The Night of the Solstice (14 page)

“Janie!” Limping, her face white as the mist, Janie appeared. Without a word she sat down.

“Charles!”

In the long silence that followed Alys felt herself turn slowly toward her sisters. Claudia had frozen in the middle of wiping her cheeks, and Janie had lifted her drooping head, listening.

“Charles? Charles! Charles!”

They were all looking at her now, Alys realized. Even the serpent. They all expected her to have some answer to this. Panic rose in her, and with it the need to
do
. “Stay here,” she gasped to Janie. “Both of you, just stay here. I'll find him and come back. I'll—” Without finishing the sentence she plunged into the mist, shouting, “Stay there!”

For a long time she ran in confusion, the mist burning in her lungs, shouting Charles's name. The serpent was limp around her neck. When she could no longer run she staggered, and when she could no longer shout she croaked. What brought her up short
at last was that the ground, which had been growing damper and more unreliable with every step, now gave out entirely, and she found herself up to her ankles in water.

“The Eldreth marshes, lady,” whispered the exhausted serpent.

“The marshes …” Mud sucked at her shoes, releasing them with a reluctant squelch. Hoarsely, she called for Charles, but each step she took seemed to land her in deeper water. She would have to go back… .

It was only then she realized that she did not know where “back” was.

“What am I going to do?” She spoke quite softly, in despair, as the full impact of her situation hit her. The serpent looked at her with gentle surprise.

“The marshes are dangerous, it is true, but for a great hero such as yourself …”

Alys bit her lips to keep from screaming. “I'm not a great hero,” she said. “Please don't say that.”

“O my lady.” The serpent's faint voice was reproachful. “It is you who must not say that. You who, in your
wisdom, are worthy to sit in majesty with the Council. You—”

“I am
not
,” cried Alys, pulling the serpent away from her neck. The frustration of the last days overwhelmed her and poured out in a rush. “Don't you understand? I've done everything wrong, everything, right from the start. Every decision I've made has been a disaster! I lied to the police, I let Cadal Forge see me, I let us get caught by Aric. What they could have done to us, to Claudia … And now Charles is lost, and
I'm
lost, and I'm
scared
. And I don't want anyone relying on me anymore. I can't stand it!”

Roughly thrusting the serpent back onto her jacket, she splashed violently off in what she hoped was the direction she had come from. There was nothing to guide her but the feel of the land itself: As soon as she got to dryer ground she tried to stay on it. Each time a foot sank in mud she yanked and pulled, and when the muck at last let it free with a
pop,
she went on in another direction.

The serpent was very still inside her jacket. She wished she hadn't spoken so harshly to it. She hoped
it wouldn't talk anymore because if it did she was going to say something worse. Her foot sank again, and she threw her weight back, trying to lift it. Lord, this mud was deep! It sucked at her as if it were a living thing that wouldn't let go. There, her foot was coming up.

This time there was no
pop
of release, only a long squelch, and as she pulled her foot slowly up she saw, to her horror, that attached to her ankle were a mud-colored hand and arm. The arm came from somewhere down below, and as she stared at it in disbelief, suddenly it yanked harder and her whole leg shot into the hole. Now she could scream. She clawed desperately at the earth, but it crumbled wetly away and she felt herself being pulled down. Whole tussocks of grass came with her and then the sides of the hole crashed in and she plummeted, screaming, into the ground.

The thing had let go of her foot as she fell, and now by the opalescent light of moon and mist above, she could see it. It was shaped vaguely like a very tall man, and its long gray arms and legs were covered with
matted hair and mud. A terrible stench arose from it. Its feet were clawed like a bird's, but the knobby fingers which had locked with such strength on her ankle ended in long twisted nails. Then the moonlight shone on its face, and she screamed again, for it
had
no face, only an open, gaping wound of a mouth, with pendulous wattles of skin hanging below.

