by Karen Myers
“I don’t know, I can’t picture it. This all sounds a lot like the tangle we discovered twelve years ago, when Rhys’s parents were taken. We couldn’t understand what we found.”
George glanced at Edern and saw his clenched jaw.
“How do you want to approach this?” Rhodri asked.
“Well, maybe I can seal it, like the other one, even if it’s facing the wrong way, but that might block the Edgewood Way, too. Let’s try to move the Edgewood Way away from it, first.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Rhodri asked.
“Well, you just, um, put your shoulder to it and keep pushing. There’s a lot of resistance, like moving a heavy object, but eventually it’ll move. I hope.” George tried to illustrate what he meant, but Rhodri just shook his head.
“Have at it,” he said. “Can Mag help?”
Two knocks.
“This isn’t something they ever have a reason to do,” George said. “I’ll need to own it, I think. Can you release the claim?”
“I’m the custodian of the tokens under Gwyn, so I should be able to.”
George felt the change and claimed the way. He stood up straight and prepared himself, remembering how hard it had been to move the small Huntsman’s Way a few weeks ago.
The trap way intruded from the left, so George mentally leaned his right shoulder into the Edgewood Way opening and started a slow, steady push. For several minutes nothing happened, and George settled himself for a long job of it.
Edern and Rhys stirred impatiently. Rhodri monitored the process and gave him occasional reports.
“I think there’s a little movement,” he said, after about ten minutes. “Get your back into it, now.”
George smiled tight-lipped, but in truth it was a very strenuous activity. He tried to maximize the steadiness of the pressure without exhausting himself but he felt like a draft horse pulling on an overloaded sledge—it just didn’t want to move.
With a sense of stickiness releasing he finally felt a bit of give along the bottom on the left as it pulled free. The break traveled the length of the lower edge, and the whole entrance started to move right, an inch at a time. After another few minutes, the entrance had shifted about eight feet and George was done, dripping with sweat and trembling. He sat down abruptly on the cold flagstones, breathing heavily.
“Was it enough?” he asked Rhodri, from the ground.
“I don’t think so,” Rhodri said. He leaned over to give George a hand up. They walked back to the middle of the entrance and looked into it.
To George’s senses, nothing had changed. “Don’t tell me I pulled both of the ways, not just the one.”
“Looks like it,” Rhodri said. “Now what?”
As George inspected the entrance to the trap way, it sharpened and lost its blurriness.
Madog felt the sealing of his second Court Way yesterday. It amused him, since he could make more whenever he wanted. They didn’t destroy it, which was unexpected. He assumed they couldn’t, so did that mean the huntsman wasn’t there? Or maybe there’s some limit on what he can do? Now that was an interesting thought.
The Trap Way was proving a bore. They must not be sending any more messengers.
Time to turn it around and try from the other side. He reversed the entrance with his master-token and released the trigger stick.
Edern watched George and Rhodri doing inexplicable things around the marked way entrance but there was nothing to look at to hold his attention. Gwyn had some way-sense, sharpened by the special powers of the annual great hunt, but Edern had none himself. He tried to stay alert but his thoughts kept returning to the capture of his son and daughter-in-law. Rhodri’s remarks brought the whole scene back and fed his imagination about what had actually happened to them. The only witnesses had been no help, but now he was able to visualize better what the situation must have been like.
George had clearly done something before he collapsed, but Edern wasn’t too clear on exactly what. It all looked the same to him.
Rhys was unable to hold himself still and paced about behind Rhodri and George who paid him no attention, deep in their discussion. Mag stood off to their left.
A clatter on the stones caught Edern’s attention and he spotted a small, complex, wooden object coming to rest a bit to the right of the marked way entrance. Rhys was closest to it.
“Hey, what’s this?”
It took a second for the question to penetrate, then George and Rhodri turned with alarm loud on their faces. “No! Don’t touch that!” George cried.
Edern had started moving in that instant but he was too late. Rhys had already walked over and bent down to pick it up. As he touched it, his form shimmered and vanished.
George heard Edern’s cry of anguish and his own stomach clenched in sympathy. He intercepted him before he could follow Rhys and forcibly held him back.
“The way entrance was moved, the stone markings aren’t right anymore,” he said, holding on to him. “Rhys didn’t realize.”
He spoke to Edern firmly, trying to penetrate his fixed desire to follow his grandson. “He entered it. The trap way twisted, somehow, and then winked open and shut. He’s gone, Edern.”
Rhodri joined them and held his weeping kinsman, keeping him back from the unmarked entrance. “It was some sort of spell-stick, and Rhys couldn’t see the entrance.”
*Sorrow. Loss.*
Edern stopped struggling. George released him and turned to seal the trap way, moving quickly now. Too late, he thought, too late.
“He didn’t have a way-token,” Edern choked out. “It shouldn’t have let him in.”
Rhodri said, “I had to give George the way-ownership so he could move it. It was open, no tokens needed.”
The look of reproach Edern sent him stabbed George like a physical blow and he flinched back. He couldn’t shake it off, even after Edern relented and grasped his shoulder. “You couldn’t know.”
