Once upon a Spring morn

42

Desperate Run

When the great rush of blackness subsided, Celeste and Roel found themselves and their horses standing in sand before the great stone Sphinx outside the City of Meketaten’s Tomb. And in that moment the first rays of the rising sun struck the face of the Abulhol, and it looked down at them and smiled, rock grinding on rock with the grin.

“Ah, summarily ejected by Hades, eh?” it asked.

“Oui,” said Celeste. “Just as Lord Thoth said Hades would do.”

“Did you find what you sought?”

“Oui,” replied Celeste. “The gray arrow is ours, and for that I say merci, my lord, for your aid; without it we would have failed.”

With a grating of stone upon stone, the Abulhol inclined its head in acknowledgment.

Roel frowned and glanced over his shoulder at the morning sun. “I do not understand, Lord Sphinx. It was just after dawn when we went into Erebus. Have we come back the same dawn we entered?” Slowly the Abulhol shook its head. “Nay, Chevalier.

Two days have elapsed since you first broached the realm of the dead.”

“Two days?” exclaimed Roel. “We spent but ten candlemarks at most therein.”

“Time marches at a different pace in the netherworlds,” said the Sphinx.

Celeste gasped in dismay and said, “Oh, Roel, that means there are but three days left ere the dark of the moon, and we have far to go.”

“Then I suggest you set out,” said the Abulhol.

After a quick glance at her map, Celeste pointed sunwise and said, “Yon.”

“South it is,” cried Roel, and he and Celeste sprang to their mounts and rode into the dunes, the Sphinx murmuring after, “May the smiling face of Atum be turned your way.” Then it closed its eyes and went back to sleep.

Across the sands they fared, stopping now and again to feed and water the horses as well as themselves. It was at one of these pauses when Celeste remarked that during the time they were in Erebus, even though two days in the world had elapsed, they had not felt the need for food or water.

“Mayhap one never gets hungry or thirsty in Erebus,” said Roel.

“In Tartarus they do,” said Celeste. “Remember Tantalus, love.”

“Ah, oui,” said Roel. “Yet mayhap it is his eternal punishment for the deeds he did. Perhaps none else suffers such pangs.” Celeste nodded, and they mounted and rode onward, up and over and down tall golden dunes-great still waves of sand-and across long stretches of gritty flats, the surface baked hard, and through rocky wadis, some salt encrusted, which spoke of leaching streams of ages agone, and then back into dunes again.

They ran out of water in midafternoon, and only sand and grit did they see; there were no wells, no piles of rocks, no birds to follow across the waste where they might find an oasis or a pool.

Yet in the evening in the distance ahead they espied a looming wall of twilight, and within a candlemark they reached it. It took them another candlemark to find the fallen obelisk at the crossover point, and back into Faery they passed. They came into a world of green trees and lush grasses and cool air. The sky above was deep violet with dusk, and almost immediately they came upon a stream. They let the horses drink, and they drank as well and replenished their waterskins.

“We have to press on,” said Roel as they brushed the animals clean in those places where grit would chafe,

“for we cannot tarry.”

“Yet we must not enfeeble the horses,” said Celeste, examining the legs of her mare. “Else we will most certainly lose any chance we have.”

“I know, my love,” said Roel, shaking sand from the saddle blankets.

“What we need are remounts,” said Celeste.

“Oui, remounts for getting to the tower ere midnight of the dark of the moon, horses which will become mounts for Avelaine and Laurent and Blaise on the way back. Is there a city or ville between here and the next boundary?”

As Roel resaddled the mares and laded the goods on the geldings, Celeste unfolded the vellum chart and studied it in the failing light. “Ah,” she said at last. She stabbed her finger to the map. “I think this must be a town along the way. Perhaps there we can get horses.” Roel looked. On the chart were the initials FdTn. “A town?”

“Oui. That would be my guess. I mean, it doesn’t seem to be by a twilight border, and though I don’t have a notion as to what the Fd might mean, I think the Tn might stand for ‘town.’ It is slightly out of the way, but if it has horses, that will more than make up for the extra distance.” Roel sighed and said, “Once again, whoever made the original map seemed to want some of it to be in cipher.

