Starflower (12 page)

The poet frowned. Her black eyes stared at him so earnestly that Eanrin wished to look away. But being a cat, he did not like to break gaze first. At last he said slowly, “Are you . . . you mean you're a mute?”

The girl opened her mouth wide. He saw the muscles in her throat move. He even saw her tongue and lips trying to shape a word. But not a sound emerged save a whisper of a moan, and even that caused her obvious pain.

The poet put both hands up and backed away, frowning severely, which was a terrible sight on his merry face. “You're cursed.”

She nodded.

“Great hopping goblins!” Eanrin turned away, pulling the scarlet cap from his head and twisting it in his fists. “Great
ugly
hopping goblins! What am I doing? This is just brilliant, Eanrin, brilliant. You've gone and rescued a princess from one curse only to find out she's under another! That's what you get from reaching out the hand of friendship to a stranger. Listen to yourself next time and don't get involved.”

He prowled the little clearing like a caged animal while the girl watched him, irritated. After all, she had not asked him for help, and she certainly wasn't asking now. She folded her arms and waited.

The cat-man whirled on her, his eyes flashing. “What I
don't
have time for is you!” he declared. “So you'd best get up and go on your way. Do you hear me? Break your own curses.”

Her jaw set. Her shoulders went back. Her hands dropped in fists to her sides, and she turned from the poet and marched from the clearing into the waiting Wood.

“Stop!”

The poet leapt forward, spreading his arms as he blocked her way. “Where do you think you're going? Carry on that way, and before you know it, you'll land right in the middle of Arpiar. Terrible demesne, that! All barren hillsides and deep mines, goblins crawling everywhere. And didn't I just tell you about Rocs hunting on the Karayan Plains?”

She drew back from him, wrapping her arms about her middle so that the bindings on her wrists slapped against her legs. She turned on heel and started in the opposite direction. But she had made no more than a few paces when the poet shouted again.

“You mortal creatures are as helpless as blind kittens!” He placed a restraining hand on her arm. “You go on that way, and you'll tumble right into the realm of Lord Bright as Fire, the Tiger. He doesn't like company. And you're so puny, it won't take him more than a mouthful to put an end to you!”

She shook off his hand. With a still more resolute stride, she picked another direction and started at a run. But the cat-man easily outpaced and blocked her, a warning hand upraised. She scowled, planting her hands on her hips. The poet sighed as though he bore the curse himself.

“The Wood is dangerous without a Path,” he said. “Especially for you, mortal as you are.” His merry face became drawn with long-suffering. “I've never much cared for your kind. You live and die so swiftly, it's like becoming attached to a mosquito. But now I've gotten you this far, I can't leave you out here to get yourself killed or enchanted all over again. What's the point of waking you if you're just going to go back to sleep?”

The girl shook her head slowly, her eyes narrowed, her mouth closed tight. Oblivious, the poet heaved a frustrated sigh. “I shall have to take you with me.”

“No,” she signed.

“Eventually,” he continued, ignoring her, “I must discover where you belong and return you there. But I haven't the time to waste on such nonsense at present. For once in my life, Time is of the essence! My beloved, the fair and glorious Gleamdren—you know, my poetic muse?—has been captured by a most foul evil. The dreadful Hri Sora, curse of the Near World! Exciting prospect, yes? The stuff of epics.”

“I'm not going with you,” she signed.

“See here, girl, I don't know what you're saying, but consider this: What other choice do you have? Do you want to end up battered by Guta or devoured by the Tiger?”

The girl gazed up at his strange, beautiful features. He was different from every being she knew save for . . . save for that one terrible face with eyes devoid of either kindness or mercy. And yet, while this man was definitely a cat and selfish to the bone, she thought perhaps, deep inside his gaze, she glimpsed a spark of compassion.

Besides, as he said, what choice did she have?

“Very well,” she signed. “I will go with you. For now.”

“Is that a yes?” guessed the cat, his eyes following the movement of her hands.

With something close to a smile, the mortal girl nodded.

“Excellent!” said Eanrin.

C
OZAMALOTI
F
ALLS
roared with the voices of a thousand lions, its white mist shot with rainbows. Only the brave man who dared dive from the bridge at the brink of the falls for the sake of another would enter the City of Wings. Many had journeyed to this brink and gazed into those mists, only to turn their backs upon greatness. These had never seen the city of the Sky People or the tall green towers of Etalpalli, where Lady Gleamdren now languished in a dragon's keeping.

Now was the hour for the brave to come forward and make that leap of faith! But no story ever told about the mighty Cozamaloti Falls had prepared Glomar for this challenge.

The captain stood on the rope bridge strung above Cozamaloti's edge and looked down the falls. Though the waters were indeed shot with rainbows as promised, they hardly roared with the voices of a thousand lions. A thousand kittens, perhaps.

A two-foot trickle gurgled over a lump of rock into a pleasant stream below.

Glomar frowned. He rather hoped there was some trick here, that this was an illusion disguising the true power of Cozamaloti from his eyes. After all, it took nary an ounce of courage for a man to make this leap! The most he had to fear was slipping on a wet stone and giving his rump a good soaking.

