The Moorchild (3 page)

“Well, gold’s down in the woods yonder, buried. You find the fifth tree west of the red fox’s hole. Then you walk a snake length’s south and find old Twilligard’s sign on a fallen log—less’n the moss has covered it—then you go where it says, and—”

“Here, hold on! Where’s this red fox’s hole? How’ll I find that?”

Moql shrugged as well as she could for one suspended in midair. “
I
know where ’tis. You’ll have to hunt.”

“Nay, then. You’ll have to show me,” the shepherd retorted. He gave her a hitch and shifted his grasp to her middle, tucking her under his arm like a parcel as he strode down toward the woods.

There wasn’t any fox’s hole, red or otherwise, but Moql pointed to something and he took her word for it, then they struggled along what she told him was a snake’s length
south, which led him through nettles and brambles straight up to a dense thicket, with not a fallen log in sight. Here he balked—to her relief, since she was sore and breathless from the jolting. He held her up again and glowered at her.

“Think me a muggins, do you? I’ll go no farther. You tell me straight now, or I’ll give you to me dog!”

“It’s just yonder,” she said hastily, pointing at random. “ ’Twixt the roots of that big oak. You’ll have to dig.”

“
You’ll
dig, pixie!” He stalked over to the oak and swung her down among the ancient roots, keeping a fast hold on her jacket.

Gladly she burrowed into the soft mold of earth and last year’s leaves, and in a moment twisted toward him, offering a little handful of golden coins with the dirt still clinging to them.

His eyes bulged. Slowly he took them, letting his crook fall. He bit one. “By m’faith they’re real!” he whispered. “By jings, and I never believed it.”

“Plenty more,” Moql told him.

“Here, move aside, pixie, let me there,” he said, suddenly brisk. “I can dig faster nor you.”

He swept her away and fell to work. She didn’t tarry to watch. One jubilant leap and she was among the branches, already leaf color. Next moment she was safe in a high crotch, hugging the mossy trunk and fading to gray green to match it—or trying to. She peered anxiously at her doubled-up legs, her hands. Yes, gray green as moss, as lichen. It was all right, she knew how, the other was some kind of mistake that would never happen again. From here and there
in neighboring trees came birdlike giggles, in which she joined with relief and delight, her heart still pounding but her self-esteem swelling like a bubble. She had served that great gorm a turn, she had! Now
she
would have something to boast of!

“Clumsy youngling!” said a caustic voice from a branch above her.

The bubble burst. She looked up into Pittittiskin’s disdainful countenance. “I did it right!” she protested.

“The gold trick, aye. Everything else wrong. Slow. Bad. Risky. You never winked out at all.”

Before she could argue there came an outraged bellow from the foot of the tree, followed by “
Pixie!
Here, where’d you get to? Ahhh . . . that hoaxing creetur! I mighta known . . . !”

She glanced down through the leaves at the shepherd’s head and burly shoulders. The gold would have turned back into leaf mold by now. She no longer relished the joke. Stonily she watched as he turned this way and that, calling her several words she’d never heard before, then stomped off up the hill to his sheep.

“Back to the Mound!” Pittittiskin ordered.

“At midday? But we barely—You mean all of us? But we’ll learn, we’re only beginners—”

“Nay, just you. The others are beginners. You’re a blunderhead.” Pittittiskin landed on her branch, seized her hand and leaped, half floating, to the ground, taking her along willy-nilly.

She wailed and tugged to free her hand. “Let me try again, I’ll do better . . . ”

“Give over, now!” He silenced her with a yank, headed swiftly for the nearest Folk-path. “You maybe can’t. There’s something amiss with you, youngling, I dunno what. We’ll have to see the Prince. I suspicion you’re a menace to the Band.”

They found the Prince on his rock ledge a quarter way up the wall of the Gathering, where he liked to lounge on one elbow among his leafy cushions, head propped on one long-fingered hand, watching the antics and comings and goings of his Folk below. He was old, the Prince, and seldom went out onto the moor anymore, except on May Day, or the Harvest Dancing, or Midsummer’s Eve. His hair had grown white under its jaunty red cap, and his beard long. But his tilted eyes were as bright and knowing as ever.

He was already watching as Pittittiskin climbed nimbly up the rough-hewn wall toward him, pulling the reluctant Moql behind, and he spoke first as they reached the ledge.

