Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (37 page)

“Here and There! Here and There! Tremble
before the King of Here and There!”

Faerie beasts, displaced and dispossessed from all corners of the Between, flashed their teeth and their claws and their weapons. But they were afraid to draw any nearer to the Mound. Then one stepped out from amid their number, and the thing within Daylily recognized him as a figment from her dreams, and Daylily herself, what was left of her, desperately fighting for use of her own eyes, recognized him, and her heart leapt, then sank at the sight.

Foxbrush, on trembling feet, strode out from that shadowy throng and stood just within the light of the Bronze. It cast upon his face weird highlights that could not warm his pallor. He awkwardly held a lance of crude make in both hands, as though he wasn’t quite certain whether the pointed end should be up or down. So rather than make a decision, he raised it above his head, and with that motion silenced his fey army.

“Warriors of Cren Cru!” he shouted, though his voice cracked and he was obliged to clear his throat. “Give back what you have stolen and leave this land forever.”

“No!” shouted one voice from among the Faerie beasts. Nidawi stepped forward then, a rabid child frothing at the mouth. “No, kill him! Kill them all!”

Foxbrush bowed his head and whispered nervously, “I’ve got to at least make the offer. It’s traditional.”

“Burn tradition! Kill my enemy!” Nidawi shrieked. And the other Faerie beasts shrieked in a building, roaring echo. Then, before Foxbrush could
recover himself enough to speak a word, his army broke from his command and flowed down into the valley of Cren Cru. They threw themselves at the wall of bronze light and the warriors ringing there.

The warriors waited by their stones. And as the Faerie beasts set upon them, the warriors slew them. Agonized screams of death replaced the screams of battle and bloodlust as the Faerie beasts fell before that unbreachable wall.

Foxbrush, however, remained at the top of the incline, lying facedown where he had been knocked in the rush, both arms stretched out before him, still grasping the lance. He pulled his head up, spitting out dirt and turf, and saw the bloodshed below. They were dying in droves, and the warriors remained unharmed beside their stones.

“This won’t do.”

The voice was Eanrin’s, speaking near Foxbrush’s ear. Foxbrush felt two strong, long-fingered hands grab him by the shoulders and pull him to his feet. He stood gasping for the remnants of air that had been knocked from his lungs. Eanrin studied the carnage below, and his lip lifted in a snarl. “This won’t do,” he repeated. Then, “I’ve got an idea. Follow me, little king!”

With that, he gave Foxbrush a push to start him moving before darting on ahead so quickly that Foxbrush, staggering, very nearly lost him. But for the first time, something glimmered beneath Foxbrush’s feet, and he thought he saw, however briefly, the Path of which everyone had spoken. However it was, he stumbled down the incline, following the trail of the crimson-clad poet, who darted between the Faerie beasts into the space between two great bronze stones. The light from the stones had dimmed in the onslaught, and now their individual glows did not reach so far as to touch one another, leaving small gaps of darkness. Into this darkness, Eanrin plunged, and Foxbrush, gripping his lance, his shoulders hunched and his head low, prepared to follow.

But then one of the warriors turned from his fight and, seeing the flash of Eanrin’s cloak, sprang after him. This was a savage warrior with a long black braid whipping behind him, his skin shiny with sweat, his clothing splashed with browning blood.

And Foxbrush hesitated for one moment as the words flashed through his brain:

First let pass the man in red,

Then let pass the brown . . .

How he hated poetry!

Something struck him from behind. Whether foe or friend, it did not matter, for the blow caught him hard between the shoulders, once more knocking all the breath from his body. He staggered under the impact and fell headlong through the dark shadow, landing within the inner circle.

Someone grabbed him by the back of his head, yanking his chin back. He felt the sharpness of a stone cut him behind the ear. A half second more and his throat might well have been slit.

But Eanrin leapt at Sun Eagle and knocked him to the ground, and the stone dagger flew wide. Foxbrush, gasping and clutching the wound at his neck, twisted around to see the cat-man and the dark-skinned warrior grappling upon the ground. Sun Eagle got the upper hand, kneeling on Eanrin’s chest, grasping his throat in a choke hold. But Eanrin, who was stronger than he looked, brought his knee up sharply into Sun Eagle’s back, dislodging his hold.

Foxbrush, using his lance for support, got to his feet and prepared to join the fray, uncertain if his help would be welcome. But something caught the tail of his eye, and he turned.

