Once Upon an Autumn Eve

19

Down the slant of the mountain rode Liaze. And as she did so, she looked about at the stone rises to the right and the steep drops to the fore and left.

Are these ramparts the flanks of Caillou? What kind of creature is he? Is he truly made of stone, as it seems? Surely he cannot be an entire living mountain… or can he? Think, Liaze, did you see where he might have left off and the mountain itself might have begun? No, you did not, and so the entire mass he might be. Liaze shook her head and laughed aloud and called out to the stark and windblown surround, “Ah, Faery, thanks to the gods that be, your wonders never cease.”

And as she rode on down, she recalled an evening at Summerwood Manor, when she and Celeste and Camille had been preparing for Camille and Alain’s wedding:

“When I was with Raseri-”

“Oh, Camille, that you survived that Drake is a wonder,” said Celeste, catching her breath.

“I bore with me a good reference,” replied Camille. “Besides, Raseri is quite the honorable being, in spite of his reputation.”

“Do go on,” said Celeste, her eyes wide in marvel. “When I was with Raseri,” said Camille, “it occurred to me that the Keltoi bards told such wonderful and gripping tales that the gods themselves became so intrigued they made Faery manifest. And all the wondrous people and places and creatures and things herein sprang from the stories spoken by those bards ’round campfires and in kingly halls and on the roads from here to there and in wayside inns, or wherever else they told such tales.”

“Why would the gods do so?” asked Liaze. “-Make manifest the works of bards, I mean.”

“For entertainment,” said Celeste, smiling and nodding in agreement with Camille’s posit. “The gods must revel in wonder and joy.” Then she frowned and added, “But that would also mean Redcaps and Trolls and other such vile beings-mayhap even Orbane himself-came from the Keltoi tales, too.” Celeste then looked from Camille to Liaze and said, “Why would the Keltoi tell of such terrible things, and then the gods bring them into existence?”

“You answered your own question, Celeste,” said Liaze. “They did so for entertainment, for what is a story without challenge, without peril? Dull, I think.”

Camille canted her head in assent. “I know that when I lived in the mortal world, Giles and I-and my sisters as well-would revel in the exciting tales told by my pere, stories of deadly danger and grim events. Yet, now that I have actually lived through one, I see that what is exciting at a distance is quite dreadful up close.”

The three sat in somber silence for a while, but then Liaze laughed, and when the others looked at her, she said, “I am put in mind of what Borel once said about adventures.”

Camille raised a quizzical eyebrow, her question unspoken, and Liaze said, “An adventure is someone else in dire straits a thousand leagues away.”

And they all had laughed…

As the princess rode down a mountain path with a stallion and four gelding packhorses in tow, she shook her head at the memory and heaved a great sigh. Ah, me… now I am in an adventure of my own, and it is not a happy one. Oh, Mithras, let the goal be less than a thousand leagues away and the straits be not so dire.

In the bleak distance far ahead, she could see a looming wall of twilight, the sunwise border of this barren demesne, perhaps a two-day journey from the foothills below. She stopped to feed the animals and to give them water, and as she took some jerky and hardtack, she looked for a landmark along the way upon which she could take a bearing to stay on what was presumably the course of the crows. But the way down had twisted and turned, and even when she sighted on the twin spires behind, she could not be certain of the exact line. Liaze sighed, for with but a slight angle away from the path, by the time she came to the twilight bound she could be leagues off track.

Her heart fell for she had no certain guide; and given the vagaries of the twilight borders, she could end up at some place altogether different from that o’er which the messenger birds had flown. How can I possibly find the way the crows went? The only thing I know of their direction is that they seem to be flying back along the trace Luc rode when he came to the Autumnwood, for surely the witch had tracked him. Mayhap I can find some more pockmarks in the soil and follow those. If not, what then, Liaze? She heaved a great sigh and shook her head and finally said to Pied Agile, “All we can do is trust to the Fates.”