Eyeless, earless, it scrabbled along the ground with its hands, searching for her. She was too frightened to reach for her dagger, too frightened even to scream anymore. Her mind and body paralyzed, she lay among the splintered bones on the floor of the den, waiting for death. And then
it
screamed, a high unearthly shriek, and turning her eyes to the ground, she saw something like a blue and coral necklace. The serpent struck at the birdlike feet again and again, and the feet clawed back wildly. Alys felt the cold hilt of the gannelin dagger beneath her fingers, but she could not summon up the will to move. Then, with a vicious swipe, the talons sent the serpent flying, its small body cracking like a whip before it struck the wall.

“No, oh, no,” sobbed Alys. She wanted, not to run, but to curl in a ball and die. The hands with their twisted nails were searching for her again, and she whimpered and shrank back from them. As one found her, and closed on her arm, she struck feebly at it with the gannelin knife, and blood sprayed across her face. The shrieking grew unbearable then, as she slashed at the creature's fleshless arms and legs, but in the chaos of noise and blood she realized that she was only infuriating it, and that all the while it was drawing her nearer with an irresistible strength.

For one clear moment she saw it reared high above her, its mouth wide open with shrieking—and in her mind's eye she saw the serpent, limp and perhaps lifeless on the floor.

Thrown or wielded it will not easily miss its mark… .

Wrenching her right arm free she changed her grip on the dagger, and with all her strength threw it straight at the gaping mouth. The shrieking broke off as if the dagger had severed it. For a moment the creature tottered, and Alys fell backward as it released her to claw at its own face with its nails. And then,
with a shudder, the whole stringy, stinking bulk of it crashed down beside her.

The dagger, jarred loose by the impact, plopped down. Alys lay without touching it for a long time, and cried.

Her body was bruised all over, and there were bloody furrows on her arms where the crooked nails had gouged her. When she rose at last, her legs would barely support her. Still crying and shuddering, she searched with her hands in the nameless muck at the bottom of the lair until she found the serpent. She looped its flaccid body about her wrist and crawled back to the dagger. It was stained a deep muddy red and she could hardly bring herself to touch it. Somehow, sobbing, she clambered out of the pit and began to stagger through the marsh.

The mist had thinned, and the moon shone down on her, but she was too dazed to tell where she was going. She only knew that she must not stop, and that there was danger everywhere. Clutching the serpent to her, stiffly pointing the dagger straight ahead, she stumbled on. Her legs were heavy and aching. She
made them keep moving. A muddy red fog swam in her brain. Then the dagger seemed to go double before her eyes as a great wave of dizziness overtook her and the red fog turned to black.

Alys was dreaming of eyes. Green-brown eyes, the color of the marsh, so large they made the small brown face they were set in seem even smaller by comparison. They looked down on her with an expression both keen and compassionate, and they wanted her to sleep … to sleep… .

She woke to a gentle rocking motion.

“What—where—?” She started up, heedless of the pain in her head, her voice a whispery croak—and met the eyes from her dream.

“Hush,” said the creature belonging to the eyes, pressing her back gently. But Alys had seen enough. She was in a boat, a small, flat boat piloted by two more of the sleek brown creatures, and the marsh was slipping away beneath her.

“I am Arien Edgewater of the Eldreth—the marsh dwellers,” said the lissome little creature, and Alys blinked stupidly at her in wonder. The elemental's supple body was much longer than her slender arms and legs, and she had small, clever-looking hands, with fur on the backs but not on the soft palms. The same velvety fur covered her body and framed her face as if she were wearing a hood, and her only garment was a sort of open, sleeveless coat, made of gossamer material. The other two marsh elementals wore nothing.

“Where—” began Alys again. Her throat was raw.

A soft hand stroked her forehead. “We are traveling to the edge of the marsh, to a place of healing. It is not much farther. Rest.”

Alys shook her head. “No. Please. Where—is serpent?”

“Ah.” The green-brown eyes turned grave, and were covered for an instant by eyelids which slid sideways over them. Then a basket was placed gently beside Alys, a small basket of woven reeds. In the bottom, on a bed of leaves, the serpent was coiled, motionless.
Its eyes were no longer like shining black glass beads, but milky and opaque, fixed.

