Veiled Rose (35 page)

It has been with you from the time you were a babe. Falling from the sky, ringing through the mountains. Your father hummed it as he worked, and the trees surrounded you with their chorus. All sang my song to you
.

Rose Red swallowed. Her own voice when she spoke was nothing but dirt and clay. “You still left me alone.”

You are not alone, my child.

“You’re no better than the Dragon,” she said, standing and stepping away from the stone, from the lantern, from the bird. “You want me for yourself.”

I want you for
yourself.
I want you to be everything you were intended to be before the worlds were formed. Everything this death-in-life has prevented you from becoming.

“You sound like the Dragon. He calls me a princess.”

I call you my child.

She shook her head at him. “Both of you want something from me.”

Yes,
sang he.
We both want your love, your loyalty. And you cannot give it to both of us.

“What if I don’t want to give it at all?”

The bird’s voice became sad, a trill of notes that might have broken her heart had she not set herself against him. But he replied,
I will never take something from you that you do not wish to give.

She did not answer. She thought of the Dragon and his demands, and she shuddered. “I’m afraid of you,” she whispered. “I’m afraid of giving you—or him—anything! What will be left of me if I do?”

Give me nothing, then,
said the bird.
I will love you even so, though you break my heart.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know if I can believe you.”

You may,
said he.
Will you accept a gift?

Rose Red did not answer.

This Path you walk is perilous, and Death waits at its end. Those without hope will not survive. So please, my child, take this lantern. Take Asha in your hand and hold on to its light.

The light was so warm, so full of comfort. Rose Red remembered Beana’s words:
“The folks who see the lantern, they take it with them as they walk the path. And the light guides them through the darkness, keeping at bay all the terrors of the Netherworld.”

As long as you carry Asha,
sang the bird,
no monster of this realm may harm you. It is my gift, my protection.

Hesitantly, she put out a hand. The bird spread his wings and flew from the handle even as her gloved fingers closed around it.
It is my protection,
he sang once more even as she lifted the light from the gravestone.

It remained in place. Simultaneously, it came away in her hand.

There were two lanterns now, only not really. Rather, the lantern remained unbound by time, so it was at once both in her hand and upon the stone. Either way, it was where it belonged.

Her Imaginary Friend was gone. But somehow, Rose Red no longer felt alone.

With the light held at arm’s length before her, Rose Red continued on across the plain. Now and then when she blinked, the rolling, spurge-covered hills vanished, and she saw herself in a hallway of the Eldest’s House, still dark with otherworldly gloom. It would seem she had climbed that endless stair at last. But the hall, when she glimpsed it, stretched ever on before her, and it was easier in a way to return to the plain.

The darkness shifted. Along the distant horizon a thin scarlet line like seeping blood appeared. The sun began to rise. Only it wasn’t the sun Rose Red knew. It was like the Dragon’s eye, red and boiling, and it peered at her from over the hills. A vast, ugly head, smoke pouring from its nostrils—or were those clouds? It was too horrible. Rose Red lifted up the silver lantern to shield her face.

The light in the lantern grew in potency, as though to combat that leering sun. Rose Red closed her eyes, then felt rather than saw a bolt of blinding light.

The words of the Dragon crashed down around her like fiery hail. “Take it from her! Destroy that light!”

The light of the lantern grew in potency, swallowing up the fire in its pure glow. It was all too terrible, and Rose Red screamed.

When she looked again the plain was gone, as was the boiling eye.

She stood on a mountain. It was barren, stripped of all growth, naked rock beneath that empty expanse above. Rose Red, still clutching the lantern in both hands, turned to gaze at the half-lit range of mountains stretched about her. They were the Circle of Faces. In this place, the faces themselves were more clearly defined than ever; hollows became gaping mouths and eyes, landslides became hair, became tears, became teeth. The ugly faces and twisted bodies of ancient giants.

And this mountain upon which she stood . . . Rose Red looked up to its peak, black as pitch. This must be Bald Mountain.

The Place of the Teeth rose up before her.

Rose Red stared. She knew the story behind the Place of the Teeth, a secret hollow somewhere on the slopes of Bald Mountain to which no one ever ventured anymore. It was a site of sacrifice. Five stones like jagged teeth, carved from the natural rock, rose up from a smooth slab of stone, four of the teeth at the slab’s corners, and one jutting from the middle. All were stained with blood, the middle one most of all. For here, in ancient days, the warlike elders had sacrificed ewe lambs to appease the Beast that was their god.

And here too it was that Maid Starflower had been bound and left under the cold light of the moon. Only there was no moon in this place.

No sooner had this thought crossed Rose Red’s mind than she heard deep, guttural breathing. An instant later, an enormous black shape leapt onto the slab and paced around the central stone. It was like a wolf but, terribly, also like a man. His face was the face of the Monster Cave, only in flesh rather than rock. Blood matted his fur and dripped from his jaws.

“That cursed light,” he snarled. His voice heaved, as though speech gave him pain. But his eyes gleamed in the glow of the lantern, glaring at Rose Red with hatred and despair. “Who dares bring that poison light and shine it in my eyes? Have you no compassion?”

Rose Red swallowed hard, her hand trembling so hard that she would have dropped the lantern had she not reached up hastily to grasp it in her other fist as well. “I ain’t nobody,” she gasped. “Nobody important.”

The creature paced to the edge of the slab. He was bigger than a horse, with a ruff of shaggy fur like a mane about his face. But Rose Red realized that the blood in his coat was from many, many horrible wounds. Savage teeth had torn the flesh and left it gaping and bleeding.

“You . . . you’re dead,” she whispered. “Ain’t you?”

He raised his enormous head and howled at the empty vault. The sound shattered through Rose Red’s soul, and she crouched down upon the mountainside, holding the lantern before her face.

“They tore into me!” he bellowed. “My own! My own! She betrayed me, though I loved her. Yes, my love was all too violent, too terrible and great for her to comprehend. But she betrayed me, and they tore me to pieces.”

The words trailed off into another long howl that rattled the Place of the Teeth like a chattering skull. But the howl too caused him pain. It ended abruptly in a snarl, and he bowed his head, panting and showing his teeth.

“I . . . I’m sorry,” Rose Red managed, sitting upright at last. “It don’t sound like you’ve had too great a time of it.”

“Why,” the creature gasped, “do you walk this Path? You are yet living.”

“I’m lookin’ for someone.”

“Look elsewhere. Flee this place while you may.”

Rose Red swallowed hard then set her jaw. “I cain’t,” she said. “The Dragon’s taken someone I promised to protect.”

“It’s too late for that one,” said the beast.

“No it ain’t. She weren’t dead neither, and he wouldn’t dare kill her.”

“How do you know this?”

“I just . . . know.”

Here the creature looked her right in the eye. “If she’s not dead, then she’s been taken to the Village.”

“Where’s the Village?”

“You cannot go there. It is far down this Path, much too near the Black Water. You must go back.” He growled out the last words, his chest heaving. His pain was so great.

Rose Red licked her lips and drew a long breath. Then, though she did not know why she did so, she put out a hand to the beast, stepping closer. He watched her, snarling, but made no move. She touched a wound at his shoulder. He shook his head sharply.

“Get that light out of my eyes! I beg you!”

She inspected the wound. “I maybe could mend this,” she said gently. “If you’ll let me try.”

The look he gave her was agonized with regret. “There can be no mending for me. They tore me to pieces in the other world. I will remain torn to pieces in this one.”

Rose Red put a hand in her pocket. Sure enough, her fingers found a needle and thread secreted there. She drew them from her pocket, set her lamp down at her feet, threaded the needle, then carefully parted the creature’s coarse fur.

“Witch-fire!” the beast swore. “I told you, you cannot help me!”

“Hold still,” she said. She slid the handle of her lantern up onto her elbow so that she could still hold it as she worked.

“Why would you help me? I ate them; I devoured them, the mortal insects! I enslaved them with fear and worship, made them offer me gifts upon this stone. And they hated me.”

Her needle was sharp. She forced it through the torn flesh. She was glad her veil covered her face against that ghostly blood.

“They hated me, though I loved them, the little crawling things. They were ignorant and dirty; they needed my guidance.”

“Liar,” Rose Red said as she drew the thread tight.

“I did love them!” the wolf snarled. “In my way.”

“No you didn’t.” Her eyes fixed upon her work so that she would not have to return the awful stare he turned upon her. “You’re just sayin’ that to make yourself feel better. You hated them and used them and disposed of them as you liked. I know who you are. I ain’t so easily fooled as all that.”

The beast roared. He broke away from her, yanking the needle and thread from her hand, and bounded back to the other end of the slab, where he crouched behind the central stone, as though frightened of her.

His breathing came hard, agonized and wretched. “Why do you help me, then?”

Rose Red put her hands on her hips. “If I only ever did for them what deserved it, I’d have little enough to do.”

He stared at her, his gaze running over the folds of her veil and down her tiny frame. He could swallow her in a single gulp. But Rose Red slid the lantern back down from her elbow until she held it in her hand once more. The light glowed softly as she approached the monster, and it was he that trembled. She put out her free hand, feeling in his thick fur for her needle, but when she followed the thread back to the wound, she found that her stitches had all pulled out under his violent movements. Fresh blood oozed.

His voice, though that of a wolf, came as a sob. “You see, you cannot help. You and your cursed light. It hurts beyond bearing. I beg you to stop.”

Rose Red paused, uncertain. Then she broke the end of her thread and put the dirtied needle back in her pocket. The wound was worse than ever. She could not fix it. “I . . . I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have even tried.”

The lantern light dimmed.

The monster raised his face, and the fixed snarl was almost a smile. “I told you as much. There is nothing you can do for those who are dead. Go back now.”

She stepped away, clutching the lantern in both hands. “I’ve got to go on. You must let me pass, Wolf Lord.”

He heaved himself to his feet, his eyes rolling with pain. “It’s a fool’s errand,” he said. “Your friend cannot be recovered from the Village.” He sniffed then, drawing in the scent of her, and when he finished, his eyes opened with a flash. “Or rather, your enemy.”

Rose Red bowed her head. “She ain’t my enemy. She’s my mistress, and I promised to serve her.”

“You hate her.”

“I hate nobody.”

“Dislike her thoroughly, then.”

Rose Red did not answer.

The Wolf Lord shook his shaggy head wonderingly. “I will let you go. But you must leave something of your own behind with me. No one passes through to Death’s realm without paying the toll.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Your lantern.”

She gasped. “No.”

“That evil light is useless to you anyway. Did it help you to mend me? What makes you think it will help you win back this mistress you hate?”

“I cain’t give it to you.”

“Then you will not pass.”

Rose Red ground her teeth, blinking fast. The image of a stairway in the Eldest’s House flashed before her eyes. There were wolves carved into the banisters at the bottom step. Beautiful, polished wolves. “I . . . I’ll give you one of my gloves instead.”

The Wolf Lord growled, deep in the back of his throat. It was like a chuckle but harsher. “You need those, though. Don’t you? They are part of the mask with which you shield yourself. Can you bear to strip even one away?”

Closing her eyes, Rose Red removed one of her ragged gloves. She took the damaged one from the hand she had burned when she slapped the Dragon. “Take it,” she said. “But I cain’t give you the lantern.”