Daylily, still wearing the bloodstained gown of Eldest Sight-of-Day, stood at the door of Cren Cru’s Mound, surrounded by empty-eyed children, one of them caught in her arms.

But it wasn’t Daylily who looked out of her eyes. Her mouth opened, and words poured forth:

King of Here and There! We have
heard rumor of you ere now, the promise spoken on
the shores of the Final Water. So the time of
our meeting is come. And yet, we do not fear
you as we believed we would.

“Please,” Foxbrush said, his knuckles whitening as he clutched his lance tighter. “Let her go. Return the children you stole.”

That does not suit
our purpose.

“I’ll . . . I’ll kill you,” Foxbrush said, taking a trembling step forward.

Kill us? You’ll
have to catch us first!

“No, wait!” Foxbrush shouted, dropping his weapon as he put out both hands. But it was too late.

The creature that was Daylily hurled itself and the child it held into the mouth of the Mound.

Foxbrush, without stopping to think, ran. The distance to the door stretched on for a small forever, like an impassable dreamscape. Then the doorway seemed suddenly to reach out, to grab him, and he plunged into the darkness within.

H
E
STOOD
IN
THE
G
REAT
H
ALL
of the Eldest.

Considering he’d been expecting sudden and searing death, this wasn’t all that bad. Surprising, to be sure. But not bad, exactly.

Great pillars rose up from the floor to support the high roof, and elegant railings framed the galleries above. Enormous windows, open to the darkness outside, lined the walls from floor to gallery, from gallery to ceiling. Through these poured a light colder than moonlight, and it shone upon long, filmy curtains embroidered with starflowers and panthers, which fluttered without the aid of a breeze, like so many writhing, elongated phantoms.

Odd,
Foxbrush thought, frowning where he stood. He wondered if this strange, cold light was playing tricks on his eyes.
This looks like the old
Great Hall. From before the Dragon.

He began to tremble, and the fear he’d expected from the moment he stepped through that black doorway finally caught up with him. For the
old hall had been decimated by dragon fire, torn down by dragon claws. Yet it was that hall he saw before him, not the new, unfinished one of his day.

Have I stepped back in time again?
Foxbrush wondered.
Or rather, forward in time? Or
 . . .
or . . .

And then he saw a sight that told him he was nowhere in time, nowhere in reality, or at least, no reality that he knew.

High above the galleries, in the empty space between the supporting pillars and the arched roof, ghostly figures floated. Like dust motes drifting in directionless patterns, so these figures floated, arms and legs out like the points of a star, heads bowed over chests, hair floating like that of drowned men underwater. Weightless they wafted, never touching one another, as though each was a world apart. Hundreds of them filled the space above Foxbrush’s head.

The lost firstborn.

Foxbrush craned his neck back to stare up at them, those wraithlike children. The cold light washed their dark skin pale and their dark hair silvery, and they seemed to glow faintly with a pulsing luminosity. Were they dead? Were they beyond dead? Some of them looked
thinned
, as though their very existence was being drained away, leaving behind a flickering residue of reality. Some of them possessed scarcely any remaining form but drifted in and out of visibility like curls of white smoke.

But some were still solid. And among these Foxbrush spotted a shock of red hair, vibrant hued even in that eerie light.

“Lark!” he cried. His voice echoed through the cavernous hall. Everything was bigger, he now realized, than the hall of his memory. He and the floating figures above him were no more than mice compared with the vastness of this place. He ran across tiles that were each half a field in length, and the pillars were like tall mountains around him. Above his head, the drifting form of Lark vanished in the swirling bodies of the children, only to reappear farther away. Foxbrush chased her, uncertain what he hoped to do but unwilling, even so, to let the girl out of his sight.

It’s useless to run, you know
.

Foxbrush staggered to a halt and whirled around to face the voice that had spoken behind him. There was no one there. Only darkness at the
end of the hall where everything vanished beyond all hope of light. His heart thudding in his breast, he searched the deeper shadows behind the pillars and beneath the windows.

Are you looking for
us? You are more foolish than we thought.

“Where are you?” Foxbrush cried.

Not here. This is your memory.
You’ll not find us.

“Are . . . are you in my mind?”

No. You came to us. You are inside us
. But we must use other minds to take shape, for
we have no shape of our own. This is your
memory within
us
.