“Is it—dead?”

“No. And I think it will not die if we reach the healing pool soon enough. Feathered guardians are strong. When my people found you lying senseless in the water I feared for you both. But, with luck, all will be well.”

Alys lay still for a minute, looking up at the moon. Then, painfully, feeling the boat rock beneath her, she propped herself on one elbow and sat up again. The mist was still there, hanging low and ragged over the surface of the water. But the marsh itself had changed since she had first stumbled into it.

Strange and fantastic trees took shape out of the mist and were cloaked again as the boat passed, and bizarre vegetation rippled on the surface of the water. Yet, for all its lushness, this world was absolutely silent.

“It is the influence of the Chaotic Zone,” said Arien Edgewater when Alys looked at her questioningly. “Wild magic has leaked out and changed this
place. As it changes everything.” And as Alys leaned against the side of the boat and listened, too tired and befuddled to think or speak, the marsh dweller told her about Chaotic Zones. How they blossomed suddenly when the deep core magic found its way to the surface of the Wildworld, bursting through faults to form Wells of Chaos. How the Chaos spread in all directions from a Well, forming a Chaotic Zone, and how it receded every so often only to flood forth again. She told Alys about the destruction left behind when a Chaotic Zone did recede. Sometimes, to be sure, the Chaos left something strange and beautiful, like the perpetual glacier the Selessor had set in the midst of a desert, or the burning meadows of Balinarch. But usually it was simply desolation, charred and barren wasteland in which no life stirred except the twisted life the Chaos itself created.

“Like the lurking thing you killed,” said Arien, and Alys looked away, the pain and confusion in her mind worse than the aching of her body.

“I was afraid,” she said. “And I waited too long
to strike at it—and you haven't even asked me who I am,” she finished suddenly, almost accusingly, turning back.

The green-brown eyes were serene. “You have been hurt,” said Arien Edgewater, “and you travel with a Feathered Serpent, and you have killed a very evil thing that has menaced my people long. That is all I need to know. But perhaps,” she added softly, “there is more you need to tell.”

Alys felt a surge of anger, and then she realized that she did want to tell this marsh woman more. She needed to. Trembling with agitation, she let the whole story pour out of her: her promise to the vixen, her attempts to keep it, and her failures. All her failures. Defiantly, one by one, she set them before Arien Edgewater. The letter, Cadal Forge, Aric.

And the mud monster. Tonight, because of her, the serpent had almost been killed.

“And now look at what I've come to,” she ended, holding out her hands with a short, bitter laugh. “Covered with mud, and Charles and the others all lost somewhere in the mist. Who'd've believed it
of good old responsible Alys? Good old practical, punctual, sensible, responsible Alys!”

There was a pause while Arien Edgewater gazed out at the marsh. When the elemental spoke, without turning, it was very gravely. “You are responsible,” she replied, ignoring everything else Alys had said. “You are responsible for what will happen to you next, you are the creator of your own future. And you are what you are … because you have chosen to be.”

“But I
didn't
choose! Or, if I did, I'm changing my mind now. I just can't take the responsibility any longer. I just can't take it!”

“Where, then, will you leave it?” said Arien Edgewater.

Before Alys could gather her wits to form a reply, the rowers paused and the marsh woman added, in an entirely different tone, “Here you can see the wake of a Chaotic Zone.”

Gray in the moonlight, a desert of mud stretched out from the marsh. Nothing rose above that mud, not a twig or branch or leaf. Alys couldn't see the end of it.

It smelled like the lurking creature's lair. Alys shuddered, and then she realized that Arien Edgewater was getting out of the boat. “You're not going into
that
?”

One of the rowers handed Arien the serpent's basket. “I must,” she said. “The pool I spoke of is there.”

“In a Chaotic Zone?”

“In the very Well itself. When the Chaos recedes the pool is left. Wait here, and I will return with the water of it.” Carrying the basket, the slender elemental set out across the mudflats.

“She is the only one who goes into that place,” said a rower softly as they watched. “And even she does not go often, only when there is much need.”