That eve, among the dwindling crags at the foot of the mountain and alongside a small runnel, she found meager shelter out of the constant chill wind, and there she made a fireless camp, for there was nought to burn, and just as she was going to sleep, she startled awake, knowing what she would do as a last resort if nought else presented itself.

After a restless night with little sleep, Liaze roused to a blowing, icy rain. Her groan matched the moan of the wind, and she got to her feet and fed and watered the animals, and then she saddled Pied Agile and Nightshade and laded the four packhorses with the supplies. She covered the horses with their drenched blankets and tied them on, for they would give some protection from the driving rain. As she replenished the waterskins from the swift-flowing runnel, she looked out o’er the drab, grey plain, water pelting across the barren soil. So much for seeking pockmarks, Liaze. Now we will have to trust to Nightshade, and if not to him, then to the Fates.

Liaze tethered the geldings to her mare, and then the mare to the stallion. Mounting Nightshade, she said, “All right, my lad, they say every horse knows its own stall, so off with you, and please find the way.” And, leaving the reins slack and riding without giving Nightshade any guidance whatsoever, she heeled the stallion in the flanks, and forward they went.

Through the icy blow they trotted, Liaze with her cloak tight around, her hood up, the tethered animals following, all of their breath steaming white in the cold rain.

All that miserable day they went thusly: Nightshade heading toward the distant shadowlight border, with Liaze stopping now and then to feed the animals some grain and to briefly take sustenance of her own. As for water, pools here and there sufficed, and so they were not without. And just ere the fall of night the rain slackened and then ceased altogether. Even so, the camp itself was sodden, and the blankets drenched, and the wind yet blew.

And there was no fire.

Aching and chilled to the bone and weary beyond telling, Liaze mounted Nightshade the next morn and once more she let the stallion choose the route, as out from the lee of the hill and back into the ceaseless blow they went.

“Nightshade, if for nought else but this maddening wind, Orbane deserves to die.”

The stallion grunted.

Liaze laughed aloud and said, “Ah, me, my lad, this adventuring: some joy, eh?” Then she pulled her cloak closer in the damp, chill wind and hunkered down for the long ride.

It was midafternoon when they came unto a pitch of land falling away toward the twilight bound some three or so leagues hence. And Liaze gasped at the sight immediately below, for lying in the flat just beyond the foot of the long slope stood the ruin of a small hamlet.

She urged Nightshade down, the mare and geldings following. And as they came to the level and rode toward what had once been buildings, Liaze could see that something terrible had happened here: parts of stone walls yet stood, and stone chimneys, and rubble from collapse. Though thatch might have once covered the dwellings, of roofs there were none. Wood seemed absent, and here and there only foundations of houses remained. Grit sloped against the windward side of remnants of walls, and some were completely drifted over.

Nightshade, yet picking the route on his own, went down what must have been the main street of this village, and only sections of stark walls and tumbled wrack and windblown piles of bleak dirt watched their progress.

Oh, my, all things alive or once living are gone from this once fertile place.-Orbane! Bastard Orbane, this is your doing. You and your acolytes have much to answer for.

And Liaze rode on beyond the ruins and out into the barrens once more.

It was late in the day when they came unto the sunwise twilight marge, and Liaze reined Nightshade to a halt and looked at the looming wall of crepuscular glimmer. “I hope you have chosen aright, noble steed.” Then she heeled the stallion, and forward they rode into the dimness, which turned darker the deeper they went and then lighter once more as they passed the ebon midpoint and began to emerge. And they came into low-angled afternoon sunlight and warmth and grass and trees, where but a slight waft of air softly caressed them all, and Liaze broke into tears.

That night, with the horses cropping sweet grass, Liaze slept in her only dry blanket on a bed of boughs beside a warm fire burning, with sodden cloak and clothing and the remaining blankets strung from ropes and drying in its radiance. Nearby a gentle brook flowed, its purl singing in the silvery light of a gibbous moon waxing against the stars above.