Foxbrush cursed. He turned again to search for Lark up among the children above. He’d lost her. Frantic, he ran, his eyes upturned.

He nearly collided into Daylily.

She stood before him, no longer wearing the Eldest’s garment but adorned in the wafting rags of her wedding gown, as ghostly pale as the children above, her red hair, bereft of its life and curl, falling in straight sheets on either side of her face, over her shoulders.

“He is drinking,” Daylily said.

Foxbrush yelped and nearly fell over backward. She looked like something from a dream or a nightmare, beautiful and awful at once.

“He is drinking,” she repeated, her breath so cold it steamed in the air. Her eyes stared straight ahead, not at Foxbrush, not at anything, wide open and unseeing. She lifted her hand and pointed to the children up above. “He is sucking the life of Southlands through the lives of Southlands’ firstborn. He is drinking their memories. He is drinking them.”

Foxbrush looked again at the children. Many of them were so far gone! What would happen when they faded away entirely?

“We must stop him, Daylily,” he said, turning urgently to her. He wanted to reach out and touch her but somehow didn’t dare. “You must help me.”

She cannot help you. She is ours. She is—

“Mine,” Daylily whispered.

Mine!

Daylily took a step toward Foxbrush, still without seeing him. Her upraised arm reached out, stretching toward his face. He knew he could not let her touch him, and he stumbled back. Then he turned and ran.

You have so many fears. So many wonderful, fascinating,
mortal fears! And we know what to do with those.

The enormous tiles beneath Foxbrush’s feet shifted, then rippled like water. His feet sank into them as though he had tried to run over the surface of a bog, and he was dragged down to his knees. He struggled to pull himself free, but it was useless.

“Useless.”

There are some voices that sound far worse in memory than they ever were in reality. So it was with this voice. The very sound of it was dread and rejection, all things most shameful falling upon Foxbrush’s ears. He turned, his eyes widening with terror, to what he knew he must see.

Lionheart stood above him. But he was taller here in this place of Foxbrush’s memory than he ever would be in the real world; Foxbrush always thought of Lionheart as much bigger than he was.

“Useless,” said the figure of Lionheart, and he laughed at Foxbrush’s plight. “That’s what you always were. From the time we were children, what have you ever been but a useless tag-on? And you think
you
can be Eldest?”

You? Eldest?

The words poured from Lionheart’s mouth and rushed together around the pillars, across the windows, through the galleries, among the drifting bodies of the children. The floor beneath Foxbrush churned at the sound, sucking him farther down. He gasped and put his hands out to try to pull himself up. But his hands caught too and sank to his elbows. He glared furiously at Lionheart, who was laughing now.

“A king, Foxbrush? You weren’t even a good damsel in distress. Didn’t you cry when she pulled the button off your shirt? I think you did. I remember!”

We see it in your mind!

“And that mother of yours . . . do you know why she never wanted to see you? Why she hid herself away in her rooms, a half-crazy recluse? Do you know why?”

We see it in your mind!

“Because you look like your father. Oh, not everyone can see it! But she can. Every time she looks at you. He was a weak man too, and he knew it.
So he set out to prove his strength, and he subdued her, and he beat her, and she could only pray that he would leave again on one of his long trips to the lowlands. And you . . .
you
, Foxbrush . . . crying at the window as you watched his carriage roll away.
‘Where is
Papa going?’
you’d ask, and what did she say to you, Foxbrush? What did she say?”

Tears streamed down Foxbrush’s face, and each one that fell seemed to drag his head after it. He sagged, his arms and legs caught in the floor, almost willing now for it to swallow him up.

“You know what she said.” The figure of Lionheart crouched before Foxbrush, caught his chin in one hand and forced him to look up, to meet those hateful, laughing eyes. “Tell me, Foxy! Tell me what it was!”

“She said . . .” Foxbrush choked on his own tears. They sat as bile in his throat. “She said,
‘He’s gone to the Dragon’s own house, and
may he never return!’
”

“Well done.” The figure of Lionheart grinned. He let go of Foxbrush’s chin and patted his head like a good dog. Then he sat back on his heels, and his grin grew lopsided, turning into a leer. “Then one time he left, and he never did return. One day, in another vain proof of strength, he ran afoul of a duelist’s blade, never to rise again. Another failure.

“But your mother looks at you, and she still sees him in your eyes. You are so like him, Foxbrush! Useless. Worthless. Will you be Eldest?”

You?

