More than a tryst. True love?

  Faeries cannot love.

  Why then did her heart ache so?

  With a bend of her elbow, Gossamyr lowered the staff and jammed it into the man's gut. He doubled and sank to the ground. Long groping fingers curled about the carvings wrapping the end of the staff.

  "Look at me!" she commanded.

  The pin man jerked his face up at Gossamyr's command. Eyes narrowed, he stared at her, looking so deep and yet, skimming but her surface. Did he see her? Know her? How could he not?

  "Remove your threat, wench!"

  "It is me—" she crouched before him "—Gossamyr."

  "He is gone!" Ulrich shouted.

  Gone? Dead. A long suffering death, so unlike the immediate twinclian that signified a normal fee death. And the reward for such suffering? The revenant would soon claw from the body.

  Blight, but she hadn't time for reunions. But oh, how her heart pulsed to watch this tatter of a man look upon her. Such confusion on his face. He did not recognize her! He could not have forgotten.

  214 MicheleHauj

  Reaching to shove back his hood, she stopped when he snarled. Brilliant crimson hair sifted across his shoulder. Red as blood. It had never been that color. Black, black as crow wings 'twas what it should be. Could she be wrong about his identity?

  "Quickly!"

  Gossamyr turned to Ulrich. The soul shepherd, one hand clamped to his wounded leg, gestured madly that she join him. Vacillating between his urgent pleas and her troubled heart, Gossamyr surrendered to the mission. She pushed up and stalked back to the street. With one last look to the pin man—how had he come to such a state?—she bent over the body. Red streamed from the dead fee's eyes and bubbled up in his pores.

  "His essence," she said. "Ulrich, can you.. .see it?"

  "Unless the fee are different—and they well could be—the essence should not be visible."

  "But...canyoufeelit?"


  "Get away from him! I must witness!"preceded an attack to Gossamyr's back. The wily pin man jumped her shoulders and gripped her loose hair like reins on a horse.

  "Cease!" she shouted, but to no avail. Hands at her temples yanked. Strands of hair let loose in pinching pulls. She swung her shoulder to the right, but the man wrapped his leg about her waist. Impossible to put a bruising blow to him.

  To Ulrich's favor he did deliver a punch to the man's jaw, only to dodge a steel pin slashed through the air. Her angry passenger sprawled across the cobbles, Gossamyr spun an arret, but stopped, arms falling to her sides at sight of Ulrich's frozen state.

  The bespelled soul shepherd whispered, "What in all of Hades?"

  Gossamvr turned to the dead man and witnessed a most re-

  J

  markable sight. Emerald light quivered and jelled and began to rise above his head.

  "I guess you can see their souls," Ulrich said, awestruck.

  "Make it go back in the body," Gossamyr hissed.

  Gossamyr 215

  "No!" the man with the pins cried.

  She snapped out her staff, catching him across the gut. The blow sent him reeling into a spin against a wall. Red hair spilled about his face. His hand, pin held gleaming, stretched to follow the floating green light. "Lost!" he cried.

  'Twas the fee's essence. It shimmered with glamour, gorgeous in its undulating movement, slowing rising from the body until it hovered eye level with her and Ulrich.

  "I can feel tendrils of the former life," Ulrich said, his left hand thrust before him. He moved his fingers delicately, as if stroking the essence, but not touching. "Very much like our souls. But this one, it knows where it is to journey."

  Of course it did. 'Twas the final twinclian.

  A searing red pain erupted in Gossamyr's cheek. Slapping a hand to her face, she spied the retreat of the steel pin and the fleeing heels of her attacker.

  Blood streamed in the lines of her palm. He had cut her!

  "How could he?"

  That he did not remark her, or even remember?

  The tremendous ache that had been planted in her heart not so long ago pulsed, reminding of the bruise that would never heal. He is a Rougethorn. Never will I allow that sort to court my daughter.

  "It's so beautiful." His vision fixed to the green light, Ulrich backed up and walked right into Gossamyr.

  She shoved him away and staggered. The fact she had taken a cut so easily astonished her. That it had been by a man she'd long thought lost to her, a man she had loved—

  "You're hurt? Let me take a look."

  "No, I must follow him." She vacillated between the shimmering essence and the retreating pin man.

  The light suddenly dispersed, stretching and thinning until it was but a shimmer of fee dust sifting to the cobbles. No revenant. This death, though prolonged, was true.

  216 MicheleHauj

  "The final twinclian," Gossamyr whispered. "I think that one is safe," she decided. "The pin man did not get the essence so the revenant was not released. I hope."

  Pin man? Her Avenall? It had been him. Red pinpricks circled his left eye. Banished. Just like the Red Lady. Could the red hair be a side effect of banishment or a taint from the Red Lady's erie?

  She skipped down the street and looked around the corner. Moonlight trickled across a line of laundry and the curious stare of a mongrel mutt sitting on a doorstep. "Where did he go?"

  Ulrich strode up behind her, and she walked right into him. "Watch out!"

  "Let me look." He gripped her wrist so tightly Gossamyr paused and granted him her attention. He touched her cheek, imbuing her stiff jaw with a settling softness. "It looks deep."

  "No deeper than the bite marks on your leg. I must go."

  "No." He squeezed her wrist. "He's gone. And you are injured. We must wash and stitch it. There may have been poison on the tips of those pins. We will to my uncle's home, it is not far from here."

  "The pin man," she whispered. "'Twas him. He serves the Red Lady, spearing the essence on his pins. He...I.. .Ulrich, I know that man."

  "You have such friends?"

