Once Upon an Autumn Eve (15 page)

Up the twisting way they went, at times in the lee of the broad shoulders of the slopes, at other times exposed to the hurtling blow, which became fiercer the higher they went. And the climb was rugged and stony, the way quite difficult in places, especially at twisting turns, where the rocks seemed to have piled up in the corners.

At times, Liaze switched off from Pied Agile to Nightshade. At other times she walked and led the animals, the packhorses limiting the pace, for they were never relieved of their burdens, as were the stallion and mare.

Often, Liaze stopped to give them all a breather, and she watered them and fed them some grain—especially the pack animals—to keep up their flagging energy. And then she would continue.

As the sun neared the zenith, Liaze afoot entered a long slot leading to the crest of the col. “Ah, my friends, we are nearly over the top. But I think walking downslope will not be much easier, for making a long descent is almost as difficult as the opposite.”

And out of the fierce wind, on upward toward the summit of the way they went. And just as they reached the crest—

The ground trembled, and there came a great loud grinding of stone on stone, and a massive slab slid out across the way, and rock clattered down the slope beyond, while at the same time, from arear there came another heavy grinding, and a rattle of stone cascading down the pathway behind.

Even as the horses skitted and shied, Liaze quickly set an arrow to string and looked about for the foe who had sprung this trap. Yet she saw none whatsoever, only two giant blocks barring the way, just as would immense stone gates. And then she gasped in surprise, for these weren’t truly great rough slabs of granite, but had the look of giant hands.

And then to the right a huge stony eye opened in the massif, and, grating and rumbling like an enormous wedge of rock sliding on rock, a deep voice said, “Urrum, hmmm, another one disturbs.” And a second eye opened in the mountainside.

18

H
er gaze scanning the precipitous rise, Liaze looked for the one who had spoken, yet the only things she saw were the two great stony eyes and, directly below them, a slender, deep crack running horizontally across the sheer rock for some six feet or so.

Even as she looked on, again came the grinding and gravelly voice, its words ponderous: “I have you now . . . and you will not pass as easily as the other one did.”

Liaze’s eyes narrowed, and she looked into the shadows of the cleft, for it seemed as if that were the place the voice had come from, yet she could see no one within—no tiny Sprite, no Twig Man, no one.
Is it possible that the mountain itself is—

“What other one?” she asked.

There was a long pause, as if whoever the speaker was, he was mulling over his answer. At last came the reply: “The one with the stone.”

Indeed, the voice
is
coming from that cleft.

Liaze relaxed her draw. “What stone?”

Another long pause, then, “The one he bore.”

“Who is it you speak of?” asked Liaze.

There came a low grumble, like that of a distant slippage of heavy stones. It went on for a while, but finally, “I know not his name,” came the slow reply, “but he had one of those things that you have six of. What do you call them?”

“Six things?” Liaze looked about.

The mountainside creaked, and a scatter of pebbles rattled down into the path. The great flinty eyes slowly turned somewhat leftward.

“There with you. About the size of minor boulders.”

“Oh.” Liaze waved at the animals. “The horses?”

Another distant rumble sounded for a while. “That is as good a name as any. He, too, had a black, um, horse . . . much like the one you have.”

Liaze’s heart jumped. “Did he wear a metal shirt and a metal cap and carry a metal horn like this one?” She held up Luc’s silver trump.

Slowly, grinding, the eyes turned toward Liaze, the flinty gaze to at last come to rest upon her. “Yes. . . . It was but a short pebble cascade ago when he came across.”

“Oh, Lord Montagne, it was my Luc,” said Liaze. “It must have been when he was on his way to my realm . . . back whence I came. Did he recently return this way? Oh, I must find him, and I could use your help, Lord Montagne, if you have any to give.”

As she waited for the answer, she returned her arrow to its quiver and her bow to its saddle sheath.

At length, the being said, “Many things spill out of you all at once, as if in avalanche. . . . Indeed . . . avalanche . . .”

Liaze waited, and just as she feared there would be no answer to her questions, the stone being said, “Yes, he went down the way you came. . . . No, he has not yet come back this way.”

At these words, Liaze’s heart fell. Even so, she knew that only by wild chance would the witch in her flight have flown through this pass, dragging the shadowy hand after, Luc in its grip.

Again there came a rumble, and she realized that the mountain was yet responding to her questions. “Rrr . . . I have seen him but once, and though I tried, I could not stop him, for he bore the stone. . . . He passed through without giving me my due.”

“He bore what stone?”

As if thought moved slowly through a being who seemed to be made of the mountain itself, again there was a long pause ere the creature answered. “A tiny bit of keystone.” The eyes, grinding, slowly looked upward and then back down at Liaze. “It was the color of the sky.”

Liaze frowned, then brightened and said, “The gem on a chain about his neck?”

“I asked if he was going to open the way, but he did not know what I was . . . speaking of, and I did not enlighten him.”

“Open what way?” asked Liaze.

After long moments, the creature did not respond, and Liaze decided that he would not speak of it again, not tell her what he meant, just as he had not told Luc.

Finally she said, “I am Princess Liaze of the Autumnwood. Have you a name, Lord Montagne?”

Once more there was a long pause, but finally he responded: “I suppose you could call me . . . Caillou.”

Liaze laughed, for in the old tongue,
caillou
meant
stone.
“Clever, Lord Montagne.”

The gape on the cleft of a mouth widened, to the rattle of pebbles down into the path. As the last of these finally clattered away, “We are not dense, just solid,” replied Caillou.

Again Liaze laughed, but then sobered. “Lord Caillou, I must needs move on, for I am on an urgent mission. Yet you have the way blocked. You speak of ‘your due,’ my lord. What bounty do you require to let me pass freely?”