Yet if the scale of this chart is anywhere close, without remounts we haven’t a chance. Let us go to whatever this FdTn might be.”

With their own horses flagging, in the noontide of the next day Celeste and Roel topped a hill to see a goodly-sized town along the banks of a river meandering through a wide valley below. And as the waterway wended past the ville itself, it broadened to nearly three or four times its width elsewhere.

“Ford Town,” said Roel. “The Fd stands for ‘ford.’ ” Down the slope they rode, and soon they came in among the buildings, and after inquiries, they reached a stable. Roel traded their mares and geldings for three fresh mounts. And spending some of the gold given them by Vicomte Chevell of the Sea Eagle, Roel purchased three more, bringing the total of their horses to six: two were to be ridden, while the other four would trail behind on long tethers as remounts to share the task of bearing the princess and the knight on a headlong run into danger. He also purchased additional tack so that when shifting from one horse to another they would not have to switch gear, saying, “It will save time.

Besides, we need tack for Avelaine and Laurent and Blaise.”

“Speaking of needs,” said Celeste, “we need select enough supplies to feed us and the horses coming and going, and your siblings on the way back. How many days will we be in the Changeling Lord’s realm?” The hostler gasped upon hearing this. “Oh, Sieur, mademoiselle, you must not go unto the land of the Changeling Lord. Terrible things live therein, hideous things. They will kill you, Sieur, and take your demoiselle captive and do dreadful things to her-use her until she is worn beyond living.”

“You mean breed me?” asked Celeste.

“If you are a virgin, mademoiselle, then oui, they will use you to strengthen their line. If you are not a virgin, then they will merely use you for pleasure, one after another after another. Yet virgin or no, into the land of the Changelings you must not go.”

“We have no choice, Sieur,” said Celeste. “Three lives hang in the balance-a sister and two brothers.”

“Yours as well,” said the hostler, shaking his head.

Roel looked at Celeste, anguish in his eyes. “Cherie, I beg of you, stay here. I will go on alone.”

“Non, my love,” replied Celeste, “where you go, so go I.”

“Ah, zut!” declared the hostler. “Sieur, mademoiselle, it is but madness to venture into that dreadful realm, no matter the reason.”

Roel looked at Celeste, a plea in his eyes, but she shook her head in silent answer to his wordless appeal.

He sighed and turned to the hostler and said, “Mayhap indeed we are insane, yet go there we must.” The man then looked at the sword at Roel’s side and said, “If you are bound to take this unwise course, then this I will tell you: turn not your back upon any therein, for to do otherwise is perilous. This I tell you, too: the only sure way to kill a Changeling is to cut off its head, though an arrow through an eye will work as well.”

“Merci, Hostler,” said Roel. Then he turned to Celeste and said, “We have but the rest of this day and all of tomorrow up until midnight to reach the Changeling Lord’s tower and save Avelaine. And then we need to find Laurent and Blaise, and surely it will take no more than three days for the five of us to get back from there.”

Celeste nodded and she and Roel selected just enough supplies to last the journey to there and back and but a single day more, and they evenly distributed the goods among the six steeds to equal the loads. The remainder of their supplies they left with the stableman.

At last all was ready, and, with an au revoir to the hostler, out from the town they went. Behind them, the man watched them leave and smiled unto himself, and then stepped back in among the stalls, and the sound of looms weaving swelled and then vanished, and gone was the hostler as well.

Sunwise across the shallows splashed the horses, and upon emerging on the far bank Celeste and Roel broke into a run, two of the mounts bearing weight, four running but lightly burdened. Roel set their gait at a varied pace, and the leagues hammered away beneath their hooves. All day they ran thus: trotting, cantering, galloping, and walking unburdened, and then doing it all over again. Roel and Celeste changed mounts every two candlemarks or so, pausing now and then to stretch their legs and feed the horses some grain or to take water from the streams flowing down from nearby hills.

Long they rode into the late day, past sundown and well beyond, taking the risk of running at speed in spite of the darkness. When they stopped at last, it was nearly mid of night. They had covered some forty leagues or so, yet they had not come unto the twilight bound. But ere the two cast themselves to the ground to sleep, the horses were unladed and rubbed down and given grain and drink.