He looked up and down the River. How strangely calm it was! Glomar knew from previous excursions into the Wood that this part of the River should be rushing with rapids and building to a final climax. Instead, it had dwindled to little more than a sweetly bubbling streamlet. What, by all the Lights Above, could be distracting it so thoroughly upriver?

Ah well! No use in musing on unfathomable matters. Glomar turned back to the falls (more like the dribble) and studied it. Perhaps that hazy mist where the rainbow arched was actually a deceptive death plunge? Not likely. But if he really made himself believe as much, he might work up enough terror to make the jump a courageous one.

He climbed over the rope guard on the bridge and held on to it, hanging over the side. It swayed out and back again in gentle rhythm. Dragon's teeth, it was like being a babe rocked in mother's arms! This was no way to storm Etalpalli's gates.

Shrugging, Glomar waited for the bridge to swing back out over the little drop. Then he let go.

Eanrin led the way through the Wood. Or at least he hoped he did.

Sometimes he thought he caught a gleam of gold, a flash of white, up ahead. But it vanished every time he looked twice. He trembled at the possibilities crowding his mind and forced himself to dismiss them. His life was what it was. Nothing was going to change.

Just because he hadn't left this mortal girl to rot on the River's edge did not mean he cared for her or her paltry story.

He picked his footsteps carefully, following a Path he believed he chose for himself. The mortal girl walked a few paces behind. He glanced back at her with a smile, admiring how quietly she proceeded, making surprisingly little noise for a human. Her bare feet were cut and sore, he
noticed, yet she moved with grace, save when those awful cords dangling from her arms caught in the underbrush.

Something needed to be done about those.

Eanrin stopped and reached out to snatch the girl's right arm. She jerked away, her eyes flashing curses as she backed up several paces. Eanrin laughed and shook his head. “You startle like a fawn, my girl! Come, don't be so skittish. Don't you think if I had intended to harm you, I would have done so long ere now? Use your brain and don't be a fool. I want to examine those bindings of yours.”

The girl's eyes searched his face. Truly she had been at his mercy for some time already, she told herself. Then again, he had made her kiss a bullfrog. Ugh!

But his face was not like that other.

Licking her lips and drawing a deep breath, the girl held out her hands. He lifted them to his face, sniffing. How like a cat he was in that moment, though his features remained those of a man.

He caught a certain scent and dropped her hands. For the first time since she'd met him, she saw fear in his golden face. It vanished so swiftly that she wondered if she'd imagined it; but she did not imagine the step back he took or the swift intake of breath.

Eanrin blinked once, then smoothed both eyebrows with the back of his hand. “Well, little one,” he said with a smile, “you have collected quite the variety of acquaintances, haven't you? But I don't want to know more. It's not my business what friends you make, or enemies, for that matter. I'll get these cords off you in any case.”

He drew a knife from his belt. Once more the girl gasped, but this time she forced herself not to flinch.
He is a friend!
she told herself.
He won't hurt you.

She looked away as he pressed the cold blade against her skin, slipping it under the painfully tight cords. He was gentle and did not cut her. In her mind, however, she saw another knife. A stone one, the blade jagged and stained.

The cords fell away, first from one wrist, then the other. As they dropped, the girl knelt, curling up in a ball. She thought she would be sick and struggled to force her stomach back down where it belonged.

“Oh, Lumé's crown!” said the poet-cat, looking down at her. The next moment, an orange cat rubbed across the girl's knees, purring noisily and flicking his tail in her ear. She sat up and, after a brief hesitation, ran a tentative hand along the cat's head, back, and up the plumy tail. The fur was matted with mud in places, but his ears were softer than the soft skins she wore, and his body was warm and rumbling with life.

Frostbite,
she thought, and a tear dropped down her face.

“Crown and scepter!” the cat meowled. It was strange indeed to hear the man's voice from the animal's mouth, though not as strange as it might have been. The two forms were both such natural extensions of Eanrin's nature that they hardly seemed disparate; it was only her perspective that altered. “If a purr like that can't cheer you, I don't know what will.”

The cat sat and started grooming, his ears quirked at an offended angle. The girl wiped away her tear and gave the top of Eanrin's head a scratch. He paused, pink tongue sticking out, and she smiled.

“I'm going to have to give you a name.” The cat vanished and the man sat cross-legged before her. Surprised, she pulled her hand back quickly from his head. He, with an air of disinterest, pulled a comb from the depths of his cloak and continued grooming. The comb's teeth caught on mud tangles in his thatch of hair, and he tugged at these vigorously, all the while keeping up a steady stream of talk. “I cannot keep calling you ‘girl,' or even ‘princess.' You are a princess, though, aren't you?”

The girl, rubbing her wrists, looked up with some surprise at this odd question and shook her head.

“Nonsense,” said the poet-cat, pausing a moment in midtug. “Didn't you disenchant the bullfrog? Everyone knows it takes a princess's kiss for that kind of magic.”

The girl shuddered and suppressed a gag.