Slowly the eyes closed and then opened again. “The thoughts of my Kind are weighty . . . ponderous . . . deep . . . and they reach down to the very bottom of the foundation rock itself. . . . We like to assay burdensome problems . . . or mull over questions of considerable heft . . . things of sizeable gravity. . . . All I require is one of these . . . posers . . . issues . . . something I have not weighed before. . . . Propound to me one of those, and I will let you go.”

As she puzzled over what to try, she said, “What happened to the valley below?”

Caillou moaned from deep within, and the great stone eyes slowly ground leftward and down. As they came to look upon the plains, he said, “He destroyed it.” A trickle of grit poured from the creature’s eyes, and again he moaned, the sound so low as to be more felt than heard. And then Liaze realized he was weeping.

“Not the one with the metal shirt, surely,” she said.

Now the eyes ground back toward her. “No . . . It was another one.”

“How did he do it? Was it fire?”

Deeply he rumbled and then said, “Fire?”

“As from a firemountain, where red-hot, molten rock pours forth.”

“Fire . . . Red tongues . . . Yes, I remember.”

“Then it
was
fire.”

The stone eyes slowly peered down at the path near where Liaze stood. “No . . . Not the red tongues . . . Instead it was him.”

Liaze frowned and said, “Him?”

Another deep groan sounded, and what was perhaps Caillou’s brow wrinkled, and stones clattered down. “He came with four others . . . all in black.”

Liaze waited, and finally Caillou continued. “They . . . marked the path with soft blue stone—five mountains all joined at the roots—and he stood on a marked crest . . . and the others, each of them stood on separate crests as well. . . . Then he spoke in a language I do not know, and . . . the sky boiled with gray . . . and the wind blew and the gray swept down and covered the mountains and the valley . . . and all was gone . . . all plants . . . all animals . . . all birds. . . . Only stone and sand and barren dirt were left . . . and the wind has never stopped.”

“Oh, my,” said Liaze, horrified.

“The birds,” groaned Caillou, “I miss their singing.” Again grit tumbled from the great stone eyes.

Now tears spilled down Liaze’s own cheeks, and she turned toward the barren plains below—barren but for sparse bushes of scrub here and there.
One and four others are responsible for the devastation. And all stood on the scribed peaks of five mountains joined at the base. Five—

“Lord Caillou,” blurted Liaze, “were four of these beings such as am I?”

Again a frown crossed Caillou’s brow, and again a small shower of pebbles fell. “Such as you?”

“Yes, females like me.”

The frown increased, and a tiny fracture split upward. “Females?”

“My Kind come in two types: male and female—
mâle et femelle; homme et femme.
Females have breasts for nursing their young.” Liaze cupped her hands beneath her bosom. “Males do not have breasts, but they sometimes do have beards—hair growing on their faces, their chins.” Liaze used her fingers, as if stroking a beard. “Were there four females who aided in this destruction of life, and was the fifth being a male?”

There came a deep rumble, and finally Caillou said, “Perhaps . . . Perhaps not . . . I do not know. . . .”

Liaze sighed and said, “Regardless, I think I know who did this terrible thing: Hradian, Rhensibé, Iniquí, Nefasí, female witches all, and Orbane, a male wizard. Only he would be so wicked, and only they would aid him in this foul deed. They stood here on the points of a pentagram and took away all life from this realm.”

“Um . . . not all life,” said Caillou, “for I . . . yet live.”

“Yes, you do, my friend. ’Tis good you’re made of stone.”

Caillou groaned and said, “They . . . need to be punished.”

Liaze nodded. “Some have been,” she said. “Rhensibé is dead, and Orbane is imprisoned beyond Faery. The others yet live freely, and I think that one of these sisters—Hradian, Iniquí, or Nefasí—is perhaps the witch who stole my Luc away. It is she whom I pursue, and her cote lies somewhere across this range.”

“You . . . hunt one of the ones who . . . helped to slay the land?”

“If my suspicion is correct, then I do.”

The ground trembled, and there came a great grinding of stone on stone, as Caillou withdrew his hands. Rocks clattered and rattled down the path to the fore and to the aft. “Then you may . . . pass, Princess Liaze.”

“Thank you, Lord Montagne,” said Liaze, as she stepped to the horses and settled them down, for they had skitted and shied when the path under their feet quivered a second time. “Even so, I will give you your due.”

The stone above one eye lifted upward, and more rock tumbled down. “No need, Princess,” said Caillou. “The fact that you pursue one of those who did such great harm is . . . enough.”

“Nevertheless,” said Liaze as she mounted Pied Agile, “here is a problem to ponder: how do you know that you are you? How do you know that you are not me, and I am simply dreaming of me being you and asking myself for a riddle to solve?”

The stone gap of a mouth turned up at the corners, and a rocky chuckle issued forth, sounding rather like a small avalanche. “A substantial puzzle and deep, concerning what is real and what is not, what is solid and what is not. . . . Merci, Liaze, for although my thoughts are . . . slow and dwelling, in the end I sometimes find gold in the ore. . . . And now you have given me a hefty problem to ponder. Voluminous it is, and I might be . . . eroded down to bedrock ere I can come to any bottom. ’Tis good, um, good. . . . I hope I can find the core. Now tumble off with you; gather no moss; be on your way; and may you succeed. As for me . . . thanks to you, I now have something to weigh. . . .”

“And my sincere thanks to you, Lord Montagne, for you have shown me that I am perhaps on the right track.” Liaze grinned and gave Caillou a salute, and she heeled Pied Agile in the flanks, and down the far slope she started, while behind, amid a shower of pebbles, the great stone eyes and the horizontal rift of a mouth slowly ground shut, and, as he had said he would do, Caillou began to ponder.

19

D
own 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: