Once Upon an Autumn Eve (16 page)

 

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.

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.

20

L
iaze awakened to the sound of distant shrieks. Feminine they seemed, as of demoiselles at play, or in peril. Liaze leapt to her feet and swiftly donned her undersilks and threw on her leathers. She pulled on her boots and strapped her long-knife to her thigh, and then strung her bow and slung a quiver of arrows across her back. She glanced at Luc’s sword in its sheath, but shook her head, for she was not skilled in that blade. Briefly she thought of saddling Nightshade, but instead she nocked an arrow and set off afoot through the woodland, following the stream in the direction of the ongoing screams.

Scanning the surround as she went, but seeing nought of peril, Liaze slipped among the boles for a furlong or so, the shrieks growing louder with every step. And as she came within sight of the furor, the brook she followed joined a wide and deep flow, and where the tributary fed into the larger watercourse a broad pool slowly swirled ’neath ascending rock ledges against the far shore. And on the highest outcropping stood a slim, naked demoiselle, another one climbing up to reach her; and in the river nigh the foot of the drop swam several others. And with a shrill cry, the one on the ledge leapt outward, and, clutching her knees to her chest, she plunged down amidst the shrieking damsels below, a great gout of water exploding upward.

Liaze heaved a sigh of relief.
They are at play.
And she stepped out from the trees and onto the wide, grassy bank.

As the princess emerged from concealment, the climbing demoiselle’s eyes widened in fright, and she screamed in dread and pointed across at Liaze, then dove for the pool, and
transformed!

Even as the damsel clove the lucid water, and as the others spun ’round to see Liaze and flipped over and dove for the depths, the princess gasped in surprise:
Mithras! Did my eyes deceive me, or did she become part fish?

Only swirls on the surface of the clear-running river answered her—a language she could not read.

Liaze frowned and looked down at herself, then laughed.
Ah, they think I am a warrior, coming armed as I did.
And she slipped the arrow into her quiver and slung her bow across her back. Then she stood on the shore and waited.

Long moments passed and long moments more, and finally a dark head briefly broke the surface and looked her way . . . then disappeared. Several heartbeats later another head bobbed up . . . and then down. Finally, one came to the surface and stayed long enough for Liaze to show open and empty hands.

The demoiselle’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, and then she called out: “Femme?”

“Oui!” answered Liaze, and she sat down in the grass along the bank.
Mayhap they will think me less a threat this way.

Briefly, the damsel submerged, and then reappeared with the others. Timidly they approached, and, as they did so, in the clear flow Liaze could see that each of these females had a diaphanous dorsal fin running down the length of her back and held erect by spines, and instead of legs each had a broad tail stroking; it was as if these people were half fish and half women. Yet one and then another of these beings transformed into two-legged demoiselles as they came to the shallows.

And the one who had called out stood and stepped to the bank and spoke in the old tongue:
“Qui êtes vous?”

And Liaze smiled up at the dark-haired, small-breasted damsel and answered in kind:
“Liaze, Princesse de la Forêt d’Automne . . .”

 

“Liaze, Princess of the Autumnwood. And you are . . . ?”

“Eausiné,” answered the demoiselle. Then she added: “Are you one of the hunters who now and then come to spear our fish with their bows and swift arrows?”

“We went to warn them,” said the second one as she came to shore, she with hair as golden as the heart of a water lily.

“Ah,” said Liaze. “I see. You went to warn the fish. And no, I have not come to take them from you.” Then the princess looked from one demoiselle to another, each of them slender and comely, with green eyes large and aslant, tilted up at the outer corners and set in narrow faces. They had long, flowing hair, and now and then movement revealed shell-like ears. Exotic were these damsels, as were those yet in the water, their graceful tails slowly fanning the flow. “But tell me,” Liaze asked, “
what
are you?”

All looked at one another in puzzlement, for they didn’t understand.

“I mean,” added Liaze, “you look like demoiselles, but you can become half fish.”

“Ah,” said the yellow-haired one, sinking to the grass beside Liaze. “Nixies. We are Nixies.”

“Oh, my,” said Liaze. “I have heard of your Kind, but never before encountered any.”

Yet standing, Eausiné glanced at Liaze’s bow and arrows and said, “We, on the other hand, have dealt with your Kind before. Are you certain you are not a hunter?”

“Oh, I am a hunter, all right,” said Liaze, and collectively the Nixies gasped. “B-but of a different sort,” the princess hurriedly assured them.

“There is only one kind of hunter,” said the dark-haired demoiselle, at least for now the nominal leader of the Nixies. “The kind who seeks to kill.”

“Oh, I would not kill the one I hunt, for he is my true love,” replied Liaze.

True love? True love?
A murmur ran among the Nixies.

“What is this true love?” one in the water asked.