  "Once a friend. He has changed."

  "A fellow faery?"

  "Yes. He was—" A lover, or very close. The only man she had ever desired. The one man her father had banished in a fit of rage.

  "First, rest."

  "Ulrich, there is no time to pause, we must pursue..."

  Blackness snuffed out her words.

  Ulrich caught Gossamyr's limp form in his arms. Her weight was fee, much like her history. More faery than mortal, he thought now

  Gossamyr 217

  as he turned about in the center of the street, scanning for the escaped pin man. But so mortal in that she was not invincible. If she had plans to rescue Faery from an evil succubus Gossamyr required rest.

  "He's gone," Ulrich said to himself, satisfied he'd searched, then tugged Fancy along behind him. His leg did pain him, but he would not reveal such. This refugee from Faery needed him to be strong. As he needed much the same from her.

  Ahead, a crowd of clothing hung low over the street. Leading Fancy through the rippling fabric he acquired a man's pair of braies. Faery Not would be pleased.

  Pins jangling and his left leg dragging behind him, the pin man entered the lair of his red mistress. Cowering already, he feared her wrath. He had returned without the essence. Fury would design her rage deliriously.

  Stopping beneath Malchius, he wheezed out huffing breaths. Something oozed down his back. No matter how he wriggled his shoulders the becursed boned plate continued to inflame. But pain cried louder from elsewhere. He'd taken that blighted staff right across the thigh. Mayhap the leg was broken. His mistress could heal him—but for his bare pin, she would not.

  That cruel warrior bitch! She had looked at him so strangely. Peered deep into his eyes, as if gazing into his very essence. She had commanded him as if they were familiar. Something about her had.. .compelled.

  Ah! But he had not an essence to see into now. Least not inside of him.

  He stroked a finger around his left eye, tracing the indented impressions of red, the mark of the banished. He could barely claim the name of his tormentor—Shinn—but for the pain he would never lose that memory, as he had lost so many other memories.

  218 MicheleHauf

  Shinn, a great lord of.. .somewhere.. .had banished him for... something.

  Faery, 'tis whence you hailed.

  Yes, of course, Faery. An obvious deduction, for the wings that endured the scratch of bone on his back. But difficult to recall the reason why he'd been banished. He did rack his memory at times. Just, placed here, was all he could summon. And he was changing. Daily. Becoming something he knew. Comfort in his servitude. Red capped his head and moved down past his shoulders now; but a hand's-width of black hair remained.

  He blinked a few times. A flicker of a different world—a different time—birthed in his vision. So beautiful, shimmering with a fine mist of iridescence and coiled about by a massive and intricate system of.. .roots? Spectacular.

  As she had been. She?

  Banging his head against the marble wall, he fought to touch that elusive sliver of memory. It lived there inside his brain, he knew, but all thoughts were focused exclusively upon the task. And upon his mistress.

  Catching his palm against the cool white marble, he paused outside the door to the Collection. Flame held by Dionysius flickered and seeped into his nostrils. The naked pin burned cold against his cheek. No possible way around it; he was puppy toast.

  The scent of his mistress's perfume, a heady mix of myrrh and lemon, with a trace of dusty blood, swirled out from the crack between the door and the wall. She knew he had returned. No beckoning call for him. He had once already been led to the kiss. Remarkable, she had commented that first time. They shared the mark of the banished. However, she knew the reason for her banishment—had detailed the tragedy many times over.

  Why could he n
ot recall his?

  Threading his fingers through the crack between the door and frame, the pin man crept closer, easing the heavy door open with

  Gossamyr 219

  his shoulder until the brightness of the room hurt his eyes. Never did she light candles. He could not explain the supernatural illumination that followed the Red Lady about, but she lighted every room she entered. Faery glamour, to be sure. A glamour only possible thanks to the many essences that kept his mistress alive— staving off the Disenchantment.

  How he prayed for freedom. Perhaps a return of his memories?

  As the pin man wandered out from the hall seven marble heads turned to follow. One stony watcher grimaced to reveal sharp teeth. A snort set the claw-held candle flame to a shiver.

  "Come, Puppy."

  The tone of her voice set his pulse racing and his mutinous desires to an expectant simmer. Excitement shivered through his being. She would expect him to stride in and prick the wall with a pin. Could he mime the motion? Mayhap she would not notice, for already there were so many pins.

  "You've been a naughty puppy."

  Clinging to the wall, his palms attached like barnacles, he slid inside the room.

  Violet eyes surrounded by the snaking pattern of red dots locked to his. Not a smile on those cherry lips. Nor a frown. Oh, but he preferred some sign of emotion! Sprawled on all fours, creeping across the massive bed, her robe slid open to reveal the bone-white flesh and those delicious breasts he could suckle at for centuries. Too pretty to fear and too evil to love.

  But oh, did he venerate her.

  "Where is it?" She slid to the end of the bed, her legs flowing over the edge and her bare toes dangling. Twinkle twinkle, her toes tapped expectantly at the air. Plungeforward, and suck them into jour mouth. Love me, serve me.

  Resisting the urge to prostrate himself, the pin man remained at the wall, eyeing the glimmer of essences to his left. Wincing, he cringed, waiting the pain. Sure punishment.

  220 Michele Hauj

  "There were in-tru-truders," he muttered. Of a curious sort. Did he know that woman? Sweat purled down the side of his face. So intent she had been. Like she needed him to know her.

  "What?"

  "Intruders, my sweetness. Two mortals." 'Twas difficult to make himself any smaller. "They.. .kept me from the essence."