At dawn the next day, once more they set forth upon the sunwise track. Celeste was weary nearly beyond measure, and she wondered whether the horses could hold the pace; yet the steeds bore up well, for even though they had run swift and far, still half of the time they’d carried no burden. It was she and Roel who felt the brunt of the journey, for they had spent weeks on the quest, and little rest and but few hot meals had they had in those long days.

Yet on they strove, running sunwise-south, Roel would say-and among hills they fared, and they passed through vales and they splashed across streams. A woodland slowed them greatly, yet in the candlemarks of midafternoon, in the near distance ahead they espied the twilight wall rising up into the sky.

“What be the crossing?” called Roel.

Celeste opened the map and looked, and then called back, “A small waterfall on a bourne.”

“A brook?”

“Oui.”

And on they rode.

When they reached the twilight bound, no stream did they see.

“I’ll take the left,” said Celeste, raising her silver horn. “Mayhap even here left is right and right a mistake.”

“I’ll take the right,” said Roel, his face grim, for this was the day of the dark of the moon, and but nine or ten candlemarks remained ere the mid of night would come.

Away from each other they galloped, remounts trailing behind. And within a league Celeste topped a hill to see a stream in the vale below. Down she rode, and there a small waterfall tumbled o’er a rock linn and into a pool beneath, to run on into the boundary.

She raised her horn to her lips and blew a long call.

And in but moments it was answered by Roel’s clarion cry.

Celeste let her animals drink, and she fed them a ration of grain, and as Roel rode up, she moved her bow and arrows to the horse of hers whose turn had come.

Roel shifted his own gear likewise, and as soon as his steeds were fed and watered and he had changed mounts, with his shield on his arm and his sword in hand, and with an arrow nocked to Celeste’s bow, across the stream they splashed and into the twilight beyond.

They came in among high tors, nearly mountains rather than hills, and a passage wound downslope before them and out into a land of woodlands and fields.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Celeste as they carefully wended their way down the narrow slot,

“but certainly not a land such as this.” Then she grimly laughed. “Mayhap I thought it would be all ashes and cinders, much like Senaudon, with fire beyond the horizon and the smell of brimstone on the air. But this, the Changeling Lord’s realm, is rather like much of Faery elsewhere.”

“Me,” said Roel, “I was expecting bare stone and a cold wailing wind, yet it seems to be rich farmland and bountiful forests.”

Even as he spoke, Roel’s gaze searched the horizon for as far as he could see, yet no Changeling Lord’s tower did he spy nor a building of any sort. In the far distance ahead, dark mountains rose up, and a black storm raged among the peaks. Roel studied the crests and rises, and no tower or other structure on those stony heights did he see, yet they were far away and a tower could easily be lost to the eye against the rocky crags.

As they reached the foot of the passage and debouched into a grassy field, just ahead a child of a goosegirl, a willow switch in her hand, herded her flock toward a mere, the drove gabbling as they waddled forward.

Roel and Celeste reached the girl just as the geese reached the pond and splashed in.

“Ma’amselle Gooseherd,” said Roel, “know you the way to the Changeling Lord’s tower?”

“Oui, Sieur,” replied the child, her voice piping as she looked up at the man on his horse. She pointed. “That way, I think.”

“Roel,” murmured Celeste, “no matter what Lady Lot said, this fille can be no more than eight summers old. Let us leave her and ride on.”

Roel nodded, and as they turned to look toward the mountains-the direction the child had indicated-a darkness came over the girl, and she bared her teeth.

“Merci, Ma’amselle Gooseherd,” said Roel, turning back, even as the glaring child sprang, spitting and hissing, her leap carrying her shoulder high to mounted Roel, her hands like claws reaching for his throat.

Roel wrenched up his shield barely in time to fend her, and as she fell away, with a sweep of Coeur d’Acier, Roel took off the child’s head. She struck the ground, her body dropping one way, her head tumbling another.