“Will that somehow prove your strength? Will you take a girl like
her
”—with a sweep of his arm to where Daylily stood staring down on the two of them, unseeing—“for your bride? You, of all people?”

You?

Foxbrush raised his haggard face. It was a titanic effort, for he felt his weakness pressing him down into the sucking floor. But he raised his face and looked across the gloomy hall to Daylily. Beautiful Daylily, powerful Daylily. Strong, unbending, unmoving Daylily.

She met his gaze. For a flash as bright as the Bronze—brighter even—she saw him and knew him. She could not see the figure crouched before him, for her memories of Lionheart were not the same as Foxbrush’s. She could not see the Great Hall of the Eldest, for all around her was nothing
but barren wasteland under a starless sky. And in that sky, the forms of the stolen children floated and gave of their memories, gave of their essence, feeding into the greedy will of Cren Cru as it sought to latch hold of that which it could never have. Cren Cru was all that was left now in this place of her mind. Cren Cru was . . .

But then she saw Foxbrush sinking into the dry, dusty ground, brought low with shame. She saw him and drew a surprised breath, for she knew it was him, truly
him
. Not a mere memory, but Foxbrush himself, clad in those ugly, stinking garments, his face half hidden behind a ragged beard.

She opened her mouth to speak his name. But to her horror, she realized he was looking at her.

Just as she saw him in his true form here, so he saw her. Not the self she always presented, not the beautiful girl, the ruthless conspirator, the cold, unreachable beauty. He saw
her
.

He saw the wolf.

“Daylily!” Foxbrush cried, all thoughts of the near-Lionheart forgotten as he stared at the red she-wolf bound with bloodied chains to the great stakes. How he knew that foam-mouthed beast for the girl he loved, he could not say, for reasonable thought had long since fled. He knew in the depths of his frantically beating heart, and he surged toward that knowledge, pulling against the will that sought to swallow him.

“Foxbrush,” said the wolf.

And at the sound of his name falling from that mouth, Foxbrush felt his strength reviving. He fought the hold Cren Cru had upon him, heaving himself up and onto his feet. The floor remained unstable, but the tiles had shrunk now, and he stood up to a full man’s height. On unsteady but determined feet, he started toward her, toward the wolf. “Daylily,” he said again, his hands reaching out to her chains, eager to free her.

The figure of Lionheart lunged at him from behind, wrapping powerful arms about him and hurling him from his feet. Foxbrush fell upon the tiles, which shattered like shards of glass into blackness. He put up both hands to protect his face, but now the figure of Lionheart was gone and, in its place, a shadowy form swooped down upon him and struck him
again, on the face, on the chest. He tried to hit it, but something bit his hand with razor teeth and worried it like a dog pulling flesh from a bone. Foxbrush screamed and pummeled at nothing, for there was nothing to strike: no body, no form, only teeth and biting pain.

Daylily watched, and the wolf surged against her chains, ravening. “Let me loose! Let me loose!” she roared. “Let me kill it!”

“No!” Daylily cried, lost in her mind, uncertain of her own body and form now. Was she herself? Was she the wolf?

Was she Cren Cru?

“Let it go.”

From somewhere up above, the song of the wood thrush fell down upon Daylily. The next moment, she felt the bird himself alight upon her shoulder, though she wasn’t even certain she had a body anymore. She turned to the bird, and he looked at her with his bright eye. How could he follow her, even here, even into the heart of the Mound and her own blighted mind?

“Let it go. The time is now.”

“If I let it go, it will kill us all,” Daylily whispered.

“No, Daylily,” sang the bird. And suddenly he wasn’t a bird anymore. She found herself standing beside the form of a man, but not exactly a man. More like what man was intended to be at the beginning of Time and the Near World, before the ravages of mortality took hold and corrupted what should have been most fair. This Man was the realized ideal, the realized potential, and more besides—so much more! This form he wore could only just contain the glory of his majesty and the Song that burst from the inner depths of his being.

She knew him at once. She had seen him before, in the House of the Eldest. She had seen him enter the gate and then, two hours later, walk away again, and she’d never spoken to him. But she had known, even in that distant glimpse she’d had, that this person, this Man, was someone she must either love or hate. There could be no other response to him.

He looked at her now with his ageless eyes: deep, bottomless wells of kindness and strength. The Prince of Farthestshore, Lord of all the Faerie, son of the King Across the Final Water.