Once Upon a Winter's Night

27

Two hundred sixty-five blossoms gone, the two hundred sixty-sixth awither. Oh why does it take so long to “Yon,” said Rondalo, breaking Camille’s thoughts.

“Wh-what?”

“Yon is the firemountain, wherein the Dragon does lair,” said Rondalo, pointing, his breath blowing white in the cold mountain air.

Camille’s gaze followed his outstretched arm to where tendrils of smoke from a truncated mountain rose into the early-morning sky.

Their horses plodded onward through the snow, rounding a great looming frown of stone, and slowly more of the firemountain came into view, the whole of it a dark ruddy color streaked with ebony runs. Finally, just above a long and sheer rise topped with a ledge, there gaped a black hole.

“Is that it?” asked Camille, her heart hammering in sudden dread.

“Aye,” replied Rondalo, his voice grim.

They had been on the way some thirty-five days, travelling toward this place, and at last the goal was in view, there where a monster laired.

Thirty-five days of pleasant company. Thirty-five days of sleeping in forest campsites and crofters’ lofts and hunters’ cabins and in wayside inns.

Back trail some two days and a dawning ago, a mountain village lay; ’twas nought more than a dozen or so stone-sided, sod-roofed dwellings scattered along a narrow mountain road, with tiers of farmland carven in the slopes below. The villagers had spoken in a guttural language Camille did not know, for it was neither speech in the Old Tongue nor in that of the new. But Rondalo understood and he did converse with them, translating for the benefit of Camille. And when the villagers had discerned whither the twain were bound, their warnings were stark and forbidding.

Gjore ikke…

[Do not go into the mountains, for there a deadly Drake does abide.]

[We have no choice but to do so.]

[Many a brave and foolish warrior has gone, armed and armored, ready for battle, seeking fame, seeking glory. None have returned, and their names are not remembered.]

[We seek neither fame nor glory, but knowledge instead.]

[Knowledge of what?]

[Where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.]

The villagers had looked at one another, yet all had shrugged, for none had known where such a place might be. After a moment an eld and toothless woman had gazed up at the ice-clad mountains and said, [Only the north wind would know.] Then with faded blue eyes she had looked beyond a col leading deeper into the fastness and added, [Or mayhap a Dragon dire.]

[That is what we are hoping for, and that is where we go.]

[Then we will see you no more.]

The villagers had then turned their backs and walked away, for what profit was there in speaking unto the dead?

And so Camille and Rondalo, after spending the night in an abandoned, roofless ruin of a stone hut, had ridden out the next dawntide, and no one had watched them go.

And now, on the morn of the third day after, their goal was in sight.

Camille reined her horse to a halt and dismounted. “I will go on from here alone.”

Rondalo sprang down from his horse and stepped to her. “I cannot let you face Raseri single-handedly. It is entirely too dangerous.”

“I have Scruff, and what of your oath? I would not have you battle a Dragon, Firedrake that he is.”

“I shall keep my oath, and do battle with that foul murderer, but only after he has answered that which you need to know.”

“No, Rondalo. The Lady of the Mere said I must go alone”-Camille gestured at her shoulder, where Scruff perched, his feathers fluffed up against the cold-“Scruff and I, that is.”

“These past thirty-five days you have not been alone, Camille. And I have come to cherish you, mayhap more than you know.”

Camille blushed, remembering:

It had occurred in a wayside inn, just a fortnight past: After they had sung for the patrons, the innkeeper had sent a second bottle of wine to their table, and both Camille and Rondalo had overly imbibed. That was when Rondalo had leaned over and kissed Camille, and she, so very lonely for Alain and craving his intimacy, had fervently responded. It was only when Rondalo had paused and looked into her eyes that she caught her breath and saw deep within his gaze an ardor burning bright, and she was thrilled. But then, shocked at her own behavior, in a confusion of emotions, she had fled away from him and to her quarters, and in the next days they had ridden in uncomfortable silence, saying nought beyond the needs of the moment, or when making camp, or planning the morrow’s journey. And during this time Camille had wondered if there were room in a single heart for more than one love. As she had done so, unbidden there had come to mind the image of the Unicorn Thale, and this had made her wonder as well of virtue and purity and other such, and whether or no she had lost that which she once had.

