Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) (39 page)

L
ARK
HAD
NEVER
WALKED
on clouds before.

She decided these probably weren’t
real
clouds. Real clouds held the rain, and that meant they had to be wet, or at least a little soggy. These, however, were more like what storytellers and poets
want
clouds to be: indescribably soft and springy yet solid enough that a little girl might walk upon them.

Or perhaps she was simply not solid enough herself anymore to fall through.

Either way, she didn’t mind. After all the horror of recent memory—horror that her conscious mind had been too numbed to recognize, but that her raging subconscious had experienced in all the vibrancy of dreams-come-true—a stroll in the heavens was quite pleasant.

How she had come here, she couldn’t decide. She had vague recollections of the shadow’s scream, followed by a long, long fall. Then she’d opened her eyes and found herself lying upon this cloud that was softer than lamb’s wool. All was gray-blue around her with the promise of dawn
nearing. She got to her feet, unsteady at first, then started walking, stepping from cloud to cloud.

There were other children. None of them were near enough to call out to, but she could see hundreds of them all round her. Dark children of the South Land, clad in garments very like her own. Her brothers and her sisters through the binding of the nation.

They had all passed through the black door of the Mound.

Lark shivered at this almost memory. It couldn’t be a real memory since she had been unconscious, lost at the time in the light of the Bronze. But somewhere deep inside, she came so close to remembering, it was frightening. She would spend the rest of her life trying to forget what she had never truly known.

Lumé began to rise. The clouds, dark purple beneath her feet, came alive with red, with saffron, with gold, rippling like swiftly moving water as the light spread farther and farther. Lark heard gasps of delight from the great crowd of children surrounding her, but then those gasps were swallowed up in the sound that followed.

The sound of Lumé’s Song.

He appeared on the edge of the horizon, lordly and powerful, a vision-filling giant even at this vast distance. He was young and he was old, and his hair streamed like flames, and his body flamed as well, a vibrant flame full of life. From his mouth poured the Melody, and it was the Melody itself that exploded with light, and shot the colors across the clouds, across the waking world.

As Lumé rose, he danced, and Lark found she longed to dance as well. She raised her hands above her head, and her feet moved in a rhythm hitherto unknown. All the children danced, each a different dance, unique in its pattern, hundreds of inimitable patterns that moved together with the Song of Lord Lumé and scattered tufts of light-infused clouds beneath their feet.

They raised their sweet, childish voices and sang. Theirs was not the language of the Sun, but language did not matter here, high above the worlds.

“I bless your name, oh you who sit

Enthroned beyond the Highlands!

I bless your name and sing in answer

To the Song you give!

“My words in boundless gladness overflow,

In song, more than words.

Joy and fear and hope and trembling,

Bursting all restraint!

“Who can help but sing?”

So the sun rose and danced across the sky. And his Song became milder, more distant as he climbed those high blue vaults, and the clouds gave up their brilliant colors to become a softer, gentler white. Lark, exhausted and happy, sat down suddenly, closing her eyes, feeling the warmth of Lumé’s blaze upon her skin. The darkness of Cren Cru’s Mound was all but forgotten now.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself gazing into the face of a friend she had not known she knew.

“Hullo,” she said.

“Hullo,” said the Prince of Farthestshore. He crouched down before her, and his smile was more beautiful than Lumé himself. He wasn’t a man, exactly, but he wasn’t a Faerie either. Lark didn’t know what he was, but she didn’t think such questions mattered now.

“Thank you for the Song,” she said.

“Thank you for the singing,” he replied, and this she thought strange. With Lumé, Hymlumé, and all the hosts of gleaming stars to sing for him, why should he care about her one, feeble voice? Yet the delight was evident in his eyes.

Lark blushed, so pleased at the Prince’s pleasure, she hardly knew which way to look.

The Prince said, “Are you ready to go home now?”

“Go home with you?” she asked hopefully.

But the Prince of Farthestshore shook his head. “Not yet, Meadowlark,” he said, and she liked how her full name sounded when he spoke it. “I need you to sing in your own world a little longer. Are you ready to do that for me?”

She sighed and shrugged. “I’d rather go with you.”

“What about your ma and da? Your sisters and your brother? Don’t you think they need you?”

The words weren’t spoken as a reprimand, but Lark felt shamed even so. She’d forgotten about her family. “Ma needs me to watch Wolfsbane,” she said. “My sisters aren’t big enough yet.”

“Your ma needs you to love and to hold, and your da needs your singing,” said the Prince of Farthestshore. He stood then and put out a hand to her. She took it eagerly and let him help her to her feet. Somehow she knew that all the children walked with the Prince of Farthestshore, that he led them each by the hand. But she was alone with him still. How this could be was too much to ponder, so she didn’t. She merely enjoyed herself and the walk across the sky, and the now-distant Song of Lumé falling down from above. They passed through unknown portals, across clouds, across starscapes, across distant oceans and green sweeps of valleys, and it took her breath away. She pointed and exclaimed, and the Prince of Farthestshore joined in her merriment, laughing delightedly at her enthusiasm, and answered questions as she asked them, though she’d not be able to remember what he’d said later on, down in the thin air of the Near World.

But she would never forget the sound of his voice, nor the joy she experienced during that walk. She never told anyone—mere words failed to describe something so sweet, so dear, so magnificent—but she thought of it often, even to her dying day.