“So, Pittittiskin? A bit of trouble, have we?” He addressed the elder, but his gaze fastened on Moql, who shrank a little under it, feeling much smaller and more uncertain than
usual, with no youngling beside her to touch elbows with, or indeed, anywhere around. She had never come face to face with the Prince before.

“Aye, a bit of trouble—about this size,” Pittittiskin answered with a jerk of his head at Moql.

“Big trouble can come in little parcels,” the Prince remarked. “What’s your name, m’dear?”

“Moql’nkkn,” Moql quavered.

“She can’t hide,” Pittittiskin added baldly.

“Yes I can! It was just—I just—”

“Ssssst.”
She was silenced by a yank on her arm, which Pittittiskin still held fast. He informed the Prince, in a few blunt sentences, of the morning’s events. She’d stumbled over the ewe, caught the shepherd’s eye, mucked up a color change, failed to wink out, left shelter and run straight into the man’s hands. She’d been caught, asked a lot of questions, luckily been too scared to answer. Finally minded her of the gold trick and managed to pull it off.

He made her sound a blunderhead, indeed. But she could not find any actual lie.

The Prince looked at her thoughtfully and went straight to the heart of the matter. “You can’t wink out?”

“Aye, I can! Leastways, I thought I—,” Moql faltered. She’d played at it, along with the other younglings, catching her breath, holding it until she had to giggle and let go. Nobody had ever told her she hadn’t gone transparent like the others. Nobody had ever told her she
had.
“Maybe I—muddled it,” she said in a small voice.

“No way to muddle it,” the Prince told her. “You can do it or you can’t. Let’s see you try.”

She swallowed. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

She gasped in a big breath and held it
hard,
her eyes squeezed shut.

“See that?” remarked Pittittiskin. “And you can tell she’s trying.”

Moql deflated with a rush, opened her eyes in dismay to find herself being studied by two speculative pairs of eyes.

“What d’you think?” said Pittittiskin—but not to her.

Instead of answering, the Prince said, “Try a shape change, little one.”

I’ll change to a dragon, then you’ll be sorry!
thought Moql. She tried, but she knew she had never yet managed a real shape change—only small alterations in her own shape and color. She’d always thought she’d pick it up—grow into it, like. Plainly she was wrong. The Prince was chewing meditatively on the tip of his beard, gazing past her—or through her—into some thought of his own. He wore a red jewel on a chain around his neck. It glowed like a drop of blood against his worn green weskit.

He spoke suddenly to Pittittiskin. “D’you recollect—it was a time ago—somebody coaxed one o’ Them into the Mound? Great towerin’ fella with hair like a horse’s mane.”

Pittittiskin gave a curt nod. “I recollect. Not sure who coaxed him in. But I’ve kept an eye on the little ones comin’ out’n the Nursery.” He glanced at Moql. “It’s no surprise.”

“What isn’t?” Moql ventured. She was ignored.

“Jinka, was it?” the Prince said.

“Talabar, I think. I’ll fetch her.” Pittittiskin loosed Moql’s
arm, made a floating leap down to the floor of the Gathering, and became one red cap among many. The Prince lounged back on his cushions. It seemed to Moql they had suddenly forgotten all about her. Relieved, she turned to follow Pittittiskin.

“You stay here, m’dear,” the Prince said without opening his eyes.

The relief vanished like bog mist. For a moment she gazed mournfully down at the Folk moving about below her, for whom this day was free and untroubled, like any other. Then she dropped onto a low stone and hugged her knees.

“A fisherman he was, I think,” the Prince said—to himself or her, she couldn’t tell. “Brawny young lad. She coaxed him to follow her, see—the Folk
will
do it, now and again—well, they take a fancy to ’em. But she tired of him afore the baby was born—sent him back Outside. I wager that fisherman’s sorry now he ever took up with the Folk.”

Moql studied the Prince’s beaky profile, his closed eyes, his beard that waggled slightly with every word, puzzling over the tale and why he was telling it. It seemed to have nothing to do with her morning’s blundering. “Why is the fisherman sorry now?” she asked.

One bright eye opened to peer at her from under a tangled eyebrow. “Why, that lad’d be five-and-fifty years older, from the minute he stepped Outside again. Likely found a young brother workin’ his nets and boat, friends dead and gone.”

Moql was not sure what
friends
meant. Or
brother,
either.

“Time runs different in the Mound,” the Prince remarked, and closed the eye again.