But that was then and this was now, and Camille said, “I cherish you too, my friend, and no more than would you have me face Raseri, so would I not have you face him as well.”

Rondalo grasped the hilt of the sword at his waist and flashed it into the sky, calling out, “By the blade of my sire I-”

But then he fell into stunned silence, his eyes upon the gleaming bronze. And then he cried out, “Mother!” his voice slapping from vertical stone faces to echo among the peaks.

Camille stepped backward in startlement, for she knew not what was amiss, until Rondalo’s shoulders slumped and he said, “This is not my sire’s.”

“Not your-?”

“Nay, for his is silver-bright, and hammered runes of power run the length of the blade.”

And now Camille remembered Chemine’s words as she had handed the sheathed sword to Rondalo: “Just in case, my son. Yet draw it not until the mountain comes into view, and then only if you believe you need go on, for, heed! You must not break the oath sworn upon your father’s blade.”

Camille said, “Your mere knows you well, Rondalo. Yet she also knew I would need go on alone. And so she did that which had to be done to assure that it would be so, for you must not break your sword-oath.”

Tears sprang into Rondalo’s eyes, to run down his face. “Oh, my dearest Camille, I…”

“I know, Rondalo. I know.”

Rondalo wiped his cheeks with the heels of his hands, then cleared his throat and said, “Remember, look not into his gaze, else he will glamour you.”

“I remember,” said Camille, untying leather thongs from behind her saddle. “You told me often enough of the powers of Drakes, and so I think I will not fall unto a Dragon’s wiles.”

“They are quite crafty, quite cunning. Treacherous, too.”

“As I said, I shall remember. But you, Rondalo, must remember too that I shall take off my cloak and whirl it ’round my head if all seems to be going well. If at night, I shall swing my small lantern back and forth.” Camille glanced up toward the dark hole. “From here, you should be able to see either.”

Camille then took down her waterskin and bedroll and rucksack, the stave affixed in loops she had thought to sew thereon. She settled the sling straps over her shoulder and pulled loose the walking staff, the two hundred and sixty-sixth blossom awither. Finally, a tremor in her voice, she looked at Rondalo and said, “I now go.”

Rondalo stepped forward and he kissed her on the cheek. “I shall wait here a sevenday, and if you return not”-his eyes turned hard as flint-“I will fetch my sire’s sword and the Drake will not survive.”

Leaving Rondalo and the horses behind in the fastness of snow-clad peaks, Camille crossed fields of ice and barren rock and snow, rubble and scree and schist half-buried in the winter white, Scruff shifting about to keep his balance as Camille scrambled across the boulder-laden ’scape. On she went, the trek difficult, and she paused now and again to take a drink and offer water to Scruff as well.

It was nigh the noontide when she came to the barren, dark ruddy slopes. She paused briefly to feed Scruff a scatter of millet seeds and to take a meal of her own. Then on she went up the bleak sides, her staff aiding in the climb as she angled cross-slope for the ledge above the vertical rise, the ledge the Dragon’s doorstone.

As she gained in height, she looked back into the fastness she had left behind, yet she saw no sign of Rondalo among the jumble of rock. Still, she knew that he was there somewhere, lost in the background, her gaze unable to find either him or the horses.

On upward she went, the sun sliding down the sky, and though a shoulder of the slope stood in the way she knew she must be getting close. Of a sudden Scruff grabbed a lock of her hair and leapt down into the high vest pocket, the tiny sparrow chattering frantically and tugging on the tress.

With her heart thudding in her chest, “Ah, then, I was right. Peril indeed is nigh, eh, Scruff.”

Still the bird chattered, and still did Camille climb, yet when she rounded the turn to abruptly come to the broad ledge, Scruff fell silent.

Camille stepped thereon, and midmost yawned a black hole.

And it was vast.

Timorously, Camille moved toward the gape.

“WHO COMES?” boomed a great voice, echoing hollowly.

“Oh!” Camille blenched and cried out at the thunder of sound, her heart leaping into her throat.

“IS THAT YOU I TASTE, RONDALO, FAINT THOUGH IT IS? COME TO YOUR DEATH? COME TO MEET YOUR FATE?”

