Moonkind (Winterling) (2 page)

Two

Phouka was waiting on the other side of the Way. As Fer stepped into the moonlit clearing, her connection to the Summerlands swept through her. Every Lord and Lady of every land had such a connection to their lands. She didn’t know what it was like for those others, but it made her tingle with awareness of her land from the top of her head to the soles of her bare feet. She was rooted here, deeper than any tree.

Home
.

Still, she felt a little nagging worry.
Be careful,
her grandma had warned, and she was right to warn. The lands were beautiful and magical, and she belonged here for sure—but Fer was part human, which meant she brought change. And change wasn’t all that welcome.

Phouka whickered and she leaned against him, patting his neck, smelling the warm-grass smell of horse, feeling the warmth of his coat under her hands. “Hello, you bad horse,” she said, smiling. The people of the Summerlands—of all the lands—were people, but they each had a connection to a kind of animal or plant, and something of the spirit of that animal or plant inside themselves. Phouka was different. He’d been a puck like Rook, but he’d been stuck in his horse form for as long as she’d known him. Unlike his puck-brother Rook, he was trustworthy—a true friend.

She closed her eyes. Hmm. The land felt peaceful under the full moon. She felt the fall creeping in, the trees pulling in the sap from their leaves, the animals hurrying to gather food and grow thicker pelts for the long, icy winter nights. Before she left, she’d been keeping one thread of awareness on a corner of the forest where some bark-borer beetles had been spreading from one tree to another, but it seemed all right. The trees were holding their own. Anyway, as she’d learned, a few fallen trees weren’t a bad thing. With all the bugs and worms and mushrooms that moved in, there was more life in a rotting log than in a living tree.

She felt a tug on one of the threads that tied her to the people of the land—while she’d been gone, a badger-man had fallen sick with a cough. She’d have to check on him soon.

Keeping her eyes closed, she checked for something else. From her time dealing with the Mór, she knew that a broken oath left a kind of stain on the land. With all her mind, she searched her land for any taint, anything that might hint that the oaths she’d demanded had gone wrong.

There was nothing. Everything was as it should be.

As she opened her eyes, a sudden breeze leaped up, and the trees that edged the clearing around the Way bowed and shivered. A few brown leaves ripped from their branches and shredded away in the wind. Rags of cloud dashed across the moon. The night darkened.

Fer felt the wild wind blowing through her, too. “Let’s ride!” she shouted to Phouka.

In answer, he snorted and tossed his head, and she swung herself onto his back. She’d hardly gotten a grip on his mane when he was off, pounding down the path through the dark forest. The wind raced along with them, and the tree branches thrashed as they passed. “Faster!” she shouted, and Phouka neighed like laughing, and stretched into his fastest run.

Fer crouched over his neck and clung to his mane with all her strength. Their speed blew tears from her eyes and she blinked them away. She couldn’t see what was ahead; the path was all moon-silvered shadows. A twig snagged her head and she felt the tie come off the end of her braid, and her hair unraveled into a tangled banner that waved behind her as they flew. Down the path they went, faster and faster, and for just a second Fer
was
the wind rushing through the dark night.

Then Phouka crashed out of the forest and into the wide clearing that surrounded the Lady Tree, with Fer’s house and lots of other little houses perched in its branches along with bridges and ladders down to the ground. Phouka raced around the clearing once more and then slowed into a jolting trot:
bump
,
bump
,
bump
.

“Pho-uka, let-me-off,” Fer said, trying not to bite her tongue as she spoke.

Phouka tossed his head and bumped her around the clearing a second time.

Fer laughed. He was a puck, after all. Lucky for her, he didn’t find a nice big thornbush and toss her into it. Finally he stopped, snorting, and Fer slid off his back. “Oh, very funny,” she whispered into his ear, still smiling. Then Phouka’s ear twitched and he pushed with his nose on her shoulder, and she turned to see what he was looking at.

In the darkness, a campfire glowed at the base of the Lady Tree with some people standing around it, watching her.

“G’night, Phouka,” Fer said with a final pat, and went to see who it was.

As she got closer, she saw the young wolf-guard, Fray, standing with her burly arms folded, looking fierce in the firelight. Fer nodded, and Fray nodded back. Next to her, Fer saw one tall, pale shape and a second, shorter, darker shape with . . . was it embers burning at the ends of its hair?