Eanrin grabbed a clump of his hair and began tearing at it with sharp little digs from his comb. “You must be a princess without being aware of it. Or perhaps they don't call it ‘princess' where you're from. The emperor's heir, maybe? No, no, you look more like a chieftain's daughter. Some rugged tribe lost in the wilds of the mortal world . . . That's a bit romantic, actually.”

She shook her head again, smiling at the thought of this odd poet
imagining romance in her life. She looked down at her clothing, the soft white skins now mud gray and torn. No princess was she. Nothing but a woman's child.

“I must pick a name for you,” the cat continued. “Something royal enough to suit. Don't expect me to play any guessing games! You'll just have to take the name I choose. How about
Clodagh
? It means ‘muddy,' and you're certainly that! What, no? All right, all right.
Pádraigín,
then. It means you're of noble descent, which I'm telling you, you are. Princess Pádraigín.” He made a face. “I'd certainly not be writing any ballads to you.”

The girl, still rubbing her wrists, shook her head vehemently. A shining brightness in the shadows nearby caught her eye. Looking, she saw a familiar vine climbing a tree. Amid dark, blunt leaves, its flowers glowed bloodred in sunlight. In darkness they turned from red to gleaming white, like tiny stars. This vine grew in her homeland in wild abundance, and the sight of it here made her smile, like seeing a friendly face among strangers.

“
Ùna
might be nice,” the poet was saying. “It's always been one of my favorites. . . . Oi! Where are you going?”

Eanrin turned where he sat to watch the girl step over to the vine and gently lift one of the branches without plucking it. Then she turned to the poet and pointed at one of the star-shaped blossoms.

Eanrin, watching her, blinked his wide gold eyes. He spoke coldly. “Well, you needn't like Ùna. I've plenty of other choices for you. What about
Mallaidh
?”

She shook her head. Once more she pointed at the flower.

“
Dollag?
That's getting a bit pretentious, but—”

She glared at him and signed, “Don't be thick!” though she knew he wouldn't understand. Yet again she pointed at the flower and raised her eyebrows at the poet.

He tilted his head to one side, opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. Swallowing, he said, “Are you trying to tell me something?”

She mentally cursed back at the curse that had taken her voice. Grinding her teeth, she jabbed more forcefully at the blossom.

“Pretty that, yes,” said the poet. “The little starflowers.”

She nodded and smiled. Her teeth, though crooked, were white against her dark face. It was a pretty effect, Eanrin noticed, and he blushed.

No, wait . . .
blushed
?

He shook himself. Eanrin of Rudiobus, Iubdan's Chief Poet, did not blush; he
caused
blushes. Among all the ladies of Rudiobus. On the scaly face of ChuMana. Any woman he met would fall for his voice, the charm of his swift-flying words, and dissolve into the reddest flushes!

This was all wrong. This girl must be an enchantress of some kind. What a mess he'd gotten himself into! He wished he'd left the girl to the River, and this forlorn wish made him sulky.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “How about
Éibhleann
? It means radiant beauty. Not that you can ever boast beauty like that, mortal creature that you are!” he quickly added.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. Setting her jaw, she stepped over to the poet and took hold of him by the scruff of the neck. The moment she did so, she held an enormous growling tomcat, which she carried to the vine. She stuck his nose up to the flower.

The cat twisted out of her hands and landed on sandaled feet, once more a man. He shook himself and gave her such a look as would have curdled milk. “Yes! Fine, lovely flowers those! I agree! We call them
imralderi
, the starflowers.”

She nodded again, pointing.

The poet scowled at her. “Is that your name?”

Nod.

“You're sure of that?”

Nod, nod.

Suddenly his face was all smiles again. “Ah! What a fine and pretty name it is! And so unusual for a mortal girl. I would not have thought anyone in the Near World knew the Faerie tongue.” He snatched up one of her hands and, raising her fingers to his lips, saluted her ceremoniously. “I am ever so pleased to make your acquaintance, Princess Imraldera of the mortal realm.”

She drew back her hand. “I am no princess,” she signed, “and that is not my name!” Once more she indicated the little flower.

“Indeed,” said the poet, still smiling. “You are named for the flower, yes?”

“Yes!” she signed.

“The little starflower?”

She nodded and smiled as though to a simple child. “Yes, yes!”

“Princess Imraldera, then. Lovely name! Not one I've heard more than a handful of times, and never among my own people. Well, Imraldera, it's nice to be on such friendly terms, isn't it?”

She flung up both hands, then rubbed them down her face. But the poet's mind was settled on the matter. He had named her Imraldera, and Imraldera she must be.

“Well, now that's decided,” said the poet, adjusting his cap and cloak, “we really must be off. Glomar has such a start on me, I wouldn't be surprised if he's already found the gates to Etalpalli! This whole ‘helping the helpless' business really is for the dogs. You can't begin to understand how drastically you've slowed me down, Imraldera, and every moment is precious! If Glomar rescues the fair Gleamdren before I've so much as set eyes upon the Cozamaloti Falls, well, it's all up for me! I will have to abandon my pursuit of the true love of my heart, and with it abandon all dreams of poetic greatness! You see what a tragedy that would be, don't you?”