Once upon a dreadful time

Uncertain Trek

Emile peered at the unwavering, silver needle. “Dawnwise of starwise-east of north? But won’t that just lead us back into Valeray’s demesne?”

“Not likely, Papa,” said Roel. “There is only a limited segment of the starwise borders in each of the four forests that leads into Le Coeur de les Saisons. The rest of the starwise bound will take us elsewhere.”

“Several elsewheres,” amended Luc.

Emile shook his head and pointed sunwise. “But the Sprites came from that southern-er, sunwise-bound to bring us news of the great swamp where Orbane’s allies muster. Shouldn’t that be the direction we march?”

“This arcane compass gives us the most direct route to Hradian,” said Luc, “and where she is we are likely to find Orbane.”

“And the key to the Castle of Shadows,” added Michelle.

“If she yet has it,” said Blaise.

“But the Sprites can lead us to them as well,” said Laurent.

“But not by the shortest route,” said Roel.

“Argh!” growled Laurent. “Faery and its blasted twilight borders.”

Emile looked at Luc. “Trust you this Caldor, this mage who will not fare with us into battle? We go by his word alone if we follow this device of his.”

Luc stood a moment in thought. Finally, he said, “Malgan vouched for him, and Minot worked beside him and said Caldor seemed to know what he was doing.” Emile frowned. “Malgan?”

Michelle said, “One of the seers whose visions of darkness led us to believe our loved ones are perhaps trapped in the Castle of Shadows.”

“And you trust him?”

Luc sighed and said, “In spite of the fact that he twitches and flinches and talks to invisible beings. . oui, I trust him.” Emile pursed his lips. “And this Minot. .?”

“The jeweler who fashioned the compass.”

“Hah!” snorted Laurent. “A cowardly mage, a jittery babbler, and a ring-maker?” Luc’s eyes narrowed, and his lips grew thin, and he looked directly at Laurent. “Oui, Sieur. Coward, babbler, and craftsman: I trust them all.” Laurent bristled, but Roel said, “Stand down, Brother. As for me, mage, seer, and craftsman, those three I know not. But I do know Prince Luc, and him I do trust. And if he says to follow the needle, then I for one am with him.”

“As am I,” said Michelle softly.

Luc held up a hand of caution. “If we do follow the needle, Caldor gave me a warning: it only shows the most direct route to Hradian and not the safest. We will need have Sprites with us so that at every bound we come to we know what is on the other side ere we cross, such that we fall not into an ocean as once did Roel, nor that we pass into a realm of fire, or come to other such dire ends.”

“Oh, my,” said Blaise. He gestured starwise. “One way the most direct, hence the quickest.” He then pointed sunwise.

“The other way perhaps safer, yet slower.”

“Celeste and I did not exactly fall into an ocean, Luc,” said Roel. “Yet I take your meaning. Boundaries can indeed be perilous, and crossing them blindly is best avoided.”

Sieur Emile shook his head. “As for Sprites, I brought along Peti and Trit, but if we do indeed come to an ocean or a land of fire or other such, are we not then thwarted?”

“Oui, at least for a while,” said Michelle. “But can we cross at another place, the compass will show us the shortest way from there.”

“But, if I correctly understand these strange borders, that could be even farther away from our beginning, were we to take the sunwise route and follow the Sprites to the swamp.”

“Here then is the dilemma,” said Luc. “One way is sure and mayhap roundabout, while the other is uncertain and direct.”

“I would have your advice,” said Emile, looking about the table.

“I say we follow the compass-the quickest way-and hope for the best,” said Blaise. “For if Orbane marches toward his goal, then too late is the same as never.” Laurent looked from Roel to Blaise to Luc to Michelle, and lastly to his sire. “Though I trust not this coward Caldor, still, if the compass will do as he has said, then I say Blaise is right, Pere: let us take the direct way.”

“I agree,” said Michelle.

“So do I,” said Roel.

Emile looked at Luc.

“I trust Caldor, for Malgan did vouch for him,” said the prince.

Emile sat in thought for long moments. At length he said, “I cannot dispute the point Blaise made, for indeed too late is the same as never. But if we are wrong, then Mithras have mercy

’pon Faery.”

. .