It was. What were
they
doing here? “Hello, Lich,” Fer said slowly. “Hello, Gnar.”

The fire-girl gave Fer a brisk nod. “Hello, Lady Strange,” she said. Like when Fer had first met her, Gnar was dressed all in black silk; her skin was the color of burned paper, and so was her hair—except for the coals burning at the end of each long braid.

Beside her, the swamp-boy, Lich, gave a solemn bow. “Lady Gwynnefar.” Lich was tall and thin and wore mushroom-colored clothes studded here and there with shiny bits that glimmered like dew.

Gnar and Lich had been her rivals during the competition to win the Summerlands crown. Fer had once felt a flicker of friendship from them, but they’d allied with Arenthiel during his invasion of the Summerlands, so they hadn’t been friends after all.

Fer shook her head, confused. “Um, what are you doing here?”

“We were sent,” Gnar said with a dry grin. She cast a slanting glance at Lich beside her. “She looks like a wildling thing, doesn’t she, Dewdrop?”

Lich nodded. “She does indeed, Spark,” he answered.

Fer looked down at herself. Her long hair was tangled and had twigs and bits of leaves snared in it. Her clothes, the shorts and T-shirt she’d been wearing all summer, were pretty much rags, and she had what her grandma would call
dirt socks
on her bare feet.

Well, all right. Maybe she
had
turned a little wild during the long, green days, her first summer of being truly and completely the Lady of this land.

“Speaking of wild, the pucks aren’t here, are they, Lady Gwynnefar?” Lich asked. He looked uneasily out at the darkness past the campfire, as if a crowd of pucks was out there waiting to leap on him.

“No, they’re not,” Fer answered. The pucks came and went as they pleased, but mostly they were off somewhere else. Usually getting into trouble.

“Well, that makes things easier,” Gnar said. “We’ve come from the nathe. Sent by the High Ones.”

Fer felt a shiver of worry. The High Ones ruled over all the lands, and the nathe was their palace. She hadn’t felt anything amiss in her own land, but if the High Ones had sent messengers . . . something was wrong.

She stepped past Gnar and Lich to the fire. The night air had an edge of frost in it, and the warmth from the flames felt good against her bare legs. Overhead in the Lady Tree, the Lady’s bees, whose buzzing speech only she could understand, hovered in a sleepy cloud. The rest of the land’s people, she sensed, were asleep.

“All well, Ladyfer?” Fray asked quietly. That’s what the people of the Summerlands called her now—
Ladyfer
. It was better than
Lady Gwynnefar
, anyway.

“I hope so, Fray,” Fer answered, and held her hands up to warm them.

Lich and Gnar joined her. Gnar stood so close to the fire, she was practically in the flames. Lich stood a few steps back, and Fer saw steam rising up around him. “What do the High Ones want?” Fer asked.

“They ask you to come to the nathe, Lady Gwynnefar,” Lich answered.

“The High Ones don’t show it,” Gnar said, “but we know they are worried. You started something.”

“A change,” Lich put in.

Gnar nodded. “A change, yes. And now you need to see it through.” The fire-girl leaned closer, and Fer saw the flames deep in her eyes. “They want to speak with you. They won’t force you to leave your land, but you need to come. Will you, Lady? Will you come?”

Three

This Way was open only at midnight and for a short time after that; at all other times it was closed, like a locked door. Rook caught a glimpse of white teeth flashing in his brother-puck Tatter’s dark face as he grinned.

“It’s time,” Tatter said. “Let’s go.”

The moonlight shone down and the Way opened. Rook stepped into it with his brothers. Every Way was different; going through this Way felt like being stabbed with daggers made of ice. He was shivering by the time he stumbled out the other side.

“All right, Pup?” Asher asked.

His teeth chattering, Rook nodded. His brothers had a plan. They hadn’t told him exactly what it was, but it would bring trouble to those who deserved it, so he would help them see it through.

He stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with his brothers, surveying the land they’d entered. They stood on bare rock that gleamed under the light of the heavy, low-hanging full moon. The rock was like a plain, seamed here and there with cracks. Nothing grew here, not even lichen. The air felt dry and dead.