Celeste cried out at the sight of the decapitated girl, and Roel looked on in horror at what he had done, for he had slain nought but a poppet, a wee fillette but seven or eight summers old. Roel looked at Celeste, tears in his eyes, and he started to speak, yet no words came. But then Celeste gasped, for in that moment both body and head changed into a monstrous thing with fangs and glaring eyes and a hideous bulbous brow and a twisted face and a barrel chest and long hairy arms and legs and broad hands with lengthy, grasping fingers ending in sharp talons. And even as the horses danced aside, the hideous creature dissolved into dark mucus, and a putrid stench filled the air.

The horses snorted and blew and backed and sidled as the slime liquefied and seeped into the ground, leaving barren soil behind, the grass burnt away as if by virulent acid.

“Oh, Roel,” said Celeste, “Lady Lot was right.” Still shaken, Roel merely nodded, and Celeste intoned:

“Kill all those who therein do speak; Question not; you’ll understand.

“Roel, the girl was a Changeling, a monstrous thing, even though she seemed nought but a beautiful and innocent child.” Celeste looked away from the charred soil and toward the distant mountains and chanted:

“Ask directions unto his tower

In the Changeling Lord’s domain; The answers given will be true,

Yet the givers must be slain.”

Roel nodded in agreement and said, “Oui, the Fates are right. Even so, it seemed a dreadful thing I had done.”

“But necessary,” replied Celeste, yet looking in the direction the Changeling had pointed.

Roel’s gaze followed hers, and he said, “Somewhere yon lies the tower and my sister, perhaps my brothers as well. We must ride, for time grows perilously short.” And so, once again they took up the trek.

Often changing mounts, across the land they hammered, passing o’er hill and riding down through dale and across wide fields, as toward the mountains they raced. Occasionally they stopped at streams to water the horses and feed them rations of grain to keep their strength from flagging. And Celeste and Roel took food and drink themselves to keep their own vigor from falling any further, though fall it did. Even so, after but a brief respite, they would remount and fare onward, heading ever toward the mountains.

And along the course they asked a herdsman the way to the Changeling Lord’s tower, followed a candlemark later by a tinker, and later still by an old lady. Each pointed toward the stormy mountains, and Roel beheaded them every one, and hideous and garish monsters they became and then a gelatinous mucus that dissolved into a dark, foul-smelling liquid that burned the soil as it seeped away.

As the sun set, the mountains seemed no closer, and on galloped Celeste and Roel. Twilight turned into darkness as night pulled its black cloak across the world, and stars emerged, yet there was no moon to light the way. Once more taking great risk by riding swift in the night, the pair hammered on, hooves striking the ground at a trot, a canter, and a gallop.

And candlemarks burned away as on they raced, and it began to drizzle. They pulled up the hoods of their rain gear and sped on, hooves splatting against the wet ground.

They came to the foot of the mountains, and there a road led up into the massifs and crags, up into the raging storm, and a gate stood across the way. An elderly gatekeeper bearing a lantern hobbled out in the pour to ask them their business, and Roel said, “We seek the Lord of the Changelings’ tower.” Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, both riving the air.

“Eh, eh?” The keeper put a hand behind an ear.

“What’s that?”

“The tower of the Changeling Lord, old man,” cried Roel, louder.

“Oh. Up the road.” Slowly shuffling in the wetness, the man opened the gate, and as Roel charged by, he swept the old man’s head off even as the creature began to change into a monstrous Ogreish form.

Leaving a pool of slime in the road, up the way they splashed, and now they had to slow, for the road was steep and running with water, and the horses labored.

Lightning flared and thunder roared and rain fell down in sheets. .

. . And time fled. .

Now and again at twists and turns in the road, high above silhouetted by lightning against the raging sky, they could see a tall tower standing.

And another candlemark burned.

Yet at last they came to a flat, and before them stood a stone wall, an archway leading under and into a passage where torches in sconces shed a flickering, ruddy, sorcerous light, for though the flambeaus burned, they were not consumed. Beyond the wall as lightning glared they could see the roofs of buildings all attached to one another, and looming above all in the riven air stood a tall dark tower.

And with less than a candlemark remaining ere Avelaine’s doom would fall, into the archway they rode.