The Spinner and the Slipper (23 page)

And then . . .

“Heloise, child, what are you doing up here?”

Heloise opened her bleary eyes. She lay with her head pillowed in her arms, out on the marker-dotted hilltop across the flax field. She had the worst crick in her neck.

“Heloise.” Her father knelt before her, one hand resting on her back. “Are you hurt?”

The rising sun was a little too bright, and she twisted her face into funny knots as she squinted up at him. She could hardly make out his face, but she clearly heard the concern in his voice. “I—I’m all right, Papa,” she said.

Her father looked at the marker nearest her head, recognized it, and his face clouded momentarily with a mixture of sorrow and understanding. Without a word he took Heloise’s hand and helped her to unfold herself and rise from her uncomfortable sleeping position. Then he said, “We’ll not tell Meme you came up here. Do you understand?”

For a blinking, groggy moment, Heloise did not. Then she too looked down at the stone, at the small mound. Her heart caught in her throat, and she nodded. “We’ll not tell Meme,” she whispered in response.

Not being a man for much talk or explanations, Papa merely shook his head at her, offered a few scolding words, and marched her back down the hill.

As they went, a breeze tugged at their hair and a voice whispered lightly in Heloise’s ear: “Did you see? Did you see the princess?”

Heloise shivered and pretended not to hear.

I would ask you to see the shadow crouching so near, watching even as the girl’s father helps her to her feet and leads her from the grave markers and across the field. I would ask you to picture it, but this would be unkind, for that shadow, or rather, the person contained within that shadow, cannot be seen by mortal eyes if he chooses not to be.

Unlike the sylph, he is not invisible. He is far stealthier than mere invisibility. He simply—well, no. Not simply, for there is nothing simple about the art he practices. I should know. It was my own art once, and a fine art it is, studied and perfected over centuries of mortal years.

He lies there in the broad light of dawning day, no covering or shield for miles on either side, yet he blends into his surroundings, changing neither color nor form. It is as though his breath becomes one with the breath of earth beneath him. As though his skin, muscles, blood, and bones are made up of the grass, soil, water, and stone on which he crouches. You cannot see him though you stand beside him. You cannot see him until he lashes out . . . and by then it’s too late even to scream.

But the one thing he cannot hide, at least from a more intuitive soul, is the magnitude of his presence. This is far more difficult to suppress.

So I do not ask you to see him. Rather, I ask you to feel him as he lies so still upon the hillside, pressed into the dirt, his chin mere inches from the ground, his eyes fixed upon that mortal girl and her father. Even as he watches them, another sight fills his eyes.

He looks upon the vision of the past. The same vision which the girl herself glimpsed, caught up as she was in the timeless sylph’s arms. He sees the same woman running to the embrace of the great red mortal. Running to the arms of her beloved.

My beloved.

The shadow’s lip curls into a snarl. Even as the girl and her father vanish inside their cottage, he rises, turns, and runs through the dawnlight, across the fields, around the bogs, and on up to the Oakwood.

A breeze follows in his wake, trailing bits of paper in twirls behind it.

Watch them now, even as I do from my tower window.

EIGHT

The shadow loped across the fields, around the bogs, and on into the Oakwood.

The Oakwood was the biggest patch of forest in Canneberges, spanning gloom-shrouded acres. Up close it might seem large, even menacing, but from a distance anyone could see that it was not a big forest as forests go. Modest at best, really.

But within the shadows of the Oakwood, another Wood lay hidden. A much, much greater Wood. Bigger than all that can be seen from without, greater than anything mortal minds imagine.

The Wood Between the Worlds.

Into this Wood the shadow stepped, as easily as though stepping through a door. He knew all the gates leading from the Between into the Near World and back again, gates which were normally closed fast, preventing Faerie kind from passing through and preying on mortals. But once every generation or two of mortal lives, these gates would open.

He knew where each gate was to be found. He knew when they opened. He had made this journey to and from the Near World many times before.

So he crossed into the Wood Between. Entering the Timelessness of that vast realm was a relief to him. He hated the closeness of the Near World, the stink of coming death that so pervaded all. More than anything he hated the dying mortals who lived in that world, disgusting, crawling, time-bound things. He snarled at the very thought of them.

The Wood Between, sensing his hatred, drew back from him on all sides, the trees pulling away their branches and roots like ladies holding up their skirts. No one, not even the majestic spirits of the Wood, wanted to deal with a hatred like his.

The shadow came then to a place where great oaks sprang up from the soil like towering pillars. And they were pillars indeed, if one looked at them from a slightly different point of view, supporting high ceilings, lining great walls. But if the viewer’s gaze shifted a fraction to the left or the right, he would see only forest.

The shadow saw it as he wished, unhindered by tricks or illusions. So he beheld a great house, part castle. It was, in fact, very like the shape and spirit of Centrecœur itself save that it was much larger and sometimes made up of trees and vines and moss rather than rock and stone and mortar. Its doors opened to the shadow, and he slipped inside to disappear among deeper shadows still. He liked shadows. They always felt friendly to him, welcoming even. As soon as he stood among them, he no longer bothered to conceal himself but walked in sinuous, silent grace.

“Have you found her?” someone asked from the darkness.

“Of course,” he replied in a voice of pure indigo.

“He’s found her! He’s found her!” Many voices whispered to each other on all sides. “The time has come, and he’s found her again!”

Fools, he thought even as he mounted a great wide stair and hastened up to the long gallery above. What did they think would happen? Only the same that happened every time and would go on happening for all the ages of the mortal world.

But they were frightened by the Law. They did not know how to bend the Law to their own designs; that was a gift of queens, kings, and princes.

The shadow passed through the gallery, made another turn or two (it hardly mattered, for the house in which he walked rarely kept to the same shape, and one could only navigate its corridors if one had complete mastery over its doings), and came at last to a final set of doors. These were very tall indeed, taller than five men standing upon each other’s shoulders. They were made of ebony, polished to shine, and carved in rich patterns of Moon and Stars and the beings of Night. No mortal hand could have rendered such carvings. No mortal hand would dare try.

The shadow rose up then and took a different form, standing on two legs now rather than four heavy paws. He shook himself out, adjusting to the new shape of his limbs, and pulled back his wild mane of black hair into a neat, thick queue of many braids. Then he pushed wide the two doors and passed through.

The floor was made of night sky. Unless it was made of polished onyx. It would be difficult to discern which. Either way, his feet made no sound as he strode across it. Curtains like the thick billowing of clouds moved gently in the enormous windows which gazed out upon a vista of more night. Overhead, on a ceiling so high that one could not guess at its dimensions, stars moved in patterns of dance and darkness.

There was little light, but he required little; his bright blue eyes held light enough in themselves. A silver brazier burned upon a stand at the far end of the room. The coals in its bowl were also silver, and their fire glowed white. They looked like the hearts of stars, though surely this could not have been possible. Perhaps they were only the dreams of stars. Perhaps they were diamonds.

Beside the brazier Mother sat upon her throne.

The throne was carved of a single block of stone, but over its surface burned fire as white as that glowing in the brazier. The flames never harmed Mother. She was herself like one stone-carved, her limbs chiseled and polished to a gleaming perfection impervious to all flames, be they enchanted or otherwise.

There was no softness to her, not like there had been in the ancient days. Back then she had boasted a bounty of glorious hair, but this was gone now, shorn away by her own hand wielding her own knife. And she vowed never to let it grow again until her victory was complete. So she was bald, and in her baldness she was more beautiful and more terrible than ever before.

He made deep reverence before her throne. “Mother,” he said, “I have done your bidding. I have ventured once more into the Near World.”

“Did you find her?” Mother asked. She did not open her eyes but sat in perfect stillness. Only the flames about her lips flickered, betraying the merest hint of movement. “Did you find the cursebreaker?”

“I found her, Mother,” he said. “She is nothing but a child. She has only just met herself and is as yet unfamiliar with the power in her blood. She will not know what to do when the time comes. As ever, our gathering may proceed without fear.”

“Well done, my son,” said Mother. “Go then and take with you those whom you need. Return to the Near World and bring back our tithe.”

Son bowed again. Then he turned and leapt across the room, transforming to his wilder shape within three strides. He vanished out the far doors, and soon his roaring summons echoed deep within the great dark house.

Mother sat a while longer in her perfect tranquility of darkness. Then, slowly, she raised her hands and clapped so that the white flames shot up from between them.

Out of the shadows on all sides of the room, figures appeared. Pale, shining figures of white, clad in flowing garments. They were maidens, all of the same age, and their faces were the same as well, though a keen observer may have discerned a few small variations of feature. However it was, their expressions mirrored one another: empty save for a deep, solemn compulsion.

Mother clapped again, a single burst of sound and fire.

The eleven dancers came together in a circle on the floor of sky before the throne. They joined hands, but any observer could sense that one was missing, that a twelfth figure should stand in the center of that circle.

Unseen, an instrument began to play one long, high, strange note, like a line of deeper darkness through the gloom. The line wavered, twisted, dipped, then soared even higher. Soon it was joined by the beating drums.

One of the maidens began to sing:

“Cianenso

Nive nur norum.”

One at a time, as the song continued, each maiden added her voice. And as each new voice joined, so they began to move, not in time to the beating drums but in weird patterns that worked first against and then with the beat, their feet stamping, their arms waving, the soft wafting of their garments twirling around them.

Through it all, Mother sat upon her throne, her face turned to the dancers, her eyes closed. Not once did she look upon the figures performing before her with such strange grace. The lines of her face seemed to deepen like great cracks running through bedrock.

Suddenly her hand shot out. Her fingers, flame-wreathed, closed upon nothing. And she dragged it toward her face.

The sylph shrieked in surprise, its voice lost in the wild, rising music.

Mother clutched the wind in her fist and squeezed. “I have honored the Law,” she said. “These many generations I have honored the Law of Night.”

The sylph writhed. It twisted. It felt itself being crushed, though this was impossible. It shrieked again in an agony of terror that would have broken the heart of any who listened.

No one heard but Mother, whose heart had broken long ago.

“Tell your Dame,” she said, “the statutes of our Law are satisfied. She has no business with me.”

With these words, she opened her hand. The sylph, still screaming, whipped away from her throne, threaded through the whirling dancers, and sped from that place with all the haste of a murderous gale.

Mother placed her hands on the arms of her throne and continued to listen to the dance and never once open her eyes.

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