“We don’t have much time before the Way closes again,” Asher said, and in the cold air a cloud of steam puffed out with his words. “Come on. We go toward the moon.”

They shifted into their dog shapes and padded over the rock. Rook sniffed with his dog nose, but the air smelled like nothing but dust and chill. After a long run, he saw something gleaming in the distance. As they got closer, he saw a spire of rock like a finger pointing at the moon. The spire was tall—as tall as a pine tree. Spread all around it was something that glistened under the moonlight, like cloth made of diamonds, or silver nets, or like . . .

Spiderwebs?

As his brothers slowed, Rook did too, and then spat out his shifter-tooth, catching it in his hand and stowing it in the pocket of his ragged shorts.

A glittering web stretched from the top of the rock-spire to the ground. In the middle of the web was a huge spider. It was as big as a horse, but the web didn’t sag under its weight. Its body was clear, as if it were made of glass. The moon shone into it, Rook saw, and the spider spun out shimmering lengths of thread made of moonlight. The spider’s eight legs were long and spindly, and
click-clack
ed as it deftly drew the strands of moonlight out of itself and wove them into its web. All around it, flowing out from the stone spire, more web lapped up to the pucks’ feet like a gleaming sea.

It reminded him of something. But
what
?

He must’ve looked confused. Asher spoke, his voice harsh in the silence. “It’s glamorie, Pup.”

Rook blinked and looked again. Ash was right. He’d seen web like this before; he’d seen Fer toss it over herself like a silver net, and then he’d seen Fer’s wolf-guard and her fox-girl maid bow to her as if she were a queen.

Fer, he knew, hadn’t liked that. But the Lords and Ladies of all the other lands—they liked what their glamories did.

“Rip’s been spying on some of the Lords and Ladies,” Asher said. “Following them. They take a different route here every time, trying to keep it secret, but we figured it out. They come here to harvest the web and cut it into pieces, and then they use it to rule.”

Rip glanced aside at him and gave a sharp smile. “They say we pucks are liars and cheats. But they’re the ones lying when they wear these webs.”

“They are,” Rook agreed.

“They’ll not give them up,” Asher said. The glamories, he meant.

“Not without a fight,” Rip agreed.

As an answer, Asher gave a snarling smile. “We’ll see about that, brothers. Now, there should be a chasm or a ravine nearby,” he said, looking around at the barren rock. “Cast out to search for it.”

Each of the pucks set out in a different direction. Rook stayed in his person form, shivering at the cold wind blowing across his shoulders. Leaving the moon-spinner spider behind, with the rising moon low in the sky on his right, he searched. He walked for a long time. The only sound was the hiss of the wind over the bare rock. The moonlight shone down, sheeny white. There was nothing here; Rook felt sure. This land was empty, except for the spider.

But no, wait. Ahead was something else. He crept closer, staying low and quiet, the rock cold under his bare feet. A wide crack in the rock that looked like it was sucking in the light, leaving only darkness. This was it, what his brothers had come here to find.

Rook glanced over his shoulder. He’d walked a long way; the spire stuck up in the distance, the spider there only a bright spot in the night. He saw movement on the rock plain: his brother-pucks, searching. “Here!” Rook shouted and waved, and he thought he saw a wave in return.

He turned back to the chasm. Might as well take a look while he waited. The moon had crept higher into the sky, so he could see well enough. Carefully he edged up to the jagged rim of the crack in the rock and knelt to look in. The chasm was far too wide to leap across, and it was deep and full of sharp shadows cast by the slanting moonlight. He could see a narrow path leading down to a ledge. Below that was only darkness, but he thought he saw something moving down there too.

The path wasn’t much of a path. He had to go sideways down it, his chest scraping on the rock wall of the chasm, his feet feeling their way. Down and down he went, deeper and deeper, until he got to a ledge. He stepped off the path and crouched. A foul smell drifted up from below. His nose wrinkled. It was the smell of rotting offal and swamp and dead fish—a stench so heavy and oily, it almost seemed to cling to his skin.
Something
had to be down there, making that smell. He lay on his chest on the ledge, peering into the roiling darkness.

A thin voice called from above. “Pup, are you there?”

He was about to answer,
I am, yes
, when the ledge crumbled away beneath him and he was sliding down a steep slope in a tumble of rocks. With a yell and a splash he landed in something as cold and thick as mud, but slick with the horrible smell too.