And so they prepared to march on the course set by a silver needle. Even so, Luc added this advice: “Sieur Emile, I ween you should send Sprites to our allies, and have those armies follow them unto the swamp. Should they arrive ere we get there, have them wait unless they have no choice but to engage in battle, for ’tis better that we meet Orbane’s throng with a unified strategy than to fight him piecemeal.” Emile nodded and said, “So shall it be.” And Sprites were sent winging, though the courses they would lead the allies on were certain to be indirect.

Two days later, fully stocked for a lengthy campaign, long trains of mules and asses laden with supplies, the Legion of Seasons set out, following the route chosen by a silver needle pivoting on a silver axle hubbed in diamonds and encased in a glass-lensed golden box. A bit to dawn of starwise they went, Michelle in the lead riding point, the arcane compass in her hand. Out before her ranged a pack of Wolves, now and then taking guidance from their master’s bitch. Riding on a tricorn Michelle wore were two tiny Sprites: Peti and Trit, who had come with Emile from Le Coeur. These two would report what lay across the twilight borders as they came to them.

There had been much controversy over Michelle taking the lead, for with Sprites at their beck, who needed Wolves? Yet Chelle maintained that the Wolves with their better hearing and ability to scent were needed on point, for they could sense things the Sprites could not. Sieur Emile conceded that she was right, after which Michelle added, “And since I am the only one who knows Wolfspeak. .”

Thus, she rode on point.

Yet Armsmaster Jules would not let her ride out front alone, so he assigned to her an escort: Galion, a giant of a man and a fierce member of the Winterwood warband who four years past had performed exceptionally in the campaign against the Changelings.

A distance behind Chelle rode the vanguard, Roel in the lead, and behind them rode the bulk of the legion, first the Battalion of the Castle of Seasons, followed in order by the Springwood, Summerwood, Autumnwood, and Winterwood battalions, with elements of the supply train scattered throughout. Some three thousand men and five thousand animals in all, the army stretched out nigh some three leagues from front to rear as through the Autumnwood they travelled.

Nigh sunset two days later, they came to the starwise border, and the silver needle yet pointed steadily a bit dawnwise.

Emile turned to Vardon, armsmaster of the Castle of the Seasons, and said, “Let us hope we do not pass back into Le Coeur, else all this march has been a waste.”

While Michelle and the Wolfpack and Galion waited-Michelle with her bow strung and an arrow nocked; Galion with his mace in hand; and all those behind bearing arms as well-

Peti and Trit flew through the bound. In but moments they came flying back. “It’s a grassy prairie,” said Trit, “with nothing in sight but rolling plains.” Michelle looked left and right and noted a laden cherry tree and an apple tree dangling fruit. She pointed them out to Trit and said, “Fly back and inform the vanguard precisely where to cross, then catch up.”

“Oui, Princess.”

As Trit shot away and Peti settled on the tricorn, Michelle gave a short bark, and the Wolves got to their feet and loped through, Michelle and Galion following. Into the twilight they went, the way growing darker and then ebon and then lighter, and, when they emerged, Michelle glanced at the setting sun, for more oft than not bearings shift ’round when passing through a marge, sometimes greatly, other times less, and once in a while not at all. On this occasion, although they had angled into the shadowlight heading a bit to dawn of starwise, they emerged heading due duskwise. Michelle flipped open the top of the arcane compass and saw the needle now pointed due duskwise as well.

They camped that eve on the broad plains, and for the next two days, both filled with drenching rain, they crossed the sea of grass, where antlered herds of shaggy yet deerlike animals fled before them.

Midmorn of the following sunny day, they passed into a mountain vale, with swift, icy streams leaping and cascading down stony slopes from snowy heights, where wild goats and large-horned sheep watched from among rocky crags as the army passed below.

And in this land of steep slopes, they acquired three hundred more fighters, swelling their ranks to three thousand three hundred.

One more day saw them crossing long, rolling dunes while a cold wind blew and filled the air with fine grit, and nought else moved across the land.

The next day they slogged through marshy lowlands, tall reeds swish-swashing as they went and blocking any line of sight for all but the Sprites, and then only when they were airborne. Gnats and biting flies and mosquitoes swarmed about them, and leeches feasted upon the unprotected legs of the horses and mules and asses, while red-winged ebonbodied birds cawed and hurtled through the air just above the tops of the reeds, feasting upon the insects stirred up by the passage.