Suddenly she saw her home, the Eldest’s House upon the hill above the jungle village. She stopped then, tugging on the Prince’s hand. “Wait,” she said.

“What is it, Meadowlark?” he asked her gently.

“Foxbrush.” She frowned and one of those dark recollections she wished to ignore came back to mind. She saw Foxbrush down in the darkness, battling the shadow that had imprisoned her. Battling to save her and all the children of the South Land. A fight he could not hope to win. “What about Foxbrush?”

“I will take care of him,” said the Prince. “You may trust me.”

“I know.” But Lark’s frown did not dissipate. “I would like to go to him first, if I may. I’d like to find him and see for myself. Please.”

The Prince smiled yet again. “Gentle child, brave child,” he said. “Yes, you may see your friend and thank him for what he sacrificed. He has bravely fought the fight I placed before him, and he has earned your gratitude and love.”

With that, the Prince turned and led Lark in a new direction. She saw trees, forests, gorges pass beneath her feet in a few strides. Then she saw the center of the Land, the deep valley where the Mound had latched hold and the starflower trees were uprooted. Now there was nothing but a blackened hole in that place, a scar to mark Cren Cru’s coming and passing. Lark shivered at the sight.

But she saw too that starflower vines already crept across the ground, covering the scar with their soft leaves and bright faces. “All will be well again,” Lark whispered.

“All will be well,” the Prince of Farthestshore assured her.

Deep in the jungle, Redman and Eldest Sight-of-Day, leading the warriors of their village, felt a tremor through the ground at their feet. A shadow that had kept their hearts captive for long months lifted suddenly, leaving all of them breathless. They did not understand why. But the Eldest turned to her husband, her dark eyes seeking his.

“Lark?” she said.

But he shook his head. “We should return to the village,” he said. So they turned and hastened back through the winding jungle trails. As they went, they heard the voices of hundreds of Faerie beasts singing out in all their chattering, braying, cawing, roaring tongues:

“He’s dead! He’
s dead! The Mound is brought low! The Parasite is
plucked from its hold! Cren Cru is dead!”

Then, as though in answer, other voices sang back:

“All hail
the King of Here and There! All hail the Fiery
Fair!”

The villagers understood nothing of this, and many were afraid. But
Redman took his wife’s hand, and he found strength there to hurry on and discover what they might.

When they reached the village, it was alive with shouts and joyful cries. The warriors around the Eldest dropped their weapons and ran, arms extended. For the firstborn were come home. Mothers pressed children to their breasts, and fathers wrapped strong arms around families once more made whole. And all wept and talked and trembled with gladness in the growing light of that morning sun.

The Eldest and Redman, however, stood quietly looking on. For they saw no sign of Lark.

The orange cat sat a little to one side, grooming his paws, but his ears were back, listening. He didn’t feel up to joining the mayhem but maintained a rhythmic and focused lick-lick-lick, concentrating on one sorely blistered toe at a time.

Nidawi, however, was dancing.

“He’s dead! He’s dead! Cren Cru is dead! My enemy! At last he’s dead!”

She whirled about the whole of the circle where the Bronze had so recently stood, leaping and cavorting, first in the form of a child, then that of a maid, a woman, a crone, all dancing to a wild music ringing in her head.

Then suddenly she found herself before the crumpled form of Foxbrush held in the arms of a mortal woman.

Nidawi stopped and looked at him, her champion. Did champions weep as this one wept? It was so strange!

She knelt beside him, ignoring Daylily and making quite certain that her own immortal beauty far eclipsed anything the mortal could offer. But when she reached to take Foxbrush in her arms, Daylily growled in her throat. Nidawi, startled, pulled her hands back and gave Daylily a quick once-over. Then the Faerie nodded with grudging respect and said:

“He is my hero.”

“As he is mine,” said Daylily, her arms tightening protectively. “The hero of all Southlands.”

“And Tadew-That-Was. And Etalpalli and Uleonore and Waclawa-so-Lid . . . all those who are avenged this Thirteenth Dawn.” Nidawi’s body trembled with the passion of her words, and her gorgeous eyes brimmed, then overflowed with tears. “They are free! They are
free
!”

“We are free,” Daylily whispered, gazing down at the one who lay inert in her arms. She could not say if he was conscious. He lay with his head in her lap, eyes open, tears streaming. He breathed very lightly and gazed up at the dawn-streaked sky. She thought he had a look about him as though he heard beautiful music that she herself could not quite catch.

His hands were burned into a mere abstract remnant of what they had once been. Hideous to look upon and unimaginably painful. One could no longer even see where the teeth of the shadow spirit in the Mound had torn and broken them; those wounds were nothing compared to the ruin inflicted by the melting Bronze.

But he lay as though the pain were far from him, as far away as that Song to which he listened.

Nidawi followed Daylily’s gaze and saw Foxbrush’s hands for herself. She sniffed, recoiling a little at the stench of burned flesh. Then she looked at Daylily again and tilted her head of black, leaf-strewn hair to one side. “Do I know you?”

“No,” said Daylily.

“You look familiar,” the Faerie protested. “All you mortals look so alike, but there’s something about you . . . Have I threatened your life at one time?”