George shook his head in denial and walked away. “Take it back and close it,” he told Rhodri over his shoulder, relinquishing his claim. He walked on to the edge of the flagstone paving and turned his back on them both, unable to look them in the face.
After a few moments, he heard Mag approaching.
My cousin, he thought to her, without looking. My friend, my responsibility. His grandson, picturing Edern for her. Madog did this to his son and daughter-in-law, before.
*Picture of Rhys, picture of Granite Cloud. Picture of both together.*
Not for long, he thought. Rhys is unlikely to survive this. My fault, I should have known they couldn’t see the danger. My fault.
He put a hand on her unconsciously, stroking the smooth mantle as if she were a consoling dog, and brooded, heartsick, trying to think what to do.
CHAPTER 13
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Benitoe asked Maëlys at the stables, before breakfast was completed.
“I didn’t come here to settle,” she said. “I came to find Luhedoc, and anyone else I can.”
He looked over the two saddle bags she had filled. “Did you follow the list I gave you? Clothing for three days? Blankets?”
“Yes, and trail food, and bowls, and an iron pan. A small pot. Seasonings. You take care of the tent and externals, and I’ll take care of the food. Enough for three days, in case we stay out an extra night,” she said.
“Each of us needs fire-starters in our pockets, some food on our backs, and a good knife. A water bag. And a cloak.”
“You’ve told me. Repeatedly,” she said, exasperated.
Benitoe paused in his checking to look at her seriously. “Auntie, we’re not going into the wilderness, but we don’t know what we’ll find here along the edges. Say we meet a bear, our ponies dump us, and I’m killed. You need to have the necessaries for survival on your person, not your horse. It may be unlikely, but only the prepared tend to live long enough to tell those stories.”
She calmed down. “You’re right.” She ru
mmaged in her saddle bags and moved a few items to the pack on her back, then tied a tightly rolled cloak around the outside edge of it.
She looked warm enough, he thought, with her full red skirt over the breeches and gloves on her hands. He wore the traditional red himself, which seemed strange after two months in hunt livery green. He wanted them both to be easily identifiable as lutins from a distance, in case any others were watching from hiding.
He reviewed the simple plan they’d settled on for this first investigation. Explore the market town just down the hill, then start on the outlying farms. If nothing turned up in this area, they were prepared to relocate to each of the other villages and try again from there.
They mounted up and took the road down to Edgewood village.
As they entered the town, joining its primary north-south street from the northeast, Maëlys took stock of her situation. How fortunate she was to have found Benitoe, to have him helping her. It was like finding a son, though he was a bit older than any she would have had with Luhedoc, had they been so fortunate. A nephew, then.
She wondered what had made him seek out his position as whipper-in to Gwyn’s hunt, something no lutin had done before. She could understand the appeal of the hounds, that’s why so many kennel-men were lutins, but how does he stand the melancholy end of the hunt, with the death of the prey? It had been a subject of much discussion with Brittou and his friends. She wanted to ask him about it but was shy of intruding.
Why was he so alone, a strangely solitary lutin? He was dignified and competent, reserved in his demeanor, keeping his grief private. You’d never know he’d recently lost his betrothed. Where was his family? Who supported him?
Whatever came of her quest, she decided, he was family to her now. She’d have to find a time to tell him so.
This village was smaller than Greenhollow, and oddly quiet. About half of the houses stood empty, and most of the shops, and they found few of the residents out of doors. As they walked their ponies down the street, no one turned to watch. Maëlys was normally annoyed by the interest the tall folks took in lutins outside of their customary settings, but here it was more disturbing to be ignored altogether. Only the children gave them an occasional stare, and there were very few of them about.
Benitoe paused to ask directions to the inn from one man, who looked worn and exhausted. He waved his hand indifferently down the road and pushed on by. Benitoe glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, and she shrugged in response. Everyone had warned them, you’ll understand better when you meet the residents.
The inn was easy enough to find, but distressing. The sign, a crowing rooster, hung from one corner only, just one more good storm away from coming down altogether. It was empty, open to the elements.
Maëlys inspected the interior. The furniture and fixtures were still in decent shape. The building itself looked solid, the roof intact. What a shame, she thought. You could make a good living here, once the traffic comes back.
They found an active family of fae across the street from the inn, apparently claiming an empty house and the handsome stone craft-shop next to it. She recognized some of them from their group of travelers a few days ago. It was strange, seeing normal activity in these empty streets.
Benitoe raised a hand at them, and the leader beckoned them over. “How are you getting on?” he wanted to know.
“All our folk are settled at the manor for now, helping with the animals,” Benitoe told him, “except for us. We’re starting to look for our lost ones.”
The fae nodded. “We began working on these buildings yesterday, and not one neighbor came by to meet us, or to ask who we were. So we went and knocked on their doors in the evening, three houses around in all directions, bringing food and seeking their welcome. No one would let us in. We asked about some of our own who’d come here, and no one admitted knowing the names, those who spoke to us at all.”
“It’s very strange,” Maëlys said. “What’s caused it?”