Again Camille flinched, yet she managed to say, “ ’Tis I, Camille, and though I did journey with Rondalo, instead I have come for your aid, O Raseri, your help to find my Alain.”

As Camille peered into the darkness, trying to see, the voice drew closer and boomed, “ALAIN? PRINCE OF THE SUMMERWOOD?”

“Oh, yes, and I am so glad you know of him, know of my beloved. He is lost, and I-”

“Camille, my love,” came a gentle response, and stepping forth from the darkness “Alain, Alain, oh my love.” Sobbing, Camille rushed forward, and he took her in his arms.

“Shhh, shhh,” he said. “I would not have you cry.”

“Oh, Alain, my sweet Alain, I have found you at last and I have been searching for so very long, and-”

Camille felt an insistent yanking on a lock of her hair, and she could hear Scruff chattering madly. And she looked down at her pocket where the tiny bird jerked and pulled at her tress.

And from the corner of Camille’s eye…

… from the corner of her eye…

… from the corner she saw…

… a great scaly foot with claws like sabers resting against the stone.

With a gasp, Camille drew back, and there before her ’twas not Alain, but instead “RRRRAAAWWW!”

The Dragon’s roar was deafening, and he was monstrous, looming upward some twenty feet or more, his gleaming, sinuous body stretching back into the blackness of his lair. Like the stone of the mountain itself, he was a dark ruddy color, splashes of ebon blackness glittering here and there. Vast leathery wings were folded along his sides. And as he slithered forward, emerging from his den, Camille stepped backward in terror, the vertical precipice of the ledge coming near.

“YOU, RONDALO’S CAT’S-PAW, COME TO GULL ME WHILE HE PLANS SOME HEINOUS ATTACK. TREACHEROUS MAIDEN, YOU WILL NOT LIVE TO SEE ME DESTROY HIM.”

Raseri drew in a deep breath, and Camille knew she would not survive the fire to come. Futilely, in a two-handed grip she thrust out the stave, as if it would ward the flames, and she shut her eyes and turned her head aside, death even then on its way.

A great blast of fire spewed forth, but it touched not Camille. She opened one eye to see the last of it gushing into the sky.

And then Raseri looked down at her and at the staff in her hands. “Lady Sorciere sent you here?”

Of a sudden, Scruff scrambled out from the pocket and to Camille’s shoulder.

“Yes, my lord Dragon,” said Camille, her voice tight and quavering with residual tension and dread, as well as with disbelief that she was yet alive, Camille herself feeling as if she would collapse at any moment, and she abruptly sat down on the stone. She put her head between her knees and said, her voice a bit muffled, “Indeed I was sent by the Lady of the Mere.-Oh, not specifically here, yet she did start me on my way. ’Twas Chemine, the Lady of the River who sent me to you, for only-”

“Chemine?” The Firedrake’s glittering, golden serpent eyes flew wide in surprise. “That cannot be. She would not do such, for I slew her mate on her wedding night, or so it is I recall.”

“Nevertheless, she is the one who sent me, with her son Rondalo as my guide, for you are the First of the Firsts, and perhaps only you can aid.”

Raseri peered down into the valley, and his forked tongue flicked out, and he hissed, “Are you certain this is not some trick? I see Rondalo now riding in haste this way.”

“Oh, no,” cried Camille, leaping to her feet, “he will break his sword-oath.”

“Scruff,” called Camille, holding open the vest pocket; the wee sparrow hopped in. Then swiftly she cast off her rucksack and bedroll and waterskin and then removed her cloak. She stood on the lip of the ledge and whirled the garment by its collar ’round and ’round o’erhead.

Finally Raseri said, “He’s stopped.”

Camille continued to whirl the cloak.

“He’s turned back.”

Arm weary, Camille lowered her cloak and saw in the distance, among the great boulders strewn along the valley floor, Rondalo riding away.

As Camille donned her cloak once more and Scruff scrambled back to his usual perch, Raseri said, “Well, now, if one of my sworn enemies has sent you to me for aid, and the other sworn enemy acted as your guide, then there is a tale here for the telling, and I would hear it all.”