At that moment, the moon rose high enough in the sky to peek over the edge of the chasm. Its light shone down, and Rook saw that the bottom of the chasm was a cesspit full of stinking, bubbling muck, and there were
things
moving in the shadows. Things with
eyes
. He scrambled to his feet and backed away, beslimed with muck. With his hands he felt for a crack in the wall so he could climb away.

The things in the darkness came closer. He heard a sucking sound like something big dragging itself through mud, and then a huge spider lurched into a shaft of the pale moonlight. It was the twin of the moon-spinner spider, but instead of glass and moonlight, it was dank black and stuffed with darkness. It dragged a rotting, clotted mess of a web behind it. More clots of web clung to the walls of the chasm. Fat baby spiders the size of Rook’s hand skittered over the surface of the mud, or clung to the muck-spider’s spindly legs, or darted forward to examine Rook and then scuttle away.

“Ash!” he shouted desperately, his back to the wall.
Get me out of here!
He gasped for breath, and the heavy, stinking air caught his throat, making him choke and cough.

“Pup!” he heard from just above him.

“Careful!” he croaked back. “The ledge is crumbling away.”

He heard the sound of urgent voices, whispering.

Come
on,
brothers
.

The muck-spider lurched closer.

“Hurry!” he shouted, and his voice echoed off the steep walls of the ravine.

A long, spindly spider leg dripping with muck probed toward him. It had a knife-edged pincer on its end that went
snap
,
snap
,
snap
. He edged away and slipped, and as he went down into the muck, he felt something slimy brush against his hand and then cling, as if it was set with tiny barbs. Coughing, he scrambled to his feet again. The spider moved closer, and he heard its mouthparts moving, a scraping, gurgling sound. It wasn’t going to
eat
him, was it?

“Here, Brother,” he heard from just above.

Rook looked up. Ash, on the ledge with Tatter behind him, holding his shirt as Ash leaned forward, stretching his arm down.

“Jump for it, Pup,” Ash ordered.

With a desperate leap, Rook jumped, grabbing for Ash’s hand with the hand not covered with slimy muck. As his brother-puck hoisted him up, Rook heard the snap of pincer-claws closing on air right where he’d been cowering against the chasm wall.

Ash dragged him onto the crumbling ledge. “And on up,” Ash said, shoving Rook ahead of him onto the path. He followed Tatter, with Ash right behind, along the path until they reached the top, where Rip was waiting.

Rook crawled off the path and lay flat on the rock, panting.

“You all right, Pup?” Asher asked from where he crouched a few steps away.

Rook jerked out a nod.

“You weren’t bitten?” Tatter asked, kneeling beside him. He put a hand on Rook’s forehead.

“I wasn’t, no,” Rook answered. He shoved Tatter’s hand aside and sat up. The bit of muck was still stuck to his palm. He scraped it against the rock, but it wouldn’t come off.

“Phew, the stink of you!” Asher said, standing next to him now.

Beside him, Rip grinned, and his flame-red eyes flashed. “Should we toss him back in?”

Rook scrambled away from Rip, who was unchancy enough to actually do it. “No!” he gasped. He glanced back at the chasm. “What was that thing?”

“Shadow-spinner spider,” Ash answered. “Twin of the moon-spinner back there.” He nodded toward the spire in the distance.

Tatter was staring at Rook’s hand. “You’ve got a bit of its web on you.”

“It won’t come off.” He tried scraping it on the rock again.

Ash glanced aside at Rip, who nodded. “No, leave it, Pup. It’s what we came here for.” Ash looked up at the full moon. “We have time for a test. We’d better hurry, though, so we can get back to the Way before it closes.”

At that, Rip grinned. “And then we can get our pup here a bath, can’t we?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” Tatter said, getting to his feet and backing away from Rook. “Or maybe one bath and then another bath.”

Rook glowered. It wasn’t funny. The muck-spider had been horrible, and he almost hadn’t gotten away from its pincer-claws. “Leave it,” he muttered, getting to his feet. Ugh. He could practically see the stench floating around him in a rancid cloud.

Ash laughed. “Or maybe ten baths. And, brothers, I know where we can steal some excellent soap.”