And thus did the army progress, where at every twilight marge they came to Trit and Peti would cross first to scout the way and make certain that no visible calamity awaited the march on the opposite side. And always would Chelle take a new bearing and follow the line of the needle.

The morning of the tenth day of the march, with their numbers now nigh four thousand, found them trekking through a realm of nought but blue flowers and flights of small yellow butterflies. And as Chelle opened the lid of the compass to take another bearing, she discovered the needle inching across the dial: leftward it gradually swung, starwise. She watched as it continued to edge along, and finally she raised a hand to call a halt. And she and Galion waited for Roel and the vanguard to catch up.

Roel spurred his horse forward and came alongside. “Is ought amiss?”

“The needle, it creeps,” said Chelle, passing the compass to him.

Roel peered at the arcane device, then he looked at Chelle and said, “I deem the witch is on the move.”

“As do I,” said Chelle, nodding. “Think you Orbane’s throngs are on the march as well?”

Roel shrugged and again peered at the contrivance. Peti flew down from the prow of Michelle’s tricorn and perched on Roel’s wrist and watched the needle’s gradual progress. Finally she said, “Last night was the dark of the moon, an ill omen at best. Perhaps it was what Orbane was waiting for, there in the swamp, wherever it might be.”

Again Roel shrugged, but of a sudden said, “Whoa!” and Peti gasped.

“What?” asked Michelle.

“The needle: it just whipped from northeast to south-er, starwise of dawnwise to sunwise.” He handed the compass back to her, and Peti again took up her perch beside Trit in the prow of the tricorn.

Chelle looked at the needle and frowned. “Mayhap she just crossed a border.”

“Ah,” said Roel, nodding, “that must be it.”

“It continues to gradually swing,” said Chelle, “only now it creeps opposite.”

By this time, Sieur Emile and Blaise rode up.

“Why are we stopped?” asked Emile.

“The witch is on the move,” said Michelle, gesturing at the device.

“On the move?”

“Oui. And mayhap Orbane’s army as well.” Michelle handed the compass to Blaise, who glanced at it and then passed it on across to Emile, the latter taking it gingerly, as if it were a poisonous snake.

Emile watched as the needle crawled from sunwise toward duskwise. “Merde! I knew we should have followed Sprites instead of this-this thing!”

“Non, Papa,” said Blaise. “The needle shows us the most direct route to the witch, and so, no matter what, we are closer to Orbane than we would have been had we gone the other way.”

“But only if the witch is with the wizard,” said Roel.

“I for one believe she is,” said Michelle.

“So does Luc,” said Blaise, glancing back along the line of horses and mules and asses to see the prince galloping toward them, Laurent farther back also riding this way.

Emile took another look at the pointer and sighed. “We’ll simply have to wait until the needle stops ere we take up the trek again.”

“But what if Hradian has gone away from Orbane?” asked Laurent.

“She could just as easily be going to him,” said Blaise.

“What if she has gone away for a day or two or three or more to do some foul deed or other, then plans on going back?” countered Laurent.

“If so,” replied Blaise glumly, “then we’ll be chasing a wild goose o’er all of Faery.”

“Merde! Merde, merde, merde!” spat Emile, glaring down at the device.

“Sieur,” said Michelle softly, “I deem you had the right of it the first time: we simply must wait.”

. .

The army came to a complete stop, and all day Michelle and the others kept track of the needle as, at a snail’s pace, it gradually inched ’round the dial, and time after time it instantly jerked across the face to take up a new bearing and then began to creep again.

Emile paced and ground his teeth and cursed the decision to follow that cowardly mage’s thing, a thing perhaps somehow gone awry.

Roel and Blaise and Laurent and Luc occasionally rode along the line of warriors and spoke with the warband leaders and the men, for nothing is so unsettling to an army as to be kept in the dark.

Trit and Peti played tag with the butterflies, while Slate and the Wolves slept, all but Trot, who stood on watch.

And Michelle kept an eye on the inconstant needle and prayed to Mithras that by using the compass they had not made a dreadful mistake.