Darkness had fallen, and Scruff was now asleep in the high vest pocket, and by the growing argent light of the waning gibbous moon half-risen, her tale now come to an end, Camille looked up at Raseri.

The Dragon sighed. “No, Camille, I know not where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.” Even as Camille started to weep, Raseri added, “Yet do not despair, for although I am indeed the First of the Firsts, there might be in Faery some who are even older than I.”

“Older? How can that be?”

“ ’Tis said they have been in the world since the very beginning of time.”

“Where can I find these eld ones?”

“I am not at all certain, but there is a river you may follow, and they might be found nigh. Yet it is perilous in the extreme to go along those banks and worse still to fall into its flow.”

Camille glanced at sleeping Scruff. “Peril from what? Monsters? Serpents from the seas in those waters?”

“Worse,” replied Raseri. “It is the River of Time, that which the Fey avoid; none whatsoever go nigh, for it is said that should one travel along the River of Time, then mortal he will become.”

“A river of time?”

“Aye, for all time flows in a stream out from Faery, to spread over the earthly demesne.” Raseri looked down at Camille, then gestured outward. “Where else would time issue forth but from out of this mystical place?”

“But I thought time touches not Faery.”

“In the main, ’tis true, for in Faery, time is confined to the river, perilous in the extreme; but in the mortal lands it spreads out over the whole of the world and becomes diffuse, attenuated, and is somewhat less dangerous. In Faery, all Fey avoid the river, going ’round rather than across, for we want not to suffer time’s ravages should we travel along its banks or fall into its flow. But in the world of mortals, the Fey on occasion do swim within time, for there it is weakened. Still, should we spend overlong in the world of men, we might turn mortal ourselves. Have you not heard the tales of Fey falling for the love of a mortal man or woman, and becoming mortal themselves? That’s because they overextend their stay in the earthly realm. To retain their immortality, Elves and other such oft vanish from the mortal lands and return to Faery, else mortal they would become. And though the River of Time does run through Faery, none I know travel thereon.”

Camille sat silent for a moment, then she fished in her rucksack. “I must signal Rondalo that all is yet well.”

She unscrewed the brass sealing cap from the wick and lit the small brass and glass lantern; then she paced out to the rim of the ledge and stood awhile, slowly swinging the light back and forth. Finally, she stepped back to Raseri’s side and blew out the lantern and capped the wick once more. As she set the lamp aside to cool ere returning it to her rucksack she said, “Though it would seem quite perilous for Fey to go nigh, the River of Time will not affect me more than it ordinarily would, for I am mortal already. Even so, you say those who might aid can thereat be found?”

“Aye. ’Tis rumored that three sisters live along its banks and, if true, they are the eldest of the eld. Too, it is also said that all things are revealed in due time, and mayhap along the banks of Time’s River you will discover just where lies a place east of the sun and west of the moon.”

Camille glanced at her stave and said, “Raseri, I would go.”

“Then, lady, because of all you have said, I will take you to the place whence the river springs, and mayhap you’ll find that which you seek. Yet beware, for, if all things are revealed in due measure, what you may discover woven in the tapestry of time could in the end be salvation or doom for you or your Alain or both. His fate as well as yours may already be sealed.”

“What you say might be true,” replied Camille, “nevertheless, I would go.”

“So be it then,” said Raseri. “Take rest now, and we shall take flight at first light.”

“Take flight?”

“Aye. You did not expect to walk, did you? Nay, I shall bear you thither, you and your wee sparrow.”

“But I-”

“But me no buts, my lady, for it is a long way, and you have not the time.”

At the dawning, even though Scruff complained that he was hungry, as she had done every day, Camille treated the sparrow’s wing with a tiny dab of salve. She looked up to see Raseri watching. “He was wounded by a thorn and cannot fly,” said Camille, by way of explanation.

“Mayhap where we are bound,” rumbled Raseri, “your tiny bird will improve, for ’tis said time heals all wounds.”

“Oh, do you think? I do so hope, for I would see him take to wing.”

As Camille fetched some millet seed for Scruff and sprinkled it on the stone, Raseri turned his head and flicked out his forked tongue, tasting the frigid morning air. And he said, “Rondalo yet waits afar.”