She knew about that, in a general way, without understanding quite what it meant to the fisherman. “What happened to the baby that was near to bornin’?” she hazarded.

“Aye! That’s the question!” cried the Prince. He sat straight up and jabbed a long finger at her.

However, he offered no answer. Moql gave it up and turned to watch for Pittittiskin, who at that moment scrambled onto the ledge, along with Talabar. Talabar was a beauty—her floating hair more silvery than most, her tilted eyes a purer lavender, the curve of her cheek more gentle. She swept a smiling, surprised glance from Moql to the Prince.

“So, Talabar,” the Prince greeted her genially. “Was’t you coaxed that fisher lad into the Mound, love? Tall young fella, black hair? Quite a time ago?”

She pondered a moment, a long, graceful finger gently patting her pursed lips. Moql watched anxiously from her low stone seat, wanting her to remember about the fisher lad and explain what he had to do with this blundering morning.

She was rewarded as Talabar’s face suddenly cleared. “Oh, aye. The fisherman!” she exclaimed. “His name was Pawel—or maybe Harel. He was lovely—so handsome!”

“Ah,” said the Prince. “And he was among us here for quite a space, was he not, m’dear?”

“He was, Prince. Fergil! That was his name, I think. Yes, Fergil. But he kept wanting me to go home with him.”

“They always do. I’ve warned you.”

Talabar shrugged her delicate shoulders. “So finally I said, Yes, I will, if you go first. So he left, but of course I stayed here. There was going to be a baby!” She smiled and shrugged again. “It was a long time ago.”

“This long,” said the Prince, and pointed to Moql. Suddenly everybody was looking at Moql. She stared up at them, going numb all over as she finally caught a glimmering of what this all had to do with her.

Talabar smiled down at her. “Oh, is it you, little duckling? What a dear baby you were! Sweet as honeycomb!” With a light touch on Moql’s hair she turned back to the Prince. “That’s all you wanted of me?”

“That’s all. Run along, m’dear.”

Talabar left, glancing back for one more smile and a little wave to Moql, who sat gazing after her like a small stone image, trying to comprehend.
She,
she herself, was that baby. Talabar was her
mother.
She whispered the word, trying it out, with no idea how to react to it. The younglings teased about mothers, but never knew—nor asked—which was whose. What did you do if you found out? Would everything be different? Would anything? Not for Talabar. She had jumped lightly off the ledge and gone back to her life. Not for me, either, then, Moql was just deciding, when the Prince spoke to her.

“So—it’s all clear now, little one. That’s your trouble,” he said genially. “Father’s that fisher lad.”

Father?
Moql’s muddled thoughts had gone no further than
mother.
Fathers were never even teased about. They barely existed. “Why is that a trouble?”

“Well! You’re misbegotten. Half human, y’see. Danger to
the Band, having you around.” He smiled at Moql, then turned to Pittittiskin, who was leaning with folded arms against the rock wall behind him. “You know of a chance?”

“Half a dozen,” was the answer.

“Take the nearest.” The Prince turned back to Moql. “There, you see how simple?”

Moql found herself on her feet without knowing she’d moved. Wordless, she shook her head. She was beginning to understand and trying not to.

“Why, you’ll be ’changed, m’dear. We’ll just swap you for a human child who’ll make a good servant to the Band. Half humans never work out ’mongst the Folk. No, never do.”

“But—I’m half
Folk
too!” Moql swallowed hard, trying to swallow the inescapable next thought. “What if—I never work out—’mongst the humans?”

The Prince, musing, seemed not to hear the question. “Aye, you’re neither one thing nor yet quite t’other,” he agreed. “Pity, but there ’tis.”

Moql stared at him and suddenly found her tongue. “I won’t go. I don’t want to be ’changed! I want to stay
here.
I don’t like humans! I won’t be one, I don’t know how! Please don’t make me—”

“Now, now, now,” said the Prince, frowning. “It’s what we always do.”

“Stop makin’ a bother,” said Pittittiskin, straightening from the wall and ambling toward her.

“But I’m scared! What’ll it feel like? Why can’t I—”

Pittittiskin already had hold of her arm. “Hssst! It’s settled. Come along.”

Moql pulled back, throwing a last despairing look at the Prince, who smiled reassuringly at her. “Won’t hurt, m’dear. I promise. Won’t even know it till—there you are!”