“My wife says, it’s like a sickness. We shouldn’t blame them if they can’t help it.”
Maëlys nodded approvingly at this common sense.
“We’re going to settle in and treat them as if they were normal, and maybe they’ll get better. They don’t seem dangerous, anyway.”
A woman came up while they were talking. “Yes, but what if we catch whatever they’ve got?”
The man made a face, “Aye, that’s the problem. We’ll go along for now, but already we’re looking over our shoulders to see if any of us have started to change. Very disturbing, it is.”
They paused at the far edge of the village, at the crossroads where the street met the main east-west road through the district.
“We won’t be finding them in that wasteland of empty houses,” Benitoe said. “We’ve got to find places with animals, and that’s going to be the farms.”
He reached into his weskit pocket for a bit of paper, some highlights of the roads of the local area that he’d jotted down the day before from a reference Ceridwen had shown him.
Maëlys said, “Someone’s coming from the west.”
She pointed toward the Blue Ridge, only a few miles away, and Benitoe saw a party on the road, headed their way. He knew from the map that the road ended along the base of the ridge.
He could see, even from here, that they were mounted on ponies, not horses. “I think that’s Tiernoc’s people. They’re doing what we are, exploring and seeking kin.”
They waited for them to catch up, and the greetings were all the warmer for the chill of the village behind them.
“You’ve seen the town?” Benitoe asked Tiernoc.
“Yesterday. What a disaster it is,” he said. “We went on to the mines at the mountain as quickly as we could. It seems less deserted when it’s just empty buildings instead of empty people.”
The lutins nodded. “What did you find?” Benitoe said.
“Fallen buildings and absent owners,” Tiernoc said.
Broch spoke up, “But good signs, too. All the tools that could be easily carried were gone. I can’t see those villagers having the energy to do that, can you?”
Benitoe said, “So you think they may be alive but in hiding?”
Tiernoc nodded.
“We’re headed to the farms to seek our lost ones,” Benitoe said. “We think they’ll stay around the cattle and horses. There’s a road running north a bit to the east of here that we wanted to try.”
Tiernoc said, “We’re going that way ourselves. There’s a mill there, on our list of places to investigate, and your farms are probably beyond it. We’d welcome your company as long as our paths go along together.”
Benitoe and Maëlys swung their ponies alongside Tiernoc and Broch.
“When the lutins go to ground, the stories say, they seek out herds and individual animals to care for and keep themselves to the night. We’ve been hearing stories about tended animals on the farms, and so we’re hoping,” Benitoe said. “What happens with your folk?”
Tiernoc was silent for a moment and Benitoe feared he wouldn’t reply. “Ours go to the mountains,” he said at last, “to caves and tunnels and holes in the ground. They dig in secret and hunt in the woods. A few go to water, dwelling on the edges and living on fish and frogs. I’m thinking your folk may dwindle less that way than ours do. Without our tools and the skills to use them, we’re lost.”
Maëlys reached out her hand and patted him on the arm. “The fae in the villages have dwindled in their own way. We all of us have much to face.”
Maëlys stood outside in the morning sun watching the korrigans and Benitoe swarming over the mill building. She’d never seen one so large. The wheel was still upright, as tall as the four-story stone structure beside it, but the axle was broken and it leaned crookedly. The flume above was empty of water, though plenty ran over the lip of the waterfall next to it. The mill pond above must be leaking or empty, she thought.
Benitoe came out of the bottom entrance, with Tiernoc.
“This was quite a mill, once,” Tiernoc said. “I can see why it’s a landmark. A backshot mill with internal gearing—you could do a lot with this once it was fixed up again.”
“You mean this can be repaired?” she said.
“Not difficult at all, just a little digging in the muck of the mill pond to make it watertight again, and then some wood and iron work. The building’s sound enough, and the race is still open.” He pointed to the channel of water that held the wheel which drained out into the stream.
He laughed at her look of surprise. “All mills need maintenance, constantly. This one’s been neglected a long time, but replacing all the wood at once is straightforward, compared to preparing the site itself or raising the building, or even getting the right gears. You just follow the existing pattern and, before you know it, you’re done. Apprentice work.”
He went on to join the rest of his folk, and Benitoe, last out of the building, walked over to her. “You know, it’s not bad in there. The animals have been in it, of course, and part of one floor is down, but what’s left would make a good shelter. If we don’t find suitable hospitality where we’re going in the afternoon, I think we should try to come back here for the night.”
Tiernoc mounted his pony and rode over to them. “This is as far as we’re going in this direction. We have more buildings off the main road to check. Are you two staying, then?”
Benitoe said, “I have a list of farms further north. We’ll start there and take a look around.”
“Good luck,” Maëlys called to Tiernoc’s company as they departed.
Benitoe gave her a leg up onto her pony, but before he mounted, he took something out of one of his saddle bags and tossed it into her lap. “What do you think?” he said.
She picked it up. A pair of crossed peeled sticks, maybe three inches long, were bound to two bundles of straw, of the same length, all held together with a wrapping of red yarn, like an eight-pointed star alternating wood and straw.