Camille glanced down the vale, yet it was too dark for her to make out aught. She drew out a biscuit from her rucksack and took a bite, and in a moment said, “Tell me, Raseri, how came you to do battle with Rondalo’s pere Audane?”

Even though he was a Dragon, Raseri managed a shrug. “All I know is that on Audane’s wedding night, he and I fought fiercely. As to why, I cannot say. Whether or no he wounded me, that, too, is not in my ken, and how I finally slew him, I know not. Only that I did. My first true memory is of being here in this fastness. I was alone in Faery for some while, but then, nine or ten moons later, I was aware that Chemine had come to Faery bearing Audane’s sword and giving birth to Rondalo. Beyond that, I know little.”

Camille shook her head in puzzlement. “Tell me then, are all Firsts as are you: knowing nought of what went before you each came unto Faery?”

“So it seems,” said Raseri, peering toward the oncoming light.

Camille fell silent and took another bite. Around the mouthful, she said, “Have you heard of the Keltoi?”

“Indeed. Most in Faery know of the legend. Wandering bards all; those whose tales caught the ear of the gods, and they in turn made Faery manifest.”

Camille swallowed and took a drink of water. “Well then, Raseri, answer me this:

“What if it is true that, as they wandered across the face of the world, the Keltoi did tell their tales, and the gods did listen, and they so enjoyed what they heard they made Faery manifest so that they could be entertained by the stories that followed? Mayhap long past, ’round a campfire a gifted Keltoi began a tale, the first one the gods listened to, and it went something like this:

“Once upon a time there was a terrible Drake named Raseri, a Drake who breathed flame. And in a hard-fought duel with an Elf named Audane, Raseri slew the Elf. Yet it was Audane’s wedding night, and he had lain with his bride ere the battle, and some ten moons after the terrible death, Audane’s grieving widow, a Water Fairy named Chemine, birthed a son. And Chemine gave over unto the wee lad Audane’s silvery sword, the one with the arcane runes hammered down the length of its blade, and she said, ‘One day, my Rondalo, you will battle with vile Raseri, foul murderer of your sire.’ ”

Camille fell silent, and Raseri cocked his head and said, “Mayhap ’tis true that such did happen. Even so, where does that lead?”

“Oh, don’t you see, Raseri, ere that tale mayhap there was no before, no existence whatsoever for Faery, no existence even for you. Mayhap that’s when Faery began. Mayhap that’s when you were born full-grown. Mayhap there was no Audane, yet even if there was, if the legend of the Keltoi and the gods is true, then it is no fault of yours he was slain. Instead ’tis completely the fault of the Keltoi who told that story, the first the gods had heard, and this blood vengeance, this sword-oath Rondalo swore, should instead have been sworn ’gainst the tale teller, or the gods who made it true, for in truth they are the ones in combination who did murder Audane.”

Raseri grunted, but otherwise did not reply, and Camille ate the remainder of her biscuit in silence, her thoughts tumbling one o’er the other.

Finally Raseri said, “If you have the truth of it, Camille, then much needs setting aright.”

“Wh-what?” said Camille, shaken from her musings.

“I said, have you the truth of it, much needs setting aright. Even so, there is this to consider: although the Keltoi, or gods, or in combination, are responsible for much grief and rage, they gave me, they gave all of us, life as well. Without them we would not be. Hence, if the legend is true, we owe them our very existence. Those tales, though fraught with peril and desperation and fury and sorrow such as they are, without them we would not be.”

Camille nodded, somewhat abstractedly, and Raseri tilted his head to one side and said, “You seem preoccupied, Camille. What were your thoughts that I so interrupted?”

Camille glanced at Scruff and then at the Drake, then out to where Rondalo might be, and she shrugged and said, “I was just wondering whose silver tongue or golden pen is telling the tale we find ourselves in.”

Raseri’s booming laughter echoed among the peaks, but when he looked down at Camille, she wasn’t laughing at all.

“The sun rises, Camille,” said the Drake.

Camille looked to see that the sun was just then edging up through a col between peaks. Camille stood and stepped to the lip of the precipice and once again whirled her cloak ’round and ’round above her head. Then she donned it and took up her bedroll and waterskin and rucksack and slung them onto her shoulder, and as she started to slip the stave into the rucksack loops What’s this?

A hairline crack ran a small way from the bottom of the staff upward toward the withered lower end of the carved stem of the garland.

Did I somehow do this?

“Camille,” said Raseri, nodding toward the rising sun.

Quickly Camille shoved the stave into the loops, then took up the sparrow. She glanced at Raseri’s great, leathery wings, now partly unfolded, and said, “I’d better put you in the pocket, Scruff, else you might be blown away.”

Scruff chp ed a time or two, but then settled in, and Camille asked, “Where shall I, um…”

“You can straddle the base of my neck,” said Raseri, bending low and crooking a foreleg on the side where Camille stood.

Using the leg as a stepping block, Camille clambered up and took seat. A double row of great barbels ran the length of Raseri’s neck. “May I use these for handholds?” asked Camille, grasping the pair before her. They were somewhat soft and a bit flexible, like the barbels ’round the mouths of some kinds of fish.

“Use what?” replied Raseri, craning his neck about.

“Oh, those. Indeed.”

“I would ask two things more, my lord Dragon,” said Camille.

“And they are…?”

“Fly over Rondalo so that he might see I am all right.”

“I shall do so. And the other…?”

“Ignore any of my screams you might hear.”

With booming laughter, Raseri stepped to the lip of the sheer precipice and leapt out into space.

Camille sucked icy air in through clenched teeth as down the Drake plummeted, wind whistling past and blowing back her hood, her hair to stream out golden behind, the rocks below rushing up to meet them. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, for she knew they surely must crash, yet she stubbornly refused to scream. But then- Whoosh! — Raseri’s vast, leathery wings began beating, and he arced through the nadir of his dive and began to climb into the sky. Camille opened her eyes, as up and up he spiralled, and she gasped in wonder, for the view from the height was magnificent. Why, it was almost as if she could see the whole of Faery, though surely not. And she glanced down at Scruff, who was chirping in joy, craning his neck out from her pocket so that he could see. Then Raseri turned and flew back over his firemountain, and Camille saw that it was hollow, and thin tendrils of smoke streamed out from fumerols below.

Down the vale arrowed Raseri, toward Rondalo’s campsite, and, as they flew over, the horses shied and would have bolted, but for the tethers holding fast. Raseri circled and Camille waved, and Rondalo waved in return, a look of astonishment on his face. And then Raseri wheeled and thundered away, the rising sun at his back.

And down below, Rondalo sighed, and watched them wing into the distance-his implacable foe bearing off the woman he had come to cherish. When at last they were gone from sight, Rondalo stepped to the horses and stroked muzzles and soothed the animals with soft and gentle words. Finally he broke camp and saddled the mounts and laded the packhorse and then slowly rode away, his path taking him in the opposite direction from that in which the Drake had flown.

High across the world of Faery did the Dragon Raseri soar, mountains and rivers and steads and cities, villages and forests and lakes, and barren wastes of ice or sand or rock all passing ’neath his wings. And Camille was enthralled, for never had she imagined what flying would be like, and here she was, high in the sky, chill wind streaming through her hair, clouds like foreign castles and great chateaus rising all ’round. Scruff in her pocket chirped his approval, and Camille then knew what a loss the tiny sparrow had suffered, unable to fly as he was. Momentarily, Camille’s wind-driven tears became tears of sympathy, but then she was distracted by a great herd of shaggy animals thundering across the grassy plain below.

The sun slid up the sky and across and down, yet Raseri’s wings never seemed to slow, never seemed to tire. Through looming walls of twilight they flew, Faery borders, eight or nine altogether… Camille uncertain as to which.

But finally, as the sinking sun touched the distant horizon, the Drake began to circle down. “Yon is the river,” he called out to her, but, though she looked, Camille could see nought of a stream.

“Where?” she cried. “I can make out no river.”

“See the high, grassy ridge jutting above the forest below? Just down the long slope you will find the origin, else you will see nought whatsoever.”

Camille’s gaze first found the hillock far under, and then downslope she saw a glimmering, and of a sudden Camille could see a silvery ribbon originating at the glimmer and threading through the forest. How she had missed it, she could not say, yet there it was. She looked away and then back, and lo! the river had vanished entirely. Yet when she looked at the slope again, and then down to the glimmer, of a sudden the stream reappeared. Once more she looked away and again the river vanished, completely absent to her searching sight until she returned to the origin.

As if sensing Camille’s trial, Raseri called out, “It seems one cannot see the full flow of time lest one starts at the beginning.”

Camille let her gaze follow the course of the silvery stream, and in the far distance she could see a great glint of water-perhaps a vast lake, or even an ocean or sea-into which Time’s River did flow.

Down spiralled Raseri and down, to finally come alight upon the knoll.

“This is as close as I will go,” said the Drake, and he bent his neck low.

Again Camille used Raseri’s foreleg as a stepping block as she dismounted. She stretched and twisted to get the kinks out.

As she did so, “It begins there, the River of Time,” said the Dragon, pointing with his head downslope.

Camille could see in the distance, a cascade plunging over a linn, yet it seemed the water itself had no origin, either that or it sprang directly from a misty cloud hovering above, the vapor itself glimmering as if of a gleaming within.

Camille looked at the sky and judged the lees of the day, the sun some halfway set. “I should reach the linn ere darkness falls. If not, I have my lantern to guide me. Would you walk down with me?”

“Would that I were braver, yet I’ll not gamble ’gainst time. Even so, Camille, you have little to fear in these environs, for all Fey shun this place. Still, stay on your guard, for who knows what troubles time can bring? I would say this as well: you have given me much to ponder, and I thank you for that. Mayhap someday I will be able to repay you for that which you did bring.”

What did I bring? Camille wondered. Yet she said, “Oh, Raseri, by bearing me here you have more than paid whatever debt you might imagine you owe, though for the life of me I cannot think why you would believe such.”

“Perhaps one day we will both know,” said Raseri. “But now I must fly, for yon is a peril I cannot face-the ravages of time.”

“Then go, O Lord Dragon, and be well,” said Camille, and she curtseyed there on the ridge.

Raseri dipped his head and then said, “Ward your eyes.” As Camille put a hand to her brow, with a great leap and thunderous flapping, Raseri took to wing, pebbles and dust and weeds and grass swirling about in a great cloud, Camille battered by the wind of his launch.

Up he circled and up, and then with a great skriegh, he arrowed away, his dark ruddy scales glittering crimson in the light of the setting sun. And it was then that Camille remembered a time in the Winterwood as she rode upon the back of the Bear, a great fell beast flying high above and sounding the very same skriegh. Was that Raseri even then? She watched the Drake fly away, the splendid creature he was, and when she could see him no longer, down the slope and toward the linn she did go.

She reached the waterfall as twilight ebbed toward night, and she set camp on the slope just above the cascade, and placed sleeping Scruff on a low branch of a sapling at hand. As she settled in for the night, she looked with curious eyes at the cataract; even this close, in the light of the stars, it seemed as if the water came out from nowhere at the very edge of the linn, though the silvery mist above may have obscured its source.

As Camille prepared to go to sleep, of a sudden she remembered the stave; she lit her small lantern and examined the hairline crack. I don’t remember it reaching this far, and I surely did nought to cause it to lengthen, for it has been affixed to my rucksack all day, but for the gentle trip down from the ridge above.

Sighing, Camille started to lay the staff aside, but then, though she knew what she would find, she counted the blossoms remaining, starting with the one awither and progressing to the one atop. One hundred yet linger, though the bottom flower is nigh perished. Two hundred sixty-six days agone, a scant one hundred left. A year and a day and the whole of a moon beyond, that’s all she said I would have. And I have squandered-No, Camille, not squandered. Used. I have used two hundred sixty-six days in all to reach this place. Even so, am I any closer whatsoever to finding my beloved Alain?

Camille blew out the lantern and capped the wick to keep the oil within the reservoir no matter the lamp’s orientation, then placed it near at hand.

Silently, the stars wheeled in the sky as Camille was lulled asleep by the shssh ing fall, for here at the linn and perhaps nowhere else could the passage of time be heard.